The Universe Is “Dying” and It’s Because of Sin

“The universe is slowly dying,” reports a new astronomical study. Now, the universe is not a living thing that can “die,” but what they mean is something scientists have being saying for years—the universe is winding down (losing usable energy). But, reportedly, “the new findings establish the cosmos' decline with unprecedented precision.” Apparently they believe that “death does not mean the universe will go away. It will still be there, but its stars and all else that produces light and stellar fire will fizzle out.” And that means, of course, that life on Earth will disappear! So ultimately, life is really meaningless.

Their belief in the slow and gradual “death” of the universe is completely framed in the idea that the universe began with a big bang and that this happened billions of years ago. Apparently they believe that the energy created from the big bang, and the radiation, heat, and the motion of bodies being produced today by stars and other astronomical bodies, is slowly fizzling out over time. Now in 2 Peter 3:10, God tells us that in the future, the universe “will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat.” Thus, we could say that a type of ”big bang” will be used by God in the final judgment—but it’s the opposite of what humans are saying because it will heat up! The Bible also tells us that God created the Earth before the sun and stars, and the Earth was covered with water—opposite of what the secularist big bang idea teaches.

This new article tells us that supposedly our universe is “radiating only half as much energy as it was 2 billion years ago” and now “at the ripe old age of nearly 13.8 billion years, the universe has arrived in its sunset years.” Reportedly, “[the universe] will just grow old forever, slowly converting less and less mass into energy as billions of years pass by until eventually, it will become a cold, dark and desolate place, where all of the lights go out.” Apparently this process is going to take trillions of years to happen by the secular reckoning. Those who accept the big bang really have a hopelessly desolate view of the future.

If you start with a different starting point, however, where God’s Word is the truth, you get a very different view of the universe. According to Scripture, everything God created was originally “very good” (Genesis 1:31), free from any death and suffering, and the universe worked perfectly. But sin changed everything resulting in death intruding into creation. Also, God no longer upholds the universe in a perfect state, giving us a taste of what life is like without Him—it falls apart. Hence, the book of Romans tells us that all of creation is groaning because of sin and is eagerly waiting for deliverance (Romans 8:21–22). This is why we need a new heavens and new earth.

The idea that the universe is using energy up since creation is not a big deal for a Christian. This energy use involves the laws of thermodynamics. Since creation, energy has been used when transferring light to Earth, digestion when Adam, Eve, and the animals ate plants (Days Five and Six), variations in seasons as of Day Four, the warm and cool of the day, and so on. Now usable energy in this now-fallen universe eventually runs down. Ultimately, only usable energy could come from God as the absolute source, not the universe itself.

Sadly, many Christians openly embrace big bang cosmology (that the universe essentially created itself) but argue that God is the one who started the process. But this means that God really didn’t do much and was distant from His creation, which is not the way the God of the Bible says He created (this idea also has many other problems as mentioned earlier).

But what many of these Christians don’t realize is that the big bang is not just a story about the past—it’s also a story about the future. As this news article reminds us, when scientists start with the presupposition that nature is all that there is and time will eventually take its course on the universe, they are left with bleak predictions. And the prediction of those who believe in the big bang is that the universe will slowly run out of energy and, eventually, became “cold, dark, and desolate.”

This does not match with the future described in God’s Word! So what do Christians who have accepted the big bang do? If they (as many do) embrace the secular scientists’ ideas about the past (i.e., the big bang cosmology), then will they also embrace the rest of the secularist belief concerning the heat death in the future? The Christians I’ve met who have compromised God’s Word with the big bang concerning origins don’t accept the rest of the big bang idea concerning the future. Frankly, they are so inconsistent!

This highlights why Christians shouldn’t pick and choose which parts of the Bible they want to accept and which ones we will reinterpret to fit fallible man’s ideas. If so, then man is really being an authority over God! This is back-to-front! We need to believe all of God’s Word from the very beginning.

As believers, we don’t need to worry about what is going to happen to the universe—we know how it ends! According to God’s Word there is a coming judgment by fire, “But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night, in which the heavens will pass away with a great noise, and the elements will melt with fervent heat; both the earth and the works that are in it will be burned up” (2 Peter 3:10). The universe will not end by fizzling out of energy—it will end with a fiery judgment from God—the ultimate source of all energy!

But that’s not the end:

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:1–4)

Nevertheless we, according to His promise, look for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells. (2 Peter 3:13)

For those who have trusted in Christ, there will be a new heavens and a new earth, and we will dwell eternally with God in heaven, enjoying His eternal blessings. But for those who have rejected Christ, there will be eternal judgment where they have no rest from the wrath of God.

Actually, the future death the secularists need to be warned about is not a heat death of the universe, but the second death:

Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. (Revelation 20:14)

The revealed knowledge of the future from an all-knowing God should give believers hope and a passion to reach the lost with the message of how they can escape God’s judgment through Christ’s free gift of salvation, to warn them about the second death!

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

This item was written with the assistance of AiG’s research team.