Should You Fear an Asteroid Apocalypse?

What you believe about the Earth's past doesn’t just influence how you view it—your belief also determines how you view the future! Because of their beliefs about the past, many evolutionists are concerned that somehow mankind will be catastrophically wiped out and life as we know it will end on Earth. One of the most popular versions of this apocalyptic tale is that a massive asteroid, or several asteroids, will strike Earth and obliterate life. The Discovery Channel even recently made a video simulating what it would look like if a 500-kilometer (310-mile) asteroid smashed into the Pacific Ocean. According to their simulation, such an impact would destroy Earth and vaporize life.

Why is it that evolutionists are so concerned that humanity will someday be catastrophically destroyed? Well, according to man’s ideas about the past, life arose naturalistically and the universe is governed completely by the merciless laws of physics. According to their worldview, evolutionists contend there isn’t anyone upholding or sustaining the universe. We are simply at the mercy of naturalistic processes. Also, according to one evolutionary idea about the supposed dinosaur extinction event, a massive asteroid impact wiped out the dinosaurs about 65 million years ago. If such an event happened once before, what’s to stop it from happening again and wiping out humanity this time?

Those who start with the Bible, however, get a completely different picture of Earth’s future because we start with a different picture of Earth’s past. According to God’s Word, the universe is not here as the result of naturalistic processes. God created the universe and has imposed order on it. The universe is not strictly governed by unfeeling natural laws. God upholds and sustains the universe that He has made (Hebrews 1:3). And we don’t need to worry that an asteroid will obliterate life. The Bible has already told us how things will end—with judgment from God when Jesus Christ returns to Earth (2 Peter 3:10; Revelation 20:11–15). Those of us who have trusted in Christ as Savior have no fear of this coming judgment because our penalty for sin has already been paid by Jesus. But instead of fearing some hypothetical asteroid apocalypse, those who refuse to acknowledge Christ as Lord should fear this coming judgment, and it should bring them to repent and put their faith in Christ.

What starting point you begin with makes a big difference in how you view the past, present, and future. As Christians, we have no reason to fear man’s prediction about the future because we can know the God who sees the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:9–10), and He has already told us how it will end—and He is in total charge of it all. We need to be bold in telling others about the history—and the future—that God has revealed to us in His Word and in encouraging them to put their faith and trust in Christ.

Thanks for stopping by and thanks for praying,
Ken

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