British Petroleum and the Writing on the Wall

British Petroleum and the Writing on the Wall

With millions of gallons of crude oil and methane gushing up from the seabed in the Gulf of Mexico, it may now be said without any exaggeration that the explosion and sinking of the Deepwater Horizon oil-drilling platform has been a monumental catastrophe.

Unlike natural disasters such as hurricanes, tornados, volcanoes and earthquakes, though, the still ongoing British Petroleum disaster could have been avoided. The ugly facts have come out. A survivor of the fiery explosion and sinking of the rig has told 60 Minutes that the crew was under tremendous pressure to get the hole drilled, so that the rig could start producing. It was costing British Petroleum million a day in operating costs. But an operator error damaged the shutoff valve that could have prevented the catastrophic blowout that is fouling the turquoise waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The shutoff valve could have and should have been repaired. But it wasn’t. No doubt, because the Deepwater drilling crew was running behind schedule and had already aborted one well, a corporate decision was made and the shutoff valve failure was ignored. Ironically, British Petroleum officials landed on the rig the very day of the explosion to commend the crew for having worked so long without a significant accident or injury.

This is not to say that British Petroleum is the only company that puts profits before all else. They’re not. Goldman Sachs has probably welcomed the British Petroleum disaster because it shifts the spotlight off of their doings. Who knows, maybe those crafty Goldman traders had even shorted BP stocks. And a few weeks before Goldman Sachs was in the hot-seat it was Massey energy, which ignored government citation after citation for safety violations, leading to the worst mine coalmine disaster in the US in many years. But before Massey, though, it was AIG and the plethora of mortgage conmen. Does anyone even remember Enron and how their floor traders were high-fiving each other for having run up the price of utilities and driven California to the brink of bankruptcy? The big question is: Where is the US government in all this? Aren’t they supposed to regulate big business to at least temper their greed? Let’s face it, greed and corruption rules the world.

What does any of this have to do with the kingdom of God?

The tragedy in the Gulf was brought about by greed and folly and it is the earth that pays the price. But the Creator of the earth and all life on it, Jehovah God, has declared his intentions to bring to ruin those who are ruining the earth. (Revelation 11:18) And he will do so by means of his kingdom. God’s kingdom is a government. God has purposed to replace all human governments and institutions earth-wide with a government of his own design and administered by his own son, Jesus Christ. It is what Christians have long prayed for when they pray: “Let your kingdom come.”

Until the 20th century it would have been inconceivable that human activity could literally ruin the whole earth. True, parts of the earth have been blighted by war and over farming over the centuries, but now the earth is being ruined on a scale that is truly staggering. For example, we are told that there is an area of trash, plastic and debris of all sorts floating in the North Pacific that is about the size of the United States. Last week the United Nations issued a grim report estimating that the oceans of the world may become entirely devoid of fish in 40 years. If that is not bad enough, the specter of war with nuclear weapons hangs over the world like the sword of Damocles.

Hopefully, the roughnecks working for British Petroleum will get the blowout plugged soon. But it is only a matter of time until another corner-cutting, greedy institution creates another tragedy.

There was once a king of the greatest empire the world had ever known. His name was Belshazzar. He had prepared a grand feast to celebrate his greatness. And for that special occasion the king called for the golden goblets that his grandfather had looted from the temple of Jehovah nearly 70 years earlier. Just at that moment a disembodied hand appeared and began writing on the wall. The prophet Daniel was called into to interpret the enigmatic Mene, Mene, Tekel, Parsin for the terrified monarch. The king was notified that God had weighed Babylon in the balance and found it deficient. It was October, 2nd in the year 539 BCE. On that night Cyrus and the Persian overthrew Babylon and Belshazzar was killed.

At this late stage of affairs the same God is certain to weigh the Anglo-American kingdom on the scales and issue a similar verdict as befell Babylon. Indeed, to borrow that biblical cliché, the writing is on the wall.