There was a time when people, “intellectuals” even, would look at nature and see God.

“I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in,” wrote George Washington Carver, the distinguished 20th-century scientist. Ralph Waldo Emerson believed that “the glory of the omnipresent God bursts through everywhere” in nature.

These days, any person bold enough to consider nature God’s “unlimited broadcasting station” is mocked as a religious crackpot. This is deeply saddening, because not only is nature a means by which God communicates with mankind, He is currently delivering a message via nature that we all desperately need to hear and respond to.

No doubt you’ve heard about some of the bizarre happenings of late. Skies are raining thousands of dead birds; ocean tides are depositing schools of dead fish on beaches; a 200-head herd of cows in Wisconsin dropped dead overnight; millions of trees in England are being destroyed by disease; bee colonies are dying. These crises aren’t one-off incidences, nor are they confined to a state, region or even a particular country. In Brazil, 100 tons of sardines recently washed ashore. In Sweden, authorities are investigating the sudden death of a flock of crows. In New Zealand, a massive school of snapper recently washed ashore, and authorities recently reported that penguins and other seabirds are dying off in large numbers. In Vietnam, 150 tons of tilapia recently died on 41 separate fish farms. In Britain, 40,000 dead crabs washed up on the beach. In Italy, 8,000 turtle doves recently fell from the skies. In Portugal, scientists are trying to determine what is causing the death of octopuses in the coastal waters.

Across the planet, pockets of nature are suddenly dying—and the experts have no idea why.

Then there’s the haywire weather. Sharks are swimming in the streets of Goodna, a town deluged by the historic floods in northern Australia. This week, as the waters recede in Queensland, heavy rains are flooding parts of Victoria and Tasmania. In Brazil, huge floods and corresponding mudslides have killed hundreds. Recent floods in Pakistan, Colombia, the Philippines and Sri Lanka have impacted millions. Meanwhile, Britain and Europe are still recovering after recently enduring frigid temperatures and mountains of snowfall.

Our planet is coming apart, but the message is still not resonating.

Very few, particularly in the mainstream, are surveying these disasters and asking the important questions. Why are these crises happening? Why has nature turned on us?

Part of the reason for our ignorance gets back to our view of nature. For most people, nature simply is not deeply personal. Our only contact with nature is a pet dog, or the rain that interrupts the tee-ball game, or the leaves that cover the yard in the fall. The chief cause of this impersonal and distanced relationship with nature is our urban existence. For those living in cities and in suburbs, nature is Animal Planet, or the dog barking across the street, or the lone tree along the sidewalk that gets in the way. Nature is recreation—a grassy field to play on, a lake to stroll by. Or something beautiful to admire and enjoy—a place to go for serenity. Nature, of course, is all of these things. But it is much more.

Nature is life!

Not in the sense that nature is comprised of living things. But in the sense that nature—bees pollinating fruit trees, grass growing as fodder for cows, weather patterns bringing rain—gives and sustains life. To plants and animals, and ultimately, to humans.

Ensconced in our cities, living hectic lives but rarely in touch with nature, we lose sight of the fact that our existence is entirely dependent on nature!

Take rain. To the average city-dweller, rain has little bearing on day-to-day life. In fact, it’s often an inconvenience; it dirties our vehicles, muddies our ballparks and wrecks our shoes. But to the farmer, who remains inextricably connected to nature, rain is life. It causes the crops and pastures on which his herd grazes to grow; it causes his vegetables to blossom. The farmer sees nature, and all its component parts, for what it ultimately is: the complex, interconnected, vitally important machine that sustains life!

The role rain plays in sustaining life is also played, although often to a lesser extent, by the colonies of bees that pollinate our vegetables and fruit trees, the schools of fish and flocks of birds, the cows, the trees. Nature is the giant machine that gives and sustains the lives of the nearly 7 billion humans on this planet, and each flock, school, herd and forest plays a role, sometimes minute, in keeping it running.

When one part of the machine fails unnaturally—even the smallest part playing the most insignificant role—the larger machine is affected, even if only marginally.

To the person who personalizes nature—who recognizes it as the vital machine that sustains human life—the bizarre disasters striking different components and in various regions of the machine are deeply alarming. They are ominous signs that nature is falling into disrepair, that this planet is no longer the vibrant, healthy, predictable machine we have for so long taken for granted. They are signs that the machine that sustains human existence is becoming unreliable!

If nature is the machine that sustains human existence, where does that leave God?

Genesis 1 and 2 reveal the answer. Here, at the very beginning of the Bible, we see God creating the oceans and landmasses, the atmosphere and weather patterns, the various species of plants and animals, the ecosystems—and the vast host of laws that govern nature’s successful operation. In other words, Genesis 1 and 2 describe the moment God constructed the complex machine by which He would sustain mankind.

The Bible also teaches that not only is nature the creation of God’s mind, it is a vital instrument through which He communicates with mankind.

In Leviticus 26 and Deuteronomy 28, for example, God informs ancient Israel—from which America and Britain today are descended—that nature would be a means through which He would bless and curse the nation. Obey me, God says in Leviticus 26, and “I will give you rain in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit” (verse 4). Disobey me, He says, and “I will make your heaven as iron, and your earth as brass: And your strength shall be spent in vain: for your land shall not yield her increase, neither shall the trees of the land yield their fruits.”

For Israel, nature was a means of measuring whether or not God was pleased with the nation!

A prophecy in Hosea 4 also explains this principle, and is remarkable in light of recent strange happenings. Again, God here is warning the rebellious nations of Israel. “Hear the Lord’s message, you sons of Israel!,” the prophet warns. “For the Land’s people contend with the Lord. For there is no truth—and there is no mercy—and there is no knowledge of God in the country! But there is perjury, lying and theft!” (Hosea 4:1-2; Fenton translation). Now notice the result of this pervasive rebellion against God.

“Therefore the [land] is weak and is languid, And the beasts of the field, and the birds of the skies, And even the fish in the waters all faint!” (verse 3; Fenton translation).

Isn’t that a perfect description of some of the bizarre crises we are witnessing? Could it be that God is indeed employing nature as His “unlimited broadcasting station”? That He’s cursing our weather patterns, drowning our towns and cities, destroying our flocks and herds and culling our sea life in an attempt to communicate with us? Bible prophecy says this is exactly what He is doing.

The question is, are you prepared to listen to God as He reaches out through His “unlimited broadcasting station”?