If/when the oil runs out, a new earth will be created.
Absolute hogwash! The bible simply does not say this.
I think you're making the bible more "ETERNAL" in focus than it really is. Yes, the gospel is there, front and centre! But NO, we don't get to just washing our hands of this creation while we're here. Ever consider the following 3 points on the environment from the OT?
The ancient law of Israel had many provisions to guard the natural environment. The agrarian structure of their society made it obvious that the environment mattered. One example: "When you lay siege to a city for a long time, fighting against it to capture it, do not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. Do not cut them down. Are the trees of the field people, that you should besiege them?" [Deut. 20:19] Although some concession is made in v20 to cut down some trees, there is the recognition here that human concerns do not justify wholesale environmental destruction. Similarly, various laws protect some animals (e.g. Ex. 20:10; Deut. 22:1-4, 25:4), although human "rule' of animals is never far from view.
In the Proverbs, we see again the way that created things have an order that is to be respected. "A righteous man cares for the needs of his animal" [12:10]. This order can, in some instances, remind us that we too are part of an order something bigger than us, and don't just get to invent how to live. "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise! It has no commander, no overseer or ruler, yet it stores its provisions in summer " How long will you lie there, you sluggard?" [6:6-9] In Proverbs, real wisdom begins with knowing and "fearing' God. The wise person knows that the structures of our lives are all created, sustained and nurtured by God's just and kind rule. The wise person knows where they fit in God's world. They know how to respond to God, to others, and to God's world.
Some parts of the Bible simply revel in God's exuberant creation and abundant care of his world. At these points, the focus is off humanity and has moved to a simple celebration of God's genius. So Psalm 104 retells the story of creation from God "setting the earth on foundations' [v5] through to his giving food to all the teeming creatures of the earth [v27] and recreating them in life whenever death strikes [v30]. In Job 38-40, God himself storms into confrontation with the complaining Job, and drives home the point that there is a great deal going on in the world that humans will never know. It simply pleases God to care for animals in his own way. "Do you know when the mountain goats give birth? Do you watch when the doe bears her fawn?" [39:1] "Does the eagle soar at your command and build his nest on high?" [39:24] God has his own way with animals, for his own good pleasure, many details of which will never be known to humanity.
This is an extract from the SIE brochure ‘Environment: a Christian response’
Clipped from:
The environment - a Christian response[/QUOTE]