Also, some scientists warn that the earth and all life on it may be threatened by such things as a large meteorite, an exploding star, or the exhaustion of the sun’s hydrogen fuel.

Scientists believe that the earth will gradually​—perhaps over many billions of years—​lose the ability to sustain human life. The Encyclopædia Britannica describes this as “the irreversible tendency toward disorder.”

Long before scientists recognized the “tendency toward disorder” in all physical things, a Bible psalmist wrote: “You [that is, God] laid the foundations of the earth itself, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They themselves will perish, but you yourself will keep standing; and just like a garment they will all of them wear out. Just like clothing you will replace them, and they will finish their turn. But you are the same, and your own years will not be completed.”​—Psalm 102:25-27.

In recording these words, the psalmist was not contradicting God’s everlasting purpose for the earth. Rather, he was contrasting God’s eternal existence with the perishability of all the matter that God had created. Without God’s eternal renewing power, the universe​—including the solar system that we depend on for stability, light, and energy—​would descend into total disorder and ultimate destruction. Thus, if left to itself, our earth would “wear out,” or come to a permanent end.