Further Study: Creation Care
“In the beginning, God was revealed in all the works of creation. It was Christ that spread the heavens, and laid the foundations of the earth. It was His hand that hung the worlds in space, and fashioned the flowers of the field. ‘His strength setteth fast the mountains.’ ‘The sea is His, and He made it.’ Ps. 65:6; 95:5. It was He that filled the earth with beauty, and the air with song. And upon all things in earth, and air, and sky, He wrote the message of the Father’s love.
“Now sin has marred God’s perfect work, yet that handwriting remains. Even now all created things declare the glory of His excellence. There is nothing, save the selfish heart of man, that lives unto itself. No bird that cleaves the air, no animal that moves upon the ground, but ministers to some other life. There is no leaf of the forest, or lowly blade of grass, but has its ministry. Every tree and shrub and leaf pours forth that element of life without which neither man nor animal could live; and man and animal, in turn, minister to the life of tree and shrub and leaf. The flowers breathe fragrance and unfold their beauty in blessing to the world. The sun sheds its light to gladden a thousand worlds. The ocean, itself the source of all our springs and fountains, receives the streams from every land, but takes to give. The mists ascending from its bosom fall in showers to water the earth, that it may bring forth and bud.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, pp. 20, 21.
Discussion Questions:
As a class, go over your answers to Tuesday’s final questions.
How would you respond to the person who says, “Jesus is coming soon, so why should I care about the environment?”
How can we as Christians strike the right balance in understanding the need to be concerned about the environment while at the same time not getting caught up in some of the extremist movements involved in environmental issues? Why is it so important that we don’t get caught up with them, especially those who are very political?
If you have the resources, do some research on just how beneficial a vegetarian diet is to the environment in contrast to a meat-eating one. Discuss your findings with the rest of the class.
Summary:
No question, this world is coming to an end; it will not last forever. And yes, Jesus is coming soon. All that’s true, but nothing in these truths gives us the right, or the mandate, to defile the earth. If anything, as Christians, we should seek to take care of the world that our God has created for us.
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For man a fitting summary text for this week's lesson could be, "Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" (1 Cor 10:31 NKJV). Even though the biblical context is not creation it still says a lot about what our priorities should be.
Great lesson we got here.. I am really thinking the findings for the class tomorrow will be so helpful to all of us...God created us to have control over everything in the earth. So we must really take great care of them..
I want to be polite and gracious to others so that I do not offend any one amongst those that Christ died for them. However, today's lesson is more of a political based propoganda rather than a gospel based. Dont forget, the bible does not teach any science despite the fact that the medieval queen of all sciences was, first, Theology, Law and Medicine. Nonetheless,John 20:31 tell us that 'these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing in him you will have life' NLT. Unless we watch out, this church is going to fulfil the curse of Laodecea. You say you are rich, but you are wretched. The bible does not have a single text that has to do with political agenda brought by materialistic world view of caring for enviroment. To discuss about caring for enviroment is to fail to conceive the fact that eviromentalists are propagandists. Why is it that this lesson did not say the negative effect of that materialistic world view that has caused wars to DRC, or Angola or other parts of the world so that it may address enviroment from the gospel point of veiw? Jesus said, whatever you did not do to this little ones you did not do unto me. Sorry for this little mourning. But, I want a Church that hates injustice just as God hates it rather than the simplistic view that promotes evinromental agenda that benefit most of western worlds at the expense of deprived majority of world population. The Bible makes it simple that Proverbs 13:23 The fallow ground of the poor yields much food, but it is swept away through injustice RSV.(this is enviromental issue, too). We need a well balanced, well conceved lesson prepared by the church that believes it has much to offer to the world.
Joseph, I can understand much of what you are saying yet there are some cautions that need to be taken.
First of all God speaks to us through John who wrote, “The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, And that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, And those who fear Your name, small and great, And should destroy those who destroy the earth." (Rev 11:18 NKJV). In other words God’s eye is on those who wantonly destroy this planet and everything on it for the sake of gain.
Secondly, many nations of the industrialized west have learned some very hard lessons about this planet and what it will take in the way of abuse. What they have learned is that God’s creation is much like a metal coil spring you can stretch it quite a bit and it will come back to its original shape. However, there is a point that you can go that is beyond elasticity where the spring becomes permanently deformed. In the United States we almost went too far in polluting the Great Lakes that are in the north central part of the country. I lived for a year in Rochester, New York which is situated on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. On the eastern side of Rochester sits Irondequoit Bay. When I was there you could begin to smell the bay two miles away and that wasn’t a nice sweet smell either, more like death. At that time the fishing industry in the Great Lakes area was almost nonexistent.
To the Southwest of Rochester about 460 miles (740 km) there is another city, Cincinnati, Ohio which is on the Ohio River. I had a friend that lived in a little town on the other side of the river from Cincinnati. He had a part time job dispatching a couple of tug boats that handled the docking of barges from the river traffic so I used to go with him to the docks where the tugs were. I noticed that I could smell the river when I got within 20 – 30 feet of it and as an experiment I once put my index finger in the water and noticed that once the water was up to the second joint of my finger I could no longer see the tip of my finger. What was hiding the tip of my finger wasn’t silt like it would be with some other rivers in the world but was pollution.
In both of those areas the only fish you could catch were bottom feeding trash fish that only a few brave people would dare to eat. Happily most of that has been cleaned up and fishing has come back but for a while we almost killed everything in the lakes and nearly lost them.
You see the problem is that if you kill everything around you soon you will be next on the list. So to support sensible environmentalism is supporting God’s creation and His desire for life to exist on planet earth. “For thus says the LORD, Who created the heavens, Who is God, Who formed the earth and made it, Who has established it, Who did not create it in vain, Who formed it to be inhabited: "I am the LORD, and there is no other.” (Isa 45:18 NKJV). To put it rather bluntly, if we destroy His creation – He will destroy us!