Environmentalists despairingly wring their hands over what in creation is suddenly in short supply or vanishing. We have learned through repeated bitter failures that we can’t trust ourselves. Frantically searching for what seems more permanent, culture focuses finally on creation—believing the old American Indian myth that the “mountains, rivers and plains go on forever.” Which we now find has not been true, is not true, has never been true and is now more than ever close to annihilation.
Evidence keeps growing. Whether it’s the 36 million trees dying yearly in California by bug infestation, drought or disease. Or the loss of snow in the Alps or cross-country Austria trails. Or floods in Australia and Europe. Or plastic accumulation or sea floors world-wide. Or the threat of extinction of 34% of plant species and 40% of animal species. Or the avian flu that has re-configured itself into other animal species. Or the wild fires of the American West. Or the burning of Amazonian trees creating warmth that melts glaciers. San Diego U-T, 1/8, 2/8, 2/13, 2/23. And…a never studied-problem endangering global life: jet contrails forming their own clouds in the sky. But no one mentions the multiple tons of fuel poured into the atmosphere every single day by airliners. It may be TOO BIG a business for environmentalists to attack. After all, that’s how they jet around the world to study environmental abuse. In the first place, however, why would humans, made in God’s Image, and expected to seek him for answers, instead put their hope in creation? Which, while more permanent than we, will not go on forever. Indeed, while lovers of nature insist it be preserved, creation itself longs for Christ’s return Romans 8:19, 22. Though it brings the incineration of itself. II Peter 3:10, 12 then assures us…once the fires have achieved their purpose, and earth remains but an empty sphere, God’s creative handiwork fashions a new, eternal earth surrounded by a new, eternal atmosphere. Consider, then, that creation, in its present fallen condition, with all its problems, shortages and extinctions, MAY BE warning us that Christ’s Return is closer than Christians think and far more certain than environmentalists desire. God constituted creation to provide humanity with what he promised in Genesis 8:22. Therefore, could creation be warning us that OUR time—human history—is coming to an end, and we better be preparing to meet OUR GOD?
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One morning Charles Kuralt visited a prairie dog town in Montana near Greycliff Creek. (Lewis and Clark had unsuccessfully tried to drown a prairie dog town on their Journey of Discovery.) Kuralt noted how the dogs interacted with others, to him always in a positive way. He then superficially observed that they were truer to their nature than most humans to theirs. Charles Kuralt’s America, 210.
Which isn’t hard to believe. Wild creatures and their offspring have only instinct, not will, to direct them. By instinct they originate, mature in and complete their life span by the genetic code God designed for them. For human genetics, however, God gave choice, with a will to decide it; choice, with a learned value system to determine it; choice, with the dreaded freedom to make wrong as well as right decisions. It takes only instincts for grizzles to be ferocious, male lions to kill hyenas, monkeys to swing from trees. But it takes reason and effort for humans to change bad into good habits; rebellion against God into obedience to God; criminal behavior into obedience to law. Once a creature, always a creature, however improved by association with mortals, its superior being. To turn from self-centered egotism to Christ-focused self-denial, however, takes conviction fueling conversion that gives the new man (human) the opportunity to incrementally become different in any way necessary to be like Christ—the always and ever Superior of all mortals, however superior to creatures we remain. Ernie Cowan writs an Outdoors feature for the San Diego Union-Tribune. He always has an interesting column about the happenings on Mt. Hoo, where they live.
All his studies revolve around nature and its creatures. His latest profiled two bushtit birds—say that word carefully—who found each other and occupied a house he cleaned and repainted for them. Their diet consists of insects and spiders (hooray for eating spiders!). They also sit on the ledge of the Cowan's window and gently peck, awakening the humans inside. Ernie said that "bird scientists" tell him that their pecking is an attack on the reflection in the glass. That may be true, but it doesn't take into consideration the experience a couple in Oceana had. One morning a bird couple began pecking on Katherine and Yevgeny's window. She didn't know why. When she went outside to see, a snake crawled across the patio. Another time she left both patio and house screens open. A bird flew into the house in back and out through the front door. Pretty soon, as if it was bringing a friend, two birds flew in the back and out the front. Ernie said he chose to think of the bushtits as his "connection with nature." That's the call of nature lovers. They find in geography and its creatures what satisfies their sense of belonging. It's a complete misunderstanding of creation. God designed it to serve physical needs of production, agriculture, scenery and seasons. And even our sense of beauty or magnificence. But NOT to give us rest, peace, relaxation and PURPOSE. Isaiah 26:3-4 encourages us to find peace in steadfastly focusing on God. Philippians 4:7 says the "peace of God...guards our hearts and minds." It isn't likely that naturalists will change their view about nature. But their mistake is a mis-use of their soul and an offense against their spirit, made in God's image. Humanity needs to realize that OUR NEXUS with God provides all WE need—the WE being US inside the body. WE belong to God, not to the animal world! And long after creation suffers incineration, with all its creatures, WE will have new bodies in a new heaven and earth in which to PRAISE God as our only HELPER in his NEW CITY! The battle of Eylau in East Prussia, 8 February, 1807 left nothing decided but littered the snow-covered ground with French, Prussian and Russian corpses. Associated with the dead were their field packs, cannons, shells, horses, muskets and swords. Napoleon wrote that the very sight of the carnage should convince rulers to seek peace, not make war.
A convenient piety. For someone accompanying him as he walked the battlefield heard him say the dead were only “simple soldiers.” More such “little people” would soon be coming to replace those now dead. Age of Napoleon, 182. Maybe he didn’t mean it as a derogation. But military leaders of the time, Wellington included, considered their troops useful only as cannon fodder. Jesus loved those “little people”: the anonymous widows others overlooked; the sin-burdened prostitutes who heard him offer forgiveness and accepted cleansing; the fishermen whom leaders considered able to feed, but never lead the nation; the aristocrats who, despite their position, understood their place as “little people” needing God’s grace. Jesus came as the Fullness of the Godhead in bodily form TO: seek every sinner; forgive everyone who admitted he needed it; raise everyone’s sights from self to God; recruit disciples willing to follow him wherever he led them and to serve wherever he placed them. The hard truth confronting everyone: we’re all “little people” to God, whatever position we occupy among men. His comforting word to us: he LOVES each as completely as he loves all, the greatest sinner being the most vigorous object of his grace. His challenging word to us: accept him as Lord and Savior, then follow him perseveringly. In Matthew 16:1-4 Jesus levelled a blistering accusation against the leaders of Israel. They could tell the day’s weather by looking at the sky. They couldn’t understand the change he brought to history by living among them. That problem only burgeoned in the centuries after him. And in the 20th and 21st centuries became international.
While the classification of the animal kingdom is as ancient as 1500 B.C., Leviticus 11 leaves no doubt God ordered Israel to distinguish between clean and unclean animals in their diet. He was always central to all Hebrew life and its activities. Our society instead eliminates God and exalts the environment and its creatures. A Parade Magazine article, June 24, 2018, highlighted our national parks. It covered the spectrum: from the quietest to the driest; where you could see the most birds, including the smallest owls in the world, so cute they’re “almost painful”; where a broad range of wildlife existed, including bears; where you could see the brightest stars, etc. So enamored are we of nature that we call attention to kindness to creatures: a mother duck leading her brood across a busy road, everyone stopping to permit it. Or, in Virginia, a rattlesnake crossing an intersection had the privilege of a cop stopping traffic both ways until it cleared. San Diego U-T, 6/24/18. We think nothing of it when policemen put their lives on the line to protect the public—as happened in San Diego College area Saturday night, June 23, 2018. A violent criminal shot two officers when they entered his condo. Fortunately, neither suffered fatal wounds. In the mind of the public, cops are expected to die if necessary when confronting bad guys. It’s in their job description. But “oh how swell” when they unexpectedly protect the creatures. Is there so much fascination with creation that we have no interest in appreciating God, the Creator? Will we continue to think of creation as an end in itself rather than God’s handiwork to make living on earth pleasant, not just survivable? And will we never stop to think that, at God’s command, all that’s here will one day disappear? -End Part I- |
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