This Is My Father's World

Intro:

Background and Author: Maltbie D. Babcock

Maltbie Babcock was born in Syracuse, NY in 1858. He was a graduate of Syracuse University and later Auburn Theological Seminary in New York.

He was married in 1882 to Katherine Tallman and they had two children, who both died in infancy

Babcock was known both as a skilled amateur musician, playing the organ, piano and violin, and recognized as a university sportsman with achievements in swimming and baseball. He was described as “an outdoorsman with broad shoulders and a muscular build.” One of his poems gives insight into his approach to life: We are not here to play, to dream, to drift, We have hard work to do, and loads to lift, Shun not the struggle; face it; ’Tis God’s gift.

Babcock was considered one of the leading Presbyterian ministers of his generation. One person I read described Babcock this way. “Bab­cock was not a great theo­lo­gian or deep think­er, but had a tal­ent for pre­sent­ing spir­it­ual and eth­ic­al truths with fresh­ness and ef­fect. In do­ing this, he was aid­ed by his ag­ile mind, wide range of know­ledge, dra­mat­ic abi­li­ty, speech flu­en­cy, and mag­net­ic per­son­al­ity.”

Babcock served congregations in Lockport, NY near Lake Ontario and in Baltimore, MD he became the minister of Brick Presbyterian Church in New York City

He succeed Dr. Henry Van Dyke as minister. Henry Van Dyke authored the hymn “Joyful, Joyful, We Adore Thee” #13 making Brick Church the only congregation with two successive ministers who wrote hymns that are contained in most North American hymnals.

18 months into his ministry at Brick Church Babcock contracted brucellosis while on a trip to the Holy Land along with several of his travelling companions. Brucellosis has a number of side affects including pain, fever and in some case can cause depression. Babcock had been treated in New York 10 years prior for depression.

According to a New York Times report on May 20, 1901 and widely carried by other newspapers, while being treated in a hospital in Naples, Italy Babcock committed suicide just a few months short of his 42nd birthday.

Our hymn today was publish after his death in 1901 by his wife who put together a collection of his poems, though it had probably been written much earlier.

While Babcock was pastoring in Lockport, NY near Lake Ontario it is said that Babcock had a practice of “taking morning walks to the top of a hill north of town where he had a full view of Lake Ontario and the surrounding country.” It is said that he had a frequent expression before leaving for these walks, “I’m going out to see my Father’s world.”

It was originally written as a poem containing sixteen verses of four lines each. Franklin L. Sheppard, a friend of Babcock, set the poem to music in 1915 and selected three verses for the final hymn.

“This Is My Father’s World...”

It was Babcock’s belief that as he look out of Lake Ontario and the surrounding country that what he was experiencing through his sense receptors, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, smelling was his “Father’s world”

That is to say that he saw/experienced his heavenly father through that which he created.

We had VBS here a few weeks ago, who can remind me what the two most common beliefs are about how the world was created?

The Big Bang theory and Creationism

It begins with a belief that God created everything

Genesis 1:1 NIV

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

All through scripture this truth is restated:

John 1:3 NIV

Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.

The Psalmist on many occasions:

Psalm 95:3–5 NIV

For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.

Psalm 104 describes how God creates and maintains that which he created

Psalm 104:24 NIV

How many are your works, Lord! In wisdom you made them all; the earth is full of your creatures.

Paul in his letter to the Colossians reminds us of the supremacy of God

Colossians 1:16–17 NIV

For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

“all things were created…visible and invisible…all things have been created by him”

The “music of the spheres” mentioned in the first stanza is a concept borrowed from Greek philosophy. This is the idea that the most perfect sounds cannot be heard by human ears. They take place in the orderly movements of planets and stars. The actual sounds that we hear on earth are but a weak imitation.

Most of us probably are familiar with how exact creation is when it comes to the moments of the planets, their placement and orbit:

If the earth was any closer to the sun we would all burn, if it was any further we would all freeze

If the gravitational pull was any stronger we would be crushed if it was any less we’d all float away

The psalmist David describes how creation reveals the greatness of God and gives back praise to him

Psalm 19:1–4 NIV

The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. In the heavens God has pitched a tent for the sun.

“Why do chickens go in at night?”

That’s just how God made them

We are without excuse:

We all live in this created would, we interact with and experience it because of that Paul says:

Romans 1:20 NIV

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.

We are without excuse...

I’m no expert but it seems to me that everyone believes to some degree in a higher power, some external force that controls or orders nature.

Tribes deep in the jungles with no knowledge attribute god like powers to the sun. moon, wind, rain, earth

We refer to the effects of mother nature...

Our interactions and observations from nature seem to lead all of us to this place of recognizing some type of divine power or influence, but for some that recognition gets misplaced

This is my Father’s WORLD

I recognize that my world is basically, Huntingdon, Mifflin, Juniata, Centre, counties, it’s pretty small

When we sing this is my father’s world we have to remember that this world is much much larger than that

I have been blessed with opportunities to go place that have helped to enlarge my view of this world

Belarus, Costa Rico, Lived in Central FL for 4 years, Cruised the Bahamas, done some traveling within the US

Would love to see the Rocky Mountains and west

Most of the time we travel to places that are beautiful, and there are many beautiful places all over this world, discovered and yet to be discovered

In those places it easy to say- “this is my Father’s world”

But what about the dark, ugly places of this world?

In those places don’t we kind of feel like Dorothy in Oz

“I have a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore”- Dorothy, Wizard of Oz

It’s not usually the beauty of this world that brings us to that place but the dark and ugly

The places where “the wrong seems oft so strong”

We’re Not in Eden Anymore:

Genesis 3:23–24 NIV

So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.

Romans 8:20–22 NIV

For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Conclusion:

Babcock, asks the question and simultaneously gives the answer...

“God is the ruler yet. The battle is not done, Jesus, who died shall be satisfied, and heaven and earth be one.”

Revelation 21:1–7 NIV

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life. Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.

We long for that day,

In the beauty or in the battle let us remember “this is our Father’s world”