Caring for God’s Creation

God’s View of His Creation Everything God Made is Good.

After creating the light, sky, earth, plants, sun, moon and stars, birds and fish, terrestrial animals, and finally man and woman, God looks at what He created and declared, it is good.

Everything Was Created to Glorify God. The Scriptures are clear that all of creation exists to bring glory to God. Everything is expected to acknowledge and appreciate God’s power, majesty, holiness, wisdom and love.4

God Reveals Himself Through His Creation. God uses creation to display His own marvelous qualities and nature. “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 men are without excuse.”5 He uses His creation to draw people out of darkness to Himself as people see His beauty displayed on earth.

Scriptures                                                                                                       A  book in the Bible that teaches about questioning God is Habakkuk. Unlike other prophets, to whom God spoke and they prophesied to the people, Habakkuk took the people’s questions to God. Habakkuk’s name means to “wrestle” or “embrace” and the book so accurately reveals the tension we all experience when we wrestle with unanswered questions and try to embrace the revelations of God in His Word.

Job 31:1-6 “I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a young woman. 2 For what is our lot from God above, our heritage from the Almighty on high? 3 Is it not ruin for the wicked, disaster for those who do wrong? 4 Does he not see my ways and count my every step? 5 “If I have walked with falsehood or my foot has hurried after deceit 6 let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless

God created us with minds that can reason, and He has clearly said, “Come let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). This tells us that we should have questions and that we should take those questions to God in prayer, and we should search His Word for answers. However, we always need ask questions in a way that honors God.

There are three principles we should remember when we bring our questions to God. By remembering these we will question with faith and trust in who God is and ask our questions with the reverence He deserves

1) God’s ways are not our ways and we will never fully understand everything.

Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

2) God is Sovereign and His purpose and plan is perfect.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.

Psalm 18:30 As for God, His way is perfect; The word of the LORD is proven…

3) God is Faithful and True and He is working all things for our good and His glory.

Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.

God created us with minds that can reason, and He has clearly said, “Come let us reason together” (Isaiah 1:18). This tells us that we should have questions and that we should take those questions to God in prayer, and we should search His Word for answers. However, we always need ask questions in a way that honors God.

There are three principles we should remember when we bring our questions to God. By remembering these we will question with faith and trust in who God is and ask our questions with the reverence He deserves

God Governs Heaven and Earth                                                               This is what the Lord says: ‘If I have not made my covenant with day and night and established the laws of heaven and earth; Jeremiah 33:25

Everything in the universe, every plant and animal, every rock, every particle of matter or light wave, is bound by laws which it has no choice but to obey. The Bible tells us that there are laws of nature—“ordinances of heaven and earth” (Jeremiah 33:25). These laws describe the way God normally accomplishes His will in the universe.

God’s logic is built into the universe, and so the universe is not haphazard or arbitrary. It obeys laws of chemistry that are logically derived from the laws of physics, many of which can be logically derived from other laws of physics and laws of mathematics. The most fundamental laws of nature exist only because God wills them to; they are the logical, orderly way that the Lord upholds and sustains the universe He has created. The atheist is unable to account for the logical, orderly state of the universe. Why should the universe obey laws if there is no law-giver? But laws of nature are perfectly consistent with biblical creation. In fact, the Bible is the foundation for natural laws.

God Cares for Animals                                                                              God is concerned about our care of every part of His creation including the animals. After all, He made them, and ultimately they belong to Him. The Bible says, “For every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills” (Psalm 50:10).

When Jesus was teaching His disciples, He was trying to communicate to them to not worry about their own life and “do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt 10:28), because “even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows”

“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father.” Matthew 10:29

Deuteronomy 25:4 “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain.”

The Apostle Paul cited this verse with respect to the church taking care of their leaders, as he wrote “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain,” and, “The laborer deserves his wages” (1st Tim 5:18), so he wasn’t so much concerned with the ox as he was with the church supporting the pastors.

In saying this, I consulted Paul’s letter to the Corinthians where he wrote, “it is written in the Law of Moses, “You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain.” Is it for oxen that God is concerned” (1st Cor 9:9)? Obviously God cares for his creatures (like oxen) but the point is, if we know God cares for his creatures enough to ensure they receive part of their labor, such as allowing an ox to at least eat part of what he’s labored for, how much more so for those that labor for the Lord?

“And he said to them, “Which of you, having a son or an ox that has fallen into a well on a Sabbath day, will not immediately pull him out?” Luke 14:5

Jesus is referring to an Old Testament law where even on the Sabbath, the owners were allowed to help an animal in distress, for example one that fell into a well was allowed to be rescued, regardless of whether it was a holy day or not. So God sees His creatures as important enough to properly care for them and show them mercy, even if it was the Sabbath.

Proverbs 27:23 “Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds.

God Is Sovereign Over Humankind

God is described in the Bible as all-powerful and all-knowing (Psalm 147:5), outside of time (Exodus 3:14; Psalm 90:2), and responsible for the creation of everything (Genesis 1:1; John 1:1). These divine traits set the minimum boundary for God’s sovereign control in the universe, which is to say that nothing in the universe occurs without God’s permission. God has the power and knowledge to prevent anything He chooses to prevent, so anything that does happen must, at the very least, be “allowed” by God.

At the same time, the Bible describes God as offering humanity choices (Deuteronomy 30:15–19), holding them personally responsible for their sins (Exodus 20:5), and being unhappy with some of their actions (Num 25:3).

The fact that sin exists at all proves that not all things that occur are the direct actions of God, who is holy. The reality of human volition (and human accountability) sets the maximum boundary for God’s sovereign control over the universe, which is to say there is a point at which God chooses to allow things that He does not directly cause.

God is most free; that is, His freedom is unlimited. He is sovereign. The most frequent objection to His sovereignty is that if God is truly sovereign, then man cannot be free. Scripture uses the term freedom to describe our human condition in two distinct ways: freedom from coercion, whereby man is free to make choices without coercion, and moral freedom, which we lost in the fall, leaving us slaves to the evil impulses of our flesh.