And every common bush afire with God;
But only he who sees, takes off his shoes,
The rest sit round it …and pluck blackberries, and daub their natural faces
Earth is crammed with heaven …but only he who sees, takes off his shoes!
What an amazing poem — what depth of insight!
“…only he who sees, takes off his shoes”
It’s like Moses and the burning bush — God showing up in nature!
Every “so-called” common bush, afire with God — But sadly the world can’t fully appreciate its beauty and sacredness!
In many ways, this poem captures a truth that I want to convey today.
- 1. The need to see, the need to have our eyes opened to the beauty of God’s creation and to see, unfortunately, the ways in which humans are harming his creation!
- 2. And then secondly the need to act!
The best part of today’s lesson will focus on seeing and next week’s lesson will focus in on how to ACT.
If you missed last week’s lesson, let me summarize for you what we learned:
If I had to summarize it in one sentence, it would be that:
NOT ONLY DO PEOPLE MATTER — IN A MIND BLOWING WAY — TO GOD, BUT SO DO ANIMALS, PLANTS and all of CREATION!
Our first point came from Genesis 1:1 THIS CREATION HAS A CREATOR AND THAT CREATOR aint us! IT’S GOD.
Scripture says: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”
POINT #2 was — SINCE HE IS THE ONE WHO CREATED IT — IT ALL BELONGS TO? …HIM! NOT US!!
Every living creature, every piece of space on this earth — IT ALL BELONGS TO HIM!
Psalm 24 says: “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it, belong to Him.”
Psalm 50:10 says, “…every animal in the forest is Mine, and also the cattle on a thousand hills.”
From the prophet Haggai: “‘The silver is Mine and the gold is Mine,’ declares the LORD Almighty.” — it all belongs to him!
POINT #3 was — GOD CREATED ALL NATURE and ALL CREATURES AND IT ALL WAS MADE TO REFLECT HIS GLORY!
Isaiah 6:3 says “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; the whole earth reflects his glory.”
And POINT #4 was — WE ARE CALLED TO TAKE CARE OF IT!
- We are stewards of natural resources.
- Stewards of animals — domesticated and wild.
- Stewards of the oceans, lakes, forests, parks.
- Really everything he created!
Psalm 8 says: You Lord ordained mankind to govern the works of Your hands, to nurture the offspring of Your divine imagination; You placed everything on earth beneath his feet: 7 All kinds of domesticated animals, even the wild animals in the fields and forests, 8 The birds of the sky and the fish of the sea, all the multitudes of living things that travel the currents of the oceans.”
- How do we do it?
- What is our real responsibility?
- What can we as individuals do?
- And what can we, as a church, do?
Well, believe it or not — there is actually a lot that we can do!
THE FIRST STEP in this whole Creation Care deal is to first GET INFORMED.
THE FIRST FACT THAT WE LEARNED IS THAT:
- God still cares for all He has made and set into motion.
- And that we have a responsibility to care for it.
THE SECOND PIECE OF EDUCATION COMES in the form of learning more about what is “broken”, hurting, dying, suffering, so that we can explore ways to help care for it.
SO THAT IS WHAT WE ARE GOING TO EXPLORE TODAY.
WHAT ARE SOME OF THE THINGS ON THIS PLANET THAT ARE “broken”, hurting, dying, suffering and need our HELP AND PROTECTION?
Next week we’ll get into the taking action part.
I am very passionate about this and there are many reasons — one is the brokenness is happening in my own backyard in Johannesburg.
Exposed to dangerous chemicals like arsenic, acid, mercury etc.. in their drinking water.
Goes into their rivers from sewage pipes that get filled with contaminated mine water…
So, I believe that there are in brief 4 areas of creation — that need our care:
#1 PEOPLE — We all see it — People are broken, we are broken. People are hurting, dying needlessly from curable diseases, lots and lots of needless suffering.
In Africa children day every day from things like dysentery, malaria, malnourishment.
The needs are enormous and we can make a difference and are making a difference!
#2 OUR SOIL & FORESTS — great devastation is occurring daily around the planet! Dangerous chemicals are put into the ground. Deforestation, Over mining, over grazing — the list is long.
# 3 ANIMALS — Many animals are suffering in the name of research, that in many cases aren’t even needed and many are suffering because their owners neglect them, abuse them and treat them like commodities!
# 4 WATER — Our oceans, lakes, rivers — many are being polluted at an alarming rate!
Today I am going to shed just a little bit of light on the last 3 of these!
So, just how bad is it out there?
I read this quote this week and there is a lot of truth to it: It says -
“All of human existence depends on two things: Six inches of topsoil and the fact that it rains.”
God gave us soil — and we are utterly dependent upon it!
Look at these verses from Isaiah 5:8-10:
8 Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land. 9 The LORD Almighty has declared in my hearing: “Surely the great houses will become desolate, the fine mansions left without occupants. 10 A ten-acre vineyard will produce only a bath of wine, a homer of seed only an ephah of grain.”
WHY — because from the abuse of their soil came agricultural collapse!
And just as with the Israelites — we’ve had our fair share of abuse:
Here’s a picture of a dust storm approaching Stratford, Texas in 1935.
In short — Irresponsible farming!
They plowed up prairie grass for farming and when the drought and wind hit all the good topsoil blew away!
Soil is the foundation of our food supply, as well as that of all the plants and animals that live on earth.
President Franklin Roosevelt, in response to the dustbowl situation then famously said, “The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.”
The Good News is that they learned from it and turned the situation around:
President Roosevelt ordered the Civilian Conservation Corps to plant a huge belt of more than 200 million trees from Canada to Abilene, Texas to break the wind, hold water in the soil, and hold the soil itself in place.
The administration also began to educate farmers on soil conservation and antierosion techniques, including crop rotation, strip farming, contour plowing, terracing, and other improved farming practices.
But sadly the destruction of soil is still taking place in large scales around the world.
That’s the equivalent of 286 million garbage trucks being filled with topsoil and driving it away and dumping it in the ocean!
The situation in China is so bad that the Koreans are trying to do what Roosevelt did in the 1930’s — they are going over to China and planting trees — because all the dust and industrial chemicals that is blowing over onto them is causing a lot of health problems!
This problem is cropping up all over the place — especially with developing countries.
Several reasons: Let me list a few:
In China for instance: One of the biggest reasons for the dust storms is due to the fact that the Aral Sea of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan started drying up.
Because the Amu River and Syr River has been diverted — following a Soviet agricultural program to irrigate the Central Asian deserts for cotton plantations!
In other words poor farming practices and greed!
I’m going to just give you a few bullets.
After all the research I did, I could easily share hours upon hours of information, but I don’t want to overload you!
1. EROSION FROM PLOWING — Especially plowing hillsides that are too steep!
Most water used for irrigation contains naturally occurring salts and minerals. When this
water is poured on very flat land over many years, evaporation causes these salts and
minerals to build up to toxic levels, destroying the ability of the ground to support
agriculture and polluting ground water. [Pakistan and India are the best examples of this.]
3. OVER-GRAZING OF CATTLE, SHEEP AND GOATS
Grazing land managed properly support herds of animals indefinitely; when it is over-used,
however, it quickly degrades to nothing but dust, and this allows wind and water to rapidly
remove any soil that is left. [Another reason why China’s annual dust storms are caused by this abuse of land.]
So, in many, many parts of our planet our SOIL is not being taken care of and is in need of great care!
THEN #2 THERE ARE THE FORESTS OF THE WORLD
When it comes to forests, trees, it’s interesting to note that the Bible contains over 525 references to trees.
More than any other type of living organism except humans.
Scripture says that: God reveals himself in creation.
And so the more that we destroy it — the less his glory gets revealed!
In many countries around the world the most obvious environmental problem is deforestation — the loss of forests.
This was the situation in America: SLIDE
I’ll say this — America has done a great job in turning the situation around. For every tree that is harvested between 4 and 6 trees are planted in its place.
But, according to the World Resources Institute, sadly, more than 80% of the Earth’s natural forests have already been destroyed.
Up to 90 percent of West Africa’s coastal rain forests have disappeared since 1900.
Brazil and Indonesia, which contain the world’s two largest surviving regions of rain forest, are being stripped at an alarming rate by logging, fires, and land-clearing for agriculture and cattle-grazing.
DEFORESTATION IS BEING CAUSED BY:
• Wood for cooking, logging, commercial agriculture, small agriculture and 60% for cattle grazing!
• Biofuels — Conversion of rainforest to farmland for soybeans to produce ethanol especially in the Amazon basin of South America.
The effects of deforestation are various, and include
• Local Rainfall changes: Trees make their own rain, and when a forest is gone, rainfall
patterns, both in time and geography, change dramatically.
I read this fascinating verse from Hosea this week. God is speaking to the Israelites who are living wreck less lives and it reminds me much of the world we live in! Hosea 4
“Listen up all you Israelites! God indicts the whole population:
“He finds no one that is truly faithful. No one who knows the first thing about God.
All the cussing and lying and killing, theft and loose sex, sheer anarchy, one murder after another!
And because of all this, the very land itself weeps and everything in it is grief-stricken — animals in the fields and birds on the wing, even the fish in the sea are listless and lifeless.”
Mankind’s sin has always had devastating consequences for the rest of creation.
And we see that these consequences even affect our water resources.
Water is indispensible for all life God created, but there is a shortage of access to fresh water.
It’s seem most prevelantly in 3rd world countries, but even some first world countries as well.
Earth’s oceans cover 70% of God’s creation.
And we are really hurting our oceans and the life which is contained in them.
Many great river systems like the Indus (Pakistan), the Yellow (China) and the Colorado here in America, no longer flow to the sea because every drop is taken for irrigation and human consumption.
Let me list a few of my health concerns:
1. Contamination of water supplies
Human beings have been a little careless not only in the use of water, but in keeping our
supplies clean. Pollution of rivers and lakes is an old problem but is reversible when we
decide it is important enough.
More difficult and damaging is the contamination of groundwater by industrial chemicals and even consumer pharmaceuticals — medicines that get flushed from our homes into rivers, streams and ground water.
All of the major fisheries in the oceans are being fished at a rate that will almost certainly cause their collapse. SLIDE
A surprising amount of plastic waste runs into the seas and is gathered in enormous floating islands of garbage, some as large as the state of Texas. One such island is in the central Pacific ocean.
The Ocean is filled with plastics from all of the countries that border the Pacific ocean, including the US, China, Japan, all of the southeast-Asian, South American and Latin American countries.
Last week we read about God’s great care and concern for animals.
Contrary to people’s beliefs — animals don’t actually belong to us — they are simply in our care.
God expects us to treat animals with respect, kindness and decency.
Sadly many people justify animal cruelty and deny animal rights.
One of Camille’s friends this week told her she has no empathy for animals being killed.
There is something wrong with that.
People have many reasons for ignoring animal cruelty. Here’s 6 reasons I’ve heard:
2) God gave humans domination over animals;
3) Humans are intellectually superior to animals;
4) Animals do not reason, think, or feel pain like humans do;
5) Animals are a natural resource to be used as humans see fit; and
So you might wonder now — does our Pastor think it is wrong to eat animals?
Well, it is clear from scripture that God does not forbid it and Jesus even caught fish and fed the disciples. And lambs were used as sacrifices and then eaten afterwards.
But we need to pay attention to how those animals we eat and use are treated and slaughtered!
Let me share with you just 10 random animal facts to highlight the major care issues we face here in America and abroad:
1. In 2010, there were more farm animals living in the U.S. than there were humans on earth!
2. Many animals killed for fur come from fur farms, where animals are kept in tiny cages and are killed around 6 months old. On fur farms, they are left exposed to the cold to encourage the thickest coats possible. If the animal freezes to death, its coat can still be used.
3. Turkeys and chickens are exempt from federal humane slaughter laws, but they make up more than 90% of animals slaughtered each year in America.
Because they are exempt, it is not required to stun them before they are shackled on a moving rail to have their throats slit. Some are still alive when they are submerged in the scalding tank. Those that are still alive are called “redskins.” Over 180 million chickens each year suffer through a botched death in the slaughterhouse.
4. In the United Stats, estimates range from 0.1% to1% of the 10 billion land animals transported to slaughter each year die in transit. That translates to between 1 and 10 million animals. It is not unusual for young pigs to freeze against the walls of transport trucks; workers have to pry them off.
5. “Broiler” chickens (food chickens), which make up 8.5 billion of the nearly 10 billion animals raised for food each year, are often drugged and genetically manipulated to grow very large very quickly. They often cannot support their own weight, leaving their legs malformed or broken. Many die of heart or lung failure because these organs cannot keep up with their unnaturally rapid growth.
6. Traditionally, it took five years of grazing to get a steer to market size. However, now it takes 6 months of grazing and 12-14 months in a feedlot. This is due to enormous quantities of corn (not their natural food), protein supplements, and drugs, including growth hormones and antibiotics, that are administered to the animals. The conditions are so poor that the animals get very sick and live in very unsanitary conditions.
7. Shark fin soup is around $200 per serving, and the business kills 100 million sharks per year. Because it is not economically viable for fisherman to keep the whole shark, they just slice the fin off and throw the shark back into the ocean. Unable to swim, the shark sinks slowly to the bottom of the sea to die a slow death.
8. Egg-laying hens are often debeaked with hot knives to prevent cannibalism and fighting. Hens living on the bottom tiers are showered with excrement. Battery cages are outlawed in most Western-European countries but are still legal in the U.S.
9. To prevent stressed pigs from biting off each others’ tails—a stress-induced behavior—farmers simply cut off the pigs’ tails.
10. Puppy mills are facilities that breed puppies in inferior conditions and sell them in commercial markets. It is believed that over 5,000 puppy mills exist in U.S.
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