We come now to the end of a three-week segment of a much longer series on confronting contemporary issues. This series of three issues has considered the sanctity of human life a couple weeks ago, then last week the Christian's attitude toward homosexuality and homosexuals, and now this morning the issue of environmentalism. And let me just mention that I I thought it'd be good, as I was preparing for this this week, to make myself available today. Today we begin new classes and laugh groups, but if there's anybody who is not in one of those or was particularly part of one that you're waiting to get started today, and I encourage you all to be trying one if you're not part of one, I will be in room A150, first door beyond the double sliding glass doors going down the hall. for anybody who'd like to discuss any of these three messages, the last two and the one today, so that we can perhaps work through a little bit more what the issues are and what God would have us to do in terms of our response. So that's just for today. And then, of course, the classes and last groups are all beginning and will continue. Now, concerning this issue of environmentalism, let me mention that you will probably be hearing a lot more about this if you're going to be watching at all the Winter Olympics in Millehammer, Norway, because these have been touted as the first green games of the Olympics in which environmentalism has been given top priority in the planning of them. For instance, the ice rink was built inside of a mountain. Construction people were charged as much as $7,000 for every tree that was unnecessarily cut for the bobsled and the luge run. The ski jumps were designed to follow the contours of the mountain, so nothing artificial, no towers and the other kinds of things. Many other things like this. For instance, the people that all eat there, thousands and thousands every day, won't eat off of paper plates that will be thrown away. They'll be eating off of edible plates so you could eat your dinner and then eat the plate too. But you probably won't because it wouldn't taste very good. The plates are actually designed to be recycled for plant and animal feed. But this is just an example of what's happening. And the people who play in the Olympics know that largely young people tend to watch these. And they're trying to reshape the thinking of an entire generation of people. Now, as Christians, of course, can we do, but to applaud this, it's a good concern, it's God's world. Occasionally, however, we find ourselves thinking, we're not sure that we know where this thing's headed, do we? I mean, you realize that the people that have these concerns don't see creation as that which was made by a personal God. We know that somehow their view of the world is different from our view of the world, but In general, there seems to be a sense among Christians that, well, the results are good and I can't argue with that, and so there's kind of a posture of benign neglect. You know, okay, let's, you know, save the trees, save the world, that's good. Maybe not sure about the reasons, but okay, doesn't seem to be much of a problem. Well, when we think about where it's headed, that's where we need to give some thought as Christians, and to give a clue about where some of this may be headed, Have you ever noticed the bumper sticker that says, love your mother, and then there's a picture of an earth on that? You may have seen that kind of bumper sticker. You see a number of them around. Love your mother, and then there's an earth. Well, it's pretty innocuous, you know, love your mother earth. Most people don't realize that that is a very religious slogan. It comes from a new religion. It's a women's religion, which is a combination of ecology and radical feminism. which is a neo-paganistic religion, which worships as a goddess the mother Gaea. And Gaea is simply the Greek word for earth. And in this religion, there is the celebration through rituals of healing from rape, from abuse of men, from liberation from men. And this whole idea celebrates the fact that women, as the bearers of children, are the symbols of power and creation. And therefore, anything that has to do with a male figure, such as Jesus or God the Father, is something it can't relate to. And so this is combined with ecological, environmentalistic concerns to produce a whole new religion. Now, I'm not saying that all environmentalists are neo-paganistic Gael worshipers, but it's one example of where things are going. In fact, we see in environmentalism a very close tie with a lot of radical feminism. So I guess the next issue we ought to deal with here is feminism. But we will have to deal with that issue somewhere down the road. This morning, however, I want to just deal with the issue of environmentalism and where we're headed. And I have three concerns about that for us as Christians. that because of this sense of benign neglect, it seems like a basically good thing that we as Christians will not get involved in this. We'll just sort of stay loose from the movement. We'll let it carry its own way. It doesn't seem like it's doing any harm. But as you see at the top of the bulletin outline there, I have a real concern there because I think it's true that a right concern for the wrong reasons will always yield the wrong solution. right concern for the wrong reason doesn't tend to yield right solutions. It tends to yield wrong solutions. We need to understand what's behind the thinking in order for us as Christians to know how God would have us to respond to it. The second thing is that I think that we would, if we do not get involved with and think about this whole issue of environmentalism, we're going to lose a wonderful opportunity to be able to help people to see the relevance of Scripture in their lives and to bring the Gospel to bear in this culture. Because most people today don't really care about the relevance of the Bible, they don't think it's very relevant to their lives, but they do care about trashing the environment. What they don't realize is that all the solutions that are being proposed are really not going to provide the solutions that people are going to want. That in fact only the Bible provides the solutions that we need for the environmental crisis. And it is a crisis, it's a real concern. And I want to minimize that for a moment. But we need to understand that it is only the Scripture that provides adequate solutions that will not produce greater problems down the road. And that's what I want to look at briefly this morning. But it's also an opportunity to, by sensitizing people to something that they do care deeply about, show that the Bible in fact gives answers, and from that to help them to see their need for the Lord Jesus Christ as a personal Savior. so that we can bring the gospel to bear on an issue that people care about. And I don't think we ought to miss that opportunity, but we'll be very sorry that we do. I don't think we can afford to back off of the shaping of policies that are coming. We're down the road. We're going to be very sorry that we weren't involved in that. And then the last thing that I just want to say is that I think that in some cases, we need to see how God's word bears on us to repent of our own abuse. of the environment, and not just say this is other people who throw their wrappers out the window and all that. It has to do with the whole question of the use of energy and things that we trash and the rest of all this. Do we as Christians really value, honor, and stand in wonder of the creation that God has made? So I think that there are some things for us to consider. And I think that one passage, because we're only going to give this one message to it, to consider from God's Word is in Genesis chapter one the chapter on creation there are a number of chapters you can consider but I want to just consider these five verses from Genesis chapter one verses twenty six to thirty one. So if you have the Bible please have it open to that and follow along as I read to you God's Word to us on with this particular subject in mind. Genesis chapter one beginning of verse twenty six then God said Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of the air, and over the livestock, over the earth, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. And so God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground." And then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has its fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food. And to all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food. God saw all that he had made. It was very good. And there was evening and there was morning. The sixth day. Four points to notice from this. Solutions of scripture and the bankruptcy of any other alternatives in this area. First of all, notice that a personal God made all of creation. A personal God made all of creation. Verse 26. God said, let us make man in our image. in our likeness. Let them rule over the fish and the rest of it." You notice that God is saying to himself, he's speaking, he's communicating with himself, and he's saying, we're going to make man, we who are personal, obviously, are made in the image of the God who is personal. We reflect his likeness in our personhood. And so, in verse 31, this God, when he looks at the creation, he observes it, he evaluates it, he's pleased with it. Clearly, God is separate from the creation. And that was beautifully illustrated in what Tom read from the writings of John Piper, how God even formed from his angels an audience that you could rejoice with in the delight of that creation. And so this is diametrically opposed to pantheism, because in pantheism, everything is God. In pantheism, this stage is God, and the feet that you're sitting in are God, the Patuxent River is God, and the trees are God, and the grass is God. Everything is God. But the Bible says, and here's the next line, that God is separate from his creation. God is separate from his creation. Why is that so important? Well, back as early as 1967, a fellow by the name of Richard Nunes proposed that the only basic solution to the environmental crisis that we're headed into is pantheism. Because pantheism, he said back then, gives dignity to the creation. Pantheism says that all of life is God, then all of life is sacred. The only problem with that is that the only way that that has any impact is when the notion of God still is transcendent and sacred. But if, in fact, everything is God, then the notion of God has lost its separateness and its dignity, and so it's lost its meaning. It reminds me of an incident, a scene from the old Honeymooners shows, and I don't know if any of you have ever seen that. My parents used to watch that every Saturday night. Ralph and Alice Crandon, they'd always fight, and they'd always make up, and they'd always watch it. Everybody in all of America were vicariously living their experience, all these fightings and making up. And there's this one scene that I remember, I don't know why, but it still sticks in my mind. Well, Ralph is coming in, and he and Alice are going at it, and going back and forth, yelling, screaming and all. And he finally stops her, and he just says, he starts yelling Jackie Gleason's old style, and he says, listen, I'm king, you're nothing. Get that straight. You're nothing, and I'm king. You got that? I'm king, you're nothing. He goes on and on and on. Finally, she just gives him one of those withering looks and says, big deal, you're king of nothing. Now, I suggest to you, that that's the dilemma of pantheism. All of life is sacred. It's all God. What's God? Nothing. So there's no sacredness. And pantheism is bankrupt as a solution for the environmental crisis. Only when there is a God who is separate from that creation, who has made it with a dignity to reflect himself, can there be any cause for us to try and want to be caring for this environment. That leads to the second point that you see here, which is that his creation was originally good. His creation was originally good. Five times in Genesis chapter 1, God says, when he made something, it is good, it is good, it is good. And then you see, when he comes down to verse 31, in summing it all up, God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. Now, that is diametrically opposed to evolution. which, again, is seen within the environmental framework as basic to all of where it is headed. Because, you see, as Joel Belz has written, there are two preposterous accounts of creation. Two preposterous accounts for all that we see. The one says that one time there was a cosmic collision of matter that spontaneously generated out of nowhere. and started a chain reaction of dog-eat-dog connections and evolution to finally form life and then the infinitely complex forms of life that we see today, all by random chance. The other account says there was a personal God who at one point, for reasons beyond anything we can understand, decided to speak everything into being, including you and me. Bell's point is they're both preposterous accounts because he means by that that neither of them have anything to do with anything we've ever experienced. They're all far beyond anything that we can conceive of or experience. But besides the fact that they're both preposterous, there is one in connection with this radical and significant difference between those two accounts. The evolutionary account has everything starting bad and evolving good. In the creation account, everything started good and then became bad. And there's a radical difference with implications for our environmental concerns. Because, you see, evolution is hopeless, because in evolution you have creation, which is, as you see in the next slide, the Bible says creation is not chaos, evolved by chance. Evolution says that what we live in is basically chaos that has evolved by chance. And evolution is a hopeless space for environmental concerns because the basic rule of evolution is the survival of the fittest. It is simply those who are able to survive within the environment do so. Those that can't Well, they lose out. Therefore, in environmentalism, evolution has to break its own rules in order to bring about any concern. For instance, why in the world should a group of very smart and powerful loggers be restricted from cutting timber in Oregon because of some helpless spotted owl? Let the owl fend for itself. If it can't survive within the rules of the evolutionary framework, tough for the owl. The loggers went out. That's the way the game's played, isn't it? And so the evolutionist says, no, no, no. At that point we back off and we artificially introduce a protection for the weaker species. Who says you should do that? You're breaking the rules that's been guiding the game for all these millions and billions of years. So evolution itself is bankrupt as a concern for this. It has to go against its own rules. Only a Christian can say, the spotted owl has value. Because the Heavenly Father created that. And as Christians, we are concerned to protect it within a scheme of other priorities and all the rest of that. But only the Christian can even be concerned for that, consistent with his own position. That leads to the third point, which is that God made us stewards. to rule creation under him. God made us stewards to rule creation under him. Look again at verse 26. God says to man, and he makes man in his image and likeness, and he says to them, he says, let them now rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, over all the creatures that move along the ground. In verse 28, God blessed them and he says to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves along the ground. And then in verse 29, I give you every seed-bearing plant. It's yours in the face of the whole earth, every tree that's fruit. They'll all be yours for food. Verse 30, to all the beasts of the earth, to all the birds of the air, all the creatures that move on the ground, everything that has life and breath in it, I give it to you. I give every green plant for food. And we are to rule over that. We are stewards of that. And that is diametrically opposed to the egalitarianism that we see within the environmentalist movement that says that all of us have equal rights to life. All of us have the same rights. There's no difference. You and I are the same as snail daughters in terms of our rights to existence. The Bible says very clearly that you and I are of more value than many sparrows. We have more value than snail daughters. We have more value than birds and animals and all the rest of this creation. In fact, God has given us this creation to rule for our pleasure and our benefit. Now, some animals are for both pleasure and benefit, and others are simply for pleasure. Now, for instance, cats are for no benefit whatsoever. In case you'd like to have mice, but other than that, they're simply for pleasure. If I happen to have a whole lot of benefits, that's a pleasure. But we're the ruler of these things. Now, they don't know that. You've got to tell the cat that. He hasn't read the Bible, so he doesn't realize we're supposed to be the ones in the ruling. But that's the general way God has made it to be. And that does not mean that we are given absolute control in this. Because the Bible says that we are to rule with compassion. Because our God is a God of compassion. And therefore, we stand as Christians against animal abuse. Because where that violates the compassionate nature of God, that's something that we, as given that authority, are to hold it in trust. And secondly, that means that we hold it in trust as stewards. We don't own it. We're guests on this planet. And we stand in wonder of the creation that God has made and invited us to enjoy. But we always recognize that we hold it in trust, not just to grab and to use and to exploit for our own ends. At that point, we stand with the environmentalist wherever he's coming from. But you see, for an entirely different reason, and that reason makes all the difference, and will make all the difference in implications, particularly in the animal rights movement, where animals cannot be used for experimentation, even if compassionate, for the sake of human beings. That violates scripture. because God has given to us a compassionate use for the benefit of those made in his image who are of more value. Now that means that you and I then have to say to the animal rights person when they're trying to get us to sign some petition or join with them in some protest and we look at that and we say it's not a matter of uncompassionate use. It's a matter here of simply saying that the dog has the same value as a human being, and therefore, the dog should not be used for the benefit of the human. You say, no, no, no. Now, you say that the dog has the same dignity, and therefore, that puts me on the defensive. I say, no, no, it doesn't work that way, because you're saying, because the dog has the same value as the human, the human has the same value as the dog. What value is that? Look at the urban violence today. You see that we're fast moving into a culture where kids are shooting other kids because they dissed them, because they insulted them, revenge, whatever, we're saying, our culture is saying human beings have no value. We're not raising the value of the animals, our culture is lowering the value of human beings. Therefore, we are moving in an egalitarianism to a common denominator of no value, not dignity and value. Therefore, you've got to go back to scripture in order to get the priorities straight and understand why the dog has value. because God made the dog and we as Christians are stewards to protect and to care for the life that God has made. And that leads to the fourth and the final point from this, which is that he will renew this creation in his final redemption. God is going to renew this creation in his final redemption. In verse 31 we see that when God had made these things he saw, And he said, it was all very good. We don't know how long man, Adam and Eve, man and woman, enjoyed that creation. Luther thinks it was about 20 minutes. I tend to think it's probably longer than that. But they enjoyed it for some days, weeks, who knows. But at some point then, sin moved in. Man violated God's covenant. He disobeyed the one command that God gave, which said, don't eat from this tree. Eat of everything else, and enjoy all the rest of the garden. Don't eat of that tree. A man did that, and because of that, there was sin and disruption. And in chapter 3, in verse 17, we read that God says to Adam, because you have eaten from that tree which I commanded you, which you must not eat of it, cursing is the ground because of you. through painful toil, you will eat of it all the days of your life. God is saying here that that which has been in a friendly environment, in perfect harmony, is now disrupted. The earth will no longer be friendly, you will be at odds with it, you will not be able to pet lions, and you will find that mosquitoes will bite you instead of just landing on you. that everything now is in disruption. We are in an abnormal state. And that is such a precious, wonderful truth for the Christians. Because anybody from an unbiblical point of view has to view that what is, is the way it is. There's nothing abnormal about it, that's just the way it is. We as Christians alone say, no, it is abnormal the way it is. It's not the way God intended it. And all the pollution and the disruption and the violation of ecological principles are part of that abnormality. And we are not capable of solving that ourselves. We are in a need of a personal and cosmic savior who has come, a Messiah in the person of Jesus. And he has come to give his life to die for your sin and for my sin, both of our abuse of the environment and our abuse of one another. to forgive us of that sin and to transform us and to give us new life, and along with that, the Bible says, to redeem the whole environment. Interesting that in Romans chapter 8, after Paul has talked about the sweep of salvation and all of what it means to be justified and sanctified and adopted, it is right in that context, in Romans chapter 8, that he points out that it's not just us, but it's the whole creation that is groaning under the curse. In Romans chapter 8 verse 22, Paul says, we know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. But what in fact is the hope, verse 21, that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. And so we see the hope of the Christian that God, Messiah, is bringing all things to his final perfect purpose, a new creation. A new creation. The secular environmentalist has no hope, no basis for a hope. He's either hopeless or utopian. He's either saying, you know, we're going to try the best we can, but it's probably all hopeless anyway, and they were saying that back in the 60s, and in fact, those things were wiped out and obliterated by the 90s. according to a lot of the writings back in the 60s. And they're saying now, it's pretty hopeless. You know, we can try to scrap and save, and Time Magazine wrote this week, you know, maybe we're entering a new ice age, who knows, you know, and there's nobody in control, anything could be happening. And so, it's a hopeless situation, or there's this irrational leap of faith to say, if we just do all this stuff, everything's gonna turn out, it's gonna be green and wonderful and pollution-free. But there's no basis for any of that. The only basis is that someone beyond us is in control. Believe me, if we don't believe that after the last couple of weeks, and we see the freeze and the ice, and everybody's crippled, and business comes to a halt, and we say, you know, okay, well, you know, what do we do here? Just jack up some more technology. We look last summer at the floods in the Missouri and the Mississippi, and we see how helpless we are. We look a couple of weeks ago at 6.6 earthquakes in Southern California and the devastation of that, and we say, We need someone in control. If there is no one in control, and it's interesting to read how the secular press writes this, U.S. News & World Report this week, utterly impersonal universe by chance, and who knows what's going to happen, no sense of any personal God in control, and that's the hope of the Christians. The hope is that when Jesus died and rose again, he produced in his resurrection a first fruit, of a new life for you and for me individually. And in addition to that, He produced a first fruits of a new creation. Therefore, we who have the hope of a personal glorification, who also hold the hope of an environmental glorification, work out of the first fruits of that for restoration according to the plan of our Father. We alone have the hope. We alone have the basis for it. We alone have the sense of the dignity of it within its proper perspective. And therefore, in conclusion, I suggest to you three things. Number one, we've got to stop being intimidated as Christians by environmentalists. Since the late 60s, Writer, particularly by the name of Lynn White, began dumping on Christians saying that environmental crisis is basically the problem of the fault of Christians because it's Christians who say that the Bible teaches that man has dominion over creation and therefore that dominion gives him the right to do whatever he wants with it. And it's because Christians have given us that basis that we have the crisis that we're in today. We've got to stand up and we've got to say, that's unfair. Christians have abused the environment the way everybody else has abused the environment. We have been sinful and guilty in that. And we've seen many examples where we, just along with the rest of the culture, have done the same things. We've thrashed the environment, lack of concern for the future generations and all of that. But it is not because we were consistent with what the Bible taught. And we refuse to be intimidated by that. In fact, the Bible alone gives the answers. to this crisis that we're in. And we do that, cure that, by raising the four questions about pantheism, about evolution, about the right, the value, the egalitarianism of the phylogenetic scale of beings, people, animals, all the rest of that. And then, fourthly, the whole question of what hope is. And in doing that, we can point to the fact that the Bible isn't simply able to defend itself. The Bible is the only thing You. Need to. Not be arrogant. We have violated the principles of Scripture. uh, lacked wonder for that creation that God has made, have abused it by our own misuse, flagrant, uh, wastefulness of energy and non-renewable resources and all the rest of that, uh, the trash piles, the amount of stuff that we waste. I mean, there are a lot of things that we need to, and we can't get into that here now, but I'm just simply saying that each of us as individuals and as families have to stop and say, what is it that we're doing? that could be minimized so that we can make better use of the environment, to not add more trash than we need to, to be involved in helping the energy sources to be lasting and make good use of them and stewards them, all the rest of the questions that are raised here. Just sit down and think about it, rather than just move along, kind of being guided and directed by guilt and television and Olympic games and everything else. And then the third thing that we need to do, once we have repented from that, is to pray about our own involvement in this. I'm saying that, obviously, you're going to hear just in a few minutes about a new ministry that we're having here, Community Impact Committee, and there are a lot of issues that we as Christians are being faced with. We can't all be involved in leadership and deep involvement in all of these issues. And as Dan talks about that, he's going to make clear that, you know, these are things for us to choose from and be able to be involved in certain aspects of what God is doing. But my concern is that Christians are just going to write this issue off and say, well, that's one I don't even have to think about. And that, I think, would be a pity. I think that God, I would be so happy if God would raise up from within this congregation leaders who would say that we're going to be involved in the environmental concerns of Howard County and Central Maryland and we're going to say the right thing for the right reasons and be willing to say why. What is the basis of our hope in Jesus? May God give us each the responsibility and the potential We stand for His creation and the hope that He's given to us in the Lord Jesus. In the forgiveness of our own sins, we will be able to speak to Him. Let's pray. Lord, we want to take a moment right now in the light of this, Your Word, confess to You our own sins in ways that we have not been careful to of the resources that You have given to us on this planet. Lord, forgive us. We thank you that forgiveness is available in the Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that you will lead each of us individually and as families to think through these issues and to set goals about our use of our environment, that we might treat it with wonder and humility. Lord, we thank you that your words speak to us with solutions that are the only adequate solutions within this crisis. and that you have given to us a hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. We worship you as the one who has made all things, and that we are in an abnormal state now, that you are in control even of that state. We don't have to worry about whether we will enter into an ice age that will obliterate humanity and the sun's going to burn too hot and get too close and all the rest of these things. You have a purpose and you will bring that to completion. When you do, you will hold forth for your people a new creation, a new heaven and a new earth. Help us, Lord, out of the hope of that, to be involved in the ways that you call equal, Name in the gospel of the Lord Jesus to bear on these issues. Give us a bolder plan, a humble bolder plan. We pray, Lord, that you would be merciful to us as we are in our grief. Rescue us from moving down a wrong path or moving into deeper crises because we have not paid attention. Be merciful to us, Lord, in Jesus' name.