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Peter Barnes | Deut.20:19-20; Ex.23:10-11; Lev.25:2-4
SERMON NOTES
CREATION CARE
Deut.20:19-20; Ex.23:10-11; Lev.25:2-4
– it is invariably linked to the issues of climate change and human overpopulation. Bob Brown in 2006 was warning that climate change had raised ‘the spectre of permanent drought’ while in 2011 he blamed climate change for widespread flooding in Queensland. Be suspicious.
1. We have dominion over the creation.
– Gen.1:28. Lynn White famously blamed the ecological crisis on this verse, and condemned what he called the ‘orthodox Christian arrogance towards nature’. Hence also Al Gore; Tim Flannery; Paul Ehrlich:
We must take action to reverse the deterioration of our environment before population pressure ruins our planet. The birth rate must be brought into balance with the death rate or mankind will breed itself into oblivion.
Nostradamus did better than Ehrlich.
2. We are to take care of the creation.
– Gen.3:17-19; Isa.24:1-8.
– yet also Psalm 104:10-18, 24, 29-30. Meister Eckhart (c.1260-c.1328): ‘Every creature is a word of God. If I spend enough time with the tiniest creature – even a caterpillar – I would never have to prepare a sermon. So full of God is every creature.’
– Deut.20:19-20; Ex.23:10-11; Lev.25:1-7.
3. The creation will be restored through Christ.
– Rom.8:19-21. Hence Isaac Watts’ ‘Joy to the World’:
No more let sins and sorrows grow,/ Nor thorns infest the ground; He comes to make His blessings flow/Far as the curse is found, Far as the curse is found,/ Far as, far as, the curse is found.