General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 59th Session

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General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Kwabena Donkor

Yes, Creation!

Evolutionary thought, Spiritualism and the End of Time

Lee Spencer

How Many Dinosaurs Were On the Ark?

Ariel Roth

Some scientific data that favors a recent creation

Stan Hudson

The Biblical creation is central to the local church

Greg King

Is Biblical Creation Passé?

Nikolaus Satelmajer

Rollin Shoemaker

Sabbath and Creation

Paleontology and the Bible: Science in action

John Baldwin

Why Does a Good Creator Permit Evil?

JoAnn Davidson

...and it WAS good

Jim Gibson

Lions in the Garden of Eden

Richard Davidson

Does Genesis Really Teach a Recent, Literal, Seven-Day Creation Week and a Global Flood?

Tim Standish

DNA and Design

Jacques Doukhan

Creation, the Heart of SDA Theology

How to share creation in outreach on secular campuses

Do millions of years solve the problem?

Ed Zinke

Theistic evolution and the end of Adventism

Ronny Nalin

Dealing with uncertainty

Ted N.C. Wilson

God’s Literal, Six-day, Recent Creation--The Church’s Position

Creation and Evolution: A brief history

Clifford Goldstein

Seventh-day Darwinians

Environmental issues attract more and more attention. Discussion and deliberation, however, often remains focused on human life. Western thinking has valued primarily, if not exclusively human life arguments and concern for non-human life rest on their contribution to our welfare. For many, this is adequate for appreciating the importance of a nice clean environment, but the natural world is not valued directly for its own sake, but indirectly for the sake of human beings who benefit by this nice environment. We, we have no responsibilities for the created world itself only to human beings like us who can be harmed by the damage we cause to the environment. One reason for this is that the evolutionary theory tends to yield a subtle devaluing of many forms of life. Yep. It seems odd that the Seventh Day Adventist Church has been slow to acknowledge the importance of creation care since we believe both that the world has value and exalted standing because of its divinely created Sta Sta status, but also because Seventh Day Adventist urge the importance of being good stewards, but we often limit our thinking about stewardship to our wallets or to time. However, from the first chapter of scripture to the closing of the Book of Revelation, we find an impressive reminder of how valuable all creation is to the creator himself and the importance of being good stewards of the created world. In the opening chapters of Genesis as God creates each day, he exclaims you remember, ah, this is good, and even this is very good. Both humans and animals are created by God's own hands from the dust of the Earth. Three. Genesis two, seven and 19. Both humans and animals are given identical blessings. This implies at the very least divine appreciation of all life. Both humans and animals are given a plant-based diet. Remember when God grants dominion in Genesis one, the very next thing he mentions is the nonviolent diet. The subsequent fall in Genesis three again affects all creation, the humans and the land itself. Later, Noah is told by God to take his family and animals into the arc to keep this kind alive on the face of the earth during a global catastrophe because of the extreme violence of human life. In the midst of the deluge, God remembers Noah and all the animals that are with them in the art. Genesis eight, one, after exiting the art, the animals are explicitly included in the divine covenant. Covenant. Listen, as God talks, then God spoke to Noah and his sons with him saying, as for me, behold, I establish my covenant with you and with your descendants after you and with every living creature that is with you. And then he identifies them, the birds, the cattle, every beast of the earth with you, all that goes out of the ark, every beast of the earth. Thus, I establish my covenant with you. This is the sign of the covenant. I establish between me and you and every living creature that is with you. I set my rainbow in the cloud and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. Genesis nine, four times in this lengthy covenant, God mentions Noah and all the animals are included in the same covenant. God doesn't find it strange to link humans and animals in his covenant. The penitent continues suggesting cloth links between human and law life animals as well as humans have blood in their veins. They both could be responsible for murder and both humans and animals and the land are given rest. In the Old Testament patriarchal period, the needs of animals are attended to first after traveling. Remember Rebecca Waters, the camels of Abraham servants even before inviting him to our house. Genesis 24, when God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, his longest speech in scripture, a magnificent four chapter address in the book of job, starting with chapter TH 38, he recounts the wonders of created world and the exuberant celebration going on during creation week. He tells Job when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. He then urges job to cont contemplate several animals that he had created, including a lions, a mountain goat, a leaping stallion, a hawk, an eagle, and a raven, and then the behemoth. And God says, look now at the behemoth, which I made along with you, he eats grass like an ox. See now his strength is in his hips and his power in his stomach muscles. His tail moves like a cedar and the sins of his thigh are tightly knit. His bones are like beams of bronze and his ribs like iron. He is the first of the ways of God. Job 40, and then the creator admires the mighty Leviathan, obviously de delighting in such a creature I will not keep silence concerning its limbs or its mighty strength or it's splendid frame Joe. 41. Later the children of Israel are led to the promised land, portrayed as rich with milk and honey. Moses also describes God's affection for the land itself. He writes, he says, the land in which you are about to cross to possess drinks water from the reign of heaven, a land for which the Lord your God cares. Deuteronomy 11. The Israelites are also carefully instructed on creation care. They had an obligation to be kind to their animals. One must help a donkey when it has fallen under a heavy load even if the animal belongs to an enemy. Large work animals were not to be muzzled so they could eat while doing the heavy work involved in agriculture allowed to enjoy the harvest they are helping to harvest to reap the mosaic. Laws include protection of nature. Outline the destruction of fruit trees in a military campaign at a time when seed ramps were extensively used in warfare. Humans, animals and the land are included in the stipulation for the weekly Sabbath and the sabbatical ear. God says, six years, you shall so your land and gather its pros produce, but on the seventh year you shall let it rest and like fa life fallow that the poor of your peop, the poor of your people may eat and the beasts of the field may eat in like miner. You shall do with your vineyard in your olive grove. Six days you shall do your work and on the seventh day you shall rest that your ox and your donkey may rest and the son of your maid servant and the stranger may be refreshed. The three annual feasts of Israel Passover, feast of Weeks and Pen or Pentecost in the Feast of Tabernacles commemorating the redemption of God and their and his divine providence during their wilderness traveling significantly. These three festivals are also marked connected to three harvests of Israel, and as Israel brought the first fruits of their harvest in Thanksgiving, they remembered to honor Yahweh both as God of creation and God of salvation. The historical books draw attention to how human sin affects creation. Remember when the Lord said, if my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land. God's providence for all life inspired many of the prayers in hymns in the Saltar, reminding how God's beneficence blesses all creation. The Psalms issue splendid praise to the creator and include many different voices in the choirs of praise. Listen to this choir from Psalm 1 48. Listen to all the voices. Praise the Lord from the earth and you great sea creatures. Fire, hail, snow, cloud, stormy wind, mountains, hills, fruit, trees, cedars beasts, cattle creeping things flying. Foul flower kings, peoples princes, judges young men and maidens old men and children. Let them all praise the name of the Lord. Psalm 1 48, the wisdom books invite appreciation for non-human life too. Remember that wisest man writes, go to the ant, you sled, consider her ways and be wise. Proverbs six, A righteous man regards the life of his animal, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. Then he writes in Proverbs 34, things are little on the earth, but they are exceedingly wise ants, rock, badgers, locusts, and the spider King Solomon must have been quite a biologist. In Ecclesiastes, he reminds how humans and animals are shown to have the same breath and experience the same death in a first King's four when it describes all the wise men of the earth coming to to hear Solomon express his, express, his wisdom. It says Solomon spoke to them of trees and animals and birds and fish. What would you talk about if the wisest people on earth came to ask you about your wisdom? Solomon must have understood the glories of nature. The prophets continue that if God's covenant is broken and the responsibilities of stewardship, neglected deterioration and pollution will be the result. Remember in Isaiah 24, the earth mourns and fades away. The earth languishes and fades the hotty of people of the earth language. The earth is defiled under its inhabitants because they have transgressed. The law broken the everlasting covenant. Therefore a curse devours the earth and those who dwell in it are desolate. Jeremiah concurs quoting God's concern over the created world. Shall I not avenge myself on a nation nation is this I will take up a weeping and a wailing for the mountains and inhabitation of the wilderness of lamentation because they are burned up. No one can pass through them. No one can hear the voice of the cattle. Both birds of the heaven and the force have fled. They are gone and God immense the destruction of the natural world. Through many prophetic voices, God describes the dire consequences of human sinfulness on the earth again and again. God laments the broken ecosystems repeatingly reminding us that his concern involves all the created order and that our sinfulness of CRE affects creation. The last verse of the book of Jonah is striking and dialogue with Jonah. God explains to Jonah why he had pity on ninevah. Should I not pity Ninevah that great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who cannot distinguish between their right hand and their left and also Jonah. There are many innocent animals there. The book concludes with God's intriguing reminder of his mercy that includes not only the wicked nites legendary in their time for their wickedness, but also the animals could be spared. The psalmist already expressed this sentiment. Your righteousness, oh Lord, is like the great mountains you preserve man and beast. The Lord is good to all and his tender mercies are over all his work. When the promises of the final removal of sin and restoration are are given to us, the animal kingdom is again included. I love this description. In Isaiah 11, the wolf will lie down with the lamb, the leopard with the young goat. The cal and the young lion will feed together. A little boy will lead them. The cow and a bear will graze. The lion will eat straw like an ox, and the nursing child will play by the whole of a cobra. And then God says they will not hurt or destroy in all my holy mountain for the world will be full of the knowledge of God. This theology of life is also found in the New Testament. Jesus speaks of his affection for animals stressing that even the lowliest of creatures is treasured. Are not five spars sold for two pennies and none of them is forgotten before God. Jesus said not a single sparrow falls to the ground without God's knowledge. Echoing Psalm 84, where sparrows are seen as welcome in God's house, Jesus also illustrated an essential lesson of creation care. When after miraculously feeding thousands of people with a small boy's lunch, he commands that all leftovers be carefully gathered so nothing is lost in this country of great waste. That's a good lesson, isn't it? The apostle Paul also expresses a profound theology of creation. For by him all things were created in heaven and on earth. All things were created by him and for him and in him. All things consist. He also speaks of future environmental renewal, ex expressing the Old Testament sentiments for the earnest expectation of creation. Eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but creation itself will be delivered from the bondage of corruption, from the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pings together Till now, Romans eight in the final book of scripture, the entire created world is dramatically encompassed with divine judgment and Revelation seven, some angels are given to pictured to us standing at the four corners of the earth holding the four winds of the earth that the wind should not blow on the earth, the sea, or any tree. Then John says, I saw another angel ascending from the east having the seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it had been granted to harm the earth and the sea saying, do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees until we have sealed the servants of God on their foreheads. Could these three be referring to the three comprehensive ecosystems on which our life depends? The earth of the soil, the water, and the trees, which are the lungs of the earth are complex integrated life system, the earth, the sea, and the trees are mentioned embedded there in Revelation after the seventh trumpet sounds in Revelation 11, the 24 elders cry out against those who have wrecked havoc on creation and they say, we give you thanks, Lord God Almighty, because you have taken your great power and reigned and you are rewarding your servants, the prophets, and the saints, and you will destroy those who destroy the earth. Revelation 11, the apocalypse concludes with the splendid restoration Old Testament prophets had promised earlier. Reminding once again that redemption involves renewal of God's original creation. The material world will participate in Salva in redemption. Salvation is never described as escaping this earth, but rather reclaiming of the earth. Throughout script, you are never allowed to forget the profound value that God places on the life he has created. Environmentalists outside the Christian tradition have often been unsuccessful in arguing for such high worth. Secular materialists believe the world unfolds an endless process. Pantheists suggests that God is eternally emanating in the world. Atheists think the world evolved out of matter by chance. New ars worship the earth as divine Buddhist and Christian. Scientists believe the world itself is an illusion By contrast, seventh Day Adventists believe that God created this world with lavish care and then declared it very good. Amen. Ever since then, he's been a concerned landlord. Remember what the Levi saying in the sanctuary. You even you are Lord alone. You made heaven the heaven of heavens and all their host and the earth and all things there in, and Lord, you preserve them all. God is active in and throughout all of this created world. For in him we move and live and have our being. Acts 17, only late in the 20th century did environmental thinking slowly begin to be broad and beyond earthly human concerns. However, biblical writers express concern for this created world much earlier. The created world and Christians have one God. Thereby it should not be surprising that environmental issues are embedded in scripture. It was very good back in Eden and God's plan is to restore that goodness again. In the meantime, we can be better stewards by including this good earth in our care. Just as God has in his creation care isn't just good stewardship. It's being everything God hoped we would be. Instead of being human centered or animal centered or environmentally centered, we will be divinely centered, reflecting the image of God in which he has created us and joining the doxology chorus as they sing Praise to God. You know the words of the doxology, praise him from whom all blessings flow. Praise him all creatures here below. Let's join that great chorus. Amen.

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Series

Yes, Creation!

...and it WAS good

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Other Teachings in Series

Evolutionary thought, Spiritualism and the End of Time

How Many Dinosaurs Were On the Ark?

Some scientific data that favors a recent creation

The Biblical creation is central to the local church

Is Biblical Creation Passé?

Sabbath and Creation

Paleontology and the Bible: Science in action

Why Does a Good Creator Permit Evil?

...and it WAS good

Lions in the Garden of Eden

Does Genesis Really Teach a Recent, Literal, Seven-Day Creation Week and a Global Flood?

DNA and Design

Creation, the Heart of SDA Theology

How to share creation in outreach on secular campuses

Do millions of years solve the problem?

Theistic evolution and the end of Adventism

Dealing with uncertainty

God’s Literal, Six-day, Recent Creation--The Church’s Position

Creation and Evolution: A brief history

Seventh-day Darwinians

Sound Doctrine