Our chief relation to creation is our dependency on it. We cannot survive without the fruit of the earth. While hundreds of passages in God’s special revelation (the book of God’s words) support this fact, general revelation (the book of God’s works) also reminds us of this truth daily. We are totally reliant upon the fruitfulness of the creation for our health and livelihood.

This dependence is why we need to give careful consideration to the biblical principle of sowing and reaping. This principle says, in essence, that if we sow foolish and sinful behavior, we will reap negative consequences. Sometimes the consequences are the result of God’s direct action in punishment for sin, such as the curse on creation that resulted from Adam and Eve’s sin of disobedience—and for which we are still reaping negative results. Other times we reap the natural effects of ignorant or careless behavior. America’s Dust Bowl years during the Great Depression and the Soviet Union’s Chernobyl nuclear disaster are examples of this sort of reaping.

KEY SCRIPTURE:
When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, 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 will forgive their sin and heal their land (2 Chr. 7:13-14). He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and vegetation for the service of man, that he may bring forth food from the earth, and wine that makes glad the heart of man, oil to make his face shine, and bread which strengthens man’s heart (Ps. 104:14-15).

Often, both natural and supernatural consequences occur. A prime example is the result of Israel’s failure to give the land rest in compliance with the Sabbath laws of God. There were both natural and supernatural reasons for Sabbath-keeping. Naturally the Sabbath laws provided the rest the land needed from being pressed too hard for its produce. People and animals also required this cessation of work. [Click on the photo of the “Pennsylvania Dutch” girl and her wonderful 6-mule team in Lancaster County. Click the return arrow to come back to the site.]

There were, however, spiritual reasons for the keeping of the Sabbath. When the people violated the Sabbath laws, God supernaturally brought judgment upon them. Read the reasons for Judah’s captivity in 2 Chronicles 36. This account is summed up in verses 20 and 21: Those who escaped from the sword he carried away to Babylon, where they became servants to him and his sons until the rule of the kingdom of Persia, to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed her Sabbaths. As long as she lay desolate she kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years.

God is concerned about the care of our spiritual nature. And it is that “inner world” that is violated when we thoughtlessly dismiss God’s command to care for the “outer world” He has given to us.

How can we celebrate the wonder of God in creation?
By recognizing that the creation is the natural and material source of life and health for all creatures, and by seeking to protect and preserve