The Earth is the Lord’s – Sunday, June 12, 1983
The forces of nature have been much in the news lately; volcanic eruptions, floods, earthquakes, and unusual weather patterns have made the headlines throughout the world. Some areas of the world have experienced drought in what is normally a rainy season. Here, in the usually arid west, we’ve had more water than the ground can hold.
There are lessons we might gain from such events: lessons about architectures, city planning, preparation for emergencies—both personal and public. But one of the most basic messages from all this is the reminder that we are tenants and not the owners of this world we inhabit.
As the Psalmist sang, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof; the world, and they that dwell therein. For he hath founded it upon the seas and established it upon the fioods.”1
We may pride ourselves on our accomplishments in building cities, channeling rivers, developing new strains of plants and animals and even modestly altering rainfall through such things as cloud seeding; but it only takes a minute shift in the forces and factors of the elements to quickly remind us how puny our little efforts are compared to the power of nature.
We cannot cap a volcano or calm a tornado. We cannot stem the tide of a rampaging river. We cannot stop the slippage of the earth’s crust.
Are we then helpless before the blind forces of nature? Not really. For we have the power of appeal to the Creator and Ruler of this world.
We can have the assurance that He is our Father in Heaven, that He loves us, and can order the elements to our best good. This does not mean we will not suffer some stormy days and sightless nights, some tempests and some turbulence. But if we put our trust in God and keep His commandments, He will give us strength to stand against the challenges of life. And as we try to make His purposes our own, we will understand more of the workings of nature, and of our place in the plan of life. The laws and forces of nature will become more often our allies and less often our enemies.
And when the time comes that nature ultimately takes its course, when in the pattern of things, we pass from this world into the next, this transition will hold no terror for us. It will be as gentle as the passing of clouds, as natural as a planted seed that springs forth with more abundant life.
1 Old Testament, Psalms 24:1,2
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June 12, 1983
Broadcast Number 2,808