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Verse:Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. —Genesis 1:31
The earth is our present home, and we should care for it.
But many of its natural resources are being irresponsibly destroyed through “oil spills, polluting factories and power plants, raw sewage, toxic dumps, pesticides, freeways, the loss of wilderness, and the extinction of wildlife.” In early 1969, a major oil spill off the coast of Santa Barbara, California, killed more than ten thousand seabirds, dolphins, seals, and sea lions. As a reaction to this disaster, activists pushed for environmental regulations, environmental education, and even an Earth Day.
On April 22, 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated in the United States, with some twenty million people uniting to promote environmental reform.
The movement grew significantly. In 1990, some two hundred million people in 141 countries enhanced recycling efforts, helping “pave the way for the 1992 United Nations Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.”35 In the document “Stewardship of the Environment,” the Seventh-day Adventist Church officially condemned the irresponsible destruction of the earth’s resources and suggested substantial lifestyle changes.
The document declared, “Seventh-day Adventism advocates a simple, wholesome lifestyle, where people do not step on the treadmill of unbridled over-consumption, accumulation of goods, and production of waste. A reformation of lifestyle is called for, based on respect for nature, restraint in the use of the world’s resources, reevaluation of one’s needs, and reaffirmation of the dignity of created life.” Adventists believe that the world is a result of God’s creation, not an accident (Genesis 1; 2).
In its original form, the world “was very good” (Genesis 1:31), and God commanded Adam “to tend and keep it” (Genesis 2:15).
People of every generation —including our own— are stewards of God’s creation and should preserve it in the best way possible.
We should remember that nature reveals the character of its Creator, and in destroying it, we obscure that revelation.
The fact that God will finally create “a new heaven and a new earth” (Revelation 21:1) should never be used as an excuse for careless stewardship.
Let us help make our world a better place to live and a small foretaste of the glorious world to come!