Sustainability

Through all my thirty-three years of living in California, I often heard the word "sustainability."  It means "to exist constantly."  Only God has existed constantly (Psalm 90:2).  God alone sustains the whole universe, all matter and space, and then the earth.  Speaking of Jesus, John writes (John 1:3):

All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made.

Speaking of Jesus, the author of Hebrews writes (1:2-3):

Hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;  Who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power.

The Apostle Paul also speaks of Jesus, saying (Colossians 1:16-17):

For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: And he is before all things, and by him all things consist. 

To put all these scriptural quotes together, everything was made by the Lord Jesus, He upholds all of them by the word of His power, they were created by Him and for Him, and by Him all things consist.

Man does not sustain Himself.  He does not have the power even to sustain his own body or even further basic singular functions within the body, let alone his body.  He doesn't sustain his circulatory system or nervous system.  Scientists themselves know that atoms that make up man's body are held together by, to them, some mysterious strong nuclear force.

The main promoters of sustainability do not mention God.  Most of them see man as responsible for sustainability.  Jesus said (John 14:6), "I am the way, the truth, and the life," and (John 11:25), "I am the resurrection and the life."  The Psalms point to God's power and care for sustainability.  Psalm 104 presents a beautiful picture of God's sustaining.

God created the world (Psalm 104:1-5), covered the world (vv. 6-10), and then continues the world (vv. 11-35).  The sustaining of the planet by God starts with water (vv. 11-14), then plant life, the growing and thriving of plants (vv. 15-18), the changing of the seasons and night and day (vv. 19-20), the feeding of the animals (vv. 21-28).  God's sustaining also includes the death and the birth of all living things (vv. 29-30).  Even though God does all this, the spokes-people of sustainability, even professing Christians, won't dare mention God.  Romans 1 calls this "unthankful."  It is part of the suppression of knowledge about God that characterizes a reprobate mind.  Reprobates leave God out of the sustainability conversation.  Many of them would be bored to or turned off from reading this, but they would gladly take in the instructions of a pagan.

The purveyors of sustainability limit their conversation just to what man does.  Even if man works for God in sustaining the earth, what we categorize under stewardship of the planet, God has already formulated that plan in the Bible.  In God's law, He scattered towns throughout the entire land of Israel, and He detailed the amount of pasture land each town was to have (Numbers 32:2-5).  From the very beginning of His creation, God involved man in the tending of His creation.  He wants that.  It's called subduing and having dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26-29).  The Bible speaks in a sufficient manner for man to succeed at this responsibility of man.  Man can't do it though, except through a new nature that comes only through justification by faith in Jesus Christ.  No other avenue exists.

The original world God created was destroyed by God Himself because of sin.  That is the reason for the present world in which we live.  This goes unmentioned by the sustainability people, including those who call themselves Christians.  They don't honor God and in so doing, they hate God.  They do not give Him glory, when He created them for His pleasure, not their own.  They do this at their own peril.  They will not be sustained, except in a place separate from God that is eternal death.

Science right now even shows that there are hundreds of aspects of our lives in the physical world that have nothing to do with us.  We have no control over them related to sustainability.  We know from scripture and from general revelation in creation that God is responsible for this, what Thomas Jefferson called the laws of nature and nature's God.

No sustainability will occur without God.  Those who will not point people to God involve themselves in a futile pursuit.  They need to subject themselves to Him and then teach sustainability with Him at the forefront rather than cowering away from Him and hiding their light under a basket.  The sustainability crowd though wants man at the forefront.  That way they can also live according to their own lust.  Sin is at the root of the future destruction of the world and it is why this planet is a disposable one.  God is not going to sustain it, we know, and no one will escape from God either to a colony on the moon (Jeff Bezos) or Mars (Elon Musk).

All life comes from God and He sustains life.  He does more in one second than all men combined in the entire history of mankind do and have done in their efforts to sustain this world.  And then they give Him no credit for this lovingkindness and grace.  This is heinous pride, man-exalting pride!  Instead, they continue using the resources, the ones God creates and sustains, even if in a slightly more sustainable fashion and then trumpeting their own accomplishments on social media.  Shame on them.  Repent ye sinners.