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Whose Woods Are These? I Think I Know!

Some fundamentalists don’t seem to have the fundamentals written on the tablets of their hearts! When it comes to acknowledging the capabilities of the creation and every creature, many are either ignorant of what God says about the creation or they simply don’t care. When men don’t care about God’s input, they are rejecting God Himself.

One internationally known evangelist said recently, about earth’s forests, “God made all the wood for man to cut. It is ours. All of it!” Adding, as if trying to erase any remaining sympathy in part of his audience towards the green movement, which he condemned, he chuckled out loud sarcastically.

The New Testament teaches that, “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof and correction and instruction in righteousness.” (2Timothy 3:16) Scriptures are not presented for our debate: they are God-given for our learning and admonition to create right thinking and right action! God’s word says, “If they do not speak according to my word it is because there is no light (revelation) in them.” Don’t you want to know what your Heavenly Father has spoken? If you are double-minded, you won’t receive anything from the Lord, but if your eye is single for God’s word, your whole body will be filled with light. You won’t just see fragmented unrelated pieces of truth. Deciding which scriptures are important and worthy of your attention will allow the bottomless pits of ignorance to deprive you of comprehending the Heavenly Vision. Keep in mind we are called to be the ambassadors of Christ and the Kingdom of Heaven. God only has one eternal purpose, one intention of His calling (Ephesians 3:11 & 4:4-5), and we all need to be functioning from the core of this purpose and speaking in accordance with that heavenly vision. Before that all congeals in your heart and mind you need to receive some of the divinely inspired “puzzle pieces” and look at the implications of those scriptures. Let’s just open the blinds to a very brief peek at some of those scriptures.

Jesus said the stones are able to cry out praises to the Messiah. Think of that…the stones can praise our Lord! It is now documented that certain plant communities invaded by a specific insect or disease can communicate quite a distance to other plants in their community and instruct them to all begin producing a precise chemical to repel their enemies. Science is now discovering much in these areas.

In Psalms 148, the trees are told to praise Him and in Isaiah 55:12 we are informed, “All the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” Psalms 96:12 says, “Let the field and all its bio-diversity be filled with joy, then shall all the trees of the forest rejoice.” The Bible also tells us that the wilderness can mourn. If the wilderness can mourn, and trees can praise our God, applaud and rejoice, must we not ask ourselves just what are we dealing with here? I say we can no longer look at a tree as an unfeeling and insensitive inanimate object. If that were so, God would not say that when the antichrist is put down no lumber man will come up against the forests.

All the creatures of the forest belong…not to the Game Commission, but to the Lord. Birds, even turkeys, cry unto the Lord and He feeds them. If you ever witness a flock of wild turkeys trudging single file like a noble but lost band of soldiers through the frozen forest you will recognize why Benjamin Franklin wanted to make them our national bird.

The scripture says that all things were made by Jesus Christ and through Him and for Him. It is for Christ’s pleasure that all things are and were created, and not as the evangelist at the beginning of this article insisted, just for human utilitarian purposes or blood sport!

Men who only measure a tree by its cord of firewood or its board feet of lumber will no doubt have a quarrel with me saying he sees the tears of the groaning wilderness or hears the applause of a forest or notices the delight of a great tree standing before its Creator. But their quarrel is with the Word of God that abides forever and with their Creator, not with me!

I recently heard on one ministers program, whose ministry is attaching a tremendous following: “The church has been remiss in supporting the environmental movement, but those days are over. From now on the Body of Christ will take the leadership in supporting this move of God and learning from those environmental leaders to whom we previously did not give our attention.” I will write more about this soon, God willing and I live. I have great concern that this transition to “environmentalism” within the church may fly under the banner of mere “Conservation.” Stripping the eco-system for the objective of supplying building materials is a far cry and a poor substitute for the singular eternal purpose of Almighty God! The creation God wants to spread from Death Valley to the distant stars is an Eden that spontaneously stimulates spiritual worship and praise to the one who sits on the throne.

Some time ago I learned of a senator who apparently had never heard of the prophet Noah who was commanded to keep alive every species upon the face of the earth. If God is no longer interested in protecting every species, He will have to apologize to Noah! Perhaps he had also never read, “That God should ruin all those who ruin the earth.” Rev.11:18. This senator wanted to clear cut 3,000 acres which would be repeatedly sprayed with toxic chemicals and afterwards planted to a single commercial species in our national forest. This action is repeated over and over again while many conservatives support it. Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest belongs to the Nation and the Nation wants to experience some wilderness solitude. They long for some forests that remain untouched and unspoiled.

On the other hand, the senator would have it be a project demonstrating once and for all that you can successfully destroy the many species that occupy a great forest and still get a harvest from one single commercial hybrid species. We all knew that. We know you can kill just about everything and still figure a way to squeeze a buck out of it!

Perhaps you don’t care that God is listening. And the senator may not care that God’s eyes are looking to and fro through all the earth to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose hearts are perfect towards Him, but many of you conservatives support the senators actions that contradict the scripture and the intention of God Almighty. Do you have any understanding about why God is allowing this world, right now, to be shaken? God knows exactly why there’s a whole lot of shaking going on and why there will be much more.

To you I must say I am not condemning you because I know you do these things because you didn’t know that animals talk to God or that they are seated in heavenly places with him. Neither did you know that the forests praise Him, but now you do. And if you look a little more deeply you might discover that trees appreciate a good hug as much as you might. If they can clap their hands and lift their praises to their Creator, they obviously must have feelings too. Tell me this as you are contemplating how many remaining patches of old growth forests you can export and how wealthy you can become from doing so: why does the scripture say that at Christ’s return, all the earth is quiet and at rest? (Sounds like, pardon the pun, you won’t hear any chain saws or logging trucks, derrick signals or dozers cutting their way into wilderness.)

I know whose woods these are and He will soon be taking them back because we have exercised our fallen dominion and not the abad and shamar of a redeemed and restored people. (See Rev.10) You can hear chain saws and log trucks all around our National Forests and across our nation, but more Americans than not would prefer to hear an intact forest filled with happy creatures and a forest that is still singing!

 

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