6 英翻中 Genisess 4 創世記 4 12/3/2025

6 英翻中                        Genisess 4                                        創世記 4                              12/3/2025

CHAPTER FOUR                                                                                                                                        THIS IS MY FATHER’S WORLD— OR IS IT? 

I confess to my shame that during my early years of ministry I avoided having the congreation sing “This Is My Father’s World” in our worship services. Except for one line, the song emphasizes the God of nature and not the God of the cross and I wanted everything in our services to be “evangelical.” Furthermore, the language of the song was too sentimental for me, and I wondered what kind of person the composer was. Without even investigating, I concluded that anybody with a name like Maltbie D. Babcock had to be a tubercular recluse who passed away the long hours of each day looking out the window and writing maudlin poetry.                                                                                                                           Imagine how shocked and embarrassed I was to dis cover that Maltbie D. Babcock (1858–1901) was a virile Presbyterian pastor who was an excellent baseball pitcher and a champion swimmer. Most mornings, he went jogging for eight to ten miles! He told people he was going out “to see my Father’s world.”                                                                                                                                                              Of course, I’ve matured a bit since those salad days and have repented of my folly. Someday I want to meet Pastor Babcock in heaven and apologize to him. I’ve come to realize that David was right in praising the Creator in his psalms, and that the glorified beings in heaven are doing the right thing when they worship God both as Creator (Rev. 4) and Redeemer (Rev. 5), because the two go together. Creation and redemption are part of one great plan, because the redemption wrought by Jesus on the cross will bring freedom to all nature. One day God’s creation will joyfully enter into “the glorious liberty of the children of God” (Rom. 8:21). Hallelujah!                                                                                                But not everybody agrees with David and Paul and the heavenly worshippers that this is indeed “our Father’s world.” In his Prejudices: Third Series, the American newspaper editor and essayist H.L. Mencken wrote: “The universe is a gigantic fly-wheel making 10,000 rev olutions a minute. Man is a sick fly taking a dizzy ride on it. Religion is the theory that the wheel was designed and set spinning to give him the ride.” The British essay ist Walter Savage Landor said, “Taken as a whole, the universe is absurd”; and American physicist Steven Weinberg wrote, “The more the universe seems compre hensible, the more it also seems pointless.”                                                                                           Well, take your choice! But be careful, because the choice you make will determine the kind of life you’ll live on this earth and your eternal destiny when you leave it. The atheist says that the universe is only an orderly accident. Agnostics admit that they just don’t know and aren’t too worried. Theists confess that God originally created everything but has long since for saken what He made. But the Christian believer still sings, “This is my Father’s world.”                                                                                   What difference does it make that Christians believe in a Creator who not only made the universe but presides over it and controls its destiny? If in church we sing “This Is My Father’s World,” then how should we live in the marketplace and the neighbor hood to prove that we really mean it? 

We will worship God alone                                                                                                                        “Let all the earth fear the Lord; let all the people of the world revere him. For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm” (Ps. 33:8–9 niv).                                                                                            Creation reveals the existence of God, the power of God, and the wisdom of God. That this complex uni verse should appear by accident out of nothing from a “big bang” is as probable as the works of Shakespeare resulting from an explosion in a printing plant. Only a God of power could create something out of nothing, and only a God of wisdom could make it function as it does. The scientist is only thinking God’s thoughts after Him and discovering the laws that God built into His world at creation.                                                                                                                                                                      Paul affirmed that creation proves God’s “eternal power and Godhead” (Rom. 1:20); and David sang, “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firma ment shows His handiwork” (Ps. 19:1 nkjv). Jesus didn’t hesitate to use the word “creation” (Mark 10:6; 13:19), nor did Paul (Rom. 8:1–20, 22) and Peter (2 Peter 3:4).                                                                                                                                                     Romans 1:18–32 explains the devolution of mankind from the knowledge of the true and living God to the worship of false gods and dead idols. Contrary to what some comparative religion scholars teach, mankind didn’t begin its religious journey by worshipping the things of nature and then gradually climb upward to worship one God. Actually, mankind began at the top, knowing the true God, but to gratify their passionate appetites, they refused to worship Him and turned instead to idols. “Thus does the world for get You, its Creator,” wrote Augustine, “and falls in love with what You have created instead of with You.”                                                                                                                                                 When David considered the greatness of the heav ens, he had to ask, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him?” (Ps. 8:3–4). The prophet Isaiah contemplated the greatness of the Creator and clearly saw the foolishness of idola try (Isa. 40:12–26; 45:5–18). 

                             Lord, how Thy wonders are displayed,                                                                                                                        Where’er I turn my eye:                                                                                                                           If I survey the ground I tread,                                                                                                                                  Or gaze upon the sky!                                                                                                                                                                     Isaac Watts                                                                                  Atour guide at an atomic laboratory gave his group opportunity to ask questions, and one visitor asked: “You say that this whole world that seems so solid is nothing but electric particles in motion. If that’s true, what holds it all together?” The guide’s honest reply was, “We don’t know.” But Paul answered that question centuries ago: “all things were created by him [Jesus Christ] and for him. He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together” (Col. 1:16–17 niv). This is the God we worship, and creation joins with us in praising Him (Ps. 19:1–5; 96:10–13; 148:1–13).   

We will be good stewards of His creation                                                                                                  When God gave the first man and woman dominion over creation (Gen. 1:26–30), He put them and their descendants under obligation to value His gifts and use them carefully for His glory. God created everything for His glory and pleasure (Rev. 4:11) as well as for our enjoyment and use (1 Tim. 6:17; Acts 17:24–28), and we must always see ourselves as stewards in God’s world. To destroy creation and waste its bounties is to sin against God.                                                                                                                       In this universe, we have God, people, and the things that God made, among them water, land, ani mal and plant life, air, and vast resources underground. We’re commanded to worship God, love people, and use things for the glory of God and the good of others. When this divine order becomes confused, then God’s creation suffers. When in our greed we start lusting after things, we soon begin to ignore God, abuse peo ple, and destroy creation. Novelist Alan Paton wrote, “The ground is holy, being even as it came from the Creator. Keep it, guard it, care for it, for it keeps men, guards men, cares for men. Destroy it and man is destroyed.”                                                                                                                        God wrote into the law of Moses His concern for people, animals, plants, and the land with its resources. The Sabbath day gave rest to both the workers and their animals (Ex. 20:8–11; 23:12), and the Sabbatical Year and Year of Jubilee gave rest to the land (Lev. 25). Because the Jews didn’t obey these laws, they went into captivity so that the land could enjoy its Sabbaths and be renewed (2 Chron. 36:14–21).                                                                                                                                                                      God gave Israel regulations concerning lost and fallen animals (Deut. 22:1–4), nesting birds (22:6–7), plowing animals (22:10), and newborn animals (Lev. 22:26–28). The psalmist praised God for His constant concern and care for animals and people (Ps. 102:10–30). There’s no escaping the fact that God hasn’t deserted His creation, but mankind has certainly desecrated and destroyed God’s creation. Why? Because people think they own creation. They forget that we’re God’s tenants and stewards of His gifts.                                                                                                                                                                         Ecology experts claim that 100 species of plants and animals become extinct every day, and that the destruc tion of forests and the pollution of water and air is producing more and more ecological tragedies as time goes on. Yet God loves His creation and wants us to use it lovingly. “The Lord is good to all; He has compas sion on all He has made. … The Lord is faithful to all His promises and loving toward all He has made … The Lord is righteous in all His ways and loving toward all He has made” (Ps. 145:9, 13, 17 niv). Dare we exploit and destroy the creation that God loves?  

We will trust in God’s providence and not worry                                                                                    The agnostic and atheist have every right to worry because (as someone has said) “they have no invisible means of support.” To them, the universe is a self-made impersonal machine, not the creation of a wise God and loving Father. But Christian believers see creation as their Father’s world. They call the Creator “Father,” and they trust Him with their lives, their circum stances, and their future.                               Everything in nature praises the Lord and looks to Him for whatever they need. “These all wait for You, that You may give them their food in due season” (Ps. 104:27 nkjv). There’s no evidence that robins get ulcers or that rabbits have nervous breakdowns.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            Said the robin to the sparrow,                                                                                                                        “I should really like to know,                                                                                                                      Why those anxious human beings                                                                                                                      Rush around and worry so.”                                                                                                                         Said the sparrow to the robin,                                                                                                                            “I do think that it must be                                                                                                                      That they have no Heavenly Father                                                                                                                      Such as cares for you and me.”  

                The universe isn’t a vast machine that God created, wound up, and then abandoned. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it” (Ps. 24:1 niv). “Whatever the Lord pleases He does, in heaven and in earth, in the seas and in all deep places” (Ps. 135:6 nkjv). “In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind” (Job 12:10).                                                       The word “providence” comes from two Latin words that together mean “to see beforehand.” No matter what has to be done, the Lord will see to it (Gen. 22:13–14). Planet Earth isn’t staggering around in space like a helpless drunk. God has the whole world in His hands and is working out His divine purposes for the good of His people and the glory of His name. It’s that assurance that gives His people peace, no mat ter how difficult the circumstances may be. “The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. … Be still, and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:7, 10).                                                                 In the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5—7), Jesus tells us how to cure anxious care. We must put our lives in the hands of the Father and trust Him to guide us and provide for us a day at a time (6:24–34). If we put things first in our lives, then we’ll worry and fret, but if we put God’s kingdom first, He’ll meet our needs and give us His peace (v. 33). He is working all things together for good right now (Rom. 8:28), even though we may not see or understand all that He’s doing for us.   接我們要向天父禱告. 23頁