Focal Point

Dave Druey: Recycling, climate change, melting glaciers. Environmental issues are hot buttons for debate and policy. But as Christians and future citizens of heaven, what's our take on Earth Day? That's the topic of today's Ask Pastor Mike.

Welcome to Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez. I'm your host, Dave Druey. So glad to have you with us. It seems like everyone's up in arms these days about the effects of human activity on the environment. So are we called to serve creation, or is creation here to serve us?

For the next half hour, we're sitting down with pastor and Bible teacher Mike Fabarez to answer questions about the environment from a biblical perspective. So without any further delay, let's join the executive director of Focal Point as we enter the pastor's study. J. Morton, go right ahead.

J. Morton: Well, thank you, Dave. Pastor Mike, the question is, should Christians celebrate or honor or observe Earth Day?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: I guess it depends on how you celebrate it. It did start as a day to honor the earth. I don't think that as a Christian I'm called to honor the earth. I'm called to be a good steward of the earth. I'm all about that, and I think we should be careful.

We have responsibilities, as the book of Genesis tells us, to be good stewards of the earth and have dominion over the earth. That means I'm certainly going to care for the earth. Caring for the planet is a little different than honoring the planet, if honoring the planet means what I see in so many people's lives, and that is they become fixated on global issues related to climate or the earth and it becomes the obsession of their life.

I certainly warn people of that. I think of Romans chapter one, where you've got a lot of people that are serving the created things, speaking of things on this earth and the earth itself in our case and in our day, instead of the one who created it. I think it changes everything to know that I worship God. I worship the creator of the earth.

He's put me in a place I need to take care of. It would be like my home. I don't want to have a house day where I honor the house. I'm grateful for my house. I try to keep it up. I try to do what I can to make sure it functions well. I don't want to start fires in the corner of my house and burn it down or parts of it. I'm all for being a good steward of my home, but I don't worship my home. It's not of central importance to me. It's something I utilize and try to utilize for the glory of God, but it doesn't become the focus of my honor.

J. Morton: I guess the question would be, when does stewardship go to earth worship? What goes too far practically in our lives where we would consider that?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: That's a good question, and that line may be hard to define, hard for me to define for other people. I guess it's when we attribute to the planet or the earth or the environment or global climate things that we should attribute to God.

By that I mean when we see it as our only hope, we see it as the source of everything that I need. I need to keep my focus on the fact that God is the sustainer, he's the supplier, he is everything in terms of what I need, and the earth is the place I've been given to live. So I recognize the importance of the earth, but I don't allow it to be the end-all in terms of what I am going to focus my attention on.

J. Morton: So how far do we take things like recycling, our carbon footprint, and so on? Surely we want to be good stewards of those things because they're earth's resources and we want to protect and keep our earth as healthy as we can, but how far does that go?

Pastor Mike Fabarez: Right. Well, there are certain laws, particularly where we live out here in California. As you know, we're forced to do a lot of things that even in my mind, I would step back and say this is probably going to too far. But I have to be a law-abiding citizen and I have to do what the government requires of me until it leads me to break the law of God.

For me to separate my trash as I have to do, fine, I'll do that, although I do think there's some interesting articles out there about how that whole thing is working out in terms of our economy and the planet and all that. I won't get into that, but my point is I'll do what our world is asking us to do.

Even again, my heart is the real check for me. What am I in my heart putting my confidence in, my hope in? I'll be a good steward. I will try to not litter. I'll try not to throw motor oil down the drain. I'm going to do what I should do, but I'm not one recognizing that, as is so often pitched in this society, if we don't take care of Mother Earth in the way that they want me to, then we have no hope.

It seems like an all-absorbing focus on everything related to what goes on here on the planet. If that is the view, then we have no hope for the future. The world is made for us to inhabit. When you flip that upside down and it becomes that we're kind of the intruders and we're the scar on the planet, the scourge of the planet, that's not the case.

God made this earth for us to develop it, to subdue it, to live in it, and this is what it's there for. So you have a naturalistic view that leads to a lot of the ecological philosophies that are out there that lead to a lot of things that I'm just not going to subscribe to because the Bible's very clear about this planet being here for us. In a sense, what a lot of what goes on in Earth Day is that we're supposed to be here for it. No, I'm supposed to be a good steward of it, which means I'm going to treat it kindly and I'm going to be smart about how I deal with its resources, but I'm not here for it. It, in a very real sense, is here for us.

J. Morton: Maybe you could talk a little bit what the Bible says is earth's ultimate end.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: When we talk about global warming, the ultimate global warming, I suppose, is the fact that it says in Second Peter the place is going to burn with a word of God. He's reserving this world for fire. The Bible says with a word he is going to destroy it.

Now, that doesn't mean that I got the right to set it on fire. I'm all for saying there's no correlation there. But again, I'm not putting my trust in the planet and I'm not saying that it is the end-all of my focus and concern and I've got to somehow coddle this planet because it's so fragile and if I don't take care of it in the way that everyone says I should to the nth degree, it can't live on forever the way it's in the naturalistic point of view going to have to do to sustain people forever on the planet.

Listen, God has got an end. Time is linear. It's moving toward a conclusion and I do know that one day everything on this planet is going to be burned up, which again, don't hear from that statement that that gives me the right to set it on fire.

It's like my body I'm living in right now. I know the end of it is going to return to dust. That's what the Bible says. I've come from the ground, I'm going to return to the ground, but it doesn't mean I'm going to sit here and put my hand in a vise and smash my fingers. I'm going to take care of it, but I'm not going to obsess about it.

You can see that's a good parallel, as long as I brought that up. You see a lot of people that worship their bodies as though they're not going to get sick and die. We as Christians recognize we live in the body for a short time. We're good stewards of our body, but we don't worship our bodies and we're not in the gym every single day trying to maximize our bodies so that there's never a single thing ever wrong with it and we live in some fantasy that it's going to live on forever. Surely it's not.

So it's different. Although it may look the same to some people, if I don't litter and the ecologically minded person that loves the planet a lot differently than I do, they worship it or honor it in a way that I shouldn't and don't as a Christian, we may do a lot of things that look the same, but our motives are different. Our mindset is different. Our idea of where this is headed is different. Just like you might find a Christian in the gym taking care of his physical body, but he doesn't have that body worship that so many non-Christians have and trying to hang onto their youth thinking they're never going to die.

J. Morton: Well, thank you, Pastor Mike. I trust this has been an informative conversation for our listeners and we're going to complete our time together with a message you gave called "Sin and the Fall" from the Fallen Humanity series.

Pastor Mike Fabarez: In Genesis chapter two, verse nine, we have that passage and I'll read it for you: "Out of the ground, the Lord God made to spring up every tree, they were pleasant for sight, good for food, and the tree of life was in the midst," the Hebrew word means the middle, "the middle of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was also there."

There's a connective, a conjunction. So we've got two trees that were distinguished from all the rest: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and the tree of life. Two trees in the middle of the garden. This one's obviously called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which is aptly named.

Here is something designated in the text that was given to Moses through the inspiration of God's spirit describing this scene as something of a tree that is going to give the experience of good and evil if it's partaken of. You don't want to partake of it, you'd rather be confirmed in your human holiness, but that's what it's called.

I just want to make the point that the tree is presented in scripture, not only in Genesis three but throughout the Bible, as just a tree. It's a tree like any other tree, only it's designated because of the role it plays. It is something that is prohibited.

It's not like a wall socket where you say to your kids, "Well, you can play with this picture, you can play with this whiteboard, but just don't touch the electrical outlet because in the day you touch the electrical outlet you will surely die." There's no correspondence there because we recognize there is something going through the electrical current of our house that could injure our kid and conceivably kill our kid. So we prohibit something because there's something inherent in it.

That's not the case with the tree. At least, that's my conclusion of what I read in the Bible. It's simply a tree. The prohibition is what's important, and that creates then a moral dilemma, if you will. Something that's good for food, it's pleasant to look at like all the other trees, but it has been cordoned off morally as something that I cannot eat. It's simply a test of obedience.

Let me read those verses, verses 15 through 17: "The Lord took the man, put him in the garden to work it and keep it. God commanded the man saying, 'Surely you should eat of every tree in the garden, they're all open to you, but the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat it, for in the day you eat of it, you will surely die.'" Very familiar words. That's what's going on. It's simply a test of obedience.

The fruit, by the way, is not named and I know most of you Sunday school graduates know that. There's been a lot of speculation throughout church history as to what kind of fruit it was. Apple became very popular in Western art, certainly the Renaissance and actually coming out of early Western depictions of the garden scene, apple became what it was drawn to be. It was a recognizable apple.

In Latin, the word apple is *malum*. The word for evil in Latin is *malum*. It's very similar. The vowels are just pronounced a little bit different. Same spelling, actually. So evil, which you might recognize the root of that *m-a-l*, mal, that suffix and that root that's often used in other words in Latin that come into English, we've got the word apple identically spelled to the word evil, and that is one theory as to why everybody liked to identify it as an apple.

I don't think there was anything poison or anything magical in this. There was nothing inherent in it that did something bad to them. God looked back and said about all that he created, "It is good, it is good, it is good." I don't think there's this dangerous fruit that's in the middle of the garden that's going to mess their ontological makeup up in some way.

So let's talk about the Fall itself. Let's read it. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God actually say to you, "You shall not eat of any tree in the garden"?'" Well, that's not what he said. The woman said to the serpent, "We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, 'You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle or the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it lest you die.'"

But the serpent said to the woman, "You shall surely not die. You shall not surely die for the Lord knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil." And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and she gave some of it to her husband who was with her and he ate. And the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths.

All right, let's talk about this. The intro in verse number one, we have a tempter. And the tempter is doing bad. He's tempting. So we know he's already fallen. We have no understanding of how he got there. Matter of fact, we won't get anything in writing about this except for allusions to this, and this is going to be in 700, 600 BC.

Isaiah 14:12 through 15. Here we have, and you know both these passages, Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 both speak of foreign kings, but all of a sudden we get discussions that just can't fit the foreign king, so we have some window into what happened in the fall of the enemy who's clearly involved in what's going on in these foreign countries at the time.

"How you've fallen from heaven, oh, Helel." That is the word translated here in the ESV, "O Daystar." It's also translated the morning star. It's the star you see in the morning. It's the most prominent of all the stars. Some people struggle with it because Jesus is called the morning star in the New Testament and they have all kinds of conspiracy theories about this passage.

Stop with all that because there's a lot of names of God and of Christ that Satan is described as. He's described as an angel of light. We don't get very upset about that, but that's clearly what he's called among other things.

So whatever we're dealing with here is where we get through the translation of the word Lucifer from, the morning star, the Daystar. "Oh son of the dawn, how you've been cut down to the ground, you who've laid the nations low. You were such a hotshot, look what you did, but now you've been cast down.

"You've said in your heart, 'I will ascend to heaven above the stars of God, I will set my throne on high, I will sit on the mount of the assembly in the far reaches of the north. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High.' But you're brought down to Sheol to the far reaches of the pit."

Ezekiel 28 basically falls into the same pattern here and we're just jumping into the middle of these passages, but now we're actually getting the words that go beyond Daystar, morning star, the one in the host that stands out above the others. And the host is the way it's always describing not just the stars but the angels of heaven.

And it says here, "You are the anointed guardian cherub." These are clearly angelic terms here. "I placed you, you were on the mountain of God in the midst of the stones of fire you walked," whatever that means. "You were blameless in all your ways from the day you were created till unrighteousness was found in you."

You peel this together even before the New Testament references that we have, you put these two together, you've got a picture of something that is unsatisfactory in a sense, that we just have someone that is found with iniquity because of a prideful view of himself and an exaltation to want to be like God as it says in Isaiah 14, and in that he's judged and cast out.

There's some kind of desire to supplant the authority of God, to exalt himself, to be filled with pride. It's just called unrighteousness there in Ezekiel 28:15. And that's the best we can do. We can pull Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 together and say, here's how he fell. When did that happen? I'm not sure. But obviously, we have a bad seed here in the garden.

His form. Now here's how he's introduced, chapter three, verse one: "Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field." Serpent. You see the word serpent, instantly you think of a snake. You need to remember whatever's going on in verse one of chapter three of Genesis is pre-curse and the curse takes place for the snake in verse 14 where it says the Lord God said to the serpent, "Because you've done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all of the beasts of the field and on your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life."

I've heard the comedians or one comedian at least mock this passage because they said, "Well, a snake, that's no curse for a snake because that's what he already does." That's certainly not what we have because whatever happens in verse 14 changes the form of the snake.

See, so what do we have in Genesis one? We didn't have a snake as we know a snake, but whatever this pre-cursed creature was, it was an animal that had some commonality with the other animals and there was some normalcy apparently with Eve having a conversation.

And you're thinking, "Well, that's odd." God creates a lot of interesting-looking animals. One happens to talk to her. May look like who knows what. There's a lot of speculation here. What can I say? That's what's going on in this passage. The embodiment of the tempter who is a spiritual being, not a physical being, not a corporal being, inhabiting some kind of animal and working through that animal.

Let's talk about the temptation. An appeal to self-direction. Do what you want. This is good, look at it. And he gets her thinking that in verse number six. It's good for food, it's a delight to the eyes, it's to be desired to make one wise.

Now we don't have every word I'm sure that the tempter said recorded in this text, but she gets the idea as she muses on the opportunity. It's good, it's helpful, I should have those things and I should get what I want.

Post-fall realities. What's the first thing that happens? Verse number seven, they feel guilty. Take a look at verse number seven. The eyes of both of them were opened, they knew that they were naked, they sewed fig leaves together and they made themselves loincloths.

The bottom line is there's something to this nakedness that exposes their moral problem of shame. It says there in Genesis 3:8, they heard the sound of the Lord walking in the garden of the cool of the day, the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called out to the man and said, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself." He said, "Who told you you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree which I commanded you not to eat?"

The man said, "The woman whom you gave me to be with me, she gave me the fruit of the tree and I ate." I mean, that's awesome. It didn't work, but it was a nice try. And the Lord turns to the woman, "Well, what have you done?" The woman said, "Well, it was the serpent that deceived me and I ate."

So we have a problem. We have hiding, we have guilt, we have a relational problem. It's a lot like Isaiah 59:1 and 2: "Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened that it cannot save." And in the context there, they're wondering at the collapse of the Southern Kingdom.

He's saying, "Well, it's not that God couldn't fix this and I know you're praying and it's not that he can't hear you, he can certainly hear you, but the problem is your iniquities have made this relational separation between you and your God." In the day they ate of the fruit, they died.

What kind of death did they have? Death is, by definition, a separation. And in this case, the kind of death we're talking about, a spiritual death, is what I like to call a relational death. There was a chasm, there was a barrier, there was a problem. They're no longer in fellowship.

It says sin does that. Sin has hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. Well, we just saw in verse number one of Isaiah 59 that he *can* hear, he certainly *can* hear, it's just that he doesn't hear, and by hearing we mean he's not responsive. Why? Because there's a relational problem and sin causes that. And of course we preach on that all the time, there's nothing new there.

And it comes with excuse-making always. "You should save us," and in Isaiah we've read a lot of that, too. They've got a lot of reasons why things are the way they are. They're great at rationalizing and making excuses about their sin. Nevertheless, sin causes relational problems with the holy God.

Because sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, which the concept of death is more than just biological death, surely that's an aspect of it, so death spread to all men because all sinned. Now you've got to define that phrase "all sinned." How did we sin?

Augustine said we all sinned in Adam. Now I know if you're really theologically nuanced, you may want to make a distinction between federalism, the federal head of Adam, or the true pure Augustinian view, the Calvin's view of this, but the idea is, even let's just merge those two views together, the point is we sinned in Adam one way or another and that's our guilt that comes not just to our bodies but comes to our spirit as lost individuals. We're born and conceived in sin, as David put it.

"For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man and all of his progeny, how much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ." Now this is what's happening. We are getting credited the righteousness of Christ.

I am now viewed as clothed in Christ, not just my body, but who I am as a person. I'm adopted and considered holy, set apart, and acceptable to my creator because of Christ's righteousness. That's called imputation. It was credited to me as righteousness because I believed what God did, what he said, what he promised, I put my trust in the finished work of Christ and all of that has been imputed to me, credited to me.

*Logizomai* is the word that is used throughout the beginning of Romans to describe that crediting to me even though I didn't do it. I get something based on something that someone else did who went to the cross if you're a federalist, who represented me, just like Adam. I am made right by the act of Christ, just as it's the same way on the other side.

I am made a sinner, guilty and condemnable because of Adam. Every subsequent generation had that sin imputed to him. All right, wish I could say more, out of time. Let's pray.

God, thinking of the Fall, not only our alliance, it's a sad alliance, but our sad alliance with Adam and Eve in doing things and having experienced things just like they did in the garden, falling to the tempter because of all these sinful motives, but God really recognizing what an amazing gift it is to have the hope that we have forgiveness in Christ.

Let us recognize that righteousness has no context without an understanding of how deep and really how eternal our problem with sin is. Thinking more deeply about these profound and abiding realities that we deal with every day in our world and in our lives. Thanks for this study, thanks for this crowd being such good students, in Jesus' name, amen.

Dave Druey: We're learning about our role as caretakers of God's creation in light of the coming renewal of earth in the end times. This is Focal Point with Pastor Mike Fabarez and the abbreviated message you just heard is titled "Sin and the Fall."

Now to hear the complete message, go online to focalpointradio.org. And to get these teachings along with all of our other faith-building resources right from your phone, be sure to download the Focal Point app.

Sound biblical teaching cuts through a lot of noise, and that's what Focal Point is here to do. To bring you the kind of grounded, verse-by-verse instruction that actually holds up when the loudest voices in the culture are pulling in every direction. If that matters to you, we invite you to join in this work through financial support.

Call 888-320-5885 or give online at focalpointradio.org. And when you do, we'll send you this month's featured resource, "The Unfolding Mystery: Discovering Christ in the Old Testament" by Edmund Clowney. Clowney walks you through the Old Testament and shows how its figures, events, and promises were never just history; they were always pointing forward to Christ.

It's a book that can change the way you see all of scripture. Request "The Unfolding Mystery" with your gift today at focalpointradio.org or by calling us at 888-320-5885. And here's something worth putting on your calendar: Pastor Mike is inviting you to join him September 19th through the 26th for a fall cruise through New England and Canada, taking in the autumn coastline with port stops in Boston, Halifax, and Quebec City.

Grammy-winning artists Keith and Kristyn Getty will be on board, and cabins are going fast. Reserve yours today at focalpointradio.org. Reaching out to Focal Point for the first time? We'd like to welcome you with a free copy of Pastor Mike's booklet, "The New Covenant Age." Call 888-320-5885 or contact us at focalpointradio.org.

Well, I'm Dave Druey wishing you a wonderful weekend. We'll see you again next time right here on Focal Point.