Journal: Grace Journal
Volume: GJ 13:1 (Winter 1972)
Article: Part Three: Obstacles Ahead for the Church
Author: Luther L. Grubb

GJ 13:1 (Wtr 72) p. 13

Part Three:
Obstacles Ahead for the Church

Luther L. Grubb

Pastor, Grace Brethren Church
Orange, California

[This article and the next are the concluding lectures of the Louis S. Bauman Memorial Lectures, delivered at Grace Theological Seminary, January 26–29, 1971. Parts One and Two appeared in the Fall, 1971, Grace Journal.]

The church faces some obstacles. Satan has cleverly thrown into the path of the church many hindrances which were not even known in the days of Paul. In a real sense what we have discussed in Part II are all obstacles to the church.

Ecology

There is a science which has just come into its own called Ecology. A few years ago, only those who were interested in semasiology knew anything about the word “ecology.” It certainly was not a household word. Today it is. Ecology is the branch of biology which treats the relations between organisms and their environment. It is the science of environment and the various movements of society or animals in response to environment. Some obstacles to the church come under the heading of ecology.

God’s ecology was perfect when He created the Garden of Eden and placed a man and woman in it and told them to be “fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth” (Genesis 1:28). Everything in nature, inciuding man, was in perfect balance. There was no pollution, smog, dirty alleys, open sewers, tobacco smoke, drugs, alcohol or human filth.

It was man’s sin which wrecked the ecological balance of the world and has been disturbing it ever since. It is true that man has

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been very fruitful and has multiplied to the point that a burgeoning population may even outrun our food supply in the future. It is man who has used the rivers, lakes and oceans of earth for sewers and filled the air with industrial nuclei which injure his respiratory system. The irony of the whole situation is that man is most threatened himself as he continues to make his environment more and more unlivable. He is gradually committing suicide.

Ecologists tell us that in the long run, the most important aspect of human ecology is that all environmental factors exert a direct effect upon the development of human characteristics in health as well as disease, which makes the issue a moral one. The life of mankind is at stake. It is certain that our relationship to our environment is bound up in a larger complex which includes our relationships with men and God and this inv...