Laws of Nature

John Ritenbaugh, emphasizing that God continually uses perennial types, patterns, and examples, indicates that humankind, nature, and Satan (including his demonic legions) have been mortally impacted by sin, and that the entirety of nature awaits redemption through the appearance of God's offspring. Nature has become a slave of death and decay after the sin of Adam and Eve, whose offspring have been forced to share a prison cell with demonic forces, subject to a death penalty imposed as a consequence of sin. Neither Satan nor his demons cause us to sin; we chose to sin, and we die as the result of our own sins. We were created upright, but bring on judgments by ourselves; the judgments reveal we are still accountable. The same Creator God who placed judgment on Adam and Eve is still on His throne. Thankfully, as offspring of Adam and Eve, we reap the benefit of the curse placed on the serpent, but we must also endure hardship of pain and suffering in our sanctification process. We learn that as we sin, we impact all people; sin is never committed in a vacuum. Thankfully, God has given us gifts, skills, and abilities to enable us to accomplish our responsibilities. Ironically, the original sin revolved around food; all of the Holy Days focus on food, including the Day of Atonement where fasting automatically carries our minds to food. We live in our ancestors, in the sense that Levi paid tithes through Abraham while still in his loins.. We are all subject to the consequences of sin brought about by our first parents. The Edenic covenant was a radiant picture of joy and hope; we are all subject to the consequences of the failure of our parents to keep their part of the agreement. Like Adam and Eve, we are responsible for our part of the covenant. Everything, including ourselves, wears down by God's design, but those whom God has called out have been given a glimpse and hope of a glorious pain-free future.

Richard Ritenbaugh reflects that the creation offers compelling testimony to the complexities and intricacies which preclude even the possibility of evolution. The symbiosis of the Clownfish and the sea anemone could not have occurred without design. Birds, with their lightweight bones, multifaceted feathers, lungs, beaks, and sophisticated aeronautical brains, could not have simply appeared by chance or natural selection. The DNA strand dwarfs any kind of man-made databank ever made, even having self-correcting enzymes. Evolution is a feeble-brained attempt to get rid of God. Job knew that the earth was a sphere hung in space, an insight that science only discovered in the last hundred years or so. Science has not yet determined the laws governing cloud formations. The secrets of our physiognomy, beginning with a uniting of ovum and sperm, are known only by God. Many of these secrets have been revealed to us in His Holy Word, showing God as a Being of intelligence and purpose, a Being with which we can form a relationship. God designed the creation to work, from the one-celled organism to the complex multi-cellular organism. If God takes such pains to create a snail, imagine what pains He is taking with us, creating us to be His sons and daughters. God's vast power compels us to give Him respect. Psalm 104 depicts God as Creator, the giver and maker of good things, designed to bring us to glory. David admonishes us to praise God for His creation; everything that God made is designed to work together with all the rest of creation. God's creation provides public revelation of God's existence, enabling us to understand something of Him, who is exponentially greater than His creation, including the power of fire, water, wind (hurricanes, and tornadoes). Not only does God sustain us, but the entirety the flora and the fauna through beneficent cycles and seasons are designed to enhance life. God is intimately involved in every aspect of His Creation including enlarging His family through the medium of His Holy Sp

God not only rules in heaven, but He is also sovereign on earth! He is not an absentee landlord, but One who is actively involved in administering His creation.

In the conclusion to this series, Richard Ritenbaugh explains the extent of God's curse on Adam—and thus mankind—in the Garden of Eden. He is promised great toil and suffering throughout his life, but just as in all things God does, a silver lining appears amidst the woe!