“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it. The world and all its people belong to him. For he laid the earth’s foundation on the seas and built it on the ocean depths.”
Psalm 24:1-2 NLT
We leave behind the gentle musings of Psalm 23 to move on to the next Psalm from David. He is in a reflective mood and asks some philosophical questions, one of which he answers right at the start of Psalm 24. “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it”. A sweeping statement but most of the inhabitants of Planet Earth would dispute it. An individual might point to his property deeds and claim they are “freehold” meaning that he has a claim to the ground on which the property is built. But then how far does that ownership extend? A nation might claim ownership to the land within territorial boundaries, but what about the whole earth? There is no person or entity who can claim to own it. We pilgrims turn to Genesis 1 and see the account of how God brought the earth into being, by a Word “Then God said …”. Over the first four days of creation God made the earth and the heavens, followed by two days populating the earth with animal and vegetable matter, including human beings. And at the end we read, “Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day” (Genesis 1:31). So to believers there is no doubt about how the earth came into being. Those who claim that the universe, including the earth, was a chance event, have no real answers to the question “Who made the earth?” let alone who owns it. But the earth is real. We are standing on it, and David wrote that it belongs to the Lord. At the other end of the Bible we read, “You are worthy, O Lord our God, to receive glory and honour and power. For you created all things, and they exist because you created what you pleased” (Revelation 4:11). In the absence of clear ownership of the earth and its contents we can only look to God, who created it all in the first place.
In Genesis 1:28 we read, “Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground””. That verse is often taken as setting out the responsibilities mankind has over the earth and its contents. The fact that human beings are trashing this world is a sad state of affairs. But having said that, we also read in 2 Peter 3:10-13, “But the day of the Lord will come as unexpectedly as a thief. Then the heavens will pass away with a terrible noise, and the very elements themselves will disappear in fire, and the earth and everything on it will be found to deserve judgment. Since everything around us is going to be destroyed like this, what holy and godly lives you should live, looking forward to the day of God and hurrying it along. On that day, he will set the heavens on fire, and the elements will melt away in the flames. But we are looking forward to the new heavens and new earth he has promised, a world filled with God’s righteousness”. This theme continues in Revelation 21:1, “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone”. Simply, the earth as we know it will disappear one day in a fire of cosmic proportions, and will be replaced by a new earth. The territorial claims made by human beings won’t be worth the paper they are written on. Anyway, the pieces of paper will be burnt up as well. Will there be souls arguing with God about ownership of a piece of ground on the new earth? I don’t think so.
David moves on to write, “The world and all its people belong to him”. That would be a very contentious statement to an unbeliever, who will claim ownership of themselves and their own little bit of the world, but in a sense their physical body and associated “stuff” ceases to belong to them after they die. But we pilgrims know differently. We read and apply Romans 12:1, “And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all he has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice—the kind he will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship him“. One day these bodies of ours will be of no further use, as Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 5:1, “For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands”. So our souls will leave our earthly bodies and instead be domiciled in Heaven in a form God has already prepared for us.
Paul starts off his Roman epistle with the verse, “This letter is from Paul, a slave of Christ Jesus, chosen by God to be an apostle and sent out to preach his Good News”. A slave is a person who is the property of someone else. They have no rights or claims of ownership themselves, and Paul voluntarily bonded himself to Jesus as a slave. He was an example for us pilgrims to follow, because we are slaves of Jesus as well. Yes, often our “old man” will rise up and try and reclaim ownership of self, but it is no good because we belong to God, and God alone. Before the hackles start to rise, however, we need to think what we have bought into. A slave of Jesus will have access to God’s resources; it is a privilege, especially when we remember that only Jesus is the Way to eternal life.
Father God. What else can we say other than we are sold out for You and Your Son Jesus. There is no other way possible, and we thank You for Your grace and favour. Amen.
Being a Pilgrim 