If You Were the Landlord, and These Were Your Tenants . . .

ON A cliff overlooking the ocean, you’ve built a beautiful house on 20 acres of gently rolling woodland. The inside of the house has been flawlessly decorated by a talented artist. Outside, near the house, landscaped flower beds give dazzling color, as also do the window boxes on the house itself. Fruit orchards and vegetable gardens provide ample food.

Beyond these cultivated areas, towering trees surround a meadow through which a brook gurgles and winds its way. Sea breezes sway the wild flowers that add splashes of color to sunny glades. Everywhere you look is a feast for the eyes, and for your nostrils as they draw in deep breaths of sea air scented by flowers, and for your ears as birds fill the air with song and the wind adds its rustling of leaves. And in the background you hear the subdued sounds of the ocean surf as it rolls in on the beach far below.

You survey the results of your work and feel satisfaction, a sense of accomplishment. You want others to enjoy it. You bring in a large family and turn all of it over to them, along with instructions for its care. You leave.

Later you return, and you’re shocked! The ocean is a yellowish brown, globs of oil and garbage litter the beach, the trees have been chopped down, the meadow has turned brown, the brook is a mere trickle and it’s polluted. Trash is everywhere. The birds have left, the flowers are gone, the fruit trees are dead and concrete covers where the garden was.

The paint has peeled off the house. Inside the house the floors are filthy, the walls marked up, the furniture scratched. The kitchen is littered with leftover food and the sink is filled with dirty dishes. Blaring music comes from some rooms, cursing is heard in others, and in some gross sexual immoralities and perversions are being practiced. The family left in charge has greatly increased, and its members quarrel and fight and even kill one another.

As you survey the damage to your house and its grounds, and note the moral decay of its inhabitants, what thoughts go through your mind? This was the work of your hands. You’re the landlord. These people are your tenants. Obviously, they don’t appreciate what you did for them. They have ignored your instructions as to the care of your property. Will you leave them there? What will you do?

Similarly, “to Jehovah belong the earth and that which fills it.” (Ps. 24:1) After he created it he “saw everything he had made and, look! it was very good.” (Gen. 1:31) He put people on the earth and told them to take care of it​—the plants, the animals, the environment. Now, after 6,000 years, what does he see? How does he feel about what he sees? What will he do?