Charles Spurgeon, in “Creation’s Groans and the Saints’ Sighs” (a sermon preached in 1868):
The whole creation is fair and beautiful even in its present condition. I have no sort of sympathy with those who cannot enjoy the beauties of nature.
Climbing the lofty Alps, wandering through the charming valley, skimming the blue sea, or traversing the lush green forest, we have felt that this world, however desecrated by sin, was evidently built to be a temple of God, and the grandeur and the glory of it plainly declare that “the earth is the LORD’s and the fullness thereof” (Psalm 24:1).
The Earth in ruins reveals a magnificence which shows the sign of a royal founder and an extraordinary purpose. Creation glows with a thousand beauties even in its present fallen condition, yet clearly enough it is not as when it came from the Maker’s hand—the slime of the serpent is on it all—this is not the world which God pronounced to be “very good.”
We hear of tornadoes, of earthquakes, of tempests, of volcanoes, of avalanches, and of the sea which devours its thousands. There is sorrow on the sea, and there is misery on the land, and into the highest palaces as well as the poorest cottages, death, the insatiable, is shooting his arrows while his quiver is still full to bursting with future woes.
But if you have the Spirit of God in your soul, you may rejoice over it as the pledge and token of the fullness of bliss and perfection that “God has prepared for those who love him.”