Henry Bergh was the founder of the American Humane
Movement, which about one hundred and thirty years ago
brought about the first child protective laws in this country.
He drew attention to the case of Mary Ellen who was beaten,
and the chained by her parents. This led to laws being
passed. Very interesting is the fact that Mr. Bergh was also
the lawyer who brought about the first laws for the
protection of animals. He linked children and animals
together in his compassion, for both have the same problem.
They are innocent and helpless victims of the cruelty of the
adult world.
This attitude which brought about the humane societies of
the world did not have its origin in man, however, for the
Bible makes it clear that God is the author of all the
principles upon which humane societies are founded. Here
in the book of Jonah we see that God also links children and
animals in His compassion. Like children, cattle are innocent
of any rebellion against their Creator, and God has no
delight in the slaughter of the innocent. God has pity even
upon the cattle. What a precious word of assurance, for the
Old Testament times were often so violent and bloody, and so
great was the destruction that it is easy to doubt if God really
cares for the innocent. But here is His own testimony to the
fact that He does care for children, and even cattle.
We have here a valuable insight into God's tenderness.
Some may feel that preaching on cattle and God's concern
for animals is irrelevant, and unworthy of pulpit time. If
that be so, you only reveal how little you know of what God
has revealed about Himself. If we believe in the verbal
inspiration of the Bible, then we must agree that all of its
words are important. There are 143 references to cattle in
the Bible, and literally thousands of references to other
creatures of God's creation. To say that all of this is
irrelevant, and mere fill, is to accuse God of doing a third
rate job in revealing Himself.
I think you will be amazed at just how relevant animals
are in Scripture as we take God's concern for them seriously,
and see how they are linked with man in all of God's
dealings. The first thing we want to observe is how children
and animals are linked together in Scripture.
I. CHILDREN AND ANIMALS.
We need not look at every reference, but only at example
of the types of reference. In Deut. 3:19, after God
commanded the men of valor to pass over and conquer, he
says, "But your wives, your little ones, and your cattle (I
know you have many cattle) shall remain in the cities..."
Cattle were, like the women and children, to be kept a safe
distance from battle. There are other references to this as
well.
In the Ten Commandments we see that God is not just
concerned that men get rest on the Sabbath, but He cares for
the health of animals as well, and so He includes them in His
Sabbath law. Duet. 5:14 says, "But the seventh day is a
Sabbath to the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any
work, you, or your son, or your daughter, or your man
servants, or your maid servants, or your ox, or your ass, or
any of your cattle...." Who cares for cattle? God does, and
so much so that He is the author of the first laws for animal
protection. There are many more, but for now we are only
looking at how animals and children are linked together.
One of the most vivid passages is Isa. 11:6 where we see
the ideal of universal peace where God will reign supreme,
and children and animals are friends." The wolf shall dwell
with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid,
and the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little
child shall lead them." Usually this text is quoted in
reference to children leading adults, but we see that it is
really about them leading animals. No society is pleasing to
God where children and animals are not protected from
cruelty. God cares about what man does to His creation.
Man was given dominion over all animals, but they are not to
be mistreated. William Cowper put it this way,
The sum is this: If man's convenience, health,
Or safety interfere, his rights and claims
Are paramount, and must extinguish theirs;
Else they are all, the meanest things that are,
As free to live, and to enjoy that life,
As God was free to form them at the first,
Who in His sovereign wisdom made them all.
Cruelty and useless killing of animals is contrary to a
biblical faith. The greatest example of a child linked with the
animal kingdom is, of course, the Christmas story. "The
cattle are lowing, the baby awakes, But little Lord Jesus, no
crying He makes." God intended to link the Christmas story
with animals or His Son never would have been born in a
manger. Who can imagine the Christmas story without
animals? There are no shepherds without sheep, nor could
the wise men have come without their camels. You can no
more remove animals from the story of the incarnation than
you can from the story of Noah and the Ark.
Animals had been substituting for men for centuries as
sacrifices for sin, but now the Lamb of God has come to offer
Himself once for all, and thus deliver man from sin, and
animals from being sacrificed for sin. But we are jumping
ahead to the cross, and we need to get back to the crib.
Frederic Marvin wrote a book in 1912 called Christ Among
The Cattle. He felt that it was no mere accident that God
should descend to this level of humility so as to be born in a
barn. God not only cares for cattle, he is not ashamed to
have His Son be born where they are born. This fact leads us
to a consideration of our second point.
II. SALVATION AND ANIMALS.
The Bible links man and animals together from beginning
to end. When man is blest of God, animals share in that
blessing. On the other hand, if man is judged, animals also
suffer judgment. Adam named all of the animals of Eden,
and there was a good relationship between man and the
animal kingdom. When man fell, animals were immediately
affected in that they needed to be killed to provide clothing.
We read that they soon were used for sacrifice, and that
would not have been necessary if man had not sinned.
Then there is the flood. God saved animals as well as man
from destruction. After it was all over God made a covenant,
not just with Noah, but with the animals as well. This is
emphasized 5 times over in Gen. 9:8-17. Let me read verse 9
which reveals clearly that God included all animals in His
covenant. "Behold, I established my covenant with you and
your descendets after you, and with every living creature
that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the
earth with you...." Who cares for cattle? God does, and He
even makes promises to them, and includes them in His
covenant.
We have already seen that God included animals in His
Sabbath law, and we see that cattle are saved in the book of
Jonah along with the Ninevites. We see Him saving them in
the ark, and later we see the animals being saved from Egypt
along with the Israelites as they are delivered. The big
question then is this: If God included animals in His saving
plans in the Old Testament, does He also include them in His
plan of salvation in the New Testament? In other words, will
there be animals in eternity? There is no reason to doubt
that they will be. A new heaven and a new earth would be
lacking something without the handiwork of God in the
animal world.
In Rom. 8:19-21 Paul indicates that the whole creation of
God will enter into eternity, and be set free from all the
effects of sin. He writes, "The creation waits with eager
expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the
creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice,
but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the
creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and
brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God."
Paul is clearly saying that God's plan for eternity includes
His whole creation. There shall be total victory for all, and
this includes the animal kingdom which has suffered the
effects of sin also.
God would only be following a pattern that He followed
all through history. In Ex. 12:29 we read that at the
Passover, not only was the first born of Egyptians killed, but
also the first born of all the cattle. Man and his animals
stand together in blessing, or in judgment. Ex. 9:3-7 tells us
that none of Israel's cattle died. They were included in God's
salvation of His people.
Here in Jonah in 3:7-9 we see the animals were made to
fast along with the people, and they were also covered with
sackcloth. Men and animals stand together, or fall together.
Many times when God's wrath fell in the Old Testament the
command was that the cattle were to die along with the
people. Many times also God's blessing on the people
included a promise of much grass for the cattle. In Ps.
104:14 God is praised, "Thou dost cause the grass to grow
for the cattle.." In Ps. 50:10 God says, "For every beast of
the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills." God is the
biggest cattle rancher in the universe.
When Jeremiah the weeping prophet wants to picture a
sad setting due to his people's sin, he pictures the absence of
animals. In Jer. 9:10 we read, "Take up weeping and wailing
for the mountains, and a lamentation for the pastures of the
wilderness, because they are laid waste so that no one passes
through, and the lowing of cattle is not heard; both the birds
of the air and the beasts have fled and are gone." When man
is cursed, animals suffer. When man is delivered, animals
are delivered too. Very definitely animals are involved in all
that happens to man, and they always benefit by his salvation.
In Ps. 36:6 we read, "O Lord, you preserve both
man and beast." God is a very real animal lover, and He
includes them in His plan. The third point we want to look at
is-
III. SOCIETY AND ANIMALS.
God's love and care for animals has social implications.
Prov. 12:10 states clearly, "A righteous man has regard for
the life of his beast, but the mercy of the wicked is cruel." In
plain English, no man can be pleasing to God who is cruel to
animals. A righteous man is righteous in part because he,
like God, is kind rather than cruel. Cruelty is s defect in
man's character, and if a Christian is cruel to animals, he
may dismiss it as no big deal, but God will not.
There is, of course, the danger of having compassion for
animals, and then lacking it for people. This is what
happened to the Pharisees. They were all for helping some
poor animal out of the ditch on the Sabbath, and they were
all for leading it to water, but they did not delight in seeing a
person being healed on the Sabbath. Their problem was not
that they loved animals too much, but that they loved people
too little. They majored on minors, and this is not wise. But
neither is it wise to dismiss minors. Just because we are not
to major on them does not mean we should not take them
seriously.
Persons are to be our major value and emphasis as
Christians, but concern for animals is also our responsibility.
The fact that they are secondary does not make them
unimportant. We often speak of dumb animals, but though
they cannot speak, they can develop a loving relationship
with man that is superior, at times, to what man has with
God. God begins His complaint to His people through Isaiah
in Isa. 1:3 with these words: "The ox knows it owner, and
the ass its master's crib, but Israel does not know, my people
does not understand." We are know that a dog can be more
loving, grateful, and joyful toward its master than a believer
is toward God. Man can fall to a level lower than the animal,
and he usually does so when he loses his compassion for
animals and becomes cruel.
Nero, when he was a youth, took great pleasure in
tormenting animals. He would cut off their feet, or clip the
wings of birds, and smear tar on them, and then set them on
fire. That was the beginning which led him to delight in the
torture of men. Let a child learn to despise God's lower
creation, and when he is older, he will despise God's best and
highest. On the other hand, the best way to teach a child to
love is to teach kindness to animals. We can't give all the
proof there is for this, but I am convinced that Frederick
Martin knew what he was saying when he said, "The man
who kicks dumb brutes kicks brutality into his own heart."
Some animal lovers go the opposite extreme and make
animals almost equal to people. I do not doubt it is legitimate
to pray for a pet that it might be healed, just as we would
pray for a loved one. John Chrysostom, the golden mouth
preacher, said, "Assuredly we ought to show a great
humanity and mercy towards beasts for various reasons, and
especially because we may thus learn to have compassion and
mercy, since they have the same origin as ourselves." The
Jews pride themselves on being humane. Jacob Raisin in his
book Humanitarianism Of The Laws Of Israel says,
"Judaism was the first to become a mouth for the dumb.
Judaism from the start insisted upon fair play not only
between man and man, but also between man and beast."
Abraham's servant in looking for a wife for Isaac made it
a testing point that she must be kind to his camels. A good
wife will be tender toward animals. We could look at how
the laws of Israel gave animals rights and protection, and
even demanded that they be slaughtered in the most painless
way. In the New Testament the Gospels have 40 different
Greek words denoting animals, and Jesus used camels, sheep,
and birds in His teachings. He called Herod a fox indicating
He knew the character of animals. He proclaimed the kind
of Messiah He was by riding into Jerusalem on a colt rather
than a horse. 24 times in Revelation He is called the Lamb.
Jesus always put people above animals, but He also made it
clear that He cares for animals. We have only scratched the
surface of this subject, but the answer to our question is
clear. Who cares for cattle? God does, and Jesus does, and
if we are filled with His Spirit, we will too.
