Proverbs 12:10, Human Rights and Animals Rights (Cont’d)
June 9, Proverbs 12:10
Jude “Righteous before God, walking in all the commandments of the Lord blameless” (Lk. 1:6).
Human Rights and Animals Rights (Cont’d)
Simply stated, we have no right to abuse any creature, although we have a God-given right to use them. There are some, sunk so low, that they enjoy inflicting pain and suffering on dumb animals, just for kicks. Also, history is replete with tragic accounts of man’s cruelty to his fellow man, and, alas, pictures are flashing across our TV screens daily depicting modern-day atrocities of rape and genocide. There is a link between these two evils. “They who delight in the sufferings and destruction of inferior creatures, will not be apt to be very compassionate and benign to those of their own kind” (John Locke). How can we account for this barbarity, ancient and modern?
1. The Cause: The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. What a monstrosity, to be without proper feelings! When man sinned, everything changed. Man’s dominion over the creatures was no longer as God’s representative but as a rebel. Man’s attitude not only changed toward his Creator, but also toward the rest of creation. The Garden of God was cursed and everything in it, and suffering began (Gen. 3:15-19)! Nothing in this world is as God created it! The cruelty, the wickedness, the abuse, of every kind, has its source in man’s sin. To stop animal abuse, or child abuse, or murders, or wars, we must deal with the cause of wickedness in the heart of man (Jer. 17:9). All crime against man, is also sin against God. Society punishes men for what they do; God punishes men for what they are and in proportion to what they do. There is another word to describe sin which means to turn aside from the straight path (Ps. 78:57; Pr. 27:8). The prophet Isaiah put it in these memorable words, “All we, like sheep, have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way” (53:6). Truly, man is off-centre. Instead of making God’s will his chief delight, man has become a wandering star in the moral firmament (Jude 13). Every sin is a form of competition with God on the question of authority. It resulted in man declaring his independence from his Creator.
2. The Curse: The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. What an indictment, but it touches a deep nerve. Even when they mean well, the wicked do more harm than good. Roland Hill used to say, in his quaint way, that he would not value any man’s religion whose cat or dog were not the better for his piety. When man or self is the idol, the heart is cruel. God-given compassion becomes corrupted and hardened. Of old, Pilate tried to save Christ from the cross by saying: I will chastise (scourge) him and let him go, but only to appease the mob (Lk. 23:1316). Today, we are deifying nature while man is being dehumanised. Having ruled God out, we no longer know who we are or what nature is! There are protests over the abuse of seals and trees, while we have abortion on demand, and throw human fetuses into the garbage. We demand laws to protect whales, and pass other laws that pervert man! Everywhere there is intense selfishness (my rights) and sinfulness (my way) that leads to this contradiction. Man wants to be his own God! He is waging a war against his Creator, but it is a hopeless war, a war he can never win.
Thought: “A curse lies on the cruel ever since Cain shed his brothers blood” (Arnot).
Prayer: “Deliver me, O Lord, from that evil man, myself” (T. Brooks).