ANIMAL RIGHTS?

PROVERBS 12:10

Several years ago I saw the bumper of this car display these two very interesting bumper-stickers. On one side was a sticker that read "SAVE THE WHALES" and on the other side of the bumper was a sticker that read "PRO-CHOICE".

To me, those seem like contradicting statements. On one hand you are going to do everything possible to save the life of a whale, whose numbers are decreasing. But, on the other hand, you are going to do everything possible to have the freedom, the "choice" to murder unborn children!

How can such educated people reasonably rationalize that kind of thinking? How can they come up with something like that? Simple. You see, it is born out of the evolutionary mind set. We are all part of the evolutionary process and thus, one life, be it animal or human, is no different than another life. The rational goes like this, and I will paraphrase because I don't remember the exact order that they phrased this statement, but I think you will get the picture. They are saying that "A dog is a pig is a rat is a boy!" You see, there is no difference!

Now, on the other end of the spectrum, we have those that believe that animals are animals and if we can exploit them, make a profit off of them, so be it. That is why we can kill elephants and rhinos just for their tusks and their horns, leaving their dead bodies to rot away. That is why some go out to hunt animals just to kill them, not for their meat to eat nor for their fur for clothing.

Two widely opposing view points. Who is right and who is wrong? Turn to Proverbs chapter 12 and lets look a little closer at what God has to say and then why man has bought into some of these strange and dangerous ideas. So, in Proverbs chapter 12, lets look at verse 10.

PROVERBS 12:10

A righteous man regards the life of his animal,

But the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.

Solomon is telling us that we are not to mistreat animals. We are to treat them kindly. Why? Because they are part of God's creation and because we are children of God, have the righteousness of God in us, we should not treat them in a evil way.

But please understand this, in regards to plants first of all, they do not have real life or a soul. They do not have a consciousness. Many today would tell you otherwise. They advocate hugging a tree, singing to a plant and-so-on. If you want to do that, go ahead. But they are not living like man or animals are. The Bible tells us that man and animals have a soul or consciousness. (The Hebrew word for "life" is NEPHESH).

So then is there a difference between man and animals? Are the New Agers right, those that see man and animals as one? Not at all! In Genesis 2:7 we read "And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." It is only man in which God directly "breathed" in the "breath of life." The word "breath" is the Hebrew word RUACH which is also translated "spirit" or "wind".

Yes man is like the animals for we both have the same designer and creator. And yet man is above the animals for God has placed His Spirit in us. Then what is man like without God? He resembles the animals in his actions and behaviors. His body appetite, his flesh, controls his actions. If you don't believe me, turn on the news, read the newspapers and you will see how depraved unregenerate man really is. They are no different than the wild animals!

In Jeremiah 13:23 we read "Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard its spots? Then may you also do good who are accustomed to do evil." In other words, man's nature without God can not be changed, it is evil. That is why in the book of Ecclesiastes Solomon exhorts us to "Remember your Creator before the silver cord is loosed, Or the golden bowl is broken, Or the pitcher shattered at the fountain, Or the wheel broken at the well. Then the dust will return to the earth as it was, And the spirit will return to God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:6-7. In other words get right with God while you still have the chance, be reborn in the spirit of God before it is too late!

Now in saying that we are above the animals it does not give us the license to abuse animals. In Genesis 1:28 we read "Then God blessed them, and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.'" God has placed man as His steward over the created world. In a sense, Psalm 8:6-8 was for man. We read "You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, All sheep and oxen; Even the beasts of the field, The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas." The problem is that man turned from God and has failed in his stewardship of this earth.

With man abusing what God has entrusted to him, we are now seeing a shift in the opposite direction. Man is trying to preserve the animals and yet they are trying to do this without God. Because of that you see all sorts of warped ideas being placed upon us.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Peter Singer, whose work has become the manifesto for the human rights movement, has laid the foundation for lowering mankind to what we used to think of as the level of animals. He states regarding his book Animal Liberation: A New Ethics for our Treatment of Animals, that "The core of this book is the claim that to discriminate against beings solely on account of their species is a form of prejudice, immoral and indefensible in the same way that discrimination on the basis of race is immoral and indefensible."

You see, he has reduced man to that of being equal with animals, and if you look close enough, he has placed us even lower than the animals. Listen to what he is saying. "Singer makes this explicit transference and argues that whatever is done to animals might properly be done to humans. In his eyes it is immoral to expend money and effort maintaining the life of a severely brain-damaged infant while we are killing adult chimpanzees, dogs, pigs, and many other specious, who 'Far surpass the brain-damaged infant in their ability to relate to others, act independently, be self-aware, and any other capacity that could reasonably be said to give value to life.'"

Singer is fighting for animal rights, that they are treated fairly, but in doing that he is obscuring the differences between man and animals. "...Leading in Singer's case to an implied if not explicit endorsement of abortion and of 'eugenic' euthanasia of handicapped people."

How did this kind of polluted thinking come about? One word will explain it, EVOLUTION! Maybe you have heard of this and you were probably taught this in school, how the human embryo goes through (RECAPITULATES) various evolutionary stages, such as having gills like fish, a tail like a monkey, and-so-on during the first months of development in the womb.

This idea was originated by Ernst Haeckel back in 1866, and this man was Hitler's mentor and was used to promote Darwin's theory of evolution in Germany. And what Haeckel said he found was when he looked at the various embryo's from fish to salamander to turtle to chicken to rabbit and to human's, he saw remarkable similarities between these various forms of life, drawing them down for us, and showing we all came from the pre-life soup and through a process of random chance occurrences, evolution, and here we are today. The key is we are all linked together, there is no difference between any of the life forms. This idea is known as THE EMBRYONIC RECAPITULATION.

Listen to what was in my Biology textbook dated 1968 regarding this issue: "Embryology also gives us clues to paths of evolution. The similarities of embryological development among multicellular animals were intensively studied during the latter half of the nineteenth century. These studies led to the conclusion that the embryonic development of the individual repeated the evolutionary history of the race. Thus, it was thought to be possible to trace the evolutionary history of a species by a study of its embryonic development. This idea was so attractive as to gain the status of a biological principle. Today the idea of embryonic resemblance is viewed with caution. We can see and demonstrate similarities between embryos of related groups, as shown in Figure 31-13. [Compares man, pig, salamander and chicken embryo's] However, while a certain amount of recapitulation is unquestioned, the old idea that a human passes through fish, amphibian, and reptile stages during embryonic development is not correct."

This is very confusing to me. First the tell us of this idea, then they show us pictures of how these embryo's are similar, then they say that a certain part of this idea is true, what part we are not sure, and then they tell us it is "not correct." If this is confusing to us, imagine how confusing it is to our children who are being taught this stuff! This same thought is stated in another one of my Biology books dated 1973.

So we have looked at this from 1968 to 1973, that they don't believe this idea is correct, but in my son's Health Biology text book, dated 1991, listen to what is now being taught about this idea: "Early stages in the development of some organisms also provide evidence of evolution and common ancestry. Organisms that share a common ancestor go through similar stages of development and therefore have embryo's that look very much alike. An embryo is an organism in a very early stage of growth."

"The embryo's in Figure 14-7, for example, [Showing the similarities between the embryo's of fish, reptile, bird and humans] are difficult to tell apart. As you see, they have certain structures in common, such as gill slits and a tail. In fish, the gill slits develop into gills. In humans, gill slits develop into the tube that connects the middle ear with the throat. This evidence indicates that the organism shown in Figure 14-7 share a common ancestor whose embryo had gill slits." (Health Biology, p. 235).

Isn't that interesting. Back in 1968 they tell us not to trust in that information because it is "not correct." And now in 1991 it is being taught as fact. Who is right?

Way back in 1874 German Embryologist, professor Wilhelm His published a catalog of willful distortions of the data by Haeckel to win adherents. Haeckel was subsequently tried and convicted in a scholarly inquest and barred from many scientific circles.

And, if you don't want to believe that, a more recent inquiry by Michael Richardson who is a lecturer and embryologist at St. George's Hospital Medical School, London, has been made and has also exposed the fraud that has taken place.

In his study he assembled an international team to collect and examine the embryo's of 39 different creatures. His conclusion is as follows: "This is one of the worst cases of scientific fraud. It's shocking to find that somebody one thought was a great scientist was deliberately misleading. It makes me angry...What he [Haeckel] did was to take a human embryo and copy it, pretending that the salamander and the pig and all the others looked the same at the same stage of development. They don't...These are fakes."

Why am I making such a big deal about this? First of all it is still being taught as fact in our schools, encouraging our children to believe in evolution and thus we are no different than the animals. And secondly, because abortion clinics still use this garbage to tell their victims that they are not killing a human life, but in the early stages of embryonic development, it is just an animal!

Listen to this true story and see if it doesn't make you sick, if it doesn't make you angry: Picture this scene: A young, pregnant girl is taken into the counseling room at an abortion clinic...She also knows that an abortion would put an end to her pregnancy. But this is a baby we're talking about!

"How far along are you, Sweetie?" the counselor asks.

"Oh, about two months," she answers, to which the counselor replies: "You remember what you learned in your 10th grade biology class - how that the developing embryo goes through various stages during its growth? It goes through a fish stage, where it has gill slits' just like a fish. At other times it has a yolk sac like a bird and a tail like a monkey. At two months it is probably going through its fish stage; it is not fully human yet. Don't think of it as a baby, but as a fish." On display are drawings pointing out the various stages of development of human, fish, monkey, etc., embryos with the similarities pointed out, and sure enough, they do look remarkably the same. Convinced by this evidence, our young friend decides to go ahead and have the abortion. After all, it's okay to kill a fish.

But, if that embryo is fully human, if what they are telling these women is not true, if it is a lie, then they have just committed the murder of a human being! You see, they are using bad science to justify their actions. Their science is a fraud and has been exposed, and yet to promote their ideas they must continue these lies. They don't want to hear that we have been created in the image of God, formed by His hands, and we have the spirit of God in us - we are not animals!

It is as David said in Psalm 139:13-16, "For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother's womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; Marvelous are Your works, And that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. Your eyes saw my substance, being yet unformed. And in Your book they all were written, The days fashioned for me, When as yet there were none of them."

Now understand this, what these people are trying to promote is nothing more than a pagan spirituality. All those activists that will protect, risk their lives for a baby seal or whatever, would never say anything against abortion. Yes, we are moving in the direction of elevating animals above man, and of worshipping the creature instead of the Creator!

Even our own vice-president Al Gore, who is a Southern Baptist, has stated that the ecological problems can only be solved through a "new spirituality" common to all religions and that saving the earth "requires reuniting science and religion." He is an advocate of hugging a tree! Not to surprising.

And these ideas are global in nature. Back in 1993 "Leaders representing more than 100 of the world's diverse faiths, including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, Bahaism, Judaism, Confucianism, Zoroastrianism and even goddess worship, gathered to explore common ground."

And this group "...managed to hammer out toward a global ethic (An initial declaration), a joint statement of rules for living on which the world's religions agree...The complete 10-page document, which exhorts all people to eschew [to keep away from] violence, to respect and restore the planet, and to work together to address the worldwide problems of poverty, hunger, oppression and prejudice."

One issue they speak of in this document, that the world religions have agreed upon is under the section titled "commitment to a Culture of Non-Violence and Respect for Life."

This is what they had to say in this section: "A human person is infinitely precious and must be unconditionally protected. But likewise the lives of animals and plants which inhabit this planet with us deserve protection, preservation, and care. Limitless exploitation of the national foundations of life, ruthless destruction of the biosphere, and militarization of the cosmos are all outrages. As human beings we have a special responsibility - especially with a view to future generations - for earth and the cosmos, for the air, water, and soil. We are all intertwined together in this cosmos and we are all dependent on each other. Each one of us depends on the welfare of all. Therefore the dominance of humanity over nature and the cosmos must not be encouraged. Instead we must cultivate living in harmony with nature and the cosmos."

Why? Because we are all one. It is nothing more than New Age pagan religion that is being thrust upon us. And as you read this document you will see that the only way it will be accomplished is under a new world order, a one world government in which all citizens of the world must submit to. And understand this, many feel the world is overpopulated by about 4 billion people. And if the animal life is to survive, we must decrease the world population, by what means, they have not said, but 4 billion is a lot of people. And who will die to save the animals, we are not sure.

We are moving toward the day when man will have the same rights as animals or even less. In the Smithsonian, they have a sign posted in its museum of natural history apologizing for a display in which "humans are treated as more important than other animals." I find that hard to believe, that an institution that is there to teach, that is science based, would stoop to such a level, but it is done all the time in museums, just look at their displays on evolution!

I know that some people like to say the reason the world is so polluted, is seeing the extinction of many animals and plants, is because of our Judeo-Christian practices, where we are to have dominion over the earth. That is just a smoke screen to promote their ideas, for we as Christians are to be good stewards of this earth which God has entrusted to us. We are to treat animals kindly for they are part of God's creation. But in doing that don't place animals on the same level as man or give them more rights than man. When that happens people move away from God and they do not see the preciseness of human life as God does. We are not to worship nature but to care for it as good stewards and worship the God who created all that is around us.

There is coming a day when Christ comes back to set up His kingdom, and this world, God's creation will once again be very good. We see today the effects of sin all around us, not only in our lives but also in nature. There were no thorns or thistles, there were no carnivorous animals before sin entered the world, there was no death before sin. All the animals were vegetarians before the fall, even man. But after sin entered the world, God gave us permission to eat the meat of animals, and the animals did just the same.

And out in the animal world, and in unregenerate man, there is a survival of the fittest mentality. It is as Paul said in Romans 8:22-23, "For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now. Not only that, but we also who have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body."

But in the kingdom age, that will all be changed. We read in Hosea 2:18, : "In that day I will make a covenant for them With the beasts of the field, With the birds of the air, And with the creeping things of the ground. Bow and sword of battle I will shatter from the earth, To make them lie down safely." And in Isaiah 11:7, 9 we read "The cow and the bear shall graze; Their young ones shall lie down together; And the lion shall eat straw like the ox...They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, For the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the LORD As the waters cover the sea."

Enjoy the beautiful things that God has given to us, even if sin has distorted some of that beauty. Don't be cruel to animals, love them, care for them, but don't worship them or place them above the needs of man! Yes we can learn from nature, as Job tells us in Job chapter 12, beginning in verse 7. He says "But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know That the hand of the LORD has done this, In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind?" Job 12:7-10.

As we look at nature, it does not cause us to worship it, but points us back to a creator and a designer, God! Keep things in the proper perspective and learn what God is trying to teach you from nature, for there are many valuable lessons, the most important being that their is a God who has created us and loves us. Don't let that get lost with all the garbage that is being thrown at you these days.