Let's open our Bibles again to the book of Zechariah and look once
again at Zechariah 1:17 and Zechariah 2:4-5. It is extremely important
for you to read each of these passages each time that I bring them up
because this is an area where we've not had much teaching on in the Body
of Christ in years past. And you need to be able to go from here saying
�the Bible says ____� instead of �Martin said ____.�
17 �Again proclaim, saying, �Thus says the LORD of hosts: � My cities
shall again spread out through prosperity; The LORD will again comfort
Zion, And will again choose Jerusalem.��� (Zechariah 1:17)
4 who said to him, �Run, speak to this young man, saying: �Jerusalem
shall be inhabited as towns without walls, because of the
multitude of men and livestock in it. 5 For I,� says the LORD, �will be
a wall of fire all around her, and I will be the glory in her midst.��
(Zechariah 2:4-5)
Now, I want to look at Romans 4:13, 16, 17:
13 For the promise that he would be the heir of the world was not
to Abraham or to his seed through the law, but through the righteousness
of faith. 16 Therefore it is of faith that it might be
according to grace, so that the promise might be sure to all the seed...
He said to all of the seed. Now, I realize that contextually, St. Paul
is forming his argument that Gentiles will be saved through Israel's
Messiah. But if the promise is to all of the seed, then we must include
all of the seed the Scripture speaks of when it's introducing what St.
Paul is talking about. Jeremiah 31:27-28 says Israel and Judah would not
only be grafted with the seed of Gentiles but it includes the seed of
beast. Continuing in Romans 4 with what we were reading:
17 (as it is written, �I have made you a father of many nations�)
in the presence of Him whom he believed�God, who gives life to the dead
and calls those things which do not exist as though they did;
Let's look again at Hebrews 12:18-29 because there's some outstanding
points not to be missed there that really amplify what Jeremiah 31:27-28
is telling us:
18 For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that
burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, 19 and the
sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it
begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. 20 (For they
could not endure what was commanded: �And if so much as a beast
touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.� 21
And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, �I am
exceedingly afraid and trembling.�)
If we've not come to this, then animals are not to be harmed, hunted,
and killed in the name of holiness or our righteousness in Christ.
Isaiah 11 says we're not to harm or hurt in all of His holy mountain,
and as the image of God, it's up to us to put our guns down and put our
hands up and to seek God for our provisions elsewhere as we kick every
weapon previously formed against animals completely away from us.
We're the image of God. It's our responsibility what we do. It is not
our responsibility what the animals do in response if we're really
walking with God! To argue for our own continued violence and depravity
against animals in what we eat and what we drink and wear is no
different than trying to make an argument for sin based on what goes on
in the Playboy Mansion or on HBO. How animals live is not an argument
for how we should live when we have clear Scriptures telling us to find
another way; to forsake our ways and to return to the Lord because He
will have mercy and greatly pardon us. The book of Hebrews says:
22 But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God,
the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, 23 to the
general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered
in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made
perfect, 24 to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, (i.e. Jeremiah
31:27-34,) and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than
that of Abel. 25 See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For
if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more
shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from
heaven, 26 whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised,
saying, �Yet once more I shake not only the earth,
(or where things are sown, viz., Jeremiah 31:27-28,) but also
heaven.� 27 Now this, �Yet once more,� indicates the removal
of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that
the things which cannot be shaken may remain.
This is evidently talking about a spiritual shaking that'll establish
the building and planting of Israel, Judah, Gentiles, and animals
according to Jeremiah 31:27-28 because if it were a shaking of what God
has made rather than what man has made, then absolutely nothing would be
left because God created or made all of us. Reading on in Hebrews:
28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken,
let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence
and godly fear. 29 For our God is a consuming fire.
Let's close with Malachi 4:2-3:
2 But to you who fear My name The Sun of Righteousness shall arise With
healing in His wings (i.e. tongues of fire; Zechariah 2:4-5); And you
shall go out (seed of man and seed of beast) And grow fat like stall-fed
calves. 3 You shall trample the wicked, For they shall be ashes under
the soles of your feet On the day that I do this,� Says the LORD
of hosts.
Compare how I've interpreted this Malachi passage with how Psalm 104
ends.
Go on to Part 4
Return to Hosea 2:18
Return to
Covenant Foundations
Animal Gospel
