All of creation is waiting with eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God....with the hope that the universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and is to enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of God. Up until the present, as we know, the whole created universe in all its parts groans as if in the pangs of childbirth (Rom. 8).
Last night's news and this morning's paper revealed the existence of two puppy mills in Alcorn County, MS. The puppies were being sold at flea markets in Tupelo and elsewhere, but the conditions of their captivity were deplorable. 171 animals were rescued (123 dogs plus pigs, donkeys, goats, cats, bunnies, chickens, roosters, and ducks). Most of the dogs had dental, eye, ear, and skin problems; they were crowded into dirty metal cages with wire bottoms. The feces stuck to the cages caused sores on the paws and legs of the dogs; maggots indicated that the cages were never cleaned.
Unfortunately, this is but one example of "all creation groaning in anticipation of the revelation of the sons of God." We can rescue these animals, but what about all those we do not see? What about the abused and neglected children who are not rescued and loved?
The puppies rescued yesterday were called "prisoners of greed" by the media. Those who do not acknowledge God as creator of the universe and all that is in it will control, manipulate, extort all of creation to their own selfish ends. Sometimes I am tempted to think that they should be treated the same as they have treated their own children and animals.
There are those who in their blindness think that animals have no souls, if they think at all. How else could they inflict such misery, pain, grief on these creatures? St. Francis took literally the words of the Gospel, "Go into the whole world and preach the good news to every creature!" He was known to preach to the sun and the moon, to fire and water, to birds and to wolves. In his simplicity, he believed and received into his soul the words that all creation was groaning for deliverance -- and in his joy, he wanted to set free the captives!
Adam was given dominion over the earth -- with the provision that he continued to walk with God, to receive wisdom and understanding from the Creator of heaven and earth. When Adam pulled away from God, seeking instead reliance on his own wisdom and knowledge, the earth began to deteriorate and "groan" with the pangs of childbirth, eagerly awaiting the deliverance of the "sons of God."
When Paul says "All creation," he comprises all creatures capable of suffering, but even the earth itself -- the soil, the ground, the rocks, the hills, the grasses and meadows--- "suffer" when man loses his spiritual connection to the Creator. That is why the ground produced thorns and thistles, and why Adam would eat his bread by the sweat of his brow. The Hebrew words "Adam" and 'adamah" indicate "man" and "ground, earth, soil." What happens to man spiritually is echoed in the ground by which we live.
Scripture tells us that the groaning itself is the first movement of the hampered thing (i.e. "the prisoners of greed") toward the liberty of another birth. Fortunately, the "sons of God" found and rescued 171 creatures yesterday from their life of poverty and suffering. Hopefully, by the kindness of strangers, they will have no further cause for "groaning" in this life.
Along these lines, hear the words of George MacDonald in The Hope of the Gospel:
To believe that God made many of the lower creatures merely for prey, or to be the slaves of a slave, and writhe under the tyrannies of a cruel master who will not serve his own master; that he created and is creating an endless succession of them to reap little or no good of life but its cessation ---a doctrine held by some, and practically accepted by multitudes---is to believe in a God who, so far as one portion at least of his creation is concerned, is a demon....and were such a creator possible, he would not be God, but must one day be found and destroyed by the real God.
Blessed be the name of the Father of Jesus, there is no such creator!
...But what of those which live and suffer? Is there no comfort concerning them, but that they too at length shall die and leave their misery? Will the consolation that they shall soon die suffice for the heart of the child who laments over his dead bird or rabbit? Would those people have me believe in a God who differentiates creatures from himself, only that they may be the prey of other creatures, or spend a few hours or years, helpless and lonely, speechless and without appeal, in merciless hands, then pass away into nothingness? I will not; in the name of Jesus, I will not. Had He not known something better, would He have said what He did about the Father of men and the sparrows?
There is so much more to MacDonald's treatise that it will have to await another day. Suffice it for now to say that, after my grandchild was told that dogs don't go to heaven because they don't have souls, and because my heart was grieved at this "doctrine," though I could not adequately explain why, my heart leaped for joy at discovering MacDonald's explanation of creation having an afterlife. More tomorrow, God willing!
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