A Cry For Life and Peace

By Jim Lynn, Copyrighted 2007

A pack of wild dogs run down and kill a rabbit for food. Knowing its life is on the line, the rabbit crazed with fear and panic, runs straight into the mouth of a waiting dog. As the dog’s jaw snaps close and its teeth sink into the rabbit’s flesh, the rabbit’s eyes open wide in fear and it cries out a death scream that can be heard a kilometer or more away.

It’s all part of nature, I know, but I want to ask you. How does that death scene make you feel in your heart? Are you moved by it? Does that scene give your heart a thrill, or does it make your heart grieve in sorrow for the way the world works?

Producers of television nature documentaries like to film predator animals hunting down and killing prey for food. They do so for ratings primarily, knowing that many people enjoy watching such scenes.

I know for many years my heart would thrill at the sight of such a hunt. But nowadays, my heart grieves at the thought. I either turn my eyes away, or I quickly turn the channel to avoid watching the animal being filled with fear for its life.

Early American Indians understood every animal has a spirit and soul, much like our own. So whenever they would kill an animal for food, the first thing they did was pray to the Great Spirit to ask for forgiveness in taking the animal’s life.

What does any of this have to do with healing the sick? Simply this: It wasn’t until evil entered the world that animals and men would begin killing one another. Every level of life now is threatened because of evil. Evil abounds. Now you may not consider one animal killing another as being the result of evil, but consider this:

Before sin entered the world, man ruled over the animal kingdom in peace, and ate only food from the plant kingdom. Neither did animals eat one another for food. The term “predator” was unknown. Animals eat food from the plant kingdom, just as man did (Genesis 1:29-30). The lion sat down with the lamb in peace, and God called it good!

After sin entered the world, God placed a curse on the world (Genesis 3:17) and everything changed. After the great flood, He placed fear into the hearts of animals toward man, and gave animals over to man for food (Genesis 9:2-3).

As a side note, the Bible doesn’t say when animals turned on one another for food, but we know it had to be after the fall of man in sin. And here’s something else many of us may not be aware of. Just as God requires an accounting from every man for taking the lifeblood (killing) of another man, He also requires of every animal (Genesis 9:5).

As things stand now, all creation (and we with it) groans for God’s curse to be lifted (Romans 8:18-25). When that time arrives, the wolf will once again lie down with the lamb (Isaiah 11:6), and peace will reign again.

Before anyone accuses me of eisegesis (reading into the text what it does not say or mean), I know Isaiah 11:6 is symbolic language referring to Jesus Christ and Peace found in His Body, the Church. However, it is my opinion Isaiah 11:6 also refers to a literal truth about life in heaven, which comes after the resurrection of the dead in Christ. There we will live and have access to the Garden of Eden with all its beauty restored. There, once again, we will enjoy an eternity of peace with all of God’s creatures.

I shared this message with you to highlight how evil has changed not only all of us, but all of creation. That we take chronic illness so much for granted, is witness to our ignorance of how evil can manifest itself in our lives through sickness and disease.

We think of ourselves as having died to sin as Christians, without knowledge that evil still abounds all about us hunting us down like a predator.

Just as Jesus overcame death so that we may have hope of the resurrection of our body and life eternal, He also overcame all things evil that we may live our now mortal lives in peace, free of illness (Isaiah 53:4-5; Acts 10:36-18).

God through His Holy Word gives us the answers to life and health (2 Timothy 3:16-17). But a Bible unread is like a ship on the ocean without a rudder.

I pray that you may enjoy good health and that all may go well with you, even as your soul is getting along well (3 John 2).

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