by Pastor Paul Wolff
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| Daniel was thrown in the den of lions to be killed, but God prevented the wild animals from harming him. |
I saw a documentary recently which told of the mouse infestation and eradication in 2016 on the remote Antipodes Island near New Zealand. Antipodes Island is uninhabited by people, but it has a large variety of birds and plants and animals, many of which are not found anywhere else. Mice are not native to the island, but some time near the turn of the 20th century a ship was wrecked near the island and some mice on the ship survived and took refuge on the Island. Over the next century they multiplied and, having no natural predators, they overran the Island and many of the rare birds and animals began to disappear from the Island.
The problem was not just that the mice population was so large, though there were hundreds of thousands to a million or more mice on the island. The problem was that although the mice were just house mice, over the century they had become extremely aggressive. Their teeth had grown larger than their ancestors, and they were not content with the normal house mice diet of seeds, grains and insects (though their depletion of these food sources diminished the food that migrating birds relied on for survival). Yet, the real problem was that the aggressive mice would gang up and attack larger animals directly, such as birds, and kill them.
The New Zealand government rationally determined that it was better to have a naturally diverse population of animals and birds on the island rather than an island populated solely by vicious aggressive mice who would eventually kill one another after they had killed off all the other life on the island. So they decided to exterminate the mice. It was a tricky proposition to kill the mice without killing off all the other wildlife on the island also. Arsenic, for example, is an effective mouse poison, but since arsenic is an element, it does not degrade, and it also is poisonous to everything else. They also knew that if they left even one pregnant mouse alive on the island, then the island would eventually be overrun with mice again in the future.
They used poisoned mouse bait with a poison that degraded after time into something non-toxic. They planned to distribute the poisoned bait in the winter when the migrating birds and animals were not on the island, and when other food was scarce and the mice would be looking for something to eat. They used helicopters to drop the poisoned bait over the whole island, and a crew of people on the ground would target known places where the mice lived. Though, winter in the far south Pacific often brings fierce storms which delayed the helicopters and made it dangerous even on days when they dared to venture out to distribute the poison. The cost of the project was several million dollars, and it had to be planned and executed very much like a military operation.
The project was determined to be a success when researchers went back to the island a couple years later, and with the help of trained dogs they could not find any traces of living mice on the island. They also observed flourishing populations of birds and wildlife, and even some areas of the island which had been barren of plant life, were now supporting lush growth of plants and flowers. What had been a hellish landscape filled with aggressive mice had quickly recovered to be something more like paradise.
This story got me thinking about the state of the world today, and the nature of sin. It has become obvious recently that many nations of the world have let liberals and libertarians run amok for far too long implementing laissez faire policies which allowed criminals to get away with all kinds of corruption, thievery, and violence. This could not go on forever. Good people have a great capacity to endure oppression and hardship for quite some time, themselves. However, when they see their neighbors suffering they must act out of love to rescue those who are being victimized.
When this push-back started, the perpetrators of the evil reacted as if the enforcement of good laws were unjust. They thought it unfair that they were receiving the just punishment for their crimes. They had gotten away with much evil for so long that they felt as if they had the right to do whatever they wanted without suffering any consequences. This had gone on for so long that many government officials and politicians and judges were among those promoting lawlessness, and encouraging riots, and even organizing small armies of anarchists to fight against those who sought to reestablish law and order and peace.
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| Before people brought sin into the world the animals were tame and served Adam and Eve happily. |
This shows us the nature of sin in the world. Mice are not the source nor the cause of sin. Mankind (i.e. men and women) is the source of sin, but our corruption also affects animals. At the creation there were no wild or dangerous animals. Only as the effects of sin multiplied in the world did animals grow wild and turn against people. The evil multitudes of mice on Antipodes Island show us the nature of sin in several ways. Like the mice, sin starts off small and seemingly harmless, but as sin multiplies its harmfulness becomes more apparent. If it is not kept in check, sin becomes more aggressive and violent, and will continue until it completely destroys everything. This is the nature of sin both in small scale and in large. It has the same effect within one person alone, or in a whole nation of people if they are consumed by sin.
The fight against evil is an ongoing process. It is never done. It must always be an unending fight because we can’t get rid of evil sinful people by extermination as if they were mice. All people are sinful, and to eliminate all sin one would have to eliminate all people. One might be tempted to do this – to cleanse the world of evil people and leave just a few and start over – but we see in the Holy Scriptures that was essentially what God did in Genesis 6-8. God sent a great catastrophe which ended up flooding the whole world and killing all people except Noah and his three sons and each man’s wife (eight people in all). Yet we see that this solution did not get rid of evil in the world, though that was not God’s intention. Before the flood, Moses recounts, “The Lord saw how great man’s wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time.” (Genesis 6:5) Yet, after the flood which killed all the wicked, violent people, God promised Noah, “Never again will I curse the ground because of man, even though every inclination of his heart is evil from childhood.” (Genesis 8:21) Nothing had changed after the great flood in regard to the sinful nature of mankind, but God still had mercy, and promised never to destroy the earth as He had done, and despite killing most of the people on earth, God still kept His promise to Adam and Eve to send a savior from among their descendants.
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| God did not send the great flood to kill all sinners, but He saved Noah and his family so he could keep His promise of a savior who would rescue us from sin and death. |
There are possibly some people who might argue that although mice are not native to Antipodes Island, their migration was natural, and that people should not interfere with nature, but should let nature run its course. This is not the Christian view. When God created Adam and Eve He blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28) Although this blessing was given before the fall into sin, it still applies. Though, before sin came into the world the animals were not wild, nor would they have become wild had no one ever sinned, yet, this blessing still applies. After the great flood, the Holy Scripture tells us, “Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, ‘Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth. The fear and dread of you will fall upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the air, upon every creature that moves along the ground, and upon all the fish of the sea; they are given into your hands. Everything that lives and moves will be food for you. Just as I gave you the green plants, I now give you everything.’” (Genesis 9:1-3) So even after the fall into sin, and after the great flood, God gave mankind the authority to manage the earth as stewards, including eliminating pests such as mice, and using some animals as food, and others to serve us in other ways for our benefit. As I said above, it was a rational decision to remove the pests so that migrating birds and sea creatures could come there in the summer to raise their young unmolested instead of multitudes of hyper-violent mice wiping the island clean of all animals and plants before they devoured themselves.
The Holy Bible does not tell of a mouse infestation like on Antipodes Island, but one of the ten plagues on Egypt was an infestation of locusts. Moses describes it by saying, “Never before had there been such a plague of locusts, nor will there ever be again. They covered all the ground until it was black. They devoured all that was left after the hail – everything growing in the fields and the fruit on the trees. Nothing green remained on tree or plant in all the land of Egypt.” (Exodus 10:14-15) The previous plague was a great hailstorm which destroyed crops and stripped trees of leaves and fruit, but whatever was left after the hail was devoured by the locusts. These plagues, and the eight others, were to turn the Pharaoh’s heart so that he would let the Israelites go free. The ultimate purpose of this was so that the Israelite people would eventually make their way to the land that God had promised to give to Abraham and his descendants, so that the messiah, the savior of the world, would be born there from among Abraham’s descendants.
Solomon wrote of something similar to the locust plague in Egypt when he observed in Proverbs 30:27, “Locusts have no king, yet they advance together in ranks.” Even though Solomon did not see a plague such as the one God sent against the Egyptians several hundreds of years before he was born, yet, he still had seen locust swarms, and noticed that they moved like a well-trained army, even without a king to lead them. This is in a list of things that amazed King Solomon, but which he could not understand. Even in the 21st century swarms of locusts can cause an amazing amount of destruction, especially when you consider that each individual locust is such a small creature.
In giving his farewell address to the people of Israel, Moses gives the Israelites a warning from God against apostasy. God says that if they turn against Him, “I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague; I will send against them the fangs of wild beasts, the venom of vipers that glide in the dust.” (Deuteronomy 32:24) God foretold Israel’s apostasy, and promised to send pestilence and plague as a punishment, or as a disciplinary action to bring them to repentance through hardship. It is doubtful that the infestation of mice on Antipodes Island was punishment for any particular sins. There were no people who lived permanently on the island. It was just that the New Zealand government did not want to be seen as the protector and overseer of an island filled with multitudes of vicious mice, but of an island filled with migratory birds and animals living in a summer garden paradise.
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| Rulers have the God-given obligation to punish wrongdoers for the benefit of law-abiding citizens. |
St. Paul describes the proper function of the government in Romans 13. He wrote, “For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” (Romans 13:3-4) It is clear that God established government for the protection and benefit of the people – not the benefit of the rulers. Though many rulers through the ages have abused their power, still we should see government as something that God has established for our benefit. Government ought to punish wrongdoers, and let law-abiding citizens free to live as they choose, and to prosper and make a living as best suits them. We should also remember that even during St. Paul’s day, the Roman government was opposed to Christianity, and as a Roman citizen, St. Paul was arrested and summoned to Rome to answer for his teachings against the Roman gods, and where (tradition tells us) he was beheaded for his testimony of Jesus Christ as the only true God, yet he still encourages Christians to submit to the governing authorities (where they do not force us to disobey God). A good government cannot let sin and violence continue unabated like mice overrunning an island. They must punish wrongdoers in whatever way is most expedient to discourage such activities. If they can catch wrongdoers early, then the punishments can be less severe with the intention of rehabilitation and restoration to become productive, law-abiding citizens. Otherwise, more drastic measures become a necessity. This authority comes from God for the benefit of all. The only people who complain about such things are those who profit from sin and corruption and violence.
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| Jesus took the punishment for the sins of the world so that He could forgive you and save you from death. |
Epilogue:
You may believe it or not, but there is still some God-given fear and respect of mankind left in the animal kingdom, even among wild animals. There is an amazing story from a National Geographic photographer, Paul Nicklen, who had an encounter in the Antarctic sea with a leopard seal he was photographing. He was in the water photographing a large female leopard seal and she kept bringing live penguins to him, and not eating them herself – as she would normally do, but was letting them go in front of Nicklen. Then she would tire out the penguins and bring them to him. Then the leopard seal would drown the penguins and bring them to Nicklen. He had to conclude that the leopard seal was trying to feed him with the penguins. The leopard seal normally fed on penguins and thought that the man also would like to eat them also, though he was wearing scuba gear, and could not eat the penguins even if he had wanted to, and she seemed disappointed (possibly even concerned) when he would not take and eat the food that she was bringing to him.
Now, if you know anything about National Geographic then you will know that few (if anyone) associated with that publication would give God credit for anything which He has told us in Genesis, but I am not burdened by a religious adherence to the ridiculous unscientific idea of Darwinistic evolution, so I can come to my own conclusion. I do appreciate Paul Nicklen’s honesty and his curiosity and his desire to learn about the wonders of God’s creation, and for telling his amazing story. My conclusion is that Nicklen’s leopard seal was acting according to God’s intentions, and was giving us a glimpse of animals’ natural respect for man as God created them. You can watch Paul Nicklen’s description of his encounter and make your own conclusions here: (Face-to-Face with a Leopard Seal)
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| Dragons are often described in the Bible and in ancient writings as dangerous. In the Revelation the dragon is a symbol of the devil. Yet Christ has defeated him and protects us from the worst of his evil. |
At the risk of sounding like I am endorsing National Geographic, there is another story that they published in March 2011 that shows us a glimpse of God’s intentions of man’s relations with animals. I do not endorse the editorial views of the National Geographic Society, but on the rare occasions when they do actual scientific inquiry (and not pushing some Darwinistic, materialistic, evolutionary propaganda) they can bring real insight into God’s wonderful creation. The problem with NGS is that you often have to read between the lines to find the scientific truths in the midst of the propaganda. Having to dig through so much dung to find the pearls is discouraging and tiring, and although I have an interest in such things, I long ago found that my time is better spent elsewhere, and I canceled my membership many years ago.
The story is that in Siberia in the 1960’s during the reign of the Soviet Union, some workers who were raising foxes for fur products decided to do a little experimentation. They would do some selective breeding of the foxes who showed more tendencies toward friendliness with people. I suspect this was (at least in part) a practical decision, because wild foxes can be aggressive and violent, and if they could make a population of less aggressive animals, then it would be easier to care for them, and make their job less dangerous, and much more pleasant. They found that they could raise foxes which were much friendlier to people, but that is not all that they found. Although they were only using behavioral characteristics to select animals for this breeding experiment, they found that there were other physical changes that expressed themselves in the tamer foxes. Although wild foxes generally have red coats, and similar coloration, the tame foxes that they were breeding sometimes had different colored fur, and some had spotted (piebald) patterns in their coloration. They also observed that as the generations of tamer foxes progressed the foxes would tend to have floppy ears and curly tails very similar to domesticated dogs. The foxes would also exhibit behavior very similar to domestic dogs and not just tolerate interaction with people, but would enjoy friendly interaction with people and wag their tails and do the exact same things that friendly dogs do among people.
I am not sure if the Siberian fox researchers were Christian, (though they may have been) but they had to be careful about what they wrote in publishing their findings in the USSR at the time because of the official atheist policies of the central committee of the government. National Geographic magazine, likewise (even in 2011, long after the Soviet Union broke apart) did not want to attribute any of these findings to God’s creation. Yet it is clear that even within the population of wild foxes, there exists the “genetic memory” (so to speak) of God’s creation of them as friendly servants of mankind. This shows that the “wild” nature of some kinds of animals seems to be some kind of perversion (the Darwinists might say “adaptation” – and that is fine, as far as it goes) of the way their ancestors originally were.
By way of contrast, the Siberian researchers also conducted the opposite experiment and bred some foxes which were less friendly to people. They found that their anti-social behaviors increased, generation to generation, to the point where the foxes were extremely violent and mean, and vixens would not even nurse or care for their kits. This showed that violent tendencies in wild animals can increase if such populations breed with one another. On the other hand, tame behaviors are reinforced if animals with tamer tendencies reproduce with one another.
I find this interesting in so many ways. As a Lutheran pastor, I am not so much interested in wildlife as I am in the spiritual problems of people. There is some evidence in the Bible that what I have observed above has some things to teach us about people. In the time after the fall into sin until the great flood of Noah’s day the Bible tells us that many of the patriarchs lived extraordinary long lives, with some people (like Adam and Methuselah) living over 900 years. This is beyond anything in our experience, and even in Biblical days I believe the last person to live longer than about 120 years was Isaac (180 years). After that, Moses lived to be 120 (and was reportedly in good health when God took his life), but since then people’s maximum lifespans seem to be just like what we see today. But in the antediluvian period (before the flood), it seems like nearly all the people turned against God and became increasingly violent – which is why God determined to send the great flood to destroy the people on earth. God saved Noah and his family because they still trusted in God and listened to Him, and because God had made a promise to Adam and Eve that the Messiah would come from among their descendants and He would undo the effects of sin and redeem them and rescue them from death.
Because of what God tells Noah after the flood, that He will limit man’s life to 120 years at most, I conclude that there is some connection between the extraordinary long life of the antediluvian people and sin, unbelief, and violence. The way this works (as near as I can tell) is that, as the centuries go by, the devil and demons are able to find people’s weaknesses and wear them down with temptations until they fall into sin. Then, having fallen into sin and unbelief, that wickedness grows and expresses itself in violence. There is also some evidence in the Holy Scriptures that at the very end of time there will be some kind of increase in sin and violence, though such things may be hard to measure. There is no lack of sin and violence in the world today, though there are eight billion people in the world, and if only a small percentage of them are violent, then it would still have terrible effects. There really is nothing in the Holy Scriptures which would prevent Jesus from returning today, except God’s own timetable. All of the prophesies Jesus told His disciples, and those in the Revelation to St. John, have already come to pass, except for when history tends to repeat itself, and for the Second Coming of Jesus on the Last Day. This should not necessarily make us fearful, but it should encourage us to fight against evil, and try to turn the hearts of unbelievers to repent and look to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and salvation, and wait patiently for Christ’s salvation.
{Note: The National Geographic article on the domesticated foxes used to be freely available online, but I can’t find the whole thing. The March 2011 issue is available for purchase from National Geographic, and you may be able to find it in your local library, as long as they still have books and magazines available (my local library seems to have more computers than books these days). There is a myth that “the Internet is forever”, but that is often false. Companies go out of business, or are sold, and their archived data is lost or deleted, and it is gone.}
