And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man.
(Genesis 9:5)
In our day and age, the meaning life is relative. That’s tragic isn’t it? How can there possibly be several meanings and definitions to life? Doesn’t commonplace language go like “there’s only one life to live?” We live in a confused era but often the things that confound us are so trifle if only we believed and trusted in God.
After the flood, God made a covenant with man to never destroy life and all creation as in the flood. In keeping with this, God commanded man and all his creatures to preserve the life of man. Why? Because only God is the Author of life – He alone can and should take and give life. It is his alone especially the life of man whom He made in his image. This is why God gave Noah and his family “permission” to kill and eat animals.
God said He will take to task every man and beast that takes the life of a man. We all can understand how grave one person killing another is. But shouldn’t animals killing men be justified since they are creatures of instinct? God says NO! Man’s life is worth more than that. If God will require a reckoning from a beast, what more of us?
You may never have killed or murdered or aborted – but there are subtle ways in which we are guilty of this. When we fail to preserve the lives of others, we kill or take another’s life. Jesus said, if you are angry with your brother or call him a fool, you are guilty of murder (Matthew 5:22). Consider that seriously dear friend.
How do we preserve life though? It is not only in the physical preservation of it, but also spiritually, morally, emotionally and psychologically. Anyone who calls a man foolish is in fact slighting his Creator. When we do or say things and act in ways that strip any man of their dignity and honour, we take the value of their lives, kill and dishonour God.
When you call your pets, “good boy” or “good girl” and yet look a the drug addict on the street and think “that worthless scum,” YOU DO KILL MY FRIEND! When you refuse the homeless money or food and spend thousands on animal food, YOU KILL! When people practice, promote and praise abortion around and about you and you sit silently without doing anything to stop it, YOU KILL and God will require a reckoning from your hand!
God made every human being in His image – regardless of age, color or status. Thus, we have no justification for taking that life or treating it inhumanely, dishonoring it and stripping it of it’s dignity. Will you scorn and kill the very life for which Christ died to give life to?
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. (John 10:10)
New Westminster Chapel 