Focussing on Jesus No.1 Jesus and the Animals

If you'd turn with me to Mark, the Gospel of Mark, and chapter one. There are two readings tonight. You might want to put one finger in Mark chapter 11 as well.

Mark chapter one, starting at verse nine. At that time, Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. As Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the spirit descending on him like a dove.

And a voice came from heaven, you are my son whom I love, with you I am well pleased. At once the spirit sent him out into the desert and he was in the desert for 40 days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals and angels attended him.

And if you could turn to Mark 11, and reading from verse one. As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples saying to them, go to the village ahead of you and just as you enter it, you will find a cult tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here.

If anyone asks you, why are you doing this? Tell him, the Lord needs it and will send it back here shortly. They went and found a cult outside in the street tied at a doorway. As they untied it, some people standing there asked, what are you doing untying that cult? They answered as Jesus had told them to and the people let them go.

When they brought the cult to Jesus and threw their cloaks over it, he sat on it. Many people spread their cloaks on the road while others spread branches they had cut in the fields. Those who went ahead and those who followed shouted, Hosanna, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father, David. Hosanna in the highest. Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple.

He looked around at everything, but since it was already late, he went out to Bethany with the 12. You know, the building here, like some of us, is showing its age and I guess, if you've been standing for 100 years or nigh on, there may be one or two things that you need to have done. In fact, some of us are considerably younger.

There's still one or two things that we need to have done. Unfortunately, you can't repair a human body like you can repair a church building. Now, our offerings today have been dedicated to help us correct the problems that we've got on our roof.

Which are just about finished in terms of the workmanship. And as we sing this song or this hymn, we'll take our evening offering towards the work of the Lord and whether it's a widow's night, whether it's a little bit of your pocket money, or whether it's the tithe that you regularly give, give to the Lord and thank the Lord as you're giving for the church here and for the blessing, which we hope it's been to you and continue to commit its ministries in the days and weeks and months and years that are to come. 293, I sing the almighty power of God.

We've had the refrain played through, we'll stand and sing. Let's enjoy singing it then. Stand right down.

Do sit down. These coming Sunday evenings, apart from when we have guests coming because of our tabsentennial program, I thought it would be rather nice to single out a fresh Our Lord Jesus and to bring some addresses on particular things where we can learn from him. And if you haven't picked up some brochure that gives you some information as to what our preaching program is during this spring period, then get one from the welcome desk, the foyer area as you leave.

And you'll discover that not only in the morning are we going back to the beginnings, speaking from the book of Genesis, looking at some things that are wonderfully made plain in that first book of the Bible, but in the evening, you'll see the full program for the night addresses focusing on Jesus, what Jesus has to say about forgiveness, what Jesus has to say about family life, several topics that stand out, especially from the opening chapters of the book, the Gospel of Mark. And it so happens, by God's grace, that this evening's address picks up almost where we left off to some degree this morning because I want to direct your attention to our Lord Jesus at the point of his baptism when he went from there into the wilderness and had some very interesting companions. I want to speak to you about Jesus and the animals.

A young camel asked his father, why do we have humps on our backs? Well, they store food when traveling through the desert, answers his father. Later, the camel asks, why do we have long eyelashes? To stop sand blowing in our eyes, comes the reply. Then the young camel asks, why are our toes linked by pants? To stop us sinking in the ground, his father explains.

So, dad, counters the young camel, what are we doing in London Zoo? Well, I leave my new book off with that particular joke which I plundered from the reader's digest. And it helps to set the scene, at least for this evening, when we're going to be looking not so much about Jesus and the animals, but Jesus as a counterbalancing figure in the New Testament to Adam in the Old Testament. Because one of the things you will discover as you read the Bible and as you consider the Christian faith is to quote the words of the president of Magdalen College in Oxford some years ago, there are two men, and from the girdle strings, he was preaching in the 18th century, from the girdle strings of these two men hang all other men and women.

What did Thomas Goodwin mean by that? He meant that either you are an Adam man or a Jesus man. The two most important people in history is the first man, Adam, and the Lord Jesus, who is called in the New Testament the second or the last Adam. And it's the Lord Jesus that we're concentrating on this evening, as I said, focusing on his ministry, the beginning of his ministry, and we find him in a most remarkable way almost going through some of the experiences that Adam went through when he first was made and man came on this earth.

More of that in a moment or two. I, when I was researching this book on a biblical perspective on animals, in the library in Worthing, just across the road, I was most struck by one book which I read which had been defaced. I'm sure the librarian wouldn't have appreciated that, and it said across the page, written in pencil, Christianity is a cruel religion.

And the reason for the wrath of the reader was, well, the author had quoted something from scripture a little bit out of context, and it seemed to him, to the reader, to suggest that Christianity, and the Lord Jesus particularly, had nothing to say about the world that's been created and the companions that we share this world with, the animals. And it's true to say, historically, in some senses, that the criticism could apply, but it couldn't apply to the Lord Jesus. I mean, historically, well, the Pope in the 1880s prevented in Rome the establishment of a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals as we have in the United Kingdom.

And actually, the whole business of vivisection, cutting animals open, was first practiced in monasteries because the traditional teaching of the Catholic Church was that animals don't have any feelings, and their squeals and their groans and their barkings is just like the workings of a clock, when the wheels and what have you move together and rub against one another. They don't have any feelings. Now, when you come to the Bible, you discover that it does have some very interesting things to say about animals, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament, and that they are quite important in the lives of both Adam and Jesus.

And I'm absolutely amazed when someone like the historian of the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals here in England could make the comment that those Bible text hunters who turn to that book do not find a great deal for their comfort as far as its teaching here is concerned. Well, I want to suggest that the opposite is the correct teaching and impression that Scripture gives. As we're focusing on our Lord Jesus, what we're asking of our Savior in regard to not only the subject this evening, but the others that I've touched on that will come up on successive Sunday evenings is how did Jesus relate to some of these issues? Or put it another way, Jesus is a righteous man.

Then how does a righteous man live? How does a righteous man live in respect of his family? How does a righteous person live in regard to the environment? How does a righteous man live as far as God is concerned? So we're looking at this one instance in which the Bible gives us tonight quite a lot of information. And I want to ask you the question. Right at the beginning of my address, as we bring Adam and Jesus into focus, are you an Adam man or are you a Jesus man in your understanding of the doctrine of creation? Well, if you're puzzled, just hang on for a little while longer and you'll see the whole subject coming very clear.

Let's talk about Adam for a moment. You discover, of course, record of his life in the first two or three chapters of the Old Testament. Where did he spend his days? Well, many of you will be fully aware that Adam was placed in a garden.

The earth, as I was trying to say this morning when it was created, was created in a condition where you could only describe it in terms of bliss or paradise. Many of the things that we associate in our world today were not present. There was joy and happiness in the heart of Adam as he looked around and there were the trees and the flowers and the animals who would be his companions in some respect.

What was Adam's job? Well, he was a sort of precursor of David Attenborough. I mean, he was to classify the animals. He was to inspect their habitat and not only the animals but also the whole realm of nature.

He's a botanist and a zoologist and a biologist. Adam was a genius. You have to read out from scripture all it's saying of this man who comes fresh from the creative purposes of God, made as animals are from the dust of the earth but bearing in his personality the image of God.

So Adam comes into a garden and he's not there to be lazy. He has a job. Are there any classifications of these animals? Yes, the answer is, if you read in Genesis, that there are those who are more wild and some who seem to be more tame as far as our modern categories are concerned.

What was his job? Well, he was their guardian. He was their companion. The Bible doesn't say that he evolved from them.

Certain theories of modern science may say that but the Bible doesn't say that. He says that the Bible says he had many common denominators. They are made from the earth.

He is made from the earth. They know something of the vital power of God working in them as he does. But it doesn't say that he evolves from them.

He is made in the image of God. He is unique. The animals are told to inhabit the earth and multiply and so is Adam.

With whom did Adam get the best fellowship? The answer is that in the cool of the day, the narrator speaking poetically, God made his presence felt in the garden and Adam, with his divine friend, engaged in communion. So that's the picture that you find of Adam in the first chapters of the Bible. Now, I said to you that in the New Testament and particularly in Paul's letter to the Corinthians, you get reference to Jesus Christ.

And you find that in one sense, Jesus balances in the New Testament the person of Adam in the Old Testament. Where did Jesus commence his first period of ministry? Where do you find him in preparation for his public preaching? Well, the reason, of course, why I asked Gavin to read that particular passage from Mark's gospel is because there it contains the answer to my question. At once, the Spirit, the Holy Spirit, on Jesus having been baptized, sends him out into the desert, into the wilderness.

It wasn't always a wilderness. This world and many parts of it have turned into a wilderness since the fall of man, since the sin of the first Adam. And our Lord Jesus goes back into what was formerly the garden, into what was formerly the ordered agricultural area where Adam had his communion with the Lord.

It's in that whole area in the Middle East that both these settings that we're reading of in scripture are located. And where did Jesus look for his fellowship during those 40 days that he was in this wilderness after his baptism? Well, we're told he was with the wild animals and angels attended to him. Our Lord, like Adam, had heard the voice of God, his Father.

He heard that when he was baptized in the water by John. He knew the constraints of the Holy Spirit who directed him into the wilderness. And while he is there, he knows the ministry of God's emissaries, the angels.

And so you get these common denominators between the first Adam of whom you read in Genesis and the last Adam of whom you read in the opening books of the New Testament and whose teaching is worked out in the epistles of the second part of the Bible. Adam was called the Son of God. Our Lord Jesus is known as the Son of God.

Adam's life obviously marked a beginning. That's why the first book of the Bible is called Genesis when our Lord came on earth, he introduced a new beginning for men and women who would embrace his ministry and his teaching. Adam has his place of training.

Our Lord Jesus in the wilderness also has his place of preparation. Adam has fellowship with God. Jesus, as I've established, also has fellowship with God.

Adam is in the company of animals as Jesus is in the company of animals. I miss Anne Christian. Anne Christian's a dear friend of mine and she's out in Bolivia.

She not only spent time on Doulos years ago but was a very helpful companion to me when working on our staff and has been a close friend of Rowena and I for some years. Now when I think of Anne, not only do I think of a young woman who has a very able mind, I also recall her as someone who is good at poetry. And she has a classic poem, not that she actually wrote it, but it comes from the north of England and it needs a northern accent.

And it's about a poor boy called Albert. And this unfortunate fellow visits a zoo. And much to the dismay of his mother and presumably to the dismay of Albert himself, he finishes up inside the stomach of the lion.

And the mother is most annoyed that the zookeeper has allowed this state of affairs. And the fact of the matter is, just to make my illustration a little more serious, that the majority of us here, if we find ourselves, as I was last Sunday in Africa, and we moved into some of the wildlife parks, we wouldn't feel too comfortable in the company of some animals because there has come a change in the world as it was when it fell fresh from the hands of God. Not all animals are easy to have friendship with.

Not all animals can be trusted. And there is within the animal world, those that are wild in terms of a distinction and those who are a little bit more agreeable. Now, let's imagine that we are not here in Worthing Tabernacle.

We are rather in the United States of America in the days of the Wild West. Some of us are not too sure that America ever moved away from the days of the Wild West. And here you are in one of these new frontier towns and you came to your church on a horse.

You happen to be a family that has captured horses from the wild. Now, you do not immediately clamber on the back of an untrained horse. For what reason? He does not want your companionship.

And you will discover that you offering him companionship actually is very dangerous indeed. Animals have to be tamed. Here is our Lord Jesus.

And he spends time in the wilderness as Adam spent time in Eden. There was no fear as far as Adam was concerned regarding those animals. In fact, it's the eighth chapter of Genesis that you get to before you come across the word dread and fear.

When Adam was there in Eden, the animals accepted him and he accepted them. He was there as their guardian. He was there as their steward.

He was there to treat them with respect. There was a proper relationship between him and them. He recognizing his position and they presumably enjoying the benefits of Edenic bliss.

Now, here is Jesus. And many centuries have passed by. He is in the wilderness.

And those animals are ferocious in the sense of the bucking bronco. They are as dangerous as the mythological lion in the Albert poem. But Jesus has no fear of them.

And he, they seem to have no fear of him. He was with the wild animals. Why should they be afraid of him? Why should he be afraid of them? He is the Lord of creation.

He is the one who spoke eons ago and the world came into existence. He is the owner who comes to inspect his planet. And he has no problems with them at all.

You see, the teaching of scripture is this. That when the first Adam sinned, the world changed. The bliss of Eden is no longer.

Adam and Eve are expelled from the garden. Thorns, weeds, thistles, the earth is cursed. It will no longer be an easy task to engaging agriculture.

You will get your harvest by the sweat of your brow. You will keep your grass and your garden in order by toil week after week. And not only does the earth bear the curse, the punishment of Adam's transgression when he disobeyed God, but the animals who were innocent spectators on the fall are also affected.

And thus the dread of man, says Genesis, falls on the animals and it's vice versa. I am saying that the problems that we have in our world today, ecologically, are traced back to the fall of man. But here comes a different breed of man.

Adam, the second Adam, our Lord Jesus. And when he is on this earth, things are so different. Even in the realm of nature, speaks to the wind.

It's calm and therefore the sea becomes tranquil. Addresses the demonized man and the spirit is exorcised. Here is our Lord who is master of wind, master of ocean, master of the demonic realm, and also the Lord, the creator of the universe, displaying his power and that power admitted to by the animal world.

So, Jesus comes out of the wilderness and he engages in public ministry. And he will punctuate that ministry with teachings that he more than anyone else is able to isolate and apply. And those teachings in which he will plunder his knowledge of the world of nature will be understood by the men and women who will listen to him.

So, after 40 days and nights in the wilderness with the angels, knowing the presence of God in the company of the angels, Jesus comes out into this world and how much different is his ministry from that of Adam, who expelled from Eden, goes into a world that bears the marks of his sin and his rebellion. So, Jesus, the companion of the animals, talks to men. And how does he talk to them? Well, he warns them.

Our Lord Jesus knows the ferocity of men can surpass that of wild animals. And so, he isolates someone by the name of Herod. The Pharisees have come to Jesus and they've said that King Herod is going to show his wrath against Jesus and it will be better if Jesus does not go into the city of Jerusalem.

And what does Jesus say? Tell that fox, Herod, in effect, that I command my own life. But why fox? Because there is a ferocity in men that resembles the ferocity of a wild fox and Jesus will isolate this unpleasant characteristic. Moreover, on a more positive note, Jesus will identify the spiritual needs of men in terms of sheep.

You see, here you are in this world and you're very vulnerable, as men and women were in the world of Jesus. And when Jesus sees men and women who know the ferocity of folk like Herod, who are under the jackboot of Rome, who know something of the tyranny of Satan in their lives, Jesus says, they are like sheep, they do need help. And that's why Jesus came into the world.

A good shepherd looks after his sheep. Jesus presumes on the goodness of men in their conduct to their animals. And from that presumption, he makes an application and says even more.

I tell you, you need a shepherd and I have come as the good shepherd to guide sheep and to direct them and to minister to them. Jesus knows that when a man, when a woman, when a boy or a girl has come to him, they will still be vulnerable. He will send them out into this world, but there are wolves there.

You cannot trust the wolf. It's an animal that is guilty of duplicity. And there will be wolves in the clothing of sheep who will try to deceive the early members of those who are part of the society of Jesus.

And he warns them from his knowledge of the animal world, which sometimes can be read in tooth and claw. But our Lord also recognizes that there is an innocence within the animal realm. You see, there are various categories of animals as there are various categories of people.

Our Lord has just come from the wilderness and prior to that, he was immersed in the Jordan. When he's immersed in the Jordan, what happens? A dove comes down and rests on the shoulder of Jesus. It's a literal dove.

And the dove is symbolic of the Holy Spirit. And this makes such an impression upon Jesus. In just a little while, he will be in Jerusalem and he will release caged doves from the bazaar in front of the temple, which was an illegal place of exchanging merchandise and money and buying and selling of animals and other things.

But later on, when Jesus talks to his followers, he says, I want you to go out into the world as innocent as doves. And there is nothing in the context that suggests that Jesus is doing anything else but speaking literally when he refers to the innocence of a dove. Innocent of sin.

Not an accomplice in the act of rebellion against God. Now, he speaks to his followers and he says that same innocence I detect in the world of nature, I want you to reproduce. You see how wonderful is the teaching of our Lord? He pleads for kindness to be shown in the creation which he has brought into being.

He highlights the needs of the donkey that falls in the ditch on the Sabbath day and says, shunt aside the law of Moses. You show kindness. And Jesus is the man who is illustrating the definition of the righteous man.

Not a full definition, but a partial definition, which you find in the book of Proverbs. The righteous man is kind. He's kind to his animals.

Jesus will heighten that beatitude in Proverbs and he will say, blessed are the merciful for they shall receive mercy. And who can say that Jesus was limiting that merely to a human to human relationship? He is delineating, he is defining the way that you and I as tenants in this world are to live our lives with compassion, with a sense of responsibility, with stewardship. We are to be God's husband men as we look after the world in which he has placed us.

And this is all basic to the teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ. He pleads for kindness on the part of men and women to their own kith and kin and to those with whom they share the world. And finally, the end of the ministry of Jesus, three years of ministry in which he expresses the most remarkable spiritual truths and uses nature to illustrate what he's teaching.

He clambers on a donkey which is never known, a man riding it before. And Jesus does not get the same treatment as the brash cowboy of the American Wild West. He doesn't have to break it in because there is no spirit of rebellion because the animal knows that riding this beast is someone who is different.

The donkey, the beast of burden carries into Jerusalem a man who'll bear the burden of the sins of the world. And when they do him to death on the cross, do you know how he illustrates his death? He said, I go as a lamb to the slaughterer. But there's no panic, Gethsemane is over, I'm strengthened.

I offer my life to the tormentors. And here the analogy breaks. For no animal can at the point of death not sense something of what awaits him.

But Jesus eagerly goes to the cross for you and for me, the lamb of God slain for your sins, for the sins of humanity. There are two men of importance in history. All others may have an importance but it is relative.

There is Adam, the man who rebelled, the man who was placed in the garden, the man who had everything going for him and yet it was not enough. And there is the second Adam who also found himself in what was once a garden but is now a wilderness. In the companionship of the animals, he comes out of that place and he starts to preach and brings a message which is radical, a message which has at its number one goal to bring the relationship back between the sons of the first Adam and almighty God and a message which has secondary consequences to remind these men and women who commit themselves to him that not only have they an eternal future to look forward to but they have a responsibility during the time that they're in this earth to preserve what there is still remaining of the beauty, of the handiwork, of the creation of God, Jesus and the animals.

We focus in on him and thank God for the lessons we receive. Let's pray. Father, we want to thank you for our Lord who knew so much, not only about the natural world but the world of man.

Our Lord who knew the very position of an animal in the streets of Jerusalem and on which side of the boat a shoal of fish were waiting. Our Lord Jesus who could direct one of his disciples to a particular fish in which he would find a coin that would pay the tax that was demanded by the Roman Empire. We thank you that this Lord Jesus is still knowledgeable even more so of us and our condition.

We bless you for the kind savior, kind towards all with whom he dealt, kind to us and we would embrace him and say, Lord, our allegiance is to the last Adam. May he be ever not only our creator but also our savior. Amen.

♪ Thank you for saving me ♪ ♪ What can I say ♪ ♪ You are my everything ♪ ♪ I will sing your praise ♪ ♪ You shed your blood for me ♪ ♪ What can I say ♪ ♪ You took my sin and shame ♪ ♪ A sinner called by name ♪ ♪ Now we know your truth has set us free ♪ ♪ You've set your hope in me ♪ ♪ Mercy and praise are mine ♪ ♪ Forgiven is my sin ♪ ♪ Jesus, my only hope ♪ ♪ The savior of the world ♪ ♪ Praise is the Lord, we cry ♪ ♪ God let your kingdom come ♪ ♪ Your word has let me see ♪ ♪ Thank you for saving me ♪ ♪ Praise is the Lord, we cry ♪ ♪ Praise is the Lord, we cry ♪ ♪ For we know your truth has set us free ♪ ♪ You've set your hope in me ♪ ♪ Thank you for saving me, what can I say? ♪ ♪ Thank you for saving me, what can I say? ♪