Have you ever watched one of those nature documentaries where they show lions chasing down, killing and eating zebras or wildebeests or some other animal? The narrators talk about this savagery like it’s something beautiful and natural; they call it the “wonderful balance of nature” or some other euphemism designed to make us feel better about murder in the animal kingdom. I watch and think there is something very unnatural about animals killing and eating other animals.
The Book of Genesis provides support for my perception. God’s revelation of how things were in the beginning paints a picture of animals in perfect harmony with man and each other. It shows God assigning for both man and beast a diet of fruit and plants. (Genesis 1:29-30). All that changed when man rebelled against God, thereby introducing the curse and corrupting influence of sin into creation.
Isaiah 11 promises the reconciliation of nature in these particulars during the Kingdom Age:
“And the wolf will dwell with lamb, and the leopard will lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little boy will lead them. Also the cow and the bear will graze; their young will lie down together; and the lion will eat straw like the ox. And the nursing child will play by the hole of the cobra, and the weaned child will put his hand on the viper’s den. They will not hurt or destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” (Isaiah 11:6-9).
Dogs and cats living together, children putting their hands in a viper’s den and playing next to a cobra yet “they will not hurt or destroy.” (Isaiah 11:8-9). This is a picture of the reconciliation of the animal kingdom with itself, man and its creator.
If animals aren’t eating one another, what will they eat? They will eat what they were intended to eat from the beginning (Genesis 1:29-30), e.g., “the lion will eat straw like the ox.” (Isaiah 11:7).
Don’t be fooled into thinking what is is what was intended or that what is is what will be. The transformational power of King Jesus and His Kingdom are game-changers. GS