Let My Cattle Go!

Dearly beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, I was listing to one of you the other day the tangible financial benefits that being part of this congregation has brought to his life. They were really pretty impressive, and by some measures actually kept this fellow out of homelessness. As cool as that is, though, I bring it up not because it's cool but because it points to the same truth that this passage teaches: The blessing that God gives to His people is so overwhelming that it spills over and blesses everyone affiliated with them too. That's the positive side of it, shown by the way that Israel's cattle lived. But the flip side is equally true: The curse on God's enemies is so strong that it too spills over and includes those affiliated with them, right down to their animals. That's why animals die in this world. It's because animals are affiliated with us, subject to us, and so our sin has subjected them to futility, pain, and death. We fill the earth and subdue it, and so it cries out in pain as it tastes the pain of our sin. Don't be hard-hearted and disobedient, and thus bring pain on your animals. Instead, submit yourself to Christ, and you and your beasts will know His blessing.