Exodus 9:1-7 - Homiletics

The burthen of man's sin presses on the brute creation, as well as on man himself.

"The whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now" ( Romans 8:22 ). Brutes are to a large extent co-partners with man in his sorrows and his wretchedness. But brute suffering is the product of man's sin. Mostly it is directly caused by man. Man not only kills animals for his food, but he chases them for his diversion, mutilates them for his convenience, vivisects them for his supposed benefit. In chasing them, he wounds more than he kills; in mutilating them, he often removes parts necessary for their comfort; in vivisecting them, he knowingly makes them suffer excruciating pain. His use of them as beasts of draught and burden is a lighter form of evil than any of these; but in the aggregate it causes, perhaps, as much suffering. Again, man makes the horse his companion in war, and exposes him to the most hideous wounds, the most horrid deaths. Nor does the list of his misdoings as respects the animal world end here. To children the wanton torture of insects seems to be a chief delight. For the production of certain delicacies of the table, turkeys and other animals are made to undergo untold agonies. Slow death is inflicted on calves, to make the veal white. Finally, animals are often involved in the Divine judgments by which nations are visited for their sins. "Much cattle" would have perished miserably, if Nineveh had not repented at Jonah's preaching. The beasts endure as much as the men when cities are blockaded. Occasionally, as in this plague, the beasts themselves are the direct sufferers, and God punishes man through them. No doubt there is a mystery in this. The suffering of innocent dumb animals is hard to reconcile with the goodness of God. His causing pain to them for man's fault is even more strange. How persons who have a fixed belief that the brute creation enjoys no future life, overcome the difficulty, we knew not. But the solution of it may, we think, be found in the Scripture which tells of "the spirit of the beast which goeth downward" ( Ecclesiastes 3:21 ). If the spirit of a beast survives, it may find compensation in another life for what it has suffered here. Man's coldness and deadness with respect to animal suffering is as marvellous as anything in his nature and history. "Pharaoh's heart" was utterly hard to it. He did not even ask that the plague should be removed. The sufferings and miserable death of thousands of beasts made not the slightest impression upon him. Probably he did not give their sufferings a thought. And even among Christians, is it not much the same? How few protest against even such enormities as promiscuous vivisection! How few, in grieving over the horrors of war, think of the pain which is borne by the animals engaged in it! How few give so much as a sigh to the labour, the weariness, the suffering of millions of poor dumb brute beasts engaged in ministering to their pleasures, amusements, convenience! We grieve bitterly for our own troubles. We have a tear of sympathy, perhaps, for the griefs of humanity generally. But for the rest of creation, "groaning and travailing in pain together until now," we have scarcely a thought. How different from him who was led to spare Nineveh ( Jonah 4:11 ) because therein were "more than six score thousand persons that could not discern between their right hand and their left hand, and also much cattle! '