Luk 12:24 Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!
Psa 145:15-16 The eyes of all look to you, and you give them their food in due season. (16) You open your hand; you satisfy the desire of every living thing.
Psa 147:9 He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry.
RASNs (revilers, abusers, sociopaths, narcissists) have no empathy. The cosmos revolves around them and everyone and everything exists only to serve their wicked ego. One of the very common ways their evil nature is exposed is in regard to how they relate to the animals.
Domestic abusers, for example, are known to evidence cruelty to animals. Sometimes when they want to punish their targeted victims (usually their wife) they treat a pet in the home with cruelty. They will even kill a beloved pet just to punish and control.
This trait demonstrates what a RASN really is – a child of the devil. He (or she) can claim to be a Christian and put on some fake saintly disguise, but their true spiritual DNA is revealed in how they abuse animals – or show no empathy toward them at all. They are of their father the devil. If they were children of God they would do what He does – feed and care for the animals.
Cruelty to animals comes in levels over a spectrum, from outright physical abuse of a pet to actually killing it. But there are more subtle levels of this evil as well. For instance [and don’t misunderstand what I am about to say here – I realize that not everyone chooses to have a dog or cat or other pet for reasons that are valid and not evil] ….for instance, a RASN, because they are a black hole void of empathy, will show no affection or kindness toward animals. They may tolerate (and even that for selfish reasons) a dog, for instance, in the home. But if you observe them, the RASN will betray his cold heart. Not by outright visible actions, but simply by having absolutely no feelings toward Buster or Teddy or Coco.
Domestic animals (pets) are rather remarkable creatures. They show far more empathy and love than the RASN and in that sense they are more human than the RASN. God has commanded us to love one another and therefore love is something that is supposed to be part of the very essence of what it means to be a human being. In that sense then, the RASN is more of a beast than a dog is. Dogs and other higher order animals are without question capable of showing love for their master. A chief highlight of a dog, for instance, is to key on phrases like “go for a walk” or “want to go?” I haven’t ever been able to really sort out why these outings elicit such excitement for a pet, but surely part of the explanation is that they simply want to be “with.” With us. With their master. If the master is, for example, absent for sometime (it may only be for a few hours!) there will be the family dog sitting at the front window waiting to hear that car drive up. The tail wags, jumping and licking and barking ensue. The master is home.
We have in these animals a wonderful picture of the genuine Christian’s relationship to the Lord Jesus Christ. Listen to the Good Shepherd:
Joh 10:3-5 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. (4) When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. (5) A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”
None of these qualities are to be found in the RASN, regardless of how hard he works at his “christian” disguise. He does not know the voice of the Good Shepherd. Why? Because he does not know Him. He does not belong to Him. He is of his father the devil. And such a being is cruel toward Christ’s sheep.
Lele
So true. I’m an animal lover and have a small farm. When I got married my husband made me kick my dogs outside even though it gets cold at night. He told me that because he was my husband if he told me to chain my dogs out to a tree with no shelter food or water that that’s what I’d better do. Anything I loved he despised especially my son.
When we were dating he was silly and fun with my son and my dogs but once we were married we were all in his crosshairs.
Thank you Jeff for being there for me through all of this heart ache.
Jeff Crippen
Lele- It is not at all uncommon for the RASN to fake it and then immediately on the honeymoon everything changes. The real beast is exposed as the mask is dropped.
Z
Pastor, your heart for God’s creatures, especially our beloved pets who show the love of Christ to us warms my heart! That’s where I learned of real, non-toxic love as a child-from our family dog’s great love for me and mine for her.
Thank you for painting this lovely picture/image of Christ’s love and care for His animals and our ability to love others and His creatures.
I’ve seen the cold-hearted attitude of my abuser ex-parents and later as adults even my enmeshed ex-siblings towards our family dog and my dogs I had/have as an adult. There was no bond.
In front of others visiting, etc, they wore “animal lover” as a costume like all the others they wear they wear to appear as “normal people”. Sickening because I knew their real comments and actions when they weren’t playacting around others. But it was no different than their words and actions behind closed doors about people. No value.
But this was expected. They are followers of their father satan in so so many ways. This was just one.
I thank God He gave me such a heart of love for my dogs (and all animals). They are gifts from above from the Father for sure! Family members. They’ve enhanced our lives so much. And we take seriously the commands of God to care for our animals. We’ve made many sacrificial decisions to take their feelings into account and to give up many many activities, travel, spending a lot of time away from them and to instead stay home more or do something with them that they’d enjoy. Best decisions we ever made. Now they are beautiful memories we will never forget.
RASNs don’t have the capacity to be selfless. Not with people or animals. My ex-father and ex-mother were my abusers. So they didn’t even love or care for their own children. Power and control over us was the goal. Fear. Terror.
My ex-father often used to threaten us as children for the most ridiculous reasons (not cleaning our room, coming home a little late, stepping out of line even a tiny bit…that he was going to “give the needle” to our family dog. Just to watch us cry. (Not my abusive mother though. No tears there.) I could see the glee in his demonic eyes when he saw us crying and pleading for our dog’s life. Over and over all her life.
What a contrast to how my husband and I see our dogs! We delight in seeing them happy.
Thanks for pointing out this ugly demonic characteristic of RASNs. It’s so true.
Survivor
I was wondering if you have been watching the news about the Miranda animal sanctuary in northern California? I’m not a psychologist, but Mr. Shannon Miranda strikes me as a RASN. Sad that some women were trying to call attention to this place for more than twenty years, and two women finally had to risk their lives and go to extremes to prove to authorities and the media he was killing animals.
I knew an elderly person who was conned by an unrelated animal sanctuary so I looked into the subject. The animal activism/rescue/sanctuary industry seems to have a problem with charismatic male leaders who mislead women, and the truth-tellers are silenced for years.
When these sanctuaries or rescues are corrupt, volunteers and donors are told that if you speak up about the problems in the cause or facility, “it’s the animals you’re hurting.” Or the enablers claim that the truth-tellers they’re bullying that popular leader who’s “devoted his whole life to the animals.” Even though Google suggests that some of these apparent grifters were corporate executives until a few years ago, or even still hold outside for-profit jobs.
The abusive leaders and enablers are subtly threatening the animals to get what they want from the human victims and truth-tellers, which is what sometimes happens in domestic violence and child abuse situations. And the irony of it is that some of the specific sanctuary animals in question are already dead or suspiciously unaccounted for when those implied threats are being made.
The abusive manipulation at the corrupt animal sanctuaries and rescues makes good people unable or afraid to openly perform basic math. Miranda’s sanctuary wasn’t unusual in that several hundreds of animals arrived annually, but apparently a tiny fraction of those were adopted out or are accounted for. In retrospect, I noticed similar quantitative issues in the unrelated case I mentioned. Only one person founded, owned, lived at, and was on the payroll of the place, and that person also had an unrelated outside job. Not many known volunteers, but a lot of donors and animal intake. Nobody openly questioned how that individual could take care of the stated huge quantity of diverse animals – most of which were apparently never actually ever witnessed and photographed living on that property at the same time together. Basic math would also have people questioning how that many stated animals could live on relatively so little acreage. If a place states it has only five acres, there’s something wrong if it claims to have a thousand cats. That’s not enough land for that many animals.
Some animals will legitimately die of natural causes, but dogs and cats can live for fifteen to twenty years. Birds, primates, horses, and certain reptiles can live even longer. If a longtime, high-intake low-placement sanctuary doesn’t currently have thousands of animals but everyone’s afraid to verbally ask about it, that could be gaslighting or censorship at work. And some of these places such as Miranda’s get tax-paid government contracts to take unpardonable animals from county animal shelters and police departments.
It stuns me that the community and media didn’t openly call out the sheer numerical imbalance, time challenges, or spacial improbabilities with this California sanctuary for so long, but when it’s possibly a RASN and a cast of enablers involved, perhaps it shouldn’t.
Jeff Crippen
Wicked people so often have no compassion or love and that includes them being cruel to animals. Cruelty to the Lord’s creatures is a great sin.