 |
|
|
 “For I, the Lord, do not change …”
Divine Words Against Animal Sacrifice
Through Prophets after Moses
Let us call to mind again what God spoke through Malachi: For I, the Lord, do not change … He is eternally the same; His nature was brought closer to us by Jesus. God revealed Himself as the one that He is, through all true prophets of God. Following, we read some words of God from the Old Testament:
Through Isaiah He speaks:
What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the Lord. I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of he-goats. (Is. 1:11)
And further: Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. (Is. 1:13)
Or would Jesus, were He among us as a human being today, quote Isaiah? When you spread forth your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your doings from before my eyes; cease to do evil. (Is. 1:15-16)
In the first book of Samuel we read: Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than to sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams. (I Sam. 15:22)
God spoke through Hosea: For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. (Hos. 6:6) And: Because E´phraim has multiplied altars for sinning, they have become to him altars for sinning. Were I to write for him my laws by ten thousands, they would be regarded as a strange thing. They love sacrifice; they sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord has no delight in them ... (Hos. 8:11-13)
God through Amos also spoke in plain and strong words against the instructions in the “Books of Moses:” I hate, I despise your feasts, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and cereal offerings, I will not accept them, and the peace offerings of your fatted beasts I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; to the melody of your harps I will not listen. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
Did you bring to me sacrifices and offerings the forty years in the wilderness, O house of Israel? You shall take up Sakkuth your king, and Kaiwan your star-god, your images, which you made for yourselves; therefore I will take you into exile beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of hosts. (Am. 5:21-27)
Through Jeremiah, God spoke the following: To what purpose does frankincense come to me from Sheba, or sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable, nor your sacrifices pleasing to me. (Jer. 6:20)
And: For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them, ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people: and walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.’ But they did not obey or incline their ear, but walked in their own counsels and the stubbornness of their evil hearts, and went backward and not forward.
From the day that your fathers came out of the land of Egypt to this day, I have persistently sent all my servants the prophets to them, day after day; yet they did not listen to me, or incline their ear, but stiffened their neck. They did worse than their fathers.
So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you. And you shall say to them, ‘This is the nation that did not obey the voice of the Lord their God, and did not accept discipline; truth has perished; it is cut off from their lips ...’ (Jer. 7:22-28)
In Micah we read: With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my first-born for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sins of my soul?
He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? (Mic. 6:6-8)
In Psalm 50 it says: I will accept no bull from your house, nor he-goat from your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, the cattle on a thousand hills. I know all the birds of the air, and all that moves in the field is mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell you; for the world and all that is in it is mine. Do I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats?
Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most high; and call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.
But to the wicked, God says: “What right have you to recite my statutes, or take my covenant on your lips? For you hate discipline, and you cast my words behind you. If you see a thief, you are a friend of his; and you keep company with adulterers. You give your mouth free rein for evil, and your tongue frames deceit. You sit and speak against your brother; you slander your own mother’s son. These things you have done and I have been silent; you thought that I was one like yourself. But now I rebuke you, and lay the charge before you. (Ps. 50:9-21)
Since the time when Constantine raised the externalized Church, which was put together by Paul with all its bishops, to the status of state church, the Church has remained to this day a Roman, state church of pagan rituals with few Christian fragments. Today’s ecclesiastical officials are just as power-hungry as the officials back then. They are the greatest danger to those who are not true to the Church. According to its documentation in the Catholic Catechism, they pledge to carry out what the Old Testament contains. Let us recall the following: “The Old Testament prepares for the New and the New Testament fulfills the Old; the two shed light on each other; both are the true Word of God.”
Let us once more become aware that the representatives of today’s institutional churches presume to fulfill the Old Testament in the New. For all those who do not follow the Church, this means persecution, slander, discrimination, and the loss of all rights, if necessary, even through the state. Both in the past and in recent times, they have proven that they are willing to make true what they have written in the Catechism. The atrocities of the Old Testament have long since been outdone by all that which has happened during the time of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, hundreds of thousands of people were killed and countless animals were cruelly tortured. In the New Testament there are millions upon millions of people on the conscience of the Church – not to mention the animals, which are only objects to the Church, sacrificed in the slaughterhouses of this world, for the enjoyment of the Baal-god man.
The Little Prince said: You can see well only with the heart. I want to add: You can read well only with the heart. Jesus of Nazareth often said: May the one who has ears to hear, listen. And the voice of the heart says: All those who listen, read, and weigh with the heart may follow their heart – if they so choose.
to the next chapter
|
|
