The Man Christ Jesus (part 14)

Our Father in heaven, we come before you this morning, just grateful, grateful that we have yet another day to worship you, to have fellowship with one another, to look to your word. Lord, I pray that you would bless our time as we will begin examining what your word says about various social issues, difficult issues.

And Lord, I pray that you would bless our time and cause us to think and really focus through a biblical worldview, to see the world as you see it and to see issues as you see them. Father, I pray that you would bless each one here and bless our time in Christ's name, amen.

Well, so many things have come up over the last few weeks, not so much in the church, but in the news. And I just thought, you know, this would be a good time to really discover the meaning of life. Hmm, yeah.

I don't know how many of you saw it, but this week the Connecticut Supreme Court ordered a young woman to get chemotherapy. Did you see this? 17 years old. Let me just read a little bit of a news article here.

The Connecticut Supreme Court sided with the state on Thursday in a case which pitted a 17 year old girl with cancer against the Department of Children and Families, DCF. The court ruled that Cassandra, as she's known in court papers, by the way, that's not her real name.

Her real name is, I have no idea. They're just calling her Cassandra, will be forced to undergo chemotherapy for the treatment of Hodgkin's lymphoma. Cassandra was diagnosed with the disease in August, but the team decided against chemotherapy treatment, opting instead for a second opinion and a more natural remedy.

Her mother supported her decision, but the DCF decided otherwise, taking Cassandra from her home, placing her in foster care and forcing her to receive treatment. The teen and her mother appealed to the state's highest court.

It was the first case of its kind to be heard at that level. And Cassandra agreed with that and said that this chemotherapy was not in her daughter's best interest. Now, Cassandra wrote an op-ed that was published, and this is just a paragraph from that.

This experience has been a continuous nightmare. I want the right to make my medical decisions. It's disgusting that I'm fighting for a right that I and anyone in my situation should already have. This is my life and my body, not DCFs and not the states.

I am a human. I should be able to decide if I do or don't want chemotherapy. Whether I live 17 years or 100 years should not be anyone's choice but mine. How long, she writes, how long is a person actually supposed to live and why, who determines that?

I care about the quality of my life, not just the quantity. Reaction. Redaction, as we like to say. No. Any responses to that? What would you say to her? Power to the people, Cassandra. Right on. Nobody's gonna tell you what to do.

Isn't there a part of you though that wants to say this is the DCF and the state imposing their will on Cassandra and that's not right? I know there's a big part of me that wants to say that. Bruce? Okay, so Bruce said, you know, there was a doctor he saw on TV who said, you know, she's almost certainly going to die if she doesn't get some kind of treatment, that there's an excellent chance that she'll live if she gets the treatment.

This doctor himself was sick and he survived. Charlie brings up whether or not the government has a right as a minister, you know, to protect life. And in fact, I believe that is Romans 13 is what we're talking about.

But that mostly has to do with Avengers and being subject to the government. But in any event, they're certainly protecting life in that sense, and I think that's right. I'm gonna skip ahead because you never really know how these things are gonna go.

I'm gonna skip ahead to page four of my outline, which none of you have, so you wouldn't know. Because it goes right along with what Bruce was saying. I saw somebody being interviewed on TV the other day and I thought this was apropos.

The man's name is Peter Johnson Jr. And he happens to be, according to his biography there on Fox News, a prominent appellate and trial lawyer who has served under, well, I mean, he's got a lot of, he graduated from Columbia University's law school and he's won all these awards and blah, blah, blah, blah.

He served as a press officer and economic development executive for New York Governor Mario Cuomo, the late Mario Cuomo, as well as senior advisor pro bono, that means he worked for nothing, to New York City's first African American mayor, David Dinkins.

He also served New York Governor George Pataki in an array of posts ranging from coffee taster, no, wait, from the development of tourism and the United Nations to state election modernization. In addition, he was a member of the New York City Board of Corrections overseeing the city correctional system, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

And you say, so what? Well, Peter Johnson Jr. is now in his 50s and he had the same cancer when he was 17. And it was quite advanced. And I watched this interview again last night and he said, you know, the doctor said that there was a good chance if I underwent this chemotherapy that I would make it, you know, but I might not.

I didn't think I was gonna live, my parents didn't think I was gonna live, but he went through it, obviously, and he survived it. And he goes, you know what? I felt like I wanted to die. It was so painful.

It was horrible. He goes, but I'd like to talk to this young woman and tell her to do it. Why? Because he's in his 50s now. He has two kids. He's been married for decades. He's had a very successful by worldly terms life.

And Cassandra wants to pull the plug on that. You know, like she said, how long is a person actually supposed to live and why? Who determines that? I care about, I think this last phrase is very interesting, about the quality of my life and not just the quantity.

And I understand that. I mean, I remember watching this past year, Mark, Mark and Kim Westcott, Mark Westcott, watching him die in the hospital and actually praying that the Lord would take him home if he wasn't going to recover rapidly.

And just thinking, you know, as seeing Mark kind of deteriorate and it was rather rapid, but just watching him go from the point where he thought, you know what? I'm going to get to go home to when he realized he was never going to go home.

And ultimately he really, I think he wanted to go too, because he recognized that he was never going to be on anything other than all these machines and all that stuff. Who determines that? Who determines the quality of life versus the quantity of life?

The Image of God and Human Life

Let's look at Genesis chapter one. And I really, I want to deal with some pretty difficult issues. Again, I just want us to think like God thinks about things. Genesis chapter one, verses 27 to 31. And you know, if you want to get the foundations, you have to start in the beginning.

Genesis chapter one, verses 27 to 31. And would somebody read that please? I need a hand. Yeah, go ahead, Corey. Okay, now there are a multitude of big topics here. And I want to just kind of focus on a few of them.

First one is the image of God in the Latin, that's imago Dei, which just means God's image in the image of God. And the Bible knowledge commentary says this, this image was imparted to humans. And image is used figuratively here for God does not have a human form.

I think that's important. And it's important for us to understand that. Well, why is it important for us to understand that? That when it talks about the image, it's not talking about physical image. Why is that important?

All right, what's that? God is spirit. John 4, 24, and those who will worship him will worship him in spirit and in truth. You know, are there people who teach that God looks just like us? Well, there are people, there are Mormons.

And, you know, one of my favorites, Kenneth Copeland, you know, I can give you the quote at some other time if you want it, where he talks about just by one, it's almost funny, one scripture, he extrapolates the size of God and everything else, but I won't bore you with that.

It's important to understand what is meant by the image of God. It goes on to say this, he says, being in God's image means that humans share, though imperfectly and finitely. In other words, we're not exactly like God.

We share in God's nature, that is, in his communicable attributes. Then they give some examples, life, personality, truth, wisdom, love, holiness, justice, I notice could be the big one. You know, the funny thing is, funny thing is earlier, our granddaughter was playing with her phone, with Janet's phone, I said, now that is on silent, isn't it?

She says, oh yeah, okay. Let that be a lesson, thank you for that. Let's see. Anyway, lists all these attributes that are communicable, meaning, you know, not perfectly, but in some sense, we mirror, we exhibit these attributes of God.

You know, if we could say that God is just and he is, then there's something in us that wants justice. We like things that are fair. We like to see things turn out the way they ought to. I mean, I don't know too many people who were really disappointed that the terrorists in Paris wound up dead.

I mean, nobody's like, oh man, I wish they would have pulled through. At least I wasn't. Oh man, I was really pulling for those guys. No, we want them to, you know, or like all these guys on these terrorist videos.

You know, they're beheading people, doing all these horrible things. We don't think, boy, I'd really like to see a fair trial for them. I don't feel that way. I just want to see them get what they deserve.

Another man writes this. He says, in our image, after our likeness, talking about God and the royal we sort of language or father, son, and spirit in our image after our likeness, this was a peculiar distinction, the value attached to which appears the word being mentioned twice.

And in what did this image of God consist? Not in the erect form or features of man. In other words, not physically, not in his intellect. We like to think we're smart, but we're not as smart as God. And I think it's interesting what he writes here.

And this is the main reason I wanted to cite this. For the devil and his angels are in this respect, far superior to us. Just talking about how they're much more intelligent and originally righteous and whatnot.

But he says, as the new creation is only a restoration of this image, the history throws or the history of the one throws light on the other. We are informed that it is renewed after the image of God in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness.

Talking about the new person in Christ. But we have that image of God. And that's an important thing to think about that we have this, there's a difference and we'll hit this over and over again between human beings and every other created thing.

And that difference is this in the image of God. It's not said of any other animal, of any other living creature on earth that they bear the image of God. Second thing is we see in this passage in Genesis 1 that God has given us dominion over the earth and over all of creation.

And I think sometimes we kind of diminish what a responsibility that is. And again, it comes up in a number of ways. We have dominion, that is we have, we are caretakers over the earth. One man puts it this way, God's or man's divinely given commission to rule over all other living creatures is tempered or better brought into sharper leaf by the fact that such dominion does not allow him to kill these creatures or to use their flesh as food.

It's interesting, right? In Genesis 1, they're not allowed to do that. Only much later after the flood is domination extended to include consumption. So there's this sense early on where when mankind is not to kill things, well, why would we?

In the garden, I'm saying we kind of, again, in the royal sense, in the garden, there was no death. So there's no killing of animals. Animals didn't kill other animals. There was no death, period. Matthews writes this.

He says, the mandates to subjugate, that is to exert ourselves over creation, to subjugate the world includes the major zoological groups, fish, bird, and land animals. This appointment by God gave the human family privilege, but also responsibility as caretakers.

The Hebrew love for life and sacredness of all life assumed a linkage between human righteousness and the welfare of the earth. In other words, that if we're acting rightly, we'll take care of things.

In the agrarian economy of ancient Israel, this was best expressed in his care for livestock, et cetera, et cetera. Sin impacts the prosperity of the earth and its inhabitants. Genesis shows how human sin elicits God's curse upon the land and the later wickedness of human society results in the destruction of the whole earth by flood.

So sin has an impact, not just on us. We often talk about how Adam's fall, in Adam's fall, we all fall or whatever the word, the phrase I was looking for, the catchphrase. Yeah, in Adam's fall, we sin all.

There you go. There it is, the little throwaway phrase. But that's true. But it's not just us that fell into a curse, but also all of the earth, all of creation did. All of life now experiences death.

The earth itself is decaying. Everything is coming toward or working towards an end. So we have that dominion aspect where we are responsible for things and we'll talk more about that. But I also wanted to read and talk about the breath of life.

The Breath of Life and the Value of the Soul

Genesis two, verses five to seven. And I'll read that. When no bush of the field was yet in the land and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, there's no vegetation for the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land.

And there was no man to work the ground. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. And I think it was Barak in the MacArthur Study Bible who actually says it's just the idea of water coming up from the earth, seeping up from the earth.

Then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And the man became a living creature. I mean, it almost gives you the sense or the picture of kind of like mouth to mouth resuscitation, right?

Like here you have this formed man of just nothing but dirt, clay, and then God breathes into him kind of mouth to mouth and brings him to life. You can almost see Adam, you know, like you see in the movies when somebody is revived, how they just kind of are gasping for life.

At least that's the picture I get. One man writes this. He says, the work of the Lord in creating human life involved both fashioning from the dust and in breathing. The word formed in the Hebrew, yasar, describes the work of an artist like a potter shaping an earthen vessel from clay.

So God formed man from clay. Man was made by divine plan. Also, he was made from the earth. He is earthy. In spite of his subsequent dreams of being like God, we will be like a God. We will send on high, right?

We'll build the Tower of Babel. The Hebrew for man, the Hebrew word is adam, whence Adam, you know, from which came Adam. And it is related to the word for ground. I mean, if you want to just call Adam dirt or clay, that would be approximately correct.

Nice name, right? What's your child's name? Dirt. He's dirt. Give him a bad self-image. God's breathing of the breath of life into man transformed his form into a living being. He went from just being a lump of clay into having literally a living soul is what the Hebrew means.

This made man a spiritual being with a capacity for serving and fellowshipping with God. With this special creation in mind, the reader can see the significance of the fall. Since the fall, regeneration by the in-breathing of the Holy Spirit is essential in order for people to enjoy fellowship with God.

First created, walking in the Garden of Eden, walking and talking with God, perfect fellowship. And then the fall, lack of fellowship, death. Well, how do we come back to that? How do we get back into a right relationship?

Well, it had to be again through this work of God, spiritual breath of life. Another commentator says the breath of life literally of lives, not only animal, but spiritual life. If the body is so admirable, how much more the soul with all its varied faculties.

MacArthur writes, made from dirt, a man's value is not in the physical components that form his body, but in the quality of life which forms his soul. Okay, so now again, thinking about Cassandra, thinking about Peter Johnson Jr.

Here's the question I think we should look at from a Christian perspective. Where's Cassandra going if she dies? Where is Cassandra going if she dies? And she will die if she gets no treatment. Her mom who loves her so much.

Where's Cassandra going if she dies? We have no indication, not one. I mean, you know, if she would have written this essay and she would have concluded it with something like, you know what, I trust in the Lord and I really don't think I can make it through this chemo.

And, you know, I know I'm heaven bound anyway because Jesus Christ has paid for my sins. I would still disagree with her, but at least I could say, well, it seems like maybe if she saved her, there's none of that.

So, you know, we wanna sit there, we wanna root for her and just go, you know what, it's not right for the state to impose on her, for the state to take her from her family and take custody of her and force her to take this chemotherapy, but she's gonna die.

She's gonna go to hell. Is that what we really want, Carol? Okay. That's true. That's true. And I certainly think that she would have had the opportunity in court that, you know, the problem you get into when you get into court, of course, is I wanna present my side, okay?

Bring forth your expert witnesses. Well, my expert has been, you know, giving laetrile treatments in Mexico for 15 years. Objection, your honor. You know, no, you know, we can't test that. We can't verify that.

You know, they're only gonna allow doctors to testify, right? So you're gonna have a problem there. So, I mean, that's certainly a medical opinion. I think the question, though, is if we know that one thing works, and I know how, well, I don't personally know how yet, how bad chemotherapy is from an experiential standpoint.

I've seen it. I mean, I talked to my dad while he was going through it. I know that, you know, the whole philosophy is, and Cassandra's mom is quite right about it. What is the philosophy behind chemotherapy?

Yeah, hopefully it kills the cancer before it kills you, because basically you are taking, just like Cassandra's mom says, you're taking poison into your body, right? The objective of chemotherapy is to get you so sick that the cancer dies, and that, you know, they manage to bring you to 99 .999 death, but not 100 death, and then they bring you back.

So, I mean, it is a, it's a painful, I mean, Peter Johnson Jr. talked about it. He goes, I, it was horrible. He's, you know, he makes no bones about it. He says it was horrible. I really felt like I was gonna die, and there were times when I wanted to die.

But the, you know, the, and believe me, I'm no big fan of the surety of medical science. You know, a few, just a few examples. You know, for one, you know, they, when my dad got sick with cancer of the esophagus, they said, Mr. Cooley, this isn't gonna be a problem.

We can, we can get you through this. You're gonna survive. You know, I, I'm sure of that. But it didn't work out. When my mom had her aneurysm near her brain five years ago, five plus years ago, and, you know, she was alone for 24 hours.

And, you know, they, they said, this just would have killed just anybody. And, you know, then she, she gets to the hospital, and that's when she finally went into the coma. When I went and saw her in the hospital, she was in a coma.

In fact, my sister came in from California. The social worker at the hospital talked to us and said, you know, they bring us into this nice little quiet room, and the social worker's talking to us. And my sister turns me, and she, she says, Steve, what, what's she saying?

I go, Debbie, she's trying to tell us that mom's gonna die. Well, mom's not dead. And so they don't know. You know, I, I mean, a lot of this is just guesswork. We, our sister-in-law's in the hospital in Iowa right now.

She had a procedure a few weeks ago. Somebody had the exact same surgery the day before Jay did. Exact same procedure and went out the next day, went home. Jay's almost died, you know, and I mean, she is kind of teetering, and, you know, now they're talking about putting her in a rehab facility.

But I mean, she's still not aware of her surroundings and everything, especially when it comes to the brain. I think there's, I think there really are just throwing darts at the dartboard. I'm no big fan of it.

But here's what I do know. If 30 some odd years ago they were doing this, you know, chemotherapy, bring somebody as close to death as possible, and then try to bring them back, and it worked then, they haven't gotten worse in the last 30 years.

It seems to me that if this will work, no matter how bad it is, you know, does she have the right to say, well, I don't want to do that that's been proven to be very effective. I would rather take some kind of experiential drug.

Well, she's a minor, and the state said no. And I'm like, well, it's a hard situation, you know, for civil libertarians, and this is not the other thing. But I think ultimately, like Charlie said, is the state supposed to protect life?

We like that, right? We'd like them to protect all life, including life in the womb. So if they get a little overprotective in one area, I'm probably going to be a little more of a fan of that. I understand too, you know, when it comes to, there was this other case where the state of Massachusetts stepped in, but I don't even want to get there, where they stepped in and they took custody of somebody who didn't even live in the state.

That was a big mess. A lot of what medicine does is guesswork. Well, let's put it another way. Like I like to say about evolution. I said this to one of my friends the other day, I said, you know what, you like evolution, you believe in evolution.

Let me ask you a question, you know, do you think 200 years from now, scientists will look back at our time and say, you know what, they knew exactly how life originated, and they had everything nailed with their theories of evolution.

Well, of course not. Well, why is that? Well, because they'll know more. Okay, so science changes. This is why I'm not a big fan of science. Science changes all the time. I like science that you can prove, but not science that's theory.

Medicine changes. A couple of hundred years from now, I'm sure that they're going to look at what we do now in terms of, especially I think how we treat the brain. And they're going to think, man, those people were witch doctors.

They were horrible. And I think that's going to be true of cancer too. Because they'll look at it and they'll go, well, why don't you just put leeches on people? Why don't you, you know, a little bloodletting or something?

Well, you people with your chemotherapy. I get that. I 100 get that. But if you have a treatable form of cancer and you say, well, I don't want the way that they want to treat it. I want to do something else.

I, it's, it's arguable. I understand what you're saying, Carol, and I agree. You know, I think it's, I think it's sketchy, but I think ultimately if they have a good track record, then you're going to have to show why you want to do something else.

Go ahead. Right. Well, and I agree with that too. Yeah. Well, let me just say something about parental rights, because here's an amazing thought. You know, you're, you're less than 18 year old child. So your junior child, your juvenile child, your minor child may not get a tattoo without your approval, but can get an abortion without your approval.

Now there's definitely something wrong with that. And that, that really makes no sense. So that's, I see that as a definite infringement on parental rights. And I understand what you're saying here too.

I think though they have held in a number of cases, especially with Christian scientists, the courts have held that if withholding medical treatments, you know, your child has a, needs a transfusion or whatever that, that'd be Jehovah witnesses, but needs a transfusion.

And you say, no, our religion forbids that, dah, dah, dah, dah. And that's the only thing that will save the child's life. Courts have a tendency to intervene in that kind of thing. So another question over here.

Yep. Yep. Which is an excellent point. Jodi says, listen, she said, it's my body. It's my right to decide. Well, but that's the argument that's made for abortion. Right? Which of course is incorrect. As Charlie said, why?

Because it's not her body has a separate DNA. Right? Yes. We all belong to the Lord. That is true. He's a creator. We are the creatures. True. He's the owner, you know, Psalm 24. The earth is the Lord's and all it contains.

Right? But going a step beyond that, even just looking at it from the mere scientific viewpoint, how can you say that a child's body inside the mother is her own body when it has, you know, separate DNA, separate heartbeat, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

You can go right down the list. You know, how do you identify a human body by DNA? So, you know, let's say, let's just get gruesome here for a moment. Sorry. Let's say there's an airplane crash and a woman is eight months pregnant.

And she's just, she winds up all over the airplane. Well, how would they identify where she was? Well, they could look at places and where her DNA was, they could identify that as her. But where her baby's DNA was, they would say, well, her child was in that plane as well.

They wouldn't have the same DNA. You could see the family attachment, but it wouldn't be the same. So, you know, how could a pregnant person say it's my body when it's not? Now, she's saying it's my body and I wanna do, and it is exactly the same argument.

And the court rules one way on one thing. But of course, this is the Connecticut Supreme Court. And I'm sorry to say, I don't think courts are well known for their consistency. If they were, you know, this would be a lot easier, right?

Cause she'd just say, well, it's my body and my right. And they'd go, you win, go do what you want. Other thoughts, yes. Okay, wait, pretty soon we're gonna need a flow chart. Okay, let me see what, if I could recap, I can't recap.

What am I saying? Minor child, unsaved. Let's leave aside the unsaved part for a moment. Minor child, should the minor child be able to decide, I want the right to alternative treatment, which in the court's mind, and by the way, it doesn't matter whether I agree with this or not.

In the court's mind, refusing the chemotherapy is what? Death, okay? Couple of years, the court's saying, this child is gonna die. On the other hand, take the chemotherapy, there's a very good chance to 80%, whatever it is, she's gonna live.

Well, you know what, let me put it another way. Let's just talk about the 80 for a minute. If I told you that a given investment was 80 likely to succeed, would you be likely to invest in that? I'd say you probably would.

If on the other hand, I told you, you know what, if you put all your money in this, there's a 20 chance that you'll get a decent return on it. 20%, life savings, not really going for it. So back to your question.

I think that the state, as Charlie said earlier, ought to be about protecting life. And when you're talking about a child, whether it's in the womb or whether it's 17 years old, I think they have a responsibility to protect that child because guess what?

I don't think the child in the womb has the right to determine whether it should die or not. And I don't think a 17 year old has the wherewithal to decide whether he or she has the best thinking with regard to whether they're going to undergo a particular treatment or not.

And you know, parental rights. I think there are any number of cases where parents have been overruled by the state for the good of the child. And I think it's a tough one. And I think, well, I think the bar has to be, the court looks at the situation.

I mean, I think if the court's looking at a situation and saying, okay, on the one hand, good chance of living. On the other hand, good chance of dying. I don't think that's that hard. Yes. And I'll get to Bob in a second.

But you know, I want to say that sometimes I think that the day is coming when government will mandate that even adults have to wear helmets in their homes 24 seven. You know, and maybe by the time you hit 65, you'll have to wear great big hip pads because what happens?

They fall down, they break their hips and they die from the recovery. So, you know, you have to live life in a bubble. You know, me, we'll all be doing this bubble thing, you know, and one might argue, it has reached a certain level, but all I'd say, you know, should we artificially prolong life as long as possible?

I think the answer to that is no, but, and the but there is, we have to consider fully what it means to have the breath of life, what it means to have the image of God, what it means to really view life as valuable, as important, as precious, as God ordained and then say to ourselves again, should a 17 year old say, my life for the next couple of years as I'm going through this is not gonna be worth living, therefore, whatever might lie beyond age 19, I don't wanna know about.

I don't think that's, I don't think that's in keeping with how we ought to view life. What's that? And she can't even enter a contract, but we wanna, you know, say, well, she's right and her mom has the right to consign her to a one in five chance of survival.

Let's just put it that way. Other thoughts or questions? Well, I think that's right, and that's what I want us to do, because if we really think, I mean, we're thinking legal, we're thinking about alternative medicine, we're thinking about all these other things.

What does God say? How should we view life? And then move on from there. I mean, I think, well, let's put it this way. I'll back up a second, then I'll take a couple more questions and we have to close it up.

I'm gonna go far afield here for a moment, but I'll bring it back. Why do you suppose that congregational rule is so popular in the United States? It's almost unheard of anywhere else in the world. Why is it so popular in the United States?

Because it mimics the democratic system, one man, one vote, or, you know, one person, one vote, to be more modern about it. We like, you know, every person to have their say, because that's fair. And I think the same thing can infect our thinking when it comes to this.

Well, what about our American rights? What about our right to be free from government infringement, dah, dah, dah? And I want us to kind of shift our thinking, and I think it's fine to think about the Constitution, and it's fine to think about how the courts and the government are overbearing, because those things are true.

But what about life? What about the God-ordained breath of life? What about the value in that? And we're gonna see this bleed into a bunch of different scenarios, I think, because, like I said, there have been a lot of things that have come up.

To give you another example, this young woman, I don't know if you've seen these pictures, this young woman who does this game hunting over in Africa. You know, you see pictures of her with dead leopards, and she's, you know, she's got quite a toothy grin, and I guess she's fairly attractive.

But, you know, she's, like, lounging over all these dead animals that she shot. And, you know, it took me a while to really figure out what bothered me about that. And what bothered me about it is this idea that you should cavalierly go out hunting and killing things.

Because it, here's the problem, and we'll talk about when it's okay to just kill things to kill things. But if we think about everything, and we'll see this in scripture, every animal has this God-given breath of life.

And we need to view it rightly. No, it's not a sin to go out and kill, but it ought to be something that we think about. Unless, you know, the bear's charging at you, you know, then boom. But big game hunting, just for the sake of, you know, photo ops or getting a reality show, I've heard that she has some desire to have that.

Those things should not, we should just not think as Christians, I wanna go kill a rhino so that I can say I killed a rhino. I shouldn't, you know, I'll go a step further, and just in terms of how we should view our stewardship of the planet, I should not, if I'm running a business, just think, well, I can dump those chemicals out in the water because it saves me money.

I ought to think that's a sin to do that. This is God's creation, and I ought not to do that. It doesn't matter whether the government tells me it's wrong or not, I should know better. Now, other comments about this young woman here?

Yeah, I don't, I guess the other thing, I mean, you'll notice, and I'll probably offend somebody here, you'll notice that the American flag's in the back there. And I think the truth is, you know, we'd probably be more comfortable if it wasn't here at all.