Whales

     Recently I was hanging out at a friend's house. He and his son were watching a program about people who were trying to halt whaling in the Antarctic. Individuals portrayed had raised their own funding to go there. They were intense and passionate about saving the whales. One young man declared that he would give his life to save a whale. This led them to commit lawless acts. The footage was visceral, emotionally charged and designed to evoke sympathy (and donations) for the cause. One famous celebrity had donated enough funds to purchase a large vessel.
     My reactions to this were several fold. What might God accomplish through these people were they on fire for Christ? I thought of Paul's persecution of Christians prior to his conversion, how he was advancing in Judaism beyond his contemporaries.
     Romans 1:25 came to mind. "They exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen."
Also Genesis 1:26 "Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth." (all citations are ESV)
Before I  converted to Christ I was a vegetarian because I believed that I did not have the right to participate in the killing of animals. I wore no leather for the same reason. After conversion and becoming conversant with verses like Gen. 1:26 I concluded that while in and off myself I had no right to slay, yet God as the Creator had given me the right because the animals and the whole earth were created to serve and bless man