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So the title of the sermon tonight is man versus beast, man versus beast. And if you notice there in Genesis chapter one, I'm going to read to you from Genesis chapter one, but go ahead and go over to Genesis chapter nine. Genesis chapter nine verse twenty six, the Bible said, and God said, let us make man in our image and after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the cattle and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. In verse twenty eight he said again, God blessed them and God said unto them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the earth and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth. So right out of the gate, one of the first things that we need to understand about when it comes to this topic of man versus beast, if we're going to talk about in terms of comparison, is that we have dominance over all of God's creatures, that God has set us above every single one of them. And I'm preaching this because it seems like today in the culture that we're living in, people get this completely backwards. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later in the sermon. But you're there in Genesis chapter nine where we notice in Genesis chapter one, God's, you know, giving him, giving man dominion over the beast of the earth, over all living things. But he's not eating, you know, he's eating a vegetarian diet. He at this point, he hasn't begun to eat meat. That happened. That change happens in Genesis chapter nine, where it says in verse one, and God blessed no one his sons and said to them, be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth. So we can kind of get the sense that there was a time perhaps, you know, in Adam's day, maybe perhaps before the fall, that this dread was not upon these animals, that they were, you know, they would probably they weren't afraid. They wouldn't scurry off like they do today. And he says there that the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth and upon every fowl of the air and upon all that moveth upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the sea into your hand. They are delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you, even as the green herb and I have I given you all things, but the flesh with the life thereof, which is the blood thereof, shall you not eat? So he's saying don't eat the blood, but that every other living thing shall be meat for us. You know, this is a great, of course, rebuttal to those that would try to teach a vegetarian diet or veganism. That's another topic. But it's very clear here that, you know, man has been given dominance over the beasts of the earth. But despite that, you know, just because we have this dominance over them, you know, it's still interesting to think about the fact that we there's a lot of animals that we couldn't take in a physical altercation. Right. And then it's kind of I want to kind of go here for a minute. But if you would go over to Revelation chapter 20, you know, we could talk about several different stories in the Bible where we see, you know, animals attacking man. You could think about the time when, you know, Elisha was going up and the kids came out, the young children came out and started to mock him and he called out to she bears and they attacked him. You know, there's there's instances of when animals are attacking man in the Bible. Just because we have dominance, it doesn't make us impervious to them. And that's important to keep in mind because of the fact it seems like the way some people are living today and the way they they handle animals and they have this philosophy about animals is that they think that some animals, despite the facts of what they are, the statistics that are that show what they are, that they seem to think that they're not going to harm anybody. They're not going to bring any harm to anybody. And I thought it'd be cool to kind of go through all the different animals and the statistics about who what attacks. And, you know, I found this one website and I'll just throw it out there. I don't know. You go to the source, you know, you click on sources and they're like nineteen ninety five for the sources. I'm like, wow, that's a waste of money. So you end up on some other one. But I was kind of hoping that this one would fall in because it had mosquitoes as like the number one killer of mankind, like because of all the diseases and things like that. So it was kind of interesting. But, you know, we could go down all this. Now, the other side I found, they said that tigers were the ones that killed people more than anybody else. Tigers, the big cat. You know, has anyone ever seen that video or that guys on the elephant in India and that tiger? Yeah, you've seen that. That's intense. I mean, you could believe it. This thing jumps and just leaps in the air and slashes a guy that's on an elephant. You know what I mean? Everyone talks about how the lion is the king of the jungle. But the truth is, it's really the tiger that I believe they're bigger and more vicious and they kill a lot more people. Of course, they're in a lot more densely populated area. But it's just going to show us that, you know, even though we have dominance over these animals, God has given us, has ordained that we should rule over them, that they're, you know, our meat, that we use them as our beasts of burden. We use them to feed our families and so on and so forth, is that that doesn't make us impervious to them. They could still attack us. And we could talk, you know, there's several different stories we could look at. I believe Pastor Menez is actually doing a series called When Animals Attack, so that if you're more interested in that subject, I would I would defer you to him. But it's interesting that, you know, you go through the scripture, there's, you know, Genesis one, we have dominance and then we see animals attacking and animals attacking in the past. And you can even think about it spiritually, you know, when when Satan came and attacked us spiritually in the garden, he took on the form of a serpent, which says that and it says that he was the most subtle of all the beasts of the earth. And then in Revelation chapter 20, to have you go there, Revelation chapter 20, it says in verse one, And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he lay hold on the dragon, that old serpent. Now, why is it called that old serpent? Because it was like he's decrepit, like, oh, it's the time to go to hell, you know, he's got his little walker or something. That's not it's a it's referring back to Genesis, he's that serpent that has always been around. He's that old serpent that beguiled Eve. And of course, we know the story, he binds him a thousand years. And we see, so we see in scripture, you know, animals attack man versus beast, we might have dominance, but just because of that, you know, an unarmed combat, if you want to call it that, you know, there's a lot of animals we're just not going to stand a chance against. And what's interesting, you see that in the past, we see it today, but go to Revelation chapter six, Revelation chapter six. This is kind of a fearsome thought, you know, I whenever I kind of get into these type of sermons, I wonder how far I should go because there's all these kids present, you know, and if I didn't, it's really not your kids that I'm worried about. I don't want to get woken up tonight. It's like my kids are the ones that are going to wake up and come in and go down, you know, and try to wake me up at two in the morning because I give them a nightmare from the preaching or something. So I'll tone it down. But it's interesting to think that even in the future, God is going to use animals to attack man. Specifically, if you look in Revelation chapter six, verse seven, it says that when he had opened the fourth seal, so we'll still be here. Right. You know, if we tarry, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, come and see. And I looked and behold, a pale horse and his name that that sat on him was death. And hell followed with him and power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth to kill a sword and with hunger and with death. I would say, oh, yeah, that'll make sense. You know, that's probably the things that we think about when we think about revelation. We think about the sword, we think about the hunger, we think about people dying. But that last phrase there with the beasts of the earth, so not only does he have power with the sword, not only does he have power with hunger, but he's even going to use the beasts of the earth, you know, the animals and the earth. And I've heard different people preach on this and people have different takes on it. Like, is God going to actually, you know, cause animals to come out into these, you know, these, you know, these metropolitan areas, come out of the woods, you know, all the grizzlies are going to come down from the mountains in Colorado and go tear up Denver, you know, all the cougars and all the, you know, the diamondback rattlers are going to slither their way into Phoenix and stuff like that and just go to town. Is that what he's talking about? And, you know, I've heard it preached like that. I could say, yeah, that's maybe that's what's going on there. Maybe it's like a supernatural thing that's going on. He's given that power to do that. But think about this, too. There might be another take is the fact that even today, you know, law enforcement uses beasts, right? They have canine units and so on and so forth to attack their trains. So maybe it has something to do with with that, you know, the Antichrist and all that, so on and so forth. And maybe, I don't know, it's kind of speculation, but, man, you read that verse that, you know, even in the future, though man has dominance over animals when it comes to man versus beast, you know, we don't stand a chance when it's just mono el bisto, as they say, right? And we're not going to be able to withstand them. And then we think about other stories. You know, you can start thinking about the stories in the Old Testament where men did defeat animals in hand-to-hand combat, right? That happened more than once. But notice it always took the Spirit of the Lord to do that, right? It took, you know, the Spirit of the Lord had to come upon Samson when he tear that, you know, that lion. When he went aside, he was going down to the Philistines and the lion, the young lion roared against him. And, you know, the Spirit of the Lord came upon him and he tear him as he would, as he would have rent a kid, you know, like a small lamb, that's how easy it was for him. Do you think about, you know, David, right, when he was going to go kill the Philistine, he talked, you know, and Saul's kind of mocking him. He is a man of war from his youth and thou art but a youth. You know, it's a suicide mission, David. And he says, well, hey, you know, I smote the lion and the bear, the Lord delivered them into my hand. And I believe that was after the anointing that he received with Samuel. So we see that, you know, a man might stand a chance here and there, but, you know, don't walk out of here tonight thinking, you know, you have some special anointing and you're just going to go jump in the tiger pen or the lion pen down at the Phoenix Zoo and show them what's up, okay, because it's kind of, it's a very rare exception. Yeah, man versus beast, we have dominance, we rule over them, we eat them, we kill them, you know, we stuff them. I mean, I had my last job, my boss in the shop, I mean, he had just all kinds of animals. He had two bears stuffed in the, right in the showroom of where I work, you know, all kinds of mounts everywhere. I've been in houses where people just have all kinds of taxidermy done. But, you know, that wasn't, none of that was hand-to-hand combat, I don't think, you know. Chances are, right, that was all rifle, bow hunting and that kind of thing. So, but we do see, you know, these men in the Old Testament that did have that ability to go at them, you know, hand-to-hand, and we talk about, you know, Samson, you know, how he just tore that lion right in two, and that's pretty cool. You know, Samson did a lot of amazing things, didn't he? You know, the most, I'm most impressed with when it comes to Samson whenever I read it, is the fact that he caught those 300 foxes. Does that ever stand out to anyone else, maybe more than the other ones? You think, oh, lifting up that big gate and carry it off up the hill, wow, you know, or when he pushed the two pillars apart or he tear that lion up. But, man, to catch 300 foxes, I was pretty impressed because, you know, as I understand it, most foxes, if not all of them, are nocturnal. So he's out finding these foxes, you know, with the lamp or what's he doing? Is he setting traps or, I mean, it seems like it was a very long, laborious process to catch all these foxes. And then he's tying their tails together with the firebrands. Like, I mean, you ever grabbed like an angry cat and like threatened, no, of course you haven't, but neither have I. You ever seen, you know, even a cat, when it gets just, when it gets a little wild, it's like, oh, man, it's scary. You got to let that, I mean, a fox has got teeth and fangs and everything else, probably more intense than your average cat. So I was always more impressed by that. You know, my favorite thing that Samson did, it was the 300 foxes. And I'm kind of preaching this again because, you know, it's an elementary sermon. But I believe this is one of those topics that we have to hit on from time to time. Because every now and then I keep seeing things about, just in our culture, you know, bumper stickers, we'll talk about that, things on Facebook where you can just tell that people have this philosophy that when it comes to man versus beast, that somehow beast is better than man. You know, apply it not in terms of, you know, physical altercation, but just in terms of value. They'll say, oh, man versus beast, well, the beast is better, the man is worse. They put more value on an animal than they would a human being. But the Bible is very clear that, obviously, that man is of more value than any animal. Go over to Proverbs Chapter 12, Proverbs Chapter 12, Proverbs Chapter 12. In fact, man, you know, he has so much more value than an animal that the Bible shows us that animals are his property. We look here in Proverbs Chapter 12, Verse 10, it says, a righteous man regardeth the life of his beast. You know, it's his beast. It's his. He owns it. He regards it. And then it says, but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel. So he's showing here, you know, that if you're a righteous person, you know, we're not advocating animal cruelty when we say, you know, animals are less than humans. But I'm saying this, like, I don't really care how somebody else treats their animal. It's their property. They can do whatever they want with it. You know, and you can just say, well, that's the type, that's what they're like. That's what they do, you know. And, you know, I think today we've gotten to this culture where people are so far removed about what it actually takes to handle animals to get, you know, meat on the table. We don't, that's like all going on behind closed doors. We don't see it anymore. So then when people see some kind of, you know, graphic, just intense, you know, butchery of some animal, they're like, ah! You know, and we lose sight of that. But it used to be that was real commonplace, you know, to see an animal butchered and, you know, maybe even have to be treated roughly in order to get it to do what you want. I mean, I remember, you know, I love the fact that I've spent time on a dairy farm in Michigan when I lived there because it gives me so many, I can just refer back to that in so many sermons. But, you know, working on that dairy farm, you know, those cows, you didn't, you didn't talk sweet to them to get them to do what you want. You know, you tried to get them in a stanchion and then you tried to milk them. You know, and they had these big leather straps that go over them and then this steel pan lays under them, under their belly. And you had to get in there and you had to clean them all up. And then you had to attach, you know, the valves to their udder to get the milk to start flowing. And I'm telling you, when you're down there in that area of a cow, they don't like it. You know, especially the new ones, the ones that, you know, they're no longer heifers. Maybe they just had their first birth. They're not really used to this whole process. And they'll kick at you. I mean, the guy I work for, he told me several times he's been kicked clear across the barn. You know, Don Buguy. And he would chase that little, did I talk about that on something? I probably brought this up again. I don't know. I feel like I'm repeating it. But, man, I just, he would, he would chase that big, that big bull right out of the barn with this little stick, this little 70-year-old man just tapping this huge bull. Have you ever seen a Holstein bull? The thing's like that tall. They're huge. They're massive. That's right. I was talking about with you on Saturday. That's right. And he's chasing this thing out of there and there's, I'd be over, I'd open the barn door. Because he'd come, the bull comes in whenever they feed it, right? And then he'd say, all right, you go stand over there and I'll get the bull out of here. Because the bull just wants to get in the milking station and just eat up all the grain. So all the cows come in to eat and get milked. The bull comes right in with them. And then Don takes this little, you know, four, eight-inch dowel and just taps that thing on the hip bone. Come on, bull. And you have to imagine Don, 70, he's all kind of, he's bow-legged, little guy like this. And I'm over like, you know, here the bull's going to come by here and I'm standing, there's a wall here. And then you just see this giant bull come by. And then this little old man just, ting, ting. And it's quite the picture. I'll never forget it. But those, man, when you're milking those cows, you try to get them to do something, they're, I don't know how many times they got kicked on the wrist. And then the old ones, you think, oh, they mellow out when they get old, right? No. That's when they get crafty. You know, because they've been out, they've been out in the yard, you know, and then it's wintertime and it just, it's slop up to your knees. And they come in and they're just covered in it. And then you go to milk them, and I learned this the hard way. Because when you're milking these cows, it's not like they're pristine. You're just covered in it. You've got milking clothes on, is what they call it. And you go, and you go to milk it, and these old sly cows, these old girls, man, they'd see you coming, and they'd just swing that, that sodden tail. That only happened once. I got one right across, I mean, in the mouth, just a, and she's just kind of looking at me. Like chewing her, chewing her grain. Gotcha. And Don's like, they do it. They do it on purpose, you know. What I'm saying is, you know, at least I got to see a little bit of that. Then I've even got to, you know, birth a couple calves. I had to help dehorn, which is, you know, I'll spare you that one, okay. I helped castrate, you know, a bunch of the younger bulls. So I got a real, you know, lesson in reality there about what it takes to, you know, put a glass of nice fresh milk on your table. There's a whole industry behind it, you know, not to mention the beef side of it, where they're tearing them up and butchering them. But we're so far removed from that today that we kind of think, well, animals aren't property. They're not just ours to use. God has, God's given us dominance, but, you know, we better be careful how we treat them. I mean, come on, who's going to argue with that? The PETA, right, the, you know, what does it even stand for? I don't know. Yeah, protection of animal rights, whatever. There's all kinds of groups out there that are, you know, we're vegan and everything else. They're so far removed. And here's the thing, you know, animals are property, aren't they? And however people want to treat their property, you know, that's up to them to a certain degree. But when that property, when that animal starts to become a threat to other people, look, the Bible prescribes, you know, specific ways to deal with that. Go if you would over to Exodus, Chapter 21. You probably know where I'm going with this, okay? I'm getting on my old hobby horse about pit bulls. And I know this is probably going to hit some people right between the eyes. I don't care. I have a very strong opinion about this. The facts are on my side. You know, if you have a pit bull or you love pit bulls or you own a pit bull, I'm not mad at you. I'm not angry at you. Hopefully you'll listen to what I'm saying tonight and at least you're one of these people, at least have enough sense to know that you're handling, you know, a very dangerous animal. And then you always hear it. No, not mine. Not my sweet little whatever. Yes, even yours, okay? Because nobody goes down to get a pit bull and goes, give me a man killer. Give me the meanest, I mean, some people do, right? We know, and that's kind of where pit bulls came from was the criminal world, literally. Not even exaggerating. It came from the criminal world. But people go down to get their pit bull because they like, you know, how cute they are, whatever. They don't go, oh, is this one a biter? You know? You got one that'll attack children? That's the one I want. You know, these pit bull attacks take place and it's not like, and the people always say the same thing. You never saw it coming. Oh, I just, I was so shocked to see my dog doing that to another animal, to another human being or whatever. And look, Exodus chapter 21, verse 28. It says here, if an ox gore a man or woman, oh, it's an ox. It's talking about an ox. But it's the principle that's here, okay? Does God have to list every single animal for us to get it? We'd be reading for a long time. If an ox do it, if a pit bull do it, if a tiger, you know what I mean? See, if a tiger does it, yeah, some people even own tigers. You know, these guys over in Saudi Arabia, you know, I think Mike Tyson has one or something like that. You know, it would apply even to Mike Tyson tonight, okay? Exodus chapter 21, verse 28. If an ox gore a man or a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned. And that's what, when you read these articles, you read these news articles where an animal attacks another human being or, excuse me, a pit bull attacks like a child or an adult, whatever. And then it's like, they take it and they put it into, you know, the pound or whatever. Whatever they call it. And then the judge has to rule what's going to happen to the dog. It's like, what are you talking about? I mean, I've got the Bible right here, and I'll do it for you. Just tell me where it is, you know? It would be a public service. And he says, hey, the ox shall be surely stoned. Put it out, kill it. And his flesh shall not be eaten. But the owner of the ox shall be quit. So he's kind of having to pay restitution, the fact that this happened to somebody, and now, you know, his punishment, the owner, is that he lost an animal and he doesn't, you know, and he doesn't get to even eat it. It's just, it's completely wasted. But if the ox were want to push with his hoard in time past, so he's saying, hey, this ox has a reputation of pushing people. And it hath been testifying to his owner. You know, somebody come and says, hey, your ox, you know, likes to push. You better be careful with that ox. You know, like, hey, your pit bull got out of the yard. It can jump that fence. Look at, you know, you look at the stats. You know, you have a dangerous breed. If he hath, if it hath, excuse me, where were we? And hath been testifying to his owner, and he hath not kept him in, but he, that, but that he hath killed a man or a woman, the ox shall be stoned, and the owner also shall be put to death. That's intense. You know, that would probably make, if that was the law today, it probably people would be like, you know, I'm happy with the Shih Tzu, you know, you know, I, I like poodles. I like a nice lap dog, you know, and look, I don't have anything against dogs. I, I love dogs. In fact, I grew up with a, you know, a big dog, but it was a great Pyrenees, Samoan, and Golden Lab, and he was, you know, he was a gentle giant. He wasn't one of these breeds that was born to fight and kill and maim. And I, even today, I still love dogs, you know. My, my, my girls are always bugging me, when are we going to get a dog, when are we going to get a dog? So you start to think, what kind of dog am I going to get? You know, and there's just, really, for me, there's only one breed. It's, it's called Puntable. It's called Puntable. You say, what kind of breed is that? It's any breed that you can easily kick across the room. You know, you don't even have to get a running start. It's just a little fling, you know, because a dog like that's not going to, if it bites, it might tickle. It's, it's not going to, it's not going to, you know, horribly disfigure some, some member of my family, you know. And if it goes after them, Puntable, it's, it's out there. Not that I'm planning on it, okay. I'm just saying, I like to think ahead. But he's saying here, you know, if this, if this ox, if it's told, hey, this guy, this ox of yours is dangerous, and he does, eh, whatever, not my ox. You, yeah, no, my ox is just ox aggressive. It's only aggressive towards other oxes, right. That's another excuse to use. Well, you know what, he's got to go, too. Well, we warned this guy. We told him about his ox, and he didn't listen. And now somebody's dead. And that's an irresponsible person who's just got this, you know, animal that's goring people. I mean, he's been warned. It's irresponsible. And it makes, you know, it makes for a dangerous society. And that's what just blows my mind when I see people just walking around. I mean, across the, you know, I don't want to rat my neighbor out, but I think I already did. You know, they come over and visit her daughter, and she's got this old pit bull, no leash, no yard. Thankfully, we've got a nice big gate around ours, and that dog will come right up to the gate. And I'm just thinking, what are you doing? Get your dog out of, away from my family. Get it away from, and it's just, it's everywhere. And it's like a status thing. You ever seen these guys that are walking, like they get the big chain and the spiked collar. Like, they know what they're walking. They know that's a dangerous animal that they're walking. And they think, well, it makes me look bad, you know, because I can handle this beast, right. It's like a status symbol to have these dangerous animals. And it's like, well, hey, you know, if someone comes to you and shows you some stats, like, I'm going to, we're going to go through it tonight. Yeah, we're going to do some reading, because people need to get this through their heads. Hopefully, this gets out on the internet, and people hear it, too. You know, if someone shows you, hey, you got a dangerous breed, you got a dangerous animal, they're known to do this, and then they just let them off the chain, or let them off the hook, or they get away, or whatever, you know, whatever consequences they get are going to come far short to what God has prescribed here in Deuteronomy, you know. And every now and then, they might go to jail or something. And there was a case that just happened that kind of led me to all this, but where were we? We were in Exodus. So, you know, read Exodus, or excuse me, yes, Exodus 21. You know, hey, pit bull owners, people have dangerous animals. You need to, that's, you know, that's a serious thing. And you say, oh, I don't know about it. Well, you know, I got this nice long article here from dogsbite.org, which is a very good site, and it's all sourced. We're going to look at a little bit of it, and if you doubt me, you know, I'll leave it right here, and you can come read this article and tell me that what I'm not saying is true tonight. You know, and I've even got personal experience with this stuff, you know. You know, Brother Jerry's not here, but I already asked him, Brother Jerry Rodriguez, if I could share the story before the sermon tonight. You know, he owned a pit bull years ago, and he had this other, was it Pebbles is the little dog, right, little Pebbles, little sweet little dog. I don't know what the pit bull's name was, but, you know, one day, he's talking to his neighbor across the street. Am I getting it right? And all of a sudden, you know, Mrs. Rodriguez is out there, Jerry, Jerry, get over here, because this pit bull's got sweet little pebbles and a death grip, just shaking it, right? And he goes in there, and he gets them separated, and, you know, he just, he, then he took, he took the pit bull and hold his little fist, said, are you okay? Did you get any pebbles in your teeth? You know, I'm sorry, you're upset. You know, no, he took the dog out back and shot it in the head. I was like, amen. I heard that. I was like, hey, that's what I'm talking about. That's somebody who understands that that's a lethal animal that switched. You know, he's got another dog since then, but two dogs, right? One's a pug, and the other one's who knows what, right? But I'll tell you what they all are, puntable, right? Right? He took it out and just said, well, he shot a dog in the head like that. I'm calling the cops. Hey, he did. He already did. He called them immediately and said, I discharged a weapon in the city limits. The cop came over and said, you did the right thing, and that was it. So there's one instance. You know, my wife, this would probably surprise people, she had a pit bull. When I met her, she had a pit bull, and that dog would be out in the church parking lot in her car. And I remember one time I came to church because I lived like just down the block from it, like not even a five-minute walk. And I walked through the parking lot, and I walked by her car, and she was already inside, and the pit bull was in the dog. It's Michigan, people, okay? You can do it there, all right? It was probably like all of 50 degrees in the car. Calm down. And I walked by, and then just this loud, just barking claws on the glass, just the slobber and the froth all over the glass. And it was like, out of nowhere, right? And I was like, man, that's a scary dog. But I think what was going on is that dog probably knew I was going to replace it. She's like, she's thinking, oh, here comes, that's my, here's another big, dumb animal. That's what she's going to end up with. She was just jealous. But we got this PDF, and look, I'm just going to read some of this. Can you bear with me while I read a little bit? The common definition of pit bull derived their heritage from the butcher's dog, developed through the sport of bull baiting in England, which had progressed to Britain's national pastime by 1500. You say, well, where did pit bulls come from? They didn't just, they didn't come off the ark like that, okay? They were bred over years, hundreds of years, into what they are today. And it started out where they came, where their origins were, they were bred for bull baiting, which is what we would call, you know, blood sport, for fighting. By 1800, and through further selective breeding, the bulldog developed into a compact, muscular dog characterized by tremendous jaw strength. Did you hear what I said? They were bred that way for a very specific reason, to attack and kill. Other dogs. Due to public outrage, which it seems to have gone by the wayside in America, bull baiting was banned in England 1835. Bulldog breeders and owners then moved to the sport of ratting. Okay, so ratting is now, oh, we can't sic the dogs on each other, but nobody likes rats, right? It's always, it's always the ugly animals that never get protected, right? They always protect the dolphin. The tuna can get canned, you know? The tuna's never going to get a show, you know? Flipper, flipper, faster than lightning, you know? Tuna, tuna, no, tuna on a cracker is what's going to happen to that guy. So they say, okay, well, we can't sic dogs on each other anymore, because people are, you know, against it. The only good thing about that is at least one of them's dead, you know? So they're like, now they're just going to get this thing, like how many rats can they kill in a given amount of time? They start this thing called ratting. To increase agility and quickness and prey drive in the bulldog, agility, quickness, and prey drive, meaning, ugh, you know, aggressiveness, wanting to kill the prey, ratters crossbreed with terriers. That's where you have the modern day pit bull terrier. So it wasn't just enough that they had these compact muscular frames and these giant, you know, muscular jaws that could just, you know, tear things to shred. They're like, we need to make them more agile and more aggressive. That's what you have today. That is where the modern pit bull terrier comes from. And then, of course, they brought them over to America, and in 1884, the American Kennel Club was formed, but rejected pit bulls due to their use in dog fighting. So back then, the Kennel Club was like, we're not even going to recognize this breed because of what they're used for. Well, what is dog fighting? We kind of went, what does it have to do with pit bulls? Pit bulls are the dog of choice amongst dog men, individuals who fight their pit bulls against other pit bulls. So if you're a guy who's into this, you know, Michael Vick or anybody like that, you know, and you're into dog fighting, you're not going to go pick out, you know, the Labrador. You're not going to go pick out some, you're going to get the meanest, toughest dog you can, which is the pit bull because it's been bred for that purpose. Dog men consider pit bull terriers, who they commonly call 100% bulldogs, to be the ultimate canine gladiator. That's a scary term right there. Pit bulls were selectively bred for gameness, the ability to finish a fight. A truly game dog will continue fighting on stumps, two or more broken legs, and far worse. And that is from a dog, or a book called The Complete Game Dog by Ed and Chris Farnon, or whatever, Farnon. So these guys wrote a book about it, and they're like, the ultimate dog, the ultimate pit bull, the 100%, you know, pit bull, the game breed dog, even if you break its legs, if it loses a leg, it's going to keep fighting. That's what they were going for. And if you've ever seen or witnessed on, you know, YouTube or anything or heard these reports about when these dogs attack, when they latch on, like people beat them with sticks, like nothing short of lethal force will stop them. So I'm going to move through this article a little quicker here, but it says, why do, you know, why do I always read about pit bulls in the news? These, you know, well, let's just read it. Since the late 1970s, pit bulls have been used extensively in criminal operations for drug dealers, gang members, and other violent offenders. So it's not just, you know, the guys that are in the sport of, you know, fighting dogs, but it's also the criminal world, you know, that love this breed of dog. The pit bull terrier is the breed of choice for criminals. So it's like, you see somebody walking their pit bull down the street, it's kind of like, I wonder what they're into. You know, what are they selling? What are they smuggling? You know? No, no, they're just an average Joe today. Just the average Joe is just getting the same dog that a hardened criminal would want. And he's not, he's not getting, you know, the hardened criminal isn't buying it because it's cool, it's because he brings it with him, you know, to go do their deals and for protection because they know that that dog is aggressive and will attack and kill. This choice is directly linked to the pit bull's selectively bred traits of robust jaw strength, a deadly bite style, tenacity, and a high tolerance to pain. When the Colorado Supreme Court upheld the Denver pit bull ban in 2005, the court set aside characteristics that pit bulls displayed when they attack, they attack that differ from other dog breeds. One of these characteristics was their lethal bite. So this is the, you know, when Denver was making this, the Supreme Court was making this, to uphold this ban or not, people made this argument. And look, that should be your first clue, when it's a breed that, it's gone so far that a Supreme Court of some state somewhere is going to actually hear a case of whether or not they should be banned. It's, it's crazy to see, and I'm preaching it because, man, I see them everywhere today. I see them out soul winning all the time. You know, I like, it's all the time you see these things. It's just people, and because it's cool, it's not cool, they're dangerous animals. One of these characteristics that set the pit bull apart from all these other ones that bite, you say, well, there's other dogs that bite and are aggressive. Yeah, but not like the pit bull. The pit bull stands alone when it comes to the way it bites. Pit bulls inflict, inflicted more serious wounds than other breeds. They tend to attack the deep muscles and hold on to shake and cause ripping of tissues. Pit bull attacks were compared to shark attacks. That's what they're, they liken it into a shark attack, like a great white just latching down on somebody's leg and just taking a whole chunk of it out. That's what they're like, it's similar to that, the way they bite. It's not just this little nip that some dogs do. I mean, everyone's probably been bit by a dog at some point. Well, maybe not, maybe. Maybe they, you know, but if you ever have, most dogs, this was a pit bull, you know, most dogs, it's just kind of like, it might break the skin, maybe. You know, they bite real quick and let go, just kind of let you know, hey, you know, I don't want to play right now or whatever, I don't appreciate that. They're just kind of letting you know, this is my food, get your own. Look, if you ever get bit in that instance, you know, you've got bigger issues. But I'm just saying, look, no other dog bites like the pit bull. That's what they're, the case that they made here. One of the most powerful examples of a pit bull not letting go, occurred in an Ohio courtroom, during the Toledo versus Paul Tellings trial. Tellings was convicted of violating the cities of Toledo's pit bull ordinance. Lucas County dog warden, Tom Skeldin, showed a unique videotape of a tranquilized pit bull hanging from a steel cable. This dog is unconscious. It's been tranquilized. And it's still holding on with its teeth from a steel cable. The dog is essentially unconscious and still does not release its grip. I mean, that's the, that's what makes pit bulls completely different than any other dog. You can say, oh, the Doberman or whatever breed, you can say, well, they're, they're aggressive too, but they cannot bite and clamp down like a pit bull can. Do pit bulls bite more than other dogs? Well, you know, that all comes down to numbers. That's kind of a skewed way to look at things. Obviously, in a place like Ohio and Denver or whatever, or any other place, I even believe Portland now, where they've, they've just banned them or they have very strong restrictions on them, where people just kind of stop owning them. Yeah, obviously, they're not going to bite as many people because they're not there. But in places where they don't have anything like this, look, pit bulls lead the nation in dog bites and, and destructive ones. They attack more than any other dog. This issue isn't the, the acute damage a pit bull inflicts when it does choose to bite. It's, it's not a, it's like, well, it doesn't bite as many. Yeah, but when it does, it, it's, it's not like a, it's like a, a shark biting you. The pit bull's hold and shake bite style causes severe bone and muscle damage. Bone damage, often inflicting permanent and disfiguring injuries. Moreover, once a pit bull starts an attack, firearm intervention may be the only way to stop it. You know, and I talked about Sunday, you know, the redneck of Morenci, right? Well, I'm going to interest you tonight, another character that I ran into in the love, in that lovely town, the pit bull of Morenci, right? Do you remember that, Mrs. Madison? The, I know Varun does. We're out soul winning, you know, and, and I'm there with Varun and, and we're walking and my daughter's with us and you even got a photo of it, I think, right? And I, we were, because Morenci's this weird town where like the, the, it's all owned by the mine and they built houses on the old strip mine. So, when you're up on, and every street is just like, it's like you're going down a step in the strip mine. So, we're up on the top and I'm looking down and there's just this hulked out, just muscular pit bull sitting on a trampoline. Great. In the backyard, right? And you got a picture of it. And that thing looked like it was, had been hitting the gym hard. Like, it, it was on a cycle, brother, you know what I mean? Like, there was needles somewhere, you know, it's, it's juicing. It looked mean. And it's just all hulked out and I'm like, man, what a scary dog. And I'm like, that's great. It's in a, it's in a yard with a trampoline. It means it's just, it's with kids, right? And the thing about Morenci is like all the fences are about that tall around the houses, they're that tall. So, we walked by that house and I think you even mentioned, I don't know exactly how the story goes, and Mrs. Madison says, you know, we didn't knock that door, I'm like, yeah, don't knock that door. And then we got to, me and Varun and I, we got to the end of the cul-de-sac, turned around, and I'm just talking to Varun, and then I look up and that dog has jumped the fence and is just standing from me to that chair away. He's just standing there, looking back and forth. And I instantly went back like this and had my hand in my gun. And, you know, looking back on it, sometimes I think maybe I should have just shot it right then, right there on site, no questions asked. It's out of its yard, it's a known breed, it's, it's jacked, you know? And it's, and it's, it's not like, coming over to play. It's like checking us out, right? And we both just freeze, you know? And I would feel terrible if I found out later that that very dog attacked some kid or somebody on that street. I'd be like, man, why didn't I shoot it when I had the chance? And we just kind of froze, you know? My daughter had gotten away and she was over with Mrs. Madison, I think they went in the van or something like that. They were out of harm's way at that point. But Varun, I think he started whistling at it, right? He's like, I can't whistle, my mouth is dry. I'm kind of thinking, Varun, don't do that. And I don't know how the conflict ended, you know? Maybe it walked away or I think we just kind of walked around and got away. But I did not take my hand off my gun for a minute. You know, so there's, there's another personal experience that I've had with these lovely animals. And I'll tell you what, I've run into some dogs out soul winning. And I've never had a dog like that or, you know, make my hair stand on end and get my heart pumping and get me just like scared of what was going to happen next, like that dog did. And I've had, and I've got some stories. I remember we went out to the White River, the White Mountain Apache Reservation out there near White, I think it's White River, the East Fork or something like that. And you want to talk about a reservation with res dogs, these dogs plot out there. I was in the van and I'm driving and I'm looking for, you know, to pick up a team. And there's this little white dog, right, and all the grasses were tall. And he just comes kind of prancing out and he stops in the middle of the road and makes the van come to a stop. And as soon as the van stops, I kid you not, this other dog just lunges out of the grass and chases and is like lunging at the tire. And the other white one kind of goes out of the way. I was like, man, that's weird. I was like, did they stage that? Like, are they like, you know, I was like clever girl, you know. Are they like plotting? Are they planning, you know? And then I think they were because I came back just a few minutes later, exact same thing happened again, I kid you not. I kid you not. And I thought, boy, it'd be a public service for somebody to just come up here and just take. And the kids are like riding by on bikes and this is, this just happened to a van. The dogs are like plotting how to attack vehicles. I'm like, boy, somebody could just come out here with a gun and just start shooting them. And just, people would probably be like, thank you, you know. And I've had some other run-ins with dogs, but boy, I tell you, that one in Marensi, that was frightening, you know. And people say, well, you know, you're giving pit bulls, you just don't understand, you know. You're giving them a bad name, you know, you're paying a bad, you're, you know, you're casting a bad light, you're just making them look bad. They're really not that bad. And that's what you always hear from people that own pit bulls. That's always the response to the sermon like this. Well, but not my pit bull. My pit bull will just lick you to death, right? Who's ever heard that? Yeah, lots of hands. No, my pit bull would only lick you to death. To understand the experience of owning a negatively perceived dog, researchers found that owners of outlawed dog breeds directly feel the stigma targeted at their breed. So it's not like people are owning a pit bull like, and not knowing what it is they're walking around. They know that there's a stigma attached to it. And then it says, and they resort to various tactics to lessen that stigma. One of the tactics include attempts to counterbalance the pit bull's menacing appearance and physical power with overwhelming affectionate behavior, such as my dog will only lick you to death. But again, I go back to my argument that I made earlier. These people that have sweet little pit bulls, I mean, well, ask the Rodriguez's. Did they go find a, did they went looking for that pit bull that he had to put down in his backyard? Did they go looking for this? Will this one attack my dog one day? Because that's really what I'm looking for. I'm looking for something that'll attack another, you know, that will just one day a flip, a switch will just flip in its brain, and it'll just become a menace to everybody in the house. Is this that dog? Because that's what I'm looking for. You see what I'm saying? Nobody goes looking for that breed, but that's what happens in every one of these instances. Yeah, it's a sweet little lick you to death dog today, and then the next day, just like that, it's a whole other animal. So the practical and moral question is, why is pit bull dog aggression tolerated at all? Because then they'll say, well, you know, my dog's only aggressive towards other dogs and other, you know, domesticated animals. So what? Why should we tolerate it at all? And it's just not the fact. Every year, one or more Americans suffer death due to pit bull dog aggression. It's not even the dogs being aggressive towards the owner or another human, another human. It's aggressive, they're aggressive towards another dog. And in this instance, it was two pit bulls, two ladies out walking their pit bulls, and they got aggressive towards one another. You know, they flash back in their genetic makeup to the days of, you know, pit bull fighting when they were bred, including, and every year, people die from it, including owners like Mitchell, I can't say her last name, and Rita Woodward, who died while attempting to break up a fight between their pit bulls. So their pit bulls are going at it, and they're trying to get in there and break them up. The pit bulls turned on them. Secondly, far too many beloved companions and pets and domesticated animals suffer a violent death by the powerful jaws of pit bull terriers each year. In some instances, these attacks involved pit bulls tearing through screen doors of private homes in a home invasion to kill the pit living inside. It's not just your pets. There's been instances where they go across the street and tear through another door to get the pet inside and kill it. I mean, how many breeds do that? I don't remember seeing that on Lassie. You know, what's that, girl? You want to go across the street and kill another dog? Lassie, what's all that blood all over your mane and your face? Did something happen to mom again? Is she in a cougar trap? No, Lassie went next door and, you know, killed somebody's gerbils or something. But that's what pit bulls do. There's been instances, it's documented, where they just get out, cross the street, they know where that other dog is that's been eyeing them, you know, walking. That dog gets to go for a walk every day and I'm stuck behind this, in this cage. If I ever get out, I'll show them what's up. You know, why do we tolerate these animals in our society? You know, and it's been, these words have been uttered across this pulpit before and I'll repeat them again, if there was a button you could push to kill every single pit bull right now, I would push it. And I'd go to sleep like a baby tonight. Over 900 US cities and nearly all privatized military housing, the US Army, US Marine Corps, and US Air Force, and many public housing authorities have breached specific restrictions. Such measures often include mandatory sterilization, liability insurance, and strict containment rules. So even the government and these other public institutions understand what you're dealing with when you're dealing with a pit bull. And look, I know I've gone along tonight and there's like a whole another, there's just a whole another stack of, you know, of stats about the percentages, the cost, and just so on and so forth. Read it sometime and it'll blow your mind about these animals, this breed of dog particularly. And I'm preaching this, you know, I don't know that anybody in the room is, you know, upset or, you know, is necessarily been, gone to the point where, you know, they're devaluing human life, you know, they prefer some animal above a human being. But I'm telling you, I'm preaching this because this mentality is out there. This, when it comes to man versus beast, people will pick beast. They'll say, nope, beast is better than man. You know, and I've seen that you've probably all seen bumper stickers, these stupid bumper stickers that just people go out and just tell everybody what, you know, a despicable person they are. And what they, what their take on humanity is. My dog makes me happy. You, not so much. Oh great. Pro-life, adopt a shelter dog. These are bumper stickers you can go get. I looked them up. Pro-life, adopt a shelter dog. That's cute to just kind of take a swipe at abortion. Oh, you want, you value human life, you value life. Let's just put the life of a dog on par with the unborn. That's where you're at in the society. That's why sermons like this have to be preached. It's not just my hobby horse, although coincidentally it is also. But hey, that's the type of thing that's out there. How about this one? Dog mom. Dog mom. Oh, my babies are all dogs. That's not a baby, that's not a child, that's nowhere near anything like a child. In some ways, I wish it were. I wish children were a little bit more like a dog sometimes, you know what I mean? Come, and they just come. You know, you tell it once, you know, they're always just eager to please, right? I'm kidding. How about this coffee cup? This is one I saw. How would you like to wake up, you know, the best part of waking up is some slanderous thing about humans on your cup, right? Dogs, because people are the worst. That's how I want to start my way, just thinking about how bad people are, how much better dogs are, you know. And then, and what kind of inspired all this is a, you know, somebody, I believe it was Brother Areola, he commented on a story of like a three-year-old girl that was just mauled recently in Texas by a pit bull. And I'm like, here we go. And I got on there, I got in the comments, I'm like, I was like, how far down this thread of comments will I have to go before I hear somebody apologizing or feeling sorry for the dog? It was three. Three comments in. I feel real sorry for that girl and for the dog. I don't feel sorry for that dog at all. How could you even say that? And then, look, folks, I thought about reading these comments, but they're just a comment after another, after another. Now, fortunately, it seems like when I see these articles now, there are more people saying, yeah, nuts to the dog, poor little girl. It's, so maybe we're, you know, having an effect out there, people are waking up a little bit. But just these dumb comments on this article. And this whole story is just tragic. This little three-year-old girl, she's alive, thankfully. This lady is at a place where kids are known to congregate, and she brings her dog there, her pit bull, because it was a service dog, you know. And she brings it in there, and it just lunges on this little three-year-old girl. Her face is just permanently disfigured. She has to get plastic surgery. And even this article, it was like the dog, the dog. It didn't want to say pit bull. And then it had like, you know, the hyperlinks in the text that you had to click on to find out, you know, the related stories. It was like a follow-up story. And you had to go like two or three stories back to find out, oh, it was a pit bull. Like, they probably were getting so sick and tired of the bloat. I bet you some pro pit bull people called to complain, your article, and they're just like, oh, it's going to fit the pit bull. There's, you know, forget the fact that a little girl just got mauled. You had to go back and read that. And you read the story, this is what happened. This lady, this dog attacks this little girl. She takes, yanks the dog off and just starts running away with the dog. Which should instantly tell you that she knew that she was in trouble. She's sitting in a county jail right now. And the dog is going to be euthanized, thankfully. And she, and then the dad's running after her. And she, the lady takes her mask off and says, it was your kid's fault. Gets in her car and drives off. This is where we're at. This is where people are in this country. That's despicable. Yeah, but, yeah, you know, maybe there is some truth to that coffee cup. People are the worst. That is pretty bad. That's a despicable attitude to have. Well, you know, I just don't think we should advocate, you know, killing dogs, euthanizing, and going to some, well, let's just remember that God destroyed animals and masks like multiple times. The flood, you know, I asked my wife if I still had my bus route. I was a bus captain. I had this, you know, the Noah's flood tie. You know when you're like in junior church and all these, and they, all the little, the kid stories about Noah's flood. It's always like a cute little boat with, you know, the giraffe's head poking out, smiling, Noah's out there just kind of jigging the ride. And it just, it's like, I want to, I'm always joking, I'm always going to joke about that. Ty, if it were accurate, there'd be like bodies floating. Like everyone forgets, like God killed everybody, including all the animals other than the ones that are on the ark. You know, God's, he doesn't, he's awful. I mean, the Old Testament sacrifices, just everyday, just butchering animals, butchering animals, butchering animals. Jesus, when he sent the, you know, the, released the demoniac of Gadara from the legion and sent them into the swine, and they just went running off the cliff. You know, another one I was thinking about, you know, because a lot of people get really upset about when they see bad things happen to an animal. And yet courts have to debate today whether or not that dog should be euthanized after it mauled a kid, or maybe it should be put up for rehabilitation. It should go back into a pound, someone will adopt it. You know, this is a dog that attacked somebody else, some other one's, else's kid, but we, we've corrected it, we've trained it, we've loved it, you know, that's where we're at. But people will see other things happen to animals and get all aghast about it. I remember, it was on my Facebook feed, somebody showed a picture of the, you know, the horrors of the egg industry, and you know, male chicks can't give eggs. So when they hatch and they can't lay eggs, you only need so many male chicks around you, right, you only need, you only need so many roosters. So you know what they do with them? They kill them, and it ain't pretty how they do it. They didn't show the whole process, but it basically ends like this. There's a conveyor belt that comes up, and it's just all the broken eggs, and all the little chicks just chirping, not really know what's going on, and then it's just off the conveyor belt and just into this, I'm not even kidding you, like a blender. And just one of the machines just, and they just instantly are just like pulverized, and it's just little chick guts and eggshells everywhere. And people are like, ah, can't believe it, the horrors of the egg industry. All these little baby chicks, why don't they take them down to Tractor Supply Company? Someone could have taken them home and raised little chickens, and then given them away later, because there's a lot of people that used to have chickens, right, everyone tries that once. I think we'll get our own chickens, have our own eggs, and then a year into it, either they've been eaten by wild animals, or they get sick of clean up after they get rid of them. It's like, let's just buy our eggs. If you want to buy eggs, look, you're contributing to that. Who here had eggs this morning? Nice omelet? You wicked, despicable person. How dare you? What about the little baby chick, the little boy baby chick? Just send them to the blender, just gank, just every day. I tried to find out how many die. I was like, well, that's cool, how many die? And look, I wasn't looking at it like, yeah, it was hard to look at. But it wasn't like, ah, you know, I found a new calling in life, and said, enough of the ministry, I've got to save these little chickens. It didn't affect me like that. It's hard to look at, I admit, but, you know, that's the reality of the food industry. You know, go look at, go YouTube slaughterhouse sometimes, see what, you know, then have a burger, and I try to look up how many of these chicks die in this industry, how many of them are just pulverized, and that you can't find it, like billions of chickens are killed around this world, like, just, I don't know, the numbers are astounding, and people get all upset about that, don't they? But that's a society where we're living in. Man versus beast, we feel worse about the beast than we do the man. You know, they, and then I was like, well, it got me thinking, like, wow, you know, speaking of butchering the young, you know, at least those little chicks had a chance to get their first breath, at least they had a chance to see the light of day for a moment and know what it was like to be alive. I mean, we get, people get all upset about that, but what about the abortion mills all around the globe, in this country especially? You know, and then we, the pro-death crowd, you know, they measure these stats, I've got through a lot of stats, you know how they measure their stats when it comes to abortion, by laws that are passed, you go on their sites, and it's just like, this country's got these laws and this law, and, you know, that's how they measure it. They don't measure their success by how many babies they're killing. They wouldn't think about that. They just want to measure it by, you know, the progressive laws that have been passed when it comes to reproductive rights. They have all these nice terms. You know, in the pro-life, how do we measure it? Well, we measure it, like, with stats, with numbers, right? And I'll, very quickly, the abortion rate was 11.3 abortions per 1,000 women, aged 15 to 44. And the abortion ratio is 189 abortions per 1,000 live births. And this is from a CDC report in 2018. I mean, what number is going to make it, what number is it going to take to make people just step back and go, wow, we're a wicked country? And God doesn't just, you know, let people slide on that. God is going to hold this country accountable for all that. You know, God's not looking down going, the poor baby chicks, the poor euthanized pit bull. He's seeing innocent blood being shed. He's seeing people being harmed, seeing the abortion mills, and he is going to punish man. Go to Romans, Romans Chapter 1. Actually, you know what, I'll just wrap up. I've gone too long telling all these stories and everything. But look, you can kind of see why God might, I mean, it's kind of ironic that God is going to punish man with beasts one day, like we read in Revelation, isn't it? It's kind of ironic that, you know, people want to value beasts above human life. And then later, God's going to say, oh, that beast you valued so much more than human life, that's what's going to take some of these people out. You know, it's kind of a sobering way to end the sermon, but, you know, that's where we are today in this society, is that people have just become so brainwashed and just so, you know, duped into thinking that, you know, we're just this, we just crawled out of some primordial ooze billions of years ago. There's really no point to life. There's no value. And then they get bitter and angry and hopeless, and then they start to value beasts, dogs, animals above human life. And then you can kind of just see how that turns into, what it's turned into, you know, these abortion mills, and people are more upset about little chickens than they are about the unborn. But that should never be so among God's people. You know, we should always remember that, you know, God values life above any animal. God values one human life above any multitude of animals. There's, you can never, you know, you can never counterbalance the scale. You know, it's always going to be human, well, it'd be this way. Human life, you know, it weighs more with God than, you could put one human over here and all the animals of the world, and it wouldn't make that scale budge one bit. So let's go ahead and pray.