What Can We Learn From Animals

Introduction (Job 12:7-10)

In this series we are going to be looking at different animals in the word of God to see what they can teach us. It is amazing all the different animals that God put in the Bible as well as the things he allowed them to do. Some animals were used of God to accomplish a certain task while other animals were used as illustrations of characteristics found in people.

The study is based Job 12:7-10 and it will be the focus of this lesson. In Job 12:7 we are told to ask the beasts and they will teach us. In Job 12:8 we are told the fishes of the sea shall declare things to us. Using this though we are going to look at in this lesson how God used different type of animals to represent character traits in different type of people.

1)  Ministers are like Oxen (1 Corinthians 9:9-10)

• Just as the oxen were not to be muzzled when they were treading the corn. Ministers should be taken care of for what they do.

2)  False Prophets are like dogs and pigs (2 Peter 2:22)

• Here the dog that eats his own vomit is likened unto a false prophet.
• The pig that returns to the mud as soon as it is clean is also likened unto a false prophet.

3)  Saved people are likened unto sheep (John 10:14,28)

• Here Jesus is calling himself the good shepherd. That makes us the sheep.
• There are many things we could learn about how God takes care of us and why we need him so desperately if we would study sheep and their shepherd.

4)  Self Righteous Pharisees are like snakes (Matt 23:33)

• In this chapter we see Jesus condemning the practices of the scribes and Pharisees and likening them unto vipers.

5)  Patient people are like eagles (Isaiah 40:31)

• This is a great verse on patiently waiting on the Lord. Patience is a hard thing to learn and is accomplished through prayer.

6)  Fowls are types of spirits (Revelation 18:2)

Men are like fish:

Jesus told his disciples that he would make them fishers of men (Mark 1:17). This is because there are many similarities between fish and people. Some are loaners, some swim in groups, some are camouflaged, and some stand out, some are very timid, and some are very fierce, some are caught with nets, some are caught with hooks.

What can we learn from this?

1)  God created everything (Job 12:9-10)

• When we look at animals and nature and we see the complexities and differences but yet how each difference has a purpose for a particular animal in a certain place, we learn this is not by accident.

2)  If the animals obey God, then so should we.

• Have you ever thought about who taught the birds to fly south for the winter or gave them the navigational skills to fly south and return? They simply obey God.
• We think that we are smarter than animals but in some areas we are not.

What Can We Learn From Animals

Introduction (Job 12:7-10) : Handout

1)  What do we see from the passage in Job concerning the animals?

2)  What are some general ways that God uses animals in the bible to illustrate type of people?

3)  What is two things that we can learn from the introduction to this study?