Posted on 02/13/2011 9:27:39 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Many people are attached to their pets. Pastor Greg asks Randy Alcorn if we will see our pets in heaven. Taken from the message, Big Life Issues by Pastor Greg Laurie.
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My connection is chronically slow — can you summarize the answer?
I will tell you if they aren’t there then I ain’t going...
There is a certain horse that I would very much like to see again.
“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—
(1 Corinthians 2:9 )
Some people consume their former pets.
There were animals in Eden before the Fall. Why wouldn’t there be animals in Heaven after the Restoration?
Well,,, then they would be taking their pets with them, when they 'go'.
Is this advocacy on your part? Do you off them to eat, do you eat them alive or do you graciously wait for them to die of their own volition?
After the priest and his dog were gone, the attendance at mass dropped 40%. The dog passed away at the age of eleven, and the priest retired within a month. He passed away the same year.
If my dogs don't go to heaven, I'm hoping to work outside the system.
I have had so many pets in my life, including cats that got adopted by other people at the local no kill shelter I volunteer that in my case, Heaven will need a meeting hall.
All of them except the pit bulls! /s
I have had so many pets in my life, including cats that got adopted by other people at the local no kill shelter I volunteer that in my case, Heaven will need a meeting hall.
Randy Alcorn looks at what scriptures IMPLIES but does not EXPLICITLY tell us and his answer is more in the POSITIVE direction rather than negative.
He says, God has a future purpose for animals and He does not simply create them and let them go to waste. He made a covenant with Noah and the whole of creation in Genesis 9 (”all my creatures”).
So, although scriptures do not explicitly tell us what will happen to our pets, Alcorn answers the question with, WHY NOT ?
A loving God will do anything to perfect the joy of the redeemed.
(I paraphrase him of course ).
Seen it all.
I’ve known people raise animals like goats, turtles and birds as anyone would, a dog or cat, and when the time comes, slaughter and consume them.
“No heaven will not ever Heaven be, unless my cats are there to welcome me.”
epitaph on an ancient tombstone in England
There is a certain (much loved)horse for me, too.
When true Christians are raptured, will their pets be raptured along with them?
If you want to know the background of the person answering this question, here it is :
Randy Alcorn is an American Protestant author and director of Eternal Perspective Ministries, a non-profit Christian organization dedicated to teaching an eternal viewpoint and helping the needy of the world. He has written seven novels, including Deadline, Dominion, and Deception. He received a Gold Medallion Book Award in 2003 for his novel Safely Home. He has also written twenty non-fiction books, including Heaven, The Purity Principle, and The Treasure Principle. Eternal Perspective Ministries owns the royalties to his books and 100 percent of them are given away to support missions, famine relief, pro-life work, and other ministries.
He and his wife, Nanci, have two grown up and married daughters, Karina and Angela, who assisted him in writing the novel The Ishbane Conspiracy in 2001. Randy and Nanci have four grandsons. They live in Gresham, Oregon.
He wrote a book similar to The Screwtape Letters called Lord Foulgrin’s Letters. In Alcorn’s book, references are made to demons, known only as “ST” and “WW” (for it had become a crime in Hell to even speak their real names), who had their letters found by a human and were punished by Beelzebub for their incompetence. He has also written a sequel to Lord Foulgrin’s Letters entitled The Ishbane Conspiracy in which Lord Foulgrin from the first book is put on probation and is receiving letters from a senior demon named Prince Ishbane. In between the letters actual scenes from the humans lives unfold.
In November 2009, Alcorn signed an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration calling on Evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences.
I think we’ll be able to have them if we ask.
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