Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do Pets Go to Heaven? | Questions You're Asking | Acts 3.19-20

Starting point is 00:00:05 Welcome to 10 Minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. And I'm Patrick Miller. Right now, we are answering questions you're asking. A lot of these are coming from our Facebook page. So follow 10-minute Bible Talks on Facebook. Vote on your favorite questions, or you can just give your own, and you might hear it right here on the podcast. Real quick, before we hop in, I want to invite you to two online classes.

Starting point is 00:00:33 Keith and I will be teaching this fall. If you sign up, you can join us live or you can receive the videos after the fact. Let me tell you what we're offering. First, who would Jesus vote for? Over three weeks, we're going to answer some hot topic type questions and reflect on what faithfulness to Jesus looks like in a polarized political season. Second, we're going to be doing a women's Bible study called Skilled at Life. Although I think we should have called it life skills and I think about it. It's a four-week journey through Proverbs tackling topics like friendship, finances, communication, and parenting. I hope that you will sign up for one or both of these classes because I really think

Starting point is 00:01:11 you're going to get a lot out of it. I know right now doing Bible studies in person is hard. It's hard to find. So rather than saying I have to do it online, why not say I get to do this? This is a great opportunity to grow in your faith. Do pets go to heaven? A little girl once asked Billy Graham whether her dog, which had died, would be in heaven. And I kind of love his response. He says, if it'll make you more happy,

Starting point is 00:01:35 I'm sure your dog will be there. Now, I like that response. And if you do too, I guess you can just move on to the next episode. But I can't help take this question in a different direction, a fun direction, but a different direction, because the answer to that question, the question that the girl is asking, I am 99% sure the answer to that question, will my dog be with me in heaven? The answer is no. Yep, I know that's probably a little bit disappointing. But, But it's not for the reason that you think. So you got to hear me out here, okay? As a kid, I watched this terrible cartoon movie a lot of times, which is kind of surprising.

Starting point is 00:02:08 It was called All Dogs Go to Heaven. Maybe some of you suffered through this, and maybe some of you chose to suffer through it again and again and again like I did when I was little. Anyways, in it, dead dogs, they go to heaven. And they become these dead dog spirits. And they even get like angel wings and angel halos, the whole heavenly get up. Now, full disclosure, I didn't. didn't grow up a Christian or following Jesus or going to church. So most of what I thought I knew about

Starting point is 00:02:35 heaven at a younger age kind of came from that movie. And here's the crazy thing. It's not that far from what a lot of Christians actually believe, not about dogs, but just about heaven itself. But heaven is the place where our souls go when we die. Now here's where things get really mind-blowing. There is not one single verse in the Bible, which explicitly calls heaven the place we go when we die. Did you know that? In fact, I'll bet anyone on the internet. You can email me, you can Facebook me, it's all in the show notes, you can find me easily. I will bet everybody on the internet. Anybody listen to this, $20 that you cannot find a single verse in the Bible that explicitly calls heaven the place we go when we die. In the Bible, heaven is the place where God rules and reigns over all of creation. It's the place where his divine counsel, the angels and spiritual beings through which, he rules over all things. It's a place where that divine counsel is present. It's the place where Jesus is sitting enthroned as king on a big throne. Now, there's two verses in the whole Bible, believe it or not, there's two verses in the whole Bible that talk about being with Jesus after we die. There's only

Starting point is 00:03:46 two verses, but it never names heaven as the place that we go. And it leaves it all so vague what happens after we die that we really can't even be quite sure what the Bible is talking about. We are almost less kind of assuming that the biblical authors wanted to make sure that no one thought of heaven as a place we go when we die. So will there be dogs in heaven? No, there's not going to be dogs in heaven. Why? Because heaven is never described as a place for the faithful human dead, much less the faithful dog dead. But will there be dogs in the afterlife? Well, that's a slightly different question. I think the answer is definitely 99%. Yes, there are going to be dogs where we end up going for eternity, okay? But only in the life after death about which the Bible is crystal

Starting point is 00:04:34 clear. You see, the Bible never talks about us going to heaven, but you know what the Bible is just shouting about all over the place? That humanity is going to be resurrected in a renewed creation, where heaven is actually coming down to earth. That's the story that the Bible is telling. Let me give you some examples. The Apostle Paul describes his ultimate goal in life, and is it to die and go to heaven? No, his goal is, in Philippians 311, that somehow I may arrive at the final resurrection of the dead. Where does this resurrection take place? Well, Paul says it in multiple places, but in Galatian 6, he says it's going to take place in a renewed creation. It's not heaven, it's right here on this earth which has been renewed. Peter, by the way, agrees with him.

Starting point is 00:05:19 In one of his first sermons in the book of Acts, he says this, that he is looking forward to the time when God will restore all things, this entire world. The hope, the hope of the Bible is not that we will go up to heaven when we die. The hope of the Bible is that heaven is going to come down to earth. The hope of the Bible is that Jesus himself will return and bring God's kingdom on earth as in heaven, just like his prayer says. When Jesus returns, creation is going to be renewed. It's going to be transformed.

Starting point is 00:05:50 And he's going to bring about the resurrection. He's going to bring his people back to life in physical bodies. Check out Philippians 320. We are eagerly awaiting for the Savior, the Lord, King Jesus, who is going to come from heaven. We're not waiting to go to heaven. We're waiting from heaven to come down to earth. Verse 21, our present body is a shabby old thing, but he's going to transform it so that it's just like his glorious body.

Starting point is 00:06:18 Jesus was resurrected in a physical body. He went around eating fish after his resurrection. we are going to have a physical body just like his and a renewed creation. So our hope is not to die and go to heaven. Our hope is for heaven to come down to earth, for Jesus to return, to renew all things and resurrect us. The book of Revelation describes this renewed creation actually as a city, full of life and culture all for God's glory. But it's not just that. There's nature there. There's trees. There's rivers. And so it only seems natural that a renewed creation, if it's anything like this creation, it's going to have animals. Yes, I think even man's best friend, the dog.

Starting point is 00:06:58 You see, if your future is headed towards a renewed world, just like this one, except that world doesn't have sin and evil, decay, and destruction, if we're all headed towards that renewed world, then there's going to be dogs there because it's a world like this world. It is this world, actually, right? It's just a world without those bad things. Now, some of people will ask, well, will it be my dog? I don't know. The Bible never talks. about the resurrection of dead animals. Never mentions anything like your Fido is going to come back in the new creation. Now, is it possible that in God's goodness he might bring some of those friends back? Well, of course it's possible. And I kind of like Billy Graham's answer. If it makes you

Starting point is 00:07:40 happier, I imagine that he might do it. But here's what I think is so cool about all of this. God made this world. He loves this world. He loves all of it. And he wants us to care for this world, including our animals. Why? Because he intends on keeping this world forever. Our goal is to bring God's kingdom on earth as in heaven. Our goal is to bring a taste of that future reality right here into the present. And that should even include our animals. So my hope is that we'd treat our world and our animals as well now as we would treat them then. And the same thing, of course, applies to our work and our family and so much more. So today I want you to do this. I want you to pray and ask God to help you to start bringing his future world into the present through your daily

Starting point is 00:08:27 life at work with friends, with family, with pets, with culture, with money, and with everything else. Thanks for listening. If you've enjoyed this content, please subscribe and give us a rating. That helps other people find this podcast more easily. Also, ask yourself, who could you share this podcast with? Texting an episode to a friend or family. member is a great way to help them grow spiritually. If you want to go deeper, check out our show notes for book recommendations.

Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Do Pets Go to Heaven? | Questions You're Asking | Acts 3.19-20

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