Do good dogs go to heaven? (Part 1)

The Program’s Biblical Approach to a Controversial Question

Welcome to No Compromise Radio, a ministry coming to you from Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. No Compromise Radio is a program dedicated to the ongoing proclamation of Jesus Christ, based on the theme in Galatians 2, verse 5, where the apostle Paul said, "'But we did not yield in subjection to them "'for even an hour, so that the truth of the gospel "'would remain with you.'".

In short, if you like smooth, watered-down words to make you simply feel good, this show isn't for you. By purpose, we are first biblical, but we can also be controversial. Stay tuned for the next 25 minutes as we're called by the divine trumpet to summon the troops for the honor and glory of her king.

Here's our host, Pastor Mike Abendroth.

Why We’re Talking About Pets and Heaven

Welcome to No Compromise Radio ministry. My name is Mike Abendroth and I'm your host today. And today we are going to talk about pets. Yes, pets. And of course, I love pets. I would imagine you would love pets.

You have your favorite pet, I don't know, gecko. Maybe you have a favorite rodent, some kind of hamster or gerbil. Maybe you're a cat person. I don't know about cat people too much. I never was a cat fan, but I understand how people can like cats.

Maybe you're a dog fan. People enjoy having pets, and certainly we can enjoy the pets that God has given us. I guess you can enjoy your pets as a household companion. You could enjoy your pets as food if necessary.

And I obviously am not anti-pet, but there's an interesting website, a focus on the family website that we're going to talk about in a minute. But we have a little slogan around here, and that's always biblical, always provocative, always in that order.

And so I'd like to try to look at pets today from a biblical perspective, especially with this whole idea, do pets go to heaven? Will Fluffy go to heaven? Will Purbox Jr. make it to the eternal abode?

And so initially I'd like to say this, if you go by your heart and by your emotions and by your feelings, you're going to come up with the wrong answer on this particular subject. You are going to be led by your heart and led astray by your heart, basically.

And of course, you're going to want your pets to go to heaven. You attribute to them some human characteristics, some anthropomorphic characteristics. You will attribute to them even maybe some emotions like a human, anthropopathic.

How about that for a word today? You've heard it today on the radio, anthropopathic, easy for me to say. But are there pets in heaven? I want you to think about this properly and biblically. And just like when it comes to the tooth fairy, I don't want you to lie to your kids.

Some people will advocate lying to your kids to make them feel better. Now, it doesn't make them feel any better when they grow older and realize that mom and dad lied to me. That doesn't make anybody feel better, does it?

No, so we want straight talk today from the Bible and from No Compromise Radio about pets. Now, it all started recently here, at least the discussion, with Eternal Earthbound Pets USA. You can find the website eternal-earthbound-pets .com.

And then the subtitle of this website is The Next Best Thing to Pet Salvation in a Post-Rapture World. And so here's the scoop, and you can already imagine the scoop. In a day and age where most evangelicals are pre-tribulational, that is that Jesus returns for the church and then the seven-year tribulation on earth occurs.

While today we're not going to talk about which eschatological belief that No Compromise holds and purports, I will say this. Atheists want to take advantage of silly Christians. And so they have said on their website, I think they're actually pretty smart, you've committed your life to Jesus, you know that you're saved, but when the rapture comes, what's to become of your loving pets who are left behind?

Eternal Earthbound Pets takes that burden off your mind. Anyway, we're currently in 24 states. Eternal Earthbound Pets say 24 states, and they actually are in New England, Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and the list goes on.

They have not hit California yet. Our service is plain and simple. Our fee structure is reasonable. For $110, we will guarantee that should the rapture occur, within 10 days of receipt of payment, one pet per residence will be saved.

Each additional pet at your residence will be saved for an additional $15 fee. We are not able to accommodate all species and must limit our services to dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, and small caged mammals.

Please note, we do offer rescue services, now I can't make this up, for horses, camels, llamas, and donkeys in New Hampshire, Vermont, Idaho, and Montana. So, probably what's gonna happen, if pre-tribulational rapture is right, there is going to be all kinds of destruction on this earth, and your pets are going to be destroyed too, and so these people, these atheists, will probably eat your animals for an additional $110.

And so, if you wanna do that, I guess it's your money, but actually it's the Lord's money, and so I hope you don't stoop to this actually ingenious idea by some atheists to get money out of Christians.

A Pet Funeral and the Doctrine of Common Grace

So what do we do as No Compromise radio listeners when it comes to pets? Are pets in heaven? I have been asked to actually officiate funerals of pets. Can you imagine that? It was years ago, and I lived in California, in North Hollywood, California.

We had a person who lived on the street. She was a single mom, and I was trying to minister to the son, and I had kids, and so this kid can be involved too, and our kids do something, and this kid could do it as well.

And he lived about, I think, two houses down, maybe three, and I tried to encourage him to ride the bike. Well, and the moms are saying, oh, it's okay, honey, if you fell, you're gonna have to ride, and I'm out there saying, come on, go for it.

It doesn't matter if you've fallen. I just wanted to be kind of a male presence in his life. Well, his, not his dog, but his cat died, and the cat's name was Jumps-a-Lot. And it sounds like Lancelot or something, Sir Jumps-a-Lot.

And one day I got up to go to work. It was about five in the morning. I was on my way to the operating room, and I saw Sir Jumps-a-Lot by the front of my car, my company car, my sales rep car, and I just made a sound, you know, to kind of get out of the way, and the thing wouldn't move.

It wasn't jumping a lot, and it was dead. So I don't know what happened. It got hit on the road and then crawled up by my car. I'm not sure, but it was too early. They were sleeping, and so I put Sir Jumps-a-Lot in a garbage bag and hid him underneath the bushes, and I thought I will return later.

So I got back home later that afternoon, and Sir Jumps-a-Lot, I put him in the bag in a box, and now rigor mortis had set in, and his body was conformed to the box, and it was a cardboard box, and you know, you open up a cardboard box and lay the, push the top down to create the opening to stay there, and now it was stuck.

Sir Jumps-a-Lot was stuck, and I'm pulling him out, and the garbage bag rips, and I'll never forget that odor. Wow, the smell of death is not a good smell. Anyway, I went down, and I said to the mom, he died, et cetera, and she said, would you say some prayers for Sir Jumps-a-Lot?

I'm thinking, no, I will not. I said, well, you know what? I'll help you bury him in the backyard, and we'll see what we can do. So anyway, I did thank God for Sir Jumps-a-Lot, but I didn't pray for him.

I prayed for the family, and I praised God that he, in his goodness and kindness, can you imagine what we believe? We believe the Bible, and what we believe in the Bible is this. We have deserved so much wrath and punishment and discipline from God because we're sinful that anything that God gives is very gracious, and he gives specific grace found in Christ Jesus' death for his elect, but he also has something called common grace, and common grace is a word used by theologians to describe what unbelievers receive from God that's just based on his gracious gift.

They receive things like taste buds, enjoyment. They get to listen to music. They can have a family. They can enjoy sexual intimacy. There's all kinds of things that people, unbelievers receive that are from the good gift of a God who has open hands and gladly gives to people his creation, and it's different than special grace.

It's different than saving grace. It's different than Christ's death for them, which is the most important thing, but still God is generous, and he gives good gifts to all kinds of people, and so I do believe that pets, you could say, dear Lord, thank you for my pet.

We had a dog. We have a dog, and she got run over a while ago, and she lived, and she's fine. Back two legs run over, and she's running around, and she's jumping a lot now, and I love pets. If she would have died, I probably would have cried, but I wouldn't have said I'm glad my dog is now in heaven, so here's the question.

Focus on the Family, Eternal Earthbound Pets, and Pre-Tribulational Rapture

Focus on the Family has a website, focusonlinecommunities .com, and you can find a blog there. November 9th, 2010, do pets go to heaven? And I think they've raised quite a stir because I think they're quite wrong in their opinions, and so we're gonna talk the rest of the time about animals, and do they go to heaven, or do they not?

This is posted by Jim Daly on Focus on the Family, focusonlinecommunities .com, and so now we're gonna be calling a new subset strategy of Focus on the Family, Focus on the Family's Pets. Maybe that would be the new award-winning show.

Maybe we could even get James Dobson to come back for that one. By the way, how does Focus on the Family work now that James Dobson, its founder and president, is out? How does that work? But that's another show, too.

So let's focus on the Family's Pets. Now, one of the things we're going to have to keep in mind is this, pets are not image-bearers. God created Adam, and then out of Adam, he created Eve, and he created them as sin-bearers, as image-bearers.

Now, sin has stained the image of God. Sin has stained that image and likeness of God, but it has not obliterated it. So men and women, fallen men and women, still have the image and likeness of God, and you can see that even back in Genesis 9 after the flood.

Why should there be a death penalty? Because if you try to obliterate the image of God found in a man, you try to kill a man, or you do kill a man, that is worthy of death. And so you go back, way back to Genesis, and think through some of those issues.

Think through, do animals have souls? Did God breathe souls into them? You can't say, well, this is what I think, this is what I feel. You have to go back to the text. Text first, feelings way, way, way, way down in second place.

And you have to ask yourself the question, what does the Bible say about animals? Now, the Bible says that we slay certain kind of animals for sacrifices. The Bible says that there are some animals that were very dirty.

The Bible says that unbelievers who are false teachers act like animals, 2 Peter 2, verse 12, but these like unreasoning animals, born as creatures of instinct to be captured and killed, reviling where they have no knowledge, will be, excuse me, will in the destruction of those creatures also be destroyed.

And so talking about false teachers there in 2 Peter chapter two, we can learn that animals don't reason like human beings. We can learn that they have instincts. And though we look at little puppy, we look at little giraffe, whatever you want to have for an animal, and you begin to attribute human characteristics to them, they are not human.

I don't care how close the DNA is from a chimpanzee to a human, they're not human, they do not bear the image and likeness of God, and they do not have a soul. God did not breathe into them the breath of life.

Why Pets Do Not Go to Heaven

And so the question is, do pets go to heaven? My name's Mike Abendroth, this is No Compromise Radio Ministry, and I don't want to compromise on this truth. There's a right way to teach it, I'm sure, to your children and a wrong way to teach it to your children, but you want to teach your children the truth.

I never told my kids that there was a Santa Claus because that's a lie, they're going to grow up thinking, oh yeah, yeah, dad lied about Santa Claus, he's probably lying about God too. I didn't lie about the tooth fairy, I didn't lie about the Easter bunny, I just told the kids the truth.

People celebrate Santa Claus coming down the chimney and all that kind of stuff, and you'll have some presents out when you wake up on Christmas morning because mom and dad love to buy you presents and you can thank mom and dad, you don't have to thank Santa, or as we say here in New England, Santa.

So the question is, do pets go to heaven? And make sure you think biblically and rationally. Make sure you understand that this whole world has been tainted by sin, and while animals don't sin against a holy God, they are affected by sin.

How do I know that? Animals die. Things that are affected by sin die. All animals die. Every animal that's ever been alive has died, and so animals have been affected by the fall. There are tsunamis, there are earthquakes, there are tornadoes, there are thunderstorms, there are events on the earth that show us that the earth, according to Romans chapter eight, is groaning, it's longing for its day of redemption.

And so you say to yourself, animals have been affected by the fall. Tigers have, elephants have, dogs have, horses have, and even your cats have been affected by the fall, especially cats, I think they've gotten a double anointing, a double blessing when it comes to effects of the fall.

So if you want your dog to go to heaven, it doesn't have a soul, Jesus didn't die for animals, and your dog has been affected by sin, they don't rationally sin, they're not sentient beings, somehow self-aware, but they have been affected by the fall, and therefore they have been tainted by sin, and heaven's perfect, God's perfect, heaven's holy, God's holy, and the animals have been affected by the fall, they're not going to go.

Now if God wants to have animals in heaven, He can, but they're not going to be the same animals that have been on earth. So when Focus on the Family has their blog, Do Pets Go to Heaven, posted by Jim Daly, it was spurred on by that whole eternal, whatever it's called, Eternal Earthbound Pets USA, and he goes through the charge, $110, et cetera, et cetera.

So, but what if cats and dogs aren't left behind? What if our pets go to heaven? So now we have this whole new realm of things where, in a silly fashion, I think, we ask ourselves the question, if pre-tribulational rapture is correct and the Christians get raptured, do the dogs of Christians get raptured, or do all dogs get raptured, or do just none of the dogs get raptured?

What if our pets go to heaven in the rapture? Now don't we have better things to talk about? I'm just bringing this up today on this topic because I could get to talk about other biblical issues about sin and death and common grace and those kind of things, but it seems pretty silly to me.

He writes, Daly writes, a man once asked Billy Graham whether his dog would go to heaven. Answer, God will prepare everything for our perfect happiness in heaven, and if it takes my dog being there, I believe he'll be there.

Now what Billy Graham did not say, he did not say, yes, they will be, and we know the star of heaven, what makes heaven heaven is Jesus Christ. You're not gonna care about your dog. Frankly, you're not gonna care about your spouse, your kids, your friends, your father, your mother, your pastor.

You're not gonna care about John Knox being in heaven, John Calvin, Mary Schleser. Maybe after a trillion years or 100 ,000 years, you will be aware of who's in heaven, but your focus will be upon the Lamb.

Read Revelation 4, Revelation 5. Think about who will be in heaven, and think about why heaven is heaven. It's only heaven because Jesus is there. You know, it's like the old coffee mug. The best thing about Grandpa's house is his dog, his smelly cigars, his robe.

The best thing about Grandpa's house is Grandpa, and the best thing about heaven is the incarnate Son of God will be the focus, and glory to His name. It's not going to be about dogs, and so Billy Graham, although I think it was a wisely crafted answer, he did not say, yes, they will be.

You can hope that they'll be there. You could say, you know, if that's what it takes to make me happy, but Billy Graham knows well that that's not going to give us happiness having our animals there. What's going to give us happiness is we are fully forgiven.

Grace was greater than all our sins. We had treasonous guilt. There was tremendous grace, and therefore we show thorough gratitude. How about that? That was just made up on the spot. The Heidelberg Catechism part wasn't made up, but the T alliteration was.

This article goes on to quote Hank Hanegraaff, known as the Bible Answer Man. First, the Garden of Eden was populated by animals, according to Hank. Thus, there is a precedent for believing that Eden restored will also be populated by animals.

Furthermore, the scriptures from first to last suggest that animals have souls. Well, that's interesting. Both Moses in Genesis and John in Revelation communicate that the Creator endowed animals with souls.

See Genesis 1 .20 and verse 24, Revelation 8 .9. Throughout the history of the church, the classic understanding of living things has included the doctrine that animals, as well as humans, have souls.

So that's Hank Hanegraaff, which if that answer shows his views of the end times and Calvinism, I don't think you're going to like that answer. C .S. Lewis, it seems to me possible that certain animals have immortality, not in themselves, but in the immortality of their masters.

Now, C .S. Lewis was one smart man, but I personally don't get my theology from Billy Graham, Hank Hanegraaff, or for that matter, C .S. Lewis. Now we have Randy Alcorn on the topic, and he says that Romans 8 .18 -22 speak of this topic when it says all creation suffers because of human sin.

And it may well be that all creation includes animals. At the time when God's people are raised from the dead, creation will experience what it longs for. It will be set free from bondage to decay. Romans 8 .21.

And then he goes on, dogs and cats, et cetera. So here's my question. Do animals go to heaven? Here's my answer. No. Let us pray. Well, I have a few more minutes to receive your calls, but I'm not taking any calls because they'd just be emotional.

They'd be, but what do you mean? They'd be like some of the comments on the Focus on the Family blog site for this. And I am so, I'm just laughing like mad because people would have the most insane answers.

And I was also sad because people just throw their Bibles out. People believe what they wanna believe on this topic. And so sin has affected creation. Jesus did not die for dogs. He didn't die for any of the animals.

And he's not going to rapture up the animals of the believers. If pre-tribulational rapture is correct. Animals have been affected by the fall. And here's what you need to do. Forget dogs in heaven. Why don't you praise God now for the good gifts that he gives?

Like pets. It's perfectly fine to say, thank you, Lord, for this pet. If your pet is sick or your pet gets run over by a car or something and you say, Lord, would you please restore my pet's health? This pet means a lot to me.

And I really, it's on my heart. Could you do that? The answer is fine. You could do that. I've done it. So I'm not against loving animals. I'm against somehow using our feelings to override the clear teaching of scripture.

I'm going to talk a little bit next time in a follow-up to this show about what does this do when Jesus casts about 5 ,000 to 6 ,000 demons out of Legion, the demon-possessed man, and he casts them into the pigs.

What happens there? And he destroys the pigs. Did he send them to hog heaven as they went over the cliff and drowned in the water? What do we do with animals that have been sacrificed? What do we do with people who keep animals in their backyard to eat them?

What if you, what if Christians eat animals that they keep in their backyard, chickens and dogs and cows? But since they're owned by Christians, they're especially set apart. So if you eat the animal, you're actually doing a favor by sending it to heaven.

Friends, this is all discombobulated. Praise God for all his gifts, including pets. That is fine to do. It is good to do. You are to give thanks for all things. But you are not to try to rearrange heaven so that somehow you are not going to be happy unless your dog is there.

That's just nonsense. That's childlike thinking. That's immature thinking. I had a boss that I used to really love and respect and still do. If he's alive, I still respect him. And if he's dead, I respected him.

And he once told me that if his dog, Max, wasn't in heaven, it wasn't going to be heaven. Now, that is very, very common. But see, that betrays just the splendor and the majesty and the greatness of Jesus Christ.

That betrays the person's view of heaven. That betrays a person's view of their own sin and then of the greatness of Christ's death and his resurrection. That betrays the value of substitutionary atonement.

That betrays how the Son experienced the wrath of the Father as the triune God planned our salvation. And the Father sent the Son, and the Son willingly went, impelled by the Spirit. And so today on No Compromise Radio Ministries, we want you to know that dogs should be, you should be thankful for dogs if you own one.

You should be sad if you own a cat. No, just kidding. Be thankful for your cats. On earth. And you're just going to have to say, you know, I don't need cats in heaven because Jesus Christ will be there.

That will be enough. And save your $110. Don't do the post-rapture deal.

Closing Credits and Station Disclaimer

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Abendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston. Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible-teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life-transforming power of God's Word through verse-by-verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 1015 and in the evening at six. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE its staff or management.