Like
most Americans, I have had pets off and on throughout my life, and nearly all
of them were cats; my last one was a Bengal cat by the name of Lexus who died
recently on 1.27.2022. For some reason, I have had an inexplicable affinity
with the feline community; maybe it is because I was attracted to their
independent nature? Oftentimes, I had pondered whether I owned this or that
cat or it owned me? Probably the latter.
As
with all animals, there are maintenance issues, and you put up with all of that
because of the joy they bring to your life which far outweighs the hassles. It
is difficult to describe or measure this relationship with our pets. We treat
them like humans, and perhaps we shouldn’t for they are but animals; nor should
we ever hold them in higher regard than human beings. I know people who do;
it’s kind of strange. To take it to an extreme, in my opinion, is getting far
off the beaten path of what the Creator intended in our relationship to animals.
Jesus
died for fallen humanity in desperate need of a provision for salvation;
animals need for men and women to be saved for the animal kingdom would greatly
benefit by man’s redemption (cf. Rom 8:20-22). But like you, I have also seen
animals who were far nobler in their interactions with people than some people
who I have known who acted like evil beasts among their own kind and cruel
masters to their animals! But to be fair, pets are DNA-driven, not possessing the free will to make moral choices. God designed them that way. Maybe, we like
them more at times because they behave more as they were designed, unlike man?
Now,
I am not suggesting that the negative dynamics of sin in the world have not
affected the animal kingdom; it has. The lamb lying down with the lion in the
millennial kingdom of God on earth (Isa 11:6-9) is more representative of the
original behavior (cf. Gn 1:26, 28; 2:20a) rather than the adversarial one
after the fall of man (Gn 9:2). Ironically, the very man who gave the animals
their names (Gn 2:20a) became the very one and his descendants to be feared the
most as the greatest predator of the animal kingdom. Sin changes people, yes? Sin
changes everything, literally!
Though
animals, like cats and dogs, have an incredible sensory perception, they do not
have self-awareness, nor a soul, nor capable of abstract thoughts such as love
though we interpret them showering us with love and accepting us
unconditionally without regard to our status: rich or poor, male or female, the color of our skin, what we look like, etc. Do you know what that tells me about
our pets?
Humans are not like them at all in that regard! I love the faithfulness
of dogs! Maybe that’s why we find it easier to love our pets than our own kind,
yes? They are so accepting of us. Canines are very loyal to its owner. I am not
making a judgment call here or saying this is the right thing to do, but we who
have pets have treated our pets like surrogate family members, yes? Sensible
pet owners take care of their pets like family. God has entrusted them to our
care. We should never abuse them. Also, we should never
compare the value of our pets to the value of a human soul though we may ascribe
admirable characteristics to our pets and think less of some unsavory characters
at times.
The
soul of man, even the worst of men, is of infinite worth to God, or Yahweh
would not have provided a way of salvation, yes? We lose sight of that simple
truth! Being a witness is not a high priority among Christians in general, right?
The misconception of universal salvation where everybody gets saved in the
end tends to make Christians passive to the point of being ambivalent.
Should
not perish in
John 3:16 indicates that those who are alive and remain outside of Christ for
whatever reason, the negation (not) does not apply to them. They will perish should anyone step
out into eternity without Christ! God provided a way for man to be spared the
second death (eternal separation from God in the lake of fire), for one to
ignore or reject His offer of salvation carries horrible eternal consequences. This
is why any person going out into a Christless eternity is considered the
greatest tragedy according to spiritually-minded believers who have a passion for
lost souls! What better need do we have to be a witness to those outside of
Christ?
It
is not about pushing our values on those who are timid, doubtful, reluctant, skeptical,
ambivalent, or antagonistic towards Christianity. All of those descriptors fall
under the umbrella of rejection of the grace and mercy of Yahweh. If the
Holy Spirit does not live within the heart of anyone, he or she has rejected
Christ and does not belong to God (Jude 1:19; Rom 8:9b).
And
besides, what has trying to rescue people from a burning building have to do
with pushing our values on others anyway? It doesn’t, but the devil uses the
unbelief of the lost to convince them otherwise. They don’t believe they are in
a burning house (cf. Jn 3:18; 8:24)! We know spiritually that they are, and
they are going to get burnt by unbelief!
We
also know as believers in Jesus Christ that the infinite worth of a soul will
not prevent a lost person from being sentenced to eternal separation from
Yahweh in the lake of fire. Every future inhabitant in the lake of fire can
ponder for the rest of eternity on how a loving God would never send a soul to
such a place!
And
by the way, the personal choice of unbelief is what sends people to hell; all
of hell’s current inhabitants are volunteers through unbelief. Jesus died to
keep them and us from going there; should anyone reject God’s provision for
salvation, make no mistake about the eternal destiny of that one! Universal
salvation is a pipe dream to many because the alternative is too horrible to
think about.
Even
the most moral and ethical human beings without Christ are spiritually messed
up as an unsaved sinner, having not the Holy Spirit. Even believers, having the
Holy Spirit, are now saved sinners or saved but still a sinner, knowing that our
sin nature plays havoc with his or her holiness before God. What is the major
difference between a saved sinner and an unsaved sinner? If the Holy Spirit
lives within your heart, you are a saved sinner; if the Holy Spirit does not
live within your heart, you are an unsaved sinner. The destiny of each is
profound. The saved sinners are destined for heaven; the unsaved sinners are
destined for hell then assigned to the lake of fire at the Great White Throne
judgment for the lost.
Animals
are not sinful; man is. Man is a volunteer; the animal kingdom is the victim of
our rebellion against Yahweh. This can be traced back to Adam’s willful
disobedience to the one prohibition in the Garden of Eden (Gn 2:16-17). I know
Adam’s fall had a negative impact on all of creation (cf. Gn 3:17-19; Rom 8:19-22,
creation personified). From a secular viewpoint, “It seems laughable and
ludicrous to think that the first man (Adam), if he existed at all, consumed some
unidentified forbidden fruit that sent the whole universe reeling,” but it did.
Sin
entering the world did not stop with man; the ripple effect impacted the whole
universe; it’s still rippling! It wasn’t the fruit itself that did it; it was the
spirit of rebelling against the Creator by violating the one and only
prohibition that got things set in motion (Gn 2:16-17). Adam through his disobedience, “nuked” the universe!
A
man without Christ still does not take the gravity of his/her rebellion against
Yahweh seriously. He/she still rejects general revelation (creation) and
special revelation (the Word of God: Genesis to Malachi, Matthew to Revelation,
the LXVI). If mankind (beginning with Adam) was to be salvaged, a provision for the
salvation of man by the Creator was of extreme necessity.
The
first deaths recorded in Scripture were two animals that provided clothing for
Adam and Eve (Gn 3:21; contrast Gn 3:7); this foreshadowed “the God of the Garden
becoming the God of Gethsemane.” The skins or tunics only covered the sins of
Adam and Eve, but such a provision would foretell of a day, thousands of years
later, of another sacrifice provided by God, His only begotten Son (Jn 3:16),
as the one and only sacrifice that could and would satisfy the just demands of
Yahweh for man’s sin against Him.
With
the death of God’s Son, Jesus, on the cross, His blood provided the cleansing
for man’s atonement through faith in His death. All the saints who died whose
sins were only covered are now automatically cleansed by the death of Jesus! The
physical resurrection was the visible proof from man’s point of view that God
the Father was propitiated or satisfied by the sacrifice of His Son for man’s
sins! This was the only provision for salvation by the Creator God; in this, …God demonstrates His
own love for us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Rom 5:8;
cf. Acts 4:12). The question still remains; are you satisfied with the
sacrifice that satisfied Yahweh?
We
can choose to believe the authority of Scripture or that “the Bible is a work
of fiction, a product of man’s imagination.” I base my lifestyle on the
authority of the Scriptures. Creation (animate and figuratively speaking,
inanimate) is still suffering from the fallout over the fall of Adam. So, what
appears silly and ludicrous is very, very serious, having eternal consequences;
unbelief creates spiritual blindness to prevent man from seeing his or her need
for redemption (2 Cor 4:4).
All
living things, whether man-life, animal-life, or plant-life will die. Nobody in
their right mind dismisses that death is real and has the feel of finality on this
side of eternity. Lexus was nearly 16 years of age or an 80-year-old woman in
human years. I will not go into her health issues, but we realized that we were
prolonging Lexus’ suffering because we were unwilling to give her up. What also
slowed us down in making our decision is knowing that we may never see Lexus again here nor on the other side of eternity. This was so gnawing on
our hearts and minds! I was essentially fighting a losing battle while Lexus’
health was continuing to decline every day. I was so, so selfish.
