Good Tuesday morning! The verse used at the start of Pastor Rogers' devotional intrigued me today. Every creature? Does that mean we should be ministering to cows in the pasture too? I asked God about that and was told to look in another Bible translation. We know that some translations use a word-for-word translation method, which probably resulted in the one using "every creature" in place of the NLT which uses "preach the gospel to everyone, everywhere." I tried the gospel on my cat just now and as God had indicated, the cat had no reaction whatsoever. The beasts of the field are God's when it comes to the issue of sin and salvation. We are to have dominion, but when did that command come - in Eden or after the fall?
According to the King James version, we had dominion over the animals when Adam was in the Garden of Eden. After the expulsion from Eden, man seems to have lost that dominion over the animals. You or I might have dominion over a lion by killing it with a gun, but in a hand-to-hand match up we might be best served by prayer. We can no longer command the beasts as Adam did. A man can train a dog with rewards and punishment, and sort of train a cat in the same way. We call these and other animals domesticated, but even the best trained animals are only marginally under our control. Will these mostly out of control beasts be with us in Heaven?
I wondered about this when reading the table of contents to Randy Alcorn's book: Heaven. I haven't got to that chapter yet, but I do look forward to reading it. This is another of those great books that I have had on my shelf for some years, but haven't got around to reading until now. I do recall the apostle Paul speaking about Heaven and the lion lying down with the lamb. This sounds promising as we know that right now the lion would munch on the lamb and then start hunting you and I, or perhaps the other way around saving the lamb for one of dem after dinner hors doovers things.
None of us have to read an entire book about Heaven to know that things are not the way God would have it to be for us. The killing, hurting, selfishness, and other sin goes on constantly even if we don't commit a sin ourselves that day. Turn on the news at any time of the day or night to see reports of the very things that Jesus warned us would come to pass as the end approaches. Will our dominion be restored in Heaven? There is one promising indication in that same verse Paul gave to us, "...and the little child shall lead them." I'll read what Mr. Alcorn has to say about that in a few days, but Paul's statement does fill me with hope.
Have a wonderful morning in Christ!
Bucky
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