How many tribes of Israel are there actually, and are ten of them lost? And why is Dan not in the 144,000?

 It recently came to my attention that people are confused about how many tribes of Israel there really are, and who constitutes them. And are ten of them really lost? Most people would automatically say that there are twelve tribes, for do we not always hear about the twelve sons of Jacob aka Israel? Others say there are thirteen, due to Jacob adopting and blessing both of Joseph's sons. And yet there are some that say there are fourteen tribes, adding Joseph's two sons, to the original twelve. So which is correct? Well, one might say technically all of them are, but the list may change depending on the context of to what is being referred.

Jacob/Israel did have twelve sons, by four women. Wife Leah gave birth to six of them – Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar and Zebulun, wife Rachel to two, - Joseph and Benjamin, Rachel's handmaiden, Bilhah to two – Dan and Naphtali, and Leah's handmaiden, Zilpah to two, Gad and Asher. It was the custom of the day that sons of full wives outranked sons of concubines. Reuben, being the firstborn of a full wife, was the one who would inherit, by common law, the birthright which entitled him to a double portion of the inheritance, as well as the pre-eminence of being the next patriarchal leader of the clan. As firstborns outranked second, third, etc. born sons, Joseph, as the firstborn of a second full wife would be second in line after Reuben to get the birthright, even though he was the 11^th son born, if for some reason Reuben could not inherit. Along with the birthright usually came the spiritual blessing of being in the line that led to the Messiah, however the two did not always go together as we will see.

Going back to Abraham, his firstborn was Ishmael. However, Ishmael was the son of a concubine. Nor was he the son of the promise. He could not inherit the birthright unless Abraham had no other children. Isaac was not only the first son of a full wife, but he was also the son of promise for a line leading to the Messiah, even though Abraham had more sons by his second wife, Keturah. So Isaac received both the birthright and the blessing or promise. Isaac had Esau and Jacob – twins. Esau was the first twin born, but God said that he would serve the younger son. Why does it say in Romans that Jacob God loved, but Esau He hated? “Hate” not being the same meaning as how we use the word “hate.” It can also mean “love less.” Why would God love Esau less? And how could He say that about them before the twins were old enough to do anything wrong? The answer is foreknowledge. Esau despised his birthright. He sold it to Jacob for a bowl of pottage when he was hungry. He did not value what it stood for. He did not love or have faith in God. A double portion of inheritance was the material value it held and being the leader of the family was a prestigious rank, but Esau showed his contempt for it by giving it away for nothing. This also could have included the promise, had he valued it, but he did not. So God, knowing in advance by His foreknowledge of this, prophesied that Jacob would be the chosen one. In time Jacob also deceived his father into giving him the blessing which ratified both the birthright and the promise. The line would go through Jacob. So here we see that sin prevented the firstborn from both the birthright and the promise or blessing. But we also see that deceit and manipulation was the way that both were obtained, which did cause problems for Jacob later on. What goes around, comes around.

Now, as Jacob had to run for his life after stealing the blessing, it is doubtful he ever received the double portion birthright from Isaac, however he did become the patriarch of the family line through which the promise would come. Esau on the other hand became a patriarch of another clan. One which would ultimately become the enemy of Jacob's descendants, the Edomites, later known as the Idumeans.

Now we come back to Jacob's twelve sons. During the course of life, Reuben sinned against his father by sleeping with his father's concubine (a serious sin), forfeiting the birthright and the blessing. This is why when Jacob sees Joseph's sons, he blesses them making them in essence his adopted sons. He is giving Joseph the double portion of birthright that is his by right, being the firstborn of the second wife, but gives it directly to his grandsons by essentially adopting them. While it would seem that he is dividing it equally, he is not, for he deliberately puts the younger son over the older one, just as God did with Jacob and Esau. The younger would be the more important. So, the double portion is not given to Joseph to divide as he would do by custom to his sons, giving the eldest his birthright. That ability is removed from him, as it is passed directly to his sons, reversing what Joseph probably would have done by the usual custom. This was God's directive again based on foreknowledge. So, Joseph is no longer a single tribe of Israel, but two tribes – Manasseh and Ephraim. This is why Joseph's name is rarely used when listing the tribes after this point. He is represented by the double portion of his two sons. So now we have thirteen tribes.

But then how do we get back to the twelve. Well, originally God intended for the firstborn son of every family to be given to Him to be a priest for the nation. When sin enters in, as it seems so often to do, God decides, based upon the circumstances of events, to replace the firstborns with the entire tribe of Levi. It was not quite a perfect exchange numerically, but very close. As a result, the tribe of Levi is separated from the other twelve tribes in many ways. They do not inherit and own land the way the others do. They are God's inheritors and their inheritance is the temple and what is connected to it in the way of rituals, sacrifices, and all that pertains to its upkeep. During the time of the wanderings, they are the ones who camp around the tabernacle keeping the other tribes at a distance. They are spread out in towns and cities through every tribe when Israel finally reaches the promised land and start dividing the land according to the tribes. They are the priests and teachers of the Law. They do not go to war as soldiers. They must abide by more special and restrictive rules and laws. So, because they are so different and are dispersed throughout all of Israel, they are not thought of as one of the regular twelve tribes. They are the priestly tribe, a special tribe. This is mimicked when Christ, the priest, has twelve disciples. Making a count of thirteen.

So now, back to the promise. While Joseph received the birthright and the double portion, and he did rule as the patriarch while he lived, after the Exodus the tribe of Judah took precedence of leadership. This was due to the fact that Judah became the one through whom the blessing and promise of a Messiah would come. How did that come about when Judah was the fourth born of the first wife? Well, the promise did not always have to go through the firstborn. Leah had not only had six sons, she had also had a daughter, Dinah. Dinah was raped by a neighboring prince and while he came and asked for her hand in marriage afterwards, her brothers Simeon (second born) and Levi (third born) were angry and wanted revenge rather than allowing the situation to be made right. They killed off all the men of the rapist's tribe, after tricking them into getting circumcised for the sake of being able to marry their sister. For this sin of revenge and hatred, God bypassed them as being in line for the Messiah and instead of going to Joseph's line, chose to give the blessing to Judah's line.

The reason for choosing Judah was not due to any righteousness on Judah's part, but again of foreknowledge by God of the descendants of this tribe. While Joseph himself was righteous, his descendants were not. Judah would remain the most faithful of the tribes. Foreknowledge of choices and events is also why Levi's tribe is chosen to be the priests, even though Levi himself sinned and was cut off from having the promise. Judah's unrighteousness was manifest when his oldest son was slain by God due to his evil ways, before having offspring. It was the custom to have the next son in line marry the widow so that she could have a son to raise up as an heir to the dead son. Today this is called a Levitical marriage. So Judah insists that his second son do the right thing. But this son deliberately scuttles any attempt to get Tamar pregnant and so God kills him. (Both being unworthy to be in the line of Christ). Judah now blames her for the death of his two sons and does not want his third son to die, so he tells her to go back to her father and when his young son is old enough then she can marry him. But time passes and this does not happen. Judah's wife dies and he goes off on a trip. Tamar hears about it, so dresses as a prostitute and seduces Judah into impregnating her to fulfill the promise given to her, since he will not give her his youngest son.

Judah in seeking Tamar's services as a supposed prostitute, promises her a kid from his flock, but as he has none with him, she asks for a pledge, to which he gives her some personal items. In the morning, she disappears before he wakes up and goes back to being the widow again. Judah tries to have her found to give her the kid and get his personal things back. But she cannot be found, as she was not a normal harlot plying her trade. Three months down the road, word comes to Judah that she is pregnant by playing the harlot. Judah insists she be brought to him to be put to death. She sends Judah's personal items to him and tells him that she is pregnant by the man who owns these things. Judah immediately realizes that he is the father, and acknowledges his guilt in the matter of not giving her a husband as promised. So Tamar is allowed to live, although Judah does not take her to wife. He does apparently keep her around, as his sons (his third by his first wife as well as Tamar's sons) migrate with him into Egypt along with his grandsons by Pharez, his son by Tamar. Tamar is pregnant with twins, and in the course of the birth one child, Zarah, begins to come out first, so the midwife ties a red cord to his hand so that they can know which is the firstborn after both are born. But he is pulled back into the womb and the other child, Pharez, comes out first. Again, God picks the child, Pharez, who should have been the younger to end up being the one through whom the line comes, for it is Pharez who is in the line of Christ. As Shelah is the only legitimate son left from a legal wife, he would inheirt the birthright, but God gives the blessing of the promise to the son who is not the son of a full and legal wife. Nor is he considered the firstborn of the twins, even though he was fully born before his brother fully came out.

So now we see how there are twelve and yet also thirteen tribes, and why Joseph is not really mentioned as a tribe, having been replaced by his two sons Ephraim and Manasseh. Considering Joseph a fourteenth tribe is not really a legitimate claim, as he is represented by his sons' two tribes. When Joseph's name is used, it can be in place of the two tribes, or as in Revelation in place of one tribe.

That now brings us to the question of why the names of the tribes in Revelation are being listed as they are, and why in the order given, as it is the only place where they are listed in this order, and where Manasseh, the younger less important tribe is listed while Ephraim, which was the bigger more important tribe, is replaced by Joseph. And Dan is left completely off the list. There are several possibilities for this. First, we will deal with the names listed, then address the lack of Dan's name.

Sometimes we miss much by not having the original languages, but only translations and sometimes bad ones at that. This would appear to be the case here, for the list of names, and the order in which they are given are a hidden message. Each of the names has a meaning, and when those meanings are known and assembled in the order given, they give us a message about the destiny of these 144,000 Israelites that are sealed for the end times. The names and general meanings are given below, as is the final resulting message.

Judah – I will praise Jehovah

Reuben –He has seen my affliction

Gad – a troop is coming

Asher – Happy or blessed am I

Naphtali – my struggle

Manasseh –He has made me forget my pain

Simeon – God hears me

Levi- He has joined himself to me

Issachar – He has rewarded me

Zebulon – He has exalted me

Joseph – He will add to me

Benjamin – Son of the right hand

When you string the meaning of the names together it basically says "I will praise Jehovah because He has seen my affliction. A troop comes (antichrist's troops) but blessed and happy am I. In my struggle, He has made me forget my pain. God hears me and has joined Himself to me. He has rewarded me and exalted me, adding to me the Son of His right hand."

This is a prophecy of the spiritual journey and experience of the 144,000 during the great tribulation through to the Lord's return. Ephraim's name is left out. There may be several reasons for this. First, Ephraim means fruitful and that would not fit in the message God intended to impart, so He uses Joseph's name instead. And Joseph, being Ephraim's father, this would mean Ephraim's tribe, as Manasseh is listed separately. The second reason for this may be that Ephraim was the site of the second pagan worship center in the norther tribes of Israel, alongside Dan. It was the southernmost site being on the southern border while Dan was the northernmost site, being at the northern border. Thus giving the people of northern Israel two places to worship from which they could choose, rather than having to go to Jerusalem. These two reasons may explain the order of the list and the replacement of Ephraim by Joseph.

As to the lack of Dan's name being there, much controversy by scholars surrounds this omission, but I think the prophesy of Dan given by Jacob, plus some knowledge of the tribe of Dan's activities explains why he is missing. First of all, the name Dan means judge. There is room in that message in the names to have included the word judge in some way, for the end times is all about God's judgment, however God deliberately leaves it out. So let us look to see why this might be.

First of all, let us look at the prophecy of Jacob. Genesis 49:16-18 “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD.” It tells us first that Dan shall judge his people AS one of the tribes of Israel. Why on earth would Jacob say “as one of the tribes” as if Dan were not one of the tribes? The answer may come in what is not only mentioned in the Bible but what is not mentioned in the Bible. The history of Dan in the Bible tells us a few things about this tribe. None of it very good. And secular information tells us a great deal more.

First of all, we can see that when the family entered into Egypt, Dan, unlike the others, only had one son. And later when the census is taken when they leave Egypt, Dan appears to still have had only one son. Yet when they left Egypt, Dan had the second largest number of descendants by many tens of thousands. That in itself is a little strange. When they get to the promised land, in spite of the tribe of Dan having been so large, they are given a small piece of land compared to others. Again, very strange. We will see that there may be a reason for that. As to Dan judging the people, we know that Samson was one of God's chosen judges. And unlike the others, Samson was given a miraculous gift of incredible, almost mythological strength. Then the phrase “as one of the tribes of Israel” is very peculiar, for they are a tribe of Israel.

If one delves into the history outside of the Bible, the archaeological and documentary evidence seems to show that the tribe of Dan became what is known as a sea-faring people. When this began is hard to determine, but it may have started even before Dan entered into Egypt, which may explain why when the list of the family is given when they entered, it mentions Dan's sons, as in plural, but then only lists one son's name as actually entering Egypt with him. Did Dan, who was probably in his late forties at least, at that time, have other sons who did not enter Egypt with him, but had already taken to the sea? That might explain why it says sons, but only lists one son, and why when they leave Egypt, the tribe of Dan is so enormous. There is every probability that before they were made slaves, that Dan's tribe had many who took to the sea and came back and forth to Goshen carrying trade goods to their extended family and when the Exodus occurred, they came to help their family in the wilderness, as the tribe was historically also known to be good warriors, as well as sea-farers. Also no doubt, these offspring had married many women from other places they had met on their journeys and brought them back with them, enlarging the tribe by going outside of the family of Israel.

When entering the land, since they were a sea-faring tribe they were given a plot of land on the coast, which makes sense, and it wasn't as large, again this makes sense, as they were sailing all over the place and some were settling elsewhere also. We see them referred to as a people who live on their ships in the song of Deborah in Judges, when she is relating the story of the battle just fought and mentions that Dan was not there, because they were hiding in their ships. There is much archaeological and documentary evidence that they not only settled in Greece and Anatolia, but migrated via the many rivers of Europe into its interior as well as reaching the British Isles, in particular, Ireland. Later on when those who remained on land were captured by the Assyrians, they were sent far away to the northern Balkan regions, due to Assyria's worry that as a rebellious tribe they would cause problems, where they then migrated throughout Europe and into the Scandinavian countries. All of this seems to be documented via archeology and ancient documents, but that lengthy story is for another article.

So this information helps us to understand why Jacob would say “as one of the tribes, “ since they did not seem to incorporate themselves into the nation of Israel, but struck out on their own as a sea-faring people, putting down roots all throughout Europe. Nor do they seem to partake of the religious part of Israel, as will be seen. That takes care of the first part of the prophecy, but what about the next?

Jacob says that Dan will be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path that bites the horse's heels so that the rider falls backward. Beginning at the end and working backwards, to bite a horse's heels is to attack from behind. To ambush someone to make the horse rear up and throw off the rider injuring and possibly killing him. And in this case, one would assume that the rider is innocent and that the attacker is unprovoked and does this out of malice and evil.

In the Scriptures, whenever it speaks of the serpent, with the exception of when it is talking about an actual snake, such as when Paul was bitten by one, the serpent is generally referring to Satan. Since that is the common usage when used metaphorically, it would seem logical to assume that this is the way it is meant here also. Someone from Dan's tribe will be a serpent, or agent of Satan, who will attack the innocent and cause them to probably die. We know that the tribe of Dan did do several things that showed them to be purveyors of evil. When the tribe of Dan could not hold onto the land given on the coast, due to the Philistines being stronger (their lack of faith to conquer them was the problem), they desired to look for easier land to conquer. They sent out spies to go north beyond the tribes that were already claiming their land to find other land. In so doing their first mistake was to take themselves outside of the boundaries of the land God was giving to Israel. In so doing, they were putting themselves outside of God's jurisdiction into the hands of a foreign god, for when the nations were divided at the Tower of Babel into seventy nations, God assigned a Son of God (fallen ones to the other nations, Michael to oversee Israel) to oversee and rule over each nation. We see this in the book of Daniel when the angel has to fight with the angelic prince of Persia to come see Daniel and then must fight the angelic prince of Greece when he leaves. This is why each nation always had their own god with his own name that they worshiped.

So when the tribe of Dan goes looking for land, they find a place that is very well situated and verdant for growing things. Unfortunately it is already settled by a peaceful people who have built a city. That city is far from any government oversight and help, so the tribe decides to pack up and go up there and kill them off and take the land, which they do. This is their first major sin in this move. On the way, they kidnap (willingly on his part) an apostate Levite, who has left God's temple to be a personal priest for a family man who had built his own mini temple supplied with a replica ephod, idols, and such and take him to be the tribe's Levitical priest. They set up the idol of abomination and create the first rival pagan temple to God's temple in Israel. So Dan is ultimately responsible for giving Israel what would eventually be the northern tribes' first pagan temple (albeit they mixed Judaism with paganism) to take the people away from the true God and His temple worship, and Law. This is their second major sin with this move.

There is more to the story of Dan's move north. In Deuteronomy, Moses prophesies about the tribes again. In 33:22 it says, “And of Dan he said, Dan is a lion's whelp: he shall leap from Bashan.” One might ask what the significance of that is. While Christ is the Lion of Judah, Satan is also referred to as a type of lion. In his case a roaring lion who seeks to devour us, and his offspring would be a lion's whelp or young lion. So that tells us what Dan's spiritual nature is. As for Bashan, that land and the city of Dan both were at the foot of Mt. Hermon, with Dan being on the south and Bashan being on the southeast or just east of Dan. Mt. Hermon was known traditionally as the place where the Sons of God who mated with humans were said to come down when they left their abode in heaven. Mt. Hermon was always considered a point of spiritual rebellion against God from the time well before the Flood. It was the area of Bashan, on the southeast side of Mt. Hermon that the Rephaim lived. The Rephaim were a giant tribe who were descendants of the Nephilim, the offspring of the Sons of God with human wives. King Og is the largest giant mentioned by name in the Bible and was the king of Bashan. While Og and the Rephaim had been defeated by Israel, the evil spiritual attachments and history of the land near Mt. Hermon were strong. And again, the land Dan took was outside of God's boundaries and therefore was under the spiritual oversight of the fallen angel who governed it. This placed them outside of the protection of Michael the archangel who was Israel's protector and questionably outside of God's protection.

The Phoenicians had believed Mt. Hermon, which they called Baal-Hermon, to be the mountain of Baal. As Dan would have probably been involved quite intimately with the Phoenicians, given that both were a sea-faring people, this may explain why Dan took up Baal worship and brought it into Israel when they settled at the base of Mt. Hermon.

While Dan had set up a mixture of Baal and Yahweh worship rivaling God's temple in Jerusalem with the calf and idols they had confiscated on their trip north, much later, when Israel was under Greek dominion, the Ptolemies, after the death of Alexander the Great, established Paneus, the site of the original shrine to Pan at Mt. Hermon over in Bashan. This was four miles east of Dan, so it can be seen how Dan is associated with Bashan in the verse in Deuteronomy. They are close neighbors and their religious practices are similar.

The shrine was located in a cave that had an underground stream that was so deep, it was considered the gateway to Hades, the underworld, or as it came to be called, the Gates of Hell. The stream was considered the point of connection between the dead and our world, with Pan living in the underworld during the winter months.

Later during in the Roman era, during Herod the Great's reign, he built a temple dedicated to Caesar Augustus to cement his relationship with Rome. After Herod's death, his son Philip expanded the area into a city which he named Caesarea Philippi in honor of the Caesar and himself. It is here at this place of the grotto that Peter declared Christ the Son of the living God and Jesus said he would build His church (on the confession of His being the Messiah, not on Peter) and that the Gates of Hell (note the use of the name in a dual spiritual way) would not prevail against it. It was a statement in the face of one of the most demonic places in the world that Satan would not triumph over Christ and His plan of salvation.

In an ancient Semitic language called Ugaritic, Bashan means “serpent”, which as Bashan was not a Hebrew land, it would have gotten its name from another Semitic language of the area. This place was known for its connection to spiritual rebellion against God, so the name goes along with the idea that Satan is called the serpent throughout Scripture. And Dan is also referred to as a serpent in Genesis, showing the source of his behavior and beliefs. It can be seen why Satan would lead Dan to a land that is dedicated to the worship of Satan and his realm and agents.

This is the part we know from the Bible history that tells us how the serpent worked through Dan's line to destroy God's people, biting them from behind to destroy them both spiritually and eventually physically when God punishes them. And Dan's connection to Satan the serpent. But does this hold more prophetic significance than just the events listed above? I believe so. After Jacob makes his prophecies, he cries out, “I have waited for thy salvation O Lord.” What does Jacob see in the future that is so bad that He cries out to God for salvation to come? It must have been something really bad to elicit that response. But again, we miss something in the translation, for if we go to the Hebrew it actually says, “I have waited for Yeshua, O Yahweh.” Is this prophetic about the coming of the Messiah? And is it just the first coming, or second that is in mind here? Is there some descendant of Dan that will be a very bad agent of the serpent? Is that why he is left out of Revelation?

In Isaiah 14:29, we find one of those well-known passages that we know is about Satan. It also speaks about Babylon's demise, the final one from which she does not rise again. This is followed by a passage about the Assyrian in God's country. The Assyrian is a name which is given to the antichrist in a number or prophetic passages about the end times. So, we know from all this that the context of the next few verses is end time prophecies as well. It says in verses 29-30, “Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. And the firstborn of the poor shall feed, and the needy shall lie down in safety: and I will kill thy root with famine, and he shall slay thy remnant.”

This passage is telling us of a part of the war between God and Satan. That out of the serpent's root, Satan's spawn, whether human or otherwise, shall come forth a cockatrice or fiery flying serpent. A cockatrice is a very poisonous snake, but this is not speaking of a real snake. This is either speaking of a single spiritual entity who is evil, or maybe two persons, a cockatrice - a human who belongs to Satan and the fiery serpent or in Hebrew - seraph (a serpentine flaming angel which in this case would be evil or a reptilian-like hybrid) who controls or possesses the human. It could possibly be Satan's actual child (angels did reproduce with humans before the Flood) who is a seraph or serpent-like creature like its father, or another fallen angel, or demonic spirit - a dead hybrid Nephilim that is a seraph or seraph-like creature. There are several possibilities how this will play out.

Satan had his beautiful wings removed at Eden, and was cursed to crawl on the ground. Satan is called a cherub in one passage, but being called a serpent all the time lends itself to him being a seraph or serpent-like angel as well. Maybe he is one of a kind, a combination, as many angels look different from each other and many take on animal-like characteristics. When the term fiery flying serpent is used, it is the word seraph and each time that word is used, it seems to be in reference to a particular type of angel. So the offspring of Satan, the cockatrice or fiery flying serpent that comes from Satan's root is the same kind of creature. Like father, like son. It would appear that the antichrist or beast (this tells us he is not human looking in his original form) as he is called in Revelation, is this type of creature. He presently resides in the abyss and will makes his appearance once more, as he has done seven times before in the previous empires, when the beast comes on the scene at the end. The last time the beast was here, he inhabited or possessed Hitler, who could very well have been a descendant of Dan (Hitler was said to have some Jewish blood, and he came from Germany which is filled with evidence of the tribe of Dan's presence), so it is possible that a descendant of Dan will be the beast's host for the end times. Again, this is speculation. This may be another reason for Dan being kept out of the 144,000.

Another passage which refers to the fiery flying serpent is found in Isaiah 30:6 “The burden of the beasts of the south: into the land of trouble and anguish, from whence come the young and old lion, the viper and fiery flying serpent, they will carry their riches upon the shoulders of young asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels, to a people that shall not profit them.” This is referring to when Israel was going to Egypt to try to get them to be an ally. For all the riches that they brought down to Egypt, it would profit Israel nothing, for Egypt would not help them when the time came, It refers to Egypt as a land of trouble and anguish (it certainly was for Israel when they were slaves). It also refers to the fact that the old and young lion, and the viper and fiery flying serpent come from there. It is tying the words lion to serpent. Satan is referred to as a roaring lion seeking to devour us. He is the old lion, the beast or antichrist is the young lion. Satan is the viper or serpent who can no longer fly, and the antichrist is the fiery flying serpent who apparently does have wings. And as we have seen, Dan is called both a serpent and a lion's whelp. Both these terms connect Dan directly to Satan and the beast.

This saga of Satan and the beast (along with Babylon, the female of the unholy trinity) began with their establishing their dominion in Egypt. While it goes back further than that to Nimrod at the Tower of Babel, the mixing of languages brought that to a halt. The beast's and Babylon's co-regency really started with Egypt and Pharaoh, as told to us in Daniel's vision, and we see the various nations that they controlled down through the ages through the prophecies and visions in Daniel and Revelation. So we have two passages which seem to point a direct connection between Dan and Satan with the terms serpent and lion.

The last thing that needs to be mentioned is that many say that the twelve tribes mentioned in Revelation are all consolidated in the Jewish people of Israel today. That there are no “lost” tribes. While it is true that most likely the remnant believers in each tribe migrated down to Jerusalem to be near the temple when other nations invaded and took prisoners, and they came back as part of the Jewish nation when released from captivity, all of these people would have long ago been assimilated into the tribe of Judah and no longer had their own identity of the other tribes. They would all simply be Jewish now. The rest of the ten tribes which were driven into the heathen nations still exist there. We have verification from Scripture as to this, when at the end Christ gathers the Israelites from the nations for the millennium. He will find and bring forth the lost tribes of northern Israel out of the heathen nations where they have been hidden to join them back to Judah (the Jews of today) so that they are no longer two separate nations, but one nation under Christ. The ten lost tribes are not considered entirely to be part of the present Jewish nation of Israel by God. Ezekiel 37:15-28 confirms this for us.

“The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying, Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions: And join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand. And when the children of thy people shall speak unto thee, saying, Wilt thou not shew us what thou meanest by these? Say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the stick of Joseph, which is in the hand of Ephraim, and the tribes of Israel his fellows, and will put them with him, even with the stick of Judah, and make them one stick, and they shall be one in mine hand. And the sticks whereon thou writest shall be in thine hand before their eyes. And say unto them,

Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I will take the children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, and will gather them on every side, and bring them into their own land: And I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king to them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all: Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions: but I will save them out of all their dwellingplaces, wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them: so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd: they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and do them. And they shall dwell in the land that I have given unto Jacob my servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even they, and their children, and their children's children for ever: and my servant David shall be their prince for ever. Moreover, I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant with them: and I will place them, and multiply them, and will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen shall know that I the LORD do sanctify Israel, when my sanctuary shall be in the midst of them for evermore.”

This explicitly tells us that Israel has to come out of the heathen nations where they were assimilated to be joined to present day Israel, the Jews, for the millennium. There is no mistaking what it says.

Hopefully all of this explains the ten lost tribes of Israel as they are called and what their future holds for both the 144,000 and their reuniting with Judah or present-day Israel, as well as how many tribes there actually are and why the list of tribes varies from Scripture to Scripture.

Who Is The Antichrist? Is it Trump?

Having been on this planet for seven decades now, I have seen more than my share of world leaders of one type, or another being labeled THE antichrist. I could make a list of all the books that have been published and the multitude of men who have had this label applied to them. All of whom were falsely accused, at least to date. Not that they were good men very wrongly misunderstood, most were deserving of the title "AN antichrist," but the title "THE antichrist" is reserved for one person only. The one called the "son of perdition."(2 Thess. 2:3).  The only other person to have that name in the Bible was Judas, who betrayed Christ when Satan entered into him. (Luke 22:3, John 17:12).  

Judas was possessed by Satan, and some make the mistake of thinking that this is what will happen with the man called the antichrist, but that is not quite so. When we go to Revelation 16:13-14 we find the following:  "And I saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty."  These verses tell us that there is an unholy trinity, the dragon (aka Satan), the beast (aka the antichrist), and the false prophet. So, the antichrist is not someone indwelt by Satan. He is his own persona. Another verse that verifies this is Revelation 19:20 " And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone."  The beast and false prophet are thrown in the lake of fire at the end of the 70th week of Daniel.  On the other hand, we find something else happening to Satan. Revelation 20:1-2 " And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years." 

So, we have now established that the antichrist is not a man possessed by Satan. What else are we told about him?  Revelation 11:7 "And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them." Revelation 17:8 "The beast that thou sawest was and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is." We are told that the beast is presently in the bottomless pit. What does that tell us? That he is not a human being. He is a demonic spirit. What helps us to make that distinction that he is not simply a dead human but a demonic spirit?  Revelation 17:10-11 " And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition."

We are told that the beast of Revelation has seven heads. Each of those heads stands for a king, a king who had reigned in some way over each of the seven mountains that the woman Babylon had sat upon. This passage tells us that these seven kings were involved in the seven empires that were incorporated in Nebuchadnezzar's statue, as well as a couple other empires. Each of these empires had something in common. They were world empires controlled by the beast and Babylon, (occultic/pagan) and the empire persecuted the Jews. As John indicates that one is during his time, and that is Rome, we must go backwards to find the other five. The statue of metals in Daniel helps us with that. Going backwards, before Rome was Greece, and before Greece, Medo-Persia. Before that We had Babylon. Now we need two more. It doesn't take much Bible study to find that the two that fit the bill are Assyria, and before them Egypt. Now we look to the seventh who is future to John. The qualifications for this empire would be the same as the others, a world type empire, controlled by the occult and a persecutor of the Jews. Another very specific qualification is that this empire is very short-lived. While many point to the Ottoman Empire, the length of that empire totally disqualifies it as a contender. The one which fits like a glove is the Third Reich under Hitler. It was a beast-like dominating empire, it was occultic, it persecuted the Jews (and Christians) and it was only around for a very short space of time in comparison to the other empires. Just a matter of twelve years running from 1933-1945. 

In each of these empires, there seems to be one king or ruler of some sort who stands out as the perpetrator of these attempts to annihilate the people of Israel. When we look at Rev. 17:11, we see something else. The antichrist or eighth king yet to come, is "of" the seven. How could a mere human be of the seven? He couldn't unless he was brought back to life over and over and over. The only alternative is that he is a demonic spirit who possesses a human and takes control. If one reads about World War II, one finds in various stories how people who met or were close to Hitler said with no hesitation that he was possessed. And as he was a great proponent and follower of the occult, is that any surprise? Given the Biblical evidence, it is clear that the antichrist is not the human he may inhabit (I'm not sure he will take a human body as he may take on an AI body with the technology we have today). So, to label a human that is living, no matter how evil he is, how full of pride he is, how arrogant he is, etc. as THE antichrist is to break the ninth commandment. Thou shalt not bear false witness. Many are writing books saying unequivocally without any qualms, stipulations, or doubts that Trump is THE antichrist. They are completely positive and are spreading this false witness to as many as possible, getting them to join them in this sin. They cannot know anything in regard to whom the beast will possess. Whether Trump is or is not (I don't think he fits Scripture) the host for the beast is not the point. We will not know definitively who the antichrist is until he sits in the temple declaring himself God at the abomination of desolation. Only THEN can we say, with no worry about breaking this commandment and putting ourselves at risk of God's ire, that this person IS the antichrist. Until then we should watch and wait. One must remember that a demonic spirit does not need anything more than a willing body. So, the beast can take over anyone who turns themselves over to him and bring them to great heights in a matter of a short amount of time, such as occurred to Haman in Medo-Persia and Hitler in Germany. It does not require that the person chosen have the qualities that would cause one to label them as an evil person before they are possessed. In fact, because the antichrist rises to power with just a few people very quickly, literally in an hour if Revelation is to be believed, it would belie the idea that the antichrist is already someone with great power and a world leader. 

We read in Revelation 17:12 " And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast." Daniel 11:21-23 "And in his estate shall stand up a vile person, to whom they shall not give the honour of the kingdom: but he shall come in peaceably, and obtain the kingdom by flatteries. And with the arms of a flood shall they be overflown from before him, and shall be broken; yea, also the prince of the covenant. And after the league made with him, he shall work deceitfully: for he shall come up and shall become strong with a small people." These verses tell us that the antichrist will not be given the honor of being a legitimate representative of a country. That leaves Trump out of the running, right there. The antichrist comes to power through deceit, not elections. He will make some sort of agreement, after what appears to be a war, but it will all be lies, and then he will become strong with a small contingent of cronies. In particular, both Daniel and Revelation tell us that there will be ten of them. 

At this point, the Scriptures clearly point to the fact that no man in and of himself is the antichrist. At best, he is merely a shell of a body to be possessed by the antichrist. So, calling any human man the antichrist is a misnomer at the very least. His body may become the host for the antichrist, but that is not the man himself. It literally could be anybody's body, who makes it available to be possessed. The only thing that pointing fingers and saying without a shadow of a doubt that it is this person or that does, is put one in a place of sin before God. That does not leave one in a good place with what is coming for God' people, for the Bride of Christ is still going to be here when that man of sin comes to power, according to Scripture, regardless of what many people are teaching. And God is going to purge His people of their sins to make them white again, as the Church has made her garments filthy with all the doctrines of demons she has been entertaining.

Now that Trump, the man we know, has been Scripturally eliminated, for those who wish to know more, reasons to eliminate him and all others, read on. What more can we learn about the entity known as the beast? Let us not start at the obvious, with characteristics like pride and arrogance. Let us see if we can determine from where he might come.

The most common term applied within the Old Testament to the antichrist or beast, as he is called in some Scriptures, is "The Assyrian." Many times throughout various prophets, he is referred to in this way. It is true that the beast did possess or control one of the leaders of Assyria, for that empire was one of the heads or mountains of the beast. But it seems that the verses about this person also refer to the endtimes antichrist. Isaiah 10:3-7 " And what will ye do in the day of visitation, and in the desolation which shall come from far? to whom will ye flee for help? and where will ye leave your glory? Without me they shall bow down under the prisoners, and they shall fall under the slain. For all this his anger is not turned away, but his hand is stretched out still. O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger, and the staff in their hand is mine indignation. I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. Howbeit he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so; but it is in his heart to destroy and cut off nations not a few."  Most prophecies seem to have a near and far fulfillment. Yes, Israel was overtaken by Assyria, but there are certain terms or things which help us to realize that this is also applicable to the future. The first is the term "day of visitation".  This term is another way of expressing the idea of the Day of the Lord. And the Day of the Lord still lies ahead of us, when God will pour out His wrath on the unbelieving world of the antichrist. The Assyrian is the rod of God's anger not only against the nation of Israel, but against many nations or "nations not a few". We know the antichrist will conquer many nations, and his reign will be worldwide.

Isaiah 14:25-26 " That I will break the Assyrian in my land, and upon my mountains tread him under foot: then shall his yoke depart from off them, and his burden depart from off their shoulders. This is the purpose that is purposed upon the whole earth: and this is the hand that is stretched out upon all the nations."  In this passage, God is going to break the power of the Assyrian who is in Israel, breaking the yoke and burden from not only off Israel but the whole earth. God will stretch out His hand to all the nations. Clearly again, this is not speaking of the ancient Assyria, but of someone from the future who will bring the whole earth under his yoke.

Isaiah 30:25-26, 30-31 "And there shall be upon every high mountain, and upon every high hill, rivers and streams of waters in the day of the great slaughter, when the towers fall. Moreover the light of the moon shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be sevenfold, as the light of seven days, in the day that the LORD bindeth up the breach of his people, and healeth the stroke of their wound.........And the LORD shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones. For through the voice of the LORD shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod." Again, in Isaiah is painted a picture of the Day of the Lord. These verses tell us of some of the catastrophic events, but also, we know it is the Day of the Lord, for He heals the breach of His people and heals their wound, when they finally return to Him. This only occurs at Christ's return when they see Him whom they pierced and cry and mourn over Him. (Zech. 12:10, Rev. 1:7) At this time (of Christ's return) the Lord will through His voice (His Word who is Christ) beat down the Assyrian who smote the world with a rod. 

Isaiah 31:4b-5, 8 "so shall the LORD of hosts come down to fight for mount Zion, and for the hill thereof. As birds flying, so will the LORD of hosts defend Jerusalem; defending also he will deliver it; and passing over he will preserve it.......Then shall the Assyrian fall with the sword, not of a mighty man; and the sword, not of a mean man, shall devour him: but he shall flee from the sword, and his young men shall be discomfited." This chapter is again, about the Day of the Lord, when Christ returns. The Assyrian will fall not by a mighty man with a sword, or a mean man, but by the Word of the Lord, Christ. 

Micah 5:2-5 "But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting. Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she which travaileth hath brought forth: then the remnant of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. And he shall stand and feed in the strength of the LORD, in the majesty of the name of the LORD his God; and they shall abide: for now shall he be great unto the ends of the earth. And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men." This passage begins with the birth of Christ. It then jumps to Christ giving the Jews up, to create the Church and when the Church is complete, (which occurs at His return) then the remnant of Israel (the lost tribes) will return and join with the Jews and the Lord will be great to the ends of the earth. He will be their peace or protector when the Assyrian or antichrist comes into the land and treads it down. At that time God will raise up seven shepherds and eight principal men. Who these men are is a complete mystery to me, for there is no other reference to them.

So, we can see how the antichrist is identified in particular with the Assyrian, even though the beast possessed men from each of the various empires in the seven heads of the beast. I can hear the naysayers, who want to believe they know who the antichrist is say, "But there is a verse that talks about the king of Babylon. and America is Babylon" Yes, there is a verse and yes, I believe we are Babylon. But that doesn't mean the antichrist comes from America. He is referred to as the king of Babylon in that passage, because the beast was also the king of Babylon most likely at the time of the writing of this prophecy. Even though the passage is also a prophecy about ancient Babylon, which seems to be where the beast may be at that time, for the Assyria captivity had already taken place (part of the chapter is about Satan as well) the king is still called the Assyrian within the passage. that is significant. The preponderance of references is to the Assyrian, and we must take note of that. Does this indicate that the beast will rise up somewhere in the Middle East, in the area of where ancient Assyria was, or possibly Syria is? Daniel gives us a clue to this. 

Daniel 8:8-11, 19, 23-25 "Therefore the he goat waxed very great: and when he was strong, the great horn was broken; and for it came up four notable ones toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came forth a little horn, which waxed exceeding great, toward the south, and toward the east, and toward the pleasant land. And it waxed great, even to the host of heaven; and it cast down some of the host and of the stars to the ground, and stamped upon them. Yea, he magnified himself even to the prince of the host, and by him the daily sacrifice was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down........ And he said, Behold, I will make thee know what shall be in the last end of the indignation: for at the time appointed the end shall be....... And in the latter time of their kingdom, when the transgressors are come to the full, a king of fierce countenance, and understanding dark sentences, shall stand up. And his power shall be mighty, but not by his own power: and he shall destroy wonderfully, and shall prosper, and practise, and shall destroy the mighty and the holy people. And through his policy also he shall cause craft to prosper in his hand; and he shall magnify himself in his heart, and by peace shall destroy many: he shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand."

The context of this passage is a dream Daniel had, initially concerning Medo-Persia and Greece. He sees a ram (Persia) who is conquered by a goat with a notable horn (Greece and Alexander the great). The goat becomes very great, but then his horn is broken off and, in its place, come up four horns toward the north, south, east, and west. Out of one of the horns comes another little horn which becomes great toward the south, east, and Israel. If one were to stop here, this of course is about Antiochus Epiphanes. But it does not stop there. It repeats that this horn which comes out of one of the horns, as did Antiochus Epiphanes. While that might leave it open to the beast coming from one of the other three empires, as he is repeatedly called The Assyrian, it indicates that it is the same empire or area from which Antiochus came.  He grows great even to the host of heaven. Now we are talking about the angels, the spiritual world. A mere, man cannot come up against the spiritual world, but a demon can. It even casts down some of the host and stars out of heaven, both references of host and stars meaning angels, and stamps them to the ground, or brings them under his control. He magnifies himself even above Christ. We know this happens at the abomination of desolation when he declares himself God. 2 Thess. 2:3b-4 "that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God." Further, we are told that the angel tells Daniel this concerns the end of the indignation at the latter end of it all.  At that time a king of fierce countenance, one who practices witchcraft and occultism will come to power. His power will be mighty, but not by his own power. The beast no doubt has powers of his own, but Satan will give him even more and he comes to power through Satan's giving it to him, as prince and power of the air himself. This is not a human. He will destroy mightily nations and people, including God's people. Through his administration he will cause occultism and witchcraft to prosper. He will destroy many, ironically by peace. A false peace, making promises he will not fulfill, but he will destroy everyone who will not worship him.  He will even attempt to stand up against Christ, but Christ will destroy him. 

This passage clearly seems to indicate that the antichrist is going to arise out of the Middle East. In particular out of somewhere in that area that was ruled by the Seleucids. This would seem to indicate that he will arise out of the Islamic world. Are there other Scriptures that would also imply this? Yes, there are. Daniel has another dream.

Daniel 7:3-8, 19-21, 23-25 "And four great beasts came up from the sea, diverse one from another. The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings: I beheld till the wings thereof were plucked, and it was lifted up from the earth, and made stand upon the feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it. And behold another beast, a second, like to a bear, and it raised up itself on one side, and it had three ribs in the mouth of it between the teeth of it: and they said thus unto it, Arise, devour much flesh. After this I beheld, and lo another, like a leopard, which had upon the back of it four wings of a fowl; the beast had also four heads; and dominion was given to it. After this I saw in the night visions, and behold a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and strong exceedingly; and it had great iron teeth: it devoured and brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with the feet of it: and it was diverse from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns. I considered the horns, and, behold, there came up among them another little horn, before whom there were three of the first horns plucked up by the roots: and, behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of man, and a mouth speaking great things..........Then I would know the truth of the fourth beast, which was diverse from all the others, exceeding dreadful, whose teeth were of iron, and his nails of brass; which devoured, brake in pieces, and stamped the residue with his feet; And of the ten horns that were in his head, and of the other which came up, and before whom three fell; even of that horn that had eyes, and a mouth that spake very great things, whose look was more stout than his fellows. I beheld, and the same horn made war with the saints, and prevailed against them....... Thus he said, The fourth beast shall be the fourth kingdom upon earth, which shall be diverse from all kingdoms, and shall devour the whole earth, and shall tread it down, and break it in pieces. And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings. And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time." 

This dream consists of four beasts. As I have talked about this elsewhere in my blog, I won't spend the time here doing that. It is the fourth beast that concerns us. It is dreadful, terrible, exceedingly strong, has great iron teeth which can devour and break into pieces anything in its way. It stamps down anything that would oppose it or be a problem. It is ruthless, evil, and terrifyingly violent. It also has ten horns. We see in Revelation that the beast rises to power with ten other leaders who hand over their power to him. This is the same group of ten and they have a little horn come out of them as well. What is important is to note that this beast is not like the other beasts. They were beasts as well, but this one is of a completely different nature. Why is that? The others are political empires who rule. This is a different kind of empire. Why? Because I believe it is not a secular empire but a religious one. I believe we are talking a revived Islamic caliphate. There have been attempts already to revive the caliphate. It only awaits a man that they could call their Mahdi (their Messiah) to bring them together. What is different about this is it would not necessarily be a conglomerate of Islamic nations, but a group of Imams or Islamic religious leaders who will have political power over the Muslims. Islam is known to be a religion that works off the ideas of fear and violence. That many Muslims do not ascribe to the radical side of it is not the question here. The Quran itself basically teaches worship Allah or die. If the Mahdi were to appear, they all will do as he bids. The radicals are ruthless to their enemies. No mercy. They stomp down everyone in their path. Islam has been slowly taking over the world, infiltrating every country with their people and even compounds. When the call comes to jihad, they will all answer the call on pain of their own death.

Another passage that leads to the conclusion that Islam is involved is the following:  Daniel 11:37-38 " Neither shall he regard the God of his fathers, nor the desire of women, nor regard any god: for he shall magnify himself above all. But in his estate shall he honour the God of forces: and a god whom his fathers knew not shall he honour with gold, and silver, and with precious stones, and pleasant things."

Beginning with the first verse, many people do not understand this verse in context. I have to admit when I first started studying the book of Daniel decades ago, I misunderstood it as well. It says that the antichrist will not have any regard for the God of his fathers, then skipping over the next phrase, he will not have a regard for any god, meaning any pagan god that was known at the time this was written. The phrase any god would seem to point to all pagan gods, so we are left with the God of his fathers, which would seem to imply the true God, as He is the only one left after pagan gods are removed from the equation. Now having seen that the antichrist (the host) appears to be of Middle East origin, that would make him a descendent of Abraham, whether Arab or Jew or even one of the lost tribes of Israel. So, the God of his fathers would indicate the true God. This means that the man used as the body for the beast could very well be a Jew or Israelite who is converted to Islam. What better way to get both the Jews and the Muslims to accept him? There are a few obscure verses that many have taken to point the finger at the tribe of Dan as the source of the man's lineage. Genesis 49:17:18 "Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. I have waited for thy salvation, O LORD."

Dan is equated with the serpent, whom we know refers to Satan. And Dan's tribe was the one who truly spearheaded the northern tribes' descent into their pagan worship. It is interesting that the first verse speaks of the serpent and adder causing the rider to fall backward, exactly what he did to the tribes of Israel, making them fall away from God. But then oddly in the midst of Jacob's blessings on his sons, he adds this right after the first prophecy for Dan, which was a terrible prophecy, that he awaits God's salvation. This is a reference to the Messiah. So, he is drawing a line connecting the serpent who is the destroyer of their spiritual life, to the Savior of their spiritual life, within Dan's tribe's future. And there is a big connection between the antichrist's appearance and the appearance (second coming) of our Lord. 

An even more interesting prophecy is the one found in Isaiah 14:29 "Rejoice not thou, whole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken: for out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent." This verse says that out of the rod or serpent's root that smote the land of Palestine will come forth a cockatrice. This is a particularly deadly snake. And then a fiery flying serpent. The word in Hebrew is actually seraphim, which guess what, is a type of angel. In particular they seem to be serpentine angels. The cherubim have an appearance of an oxen, eagle, lion, and human. We can see that the animal world that God created, just as the tabernacle was a pattern of the heavenly tabernacle, was created to resemble the creatures in heaven. The one missing from that list is someone who represents the reptilian world. Satan is called a serpent and dragon right from the start. And in studying angels I found that seraphim more than likely have at least some who are reptilian in appearance as Satan is. As there is speculation (no proof) that the beast might be Satan's offspring (in mimicry of God having a son) it would make sense that he is at the very least, part serpentine, for demonic spirits seem to be the dead and bodiless hybrid offspring of the mating between mankind and angels.  So given all this information, it would again appear that the person who becomes the host for the beast is from a Middle Eastern background, possibly from the tribe of Dan. Added to that, there is some unknown reason for which Dan's name is left off the list of the 144,000. Nobody knows why. This might explain it.

Now we are left with the middle phrase "nor the desire of women." Some have taken this to mean that he will be homosexual for he does not desire women. That is not what this says. The context is discussing the various gods. First it is Yahweh, then it ends with pagan gods, so the middle person must be a god also. The god that was the desire of women in Daniel's time would have been the Messiah. The Jewish audience to whom Daniel writes would have understood this to mean the promised Messiah God, for all women hoped to be the mother of the Messiah. The only other way to understand this would be to say that it is the god that women of the age of the antichrist worship. Since it is specifically targeting the god of women here, the alternative would probably be the feminine goddess who goes under many names. Namely, Isis, Diana, Mother Gaia, Mother Mary, and last but not least, the real name, Mystery Babylon, who is all of the former depending on the culture. So the choices are that the antichrist does not regard God the Father, or Jesus, or any pagan god, or that he does not regard God the Father, Babylon, or any other pagan god. I don't know that it is important to choose one or the other for the sake of this post. What is important is the next verse. 

In place of those gods (or God as the case may be) he will honor a god of forces or fortresses as the various versions say. This god is a god of strength, of forts or fortresses, or strongholds. He sounds like a military or militant god. This god is a god that his fathers never knew. In other words, this god was not known in the pantheon of the various pagan gods that Israel not only knew but worshipped themselves. What god came well after that fact that is a militaristic god of forts or fortresses or maybe of war?  The god that is so well known for that today is Allah. Again, we see that the path leads us back to Islam. 

Getting back to the question is Trump the antichrist, I think by now it is clear from Scripture that he does not fit the description as laid out by Scripture. This description of course only refers to the man the beast possesses, not the beast himself, who comes out of the abyss in hell. Trump is not from the Middle East, he is not Muslim, he was and may be again (as of the date this was written) the legitimate elected leader of a country, not someone who got it by illegitimate means. He did not rise to power with ten people. He does not at this point in time shake his fist at God and blaspheme Him. Another point that I think people might question is his age. If the antichrist is a mockup of Christ, then he will most likely be someone around the age that Christ was when He died. Early thirties. 

Some of the so-called reasons I have seen for "proving" Trump is the antichrist is that his mother's name was Mary, his aunt's name was Elizabeth, and his cousin was named John. Knowing how popular these names were in the age these people were born, I am guessing that we could find many people with those qualifications. Not to mention that nowhere in the Bible are these listed as qualifications for identifying the antichrist. Then I have perused a book that gave as proof chapters with themes such as "A  Mocker", "A Liar", "An Adulterer", "A Man of Pride", "An Arrogant Man" which each chapters contains a bunch of verses that say that these things are sins (yes, they are) and that they describe Trump, so therefore he is the antichrist. Those bad qualities are unpleasant, and they are sins, but it doesn't qualify one for the title of The Antichrist. Many, many politicians and business leaders fit this description.  In fact, the author of that book that this was presented is a person I've had debates with, and not only I, but others who followed our debates found him to be as pompous, arrogant, prideful, and as boastful as the very man he is designating as the antichrist. Those who disagree with him are considered stupid people to be dismissed. He has spent the last eight years almost daily posting diatribes, false articles, false accusations, etc. about Trump. The hate he spews is certainly not something that shows Jesus in his life. Does that make this man the antichrist then, because he is also guilty of these sins? These sins just make a person a sinner, not the antichrist. And what politician cannot tick off all of these sins? It's a competition between them all. Some of them can even tick off murder on their list. To my knowledge Trump has not committed that sin, so why is he the worst of the worst? Is he pompous and arrogant? Yes. It is the persona he presents, because that apparently is how prosperous and successful businessmen act toward each other. He is a businessman, not a politician. He has no idea how to act like a politician. He acts like a businessman. Locker room talk, boasting, etc. They all act like this when they get together for the deals. It's the art of the deal. And he is master at it. Is he a Christian? I think that it is fair to say that as he does not confess to having accepted Jesus as his Savior, the answer would appear to be no. Is he a righteous man? I think we can safely say, no. Is he kind to people and charitable. Yes, he can be very much like that in his private life, from what I have heard from those who know him.  He believes good works will get him into heaven. Erroneous, yes, but it does make him behave in some ways that are better than many. He has been an unrepentant adulterer. It seems that every president we have had is that, and some more disgusting than others. Is he a good businessman? Well, he gets the job done, and he got this country on its feet. I have no illusions about the man and who and what he is, but he is not a fulfillment of the prophecies of the antichrist, no matter how badly the Trump Deranged people want him to be. And many of those people claim to be Christians. Shame on them for taking such a positive stand on something which nobody can know until that day when the beast presents himself as God. It is bearing false witness. They need to stop and confess and start praying for their leaders instead, as we are told to do in Scripture. In fact, Scripture warns us to not talk about our leaders in this very way. Exodus 22:28 " Thou shalt not revile the gods, nor curse the ruler of thy people." We are not to badmouth the angels, including the fallen ones, nor our rulers. We may not like the people in office, but we need to behave in a Christian manner toward them. If we want our country healed, we need to humble ourselves and pray and confess our sins as we are told to do. 

So, Trump, by Scriptural description does not appear to be the antichrist. Should we be labeling anyone the antichrist? No, not THE antichrist. Can we say that some are AN antichrist, well anyone against Christ is an antichrist, so that means that many can lay claim to that title, however that is not something we should be doing. We are to pray for people's salvation and share the good news. Should we be watchful and know what the Scriptures teach, absolutely. We are commanded to do that. So if you are following someone who claims to know that Trump or anyone is the antichrist, you need to stop listening to them. You don't want God's chastisement to fall on you, as it will these people. 

Do Our Pets Go to Heaven?

On my property I have a graveyard. That graveyard holds the remains of beloved pets that our family had over the years. Each grave is surrounded by a ring of stones with one stone in the front being a large flat stone upon which each summer a memorial plaque is lovingly laid and a marker with the name of the pet is staked, declaring whose grave it is. We live up north where there are severe winters, so these plaques are packed away during the bad weather for preservation's sake. In the midst of the stones of each grave is some variety of a bleeding heart, representing the sorrow in losing that pet. The graves are surrounded by flowering bushes (rhododendron, azalea) flowering bulbs (tulips, daffodils), ferns, and some other perennials. Annuals are also placed there in the summertime. We loved our pets. They were members of our family, and not soon forgotten. This is our way of honoring the place they held in our lives. I tell all this so that people do not think that the information in this article comes from a place of not understanding the grief of losing a pet, but that in spite of that grief, I believe that God's Word is the final authority of truth, and even when that truth might not make me happy, it is still truth, and still must be accepted as such.

A subject that is very sensitive for some people, and most people prefer to have an opinion based not on Scripture but on desire, is the one of whether or not pets go to heaven. While adults may choose to believe this, it is more of an issue that people and even Christians want to endorse when a child loses a pet, because they don't want their child to suffer more grief than it already is suffering. So, most people take the path of least resistance and say that the pet will be in heaven waiting for them, for the truth is most often a very bitter pill.

Recently I was challenged with the question, “Do I believe pets go to heaven?” I've had this question before, and looked into it and have come to a conclusion as to what Scripture teaches, but when asked to look at a book that supposedly offers a Scriptural proof for pets being in heaven, I agreed to do so, because I do not think I am infallible when it comes to understanding Scripture, and like to see if someone can prove something which I have concluded is not Scriptural is in fact true. It sharpens my knowledge and forces me to revisit Scriptures on subjects to make sure my stance is a correct one. As such I dug into the Scriptures to study the subject again and read the book. This article is the result of all that research.

While the real question is, “Do pets have eternal souls and are a part of the resurrection?”, I need to really start with the following question. Are you sure YOU are going to heaven? Do you really know Jesus Christ as your personal Savior and Lord, or did you just repeat a prayer someone told you to say? If you do know the Lord, are you striving to live a holy life sanctified unto Him, keeping His commandments, giving yourself over to His will, rebuking and renouncing apostasy, studying to know true doctrine and rightly dividing the Word (as opposed to simply believing what someone tells you to believe), and enduring to the end? Because if you aren't doing these things, then you may possibly find yourself on the other side of the Lord saying, “Depart from me, I never knew you.” And if that were the case, would it matter if your pet were there or not?

Once you get past those questions, then we move on to, “Do pets go to heaven?” which is really the question, “Do animals have eternal spirits that get resurrected?” For some this question is crucial, more so than concerning the people in their lives. They can't imagine heaven without their beloved pets, while Uncle Joe was never liked, so....., but that question opens a far bigger door than people realize, for if a rule applies to one animal, it must apply to all animals - mammals, and insects, and birds, and fish, and reptiles, and even dinosaurs, because all animals are equal in God's eyes, whether they are in ours or not. Thus, we have to see what Scripture indicates on the matter. We cannot start with our supposition and look to try to make it be true. We must look to Scripture and accept what it says and take our belief from what it says. Many people prefer to interpret the Bible the first way, but God wants us to simply believe what He says, not try to make His Word say what they want to believe.

When God created the world, before He ever took the first step in Genesis 1:1, He knew what the end of it all would be - sin, death, destruction, and finally salvation and restoration, for God foreknew everything before the beginning. Isaiah 46:10 Everyone's name who is in the Book of Life has been there from before the foundation of the world. Rev. 13:8. Christ's sacrifice was determined before the foundation of the world. 1 Peter 1:20. So when creating it, God built into everything the needs of a world cursed by sin. For example, the animals that would become carnivores or omnivores have the appropriate teeth and digestive systems to accommodate that, even though they were all originally created to be herbivores. In Genesis, when God first created His creation, everything was perfect or untainted by sin. God looked at it all (including the heavenly creations) and said it was “good.” It was without sin, without curse, decay, and death. There is nothing in this statement that indicates that all of created things were made to be redeemed to eternal life after sin. We know the angels do not have redemption. Nor do they die physically. For them, sin is a permanent condition, as is the punishment. So there is nothing in the statement that everything was good to indicate that the redemption of creation (after sin) would mean the resurrection to life of all that had been created. If that were so, it would mean everything, the flora as well as fauna would come back to life, for plants are living things also. We learn from the rest of the Bible that man was to be redeemed from sin to be resurrected to either eternal life or eternal death, but the rest of creation is said to be made new. The curse will be lifted. That means that from that point on (once things are made new) those things which grow or are born will not suffer the curse of death and decay. It does not mean that every plant or creature that ever lived would come back to a resurrected life as man would.

When God created the world, He created everything that man (the focus and centerpiece of His creation) would need to exist and thrive. Everything was created for man. Even many of the angels serve God by ministering to mankind. That is why man was created last. Everything was made to be ready for man when God created His children. Everything in the earthly realm was created to fall under the dominion or ownership/stewardship of mankind. Everything was put under his control and was essentially his property to use for his benefit (but not to abuse). Man, unlike the rest of the material creation (the spiritual realm is not going to be addressed here, only our dimension) was created in the image of God, and as such was given free will to decide whether or not to obey God and maintain the relationship that he originally was created to have, or to disobey and be cut off from that relationship. The rest of creation was made subordinate to the decision of man, as it was his property under his dominion. His choices would affect the rest of creation. Nothing else had that spiritual connection to God as man did, nor the free will to keep or break it.

God had initially created man to live an immortal life in this body and provided the tree of life to make that happen. Animals would not die either, for death was the result of sin. The plants like trees would also most likely continue to grow, but whether the annual crops that we eat would have a life cycle is hard to say. As sin entered rather quickly (Eve did not have time to get pregnant, and that was the mandate to start right away filling the earth), I don't think there was time to find out. Note that immortality of the body was contingent upon eating from the tree of life. Without that life giving source, the body would eventually die, as it did when access to the tree was cut off. God deliberately created us that way, due to His foreknowledge. Men would live a long time, at the start, because the body was perfect at the beginning, and the environment was perfect, hence the long lives of the antediluvian world, but the body would eventually die.

Sometime after the seventh day when God rested and all was good, Adam and Eve sinned, which came at some point after that first week - Gen. 3:1-19. We do not know how long that was, however I believe Jewish tradition says it was on the tenth day, and that is why God put the Day of Atonement on that day in the original Hebrew calendar, because it was the day upon which Adam and Eve's sin was (temporarily) atoned for by the first sacrifice - Gen. 3:21. Also somewhere in between the seventh day when all was perfect in God's creation and the fall of Adam and Eve, Satan rebelled against God and took a full one third of the angels with him, as everything (including the creations of heaven) were still good on day seven. After the seventh day when God rested and all was good, sin had entered the heavenly realm, and was cast out to the earth. Hell was actually originally created for the angels, not man. - Matt. 25:41. Man just made it possible that he would partake of that same punishment by sinning against God also.

After Satan's fall, he decided to destroy God's earthly creation as well and tempted Eve to sin, Gen. 3:1-6, which she did. God knew in advance this would happen, so when He created it all, He created it to be able to die, so that sin would not be eternal as well. At the proper time (the first coming), mankind would be redeemed (1^st promise of a redeemer - Gen. 3:15) and at the Second Coming, the rest of creation could be redeemed from the curse and Satan's control and made new to be perfect again – Rev. 21:1. We read in Revelation how there will be a new tree of life in New Jerusalem for the residents of that city to eat, and its leaves (not the fruit) will be for the healing of the nations during the millennium – Rev. 22:2. The millennial residents of earth cannot partake of the fruit and have eternal life in these bodies, but can be healed by its leaves. People will again live long lives during the millennium, as they did in the antediluvian world. The resurrected, however, will no longer be in mortal sinful bodies and will live forever and may eat of the tree of life.

To stay alive forever, Adam and Eve would have had to eat of the tree of life, but they hadn't had a chance to do so before they sinned, and God immediately barred them from ever being able to do so after. Death was a blessing, not a curse. Why do I say that? Because had we been trapped in this mortal, now sinful body, we would for all eternity be battling sin and disease and pain and all that goes with this sinful world - Romans 6:6. By dying, God freed our eternal spirit which depending on whether or not we have chosen Him as our Savior, will be resurrected to either eternal life with a new perfect body, or eternal death in the lake of fire. (Spiritual death is not a cessation of existence, but a permanent separation from God.) It was not just we who were saddled with this curse of death, the entire creation was. Everything would now die, regardless, because everything was created for man and man had ruined it.

The plants, the animals, everything would wear down and cease to exist at some point. The only reason that man is able to be resurrected is because God created man and only man, in his image and imbued man with both a soul and spirit, ones that inhabit a mortal body for now, but can live apart from that body, because our spirit is eternal, and our soul is also, because our spirit energizes it. Animals were created with souls only, not eternal spirits, so when the body of an animal dies, so does the soul, for it is not connected to an eternal spirit. So, what is the difference between a soul and the spirit?

People often wonder what it means to be created in God's image. Many have various ideas, but I think the one that I believe is the most important is that God is a triune being and He created us to be that also. A very simplistic explanation that really doesn't even touch the reality of the truth but helps to try to make it a little understandable is that God the Father is the one who makes the final decisions. It is His will that the Son and the Holy Spirit subordinate themselves to, even though both of the others are their own person with their own mind and will and are also God. The Father makes the decisions. The Son carries out that decision and the Spirit is the one whose power makes thing happen. An example of this is creation. God determined it (Gen. 1:1) Christ created (spoke it into existence John 1:3, John 1:1/Heb. 11:3) and the Holy Spirit moved (empowered or energized it – Gen. 1:2) to make it work. They are three, but are a unity, each carrying out their part. One cannot look upon God and live (Ex. 33:20), but Christ was the physical incarnation of God. He manifested as the Angel of God before His incarnation, having a meal with Abraham and even wrestling with Jacob, and then He took on a mortal physical human body, so He could be our kinsman redeemer. The Holy Spirit is the Ruach, the breath of life, the power, the One who is the energizer or life giver if you will. This is the part of God that indwells us when we become saved and reconnects us to God. He is our guide, our comforter, our conscience, among a myriad of other things.

Just as God is three in one, we are also. The soul is our consciousness, our mind or intelligence, our reason, our emotions, our personality, and our will. It is our soul or conscious mind, our reason, and our emotions that control all our decisions. It is that part of us that corresponds to the Father, as it is that part which makes the decisions. Whether a person is saved by Christ or rejects God, we all have souls or consciousness which continue after death, as we have spirits which keep it in existence through its life-giving force. The body is the physical incarnation which houses our soul and spirit. Our body was created to be able to die, so that our soul and spirit would not be trapped forever in a sinful and corrupt body. When we accept Christ and endure to the end, we will upon Christ's return get new incorruptible bodies with no sin. This is why man is resurrected.

It is the soul, the conscious mind that makes the decisions for us. This part of us corresponds to the position of the Father, as it is the one who makes the final decisions of our life. Our soul is influenced by the other two parts of our trinity– body and spirit, as both have their own will. Whether your spirit is alive (connected to God) or dead (disconnected from God) will influence the decisions your soul makes.

The body, a counterpart to the Son, also has its own will. That may sound new and strange to some, but it is what Scripture teaches. The flesh has a will of its own that we have to fight, because its will is sinful. It desires to sin. Why would we have to fight it, if it did not have the power to get us to obey its will? - Galatians 5:16-17. Just as Christ is subordinate (by choice) to the Father, we are told we are to subject or bring our body under the control of our will and spirit, since its nature is now to be sinful in its lusts and its choices -1Cor. 9:27. Paul spends much time in Romans discussing this problem – Romans 7:14-25. It cannot be redeemed. It can only be replaced – Romans 6:5. It is this sin and lusts of the flesh which our soul and spirit fight against.

Our spirit is that spiritual part of us that exists in and outside of this mortal realm, which can connect us to God and is our source of eternal existence through its eternal power. Our spirit is the ruach, the breath of life or power that sustains our existence. Spiritual death is not a cessation of existence, but a permanent separation from God. Our spirit is the counterpart to the Holy spirit, which is more than a source of power and life but is also a person with emotions and thoughts as well as the Father and Son. Once born again, our spirit, which is redeemed, chooses holiness, but it battles against the flesh which chooses sin, and the one who determines the outcome of the battle is the soul, the decision maker, the will.

Often, we know people who are not born again who still choose to make moral choices. They can do this because the conscious is also intelligent and analyzes and reasons out things as to outcomes, and their choice is decided by intelligence toward morality - the morality that God instills in every soul to know God's moral laws as being the best way for man to live, rather than by a born again. So, people can do what appears to be good, but not be born again.

All of this had to be gone over, so that we understand how we, and we alone are in the image of God and why we alone can only obtain entrance into heaven, by accepting Christ as our Savior. With that in mind, we can now look at animals in a truthful way. God created all living creatures with souls – the breath of life and a certain amount of intelligence or instincts and some with emotions. Animals aren't as advanced as man in this, but while they do not have what you would call self-awareness, they do have a consciousness that can think to some extent (some more than others), and some have simple emotions and wills which can be trained by repetition and reward to be subordinate to man's will, when they are properly trained. It is not so much that they are making willful choices by using intelligent reason when they behave as trained to respond, as much as by reason that they are programmed to react to certain triggers. Some can make simple choices, for instance, dogs may prefer one treat over another if offered a choice and really intelligent animals can reason some things out. They do not ever, though, make moral choices. That is because they do not understand morality. In this we can see that they do not have a relationship with God, for they do not understand good and evil. It is the spiritual side of us that enables us to do that. That is why Adam and Eve knew they had sinned. They had the knowledge of good and evil. Animals do not possess this, because they are not connected to God by the spirit.

This is one of the great differences between man and the animal world. We understand morality, because God built into us a moral compass, although evil people have the ability to easily override it, because they have a dead spirit. Animals are not self-aware as man is, nor aware of God as we are, or have a relationship with Him as we do, or understand good vs. evil, although they do have a certain awareness or can see into, in some cases, the spiritual world. And their intelligence runs the gamut from little to quite impressive. Many of the higher orders have simple emotions, as they can have affection for and mourn the loss of a master, if they are a pet. Most animals, however, simply live on instinct. It is built into them by God to react in certain ways to certain stimuli. This is simply a scientific fact about animals. This is the kind of soul that an animal has.

While God breathed a soul (as opposed to a spirit) into every living being, including the animals, He did not give animals eternal spirits. He did not give them a special connection to Him that required interaction and obedience. That is the part of us that truly makes us in the image of God and animals are not in the image of God. And because they do not have an eternal spirit, and cannot connect spiritually with God, their souls are not eternal either, for the life force they have is only the breath of life while their bodies live. Their souls die upon the death of their body. They were not created to have that kind of relationship with God that man has. They were created to be useful for man. Domestic cattle helped to till the ground, and still do even today in some places. Some were created to help keep the environment clean and the vegetation in check. Others had other purposes such as carrying burdens for man. But animals do not have eternal spirits that understand sin and morality. They can neither sin nor repent, nor do good nor evil. They are amoral. They do not even understand these concepts. That is because they were not created to have that kind of understanding of good and evil, or free will choice concerning God and sin and obedience. They were created for man's use, not to be in a relationship with God as man has. God deliberately did not create them like that, because He knew in advance that animals would have to be sacrificed as a temporary substitution until the real sacrifice of the Savior to cover man's sin. Not that animals ever really did cover their sin, but it acted as a reminder to everyone that a sacrifice would be required. Also in time, after the Flood, man would have to eat animals to survive, as the world needed time to restore the vegetation. God could not in good conscience offer creatures that had eternal spirits and souls for this cause, anymore than He asked for human sacrifice or could abide cannibalism. He made drinking blood, either of man or animal forbidden, because the life is in the blood. So to think that God would give animals eternal souls that could connect to him and die and be resurrected is to not understand God's plan for the world and salvation at all. They die, just as all things die, because man sinned, which tainted all of creation, as creation was made for man.

Now ask yourself the question. If some animals were to go to heaven, then would not some of them have to go to hell as well? Not all animals act in a good and gentle manner. If they do bad, which some do in our understanding of bad, then how could they go to heaven? But is it fair for them to go to hell when they have no understanding of evil or any way to repent of what we would consider bad behavior? And they weren't ever guilty of sin as God defines it. It was man who sinned. In all fairness, shouldn't bad animals be punished for things such as hurting people? Killing people? Clearly, we can see that God never intended for animals to have eternal spirits nor do they have to worry about where they will spend the afterlife.

And what if all animals were resurrected and went to heaven. Think about the multitude of animals that would mean. Unlike man, where most will go to hell, because broad is the path that leads to destruction, but narrow is the way that leads to life, heaven would be overrun by animals. Imagine the number of flies alone, given how quickly they live and die and reproduce. And what about the problem of unclean animals? God did not accept them for sacrifice or food for the Israelites. God had a list of animals that He considered clean for sacrifices and those which He considered unclean. When He gave the law, He indicated what characteristics made for clean and unclean animals. One of the reasons for an animal being unclean is due to the fact that many of the animals and insects and such were created to be garbage cleaners. Something was needed to clean up the detritus that man and animals would leave behind, so animals have their garbage eaters to do that job, but that renders them unclean. Also it appears that carnivores and omnivores fall into this category, because they eat other animals with the blood. Among the unclean animals, along with animals such as camels, eagles, crustaceans, and pigs, were......(much to people's chagrin) canine and feline animals. The latter two in particular being omnivores. The domesticated version of those (dogs and cats) would not exist at the beginning of creation, as man has domesticated these particular breeds over the millennia to create what we now call pets. Why on earth, if God would not allow unclean animals to be sacrificed to Him on earth, would He allow unclean animals such as pigs to run loose in heaven? Yet some people have pigs as pets. Is there anything in the Bible that really makes anyone think that because they love an animal, that qualifies them for heaven (whether clean or unclean)? Why? Does that qualify anything else we love for heaven? Or are we to leave this world behind and not cling to the things of earth?

Given that God considers our dogs and cats unclean, there is no doubt that He would not want them in heaven any more than a pig or vulture. In fact, God has made it VERY clear that nothing that is unclean is allowed to enter into the presence of God. In Revelation 21:27 we are told about New Jerusalem and what will be allowed there to live in the presence of God. One of the stipulations is that “nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it,” Nothing that is unclean is allowed in heaven or New Jerusalem. Now right there, that should end the argument for good, because that would eliminate a whole lot of animals and insects from dying and going to heaven. And if they have an afterlife, they would have to go somewhere. Since the unclean animals are not acceptable in heaven, there is no other place to go other than hell. Is that fair? You can't have it both ways, that animals that are loved get into heaven, regardless of clean or unclean, simply because someone loved them, but all other animals (including clean but unloved ones?) go to hell? Does that even make any sense?

The fact that we have domesticated some unclean animals over the millennia, and have developed emotional attachments to them, does not change the fact of why they were created, and how God created them to be. One could love the sweet little lamb that was taken into the home for four days before it was sacrificed and eaten at the Passover meal, but it was still sacrificed and eaten. Would it not be akin to cannibalism to eat a creature with an eternal soul? Our emotion would not change the purposes for which God created the animal, no matter how cute and cuddly and adorable. Just as God hates human sacrifice, He would, if animals had eternal spirits, hate animal sacrifice, but instead He actually demanded it. And He mandated eating them as well.

So, what of the promises that He would redeem the earth as well as mankind? The promise was not to resurrect all the dead animals (or plants) that ever lived. The promise was to redeem and resurrect man (that accepted Christ) and redeem (lift the curse, make new, not resurrect) the world from the curse placed upon it when Adam sinned. The curse is lifted, so that from that point on going forward, the world is no longer under the curse of death. It doesn't reverse the curse in that every animal that ever lived will come back to life. It merely lifts it from that point on.

God has told us that we are to treat our animals with kindness, take care of them, and not abuse them. We are even allowed to love them. We are to be stewards over them, as they are part of his creation and living souls (while not eternal spirits). Their life here is all they get, so we need to remember that and treat them accordingly. We need to give them their best life, because this is all they have.

I believe this should answer the question as to whether or not pets go to heaven. While I would love to see my pets there as well, God's truth is God's truth and I accept God's truth. But in the interest of fairness, I need to continue, as the challenge I received was more than what I believe the Scriptures say on the matter.

Along with the challenge to answer the question of whether pets go to heaven, a book titled We Will See Our Pets in Heaven was recommended to me to try to change my mind on the subject. The idea being that this was a very Scriptural book that would show me how the Bible teaches that pets do go to heaven. As I try to be open minded, even when I really have very little hope that a real presentation of proof can be given, I got the book and read it. As I suspected, it was a book filled with wishful thinking and desires of itching ears, rather than Scriptural truth. People can twist Scripture to try to prove anything, but one must use good exegesis to see whether or not Scripture does actually teach something, or if it is just a person wanting what they want and trying to make it appear that God approves of what they want. I found the latter to be the case with this book. I will give a quick synopsis to show how this book presented the argument and why those arguments do not work.

At the front of the above-mentioned book the following verse is given with the argument that because God preserves beasts, it means they are resurrected.

Psalm 36:6 Thy righteousness is like the great mountains; thy judgments are a great deep: O LORD, thou preservest man and beast.

This verse is not talking about eternally preserving the souls of animals through resurrection. If we were to accept that preservation means that animals have eternal life, then all men must also have eternal life. (meaning life in heaven with God). But we know for a fact not all men do have eternal life. According to Scripture, most will have eternal death. Matthew 7:13-14 “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it.”

So let's take a look at the context of this verse offered as a proof of eternal life for animals. The first four verses of this Psalm talk about the evil man and his ways. Specifically, it is talking about the earthly man and his sinful ways. It has to do with life here on earth. So, if this cannot be referring to eternal life, which only comes through accepting Jesus as our Savior, then this cannot be speaking of eternal life for animals either. It is talking about our mortal lives. God can and does preserve our lives and the lives of animals in the tribulations of life as He deems fit. For instance, Noah and his family were not the only ones on the ark. So were two (and seven of the clean) of every animal. God preserved the animals' lives through the Flood. And He preserves the lives of many of them in other catastrophes like wildfires, lesser floods, earthquakes, hurricanes and etc. God watches over His creation and loves it all. This does not mean that animals or trees, or rocks have eternal life. That is making a leap of assumption based on nothing.

People desire a lot of things that God has not condoned, or things that simply are not realistic, and they often try to use the Bible to make their desires real by misinterpreting, or twisting, or changing what Scripture says. That does not change the truth. You can accept whatever you want to believe, and even try to support it with Scripture, but that isn't going to change the truth of what God says. If your mind is determined to accept what you want to believe, regardless of what God's Word says, then truth will not matter to you.

Arguments presented by the book will be italicized.

Chapter 1

When God created the heavens and earth, it was not his intention that any of his creation would suffer death and decay. This includes animals.

This is true. However, it is a straw man argument, as it is completely irrelevant. The question is not whether animals were not meant to die originally (neither was man), the question is whether or not animals were created in the image of God with eternal spirits. They were not. Had mankind not sinned, all would live in mortal bodies and would not die, however only man has a relationship with God on a spiritual level.

Animals were created before man.

Yes, so what? What does order of creation have to do with the question at hand. Again irrelevancy. When they were created has nothing to do with what they were created to be. God created the world and all it in for man. That is why He left man as the last creation, because man was the only thing created in His image.

God was pleased with His creation.

Again, this has nothing to do with whether or not animals have eternal spirits. It is avoiding the true point of the entire argument.

God never intended for us to eat animals.

No, He did not. But intention and reality are two different things. It is pointed out that they die because of the curse. Yes, they do, but again, this is a straw man argument that is irrelevant to animal's spiritual status. If anything, it argues against them having eternal spirits for God did mandate after the Flood that we eat animals. God knew before He created us that mankind would sin and that animals would first have to be killed for sacrifices, and second that they would eventually be eaten by man. And they would also eat each other. This was not an unknown fact to God. He would not create creatures with eternal spirits to be sacrificed for sin or eaten by man.

Chapter 2

Man sinned and fell and all of God's creation was cursed because of it.

Yes, it was. That has nothing to do with the subject of whether or not animals have eternal spirits. Again, a straw man argument.

Chapter 3

Animals are sinless and had to die although they did nothing wrong.

No, they are not sinless, they are amoral. They neither sin nor don't sin. They do what comes naturally to them by instinct. Sometimes that is to do heroic acts and sometimes it to kill people. Nether is holy or evil. Just instinct. They have no conscious thought of evil or sin or goodness or God. They have no superior intellect to understand God. They came under the curse, because they fell under man's dominion. They were given into his hands to use for man's benefit. The gospel is not for them. They do not deserve to have to be sacrificed, of course, but someone had to shed their blood. This was God's temporary fix in place to remind people of their sin and what the cost was for a Messiah in the future, who would have to sacrifice His blood and life to atone for their sins. He would not do this to creatures with eternal spirits for the sake of our sins. How unfair would that be? There is no defense for the position of animals go to heaven here.

Chapter 4

If God never intended for anything to die, isn't it reasonable to assume that God would allow his animals to be resurrected?

No. It is wishful thinking, but not reasonable to assume anything that is not taught in Scripture, and in fact the opposite is taught. Resurrection is for man alone. No verse in the Bible says that all of creation will be resurrected. It will no further be under the curse from that point forward, when it is redeemed, which ironically is actually what is taught in the verses provided by the author to try to show that animals would be resurrected. Those things that are born or those flora which grow will, from the point of the lifting of the curse and the creation of a new heaven and earth, no longer be under the curse to die, but those things that have gone before will not be resurrected. All thing are made new, not resurrected. Only man is resurrected. Did God bring back the animals from before the flood? No. That is why He had Noah take two (and seven of the clean) animals of each kind onto the ark. Because the others were killed in the flood. Whenever the Bible talks about resurrection is is only the resurrection of those who believe in Jesus as their Savior. That is the requirement. If God were going to resurrect all things, then wouldn't He resurrect the unbelievers to have a second chance? After all they will spend eternity in the lake of fire otherwise. But He does not. They are condemned. The animals simply cease to exist upon death. They have no afterlife.

Chapter 5

The story of Nathan telling David about the poor man with the lamb that was a pet, to make David judge himself about the Bathsheba issue is proof that the affection of a person for a pet is not evil.

Of course it isn't. Who said it was? What does our affection for them have to do with what God created them to be? Nothing. How would our affection bestow upon animals something that only God can give? It doesn't. Again, a straw man argument. We are to treat our animals with kindness and consideration. That is part of being a steward. And of course, since they do have limited intelligence and emotions, they can attach themselves to us as well. That is no proof of an afterlife. God may not mind our attachment to an animal, but it does not bestow upon them eternal life.

Chapter 6

God cares for even the sparrow that falls and does not forget them; therefore, they are resurrected.

Of course God cares about His creation. He cares about ALL of His creation. It's His after all. Does that mean He won't allow any person to go to hell, because He can't forget them? No. Clearly God's seeing all of what happens to His creation does not imply resurrection for all creation to go to heaven. It certainly doesn't for mankind. There is no reason to make that leap of assumption. It is taught otherwise in Scripture. I'm sure He doesn't like seeing what we do to the landscape with our littering, or our ugly buildings, but He did put all things (originally) under our dominion, and they are there for our use, so chopping down a tree for firewood may not improve the landscape and it may deprive an animal of their home, but we are allowed to do it for our use. Any desecration of God's original creation probably hurts Him, but that does not mean that He has given animals eternal spirits. Nor does God forget. He will remember all who abuse His creatures as well. That He mourns the death of even the little sparrow shows how much more He mourns man when He is lost to God. Does He forget those who go to hell? I doubt it. He mourns them, but they still don't make it into heaven. God's not forgetting or even mourning does not change the truth of the situation. These are only straw man arguments that have nothing to do with the real question. Do animals have eternal spirits that can gain salvation and a resurrection, and the answer is an emphatic, NO! The very verse quoted, that while God sees even the sparrow that falls, we are of much more value, proves that animals are not on the same par as man. We are created in God's image. We have the immortal spirit. They do not. Just because God does not miss one death of anything in His creation does not mean that He is going to take it to heaven. Every tree, every bush, every insect, every reptile? No.

Chapter 7

The Bible says that all creation praises God.

Yes, it does, but how does that prove that animals have eternal spirits? The planets praise God, they give off vibrations that create a type of song. They do so because they were created to do that. The plants do too. When attached to electrodes they have also been discovered to make music, beautiful music in fact from what I have listened to, because they were created to do so. They praise God in the way they were created to praise Him. We are told the very rocks would cry out to praise God if man wouldn't. Does that mean the planets, the plants, and the rocks go to heaven? No. Then why would animals be any different? Animals and plants are not men. Men are the only thing that can have salvation and eternal life. Christ became a kinsman redeemer, because only a kinsman can redeem someone. For animals to be redeemed, they would need a kinsman redeemer as well. An animal that is perfectly sinless that knowingly sacrifices itself for their lives. What a ludicrous and almost blasphemous suggestion. Nowhere does the Bible indicate it could happen. Man is the only thing allowed to be redeemed by resurrection. The rest of creation has a connection to God in a different way than man. Angels that fell have no second chance, no redemption. If God were to redeem someone other than man, surely it would be intelligent, immortal beings, would it not? Creation does respond to God, because it acknowledges its Creator in its own way, as it was made to do, but that is not the same as man's relationship with God where man has the free will and knowledge to CHOOSE to praise God. Creation just worships Him; it does not choose to worship Him. It is a completely different type of relationship.

Eve speaking to the serpent and Balaam's ass talking to him was an indication that animals once probably spoke.

First of all, Eve was not speaking to a snake as we know snakes. She spoke to The Serpent, meaning Satan in his original beautiful form, for he presented himself to her as an angel of light. He is a serpentine angel. Note that some of the angels (cherubim and seraphim) have animal faces as well as having faces like men. When God created the animal world He patterned many animals after the angels He had already created. We see the faces of the ox (domestic animals), the lion (wild animals), the eagle (birds) on some of these angels, and what is missing from heaven's scene is an angel representing reptiles and fish. Satan is also called a dragon. Clearly he was the cherub created to represent the missing animal from the heavenly lineup, something from the reptilian world. Eve was not speaking to an animal, she was speaking to Satan himself in his original form. As for Balaam's ass, which is also given as a reason to suspect that animals used to talk (shades of Narnia), that was a very special case in which God used the donkey to speak to Balaam. It was not a common occurrence, in fact it would appear this is the one and only occurrence, and while it appears that Balaam took this in stride, probably because he was a prophet of God and used to weird things, (God talked to Moses from a burning bush) it does not mean animals spoke, nor would their speaking prove that they have eternal spirits, since thinking animals once talked is clearly from the imagination, not the Bible or reality. All of these arguments are completely irrelevant to the main issue. And quite a leap of conjecture with no basis in Scripture.

Chapter 8

The following verse is misinterpreted by people to say animals don't go to heaven, but if one reads it differently, it can prove there is a Biblical basis for believing pets go to heaven.

Ecc. 3:21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

The reasoning of the book's author on this verse is that since the writer is asking the question, the preacher doesn't know whether the spirit of the animal goes up or down, therefore we must conclude that it goes up based on the evidence already given in the author's book. What evidence? There has been no evidence, just a lot of wishful thinking and straw man arguments. How is a lack of evidence in one direction proof of evidence in the opposite direction?

When this verse was written, Christ had not come, the gospel was a mystery, and man did not go to heaven either. He went to Hades, either the Paradise side or the Hell side. Much was not known about the fate of man after death as much revelation was yet to come. The question merely poses the fact that there was much that man did not yet understand about the afterlife. It was not a statement of fact that animals go to heaven or a statement against it. It was a question posed out of lack of knowledge. It assumes they go down to the earth (grave) or have no afterlife, which we can now understand to be true. To say that this is misinterpreted and thus shows by assuming that ignorance proves the opposite and that animals go to heaven is an unwarranted assumption which does not agree with the rest of Scripture that we do have. One does not make an argument from someone else having a lack of knowledge.

1 Corinthians 15:44 says there is a natural body and a spiritual body, thus animals have a spiritual body, so must be resurrected.

The subject of 1 Corinthians 15 is the resurrection of man. Just man. There is no mention of animals, nor is there ever in Scripture any mention of anyone but man when discussing the resurrection. This is an example of trying to apply a verse that has nothing to do with the subject to the subject.

We are then told a lot of personal stories of the author's pets and how they had personalities. I'm sure it was cathartic for the author to share about his animals, but his love for his animals and their personalities being what they were proves nothing about Scripture. It merely demonstrates they were beloved pets. That's all. The Bible does not dispute that animals have personalities. That is part of their being, but that does not mean that a personality gets you into heaven. The soul or breath of life and consciousness is not the same as an eternal spirit that has a relationship with God. The author admits that the souls of animals are not like the souls of man, for we were made in the image of God. He knows the truth, but cannot admit to it. He asks why wouldn't God allow us to have our pets in heaven? The answer is, they were not created to have eternal life. Our desire should be in heaven for the companionship of God. God is the source of our happiness in heaven, not our pets. This is almost akin to putting the pet as an idol before God. God wants to be all we need and He should be.

Verses in Psalms 49 and Ecclesiastes 3 are misinterpreted to prove animals do not have eternal souls.

The author then spends time telling us that these verses are about laying up treasures for yourself in this life and beings selfish, and how there is nothing but vanity in that as we all die and return to dust as do the animals. This is true, that is what these verses teach, but it is not a source of proof of an eternal life for an animal either. The subject is the vanity of man and how we bring nothing into this world and leave without anything as well, so our lives should be spent in working on our relationship with God, as we do have eternal life, unlike the animals who return to dust.

Chapter 9

The author briefly discusses the word “forever.”

There is no relevance to the topic whatsoever.

Chapter 10

The Bible speaks of the angelic hosts using chariots with spiritual horses, and in Revelation where Christ and the saints ride horses coming down from heaven, so if there are horses, there must be every kind of animal. And if there is, there is a resurrection of animals.

Why must this be assumed? There is nothing in Scripture that would lead one to believe this. The horses are first of all, not of earthly origin as they clearly can fly through the heavens. There is nothing to indicate they have died and gone to heaven. They were created as spiritual horses (with wings maybe?) for the use of the angels for the sake of their job as military hosts that do battle. They weren't anyone's pets. This does not prove that pets are resurrected and go to heaven, nor that there are more than horses in heaven. It merely teaches us that God has horses for the use of transportation for the hosts of heaven to ride when they go to battle. That is all it teaches us.

Chapter 11

People have consciousness and can remember after they die. One can also assume our pets will remember us.

I agree that Scripture says we will remember. Nowhere does it say our pets will be there nor remember us. And we may remember our pets with fondness for a while, but it also says that God will create a new heaven and new earth and the former things will not be remembered or come into mind. The author interprets that as being the negative things will not be remembered, but I venture to say that with all eternity ahead of us to create new memories, the years we have sojourned on this earth will become a faded memory of the distant past, as we live in the splendor of New Jerusalem in the presence of God. The author then assumes animals will, due to the erroneous supposition he made that animals have eternal spirits (which they do not have), and being sinless (which they are neither sinners nor sinless), and therefore being resurrected (which they cannot be), will remember their masters for it wouldn't make sense that we could remember them, but they wouldn't remember us. This is wishful thinking taken to great lengths based upon nothing that Scripture teaches.

Chapter 12

Heaven is real.

No disagreement there. Yes, it is very real. So how does that prove that pets have eternal spirits? Again, this is totally off topic and irrelevant to the premise.

Chapter 13

Your pets are waiting you in heaven.

The author states this unequivocally as fact. Based upon what? I do not know, for this book certainly did not prove that from a Scriptural basis. It is wishful thinking, and if someone wants to think it, they are perfectly free to do so, but it cannot be proven by Scripture, and in fact to believe that animals are the same as man when it comes to the resurrection shows a lack of understanding of what salvation and the resurrection is all about. Scripture clearly states, “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of heaven.” John 3:3. Animals are not born again.

C.S. Lewis has a quote that I use all the time. “In religion, as in war and everything else, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it. If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end. If you look for comfort, you will not get either comfort or truth – only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin with, and in the end, despair.” The truth is found in God's Word only when we seek out its truth. If you go to it seeking to affirm what you want to believe, you can make it say anything you want by manipulating it. Only when we are willing to accept the hard truths will we find true comfort in God's Word.