This was from a user strong message. Hi, Mike. Do you think Ecclesiastes 321 should be used to determine the eschatological, if I say that word right now, we're stuck a little bit of animals.

Yeah.

If it should, would it be a stretch to believe that God would restore the animal spirit with the rest of creation, Romans 8, 19 through 23?

Similar to how he will resurrect our bodies from the earth. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and knowledge through your videos.

Okay, I'm going to say I'm going to give a tentative answer to this question. It is a challenge, but Ecclesiastes 321, I have even used this verse to say, hey, this may indicate the fate of animals, whether they, whether they, not whether we will see animals in eternity, because I think we will, but whether or not they'll be our old pets.

Like, will it be that same, you know, will it be my old cat? No, I have cats. I love cats. I love dogs and cats and fish and everything. Okay, so I'd like to say yes. I want the answer to be yes, but I'm trying to set that aside and go with scripture here.

So Ecclesiastes 321 says, who knows that the, this is in ASB. Who knows that the breath of man ascends upward and the breath of the beast descends downward to the earth?

There's a little translation question here. Is it who knows if the breath of man goes up and the breath of beast goes down, or is it who knows that the breath of man goes up and the breath of beast goes down?

I'm inclined to think that that translation is correct. I think that's more consistent with what we read in the next verse. I'll read that in a second. If that's the case, Ecclesiastes, very consistent with the book itself is complaining that there's a lot of people who aren't paying attention to the fact that humans have to be accountable to God when they die.

Unlike animals who simply they go down and they what may be implied there, they just stop existing that man has we not that they don't have a spirit or we don't have a spirit rather just that they're different kinds of spirits.

The animal's spirit just ceases to exist and the human spirit goes to face God and be accountable for judgment. Now if we look at it that way, then the end of verse 22 in the very next verse in Ecclesiastes 3, it makes a lot of sense.

It says, I'll read the whole verse. I have seen that nothing is better than that a man should be happy with his activities. For that is his lot. For who will bring him to see what will occur after him?

The concern in Ecclesiastes is with people who don't look beyond this life. Yeah, you may as well be happy with your lot because I can't get you to pay attention to the fact that you're going to face God when you die.

So eat drink and be merry because you're not going to pay any attention anyways. And this is part of a flow for Ecclesiastes. It kind of discusses life sort of in an in an atheistic to use a modern term, an atheistic lifestyle, not necessarily atheistic beliefs, but an atheistic lifestyle lifestyle that just lives as if all there is is what's under the sun.

That's the phrase we get under the sun as if there's nothing beyond the sun, no God who created.

Then he finally brings you full circle to, but we all will stand before God. Ecclesiastes teaches us that. So I think that I actually think regardless of your translation here, if for that, I think you're getting the idea that animals seem to have a different kind of future and it seems implied that there isn't a spirit future for the animal.

I think that men do and that's what it's trying to say. Ecclesiastes 12.7 says the dust returns to the earth and the spirit will return to God who gave it speaking of Genesis when God breathes the spirit into man.

We all have breath of life, but he has man has a different kind of spirit being made in the image of God.

So there's not really a lot on this. This is very little to base a doctrine on about the fate of animals. I have to admit that.

But it doesn't seem to go. It seems to weigh against and not for the idea of resurrection for animals as opposed to just animals in heaven, which I do think is true or not. I used to say in heaven.

I really mean in the new creation, new heavens, when heaven and earth come together. Yeah, animals there. That seems to be the case from many different scriptures. Now in Romans 8, this was the verse they mentioned. I'll read it to us. Let's see if it weighs in on it.

The creation waits with eager longing for the sons for the revealing of the sons of God for the creation was subjected to futility not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtained the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

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