Will those who kill Bedbugs go to Heaven?

Bedbugs again? Do you mean the bedbugs that give us sleepless nights? O yes I mean bedbugs. What do bedbugs prophetically stand for? No prophetic language here. I mean the bedbug we all know, and students can relate more with this. The bedbug that makes you wake up at 3 am, not because you’re scholarly or a prayer warrior, but because you want to spare yourself from further abuse. I never thought that I could have time for these little stubborn creatures whom we have forced to endure boiling water or hot impliments. By the way have you killed a bedbug? How was the experience? Didn’t you fear that perchance you were breaking the sixth commandment? 

Just to bring clarity to this issue, I would say that God’s moral standards were given with man in mind. In the entire creation, it’s only man that is a moral agent and from whom God expects a behavioral capital higher than the mere automaton. So the sixth commandment -Thou shalt not kill- was given with man in mind. Murder defined, means to kill a human being. So killing a bedbug is not murder. Killing a Broiler is not murder. Does this mean that we are at liberty to cause as much mayhem to the animal kingdom as much as we can? Does it mean that we can gun down a herd of Zebra just to prove how accurate we are? Can we subject our mules to an entire day’s labor with no feeding program and escape the judgements of God? 

This is the heart of the matter. Whereas man is higher than the animals, he is not at liberty to cause pain to any of God’s creation just for pleasure. Anyone who drives pleasure from cruelty to animals, is not a servant of God for ‘The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.’ (KJV Psalms 145:9). All His works, including every living thing. It is a divine appointed duty to take care of the animals under our dominion. Don’t you realize that the Sabbath Commandment secures rest even for the beasts of burden? It is sinful to abuse animals or subject them to suffer from neglect.

“A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast: but the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel.”

Proverbs 12:10

We have a duty to minister to God’s creation. 

So should we be kind to bedbugs? Should we let lions eat us? Should we provide lunch to the crocodiles by swimming in their plates? This is a presumption and God assumes no responsibility for our safety. When we put an effort to preserve life, we are co-workers with God. This may mean that a bedbug must die, that a Lion must be barred from terrorizing a community by a bulwark of electric fence etc. In preserving human life, all intruders must be kept at bay. But going out of our way to destroy elephants for greed is not a light thing before God and time will judge us harshly. Abusing the environment is sinful and may make us lose eternal life, if not thoroughly repented of! 

“It is because of man’s sin that “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together.” Romans 8:22. Suffering and death were thus entailed, not only upon the human race, but upon the animals. Surely, then, it becomes man to seek to lighten, instead of increasing, the weight of suffering which his transgression has brought upon God’s creatures. He who will abuse animals because he has them in his power is both a coward and a tyrant. A disposition to cause pain, whether to our fellow men or to the brute creation, is satanic. Many do not realize that their cruelty will ever be known, because the poor dumb animals cannot reveal it. But could the eyes of these men be opened, as were those of Balaam, they would see an angel of God standing as a witness, to testify against them in the courts above. A record goes up to heaven, and a day is coming when judgment will be pronounced against those who abuse God’s creatures.”

– Patriarchs and Prophets 443.1