Does God speak through our pets?

Dear Mike,
I'm contacting you because I'd love to receive your guidance about something I've just learned about yesterday and it is about the book Talking Dogs by Sam Mason. Is it true that God can talk to us through our dogs?
- L

In other words, God communicates with us through our pets. I'm sure if you're a pet lover and a believer at the same time, this might be cause for concern in your life. Well, the answer is yes and no. Can God talk to us through our pets? The answer is yes, God can do anything, can't he? There's nothing impossible for God. There's actually an example of that in the Bible, in the Old Testament, in Numbers 22:21-39. There's the story of a stubborn prophet who would not obey God, and God wanted to get his attention and so he spoke to this prophet through a donkey. In other words, the donkey actually spoke to the prophet in order to shock him into realization. So, can God use an animal to speak to a human being? Absolutely, nothing's impossible for God. He actually did it in the Old Testament.

The question is, is that the way that God communicates with us today? And the answer to that question is no. In II Timothy 3:16, Paul writes that every scripture, every word in the Bible is inspired by God. In other words, all the words, all the writings in the Bible are inspired, breathed of God, and that's the way that he communicates with us, through his inspired Word. Another pertinent scripture that really addresses this issue is Hebrews chapter one:

God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
- Hebrews 1:1

Here, the writer is saying in the Old Testament, when he says, "God, after he spoke long ago to the fathers," he's talking about in the Old Testament God speaking to Moses and to Isaiah and to these people. God used a variety of ways to speak to his people in those days. Yes, he used the prophets. Here he says, "In many portions and many ways." Well, he spoke to Daniel through dreams. He spoke to Moses, if you wish, through the burning bush. And so he used a variety of ways to communicate with man, and the writer is outlining this in the first verse of this first chapter of Hebrews.

in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.
- Hebrews 1:2

"In these last days," meaning our time, the time of the Christian era. The writer here is making a difference. In the Old Testament, in those days, God spoke to man in a variety of ways. Yes, even through an animal. In these days, in the days of Christ, God speaks to us through his Son Jesus Christ, and the words of Christ are contained in the Bible. And so how does God speak to us today? He speaks to us through the Bible, through the words of Christ. Not through animals, not through dreams and not through visions. Through the Word of God. This is the only way that he communicates with mankind today.