DEATH : FINAL BATTLE, FINAL VICTORY! : PART 1
Copyright 1994 - 2008 Endtime Prophecy Org
Last Updated : July 23, 2006
Brevity Of Our Human Existence, Life Spans Of The Patriarchs
The Shame Of Adam And Eve, Fruit Of Sin, Methuselah's Death
Translation Of Enoch, Two Sackcloth Witnesses, The Blessing
of Noah, The Accelerated Aging Process, The Age Limit And
Evilness Of Man, The Coming Wrath Of God, Extended Life Span
Myth, HMO's Health Care System And Politics, Plight Of The
Poor, Financial Burden Of Sickness, He Knows His Creations
As I mention in my article 'The Lord Will Lift You Up!', if
there is one thing of which every one of us can be certain,
it is that from the time we are born, until the day in which
we die, we will all face a certain amount of problems in our
lives. Whether it is a hungry baby clamouring for his busy
mother's attention, or young siblings fighting over one of
their favorite toys, or a young teenager having his first
serious disagreement with his parents, or an adult having
problems with the boss at the workplace, or a married couple
considering divorce, problems are just an inescapable part
of our short lives here in the physical realm.
As we enter the final years of our pilgrimage on this Earth,
while none of us look forward to such things, we oft times
find ourselves facing even more life-threatening situations
as our bodies begin to break down due to time and usage. Our
eyes grow dim and tired, sometimes plagued with cataracts;
cholesterol and clogged arteries becomes a serious issue
which earlier in our lives we never once considered; memory
sometimes becomes unreliable as we find ourselves in a
battle against Alzheimer's disease; we become conscious of
going bald as our hair begins to thin; sometimes different
organs such as our kidneys begin to malfunction; our back
grows weak and bent; and our strength seems to be sapped
from our bodies upon doing the smallest of tasks. In short,
as the Bible clearly informs us, while in the days of our
youth we were full of strength and carried ourselves with
self-confidence, we suddenly begin to realize our own human
weakness and vulnerability. We realize that we are truly
only dust; we are as the grass that withers or as a leaf
that fades as the cold winter approaches; we are but a cloud
which only appears for a little time in the sky and then
vanishes in the distance:
"For he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust."
(Psalms 103:14)
"The voice said, Cry. And he said, What shall I cry? All
flesh is grass, and all the goodliness thereof is as the
flower of the field: The grass withereth, the flower fadeth:
because the spirit of the LORD bloweth upon it: surely the
people is grass. The grass withereth, the flower fadeth: but
the word of our God shall stand for ever."
(Isaiah 40:6-8)
"Whereas ye know not what shall be on the morrow. For what
is your life? It is even a vapour, that appeareth for a
little time, and then vanisheth away." (James 4:14)
While the current human life span averages from about sixty
to ninety years, with a small percentage of people exceeding
this range, the Bible clearly indicates that this has not
always been the case. In my informative article entitled
"The Earth Is Under 7,000 Years Old!", this can be observed
in the lives of the pre-Flood, and the early post-Flood,
Patriarchs; some of whom lived for almost one thousand
years.
One can only wonder how Adam must have felt as he began to
witness the long-term effects of his disobedience in the
Garden of Eden, beginning with the cold-blooded murder of
Abel by his jealous brother Cain. We are told that it wasn't
until the days of Adam's grandson, Enos, that men once again
began to call upon the name of the Lord; so from the time of
Abel's death, through the birth of Seth, to the birth of
Enos, it must have been a very dark time for mankind. Adam
and Eve must have truly felt abandoned by God after being
ousted from the Garden of Eden. Perhaps the fact that man did
not call upon the name of the Lord until the days of Enos,
indicates that Adam and Eve continued in their backslidden
state for quite some time to come:
"And to Seth, to him also there was born a son; and he
called his name Enos: then began men to call upon the name
of the LORD." (Genesis 4:26)
Imagine if you were Adam and Eve; and you had to tell your
son Seth how you had once lived in a place of incomparable
beauty called the Garden of Eden; where there was no need
for back-breaking hard work or suffering; but then you had
been driven out because of things you had done against your
Creator's wishes. Or consider how hard it must have been for
them to inform Seth at some point in his life, that he once
had a brother named Abel who had been killed by his older
brother Cain, who then fled from the family in shame. It may
have taken a while before Adam and Eve were even able to
share their failures with their family. It must have weighed
heavily upon them. We also know that life was hard for the
early Patriarchs; for since the days of The Fall, the Lord
had cursed the ground so that it grudgingly brought forth
fruit for early man's survival:
"And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the
voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I
commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is
the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all
the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it
bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the
field;" (Genesis 3:17-18)
"And he called his name Noah, saying, This same shall
comfort us concerning our work and toil of our hands,
because of the ground which the LORD hath cursed."
(Genesis 5:29)
Imagine the mental anguish it must have caused Adam and Eve
to watch the next eight generations toil and suffer because
of their sins. Notice also that, based upon my understanding
of the Book of Genesis, Methuselah, Noah's grandfather, died
in the exact same year as the Flood. We can only wonder if
in His mercy, the Lord allowed Methuselah to die of old age
only days, weeks or at best months prior to the Flood, or if
Methuselah may have actually died as a result of the Flood
due to his own disbelief. We honestly do not know, as the
Bible is silent regarding this matter. I also find it rather
interesting that, aside from Abel's premature death at the
hands of his brother, Methuselah was the first Patriarch to
outlive his son. Based upon my calculations, he lived five
years past the death of his son Lamech, the father of Noah.
I am not including Enoch here since he actually walked with
God; and apparently, he did not experience a normal physical
death as far as we know. Consider the following verses:
"And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three
hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the
days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years: And
Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him."
(Genesis 5:22-24)
"By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death;
and was not found, because God had translated him: for
before his translation he had this testimony, that he
pleased God." (Hebrews 11:5)
Because Enoch never suffered physical death, some Bible
teachers speculate that he may be one of the two Sackcloth
Witnesses mentioned in the eleventh chapter of the Book of
Revelation; who will be a witness in Israel during the final
three and a half years of the reign of the Beast. Once they
have completed their witness, we are told that they will be
killed; and that their bodies will lie in the streets of
Jerusalem for three and a half days, during which time the
world will rejoice. However, they will be shocked when the
two witnesses are suddenly and miraculously resurrected, and
called up to Heaven; probably at the sound of the Seventh
Trump which coincides with the Return of Christ to the
Earth:
"And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall
prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed
in sackcloth...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. And their dead bodies shall lie in the street
of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and
Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. And they of the
people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their
dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer
their dead bodies to be put in graves. And they that dwell
upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and
shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets
tormented them that dwelt on the earth. And after three days
and an half the Spirit of life from God entered into them,
and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon
them which saw them. And they heard a great voice from
heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended
up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them."
(Revelation 11:3, 7-12)
While Adam's days must have been full of anguish and mental
turmoil, Noah may have been blessed with the exact opposite.
This ancient Patriarch lived to see nine generations of his
descendants repopulate the restored Earth following the
Flood. While I have calculated that Noah died just two years
before Abraham's birth, if we account for human error, it is
possible that he may have still been alive at the time the
Patriarch Abraham was born in the land of the Chaldees. The
dates I provide in the Earth age article do have a small
margin of error, being as we are not certain at what time of
the year each of the Patriarchs was born. This allows for a
fluctuation of one or two years on some of the dates. Noah's
second son, Shem, also lived long enough to see the next ten
generations up to and including Isaac. In fact, based upon
the Scriptural evidence, it appears that Shem died just ten
years before Jacob was born.
Following the year of the Flood, we can only wonder how the
elderly Patriarchs must have felt as they witnessed their
descendants living less years than themselves due to the
accelerated aging process. As we know, Adam lived to be nine
hundred and thirty years old; Methuselah lived to be nine
hundred and sixty-nine years old; and Noah lived to be nine
hundred and fifty years old. Right after the global Flood,
we witness a rapid decline in the human life span; so that by
the time of Abraham, man was living under two hundred years.
Less than four hundred years later, Moses was extremely old
when he died on the top of Pisgah at the age of one hundred
and twenty. In the Book of Psalms, King David writes that he
lived to be only seventy years old; and to this day, this
continues to be the average worldwide norm:
"The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if
by reason of strength they be fourscore years, yet is their
strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we
fly away." (Psalms 90:10)
I believe that perhaps one of the reasons why the Lord chose
to limit man's life span following the Flood, was because it
was the most effective way to curtail evil; and thus prevent
man from totally destroying himself before God's Plan had
been fulfilled. We only need to look at all of the evil man
has created and committed during this past century, to see
how true this really is. Even though most people do not live
to even be ninety years of age, this has still been long
enough for man to create devices which are now capable of
destroying the population of the entire planet; and in the
process reducing the entire Earth to a lifeless cinder block!
While modern atheistic men tend to reject the Word of Truth
found in the Biblical record, as Christians, we know that
the human condition is not evolving or getting better. Quite
to the contrary, it is progressively getting worse; and it
will only continue to get worse until the appearance of our
Lord from Heaven. So again, contrary to popular belief, we
are experiencing moral, spiritual, physical and social
deterioration at an alarming rate like never before.
If you doubt my words, consider the fact that in one of His
Endtime sermons found in the twenty-fourth chapter of the
Gospel of Matthew, the Lord tells us that the period of
turmoil known as the Great Tribulation will be so bad, that
except those days are shortened by His own Second Coming, no
flesh will be saved:
"And except those days should be shortened, there should no
flesh be saved: but for the elect's sake those days shall be
shortened." (Matthew 24:22)
The above verse perfectly describes how dangerous the world
situation is going to become; and even as I write this, the
situation in the Middle East, which will be the catalyst for
the coming troubles, is at this very moment heating up to
dangerous levels. Unless the Israelis and the Palestinians
are willing to show some flexibility, it is difficult to
imagine that a full-scale war will not erupt by the middle of
next year, if not sooner. Clearly, if God Himself does not
choose to put a stop to it through the intervention of His
own dear Son, absolutely no one will survive. Stop and think
for a moment. What other living species on this planet is so
foolish as to destroy itself by its own hands? Surely this
point emphasizes the insanity of modern men. Not satisfied
with destroying himself alone, greedy men have now resorted
to ruining the very precious Earth upon which the Lord has
given us to live. We are destroying our forests, our water,
our air and our seas at unprecedented levels! As the Apostle
Paul wrote, all of creation groans waiting to be delivered;
and indeed it shall be delivered at the Return of Christ:
"Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from
the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the
children of God. For we know that the whole creation
groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not
only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of
the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves,
waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our
body." (Romans 8:21-23)
As we know from reading the Book of Genesis, it was also
because of the great evil which was upon the Earth in those
days, that the Lord repented of the work of His own Hands,
and chose to destroy it through the Flood. Only in this way
could He thoroughly purge the Earth of the evil seed and
start anew:
"And GOD saw that the wickedness of man was great in the
earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his
heart was only evil continually. And it repented the LORD
that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his
heart. And the LORD said, I will destroy man whom I have
created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and
the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it
repenteth me that I have made them." (Genesis 6:5-7)
I find that phrase so amazing. '...every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually'. What depth
of wickedness dwells in the hearts of men! Through his own
pride and folly, early man reduced himself from being the
Lord's crowning creation, to something despicable which the
Lord finally found necessary to destroy! Man did this to
himself without any help from God, although the rebellious
angels certainly had a hand in it. He was a beautiful piece
of pottery in the Hands of his Creator; but through the
subtle lies of that evil serpent and his cohorts, the Lord's
perfect creation became marred, and had to be cast into the
fires of tribulation. In the end, only one vessel and his
family remained; that being the man Noah. As I point out in
some of my other articles, the Lord tells us the very same
thing concerning the evilness of man in the Book of Jeremiah
where the Prophet wrote:
"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked: who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9)
Is it any wonder then that in the not-too-distant future,
the Lord will once again shake the Earth, pour out His wrath
upon the seed of evildoers, and start all over again with
His dear children who do believe in and reverence Him? This
is evident by such revelatory verses as the following found
in the New Testament:
"Knowing this first, that there shall come in the last days
scoffers, walking after their own lusts, And saying, Where
is the promise of his coming? for since the fathers fell
asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning
of the creation. For this they willingly are ignorant of,
that by the word of God the heavens were of old, and the
earth standing out of the water and in the water: Whereby
the world that then was, being overflowed with water,
perished: But the heavens and the earth, which are now, by
the same word are kept in store, reserved unto fire against
the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men."
(2 Peter 3:3-7)
"For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden
destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with
child; and they shall not escape. But ye, brethren, are not
in darkness, that that day should overtake you as a thief."
(1 Thessalonians 5:3-4)
"See that ye refuse not him that speaketh. For if they
escaped not who refused him that spake on earth, much more
shall not we escape, if we turn away from him that speaketh
from heaven: Whose voice then shook the earth: but now he
hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth
only, but also heaven. And this word, Yet once more,
signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as
of things that are made, that those things which cannot be
shaken may remain. Wherefore we receiving a kingdom which
cannot be moved, let us have grace, whereby we may serve God
acceptably with reverence and godly fear: For our God is a
consuming fire." (Hebrews 12:25-29)
In contemplating these different Biblical facts, I am amazed
by how we are constantly being lied to, and brainwashed into
accepting the myth that, thanks in large part to the modern
false gods of science, medicine and technology, the human
life span has now been extended. To uphold this silly myth,
the supporters of this lie point to such things as the short
lives experienced by the early settlers of the United States
of America. We are told that, compared to people today who
live into their nineties, and sometimes even beyond that,
the American settlers died quite young; in their thirties
and forties; due to the challenges they had to face in their
daily lives as they went about pioneering this country. This
included such things as harsh winters, a scarcity of food,
incurable diseases, and conflicts with human and natural
enemies of one sort or another.
While this may have indeed been the case with some of our
forefathers, I still believe that this is an intentional
distortion of the truth; one of the purposes of which is to
subtly shift our attention from the Lord, and His natural
laws governing human life, to the gods of modern science and
medicine. An examination of the historical record, whether
it be on the national level, or else on a worldwide scale,
will clearly reveal that the average human life span has
remained rather constant since the days of the post-Flood
Patriarchs. In other words, we have continued to live the
same average of years for the past four thousand years with
very little variation, regardless of what man might do in
order to try to change it. Even if the human life span has
seen a slight increase since the advent of modern science
and medicine, this increase has had a very minimal effect on
the world average of the past four thousand years. In my
view, it is not enough to substantiate the false claim that
through his own wisdom and power, man has extended the life
expectancy rate. This is a subtle deception. I am reminded
of the following verse found in Paul's Epistle to Timothy:
"But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse,
deceiving, and being deceived." (2 Timothy 3:13)
In all fairness, I will be the first to admit that due to
the advances made by men of modern science and medicine, a
small percentage of people have been given the opportunity
to live longer lives. Medical procedures such as bone and
skin grafts, organ transplants, blood transfusions, laser
technology, as well as the invention of various prosthetic
devices, etc., have all contributed to making this possible;
however, as I discuss in the article 'Organ Transplants And
Blood Transfusions', there is a very dark side to some of
these practices as well. Not only that, but as a Christian,
I can only wonder how the Lord views all of these practices,
which are man's desperate attempts to avoid, or at least to
temporarily escape, the eventuality which faces us all; that
is, death. Could it be that we are fighting against the Will
of God for our lives when we resort to these things in order
to prolong our existence beyond the days He has allotted to
us? I will discuss this in more detail in a moment.
In addition to this, the point still remains that whether we
view these developments on a national or on an international
level, these people who do prolong their lives through the
intervention of modern science and medicine, constitute a
small percentage of the overall population of the Earth; and
it has had very little effect on changing the worldwide life
expectancy rate. From this perspective, it is fair to say
that man on the whole is simply not living longer than he
did a few hundred years ago, much less thousands of years
ago. It is just a modern myth. You can verify this fact for
yourself simply by performing a small amount of genealogical
research of your own family. If you study even the last two
or three generations, and then survey all of your currently
living relatives, you will probably come to the conclusion
that there is really no difference in the overall family
life expectancy rate. Sixty to ninety years will probably
be the norm, just as it has been for thousands of years,
with perhaps a few people peaking that point now and then.
To emphasize even further that modern science has had very
little impact on the worldwide life expectancy rate, you
should also consider the fact that the vast majority of the
world's population is compromised of poor people who live in
underdeveloped countries of the Third World. Most of these
medical developments and procedures are not even available
in these nations; and even if they were, they would not be
affordable by most people. How often have we read of foreign
dignitaries who come to the United States of America in
order to undergo special treatment which is not available in
their own country? Thus we see that these advanced medical
procedures are for the most part accessible only to citizens
of the industrialized Western nations; and even then, not to
everyone. Just recently I read a news clip which stated that
roughly half of the citizens of the United States of America
cannot afford health insurance; and thus many of them are
unable to take full advantage of the benefits provided by
modern science and medicine.
As I discuss in 'Organ Transplants And Blood Transfusions',
it is truly sad that caring for the sick and the elderly in
the United States of America has become so politicized. It
has been reduced to nothing more than another multi-million
dollar business. Instead of being motivated by love, mercy
and compassion, many health care facilities are governed by
HMO's, or Health Maintenance Organizations, whose primary
interest is in operating hospitals like efficient business
enterprises. Rather than serve their local communities with
impartiality, offering assistance to those first in line
regardless of their social or economic status, some of them
employ discriminatory practices by offering their services
first to those who can afford to pay their exorbitant fees.
A heart transplant will be performed on a man whose pockets
are bulging with money, before it will be performed on a
poor child from the ghetto who has no means to pay; even if
that child has been on the waiting list for a longer time.
What is also disheartening, is the fact that when some of
these poor people do manage to meet the financial demands of
the health care institution in question, it is sometimes at
a very great price. It isn't unusual for one's entire life
savings to be spent during such medical emergencies, as well
as during the rehabilitation period which may follow it. If
they do recover from their ailment, the sick person is often
left with very little upon which to subsist afterwards. In
some cases, houses and other personal properties are sold,
and the family of the sick individual goes into deep debt in
order to meet their financial obligations to the health care
facility. I find it very difficult to accept that this is
the Will of our Heavenly Father. Personally, I feel that
this is simply taking financial advantage of the misfortunes
and tragedies of others. As in a certain story found in the
Gospel of Luke, sometimes great amounts of money are spent;
and the afflicted person still does not recover from their
ailment; thus revealing the danger of trusting in modern
science and medicine, instead of in the Great Physician:
"And a woman having an issue of blood twelve years, which
had spent all her living upon physicians, neither could be
healed of any, Came behind him, and touched the border of
his garment: and immediately her issue of blood stanched.
And Jesus said, Who touched me? When all denied, Peter and
they that were with him said, Master, the multitude throng
thee and press thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me? And
Jesus said, Somebody hath touched me: for I perceive that
virtue is gone out of me. And when the woman saw that she
was not hid, she came trembling, and falling down before
him, she declared unto him before all the people for what
cause she had touched him, and how she was healed
immediately. And he said unto her, Daughter, be of good
comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace."
(Luke 8:43-48)
As I point out in other articles such as 'Are The Gifts Of
The Spirit For Today?', if the Lord wishes to heal someone,
He does not require any assistance whatsoever from man, or
from his modern inventions. He is the Omnipotent God who
created all things; and He knows and fully understands the
interior workings of His own creations far better than any
doctor upon the face of this planet. In the Book of Psalms,
we find the following interesting verses which prove this
very point:
"For thou hast possessed my reins: thou hast covered me in
my mother's womb. I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and
wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul
knoweth right well. My substance was not hid from thee, when
I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest
parts of the earth. Thine eyes did see my substance, yet
being unperfect; and in thy book all my members were
written, which in continuance were fashioned, when as yet
there was none of them." (Psalms 139:13-16)
Surely then, if there is something wrong with our bodies, He
is quite capable of fixing it; if we will only trust fully
in Him. Sometimes people write to me and inform me how they
have experienced a certain medical emergency in their lives.
In sharing their ordeal with me, they will often go into
detail explaining the precise nature of their affliction, as
well as describe the medical steps which were taken in order
to improve their condition. These people are usually my
brethren in the Lord; and they will quite often mention how
everyone was praying for their recovery, and then proceed to
give thanks to the Lord for healing them once the medical
crisis has passed. When I hear such stories, I am of course
happy to know that the person or persons involved have been
restored to health; yet at the same time, I must admit that
I am troubled; because deep in my heart, I know that there
is a certain degree of personal deception involved here
which most people are simply not willing to recognize. I
know that if I were to be honest with these people, and
expose this deception to them, some of them would most
likely be offended.
I will be discussing the nature of this deception in part
two of this three-part series. In addition, we will also be
taking a look at such things as the miracle of immediate
healing, the Lord's conduits and the purpose of miracles,
real faith and the medical profession, personal honesty,
God's Pity, the story of Naaman the leper, and God's
provision. I trust that you will join me.
[ Click Me ] Go To Part Two . . .