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Author Topic: Death  (Read 5555 times)

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Craig

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Death
« on: April 22, 2007, 05:52:09 PM »

Heb 9/27 says it is appointed unto all men  to die once.... does this mean we have an appointed time to die? Is there a certain day and time we will  die, or can we lengthen or shorten our lives. A friend was killed in an airplane sometime back .... his wife said ... "I guess it was just his time to die", she stated that God know he would be in this airplane even while he was in ;his mothers womb. I doubt not that God knew, because he in fact God.... but are there variables involved or is our life staged?
 

Dear Herman:
No, Heb. 9:27 does not prove that there is an appointed time to die, but there are many others Scriptures which do. You need to read the material on our site. I cover hundreds of subjects that people write me about daily, which are already answered on our site. This is a section from my Lake of Fire series on "Free Will," which is one of the most important papers I have ever written:
 

    TIS TRUE: OUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED

    Continuing in Ecc. 3:2:

        "A time [an 'APPOINTED time'] to be born, and a time [an 'APPOINTED time] to die..."

    The whole point of Ecclesiastes chapter three is not that people are born and die, or that people plant and harvest, or that people war and make peace, or that people weep and laugh, but rather that there is "an APPOINTED TIME" for all these things to happen—an appointed time appointed BY GOD.

    This is not a new idea, or a new revelation. This truth has been preserved in chapter three of Ecclesiastes for a couple of thousand years. But how many Christians believe it?

    Job understood under inspiration of God's Spirit that:

        "...the Lord gave and the Lord has taken away..." (Job

    1:21). Contrary to a letter I received from Dr. Frederick Price, who said that this verse in Job "is Scripture all right, but it just isn't true." Well far be it from me to argue the validity of the Scriptures with a carnal mind, but nonetheless, this verse of Scripture is true. It is always God Who gives and God Who takes away, even though He uses other agents such as Satan to carry out and accomplish His perfect and flawless will.

    God gives life and God takes life away. Most Christians would concede that human birth is indeed a miracle. But how many would concede that even death is a miracle? But it is. Birth and death are not things that "just happen" anymore than anything in the whole universe "just happens." God is the cause for everything:

        "In Whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of Him Who works ALL THINGS after the counsel of His Own will" (Eph. 1:11).

        "For OF HIM, and THROUGH HIM, and TO HIM, are ALL THINGS..." (Rom. 11:36).

    Is there any real difference in saying that God "gives life" or that God "causes a baby to be born?" Is there any real difference in saying that God "takes away life" or that God "causes us to die?" When it comes to death, we prefer euphemisms. We don't like to hear that "our Mother is DEAD!" We prefer to say that "Mother passed away." We don't want to be so honest or brutal as to say "God KILLED my son" but rather "God took my son." But the use of mellower-sounding euphemisms does not negate the fact that God appointed a time for us to be BORN, and He also has appointed a time when we must DIE.

    Our will cannot change any of God’s "appointed events" or His "appointed times" in which each event must occur. You might think that you can. You might suggest that you will commit suicide and shorten your life. How silly—how totally unscriptural. No one can commit suicide unless and until the "appointed time" that God has foreordained that you commit suicide, if indeed God has ordained such a thing for you.

        "There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in [Heb: authority over’] the day of death..." (Ecc. 8:8).

    Is this verse too difficult for anyone to understand? The Scriptures are clear:

        "...the Spirit gives life" (II Cor. 3:6).

        "His breath [Heb: ruach, ‘spirit’] goes forth, he returns to his earth; I that very day his thoughts perish" (Psalm 146:4).

    One cannot continue to live without spirit.

        "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it" (Ecc. 12:7).

    And God says that

        "NO MAN has power over the spirit."

    The implications of this verse go far beyond mere suicide. This verse also confirms that no one can kill or murder another person until the "appointed time" set by God. No soldier or civilian has ever died even in war except at the "appointed time."

    There is probably not a person alive who has not wondered just exactly when he might die? We saw from Ecc. 1:2 that there is an appointed time "...to DIE." And Ecc. 8:8 tells us that

        "...no man has power over the spirit to retain it [when God takes our spirit, we die, Ecc. 12:7]; neither has he power over the day of [his] death..."

    But there’s more:

        "Behold that which I have seen: it is good and comely for one to eat and to drink, and to enjoy the good of all his labor that he takes under the sun all the days of his life, which God gives him: for it is his portion." (Ecc. 5:18).

    This is not exactly what the Hebrew manuscripts say. Here is what it should read: "...during the NUMBER of days in his life…" The word for "all" as in "all the days of his life," is the Hebrew word, mispar, and its first definition is "NUMBER." Man’s days are "NUMBERED." And God only knows the number.

    Here’s another one:

        "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with Thee, You have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass" (Job 14:5).

    The word "determined" comes from the Hebrew charats and means "to point sharply." Here we are told that man’s "months" are determined to a precise sharp point in time. There will be no variation in time as to when we must die.

    Not only is our precise time of death appointed, but also our resurrection:

        "If a man die, shall he live again? All the days of my APPOINTED TIME will I wait [in the grave] till my change [resurrection] come" (Job 14:14).

    Another:

        "Is there not an APPOINTED TIME to man upon earth? Are not his DAYS also like the days of an hireling? (Job 7:1).

    Everyone who has ever been born or will yet be born has been appointed by God to be born at that time and season according the purpose of His will. And likewise, everyone who has died or will yet die has been appointed by God to die at that time and season according to the purpose of His will. It just is not possible to alter or change anything in the purpose and intention of a sovereign God. So once more, "free will" is out the window.

    If mankind had a free will to do things that only they desired to do, at the time that only they desired to do them, then there would be billions upon billions of additions and deletions to God’s original plan. For it is foolishness to argue that one is "free" to do things that God has not preordained to happen, yet the very concept of free will demands that such unscriptural things can happen every day of our lives.

    Free will contradicts:

        "I know that, whatsoever God does, it shall be for ever [Heb:’for the eon’]; nothing can be put to it, nor anything taken from it; and God does it, that men should fear before Him" (Ecc. 3:14).

        Ecc. 2:23—"For all his day, pains and vexation are his experience."

        Ecc. 1:13—"It is an experience of evil God has given to the sons of humanity to humble them by it."

        Ecc. 9:12—"For a man also knows not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men [mankind] snared [trapped] in an EVIL TIME."

    Does a fish know ahead of time when it will be caught in a net? Does a bird know ahead of time when it might be caught in a snare? No? You say, NO? Well then that’s exactly how much you know in advance what will befall you in this life of evil. The human will is not free to change anything that God has pre-appointed. You will "will" according to the circumstances God places in your path. And you are not free to "will" otherwise.

    Between the birth of humanity and the death of humanity we find all of the following taking place at their appointed time:

        "plant and pluck... kill and heal... breakdown and build up... weep and laugh... mourn and dance... cast away and gather... embrace and not embrace... get and lose... keep and cast away... rend and sew... keep silence and speak... love and hate... war and peace..." (Ecc. 3:2-9).

    What we have here in Ecc. 3 is "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and every shade of gray between good and evil. God takes us through such profound experiences as "war and peace," all the way down to tearing a piece of cloth and sewing it together again-"a time to rend [apart] and a time to sew [together]." Not only do we all tear our pants or tear our shirt at some time or another, but, there is actually a God-appointed time for these things to happen.

    I realize that this is a hard concept for most to believe, but this is indeed what God is emphasizing in this third chapter of Ecclesiastes: "To every thing there is a season [Heb: "an appointed season or time'], and a time to every purpose under the heaven." Can we believe it? Will we believe these grand declarations of God? Not if we are "free-willers" we won't.

    The will of the entire human race combined, cannot bend one blade of grass unless it was foreknown, foreordained, and appointed by God to happen. Read Ecclesiastes 3 and tell me otherwise.

    Clearly God tells us that there is an appointed time for everything that happens between birth and death. But nowhere does human free will and free choice enter into any of these God-ordained and God-caused and God-performed events in the lives of all who are born and die among the human race. Man’s "will" is indeed able to always choose what it prefers, but what it prefers will always be in concert with what God has preordained.

    All the choices of all humanity are preordained by God to happen, and as such, not one is free to not happen. Therefore, no one has a will that can operate independent from or in opposition to, God’s preordained purpose.

    How then is it possible to believe these Scriptures and yet believe in "free choices?" It is not possible, for these Scriptures blatantly contradict any such theory as "freely chosen acts" independent and contradictory to the will and plan of God. Seriously, if anyone can explain how someone can freely choose a course of action, [1] independent of God, or [2] bring about any course of action at a time other than pre-appointed by God, please drop me an email. I will now hold my breath....

    Let me assure my readers that I do not make light of the profound heartache, pain, and misery that God inflicts upon humanity. I am not a newcomer, nor a novice to the arena of heartache, pain, and misery. I have on numerous occasions suffered very severe pain. I have been "one knock from death's door" more than once. I have lost my only son when he was but seven years old. Although I can justify God in all His dealings with His creatures, yet I cringe at many of the atrocities deemed necessary for His plan and purpose. Do you think that I am able to take in stride the cruel and evil beheadings by terrorists in Iraq?

    We read that, "Jesus wept" as He perceived the near-at-hand destruction of Jerusalem. And yet He fully knew that it was all of God His Father, and at the appointed time Jerusalem and its citizens would be starved, tortured, and utterly destroyed by the armies of Titus. I too weep over the present evils of this world and those yet impending.

    GOD IS A STICKLER FOR DETAILS

    God doesn’t only know the big things, like when you were to be born and when you are to die, but God know everything in between our birth and death.

    Just because God counts islands and whole nations as tiny drops or particles of dust, does not mean that He is not also aware of droplets of water and particles of dust (Isa. 40:15). Jesus said: "But the very hairs of your head are all numbered" (Matt. 10:30). Etc., etc., etc.

    God be with you,

    Ray




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