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Posted

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Hello;

Somebody once told me that the shelf-life of a Hostess Twinkie is seven years. (chuckle) I don't know if that's true or not but it sounds plausible.

I often receive puzzled looks when I assert that Adam died of malnutrition; but when you think about it; that's exactly what happened. In the locale where he and his wife first resided was a special tree that God said if humans were to include in their diets, they would never die; at least not of natural causes.

†. Gen 3:22-23 . . And the Lord God said: Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever: therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.

So then, God effected Adam's death by simply denying him the essential nutrients his body needed to sustain its youth— anon; nature took its course and Adam eventually expired.

Unfortunately, Adam ruined it for everybody. Because of his disOBedience in the matter of the forbidden fruit; his posterity is denied access to those essential nutrients too; ergo: in our day the human body begins spoiling sometime in its early to mid thirties. The aging process is slow, but it's also persistent. Debilitation is like Arnold Swarzenegger's relentless movie character; the Terminator: it feels neither pain nor pity, nor remorse nor fear; it cannot be reasoned with nor can it be bargained with, and it absolutely will not stop— ever —until you are dead.

A question sometimes arises as to the wording of God's warning.

†. Gen 2:16-17 . . And the Lord God commanded the man, saying: Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Adam's body didn't expire the instant he ate the forbidden fruit, but rather; quite a few decades later (Gen 5:5). However, Adam's body actually really did die the instant he ate the fruit. How so? Answer: That’s when his body lost the flower of its youth and began to age; so that death consists of not only one’s passing; but also one’s expiration date.

I have a can of Campbell’s spaghetti in the pantry whose expiration date is July 17, 2011. It’ll no doubt be safe to eat for a good while beyond that date, but will no longer be considered fresh. And that’s how it is for man. He’s fresh only up to a point, and then he begins to spoil.

One morning back in the early 1970's, as I was looking in the mirror shaving getting ready for work, I noticed that my once-thick hair was thinning; and upon closer examination, I also noticed that my face was beginning to sag a bit and there was the slightest hint of bags under my eyes. And then it hit me like a freight train that my youth was over and the aging process had kicked in. I was 32.

Death then, encompasses more than one's expiration date; it also includes one's gradual debilitation. Man enjoys a very brief period of freshness before he begins to fall apart; and from then on his remaining time on this glOBe can be defined as the throes of a living death for which there is no treatment. The aging process is a cold as steel heads-up that one's tenure on this planet is winding down to a close; and one day, it will be like they were never here.

†. Ecc 7:2 . . It is better to go to the house of mourning, than to go to the house of feasting: for that is the end of all men; and the living will lay it to his heart.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Posted

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Hello;

I thought it might be fun to analyze Ecclesiastes 12:1-7

†. Ecc 12:1. . Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them;

Most people cope pretty well with middle age, and old age too, as long as they're in good health, and their mind is sound, and they have the right attitude. But nOBody does good with advanced age. Your bowels won't work right, you'll be incontinent and smell bad; diverticulitis causes blood in your stools, your skin will be thin and easily torn, blue veins pop out on your legs and on the backs of your hands, you won't see things unless they're right under your nose, your sense of smell will be weak right along with your sense of taste. Savory foods will taste like cardboard and your stomach can't deal with them anyway. No more hiking, no more bicycle rides, no more airplane trips, no more travel at all. Walking, if you're able to walk at all, will really be little more than a shuffle of slow, flat footed, jerky short steps rather than a brisk fluid stroll.

†. Ecc 12:2 . .While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain

Often, as people get older and their health begins to fail, friends will ask: Hey, how's ol' so and so doing? And someone will say: Oh, he has good days and bad days. Well, eventually ol' so and so will have only bad days and no good days ever again.

†. Ecc 12:3a . . In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble,

The Hebrew word for "keepers" is shamar (shaw-mar'), the word used of Adam when God tasked him with taking care of the garden in Gen 2:15; and here in Ecclesiastes it refers to the use of your hands in homemaking and gardening. Aged people's hands tremble. They can't hold anything steady. In fact, they have so little strength and dexterity left in their hands that they can't grasp anything securely; so they drop stuff a lot.

†. Ecc 12:3b . . and the strong men shall bow themselves,

Those in advanced age, even if they were once proud Olympic athletes can't stand up straight anymore. Older people get bent and hunched. They shrink too, and some practically curl over like a fish hook.

My mother-in-law really loved birds. But her back was so bent over that she couldn't look up to see them, and unless they were only a few yards away, she couldn't even lift her head high enough to see the ones down low on the ground. I could've gotten her the finest Leica optics money can buy, but it would just be throwing money out with the recycle. She couldn't use them on a birding trip, nor could she even go on one. And if that weren't enough, she lost the use of one eye because of glaucoma.

†. Ecc 12:3c . . and the grinders cease because they are few

Before the advent of dentures and professional dental care, people commonly lost their teeth from decay and gum disease. As they got older, people lost more and more teeth until the day came when there finally weren't enough teeth left in their mouth to bite off food and chew it. Foods like grains, meats, and many crispy fresh fruits and vegetables were simply out of the question; so they had to eat mushy foods, foods that were overcooked; or that didn't require a lot of biting and chewing. There's still a lot of that in third world countries.

†. Ecc 12:3d . . and those that look out of the windows be darkened,

In many mid-east communities, homes are constructed close enough together that women often wave to each other out their kitchen windows and share gossip, and chat. Well, the aged women can't see well enough to recognize their neighbors anymore and so their social life suffers. To make things only worse; younger people are impatient with aged folks and tend to treat them like children; and tune them out.

†. Ecc 12:4a . . And the doors shall be shut in the streets,

The doors are shut because aged people get chilled easily. Riding on a city transit bus once, in the dead of summer in San Diego, some senior citizens in front of me shut my window because the draft was making them cold even though the rest of us on board were broiling in the heat.

†. Ecc 12:4b . . when the sound of the grinding is low

It's interesting to watch young people at work. They go at it with zest and vigor as if there's no tomorrow; while those in advanced age sort of drag their feet and plug along.

†. Ecc 12:4c . . and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird.

When I was in the US Army, my young companions and I had no trouble falling asleep inside the cargo hold of a roaring, vibrating Hercules C-130 cargo plane. Military cargo planes aren't usually insulated for sound like airliners and oftentimes we'd have to shout at each other to be heard. Well, people in advanced age have trouble sleeping. My dad was often awakened by an American ROBin in the wee morning hours chirping in a tree outside his bedroom window and simply could not go back to sleep with that bird making what seemed to him "all that racket" out there.

†. Ecc 12:4d . . and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low;

Diminished hearing is natural and to be expected. Hearing aids help a lot so we don't have to yell so loud at aged folks in order for them to hear us. Just imagine not being able to enjoy your favorite music; or straining to hear ordinary conversation; well, your day's coming if you live long enough to see it.

†. Ecc 12:5a . . Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high

We can fall aplenty when we're young and get away with it. Our joints are tight and strong, our ligaments are taught and springy, our bones are solid and tough, and we can handle all the bumps and bruises life throws at us. But not so when we reach advanced age. Falls, even little ones, are extremely hazardous; and can even be fatal.

Every now and then the news runs a story of an aged person who stumbled and fell at home and couldn't even reach the telephone to call for help; sometimes laying there for days until the landlord or relatives checked in on them. I knew an aged lady who's broken hip actually caused her death. Her body was so weak already from fighting cancer that the broken hip put it over the edge.

†. Ecc 12:5b . . and fears shall be in the way,

Aged people are too weak and feeble to defend themselves. I'll never forget my dad, in the last days of his bout with cancer, saying to me: Clifford, I guess I never will be any good any more. If one of these men here in the restaurant should jump me, I would just have to take it because I couldn't do anything about it.

My dad was once a tough, husky ex Navy farm boy who took lip from nOBody. But in his last days, he was not like that at all. He lived in fear of muggings, confrontations, bullies, and assaults because those who prey on aged people (including roving packs of dangerous adolescents) would have no prOBlem overpowering him at all.

†. Ecc 12:5c . . and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:

Nature isn't dismayed by the passing of a human being. Flowers continue to bloom, bugs continue to multiply, and fruit continues to appear on vines, bushes, and trees. When people drop dead, the world doesn't drop dead with them. Trees and flowers go right on budding and blooming, fish go on swimming, birds go on flying, bugs go on buzzing, the Earth goes right on turning, and the Moon goes right on shining as usual just like nothing ever happened. The world was doing just fine before any one of us came along, and it will go on doing just fine after we're all gone.

†. Ecc 12:6 . . Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain,

People with money, like king Solomon, had fancy lighting in their homes. Chandeliers made of ornate bowls overlaid with gold, containing oil or candles, were suspended from the ceiling by metal contraptions made of silver. Ancient bowls, and jars, and jugs were fragile. Once broken, they weren't repaired, but discarded and replaced with a new unit. Man is like that— just an expendable carbon unit; and death destroys him beyond repair like a terracotta pot.

†. Ecc 12:6b . . or the wheel broken at the cistern

The "wheel" is the hand crank that people in third world cultures use to haul their buckets up and down inside a well. Well, constant use wears them out and they have to be either repaired or replaced. When man's body wears out, it's done; and it does wear out.

†. Ecc 12:7a . . Eccl 12:7 . . For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it.

Man's body is organic; made from all-natural ingredients. But human life is from God rather than from the earth (Gen 2:7) which is why human beings can exist beyond the expiration of their bodies.

As my wife and I decline and wax older and older, we feel sadness for the loss of our youth. There was a time when we were both bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and could get by with very little rest. The skin on our face, and under our chin, was tight, and our middles were lean and defined. Today we look all sag-bottomed, melted, and flabby. The great cowboy artist Charles Russell once commented that time traded him wrinkles for teeth. Me too. I've lost teeth, some are capped, and my gums have receded giving me that "long in the tooth" look.

Believing that there is a supreme being, and a future world, lifts our spirits and strengthens us to cope with aging and the onset of death. We have a great, eternal future out ahead in a world where youth is the norm, and no one dies or gets sick. Mark Twain once remarked that although he didn't believe in a life hereafter, he was nevertheless inclined to expect one. Even if my wife and I are totally wrong in our belief, we are far better off than the man under the sun who has resigned himself to futility; to live out his pointless existence, to die and be recycled back into the matrix from whence he came; the meanwhile suppressing a gnawing anxiety in the back of his mind that there just might be a God after all.

C.L.I.F.F.
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Posted

I remember in my younger days I had a fear of death, yet now with my Savior I know death is nothing to fear, in fact physical death can be a person friend, ending physical life in this frail weakened body. Besides that, for the ones who have Jesus as Savior the best is yet to come. Plus when we suffer physical death, only our body is place in that grave, the grave diggers cannot bury our spirit, for it will return to God.

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

Its sad that so many face physical death all by their self, and have not the comfort that Jesus can bring to them. Even worse, unlike the brother's and sister's of Jesus whose best days are ahead of them, for them after physical death they face the worse days ever, I think of it as mans worse nightmare.

  • Members
Posted

I remember in my younger days I had a fear of death, yet now with my Savior I know death is nothing to fear, in fact physical death can be a person friend, ending physical life in this frail weakened body. Besides that, for the ones who have Jesus as Savior the best is yet to come. Plus when we suffer physical death, only our body is place in that grave, the grave diggers cannot bury our spirit, for it will return to God.

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

Its sad that so many face physical death all by their self, and have not the comfort that Jesus can bring to them. Even worse, unlike the brother's and sister's of Jesus whose best days are ahead of them, for them after physical death they face the worse days ever, I think of it as mans worse nightmare.


:amen: I can remember when I was young thinking it would be great to live to be really old and put off death as long as possible. Now, being in Christ, there is no fear of death. Death will bring freedom from the effects of the curse, from my flesh, and from the pains and sins of the world. My main hope is that my family will in Christ before they die and that in some way I may be used of the Lord to help them come to Christ.

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