What shall I do? What shall we do?
Jesus was interested in even one
person who wondered how to live forever. That unknown person was as important
as the rest for Jesus is not a respecter of persons, and nobody is superfluous!
The first mention in history of a fountain of youth came from the writings of Herodotus in the fifth century before Christ about the Macrobians, named that because of their longevity.
Their name is due to
their legendary longevity, an average person supposedly living to the age of
120. They were said to be the "tallest and handsomest of all men.” At the
same time, they were reported as being physically distinct from the general
inhabitants of the region below the Sahara.
The legend has it that the age of
mankind was not to be more than 120 years, according to Wikipedia.
The LORD GOD said to those in the days of Noah, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years” ((Gen 6:3). Many theologians direct that toward the building of the Ark and that it would take 120 years. The Book of Jasher validates that those who lived in the days of Noah would cease to exist in 120 years:
For thus said the Lord,
“Behold, I give you a period of one hundred and twenty years; if you will turn
to Me and forsake your evil ways, then will I also turn away from the evil
which I told you, and it shall not exist,” saith the Lord. And Noah and
Methuselah spoke all the words of the Lord to the sons of men, day after day,
constantly speaking to them. But the sons of men would not hearken to them, nor
incline their ears to their words, and they were stiff-necked. And the Lord
granted them a period of one hundred and twenty years, saying, “If they will
return, then will God repent of the evil, so as not to destroy the earth.” (Jasher 5:8-11)
Before the days of Noah, Enoch never
died. He found the ‘fountain of youth’ and it was in Paradise in heaven. After
the days of Noah, Elijah found eternal life and was still alive in the days of
Jesus (at the transfiguration). Neither found eternal life on Earth, or even on
another planet, but only in heaven.
There were also some patriarchs
who did live longer than 120 years. However, they had the Spirit of God and had
turned away from evil. It could be that life on planet Earth can be extended
for reasons only known by God, but most people still die under 120 years of age.
At the present the global average age at death is under seventy years. (ourworldin data.org).
Based on purely
demographic data, natural limit to human life span was estimated to be between
115 years and 126 years. Furthermore, Olshansky et
al believe that the absence of people, who are older than 122, is the
evidence for why there are limits to human longevity. (NIH)
Imagine that; science agrees with God,
almost down to the year!
We should expect to live no longer than
seventy years, and if we live to 120 years or so, that could be either a
blessing or a curse. Paul wrote that his “earnest expectation” was that “For to
me to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Phil 1:21) but whether he would live
or die was of no difference to him ((Phil 1:20).
Many do not want to live forever here
because that would limit living forever there! Where would most want to
live? In tribulation, or in glorification?
As time passed, someone asked Jesus
a very pertinent question: “Behold, one came and said unto him, ‘Good Master,
what good thing shall I do, that I may have eternal life?”
(Mat 19:16).
Desoto risked his life and sailed
to the new world. He failed to find the fountain of youth in the world, but
perhaps he did find it in heaven!
About five-hundred years before
Christ, King ‘Hanno the Navigator’ of Carthage sailed around the horn of Africa
and beyond. He was exploring the unknown and what he was looking for is
unknown. However, he sailed by Microbia near Ethiopia. Perhaps Hanno was
looking for Paradise on earth and eternal youth.
What did he find? Certainly not
Paradise, but gorillas that he thought were men. He skinned some of them
and brought them back to Carthage. Hanno the Navigator found eternal death and
brought their skins back. Those ‘alien’ beings were certainly not glorious, and
Microbia was certainly not Paradise. Death ruled there as well, so there was no
fountain of your that Hanno could find. (Jesus had yet to come!)
What did Desota and Hanno do? They explored the world and eternal life was not to be found; then along came ‘Jesus the Navigator’!
Simon Peter said unto Him,
“Lord, where goes you?” Jesus answered him, “Where I go, you cannot follow Me
now; but you shall follow Me afterwards.” (John
13:36)
Jesus died in AD 33 and Peter
followed Him to Paradise about 30 years later. The Romans crucified Jesus.
Jesus ‘navigated’ death for Peter. He ventured there from Zion here in
the world to Zion there in heaven. He explored death while He was in the
tomb, not exploring in the flesh but in the Spirit… His Holy Ghost set sail for
places unknown but perhaps Hell to deliver Satan and sin, and Paradise, to
deliver the repentant thief. ‘Jesus the Navigator’ — the Christ — tasted death
for us, so that we need not die if we follow the Way.
Jesus, speaking to His followers,
said the obvious, “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and
take up his cross, and follow Me” (Mat 16:24). The Holy Cross was the mast on
God’s invisible Ark and Jesus was the navigator to the other realm just as He
navigated Noah’s Ark.
Remember the question that one
asked? That “one” was the rich young man, but probably Peter was with them (Mat 19:36). What was he to do? the rich man wondered. The short answer from Jesus was to follow Me to where I am going. Jesus
went to the Cross shortly. Peter would follow Him in due time.
Rome came to Jesus; he did
absolutely nothing to deserve Himself being separated from His Flesh. They
nailed Jesus to the Cross, making Him immobile. His work was by Virtue (Dynamis)
— goodness flowing from His Person, and Himself giving up the Ghost.
That was the “Good Thing” that
Jesus did, so that Peter, or whoever was the one, need not repeat it! There is no record of
Peter being baptized with water. It could be that Jesus, who would baptize with
Living Water (John 3:22) — the Holy Spirit — may have baptized Peter with the “one
baptism” (Ephes 4:5).
Although the Romans came to Jesus
for Him to die, Peter went to the Romans. Jesus walked to Calvary and Peter to Vatican
Hill, perhaps the hill of the Roman God, Vagitanus, the deity of childbirth. Although
Peter had been ‘born again’ because of faith in Jesus (John 3:7), he defeated
the god, Vagitanus, at his death. The Spirit of God in Peter would have
fulfilled prophecy, “It shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel”
(Gen 3:15).
Of course, Jesus did that at
Calvary while the ‘son of the Serpent’ (Judas) had Satan in him. Peter followed
Jesus to that same end.
Vagitanus would have no power to
birth anyone for Jesus had already died to do that. What Peter did was bruise
the head of the demon spirit of Vagitanus by doing what Jesus did on Calvary. Peter
followed Jesus to his death, and paganism died in Rome soon after.
Peter did nothing physically, and
neither did Jesus nor the repentant thief. All three were nailed to the Cross
so they were immobile. They had to be nailed to their respective crosses to demonstrate
that physically, they could do nothing, but mentally, they could
work out their salvation.
Jesus worked out His salvation —
the Resurrection — and because He had the Virtue to work out His own, He showed
the world that He had already worked out their salvation.
Losing Virtue is force dynamics,
but Jesus did that with the Mind of God, losing so much Virtue that He would ‘sleep’
for days!
Jesus could have saved Himself by
defeating all the pretenders to the throne and defeating the Romans, but that
would save only Him alone and only for a short time.
Jesus could have washed the Earth
clean by a global water baptism, but instead He chose invisible Virtue to do
the same ‘Good Thing.’
Jesus then asked rhetorically, “Why
call you Me good? there is none ‘good’ but One, that is, God: but if you will
enter into life, keep the commandments” (Mat 19:17).
That ‘one’ learned that he can do
no good, because only God is good, so only God can provide eternal life. However,
that ‘one’ saw that Jesus is God in the flesh because he called Jesus ‘good.’
What good thing could one do to
have eternal life? He must first enter the portal to life. That portal, as is discovered
at the crucifixion is wherever you are upon dying. You must die to be born
again; and death is the portal to life and the soul is the ‘ship’ to another
realm.
Death is denying the flesh and
its desires. That kind of death is the gain, except for Jesus who knew no sin, but
we must die to sin. Jesus died for our sins.
The most certain way is physical
death because the soul is separated from the flesh, so that the soul can be
saved when Jesus comes again.
How much effort does it take to
die to be born again? The lust of the flesh is what must be given up, along
with pride: “Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh”
(Gal 5:16). The Spirit of God does all the work! Thinking like Jesus puts out
the flame of lust. It is not what you do, but what you do not do! The
Spirit does it all… the ‘Living Water’ douses the flames of lust.
However, Jesus indicated that we
are to keep His commandments to enter unto life. His commandments
are about love — goodwill toward God and others. The faculty of the will is
cognitive. Again, I write, it is not some good thing that you do, but to
align your thoughts with the Thoughts of God. His Will to be done is love to prevent
perishing (John 3:16) to remain alive.
Our will — the will of the Christian
— must coincide with that, or as scripture says, to be of “one accord” to receive
the Holy Ghost (Acts 2:1), not just in accord with each other but in the Spirit.
The quest for longevity in this
age is threefold: (1) CRISPR-Cas9, compliments of Bill Gates, seeks to increase
the lifespan that God set by synthesizing ‘alien’ DNA in humans; and (2) transhumanism,
compliments of the World Economic Forum; (3) not to forget saving the planet
for the elite for their good.
Who truly wants to live forever
on planet Earth? The only way for world peace and global safety, according to Yuval
Noah Harari, is to eliminate the ‘superfluous” people. My bet is that those who
trust Christ and refuse their WEF ‘crosses’ will be the superfluous ones that they
believe should die!
Jesus thought it fit to respond
to the ‘one’ that wanted to have eternal life. His name was not important because
He was one of the ‘whosoever’ that God loves in John 3:16.
Not even one is superfluous to
Jesus, yet many depend on Harari and the World Economic Forum to determine just
who is superfluous and who is not. My bet is that the elite members of the WEF
are certainly not superfluous, and ironically, even they are not superfluous to
Jesus!
So, what must you do? Deny your
flesh by giving up sin. Is that hard to do? You need not do that, the Spirit of
Jesus will do that for you. He is the promised ‘Comforter’ that came, not in
body but the Holy Ghost of Jesus.
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