A Day, An Hour, A Minute

I was sitting at our dinning table this 4th of July morning eating breakfast, reading the back cover of a DVD loaned to us by an elderly lady whom Jackie was doing some sewing work for. Miss Marple said it was her favorite movie. The DVD seems to be about a swinging single man who ends up having to take care of an orphan, and the cover quoted a review by Playboy magazine, which said; "Terrific!". As luck would have it, the DVD case was empty, the favorite movie of the elderly lady evidently still in her DVD player. The short review brought to mind a picture of Hugh Hefner, somewhere in his 80's, trolling around the Playboy mansion in his bathrobe, with well endowed wannabees, each playing their sad little games. I then thought of Donald Trump, who earlier this year during his TV show called Mr. Hefner, "my very good friend". You too, he implies to the anxious apprentices, can fly in my luxurious jet and visit there. And lastly, Princes Diane came to mind because there is going to be, or just was, yet another show about the tragic early ending to her life.

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Mr. Hefner and Mr Trump, and indeed all men and women, can learn a lesson from the story of Princess Di, and that is that death will eventually call to them. There will be an actual day, a specific hour, and a precise minute when the heart has stopped and the brain ceases to function. The only escape is to have a reborn spirit and be alive when Jesus returns. And Jesus will come, both at the rapture and at the end of the age, on an actual day, a specific hour, and a precise minute. This is a blessed hope for me as a believer, to be alive when He returns on the clouds. But if I am not alive at the right point in history, death is surely coming. And I have a promise, made sure by faith, that there is waiting for me a place, prepared for me by my Lord and Savior. Perhaps this place is a mansion, or perhaps scripture means something else by that, but the nature of the actual abode is not important to me. The great thing is that I will be where my precious Lord is, interacting with family and friends and others who, because of a reborn spirit, are also part of His family. Hefner and Trump live in their mansions, which will one day become dust. And although Di had to leave her palace early, she was living in the mansion of celebrity, which was still unable to keep her from her appointment with death.

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Death came into the world because man rebelled against living obedient to the instructions of his Creator. The Lord had wonderful things planned for mankind, but Eve listened to the serpent, who said; "Did God say?", questioning His instructions, and ultimately questioning the Lord's love for us. Corruption then entered the world, and so did physical death. But death to man was not a total victory for the evil one. There were two special trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree of The Knowledge of Good and Evil, and eating the fruit of that tree brought spiritual separation from the Lord, and led to their eventual physical death. But there was also in the middle of that garden the Tree of Life. If they had eaten from that tree after they sinned there would not have been physical death, and the eternal soul and spirit would have never been able to have been redeemed. So God brought the first physical death into the new world. In clothing Adam and Eve with leather garments an animal had to be killed, and its blood was shed. The animal died because of the sin of Adam and Eve, but its sacrificial death prevented an immediate judgement of physical death. By doing this God also provided an example of how they were to approach Him in faith.

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In His second step of mercy God then drove Adam and Eve out of the garden, preventing them from eating from the Tree of Life. And although Adam lived for over 900 years, his day and hour and second eventually came. God prepared a place for those that were to die, and it had two sections. One part was for the soul/spirit of all the righteous dead, who could not dwell in the presence of the Lord until the death and resurrection of Jesus made possible a reborn spirit. The other part was for the soul/spirit of the unrighteous dead. After Jesus sacrifical death He brought the dwelling place of the righteous dead, Paradise, from somewhere under the Earth up to Heaven. The abode of the unrighteous dead remains somewhere under the Earth. One day, at a specific day, and hour, and minute, there will be a resurrection of the physical body for all those with a reborn spirit, uniting those newly glorified bodies with their soul/spirits. God's plan always was for man to be a three part being, and in His mercy, physical death preserved His ultimate design and plan.

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There will be another day and hour and minute when there is a resurrection of the physical bodies of all the unrighteous. They will go first to a judgment, and then to an eternity of torment, separated from the presence and love of an awesome, loving, merciful, yet holy God. I cannot understand eternal physical torment, but scripture is clear that it awaits all who are not reborn in their spirit. Princess Di did not make 50, and Hefner and Trump with all their money, will not live longer than 120 years. There is a day, an hour, and a minute when our eternity will begin. And when that minute comes, earthly time for us will cease. Some will be able to run to the arms of the Word made flesh, and fall down to worship Him without restraint. But many will hear those awful words; "Depart from me, I never knew you".

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"And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life, and the dead were judged from the things that were written in the books . . . And if anyones name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire." (Revelation 20: 12-15)

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"And he showed me a river of the water of life, clear as crystal, coming from the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the middle of its street. And on either side of the river was the tree of life . . . and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations . . . And there shall no longer be any curse". (Revelation 22: 1-3)