Do Not Fear Death!

 

Everything we read and hear today fills the hearts of men with FEAR. When we get sucker-punched, our first instinct is to give up or fight back. These two responses are our only options. It’s called fight or flight, and all mankind is hard-wired for this through their DNA. How we give up or how we choose to fight is essential. Scientists tell us our response is dictated by our personality. However, there is much proof that our environment and the current situation we find ourselves in is a hefty part of our response function.

I was never a fighter. I floated through much of my first 29 years, never questioning much, always staying within the conforms of the flow around me. My upbringing and the tragedies and injustices that formed me still play around the recesses of my personality. But that’s not the totality of me! Because of those past injustices, another elemental part of me can take over: indignation! In other words, I neglect to mince words. My submissiveness can hide for a bit, allowing me to be blunt with people as I waller in the flesh! Thankfully, Yahuah is perfecting me daily! The heart of man and woman is peculiar.

Giving up can look like many things; weakness, fear, depression.  It can drive us into submissive thinking that makes a situation appear far beyond our capabilities. Submissiveness can even rob us of the wherewithal to recognize danger. Personally, I call this the “Popcorn Effect.” My mother cleaned a movie theater when I was young. It was my job to help. I remember countless nights, standing at the back of the theater, surveying ankle-deep popcorn, spilled drinks, and all manner of garbage! My young mind agonized over the four or more hours I’d be there, sweeping up an insurmountable mess! To this day, it overwhelms me when I’m faced with what looks like an impossible situation. My husband often says, “You can’t eat an elephant in one setting.” True that!

Fighting back is all about taking back what we passionately feel is taken away by injustice or a compromise of our inner vision. Some terrible crime arises, or someone infringes upon your sensibilities. Perhaps you recognize a need for change in yourself.  And we’re off, fighting for a cause that is acute enough to elicit immediate change.

Forced into a tight enough corner, most of us can exhibit one or the other or even a combination of BOTH! And this, brothers and sisters, is the state of our current situation.

Fear is a motivating factor. Don’t believe me? Ask any atheist why he cries out, “OH GOD,” when some life-threatening occurrence is imminent. Horrendous situations, if not handled with divine help, fill the heart of man with dread. Fear brings one to their knees in submissiveness to the situation – or drives them, submissively, into Yahuah’s will.

Many have this fear and fight reaction flooding their thoughts right now. No one knows what tomorrow will bring, let alone later today! None of us in our lifetime have seen this scope of worldwide events unraveling. Many passionately watch every move our national and world leaders are making, praying these Powers that Be don’t send civilization over the edge. Some submit. Some protest. Some pray. And some search an ancient book for modern-day answers.

If you have a bent toward the Word, you already know what’s happening. I’ve known all my life this world will end, that Yahusha will have His 2nd Coming, that the righteous dead -“sleeping,” as Yahusha called them, will rise, then the righteous living will be “caught up!” to meet our beautiful Savior in His clouds. I’ve known there will be wars and rumors of wars and pestilence and strife the likes of which we’ve never known. What I didn’t know, exactly, was what these birth pains, as Yahusha called them, would look like. MAN, what a revolting series of jolting wearies! The evil ones are wearing us out – JUST like the scriptures said they’d do. And folks, it’s alarming.

If you’ve not kept up with scripture, or are not that well versed, what is happening is very scary.  Many believe the promised coronavirus vaccine may have further reaching possibilities than what our Constitution allows. The freedoms our forefathers fought for are eroding with such frightening speed that we’re ALL wonder-struck by the heat of being cornered. One of the President’s personal Attorneys, Alan Dershowitz, recently said, “Let me put it very clearly, you have no constitutional right to endanger the public and spread the disease, even if you disagree. You have no right not to be vaccinated, you have no right not to wear a mask, you have no right to open up your business.” He also said, “And if you refuse to be vaccinated, the state has the power to literally take you to a doctor’s office and plunge a needle into your arm.” All this for a RUSHED vaccine our President assures us is forthcoming by January 2021! ‘Operation Warp Speed’ was implemented by President Trump on May 15, 2020. The scary part they don’t tell you is, vaccine development is a l o n g and arduous process. In an online article by THE COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS OF PHILADEPHIA, we learn, “Vaccine development is a long, complex process, often lasting 10-15 years and involving a combination of public and private involvement.”

Okay, it’s time to get to the crux of this article: Fear of dying! Whether from a rushed vaccine and a much-discussed tracking device; Domestic or World war; forced food shortages; the collapse of the US economy; foreign invasion; spiritual warfare in high places – thinking people have good reason to be concerned in this day. But what does the WORD say about all this? Have you ever read this? “For the Master Yahovah does no matter unless He reveals His secret to His servants the prophets.” Amos 3:7 So these prophets – primarily Isaiah, Daniel, and John the Revelator, describe an end-time world that has never previously existed. Yahusha warned that the moral fiber we see today is like it was pre-flood, but these sudden worldwide cataclysmic events we’re beginning to witness is something never before seen in all of history!

The truth is, millions will die – wicked people as well as His followers. Does this seem unreasonable to you? At first glance, it might. Sure, we can all see why wicked people die – it’s JUSTICE, after all. But hey … we got John figuratively telling us he saw souls under an altar, crying out for justice for their spilled blood! Why were millions of martyrs burned at the stake? What about the modern-day Christians losing their lives because of their beliefs? Yahusha made a profound statement once, “This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:12-13

To understand this thing, we first have to recognize that no one is immune to the wages of sin. It’s death. Yahusha died for the righteous part of man, not the sinful part, nor the mortal flesh of a man. When we die, our Breath of Life returns to Him, but the rest, our physical flesh and blood being returns to dust that waits in the ground until His return. If we can except this, there’s more. Many of His followers will die because of their testimony for Him. That’s right – because they serve Him. What does this look like? “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” – Yahusha, Matthew 25:9-10

You can easily see that Yahusha is not asking you to accept anything He did not first test ride.  He promises that if we stand firm and don’t deny Him, He’ll not deny us before His Father. As Believers, that’s awfully important. Apostle Paul said, “I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed [by denying Him], but will have complete boldness, so that now as always Yahusha will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to LIVE is Yahusha, and to die is GAIN!”

One More Thought …
Psalm 146:4 teaches us that when someone dies, his thoughts cease. Ecclesiastes 9:5 says, “the dead know not anything.” The prophet Daniel, and Yahusha both referred to death as sleep. So did Job – 4:11,13, “Why did I not die at birth? Why did I not perish when I came from the womb?… For now, I would have lain still and been quiet, I would have been asleep;” Often, when thinking about my mother who died in 1988, I remember the words I said to her as she fought those last, terrible breaths. She did not want to die! She was 62-years-old and had spent the previous 10 years of her life wholly devoted to Him. Through a fatal medical error her doctor and the hospital made – my mother’s internal organs were shredded. Death was imminent. As she fought to stay, I leaned into her ear and said, “Mom, let this go. The next thing you’ll see is Jesus’ face. Let it go.” She exhaled, then entered the realm of billions of others who are resting in the ground until the Son calls them: “For the Master Himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of Yahuah; and the dead in Yahusha shall rise first …” 1 Thessalonians 4:16

Sleeping ones don’t have watches. They’re not peering at a clock or looking at a calendar – or even you. “Time” means nothing to those resting in their casket. It is as if  just seconds have passed between taking their last earthly breath and hearing their Savior’s shout, “COME FORTH!”