"We'll Rarely Get the Victory on the Wings of Just One Prayer," is a song I wrote in which I took the lyrics and treated them as a poem with my narration and appropriate music. Next I share our song, "Worthy Worthy Is the Lamb of God," then I finish this episode with a teaching from my book, A Course in Christianity, entitled, "Just Because Everybody Does It."
Just because everybody does what, you ask? Death appears to be very popular. I would say 100% of the people on earth have successfully entered the "Death Zone" and are no
longer in their physical bodies. I would say that...but I'd be wrong.
In God's Word, there are a few instances where death did not seem to find these people at home when it came to call. Where were they?
Enoch "was no more". I Googled Enoch and found this:
It is only the Enoch mentioned in Genesis 5:18 that the Bible gives any significant information about. This Enoch was the great-great-great-great-grandson of Adam. Genesis 5:22–24 says, “After he became the father of Methuselah, Enoch walked faithfully with God 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Altogether, Enoch lived a total of 365 years. Enoch walked faithfully with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.”
Hebrews 11:5 gives a little more detail: “By faith Enoch was taken from this life, so that he did not experience death: ‘He could not be found, because God had taken him away.’ For before he was taken, he was commended as one who pleased God.” This being “taken away” is what Enoch is most famous for. Only two people in the Bible are said to have been chosen by God to escape death, Enoch and Elijah. Enoch appears to have been given this privilege due to being a man who walked faithfully with God (Genesis 5:24) and pleased God (Hebrews 11:5).
(https://www.gotquestions.org/Enoch-in-the-Bible.html)
So, not 100% of the inhabitants on this earth have died. Insurance companies are set up on a statistical curve that takes the odds that something will happen and translates that information into how much your insurance will cost and how much they will pay out to the survivors. They assume that death is 100%. They would collectively shake their heads in confusion if someone failed to die (but "was no more").
So, only two people in the Bible did not leave earth in the usual manner. Jesus, however, left earth in the usual manner but three days later, He came back in his resurrected body, in an eternal state and ministered here on earth for 40 days before ascending into heaven.
In my book of stats, Jesus is the third person who did not die (the second time, anyway) and qualifies as Someone who can successfully leave insurance agents scratching their heads. What do they pay out to the ones holding the policy if the party in question simply "was no more" or, like Jesus, “ascended into heaven”?
I don't claim to hold the answer as to how Enoch and Elijah avoided one of the two only sure things on this earth—death. (The other being taxes.) But I sure don't want to die just because "everyone is doing it." That makes no sense to me. "Everyone" does a lot of things that I'd just as soon not participate in. So, I walk with God, too. And I try to forgive as Jesus did from the cross.
Jesus prayed, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" and, though He passed away, three days later he was raised from the dead acquiring His eternal body and He did not pass away again. There seems to be a relationship to His final prayer of forgiveness toward His enemies and His return to life. I see that, anyway.
I'd love to hear from you! email: vic@zarley.net
