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J.D. Sumner may have been one of the smartest men who ever lived. In one of J.D.’s cherished moments of pontification, he boldly asserted that, if you were an idiot before you got saved, you are now just a “saved idiot.” What unparalleled wisdom! You just cannot improve his simple, straightforward theological postulate.

In his declaration, J.D. reminded us that salvation does not equate to getting a brain transplant. In other words, if you were intellectually challenged before you met Christ, you will not wake up the next day with a Phi Beta Kappa key under your pillow. How right he was. We have all met some of these “less than luminous” Christians at our concerts. The analogies have been offered that they are “one brick shy of a load,” “one sandwich short of a picnic”, “their elevator doesn’t go all the way to the top” or “the lights are on but nobody’s home.”

This “JDism” about saved idiots does not trivialize or deprecate the powerful blood of Jesus. It simply supports the biblical view that our minds are not reborn when we get saved; they must be renewed with the daily application of the Word of God. The collective intelligence of the Church of the Firstborn is emphatically and dramatically elevated when we learn to “let our fingers do the walking” for us. In Luke 4:17, Jesus “found the place where it was written...” He allowed God do the talking for Him. If it served Him well, why would it not do the same for us? This constitutes discipleship. It is learning from the Master and allowing His wisdom to become our wisdom, His views become our views.

In the early days of our formal education we were all taught THE alphabet. It was located about the chalkboard for all to see. You were not allowed to create your own alphabet; you had to learn the one the teacher used. In all the years since, the alphabet has never changed. It always starts with “a” and ends with “z.”

All 26 letters of our alphabet have remained exactly the same since before we were born. The reason it has remained the same is because it is perfect. There are no more letters to be discovered. You can spell any word you can imagine with our alphabet. You can read any book in our language using our alphabet. There is not a Nobel Prize awaiting the creator a new alphabet, so let us just allow the old one do our talking for us.

If Christians today could learn one thing today from the Master, it would be not to rely on our wisdom but God’s Wisdom. God’s wisdom is “His alphabet” and we should memorize it. In previous articles, I have referred to the biblical word “confession.” Remember, it is the Greek word homologia (Strong’s Concordance, 3670) and it means, “To say the same as, to speak with one voice, or to repeat what was previously spoken.” Luke recorded that definitive moment in Christ’s life when He “CONFESSED” (said the same as, spoke with one voice or repeated) what God’s Word said about His present circumstance or situation.

This need to defer to God’s Wisdom is nowhere more critical than when dealing with the subject of the death of a loved one. If there is EVER a situation where Christians should rely on “confession” it is when discussing premature or accidental death. After all, who knows more about the subject, God or us? We should always seek to understand God’s Thanatopsis (Greek: “a view of death or contemplation of death”). God has had eternities to contemplate the issues that surround the passing of a loved one. Why don’t we just say what He said about the it? Why don’t Christians just repeat what God has already spoken? What do we think we can add to the collective intelligence of the Godhead on this sensitive subject?

It must be appalling to God to hear His children blame Him for the tragic or untimely death of a loved one, especially a child. We have all heard ministers and laymen say “stupid” things like, “God needed a new rose for His garden”, or “He wanted a new angel for His choir, so God TOOK them”. These and various other humanistic babblings all completely miss the mark of describing a tragic death from disease or accident from God’s point of view.

Here are a few things God had to say about human longevity. Let’s see if we can discover His views.
Deuteronomy 5:33, “Ye shall walk in all the ways which the LORD your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.” 
Deuteronomy 11:21, “That your days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the LORD sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.” 
1 Kings 3:14, “...I will lengthen thy days.” 
Job 5:26, “Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age.” 
Psalm 91:16, “With long life will I satisfy thee...” 
Psalm 92:14, “They shall still bring forth fruit in old age: they shall be fat (Lit. “ fruitful”) and flourishing”. 
Proverbs 10:27, “The fear of the Lord prolongeth days...” 
Isaiah 65:22, “Your days will be like the days of a tree...mine elect will long enjoy the work of their hands.”
Neither time nor space will allow me to cite all the Words of God about longevity but you should, at least, see the pattern immerging. God did not stipulate in His Word to being responsible for horrible and horrific loss of life. God does not use freight trains, riding lawn mowers, incinerated vehicles or ravaging diseases to pluck “roses for His garden.” The question then arises, “If God states unequivocally that His view of life is that it should be prolonged, and that premature death is NOT His design, then WHY do we blame God when someone dies a horrible death before they have reached old age?
The reason is so clear that we often stumble over it. The answer is simple albeit not simplistic. In John 8:44 and 10:10, Jesus CLEARLY designated Satan by five attributes. Jesus said he was (1) a liar (pseudomai, SC 5574 “to utter an untruth or attempt to deceive by falsehood”), (2) a thief (klepto, SC 2813, “to steal by fraud or in secret”), (3) a destroyer (appollumi, SC 622 “to destroy either temporarily or eternally, to kill, to cause to be lost, to perish or to mar”), (4) a murderer (anthropoktonos, SC 443 “manslayer, one who commits homicide”) and (5) a killer (thuo, SC 2380 “to slaughter, slay, kill, sacrifice by fire”).

What do killers and murderers do to earn their reputation? They murder and kill! Who are their victims? Anyone they can murder or kill. Why do we persist in attributing to God the works of the devil? Because the function of a liar is to persuade people to believe something that is patently untrue. Therefore, if Satan can convince you to believe his lies about God, it will cause you to formulate wrong perceptions of God. Please note! God and the devil did not switch places. God does not steal, kill and destroy. Do not attribute to God what Jesus has plainly described as the work of Satan (John 10:10).

The way we counteract this subterfuge from the devil about death is to formulate our views of God by His Word, not Satan’s. God clearly and concisely told us His Thanatopsis. He does not kill little boys and girls; never has, never will! God does not kill young moms and dads. God did not invent disease as a way of exporting His children from earth. Paul states the caution we should take in II Corinthians 2:11, “Lest Satan get an advantage of us: for we are not ignorant of his devises.” WHAT ARE SATAN’S DEVICES? Lying, stealing, destroying, killing and murdering.

As gruesome as the words may sound, the Bible emphatically teaches that God did not “TAKE” our loved ones by means of disease or disaster. Satan KILLED them. Jesus said that Satan murders people. This is God’s view of premature death as stated in the Bible. Why can’t it be ours? Why is God’s view so difficult for us to believe?

Let’s put away our sophomoric attempts at logic and simply say exactly what God said about death and dying. There is much more to excavate on this subject. May the Holy Spirit guide you in your digging today.


****A Personal Word to Our Readers from Dr. Frazier****

There are great insights to be derived from the study of the Greek New Testament. Each month I will endeavor to share a nugget of truth from the Book of Truth, God’s Eternal Word.
These will be concise and should not intrude into your time or opportunity to explore the richness of the vein from which they were extracted. That is for you and the Holy Spirit to excavate together. These nuggets are just to let you know where to begin the digging, if you so desire. They are NOT designed to be an exhaustive commentary providing all the answers on the subject. The Spirit will guide you in how deep to dig. The Greek will be presented in a way that is easy to understand (transliterated) and easy to verify (“SC” refers to Strong’s Concordance). With a little help, you can check the assayers report for yourself. So, pull out this shiny, new nugget and see where it leads you. Please feel free to share your questions, observations or insights with our readers and me.

Website: http://www.donfrazier.com

Reader Comments

Thank you for presenting a much more Biblical way to look at death. Good work.

God is good all the time & all the time God is good. 

Elaine Harcourt

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