"ON EAGLES’ WINGS MINISTRIES"
“FAITH’S FINAL FRONTIER.” May 2012. Part 1.
“By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God translated him: for before his translation he had this testimony, that he pleased God.” Hebrews 11: 5. “And he that doubteth is damned if he eat, because he eateth not of faith: for whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” Romans 14:23. “So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory.” 1st Corinthians 15: 54.
The theme of this short series will be the translation of Enoch and a period of time Paul alluded to, when death shall have been conquered as the apostle wrote; that Christ must reign from his exalted seat at God’s right hand, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 1st Corinthians 15: 25, 26; Hebrews 10: 12, 13. The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death. It is customary for us as normal people to look around us and observe all that is common, everyday occurrences, such as another funeral procession making its way down the street. This lesson is dedicated to the study of death and the predetermined time when it shall be no more, as John wrote in the Revelation that there shall be no more death.
The reason why I am taking time to set the stage for this study is because people the world over, and even Christians sitting in the pews in divine worship are being reminded that “we all must die one day.” For me to come along and teach that we do not have to die, is to stir anger, contradiction, and even total rejection in many. And by the way, I observed my 77th birthday a few months ago, so I am not a 24 year old preacher seeking to start a movement called; “The Never Die Church of the Overcomers.” Before we jump to any wild conclusions, please observe that I will offer biblical authority for every point of interest that I raise. You will have to conclude in short order that Brother Kennedy is only teaching the actual truth of scripture; unlike so many theories and so-called doctrines in the public domain that cannot be found in the bible. The truth is that I am not about to offer you any new beliefs that are not already contained in scripture.
Here are the two main points that we will put under scrutiny in this series. First of all, Enoch was translated by nothing else but by faith; and Paul alluded to a period of time when death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed. All we will be doing is to put all the many pieces together to highlight the truth of this message. So I ask that you study with an open mind, and don’t be too hasty to say, “I don’t believe that!” Will you not believe what the Word of God clearly state?. What I do ask of you is that since the subject of death is so real among the human race, and continually being reinforced as reality by the Church, do not come to any conclusion until you have read all parts in this series.
Not only so, but I will further suggest that all aspects that you find to be difficult to assimilate at this time, simply pigeonhole it or lay it on the shelf for a later time. The danger is that once you have rejected a concept, you have lost it forever. Since my early days as a Christian, the Lord impressed upon me to always maintain an open mind. Instead of saying, “That isn’t true, I usually wonder, “Suppose it is true?” If we take a backward glance at church history we will see galleries of notable men and women of faith. When we say “faith” we do not allude to their doctrinal beliefs; but rather to their life’s accomplishments based solely on their strong and unflinching faith in God. We, who are alive today, and are about my age, can look in retrospect on the unfolding of “faith ministries.” These ministries gained prominence because of physical healing, the lifting of depression, and the casting out of demons. A healing ministry that comes to town inevitably draws large crowds, because as I coined the phrase some time ago from the pulpit, “Many love God only for what they can get, rather than for who he is.” As they say, “I love the Lord because he healed my body!
I love the Lord because as they were about to repossess my furniture God sent me a miracle check! I love the Lord because although I was at fault, I went to court and won the case! I usually look people in the eye from the pulpit and ask, “Suppose he did not pay your bills would you not still love him? Suppose he did not heal your body, would you not still love him? Do you love him for who he is, or for what you can get out of him? When we think about it, we notice that most prayers to God are always asking for one thing or another. As these faith ministries continued to gain prominence in the vast field of Christian thinking, things seemingly morphed into what is called a “name it and claim it” mentality. The ministry of “Ever increasing faith” under the leadership of Dr. Frederick K. Price at the Crenshaw Center in Inglewood, California, has had great impact upon the lives of multitudes. So does the teaching ministry of Kenneth Copeland and others of his contemporaries. Men such as A.A. Allen, Jack Coe, T. L. Osborne, Oral Roberts, and Kenneth Hagin have ridden the glorious white horse of the “faith ministry.”
While preaching in the Los Angeles area, I stayed with a friend in Carson, located just north of Long Beach. The brother told me how his wife got a hold of the “name it and claim it” concept and decided that she would claim a brand new Cadillac Seville. He told her, “after you are through naming it and claiming it, I will go out and buy you a Cadillac” which he eventually did. Faith for many who lived a long time ago meant much more than the version you and I grew up with. It brings to mind a little book I bought at the bus station in Birmingham, Alabama some years ago. It was about the life and times of D. L. Moody. The story that struck me most was the account of Moody’s trip to Bristol, England, to meet with George Muller, a Prussian-born English evangelist.
Mr. Muller had established and ran an orphanage in the city of Bristol in southern England, and Moody had keen interest in meeting the renowned man of faith. Moody himself did great fund raising in Chicago after its awful fire in 1871 that killed hundreds and burned 3.3 square miles of the city. It was with great anticipation that he arrived in Bristol to what would be a watershed moment in his life. After meeting with Mr. Muller, both men embarked upon friendly conversations and what we would call small talk. As the meeting progressed, Mr. Moody explained to Mr. Muller how after the great fire in Chicago, he went from office to office, from house to house raising funds to build again in his city. At this juncture he asked Mr. Muller, “How is fund raising in England? How did you raise the funds needed to establish and run this orphanage? The old man continued what he was doing without even lifting his head to look at Moody. He then replied, still looking down; “All I did was pray.” Mr. Moody interrupted, “Pray, yes, but” Mr. Muller interrupted by repeating, “All I did was pray.”
It was said that many times at the orphanage, the table was set for dinner and the children were called to the table, but nothing was there to serve. Yet they ate and drank every day by faith. I remember the evening when I came home from school and rushed to the kitchen looking for my dinner sitting by the fire to remain warm. I looked in and saw only a pot with water boiling. I made my way back to Mama (my adopted Mom) in the house and asked “where is my dinner?” While still rocking in her old rocking chair and without looking at me she replied that there was no dinner. I got angry, not at her, but at the situation we were stuck in. In a short while someone came up the walkway to our house with a covered basket. When we opened it, there were food items for our evening dinner. The pot was already on the fire with boiling water, and all we had to do was dress the yams and other items and put them in the pot. In 30 minutes or so, we had dinner.
Another evening I came home from school to a similar situation; there was no dinner, and again Mama was simply rocking and twiddling her thumbs in her rocking chair. Before long someone came up the walkway to our front door with a covered basket. It contained food already cooked with side dishes and dressings. At that time I did not call it living by faith, but it meant the same thing even if we did not have a name for it. We are familiar with the scripture that the just shall live by faith, but in recent years of ministering the word of God, I introduced my own version of the same scripture by defining the word “live.” Here is my take on the issue! The word said that the just shall live by faith! It did not say eat bread by faith, or pay bills by faith, or even have a healthy body by faith. We could add this little caveat: “What part of live don’t you understand? While many things contribute to life, nothing can replace life in its truest form, and living by faith means just that. It means to stay alive by faith. But alas! What have got here?
Put every mighty and well publicized faith ministry down through the centuries on display and what do you see? Sure they offered health, wealth, and a good relationship with God; but they did not teach that we can live by faith. I often say that Christians in general believe in the resurrection after death, but simply cannot bring themselves to believe as Jesus taught, “He that liveth and believeth in me shall never die; Verily, verily, I say unto you, If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death.” John 11:26; 8:51. Should there be any need for workshops, seminars, and weekend retreats to explain the words of Jesus Christ? Again we may ask, “What part of what Jesus said you don’t understand?” So what is the root of the problem? It is simply that down through the centuries of Church history, ministers of the gospel have never taken to task the words of Christ as they were written and as they were meant to be understood. Let us be very candid in this study; we do not intend to twist arms and step on necks in this series.
Your choice in what you believe is entirely your personal prerogative. My beliefs happen to be of my own free will, based upon my understanding of scripture. But sit up and let us discuss this matter in a civil and honorable fashion, backed up by scripture. How many ministers have come to your town or your local Assembly teaching that Jesus meant the living believer in him would not have to die? How many came by and taught that if we indeed keep the sayings of Christ we will never taste of death? I do not know, so go ahead and tell me how many. How many have been the featured speaker at your conventions and dared to remind you that Christ abolished death? Isn’t it true that one preacher after another, and one pastor after another continues to emphasize the reality of death as being a judgment that mankind is still under? We are being told that two things in life are sure; death and taxes!
Don’t ministers line up behind pulpits to tell us about the glorious resurrection that will occur “after we have died?” How about us preaching the whole truth and nothing but the truth? There are so many profound scriptures underscoring major subjects of life and death that remain dormant and seemingly banished from the pulpits. The clergy seems to feed the people on a diet that is sweet to their taste buds and calm their itching ears; but do a great injustice to the truth that God has for us as if it is being served on a platter. Haven’t you read that Jesus Christ abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel? If not, go and read over and over again, Paul’s account to his son Timothy. (2nd Timothy 1:10.)
When any aspect of the ordinances of the Old Testament is abolished like animal sacrifices, and stoning for certain sins, we walk away from them and cease to observe them. Why? Because they have been abolished! So what part of “abolished” don’t we understand? It is either that Christ thought that he abolished death but did not; or he did abolish death but we do not believe or accept the fact of the finished work. The subject of this study is called, “Faith’s final frontier” for a reason, and the reason is based upon scriptures that no one can dispute. I purposely offer scripture for every point I raise so that you will read and believe what the scripture said and not what my opinion is. Listen to God’s personal dissertation offered by the prophet Hosea; and let us take it at face value, and not seek to moderate, dilute, or create a concoction that has no relevance with the truth.
“The sorrows of a travailing woman shall come upon him: he is an unwise son; for he should not stay long in the place of the breaking forth of children. Let us throw in Paul’s assertions at this juncture! “For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For everyone that useth milk is unskillful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.” Hebrews 5: 12,13. This is exactly what the prophet Hosea is talking about! He is admonishing a Church that should have grown up into manhood and showing maturity. Instead this unwise son lingers and lingers in the place where children are taught how to walk and run. Hosea continues! I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.”Hosea 13:13, 14.
Doesn’t this fit perfectly with the exhortation of Paul? “So when this corruptible shall have PUT ON (not take up after death but put on while still alive) incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.” 1 Corinthians 15: 25, 26, 54, 55. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to announce that all of the above tasks must be accomplished by a people right here on earth. Death as the last enemy will not be destroyed until people stop dying; and as long as the Church holds the world in sin, death will continue to permeate man’s soul all the way to the funeral home. We cannot send out a team of police with dogs and high tech equipments to arrest death, and bring it back in shackles to the precinct. Death is like an invisible vapor that passes over people taking their life in its grasp. What is the Church saying about these truths? Are the thousands of saints who are watching the eastern sky for the Lord’s return saying anything about conquering death? An old man in Jerusalem was told that he would never die until he had seen the Lord’s Christ and so he did.
Listen to Zacharias after he was filled with the Holy Ghost and began to prophesy. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel; for he hath visited and redeemed his people, and hath raised up an horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David; As he spake by the mouth of his holy prophets, which have been since the world began: That we should be saved from our enemies (finally death) and from the hand of all that hate us; To perform the mercy promised to our fathers, and to remember his holy covenant; the oath which he sware to our father Abraham, that he would grant unto us, that we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear in holiness and righteousness before him, all the days of our life.”Luke 1:67-75.
Christ said candidly that whom the Son set free is free indeed; but aren’t there many who should be free still living in bonds? At the time of the emancipation proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, many slaves opted to remain in the custody of their masters. Perhaps it was because they felt ill-equipped to face an uncertain future. Perhaps it was because they had others making decisions for them that they feared the very thought of having to make their own decisions. We look around us and death seems to reign at will. One preacher after another boldly announce that “we all have to die one day” and so we allow ourselves to become enslaved by that notion, completely ignoring or forgetting the truths that Jesus taught and died to enforce. If you equate yourself with all other members of the human race, I can only suppose that you do not believe in being born from above and of an incorruptible seed. If you are a child of God, you are not like everybody else! Didn’t God put a difference between the Egyptians and the children of Israel? Wasn’t there darkness over all Egypt, but light was in Goshen? Didn’t God call Israel his peculiar treasure and a special people unto himself?
For the child of God to think and live unbelievers amounts to a betrayal of the faith, and an insult to Christ who bought you, body, soul, and spirit at Calvary. You see, that is the missing ingredient in the new birth process. We are being born (an ongoing process) again not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God which liveth and abideth forever? 1 Peter 1: 23. Can the word be any plainer? Is it so difficult to wrap your arms around these truths and let the very cells of your body leap for joy and break forth in praises to God? Are we forgetting that death reigned from Adam to Moses, which in turn takes us to John the Baptist?
Jesus came on the scene with a ministry of life and I have never read where in his three and a half year ministry on earth, that he taught that we cannot escape death. To the contrary he said, I am come that they might have life and have it more abundantly. “Because I live, you’ll live also!”
Let us examine these facts one more time so as to get it settled in our inner most being. We call on our faith for healing. We do the same for wealth, a job to begin with, or a better job. The question of faith has become the bedrock of the Christian belief structure. It has become a bulwark and a parapet for our Christian journey with Christ. However, we do not hesitate to set up road blocks and walls of defense against the notion of the children of God “living by faith.” Let me repeat that living by faith does not relate to the supply of products and commodities that are relevant to the mortal body. Living means just that! I cannot help but chuckle when I hear preachers pounding the pulpit and heralding the fact that “it was appointed unto men once to die and after this the judgment.” They actually remind me of a prison guard walking his beat with his gun and night stick on his hips, making sure that the inmates remain securely locked away in their prison cells. Yes, we shout about dying once as a law that God set in place that will never be changed as long as man remain on the earth; but we remain somewhat silent on the subject of abundant resurrection life in Christ as he holds the keys of hell and death.
As they say in the Star Trek series on television, let us “dare to go where no man has gone!” Let us conquer the final frontier as children of God in these last days! When we walk along the corridor of faith’s gallery in Hebrews 11, we can quickly ask up front, “How did they do it?” As we read the scriptural account, we quickly notice that they did it by faith. Is it possible that they had a different version of faith that is no longer available to us? Those people back then were not in constant need of divine healing; they lived long and healthy lives. As a rule, they died of old age rather than disease. So they used their faith to accomplish more important things than a simple case of healing or providing the next meal of the day. These things to them would be classified as “incidentals” or byproducts, and nothing out of the ordinary.
Their faith was tested against much larger odds and more enormous opposition. It brings to mind again D. L. Moody’s meeting with George Muller in Bristol, England. While Mr. Moody was busy explaining how he went from office to office collecting funds for his Chicago project, Mr. Muller continued to play with a child as if he had not heard a word that Mr. Moody said. When he finally spoke he said: ‘What I am hearing is what Moody did for God; but it is not what Moody can do for God, it is what God can do for Moody.” Thank you Jesus! “Isn’t this the bottom line?” Is there a bigger and more profound truth than this? This truth does resonate within my spirit. Christians are running the world over, and ministers are putting their membership under enormous financial burden as they go from one project to another, trying to work for God. God does not need us to work for him; rather, we must work together as one with him.
If we will be still and know that he is God, he will exalt himself in our lives and in our city, and in our country. Let me assure you that when Jesus said, “If a man keep my saying, he shall never see death” he alluded to his own triumph when he would brake through the final frontier on our behalf. But the picture of our state of being reminds me of the eaglet that broke free from the coop in which it was caged along with a chicken. Daily he scanned the elements as far as his eyes would allow. Daily the chicken groveled in the dirt seeking little morsel of food. But all the time the eaglet stood on its perch looking skyward. When the final break came, he soared up on high to the crag of the rocks where he belongs. There is “a people” who truly walk on earth as men, but are actually seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus; not as philosophy or mere theory, but in actuality as an experience.
We recently shared how Caleb walked in and among death for forty years as Israel wandered and died in the wilderness. He did not say to himself, “Well, everybody has to die one day. I guess I am no better or different from them.” For forty and five years he refused to grow older even by one day. The law of aging did not apply to him, for in his God he found a source of divine health, divine strength, and the renewal of his strength like the eagles. It was because at the age of 40, Moses promised that all the ground that he walked upon as a spy would be his and his children. For forty years instead of brushing it aside, he held the promises so close to his heart, that his body did not age a single year. Thank you Jesus! Are you getting a hold of this? Can you feel new life surging through your being? I can! In the next issue we will examine the term, “Never See Death.”
Royce O. Kennedy
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