OUR
DYING WORLD
“But
of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shall not eat of it: for in
the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” – Genesis
2:17 (KJV).
A study by the World Health Organisation(WHO)
indicates that global life expectancy at birth as at 2015 was 71.4 years, which
comprised 73.8 years for females and 69.1 years for males. According to the
WHO, "global average life expectancy increased by 5 years between 2000 and
2015, the fastest increase since the 1960s".[1]
The foregoing statistics at first sight presupposes an increase in global
average life expectancy of humanity. On the contrary, however, the global life expectancy
of humanity, from the perspective of the Bible, is declining. Humanity is dying and our world is passing at
a very fast pace because of sin.
Methuselah, Adam and Seth are among the
people in history who lived several years on this earth before their passing
(Genesis 5). They respectively lived 969, 930 and 912 years before their
passing. The life expectancy of subsequent generations after Methuselah, Adam
and Seth, including ours, continue to decline because of sin. In Noah’s
generation, global life expectancy was 120 years (Genesis 6:3). In that generation,
like ours, God regretted for making human beings because their thoughts and imaginations
were continually sinful. The wages of sin is always death (Romans 6:23). Death in
this context includes both spiritual separation from God and physical death.
“Seventy years is all we have — eighty
years, if we are strong...Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become
wise” – Psalm 90:9-10a, 12(GNB). We can deduce from this scripture that even
living up to 80 years today is considered a short life, compared to life
expectancy in previous generations. Fortunately, however, we have a choice to wisely
receive the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ (Romans 6:23). Everyone
in this world who believes and receives Jesus Christ will not die but will have
eternal life (John 3:16).
Richard
Obeng Mensah, author of Daily Wisdom
Blog:
www.richard-obeng-mensah.blogspot.com
Email:
richardobengmensah@gmail.com
[1]
http://www.who.int/gho/mortality_burden_disease/life_tables/situation_trends_text/en/
<accessed 14 October 2016.
No comments:
Post a Comment