God Did Not Create Human Beings To Die... But To Live On... Eternally!

By Roger Henri Trepanier

The author’s purpose in writing this book is to show what death consists of, and why God allowed death in His sinless original creation, while then showing how God removes death from His creation during time. The good news for the reader is discovering how one can avoid death, for as the title of this book states, God has definitely not created human beings to die, but to live on, eternally!
The author also traces the two lines of descent which exists in the human race from the time of Cain and Abel to our present day, the one being ungodly and the other godly, while also showing the relation of these two lines of descent to the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which God forbade Adam and Eve from partaking of in the garden of Eden.
The author also details the nature of man from God’s perspective, while also giving the reader good glimpses of God’s character based on God’s own revelations of Himself in His word, the Bible, and also based on the author’s own life experiences in walking with God these last thirty-four years.
There is something here for everyone, from the teenager to the senior, with one truth from the book being worth repeating here, “A life without God is like an unsharpened pencil... it has no point!”

• Language: English
• Publisher: Roger Henri Trepanier
• Release date: Mar 31, 2014
• ISBN: 9781310051685

Roger Henri Trepanier

Roger Henri Trepanier is an evangelist, author, and counselor, who has been serving God on his field of service since 1999. One hundred and seven books have been published so far in five different series, all available in print format and as an eBook for any type of eBook reader. He is a widower with three adopted children, all now married.The author's two websites have been closed. To access the author's books, please type, "Roger Henri Trepanier, books" in any search engine. All the author's books are available in print and ebook formats for all devices.

Book preview

If we look back over our own childhood, we can probably all recall at least some experience with death, be that the death of a grandparent, or of some other relative, and even in some cases the death of a parent, or of both parents, as was the case with my own adopted children.

If one did not experience the death of a human being while growing up, one would at least have experienced the death of a pet, be that of a turtle, a hamster, or a bird, or as is most likely, that of a cat or a dog.

In my own experience, I still faintly remember attending my grandmother’s funeral on my mother’s side just before turning four. While I do not remember how I felt then about that event, I do remember how I felt when my youngest adopted daughter’s dog died when she was fourteen. The dog had reached the point of old age where he could no longer control his bodily functions, and upon the recommendation of the vet, we proceeded with a needle that would end his life. As this was my first experience with this type of thing, I had no preparation for what came next. My adopted daughter and I had prepared a box for Snowball’s burial and also a wooden cross with his name on it. At the vet’s office, the doctor had us stand Snowball on a metal table and asked us to keep him steady. I held his hind legs while my adopted daughter Rhoda held his front paws and talked to him. Then the dog did what I never expected. He looked back to where he knew I was and directly into my eyes, as if to say, ‘Are you sure this is okay?,’ just as the vet was injecting the needle in his back left leg. And before one could blink an eye, Snowball’s four legs simply slid outward, and at that point both Rhoda and I spontaneously burst out in tears, knowing that her beloved pet was now dead. And neither of us stopped crying even as we paid the bill in front of a waiting room of onlookers, even as we went to bury him on a friend’s property on the edge of town, and even as we sat down for supper as we got home. I cannot recall if my wife and the other two adopted children cried, but Rhoda and I sure did, for at least three hours non-stop. Many readers will be able to identify with this, as the death of pets is almost as common as the death of human beings. And so the reality is that death, even of an animal, can be a painful loss for a human being, due to having developed varying degrees of love and attachment.

However, as sorrowful as this event was, it was no preparation for the death of my own mother a few years later, and then the death of my own wife a few years after that. The one thing that was hard about these two deaths is that both my mother and my wife died at a young age, and as you probably guessed, from cancer. And while I was not present when my mother died in the hospital, having arrived about an hour after she died, yet with my wife, that was not the case. She died in my arms in the hospital, so that she was the first human being that I had ever personally seen die up to that point. And again, one can never be prepared in advance, for one can never know what flood of emotions will pour forth when that moment arrives. In my wife’s case, she had suffered for nine months by that point, had been in the hospital for two months, with me by her side. The morning she died was a Tuesday morning, at 11:15 am, on a bright and sunny October day. After the two nurses had removed all the tubing and attachments from her, they sat Elva up and had me sit on the bed holding her in my arms. Then less than a minute later, I saw the life drain out of her as there was a noticeable line of color change moving from the top of her head downwards in her body. As this was occurring, all I could do was just watch, so powerless to do anything, but thinking within myself, ‘Dear God, death is so unreal.’ Then at that very moment I spontaneously burst into tears with loud cries of my wife’s dear name pouring from my lips over and over again as I cradled her in my arms.

Since that day, which is now 20 years ago this year, I have often pondered that event and also the words that death is indeed so unreal. It is something that most of us as human beings would even say is unavoidable, and our Creator even proclaimed it as such in His word, "And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment" (Hebrews 9:27, which means in the book of the Bible called ‘Hebrews,’ in the ninth chapter, at the twenty-seventh verse).

And even though in the last twenty years the author has seen his father die, along with many relatives, friends, co-workers, and acquaintances, that by itself does not qualify the author to write a book about death. Neither does the fact that the author has twenty-one years of formal education, including having worked in a corporate environment for twenty-seven and half years, certify the author to write such a book, for what we are dealing with here is not a mere intellectual exercise. Rather, what is involved here, as the title of the book states, is what God has declared in His word, the Bible, about death, since God, as our Creator, is The only One, Who can with final authority say what death is, what happens at death, and how a human being can escape it. Yes, you read that right, we can indeed escape death, and this is what this book will seek to lead the reader to, not only to obtain eternal life from God, if the reader does not possess that now, but to also escape death.

Even the fact that the author is a called and trained evangelist, who was sent out by God about 1500 miles away from family and friends in 1999, qualify the author by itself to write a book about death. And even though for over 34 years now, the author has been studying God’s word, the Bible, having written nine Commentaries on books of the Bible – with some of these Commentaries taking from three to four years to complete - plus having done more than one hundred full Studies of various topics of the Bible, including a study of the word "death," plus over 535 Devotional Commentaries on specific verses or passages of the Bible in the last twelve years alone, this by itself also does not qualify the author to write such a book either. And even though the author was also privileged to give the sermon in a local church for 52 Sundays over a period of four and half years, while also conducting Home Bible Studies, does not qualify the author to write a book about death either.

And today (December 14th, 2013), as the author had his daily time of prayer with God first thing this morning, he was clearly led to write this book and then to have it published. Therefore, although all the things mentioned above might be good preparation for the author to write about the subject of death, however, only when God leads to actually do so does the author then have the go-ahead to write such a book, in which readers are pointed to the truth that God most certainly did not create human beings for the purpose of dying, but rather that we might live on eternally with Him!

And this is now the author’s purpose in writing this book, to show what death is, and why God allowed death in His sinless original creation, while then showing how God has dealt with death in time, through the death, burial, resurrection from the dead of His own dear and precious Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, which makes it possible for every human being to eventually escape death so as to live on eternally with Him!

My prayer is that God will speak to you and bless you as you read this book, and if you do not have a personal relationship with God now, that you indeed will by the time you finish reading this book!

Life without God is like an unsharpened pencil…

it has no point!

SECTION 1

______________________________________________

WHERE IT ALL BEGAN…

WHERE MANKIND WENT ASTRAY FROM GOD

AS WE BEGIN…

As you begin reading this book, you may be in the same position the author was in over thirty-seven years ago, namely an adult who had never read the Bible before. May that not be a concern, for you do not need any Bible knowledge in order to read this book. Although the author will make a number of references to the Bible, these will be quoted in the book and hopefully be explained in a manner that all readers will be able to understand. What would be a helpful thing to do while reading this book is to obtain a Bible, if you do not have one, and then read the first book called "Genesis, which is in the first half of the Bible, known as the Old Testament, and then go on to read the second half of the Bible, known as the New Testament." This will give you a good background to the reading of this book.

ADAM AND EVE

It is in the book of Genesis that we learn of the first man created by God, whom God called "Adam. It is important to keep in mind that Adam, and the woman that God then created to be his wife, and who was named Eve," were actual people, and are the original couple from which the whole human race comes from. What is also important to remember is that Adam and Eve were not only actual people, but were also representative of the whole human race, meaning that any other man or woman in existence after them would have done the very same as they did, had they been in their place, and would not have acted any differently than they did. In other words, God created us all with a like nature, so that what one does under a certain set of circumstances, then all will likewise do under the same set of circumstances, due to the initial makeup of our human nature by God.

THE GARDEN OF EDEN AND THE TWO SPECIAL TREES

What is also very important to know is that when God created Adam and Eve, they were not only fully grown adults, but they were also in innocence. What this last statement means is that when God created all that exists, including this earth and all that is on it, there was no sin or evil anywhere in all creation, which is why God could look at His original creation and say what He did at Genesis 1:31, namely:

"God saw all that He had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day."

In other words, at this point in human history neither Adam nor Eve even knew what sin was, or what evil was, since they had up to now only known that there was this Being with them called "God," Who was making provisions for all their needs.

After God had created Adam, and before He created Eve, He planted a garden, called "Eden," here on earth and placed Adam in it. And here we can quote directly from the Bible to see what God there tells us, noting what we read at Genesis 2:8,9:

"The Lord God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed. Out of the ground the Lord God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil."

We notice here that God also planted two special trees in the garden of Eden, among the trees from which Adam and Eve got their food to eat. The one tree was called the "tree of life and the other was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." Both these trees had a special significance when God planted them there, as we shall see.

GOD’S COMMAND AND A WARNING OF THE PENALTY OF DEATH FOR DISOBEDIENCE

As was mentioned already, Adam, the first man of history, was not only in the garden of Eden, where God had placed him, but he was also in a state of innocence, in that not only had he never sinned, but at this point did not even know what sin was. This is similar to an infant before the age of accountability. We say that such a child is innocent, not yet knowing the difference between right and wrong, and therefore not yet having any capacity to chose the right nor the wrong.

This was the state of innocence that Adam was in when one day God had Adam face a certain situation, where Adam had to make a choice, which we now find out about as we further read at Genesis 2:16,17:

The Lord God commanded the man, saying, From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die."

What is very important to notice from what we have just read is that here we have God giving Adam, as representative of the whole human race, a command for him to obey, which was basically that he could eat from any tree of the garden of Eden, which must be noticed included the tree of life, but he was forbidden by God to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. What this meant then is that Adam had a choice, to obey God and continue having all his needs met by God in the garden of Eden, or disobey God and incur the penalty of death! And before coming back to more fully examine the choice Adam faced here, and its consequence, what would helpful at this point is to examine some basic facts about Who this God was Who was commanding Adam.

INTRODUCING THE TRUTH THAT GOD IS SOVEREIGN, HOLY, RIGHTEOUS, LOVING

And so at this point we need to bring some basic truths about God into the discussion, in terms of Who is This Being, Who is called "God." When one reads the Bible, which is God’s revelation of