Can You Die Before Your Time? Can You Live Too Long?
1 Samuel 26:1-25 (NKJV)
1 Now the Ziphites came to
Saul at Gibeah, saying, "Is David not hiding in the hill of Hachilah,
opposite Jeshimon?"
2 Then Saul arose and went
down to the Wilderness of Ziph, having three thousand chosen men of Israel with
him, to seek David in the Wilderness of Ziph.
3 And Saul encamped in the
hill of Hachilah, which is opposite Jeshimon, by the road. But David
stayed in the wilderness, and he saw that Saul came after him into the
wilderness.
4 David therefore sent out
spies, and understood that Saul had indeed come.
5 So David arose and came to
the place where Saul had encamped. And David saw the place where Saul lay, and
Abner the son of Ner, the commander of his army. Now Saul lay within the camp,
with the people encamped all around him.
6 Then David answered, and
said to Ahimelech the Hittite and to Abishai the son of Zeruiah, brother of
Joab, saying, "Who will go down with me to Saul in the camp?" And
Abishai said, "I will go down with you."
7 So David and Abishai came
to the people by night; and there Saul lay sleeping within the camp, with his
spear stuck in the ground by his head. And Abner and the people lay all around
him.
8 Then Abishai said to David,
"God has delivered your enemy into your hand this day. Now therefore,
please, let me strike him at once with the spear, right to the earth; and I
will not have to strike him a second time!"
9 And David said to Abishai,
"Do not destroy him; for who can stretch out his hand against the LORD'S anointed, and be guiltless?"
10 David said furthermore,
"As the LORD lives,
the LORD shall strike him, or
his day shall come to die, or he shall go out to battle and perish.
This passage speaks against the sometimes understandable desire for revenge. David, at this time of his life, is not King of Israel but has lived as a fugitive for some years being pursued by King Saul. Twice (this episode is the second time) he refused to avenge himself by killing Saul when the opportunity arises. He leaves that to the Lord. But note this phrase in verse ten: "his day shall come to die." It raises some questions; is there an appointed time to die? Is it possible to die before your time? It seems to be the case sometimes. Is it possible to miss the appointed date of death and live too long? I'm not sure, but there are these insights from Scripture-
-The Book of Hebrews notes that we are appointed to die once
(no reference to when) and then comes the Judgment.
Hebrews
9:27 "And as it is appointed for
men to die once, but after this the judgment, so Christ was offered once to
bear the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a
second time, apart from sin, for salvation."
-Job, possibly the most ancient of episodes in the Bible,
speaks of a specific time for a person to die.
Job
14:1-6 "Mortals, born of woman, are
of few days and full of trouble. They
spring up like flowers an wither away; like fleeting shadows, they do not
endure. Do you fix your eye on
them? Will you bring them before you for
judgment? Who can bring what is pure
from the impure? No one! A person's days are determined; you have
decreed the number of his months and have set limits he cannot exceed. So look away from him and let him alone, till
he has put in hit time like a hired laborer."
-King Hezekiah, one of the more godly kings of Israel &
Judah, was told by the prophet Isaiah that his time on earth was coming to a
close. The king prayed and asked for
more time and the Lord granted him fifteen more years, but it was a mixed
blessing. First of all, would you want
to know that you had fifteen years, and could count them down year by year as
time ran out? Also, those fifteen years
saw a couple of events that would undo a lifetime of work for the king. He received envoys from another empire, that
of Babylon, and showed them the riches of Israel. That would come to haunt them when that
empire returned to invade and plunder Israel.
Also, it was during this time that his son Manasseh was born, and he was
one of the most ungodly kings of this monarchy.
He undid almost everything Hezekiah had done. I remember the prayer of an old friend, who
asked that he not live longer than his faithfulness to the Lord Jesus. There may be something to that. Perhaps we can live too long, as well as not
long enough.
(2 King 20:1-21; 21;
2 Chronicles 32:24-26, 31; 33:1-10, 18-20; Isaiah 38-39).
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