TREASURES FROM GOD'S WORD: Week of September 30 - October 6, 2024, If you want to extend your life, trust in Jehovah, Prepared Speech.

TREASURES FROM GOD'S WORD: September 30-October 6, 2024, If You Want to Extend Your Life, Trust in Jehovah. Prepared Talk.

If you want to extend your life, trust in Jehovah (10 mins.)

How long can a human being live? The biblical record mentions Methuselah, who was the son of the prophet Enoch, a servant of Jehovah, and grandfather of Noah. The Bible says that he lived 969 years, if we compare it to Jehovah's way of seeing time, Methuselah lived almost one day for Jehovah.

The Bible indicates that for Jehovah 1000 years is one day, and he lived 969 years. Since then, the human being has been living fewer and fewer years. Today, a human being does not live that long. For example, on August 19, the oldest woman in the world died. Called María Branas Morera, a Spanish national, she died at the age of 117, that happened on August 19 of this year 2024.

Now the oldest person to hold the title is Japanese Tomico Itaka, aged 116 years and three months. Currently, the eight people considered to be the oldest in the world are all women: three Japanese, one Brazilian, one American, one British, one German and one French.

While the oldest man is now 111 years old, in recent times it has not been possible to live longer than that, the record holder for the longest life span was a woman who lived 122 years and 164 days. Is the situation worrying? Without a doubt, we cannot live longer than that amount of time, in fact scientists even say that no matter what treatment is put into practice we cannot live longer.

It is as if we have reached the natural limit of life, and that is what we are going to talk about in this section of Treasures of the Bible. If you want to extend your life, trust in Jehovah. Almost 3,500 years ago, Moses said some words that were worrying. In Psalm 90:10, which we are going to read, the text says...

LET'S READ PSALMS 90:10.

Our life span lasts up to seventy years, or even eighty if someone has special strength. But those years are full of difficulties and sorrows; they pass quickly, and we disappear.

Although Moses lived to be 120 years old, he already saw that human beings, with much struggle, reached 70 or 80 years of age, and of course, it was not a meaningful or happy life. Therefore, human beings cannot significantly extend their life expectancy.

Let's compare this, like our cell phones, when a phone is put on sale to the public, and from the beginning to use the useful life of a battery of these phones is 300 to 500, that is to say each time you charge your phone, you are running out of life, when it reaches 100%, and the phone will count 500 times you charged it and the useful period of that battery is over, something like that we human beings feel like as the years go by, as if we recharge our energies a little every time we sleep, time is running out, and we cannot extend our life more than what sin allows us to do now.

Now comes the point, how is it possible that if we want to extend our life, we can do it only with the help of Jehovah. Because we could compare him as the source of that energy that the cell phone or mobile needs, always human beings cannot live without depending on Jehovah every day of our life, and even more so for eternity. If we look at Psalm 90:2, it gives us the reason why this is so, the biblical text says.

LET'S READ PSALM 90:2.

Before the mountains were born or the earth brought forth or produced any fruitful soil, from everlasting to everlasting, you are God.

Referring to Jehovah, the text said that he is always and forever. This verse contains a question that very few have come to understand and accept. That Jehovah has neither beginning nor end, that he existed and will exist forever.

He is the first cause of everything that exists, creation is the work of his hands, something that we can sometimes perceive with our eyes, and there are other things that are just being discovered or we feel that there is something different that we have seen. Therefore, Jehovah is the cause of our existence and we depend on him to continue living. Like a cell phone if it is not connected to a power source, it will gradually stop working, and will be useless. 

When we come to understand that we need Jehovah not only to live, but to carry many burdens, so to speak, and thus lengthen our life, that is where we begin to fully trust in Jehovah, that no matter what happens, he can provide us with life, even if we were to cease to exist like a cell phone.

Many years ago, phones were made in which the battery that could no longer be charged could be removed and a new one could be put in and it would continue working. This is something similar to what we might equate with a human being dying. Jehovah is like giving that charge again and it can be an indefinite wooden charge. Understanding this allows us to face situations that put our lives in danger.

In our activity guide for this week we see a photograph in which a brother is hospitalized, possibly undergoing surgery or treatment, in which he is required or told that if he does not receive blood treatment or a transfusion, he could die, and these may be emergency matters like the one we see in this scene.

In this scene we see the time, it is close to 11 at night and they are asking him to authorize that in case something goes wrong with the surgical intervention, they will have the supposed opportunity to save his life by transferring blood, a very delicate situation, because none of us wants to die. 

Therefore many might give in to this fear, because they want to prolong their life, but for how long? It is as if we urgently recharged a mobile phone for at least a few minutes, but what we are doing is ending that charge or cycle of that device. Dear brothers, we do not want to prolong our life just for a moment, this can cause us to damage our relationship with Jehovah by accepting a medical treatment that would prolong our life for a few years. 

But indefinitely, Jehovah is willing to give us a cycle, a unique load of life forever. In Psalm 21:4 it says he asked you for life and you gave it to him, a long life forever and ever. But this long life forever is not like the one Moses mentioned full of difficulties. In Psalm 91:16 it says the following.

LET'S READ PSALM 91:16.

I will satisfy him with long life and let him see my saving deeds.”

The text says, I will make him satisfied, let us not allow Satan to influence us, to make us afraid, that we are going to die, and that we need to save ourselves from that tragic moment, a moment in which, out of fear of death, we may give in.

That is why, dear brothers, we do not want to disconnect ourselves from the eternal source of energy, which is Jehovah. No matter what we face, we want to recognize that our trust is in him, and that if we were to go through a situation that puts our life at risk, he will be able to recharge us so that we can live forever. We want to extend our life only with the help of Jehovah, and that extension of life will be eternal.