Only God can make death beautiful. When you think about the ‘Fall Season’ - it should be drab and colorless as leaves decay and die - but instead it’s colorful and breath-taking! Why? Because God Almighty created a process by which chlorophyll (green pigments) thrive in a leaf during the growing seasons of Spring and Summer. But as the sun shines less and temperatures drop, when we near the Fall Equinox (late Septermber), an abscission zone made of cork forms where the stem meets the leaf and blocks the stems flow of nutrients to the leaf. This results in other pigments contained in the leaf (xanthophyll - yellow, carotenoids - orange, and anthocyanins - red & purple) to become dominant - making death beautiful in the landscape of decaying leaves. The New England States of Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire are known for their color-filled trees in the Autumn Season - maybe you’ve experienced it!
Similarly, when people were finally freed, because of the fall of tyrannical regimes like the 3rd Reich and ISIS - they danced in the street and celebrated liberty - and it was a beautiful and uplifting thing to behold!
There will also be a beauty and comfort in the death and demise of this world’s independence from God! All the anguish in the world that man has experienced, has come from rejecting God’s sovereignty over us. War, poverty, disease, tragedy, disaster, broken marriages, and health problems - all stem from rejecting one or more of God’s Biblical instructions.
In the Old Testament we read: “And Elijah came to all the people, and said, “How long will you falter between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow Him; but if Baal, follow him.” (I KINGS 18:21) You can replace ‘Baal’ with any Human ideology, opinion, or practice that is contrary to God’s will and ask the same question: If YHVH of the Bible is God (meaning ‘Sovereign,’ ‘Boss,’ ‘the last word’) - follow Him; but if Satan, Society, or Self - follow them. The vast majority of mankind are following the latter to their own demise. So the death of man’s independence from God, which will occur at Christ’s return, will truly be a beautiful and uplifting thing to behold - as war is replaced by peace, conflict with cooperation, and rejection of God and His sovereignty with whole-hearted obedience and praise of our Maker.
Almighty God gave Mankind four Festivals to observe in the ‘Fall Season’ which symbolize the fall of four barriers between Man and his Maker, that have led to Humanity’s misery and misfortune. The fall of these 4 barriers is going to be as beautiful and uplifting to experience - as the death of Autumn leaves!
These four Festivals originated in the Old Testament, and were practiced by Jesus and the original Christians: “‘These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times… ‘In the 7th month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath-rest, a Memorial of blowing of Trumpets…” (LEVITICUS 23:4, 24)
That word ‘Memorial’ is also translated as ‘reminder,’ and is meant to be a Holy Day that would become an annual reminder of events in the past and future associated with Trumpet blasts. Probably the most well known event in the Old Testament, that involved the blowing of Trumpets, was when the Israelites had circled the city of Jericho for 7 days and then blew trumpets and shouted as one - and the walls of Jericho fell down! The few Jericho survivors rejoiced in it’s demise, as it was a wicked city whose inhabitants were enslaved to lust and greed.
The most important event of the future associated with the ‘blowing of a Trumpet’ is when the 7th angel blows the 7th and last trumpet: “Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!” (REVELATION 11:15)
The first barrier between God & Man to fall according to this ‘Fall Festival’ - is THE FALL of AUTONOMOUS HUMAN GOVERNANCE! No longer will Human Governments be able to oppress, and take away people’s God given rights. Politicians will no longer have unrestrained ability to ‘lord over’ their citizens. Human leaders will not be able to declare war & force families to give up their young to the battlefield (ISAIAH 2:4). Individuals will not be able to impulsively turn to evil doing, for they will hear a voice (maybe yours as a saint working with Christ) saying “This is the way, walk in it.” (ISAIAH 30:21) It will be a beautiful thing to behold the fall of Egocentric-governance, and the Divine restraint of Man’s inhumanity against Man!
The next Fall Festival is called Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement). Historically, Israel’s High Priest took two goats on this day and slew one on behalf of Israel - and confessed the sins & guilt of the people over the other, and cast it into the desert (LEVITICUS 16). The desert or wilderness is the habitation of Satan and demons (MATTHEW 4:1 - LUKE 8;29). Satan has led the world into deception and sin (REVELATION 12:9). Because of this, he is in part responsible for Man’s guilt and sins - and is appropriately symbolized by the scapegoat, who had the guilt and sins of Israel confessed over it, and released into the desert. These actions of the High Priest on the ‘Day of Atonement,’ foreshadow THE FALL of SATAN’S REIGN AND INFLUENCE OVER MANKIND: “Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the Devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years; and he cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal on him, so that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished.” (REVELATION 20:1-3) The fall of Satan was prophesied in Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28, and will be as beautiful to witness, as the capture and putting away of terrorists & tyrants!
A third Fall Festival, called the ‘Feast of Tabernacles’ pictures THE FALL of HUMAN FLESH & SEPARATION FROM GOD.” Isaiah was inspired to write: “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear.” (ISAIAH 59:2) In the beginning, God interacted with Adam & Eve in the Garden of Eden. But SIN set up a wall of separation between man and his Maker, and the first couple were cast out of the garden. The Apostle Paul wrote: “Now this I say, brethren, that flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God…” (I CORINTHIANS 15:50) Paul understood that our fleshly bodies are like tents or tabernacles, temporary dwellings that keep us from the presence of God: “For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation which is from heaven… So we are always confident, knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord.” (II CORINTHIANS 5:1,2,6) It will be a beautiful thing to experience the death of the flesh, and our change into Spirit - at the resurrection of the Saints (I CORINTHIANS 15:45-49)!
After the Feast of Tabernacles is what’s called the 8th Day celebration. A horizontal 8 is the symbol of eternity. This 8th Day Feast symbolizes THE FALL of DEATH AND THE BEGINNING OF ETERNITY! Rabbi Dr. Hillel Ben David writes: “This uniquely Jewish concept of Man having the ability to transcend his nature, is represented by the number 8.” And Chabad.org adds: “Eight… is symbolic of an entity that is one step above the natural order, higher than nature and its limitations.” The Apostle Paul wrote: “So when this corruptible has put on incorruption, and this mortal has put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written: ‘Death is swallowed up in victory.’”(I CORINTHIANS 15:54) The death of ‘Human death’ will be a beautiful state to arrive at: no more sorrow and emotional pain of losing a loved one, for we will all have immortality given to us.
So next time you witness the beauty of death in Autumn leaves - rejoice in the fact that the fall of man’s independence from God, the fall of Satan’s reign over mankind, the fall of Human flesh and death itself will be as beautiful to experience as the beauty of decaying leaves!