NOTE: This is a fictional account, but is based somewhat unloosely on future prophesied events and promised conditions, as clearly as I can imagine them unfolding and being realized. It will be interesting to compare these prognostications of mine one day to how far off I was in some of my ruminations, and possibly how close I was with certain others. It is written in first person, with Frank Calloway as the protagonist. See Chapter 1 (there’s a link to it at the bottom) for more information.
As made clear previously, with the passing of time people from further and further back in history are resurrected. As I write this, we’re just getting started — we’re still near the beginning of that process. I was among the first few million who were brought back, and my siblings and parents returned to life not long after I did.
For it all to happen in an organized rather than chaotic fashion, it will take quite some time to reach all the way back to the creation of man. Being willful sinners (choosing to defy Jehovah God even though they were perfect and it went against their then-perfect nature for them to sin), Adam and Eve will not be resurrected. Others from back then will be, though, as they were either faithful to God (such as Abel and Enoch) or did not know enough about Him to make a choice whether to serve Him or not. Mercy is shown to a great degree.
In our reverse-order resurrection process, we are currently back to the Turn of the Century, that is to say, the year 1900 (there have been over 60 century turns in mankind’s history, but I always think of 1900 as the turn of the century; this ‘recency bias’ on my part is because of the time period in which I first lived, from 1932-2021).
To name just a few, Smedley Butler (1881-1940), John Muir (1838-1914), and Mark Twain (1835-1910) have been resurrected. I mention them in particular, not because they are more important than others, but because my father is studying the Bible with Smedley Butler, a man who had been heavily involved in warfare but later came to see and expose the hypocrisy of wars presented to the public as necessary and just interventions to “save the world for democracy” and suchlike cynical hoodwinking, but which were in actuality waged with greed as their primary motivation.
And I mention Twain (or, more accurately, Sam Clemens) because I am currently studying the Bible with him. He is a challenge, indeed, but gradually the scales are falling from his eyes, as he understands why things happened as they did. I think the final push, the event that will provide my friend Sam with the strongest impetus to move forward spiritually, will be when his family members are resurrected, especially his wife Livy and their daughters and son, all of whom died in the late 1800s — with the exception of Clara (1874-1962), the only child of his who outlived him. Clara is already here with us, and is residing near her father again, along with her husband Ossip (1878-1936) and their daughter Nina (1910-1966) — Sam’s only grandchild.
My brother is studying the Bible with John Muir. Both of them are avidly involved in the transformation of the earth into the paradise Jehovah God purposed it to be from the beginning.
Others I especially look forward to meeting (besides the obvious ones we all want to meet, such as Noah, Moses, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, Mordecai, Esther, Ruth, Elijah, Elisha, Daniel, and so forth) include J.S. Bach (1685-1750), who will doubtless create new compositions inspired by his increased knowledge of the nature and will of Jehovah God; Thomas Paine (1737-1809); John Brown (1800-1859); Crazy Horse (1840-1877), and Sojourner Truth (1797-1883), to name just a few.
Also quite interesting will be the scenes that unfold when former enemies are resurrected. Examples of this are those who waged war against each other — in some cases, very literally, in hand-to-hand combat — as well as former slaves and slaveholders. All parties will need to recognize two things:
First, that no nationality, ethnicity, or race is superior or inferior to any other, and thus nationalism, warfare, and slavery have been universally abandoned and abolished; the second thing all need to realize is that death pays for all sins.
In other words, former slaves are on an equal footing with former slaveholders socially, legally, economically, and in every other way, but the slaveholders are not to be held to account for their previous sins, which they paid for with their deaths. All, on being resurrected, have a ‘clean slate,’ and are judged based on their actions from that point forward, not on what they did (sins of commission) or didn’t do (sins of omission) in their former life.
It will be interesting to see former combatants, such as those on opposite sides of the American Revolutionary War, so-called “Bluecoats” and “Redcoats”; the American Civil War, a “Johnny Reb” from Georgia and a “Billy Yank” from Massachusetts; World War 2 soldiers from the Axis and Allied powers; veterans of the Bourbon War from France and Britain — you get the picture: a lot of reconciliation, understanding, and forgiveness will need to take place.
Most of all, though, I look forward to welcoming back previous generations of my own family, most of whom I never met in my first life, as they had died long before I was born. I have never even seen photographs of ancestors further back than my great-grandparents. Speaking of them, I have already met my great-grandparents, but am looking forward to meeting the rest, further back, generation after generation—all the way back to Noah and even beyond.
All of us on earth are cousins. As we trace our lineage, getting the details from our ancestors as they are resurrected, we will eventually ‘connect the dots’ with everyone we know. Yes, regardless of our culture, facial features, skin color, body type, skills, talents, or personality traits, we are all cousins — even if it be seventh cousins nine times removed. It will be interesting to see just how closely related we are to our friends — perhaps closer than we imagine. Not that it makes us love them more or less based on how closely or distantly we are related; it’ll just be interesting, is all, to see the entire human family tree unfold before our eyes.
There is so much to look forward to. Every day gets better — better than we could have ever imagined in the old system. And it will never end: Even a million years is zero percent of eternity.
Chapter 1 is here.