The Oldest American Dies

He was just about to enter his 9th year of the 21st century, but it was not meant to be.

On Saturday, George Francis died at age 112. He had been, until congestive heart failure took his life, the oldest living American. His son, just a spry 81 years of age, stated, "He lived four years in the 19th century, 100 years in the 20th century, and 8 years in the 21st century. We call him the man of three centuries.”

Francis was born June 6, 1896, in New Orleans. He tried to enlist in the U.S. Army during World War I but was turned down because of his stature – never weighing in at more than 100 pounds. He quit school after the sixth grade, later became an amateur boxer, and also worked as a chauffeur, an auto mechanic and a barber. He lived a long life and saw more than most ever will.

Some would say that George Francis died of heart disease. Others would say simply that he breathed his last due to ravages of old age. Either is appropriate, but both are incomplete. George lived a long time by any standards, but his physical death originated from a spiritual demise set into motion long before he drew his first of many breaths.

At the very outset of human history, God gave the first man and woman a clear choice - one that would unfortunately see them choose incorrectly. Their horrendous selection would set mankind on a disastrous road, even though God did His best to lay the dire consequences of a wrong action before them.

Genesis 2:15-17 describes the scene. “Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." And die they did – both physically and, more importantly, spiritually. Their bodies began a slow decay while their once close relationship with their Creator perished. And ever since, all eventually face the unthinkable results of that fateful choice in the garden. Pain may be eased and days lengthened through technology, but death’s dark day will still arrive, as will a day of reckoning according to Hebrews 9:27.

But spiritual death can be eradicated and permanently – something foretold back in that same garden where the Serpent’s subtle lies duped earth’s first couple. In Genesis 3 God spoke of the future victory over His enemy’s dreadful grip of eternal death over humanity. Verse 15 reads, “And I will put enmity, between you and the woman, and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." The literal fulfillment of that great promise would come many centuries later through God’s Son and His sacrificial death on the cross and subsequent resurrection from the dead. Eternal death would meet its match in a coming Savior, although it would require making the right choice of accepting Christ’s free gift of salvation.

Then the lasting results of rejecting or accepting that great and all-important choice are made clear in 1 John 5:11-13. “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life. These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life, and that you may continue to believe in the name of the Son of God.”

The concept of physical pain and ensuing death is not for any a pleasant thought. But the Christian can count on God’s supernatural sustaining grace throughout the process. And even more amazing is the solid promise of being able to face death with peace and victory, knowing of a future so glorious as to never be really understood until that inconceivable moment arrives. Paul put it this way in 1 Corinthians 15:54-57:

“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." "O Death, where is your sting? O Hades, where is your victory?" The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Many alive now will not live to see their next birthday or be around long enough to see the new year of 2009 come to an end. But there is no reason for any to not live eternally in the presence of God according to Jesus' own words in John 6:58. "This is the bread which came down from heaven — not as your fathers ate the manna, and are dead. He who eats this bread will live forever ."

Bill Breckenridge