Principles of Long Life

Written by Dr Daniel Olukoya

In the last few years, we have witnessed or heard about a lot of tragedy. People that were expected to be alive were dead. A lot of young people were dead and some of them were born again. Is it God’s will? No. We must also realize that the devil has some powers to kill but the only strongest power is the power of God. Just as the Bible has principles for long life, it also outlines what could cause short life.

God’s original plan for man was life not death, health not sickness, energy not weariness and radiance not dullness. So, if Brother Adam had not sinned, he would have lived forever. The Bible emphasizes that God is not interested in short life. One man of God said that it was a tragedy for a plant to die at the seed stage because it could not become a plant. A situation where young people are dying shows that a lot of things are going wrong.

Deuteronomy 6:1-2: “Now these are the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the Lord your God commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go to possess it. That thou mightiest fear the Lord thy God to keep all his statutes and his commandments which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged.”
Here, we can see that God is not interested in short life. Job 5:26 also says, “Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn cometh in his season.”
Proverbs 3:3: “My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments. For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee. Let not mercy and truth forsake thee, bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart”.

Six major ways by which people die on earth

1. A person can die by his own hand: This is when a person just destroys himself, for example, by personal execution, personal murder, or assassination. It is possible for a person to eliminate himself. Sometime ago, a man fainted in the street and people rushed to help him. By the time a doctor that was passing by got there, he found a packet of drugs in his pocket, which he must have taken. As a medical personnel, he found out that they were hard drugs which he ought not to have taken. But he went to the chemist bought it and swallowed it. He decided to kill himself.
2. A person can die by the hands of another man. It may be robbers, witches or wizard, etc
3. A person can die by fear, especially the fear of death.
4. A person can die by breaking natural laws. For example, if a person decides to jump down from the top of a 25-storey building he would die. Or if a person knows that he cannot swim, but decides to go and swim, it could lead to his death.
5. A person can die by succumbing to the aging process. When everything in the body is old, the system may stop working.
6. A person can die by sickness or disease.

What Are The Causes Of Short Life?
1. DISOBEDIENCE TO PARENTS:
Ephesians 6:1-3: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise. That it may be well with thee and thou mayest live long on the earth.”
If you don’t honour your father and mother, the reverse too will be the case, and that is untimely death. You may say that your parents are very bad, but any assignment that the Lord has given to you, you must do. We are not taught to hate any human being but if there is any evil spirit within them walking against our destiny, we must contend with the evil spirit. The Bible says “that we wrestle not against blood and flesh, but against principalities, against powers, against rulers of darkness of this world and against spiritual wickedness in high places” (Ephesians 6:12).
Also, the Bible says that he who does not look after his family is worse than an infidel. You may say, “But anytime I give them money, they use it against me.” Anoint the money and send it. A lot of young people are dying today because they decided not to listen to their parents’ cry. Some will go out with their fathers' cars after their fathers have warned them several times not to drive the cars. They decide to do otherwise and their corpses are brought home.
2. Not walking in the way of the Lord:
Failure to walk in the way of the Lord will bring short life. Deuteronomy 5:33: “Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord thy God had commanded you, that ye may live and that it may be well with you, and that he may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.”
When you walk in the part of righteousness, the Lord will prolong your life. The Lord has no obligation to protect you when He knows that your life is a disgrace to Him.
3. FAILURE TO TEACH THE WORD OF GOD AT HOME:
If you fail to teach the word of God at home, it leads to short life.
Deuteronomy 11:19-21: “And ye shall teach your children, speaking of them when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, when thou liest down, and when thou risest up. And thou shall write them upon the doorposts of thine house, and upon thy gates. That thy days may be multiplied, and the days of your children, in the land which the Lord sware unto your fathers to give them, as the days of heaven upon the earth.”
4. NOT FEARING THE LORD:
Proverb 10:27 says, “The fear of the Lord prolongeth days; but the years of the wicked shall be shortened.”
Please, note very well that nothing happens by chance; everything is programmed in the spirit. There is nothing like a stray bullet or somebody using cutlass on you accidentally. It has been programmed in the spirit. What will make these seeming accidents not to happen are the kinds of things we are talking about in this message.
The fear of God is rapidly jumping out of the house of God now. People are not afraid of God any more. They dress anyhow, talk anyhow, and insult the men of God without knowing that they are inviting curses upon themselves. When you insult a man of God, his anointing will fight you, the blood of Jesus will fight you, the angels will fight you, anything can fight against you. The fear that people had when they got born again in those days is fading out. We need to bring that fear back into the house of God. You need to fear the Lord from the bottom of your heart and know that there are certain things you cannot do. It may be convenient and comfortable for others but you cannot do them. There are certain things that a Christian does not touch at all because of the fear of the Lord. It is these days that people come to the house of the Lord with chewing gum in their mouth. Sometimes it seems as if the Lord was not quick in punishing us. But we must not take that for granted because the devil would be doing a deeper harm.
Do you fear the Lord? If you do, then your days will be long, but if you don’t, your days will be short. Some people talk to the Lord anyhow. For example, they would say, “I am sorry Lord, that I committed that sin, this is not the first time. Any way you wrote that even if my sin is as red as scarlet it will become as white as snow, so forgive me for I am a human being.” They command God to forgive them without fear. In those days, people used to cry at the altar showing godly sorrow for their sins. There is no fear of God again, believers fall into fornication and all kinds of sins and still smile, saying that there is a limit to human endurance. These are the causes of short lives. When arrows are fired in the spirit world it goes around looking for loopholes. If they see that there is no fear of God in your life, although you are coming to the house of God, they would enter into your life.
5.FAILURE TO CONTROL THE TONGUE:
I Peter 3:10 says, “For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.”
One of the greatest causes of short life is the tongue. If it were possible to padlock the mouth of human beings, a lot of people would not have died when they died. Many have gone into bondage because of their tongues. It is not everything that we have to say. Sometimes you just have to keep quiet. Most of the time it is better to listen. If your tongue has no control and you can speak 200 words per minute then you are writing an invitation to short life. Some people can talk and abuse an angel of God without knowing that the fellow that they are talking to is an angel of God, and they end up inviting curses because angels don’t operate like us. They don’t tolerate indiscipline and they can be easily provoked. That was why God warned the Israelites: “I will place my angel before you to go on the way that you will go but take heed that you do not provoke him. If you do, he will not pardon you. Don’t provoke him because he does not understand the word “please”. The angel did not forgive Zechariah when he doubted him and said, “Can these things be? I am old and my wife is advanced in age.” The angel said, “I am Gabriel, I came from the throne of God to give you this message and you are talking rubbish. For that, you shall be dumb.” He had to close his mouth and send him on a compulsory holiday. The tongue has killed so many people. I pray that the Lord will deliver us from the trap of the tongue, in Jesus’ name.
6.PURSUING EVIL:
Proverbs 11:19 says, “As righteousness tendeth to life: so he that pursueth evil pursueth it to his own death.” If you are pursuing an evil agenda, you are doing so at your own hurt.

 7. LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF SPIRITUAL PREVENTION:
This also shortens life. An English adage says that prevention is better than cure. God wants the totality of our being to be in good health and not for us to be seeking for healing. It is better to be immune than to have a disease and start taking drugs. The word of God shows clearly that Christians are supposed to have some immunity. To have immunity is better than having to evacuate the enemy anytime he gains entrance. So, we have to clothe ourselves with the fire of God and the blood of Jesus so that the enemy will not gain entrance.
 Following the fashion of the world is another way you can break down your immunity. When someone lets you down or disappoints you and you begin to broadcast it to the whole world, your immunity will be broken down. When you pay evil for evil, when you decide to pay people back in their own coin, your immunity will break down. When you are very angry and you throw tantrums on people, your immunity will break down. Calling people insulting names, gossiping and not forgiving those that have hurt you will make your immunity to break down. All the demonic jewelries that people put on make their immunity to break down. Demonic herbal concoctions and other terrible things that people swallow make immunity to break down.
 For you to be healthy and be moving about without any sickness, your blood must be immune. All the diseases that are available actually drink people’s blood. If a person loses a lot of blood, and nothing is done to restore it, he will soon die. Malaria is a terrible disease because it sucks people’s blood and uses it to produce more of its kind. Surely every sickness came as the result of the failure of Adam and Eve.
 The children of darkness often fortify and prepare themselves because they know that they can be attacked, but sometime the children of God are so foolish that they don’t fortify themselves. In the light of this, I want you to pray the following prayer points aggressively.
PRAYER POINTS
1. (Lay your hands on your head): I challenge my body with the fire of God, in Jesus’ name.
2. Every evil eternal enemy, come out by fire, in the name of Jesus.
3. O God, establish your kingdom in every department of my life, in the name of Jesus.

 Dr D.K. Olukoya is the General Overseer of the Mountain of Fire and Miracles Ministries. He holds a first class Honours degree in Microbiology from the University of Lagos, Nigeria and a Ph.D in Molecular Genetics from the University of Reading, United Kingdom. As a researcher, he has over seventy scientific publications to his credit.