To Encourage You

Hebrews 2:14-15 “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.”

When I was younger and living at home with my parents, I thought it was strange that they were always reading the obituaries.  Death was the furthest thing from my mind at that time, and I couldn’t understand why anyone would look at this part of the paper, particularly when those who had died were people that my parents didn’t even know. However, as I’ve now reached this stage in my life, I have a much better understanding of this, for I find myself doing the very same thing. One of the things I find interesting is the age of the person who has died.  More and more frequently I find those ages to be younger than my own.  It’s not a pleasant thought, I can assure you.  Every day there’s news that someone else has died, often someone quite famous. I’m writing this in July 2020.  On July 6 it was Charlie Daniels that died.  The day before it was Nick Cordero, a Broadway actor who succumbed to Covid-19 at just 41 years of age.  And on July 1 it was Hugh Downs.  Earlier this year it was one of my cousins who was just one year older than me.  So, as the years have passed, I am increasingly aware of the fact that death is something that is hanging over my head.  In fact, it’s hanging over the head of every one of us. We don’t know when it will happen but we know that it will. 

It’s such a sobering reality that impacts everything about us in so many ways.  The Bible refers to it in the passage above as a “lifelong slavery” that we are all subject to.  Have you ever thought of it that way?  Throughout the ages man has fought against this but to avail. Some say that the Spanish explorer Ponce de Leon was searching for a “Fountain of Youth” in his explorations of Florida. This fountain would supposedly hold death at bay. But of course neither he, nor anyone else, has ever found such a thing.  Various religions have tried to address death in a multitude of ways such as by assuring us that we never really die; we are just reincarnated as another life of some sort.  Of course, there’s no evidence of such a thing, but people put their hopes in it, nevertheless.  And then lots of people deal with it by attempting to ignore it. They do their best to never think about it by keeping busy with this or that.  However, one way or another it will take them by the throat some day and they won’t be able to ignore it as someone they love passes away or they face “the valley of the shadow of death” themselves. 

But for the Christian, there is the wonderful truth that someone has conquered death and released us from its bondage.  As the passage above tells us, there was someone Who wasn’t “flesh and blood” like we are, yet He became flesh and blood to take on this enemy that has enslaved us, for that was the only way we could ever be freed. It was as our perfect substitute that Jesus’ body was broken, and His blood was shed on the cross so that we could be freed from the fear of death.  It was because He died for us that every believer can now say “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” for “The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:55-57).  It is because we have, in effect, “died with Him” by putting our faith in His substitutionary death on our behalf, that “we will also live with Him” (2 Timothy 2:11).  For the believer, we have the wonderful assurance and we can have tremendous courage in the face of our appointment with death, for we know that the moment that we are “away from the body” as a result of that physical death, we will be “at home with the Lord” forever (1 Corinthians 5:8). 

So, are those the kinds of things that you think about when you see the obituaries day after day?  Or do you think you can avoid the fear of death that every one of us is in slavery to by ignoring it or trusting in something in which you will never be assured? Have you placed your trust in the power of God Who sent His only begotten Son to die for us that we might live?  It’s a glorious truth that is available to you if you will believe, and it’s the only thing that can truly free you from the power of the slavery of death.