"Inasmuch then as the children
have partaken of flesh and blood, He Himself likewise shared in the
same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of
death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage” (Hebrews 2:14-15)
If you had to name your greatest enemy, your greatest
fear, who or what
would it be? Would it be the boss who demoted or fired you? The spouse
who found someone else and divorced you, insisting in the process that
it was somehow entirely your fault? Could it be someone who dislikes you
for some reason and has been poisoning your name by telling stories
about you? Did someone bully or devalue you as a child? Who or what is
YOUR greatest enemy?
Actually, your greatest enemy is the same one as mine
and it’s everybody else’s as well! Most of our enemies come into our
lives for awhile and create some damage, but then we look back from
years in the future and often we see that they are gone! The emotional
scars may remain, but they are gone. The greatest enemy of all is the
one who has “had the power of death” in our
lives. His greatest weapon has been our “fear of
death,” a fear of the future and what it
might hold. But our Lord, Jesus Christ, has won
the victory, even over death.
As we continue our study through sermons on the nature
and abilities of God, we come on our journey to the Book of Hebrews. By
the way, a lady recently sent a humorous email about this Book, that it
had helped her marriage by creating a more equitable division of chores
in their home. She pointed out that the husband is supposed to get up in
the morning and make the coffee or tea because, as she pointed out to
him, Scripture teaches that – “He Brews!”
Here’s a quote about death by Henry Van Dyke, who was
a professor of literature at Princeton University and later he was a
U.S. ambassador to the Netherlands and Luxembourg: He said, “I
am standing upon the seashore. A ship at my side spreads her white sails
to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean. She is an object of
beauty and strength. I stand and watch her until at length she hangs
like a speck of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle
with each other. Then, someone at my side says; 'There, she is gone!'
'Gone where?' Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in
mast and hull and spar as she was when she left my side and she is just
as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port. Her
diminished size is in me, not in her. And just at the moment when
someone at my side says, 'There, she is gone!' There are other eyes
watching her coming, and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
'Here she comes!' And that is dying.”
God and all His holy angels are excitedly waiting for
us on the other side. Death doesn’t sound particularly exciting to us,
but our Lord Jesus has indeed won the Victory. The state we
call “death” could not keep the Son of God
in its clutches, and by trusting in the Son, you no longer need to fear. Through the grace of God, through our faith in Him, small though it
may seem to be, it becomes simply a doorway. He is “the
Door of the sheep” as recorded in John 10:7. He continued, “I
am the door, If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in
and out and find pasture” (John 10:9). He added, “…I
have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more
abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for
the sheep” (John 10:10-11). And this
life lasts FOREVER.
He gave His life for you and for me, that we may enter
through Him into the safety of our real home, which is not here at all,
for it is with Him in eternity. Paul the Apostle understood this great
and surprising victory of Almighty God over death, and though Paul has
been “dead” for 2000 years, he is very much alive and he whispers to our
hearts today: “Behold, I tell you a mystery: We
shall not all sleep(die), but we shall all
be changed – in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye… the dead will be
raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must
put on incorruption, and this mortal must 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(hell),
where is your victory? ...but thanks be to God, who gives us the victory
through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:51-58).
Dr. Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote of “driving
with my children to my wife's funeral where I was to preach the sermon.
As we came into a small town we saw in front of us a truck that stopped
for a red light. It was the biggest truck I ever saw in my life, and the
sun was shining on it at just the right angle that took its shadow and
spread it across the snow on the field beside it. As the shadow covered
the field, I said, "Look children at that truck, and look at its shadow.
If you had to be run over, which would you rather be run over by? Would
you rather be run over by the truck or by the shadow?" My youngest child
said, "The shadow couldn't hurt anybody!" "That's right," I continued,
"and death is like a truck, but the shadow is all that ever touches the
Christian. The truck ran over the Lord Jesus. Only the shadow has gone
over mother."
Those in humanity, whether in what is called the
“church” or not, often don’t understand life very well. We spend our
lives like little children, pretending that something is not true when
it is, and the reverse is accurate about us also. We pretend that money,
gold and diamonds have value when they don’t, and we pretend that death
does not apply to us, but it does. And sadly only a relative few are
willing to trust in the reality that Christ died to free us from fear.
The hymn writer Fanny Crosby wrote more than 6,000
gospel songs. Though blinded by an illness at the age of 6 weeks, she
never became bitter. One time a preacher sympathetically remarked, "I
think it is a great pity that the Master did not give you sight when He
showered so many other gifts upon you." She replied, "Do
you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would
have been that I should be born blind?" "Why?"
asked the surprised clergyman. "Because when I get
to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that
of my Savior!" One of Miss Crosby's hymns was so personal that
for years she kept it to herself. Kenneth Osbeck, author of several
books on hymns, says it was revealed to the public in this way: "One
day at a Bible conference in Northfield, Massachusetts, Miss Crosby was
asked by D.L. Moody to give a personal testimony. At first she
hesitated, then quietly rose and said, 'There is one hymn I have written
which has never been published. I call it my soul's poem. Sometimes when
I am troubled, I repeat it to myself, for it brings comfort to my
heart.' She then recited while many wept, 'Someday the silver cord will
break, and I no more as now shall sing; but oh, the joy when I shall
wake within the palace of the King! And I shall see Him face to face,
and tell the story--saved by grace!'" At the age of 95, Fanny
Crosby passed into glory and she saw the face of Jesus.
We stand on the seashore, gazing after Henry Van Dyke,
Paul the Apostle, Dr. Barnhouse, Fanny Crosby and so many more who have
gone before us. We look out to the sea of life and remember our loved
ones, wondering about the journey, and our question might be: “Will I be
making that journey as well?” The answer is yes, of course, but we don’t
need to fear because our Lord Jesus has also made that journey, but with
a difference. He won the victory over death for us all; and through His
death and resurrection we are released from the need to be afraid. Our
part in all this that we call “life” and “death” and life again, is to
trust in Him.
Lord, thank You for dying so that I might live. I
give You my fear, for I know You have brought me to utter safety. I
trust in You now and praise Your Holy Name. In Jesus Name. Amen.
