Go back with me to Hebrews 2,
Hebrews 2. Let's look at two verses in Hebrews
chapter 2, verses 14 and 15. For as much
men as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, he also himself
likewise took part of the same, that through death he might destroy
him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Not that
Satan kills anybody. God says, I kill, and I make
the law. But he brought in sin, which is the power of death.
So that's what he's saying. But Christ came to crush the
serpent's head, to put away sin, and deliver them, verse 15, to
deliver them, his people, who through fear of death are all
their lifetime subject to bondage. This bondage, this fear of death. Now I hope this will be a comfort,
give peace and some freedom from this fear of death. All human
beings fear death. They just do. Because it's a
certain death. There's no way we can avoid this. It's appointed. Job, I just read
Job 14. Job said he was waiting for his
chance. All the days of my appointed
time, he said, I'm waiting, waiting for my chance. He said, God's
going to call and I'm going to answer. And he's going to have
a, he's going to rejoice in that which he had done. Go with me
to Genesis 5. I listened to my pastor preach
a message on this, and he has dozens of messages on death. Dozens. One in particular that
I recommended that everyone listen to a long time ago was, Let's
Talk About Dying. That was, if you listen to it,
a great, great blessing. Something we need to talk about,
not avoid, certainly not shrink back from. Genesis 5, and this
is how he began. I listened to a message by him
on this recently. This is how he began. He began
by reading Genesis 5. Look at verse 5. All the days
that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. Verse 8. All the
days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. Verse 27. All the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. Verse 31, all the days of Lamech,
Noah's father, were 777 years, and he died. What do all these
people have in common? They all died. They all died. Hebrews 11, my favorite, one
of my favorite chapters, it says these all died in the faith. Now death should not be feared
by God's people, but death should be feared by the world and by
unbelievers, because it is the end. It's the end of everything. And then there's judgment. And
then there's punishment, and they go out. The world doesn't
know anything about what lies out there, and so it's the unknown,
and everyone fears the unknown, and it's darkness. So the world
should fear death. They should fear Him. who says,
I kill and make a lamb. But believers should not fear
death. I'm going to give us several things to alleviate, help us
with this fear of death. Six things at least. But believers
should not fear death. God, there are too many scriptures
concerning it and promises concerning it. And fear of death brings
a reproach upon our Lord. It just does, before the world.
And it gives us great doubts and fears and troubles and sorrow. I like what Matthew Henry one
time said. He said, unbelief is its own
worst punishment. If we don't trust the Lord, if
we don't believe Him, we make ourselves miserable. Not only do we bring reproach
upon our Lord who just promises and promises and promises. Our
Lord kept telling His disciples that He was going to die, didn't
He? How many times did He tell them that? He kept preparing
them. But He said, I'm going to live. And He kept telling them too,
you're going to live with me. But they just didn't want to
talk about that, remember? So when it happened, they were
just distraught. Well, unbelief is its own worst
punishment. It deprives us of peace, of joy,
and assurance. He said here, we have this bondage. Our Lord came to deliver us from
the fear of death, which is bondage. Fear is bondage. It holds you
captive to it, that worry. You can't get away from it. It's
bondage. It binds you, holds you captive
to it. It's like being in a prison and
you're miserable and you're in darkness and you're sorrowful
and you can't get out. Now some people, the world tries
to ignore. How does the world deal with
that? They try to ignore it. Let's just not talk about it.
I don't want to talk about it. But it won't go away, will it? And then there are some who joke
about it. Make jokes about it. There's nothing funny about it. Not at all. In fact, we should
not joke about anything concerning our Lord. Never use scriptures
in any light way, in a joking manner, to talk about things
or to make some kind of light, flippant comment using God's
Word. Don't do it. But people joke about it. I heard
this comedian who was known as being a drunk said, well, he's
up there sipping martinis and telling jokes. No, he's not. And then there are those who
try to cover it and mask it, you know, funerals. Try to mask it. I don't believe
in having an open casket. I just don't like it. During
the funeral, I just don't like it. They're not there. When they
came to mourn over our Lord, the angels told them, why are
you looking for the living among the dead? That's not there. That's just a shell. I like, that's the reason I like
going out to the cemetery, that's reality. It's not masked over,
it's not flowery, it's not, this is reality. And there we talk
about what's happened, and we're going to put that body in the
ground, but if they're a believer, six feet earth, not going to
keep it down. A sealed casket with a concrete vault ain't going
to keep it down. Not going to keep the worms away
from it either. Behold a mystery. We're going to look at that in
1 Corinthians 15. The truth is, it's not a thing to fear for
God's people. We need to face it. We need to
find faith to have freedom from it. It's not a thing to fear. It's something to live for. Didn't Ecclesiastes say it's
better than birth? Now, I know we have a will to
live. God gives, you know, everyone
a will to live. And we should not have a death
wish, per se. But God makes His people willing
in the day of His power to lay down this mortality. Paul said, I have a desire to
depart and be with the Lord. Turn there, before I forget,
2 Corinthians. Look at 2 Corinthians 5. 2 Corinthians
5. I didn't write this down. I don't
want to forget it because this is wonderful. Paul's testimony.
Paul and Silas and Timothy are writing this together to the
church. And it says in verse, look at chapter 4. Where do you
begin? Verse 14, knowing that He which
raised up the Lord Jesus shall raise up us also by Him, by Jesus,
shall present us with Him. And verse 16, we faint not, our
outward man perish. We're getting old. It's wrinkling,
it's decaying. It's very evident in it that
this body is shutting down. Yet the inward man is renewed
day by day. Now our light affliction, and
we've looked at that before, light compared to what we deserve,
light compared to what some people suffer, light compared to our
blessings, light compared to what we're going to see and experience. It's but for a moment, works
for us, verse 17, a far more exceeding, there it is, exceeding
eternal weight of glory. We look not at things which are
seen, but at things which are not seen, for the things which
are seen are temporal. Things that are not seen are
eternal. We know this. Keep reading. We know this. If
our earthly house, this body, this tabernacle were dissolved,
we'd have a building of God. A house not made with hands,
eternal in the heaven, a spiritual one. In this we groan, earnestly
desiring to be clothed upon with this immortality, our house which
is from heaven. If so being clothed, we shall
not be found naked. We're in this tabernacle, we
groan. Burdened. Not that we just should lay off
our troubles, but clothed upon with this. that mortality might
be swallowed up of life. It goes on and on. Talk about
that. But Paul said, verse 8, look at verse 8. Verse 6, we're
always confident knowing that while we're at home in the body,
we're absent from the Lord. We walk by faith, not by sight.
We're confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the
body, to be present with the Lord. How could he say that? Why would
he say that? He obviously loved the Lord. He knew the Lord. If you know and love someone,
you want to be with them, don't you? Do you want to be with the
one you love that departed you? Well, that begs the question
then. Do you love the Lord Jesus Christ? That's who wants to be
with Him. So Paul said, I have a desire
to depart and be with the Lord, which is far better. He says,
to die is gain. Death is swallowed up in victory.
You read that? Swallowed up death. We live in
this world that's full of death. It's going to be swallowed up.
Life more abundant. Joy unspeakable. Full of glory. So we don't need
to ignore it, but rather talk about it and befriend it. I'm afraid that when I come to
die, I won't have dying grace. Someone asked Spurgeon that.
You remember that story? A woman asked Charles Spurgeon
that. She said, Brother Spurgeon, I don't feel like I have dying
grace. And he said, well, are you dying?
She said, I don't think so. He said, you don't need it, do
you? God's grace is sufficient. And we've beheld many dying saints, and God's grace
is sufficient. His grace is sufficient. It always
has been in every trial, in every tribulation, in every trouble,
whatever we've gone through. Every affliction, every suffering,
every pain, every sorrow, God's grace has been there. He's been
with us, like Gabe said. Marvin, no, Darwin did too. He's
been with us, hasn't he? He's promised to be. What about
death? Were you with your loved one when they died? Were you
holding their hand? Oh yeah. And it ain't going to
be Simon Peter. It's going to be the Lord Himself.
So His grace is sufficient. Now, that being said, we don't
need to worry about tomorrow. We don't need to wish for tomorrow.
We don't live for tomorrow. We should right now rejoice in
the Lord, right now, tonight, today. We should rejoice and
be at peace and have comfort and confidence right now. Rejoice
in the Lord always. In everything, give thanks. Not
be thinking about tomorrow. Sufficient, our Lord said, for
that tomorrow are the worries, the doubt, the evil, the troubles
for that day. So just be rejoicing in the Lord
right now. Some people live in the past,
trying to get over their past. There's nothing you can do about
it. And it gives you great trouble,
doesn't it? What if only I'd done this? If only I hadn't done
that. If I'd have. If I'd have. Be done with old
Mr. If I'd have. It's gone. Paul said nobody hated
his past worse than Paul the Apostle. Him thinking about what he did
to his brethren, it would have torn him anyway. He said, forget
those things. Forget it. Forget it. And there's
those that wish for the future, you know. What if this? What if this happens? What if
that happens? Leave it to the Lord. Okay? Aren't you glad? We need to be glad. Aren't you
glad that we don't know what tomorrow holds? There's going
to be some trouble. And we wouldn't be able to live
today for worrying about that. But if we know who holds tomorrow,
who does all things well, rest. Go to sleep. Rest. All right, let me give you six
things. And this is not original. I got this from my pastor, who
probably stole it from Spurs. Alright, six things that will
free us from the fear of death. Turn to 1 Corinthians 15. The Lord Jesus Christ removed
the sting of death, which is sin. This is why the world, though
they won't admit it, fears death, because their conscience God even said there's no peace
for the wicked. I've read many deathbed accounts
by unbelievers. It's horrifying. Even those that
claim to be atheists and so forth. It's horrifying. Read some of
those accounts. Have you ever done that? Read it. Because man
has a conscience, a law of God written on his heart that says
you're guilty. And man tries to sear that conscience.
Tries to silence that conscience. But God won't let it go away.
But our Lord has removed the sin that plagues our conscience. The sting of death. Look at 1
Corinthians 15. Look at verse 54. When this corruptible shall
have put on incorruption, and this mortal
shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass
a say that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory."
Nobody thinks of death as a victory, do they? It is for God's people. What? Victory over death. over
sin, because our Lord obtained the victory. O death, where is
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death
is sin. The strength of sin is the law.
But thanks be to God which giveth us the victory. Where? How? Through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Lord came to be made sin. It was not just a doctrine. It
was Him removing that thing that causes us to fear death. Sin. Judgment. Punishment. Hell. He came and endured that. The judgment of God. The wrath
of God. The punishment of God. He went through hell on Calvary
Street. He paid for the sins of God's people. He put sin away.
Strength of sin is the law. Christ fulfilled the law, but
the law said, the soul that sinneth shall surely die, and God laid
on him the iniquity of us all. His soul was made an offering
for sin. The law is satisfied. God is
well pleased for his righteousness sake. The law has been satisfied,
and there is no more wrath for God's people. There is no wrath,
because there's no sin. We just read in Hebrews 1, when
he by himself purged our sin, sat down and wrote it in his
book. He sat down. I love the story of Stephen.
I've got that written down here somewhere, but I might not get
to it. But Stephen was being stoned. But he didn't fear death. And the pain he must have been
going through when those rocks were hitting his head and hitting
his body. It says he looked up and he said, I see the Son of
God standing. Our Lord, who was seated, stood
up in honor of his son, Stephen, his martyr, who was dying on
his behalf. The one whom he died for was
now dying for him. And our Lord stood up in his
honor and looked him right in the eye and said, it's okay.
And Stephen just, it says he went to sleep. Doesn't say he died a horrible,
excruciating death, screaming and crying all night. Went to
sleep. You know, this story you've heard
before, but there's a little boy that was stung by a bumblebee. Bumblebee stung this little boy,
and he came running into his house, and his mother was crying,
and his mother sat him down, and the stinger was still in his
hand, and she pulled the stinger out of his hand. And he doctored
up, you know, some salve. And he went back outside. In
a minute he came running back in and said, Mom, that bumblebee's
back. She said, Honey, he can't bother you anymore. His stinger's
gone. Our Lord removed the sting. The
sting of death. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Christ Jesus. No. Do you believe that? Do you believe Romans 7? That's
Romans 8 verse 1. What's Romans 7? In my flesh
dwelleth no good thing. How to do that, what I want to
do, I don't do. What I don't want to do, that's
what I do. Oh, wretched man that I am, who
shall deliver me? Jesus Christ came. And Romans
8 starts this way. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them that are in Jesus Christ. Now. He removed the stain. He removed the sin. Those people
in the houses in Egypt, the death angel was outside. My Lord had been warning them.
He's going to pass through. He's going to smite the Egyptians.
They were all in their houses. Under the blood, Mark. Now you
know surely there was some people in those houses that had very
little faith. There's some people that were
scared to death of death. You know that's it. And then
there was Moses. What do you think Moses was doing?
I bet he was eating that lamb. Moses is good, honey. Give me
another bite of that. I think I'll go take a nap. Trust in God. No doubt. No fear. You believe, you reckon? Moses believed God. Well, what
is Moses' hope? Why was Moses saved? Because
of his faith? No. One thing. The blood on that
door. They all saved one day. Those
with little faith were miserable, but still saved. And those with
great faith are confident that peace is still saved one way
by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, our Lord has removed
the sting of death. Secondly, I don't know, I'm running
out of time. Our Lord changed the nature of
death. Look at John 11. He changed the nature of death.
He took the sting of death, which is sin, and He changed the nature
of death. He calls it What? Sleep. Not death. He quit calling it death. Sleep. He came to Lazarus' hometown
where Mary and Martha were and he waited, you know, a couple
of days for Lazarus to die. You know the story. And they
were distraught. Him whom I love is sick. In verse
4, our Lord said, the sickness is not unto death. No sickness
of any child of God is going to end up in their death. It might take them to glory,
it might take them out of this life, but it's not death. It's the end of death. It's for
the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby. And that's everything we go through,
all the troubles, the trials, the sickness, the sorrow. It's
all for the glory of God. And now look at verse 11. Now
these things he said to his disciples, he said, Our friend Lazarus sleepeth,
that I go that I may awake him out of his sleep. The disciples
didn't understand. They thought he meant, well,
if he's asleep, he's doing fine, he's getting over the sickness. Our Lord said, Lazarus is dead. And down in verse 21, he came
and Martha came running, Lord, if you'd been here, my brother
had not died. Well, he was there. And I know that even now, whatsoever
thou wilt ask of God, God will give it to thee. And our Lord
said unto her, thy brother shall rise again. And Martha said unto
him, I know that he shall rise again at the resurrection of
the last day. Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection. Resurrection
is not a day, it's a person. Resurrection from death to life
is in Him. He that believeth in Me, though
he were dead, yet shall he live. And verse 26, I loved it. Whosoever
liveth and believeth in Me shall never die. Believe this out then. Do you believe this? Well then, why would we fear
death? Who do we believe? That's my next point. Our Lord
assures us of freedom from death in His Word. He just said that. You never die. It's not death. It's life. Death is swallowed
up in life. Now, many have died horrible
deaths. Hebrews 11 has attested that. A great cloud of witnesses. Some of them died horrible deaths.
And God gave them grace to endure the worst of deaths. Tortured, sawn asunder, stoned,
burned at the stake, and so forth. But it was instant glory. Instant
glory. Every one of us has been through
some kind of traumatic thing, okay? And when it's over, you
think, That didn't last that long. While you're going through
it, you think it's not going to end. But then when it's over,
well, instant glory. And Isaiah 65
says a former thing, won't we remember? We ain't going to remember. Oh, look what you went through,
Stephen. What? Oh, being stoned. That's nothing.
Oh, Daniel, look what you... Oh, Shadrach. What? Would they
do it again? In a heartbeat. In a heartbeat. Instant Lord. Twinkle in my eye. You know, we don't, we're his
little children. It's God's mercy that little
children, you know, the Lord makes them so resilient, and
their memories are so short. Their memories are so short.
And some terrible, some traumatic things can happen to little children,
and yet they don't remember it later on. And we're his little children,
and we're not going to remember it. The Lord gives us assurance of
His resurrection. Assurance of His resurrection.
It says, in Adam all die. It's appointed unto man once
to die. But in Christ, all may die. In that text that we looked at,
1 Corinthians 15, that Kelly read, it says, If in this life
only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.
The world is living for the world and grabbing all the gusto they
can. Well, here we are on Wednesday night, you've worked hard all
day and you come in here. And why are you in here if there's
nothing to this? Isn't this a waste of time? No, in reality, everything else
is a waste of time. Everything else is vanity. This
is not a waste of time. This is not vain work. This is
your life. That's what Moses said to the
people. He said, we're of all men most miserable if it's just
this, if we're hoping in a dead cry. But now is Christ risen
from the dead, He's become the first proof of them that slept.
So our Lord gives us assurance and freedom from fear of death
by His resurrection from the dead and by His death. Okay? Go back to our text. It says, as much as the children
were partakers of flesh and blood, he took part of the same. He
chose to die. He didn't have to. And he chose
a horrible death, the worst death that anybody has ever gone through. Worse than anybody's ever gone
through, because he endured hell. People say that all the time.
Don't you ever say that, going through hell. Don't do it. Our
Lord did. Nobody's ever gone through hell
on earth. But our Lord did. He died a most
horrible death at the hands of God, under the wrath and punishment
and judgment of God, under the anger of God. A horrible death. He sweat blood thinking about
it. And he cried on the cross. He'd never cried before, but
he did cry on that cross. My God, my God, you've forsaken
me. I thirst. So much in that I thirst. What all men in hell say. Our
Lord chose to die because we go through death. He was born,
he lived, he worked, he suffered, he died. He chose to die. He
laid down his life. Very few human beings would choose
to die. But he did. Why? Number one,
as a substitute. As a substitute for us. To die
the death that we deserve. Number two, as an example for
us. All died. In Adam, all died. Christ came, made of the seed
of Abraham, and he died. He went to the tomb. He went
in the grave. They laid his body. His family
mourned. His friends mourned. They thought,
it's over. We'll never see him again, didn't
they? They were distraught. The worst days of their life,
when they put his body, his disciples even. although he had been telling
them for a long time. But it was the worst three days
of their life when they put their Lord, the one they loved so much,
put his body in the grave. And they thought, it's over. It's not over. He'd been telling
them, it's not over. He chose to die as an example,
okay? You know, who better to give
you peace and comfort when you're going through something than
somebody who's gone through it? Let's say you have cancer and
you're faced with chemotherapy and radiation, which is terrible. It's terrible. Who better to
talk to about that than somebody who's been through it? If somebody
can sit you down and say, I've been through that, and tell you
what to expect, It'll make you feel better, right? Still got
to go through it, but it'll make you feel better. Our Lord went
to the grave. He went to the grave. Death is
no mystery to us. Christ went there and He came
back. And He told us, there's nothing
to fear. Be absent from the body, be present
with the Lord. And I want you to think about
this for just a minute, a few more minutes. He chose when he
would die. Would you live 969 years if you
could? That's how long Methuselah lived.
Don't you know? He lived in a sinful world like
we would live. Don't you know that in about 700 years he thought,
I'm ready to go. No, we've got 200 more. Isn't
it God's mercy that we don't have to live too long? The world
sure didn't believe that. If you know something about yourself,
you know something about this sinful world, if you're vexed
like Lot was in Sodom, you want out. Our Lord chose to live 33
years. That's it. That's shorted. That's less than
half of my life. I've lived over twice that much.
He chose to come to this earth and live, and how long he's going
to live? 33 years. That's it. Well, what can you get done in
33 years? Is that it? That's all he wanted here. That's all he needed at this.
Right? So he chose how long he'd live,
33 years. He chose, he's ordained how long
you live. Now our bounds are set. The number
of our days are with the Lord. We cannot pass them. My brother
at 21, my sister at 42, Mindy's mother at 54, and Joe at 62. The Lord did. He got the exact
day and hour. Seemed like a short time, didn't
it? Sixty-two. Here Nancy is in her eighties.
The Lord did that. That's like a bakery. Thirty-three
years. Short time. Seventy is too. Short
time. He chose how he would die. I wouldn't want to die like he
died. Would you? He did. Wow. That's faith in God. We're going to look at men mocking
Him Sunday. Oh, the love, the mercy, the
grace of our Lord in choosing to die like He did. Great suffering. And we will have to suffer some.
But it should give us a freedom from fear of death and knowing
that He died. He chose how long He would live. He chose how we would die. And
He chose how long we would live and how we would die. And His
grace is sufficient. And here's my last thing. He
promises to hear and answer our prayers, which gives us freedom
from fear of death. Most of the Psalms of David,
you know, David was a man who faced death all around him. Fathom this, but David, just
look at the map. You've got Jordan and Syria and
Lebanon and all these countries, Moab and all these countries
all around this little old state of Israel, country of Israel
about the size of New Jersey. And they all want him dead. They
want David dead. They can just kill that King
David. Oh, my, he faced death all around him. He's the one
that wrote Psalm 23. Though I walk through the valley
of the shadow of death, everybody wants me dead. All these enemies
surrounding me. Where's his hope? Thou art with
me. Whom shall I fear? The Lord is
my salvation. He promises to answer. That's
why, David, throughout the Psalms, most of the Psalms are prayers,
aren't they? Help, help, help, help. Most of the Psalms are
prayers in trouble, fears, death all around. Do you pray? Do you? Do you? There was a time you didn't.
Wasn't there? Do you now? Why? He must be His
child. I know people say they pray,
but let me ask you, do you pray for salvation? Forgiveness of
sins? For mercy? That's praying. Do you pray for grace? Do you pray for God's Kingdom? Our Lord said,
ask. He'll receive. Knock and it'll
be open. So freedom from fear of death
by looking to Him, looking to Him, trusting Him, calling on
Him. We sing a song, oh what pain
we often go through. Oh what peace we often forfeit.
Oh what needless pain we bear. All because we do not carry everything
to God in prayer. Everything. And let me give you
just a few more things here. We need to continue in prayer
because it makes us think on eternity. It makes us think on
things above. And it's a throne of grace. It's a throne of grace, not law,
grace. And it giveth more grace. And
it giveth more grace. We need to die daily. Remember
the message on the sentence of death? We need to consider always
all things in light of eternity. Because that's preparation. The more you converse it with
something, the more you think about something, the less fearful
you are of it. Okay? We need to hold loosely
to these things, these treasures, people and things. Hold loosely. Now, Pastor, you say, don't make
God break your fingers, let go of it. Because we've got to let
go. We've got to let go. They're on loan. Everything's
on loan. And we need to walk with our Lord and His people,
not the world. The world is not going to give
you any peace. They're going to give you the
opposite. When you talk with and walk with
the world who doesn't believe these things, the world whose
only hope and only wish and only live for the world, then you won't have any peace. You won't have any freedom from
death. Walk with God's people. Walk with the Lord. Do what you're
doing now, because this is where we get peace. All right, stand
with me.