Hebrews 9:27(New International Version 1984, 1984)

FearElderly Care Ministry

27 Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment,

55 “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” 56 The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. 57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Hello, how is everyone doing today? I am glad to be back here with all of you and today I wanted to start off by reading you part of a passage from one of the devotionals I have been reading.[1]

Fear

Some days I am wrought with fear.

A private battle with what ifs and what thens

O Lord, I admit I am terrified of ambulances and medical tests.

Of bad news, broken bones, and drawn out illness

Here I am at this late date, and I’m afraid I don’t even know the Bible as

I should.

I feel so vulnerable, Lord.

Lift me out of this pit of despair and draw me close.

Hopefully as you can guess by now, today I wanted to spend our time focusing on this topic of fear. How many of you can identify with one or more of the fears that the writer mentioned in this passage?

The author speaks of her fear of medical tests.

Medical tests are pretty fearful aren’t they? Perhaps you know someone who found out they have a tumor. A biopsy is done and you must wait as they analyze the tissue to see if it’s cancerous. That is an extremely fearful time.

I might be less than half the age of most of you, but I have experienced the fear of a positive medical test result. When I was about 10 I think, I had a routine TB test done. They poke you with this four-pronged needle like thing. You watch the spot over the next few days and see if it flares up. If it does that is a sign that you might be infected with TB. Well mine flared up. So I had to get another test. I remember as I was waiting in the doctor’s office for them to administer the next test, I started crying and told my mom, “I don’t want to die.” I was so afraid. It turned out it was negative and I was greatly relieved.

The author also speaks of her fear of drawn out illness.

Perhaps someone who was very close to you got Alzheimer’s and you had to watch as they slowly deteriorated. Perhaps you are afraid that that very thing might happen to you. Maybe ever time you forget something, your fear grows.

Fear is a powerful emotion, isn’t it? For young and old.

So what do we do with these fears? What can we do? Well, one option is to try and control everything. I have a friend who is so afraid of kidney stones that he drinks tons of water everyday thinking that that will keep him from getting them.

But how much can we really control? Can we really control our body? Can we keep our body from breaking down? No.

So, if we can’t control our fears, we try to ignore them.

I want to talk now about the ultimate fear of mortal human beings. And that is our fear of spiders. No.

Death is the ultimate fear. Do you agree?

Death has been described as the ultimate statistic. 1 out of 1 die. I am going to die. You are going to die. We can control things as best we can, but, at best, we can only prolong the inevitable. So we try to ignore it. There are some people who have pretty successfully ignored the fact that death is coming. They think, well, there isn’t much I can do to prevent it, so might as well not think about it.

A former co-worker of mine suddenly died of a brain aneurism this past week. There was no warning. Death is like a brick wall that we are driving towards. We don’t know how far away it is, but we will eventually hit it. We all need to think about death. It would be foolish not too.

What is on the other side of that wall? Does life just end? Or is there something else?

The bible says, “man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgment.”

If that is true, then the next question logically follows, “would we pass the test?” Would you pass the test? Standing before God, could you claim righteousness? Every thing you have ever done or thought will be uncovered and laid bare. No, none of us would pass the test. We deserve to be punished. I am going to be real honest with you guys here. I might seem like a nice guy on the outside, but I have done some pretty shameful things. In 7th grade, I figured out how to hack the software in the library and lowered the passing score on book report tests. I did this, because the more tests you pass, the more points you get and you could redeem those points for prizes. I would take and pass tests on books that I didn’t even read. I deceived the librarian into thinking that I was an avid reader. I deceived my parents too. I think that is what brings me the most guilt. When I get to the judgment seat of God, those scenes will be shown. I am sure you have things in your past that are just as shameful.

So what is our best hope now? We are on a collision course with judgment. A judgment that we have no chance of passing. So we might fall back into the well, might as well not think about it then.

I want to read our second verse for today.

This verse tells us, yes, the sting of death is sin. Because of sin, we will be condemned because we have broken God’s law.

Death has defeated us. But, in the next verse, everything changes. Our Lord Jesus Christ gives us victory over death. He removes the sting. He has removed the judgment that awaits us. On the cross, he was judged in our place and because of his sacrifice God sees us as righteous.

All we need to do to claim his victory is confess that we are sinners, place our belief in his sacrifice for us, and make him Lord over our lives. Why did Jesus do this for us you might ask? Because he loves you and he loves me.

So, death is no longer the ultimate fear. Billy Graham has said this, “I have a certainty about eternity that is a wonderful thing, and I thank God for giving me that certainty. I do not fear death. I may fear a little bit about the process, but not death itself, because I think the moment that my spirit leaves this body, I will be in the presence of the Lord.”

If what I have just told you is the truth, then the most important you ever do in your entire life is claim this victory through Jesus Christ.

I want to make one other point. Some of you might be thinking, how can I trust the Bible about death? Well, the Bible, is the ultimate source on death, because in it we find the words of the only one who has gone through death and has come back to tell us about it. And if you do not believe in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, that it actually happened, I encourage you to let us know that we may explain to you the historical facts.

[1] Missy Buchanan, Living with Purpose in a Worn-out Body(Nashville: Upper Room Books, 2008), 82.