Hebrews 2:14 – Forasmuch then 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;

Hebrews 2:15 – And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.

Hello readers, looking at death today. Death applies to all of us, it is a universal fact of life. We live under its sentence, under it’s law, under it’s certainty and inevitability. Often it isn’t at the forefront of our minds, because it seems so far away, it’s always so far away… until it isn’t. It is something we have no say in, we try to delay, and push it away into the future that we don’t want to reach. We don’t want to die, but there comes a point where we all die. Death is scary, it is an unknown. Deciding not to confront it doesn’t make it any less real, any less sure.

Where did death come from? Well God didn’t create us to die, something went wrong somewhere and the Bible tells us. God’s word is written so we can know things, it is God communicating in hard copy to mankind so we can be FULLY prepared and equipped for this life and the next. On to death… death is an introduced species, it was introduced into creation in the beginning. The creation was perfect at the start, there was no death. God created mankind in his image, he breathed into Adam the breath of life and man became a living soul. The Bible says of Jesus Christ, who is that Creator God of Genesis 1, that in him was life and the life was the light of men. Jesus’ life lights a human being up, someone who knows Jesus Christ has the light of life in their eyes, in their heart, his life illuminates them spiritually. There is no life apart from God, seeing as life comes from God. He alone gives life, he alone takes life. Jesus Christ said that God is not the God of the dead but of the living. God is in the life business, man wasn’t created to die, but after creation something went badly wrong, and death entered the creation. How and why? Well… because man sinned.

Sin and death are inextricably linked. Because of sin, disobedience to God, man died in the garden of Eden. All of humanity’s issues stem from this, because this problem fundamentally altered mankind, there was a curse introduced, it explains evil, sickness, violence, corruption… the whole 9 yards. God said to Adam that if he ate of the tree he would SURELY die, and die Adam and Eve did. They died spiritually instantly, and then physically later on. And death has passed upon all men, because all have sinned. Adam and Eve had kids, from whom all of the human race comes from, thus we have all inherited Adam’s sin marred image. It all traces back to the start, to the genesis, to Genesis. We are just the result of generation after generation of humanity spanning back to Adam. Just reproductions of Adam over and over again, with the same issues… all of humanity just iterations after iterations, with nothing to break the death cycle, nothing to liberate mankind from the devastation that mankind plunged himself in to and from there was seemingly no mistake. After all death is a law, we are created fallen, and then we die… that’s Satan’s kingdom for you, a kingdom of death and destruction. A broken kingdom, a world consisting of darkness and wickedness, death reigning, vanity, lust. Satan rules with death. Man was created in God’s image, but that image was marred by disobedience to God, transgression of the law, and mankind fell. Sin is that serious, God is that holy. And when you look back at your sin plagued life, it stinks doesn’t it? Humanity has a sin problem, and thus a death problem. With sin comes the curse and scourge death. All have sinned, all die.

Satan was the conduit by which sin and death came. He rules mankind with death. That’s what he has to offer mankind, death. Because Satan is not Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ is life, Satan has no life to offer, only death. After all Satan is not God, and in God is life, and because as Jesus said Satan has nothing in him, Satan has no life in and of himself. Yet because of Genesis, this world’s kingdom became Satan’s domain, he is the prince of this world, it’s dark ruler. You may not see him, but spiritually this world is under his yoke, you see the consequences of him in the words and deeds of humans globally. When you get born into this world, you are born into his kingdom, under Satan’s yoke, born into the kingdom of darkness, born in sin, born under the curse. And hence you are born to die. We are sold under sin, we are part of a big market of which the commodity is human souls… slaves in the market of sin. Satan has you bound up, and he doesn’t want to release his hold on your soul, after all your soul is shackled in sin, corruption and death. Not what God had planned for you, but mankind yielded to Satan, and yields to him today. Humanity spiritually under bondage, in affliction. Through death, Satan has an eternal hold on your soul, he wins, because he is a murderer by nature, and through death he victories over us all. And futhermore if you are unsaved, it doesn’t end at death, futhermore… the consequence is hell, because once you die, if you die unsaved in your sins, you will go to hell. Hell wasn’t made for you, it was made for the devil and his angels, but that’s the only place left for you if you die on his team. Unfortunately sin also made us enemies of God, and that needs to be fixed, choosing Satan’s side is bad, because you can’t win, (maybe in the short term you might) but eternally you cannot and will not. Humanity wasn’t created for sin, death and hell, yet you will go there if Satan’s kingdom is YOUR kingdom. Are you in the world? Or OF the world?

So death has reigned for all of human history. It’s got everyone, from the least to the greatest, from the young to the old, to the rich and the poor. Death is enemy, because is lingers over us, we are under it’s law. But Jesus Christ changed all of this. He has turned death from a great enemy, to something else entirely. Jesus Christ has changed death. Every human being is a sinner, everyone had the same problem. Because every human came from Adam, they were of sinful, fallen seed. But Jesus’ father was God, he is God in the flesh. It’s a completely new seed line, untainted, uncorrupted, without sin. Jesus did no sin, and thus death had no hold on him. After all death is for sinners, but Jesus did no sin. Death has no claim on Jesus’ perfect life. Death could not hold him, Jesus defeated death, and he has the keys of death and hell now, he ransacked the devil’s power, completely destroying his vicelike grip on humanity that lasted for so long. Jesus was born a man, yet without sin, in a world full of defilement, yet undefiled. Jesus would’ve never died, and no man could’ve taken his life either… but he laid it down himself, when he was on the cross he gave up the ghost. For us humans, our life is taken, it is beyond our control, but Jesus was in control of his death, when he had completed his course he gave up his own life. John 10:17,18 – Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.

Sin meant that death was the final death knell to our soul. Once we die, it’s over. The Bible says it is appointed unto man once to die, and after that the judgement. So death is a horrible thing for an unbeliever. Sin, death and hell all combine in a lethal cocktail for the unbeliever. It is why the gospel is so great, it is why people should fear God, it is why people should tell others about  Jesus Christ. We live in a day called the day of grace, God’s Spirit shed forth into the world, pleading with the unbeliever, while the unbeliever knows not what the stakes are. Death has a big old sting in Satan’s kingdom, in fact, death is the scepter of Satan’s kingdom. Death made it hopeless for us, living under that hopelessness, with the shroud of death and the end of life hanging over us. It puts a man in bondage not having life, having no eternal life, having no assurances beyond the current breath you are taking. Satan’s kingdom really isn’t great, and in fact it’s finished.

God has changed what death means through Jesus Christ.Whereas for an unbeliever death is final, and denies a human forever of the life and blessedness that God wanted for him… now for a believer, death is a pathway to eternal life. Practically in this life we die with Christ spiritually when we get saved, practically we can die to ourself and abide in him and become more and more Christlike as we are lead by the Spirit of Christ in us, and in the future physically, when we die, death is what will be the falling off of the sin cursed mortal, and that incorruptible seed in us started at salvation will blossom into everlasting life in Christ Jesus when we sleep with him, and then are raised in new glorified bodies to possess all God has for us for all of eternity. Death for a believer is actually the pathway to eternal life, death has no hold on a believer. Jesus made that crystal clear. Jesus died for us so we need not ever die. Sure we may physically die, but that’s just passing on to our eternal life outside this sin cursed body. Death for a believer is liberation, but death for an unbeliever is the one way ticket to a hopeless eternity.

God has changed death, and transformed it. Jesus had the keys of death and hell. When you get saved, Jesus comes to live in you, You are united with him spiritually, he lives in you and you in him. It’s why marriage is so special, its a picture of a spiritual truth of salvation. Fornication and adultery and any sexual deviancy is a violation at a spiritual level of the picture of salvation, it’s why these acts are so bad, and indicative of spiritual problems in the person in it. Because you are married to him, you are married to him in his life, because he has risen from the dead. You are married to his life, his blessing, his purity,his light. In him is life… in him, you will never see death. Jesus redeemed the human race from the corruption of sin. His kingdom is one of life and light. He can redeem you out of the slave market of sin, purchased with his own blood. He changes what death means. Beyond death Satan cannot touch you, being baptized spiritually into Jesus means you are beyond his reach already. Just like Pharaoh and his army being engulfed in the Red Sea, while the Israelite passed by on dry land, Satan can pursue you no further. He cannot pursue you beyond the red sea of Jesus’ blood. What death means for you can be very different things. Sure, we might all be under the law of physical death, but the ramifications, the consequences, what it means are vastly different between an unbeliever and a believer. Indeed the Bible says there is a new law… Romans 8:2 – For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.

Satan’s just a spoiler and a destroyer. You are a human being created by God. He hates you, he wants to ruin your life. He is a murderer. Death is his ultimate act, he wants to kill you. If you die in your sin you will be entombed forever in that in hell. You’ll never know life and life eternal, you’ll be in bondage forever, both before u die and after. You wont cease to exist, just you’ll be in hell. What the Bible calls twice dead, and the second death, because the second death is final, but the second death has no power on a believer who has overcome death through faith in the blood of the Lamb. Satan will have effectively destroyed you if you go to hell. Satan is on the loose in this world currently, he’s its leader. But Jesus can save you out of this mess. Humanity is in sin, lost, diseased, corrupted. God knows this, the instant man sinned, God began to pull man back, revealing himself and his ways to mankind, and ultimately made the perfect way back, and the only way back to himself through himself, his Son Jesus Christ. Jesus came entered it all, lived perfectly, raised from dead and extends the whole solution to it all, to our sin. Jesus changed what death means. What death means to you depends ENTIRELY on where you stand with Jesus Christ. In him, death has no power on you, so little power on you, just like the three Hebrew children who had been in the fire yet not even the smell of fire was on them, death will never have power over you. Death has no sting, grave has no victory in Christ, I believe in the empty tomb, someone, the Saviour who defeated death and extends that victory to me freely in himself, someone I can believe in and be saved by. The Bible says choose life… but will you? Death can mean life for you, or it can mean forever dead for you… living in death in hell for eternity. That’s no future for you, and not a future God wants for you. Trust the Lord Jesus Christ with your soul today.

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