Victory Over Fear

 Hebrews 2:14-15

"Since then the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself, likewise also partook of the same, that through His death He might render powerless him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and might deliver those who through the fear of death were subject to slavery all their lives."

Unregenerate men spend their lives slaves to the fear of death. His master--the liar and destroyer--uses it to enslave and control him. One of the most sobering confessions in the best selling book Being Mortal is the author's admittance that man doesn't even know why decay and death exists. Having denied the existence of the Holy God and the wages of--the very existence of sin--death is a mystery to them, and so they struggle to attack it, to seek cures for a humanly incurable disease--sin. They know it is inexorable, inescapable, and no respecter of persons. They are "on the list." And even more alarming is that it may come for them "accidentally." They fear that over which they have no control.

And they know that after death there is a judgment. As Paul reveals to us in Romans, the existence of the Creator God to whom they will be accountable is undeniable--the majesty of His creation, the complex simplicity of its interdependence, the power it demonstrates all cry out to every man, "I AM." Each has been born with a conscience as well. He enters the world knowing that there is a right and wrong and that right and wrong are not a construct of the human mind. The smallest child need not be taught that good and evil, right and wrong, exists and that there are consequences. Paul also tells us that a culture at its lowest, a God-denying culture, while shaking its fist in the face of God, knows there will be a judgment after death. God has put eternity in the heart of every man. Yet, despite their fear of death, the unconquerable enemy, they prefer judgment rather then the reality of the offer of the gift of eternal life to all those who will humbly confess their sin. their need of the Savior, and put their faith in the One who defeated death for the repentant sinner. A man need not be a slave to the enemy who delightfully wields the weapon of death to enchain him. He can know the truth experientially, and the truth will set him free!"

As those set free, we must prayerfully and wordfully seek those in the culture seeking the Savior. We must by the Spirit's enabling point the lost and fearful to the One who broke the chains of death to set the slaves to sin and the devil free. We must not be appalled at their sin, but at their blindness, and pray that God can use us to show them that they can be more than conquerors through the loving, freeing, work of the cross.

Do we not know as God's child that death has no power over us? Do we not know that God has prepared an eternal place for us in the Father's House--where death and sorrow will never set its foot? Do we not know that He walks hand in hand with us through death, diminishing its substance to but a shadow, dispelling the fear of its evil and replacing it with the comfort of His rod and staff, His presence? Do we not know that he who has put his faith in The Resurrection and the Life shall never die? Do we know that to be absent from the body is to pass from life to death, to forever be in His presence? How can we not tell them!

And is not death for the believer an opportunity to speak in our last moments of the wonders of His grace? And can we not cry out by His empowering grace that at the weakest physical moment of our life, we will win the greatest spiritual victory? "There is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." Can we not by resting in His love for us and His promise of life-unending cry out, "We serve a Living Savior! He is risen! The tomb is empty! Death has no grip on us! He alone can rescue you from the fear of the powerless, defeated, enemy death through your trusting in His freely offered gift of eternal life through the shed blood of His son.

"Oh, death, God has given us the victory over you and your "enslaver." "Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ."

"Rejoice, rejoice, O Christian! Lift up your voice and sing, eternal Hallelujahs through Jesus Christ, your King, the Hope of all who seek Him, the Help of all who find . . . You ask me how I know He lives, He lives within my heart!"