The Fear of Death

The Fear of Death and the Gospel’s Answer

Come before you as a man afraid of death. Yet, I want us to look at this passage and I want to call us to courage. This passage, in this passage, the author of the Hebrews is talking to a people who are afraid of death, who are afraid of shrinking back to destruction.

And he calls them to courage by reminding them of the gospel. So we're going to look at this passage, we're going to look at fear of death and its solution to the gospel, and we're going to talk about very real sin.

That's all I'm going to show you now. Therefore the children of Aaron, flesh and blood, he himself, likewise, partook of the same things. In other words, Jesus himself became man, subject to death. You know, as our inclination to life and death, Jesus ran towards death, becoming incarnate, susceptible to death.

Through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death. That is death. Much that death refers to is not just death where your body and soul are ripped apart. It is also the eternal death, the eternal torment the soul undergoes if we are not founded in Christ.

It is also the suffering that we go through in this life. That is also death. The fear that a lot of people have is not necessarily of death, but of death as typically thought of, of a temporal suffering.

Remember, God told Adam that on this day he would surely die, right? And did he die that day? Yes, he did, because we understand that death is more than just. It is more than just the body and soul being ripped apart.

It is all the effects of sin. All these things. These are all death. It has power to control us. It has power to dictate our actions, to decide the things that we will do. It has decided the things that many people will do today.

Several acquaintances I have recently heard speak of their existential dread. Their existential dread meaning that all is meaningless, right? Because if they die, it is not just that they suffered this horrible thing that even Jesus was willing to leave without.

It is that, what was the point of any of this once they died? If there is nothing eternal after that, what is the point? Existential dread. Power. He manipulates us by fear. He is able to accuse us. Assigning us guilt.

Sadness we feel. With pleasure, right? We are running not just from that account of death, but also from the suffering in this life. But he is tempting us, saying, why don't you run from the suffering that you might encounter in this life?

Why don't you run towards pleasures? It is important to know that this is a real spiritual war that is going on. This is not just something that exists in the world by general profits, although that is partially the case.

The devil wields this tool of death in order to manipulate the actions. Christ is conquered. He became a man susceptible to death. So that we would not have to suffer guilt. So that we would not have to suffer that eternal damnation.

It says that through death we might destroy the one who has the power of death. That is the devil. We deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery. We are not just freed from that eternal death.

We are also freed from the fear that encompasses us. The fear that dictates our actions. So that we might act without fear. So that we might act not worrying about this existential dread as any of this being was.

But being freed and having an eternal meaning. Knowing that even if we die, even if we suffer in this life, that our actions have real meaning. Because if we are found in Christ, there are eternal ramifications for everything that we do, everything that we think.

And so people are in bondage, not able to serve God because they are worried about themselves. But if we know that the chief end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. And that is true pleasure as opposed to running from Him through moral suffering.

That frees us to serve Him as we ought, to do the things that we ought. It's not just eternal life with Him later, it is also freedom to serve Him now. That otherwise people are in bondage, not able to live.

Public Worship, Congregational Gathering, and Prudence in a Time of Fear

So, let me tell you about this very real fear that is surrounding us. You know, this decision for me was not an easy thing to do. Very few people are making this decision. This is the kind of thing that I would like weeks to decide and I was not ready for this.

So let me begin by telling you some of the principles involved in making this decision. The importance of physical gathering, you know, as a Congregationalist church. We believe Matthew 18, 20 is a special way where two or three are gathered, varying among them.

There is a special authority to clarify for the ones that are gathering. That YouTube sermons, live streams, these things are not the same. And while I do not fault churches who are using them to edify those who will not be able to go through a service, there are some people who think that they are proper substitutes.

They don't need to be gathered physically. And that is just not what God has ordained. If God just wanted teaching, He would have ordained letter writing. Or, you know, we have the Apostles, they could have just written letters.

But no, Paul trained them as preachers because preaching is part of what God has ordained for us. If you want to just look at the details, right, you can just watch the message itself. There are better teachers than me or Josh.

You should go, you know, watch a little video or whatever. But there is something special. You know, what I have for you today is loaf land. I put this together in a few hours. And most of you know that I usually don't have this many notes with me.

But I tied them today because I was not prepared. 1 Timothy 4, 2 says, Be ready in season and out of season. This is an out of season message. But yet there is something special about it. It is a real sermon the way a sermon was meant to be heard.

You may not hear a good sermon, but you will hear a true sermon. One that is in person, without the Gospel. Additionally, God has called us to pray together. You know, a few weeks ago, I mentioned that suffering is called humility.

But we at 519 call this to sing to each other in songs, spiritual songs. This is not something that can be replaced outside the gathering. People know. You know, people know that there is a difference between live music and not live music.

Communion is obviously not something that can be done at home. People might try to duplicate the same thing. It is a different package of communion. I have heard churches doing that. Or watching someone else take it on the live stream and just in spirit being part of it.

I heard a pastor recently suggest that, you know, he is going to tell his congregation just to Amen. On the live stream, he is going to tell them, you know, just to have some McCoy and some crackers. You know, go ahead and grab them.

You know, there is something. There is a special authority that we have to gather people to declare this gathering. Etymologically, a lot of you know, it is called out once, but that is not the way. Why?

Well, there is one church globally. The Bible is willing to speak of churches as gatherings. There is not one large gathering. Truly, one church, one gathering, one congregation. So I woke up at 3 .30 a .m. on a Saturday morning terrified at the thought of churches in the land failing to meet for a week or more.

Who knows? The original thinks that three weeks is probably going to be much longer than that. You know, it does not take. Well, as we said, a lot of churches also don't have a good theology of private worship.

So, not only are those public worship things going to have to be private, which private worship is not happening. If your mind is informed by the future, you know, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to suppose that it is our gathering week by week that keeps God's wrath at bay on this godless land.

And so it terrified me to think of what would happen if churches failed to meet week by week. There are real dangers. The sixth commandment requires us to preserve our own lives and the lives of others.

So there is good encouragement. And that's why we've encouraged people to stay at home if they feel the need to. We cannot live our lives in fear of death. And as it stands, we must look at the risks and weigh them out.

What it is, you know, you look at the mandates. You know, people receiving deliveries have no idea who's going to touch them. People going to stores, buying bread, having no idea who's touching the bread.

Being in an indoor place where you've got a HVAC that's recycling air from everyone who's gone in before. Now, these things are considered necessary. It's necessary to do that. Yet it's not necessary for us to meet according to what people have said.

But I would rather go without food for a week than to know that no churches are gathering for a day. One of the other things that was mentioned in the lobby mandates, or at least the statewide one, is that workers who support the entertainment industry are still considered essential.

Now, I don't know exactly what that means, but what I mentioned is Netflix needs to run. It needs to run because it's satisfied. Of course, he needs anything from us. But he's required us to serve him and not ourselves.

There was no mention of churches in the county one. Just a sad sign. A small mention of faith-based services in the statewide one. But only to allow for streaming, which is considered an essential service.

But they have no estimation of the value of public worship. Who are they to make these decisions and say, oh, it's okay for two people to be together to stream, but it's not okay for them to be together to not stream.

Who are they to decide these things for us? They can say, it's good to gather into the store to buy bread. And it's good to gather to receive the spiritual bread. So I do not claim that this is a threat.

I do not claim that I'm qualified to make any medical judgments about how dangerous it is to gather. But I'm qualified to make a spiritual judgment about how dangerous it is for us not to gather. That is great.

Once again, if we are willing to do these other things to meet our physical needs, let us meet our spiritual needs also. Hebrews 10 .25 says that we are supposed to gather all the more as we see the day approach.

And then at the end of the chapter it says not to be those who shrink back to destruction in times of trial. So I hate to spread anything that scares me greatly. I don't want to do that. But everyone who is here today, I hope is here voluntarily offering their lives for one person.

And so if you are me or I are you, I hope it is out of a mutual desire to love God and do what is right. We do not wish to be defiant, fear death, and be bound by it. We may take necessary precautions to be prudent, to avoid death.

Yet, we should not fear death itself but fear God in our world present. And we have to ask ourselves what to do. So, I do not want to be remembered as reckless. I also don't want to be remembered as reckless.

I do not want to squander the fact that we are meeting. It is only out of humility that I do this. It is not a decision that I make early in the week. It is not with bravado that I do this, but with humility, knowing that God has called me.

But choose not to meet, I really mean that. Because the issue is not whether or not we gather, but whether or not our actions are of true godly prudence or out of fear. And for myself, as Sunday came close, I realized that for me it was out of fear.

This fear of death. There is a temporal fate that represents a perfect fate in this way. But I've spoken of suffering too. There is suffering that people fear. Now part of that suffering is not just physical suffering.

It is mental suffering, right? Persecution. Being talked of poorly. This was my fear. This still is my fear, if I'm perfectly honest. Fear of man. Everyone else saying that they're right, not me. You know, it's easy for me to say many counselors, there is wisdom.

It was my desire to not be despised and to offload the burden of society and matter for myself onto other people. Yet Exodus 23 .2 says, You shall not fall in this domain to do evil. Nor shall you bear witness in a suit of law, in a court of law, siding with the many so as it pertains to you.

And I do not want to just side with the many because there are other people out there. So I began to fear God. Fear God more. Began to fear standing before a holy God. And to say what the current circumstance is.

The reason that I do not call people together in worship is not because I was convinced it was a necessary step. But because others. 1028 says, Do not fear him who can build a body but cannot build a soul.

Rather, fear him who can destroy both body and soul. Perhaps next week the situation will be different. The risks will be different. And it will be out of a godly purpose that we decide to do differently than we've done today.

That is not the case today. I do not want to be afraid of what men would think of me. There's a passage I'd like to read to you that really influenced the passage last night as we thought about this. And this was the thing that sort of blasted me before we finalized our decision.

If you're going to get to a Bible reading event, this is actually a good one. While Israel lived in... Think about this. A lot of people are going to be reading this today. While Israel lived in... The people who began to quarrel with the daughters of Noah.

He invited the people to sacrifice to other gods and bow down to the gods. So Israel yoked himself to bail in the war. And the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel. And the Lord said to Moses, Take all the chiefs of the people and hang them in the sun before the Lord, that the fierce anger of the Lord may turn from Israel.

And Moses said to the judges of Israel, Each of you, kill those of his men who have yoked themselves. And behold, one of the people of Israel came and brought a Midianite woman to his family, in the sight of Moses and in the sight of the whole congregation of the people of Israel.

While they were weeping in the entrance of the tent of meeting, when Phinehas the son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose and left the congregation and took the spear in his hand and went after the man of Israel into the chamber and pierced both of them.

The man of Israel and the woman threw her belly. Thus the plague on the people of Israel was stopped. Nevertheless, those who died by the plague were twenty-four thousand. There was a plague that was happening because of this sullying of the people, this sullying of their worship.

And the Lord said to Moses, Phinehas, son of Eleazar, son of Aaron the priest, has turned back from you wrath from the people of Israel, and that he was jealous of my jealousy among them, so that I cannot consume the people of Israel in my jealousy.

Therefore say, Behold, I give to them my covenant of peace, and it shall be to them and to his descendants after him, the covenant of the perpetual priesthood, because he was jealous for his God, and made a tongue of the people of Israel.

So here you have people, one man standing up, turning back the plague on the entire people, because he had a jealousy for the worship of God. I do not know what effect our worship will have today, but I am hoping that as we as a people stand and decide not to be afraid of death, that our fear of God rather than fear of man will turn back the plague.

Let us exercise prudence, while we can, while people are willing to still gather in stores and receive pastor man, but be jealous of God's worship. Christ became man, making himself susceptible to death, running towards death for the sake of others.

He did not fear death. He died so that we do not need to fear death. We do not need to plead it at all. We only need to plead it as we might, in order to promote eternal life or death in our place, so that all those who believe in him do not have to worry about death, do not have to worry about what we might undergo now, as long as we are faithful, as long as we are faithful, we can rest assured that our sins are forgiven, and that any mistakes that we make are covered by the Lord, so that we can be certain that he will reward our faithfulness.

God is a God who rewards faithfulness, so we are free, perfectly free today, knowing that one day we will stand before him. We know Christ is to begin to fear God, and to fear God is to live fearlessly.

Prayer for Wisdom, Protection, and Continued Worship

Dear Heavenly Father, this opportunity to gather, we pray that you would turn back this plague. You would allow us to continue to gather. We ask that you would give wisdom to the governmental powers that are making a lot of decisions right now.

We pray that you would give wisdom to them. You said that when we met right now. We have not been in this situation before. We need your help. We ask that you would help us in their worship. We have fragrant incense to you.

In Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.