DEATH DEFANGED
I Corinthians 15:50-57
Introduction: Easter Sunday is a great day of celebration. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the Garden Tomb. We celebrate His victory over sin, Satan, and death. Paul in discussing the resurrection of Christ states that Christ has taken the sting out of or defanged death. If you say there is no sting to death, go to the hospital and observe its sting as a husband watches life ebb from his dying wife. Go to the funeral home and observe the faces of those who pass by the open casket. Listen when the doctor pronounces that you have a terminal illness from which you will not recover. This morning as we think of our risen Lord I want you to consider that death is man’s greatest enemy, which he has vainly sought to conquer. Christ has achieved what man cannot and offers us the victory today.
I. Death is man’s greatest enemy
A. Death is often described as a terror.
1. Psalm 55:4 “My heart is severely pained within me, And the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
2. Job 18:14 “…the king of terrors.”
B. Francis Bacon wrote, “Men fear death as children fear to go in the dark.”
C. The fear of death is not biological, but spiritual. There is no physiological reason for man to fear death. In our natural state, however, all men fear death. If we are merely the product of evolution or existence by chance, then there is no reason to fear extinction or non-existence. But within man is a soul that tells him that there is something more than non-existence; that there is a God and existence beyond the grave. There is within the heart of man a fear of impending judgment and the potential of eternal torments.
D. Ecclesiastes 3:11 “He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end.”
E. Some one has said that there are three reasons why most men fear death. Some fear that they shall lose their worldly honors, riches, possessions, and all their heart’s desires. Others fear because of the painful diseases and bitter suffering, which many go through, either before or at the time of death. But the number one reason, the chief cause above all others, is the dread of the miserable state of eternal damnation both of body and soul, which they fear will follow, after their departing from the worldly pleasure of this present life. – adapted from Monte Kuligowski
F. Hebrews 9:27 “And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:”
II. Man has vainly sought to conquer death.
A. Woody Allen is quoted as having said, “The fundamental thing behind all motivation and all activity is the constant struggle against annihilation and against death. Death is absolutely stupefying in its terror.” He went on to say, "I don’t want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it through not dying."
B. In Johnny Hart’s comic strip "B.C.," a man climbs to the top of a mountain to seek a guru. "Oh, great Guru," he asks, "what is the secret of life?" The guru answers in two words "Don’t die!"
C. Over countless centuries man has sought to either eliminate death or to prolong the inevitability death. From the ancient Persian legend of the desperate search for a magic elixir by the Sumerian king Gilgamesh to Ponce Deleon in his search for the fountain of youth to modern times with men like Isaac Asminov and scientology’s founder L Ron Hubbard, men have sought to live forever under the believe that there is something that they could do that would delay the inevitable.
D. Ecclesiastes 8:8 “There is no man that has power over the spirit to retain the spirit; neither has he power in the day of death: and there is no discharge in that war; neither shall wickedness deliver those that are given to it.”
E. Romans 5:12 MKJV “Therefore, even as through one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed on all men inasmuch as all sinned:”
III. Christ victoriously did what man could not do in conquering death.
A. The English are an interesting people. They celebrate two defeats as if they were victories. One is Scott’s fatal attempt to reach the South Pole. The other is the disastrous Charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. They were heroic defeats but defeats all the same. It appears to the unbeliever that Christians celebrate a defeat when they speak of Calvary. But that was not a defeat; it was a victory.
B. Satan and death thought that they had won the victory when Christ was hung upon that rugged cross affixed between heaven and earth.
C. Three-year-old, Nicole, was as anxious for Easter to come as she had been for Christmas to come. Mom helped Nicole pick out a new dress and a new white bonnet. As the family stopped at a store to buy her a new pair of shoes to go with her outfit, she said, "I can’t wait for Easter, Daddy!" He asked her, "Do you know what Easter means, honey?" She replied, "Yes." "Well, what does Easter mean?" In her own sweet three-year-old way, with arms raised, a smile on her face, and at the top of her voice she said, "Surprise!" What better word could sum up the meaning of Easter! Surprise, death! Surprise, sin! Surprise, mourning disciples! Surprise, modern man! He’s alive!
D. Luke 24:6-7 He is not here, but has risen. Remember how He spoke to you when He was still in Galilee, saying, The Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified, and the third day rise again?
E. Hebrews 2:14-15 “Since then the children have partaken of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise partook of the same; that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death (that is, the Devil), and deliver those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.”
F. Acts 2:23-24 “This One given to you by the before-determined counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken and by lawless hands, crucifying Him, you put Him to death; whom God raised up, having loosed the pains of death, because it was not possible that He should be held by it.
G. It was not possible that Jesus be held by death, because He has life in Himself, and, besides, it was the Father’s will that He should arise.
H. Dean Henry Aldrich (1647-1710) wrote: "What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness, stardust, sea foam, flower or winged air." Most of us are not satisfied with such nebulous ideas of immortality. The risen Christ, by contrast, appeared to his followers, talked with them, ate with them, and gave every indication that he was alive. It was not that he was alive in their memory or alive in some poetic sense, or in some spiritual sense. He was truly alive, as alive as he had been before the cross.
IV. Through Christ we can have that same victory.
A. I Corinthians 15:57 “But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”
B. Romans 6:23 “For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
C. 1 Peter 1:3-4 ISV “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! Because of his great mercy he has given us a new birth to an ever-living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and to an inheritance kept in heaven for you that can’t be destroyed, corrupted, or changed.”
D. “Because he lives I can face tomorrow, because he lives all fear is gone. Because I know he holds the future, and life is worth the living, just because he lives. – William and Gloria Gaither
E. A young man was very ill. The doctors had exhausted their resources. He dreaded death and feared it terribly. Just before the end he raised himself up in bed and said, "I will not die." But as he closed the sentence he fell back on the bed and was gone. Yes, we may refuse the call of loved ones and the call of God; but when the sheriff of the skies, death, comes we will respond. We will go then. There are the two calls. The call of Christ and the call of death. The call of Christ, which is the preparation for the call of death, can be refused; but the other call, which is the call of death, cannot be avoided.
F. John 11:25-26 “Jesus said to her, "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die.”
