The Supreme Tragedy

We live in a world of tragedy—terrorism, murder, heartbreak, disease. But today we examine the supreme tragedy that could ever befall a person: to die in your sins.

Hebrews 9:27 "And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment."

There are certain appointments you can avoid. There are certain punishments you can escape. You may recall the story of Edmund Dantès (from the Count of Monte Cristo) who escaped from the island prison of Château d'If. You may have heard of Frank Morris, the convicted burglar who escaped from Alcatraz with papier-mâché dolls and an inflatable raft, never to be seen again.

But there is one appointment that is unavoidable. There is a date with a judge that no one will escape.

Why do men and women die? This may seem like a morbid question, but the Bible says wise people don't live delusionally as if they're going to live forever. Your life is going to be a hyphen between your birth year and your death year, and one day (very soon), we are going to meet our Maker. Ecclesiastes 7:4 says, "the wise man is in the house of mourning." I remember talking to a friend who said he'd never been to a funeral, and I said, "You're missing out." Why? Because you can't possibly live a life of wisdom if it's totally divorced from the inevitable doom and destiny of your life. Ecclesiastes says the wise person would rather have coffee in a graveyard and contemplate his own mortality than party it up with a red Solo cup, because death is the destiny of every single man.

So why do men die? From the earliest pages of the Bible, we know that God told Adam and Eve that on the day they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. And because Adam ate, death entered the world as we know it. Romans 5:12 says, "Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned." So, once again, why do men die? Because of our sin. Where there is no sin, there is no death, but because we live in a world of sin - death abounds.

Have you ever read Genesis 5? It's a section you might skip, but notice the theme: "All the days that Adam lived were 930 years and he died... All the days of Seth were 912 years and he died... All the days of Enosh were 905 years and he died..." Over and over and over again, the Bible is ingraining into your thinking: people die because of sin. Death is not a natural process. Death is divine judgment. It is the verdict rendered by the Judge of the universe because of man's sin.

And after you die— Hebrews 9:27 says, "it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment." How many times does a man or woman die? Once. That's finality. There is no such thing as reincarnation. No one dies twice. You die once, and after you die comes judgment.

There are two different ways to die. Psalm 116 says, "Precious in the sight of God are the deaths of His saints." That's one way to die. The other way? John 8:24—"Unless you believe that I am He, you will die in your sins." And if you die in your sins, you will pay for your sins for all eternity.

This isn't fun and games. It's life and death. Either our sins are forgiven by God, we die in the Lord and go immediately to heaven, or we die in our sins, are condemned by God, and go immediately to hell.

What shall we do?

"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved."

Stay dialed in.