Man is destined to die once, and after that to face judgement.
Hebrews chapter 9, verse 27
Discussion questions
1) What do you understand from the first part (death) and the second part (judgement) of the verse?
2) How does this verse relate to you? Does this verse mean anything to you?
1) Death - What
i) “Man is destined to die once”
For me death was something or the greatest thing to be afraid of. Because I will just disappear when I die and will be separated from my families and friends. Last week I visited a friend in hospital. Her mum was in the hospital due to having some symptoms of stroke. Some parts of her mum’s physical body paralysed or can’t move during the day when she was sent to the hospital. However, her mum is getting better now but still have dizziness and headache sometimes. Something strikes my mind - what if the one that is in the hospital is my parent? What can I do to stop my parents from dying? I could feel that death is so real and is happening to the people around us and we will need to also face death one day. The Bible says man is destined to die. Destined means appointed or determined. No one can escape from death.
ii) “For the wages of sin is death”
However, there is something even worse than physical death and that is the separation from God. Last week we have learned that we have sin because we reject God and try living our own way without God. The Bible says that the result of sin is death. We will get paid when we work. For example Jeon works at Yo Sushi for 40 hours a month so he is going to get his salary of 40 hours x hourly rate. So the action/work of Jeon brings salary to him as a result. We get what we deserve. Therefore due to our sin as a result we need to face a more serious death which is the separation from God. When we live by our own way it is like saying to God, “Go away. I don’t want you telling me what to do. Leave me alone.” When we are being cut off from God who is the source of life and all good things, it means death or separation from God.
2) Judgement – Why
i) Fair
There are many unfair circumstances occur around us. Just like the Murderer game we played, we accused the innocent ones sometimes. If the facilitator was to point out the murderer, it would be less or no innocent people die because the facilitator knew who the murderer was in the first place. In the similar way, God knows everything and He is just. The ultimate fair judgment will take place after we die and where God is the judge.
ii) Afraid
I am afraid because I cannot stand before the judgement of God and say that I am not guilty. How many times I have rejected God and wanted to live my own way of life? How many times I have bad thoughts in my mind? How many times I have hurt other people with my words? How many times I do not react or response to something that I should have been responded to? If this is a DVD that records about my life, I will not be able to show to you because I am ashamed of what I have done. Let’s imagine if God has DVDs which record the life of every single person of us here, would you like the DVD to be played to everybody?
Conclusion
We turn away from God by rejecting Him. God is just and He is going to judge the world therefore we will face God’s judgement one day and the punishment for sin is death. However in a week time we will see that God is not only just and fair, He is also love. God is fair therefore He needs to judge our sin and the result of sin is death. However God is also love and He wants to save us from death. Come for the following weeks and we will see how God saves us from both the physical death and the separation from God.
Reference: http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au/2wtl/
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