In the Presence of Death and the Curse

My wife and I have been married 21 years now as of yesterday. What a testimony to the grace of God in Jesus Christ in changing the hearts of a couple of foolish juvenile delinquents! I would be lying if I said that it was easy though, the sin in our hearts and the curse of God on the human race has made it particularly difficult to love each other like we ought to.

Today marks the two year anniversary of the death of my daughters little friend Marielle, and as I sit here writing this my mother-in-law lays dying in the hospital of complications of Dementia. It was very sobering to go visit her room the other evening and once again stand in the presence of death.

As I have time to reflect on these things it’s very hard, once again, not to think about the severity of the curse of God on the human race. How can people miss it?

How can people grow old, deteriorate and wither under sickness and disease, watch those around them die, look at all the bloodshed, sorrow, animosity and lack of peace in this world and fail to see the curse? How can we fail to see and consider that we are a cursed race that has been separated from our good maker by our treacherous rebellion and self-centeredness? We are truly a bunch of thoughtless fools to be willfully blind to our condition just so that we can enjoy sin for a season in our pathetically short lives.

What a horrible thought to think that for many who reject the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, that this is the best it will ever be for them. They will move from a cursed life into a cursed death; a life of bitterness tainted with occasional happiness to an eternal death of pure bitterness. How truly sad!

But by contrast, what an enormous and unfathomable blessing it is to have your sin, guilt and rebellion forgiven through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ! How blessed it is to know that while we must still suffer from the effects of the curse in this life, death will remove that sting from us! What a great relief it is for the believer to know that the curse of the Law which demanded our death has been dissolved in the death of Christ. And how glorious for the believer to know that in the very process of our own deaths, Christ’s resurrection power will set us free from the second death forever!

“Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.” Psalm 32:1