We all come face to face with a dark fear in this world that cannot be brushed away.

It's rarely spoken of, but it never goes unfelt, and it's the fear of death.

This fear is universal in scope, and it's enslaving in its power, and as a fear Jesus

Christ came to conquer and defeat on behalf of sinners like you and me.

John Piper explained this more fully in his sermon titled,

You Will Never See Death, preached on May 14, 2011, near the end of the sermon.

Pastor John explained Hebrews chapter 2 verse 14 by saying this.

The effect of Jesus' death in our place as the God-man in Hebrews 2.14 is what I want you to feel and see in the last few minutes of this message.

Since therefore the children, that's us, just people, since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, that is we're human.

He himself, the Son of God, likewise, partook of the same things, the same nature, that is he became human.

See the dynamic. The question is now, since we're human, he became human.

This is what we're seeing in John all over the place, and here's the reason.

So that, through death, he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is the devil, and deliver.

This is us now, deliver all those who, through the fear of death, were subject to life-long slavery.

The writer of the Hebrews believes that all human beings are enslaved their whole life by the fear of death, even when they don't know it.

In 1973, Ernest Becker wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book called The Denial of Death. It was all the rage in the 70s.

The thesis of the book was the same as the thesis of Hebrews.

Humanity is enslaved globally by fear of dying.

And what humans do is deny, deny, deny, deny, and we find all kinds of ways, religious ways, alcoholic ways, work ways, family ways, beautiful ways, surgery ways.

Take ten years off, listen to this, I'll read you the thesis.

The main thesis of this book, Becker says, the main thesis of this book is that the fear of death haunts the human animal, like nothing else.

It is a main spring of human activity, activity designed largely to avoid the fatality of death, to overcome it by denying in some way that it is the final destiny for man.

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