TO the infant, “the King of Terrors,” as man terms death, is as nothing. The little one knows not what means its weakness and shortening breath, or the tears of those about its cot; but to the infant there is more than ignorance of the nature of death: it fears not death’s sting. It has not learned good and evil; it has not been long enough in a world of iniquity to have been told not to do this, or to do that. “Where there is no law there is no transgression;” and it has not lived long enough to spurn away Him who was a Sacrifice for sinners.
How different is death to the grown-up person, who knows what good is, yet does it not, who has heard of Jesus, and has rejected Him! To such a one death comes armed; he carries aloft his weapon, that fearful weapon which is the terror of the guilty, and, as the victim dies, death pierces him through and through, until the cries arising from his soul-agony are a thousand-fold worse than the groans or the pains of the feeble body. Know you, reader, what is the name of the weapon of the “King of Terrors?” ― “THE STING OF DEATH IS SIN.”
An infidel was upon his deathbed. His servants and friends were about him, watching his end, when suddenly he leaped up, crying, “I won’t die, I can’t die!” and, staggering across the room, he fell into the arms of his attendants, and expired. The sting of death had pierced him, and its pang was terrible. For a moment, only for a moment, those about him saw the effect of the soul-pain. Perhaps they have forgotten even the scene now, but he never forgets—hapless man, for now no longer an infidel, he never forgets.
Were there no sin there would be no death for man. Men call death the debt of nature, but it is the debt of sin. “The wages of sin is death,” and “the strength of sin is the law,” for the law commands man to do what he cannot possibly perform. Then comes death to weak man, and with his sting, stabs into the soul with frightful energy, as each transgression, each act of disobedience, each time of rejecting Christ is brought to the mind.
“I once had convictions―it is too late now―I am damned,” cried one upon his dying pillow. Did not the strength of his sin, in rejecting Christ, strike the sting into his poor soul then? Hapless youth! we weep for thee. Yet why, oh why, didst thou make such a hell for thyself? Oh, how terrible hast thou made it by thy, “I once had convictions”! Would that thou in thy day hadst received Jesus, but “it is too late now.”
To the believer death has no sting. A short while since we saw a bee sting one whom we love, and on taking up the creature Afterward, found it was perfectly harmless; for it had no weapon wherewith to sting us now; its weapon was left in our friend’s hand.
Thus has death lost his sting for us in our Redeemer, when He suffered and died for us upon the cross. The Just One suffered for sin. He died because of sin. His people fear not the second death, and death has no sting left for them. Death itself, once to the believer the King of Terrors, is but the entrance-gate to His presence. “Death is ours.”