National Day of Prayer at the White House Observance
It was an honor to attend the White House National Day of Prayer ceremony. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Dr. Ben Carson, Pastor Greg Lorie, and President Trump signing an executive order on the Establishment of the Religious Liberty Commission. It was good to see my friends Tim Throckmorton and Jared Borg, who serves in the White House, and Pastor Jeff Jemison.
The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death
Yesterday, while talking with a neighbor, I learned that another neighbor who had just moved in in the last five years had passed away a few weeks ago. I also learned that a local business leader that lived in the neighborhood that we had known for 24 years, died unexpectedly of a heart attack in January. He was only 62. Since the beginning of COVID in 2020, I started making a list of those who had passed that I had known either as family, friends, or close acquaintances. The list has grown to over 100 in count. It includes all ages. Many people on that list were friends that I had spoken to on a regular basis.
This week in our community, in the space of just three days, and all within a few blocks of each other, three people lost their lives: One by a fire, one by a late-night shooting over a domestic dispute, and one by a fallen tree on their apartment home during the windstorm.
It feels at times that death is all around us.
I remember back in high school when a teacher wanted to take a class of students to a local funeral home and discuss the process of death, a rather morbid subject for young students for sure. I could not see the purpose of it. It had no hope without God in the world.
Everyone will face the final act – death itself. Believer and unbeliever. It is appointed unto man once to die, but after this the judgement. Hebrews 9:27
On this Good Friday, we contemplate the death of Christ on the cross, the seven statements of Christ, the redemption of the thief on the cross, and the witnesses. Some of the witnesses who were leaders of the Sanhedrin and who had condemned Christ for blasphemy, as he had claimed that he was equal with God, marveled that even in his agony, he quoted the Scripture, fulfilling prophesy.
The last enemy to be destroyed certainly is death. Ten days earlier, at the gravesite of Lazarus, Jesus proclaimed, “I am the resurrection, and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die. Believest thou this?” John 11:25&26
Do you believe? If you do, the sting of death has been taken away. It is a dark veil of uncertainty, but on the other side is Christ himself waiting for us. That is why, for the believer, there should be no fear or torment concerning the last enemy to be put under Christ’s foot, which is death. “Wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith; who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:1&2
Don’t fear the last enemy, for Christ has defeated death itself!
By Chris Long
