A forty-seven-year-old woman called the police to ask for the arrest of her own twenty-eight-year-old son. Police reported that the boy was violent and aggressive, and to prevent him from hurting his family and the police officers who came to arrest him, had to sedate him. According to data from the police, in recent weeks, there has been an increase in police occurrences among family members, with mothers and grandmothers asking for the arrest of young people.

Parents call the police to arrest their children and grandparents to arrest their grandchildren. What is happening to our society? What leads a mother and a father who surely loves their son to have to reach this extreme, to call the police to take their son out of the house, and take him to jail?

Well, why am I saying that? Many people can’t understand this word here:

“For the wages of sin is death (…)” (Romans 6:23). When we talk about “death”, the person thinks of something like the heart stopping to beat, the breath ceasing, and, thus, the body has to be buried. But “death” from a spiritual point of view is not only at this moment. That’s when a transgression is also committed. The father and mother have no other option but to take the problematic child out of the house, so it is with God. The only resource He has is to separate the sinner from Him. This is not just the mother’s action who called the police for her son. Every human does not want to be close to those who attack, disrespect, or cause problems (it can be a father, son, mother or whoever). You know that. How often have you heard: “So-and-so, I don’t want to even see dead”? Why does the person say that? Because they don’t want to have any proximity to this person.

“Death” is separation. This “death” of the verse occurs long before the heart stops beating and the person stops breathing. They are people who have lived persistently in error, living with indifference to God, in sin. And that’s “death”. When the Word says that, it alerts us to this very serious problem of separation from God. Every time a person sins, they separate themselves more from God. So, when they leave this life, their soul will receive the eternal separation from God, which is the “second death”, according to the Bible.

If you die separated from God, there is no way to unite with Him after death. Because if in life you choose to live separated from God, in death, He will not force you to live with Him for all eternity.

Perhaps you who follow me are dead, separated from God because of your sins. So, how can you come back home? The verse concludes: “(…) but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 6:23). Sin has a price: it is paid for by death, the eternal separation from God. But God’s free gift is eternal life in the Lord Jesus.

We are in the “Holy Week”, where many people do not understand its message. But if you understand that the Lord Jesus did a work of replacement on the cross, you can reach Him. It was not He who had to be crucified; it was you (because of the wages of our sin). And, for this incalculable love, the Father replaced the Lord Jesus with you so that He would pay for your sin. You would be free and could return to the Father’s House, uniting with Him. If you understand this, you will seek to live your life in obedience to Him. If He paid your debt, why would you make more debts? Whoever believes in the Lord Jesus accepts this gift and seeks to live in obedience in the Father’s House. If you understand this, you can receive forgiveness. It is free from the part of God, but from our part, it is hard to live in obedience to Him until the hour of our death.

Check out the video above and meditate on this message.