Suddenly his scale of values reversed, so that things like smoking which were of the utmost importance before faded into insignificance, while things like life and death which hadn't previously merited much thought, leaped to the top of the list. But none of that happened until his life was threatened. Until then he went on smoking and enjoying it so much that he never really considered change, even though he knew intellectually that he needed to change. Although his brain knew that his lifestyle in the long run was life-threatening, because there were no immediate signs of any problem, his heart refused to change. And it's much the same spiritually.
Death is what results from sin, because sin is life-threatening.
And if I glory in that which ought to cause shame, my end will be destruction. But in practice, most people never give sin much thought, because even though the Bible might warn against it, there are no immediate signs of any problem. We can, for instance, watch global warming increase. We can see poorer countries exploited. We can spot friction in different areas of the world.