Facing death … final words …

Thanks for all of the prayers and encouraging emails concerning my dad. He continues to remain in a medically-induced coma, but occasionally they bring him to consciousness for a few moments. When they do so, the nurses say he is a “bear” … angry, trying to yank the tube out, etc. The nurses say this is actually a good thing because it means that he wants us to know he is “still in there” and he is “fighting.”

I’m still wondering about trying to go and see him … I keep thinking about whether he might actually be open to hearing the gospel now. That maybe, with death facing him so (potentially) imminently, he might WANT to hear about the God Who Saves!

(Boy, I sure would. I want to hear His covenant of grace every day of my life–I’m desperate for it.)

But I remember reading once how the “last words” we might hear recorded of dying people (say, in a plane crash or some other unexpected and fast death situation) are so often (not always) words of cursing, anger, rage, and blasphemy against God.

I always thought that they would be words crying out for mercy … how many times people think, “I’ll repent and believe tomorrow” or “I’ll repent and confess saving faith in Christ before I die.” Because we sure don’t want to go to Hell! We think we’ll repent.

But in that moment. That final, dreadful moment … our true hearts are shown. We are bent away from God. For every day of our lives, we have disdained and ignored Him. We have mocked Him and His followers. We have worshipped Man and created things–and have completely forgotten or denied the Creator.

We think that the beauty in the world is the result of a random crashing and evolving of dust particles.
That love is an emotion that makes us feel good.
And that when we die, our brains stop functioning and everything goes “black” or “blank” and life is over.

But Believers know differently, don’t we?
We know that the horror of suffering in this life is PLEASANT compared to the horror of ETERNITY APART FROM GOD.

That anything beautiful or good or lovely in this life is but a reflection of Him.
That He is the Way. The Truth. The Life.

And that when our earthly bodies cease functioning, our real lives begin.
And we go Home.

Heaven is not some fairy-tale place created by old men.

Heaven is the very presence of God–when His adopted children are covered by His Son (whose life, death, and resurrection fully satisfied both the mercy and the justice of God!) and every lovely thing in this life, the happiest we’ve ever felt, the safest we’ve ever felt, the most wanted, interesting, growing, GOOD experience we’ve ever had … will be just a SCENT, a faint aroma, a blurry picture in an old mirror … of the GLORY OF GOD.

For then, and only then, we will be HOME.

PS
If you’re interested, there is a fascinating book on the final words of “saints and sinners” that I heartily recommend. You can get it through Amazon at: Last Words of Saints and Sinners