When We Are At The Point Of Death – The Christian Perspective Series

WHEN WE ARE AT THE POINT OF DEATH – THE CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE

[1]. THE INTRODUCTION – THOUGHTS NEARING DEATH

I would estimate very few want to face death, but for the committed Christians, they are prepared and happy to, because they know the truth of the verses - {{2Corinthians 5:7-8 “for we walk by faith, not by sight. We are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord.”}}

Why do you think the millions of martyrs would not renounce their faith to offer sacrifice to Roman gods, or to bow down to the wickedness and tyranny of the pope? It is because they had a better hope!

I had cause to think more into this just now because a close friend of mine died yesterday at age 91. He was very eminent in Natural Sciences and had the most amazing knowledge of species in a very wide field. He had produced books.

I began to think to myself, “When a person nears death, and has been successful in many disciplines, how would that person think in that last little while?” It is like your life has accumulated so much knowledge and varying successes, and you may have produced much, but where does all that stand in those last moments?

Nearing death, the activities of life must take on a lesser role and as the time of departure comes, then what is done and has been achieved, all starts to drop away into a worldly emptiness and we leave this world the way we came into it – with nothing. {{1Timothy 6:6-7 “But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment, for we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either.”}} All we have done in the world, good or bad, is of no consequence once we depart.

I wonder how many think, “What will happen to all my writings and photos and family heirlooms and all that I have gathered over my lifetime?” It is the way of the world. The old keeps perishing. How many recall a man in a poem written by Percy Bysshe Shelley called

OZYMANDIAS

I met a traveller from an antique land,

Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;

And on the pedestal, these words appear:

My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;

Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

[2]. DO NOT NEGLECT OR REJECT THE SALVATION OF GOD!

Buried and entombed in recent history. That is what a life is like. Some might like to build immortality like Ozymandias but immortality in this earth is very nebulous and barely a handful achieve it in all the world’s history. The Psalms speak of a man in his grandeur and influence – {{Psalm 49:16-17 “Do not be afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house is increased, for when he dies he will carry nothing away. His glory will not descend after him.”}}

Nothing will descend after him unless he has the statue of Beethoven but they are few and far between. I think it is tragic when a man or woman has achieved so much in life, so glorious in his own eyes maybe, and even in the eyes of others, but none of it will pass into eternity. It is so sad especially when a person has had no time for God and has been a wicked sinner. What prospect is there to look forward to? The atheist curses God which is strange because he claims there is no God. People pass from this world into the next and make no preparation for the next life. Neglect is utter failure. Dismissal is the day of accounting delayed. All must give an account before the Lord God.

How can we survive if we neglect so great salvation? Have you spoken to a person who is not saved and you have placed before that person the truth of a Christless eternity? Often they will turn on you and contradict what you say, or say something like, “You don’t talk about religion or politics.” Why will a person not turn to God? It is because the devil has the person firmly in his clutches.

Blindness and delusion are the enemies of God because blindness operates in darkness and delusion defies the truth of God. Blindness and delusion is the devil’s counterpart of “I am the Light of the world,” and “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.”