Death Bed Conversions ?

[caddy]

Talk to me. We all know and hear of the statistics and likelihood of older people coming to Christ being slim. I know God is NOT concerned with statistics. He is sovereign. He can and does choose people from all different ages to come to Him based only on His good pleasure and will. My question is this. How do you think we account for the statistics?

I recently had an uncle that passed. He was in his early 80s. I was greived to no end when as I sat in the funeral service where the speaker told us that after talking with my Uncle over and over about Christ He was obstinate and refused to believe. Later he mentioned that he convinced him and that my uncle had “made a decision”. While this may be true, this grieves me to no end. I doubt my uncle was converted on his death bed. While I do not think death bed conversions are impossible, I do not think they are likely. What glory does God get from a life lived for itself only to say or admit at the very end, they need to straighten up? Again, God may have drawn my uncle to believe, but I have serious reservations concerning the truth of this. Show me where my thinking is unclear and help me to bring perspective to this please.

 

[Pergamum]

Fear of death and love of Christ are two different things...


But, we shall see how these "conversions" end up one day.


I pray that there are a great many that are indeed, true.

 

[caddy]

Absolutely they are !

Fear of death and love of Christ are two different things....

 

[Kevin Lewis]

God's Glory

Caddy,

I am sorry to hear of your Uncle's passing. I had a similar time with my own father when he passed away at the age of 59. I was a non reformed Arminian in those days (10 years ago). I had told him about his need for Christ multiple times, but in his pride he seemed to reject the need. Some felt they had seen a change in his life (a softening to the gospel) and some evidence of a decision. I will never know until I die or Christ returns.
You asked the question about what glory does God get from having someone converted on their death bed...In a way that presumes a very short term view of life. Believe me, we will be glorifying God much more in heaven than we are now. I believe although we are regenerated and being sanctified, we are still much less than perfect. In heaven we will bring as much glory to Him if not more. All that is to say is, if your uncle was regenerated before death...that is not the end, he is undoubtedly bringing glory to God even now.

 

[Blueridge Believer]

I had an uncle who died this past year as well. He was 73. He rejected the Gospel his entire life. When his son, my first cousin died from cancer a few years back he talked with me at length and was in tears at one point has I preached Christ to him. At his funeral, the preacher told me he "accepted" Christ on his death bed. I hope so but I am skeptical.

 

[caddy]

Excellent points Kermit ! I appreciate you.

Caddy,
I am sorry to hear of your Uncle's passing. I had a similar time with my own father when he passed away at the age of 59. I was a non reformed Arminian in those days (10 years ago). I had told him about his need for Christ multiple times, but in his pride he seemed to reject the need. Some felt they had seen a change in his life (a softening to the gospel) and some evidence of a decision. I will never know until I die or Christ returns.
You asked the question about what glory does God get from having someone converted on their death bed...In a way that presumes a very short term view of life. Believe me, we will be glorifying God much more in heaven than we are now. I believe although we are regenerated and being sanctified, we are still much less than perfect. In heaven we will bring as much glory to Him if not more. All that is to say is, if your uncle was regenerated before death...that is not the end, he is undoubtedly bringing glory to God even now.

 

[turmeric]

In such a case, God's merciful character is on display, as that person lived his whole life in rebellion, cannot do anythingto make up for it. Like the thief on the cross, whose "job title" followed him to his death, such people are excellent metaphors for all of us, who are still unprofitable servants, even when we think we've done much for God. Caddy, I trust that you will see your uncle in heaven - if not, I'm sure you will feel differently about it then.

God bless you,
Meg

 

[MrMerlin777]

I believe that one can be converted and come to Christ anywhere at anytime, even on their deathbed. Granted we see many "conversions" in prisons too that turn out to be false. But if we look at the churches it's not much different their either. We see "converted" people that leave into the world and deny Christ.

Ultimately we have to take these people at their word until it is proven one way or another that their profession was or was not a false one. In the case of deathbed conversions, we won't know this side of Heaven.

 

[Robin]

Steven,

My mom was hateful towards God. There was every reason to think at her death she hadn't changed. Only God knows.

Some years after her death, I found some of her journal papers stuffed inside an old family Bible. There were confessions there that hinted her awareness of Christ! It was utterly contrary to what she outwardly displayed.

I didn't have to find the papers to have hope though. Scripture teaches that even the lives of the reprobate glorify God -- and (sigh) if my own mom was among those, I still had to bow to God's good purpose. Haunted by grief, I enjoy the awe in knowing the mercy God performed in singling me out of my family.

The theme of God's justification is "God saves the wicked" which runs counter to the World's thinking: "Good people go to heaven; bad people go to hell."

God glories in demonstrating He is not like us! We however, are made in his image.

Robin

 

[No Longer A Libertine]

God is sovereign and because of this I take heart that he will save some aborted children in the womb by regenerating them and He will save alzheimers patients who have forgotten Him.

It is in these catostraphic extremes we see just how truly indebted we are to His sovereignty and it is our hope.

Our poor Arminian brothers cannot take heart in dispair and maintain their theology.

God is so sovereign that a man such as myself can be spared the fires of Hell, he is so merciful that Adolf Hitler (doubtful) may have been made aware of his depravity and need for a savior, I'll be mad if Hugh Hefner sees the error of his ways...just kidding, God is sovereign and His sovereignty is the hope of evangelism and regeneration instead of restlessness and pragmatic methodologies pursued by the contemporary church.

God is good at all times and we are not.
It still hurts in this life to lose the ones we love.

 

[caddy]

God is sovereign and because of this I take heart that he will save some aborted children in the womb by regenerating them and He will save alzheimers patients who have forgotten Him.

It is in these catostraphic extremes we see just how truly indebted we are to His sovereignty and it is our hope.

Our poor Arminian brothers cannot take heart in dispair and maintain their theology.

God is so sovereign that a man such as myself can be spared the fires of Hell, he is so merciful that Adolf Hitler (doubtful) may have been made aware of his depravity and need for a savior, I'll be mad if Hugh Hefner sees the error of his ways...just kidding, God is sovereign and His sovereignty is the hope of evangelism and regeneration instead of restlessness and pragmatic methodologies pursued by the contemporary church.

God is good at all times and we are not.
It still hurts in this life to lose the ones we love.

 

[VirginiaHuguenot]

The account of Luke Short's conversion while near death at the age of 100 while he meditated on a sermon that he heard preached by John Flavel 85 years previously is worthy of consideration.

In the 1650s John Flavel was preaching one Sunday in his church in Dartmouth in Devon and a 15-year-old boy named Luke Short was in the congregation. At the end of his sermon John Flavel prayed and asked God's blessing on that message. Soon afterwards that teenager set sail from Dartmouth and emigrated to New England, in North America. When Luke Short was a hundred years old all the horrors of dying without Christ were impressed upon him and he remembered 85 years earlier the effects of the truths Flavel had preached to him which he had never been able to shake off, and he was converted (the incident is reported in The Mystery of Providence by John Flavel, Banner of Truth, paperback, p.11).

 

[caddy]

Good Stuff Andrew!