Unbelievers and No Fear of Death

[Ryan&Amber2013]

I remember before I was a Christian, I was terrified of death. I had this thought about judgment and what was going to happen to me when I died. I would imagine this would be par for the course for humans.

But what has lately been standing out to me, is how non-believers in general are so nonchalant and at peace with death. As if everyone who lives any kind of life so long as it is not one of murder or rape or any crazy crime is one that is going to experience a state of bliss after death. I'm trying to pinpoint where such peace actually comes from, rather than terror and realizing we all do what's wrong.

Of course there is false belief in unbiblical ideas. Then there is a hardness of heart and denial of sin and its consequences. But you just think there is something inside of each person that would take this idea seriously. Any thoughts?

 

[MyCrows]

Of course there is false belief in unbiblical ideas. Then there is a hardness of heart and denial of sin and its consequences. But you just think there is something inside of each person that would take this idea seriously. Any thoughts?

I think in these two statements you cover more ground than you think.

Man should take his sinful existence seriously, especially in light of God's unflinching holiness. But alas, man is deceived, and suppresses the truth in unrighteousness. -Romans1:18

 

[Jude24]

I remember before I was a Christian, I was terrified of death. I had this thought about judgment and what was going to happen to me when I died. I would imagine this would be par for the course for humans.

But what has lately been standing out to me, is how non-believers in general are so nonchalant and at peace with death. As if everyone who lives any kind of life so long as it is not one of murder or rape or any crazy crime is one that is going to experience a state of bliss after death. I'm trying to pinpoint where such peace actually comes from, rather than terror and realizing we all do what's wrong.

Of course there is false belief in unbiblical ideas. Then there is a hardness of heart and denial of sin and its consequences. But you just think there is something inside of each person that would take this idea seriously. Any thoughts?

I've also often thought this. I had a similar experience before I was a Christian. I grew up in a Christian household so I was very aware of heaven/hell, and the majority of my life was spent with paralyzing fear about dying and going to hell. My experience was probably more extreme than most who have similar fears, but, for me, it was crippling.

Now that I am a Christian, I have no idea how others go through life without a care. I suppose this is part of the blindness and rebellion that the lost have toward God. Maybe those who have a genuine fear of death are those who are being convicted and might be close to being led to Christ.

I know many people who have at least a basic knowledge of Christianity seem to have a very antinomian view of the gospel. I have often heard from people I have spoken to that since Christ died for their sins, what should they have to worry about? They completely deny repentance. continue living in their sin and disbelief, and find some form of false assurance in the objective belief that they are safe simply because Christ died.

 

[Taahanni]

I wonder if they will feel that deluded sense of peace on their deathbeds?

 

[retroGRAD3]

I wonder if they will feel that deluded sense of peace on their deathbeds?

Doubtful

 

[Contra_Mundum]

The doctrinal reality, in Christian terms, is that Judgment Day will come as a shock to the soul of many. The composed atheist--even an apostate--if he closes his eyes finally on this world only to open them on the next, will discover and bitterly rue the folly become so self-evident once death of the body allows him passage through the veil. Today, such a man confidently declares his peace with an approaching final hour, beyond which he believes nothing more exists (for him), beyond which no consciousness of his survives. Aye, he admits, there may be something his agnostic philosophy must bear with--a surprise continuation. But, he is equally sure no reliable word has been tendered to anyone or any source in this age; so the idea of ultimate reckoning and a cosmic clearing of accounts is a projection by some human mind on the curtain. If he chose to fabricate his own projection, it would have just the same probability of being true as every other.

I imagine many people feel this way, in general and today (as opposed to yesteryear). Religion does not dominate the "western mind," so not even false-religion's projections (as opposed to the Revealed-Religion's testimony) imposes itself on those minds even on their deathbeds. As with facing death in a crisis moment, there could be some gasping and wincing, some heart-thumping involuntary terrors as strength and breath fails; but these are psychosomatic reactions, not unlike fight-or-flight adrenaline spikes.

Contemplating this matter brings to mind stories of near-death-experience (NDE). Modern preference goes the opposite way of the preference of earlier eras, which popularized NDE's that were terrifying. Modern stories tend to emphasize feelings or observations that seem gentle, warm, and promising. For our part, we base nothing we hold for truth on any experience, good or bad; but on a word that assures us, that even if someone should come back from the dead to warn us (or encourage us) it will not change a heart. For that "they have Moses and the Prophets," and now the New Testament.

Surely there is a host of men who do dread the uncertainty of death and their final destiny, a certain fearful looking-for-judgment they cannot escape. Many do find this deathbed moment, no matter how they ordered their thinking in previous days. But there is no reason we should imagine our secular-age gives that mindset up wholesale in most final hours. I suppose the standard way of thinking continues for many if not most; after decades they die as they lived. But oh, the tragedy of discovery when it is too late. When the "light at the end of the tunnel" is the exposure of the divine Courtroom. There is no Advocate, no Mediator, nothing between him and God-with-whom-he-has-to-do. As people often do in this world when they are arrested, or when they are brought before their judge for trial or sentence--the reality of his plight, his conviction, suddenly is the only thing on each one's mind. Every other consideration fades to nothingness as utterly unimportant. But the decision is not for man to make, nor any bargain at the Bema Seat.

 

[MW]

Don't overlook the psychological effects of fear. Their angst to be careless and care-free is revealing. It shows they are no different to Adam and Eve hiding from God amongst the trees of the garden. What do they care about? Not being seen. Being found naked. This exposes their fear as something that moves them to the core of their being. Look at the cultural trappings -- the fig leaves they have sown together to try to cover themselves. They tell you a great deal about the person's deeper, untold secrets. They attempt to escape an ultimate reality that they dread. They tell you death is a natural, inevitable part of life. This is what they tell themselves. It must be so because the alternative is unspeakable. What they know within their own being as intelligent and moral creatures, is that death is actually unnatural, and is only inevitable as a divine judgment upon them for the sin of which their conscience continually accuses them. Their careless and care-free attitude only reveals that they are unwilling to face this horrible reality. This is but the foretaste of what is to come!

 

[DepravedButForgiven]

I remember before I was a Christian, I was terrified of death. I had this thought about judgment and what was going to happen to me when I died. I would imagine this would be par for the course for humans.

But what has lately been standing out to me, is how non-believers in general are so nonchalant and at peace with death. As if everyone who lives any kind of life so long as it is not one of murder or rape or any crazy crime is one that is going to experience a state of bliss after death. I'm trying to pinpoint where such peace actually comes from, rather than terror and realizing we all do what's wrong.

Of course there is false belief in unbiblical ideas. Then there is a hardness of heart and denial of sin and its consequences. But you just think there is something inside of each person that would take this idea seriously. Any thoughts?

I was revisiting Phillipians this morning. Chapter three, verses 18-21, but I will just quote verses 18 and 19. The end of the chapter addresses this issue.
"For I have told you, and now say again with tears, that many live as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction; their god is their stomach; their glory is in their shame. They are focused on earthly things."

Our response should be that of the apostle Paul, mourning for those who do not heed the Gospel of Peace. We can do nothing to alter peoples' response, or lack thereof to the Good News.

I think people are lying through their teeth if any who are without Christ say they are not afraid of death. They just choose not to show it. All we can do after sharing the Gospel is pray for the lost. The rest is in the hands of God.

 

[Jerusalem Blade]

Before the Lord drew me to Himself, I had no fear of death, as I was convinced that reincarnation was the truth.

Even so, I knew that there was death in me as simply by the fact I did not possess eternal life. I figured this would continue until it was given me. It would be an adventure of sorts, I thought. Thoroughly deceived.

Reincarnation blinded me to the awful reality. After conversion the Spirit of Christ, and the word of God made clear the truth to me: "...it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Heb 9:27KJV).

"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105KJV).

 

[Robert K]

I remember before I was a Christian, I was terrified of death. I had this thought about judgment and what was going to happen to me when I died. I would imagine this would be par for the course for humans.

But what has lately been standing out to me, is how non-believers in general are so nonchalant and at peace with death. As if everyone who lives any kind of life so long as it is not one of murder or rape or any crazy crime is one that is going to experience a state of bliss after death. I'm trying to pinpoint where such peace actually comes from, rather than terror and realizing we all do what's wrong.

Of course there is false belief in unbiblical ideas. Then there is a hardness of heart and denial of sin and its consequences. But you just think there is something inside of each person that would take this idea seriously. Any thoughts?

I came across this same observation in Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalm 73, particularly verse 4, but his commentary on the whole psalm is really edifying.

Treasury of DavidPsalm 73

Verse 4. For there are no bands in their death. This is mentioned as the chief wonder, for we usually expect that in the solemn article of death, a difference will appear, and the wicked will become evidently in trouble. The notion is still prevalent that a quiet death means a happy hereafter. The psalmist had observed that the very reverse is true. Careless persons become case hardened, and continue presumptuously secure, even to the last. Some are startled at the approach of judgment, but many more have received a strong delusion to believe a lie. What with the surgeon's drugs and their own infidelity, or false peace, they glide into eternity without a struggle. We have seen godly men bound with doubts, and fettered with anxieties, which have arisen from their holy jealousy; but the godless know nothing of such bands: they care neither for God nor devil. Their strength is firm. What care they for death? Frequently they are brazen and insolent, and can vent defiant blasphemies even on their last couch. This may occasion sorrow and surprise among saints, but certainly should not suggest envy, for, in this case, the most terrible inward conflict is infinitely to be preferred to the profoundest calm which insolent presumption can create. Let the righteous die as they may, let my last end be like theirs.

 

[Dkshotwell]

I read an article recently concerning the last words of atheists right before death, some were terrified and others were defiant. It could be a matter of how much light they were exposed to in life.

 

[Dkshotwell]

The account of this atheists last words sticks with me:


SIR FRANCIS NEWPORT – Head of an English Atheist club, to those gathered around his deathbed: “You need not tell me there is no God, for I know there is one, and that I am in his presence! You need not tell me there is no hell. I feel myself already slipping. Wretches, cease your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know I am lost forever! Oh, that fire! Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell! Oh, that I could lie for a thousand years upon the fire that is never quenched, to purchase the favor of God and be united to Him again. But it is a fruitless wish. Millions and millions of years will bring me no nearer the end of my torments than one poor hour. Oh, eternity, eternity forever and forever! Oh, the insufferable pangs of Hell!”

 

[jwithnell]

I suspect our culture's emphasis on youth reveals an anxiety below the surface. If you're young and healthy (or try to look and live like you are) a fall into sin and death is pretty foreign. Even funerals, which have become "celebrations of life," try to keep the illusion going.

What's more, if you can remake yourself with mindfulness and supplements, surely you can pull another trick out of the bag at the very end. (I was in a bookstore recently that had one set of shelves labeled "Remaking Yourself" and right next to it "Horror" and thought about how few people would notice the terrible juxtaposition of those words.)