When the saintly H. S. Laird was dying, his young minister son went to his bedside and asked, “Dad, how do you feel about the whole experience?” He turned his face towards his son and replied, “Son, I feel like a little boy on Christmas Eve.” After a bad night, the Russian writer Dostoevsky said to his wife, “I must die today. Light a candle, Anya, and give me the gospel.” She handed him a battered New Testament. It had been the only book permitted him during the first three of his four years in a Siberian prison three decades before. The dying man called his little son, Fyodor, and his daughter, Lyubov, to his side and asked that the parable of the prodigal son be read to them. Anna read the passage from Luke 15, and then Dostoevsky said to them: “Children, never forget what you have just heard here. Preserve an unbounded faith in the Lord and never despair of his forgiveness. I love you dearly, but my love is nothing in comparison to the Lord’s infinite love for all men whom he has created. If ever it should happen that in the course of your life you commit an offence, you must not lose hope in the Lord. You are his children. Humble yourselves before him, as your Father; beg him for forgiveness, and he will rejoice at your repentance, as he rejoiced at the return of the prodigal son.” That evening he died and his daughter, Aimee, wrote: I have been present at many deathbeds, but none was so radiant as that of my father. He saw without fear the end approaching. His was a truly Christian death. He was ready to appear before his Eternal Father, hoping that to recompense him for all that he had suffered in this life, God would give him another great work to do, another great task to accomplish. In his autobiography Then Sings My Soul, American gospel singer George Beverly Shea tells how, when his father fell asleep for the last time, he had a notebook on his lap in which were these words, the last he had written: “Life has been wonderful, the promises of God precious, the eternal hope glorious.” When he knew that he had only a few hours to live, Mr Gammon, a missionary in New Guinea, said, “I’ll sail in the morning…When I go, set the clock going at Home Sweet Home.” (The clock belonged to his colleague’s wife and played that tune). Dr Leslie Weatherhead wrote about how, in his pastoral ministry, he sat with a dying man who was conscious to the end. “He gripped my hand and I must have gripped his more tightly than I thought I was doing, for he said, ’Don’t hold me back. I can see through the gates. It’s marvellous.’” Just before being executed by the Nazis for his faith, Hermann Lange wrote to his parents. The death he had faced for so many months was now imminent. He said, “I am first in a joyous mood. And second filled with great anticipation.” His joy came from “faith in Christ who has preceded us in death. In Him I have put my faith and precisely today I have faith in him more firmly than ever.” After encouraging them to turn to the New Testament for consolation, he said, “Look where you will, everywhere you will find jubilation over the grace that makes us children of God. What can befall a child of God? Of what should I be afraid? On the contrary, rejoice!” [32] The distinguished German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer, also executed just days before the German surrender, conducted a service for his fellow prisoners before being taken out to his death. His text was “ Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who in his mercy gave us new birth into a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead” (1 Peter 1:3). As the guards removed him, he sent this last message to the Bishop of Chichester, “This is the end— but for me the beginning of life.” [33] When English cricketer and missionary C. T. Studd died in the heart of Africa, the last word he wrote was “Alleluia!” The last word he spoke was “Alleluia!” The mission sent a cable back to England, “Bwana glorified July 16. Alleluia!” [34] Jack Armstrong, a member of the Christian organisation Navigators, serving on the Atlanta during World War 2, wrote in a letter, “What a privilege to give our lives for our country! What a hope a Christian has after death—eternity with the Lord Jesus Christ, and loved ones!” Shortly after, in a post- midnight battle off Guadalcanal, he was fatally wounded. As the chaplain sought to minister to him where he fell, both legs shot off, Jack protested, “Don’t bother with me. I know where I’m going,” urging the chaplain to spend time with the unsaved. [35] Sir David Brewster, inventor of the kaleidoscope, said, as he was dyin g: I will see Jesus. I shall see Him as He is. I have had the light for many years. Oh, how bright it is! I feel so safe and satisfied. Henry Venn, founder of the Anglican Church Missionary Society, retired from being Vicar of Huddelsfield and went to live in Clapham, next to his son John’s rectory in 1796. Samuel Thornton noted in his Recollections : “Old Mr Venn is almost in the last stage. He is like a shock of corn fully ripe and he promises to end his course triumphantly.” By June it was evident that he was dying and when he was told this, the prospect made him so jubilant and high spirited that his doctor said it was his joy at the thought of dying that kept him alive for another fortnight. A friend visited Augustus Toplady, author of the popular hymn Rock of Ages, just before his death. He felt his pulse and told him that his heart was evidently beating weaker and weaker every day. Toplady replied immediately with the sweetest smile, “Why, that is a good sign to me that death is fast approaching and, blessed be God, I can add that my heart beats every day stronger and stronger for glory.” [36] Jean Rees tells in His Name was Tom (the biography of her husband, British evangelist Tom Rees), how she was at her father’s bedside when he was dying. She said, “A number of us were present, including the nurses and the doctor, when father looked round and said, ‘If I should meet my Maker tonight, I will say, “I want no other argument, I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died, and that He died for me.”’” Those were his last words. Poet and editor Luci Shaw told in Decision magazine how, shortly before her father died, he dictated a letter to her to send to all his friends, in which he described “the wonderful coming experience of any moment suddenly being with Christ” as “surely the most interesting and extraordinary event which can ever come to a child of God.” His letter concluded, “Love to you all. Goodbye, or is it not rather, Goodnight?” Lady Jane Grey was Queen of England for sixteen days. Because she refused to renounce her simple faith in Christ, she was condemned to be executed. On mounting the scaffold she addressed the spectators, “I die as a true Christian woman, and I look to be saved by no other means but only the mercy of God and the blood of his Son, Jesus Christ.” At the close of her address she knelt and repeated the fifty-first Psalm. The executioner knelt and asked her forgiveness, which she willingly granted and said, “I pray you, dispatch me quickly.” Tying a handkerchief around her eyes, she felt for the block and laid her head on it with the words, “Lord, into your hands I commend my spirit.” She was seventeen years old. A moving story is told in Graham Twelftree’s Drive the Point Home . [37] A young man, Jimmy Lee Davis, was sentenced to death row for rape and murder. Even his mother wrote to the state governor, “Don’t reprieve him. What he has done is so bad I want my boy to die.” A news magazine from America carried the headline: “I want my son to die,” says mother. A young Pentecostal man in Melbourne, Australia, read the story. He was moved to write to Jimmy and tell him that Jesus loved him. To his amazement he got a letter back saying, “It’s the most wonderful letter I have ever had in my life. I do wish I could meet you. I just wish I could know Jesus in my life like you do. I’ve made such a mess of it. You have given me hope.” The young man felt that God wanted him to go to America and visit Jimmy. After prayer and sharing the idea with friends, he raised the money and went. By a series of coincidences he got permission to go into death row twice a week, for four hours a visit, for two months. He took his guitar and they sang choruses, told jokes, laughed and he led Jimmy to Jesus. His last visit was to Jimmy’s baptism. For two years Jimmy’s faith grew. In one of his letters, he wrote, “There is one thing I’m not going to do. I’m not going to dishonour the gospel by using my conversion to escape the death penalty.” Then one day the young man in Melbourne got a ring from his wife, “Can you come home at once? Jimmy’s just got permission to ring us from prison; he’s being executed tonight.” He tore home and got through to the prison two hours before Jimmy was due in the gas chamber. But he just broke down and cried on the phone. However, Jimmy at the other end said, “I love you man. Thank you for all that you have done for me. I’ve got to go now. Goodbye. Be seeing you.” And Jimmy hung up. Colin Chapman, in The Case For Christianity, [38] quotes Ugandan bishop Festo Kivengere’s account of the 1973 execution by firing squad of three men from his diocese: As we walked into the centre of the stadium, I was wondering what to say. How do you give the gospel to doomed men who are probably seething with rage? We approached them from behind, and as they turned to look at us, what a sight! Their faces were all alight with an unmistakable glow and radiance. Before we could say anything, one of them burst out: “Bishop, thank you for coming! I wanted to tell you. The day I was arrested, in my prison cell, I asked the Lord Jesus to come into my heart. He came in and forgave me all my sins! Heaven is now open, and there is nothing between me and my God! Please tell my wife and children that I am going to be with Jesus. Ask them to accept him into their lives as I did.” The other two men told similar stories, excitedly raising their hands, which rattled with handcuffs. I felt that what I needed to do was to talk to the soldiers, not to the condemned. So I translated what the men had said into a language the soldiers understood. The military men were standing there with guns cocked and bewilderment on their faces. They were so dumbfounded that they forgot to put the hoods over the men’s faces. The three men faced the firing squad standing close together. They looked towards the people and began to wave, handcuffs and all. The people waved back. Then shots were fired and they were with Jesus…It was a day never to be forgotten. Though dead, the men spoke loudly to all of the Kigezi District and beyond, so that there was an upsurge of life in Christ, which challenges death and defeats it. Karla Faye Tucker was sentenced to death in a Texas prison for murder. During her period in prison she had become a Christian and had a positive ministry to other inmates. In an article about the ministry of the prison chaplain Jim Brazzil in Christianity Today by Virginia Stem Owens, [39] he described how, before her execution, Karla Faye asked to borrow his Bible. He gave it to her while he went to see the warden. When he returned she handed it back without saying anything. Next day, while working on her funeral, he picked up his Bible and flicked it open. There was her message. She had written: Chaplain/Jim THANK YOU for bringing the love & fellowship of Jesus to me as I was preparing to be face to face w/Him. You, my precious brother, are hand-picked of God, because of the compassion in your heart, to minister to those who have to walk this road. May the grace and peace of God continue to cover you in a mighty way all of your days! I love you in Christ Your Sister, Karla Faye Ps. 16:11 Rev. Roger Thompson, one of our retired and much respected Anglican clergymen in Christchurch, New Zealand, told how his grandmother was watching over his grandfather as he was dying. Suddenly he sat up, his face lit up, and he said in an excited voice, “Coming, Jesus.” Then he sank back on his pillow and passed on from this life.
Posted on: Thu, 11 Dec 2014 09:50:29 +0000
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