FAMOUS LAST WORDS

Those of us who have spent time beside a dying loved one know how precious are their last words. We remember them and cherish them for many years. I well remember the huge smile on the face of my mother as (I believe) she saw the face of her Redeemer as she passed from life on this earth. She hadn’t really known us for years, was blind, and was unable to talk, but her smile said it all. I also remember with sadness and pity the torment of my evil stepfather as He died. His eyes were full of sheer terror.

Many last words of famous people are recorded and their final words speak volumes about them.

CHRISTIAN BELIEVERS:
John Newton: slave abolitionist, writer of “Amazing Grace”   “I am in the land of the dying, and I am soon going to the land of the living.”

D. L. Moody:   “I see earth receding; heaven is opening. God is calling me.”

Daniel Webster:   “The great mystery is Jesus Christ—the gospel. What would the condition of any of us be if we had not the hope of immortality? Thank God, the gospel of Jesus Christ brought life and immortality to light. I still live.”

Charles Spurgeon: “I can hear them coming! Don’t you hear them?  This is my coronation day.  I can see the chariots, I’m ready to board.”

ATHEISTS / FEARFUL UNBELIEVERS:
Sir Thomas Scott, Chancellor of England: “Until this moment I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty.”

David Hume, atheist philosopher: “I am in flames!” It is said his “desperation was a horrible scene”.

Sir Francis Newport, the head of an English Atheist club, shortly before he died: “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 favour 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!”

HOPEFUL? DECEIVED?
W. C. Fields: “I’m looking for a loophole.”

Elizabeth I, Queen of England: “All my possessions for a moment of time

Sigmund Freud:   “This is absurd! This is absurd!”

Today I am thinking of JOHN SEDGWICK whose last words bring a smile, but also a warning.

John Sedgwick, was a Union Army general in the American Civil War. He was the highest ranking Union casualty in the Civil War, killed by a sharpshooter at the Battle of Spotsylvania Court House May 9, 1864. Confederate sharpshooters were about 1,000 yards away and their shots caused members of his staff and artillerymen to duck for cover. Sedgwick strode around in the open and was quoted as saying, “What? Men dodging this way for single bullets? I’m ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn’t hit an elephant at this distance.”   Some reports say he didn’t finish the last word before he fell forward and died with a bullet hole below his left eye.

John Sedgwick reminds me of many people today.
Many think only of ‘today’ with no thought that life can end at any moment. Many have no thought of eternity,
denying even the possibility of a living almighty God or of heaven and hell. They trust their own “beliefs” or philosophies,
which have absolutely NO basis.

Death is often sudden and unexpected, but death is certain.

Hebrews 9:27
It is appointed unto man to die once,
and after that, the judgement.

Jesus said of hell:
Mark 9:43-44
the fire that never shall be quenched:
where their worm dies not, and the fire is not quenched.

Matthew 13:42
a furnace of fire: there shall be wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Matthew 25:46
And these shall go away into everlasting punishment:
but the righteous into life eternal.

Thankfully, even though we are ALL worthy of death and eternal hell,
God made it possible for us to be reconciled to Him for all eternity.

John 3:16-18 NLT  
For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son,
so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.  God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world,
but to save the world through Him.
There is no judgment against anyone who believes in Him.
But anyone who does not believe in Him has already been judged
for not believing in God’s one and only Son.

John 5:24 NLT
I tell you the truth, those who listen to My message
and believe in God who sent Me have eternal life.
They will never be condemned for their sins,
but they have already passed from death into life.

1 Corinthians 15:3 NLT
Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said

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