REPENTANCE-DEATHBED
Deathbed
repentance is burning the candle of life in the service of the devil, and then
blowing the smoke into the face of God.
I dare say
you are planning on a late repentance. You do not know what you are doing. You
are planning without God. Repentance and faith are the gifts of God, and they
are gifts that He often withholds, when they have been long offered in vain. I
grant you true repentance is never too late, but I warn you at the same time,
late repentance is seldom true. I grant you, one penitent thief was converted
in his last hours, that no man might despair; but I warn you, only one was
converted, that no man might presume.
J.C. Ryle
Thoughts
for Young Men.
A false
confidence in those words, “the eleventh hour,” has ruined thousands of souls.
J.C.
Ryle
Commentary, Matthew 19.
We must never
forget the thief of the cross (Lk. 23:39-43). He is often used as an
encouraging example of a deathbed conversion, but certainly much more is
involved. Instead of seizing his last opportunity to be saved, perhaps it was
his first opportunity! And think of the courage needed to confess Christ openly
before that derisive mob. However one interprets the passage, one thing is
clear: where there is life, there is hope. We never know what transpires
between the soul and God as that soul is about to enter eternity.
Warren
and David Wiersbe
Comforting the Bereaved, Moody, 1985, p. 111.
Those who
wait to repent until the eleventh hour often die at ten thirty.
Author Unknown
Even the stoutest sinners will hear us on their
death-bed, though they scorned us before. They will then let fall their fury,
and be as gentle as lambs, who were before as untractable
as lions. I find not one in ten, of the most obstinate scornful wretches in my
parish, but when they come to die, will humble themselves, confess their
faults, and seem penitent, and promise, if they should recover, to reform their
lives.
Richard Baxter
The Reformed Pastor, Chapter 2, Section 1.
The faithful
and laborious clergyman of a very large and populous parish had been
accustomed, for a long series of years, to preserve notes of his visits to the
afflicted, with remarks on the outcome of their affliction – whether life or
death, and of the subsequent conduct of those who recovered. He stated, that, during forty years, he had visited more than
two thousand people apparently drawing near to death, and who revealed such
signs of penitence as would have led him to indulge a good hope of their
eternal safety – if they had died at that moment. When they were restored to
life and health – he eagerly looked that they should bring forth fruits fit for
repentance. But alas! Of the two thousand, only two people manifested an
abiding and saving change! The rest, when the terrors of eternity ceased to be
in immediate prospect, forgot their pious impressions and their solemn vows –
and returned with new avidity to their former worldly mindedness and sinful
pursuits, “as the dog returns to its vomit again, and
as the sow that was washed to its wallowing in the mire.”
Gorham Abbott
The
Family at Home, 1833.
No man ever
repented on his deathbed of being a Christian.
Hannah Moore
There be few
at all saved…and fewest saved this way.
William Guthrie
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner
of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 66.
The Bible,
which ranges over a period of four thousand years, records but one instance of a
death-bed conversion (the penitent thief) – one that none may despair, and but
one that none may presume.
William Guthrie
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner
of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 66.
Though true
repentance is never too late, yet late repentance is seldom true.
Thomas Brooks
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner
of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 241.
No man ought
to flatter and deceive himself in deferring his conversion by alleging the
example of the penitent thief, saved even at the last hour upon the cross, and
carried to Paradise that same day with Christ, for this act was a special
miracle, reserved for the manifestation of Christ’s power and glory at that
hour upon the cross; and, besides, this act was upon a most rare confession
made by the thief at that instant when almost all the world forsook Christ.
Daniel Cawdray
A Puritan Golden Treasury, compiled by I.D.E. Thomas, by permission of Banner of Truth, Carlisle, PA. 2000, p. 241.