Did You Hear His Last Thoughts?

“When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple”

(Jonah 2:7)

1.         Is he saved?

A Christian student was very disappointed with herself.  A few days earlier, she had shared the gospel with her teacher but he did not pray the sinner’s prayer.  Having attended church in his younger days, the teacher had back-slided and no longer went to church.  After hearing her share the gospel, he was not prepared to believe in  Christ as his Saviour.

She is very upset with herself now as she just heard that her teacher was involved in a road accident and died.  She kept asking herself, “Is he saved?”  “Should I have persisted in my sharing of the gospel?”  “Maybe I should have pressed for a decision instead of allowing him time to decide.  Now he is lost forever.”

2.         It’s for God to decide

Is he really lost forever?  Is his salvation based on whether he said his sinner’s prayer after she shared the gospel?  I don’t think it’s that simple.  I don’t think it’s for us to judge whether someone is saved.  It’s for God to decide whether someone is saved. This is especially so when we cannot hear a dying man’s last thoughts  before he died.

3.         Jonah died and was resurrected to life

In the Bible, we do have an account of a dying man’s last thoughts and this is found in the story of Jonah.  Whenever we think of Jonah, we remember him being swallowed up by a big fish.  What we may not know is that Jonah died and was raised back to life by God.

We read from the story of Jonah about a prophet who ran away from the Lord because he did not want to do what God asked him to do.  Jonah got on a ship and later encountered a storm which threatened to sink the ship.  Jonah volunteered to be thrown overboard to appease the raging storm.  Out of sheer desperation, the sailors agreed and threw Jonah overboard.

4.         Thoughts of a dying man

Jonah 2: 2-10 recorded the thoughts of a dying man who refused to obey God and chose to run away from Him.  In verse 7, Jonah said, “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you.”  Even as he was dying, Jonah remembered God. He could not verbally pray but he must have thought out his prayers and God heard him.

Jonah sank to the bottom of the sea (verse 6) as he died.  But God in His mercy saved Jonah because with his last thought, Jonah remembered God who raised him back to life (verse 10).  Incidentally, Jesus referred to Jonah being in the belly of the huge fish for three days and three nights as being similar to His own death and resurrection (Matthew 12:40).

5.         Pray for God’s mercy

This story reminds us that it is God who decides who is saved.  Since we all can’t be there to hear a dying man’s words or know his thoughts, it is better that we not judge whether someone who died is saved or not.  God is the one who decides and we should pray that He will have mercy over the deceased just as He did with Jonah.