Editor’s Note: The following post was published on The Walk To Remember in 2018. It has been reformatted to this website.

For him to be speechless is not a thing to be desired. It would be humiliating. A slap in the face to the ears on loan. A slap to the face to the subject as well. However, we cannot blame the pastor, or officiate, for being left in an awkward and vulnerable state of silence. There is no one to blame but the lifeless.

Several years ago we had a neighbor. He was a good man, always willing to help out in any way that he could. He helped me replace a water pump on my van. He would occasionally chop down my front yard with his riding mower, thus giving me much reprieve from my tortuous push mower. There are many other neighborly things, yet they all escape me now. In time he lost his job. In time the alcohol came. In time the substances came. The demons had arrived.

The pity that he was drowning in was heart breaking and sickening at the same time. In rehab. Out of rehab. In rehab. Out of rehab. Once we had thought that he was in rehab for several weeks because his home had grown dark and silent. Truth was that he was home alone the entire time, bathed in inner and outer darkness. He hadn’t paid his electric bill. An extension cord bridged his refrigerator and the neighbor’s garage. The only sign of life. You never knew where he was. Occasionally he would stagger down his front steps. Once I helped him up out of his shrubs. He asked me “How do you do it?”. I don’t know what he meant by this. How do I fend off the demons and walk upright? This incident allowed me to share the Gospel with him. I helped him inside, to where he began talking to the “party guests” in the living room. There was no one there. Demons, perhaps?

My wife once witnessed an accident on our property that involved him, his truck, and alcohol. Against her will she was forced to testify against him in court. He didn’t show. He had tried to commit suicide that morning. I thought that I knew just how low he would go. The coworker that favored David as his biblical hero (from my post “Chasing God”) was living with this neighbor at this time. As we spent our drives to the various job sites, he informed me as to what was going on behind closed doors. The senseless actions were now making sense. 

I had tried to witness to this neighbor. I once slipped a CD with the Gospel message in his mailbox. A few times I would sneak a gospel tract into his front door that was as sealed shut as his heart. We prayed for him on a nightly basis. I found myself in his living room once speaking with the man who favored David. Our conversation went from work, to the church. Like a wild animal in a doomed trap, this neighbor began to squirm. Once, my wife simply spelled it out for him: “You are going to Hell without God”, to which he responded “I don’t believe in your God”. We knew him by his fruit. His lack of belief was evident (Matthew 12:33).

I wasn’t surprised by the phone call, yet at the same time I was. As he departed his home that day, inebriated, the question that was left with us was this: Did he lose control, or did he do it on purpose? Unless he pleaded with the merciful God, the One that us and countless others had shown him glimpses of, in his final second as he tumbled down the embankment then there was one thing that was certain: He had entered into his eternity… in Hell. A far worse life than the personal hell that he had sentenced himself to. 

Funerals are depressing. That cannot be denied. This one far worse. As we entered into the funeral home for the memorial service, secular rock music blared through the speakers. On the screen flashed images of him with his ex-wife, son, and daughter. A vibrant life before the demons came. My neighbor’s son had to hunt down a pastor to do the service. This hired hand had nothing to say. I commend him for not offering up a lie, that my neighbor was in a better place. That he was singing praises to the God that he denied.  All he could do was preach the Gospel message. Nothing was said about my neighbor as this final sermon reverberated above his urn. One that had come too late. I believe that the pastor knew. We all knew as well where his soul was. 

This is the polar opposite of a “funeral” from a year prior. A fellow brother’s mother had unexpectedly passed in her sleep. She was a devoted sister in Christ. To call her memorial service a “funeral” would have been an insult. There was no rock music. The sounds of “It Is Well” and “In The Garden” traversed through the air as not one, but two, preachers delivered her eulogy. One was a friend, the other her pastor. Solemn looks were traded for an occasional “Amen!”. These men were not at a loss for words in honoring her walk as a child of God. This wasn’t a somber observance of death. No! This was a home going celebration. Much like my own grandmother’s, where two ministers and those in attendance praised a Holy God and the golden streets of Heaven that her feet now trod.

Sinner and saint, what kind of walk are you walking? Will you leave your loved ones to chase after a total stranger to offer up the final words over your body? Will you have your pastor deliver a heart touching sermon on how your walk exemplified one of a true believer? Will your loved ones hang their head in awkward shame, knowing that your wretched life here on earth was the best place that you could be? Or will they know, without a doubt, that you are bathed in the light of our Lord (Revelation 21:23)? In a place where there is no night? Or maybe you live your life straddling the line? One angelic wing extended and one foot in the fire? Will your loved ones assume that you are in Heaven because you were a good person? Remember… being a sweetheart doesn’t get you into Heaven (Ephesians 2:8-9). There are sweethearts that deny Christ. All day. Everyday. Will those who know better have doubts because you never once showed forth a single fruit of the spirit (Galatians 5:22-23)? Any evidence of His Amazing Grace? Will they even have to ask “Was he saved?” The path of uncertainty is just as dangerous as the path of certainty for the one who will be in the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15).

In my grandmother’s final days, she asked her minister to come to her home. It was here that she told her that she was ready to go home. Do you know where your home is after this one? Have you no doubt that Heaven will be your eternal abode because you have accepted His atoning sacrifice (Romans 3:23; 5:8; 10:9)? Are you in between, uncertain as if you truly are His? Have you fallen for the lie of the deceiver, believing that being a sincere sweetheart is good enough? Only know that it is the saving power of Christ that will see you to eternal glory. Or maybe you embrace the thought of Hell. Maybe you are under the impression that the party will continue when your last breath expires here? Then again, maybe all of this Heaven and Hell stuff is nothing more than a fairy tale to you. That your forever sleep is it. Are you willing to stake your eternal life on that notion? To deny eternity in Heaven and Hell is to, by default, deny the salvation of the Christ and grasp for one in torment (Matthew 13:41-43).

What kind of eulogy will you have? What kind of legacy will you leave? What will they say?

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16).