When someone I love dies, I am always left with some pretty well-defined paths of thought to follow. If they were Christians, I would like to have hope for them that they did not despair at the end but instead stayed faithful unto death. I know some who have fallen away and then died, and for those I am left weeping at the loss of the salvation they once enjoyed but spurned. Did they repent at the very end? Was it a true repentance or just grasping at straws? How will God judge their hearts? Being imperfect, I ask for the outcome I want rather than the true, good, and just one that God will administer.

If the one who has passed away was never a Christian at all, I believe my bible says they are in a lost condition. Yet out of a thin thread of hope I pray that God will be merciful to them, even though I firmly believe he *was* when they were alive. God sent his son to die for all of us, we who are so very undeserving, and THAT was the time of mercy. Those who refuse to soften their hearts to this sacrifice while they are alive will attain no mercy after death, having thrown the opportunity away. Yet I ask, even as Jeremiah, who God commanded him not to.

Ok, so that’s for one I love, be it a family member or a friend. What’s often so hard to figure out? For me its not those who I love because they are dear to me but those who I am supposed to love even though they are awash in evil doing, practicing things I hate. This is where I have second, third, and fourth thoughts.

I mean, I fully want God to extend his mercy to my unbelieving and undeserving loved ones, but what about…. the late-term abortionist who died this past year, who was murdering children regardless if the mother had months, weeks, or even days left in their pregnancy? Do I want God to be merciful to him? What about our senator who just passed away, the same man who once famously pledged to keep abortions legal as long as he lived? How about Herod, who murdered all those babies striving to kill Jesus? Consider Haman, who because of his own ancestor’s past sins that caused the whole problem tried to seek vengeance against God’s clear judgment of his people by killing all the Jews? Do we weep as we consider him hanging there on a gallows of his own creation, erected to hang the honest servant of God that did no evil? Are we sorry his life was lost, or any of these others?

I do feel a loss when someone dies, even someone who practices pure evil and actions that I completely abhor and despise. I will admit its hard not be happy or smug about it but they once had life and an opportunity to turn to their creator in appreciation, service, and love. Sadly they instead found carnal things more to their liking. They accomplished much harm and delighted in them. But they were created just as you or I or the ones I love, in the image of God. The potential of good, or evil, is in all of us, and until we breath our last we have opportunity to do something about it. I feel their loss but I am happy their evil ends.

So should I rejoice when one who immerses themselves in such evil and inflicts pain and suffering on so many others dies? It’s so hard not to, because I hate the sin so much , but I don’t think so. I should rejoice God has delivered us from such a one, and pray for healing of both people and nation, but not hate the sinner. Bad enough the justice God has in mind for him. I need to resist being happy that someone was lost, and instead watch out for myself!

Further, I feel that babies, knowing neither good or evil, return to God unmarked by sin. Their souls are not lost. Imagine the vast number of them who may be there when these murderers of innocents stand before God on judgment day and accuse these evil doers. There are many scenarios I have imagined where one is before that great and final judge of eternity. This one in my mind would be the most terrifying of all.

Randy