Blessed Assurance

A man's last parting words can convey a lot about the final state of his soul. Here is a list of the last words of some of history's most storied people. At that fateful hour, some were courageous and calm, while others were despairing, realizing at the last that they had never found blessed assurance. And now it was too late.

Cardinal Borgia: “I have provided in the course of my life for everything except death, and now, alas, I am to die unprepared.”

Elizabeth the First: “All my possessions for one moment of time.”

Anne Boleyn: “O God, have pity on my soul. O God, have pity on my soul.”

Ludwig van Beethoven: “Too bad, too bad! It’s too late!”

Phillip III, King of France: “What an account I shall have to give to God! How I should like to live otherwise than I have lived.”

Voltaire: Voltaire once said of Jesus, “Curse the wretch!” and, “Every sensible man, every honorable man, must hold the Christian sect in horror ...Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd and bloody religion that has ever infected the world.”

He also boasted, “In twenty years Christianity will be no more. My single hand shall destroy the edifice it took twelve apostles to rear.” Years later, Voltaire’s house was used by the Geneva Bible Society to print Bibles.

On his deathbed he screamed out, “I am abandoned by God and man! I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months’ life. Then I shall go to hell; and you will go with me. O Christ! O Jesus Christ!”

Patrick Henry: In his will he wrote: “This is all the inheritance I give to my dear family. The religion of Christ which will give them one which will make them rich indeed.” And on his deathbed he stated, “Doctor, I wish you to observe how real and beneficial the religion of Christ is to a man about to die...”

John Owen: “I am going to Him whom my soul loveth, or rather who has loved me with an everlasting love, which is the sole ground of all my consolation.”

Martin Luther: “Into Thy hands I commend my spirit! Thou hast redeemed me, O God of truth.”

Daniel Webster: “I still live!”

Shortly before his death Daniel had said, “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.”

David Livingstone: “Build me a hut to die in. I am going home.”

Isaac Watts: “It is a great mercy that I have no manner of fear or dread of death. I could, if God please, lay my head back and die without terror this afternoon.”

Jonathan Edwards: “Trust in God and you shall have nothing to fear.”