It was James Guthrie the Scottish Covenanter, who was on the scaffold about to have his head chopped off for his faith and for his adherence to the truth in the sixteen hundreds in Scotland. What was it that were almost the next to last words that James Guthrie called out as his head was about to roll? They were the words from Habakkuk 1:12, somewhat quoted and paraphrased and applied in his own case:
Ralph Davisart thou not from everlasting O Lord my God, my Holy One! I shall not die!Of course, he is going to die…No, he meant that if he had this God who was from eternity, that this eternal God would keep his people to eternity, even through death. And if this God promised to be a God to him, he could still call him my God, even before his head rolled off the scaffold. And he would not die, because that eternal God who committed himself to him, would keep his grip on him even through death.1
12 Are you not from everlasting, O LORD my God, my Holy One? We shall not die. O LORD, you have ordained them as a judgment, and you, O Rock, have established them for reproof.