Trusting God when dying

Faith is the victory—and all of the righteous will live by their faith. I once knew a man in New Zealand. He was about forty, and in the prime of life. He loved life too. He suddenly began to feel a bit weak and listless, so he went to the doctor. The doctor did not want to tell him [what was wrong], but he said, Come on Doctor, give it to me straight. What is it? And the doctor answered, I do not like to say it, but you have an incurable disease. In one year, you will be gone. Now, that was a great struggle for that man. He had not been as committed a Christian as he should have been and he knew it, and now that weakness almost overwhelmed him, he had great struggles. How could God take him away when his wife and children needed him? How could God do that? It was a tremendous burden and he groped for the answer, just like Habakkuk. He wrestled and he fought, and he did some theology, but he still had problems.

I lived in the joyful experience of seeing that man take hold of these promises of God. He began to really latch on to what God says he will do. And one of the things God says he will do, is look after the widow and children of his saints. Now God says that, and he does it too. The man began to believe that, and he began to notice that God says, Look, to depart and to be with Christ is better. And he began to believe that too. He began to think about what God says about the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting, and a lot of other things that are completely future at this time, and he believed it. It was almost like watching the little worm become a butterfly; it was such a transformation. That man began to take hold of the powerful promises of God, and the fact is that he believed them so firmly by the time he died, that he literally went out of this world rejoicing. Now, he was stupid to do that if it is not true. But it is true, and God showed him that it is true; and being true he was not stupid, he was right. The righteous will live by faith.¹

G. I. Williamson