Hope until the Last Breath...

The death of Robert Devereaux, Second Earl of Essex:

"My sins are more in number than the hairs of my head", he somberly acknowledged. "I have bestowed my youth in pride, lust, uncleanness, vainglory and divers other sins:. For these failings he craved pardon of the Almighty and "especially for this my last sin, this great, this bloody, this crying and this infectious sin, whereby so many for the love of me have ventured...to offend their sovereign". Hailing the axeman as " the minister of true justice", he knelt down to pray, and then laid his head on the block. At the suggestion of one of the officiating divines, he began to recite out loud the fifty-first Psalm, but after completing the second verse he cried out, "Executioner, strike home." Even as he resumed commending his soul to God, he was silenced in mid-sentence as the axe came crashing down.

Taken from page 545 of Elizabeth I by Anne Somerset

"Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us." But the other, answering , rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong."

Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."

And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

taken from Luke 23:39-43, NKJV

I cite both of the above as examples of why we should never give up hope on those who are going astray. In the first example, we have no way of ascertaining in this life whether or not Essex truly died in Christ, but his last days certainly demonstrate a repentance that appears to have been genuine. In the second instance we have a man we know infallibly is with the Lord. Both of these men wasted their entire lives in folly of one sort or another. But God can and does graciously bring His children Home, whether early or late, to the praise of His glorious grace.

Let the parents of all prodigals strengthen themselves in this and not lose hope.