Deathbed Repentance

Charles Spurgeon:

Ah! dear friends, it has been my lot to stand by many a death-bed, and to see many such a repentance as this; I have seen the man, when worn to a skeleton, sustained by pillows in his bed; and he has said, when I have talked to him of judgment to come, “Sir, I feel I have been guilty, but Christ is good; I trust in him.” And I have said within myself, ” I believe the man’s soul is safe.” But I have always come away with the melancholy reflection that I had no proof of it, beyond his own words; for it needs proof in acts and in future life, in order to sustain any firm conviction of a man’s salvation. You know that great fact, that a physician once kept a record of a thousand persons who thought they were dying, and whom he thought were penitents; he wrote their names down in a book as those, who, if they had died, would go to heaven; they did not die, they lived; and he says that out of the whole thousand he had not three persons who turned out well afterwards, but they returned to their sins again, and were as bad as ever. Ah! dear friends, I hope none of you will have such a death-bed repentance as that; I hope your minister or your parents will not have to stand by your bedside, and then go away and say, “Poor fellow, I hope he is saved. But alas! death-bed repentances are such flimsy things; such poor, such trivial grounds of hope, that I am afraid, after all, his soul may be lost.”

Charles H. Spurgeon:

I venture, however, to say that if I stood by the bedside of a dying man tonight, and I found him anxious about his soul, but fearful that Christ could not save him because repentance had been put off so late, I would certainly quote the dying thief to him, and I would do it with good conscience, and without hesitation. I would tell him that, though he was as near to dying as the thief upon the cross was, yet, if he repented of his sin, and turned his face to Christ believingly, he would find eternal life. I would do this with all my heart, rejoicing that I had such a story to tell to one at the gates of eternity. I do not think that I would be censured by the Holy Spirit for thus using a narrative which He has Himself recorded— recorded with the foresight that it would be so used. I would feel, at any rate, in my own heart, a sweet conviction that I had treated the subject as I ought to have treated it, and as it was intended to be used for men in extremis whose hearts are turning towards the living God. Oh, yes, poor soul, whatever your age, or whatever the period of life to which you have come, you may now find eternal life by faith in Christ!—

“The dying thief rejoiced to see

That fountain in his day;

And there may you, though vile as he

Wash all your sins away.”

J. C. Ryle:

I dare say you are planning on a late repentance. You do not know what you are doing. You are planning without God. Repentance and faith are the gifts of God, and they are gifts that He often withholds; when they have been long offered in vain. I grant you true repentance is never too late, but I warn you at the same time, late repentance is seldom true. I grant you, one penitent thief was converted in his last hours, that no man might despair; but I warn you, only one was converted, that no man might presume.

A false confidence in those words, “the eleventh hour,” has ruined thousands of souls.

Archibald Alexander
Some ministers, whom I have known, have been so solicitous to keep sinners from delaying repentance that they have inculcated the opinion that a deathbed repentance is not only uncertain—but absolutely ineffectual, and that no hope can be justly entertained for those who never repented until the last hour. It is true that many who on a sickbed appear penitent, when they recover soon lose all their serious impressions and return with renewed avidity to the pursuits of the world. Their repentance is thus proved to have been spurious. But every fit of fear, produced by the near prospect of death, ought not to be called repentance; or at any rate, that repentance which, in Scripture, is connected with the pardon of sin—which is a real change of the views and tempers of the mind—by which a man becomes a new creature, old things having passed away, and all things having become new.
All repentance on a deathbed is not, however, by these instances proved to be spurious, any more than all conversions of people in health are proved to be counterfeit because a great many such are to be met with. I have seen cases of repentance on a deathbed, as satisfactory, and in which I had as much confidence as in any that I have known among those in health, prior to the evidence of a good life. And why should it be supposed that a gracious God will never manifest His power and grace in the conversion of a sinner on a sickbed? If this should once be admitted as a principle, it would be worse than useless for a minister of the Gospel, or any other pious person, to visit an unconverted sinner when on a sickbed, or to give any answer to his most anxious inquiry, "What shall I do to be saved?" (Acts 16:30)

Thomas Watson:

But some will say that they do not fear a sudden death; they will repent upon their deathbed. I do not much like a deathbed repentance. He who will venture his salvation within the circle of a few short minutes, runs a desperate hazard. You who put off repentance until your deathbed, answer me to these four queries:
(a) How do you know that you shall have a time of sickness? Death does not always give its warning, by a lingering illness. Some it arrests suddenly. What if God should presently send you a summons to surrender your life?
(b) Suppose you should have a time of sickness, how do you know that you shall have the use of your senses? Most are demented, on their deathbed.
(c) Suppose you should have your senses—yet how do you know your mind will be in a frame for such a work as repentance? Sickness does so discompose body and mind, that one is in no condition, at such a time, to take care for his soul. In sickness a man is scarcely fit to make his will, much less to make his peace with God! The apostle said, "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church" (James 5:14). He does not say, let him pray—but let him call for the elders, that they may pray over him. A sick man is very unfit to pray or repent; he is likely to make but sick work of it. When the body is out of tune, the soul must needs jar in its devotion. Upon a sick bed a person is more fit to exercise impatience than repentance. We read that at the pouring out of the fourth vial, when God did smite the inhabitants and scorched them with fire, that "they blasphemed the name of God, and repented not" (Rev. 16:9). So when the Lord pours out his vial and scorches the body with a fever—the sinner is fitter to blaspheme than to repent!

(d) How do you who put off all to a deathbed, know that God will give you in that very juncture of time, grace to repent? The Lord usually punishes neglect of repentance in time of health—with hardness of heart in time of sickness. You have in your lifetime repulsed the Spirit of God, and are you sure that he will come at your call? You have not taken the first season, and perhaps you shall never see another springtide of the Spirit again. All this considered may hasten our repentance. Do not lay too much weight upon a deathbed. "Do your best to come before winter" (2 Tim. 4:21). There is a winter of sickness and death a-coming. Therefore make haste to repent. Let your work be ready before winter. "Today, if you hear his voice--do not harden your hearts" (Heb. 3:7-8).