The Last Day of an Unconverted Man

By Elizabeth Prata

He was comfortably retired. He was old. On a fine and bright winter’s day in Sunny Florida, an unconverted man left his fine and comfortable home, and drove toward town. Where he was going…only God knows. Perhaps to the store to pick up a newspaper or milk. Perhaps to the diner to commune with cronies. Perhaps just to take a nice drive along the shore and admire the day.

He certainly expected to accomplish his drive, to circumnavigate his task of going then coming. He certainly expected that his plans for later would be accomplished, perhaps some reading, maybe a nap, or dinner out with friends. He expected to return to his wife as he had all the other days he drove around town on his errands.

He certainly did not expect the abrupt curtailment on this earth of all his plans, all his thoughts, all his ideas, all his aims, all his goals, all his breath, all his existence.

He failed to yield. The last thing he heard was the screech of brakes and the crumpling of metal. He lost his life there, right there, on the pavement. He crossed into a path of an oncoming car, and his car collapsed like a tin can and his body broke like a clay vessel. He was laid on the asphalt by rescuers, but his life drained out on that wide byway. He entered eternity.

He certainly expected that his lifelong principles of atheism, of freedom from religion, and hatred toward God was right and just. He certainly expected that on his final day, surely sometime well into the future, or at least not this day, that he would simply blink out and experience nothingness. He certainly expected to become just dust, relieved of worldly cares, having lived a great life under the sun.

He certainly did not expect that his deep-rooted hatred of God would be revealed to be futile. He certainly did not expect that the truth would catapult him into darkness where there is only agony, wailing, and gnashing of teeth. He certainly did not know his own heart’s hardness and his own seared conscience would be revealed in that gloomy darkness. He certainly did not expect that his deafness to Gospel pleas and his blindness to creation’s Creator was a drastic and unmitigated disaster. A disaster to last him in awake and searing consciousness, for all eternity.

No, he languidly drove along, perhaps with a wrist over the steering wheel, admiring his business acumen that allowed him to accumulate wealth, a nice car, a winter home in a wealthy city.

(Perhaps in the last nanosecond he did pray in repentance. Only God knows. But likely not.)

He died.  He entered eternity.

Pray for the unconverted.