GETTING PAST YOUR TWENTIES

 It has been said by many a person that a person in his 20's that does not live by his heart (a dashing philosophizing, rebel without a cause, passionate person) is not a person at all.  But a person in his 40's or 50's that does not live by his head (thoughtful, introspective, repentant) is a fool.

Well, from the sounds of these quotes, some of these aged "philosophers" never got past their twenties and lived to regret it.  The beautiful thing about the process of aging is that the hormones settle down and life generally slows down a bit and wisdom takes the place of rashness and fickleness.  This is the beauty of the decaying body.  We are forced to deal with the reality of the finiteness of our mortality.  Some people wait until the deathbed to make the change.  Some not at all - and the mortal probation is frittered away.  Wasted.  Some become more depraved over time, which is always a mystery to me.

Even some of the notorious ones like Trump, Bill Clinton, etc seem to become a little more meek with age.  Some bigtime Rockers from the wild 80's have even shown signs of slowing down and coming full circle to their religious roots that they rebelled from.  Very interesting to see this transformation...

Some great quotes that will get the mind thinking (unless you are too cynical to think that the veil was indeed not thinning a little bit and these people were just hallucinating prior to the brain shutting down).  If so, enjoy your wasted mortal probation:

FAMOUS ATHEISTS' LAST WORDS BEFORE DEATH

1. CAESAR BORGIA—Italian nobleman, politician, and cardinal: "While I lived, I provided for everything but death; now I must die, and am unprepared to die."

2. THOMAS HOBBS—Political philosopher: "I say again, if I had the whole world at my disposal, I would give it to live one day. I am about to take a leap into the dark."

3. THOMAS PAYNE—The leading atheistic writer in American colonies: "Stay with me, for God's sake; I cannot bear to be left alone , O Lord, help me! O God, what have I done to suffer so much? What will become of me hereafter? I would give worlds if I had them, that The Age of Reason had never been published. 0 Lord, help me! Christ, help me! No, don't leave; stay with me! Send even a child to stay with me; for I am on the edge of hell here alone. If ever the Devil had an agent, I have been that one."

4. SIR THOMAS SCOTT—Chancellor of England: "Until this moment I thought there was neither a God nor a hell. Now I know and feel that there are both, and I am doomed to perdition by the just judgment of the Almighty."

5. VOLTAIRE—famous anti-christian atheist: "I have swallowed nothing but smoke. I have intoxicated myself with the incense that turned my head. I am abandoned by God and man.” He said to his physician, Dr. Fochin: “I will give you half of what I am worth if you will give me six months of life." When he was told this was not possible, he said “Then I shall die and go to hell!" His nurse said: “For all the money in Europe I wouldn’t want to see another unbeliever die! All night long he cried for forgiveness.”

6. ROBERT INGERSOLL—American writer and orator during the Golden Age of Free Thought: "O God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul!" Some say it was said this way: "Oh God, if there be a God, save my soul, if I have a soul, from hell, if there be a hell!

7. DAVID HUME—Atheist philosopher famous for his philosophy of empiricism and skepticism of religion: He cried loud on his death bed "I am in flames!" It is said his desperation was a horrible scene.

8. NAPOLEON BONAPARTE—French emperor who, like Adolf Hitler, brought death to millions to satisfy his greedy, power-mad, selfish ambitions for world conquest: "I die before my time, and my body will be given back to the earth. Such is the fate of him who has been called the great Napoleon. What an abyss between my deep misery and the eternal kingdom of Christ!”

9. SIR FRANCIS NEWPORT—Head of an English Atheist club, to those gathered around his deathbed: "You need not tell me there is no God, for I know there is one, and that I am in his presence! You need not tell me there is no hell. I feel myself already slipping. Wretches, cease your idle talk about there being hope for me! I know I am lost forever! Oh, that fire! Oh, the insufferable pangs of hell! Oh, that I could lie for a thousand years upon the fire that is never quenched, to purchase the favor of God and be united to Him again. But it is a fruitless wish. Millions and millions of years will bring me no nearer the end of my torments than one poor hour. Oh, eternity, eternity forever and forever! Oh, the insufferable pangs of Hell!”

10. CHARLES IX—The French king. Urged on by his mother, he gave the order for the massacre of the French Huguenots, in which 15,000 souls were slaughtered in Paris alone and 100,000 in other sections of France, for no other reason than that they loved Christ. The guilty king suffered miserably for years after that event. He finally died, bathed in blood bursting from his veins. To his physicians, he said in his last hours: "Asleep or awake, I see the mangled forms of the Huguenots passing before me. They drop with blood. They point at their open wounds. Oh! That I had spared at least the little infants at the bosom! What blood! I know not where I am. How will all this end? What shall I do? I am lost forever! I know it. Oh, I have done wrong."

11. DAVID STRAUSS—Leading representative of German rationalism, after spending a lifetime erasing belief in God from the minds of others: "My philosophy leaves me utterly forlorn! I feel like one caught in the merciless jaws of an automatic machine, not knowing at what time one of its great hammers may crush me!"

12. JOSEF STALIN—Soviet Georgian revolutionary and politician. In a Newsweek interview with Svetlana Stalin, the daughter of Josef Stalin, she told of her father's death: "My father died a difficult and terrible death. . .God grants an easy death only to the just. At what seemed the very last moment, he suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance, insane or perhaps angry. His left hand was raised, as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse on us all. The gesture was full of menace. . .the next moment he was dead."

13. ANTON LEVEY—Author of the Satanic Bible and high priest of the religion dedicated to the worship of Satan. One of his famous quotes was: “There is a beast in man that needs to be exercised, not exorcised”. His dying words were: "Oh my, oh my, what have I done, there is something very wrong. . . there is something very wrong.”

14. GANDHI—At his death, he said, “For the first time in 50 years, I find myself in the slough of despond. All about me is darkness. . .I am praying for light.”

BELOVED, compare these last words from atheists, with these last words, from these saints of God:

THE APOSTLE PAUL: “O death, where is thy sting?”

KING DAVID: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no Evil.”

AUGUSTUS MONTAGUE TOPLADY (1710-1778): Toplady will ever be famous as the author of one of the most evangelical hymns of the eighteenth century, "Rock of Ages," which was first published in 1776.

During the final illness, Toplady was greatly supported by the consolations of the gospel: "The consolations of God, to so unworthy a wretch, are so abundant that he leaves me nothing to pray for but their continuance."

Near his last, awaking from a sleep, he said: "Oh, what delights! Who can fathom the joy of the third heaven? The sky is clear, there is no cloud; come Lord Jesus, come quickly!" He died saying:"No mortal man can live after the glories which God has manifested to my soul."

Lastly, JESUS CHRIST said: “I am the resurrection and the life. He that believeth on Me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”

Only fools never learn from history, and it's amazing that even in our days, with all these facts on our fingertips, someone with a mind can devote his entire life to a delusion, and want everyone to know that there is no God. No wonder the bible says, "Only fools say in their hearts, there is no God." (Psalm 14:1)