Big Healing Book - God Sometimes Calls a Saint Home Early Because He Knows People

Objection: God Sometimes Calls a Saint Home Early Because He Knows People Will Get Saved at the Funeral

Some of the worst lies ever told about God come from preachers at funerals in their effort to provide comfort to the grieving families. No one wants to believe that his loved one who died early was ripped off by Satan and that his premature death served no purpose whatsoever on the earth, even though that’s the case. Lies like the one above present the deceased as some kind of noble sacrifice for the good of others in a vain attempt to attribute meaning to the tragedy. People want some kind of satisfying explanation from the preacher about why God “allowed” such a thing to happen. Wouldn’t it be more comforting to think that God had a short-staffed choir that really needed that believer to join it sooner rather than later? Unfortunately, the frequent result is that the preacher gives false comfort to the families by coming up with some kind of ridiculous and unbiblical idea like the one discussed here about people getting saved at the funeral (an argument advanced by an actual preacher at a funeral whose Spirit-filled church wasn’t far from ours).

JESUS died so that others would be saved, and unless you’re talking about someone dying as a martyr, no one else ever needs to die so that others will be saved. God does not “use” people that way! He certainly doesn’t break His covenant in one case so that others can be in on that covenant. What good would such a covenant be? If someone dies in mid-life, you can be sure that God did not “call him home” (no matter what the preacher said at the funeral) because God satisfies people with long life when He can have something to do with it (Psalm 91:16). God says, “My covenant will I not break, nor alter the thing that is gone out of my lips” (Psalm 89:34). Some preachers ought to alter some of the things going out of their lips so that they stop misrepresenting God.

While providing temporary false comfort to the relatives, the preacher is actually driving people away from God by presenting Him as someone who would “use” someone’s life in this manner. You couldn’t blame the people who attend the sorry affair if they conclude, “Keep me as far away from that God as possible! I don’t want to be the next one whom He ‘takes’ so that others can get saved at MY funeral.”

Thank God if people DO get saved at a funeral! Funerals give people a chance to reflect on their own mortality. While God may work IN the situation, that still does not make Him the AUTHOR of the situation.