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BEFORE YOU LEAVE HOW TO BEST SPEND YOUR LAST 3 SECONDS

by Dr. Andrew Corbett, originally written from Legana, Tasmania, 23rd June 2018; updated 12th September 2025, Melbourne,Victoria.

Life has two certainties, as the saying goes: death and taxes – or at least one certain certainty: death. Over the last nearly forty or so years of my pastoral ministry I have come to know that dying, or at least the certainty of facing imminent death, changes a person’s attitudes about religion and God. That is, many of those professing to be atheists for most of their adult lives often change, or at least soften, their views about religion and God when their own mortality becomes more apparent to them. Perhaps you might know someone whom this describes. If so, you might gain from this pastoral experience which I now offer.

It is my goal to help equip you in how to interact with someone who is about die imminently and has indeed changed or soften their previously atheistic views to now be open to hearing the message that Christ gave to the world about these two subjects (religion and God). To do this I will look at why anyone would become a Christian, and why anyone should become a Christian. I will then provide one stellar example for this. Then I want to conclude with Christ Himself dealing with an imminently dying man – who just hours or perhaps even minutes after his brief conversation with this doomed man, they were both dead.   

Because:

Why did most Christians become Christians? It certainly was not because of the certainty of eventual death.

The reasons why most Christians had become Christians might be boiled down to these three reasons:

The reasons why most non-Christians will not become a Christian can also be grouped into three reasons:

Here is a stellar example of a thoughtful non-Christian who became a Christian outside of the five most common reasons why most people become a Christian:

J. Warner Wallace, a Cold-Case homicide detective, after a period sceptical investigation of the claims of the Bible about Christianity, took the first step toward becoming a Christian by recognising that Christianity was true.

It is a false myth that all religions are basically the same. Christianity is unique among all the other world religions. A major distinctive of Christianity is that it invites scrutiny and investigation. Its truth-claims can be tested.

The Bible described an exchange between Christ when He was being crucified and a criminal on a cross beside Him, Luke 23:32.

Luke 23:33

Luke 23:34

Luke 23:35

Luke 23:39

Luke 23:40

Luke 23:41

Luke 23:42

Luke 23:43

The assurance of Christ and the Scriptures (the Bible) that He has inspired, provides the promise that when we seek God in prayer like the above one, He will hear it and answer it – just like He did for the penitent thief on the Cross beside the Christ. 

• Dr. Andrew Corbett, Melbourne, Victoria.