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We have all been inundated with the news out of Iran this week. After the election there in which incumbent Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was allegedly re-elected, protests broke out. Those turned into riots, and then a near-revolution...before the Iranian government cracked down. Many were arrested and some were killed. One of those killed was Iranian Neda Soltan, a 27-year-old whose "shocking and quick death in the arms of her howling father was captured on closeup video, posted to Facebook and came to life on computer screens across the globe" and her death has become a symbol for freedom and voiced protests for many.By most accounts, Neda was a great person, playful, angelic almost. Which is why this next part revealed today, is so much more dire, filled with horror, even.
"Blood poured from the right side of her chest and began bubbling out of her mouth and nose as her lungs filled up. "I'm burning, I'm burning!" Panahi recalled her saying, her final words." source
Neda, being a Muslim, was not saved. Those who believe on Jesus' name will spend eternal life with Him, and those who do not will spend eternal life in the fires of hell. That is where Neda went, heartbreakingly.Matthew 7:13 "Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it." Matthew 13:50 "and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Now, there are those atheists who will say that Neda's last words are a result of having a gunshot wreck her chest, and her burning sensation was merely a physical consequence of a deadly injury. However, the saved know better. As the life drained from her body and the light faded from her eyes, seconds before meeting her eternal destiny, unsaved Neda felt burning. As good of a person as she was, she was a sinner, "For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God. (Romans 3:23)"
Everyone has an eternal life coming to them, everyone. God in His wisdom gave man a choice on where he wants to spend it. Where do you think you will spend it? Do you think you will go to heaven because you are a 'good' person? Because you were baptized as an infant? Because you answered an emotional altar call when you were 12? Those are not the ways to enter heaven. As John 14:6 says "Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Jesus is the way. He is waiting for YOU!
This is what I was looking for as I was searching the internet for her last words, someone to tell the truth and I do believe every word you are writing. People are so afraid to tell the truth about what happens when people die...I know family and friends are grieving, and they don't want to hear someone say that their loved one is in hell. Sometimes there are more important things to consider than hurting people's feelings, like a matter of other souls going to heaven or hell. She was a really good person and it is soo sad that this happened to her. Alot of good people are in hell now, and they are crying out to their families that are still on earth not to go where they are and to accept Jesus..everyone in hell at this moment now believes that JESUS IS THE ONLY WAY, HE IS REAL AND ITS TRUE EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD... Read the bible on Luke 16:19-31.if you dont have one here is the link ( www.bible.com ).where Jesus told the parable of the rich man and Lazerus, and the rich man was burning in hell asking someone go tell his family that he is in torment and not to go where he is. I wonder exactly how many people that are in hell now are screaming for their families not to go there. It is so sad. Jesus is the only way, no religion or good deed will get you in to heaven. When someone commits suicide, we always hear comments like..til we meet again or rest in peace..there is no hope when you take your own life, its a guarentee that you are going to hell. Dont wait til its too late. call on JESUS, he is waiting.
ReplyDeleteThank you anonymous. It is a sad, horrible thing to think of good people in hell, but Jesus said in Luke 18:19, "Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone."
ReplyDeleteRon Graham spoke to the issue you raised, about what to say or do at funerals where the pastor says or the family eulogizes that "they are in a better place now." His piece is titled "What do we say?" and is here:
http://www.raptureready.com/featured/graham/g129.html
In Luke 16:19-31 the story of the rich man and Lazarus, the rich man, one notes, didn't complain about being in torment, saying it was unjust and a travesty and they he didn't belong there...he simply acknowledged his state and then he begged for someone to go preach to his brothers so that they would not end up in torment.
We have to BE those people: warning about the dangers of putting off deciding for Jesus and admitting our sins. Like Neda, one never knows when this moment would be one's last.
Question: do living people go to hell? Because if not, then you're wrong. If, as the Bible teaches, judgment comes after life, then no living person experiences Hell.
ReplyDeleteAll things considered, this is judgmental nonsense.
Judgment does come after life but judgment has not occurred yet. That is what the bible actually teaches.
ReplyDeleteThe rich man mentioned in Luke went to the other side, the place of torment. He and all unbelievers who’ve died through the ages are still there. They wait in torment for their final judgment, which will take place at the end of the Millennium. Judgment has not occurred yet. Unbelievers go to hell and believers before the cross went to Paradise, which was next to hell but apart from it via a great gulf, fixed (as the story in Luke goes) and after the cross Paradise was emptied out and believers were taken to heaven by a risen Jesus.
However, hell is not the final place where the unsaved reside. It is in outer darkness where the Lake of Fire is thrown after the judgment. In Rev 20:11-15 we read that at the end of the 1,000 years the dead are raised for their final judgment, after which they’re thrown into the “lake of fire” along with Satan. That occurs after the Tribulation when the 1000 year kingdom comes in, and then at the end of that, judgment. Eternity then begins.
It is most assuredly not nonsense, Jesus Himself said that no man enters heaven unless he comes through Him.(John 14:6). If Neda was not a believer then we must also believe the parts of the bible that state hell is where they reside. (Luke 16:19-31)
No one except God and Neda are sure that when she cried out "I'm burning!" that she was on her way to, or in hell in those final moments. She could have cried that because her wounds burned. However, it is a fact that all unsaved go to hell until the judgment and perhaps Neda's cry in her final seconds was from a sense of feeling the heat as she approached. It is a warning that should be taken very seriously.
First of all, Neda Agha-Soltan was not accompanied by her father, but with a music teacher. Your lack of knowledge of the facts is the first sign that your view is biased and uneducated. In my opinion, this "claim" by the Los Angeles Times that these were her last words is questionable. He (Hamid Panahi, the music teacher) also said, in the same article, that he did not even realize she had been shot until she had already collapsed, and because of her wounds (see the claims by the doctor who tended to her on site and who had to flee Iran in fear of persecution) blood came from her nose and mouth almost immediately, before she would have had time to say anything. Even on the infamous video, it is clear that immediately following her collapse she was rendered unconscious within moments without a chance to speak. Ironically, the name Neda means "voice". In a documentary made about the incident, the doctor claimed she died within a minute or two and ON SITE, not in an ambulance, as the Los Angeles Times also claimed. Who knows what motive Hamid Panahi would have had for saying this, if he did in fact say it. I would conjecture that he may have been coerced to do so. If a first-hand witness claimed that she said "I'm burning" as she died, this would make excellent propaganda for the Iranian government to condemn her based on religion, which is common practice in strictly Sharia ruled states.
ReplyDeleteSecond of all, Muslims are not "saved" by believing in Jesus Christ, the second sign that you do not know what you are talking about, even according to holy scriptures. In fact, Muslims believe that is it blasphemy to believe that Jesus was Christ, rather than a mortal prophet, with the argument that this essentially underscores the idea of monotheism.
Neda Agha-Soltan was a civilian killed by her government for fighting for civil liberties, because she was personally repressed based on her past (she was divorced and had difficulty finding work as a result). I am not an expert when it comes to religion, but if you are Christian and believe that Neda Soltan went to hell, then do it for the right reasons, on the basis of facts, please. Personally, I try not mix politics and religion, so I have no opinion on the matter, relating the two as such. I am a Christian.
Sheryl Childers
Hi Sheryl,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment.
The facts are, unfortunately, that if Neda was not a repentant sinner saved by the blood of Jesus and His follower, she is in hell. That is a fact. It applies to all people of this earth.
As far as politics and religion, they *are* mixed, inextricably. In any case, whether a person dies peacefully in a hospital under the influence of morphine, or dies violently in a Middle East governmental protest, their eternal standing is fixed at the moment they breathe their last. The death of Neda was through political means, but a discussion of the afterlife and her dying declarations apply as pertinent discussion.
There is a high possibility and many reports that confirm Neda was in-fact a muslim convert to christianity.
ReplyDeleteAs apostasy is punishable by death in Iran many apostates keep it a secret but in her pictures she is wearing a cross. Plus her manner of dress and pictures taken with her fiance in close proximity indicate that she was as even liberal muslims in iran are careful to avoid such exposure due to repercussions of the state based on sharia-law
I don't say it to be pertinent and only God truly knows but if this is true then all these arguments trying to prove christianity is the only way are not only futile but based on the arguments completely the wrong religion!
I respect faith but find it a bit difficult to swallow when people try to use these examples as proof.
Elizabeth..agree with you 100%..your right on with every word you have said..now the person above your first comment said that all people who kill themselves automaticly go to hell..well the lost do of course, but the saved go to heaven, I saw on Billy Grahamn crusades that he had a guy on there that his son was saved and killed himself and they said he was in heaven because he was saved, which I agree and its not any different then someone who is saved and smokes for 30 years and dies of lung cancer, that is killing yourself also just takes longer depending on how long you can smoke and not get cancer or someone who is saved and goes out and does some drugs because they had a relapsed and dies of a drug overdose...so when your truly saved it dont matter how you die you will go to heaven with Jesus..whats your thoughts on this Elizabeth, that just made me mad that person would say oh because you kill yourself you automaticly go to hell, yes the lost do but the saved don't..your thoughts Elizabeth?
ReplyDeleteChris, what you're asking is, does suicide cancel salvation? No, it does not. Nothing man does nullifies promises or purposes of God.
ReplyDeleteJesus said that once w are saved, we're sealed for all eternity (Ephesians 1:13-14). When we're saved, He puts His hand of ownership on us. (2 Cor. 1:21-22.) We become one of His and nothing can take us away from Him: "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand." (John 10:29.)
A person who dies by their own hand may lose rewards in heaven, or at the very least will likely feel ashamed to have thrown away a purposeful and purified life bought with Jesus' blood, but no, unless they weren't saved from the start, they will go to heaven.