Witnessing How Christ Keeps His Promise That We Won’t See Death as We Enter Heaven

What does it mean when Jesus promises us that we will never see death? I witnessed the reality of his promises kept for my mother at 12:15 AM on October 11, 2024.

Even in death we can learn from what the Bible teaches us about Jesus Christ and his promises. As I write this article I am four months removed from my mom’s passing. It was October of 2024 that my mom, Sheila, finally won her battle with many health issues. She was granted ultimate healing and passed from this mortal life into eternal life, forever in the presence of the God who created her.

I have to admit to you, dear reader, that it has taken me around four months to come to the realization that what I witnessed at 12:15am on October 11, 2024, was Jesus Christ keeping the promise that He made, recorded in the eighth chapter of the Gospel of John. Walk with me as we amble toward eternity. Let’s walk together for a few steps along this narrow path, and allow me to show you the goodness of God.

The Phone Call that The End Was Very Near For Mom And To Come as Soon as Possible

I was working out a short speech in my mind to thank my Tres Dias* brothers for praying for me. I had to leave our weekend retreat before starting to drive to Illinois. What follows is what the Lord Jesus showed me and I want to share it with you.

On October 3, 2024, I received word from my Dad that Mom had been placed in hospice. My Dad had me in stunned silence as he told me that Mom had been diagnosed with liver cancer and she had informed her doctor that she would not be receiving any treatment for the cancer. Mom was done fighting and ready to go Home.

I arrived at Timberline Baptist Camp and pulled over to the side of the camp road to call the floor nurse at St. John’s Hospital in Springfield, Illinois. After getting in touch with her, we agreed to talk in ten minutes so that she could finish her break. I will always remember backing into the small drive next to the main hall and calling the floor nurse back. I sat dumbfounded as the floor nurse told me of Mom declining any treatment and that the end was close. The nurse gently told me, “If it was my mom, I would get here as soon as I could.” I replied, “I’m in Texas. How much time do we have?” The nurse then said, “Get here with your family as soon as is physically possible.”

After telling my team that I had to go, and after my team lead prayed over me and our family, and crying together with my team lead and another music team member, I headed out of the camp to drive the two hours back to my house.

I Wasn’t Ready for This

I got in touch with Kelly and we started making plans on how and when to get to Illinois. I cried as I drove and talked to her. I wasn’t ready for this. I wasn’t ready to let my Mom go Home, but it was now inevitable. Kelly talked with me most of the rest of the way back home.

Separation is a hard thing. You may be reading this article having just gone through this process of losing a loved one or a dear friend to the process we call “death” or “dying”. To have the knowledge of knowing that you are the one left behind in this mortal realm is a hard thing to grasp or wrap your head around. Coming to grips with this separation is the process that we know as “grieving.”

So, here I am four months removed from Mom’s passing, and in this process of grieving I found myself getting ready for the next Tres Dias weekend retreat and preparing to see my Tres Dias brothers. The idea came to me of thanking them for their joint prayers for me and my family during the difficult time of Mom passing. For this short speech that I would make I wanted to make sure I recounted for them the details of the final minutes of Mom’s life. This is when God walked me through the events to show me how He kept his promise.

God Walks Me Through How He Kept His Promise that Mom Wouldn’t See Death

Thursday had given way to Friday as the clock ticked over to 12:00am. I sat next to Mom’s bed in the hospital room. Every evening that we spent in that hospital room, I watched the sun go down behind the horizon. Being that we were on the eleventh floor, we had a spectacular view of the sunset each evening. And after each sunset, I wondered if that sunset had been the last that Mom would have on this earth. Thursday night, October 10th was Mom’s last sunset.

Ever.

She will never again see the sun set in this world or the next. The Apostle John, the Revelator, wrote it down this way:

“Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb will be in it, and his servants will worship him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” (Revelation 22:1-5 ESV, emphasis mine)

We continued to keep vigil that night. My sister Kim had arrived from Texas on Tuesday, and had joined me, Kelly, and Dad in the room for Mom’s final days. At 12:15am, just a few minutes into Friday October 11, 2024, the Spirit of God spoke to me and said, “Look at your mom.” I gave a quick glance at the clock noting the time and looked to my right just in time to see Mom’s eyebrows shoot up her forehead as high as they could go. I stood up and said to her, “What do you see Mom?”

Mom had been unresponsive since Wednesday evening. Her final words were to my son, Michael. She had asked for him in a moment of lucidity and Kelly had called him to oblige her. Michael and Grandma Sheila talked one last time, just a few words between them. She then said, “I love you” and closed her eyes. She uttered no more words on this earth after that.

I knew at 12:15am Friday morning that Mom was not going to reply to me. I knew that she was, at that exact moment, leaving this mortal realm. In that moment, whether Jesus himself showed up for her, or a band of angels came to escort her to the presence of God, Mom left behind her mortal flesh and changed her permanent address to the place we call Heaven.

Paradise.

No more sickness. No more congestive heart failure. No more lung and breathing issues. No more liver cancer. In her words “No more crud.”

The far away land, as described by Gandalf in “The Return of the King”: “Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The grey rain curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it. White shores, and beyond, a far green country under a swift sunrise.” We don’t know that this is the exact image of heaven, but it could be. These are words that are comforting to me.

As I looked back on all of these events and worked to refine those final few moments of Mom’s life, I reflected on the fact that after asking her the question of what she saw her eyebrows fell back down and the color began to drain from her head, face, and neck. Her radial pulse went faint. Her carotid pulse quickened as the heart tried pumping more blood to the brain, but at 12:20am her heart fluttered and stopped. My sister looked across the bed at me and shook her head.

God Asks Me If I Saw the Moment He Kept His Promise

As I was reflecting on these events and was working my way through the short speech I was planning, the Lord asked me if I saw the moment when He kept his promise. I have to admit that I searched back over the memories of that week and kept having to dig, thinking I was going to find some hidden gem. It was right in front of me the whole time.

The promise of eternal life is true.

Jesus Christ gave us this promise: “Truly, truly, I say to you, if anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” The Jews said to him, “Now we know that you have a demon! Abraham died, as did the prophets, yet you say, ‘If anyone keeps my word, he will never taste death.” (John 8:51-52 ESV)

Pastor Matt Chandler of The Village Church in Flower Mound, Texas, first posed this idea of what it means to not see or taste death in a sermon I heard from him way back in 2005. The Creator of the universe, according to the first chapter of the Gospel of John, flexed His power over death in these verses, and created a promise that stands to this day.

Did you see it? The promise was kept.

Let’s go back into Mom’s room. She is laying in a hospital bed, unable to respond to this realm because her body is shutting down. Her body’s systems are being turned off internally one by one. Thursday turns into Friday as the clock hits midnight, and the countdown begins. The heavenly forces begin to gather, while Death sharpens his scythe to cull another human life. The moment approaches faster and faster as if in a downhill run out of control toward the clash of the ages: the fight between life and death. Sheila Shelton’s appointed time for her body to cease to work is 12:20am. Death is coming and no one can stop him.

But God.

Because Mom had placed her faith and trust in Jesus Christ, and had accepted His free gift of salvation, she was guaranteed the promise of eternal life.

Jesus Steps in and Pre-empts Our Meeting With Death by Escorting Us to Heaven

Remember that Jesus made the promise in John chapter eight. “If anyone keeps my word, he will never see death.” Jesus did not step in to stop Death, He simply pre-empted the meeting by escorting her soul to the gates of Heaven, and likely with a heavenly host of angels. The point here is that when Death dealt his stroke at 12:20am on October 11, 2024, Sheila Shelton wasn’t there. Mom never saw Death come for her because at 12:15am she saw the heavenly host who was there to take her away five minutes before Death arrived. Eyebrows arched as high as they could go. She did not see death, nor did she taste it because her soul, her spirit was not there.

When Death arrived to swing his scythe to reap the body, the soul was gone. Death was left with only an empty shell. There was no prize. An empty jar of clay was left behind, but one that will someday be renewed and filled with a soul now at home with God. Both will be made ready for an eternity in God’s presence.

“Behold! I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: “Death is swallowed up in victory.” “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:51-55 ESV)

When Jesus Christ rose from the grave his mortal body put on immortality. The body that perished became imperishable. When He returns to call His Church to meet him in the Rapture, those who have died in Him will rise first to become like Christ in having their soul reunited with their body, only this time the body will be as immortal as the soul. As Christ became after His resurrection, so shall we. As Jesus rose in His glorified body, so shall we who believe in Him will be made to be like Him in having a glorified body. Body and soul will be reunited in a glorious change orchestrated by God. This is what the Apostle Paul writes in the first book to the Corinthian church.

Those who have died in this mortal world will be reunited with their bodies first. All of them. Then we who are alive when Jesus comes for the Church, we will be changed next, and all of us will rise to meet Him in the sky. Death will be swallowed up in this final victory because there will no longer be any chance of death coming for those who have been changed to be like Christ.

I saw the moment Mom’s eternal eyes were opened, and the moment that she left. In mere moments the words Jesus spoke a little over two-thousand years ago were completed for my mom. Jesus kept His promise. If He keeps that promise, then we can be assured that He will keep all of the rest of His promises. What more evidence could we ask for?

Jesus Always Keeps His Promises

What about you? Maybe you didn’t get to see the moment that Jesus kept his promise to your loved one. Maybe you were across the country, or out of the room, or not on the highway at the crash scene. The promise is still true.

Maybe your loved one passed in your presence. You witnessed them let go of this realm and gain Heaven. Let me assure you that those who know Jesus as Lord and Savior were met by Him or angels sent from Him to be an escort in the portal of Heaven. The promise is still true.

Jesus promised that those who believe in him would not see death. For my Mom, Sheila Shelton this promise was a promise kept.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8 ESV)

Prayer to Witness How Christ Keeps his Promise Not to See Death as We Enter Heaven

Pray with me: Father, I thank you that the promise made by your Son, Jesus Christ, as recorded in the Gospel of John, is a promise You enable Him to keep; the promise of those who believe in Him never tasting death. Lord Jesus may we all prepare for the day when our eyes will be opened for the first time to see you as You truly are, and we trade this mortal body for the beauty of Your presence. The day when we see You keep another promise that was made so long ago, but is true today. Help me to tell others of this eternal promise, and that you are the ultimate promisekeeper. All of Your promises are “yes, and amen.” For the beautiful name of Jesus, I pray, amen.