Colossians 4:2: “Be busily engaged in prayer, being on the alert in it with thanksgiving, . . .” and Philippians 4:4, 6, 7: “Rejoice in the Lord always! I will say it again: Rejoice! . . . Be unduly concerned for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
Dying would be a fearful experience if you did not have the Lord with you to save you and give you eternal life. This being true, in your dying hours devote yourself to prayer, remembering that James 5:16 says: “The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.”
To combat the devil, who desires to destroy your faith and to rob you of salvation before you die, pray that the Holy Spirit will strengthen your faith and not permit you to slip into doubts and false beliefs. Our Lord's Word says in Philippians 1:6: “I am convinced of just this, that he who began a good work in you will perform it until the day of Christ Jesus.” Our Lord wants you to be saved. In Philippians 1:6 he promises that the good work of faith that he began in you he will carry on to completion. So pray confidently that he will strengthen and preserve your faith.
What is more, you have Jesus’ promise that he will not allow you to be stolen from him. He says in John 10:28, 29, “I give to them eternal life, and they shall absolutely not perish eternally; and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.”
Your Lord brought you to faith in Jesus to be saved through his grace and peace. Will he, then, in your dying hours allow the devil to snatch you out of his hand, so you fall through unbelief into eternal destruction? Having brought you to salvation through faith in Jesus during your life, will he drop you like a hot potato in your dying hours when you are about to inherit his gift of salvation? No way! He brought you to faith. He will keep you in the faith. Thus pray confidently that your prayer for faith will be heard and answered. The peace of God, which is yours in Jesus, will guard your heart and mind in your last hours.
The apostle John wrote in 1 John 5:14, 15: “And this is the confidence that we have with regard to him, that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we had asked from him.” Your Lord’s will for you during your life has been that you be saved through having come to a knowledge of the truth, as 1 Timothy 2:4 says. This is obviously true, for he brought you to that knowledge of the gospel for your salvation. Since his will is that you have faith in Jesus, you can rest assured in your dying hours that when you pray for faith, he will give you a faith that perseveres through your death into eternal life.
Your prayers will no doubt include the Lord’s Prayer. Its seventh petition, “Deliver us from evil,” will comfort you in your dying hours if you dwell on its meaning with the certainty your prayers are answered. Throughout your life you prayed this petition, asking the Lord to deliver you from all the evils in this world and in hell by giving you a blessed death and taking you to heaven. In your dying hours draw this comfort: “My Father is about to answer this prayer I have prayed all my life. At last, through my death, he will deliver me from all the evils I have been suffering here and will take me to be with him in heaven. Thanks to him, my death is the answer to my prayer and will be a blessed end. Amen! Yes, it shall be so!”