What Happens When You Breathe Your Last?

On December 12th, 2022, Pastor Gene Edwards graduated to heaven.

He is remembered as a man of unwavering faith and a devoted servant of the Lord.

Pastor Gene was born on June 18, 1932 in Houston, Texas, and from a young age, he knew that he was called to serve the Lord. He dedicated his life to spreading the word of God and helping others find peace and purpose in their own lives.

Pastor Gene received his formal education at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, where he earned a degree in theology. He went on to serve as a pastor at churches across the country, inspiring countless people with his words of wisdom and guidance. It's through his writings and inspiration that the house church movement broke out in the United States.

Author of more than 35 faith-filled books, including 100 Days in the Secret Place, The Day I Was Crucified, and Dear Lillian.

Pastor Gene leaves behind a legacy of love, faith, and service that will continue to inspire generations to come. He will be greatly missed by all who knew and loved him, but we take comfort in knowing that he is now at peace in the arms of his loving Savior.

This is an excerpt from Dear Lillian:

What will happen in that moment when you breathe your last breath?

Actually, when Death comes he will have very little he can claim. He cannot claim your human spirit, for it has been resurrected from the dead. (And is one with God!) Nothing dies twice. What else, then, can lie claim? Death cannot claim God’s Life in you, simply because God’s Life cannot die. Death cannot claim your soul, for it is immortal and redeemed … redeemed by the blood of the Lord Jesus.

What is there for Death to claim? He can claim only that which you are probably very willing, at this point, to let him have. He can claim that temporary body of yours.

He doesn’t get very much, does he?

Have you ever realized just exactly what you are bequeathing to Death? He gets a worn-out body and with it, sin, which dwells in the members of your body.

You leave to him nothing more than sin and all past remembrances of the fall. That is what Death gets. You might say that you, not Death, get the last laugh.

And even as you render up to him your body, at that very moment you receive the hope of glory’.

I think, Lillian, you know what takes place after that.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord (see 2 Cor. 5:8 NKJV).

Your soul and your spirit (with the Life of God in your spirit), at that moment, are set free.

Do you remember what we saw back there in Wichita Falls the morning you became a believer? God’s Life passed from the spiritual realm and came into you, there to become one with you. At the moment of death, the scene reverses itself. You pass out of the physical realm, back through that door, and once again enter into that spiritual realm where you began! You will return to the spiritual realm from which you originally came.

I have a notion the first face you will see as you pass through that door and enter the realm of the heavenlies will be that of a Man. You know Him as your Lord and Savior.

You are going to meet a Man in the heavenlies. A physical, visible human being in a realm where everything else is invisible and spiritual. As the old song says, there really is a man in the glory.

How is that possible?

Your Lord has already received His glorified body—a body that can be seen with the human eye, yet a body that has all the properties of the spiritual realm. His physical body has become like unto His spirit. The body, the soul, and the spirit of your Lord are so much one that the physical and spiritual elements cannot be separated. Look well upon your Lord, Lillian...and know...in that moment you will be like Him!

Having laid aside a worn-out body, but with a spirit that is alive and “back home,” you will be able to look upon the very face of God, in all His ultimate glory.

Exactly where does all this take place? Quite frankly, Lillian, 1 do not know the name of the place. The Lord once said to the dying thief, “Today you will be with Me in paradise” (Lk. 23:43b). Paul said, “To be absent from the body [is] to be present with the Lord” (2 Cor. 5:8 NKJV). Will you be in a place called paradise, which, I assume, is some glorious part of the heavenly realm? Or are paradise and Heaven one and the same? I do not know. I can only tell you this. You will be with Him. Nothing else matters.

How long will you have to wait until the Lord returns to earth with the vast host of the redeemed and with the elect angels? Not long at all—not long for you, not long for Paul, not long for Abraham—for you will be living in a realm where there is no such thing as time.

And what will it be like when the Lord and you (and an innumerable host of angels and redeemed) return to this planet?

Let us see.