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1. Let's quit beatifying the deceased. (Note: I didn't say "beautifying," but "beatifying." Look it up. The mortician beautifies; a lazy preacher will beatify.) If the truth about the deceased's life is unattractive, it's all right to say little or nothing. While we cannot prevent others from exaggerating or applying cosmetics to what was clearly an unfaithful life, we do not have to be a party to it.
2. Let's quit sending people of questionable religious convictions to heaven. OK, you and I don't send people anywhere. But you understand the expression. God is the judge, and we are not. Just because the sobbing family wants to console themselves with thoughts of the deceased going to heaven—they almost always do—you don't have to affirm it. Comfort them as you're able, then preach the Word.
3. Let's not hesitate to tell people there is a heaven and there is a hell and how to reach the first and to avoid the second. We can do this without being mean-spirited or overly dramatic. I've told before of a pastor who told the mourners that the deceased was a scoundrel and a liar, also a cheat, drunkard and adulterer. Then he added, "And last Thursday, when he died, he went straight to hell." Well, the good news of the gospel is not that someone went to hell but that because of what Jesus did on Calvary, no one need ever have to go to hell again. If you cannot tell the good news of the gospel, please don't bother mentioning hell.
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