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1 Maccabees 6:12-13. "But now I remember the evils I did in Jerusalem. I seized all her vessels of silver and gold; and I sent to destroy the inhabitants of Judah without good reason. I know that it is because of this that these evils have come upon me; and behold, I am perishing of deep grief in a strange land."

 

King Antiochus is on his deathbed, having become "sick from grief, because things had not turned out for him as he had planned" (1 Maccabees 6:8). The Jews had pushed his armies out of Judah, he had been defeated when trying to take the temple in Elynais, and he had fled back to Babylon. (1 Maccabees 6:1-7)

 

It's good that Antiochus had this death bed realization, perhaps it was enough to save him. It would have been better if he had lived a different life and did not have so much to repent for, but he was a foreign king, he did not know the Jewish God.

 

We do know God, and we have Jesus Christ who has further revealed the Father to us and has opened the door to salvation for all. So we should live our lives in such a way that we don't end up needing a deathbed conversion in order to hope for Heaven. We are all "in a strange land", a land in which we don't want to perish by losing our souls.

 

Let's not wait until we are dying to think of the evils we have done, but think of them now, repent, confess, and change course. Then at death we will not perish in a strange land, but cross over into the new one promised us.