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All four of the parents of Tom and Linda Parsons are now in Heaven. We have placed much material about our families on this site. Here is a list of some of the pages you might like to visit, as well as blogs that also contain materials about our family.
If you would like more information about how to trust Jesus Christ as your Savior and have eternal life with Him, please write to: 
or to
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Linda, Dad and Mom c. 2002
John and Nellie with daughters Linda and Teri, c. 1960.
I stayed out of the way. No way was I going to get involved in the struggle of two women determined to pay the bill for all of us. No doubt Linda nudged me and suggested that I take the bill. I was not about to do that. If Linda wanted to pay the bill she would have to get in between Mom and Eileen. Not a smart move.
Mom met her match that day. Eileen payed the bill. But later, when Linda opened her purse for something else, there was the price of our meal in cash in her purse. And I know it was not me who put it there.
Memories are precious things. Keep them alive in your heart. Write them down. Share them with others. Remember always the blessings that came in to your life because you knew Nellie Hubble.
The second thing I encourage you to note as important is that death is not a friend, but a ruthless, perverse enemy who stalks us from the day of our conception until he can get us in his icy hands.
There is a common misconception in our culture that tries to paint a picture of death as a kind, benevolent friend who gently closes our eyes when we are no longer able to live in this world. Don’t believe it. It is not true.
This misconception has been in our culture for a long time. American poet Emily Dickinson, who lived from 1830 to 1866, often wrote poems about death. One of her most well-known death poems begins with these words: Because I could not stop for death, he kindly stopped for me.
In this poem, Dickinson portrays death as a kindly gentlemen who comes calling to her home one day and gently puts her in his carriage and drives her through the streets of the town, past the children playing in the school yard, and out to her new home in the cemetery. Throughout the poem, death is portrayed as ever gentle, ever kind, ever pleasant. Again, I say, don’t believe it. It is not true.
I go to the Bible for the true picture of death, and I find it in I Corinthians chapter 15. In the sixteenth verse of that chapter, Paul identifies death as an enemy. This enemy seeks to rob us of everything we have and everything we are. Do you have money? Don’t worry, one day death will come and take your money from you and give it to someone else. Do you have health and strength. Don’t worry, death’s assistant, time, will gradually take your health and strength from you, bit by bit, day by day, until death comes along and delivers his fatal blow that renders you at zero health and zero strength. Whatever it is you love in this world, and whatever it is that you have in this world, death will steal it all from you in one moment’s time. Death is a terrible enemy. Death is never anyone’s friend. Death is never a kind gentlemen who takes us on a nice carriage ride on a beautiful spring day and gently points us to our permanent place in the ground. Death slams its way in, takes everything we have from us, and discards our cold and lifeless bodies.
Third, please remember this also. There is a reason why every human being faces the prospect of death. It is a very simple reason, actually. Everybody, with a few exceptions, has to die. We have no choice. There is no medical technology available that can keep a person alive indefinitely. There is no medical research that will ever be able to find a way to conquer death. No medical procedures actually “save” lives. At best they postpone death, they put death off for a time. But death just bides his time. Sooner or later, he will have an opportunity to come back again and take the life that medicine so proudly presents as “saved.”
The reason death is inevitable for the vast majority of the human race is because sin is universal in the human race. Paul said, All have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Jeremiah said, The heart is desperately wicked. Ezekiel said, The soul that sins will die. Isaiah said, All we like sheep have gone astray. The Bible repeatedly, in every book, in every chapter, alludes to or directly states that we are all sinners, and because of that, we all must die.
There have been two exceptions to that, so far. Enoch, the Bible says, was not because God took him. He did not die; God simply removed from earth to Heaven. The other was the prophet Elijah who was taken to Heaven in a whirlwind. In both cases, God’s grace
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intervened to take these two men, who were sinners, of course, to Heaven directly, avoiding death.
There will be a multitude of exceptions at some point in the future. There will be a generation of Christians who will be alive at the time Christ returns to take His church, His bride, home to be with Him. Those believers will not die, but be raptured, taken in the twinkling of an eye, to be with Jesus. And we could be that generation. We could be the people about whom the old hymn writer wrote Oh, joy, oh delight, should we go without dying, no sickness, no sadness, no dread and no crying; caught up thru the clouds with our Lord into glory when Jesus receives His own.
But, if I’m not in that generation, then I will have to die. And I will have to die because I am a sinner and the soul that sins will die. God cursed the earth and all the creatures in it after Adam disobeyed God in the Garden. And now all life, from microbes, to plants, to animals, to people, must die.
You don’t have to be a particularly bad person by human standards to be a sinner. I have never murdered anyone. I have never committed adultery. I have never robbed a bank, smoked pot, or gotten drunk or beat my wife or children. But I am a sinner. And because I am a sinner, I deserve to die.
There is one last thing I want you to think about today. It is important to remember why Jesus died on the cross. He died so that sin and death could be defeated once and for all.
John and Nellie Hubble at their home on Southport Road, Indianapolis, mid-1960s.
In that verse in I Corinthians 15 that I mentioned earlier, Paul states that the last enemy to be destroyed is death. Death will be destroyed some day. That’s an interesting thought: Death will die. Can you imagine what it will be like when death dies? When there is no more death?
Later in that same chapter Paul says this: When the perishable has been clothed with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?
Do you see it? In the end, death loses.
One week ago, when I saw Mom in the hospital, it looked like death was winning. And every time I have stood in front of a family, as I do today, to conduct a farewell service for a loved one, it seemed to all that death was victorious, that once again, death had won. But that is not true. Death has not been victorious here. It never is when it is a Christian who is the one who has died.
Paul asks a very important question here: Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? And then he answers it in a very interesting way. Note what he says: The sting of death is sin.
Nellie with great granddaughter Hannah, taken in 2008.
What does he mean? Well, it is like we said before, all have sinned, so all must die. Death is the result of sin. The soul that sins will die. Death comes to each of us because each of us is a sinner before God. That is death’s sting. If death overtakes you as a sinner, you will feel its sting - for all eternity.
Then Paul says something else. He says The power of sin is the law. What does he mean by that?
Well, God’s law, the ten commandments and other proclamations of right and wrong that God has made, these all work to condemn us as sinners. Which of the commandments have you broken? Which have I broken? The answer is all of them. All it takes is one act of disobedience to God’s law to proclaim me guilty. Just one.
Nellie Doughty in the early 1940s.
How many speeding tickets do I have to get to be a lawbreaker? Just one. How many times do I have to say no to God to be a lawbreaker? Just one. How many times do I have to think an evil thought to be a lawbreaker? Just one.
That is the power of sin. The law. It condemns me every time. It says I don’t measure up, I don’t meet the standard of perfection that God demands. If death comes and I have just one disobedience on my record, death wins and I lose eternally.
But there’s more. Paul said something else, something which changes the whole picture and gives me hope. He said But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
I like that. I am thrilled with that. It is Jesus Christ who breaks the power of sin and death and gives me eternal life through faith in Him.
I cannot conquer death. But Jesus can. He already has. He hung on a cross until all of His life was drained. He chose the moment of His death. I can’t do that. Neither can you. But He did. And then, three days later, what a tremendous truth this is, three days later He arose. He arose. He arose. And death and sin were done! They were defeated through the power of Jesus Christ and His victory over them on the cross.
And then came a day in 1958 when a 17 year old high school student in Lincoln Park, Michigan bowed his head in his bedroom at home one October night and asked Jesus to bring His victory into his life. And on that night, I was given Christ’s victory over sin and death, and I was given Christ’s righteousness to live for Him now and with Him forever.
Mom had that same experience somewhere along the way. She put her faith in Jesus Christ. She accepted His offer of salvation. He took her sin and her guilt and gave her His righteousness. So last week, when death came to her and tried to rob her of everything she had, death failed. Oh, it took her earthly life. It took her possessions from her. It took her loved ones from her. But there was one thing that death could not and did not touch when it came last week.
It could not take Jesus from her. It could not bring to an end her relationship with Jesus. Jesus went with her through the death experience. And today, she is still with Jesus. And tomorrow she will still be with Jesus. And forever she will be with Jesus. Death, you loser. Death, you have no reason to be proud. You have no reason to boast of your accomplishments. Jesus has defeated you. Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.
How about you? I know Mom would want me to ask you this question. How about you? Death is stalking you, even now. And one day, if Jesus tarries, death will come after you and try to defeat you and drag you to a Christless eternity. If you don’t have Jesus, if you don’t have saving faith in Jesus, if you don’t have a faith relationship with Jesus as Mom did, then you should know that when death comes, he will win. He will take you to a place of darkness and doom, away from the victory you could have had in Jesus Christ.
This family invites you to trust Christ today. You can ask any of us in the family and we will help you put your faith in Jesus. Don’t delay. Death is not waiting; neither should you.
Someday, because of the victory Mom had through Jesus, and the victory I have through Jesus, I will see her again. And although she liked to pay the bills here on earth, she was wise enough to understand that there was one bill she could never pay, and she humbly bowed before Jesus and accepted His payment on her behalf. That put her in the only safe place there is, in the center of Jesus’ love and grace.
I pray You’ll be our eyesAnd watch us where we go, And help us to be wise In times when we don’t know. Let this be our prayer As we go our way Lead us to a place, Guide us with Your grace To a place where we’ll be safe. - Sager Safe, in the arms of Jesus. “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that you sorrow not, even as others which have no hope.” This verse, sums up what we have done here today. |
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