Opening the Gates of Heaven Perry Stone

“Let us pray a silent prayer.” In reality, we can bow our heads and meditate about someone or something, as the word meditate in Scripture means, “to muse, ponder or to think in deep thought about something or someone.” (See Psalm 119:15.) Through God’s Word we know that God knows “the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Heb. 4:12) and can read our thoughts, knowing what we have need of before we even ask (Matt. 6:8). This is important to understand if we are praying for a loved one who is in the hospital and cannot communicate with his or her mouth or speak with audible words. When my grandfather John Bava was in his final hours at a hospital in Elkins, West Virginia, he was unable to physically move, open his eyes, or speak to us because he had experienced three strokes in his brain. However, based upon the heart monitor, his heart would beat faster every time we spoke or sang. Thus we believed he could still hear us. The doctor came into the room and said to us, “The very last sense that goes prior to death is the hearing. Get up close to his ear and speak into his ear, because he can still hear what you are saying.” We placed a CD player with his favorite Gospel music beside his bed, where he could hear. Allowing the sense of hearing to remain until the moment of death is a demonstration of God’s mercy for the dying. Believers are able to speak to the person and invite that person to pray in the mind and repent of sins. Certainly God knows the thoughts and intents and will hear these thoughts just as He hears a person who is