How Do I Question Someone’s Salvation at the End of His Life?

00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)

00:00:02.580 | - Well, I can't think of many conversations

00:00:06.040 | that are harder to have than those we have

00:00:08.120 | with professing believers who have shown

00:00:10.520 | little to no fruit in their lives over the years.

00:00:14.320 | Those are hard conversations to initiate

00:00:17.140 | and to do really well.

00:00:19.240 | Today's question arrives anonymously.

00:00:21.360 | Hello, Pastor John.

00:00:22.320 | In episode 803, you tackled the question,

00:00:24.640 | how do I wisely tell a professing believer

00:00:26.960 | I don't think he is saved?

00:00:29.120 | I'm now struggling to consider how to apply

00:00:31.360 | the principles you put forth in that episode

00:00:33.440 | with an elderly professing Christian

00:00:35.240 | who I think may be unsaved and who is close to death.

00:00:39.600 | In thinking about this,

00:00:40.480 | I thought about your love for dying saints

00:00:43.060 | and figured that in your pastoral experience,

00:00:45.600 | you have been with dying individuals

00:00:47.280 | who profess faith in Jesus,

00:00:49.200 | but yet you have strong inclinations

00:00:51.120 | that they may not actually be saved.

00:00:53.960 | How do you personally speak

00:00:55.360 | to these seemingly nominal individuals,

00:00:57.800 | especially elderly ones when they are so close to death?

00:01:02.800 | That's a really good,

00:01:06.080 | a real practical question.

00:01:09.940 | I have indeed stood beside the bed

00:01:15.240 | of dying professing Christians whose faith

00:01:19.760 | I was not at all sure was real.

00:01:23.920 | And this is especially frightening

00:01:25.440 | when I know the person has sat under my ministry for years.

00:01:29.640 | And the reason that's so especially frightening

00:01:32.440 | is because I know I don't have much more to say

00:01:35.480 | than what he's already heard

00:01:36.860 | and he has already given evidence

00:01:39.780 | that they had no effect on him.

00:01:41.320 | Now, of course, that's not always the case.

00:01:45.320 | Often, the dying person who's a professing believer

00:01:49.920 | whom a believer is not sure whether they're real,

00:01:53.520 | often that person has gone to a church

00:01:56.080 | where the gospel is rarely, if ever, mentioned,

00:01:59.800 | and where the scriptures are not believed and taught.

00:02:03.120 | So the person has, perhaps, a completely wrong notion

00:02:08.120 | of the whole issue of salvation.

00:02:10.440 | And perhaps they have wholly wrong notions

00:02:13.900 | of what God is really like.

00:02:16.640 | And the situation is often complicated

00:02:18.620 | by the fact that at this season in life,

00:02:21.160 | their mind may not be able to think very clearly

00:02:24.400 | or feel very intensely.

00:02:27.080 | You know, my dad was an evangelist

00:02:31.200 | and I heard him preach numerous sermons

00:02:34.520 | in which he quoted for young people,

00:02:37.160 | Ecclesiastes 12, one,

00:02:39.200 | remember your creator in the days of your youth

00:02:43.860 | before the evil days come

00:02:46.800 | and the years draw near in which you say,

00:02:49.760 | I have no pleasure in them.

00:02:52.720 | In other words, the end of life season may be such

00:02:57.720 | that the capacities for joy and delight

00:03:00.960 | and treasuring and pleasure are gone.

00:03:05.040 | We may have sent them away.

00:03:07.720 | So what do you do now?

00:03:09.720 | I would suggest four stages of kinds of interaction.

00:03:14.720 | And you may jump into these stages

00:03:18.200 | of kinds of interaction anywhere along the way.

00:03:22.120 | I'm gonna give them in a particular order,

00:03:24.160 | but it depends on what you know about the person,

00:03:26.720 | how much they know,

00:03:28.480 | whether each of these would receive the same emphasis.

00:03:31.440 | Number one, saturate this entire time, season.

00:03:36.440 | It might be that they're dying for weeks or days or hours.

00:03:43.120 | Saturate the entire season with pleading love.

00:03:48.880 | My guess is that this person

00:03:51.600 | may have never experienced anyone looking him or her

00:03:56.600 | right in the eye and saying with seriousness

00:04:02.120 | and even tearful emotion, I love you.

00:04:05.840 | And I don't want you to perish.

00:04:10.760 | I don't want you to be lost.

00:04:12.880 | I want you to be saved by Jesus.

00:04:15.800 | I want you to be brought into Jesus' fellowship forever.

00:04:20.280 | I want to be with you in heaven.

00:04:22.960 | And I am concerned for your soul.

00:04:26.320 | Very, very few people have ever heard a Christian say that,

00:04:30.280 | which is sad.

00:04:32.240 | Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 20, I implore you,

00:04:35.800 | that is I plead with you on behalf of Christ,

00:04:39.400 | be reconciled to God.

00:04:42.200 | Most of the time when we speak of the gospel,

00:04:44.160 | we narrate facts and we must, of course.

00:04:48.680 | The gospel is news, factual news, but not enough.

00:04:53.680 | It's not enough to give facts.

00:04:56.880 | We have to look at people and plead with people

00:05:00.800 | to be reconciled with God.

00:05:02.960 | Seldom do we actually embody, so incarnate the love of God,

00:05:08.960 | the love of the Father going out to the prodigal

00:05:13.000 | and pursuing and seeking and longing and pleading.

00:05:17.560 | That's the spirit that this season right now,

00:05:21.040 | the last days or hours of life should have.

00:05:24.640 | Number two, second observation.

00:05:27.520 | Be sure that they know that God

00:05:31.760 | is a God of holiness and justice

00:05:35.080 | and therefore wrath against all sinners,

00:05:40.320 | including us and them, is our biggest problem.

00:05:45.320 | Give them a few passages to remind them

00:05:50.160 | that the greatest problem of mankind

00:05:53.360 | and their greatest problem lying in that bed right now,

00:05:57.640 | their greatest problem is not whether they're hurting

00:06:00.400 | or can breathe, their greatest problem

00:06:03.120 | is the holy and just wrath of God.

00:06:07.880 | Romans 1.18, 2.5, Ephesians 5.6, 1 Thessalonians 1.10.

00:06:12.880 | Pick out a verse or two to bring authority to your reminder.

00:06:19.920 | Remind them of coming judgment.

00:06:24.080 | It's just so sobering to me to read every time I get there,

00:06:28.160 | and I just read it in my devotions yesterday.

00:06:30.520 | Hebrews 9.27, "Just as it is appointed for man to die once

00:06:37.360 | and after that comes judgment."

00:06:41.600 | Tell them, warn them.

00:06:43.000 | So often we're so eager, and secular people

00:06:46.680 | will just get furious at what I'm saying right now.

00:06:49.560 | So often we're so eager to give them peace right now

00:06:52.960 | so that the last thing they can do is have peace as they die.

00:06:57.000 | To hell with such a thought.

00:06:59.480 | If the person is about to drop into eternity

00:07:02.360 | where they will know no peace forever,

00:07:05.640 | they need to know judgment happens after you die.

00:07:10.640 | Here's the third observation.

00:07:13.840 | Clarify the heart of the gospel.

00:07:17.520 | God sent Jesus to bear his own wrath

00:07:23.480 | and to cover all our sins as a perfect substitute.

00:07:29.360 | Talk about the objective facts, yes, yes, facts,

00:07:33.720 | of the divine transaction that happened on the cross,

00:07:37.400 | and talk about these facts before you say one syllable

00:07:41.000 | about what's expected from this person lying there in bed.

00:07:43.960 | It was a glorious thing to me to discover

00:07:48.120 | at some point in my life where somebody said,

00:07:50.400 | "Don't you realize the gospel is the factual,

00:07:54.800 | objective transaction between God and Christ

00:07:58.400 | on your behalf before you ever existed?

00:08:01.680 | You were saved before you were existed.

00:08:04.400 | You existed in the decisive transaction that happened

00:08:08.360 | in the covering of your sins

00:08:09.800 | and the providing of your righteousness."

00:08:13.560 | And that now the question is, "Will you have it?

00:08:16.840 | Will you receive the gift?"

00:08:19.440 | So give him those facts.

00:08:21.680 | And I could read a lot of them here,

00:08:24.160 | but Romans 3.25, "God put Christ forward

00:08:27.920 | as a propitiation by his blood.

00:08:30.960 | This was to show God's righteousness

00:08:33.720 | because in his divine forbearance,

00:08:35.600 | he had passed over former sins."

00:08:37.480 | 1 Peter 3.18, "Christ suffered once the righteous

00:08:40.840 | for the unrighteous to bring us to God."

00:08:43.440 | 1 Peter 2.24, "He bore our sins in his body on the tree."

00:08:47.400 | Hebrews 9.26, "He's appeared once for all

00:08:49.840 | at the end of the age to put away sin

00:08:51.800 | by the sacrifice of himself."

00:08:53.320 | Romans 8.1, "There's no condemnation

00:08:55.440 | for those who are in Christ Jesus."

00:08:56.960 | All five of those texts say nothing about faith,

00:09:00.720 | nothing about obedience, nothing about repentance.

00:09:02.840 | These are facts.

00:09:04.160 | These are realities outside of us.

00:09:06.600 | And then comes the rest of the gospel.

00:09:08.920 | You can't earn this,

00:09:10.480 | so don't worry that you can't get out of bed.

00:09:12.800 | Don't worry that you don't have a lifetime in front of you

00:09:16.440 | to obey and try to earn this.

00:09:18.520 | You're like the thief on the cross.

00:09:20.680 | You got one hour before you meet him, and guess what?

00:09:25.880 | It's a gift to be received in an instant,

00:09:28.960 | not to be earned in a lifetime of obedience.

00:09:31.960 | And you plead with them, "Receive the gift,

00:09:35.440 | the wages of sin is death,

00:09:36.880 | but the free gift of God is eternal life," Romans 6.23.

00:09:41.360 | And then you offer it, you offer it

00:09:43.960 | with your hands stretched out.

00:09:45.760 | Then you say, "Throw yourself on God's mercy.

00:09:48.240 | Embrace Jesus as your only hope

00:09:51.200 | and as the all-satisfying treasure

00:09:52.960 | that he's gonna be for you forever,

00:09:54.680 | satisfying your soul forever,

00:09:56.960 | your Savior, your Lord, your friend,

00:09:58.840 | your treasure from now to eternity."

00:10:01.800 | Maybe even show them the vanity of self-sufficiency

00:10:05.560 | with that little parable about the tax collector

00:10:08.680 | and the Pharisee where the Pharisee said,

00:10:11.360 | "Oh, I'm better than everybody,

00:10:14.480 | and I tithe and give my..."

00:10:17.680 | I never committed adultery.

00:10:20.440 | And this poor tax collector standing afar off

00:10:23.040 | would not lift up his eyes to heaven.

00:10:25.520 | He beat his breast saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner."

00:10:29.600 | And Jesus says these unbelievable, yes, believable words.

00:10:34.200 | I tell you, this man went down to his house justified

00:10:39.200 | rather than the other,

00:10:42.120 | for he who exalts himself will be humbled

00:10:43.840 | and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

00:10:45.640 | Can you right now, can you, my friend,

00:10:48.720 | humble yourself and cast yourself

00:10:51.360 | on the mercy of Jesus like that?

00:10:53.480 | And the last thing I would say, number four,

00:10:56.240 | spend the rest of the hours or days speaking

00:11:00.080 | or reading to them about the glories of Christ.

00:11:03.840 | According to 2 Corinthians 3, 18,

00:11:06.200 | we are changed by beholding the glory of Christ.

00:11:09.240 | We behold the glory of Christ in His word and work.

00:11:12.640 | They need help from you to remember those, to see those.

00:11:16.440 | I was thinking maybe, if you're wondering,

00:11:20.960 | how would I do that if they live for another three days

00:11:23.640 | and I get to sit with them for eight hours?

00:11:25.720 | How would I do that?

00:11:27.760 | And one resource would be, I wrote this little book,

00:11:30.680 | "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ,"

00:11:33.680 | precisely for unbelievers who might,

00:11:38.680 | in looking at about 13 pictures of the glories of Christ,

00:11:43.800 | be awakened to the beauty of Christ.

00:11:47.280 | So that's one possible resource,

00:11:50.520 | whatever, whether it's scripture or a book

00:11:53.720 | or your own testimony, keep reading

00:11:55.880 | as long as they will let you,

00:11:57.720 | and keep praying as long as they will let you,

00:12:00.840 | that God would open their eyes.

00:12:04.800 | - That is a glorious recounting of the gospel, Pastor John.

00:12:07.560 | So good to hear the old, old story once again, myself.

00:12:10.960 | Thank you.

00:12:12.160 | Thanks for the question.

00:12:13.040 | Anonymous questions are fine.

00:12:14.720 | You can send those to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.

00:12:19.480 | Thank you for listening to the podcast.

00:12:21.000 | At our online home, you can explore

00:12:22.800 | about 1,300 of our past episodes.

00:12:25.000 | You can scan a list of our most popular ones,

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00:12:29.600 | through that site.

00:12:30.440 | Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.

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00:12:37.520 | in your favorite podcast app.

00:12:40.000 | We are gonna return on Friday.

00:12:41.600 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

00:12:42.600 | Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast

00:12:44.640 | with longtime author and pastor, John Piper.

00:12:47.640 | We'll see you then.

00:12:48.600 | (upbeat music)

00:12:51.180 | (upbeat music)

00:12:53.760 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

How Do I Question Someone’s Salvation at the End of His Life?

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