How Do I Serve Dying Unbelievers?
00:00:00.000 | Today's question is a follow-up.
00:00:05.880 | It comes from a listener named Michelle in Wisconsin.
00:00:08.120 | "Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:09.120 | Thank you for addressing a wide range of topics on this podcast," she writes.
00:00:12.880 | "Your recent episode, APJ 1605, was of particular interest to me.
00:00:18.880 | How can I serve the dying?"
00:00:21.200 | That's back on March 26th.
00:00:23.240 | "I am a hospital nurse and served as an oncology nurse for three years in which I
00:00:27.880 | cared for many people in their final days and hours.
00:00:31.560 | I no longer work in oncology but do occasionally see patients who are near the end of life.
00:00:37.560 | In episode 1605, you assumed the dying were believers and talked about the fight of faith,
00:00:41.960 | but in my experience, very few dying patients are clearly believers.
00:00:47.320 | In that light, I battled intense anxiety knowing that I was likely the last Christian they
00:00:53.920 | would ever come into contact with on this side of eternity.
00:01:00.280 | Hours or minutes from an eternal hell.
00:01:03.760 | This raised all sorts of questions for me.
00:01:06.300 | Do I share the gospel even if the patient is unconscious?
00:01:09.140 | Do I offend family members in their saddest moments?
00:01:11.620 | How do I care for a lost person on the brink of hell, especially when their abilities to
00:01:15.560 | understand the gospel and respond in faith may be limited, and when the timing will likely
00:01:20.700 | feel inappropriate to the family?
00:01:23.880 | What would you say in this situation?
00:01:27.400 | The answer to this question is going to depend in great measure on three things.
00:01:34.200 | One, the confidence one has in the truth of the Bible's teaching about hell.
00:01:42.720 | Two, the love that one feels for a dying person, that is, the longing one has for the eternal
00:01:51.280 | joy of the dying person.
00:01:54.600 | And three, the courage one has to act for the good of the perishing against the wishes
00:02:03.320 | of those who do not believe the gospel.
00:02:06.560 | Or to put it another way, people avoid sharing the gospel with dying people for one or more
00:02:14.400 | of three reasons.
00:02:15.880 | One, they just don't believe in hell.
00:02:19.600 | It's not real to them.
00:02:21.040 | It's not fearful.
00:02:22.920 | What's real is the person lying there on the bed and the possibility that the person might
00:02:30.120 | experience some distress if you speak about Christ and sin and judgment, and they feel
00:02:37.340 | that the avoidance of that distress is a loving act because that distress is more real to
00:02:46.600 | them and more harmful than the prospect of hell.
00:02:52.240 | Or second, they avoid speaking because while they may believe in hell, they just don't
00:02:58.360 | feel any compelling affection for the dying person or any intense longing that the dying
00:03:07.760 | person would be rescued or that he would have everlasting joy in the presence of Christ,
00:03:16.000 | the desire just doesn't become operative.
00:03:20.720 | Or third, they don't share the gospel because they believe that their superiors in the medical
00:03:26.320 | profession or the relatives of the dying person have the greatest authority in determining
00:03:33.840 | whether you share the gospel and that God's call on you to share the gospel takes second
00:03:38.940 | place to that human authority.
00:03:42.560 | Now, there are situations where we are not obliged.
00:03:50.200 | Jesus said, "Do not give dogs what is holy, and do not throw your pearls before pigs,
00:03:58.000 | lest they trample them underfoot and turn and attack you," Matthew 7:6.
00:04:03.360 | I think Jesus gave an example of this in Matthew 21 when he asked the chief priests and elders
00:04:09.300 | whether the baptism of John was from heaven or from man, and they huddled up, you remember,
00:04:13.760 | and said, "Well, if we say from man, the crowd might stone us, but if we say from God,
00:04:21.600 | he'll say, 'Well, then why didn't you believe on him?'"
00:04:24.800 | So let's say we don't know.
00:04:27.920 | And Jesus said, "Well, I'm not going to answer you either."
00:04:32.520 | In other words, I don't deal with people who are so insidious in their manipulation
00:04:38.960 | of truth.
00:04:39.960 | In other words, there is a kind of attitude that is so deeply devious and hostile to the
00:04:46.040 | gospel that there are times you don't speak the gospel to certain people.
00:04:52.800 | Another thing Jesus said was Matthew 10:14, "If anyone will not receive you or listen
00:04:58.640 | to your words, shake off the dust from your feet when you leave that town."
00:05:04.600 | In other words, a group of people can show themselves so resistant that you stop speaking
00:05:11.360 | to them and move on.
00:05:13.420 | So there are situations in which you do not share the gospel, but I don't know of any
00:05:22.040 | situation or any teaching in the Bible which would say that the reason we don't share
00:05:29.760 | the gospel is because some human authority says not to.
00:05:35.160 | Instead, what we see is that when authorities did tell Christians not to speak, what the
00:05:42.560 | Christians said was Acts 4:20, "Whether it is right in the sight of God to listen
00:05:49.240 | to you rather than to God, you must judge, for we cannot but speak of what we have seen
00:05:58.880 | and heard."
00:06:00.120 | In other words, God's call to glorify Christ and to love people by speaking the only news
00:06:07.600 | in the world that can save them, that call takes precedence over the prohibitions of
00:06:14.720 | all human authority.
00:06:17.320 | So there may be times when it is fitting not to share the gospel, but the reason will not
00:06:24.720 | be that human authority has forbidden it, and I think that applies to government authorities,
00:06:32.120 | religious authorities, professional authorities, military authorities, hospital authorities,
00:06:37.840 | and family authorities.
00:06:40.320 | Now what about the person himself that you would like to speak the gospel to?
00:06:46.760 | In general, I think if a person is cogent, it is fitting to ask their permission to speak
00:06:57.060 | to them about something very precious to you and something important for them, namely Jesus
00:07:04.040 | Christ and God's offer of forgiveness of sins through him.
00:07:09.800 | I think if a person says, sitting across from you at a restaurant or lying in a hospital
00:07:16.640 | bed, "I don't want to hear about that," then you are not obliged to force it onto
00:07:22.640 | them.
00:07:23.640 | Nobody is saved by coercion, and if a person turns away the gospel that you are freely
00:07:29.680 | and lovingly ready to offer, coercive efforts to make them hear probably contradict the
00:07:36.220 | very nature of the good news as freely believed.
00:07:40.920 | Now does that mean that a person who is dying and incapable of speaking—for all you know,
00:07:50.520 | they may not be perceiving what you're saying—should not hear the gospel from you?
00:07:57.040 | I don't think so.
00:07:59.440 | If the man who had been beaten on the side of the road when the Good Samaritan came along
00:08:04.400 | was unconscious, I don't think the Good Samaritan was obliged to wait until he gained
00:08:11.120 | consciousness to ask permission to care for his wounds and take him for medical treatment.
00:08:17.840 | So I think it would be a beautiful gift to quietly and calmly and lovingly speak words
00:08:26.640 | of hope into the ear of a person who is unable to respond.
00:08:32.920 | I think this calls for a great deal of wisdom, gospel sensitivity, as to what you would say.
00:08:39.800 | For example, I would say something like this, "Hello, John.
00:08:44.640 | This is Mary.
00:08:46.600 | I'm one of your nurses.
00:08:48.280 | I want to do everything I can to make you comfortable and to meet your needs.
00:08:53.640 | I don't even know if you can hear me or communicate with me.
00:08:58.200 | I want you to know that you are loved.
00:09:00.900 | I love you, and God loved you by sending his son, Jesus Christ, into the world to bear
00:09:06.960 | the sins of everyone who trusts him."
00:09:10.980 | Jesus is a great Savior even now.
00:09:15.840 | He is a great friend.
00:09:18.200 | He is very merciful, very patient, very gracious.
00:09:23.440 | He has forgiven all my sins, and I am so thankful.
00:09:27.140 | And he wants you to know that he is ready to forgive all your sins, no matter what they
00:09:33.760 | were or how many they were.
00:09:36.760 | All you have to do is cast yourself on the mercy of Christ.
00:09:42.880 | Fall into the arms of Christ and trust him as a precious Savior.
00:09:49.160 | So I'm going to pray for you, John.
00:09:51.660 | Father in heaven, thank you for your love.
00:09:55.240 | Thank you for the amazing grace that saves sinners like me and John when we simply trust
00:10:03.640 | in our precious Savior, Jesus Christ.
00:10:07.760 | I pray that you would make yourself real for John as he lies here.
00:10:13.680 | In Jesus' name, amen.
00:10:16.980 | And if you ask me what to do if a loved one says, "Don't talk to my father about Jesus,"
00:10:26.900 | I would say, "I don't believe that a human command takes precedence over the command
00:10:35.520 | of love."
00:10:37.380 | Very bold and also quite practical.
00:10:39.660 | Thank you, Pastor John.
00:10:40.660 | And Michelle, thank you for the outstanding follow-up question.
00:10:43.080 | If you have a follow-up question to something you've heard on this podcast, ask Pastor
00:10:46.780 | John.
00:10:47.780 | You can do that via email, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:51.040 | That's our email address, askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org.
00:10:55.480 | And you will know if we got it if you receive an auto-reply immediately in response.
00:11:02.440 | If you want to search our growing archive of episodes, you can do that online at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:11:09.200 | Well, what does it mean to be loved infinitely?
00:11:17.000 | That's the answer we're after next time.
00:11:19.000 | And to get the answer, we must first understand that God, for a time, passed over sin.
00:11:25.800 | He simply passed over it.
00:11:27.360 | He didn't bring final judgment on sinners in real time.
00:11:31.040 | He would deal with sin finally, but only later in the cross.
00:11:36.240 | And as we reckon with this truth, we will come face to face with what it means to be
00:11:39.960 | loved infinitely.
00:11:43.280 | That's up next time.
00:11:44.280 | I'm your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:45.280 | We'll see you back here on Wednesday.
00:11:47.160 | Thanks for listening.
00:11:48.160 | We'll see you then.
00:11:48.480 | [END]