(upbeat music) - Well, I can't think of many conversations that are harder to have than those we have with professing believers who have shown little to no fruit in their lives over the years. Those are hard conversations to initiate and to do really well. Today's question arrives anonymously. Hello, Pastor John.

In episode 803, you tackled the question, how do I wisely tell a professing believer I don't think he is saved? I'm now struggling to consider how to apply the principles you put forth in that episode with an elderly professing Christian who I think may be unsaved and who is close to death.

In thinking about this, I thought about your love for dying saints and figured that in your pastoral experience, you have been with dying individuals who profess faith in Jesus, but yet you have strong inclinations that they may not actually be saved. How do you personally speak to these seemingly nominal individuals, especially elderly ones when they are so close to death?

That's a really good, a real practical question. I have indeed stood beside the bed of dying professing Christians whose faith I was not at all sure was real. And this is especially frightening when I know the person has sat under my ministry for years. And the reason that's so especially frightening is because I know I don't have much more to say than what he's already heard and he has already given evidence that they had no effect on him.

Now, of course, that's not always the case. Often, the dying person who's a professing believer whom a believer is not sure whether they're real, often that person has gone to a church where the gospel is rarely, if ever, mentioned, and where the scriptures are not believed and taught. So the person has, perhaps, a completely wrong notion of the whole issue of salvation.

And perhaps they have wholly wrong notions of what God is really like. And the situation is often complicated by the fact that at this season in life, their mind may not be able to think very clearly or feel very intensely. You know, my dad was an evangelist and I heard him preach numerous sermons in which he quoted for young people, Ecclesiastes 12, one, remember your creator in the days of your youth before the evil days come and the years draw near in which you say, I have no pleasure in them.

In other words, the end of life season may be such that the capacities for joy and delight and treasuring and pleasure are gone. We may have sent them away. So what do you do now? I would suggest four stages of kinds of interaction. And you may jump into these stages of kinds of interaction anywhere along the way.

I'm gonna give them in a particular order, but it depends on what you know about the person, how much they know, whether each of these would receive the same emphasis. Number one, saturate this entire time, season. It might be that they're dying for weeks or days or hours. Saturate the entire season with pleading love.

My guess is that this person may have never experienced anyone looking him or her right in the eye and saying with seriousness and even tearful emotion, I love you. And I don't want you to perish. I don't want you to be lost. I want you to be saved by Jesus.

I want you to be brought into Jesus' fellowship forever. I want to be with you in heaven. And I am concerned for your soul. Very, very few people have ever heard a Christian say that, which is sad. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 5 20, I implore you, that is I plead with you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

Most of the time when we speak of the gospel, we narrate facts and we must, of course. The gospel is news, factual news, but not enough. It's not enough to give facts. We have to look at people and plead with people to be reconciled with God. Seldom do we actually embody, so incarnate the love of God, the love of the Father going out to the prodigal and pursuing and seeking and longing and pleading.

That's the spirit that this season right now, the last days or hours of life should have. Number two, second observation. Be sure that they know that God is a God of holiness and justice and therefore wrath against all sinners, including us and them, is our biggest problem. Give them a few passages to remind them that the greatest problem of mankind and their greatest problem lying in that bed right now, their greatest problem is not whether they're hurting or can breathe, their greatest problem is the holy and just wrath of God.

Romans 1.18, 2.5, Ephesians 5.6, 1 Thessalonians 1.10. Pick out a verse or two to bring authority to your reminder. Remind them of coming judgment. It's just so sobering to me to read every time I get there, and I just read it in my devotions yesterday. Hebrews 9.27, "Just as it is appointed for man to die once and after that comes judgment." Tell them, warn them.

So often we're so eager, and secular people will just get furious at what I'm saying right now. So often we're so eager to give them peace right now so that the last thing they can do is have peace as they die. To hell with such a thought. If the person is about to drop into eternity where they will know no peace forever, they need to know judgment happens after you die.

Here's the third observation. Clarify the heart of the gospel. God sent Jesus to bear his own wrath and to cover all our sins as a perfect substitute. Talk about the objective facts, yes, yes, facts, of the divine transaction that happened on the cross, and talk about these facts before you say one syllable about what's expected from this person lying there in bed.

It was a glorious thing to me to discover at some point in my life where somebody said, "Don't you realize the gospel is the factual, objective transaction between God and Christ on your behalf before you ever existed? You were saved before you were existed. You existed in the decisive transaction that happened in the covering of your sins and the providing of your righteousness." And that now the question is, "Will you have it?

Will you receive the gift?" So give him those facts. And I could read a lot of them here, but Romans 3.25, "God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood. This was to show God's righteousness because in his divine forbearance, he had passed over former sins." 1 Peter 3.18, "Christ suffered once the righteous for the unrighteous to bring us to God." 1 Peter 2.24, "He bore our sins in his body on the tree." Hebrews 9.26, "He's appeared once for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself." Romans 8.1, "There's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." All five of those texts say nothing about faith, nothing about obedience, nothing about repentance.

These are facts. These are realities outside of us. And then comes the rest of the gospel. You can't earn this, so don't worry that you can't get out of bed. Don't worry that you don't have a lifetime in front of you to obey and try to earn this. You're like the thief on the cross.

You got one hour before you meet him, and guess what? It's a gift to be received in an instant, not to be earned in a lifetime of obedience. And you plead with them, "Receive the gift, the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life," Romans 6.23.

And then you offer it, you offer it with your hands stretched out. Then you say, "Throw yourself on God's mercy. Embrace Jesus as your only hope and as the all-satisfying treasure that he's gonna be for you forever, satisfying your soul forever, your Savior, your Lord, your friend, your treasure from now to eternity." Maybe even show them the vanity of self-sufficiency with that little parable about the tax collector and the Pharisee where the Pharisee said, "Oh, I'm better than everybody, and I tithe and give my..." I never committed adultery.

And this poor tax collector standing afar off would not lift up his eyes to heaven. He beat his breast saying, "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." And Jesus says these unbelievable, yes, believable words. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other, for he who exalts himself will be humbled and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

Can you right now, can you, my friend, humble yourself and cast yourself on the mercy of Jesus like that? And the last thing I would say, number four, spend the rest of the hours or days speaking or reading to them about the glories of Christ. According to 2 Corinthians 3, 18, we are changed by beholding the glory of Christ.

We behold the glory of Christ in His word and work. They need help from you to remember those, to see those. I was thinking maybe, if you're wondering, how would I do that if they live for another three days and I get to sit with them for eight hours?

How would I do that? And one resource would be, I wrote this little book, "Seeing and Savoring Jesus Christ," precisely for unbelievers who might, in looking at about 13 pictures of the glories of Christ, be awakened to the beauty of Christ. So that's one possible resource, whatever, whether it's scripture or a book or your own testimony, keep reading as long as they will let you, and keep praying as long as they will let you, that God would open their eyes.

- That is a glorious recounting of the gospel, Pastor John. So good to hear the old, old story once again, myself. Thank you. Thanks for the question. Anonymous questions are fine. You can send those to us at askpastorjohn@desiringgod.org. Thank you for listening to the podcast. At our online home, you can explore about 1,300 of our past episodes.

You can scan a list of our most popular ones, read full transcripts, and you can even send us a question through that site. Go to desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn. Also, be sure to subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app. We are gonna return on Friday. I'm your host, Tony Reinke.

Thanks for listening to the Ask Pastor John podcast with longtime author and pastor, John Piper. We'll see you then. (upbeat music) (upbeat music)