Of evidence I have no dearth

This column appeared in the March 1987 issue of Moody Monthly magazine. I found it interesting; obviously, I don’t share the worldview of the author. I am curious to hear what others think about it. I’m transcribing it by hand; forgive typos.

“Oh Lord,” my brother cried, “please don’t let Ed die. Please get us to the hospital in time.” Eric drove as fast as he dared. His wife cried beside him.
“Don’t let Dad die,” she prayed, “not until we’ve had a chance to talk to him about you. Oh please, Lord, get us there in time.”
They did get to the hospital in time. Eric went into the intensive care unit armed with the message that could bring his father-in-law new life. He was not allowed to take his Bible in, so everything Eric said was from memory and from his heart.
“I love you, Ed,” Eric said to the pale man hooked up to monitors, beepers, tubes, and tanks. “And Jesus loves you, too. You know that, don’t you, Ed?”
Ed couldn’t speak because of the tubes down his nose and throat, but he squeezed Eric’s hand and nodded. Eric told him how he could have his sins forgiven and go to heaven a new man. At each point of his message, Eric stopped to make sure Ed understood. There amid the gurgle-beep-beep-beep-drip-drip-drip in the ICU, Eric prayed with Ed and introduced him to the God who gives eternal life. The next day Ed was barely conscious, and the following morning he died.
I wonder how many other Christians could lead a dying person to the Savior. Some think that’s the pastor’s job. It isn’t. Besides, there isn’t always time to track down a pastor. And in Ed’s case, a pastor would not have had the same rapport with him that Eric had.
How do you communicate the message that God is ready to forgive adn grand new life to someone about to die?
With prayer. Ask God for wisdom and for the words that person needs to hear. Pray that God will prepare him to receive your words and love, and then trust God to draw him to himself.
With confidence. Remember that God doesn’t want anyone to perish (2 Peter 3:9); the gospel “is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). It’s our job to encourage the dying to believe.
With gentleness. Touch them. Hug them. Sympathize with their pain. Tell them why you’re there — to help them find hope and peace in God.
Know which truths are essential to help a sinner into a right relationship with God. My brother gave Ed the same facts many gospel tracts contain:
God loves you.
Your sin has separated you from God and has kept you from knowing him personally.
Jesus Christ, God’s Son, died on the cross to forgive your sins.
He will give you eternal life if you trust him as your Savior.
Explain each point slowly and clearly, without using religious terms like saved, redeemed, convicted, born again, and repent.
One truth that is particularly hard to convey is that Jesus died to buy our forgiveness. Try to explain that death is always the consequence of sin, but that Jesus, who never sinned, offered to die in our place so that we don’t have to pay for our own sins.
Don’t assume a person can’t hear just because he can’t respond. Years ago a sea captain named Bjorn Kristiansen lay in the hospital just about dead — no pulse, no breath, a “code blue” situation. But he heard a voice. A Norwegian nurse was there calling to him. “Captain Kristiansen,” she said, “you are dying. Do you know Jesus Christ? I’m going to pray with you.” Though he doesn’t remember exactly what the nurse prayed, he said later that he hung on to her every word “like a lifeline.”
Bjorn woke up knowing that Jesus saved him. Doctors were astounded that he lived. But they were concerned that he had lost his mind because he kept talking about Jesus and asking for a Bible. Bjorn went on to become the captain of the MV Logos, a missionary ship for Operation Mobilization.
I have a friend who heard Captain Kristiansen tell his testimony aboard the MV Logos. She works in a cancer ward, and she prays — slowly and audibly — with each of the coma patients. Typically, she prays: “Lord, thank you that you love Betty. Thank you that you’ve always loved Betty. Lord, I don’t know if Betty knows you or not, but I want her to have the peace of knowing she can live with you forever in heaven. Lord you sent your Son, Jesus, to die ad forgive all of Betty’s sins. And you rose again and are alive right now, praying for us.”
Then she continues: “Betty, you pray along with me in your heart. God can hear you, even if you don’t speak. ‘I need you, Lord. I need your forgiveness, Lord Jesus. Come into my life and make me a new person. I acknowledge you as Lord. And I trust you with my life, my body, and all the people I love. If I am dying, I trust that you are hanging on to me because I’m too weak to hang on to you. Lord, I love you. Don’t let me be afraid. In Jesus’ name, amen.'”
Then she quotes Psalm 23 or John 12:27,28: “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand.”
If a dying person doesn’t want to pray, ask permission to explain a few things: “Can I tell you what it means to turn your life over to Christ so if you want to call on him later, you’ll know what’s involved?” Then leave him with the promises of John 3:16, 5:24, and 14:6.
Ask God for creative ways to make the gospel clear. When my great uncle was in a rest home and getting senile, I was never sure if he understood he needed Christ. One day I wrote him a note in big letters: “Gloria loves her Uncle Percy. God loves Percy, too. That’s why God sent his Son Jesus to be Percy’s Savior.”
Percy carried that note in his pocket for weeks, and he laid it against his clock every night before he went to bed. I started leaving him notes every time I visited — a Scripture promise or a reminder that Jesus is Lord, Christ, and King. Before he died, Percy prayed and received Jesus as his Savior.
Since then I’ve had a note taped to my bathroom mirror with Mordecai’s challenge to his niece, Esther, to use her position as queen of Persia to save the lives of her Jewish people: “Who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?” In other words, perhaps God placed Esther in the royal palace just so he could use her for this rescue mission.
God has placed me into his own royal family. And perhaps he chose me as a child of the King to be the one to rescue a dying person and introduce him to the source of life.

Many of my thoughts on this piece are rather predictable, but I will wait to share them until later. I would like to hear thoughts from others. How do you feel about deathbed confessionals? If you were God, would you make them count? Is it a good thing that people are going around trying to evangelize the nearly-dead? Or, the version of the question for athiests like me: is it ok? Is there a worse side to it to wasting time? Maybe it’s annoying? Maybe it’s manipulative?

Another reason I’m asking for reactions to this article is that I have a desire to better understand its author. Like I said above, she and I obviously look at the world very, very differently, but I’m trying to understand religious people better, and I can see at least alittle common ground. The compassion is obviously there, and the love. If I believed that people who died without becoming Christians went to hell for eternity, I’m sure I’d feel a very, very intense burden to stop that from happening, much as the author here seems to. But she doesn’t talk about it that way — she doesn’t describe it as a duty. Hmm, apparently I’m starting to offer my own thoughts a little more than I’d meant to. Tell me what you think about this author. Is she happy?

Another poignant fact about this column (sort of) about death — there is a footnote on the first page, indicating that the author died several months previous to its publication. I guess writing this column was one of the last things she did in her life.

I’m done for now. More later. Tell me your thoughts, please.