Handling Unsaved People Near Death

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You're going to get to hear from some of the podcasts tonight, some of the podcasters, I should say, and they'll mention their podcast, and so you're going to get a little bit of flavor of them.

Tonight's topic, what we're going to talk about is really how to handle, how to deal with when you have a family or a friend who's near death, and they're not saved.

We'll probably touch on how to deal with saved as well, but really, this is a difficult topic.

I will freely admit when we are discussing topics for this month, this one

I came up with. This is mine, and it is of personal nature. For those who follow

Striving Fraternity, who follow me, listen to my Rap Report podcast, you'll know that I, right now,

I'm dealing with a family member, very close family member, who is dying and is not a believer, and so it's difficult to deal with, and so we want to talk about it because there are differing advice that people will give, and so it will hopefully be helpful, maybe if any of you are struggling with this or someday end up having to struggle with this, but also might be something that just shows where our differing backgrounds, we're going to come up with some differing views.

Let me start with the first podcaster I'm going to have introduce herself and to introduce her podcast.

I also will announce is the newest admin to the Christian podcast community, so E.

Franklin, if you would mind introducing yourself and your podcast. Sure, I'm E. Franklin, and I co -host the podcast

Are You Just Watching?, which was founded in 2009, so it's a pretty, a podcast that has a long,

I guess, backlog of episodes to listen to, but we review one, usually one secular movie a month on, from a

Christian worldview, discussing the themes and just very, very basically putting together a how to view a movie critically from a

Christian worldview without letting the secular entertainment warp your thinking without you realizing it.

I also have a book about the same topic, which is on Amazon, and I'm happy to be on board with Christian podcast community and hoping

I make a good admin. Well, your book is really one geared toward, and this is on for homeschoolers, go check that out, because if you have kids who are looking at secular movies, it really teaches you how to, walks you through how to think critically about movies, so good book to get, good podcast.

Now, your most recent podcast was a little bit controversial for Christians. Yeah, we reviewed the movie

Redeeming Love, which is actually came out sort of as a Christian movie, but most

Christians are very upset about it because it had partial nudity in it and some steamy sex scenes, and basically it was about, it's claim to fame was a retelling of the story of Hosea from the book of Hosea.

So yeah, it kind of created some waves in the Christian community. All right, and next up, we'll go with Aaron.

Hey, so I really actually just enjoy this. I just want to say, if you're a podcaster and you're specifically a

Christian podcaster and you have Christian themes, you guys should totally check out this podcast community, and though it may be difficult to try to get into it, definitely, you know, submit to the process and see if you can get in, because even just participating with this group of people on a monthly basis, even on just this one opportunity here is fantastic, so I just want to encourage everyone to consider that.

But my name is Aaron Brewster, and I have two podcasts on the network, in the community, I should say.

The first one is Truth, Love, Parent, and Truth, Love, Parent is the podcast of a ministry called

Truth, Love, Family, and that is all about helping parents to learn to worship

God via their parenting, because parenting is not about our kids. Parenting is not about us.

Parenting is about God and how he would have us to parent our kids. So that's a podcast.

It's my longest one -year run, longest running one, yeah. It started in 2016 and has almost 500 episodes.

And then the second podcast is called The Celebration of God, and that is part of a ministry called

The Year -Long Celebration of God, which is a discipleship experience whereby followers of Christ learn to worship

God better every day of the year, every waking moment of the year. We want worship God better this year than we did last year.

And so it's a growth in discipleship, which involves my own personal conformity to the image of Christ, but also helping the other people that God has brought into my life to do the exact same thing.

So Truth, Love, Parent and The Celebration of God are my two podcasts, and I just,

I love doing it because when you have the opportunity to put something like this out there, you never know who listens to it, you don't know how long it'll be out there.

But God uses it, and I firmly believe the Apostle Paul, if he were alive today, he would have a podcast.

He would probably have a ton of podcasts. This is my attempt. All right, now a new voice to those who are regular listeners of Theology Throwdown.

I don't know how this guy slipped in. I mean, we try to keep the New Yorkers out, that New York element out of here, but you're going to hear that heavy accent from Pastor Dom.

If you don't mind introducing yourself and your podcast. Yes, thanks. Thanks for accepting me in,

Andrew. It was a tough going, but it was well worth it. I just got in by the skin of my teeth, but I'll take it.

My name is Pastor Dominic Romali, and we do a podcast called Street Talk Theology.

And, you know, I kind of named it, I did many years in prison. So we kind of take theology and kind of break it down into bite -sized pieces.

And I do have a connection. I want to be careful in using that word connection, but I do have a connection with some brothers in India that the church here in Desert Sky kind of helps out.

We got them Lagos and things like that. So I do some stuff with them, and we just kind of talk theology, bring it to the streets, try to break it down and try to encourage people and challenge people in the things of God.

So that's where I'm at. And we, you know, sometimes we try to give it sometimes to people that are in prison, but that have recently come out, but we just talk theology and bring it to the streets.

So I appreciate you guys letting the soul New Yorker in the community, but you're actually not the sole

New Yorker though. We have a couple of others that are up there in the Bronx. So, you know, stop and think about a podcast there.

Those guys are from the Bronx. So they actually go, they actually podcast from the

Bronx, Andrew. Yeah. Yeah. They're not transplant like you, but my name is

Andrew Rappaport. I'm the host, primarily a couple of podcasts, but primarily my Andrew Rappaport's Rappaport, which is a weekly podcast to help people with biblical interpretations and applications to Christian living and culture.

Right now, we're going through a long series of systematic theology, just going through this doctrinal statement at Striving Fraternity.

Right now, finishing up the section on angels and demons and Satan. And the other podcast

I do regularly is my Apologetics Live podcast. That is a live show

Thursday nights, eight to 10 Eastern time. You just go to apologeticslive .com and we can answer any question you have about God and the

Bible. And if you say you think we can't, well, you just try it out. Just join us and go to apologeticslive .com

and give us your most challenging question because we can answer it.

We're that confident. By the way, I don't know is a perfectly good answer. So when you ask that difficult question and I say,

I don't know, don't say I didn't answer because I just did. All right. We got some other podcasters that are going to be coming in a little bit later.

We'll let them introduce themselves when they do, but let's start this off. I've already said, this is something that's personal to me right now and where I'm at.

And it is something that I've had to deal with death in my family from the age of 10, close family members and stuff.

So I've kind of got used to it in a sense, in a bad way, because you just become desensitized to it.

But as a believer, things changed. And it's harder when

I think we realize that someone may be passing on into eternity and we know where they're going to spend eternity and they do not.

So let me first start off with the easier one of how to handle, if you're dealing with someone who's dying, that's a believer.

There's been a lot of different things I've seen people do. I remember one person that I used to work with many, many years ago, who actually

I don't believe he was a believer. But when he passed away unexpectedly, the church service that they did was very interesting because the church service they had, it really was like a celebration because they believed he was in heaven.

So I think that when it comes to a believer, we often will talk about, oh, we're going to see family members in heaven and things like that.

So we do have two of us here today, at least so far, our pastors. One, Aaron, is a counselor.

So I do realize that we're recording just before Shepherds Conference and many of the pastors in our community are either at Shepherds Conference right now or traveling to Shepherds Conference.

I will be heading out very early in the morning to catch my flight. But Aaron, let me throw it out to you first and just ask.

So when we're dealing with someone who's a believer, you're coming to them that you know they're near death, what kind of counsel can we give to someone in that situation?

Right now we're talking about someone in particular who is a believer, you said? Yeah. Well, I think there are so many directions that we can come with this.

One of the things I just want to say as a preface, though, is that sometimes there's this idea that sharing scripture can be considered trite.

And I just want to say that that's an impossibility. God's Word is powerful, sharper than a two -edged sword.

It does the job that it's sent out to do. And though a person sharing it may be trite, and obviously they shouldn't be, the power of God's Word is better than anything that any human being could ever say.

And though this first example is not one that comes from, you know, a person talking to someone who was dying.

They were talking about someone who had just died. I still think that it's very relevant and I think it's a wonderful example of how confident we can be when we talk to people who have lost somebody or who themselves are dying, but if they're believers.

It's when Jesus was talking to Martha after Lazarus' death.

And she says, if you had been here, and he tells her, he said, listen, I am the resurrection and the life.

He goes straight to the truth. Whoever believes in me will never die. Do you believe that?

He says. He has a mini altar call right there when he asked, when he demands that she interact with the truth he was sharing.

And so yes, we want to make certain that we're speaking the truth in love, but I don't believe it's ever loving to not speak the truth.

And especially when we're dealing with somebody who is a believer, there are so many precious promises and so many encouraging hopeful realities in scripture.

And one of the two places that I love the most to go when I'm talking to somebody in the situation is

Psalm 116 .15, which is probably very familiar to many of you. Precious in the sight of the

Lord is the death of his saints. There's something so startling about that.

It's not precious in the sight of the Lord or his saints, which it is, that's a true statement, but it's precious in the sight of the

Lord is the death of his saints. Oh, wow. And there's so much you can talk about there and you can unearth biblically from that reality.

But the other place I like to go, which I think perhaps maybe, I don't know, maybe other people kind of go in this direction too, but it actually is in Revelation chapter two.

As we know the church, the letters to the seven churches, most of those churches were struggling one way or another.

And there was a lot of Jesus had to correct them in a lot of things, but the church in Smyrna was unique among the seven.

It's the shortest letter. It doesn't involve really any condemnation at all.

And it's just a group of people doing a wonderful thing. And yet it is this group of people who potentially was facing the most persecution, the most imminent death potentially.

And it starts off and Jesus introduces himself at the beginning of each letter. I love the way he introduces himself there.

He's in this particular starting in verse eight, he says, the words of the first and the last who died and came to life.

So he's introducing himself as the one who has experienced death. He's talking from the personal experience of death.

He knows what it is. And he also came to life. He conquered death. He overcame it.

So he's talking from knowledge and he's talking from power. He goes on to say to this church, I know your tribulation and your poverty, but you are rich.

And the slander of those who say that you are not Jews. And there's some things that, you know, obviously very specific to the church in Smyrna, but he says, do not fear what you are about to suffer.

And then again, specific to Smyrna, he says, the devil's going to throw you, some of you into prison and you're going to be tested for 10 days.

You're be faithful unto death and I will give you the crown of life.

He who has an ear, let him hear what the spirit says to the churches. The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death.

And again, so we, it starts off with Christ, who he is, everything that comes next is tied up in who

Christ himself is. That's the comfort we have that he is familiar with what we've experienced and he's powerful enough that he's overcome.

That's what we're going to learn about the end, the second death. And that, yes, the tribulation and the difficulty and the struggle and the suffering of the first death is a very real part of life.

And here, Christ is talking to this beautiful church, this righteous, loving church in Smyrna.

And he's telling them, listen, this is going to happen. You're going to suffer. It's going to be bad. Be faithful.

That's my call to you, he says. Be faithful, even though you know it is going to lead to death.

And then he says, and I will give you the crown of life. Instead of experiencing the second death, which is a separation from God for all eternity in hell, you have access to the crown of life.

And again, as you, as you share these scriptures and you have these conversations with people, you have the opportunity to just sit on some of these truths, the glory in them, to stop in prayer and praise

God for who he is, as it brings a song to your mind, to sing the truths of these scriptures.

And those are just the two of the big ones for me that, and then so many other passages, but those are the two that I like to frame those types of conversations with.

Okay, so then let me, you know, and that's good, you know, I don't know how often you've had to do this,

Pastor Dom, you might've had to do this, but going into a hospital room, as I've had to do with someone in a church that, you know, they're a believer, what kind of, how do you deal with that Pastor Dom, you know, what wisdom or counsel would you give?

Yeah, you know, I've done that on many, many occasions over the last, you know, 11 years as being a pastor.

And, you know, I find, and those scriptures are really helpful too, brother.

What I find, and I was talking about, in fact, I was talking to Rachel about this the other day.

What I find, Andrew, is that when you go in there and you speak to believers, especially in hospitals,

God, by his providence, actually gives what I call this day of the game grace, that they are, that these believers are ready to be with the

Lord. I mean, and they actually, and I'm being honest, they actually encourage me, and I'm saying, man,

I wish I had this type of theology when you go meet them.

And they're actually, and though those scriptures, brother, are so helpful in what he was sharing,

I have found more times than not, they're like ministering to me, because I'm saying to myself, man,

I pray by God's grace that I have that zeal to actually want to, you know, be with the

Lord. And I think God, you know, because I remember Rachel telling me the other day,

Pastor Andrew, that she was saying, man, you know, you think about these guys, we were talking about the people in Kiev and overseas, or whatever, what's going on there, how

God just empowers people, especially believers, when they're coming to the point of death.

You see that with Paul, and obviously some of the apostles that knew that that would be their fate.

So again, sharing those scriptures, I mean, our brother touched on most of them, but a lot of times

I just find them actually ministering to me, because I'm saying to myself, and I go in there to minister, and obviously want to be there to comfort them, you know, to meet the

Lord and be with the Lord. But by God's grace, He's a good God, and I believe

He empowers people to face that when it's that time to come. Yeah, and Eve, I don't know if you have anything you want to add to that.

Not really. I think for me, I know this topic has come up in my podcast a few times, and we always go back to Philippians 121, where Paul says, for me to live is

Christ, but to die is gain. For a believer, when we go to heaven, it's to our benefit.

And that has always been a massive comfort to me, when knowing when some of my saved family go to be with the

Lord, that they're gaining so much better than what they had here, especially if they were sick at the end, and this ultimate healing is leaving this decrepit, sin -cursed body, and having that perfect communication with God restored.

That's a great passage to go to, because so many believers don't really understand. They get it reversed in that passage.

They think that's talking about our life here and now as being the better thing, but when you actually read that,

Paul's saying it's better to be dead. He actually says, he uses a very interesting word in the

Greek when he says he's hard -pressed. It's a word that's used for basically when they would take an animal to slaughter, they'd have these wedges so that it's very wide at one end, very narrow at the other end, and as the cow or whatever goes down, it gets wedged in.

And they do that so that when they slit its throat, it doesn't hurt anybody or ruin the meat and jump around, so they wedge it in.

That's what he says. He's hard -pressed between life and death, and he says death is far better because he's going to be with Christ.

So that's a great passage. Aaron? Yes, there was one other thing

I thought about that I think is a really important thing when we're talking to a believer who is in this place in their life, and that is the truth that we learned in Matthew 634 about don't be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, sufficient is the day as it is trouble.

There is so much, depending on how slow the process of death is, you're meeting with people, hospice people, whatever else, and they're preparing you for what comes next.

And there are a lot of things like the pain that you're going to experience or the other side effects you're going to have from the drugs or whatever it is, and there's so much tempting a person to be afraid in that moment because of what's going to happen.

And just trying to draw their mind back to right here, right now, what does God want you to do right now?

What's the one thing that you need to say or do or feel or think or believe right now that's going to bring him the most glory?

And then the next moment, what's the thing that you need to do that's going to bring him the next glory? Live in the present. And I think there's a way that we can live in the future, like Abraham who was looking for a city whose maker and builder was

God, right? There's a way to look past the death to see the hope of the future, definitely, but there's that middle ground in between right now and my time with the

Lord when I'm absent from the body and present with him, that that's a good thing to not be thinking about because the temptation to anxiety and just to focus on where I am right now or focus on where I'm going to be, not that nasty middle.

Yeah, you know, a passage that, and with these passages you brought up, you know,

Philippians is all about suffering, you know, people who are suffering. Another good book would be 1

Peter where people are suffering, but for believers, I like to turn to 2

Corinthians 5, that whole chapter. I don't want to take the time to read the whole thing, but it just starts off with, for we know that if our earthly tent, referring to our bodies, if our earthly tent, which is our house, is torn down, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens, right?

And so he starts to talk about that. That's like when this body of mine goes, right?

We have something greater to look forward to. And then you read through and he starts saying that we're a new creation, that the love of Christ should compel us, but then he ends with one of the great verses of Scripture, verse 20 and 21.

Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were making an appeal through us.

We beg you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. He made him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf so that we might become the righteousness of God.

And I can concur with what Pastor Dom was saying, because I've had that experience where you go in thinking you're going to be comforting somebody, and they understand 2

Corinthians 5. They're ready. They can't wait to go. I had this with my mother -in -law when she was living in our home for about a year and a half, and she was ready to go home and be with the

Lord. She wanted to go. And we'd sit there and we wanted her there with us, but we'd see her suffering and just know that she wanted to be with Christ.

And that's the thing. So there's a more difficult situation though to deal with when we have to do counseling or try to comfort whether it be an unsaved person or their family.

So let's start with the unsaved person themselves. Pastor Dom, I don't know if you've had to do hospital visits or house visits with an unsaved person.

I know I've been called to the hospital by a friend of a believer who's a friend that would ask me to go to a hospital of an unbeliever.

I remember being when we had someone I used to work with when I was bivocational.

So I was doing some secular work still pastoring a church, and he was in the

ICU. And because I was a pastor, I was the only one other than family that could get in and see him.

And that makes a much different situation when you're dealing with someone who is just literally, as with the one individual that I'm speaking with that I worked with, he was days away from eternity.

And conversations like those are going to be more gospel -focused. But it's also very difficult, especially if it's someone close to you, someone family.

So let me open it up, and I'll start with Pastor Dom this time and say, in a situation like that, how do you deal with trying to deal with somebody who's just at that cusp of eternity, possibly, and they don't know

Christ? You want to share the gospel. There could be some of their unsafe family around that might think it's inappropriate to talk about death.

You might have people that think that you're upsetting the person by sharing the gospel, something they don't agree with.

What are your thoughts? Yeah, usually, and I've been in those situations, and usually it's the family members that will invite you to the hospital, and they may be believers, and they obviously ask permission, you know, can

I ask my pastor to come, or things like that. So usually when you go there, they want you there, or else you're not going to be there.

And obviously families are a whole different, that's a different dichotomy, a different area.

But you know, if they want you there, they invite you there, and the person wants you there, you know, you let them know.

I've let them know that, you know, a lot of times you'll go in there, and the family will step out, and you have a one -on -one with the guy or the woman, and you know, you just try to give them the gospel.

And I always point to my, you know, it's easy, it's easier for me, because I always point to myself first, and tell them, you know, how many years

I did in prison, and God is sovereign, and he doesn't, you know, he can save at any time, though I'm not going to, it's not that I'm offering this,

I'm just offering salvation, as best as I know how, and use my own example of where I was, and where God had brought me today.

I'm not offering fire insurance, I'm not doing those things, I'm just saying, listen, you could not have been a worse sinner than me.

I always use me, I always point the back to me, and I said, you know, I was in prison,

I've been in situations where I was involved with pistols being pointed at me, and I mean,

I go into that thing and say, it's not too late, and if they hear me, praise the

Lord. And so I use that, I use myself a lot in those situations, and usually it's not hostile, because, you know, they want me there, and you know, more times than not,

I just, as I'm speaking, I'm praying, and praying God opens up their eyes. The family issues, you know, the

Lord says sometimes our own family, they're the hardest ones to witness to, and I've, you know, that's a tougher play,

Pastor Andrew, I mean, but I, you know, when they let you go to the hospital, they invite you into the hospital, hopefully they'll be open, and hopefully they'll hear the gospel, and that's what

I'm there for, to give the gospel. So, but again, family's tough.

You know, my dad died in prison. I wasn't a believer at the time. I had 11 months left on a prior federal prison sentence that I was in, and my dad had a massive heart attack after getting, like, 12 years in prison.

So, I know what it is, that those things are hard. So, I grieve with you in that area,

Pastor Andrew, for sure. Yeah. So, it is a thing where we want to be there.

The gospel is the most important thing in situations like this, and yet it's hard to share the gospel sometimes with people who, their whole life, have hated the gospel.

I know a pastor, a friend of mine, who had someone, a family member, he was in the hospital visiting, and they just, they hated the gospel message, and was yelling at them when trying to share, and not seeing the love that, you know, a

Christian is trying to present at that. And you do have to be sensitive at times like that, because you do have to realize that there's a lot of emotions for a person that is going through that, especially if they know they're near death.

There's a lot of emotions so you have to be very sensitive in that sense. Aaron, let me ask you, as a

Christian counselor, I don't know if you've had to deal with that, but what kind of counsel would you give to someone that is, maybe they're having to go and maybe not go to a hospital, maybe it's a family member, a friend, they're at home, and they know they're going to have a chance to go visit the person, but they know the person may not be alive much longer.

What kind of counsel would you give someone? Yeah, I want to start with that idea of, what about the person giving the gospel, going to talk to the unbeliever, whether that's us or somebody else.

And I say really, in all things, you know, we really do need to start with ourselves first.

We need to deal with the potential log in our own eye. And you know, in this particular discussion, there are a lot of different logs that we bring to this issue.

You know, sometimes my going to them and sharing the gospel with them is really just based out of my own fear.

Sometimes we actually are tempted to not share the gospel.

Sometimes we're not super confident about the reality of hell. And we just don't really, we're not convinced in a way ourselves so much that we're willing to have these be the last words we're going to speak to this person, especially if it makes them mad.

Sometimes we quote unquote want to be loving. And so in quote unquote being loving, we want to avoid uncomfortable talks.

Sometimes, let's just be honest, I can say that I have not experienced this myself, but I know people who have.

We don't actually want this person to be saved. They deserve this. They need to suffer the consequences.

Sometimes that's a motivation that people have for not sharing the gospel. That was

Jonah's problem. Jonah, right? I mean, he didn't want the Ninevites to be saved.

He did not like them. They deserve this. Yeah. Yeah. Dom, I don't know anything about you or your family or how you felt about your father, but I've worked with a lot of at -risk young men and they couldn't care less if their dads died.

Yeah. And sometimes honestly, we just kind of feel uncomfortable if they're like medical professionals in the room, feel uncomfortable saying it around them.

Or sometimes we feel uncomfortable if the family has made it clear that they actually don't want us to talk about the gospel.

So there are so many things going on inside of us that we need to deal with first because you're going to be going into an inflammatory, difficult, it's a deathbed situation that this person has rejected the gospel up until now.

You need to make sure your heart is right. You need to make sure that you are going in it for the right reasons. And I love what

Dom said about this idea of we're not trying to manipulate them.

We're not trying to coerce them. We're not, you know, because again, we can't believe that the gospel is what it is and somehow believe that we're going to trick them into this or that we're going to persuade them or scare them.

Into this. So that's, that's a really big thing that we need to, again, some logs that we need to look at in ourselves first, but there's one other one that I think is maybe not so much a log, but something that we need to be prepared, right.

To at least consider. One time I spoke with a biblical counseling friend of mine and he was talking about how he was talking to a young lady who was threatening to kill herself.

And he had worked with her. She was at his house. His wife was there. She had been talking to her, you know, it was two in the morning.

He had to go teach a university class the next day. And he said, listen, you know, the truth and you know what you need to do.

And now I need to go to bed and I think you need to go to bed too. And on her way out the door, she's like, you know what?

Well, I'm just, I'm just going to go home and I'm going to kill myself. And he says, I really pray that you're not going to. Now he had done everything he needed to do.

All the people who needed to know or already knew, but she left and his wife said to him, aren't you afraid?

How can you go to sleep? You know? And he says, he's like, God is in control of this situation.

And, and, and he said, you know, I, I need to be done and I need to go to sleep so I can go on to the next thing.

And I use that to preface this idea that sometimes we need to know when to stop talking.

And Jesus, some of the hardest things that Jesus ever said was in Matthew 7, 6, where he says, do not give dogs what is holy and do not throw your pearls before pigs as they trample them on their foot and turn to attack you.

And this is potentially in this discussion that we're having right now probably potentially the most difficult, like extreme example we could discuss is, is, you know somebody's on their death bed and we're trying to see if Matthew 7, 6 is going to apply to this.

But I will say the old Testament and the new Testament has a lot to say about how to treat a scoffer, a scorner.

And there may come a time, you know, if I'm, if I'm motivated, I say this on the heels of what I said earlier, because if I'm motivated out of fear, if I'm motivated out of whatever, that I may continue talking when

I just need to stop. I may continue pushing and, and, and, and trying to coerce or whatever else when

I need to walk away and I need to trust God to do the work that I can't do, trust the Holy Spirit to convict that I can't convict.

And so I'm just going to, I'm going to say it there. I know that there are probably a lot more to be said and I'd love to say some more in a minute, but I would just encourage everybody, whether it's you or you're encouraging somebody else who's, you know, maybe someone else's loved one is unsaved and they're going to be going and talking to them.

Help them to come face to face with their motivation for what they're doing to deal with the logs in their own eyes, so that when they go, they can be used of God, not despite them, but because they are, are, are ministering to this individual.

You know, I, I have with what you had said, I remember going to Huntington beach,

California, a friend of mine, Chad Williams, and I were doing some open air and Chad was up there.

He's, he's doing open air evangelism. And there was just this guy that was really, really arrogant and prideful.

And I saw Chad do something I've never seen him do since he's, he never did it before.

Hasn't done it since that I know of this guy's just being all arrogant as, as Chad is pleading with him with the gospel.

And all of a sudden Chad just goes, you know what? No gospel for you today. And he's like, he's like, you're not getting the gospel.

I'm done. Right. And the was that like, like that's totally out of character for him.

It was like, he goes, I don't know. I just felt like he was throwing pearls before swine. I didn't want to give him the gospel as, as arrogant as he was being.

And literally as we're having this discussion is as he's saying that the same guy walks up to us and he goes, how come you won't give me that gospel?

And Chad turns goes, now I will. It was just so neat that like we're sitting there like Chad, shutting the guy down, got, got under his skin and he walked away and came back like 15, 20 minutes later, because he's like annoyed that he couldn't get the gospel message.

So you're right. I mean, there may be times we need to just shut our mouth. I mean, one of the things

I think along the lines of that, one of the things as a, as a pastor, I struggle with like being silent, but there are times where the best thing you could do is not say anything, especially if you, if it's someone you that already knows the message, knows the gospel, sometimes just being there, just listening instead of going, well, hey,

I got this agenda. I need you to listen to this message and believe. And yet sometimes when they, when they know the message, the best thing we could do is just come alongside them.

And so when is it a right time to speak and when is it not? I don't know that I have a really good answer to say, hey, this is always the time.

I have some friends that would be of the position that you just hammer the gospel over and over and over and over with every last breath that they have.

You know, and then I have friends who would say, you know, you share the gospel, they know the message, don't say any more, just comfort them.

But there's a balance there somewhere. Yeah. I'm listening to that. It makes me remember the fact that it's not us that leads people to the

Lord. It's God who calls them to Him. And maybe it's the being quiet after, you know, they have the head knowledge and let the

Holy Spirit work on their heart because we can't change. We don't know what's going on on the inside. God does.

And, and yeah, I'd never thought of that. It's a good point. Well, this is a difference between those who say they believe in God's sovereignty and those that actually do.

Dom? Yeah, no, no, Andrew, they call, and Eve's right, there is like a word, they call that the ministry of presence, just being present.

You know, if they know the gospel message, just being there. And sometimes that can, you know, maybe that'll circulate in their mind, just you being there as a man of God, or as a pastor, and just being there with them and going through death with them, maybe by God's grace, they can turn by the

Holy Spirit and repent and believe the gospel. Let me introduce a new podcaster that just came in.

Not new to those who are regulars here, but he, Daniel Minnick, I'll give you a chance to introduce yourself, your podcast.

And then the question that we're addressing is, you or someone that you know, is going to go and visit someone that's dying, and they're not saved.

What kind of advice would you give them? So I'll let you introduce yourself and then answer that question. Okay, so as Andrew said, my name is

Daniel Minnick, and I host and rather now co -host a podcast called

Truthspresso. My wife, Chelsea, often co -hosts, especially on the Monday episodes.

Sometimes I'll record Truthspresso Express while I'm driving to or from work.

It's something I get, I turn positive out of a job. I work as a software developer, and they actually expect me in the office, even during 2021

COVID time. And yeah, I work from home Wednesday, so I turn driving to and from work into sometimes an opportunity to record some episodes.

But Truthspresso is a podcast, kind of eclectic topics of theology and politics.

And even my wife and I recently have done some episodes on marriage and family.

What was the question, Andrew? So the question would be, and before I get to the question,

I'll just say, so you started out as yourself along with Anthony Russo. He was -

And now both of you guys brought your wives on. We have one of the newer podcasts, Religionless Christianity, and they were like, we do this thing where it's a husband and wife together.

And it was like, you know, that's not as unusual as you think. Because we actually had, what are we even doing here started out as a husband and wife, and now it's just the husband.

You and Anthony have gone the other way on your podcast, Anthony's podcast is Grace and Peace Radio. You guys went the other way.

And so it's actually, we've got a number of husband and wife teams. But the question is, if you have to go, you counsel someone who you're going either to visit someone that's not a believer and they're dying, or you need to give counsel to someone who's in that situation.

What kind of advice would you give? I was just looking at 1 Corinthians 2, 4, and Paul is talking about the conversion of the

Corinthians. He said, my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the

Spirit and of power. And so, yeah, sometimes the situation might might tempt us to treat the gospel as something that we have to be careful and package up in certain ways.

Now, we do have to make the situation relevant. But if we remember that we present the gospel to anyone in any situation without compromise, and I know

I was tested a little bit this, even this morning at work, I will talk to my coworker.

Occasionally, he kind of dabbled in Zen Buddhism. But he told me this morning that his elderly mother is kind of in the situation, probably similar to your mom,

Andrew. And, you know, so it was kind of a heartfelt conversation that we had.

But, you know, then he started to ask questions about, you know,

Christianity. And I know that he is going to try to be hostile and try to push me to answer the questions about, you know, heaven and hell.

And like, I just don't understand the Christian mindset that, you know, God would send someone to the flames, you know, just for not doing certain things or whatever.

And, you know, he, he doesn't really understand my, you know, the reformed understanding of Christianity, he mostly has somewhat of an understanding of Roman Catholicism.

So I'd explained to him, that's not what I believe. I don't believe in purgatory and stuff. But I realized he's trying to push me into a corner on that.

And, you know, trying to be as gracious as I can without in any way compromising the truth of the gospel.

I never gave him any assurance that, you know, his mom, you know, is going to receive

God's grace while at the same time not, you know, compromising the gospel, like, you know,

I'm willing to answer any question he has and to say the truth, with boldness, but compassion.

And I think, you know, I tried to do that this morning. And yeah, so that's all

I would say is, Paul told Timothy, preach the word be instant in season and out of season and not to be enticing, but in spirit and in power and to speak the truth in love.

And I told him I was, I'll be praying for him, he'll be in my thoughts and prayers.

And he said that he appreciated that. Yeah. And, you know, it's interesting that you bring that up, because that brings up an aspect that, as we think about, and Eve, I'm going to throw this out to you is, you know, the theme of death is in a lot of movies.

It's something that gets a lot of people thinking about what happens after we die.

So as much as we do have people that will know of the gospel message, know that we're

Christians, and they don't think about it until they start thinking about death. We see this as a theme in movies all the time is the idea of someone's, those final days or weeks of someone's life.

And that, you know, what does that emotionally end up doing to many people, even unbelievers, for their thought process?

Yeah, that's interesting, because the movie that we're going to be dealing with for March is a new movie called Dog. And it's all about the scars of war and people who come back from war without any hope.

And, and then seek to end their lives because they can't find any purpose or, or, or comfort in living a normal life.

They yearn for the combat, but the combat scarred them. And, and they just end their lives.

And it surprised me when I went to see it, because it's like, there's no hope.

And that is the thing that comes across in almost every secular movie that I've watched that, that deals with death is the lack of hope that people don't have.

They think that when they die, that just ends their suffering, and they have no concept of a life after death or suffering that comes for judgment.

And so it is definitely a topic that is, like you said, it comes up frequently in movies.

And it breaks my heart when we usually discuss those topics in our podcasts, we both, both my co host and I end up shaking our head over, you know, how do people live without the hope of Christ?

Because it is, it is such a, a fear that people have about facing death.

And, and then the only hope they have is that, that when they die, that's it, there's nothing after.

And, and it's just scary to think so many people are resting, what little hope they have on, on that.

Yeah. You know, Daniel, let me ask you this, with what you've said, as you know, you, you do some apologetics.

You have someone who's saying they have a fear of death, but they don't believe God exists. Do you see something off on that?

Yeah, it's, it's pretty interesting, because, you know, even this morning, talking to my, you know,

Zen Buddhist coworker, he actually was telling me that, like, he wonders why so many

Christians have a fear of death. And he has himself said that he doesn't fear death,

I can tell that he fears a lot of things, you know, but it's, yeah, because then

I told him that I don't fear death in maybe the way he's talking about, because he thinks that I, I would fear death, because I'm afraid of being judged by God.

And so that was something that I got to explain. I don't fear that, because I know how

God saves me. And, but yeah, it's interesting for those who, because I, I have a hard time believing that he isn't, that he's completely honest about that, you know,

I'm sure he changes his mind as it gets closer, right? Yeah. I mean, and that's like, yeah,

I think I think a way that I, it was put to me, I like it is with what you're saying is, I don't fear death,

I fear dying. In other words, you know, I think for a Christian, we don't want to go through the suffering of death.

But the death itself, as we said earlier in the show, that for the Christian is a rejoicing.

That for the Christian, you get to be with the one you love the most. I mean, as a Christian, the one that I love and want to be with the most is

Christ. And that's why people that sit there and go, oh, it's going to be where your family is. My wife and I will be in heaven, right?

But we're not going to be married anymore. Our relationship's going to change. But you know what? I won't look at her as my wife and look at her in that way anymore, but I'm going to look at Christ.

That's the one I want to be with. And for the Christian, I think if I'm sitting and having to counsel someone who's a

Christian, I'm going to say, let's focus in on your perspective on Christ. But if I deal with an unbeliever, they don't have that.

And so, you know, it's really sometimes like you're saying, it's like, okay, let's think about death.

Do you really, are you really thinking about, because a lot of people even, you know, I think of Mary Baker Eddy, who is the founder of the

Christian science. And even at her death, her final words, and if you understand

Christian science, the idea of it is that it's mind over matter, that you make things real.

And so to die, well, that would be that your mind isn't over the matter, that you're not having control over that.

So her literal, her last words were, tell my followers I'm committing mental suicide.

Even in her final seconds of life, she wouldn't give in on her false beliefs, because it was that important to her to continue to deceive people, that she would do that.

And so you will get those type of people, that even in those last seconds, they still want to fight

God. And that makes it a little bit harder, I think, to go to.

You know, Andrew, I was thinking, as you guys were talking, that a lot of people in the world believe the default position is heaven when it's the complete opposite.

That's right. And that's the issue you have to deal with, because, you know, you'll hear a lot of people, you know, they're in a better place and things like that.

So I think for the majority of people, and then there are obviously the people that say that, you know, they just become a flower or something, whatever.

But the majority view in the world today is that there is a better place, and they're all going to be in, you know, and it's the complete opposite.

The default position is hell. And it's only by God's grace that God is able to change that in somebody's life.

So that's another thing you deal with, is the worldview that, you know, everybody's going to a better place.

That's a really good point, because at many funerals, you will have people that are ushering everyone into heaven.

You know, it's very interesting. First Baptist Church of Orlando, Florida, there was a shooting down in Orlando at a homosexual club by a

Muslim, and they had a service for all those people. And literally, you watch that service, and they're ushering all of them into heaven.

And they have their names up there, and they're saying they're all in heaven. And you go, wait a minute, look at their lifestyle.

Is that consistent with Christianity? As a Southern Baptist Church, you'd think they would understand the gospel, but this is what you end up seeing, is that people, when someone dies, it's to comfort those that are here on earth.

They want to put it as if, well, they're in a better place. They're in heaven.

I know that, I mean, I had this with when my mother died, you know, my biological mother, and it was like, well, you know, she's in a better place.

She's not suffering anymore. And I look at that and go, no, apart from Christ, her suffering is worse.

And I know people think that is horrible to say about my own mother, but I have to be honest with Scripture.

You know, apart from Christ doing work in her life, as with anyone, they would deserve the lake of fire, because we break

God's law. And I know that, you know, people would say that's so horrible to say about your own family member, but is it somehow easier if I say it about someone else's family member?

I mean, is that, you know, the thing is, a lot of times I think what you're hitting on,

Pastor Dom, is that there are people who will say things because it is to make it easier to the person that's left behind.

And, you know, a quote that I'm very well known for, that is, you know, we don't water down the gospel because we care about people's souls.

We water down the gospel because we want people to like us. And quite frankly, we need to get over ourselves.

And that's what we do. So let me, that leads into the next question that I was going to have, is how do we deal with someone does pass away?

How do we minister to those that are behind, that are still here? You go to a funeral, everyone's getting up saying nice things, and you know the person wasn't a believer.

How to address something like that? You know, I, if I may, for me, when

I, and I've done many, probably too many funerals of maybe people that may not be believers, and I, this is what

I do. This is my thing. I will preach a funeral for an unbeliever as long as the family allows me to preach the gospel at the funeral.

And I can, and I'm not going to promise that, I'm not going to say anything about the deceased, where their eternality is.

That's a God decision. But I'll do a funeral as long as they let me preach the gospel.

And I basically say that, you know, I use it as gospel message, and I use it,

I use the, I don't, I can't speak that person into heaven. And even if I'm going to do a funeral for a believer, they would want me to preach the gospel.

So that's my view on that. But none of those things are easy,

Pastor Andrew, none of them. Aaron, how about you? Yeah, I think, first of all,

I want to say that I've never, as of yet in my life in ministry, had the opportunity to preach a funeral.

I'm not looking forward to it. But I have given a lot of thought to it. And one of the things

I've considered is as, you know, oh my goodness, your name just slipped my mind.

Dom. Yes, there it is. Okay, I got it. Before you reminded me. One of the things that Dom said, I think is really important is the fact that we can never really speak with 100 % certainty, obviously about a person's eternal, you know, eternal place.

So there is wisdom sometimes in not making a declaration one way or another. Obviously, if somebody, if we don't know someone saved, and they've been living a very sinful lifestyle to say that they're in heaven is terribly deceptive.

But the other side too, for example, my grandfather really did have what we, as far as we can tell, to be a deathbed conversion.

He fought and fought and fought and fought and fought right up until the very end. And some people could look at that and say, oh, praise

God, he was born again. Other people could look at that and say, maybe that was just his last attempt, just to, you know, just to dot his

I's and cross his T's just in case. But the reality is we don't know one way or another. And that is a really important observation to make when, you know, when you're talking to somebody, the same, same thing kind of happened.

Well, I guess I should say, you know, when you're talking to the family afterward, or whatever else, if you're a Christian, people want to come to you because they want to hear something good.

You know, they're hoping that you're going to encourage them. And don't take those opportunities to make the gospel, to share the gospel with those people.

And if they press, you know, well, what about my brother? What about my mom? To say to them, I'm not

God, I don't know. But you can know, and take it back in that direction.

Well, you know, my first funeral that I had to do is my mother -in -law, and she was a believer.

But when I had to do one with an unbeliever, some really good advice that Ray Comfort had given to me was, and this really leads up to kind of what you were just saying there,

Aaron, is he said, a good way of doing it is to just say, well, I don't know where your family member, friend is today.

But I know that if they could come back right now and talk to you, they would want you to know this, and then you share the gospel.

Because that's true in every situation with someone that died, whether they're a believer or unbeliever.

I'm sorry to jump back in here. Oh my goodness. My family probably said, people in my family are probably listening to this at some point.

My mom is one of my biggest fans. But they're going to listen to it. They go, Aaron, what are you talking about? And I'm just like, as you were talking,

I was like, oh my word, how did I forget? I actually have preached a funeral. How did I forget that? Oh my word. And it was, yeah,

I know it was terrible, especially because it was my wife's grandmother. And so I did have, but praise

God, she had a strong testimony. I just wanted to say that I didn't remember.

Oh, I feel so terrible for having forgotten. But there we go. Okay. Aaron's mom, you're listening. You need to have a little talk with this woman.

Well, you know, in talking about this, we've kind of been dealing with how to talk to unsaved family members of an unsaved person.

But how do you give hope to a saved member who has lost an unsaved person?

And one of the things that has brought me comfort in losing unsaved family members myself is to remember that in the end in God's kingdom, he says there will be no tears, that he'll wipe away every tear.

And I don't know how that's going to work. Because in this life, we have tears, we think about losing that loved one.

And the fact that we won't see them in heaven, and we cry about it. But somehow, when we get to heaven in God's kingdom, we're not going to cry about that anymore.

God's going to wipe away those tears. He's going to somehow find an ultimate comfort for us.

And not having that loved one with us for eternity. I don't know how that's going to work. And maybe some of you pastors can speak to that.

But that has been a comfort for me. You know, my first pastor, I asked him that question. I was like, you know, I read that passage and said, you know, how am

I not going to have tears over my mother who died when I was young, and for all intents and purposes, as far as I know, would be in hell?

And how do I, how would I not have tears? And, you know, he just said, at that time, he believes, and I think he's got a good point, is that we're going to understand things from God's perspective, we're going to see the wickedness of every person that ever lived, and see that they're getting what they rightly deserve.

And as hard as that is to say with someone we love, they're no different than some stranger on the street that we would say it for.

You know, that we would have the perspective from God's perspective. And that's what's going to set that straight.

We're going to be more focused on who God is. Dom, you had something you wanted. Yeah, no, that's it. That's a huge theological debate, what

Eve had brought up. You know, does actually, does your mind get wiped away from that?

But no, I think it's more what you say, Pastor Andrew, is that you'll see things through the eyes of Christ, and know that whatever he does, he does all things well.

You know, there's a couple of views on that. One is that, you know, you won't remember. I tend to believe that you'll just see things through the eyes of Christ, and know he does all things well.

And as hard as that may seem now, in our, you know, fallen state, obviously, we'll be able to know better then, and understand better.

So that's a great point, Eve. That's a huge debate of how that's going to be viewed.

Yeah, and I think to almost go to the extreme, where we say, well, of course, that's going to break our hearts.

Of course, we're going to cry over that. We're missing something really, really important.

So God himself created these people. Nobody loves the people in hell more than God does.

He created them for a purpose, and God is not going to spend the rest of eternity weeping for their choice.

And I know sometimes it's hard. You know, some people anthropomorphize, that's the wrong word, but they force our human thoughts and feelings onto God.

And so they're sitting there, and they're thinking to themselves, you know, that God feels the way we feel, and so on and so forth.

But the reality is, is that God and Christ himself is the perfect human.

They exhibit for us how we should feel about things. And because of that, it's not that God is without feeling.

It's not that he is somehow abundantly more feeling than we are in one way or another.

But we seem to see the reality, as Dom said, you know, through his eyes. And the fact is that he is going to be spending eternity joying with his people, and he's not going to be, and let's also understand this,

God who is outside of time, who experiences every moment of human time in a single moment.

He is perfectly 100 % at peace with how things are, from our perspective, going to turn out.

And we need to as well because of who he is. That's a good point. Daniel, you have anything you want to add?

Yeah, I do agree with the point that I think I've actually, you know, my wife and I will sometimes have those kind of conversations.

She'll ask me questions, like, what are your thoughts about whatever? And I remember recently talking about, because she'll ask me questions about heaven.

And sometimes I'll have to say, I don't, the Bible doesn't say a whole lot about this. But yeah, we did talk recently about like, how will we deal with, you know, people who've passed on and people who are, you know, didn't, you know, aren't here, you know, friends and family.

And I did tell her that I understand that we will see things, yes, through Christ's eyes, and that we will be loving and worshiping

Christ. And so yeah, like, I didn't think it was going to be like, the men in black thing.

erasing our memories, I just think that our understanding will be more like, according to God's plans.

And yeah, that's, so that's kind of the camp that I fall in, as we're made more like Christ.

And as we're given our glorified bodies, you know, we will understand things from the perspective of the saint who reigns forever with Christ.

Yeah, you know, when I evangelize, one of the things I'll do is, I believe that when we're in a glorified state, when we die, we don't have the influence of sin, at least,

I think we're going to have perfect memory, I think I'm going to come upon people I handed gospel tracts to, and I don't remember their face, they don't remember my face, and we're going to see each other.

And I think we're going to, we're going to remember that event. Now, what about the unbelievers?

And I think they're going to have, they're going to be able to recall, I think one of the reasons they're going to be able to recall is they're going to recall everything, every sin they ever did.

And that's going to weigh heavy on them, I think. And so I, when I evangelize, one of the things I do, I'll be talking to someone, and I will say, you and I will see each other again one day.

It's either that we're going to see each other, and you're going to be with me in paradise, or we're going to see each other looking eye to eye as God judges you.

And you're going to have no excuse because you heard the saving message here today.

And you won't be able to stand before God and say, I never heard this, because I will be standing right there.

And you're going to know you did hear. And so it's one of the ways that when

I leave a conversation at the, sharing the gospel at the end, I want to, I want to press upon them that this is something to take serious, not just blow it off and things.

But so any, any other thoughts you guys have with, with dealing with these type of situations, any other things you want to bring up as a topic for discussion?

I see. Catch us all off guard. Yeah, I see Dom talking, but I think he's muted. I'm learning.

I got, I'm watching everybody with the mutes. Yeah, I know, I know what to do. I use the mute over here so you can't see it.

You know, I think it's just, Andrew, Pastor Andrew, you said it the best, you know, we, we preach life unto life or death unto death.

I mean, and that's, that's the hard things of the gospel, man. It's just none of that.

It's all sobering. It just is. It's just, yeah, it's a sobering topic.

It is. And I think it's healthy for us to, to discuss some sobering topics once in a while, not always have some of the ones where we're, you know, might be disagreeing and things like that, or the nuances of theology.

But this is more of a practical one that I think for many of our listeners, they're going to experience sometime in their life, one or the other, death of a saved person or death of an unsaved person.

This is real theology, believe me. Yeah, it's putting it into practice. I would just echo what was said earlier, just if we find ourselves in this situation, either we're confronted by somebody that we know who's dying and doesn't know the

Lord, or we're helping somebody else who is, for example, my wife, her siblings are not at this moment dying, as far as we know, but they are not, they're not born again.

They're antagonistic to God. And she thinks often of getting that phone call of what's going to happen, you know, if her siblings die without Christ.

And so this is a conversations happen fairly regularly in my home. And really the very first thing we have to recognize this, and I say this a lot of my parenting podcast, you got to recognize you can't control anybody else.

The only element of control that human beings have in this life is the control that God gives us to make choices for ourselves, to submit to him or to reject him.

And so we need to start with us. We need to make sure that we're dealing with the sin in our own eyes. We need to make certain that we are approaching this before God, as we should.

It's not really, it's not about the person, it's about God. I love the imagery in scripture, where it talks about the angels rejoice when someone comes to Christ.

But I had a pastor once who said, a lot of times we think to ourselves, the angels are looking over the oppressive, over the walls of heaven, right?

And they're looking down at that person who just became born again, and they are applauding and they're praising.

But that could not be further from the truth. When an unsaved person comes to true knowledge, trust in Christ, the angels are rejoicing over what

God has done. And so their whole focus is entirely on him.

And our focus needs to be entirely there as well. I agree. And I think that's where some of the struggles that we have with this topic are, is really,

I guess it could be summed up as, where's your focus? Because I think a lot of the things that make this such a difficult thing is focused on other people.

We're focused on people that we want to comfort and make them feel better.

And I forget who said it earlier, but people will come to Christians because they want to hear you say something good.

They expect you to say something nice. And the reality is we have to have our eyes fixed upon Christ.

And what is it God wants us to do? What does God want to have said? Because what's more important is that eternal perspective.

Having that view of what's going to last for eternity, not whether they like me here on earth.

Because guess what? They like me here on earth, so I never shared the gospel with them. And then they stand at judgment, and I'm there.

And it's like, well, you never told me. Right? I don't want to look at upon anybody on that day of judgment when

I have this, what I think will be a mind that is clear and doesn't have the effect of sin, and I have a conscience and a memory that sees everything.

And I don't want to look upon someone and say, I had the opportunity to share the gospel, and I kept my mouth shut.

And I'm not saying that I've, I mean, there's plenty of people I'm going to see that and do that with, because there's been plenty of times

I haven't opened my mouth. But I want to make that as few as possible.

And so I think maybe a good way to sum it up, unless anyone has more to add, is, you know, just where's our focus?

Where's the focus on man or on God? Dom, you look like you might have had more you want to say.

Yeah, I just, it might be a little off topic, but I was just thinking just a little bit.

I had a chaplain, just an interesting story. I had a chaplain friend of mine when

I was away, when I was in prison. And now that we converse, me being home and, you know, obviously learning the gospel from them and the people that came in and God saved me sovereignly in prison, you know, he would tell me that he would have to go into the hole and actually bring gospel tracts and talk to child molesters.

And that was the hardest thing for him. I know it's a little off, but I was just thinking about this, because he had a two -year -old daughter, and he would read their cases.

And he would tell me, he said, man, no, you know, now, he said, these were horrendous crimes.

And he said, when he went in there, you know, in his own mind, as our brother said before, he said, man,

Dominic, he said, I don't know if I wanted them to turn or burn, you know, because that's a, you talk about a tough witness, when you're reading their file.

And, you know, Pastor Andrew, you know, you just reading that stuff, and then have to giving them the gospel.

That's not easy. I mean, he said that was one of the toughest things that he had to do in prison.

So just a little off topic, but still on the way of witnessing to, you know, people, you know, you want to see them repent, and that's just just tough stuff, sobering stuff.

Yeah, we had a speaker at Striving Fraternity, Frank Mullis, who now officially is Dr. Frank Mullis, but he's a counselor, and he's one of Georgia's leading experts, unfortunately, on sexual crimes.

He counsels for the state on sexual crimes. And so he has about 700 criminals a week, sorry, a month that he talks with that have committed some of the most horrendous crimes.

And he's looking to share the gospel with them. Now, he has four daughters, so it's, you know, which is why he works very far away from where he lives.

But yeah, he's always said it's very hard, very hard to see some of that stuff. So I want to thank everyone that came on.

This is, I hope, folks, that for you, it is more of a practical, I think, as Pastor Dom said, this is practical

Christianity. This is practical theology. This is where the rubber meets the road in some of these things. These are where we have to realize, and I think it might have been

Aaron that was saying, but we need to plan ahead. These situations will come up in our lives.

We got to have the plan now, because I got news for you. When you're thrown into it, and you're not ready for it, you're not expecting it, oh, the temptation to water down and soften the message, it'll be there.

But if you have a plan now, be prepared now, you could be ready for that. So I hope this has been helpful and educational.

Daniel, did you raise your hand there? I didn't know if you had something more you want to say. Oh, not really, but I could say more.

Oh, you mean Dominic there? No, no, you scratch. Oh, okay. Yeah. I did receive word this afternoon that a dear saint in my church is close to passing, and he's 98.

He's been a pastor. He started a lot of churches. He has a very close -knit family in our church.

So I'm thinking about when I heard that, it's like, there's the sorrow, but then there's this wow feeling of comfort, knowing that it's almost this planning for a wedding.

He's going to be ushered into glory, and he's ready for it. So today has been a day that has made me think very deeply, this, and also my conversation with my coworker in the morning about his mother close to death, and seeing two sides of this.

Yeah, and even today, I was thinking that you mentioned,

Andrew, about this topic is very important to Christian ministry, and if we're not ready for it, if we're not ready to deal with it in truth and in love, really, what good am

I? What kind of ministry can I have if I don't embrace this?

And that's why I was even praying to God today. God, give me the strength to deal with this, and give me the strength and the wisdom even to embrace these difficult things, because it's part of the gospel.

It is directly affected by the gospel. If we're going to just try to preach the gospel in very packaged situations and not apply it where it really is needed,

God, just throw me away. I'm not worth anything. That's what I'm thinking today.

So God, thank you for giving me this opportunity and helping me to be straightforward even in gentleness, but yeah, those are my two cents there.

And I guess I'll say just to close out, I think it really comes down to where's our focus going to be, folks?

Are we going to focus on ourselves and trying to get people to like us, or are we going to focus on God and what he wants us to deliver?

And there's times to speak, and as we said, times not to. I hope it's been helpful to you. I hope you go check out all the podcasts at the

Christian Podcast Community. Go to TheChristianPodcastCommunity .org. Sermons, and much, much more.

So check us out at TheChristianPodcastCommunity .org.