Grieving the Loss of an Unsaved Person

Mourning the loss of someone that we love is one of the most difficult things that we have to do in life. And as Christians, we know that sometimes we're mourning the loss of someone whose spiritual condition is, at best, uncertain.

And this is a difficult subject. It's not one that a lot of people even enjoy talking about. And yet it's something that we all have to consider, we all have to think about, we all have to face, and we all have to come to some conclusions about.

And my guest today is Will Dobby. He's a friend of the show. He's been on with me before, and he has written a book called

A Time to Mourn, which specifically addresses the grieving process of grieving someone who you lost, who you're uncertain about their spiritual condition.

So Will, I want to thank you for being on the show today, and thank you for joining me again on your Calvinist podcast.

Good to be here, Keith. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. And this is going to be a short interview. We planned it to be one because our goal is really to hopefully point people toward the book.

There's a lot of questions that come with this subject. We're not going to try to field all of the questions. We want to think more in line of, okay, this is something that isn't—there are no easy answers.

There are no pat answers. And I think one of the biggest problems that we have in this area is people tend to do things like give colloquialisms and simple answers, when sometimes the simple answer is not best.

My first question to you, though, about the book, A Time to Mourn, is what placed this burden on your heart to write this book, and how did it come about?

It came about because it was basically a footnote in my previous book, From Everlasting to Everlasting, Every Believer's Biography, which you and I talked about.

And ever since it went down as a footnote, I couldn't really get it out of my head. And also as a pastor, just with a heart for my people as they lose people they love who they're not convinced were saved by any means, the burden got heavier and heavier.

And in the end, I just sat down and wrote about it. Amen. And yeah, you mentioned

From Everlasting to Everlasting. It's a wonderful book. And for those who didn't see my last interview with you, which I know has now been quite a long time ago, so probably a lot of my new audience maybe have not seen that, would encourage you to go and find that book.

It's a wonderful, wonderful treatment of faith and explanation of the

Christian's walk, the Christian's biography, and was very, very encouraged by it when

I got the opportunity to read it. One of the things you say in your book, as I was going through it,

Will, is you talk about the subject of, if you look for truth, you can find comfort.

But if you look for comfort, you won't find comfort or truth. Am I quoting that fairly accurately?

Yeah, I think that's fair. It's a quotation from C .S. Lewis, who said, comfort is the one thing you cannot get by looking for it.

If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end. If you look for comfort, you won't get either comfort or truth, just wishful thinking and in the end, despair.

And yeah, that's classic Lewis, isn't it? Like psychologically insightful about the nature of truth.

And like when you've been hit by a bereavement and you're staring down the barrel of, is that person lost forever?

There is a temptation to kind of bury your head in the sand and just go for the easier option of wishful thinking.

But that's not the easier option in the long term. And I think we've got to trust that even when

God's truth is hard, it is always what's best for us. And in the end, even when it's hard, we can trust that he loves us and that by sticking faithfully with him, we will get the ultimate comfort and all the grace we'll ever need.

One of the things I noted in your book is you really don't give a treatment of eternal punishment.

And you say in the book that that wasn't your purpose. And this is a relatively short book. I mean, it's not intended to exhaust every issue.

And you point to other books to talk about the subject of eternal conscious torment and the reality of hell and those things.

But that is what people are having to deal with. So I just want to point out to people, if they're looking for a book that's a treatment of hell, this isn't what this is.

This is the reality of the grief of someone who may be lost, who may have died lost.

And you do talk about the fact that we don't always know. Sometimes not knowing is in itself somewhat of a blessing from God.

In fact, one of the other questions I had on the list was about the Corrie ten Boom reference, because you referenced her several times.

And can you tell the story real quick? I know it's in the book, but that gives a little bit of weight to what she said about her dad handing her the super -

She describes being on a railway journey as a kid. And she says to her dad, what she calls sex sin,

S -E -X, sex sin. And he is thoughtful and kind and loving and doesn't say anything.

He's thinking, how can I answer this age appropriately? And how can I answer in a way that's going to help my young daughter?

And they soon get to the next station on the train and he says, hey, by the way, Corrie, can you just get down my suitcase from the luggage rack?

And she tries to get it down and it's full of all of his watches. He's a watch repairer, watchmaker, and it's way too heavy for her and she can't lift it.

And then he says, wouldn't I be wouldn't I not be a good father if I asked you to bear a burden that is too heavy for you at this point?

And he said, so it is with these bigger questions like the one you asked earlier. Like we,

I will tell you what you need to know at the time when you need to know it. And I just think it's a good illustration of the way the

Lord is with us. He will tell us what we need to know when we need to know. He won't tell us too much. He won't tell us the right amount, but too early.

He won't tell us the right amount, but too late, or he won't tell us too little. We often want to know more. And some of that can be very understandable.

Some of that can be pride. We don't have a right to know, but we can trust him to give us as much visibility as he deems best for us about the eternal destiny or probable slash possible eternal destiny of a loved one.

Amen. And I like the, this is, again, as a loose quote, because, you know, as I was going through it,

I was just writing down ideas I had, but this is basically what you said. You said, if God has given us ignorance over the eternal condition of a loved one, then we should rest in that ignorance.

Is that kind of? I think that's fair. And I think that's partly because it's good to be humble, like what

God gives us, whether it's knowledge or ignorance, we gratefully receive trusting that he knows better than us.

But I think it's also partly because sometimes, as you touched on earlier, his ignorance can be to save us from anguish.

And if he has given us ignorance, that doesn't mean that if we knew we'd be in anguish, that they did go to hell.

It could mean that they went to heaven and it's just not the best thing for us to know that yet.

Maybe in leaving it uncertain, God could be doing a number of things. He could be seeking to, you know, spur us to work our own salvation out with fear and trembling, as Philippians commands, in a way that we wouldn't otherwise.

We would get complacent, like, well, since they went to heaven and they didn't bother living for the Lord, I can just take my foot off the gas.

He could be doing all sorts of things, but we can trust him. Oh, amen. And you mentioned this in the book.

You talked about surprise exclusions and surprise inclusions.

Yeah, yeah. And I thought that was really helpful because of the idea of, you know, most people would probably be very surprised.

And this is the example you use in your book. You know, people who knew the thief on the cross would probably be surprised that he is in a kingdom.

And people who knew the people in Matthew 7 who had done many mighty works in his name, and yet he says,

I never knew you. And so there is a sense in which there can be a, you know, somewhat of a hopeful surprise.

But as you said earlier, we have to balance that with not being sentimental or giving up our core doctrines.

Would you agree that's kind of the balance that we're having to? Yeah, I think so. And maybe not sure

I'd describe it with the language of balance. It's not, I wonder, hold on to my core doctrines, 50 % and 50%.

Maybe only 50 % sentimental. I think it's what we said at the very beginning with C .S.

Lewis, like humbly surrendering ourselves to God's truth in those core doctrines is what will enable us to cope with and healthily process the possible eternal loss of a loved one.

And not being sentimental, that's not a call to just be like a stiff upper lip

Brit like me and not have emotion and just be stoical. It's really, as the book goes on, specifically a call to value

God's glory above all. If I value my own happiness or the salvation of another specific human being who

I started to idolize, in other words, love more than God, then I'm in trouble because then if I've made them my

God, my God could die. What if my God went to hell? Then, of course, I'm going to start to unravel. So the bottom line of the whole book is really whether people go to eternal life or eternal death,

I just got to value God's glory above all, and that will help me see everything in the way that God wants me, the way that I should see it.

That's what's going to be what's best for me. And you begin the book with a personal testimony showing that you're not writing from the ivy -covered tower, but you have experienced the loss of someone that you believe was not a believer, and you tell the story.

That is the story of you, right? Playing the keyboard at the wedding and then at the funeral. I thought that was very, very moving, just thinking about the fact that you were there for the one probably most joyous day of his life and then at the end of his life.

So you're speaking from experience of having to grieve in this book.

Yeah, that example is obviously just a little more vivid than many. He was killed in combat when we were both in the

British Army in Iraq, second Gulf War, and I described the story around that a bit. I mean, but it's just an illustration for the same thing that 99 .9

% of believers experience, most of them many, many times over. And it does feel like a taboo, given how common this phenomenon is of believers losing unbelievers.

It's sad that there are, according to other Christian publishers and authors,

I've spoken to quite a few, there are no other books about this. And it's something we find very hard to talk about with each other pastorally, because it's so desperately sensitive.

And it's a great opportunity for some underappreciated, really foundational, transformative, rich theology.

So that's one thing that excites me about the book. Yeah, and it's important that you mention that.

It's not as if there are dozens of books. I wrote a book on the Trinity, and it's in a sea of other books that are much better than mine on the doctrine of the

Trinity. But not too many people want to address the issue of grief. I mean, I think about Dr.

White's book on grieving. That's his best -selling book, even though he's written other more doctrinally, probably more substantial books as far as thickness and breadth and depth.

But that book has reached more people because he dealt with grieving. People don't want to talk about it.

And you've gone a step further. You're talking about an act of grieving that is, in some sense, almost seems impossible to face for some folks.

Right. It's like the impossible problem. There are lots of good books on grieving, such as his.

And I quote a very powerful, moving little anecdote from his book in mine. But most of those books maybe give one chapter at most.

And normally, it's just even a few sentences to the apparent hopelessness of losing someone who's unsaved.

But if you look that chilling scenario square in the face, then there is a lot of scripture that really does help square that emotional circle.

Amen. Well, brother, I know we said we're going to keep this short. I know you have other meetings that you have to get to today.

So I want to thank you for coming on the show. And I also want to mention you are a

Brit, as you mentioned. But you are here in America.

You pastor a church in Knoxville, Tennessee. Is that correct? That's right. My wife's

American. We moved over to be near her family just about three years ago. Amen.

Well, if you would like, take a moment to share with anybody in the Knoxville area who may want to visit your church.

Would you tell us about where you pastor? And then we'll bring everything to a close. Absolutely. I can just say

E -K -N -O -X dot org. Emmanuel Church is the church.

And we are Reformed. And we're passionate about God's glory. And we really focus on cultivating deep, fun friendships.

Expositional ministry is our heartbeat, verse by verse. Anyone is very welcome to come by.

Amen. Well, Will, thank you for being a part of the video today. And I hope that this will help people who are in need be able to find your book.

And you find it on Amazon and other places. It's called A Time to Mourn by Will Dobby. Is there a place you prefer they buy from?

Is it Amazon fine? Or is there other places? Wherever. Just up to them, wherever. Thanks again for having me.

Keith, I'm conscious that this has been personal for you, as it's personal for almost every

Christian. And so I hope it might have helped you a bit, brother.

And it's helped me as well. So I hope it helps others. Absolutely. And it has.

And I want to say that to the audience. In our church, we've experienced a lot of grief over the last few years, and even in our family over the last few months.

And Will's book has been a blessing to me and to my wife and to other people in our church. So again, thank you for that.

And so if you're out there and you're looking for something that will give you encouragement, something that may answer some questions that you've had, and you want something to pick up and read,

I would encourage you to go and check out A Time to Mourn. So thank you, Will, for being with us today. Thank you, audience, for being with us today.

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