Forside Articles Deathbed Ministry
Deathbed Ministry Udskriv Email
Skrevet af Jørn Nielsen   
Søndag, 10. februar 2013 07:14



I´m calling on a cancer stricken woman  now unable to join our weekly fellowship.  These are moments where I feel the need of having “the tongue of a disciple that I should know how to speak a word in season…”  (Isa. 50:4).  Naturally that “tongue” ministers to her hope from the word of God facing how “the outward man is perishing (or decaying)” thus throwing into relief “the things which are eternal”.  These are moments in God´s presence.

Sometimes I´m being criticized for doing that.  “You may be scaring the sick”, I´m told implying that I should rather do what everybody else is doing with all their humanitarian nonsense.  “Oh, cheer up, you´ll be all right…” etc.

Worldlings talk like that, but we, pilgrims and strangers in this world, speak another and more triumphant language.  The apostle Paul did, and we´re exhorted to be his imitators (1 Cor 11:1) in a spirit of love and true sympathy.

“I can tell you feel embarrassed about writing to a dying man”, one of the leaders of New Tribes Mission, the likewise cancer stricken LeRoy Larson, wrote me many years ago.  “So I´ll try to relieve you”, he wrote with words of comfort to me.  I felt ashamed.  I should have been the man that ministered comfort “with the tongue of a disciple”.

A dear young friend thought, too, that I should be more cautious.  I said to her, “When it´s all over, I shall never regret the moments I shared God´s word with the dying.”  She thought about it and agreed and was very sweet about it.

“The time of my departure is at hand”, Paul wrote to his young friend, Timothy.  Do you think his response should be, “You´ll be all right, Paul,  don´t look on the dark side!”  Of course not, for his prophetic words were those of triumph.

We are in that pilgrim company, and so we want to redeem the little time left for Jesus Christ and His gospel!

Febr. 10, 2013 – jn

 
Copyright © 2024 For Kristus. Alle rettigheder reserveret.
 

Til eftertanke

”Ethvert skrift er indblæst af Gud”

(2. Tim. 3:16)