The phone call was urgent: death had just taken the only child of a young couple who were active in our church. Shockingly, the baby girl died right in the arms of the doctor, who thought he was making a routine checkup; the little one was not to be revived. The parents had long prayed to have this gift from God, and now she was gone!

Speeding to the home, I kept asking myself, “What will I say to them?” Prayer to the rescue! The familiar Proverbs 3:5–6 came to my mind and heart:

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

and lean not on your own understanding;

in all your ways acknowledge him,

and he will make your paths straight.

Here was the counsel God seemed to supply: “Bill and Joan, this is not the time to think and question things. Your burden is impossible for you to bear. Don’t even think right now. Put it on the shelf [everyone needs a ‘pantry’ for such times] and leave it there until you are more sure of yourself. Visit the matter only with the Savior supporting you. Just as light always drives out dark, so God’s power overcomes death.” During the public visiting hours, the beautiful, tiny form lay in her small casket while the mother and dad stood with quiet smiles to greet everyone who entered.

I had a different experience with death when I visited an older man in his hospital room. Realizing that death was near at hand, he readily admitted his anxiety and fear, saying, “And there is nothing I can do to rescue my heart from this dread.” He looked right at me for some help.

The Scripture I read him was I John 4:18: “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.”

Confessing that he did not possess this peace and its root of love, he at once asked. “How do I get it?”

I read the next verse of the text: “We love because he first loved us.” Presenting Christ and his loving sacrifice on the cross was easy to do at this point. Without hesitation, the man responded and died in peace and quiet composure.

Complete chaos greeted me when I rushed to a home not far from where I lived. It was just before dawn, but the house was alive with excited men and women, literally wringing their hands and rushing from room to room. I knew none of them except for the dying lady whom I had recently helped to know Jesus.

“Do something quick!” one lady cried in desperation. At this point I was standing quietly at the bedside, prayerfully surveying the situation. Her body jerked a few last times and then lay still, forever. I turned to the crying woman and the others and said quietly, “All that needs to be done has already been done—2,000 years ago.” Then I presented the Gospel and informed them that this deceased friend and family member had received and believed this message. All of my hearers became still and listened.

Another emergency call pressed me to leave immediately after the Sunday evening service benediction to drive to the hospital, some twenty miles away, where a middle-aged man lay near death. When I arrived, he was still conscious, with his wife and two teenage children gathered around his bed. Just as I stepped into the scene, the doctor came to give the wife his assessment of the case. “Death is imminent,” he said, “but I can stay it off by use of extraordinary means to stimulate his system and possibly even have him sit up again. However, he will surely regress and be subject to much more suffering and death. What is your choice for him?” With that, he excused himself from the room to allow me to counsel with her.

“Pastor, what do you think?”

“Let’s pray,” was my immediate response. As is so often in my experiences with God in prayer, a Scripture came to my mind, and so (thinking of Matt. 7:12) I faced the anxious woman with this question, “If you were the one there in bed and he stood here with me, what would you want me to say to him?”

Without hesitation she said, “I would want to be allowed to die in peace.”

“Why not grant him the same release?” I asked.

She told the doctor her decision, which turned out to be a moot question for, when we arrived back at the bedside with the waiting children, the nurse was calling for the doctor to come at once. The patient expired right before our eyes.

This dramatic turn afforded a priceless opportunity to make eternal matters very real and have Christ stand with us there at the bed and receive the departing spirit of the loved one. As soon as the medical team withdrew, a complete peace settled over our little band. God was very near.

Helping children is ever a special challenge. I happened to discover a young boy of perhaps eight or ten seated against the far wall, grieving by himself in the funeral home’s viewing room. Drawing a chair close to him, I asked quietly, “Is that your mom’s body up front?” Still sobbing, he nodded yes.

With a quick silent prayer to heaven asking God’s help, I proceeded in this way, “Are you bothered at the thought of your mother being buried in the ground?” Immediately he nodded that he was. “Do you know that your mother will not be put in the ground? Only the body-house she lived in. You see, I am not a body, but I live in this body. You’re not just a body, but you have that one as your house on earth. Up front there in the casket is the house your mother lived in, but she herself is not there. Because she believed in Jesus, she is now with him where he lives—in heaven.”

The lad ceased crying and received my words with understanding and apparent agreement.

Frequently when I arrive at a scene of impending death, I am left to figure out whether the person is really conscious and whether this is a final spiritual contact with them. An example of this question came once as I rushed to a nursing care facility. “He is completely unconscious and no longer responding,” was the family’s sad greeting as I arrived. I went to the bedside, saw that he was an older man, and wondered if he was a believer. It was with God’s guidance that I burst into singing, “Rock of Ages, cleft for me, let me hide myself in thee.” Almost immediately, I saw his lips begin to move, and he sang with me the rest of the hymn (much to the amazement of the family members)!

Mr. Munson’s terrible accident brought me rushing to the local hospital. The farmer had been found out in the barn with an awful head injury, the cause of which was never determined. His skull was cracked across the back from ear to ear. I could not recognize him, even to tell if he was male or female. His whole face was swollen, and his eyes were tightly closed and bulging. The nurses intercepted me outside his door and warned me that he was a shocking sight, unconscious, would likely die very soon, and furthermore, if he lived, he would never regain his mental faculties. While they stood in the doorway, I approached his bed and called to him. “Mr. Munson, it’s Pastor Burchett.” With great satisfaction, I was sure I saw him give a very, very slight nod. Then I urged him, speaking close into his ear, “I know you are hurting. Let’s pray. I will help you to call on God for yourself. You say the words right after me.” And he did, with barely audible sound.

“Lord Jesus, I have sinned against you. Now I am in great need. Forgive my sin. I believe Jesus died for me and is now in heaven. Lord, come into my heart and save me. Amen.”

I prayed briefly and turned toward the two or three nurses standing in surprised silence. “You see, this is why I don’t quote nice poetry to dying people. They need and want God.” With that, I left them to think their own thoughts.

Mr. Munson not only did not die, but he lived with all his faculties intact and returned to farming. I saw him many years later when I returned for a special service at the church where he had become a regular member. He sat beaming on the very front row with his family.

My phone brought an urgent message. A man was dying at the hospital, without any hope of salvation. I did not know the gentleman very well because he had resisted any of my previous efforts to talk with him.

Hurrying to his room, I found him lying on his side with his face toward the wall and obviously in a very weak condition. I moved around the bed in order to place myself in front of his half-opened eyes. At this, his eyes opened wide. He made not a sound, but with all his remaining strength managed to roll over in bed so as to turn his back to me. I was certain he recognized me. “What is the right thing to do under these conditions?” I asked myself. I was also certain that any further pleading not only would be ineffective but would cheapen the glorious Gospel. He had now finally confirmed his rejection.

Without another word, I walked directly from the room. In the hall I stopped, turned back toward his door, and fought the battle one last time. “This man is at the door of death, and I have brought him his final call. He will perish forever in hell, yet I cannot decide for him. He is responsible before God.” In deep anguish but still decided, I turned again and left for my office, less than two miles away.

No sooner had I reached my office than the secretary said, “This call is for you.” It was a hospital nurse informing me that the gentleman had just died.

Snatched from the jaws of hell! Even that is an understatement of what happened to my friend’s older brother. God had used me to bring my friend to Christ several years back, and now the focus was on his brother. Both were middle-aged men. The father of the two men had, for a while, lived with this older brother, who was definitely not a believer, nor was his wife. Because of the dad’s attempted testimony to them, they threatened to put him out of the house if he spoke to them about Christ again. I also had little success in penetrating his barriers.

Things changed quickly. He became a sick man and was taken to a hospital in another city where he lapsed into unconsciousness before the eyes of his two anxious daughters. Before his brother raced to the hospital, he and I prayed that God might spare the older brother long enough to believe. It should be pointed out that the last time the subject of salvation came up in a telephone conversation between the two men, the older one abruptly hung up. Our fellowship of men had special prayer for this crisis situation, praying that God himself would guide our brother and commission him for this visit. On arriving at the hospital, my friend found the two daughters sitting beside his brother, who had lapsed into a coma with heavy breathing.

This, then, was the scene. While several of us prayed in my home, our friend found himself in the middle of this critical struggle between life and death, heaven and hell. One daughter directly informed my friend that, some hours ago, her sick dad had sat up in bed and clearly stated, “My brother is right—there is an awful place called hell!” He lay back down with an expression of utter terror on his face.

The daughter continued her report to her uncle. Only a short while later, her father’s heavy breathing again stopped and he sat up and clearly announced, “I have chosen Christ as my Lord and Savior!” Again, he lay back down.

The dying man had one more pronouncement to make. He said clearly, “An angel now stands right there in the corner. He will soon take me to see my Father.” With that, the dying, unchurched man began to sing Amazing Grace. Not knowing what to do, the doctors called for the hospital chaplain, who came and heard him singing. He commented, “Your dad must have been a truly religious man.”

All this information greeted my friend when he arrived. Following my suggestions, he at once knelt beside his brother and, with his face close to the ear of the dying man, led in a prayer of thanksgiving for the wonderful news of his brother’s entrance into the kingdom. “And I love you, Brother.” All during this exchange in prayer, the heavy breathing quieted. But not long after, he died.

I conducted the funeral service, which was attended by a host of family and friends, including all his golfing buddies. I addressed them with complete frankness, saying confidently, “I am positively sure that our departed loved one and friend would want me to tell you, line by line, what he himself said just before he died.” A holy quiet came over that audience, and I was able to talk freely to the attendees. My key scripture text was Hebrews 9:27-28:

Just as man is destined to die once, and after that to

face judgment, so Christ was sacrificed once to take

away the sins of many people; and he will appear a

second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to

those who are waiting for him.

The following account is so pertinent that I will retell it directly from Bringing Christ Back.¹ The reader will notice that the unusual evidences of God’s power really were launched through the very ministries that churches ought always to be carrying out.

Life was completely disrupted—or, I might say, smashed—for Ronald and Sarah, a handsome, affluent couple in their prime years, just before an early retirement. Sarah was stricken with a rapidly progressing terminal cancer. Always the strong, energetic one, she was now emaciated and in such pain that she was barely able to move around in her house.

When I visited the home, Sarah was realistic about what was ahead—days in bed relying on morphine to cope with the mounting pain, then death. She confided that the nights, with the excruciating pain, already were becoming a terror to them both.

Immediately, I perceived that reading Bible verses to her on the subject of comfort would be inadequate to sustain her through the long hours of struggle.  I chose instead to employ a kind of discipleship counseling, hoping to bring a change that would continue within her permanently. She desperately needed equipping for her greatest-ever challenge.

It was apparent that Sarah had a personal faith in Jesus Christ, but her husband, Ronald, did not.  A few questions quickly disclosed that her spiritual history had left her unprepared for what she faced. As I inwardly prayed for guidance, Sarah’s need became obvious: she must gain a vital, more confident access to God in prayer to sustain her in the long hours of searing pain. Accordingly, on that first visit I determined to center everything on one issue: how does one truly pray in Jesus’ name? I pressed her to put in plain words what that concept meant. “Just saying the words ‘in Jesus’ name, Amen’ is not enough,” I explained.

“After all these years of closing prayers with those words, I must admit that I do not understand what I have been saying,” was her frank admission. I was glad I had come, for here was one of God’s children locked in a struggle with our last enemy, death, and very unprepared.

A new light came into her tired eyes as she realized in a fuller way the privilege of bringing her heavy load to the Father in heaven. Her faith mounted up as she clung to the new insight that her prayers—racked and rattled though they might be—were dear to the Father because they were presented in his Son’s name, in his perfect merit. How she relished that truth, speaking of it (and practicing it) over and over again!  “Now in the dark nights, I can stand before God and be heard!” she declared.

On my next visit there, I had in mind two objectives. My first one was to ask her, “Do you think of the Holy Spirit as a real person?” (I reasoned that she needed a very personal ministry of the Spirit.) After drawing out her thoughts, I discovered that regardless of what “doctrinal statement” she might personally have agreed to, she in fact did not conceive of the Spirit as a person.

Ignorance regarding the Holy Spirit seems to hamper or limit the Spirit’s work within his children. To the extent that the ignorance is allowed to exist, something we might call a “willing ignorance” (see translations of 2 Peter 3:5 for this concept), the Spirit must surely be grieved. Regardless, my suffering friend was now eager to have the full assistance of God’s Spirit and she earnestly asked forgiveness for her careless neglect of this gracious person.

Now, with the Spirit helping her, the previous week’s accent on prayer became even more meaningful.  A light was now shining in her dark night. But more needed to be done. My second objective for this visit was to talk to her husband about his own spiritual life. Outside, with Bible open on the trunk of his Mercedes, I urged him to repent of sin and trust altogether in the Lord Jesus.

“I can’t do that,” he objected. “I know so little about God or the Bible. In fact, this is my first conversation like this in my entire life.” That very evening, however, he uttered his first audible prayer—childlike, but genuine.

It now became possible to institute the holy alignment prescribed in I Corinthians 11:3, where God, Christ, man, and woman are related in a proper way: “Now I want you to realize that the head of every man is Christ, and the head of the woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.”

“Beginning this very evening, you must help your wife with Scripture.”

“Wait a moment!” he interrupted. “I know nothing about the Bible, and she has been at this for years.”

“I quite understand that, but you are her husband, and God will bless what you share. He will help you do it. First tell her what you have done here with me. Then begin reading together through the Gospel of Mark, a portion each night.”

Beside these visits with Sarah, I saw that she had edifying visits from others in the church, and I scheduled weekly discipling with Ronald, using my Spiritual Life Studies. The results of this investment were marvelous indeed. During the distressful nights “we now have something definite and helpful to do,” they told me with joy. With Ronald’s gentle but enthusiastic leadership, they read through book after book of the Bible until the end came. And so it was that counseling with truth was infused into a suffering person’s life, hour after hour, right from within the home. How could weekly professional appointments match this?

Honoring her request that I try to be present when her hour of death came, I went to the hospital where she had been taken one afternoon and decided to stay through the night. She was still lucid, but I sensed that the end was near. Shortly before dawn, I rose from the uncomfortable waiting-room chairs and went again to my friend’s room. Sitting there with her were her son and daughter, one on each side holding her hands. Her husband, Ronald, was at that moment rushing back to her room. I soon indicated to them that she was about to leave us. Close to her ear I whispered encouragement, and as she was dying, I read these words: “The time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day—and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing” (2 Tim. 4:6-8).

In a peaceful quiet, her body stilled. I then read the final words of the selected text again, applying them to Sarah’s life and appealing to the son and daughter to place their faith in Christ. At that moment Ronald returned, and we all stood at the bedside for a final commitment.

Following the funeral, one thing remained. I continued weekly discipling sessions with Ronald. By the time the planned meetings were finished, he was functioning very well and continued on in his new faith.

I have related this account in some detail to show the strength and potential of our spiritual resources to help individuals in crisis. It is true that I, a pastor, took most of the initiatives here, but there were dozens of others in the church who could have done so, and some did share in this ministry. What I did was not because of professional position but simply because the need came to me and I chose to take it up myself.  A properly equipped church has a company of men and women who know how to counsel, support, and disciple. In this story, notice how each of the three resources listed earlier came into play.

First, the wife and the husband were each, personally, cultivated spiritually. Next, they were moved forward in grace so that they might in turn minister to one another, and they were helped to reach out to their unreached children. Finally, my task also included the bringing of other ministering ones from our church fellowship into this home of need.

1 Harold Ewing Burchett, Bringing Christ Back (Bringing Christ Back Ministries, 2006).

A blaze of glory!—that’s the only way to describe the departure of my good friend’s sister. He introduced me to this very zealous lady, who had come home from an African mission field with cancer and was facing her impending death. My friend warned me, “Be prepared for a surprise when you meet her. She is both zealous and different. I predict that she will go out of this life in a blaze of glory. It is always that way with her.”

Surprises from this missionary lady came thick and fast to me and our church. First, she married a fellow who was totally unable to see. Then, after her disease worsened to the point where she was bedfast and in great pain, she decided one Wednesday night to get up, dress, and drive to our prayer meeting. Looking haggard but determined, she asked if she could address the congregation of 100 or so people. None of us will ever forget her words. They went something like this: “I am dying, but I want you all to benefit from my experience. Permit me to tell you exactly what it feels like.” Graphically, she unfolded her story and pled with everyone present to know the Savior and make full preparation for their own date with death. Later on, she was taken to a Boston hospital, and I heard reports of the impact she was making on nurses and doctors alike—so much so that the surgeon declined to perform any autopsy on her, and I noticed how the nurses spoke in awe of her.

I return now to her husband, who had lost his sight but who had keen hearing. As he sat by his new bride’s bedside, only a few days before her death, his sensitive ears recognized a voice from his past. Making his way over toward the one he heard speaking, he asked the name of the visitor and was much elated to discover that this was the very man who had led him to Christ many years earlier, while he still had his eyesight. He told the man the story—how he was hitchhiking, how the man had picked him up, and how the man, in conversation in the car, had led him to faith in Christ.

Bursting into tears, the older Christian poured out his story.  “Only today I told God of my complete discouragement because my testimony never seemed to bear fruit. I begged him this very morning to show me someone who has believed because of my testimony. You are the answer to my desperate prayer!”

Exactly as I had begun to expect the dear missionary lady exited this life in a blaze of glory that was the talk of her attending staff of doctors and nurses. They made an immediate decision that there should be no autopsy, out of honor to her.

(Taken from my book, “Bright Light — A Lifetime of Seeing God at Work.”  To read more stories of God’s amazing works, “Bright Light” may be ordered here.)