While having permission from the Reagan Presidential Library
to go through a privately stored box of Nancy Reagan’s personal things for
purposes of a biography on the former first lady, national political
correspondent and columnist Karen Tumulty recently unearthed a letter written
by former president, Ronald (“Ronnie”) Reagan. In this letter, we read that Reagan
urgently pleaded to his father-in-law, Loyal Davis, an atheist and pioneering neurosurgeon
who was on his death bed, to accept Christ in his final days.
"Aug 7 [1982]
Dear
Loyal
I hope you’ll forgive me for this,
but I’ve been wanting to write you ever since we talked on the phone. I am
aware of the strain you are under and believe with all my heart there is help
for that.
First I want to tell
you of a personal experience I’ve kept to myself for a long time. During my
first year as Governor you’ll recall the situation I found in Calif. was almost
as bad as the one in Wash. today. It seemed as if the
problems were endless and insolvable.
Then I found myself
with an ulcer. In
all those years at Warner Bros., no one had been able to give
me an ulcer and I felt ashamed as if it were a sign of weakness on my part.
John Sharpe had
me on Malox and I lived with a constant pain that ranged from
discomfort to extremely sharp attacks.
This went on for
months. I had a bottle of Maalox in my desk, my briefcase and of course at
home. Then one morning I got up, went into the bathroom, reached for the bottle
as always and something happened. I knew I didn’t need it. I had gone to bed
with the usual pain the night before but I knew that morning I was healed. The
Malox went back on the shelf.
That morning when I arrived at the
office Helene
brought me my mail. The first letter I opened was from a lady
— a stranger — in the Southern part of the state. She had written to tell me
she was one of a group who met every day to pray for me. Believe it or not, the
second letter was from a man, again a stranger, in the other end of the state
telling me he was part of a group that met weekly to pray for me.
Within the hour a
young fellow from the legal staff came into my office on some routine matter.
On the way out he paused in the door and said: “Gov. I think maybe you’d like
to know — some of us on the staff come in early every morning and get together
to pray for you.”
Coincidence? I
don’t think so. A couple of weeks later Nancy and I went down to L.A. and had
our annual checkup. John Sharpe, a little puzzled, told me I no longer had an
ulcer but added there was no indication I’d ever had one. Word of honor — I
never told him about that particular day in Sacramento.
There is a line in
the bible — “Where
ever two or more are gathered in my name there will I be also.”
Loyal I
know of your feeling — your doubt but could I just impose on
you a little longer? Some seven hundred years before the birth of Christ the
ancient Jewish prophets predicted the coming of a Messiah. They said he would
be born in a lowly place, would proclaim himself the Son of God and would be
put to death for saying that.
All in all there
were a total of one hundred and twenty three specific prophesys about his life
all of which came true. Crucifixion was unknown in those times, yet it was
foretold that he would be nailed to a cross of wood. And one of the predictions
was that he would be born of a Virgin.
Now I know that is
probably the hardest for you as a Dr. to accept. The only answer that can be
given is — a miracle. But Loyal I don’t find that as great a miracle as the
actual history of his life. Either he was who he said he was or he was the
greatest faker & charlatan who ever lived. But would a liar & faker
suffer the death he did when all he had to do to save himself was admit he’d
been lying?
The miracle is that a young man of
30 yrs. without credentials as a scholar or priest began preaching on street
corners. He owned nothing but the clothes on his back & he didn’t travel
beyond a circle less than one hundred miles across. He did this for only 3
years and then was executed as a common criminal.
But for two
thousand years he has had more impact on the world than all the teachers,
scientists, emperors, generals and admirals who ever lived, all put together.
The apostle John
said, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that who
so ever believed in him would not perish but have everlasting life.”
We have been
promised that all we have to do is ask God in Jesus name to help when we have
done all we can — when we’ve come to the end of our strength and abilities and
we’ll have that help. We only have to trust and have faith in his infinite
goodness and mercy.
Loyal, you
and Edith have known a great love — more than many have been
permitted to know. That love will not end with the end of this life. We’ve been
promised this is only a part of life and that a greater life, a greater glory
awaits us. It awaits you together one day and all that is required is that you
believe and tell God you put yourself in his hands.
Love
Ronnie"
Like the financially poor mother
who would give her child the good meat while she ate the fat and lied saying
she liked it better, or the father who would wear old, uncomfortable shoes that
do not fit while his kids had the latest and greatest, we need more people who
make the selfless sacrifices for especially our youngest generations. We must
wake up to reality about what is truly important in life. The reality in the
seriousness of our mortality should not only hit us when in those intimately
helpless times, such as riding out a severe storm without electricity, our
homes and belongings being destroyed by the elements, or when a loved one is
deathly sick in the hospital. To simply brush off the truth as not being worth
your time is a very dangerous thing to do. Atheist and half of the famous magic
and comedy team, Penn & Teller, Penn Jillette adds to this line of thought:
"If you believe that there’s a Heaven and Hell and people could be going
to Hell or not getting eternal life, and you think that it’s not
really worth telling them this because it would
make it socially awkward – and atheists who think people shouldn’t proselytize and who say just leave me alone
and keep your religion – how much do you have to hate somebody . . . to believe everlasting life is possible
and not tell them that? I mean, if I
believed beyond the shadow of a doubt that a truck was coming at you, and you
did not believe that truck
was bearing down on you, there is a certain point where I tackle you. And this is more important than
that."
We put helmets on before riding bicycles and seatbelts on in
cars; how much more important is it to protect our souls? Yet, we do not take
eternity seriously. Only 48% of people in the U.S. believe in Heaven and only
36% believe in Hell; popular books claim to be the supposed ultimate guides to
what happens after we die; and it is commonly seen that popular figures such as
the Dalai Lama will say on TV that Heaven and Hell does not exist, and Joel
Osteen who, in his sermons streamed on TV and online around the world, among
other questionable things, refuses to preach about the existence of Hell. Author,
Randy Alcorn adds:
"The sense that we will live forever somewhere
has shaped every civilization in human history.
Australian aborigines pictured Heaven as a distant island beyond the western horizon. The early Finns thought it was
an island in the faraway east. Mexicans, Peruvians,
and Polynesians believed that they went to the sun or the moon after death. Native Americans believed that in the
afterlife their spirits would hunt the spirits of buffalo. The Gilgamesh
epic, an ancient Babylonian legend, refers to a resting place of heroes and hints at a tree of life.
In the pyramids of Egypt, the embalmed bodies had maps placed beside them as guides to the future world. The
Romans believed that the righteous would
picnic in the Elysian Fields, while their horses grazed nearby. Seneca, the Roman philosopher, said, “The
day thou fearest as the last is the birthday of eternity.” Although these depictions of the afterlife
differ, the unifying testimony of the human heart throughout history is belief in life after death. Anthropological
evidence suggests that every
culture has a God-given, innate sense of the eternal—that this world is not all there is."
What those statistics and those
words from celebrities and everyday people alike from cultures around the world
all have in common is that they are merely subjective opinions that are not
worth betting your eternal destination on; the fact that no human being knows
for certain what will happen to our souls upon death cannot be overstated. With
that said, we know opinions can have serious, eternal consequences. Thus, if
Jesus is the Son of God (and we have very reasonable evidence to trust that He
is), then if we live by subjective opinions alone and not what He specifically
says about the afterlife, then our very souls are in deep trouble upon death.
Alcorn continues:
"For [everyone] who believes [they’re] going to Hell, there are 120 who
believe they’re going to Heaven.
This optimism stands in stark contrast to Christ’s words in Matthew 7:13-14: “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road
that leads to destruction, and many
enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a
few find it.” . . . Judging by what’s said at most funerals, you’d think nearly everyone’s going to Heaven, wouldn’t you? But Jesus made it clear that most people are not going to Heaven. . . . We dare not
“wait and see” when it comes to
what’s on the other side of death. We shouldn’t just cross our fingers and hope that our names are written in
the Book of Life (Revelation 21:27). We can know, we should know,
before we die. And because we may die at any time, we need to know now –
not next month or next year. “Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a
mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes”
(James 4:14). It’s of paramount importance to make sure you are going to Heaven, not Hell. The voice that whispers,
“There’s no hurry; put this book down; you can
always think about it later,” is not God’s voice. . . . The reality of Hell
should break our hearts and take us
to our knees and to the doors of those without Christ. Today, however, even among many Bible believers,
Hell has become “the H word,” seldom named, rarely talked about."
The world offers promise full of
emptiness, but Jesus' tomb offers emptiness full of promise; what happened to
Christ can happen for us; death is not the end if we trust in Him to eternally
save us. Death is either a period or a comma, and with Christ alone it is merely
a comma. That is the message of the resurrection. With 150,000 each day (55
million per year), death barely misses us with every passing day. We are still
on this side of eternity, and we must wake
up to reality. A handful of those who “get it” cannot do the immense job alone of
leading everyone to Christ – especially those who you are closest to that need to hear the Gospel message. You must
know God and make Him known. Trust Him in times of
happiness, trust Him in times of pain, and trust Him that He will give you the
strength to comfort others and lead them to His salvation in ways that only you can. Look first to your family – even
to those who have been to church every single time the doors are open, perhaps they
have never asked to be saved. Look into the innocent eyes of your young children
and grandchildren, nieces and nephews; you
must be their rock; they are your
life's purpose.
As for
the conclusion to what happened to Loyal Davis: he gave his life to
Christ two days before he died, twelve days after the letter was penned. This letter is a great reminder that, not only are our
souls precious, they are also vulnerable to two paths of eternity. The
question for us today is do we have enough courage to reach out to a lost person
and appeal to him or her to seek reconciliation with God? Whether it’ is a
friend, a neighbor, a perfect stranger, a family member at a reunion or one
sitting in jail, are we courageous enough to do the hard but holy right thing
and tell them about Christ? Will such a pain for the lost be the core of who we
are? As stated on the written plaque on Reagan's desk (the photo below taken
myself at the Reagan Library): It CAN Be Done.
