Is It Scriptural to Pray in Agreement with a Suffering Person That He Will Die?

If a Christian has lived out a full life and wants to die, that person has a scriptural right to die and go home to be with the Lord.  Refer to the remarks elsewhere about Paul choosing to stay here instead of departing and being with Christ (Philippians 1:22-24).  In fact, if the person really wants to die, you cannot force healing on him because you would not be in agreement with him.  A person does not have to choose to be kept alive by machines and extraordinary medical procedures.

On the other hand, you would never want to pray that a sinner will die in his current lost condition, knowing that he will spend eternity in hell.  If a sinner wants prayer to die, he needs to receive Jesus to be born again first!  Then he can go home to glory instead of endless torment if he still wants to leave.  It would be no act of mercy at all to agree that a sinner will die and go to a Christless eternity, where the fire never goes out and the worm never dies (Mark 9:44 and elsewhere).  He might think that death would be a relief, but death would be only the doorway to worse suffering.  He could not possibly be better off dead than alive no matter how much he is suffering now.  I would never agree to help someone have such an awful fate.

Also, if a person has not lived out a full life, there is no precedent for explicitly praying that he will die.  You would in that case be praying contrary to the known will of God.  However, if the person wants to die anyway, you can’t keep him here against his will with your prayers.  To that extent, your “agreement” is just that you won’t try to keep him here.

We had an elderly person in the church we pastored say, “DON’T pray for my healing.  I just want to go and be with Jesus.  Just pray that I won’t suffer much.”  So that’s what my wife and I prayed, and she did indeed “go home” without suffering.  That’s where her faith was, and that had to be our point of agreement.  It would not have been agreement to pray that she would live when she wanted to die.