The sailor who gave up his son's life to save his son's friend-Fiction!

The Sailor Who Gave Up his Son’s Life To Save His Son’s FriendUnproven!

 
Summary of eRumor:
A pastor invites a guest minister to briefly share during an evening church service.  The guest tells a gripping story of a sailor who was on the ocean in a sailboat with his son and one of his son’s friends.  A storm throws them overboard and the sailor, when faced with the decision of whether to save his son or the other youth, says goodbye to his son and saves his son’s friend.  The reason?  His son was a Christian and his eternity was secure.  The other young man was not.  The man says it is an illustration of how it must have been for God to give up his only son to die.  Two teenagers who were in the congregation listening to the man’s story come up to the man afterwards and question how truthful it is.  The man then answers that he was that sailor and the pastor of the church was his son’s friend who was saved from the storm.

The Truth:
No source for this story has been found so it is probably somebody’s attempt at inspirational fiction.
Another version of the story circulated among Jehovah’s Witnesses that positions the hero of the story as a Jehovah’s Witness overseer.  (See below)