Topics:<\/b> Accepting Christ; Assurance; Belief; Eternal Death; Eternal Life; God as Father; Salvation; Spiritual Adoption; Tragedy; Unbelief<\/p>\n
References:<\/b> Psalm 68:5; Isaiah 64:8; John 3:16; 5:24\u201329; 14:6; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6\u20137; Hebrews 9:27<\/p>\n
Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, was asked if those who died in the explosions of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001, but had not confessed Christ as Savior would go to heaven. She replied:<\/p>\n
In my little book Heaven: My Father\u2019s House<\/i>, I tell about people who want to visit my father\u2019s home in western North Carolina. They drive up the long drive and come to the gate. They knock on the gate and say, \u201cBilly Graham, let us in. We\u2019ve read your books, we\u2019ve watched you on TV, we\u2019ve written to you, and we want to come to your house.\u201d<\/p>\n
And my father says, \u201cDepart from me, I don\u2019t know you. You\u2019re not a member of my family, and you\u2019ve not made any arrangements to come.\u201d<\/p>\n
But when I drive up that same driveway and knock on the gate, I say, \u201cDaddy, this is Anne, and I\u2019ve come home.\u201d The gate is thrown right open, and I go inside, because I\u2019m the father\u2019s child.<\/p>\n
Because heaven is God\u2019s house, he has the right to decide who comes in and who stays out. He says he will welcome anyone inside his home, but they have to be born again into his family through faith in Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
That gives us a wonderful hope that when the time comes\u2014whether death comes as a thief in the night, as it did for those in the [World Trade Center] towers, or as an angel of mercy after a long illness\u2014we can be assured that at the end of the journey, we\u2019ll step right into our Father\u2019s arms. We\u2019ll be welcomed there because we are our Father\u2019s children.<\/p>\n
\u2014Anne Graham Lotz, \u201cFinding Meaning in September 11,\u201d CNN.com (December 11, 2006)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Topics: Accepting Christ; Assurance; Belief; Eternal Death; Eternal Life; God as Father; Salvation; Spiritual Adoption; Tragedy; Unbelief References: Psalm 68:5; Isaiah 64:8; John 3:16; 5:24\u201329; 14:6; Romans 8:15; Galatians 4:6\u20137; Hebrews 9:27 Anne Graham Lotz, daughter of evangelist Billy Graham and his wife, Ruth, was asked if those who died in the explosions of the … Continue reading “WELCOME
\n TO HEAVEN”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5825","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5825"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5825\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}