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>>Ankerberg: You’re a doctor, you’re not a theologian and yet you have come to a belief
in Jesus Christ. I’m concerned with people that are out there on their hospital bed or
they’re in their home or they’ve been told they’ve got a terminal disease or there
are people that are just getting up there in age that recognize, “Hey, I’m not prepared
to die. I’m not prepared for what comes after and I need to think about it.” Not
as a doctor now, but as a person that’s come to grips with that question yourself,
what would you tell them?”
>>Rawlings: All of my patients, they ask, “Doctor, I’m afraid of dying.” And none
of them, “Doctor, I’m afraid of judgment, what these people see when they get there.”
So it’s easy to make a decision ahead of time. “What have you lost if you’re a
Christian,” I said to myself when I became a Christian. Nothing. What have I gained?
The whole world. What’s my soul worth? The whole world. So, if you decide to become a
Christian, you’ve made a 100% bet. You can’t lose, whether you live or whether you die.
What’s the difference? You’ve got it made. If you really have the decision that you’re
turning your life over and you’re not longer in charge yourself and you look for guidance.
>>Ankerberg: What would you say to a person that would add to what Maurice just said,
that says, “Dr. Weldon, I want to know, “How can I know that I’m not going to
hell when I die?”
>>Weldon: Well, John, the good news in all this is that there is a life after death,
despite what many in our culture tend to deny. We don’t just die and that’s it forever,
annihilation forever. There is life after death, and anyone who wants to can receive
Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. “As many as received him, to them he gave the
right to become children of God.” And Jesus promised us eternal life if we would believe
what He did on the cross--that He died for our sins, receive Him into our life, believe
Him, make Him our Lord and our Savior, then we have the guarantee of eternal life.
Jesus said, “Truly, truly I say to you, He who believes in me has eternal life.”
And the Apostle John said, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name
of the Son of God in order that you may know you have eternal life.”
So if anyone is out there and is in a situation where they are close to death, the good news
is that Christ has offered them freely as a gift—they don’t have to work for it,
do anything. It’s a free gift. They just need to believe on what Jesus has done, and
they will have life after death. They will go to heaven and not go to judgment.
>>Ankerberg: Yes. The fact of death is certain for all of us, but for the Christian, heaven
is also certain as well. You know the Scripture says that, “Neither death, nor life, neither
angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any power, neither height
nor depth nor anything else in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the
love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Now the fact is that if you place your faith
in the Lord Jesus and say, “Lord, I admit that I’m a sinner and I realize you died
and you paid for all of my sins and I am believing on you right now, I’m putting my very eternal
destiny into your hands and I want you to guide me from this point on,” the Lord Jesus
said that He’ll do that. “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the
Lord shall be saved.” And I hope that if you haven’t done that, you’ll do it right
now.