Dr. Billy Graham at 96 asks "Are You Ready To Die?"

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Billy Graham was the greatest evangelist of the twentieth century. He knows at 96 that he has very few days left on this Earth and then his spirit and soul will step out of his body and he will be with Jesus Christ and with his beloved wife Ruth who is in Heaven already (2 Corinthians 5:8). It’s easy to know that you’re close to your deathday  at 96. But not everyone lives 96 years. Most of us don’t. You may be a very young person, but there are no guarantees on how long you will live. So Billy shares his final message with us after all the years of introducing people to Jesus Christ. He’s asked himself the question that he now asks you. Are you ready to die?

I thought I would go to Heaven if I died from the time that I was 16 and went forward at the First Baptist Church of San Jose, California, to go through the formalities of asking Jesus Christ to be my Savior. It was a one-time asking and then I lived without a real relationship with Him until I was 30. Once every so often I would recognize His reality, but it was as if He lived on some far distant planet and though I called myself a Christian, in honest moments I knew there was a great gulf between us that I created by not giving any further thought to Him. My lifestyle would have convinced others that I was no Christian at all. At best, I was religious, which means acting what I perceived as the role of the Christian in times when I wanted  to impress others.

I think Christ honored my asking Him to save me when I was 16. But it was when I was 30 that I fully realized Christ is alive (Hebrews 13:8) and wants to do so much more than simply hand people “Get Out of Hell Free” cards. You can see the difference in the life of Billy Graham and his “abundant life” (John 10:10). But it doesn’t take becoming an evangelist, pastor or missionary to have an abundant life. All it takes is asking Jesus Christ to come into you and to forgive you for all your sins. That’s been Billy’s message throughout his lifetime. And the tragedy is, so many many people think that message is just too simple. It isn’t. Christ was brutally tortured and was nailed to a cross ON PURPOSE so that you could be saved (Romans 10:8–11). He doesn’t tell you to clean up your life before He will save you. Salvation is a come as you are party!

Salvation is just the beginning of eternal life (John 3:16.) If you’ve been self-centered rather than Christ-centered until this moment, invite Him to join you in whatever you’re doing for the rest of your life. Prayer is simply talking with God and it’s meant to be a two-way street. He wants to talk with you too. In fact, He wants to be your closest friend. He won’t smother you with dead religion, but He is the real reason for living. He’s where excitement really is. There is no life without him. Like the little boy in “Sixth Sense”, I see dead people all the time. They even think they are alive and so do the people around them. But without knowing Christ or knowing Him casually, there is no abundant life.

Franklin Graham says this is undoubtedly Billy’s last message to the world. Don’t miss a minute of it. Follow Dr. Graham’s directions and believe him. People from almost every country have done that and found the abundant life I’ve been talking and writing about. If you haven’t already, this is your hour of salvation. Take full advantage of it.

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Dr. Billy Graham at 96 asks "Are You Ready To Die?"