January 7, 2002
Anne Graham Lotz looks toward heaven for hope
___By Adelle Banks
___Religion News Service
___WASHINGTON--Before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, author Anne Graham Lotz had decided to address the topic of heaven in her next book. But with the events of that fateful day, the Bible teacher and daughter of evangelist Billy Graham said she believes it was divine timing that led her to focus on eternal life in "Heaven: My Father's House."
___Lotz, 53, is president of AnGeL Ministries, based in Raleigh, N.C. A Southern Baptist laywoman, she was invited to speak at the Dec. 16 service at the Washington National Cathedral. While in Washington, she spoke with Religion News Service.
___Q. In your book, you mentioned the recent deaths of your brother-in-law and the associate of your father, T.W. Wilson. How did those losses affect your writing?
Anne Graham Lotz
___When you lose somebody that's close to you, it makes eternity seem very near. You realize that eternity is just a breath away. And so to lose my brother-in-law and also T.W. Wilson, who was like a second father to me actually, ... in your own heart you're grieving and just thanking God for the hope of the resurrection.
___Q. You spoke about how you longed for your heavenly home as the nation dealt with the deep sadness of all the memorial services after Sept. 11. How did this larger tragedy affect you?
___My daughter had called me, ... and I turned on the TV in time to see the second plane and to see those buildings come down. ... Thousands of people at that moment as I was watching TV were stepping into eternity. And then I wondered how many of those people stepping into eternity weren't ready and they didn't even know that it was their choice as to whether to go to heaven or not.
___And maybe they didn't know because they'd been too busy or maybe they didn't know because their friend was too politically correct to tell them that there is a heaven and how to get there.
___Q. Could you talk a little more about your concept of heaven and how it has changed from the time when you were a child to now?
___When you're a child, ... heaven for me would be my family there, my grandparents there. ... I'm sure we would eat Chinese food, I would have a smaller nose, my dog would be there who just died. ...
___Some of the principles I clung to as a child are actually true, that heaven is going to be personally prepared for me and it's going to be a place where I am going to feel at home. ... So now, of course, I know we may not eat Chinese food and I may have the same size nose, but I know my grandparents are going to be there and I know my family will be there because they have placed their faith in Jesus.
___Q. I wonder if you could talk a little about the size of heaven. Do you imagine that heaven can hold all those who deserve to go there, from the time of Adam and Eve until far into the future?
___Absolutely. It's so interesting in Revelation 21, the Apostle John is describing what God revealed to him in a vision about heaven and John says that an angel came and showed him the heavenly city and then the angel took a measuring rod and actually measured the city off ... and the measurements that the angel gave John turned out to be 1,500 square miles cubed, so 1,500 miles wide and high and long. ... If you place it on top of the United States of America, it goes from Mexico to Canada, from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, but it is as wide as it is tall.
___And if you had 20 billion residents of heaven, which is more than the entire population of the human race in all of human history as far as we know, ... everybody would have 75 acres for himself and ... still there's room left over for public buildings and parks and streets. ...
___I don't know that we should take that literally. What I think the angel was telling John is that heaven is a great big place, and there's room for everybody.
___Q. Can you talk a little about your perceptions of when people reach heaven? Do you think it's immediate for present-day folks?
___Yes, and I think for Abraham, ... for Old Testament folks, there was a waiting period. ... They wouldn't have been ushered into my father's house until Jesus came to offer himself as a sacrifice for sin and open the way into heaven. It's through the blood of Jesus that we enter heaven.
___Q. Is there anybody in particular that you look forward to seeing in heaven, someone well-known in American history?
___Maybe people in early American history ... somebody like Jonathan Edwards. He gets a bad rap, but God used him to bring revival to our nation. ... I think some of the people that are going to be in a sense the most important in heaven are going to be ones that we don't know their names. ... God views things so differently than we do. ... For instance, today we would think the most important people are people who have made a name for themselves, or have written books or are on TV. And it may be that when we get to heaven it's going to be ... some missionary in some backwoods jungle or some believer in Afghanistan or the Sudan who was faithful to God ... who will be honored and be the ones that we'll be wanting to meet when we get to heaven.
___Q. You obviously didn't leave hell out of your book. And I wondered if you could talk about your mental picture of hell.
___My mental picture of hell right now is that video (released Dec. 13 by the Bush administration) of Osama bin Laden sitting in that room discussing the trade towers. ... When I read the transcript it was like reading a transcript from a chat room in hell. And the Allah that Osama bin Laden worships has no relationship to God at all. And the Bible would describe Osama bin Laden's Allah as the father of lies and the prince of darkness, and I think the devil himself is leading Osama bin Laden and his followers to destruction and a lot of people with them and so to me that was like a glimpse into hell. ...
___In Revelation, chapter 21, God said in verse 7 that those who are his children will inherit all of this, but ... then he lists the unbelievers, people who will be outside of heaven. There is an outside to heaven. There is an inside to my father's house and there's an outside. Outside is outside, separated from God for eternity.
___Q. I need to clarify what you just said about Osama bin Laden's Allah not being like God. ... Do you think the Allah he's talking about is the same Allah that more mainstream Muslims talk about and if so, do you see that as not relating to God?
___I don't know enough about mainstream Muslims. ... I've never read the Koran, and I don't know enough about who they say Allah is and who they believe him to be and what he has instructed his people to do to make a statement on that. I just know from what bin Laden said, what his Allah has led him to do, that that is not the God of creation nor the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, nor the father of Jesus Christ.
___Q. But as far as just simple relations, is there something you think Christians should be doing or not doing when they're in the same room as a Muslim?
___Absolutely. I think we need to love them. We're commanded to go into all the world and share the gospel. Not just in a sermon that we give from a pulpit but through our actions and our words. God sent his son to die for Muslims just like he sent his son to die for me. And Muslims need Jesus just like Baptists need Jesus.
___And Jesus said they will know that we belong to him by our love. So if we're shaking our finger or condemning them or blaming them--or whether it's them or anybody who's different from us--then how will they see our love and how will they know our Jesus?
___Q. Both your parents are in their 80s and have had various medical challenges. In light of their circumstance, is there something about writing a book about heaven that gives you personal comfort in relation to them?
___Absolutely. ... I think sometimes we're afraid of death for ourselves or for our loved ones because we don't exactly know what to expect in eternity and we don't know exactly who's going to meet us on the other side.
___Right now, we're so concerned about Mother and Daddy's welfare and their care. They have ... people around the clock. ...
___And to think of stepping into eternity, you want somebody to be there to look after them and how precious to think that it will be God himself who will be there to look after them and who understands their needs and their wants and loves them with an everlasting love, that he will be with open arms welcoming them to his home. ...
___I can tell you when the day comes for them to step into eternity, the thoughts I've written in this little book will be a personal comfort for me.
___
Get printer-friendly version of this story
Send this story to a friend
News of religion, faith, missions, Bible study and Christian ministry among Texas Baptist churches, in the BGCT, the Southern Baptist Convention ( SBC ) and around the world.
Contents/ Masthead / Why We're Here / Links / Archive / E-mail us/ SUBSCRIBE!/ Signup for FirstLook
