Acts 1:8 – “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
One of the blessings of going on a mission trip is the fact that it gives you an opportunity to deepen friendships in ways you wouldn’t be able to otherwise. The week before last I was able to experience this particular blessing with the rest of those who went on the Ocean City Mission Trip including our team leader, Don Mayberry. Don and I spent a lot of time together that week picking up supplies at the local Home Depot and painting shoulder to shoulder in that hot Ocean City sun. One day Don asked me, “Mark, which living Christian do you admire most?” And—before I share my reply—I’d like you to share your answer to that question with the people sitting next to you. So find one other person and tell them, which living Christian you admire most.
Okay—what were some of your answers? Just shout them out. Well, like many of you the name that came to my mind in my conversation with Don is Billy Graham. Of all the current giants of the faith…Swindoll, Hybels, Lucado, Buchanan, Billy Graham is the one I admire most—and regardless of the answer you gave a moment ago, I think that by the end of this message you might just claim him as your favorite as well.
If you’re our guest to get you up to speed I’ll tell you that this summer as part of our year long focus on discipleship, we’re using our sermon time to study some current giants of the faith. We’re doing this in the hopes of learning things that will help each of us further along the road toward becoming more like Jesus. Today, we are studying the life of Billy Graham.
Here are a list of my sources:
- the book, Billy, by William Paul McKay and Ken Abraham which also became a film,
- a documentary entitled, Billy Graham: God’s Ambassador, narrated by Sir David Frost,
- and finally Dr. Graham’s autobiography, Just As I Am. Okay—let’s begin.
Billy Graham was born in a farm house just outside of Charlotte, North Carolina, on November 7, 1918—just four days before the armistice that would end WWI. His father was a dairy farmer and Billy confesses that he didn’t like farming. As a boy his main joys were books like Edgar Rice Burrough’s Tarzan but he especially loved baseball. In fact, his father once took him to a game where he was able to shake Babe Ruth’s hand.
Billy Graham was an average student in school but this was a reflection of the fact that he worked very hard on the farm and had very little free time to study. Every day he was up at 4AM to help with milking the cows and after school there were more chores—but Billy always had an abundance of energy—which came in handy later in life as he did the good work that God had called him to do.
Billy’s parents faithfully attended the local Reformed Presbyterian Church and the family read the Bible and prayed together every day. The Grahams weren’t alone in these spiritual disciplines because n 1934, Charlotte had the reputation of being one of the leading church-going cities in the United States. The city even had a 5,000-seat tabernacle where evangelists like Billy Sunday came to host revival meetings. That year the local Christian mens’ club invited another popular evangelist, Dr. Mordecai Ham to come to host a series of services and Billy reluctantly went. In his autobiography Graham writes,
“As soon as the evangelist started his sermon, he opened his Bible and talked straight from his text. He talked loudly, even though there was an amplifying system. I have no recollection of what he preached about, but I was spellbound. In some indefinable way, he was getting through to me. I was hearing another voice, as was so often said of Dwight L. Moody when he preached: the voice of the Holy Spirit. From then on I was a faithful attendant, night after night, week after week. I became deeply convicted about my sinfulness and rebellion—and confused. How could this evangelist be talking to me, of all people? I had been baptized as a baby, had learned the Shorter Catechism word perfect, and had been confirmed in the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church with the full approval of the pastor and elders. I had gotten into mischief once in a while, but I could hardly be called wicked. I resisted temptations to break the moral code my parents had so strictly instilled in me. I was a good milker in the dairy barn and never complained about any of the nasty work, such as shoveling manure. I was even vice president of my youth group in our church. So why would the evangelist be pointing his bony finger at me? What was slowly dawning on me during those weeks was the miserable realization that I did not KNOW Jesus Christ personally. Nor could I depend on my parents’ faith. I realized that faith could not be passed on as an inheritance—like the family silver. No—it had to be exercised by each individual. I could not depend on church membership either or reciting the Apostles’ Creed or taking communion. Nor could I depend on my resolution to try and do better. No—as a sinner I needed to be made right with God.”
Well one night, near his 16th birthday, Billy Graham acted on this conclusion and made life’s most important decision. As the choir sang the last verse of “Just As I Am” Billy Graham gave his heart and life to Jesus Christ. In coming weeks he went to hear other evangelists speak. He also joined a weekly Bible Study and as his personal faith grew he began to feel that God had called him to preach.
I need to tell you at this point that earlier that year, unbeknownst to Billy, his father had invited the local Christian men’s club to hold all-day prayer meetings on his farm. At one of those meetings the men had prayed that out of Charlotte the Lord would raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth. In hindsight we can see that Dr. Billy Graham was the answer to that prayer. I don’t know about you, but that makes me want to pray more boldly!
After Billy graduated from High School he and his friend Grady Wilson sold fuller brushes together to make money for college. Their supervisor was Albert McMakin, the Godly man who had brought Billy to hear Dr. Ham preach. Billy was very good as a salesman. In fact, he sold more brushes than anyone else in his region. In hindsight he would say that this was reflective of God gifting him to “sell” people on their need for Jesus.
That fall Billy enrolled in Bob Jones College but left a few months later after being told by Bob Jones that he would be a failure. I wonder how Bob Jones feels about that now? This rejection didn’t stop Billy and in 1937 he enrolled in the Florida Bible Institute where he thrived—growing both spiritually—and also developing his God-given skills as a preacher in local churches and at trailer parks where he was invited to speak. Once his parents drove down to hear him preach and afterwards his mother told him, “Son, you can preach so loud!”
Graham was eventually ordained as a Souther Baptist minister and upon graduation from the Florida Bible Institute he enrolled in Wheaton College outside of Chicago. There he met and fell in love with Ruth Bell. By this time he knew God had called to be an evangelist. Ruth was the daughter of medical missionaries who served in China and her passion was to become a missionary but after their first date she told God, “If you will let me spend the rest of my life serving You with him, I would consider it the greatest privilege imaginable.” Ironically, through their marriage Ruth would be a part of the greatest missionary movement since the Apostle Paul walked this earth.
Now, at this point I must say that Ruth Bell Graham’s life would itself more than fill a sermon—but we don’t have time for that so just let me say that, like me, God blessed Billy Graham with the perfect helpmate. Ruth was someone who understood his call and supported it even though that meant they would be separated—sometimes many months at a time—while Billy was preaching literally all over the world.
But, to make a long story short—they were married on August 13, 1953 in Montreat, North Carolina, near where they would eventually build the home and raise their five children. After their honeymoon, Billy began his only pastorate, serving as pastor of the Village Baptist Church in a suburb of Chicago. He also accepted an offer to host a Christian radio show that was broadcast from the church basement entitled, Songs in the Night. Graham was able to enlist the help of one of the nation’s most popular soloists at the time, a man named George Beverly Shea.
This was the beginning of their life-long partnership—and the radio show was the start of Graham’s appeal to a mass audience. In fact, these broadcasts led to hundreds of invitations for Graham to preach—and in spite of the fact that his church had given him permission to continue his evangelistic ministry….his frequent absences caused discontent in the congregation of Village Baptist. I wonder how those complainers feel now?!
Eventually Graham resigned and began to work full-time as an evangelist for the burgeoning Youth For Christ movement a para-church organization that included people like our own Lloyd and Naomi Linn. For a few years Graham also served as the president of Northwestern Schools. He was the youngest college president on record at the time. In 1949 Graham and his team were invited to conduct a crusade in Los Angeles. A huge tent was erected and crowds began to grow larger and larger at each service. Then one night an unusually large number of reporters showed up. Later Graham learned that this was because the newspaper mogul, William Randolf Hearst, had told his papers to, “puff Graham.” Concerning the crusade in L.A. Graham writes, “Something was happening that all the media coverage in the world could not explain. And neither could I. God may have used Mr. Hearst to promote the meetings but the credit belongs solely to God. All I knew was that before it was over, we were on a journey from which there would be no looking back.” Soon stories about Graham appeared in Time and Newsweek. Almost overnight he became nationally known and the revival in Los Angeles went on for several more weeks. This is the crusade where Olympian Louis Zamperini became a Christian—and where Mickey Cohen, a notorious mobster, gave his heart to Jesus. God did AMAZING things in L.A. that year.
Well, eventually the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association was born…and through it Graham went on to lead crusades like the one in L.A. literally all over the world. I have lost count of how many cities where He has preached.
Of course we can’t talk about every crusade so to give you an idea of the amazing way that God worked in and through each of these meetings I want to tell you about just one—a crusade Graham conducted in London in 1954. It was held in Harringay Arena, a 12,000 seat indoor stadium. Now—there were dire predictions about this crusade. The British were suspicious of Americans coming over to save them. The editor of one London newspaper wrote, “Billy Graham will fall on his face in London.” Another wrote, “Billy Graham will return to the United States with his tail between his legs.” On top of this, while in route to London on board the SS United States, Graham learned that a member of Parliament was planning to challenge his admission to England in the House of Commons. It all stemmed from a misprint in a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association publication that said “socialism” would ruin England. It should have said, “secularism” and his misprint was considered a direct attack on England’s labor party. Graham accepted full responsibility for the blunder and wired apologies to members of Parliament but the damage was done. Headlines continued to appear criticizing the crusade. The night of the opening service the weather was horrible. Rain and sleet pelted the city. At first the arena was fairly empty. In fact, most of the people who came were members of the press. But eventually the entire arena was jammed. And miraculously the crowds grew night after night—in spite of worsening weather. This is because something that men meant for evil, God meant for good. You see, Billy’s negative publicity gave him immediate prominence. It made people curious. They wanted to see what all the fuss was about so they came and when they came they heard the Gospel, and when they heard the Gospel they kept coming. Night after night attendance records were broken. The arena got so packed that an ABC network engineer hooked up land lines to other auditoriums to meet the needs of their overflowing crowds. 430 such sites were set up around the city of London. Before that crusade was over, Graham would share the gospel with more than two million people. During those three months of services 40,000 individuals responded by putting their faith in Christ. After the crusade in London ended Graham was invited to #10 Downing street to meet with Prime Minister Winston Churchill. Churchill congratulated him on the large crowds he had been drawing and when Graham said it was all God, Churchill replied, “That may be, but I daresay that if I brought Marilyn Monroe over here, and she and I together went to Wembley we couldn’t fill it.” Then he asked Graham what he thought it was that had filled the stadium night after night and Graham told him it was the Gospel of Christ and that people were hungry to hear from the Bible. Then Churchill, no doubt hardened by the horrors of WWII, confessed that he had no hope for the world and asked if Graham did and Graham told him about the hope we have through faith in Jesus Christ. He shared the plan of salvation with Winston Churchill and they prayed together.
Well, God would use Graham to share the hope of Jesus in conversations like this with kings and presidents and even dictators all over the world. His impact on the growth of the Kingdom of God would be amazing. Our Heavenly Father would use Graham’s crusades to reach millions. Here are a few testimonies of the people who came to Jesus at these services.
One night at the crusade in NYC in 1957 a plainly dressed woman came forward with tears running down her cheeks as she asked Jesus to come into her life. She was escorted to a room where counselors would talk with her about her commitment and when asked if there was anything else she wanted to share, she replied that she was very afraid of her son. “He drinks a lot,” she said, “and I’m afraid he may beat me when he finds out I’ve become a Christian.”
Before the counselor could speak, a voice nearby called out, “It’s okay Mom. I’m here too.”
In 1959 at the crusade in Australia one night a divorced man came with the girlfriend, who had been the cause of the breakup of his marriage. The gospel message penetrated his heart, and as he looked up during the invitation, he saw his former wife going forward to give her live to Christ. With tears of remorse he went and stood beside her becoming reconciled not only to God but to the wife he had rejected.
Another man who came forward had embezzled a large sum from the bank where he worked.
Even though it hadn’t been detected, he confessed to the bank manager the next morning, and offered to make restitution, knowing that he faced almost certain dismissal and prosecution. The manager was so impressed with the man’s change of heart that he not only kept him on staff but went to the Crusade that night and gave his own life to Jesus.
One night in London two men came and sat near the back. They didn’t know each other but as they talked they realized that they did agree that they did not like Americans and especially American evangelists. They had both come intending to make fun of things. But God got a hold of them both. When the invitation was given one of them turned to the other and said, “I’m going forward to give my life to Jesus.” The other said, “I am to. And here’s your wallet back. I’m a pickpocket.”
I could go on an on with stories like this but we don’t have enough time. I will tell you that God used Graham as the first evangelist to share the Gospel behind the iron curtain and he did it long before Reagan said, “Mr Gorbachov tear down that wall.” As part of this crusade he preached in Hungary and when he finished he heard what sounded like thousands of crickets. Turns out it was thousands of tape recorders being turned off. You see people living behind the iron curtain were hungry to hear of God’s love and they had brought these early “boom boxes” to record Graham’s sermons so as to share them with others who were hungry to hear from God in that atheistic nation.
Graham went on to start Christianity Today and Decision magazines. His crusades have been broadcast on ABC during prime time. When he preached in Korea, the services drew 3.2 million people. Services were so crowded people could not come forward so they were asked to stand as a public way of confessing their faith. Thousands upon thousands did so.
As I inferred earlier Graham has been the counselor to every president since Truman—and political party didn’t matter to Graham. He was very close with LBJ—but also with Ronald Reagan. I lost count of how many nights he has spent in the Lincoln room of the White House.
During times of crisis presidents would call on him for prayerful guidance. For example, the Gulf War the first President Bush asked him to come to the White House the day the bombing began.
He’s shared his faith in private conversations with people like Kim Il Sung, Golda Meir, Margaret Thatcher, and Chinese premier Li Ping. I mean, God has used Graham to take the Gospel in places no one else has been able to. To sum it all up, since 1947 eighty-three million people have attended crusades in which Billy Graham preached and there have been 2,319,676 recorded responses for Christ but these stats are a few years old…and they don’t reflect the numbers of people who have come to faith through radio or television broadcast or through the movies the BGEA produced. When we get to Heaven I think it will be several thousand years before we can work our way through the throng of people who came to faith in Jesus through Graham’s ministry so that we can actually talk with him. But I don’t care. I plan on doing just that! After all, we have forever—and talking with Billy Graham will be worth the wait.
Now—the question I want us to deal with this morning is one that Billy Graham has often asked himself. Quoting from his autobiography Graham says, “I have often said that the first thing I am going to do when I get to Heaven is to ask, ‘Why me, Lord? Why did you choose a farm boy from North Carolina to preach to so many people, to have such a wonderful team of associates, and to have a part in what You were doing in the latter half of the twentieth century?’ I have thought about that question a great deal, but I know also that only God knows the answer.”
Well, why indeed? How would God answer that question? What is it about Billy Graham that made him such a powerful tool in our Heavenly Father’s hands? This is a good question for us to strive to answer because with that information we can be more powerful tools for God. So let’s get to it. WHY BILLY GRAHAM?
(1) Well, after studying his life, I think one reason is because Graham is a “becomer” who believes in the power of PRAYER.
Prior to every crusade…every preaching event…Graham always set up special prayer meetings because he knew they would lay a foundation necessary for what was to happen. He realized that everything he did—every word he spoke—was absolutely dependent on the power of God. So, long before the crusades began these prayer meetings were organized in the crusade city and all over the world. For example, prior to the London crusade there were 35,000 prayer groups in India alone. Prior to the 1968 crusade in Sydney, there were 5,000 prayer groups meeting. In 1959 Graham and his team visited Russia for the sole purpose of PRAYING that God would open the doors for them to share the Gospel there. He prayed in Red Square and he also knelt in the Olympic Stadium praying that one day those same stands would be filled with people who had come to hear the Gospel. Think of it this way. While others were looking for a way OUT of Russia in 1959, Graham was praying for a way in. That prayer was answered in 1984. I remember watching it televised on ABC…seeing people literally run to the front to profess their faith in Jesus—many of them soldiers in uniform. Graham saw results like this—because he believed in the power of prayer. In his autobiography he writes, “All of our preparation, promotion, and programming, and even my preaching itself—necessary as those things were—were nothing compared with the prayer power around the world. After all, we were engaged in a spiritual battle…and we needed intercession for divine intervention. Periodically during our Crusade, we scheduled all-night prayer meetings that lasted from 10:30PM to 6::00AM in venues all over the cities.”
Listen fellow becomers! If we are to do great things for God, we must embrace this principle because only then will God do great things through us. In fact, please hear me on this. It is never about us! Anything good done for the kingdom is because of God’s power in us…and that power is released through prayer! I wonder—is your growth as a becomer stunted—because your prayer life is less than it should be? Are you accomplishing little or nothing for God? If so, could it be due to the fact that you are trying to do it on your own strength instead of humbly calling on God?
(2) Here’s a second reason I think God has used Graham so powerfully. He has always had a deep respect for the authority of SCRIPTURE.
Billy Graham believes this book is not just another book—but rather the infallible, authoritative Word of God. This faith-filled conviction was attacked early in his ministry by of all people—a friend and fellow evangelist named Chuck Templeton.
If you wonder who made the right choice in this dispute over the authority of the Bible—you need only look at their lives. Templeton became virtually unknown. He died of complications from alzheimers disease in Canada a few years back. His funeral was held in a country club. But as we have seen Billy Graham has touched the entire world in amazing ways—and not just through his preaching but also through his humanitarian efforts. I believe the reason for all t his is because he has accepted by faith that this is God’s inspired Word. He’s based his life and work on this conviction.
Graham’s experience is proof that we are wise indeed when we build our lives on the solid rock of this kind of faith. In fact, I would say that if your life is crumbling—you should ask yourself if your problems have anything to do with the foundation of your life. This book IS God’s Word. It tells us how to live this life. It’s the best “handbook” to tell you how to build a marriage…a family…a career… a life! In its pages a person can learn how to know His or Her Creator—how to base their life on the solid rock of their faith in Jesus Christ.
(3) A third reason I think Graham has been such a powerful tool in God’s hand is his absolute commitment to Christian INTEGRITY.
Shortly after conducting a crusade in Modesto, California, Graham and his team came up with what they referred to as the Modesto Agreement which included the following rules:
1. There had to be absolute financial accountability. In fact, Graham took a salary commensurate with that of a local pastor. All offerings were given to the association. Their board controlled all the funds. He had nothing to do with the money.
2. Billy and his team also committed to never being alone with another woman other than their wives. This is why, when Hillary Clinton asked to meet with Dr. Graham he told her it would have to be in a public place. It’s not that he didn’t trust the first lady. It’s just that he had made this covenant to be absolutely above reproach. I also read somewhere that whenever they stayed in a motel room they would remove the cable from the television so as to avoid temptation to watch things they shouldn’t watch.
3. They also covenanted to never be critical of local pastors and churches and to work with them both before and after the crusades. Because of this the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has been known for the way they follow up on their decisions by referring new Christians to local churches. Plus—crusades always begin at the invitation of local pastors who also help with the planning.
4. Fourth, Billy and his team decided to never falsify or exaggerate their publicity or success…to let the local media handle all the reporting. My point is that because of things like the Modesto Agreement Graham has always been known for his integrity and this gave him a platform. It made people believe his message. When he met with C. S. Lewis following the London Crusade, Lewis said, “You know Billy, you have many critics, but I have never met one of your critics who knows you personally.” Billy strove to be above reproach. He did his best to walk the Christian talk.
A great example of his integrity was Graham’s stand against racism. He always insisted on integrated seating at his crusades in spite of the criticism he received. In 1953 during the crusade in Chattanooga, he personally tore down the ropes separating the seating sections for whites from those for blacks. His action that night caused the head usher to quit on the spot but Graham did not back down. He was a close friend of Dr. Martin Luther King and spoke to him often about how to end the sin of racism. Dr. King urged Graham to keep doing what he was doing—preaching the Gospel to integrated audiences and not to join him in the streets. He said, “You stay in the stadiums Billy, because you will have far more impact on the white establishment there than you would if you marched in the streets. Besides that you have a constituency that will listen to you, especially among white people who may not listen so much to me.” Graham took his advice. In fact, he told people who attended his crusade in South Africa in 1973, “Christianity is not a white man’s religion. Don’t let anyone aver tell you that it’s white or black. Christ belongs to all people.” I’m convinced that integrity like this opened doors that would have been closed otherwise. And we should learn from Graham’s example. If our walk doesn’t match our talk, people aren’t going to listen to our talk!
(4) Perhaps the greatest reason God has used Billy Graham so powerfully is the fact that he believes in the power of the basic Gospel message.
He has claimed Romans 15:20 as his life verse where Paul writes, “It has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known.” He believed—as I do—that the key to changing this world is not politics but rather to change hearts and the only way to change a heart is for a person to put their faith in Jesus Christ. So Graham has always avoided political discussions. He never spent time with a presidential candidate BEFORE the election—only after.
As I said earlier, he made himself available to all presidents regardless of their political party. He avoided politics like this because he felt it could become something that would prevent his sharing the Gospel message. Even when he went behind the iron curtain he refused to speak against communism and focused totally on sharing the Gospel message. I believe this focused commitment to tell people about Jesus enabled him to go where other Christians could not…to China…North Korea…to the USSR. You see, for Graham it was all about the Gospel—all about Jesus. In 1956 when he went to India he told the people, “I am not here to tell you about an American or a Britisher or a European. I am here to tell you about a Man Who was born right here in your part of the world, in Asia. He was born at the place where Asia and Africa and Europe meet. He had skin that was darker than mine and He came to show us that God loves all people. He loves the people of India and He loves you.”
Now—as I inferred earlier—I don’t think these four things ONLY work for Billy Graham. I believe if we rely on the power of prayer….if we believe in the infallible authority of the Bible…if we embrace Christian integrity in our daily lives…if we focus on sharing the Gospel…I believe if we do all these things, then God can use each of us just as powerfully as He has Billy Graham. In fact, I believe that as someone once put it, “The world STILL has not seen what God can do in and through an individual who is completely devoted to Him.”