by Billy Graham
Ironically, just at the time I find my own strength waning, God has provided new ways to extend our ministry through technology. As I have said elsewhere in these pages, until the twentieth century the extent of an evangelist’s outreach was determined by the limits of his voice and the distribution of his writings. Now modern technologies have leapfrogged these barriers. In recent decades, it has literally become possible to proclaim the Gospel to the entire world.
I am sure we would be staggered if we could see what will be possible a hundred, fifty, even ten years from now. If Jesus were here today, I have no doubt He would make use of every means possible to declare His message.
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 farmboy 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—and beyond?”
I have thought about that question a great deal, but I know also that only God knows the answer. “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:12).
Every day a host of men and women serve Christ far more faithfully than I have done, often in hidden and difficult places, and I cannot help wondering why God entrusted such a highly visible ministry to us and not to them.
One of the joys of Heaven, I am convinced, will be discovering the hidden ways that God in His sovereignty acted in our lives on earth to protect us and guide us so as to bring glory to His name, in spite of our frailty.
As I look back over the years, however, I know that my deepest feeling is one of overwhelming gratitude. I cannot take credit for whatever God has chosen to accomplish through us and our ministry; only God deserves the glory, and we can never thank Him enough for the great things He has done.
Although I have much to be grateful for as I look back over my life, I also have many regrets. I have failed many times, and I would do many things differently.
For one thing, I would speak less and study more, and I would spend more time with my family. When I look back over the schedule I kept thirty or forty years ago, I am staggered by all the things we did and the engagements we kept. Sometimes we flitted from one part of the country to another, even from one continent to another, in the course of only a few days. Were all those engagements necessary? Was I as discerning as I might have been about which ones to take and which to turn down? I doubt it. Every day I was absent from my family is gone forever. Although much of that travel was necessary, some of it was not.
I would also spend more time in spiritual nurture, seeking to grow closer to God so I could become more like Christ. I would spend more time in prayer, not just for myself but for others. I would spend more time studying the Bible and meditating on its truth, not only for sermon preparation but to apply its message to my life. It is far too easy for someone in my position to read the Bible only with an eye on a future sermon, overlooking the message God has for me through its pages. And I would give more attention to fellowship with other Christians, who could teach me and encourage me (and even rebuke me when necessary).
If I had it to do over again, I would also avoid any semblance of involvement in partisan politics. On the whole, as I’ve already said, my primary concern in my contacts with political leaders has been as a pastor and spiritual counselor, not as a political adviser. When a president of the United States, for example, wept in my presence, or knelt with me to pray, or privately unburdened his concerns about his family, I was not thinking about his political philosophy or his personality but about his need for God’s help.
And yet there have been times when I undoubtedly stepped over the line between politics and my calling as an evangelist. An evangelist is called to do one thing, and one thing only: to proclaim the Gospel. Becoming involved in strictly political issues or partisan politics inevitably dilutes the evangelist’s impact and compromises his message. It is a lesson I wish I had learned earlier.
About one thing I have absolutely no regrets, however, and that is my commitment many years ago to accept God’s calling to serve Him as an evangelist of the Gospel of Christ.
We live in a world of confusion. Competing and often contradictory intellectual and religious voices clamor for our attention and allegiance. In the midst of so many crosscurrents, how can we assert that anything is true? Is it not arrogance or narrow-mindedness to claim that there is only one way of salvation or that the way we follow is the right way?
I think not. After all, do we fault a pilot for being narrow-minded when he follows the instrument panel in landing in a rainstorm or at a fogbound airport? No, we want him to remain narrowly focused! And do we consider it arrogant or narrow-minded when a doctor points us to the one medicine that will cure us of a particular disease? The human race is infected with a spiritual disease—the disease of sin—and God has given us the remedy. Dare we do anything less than urge people to apply that remedy to their lives?
Since I first committed my life to Jesus Christ some seventy years ago, I have crossed paths with people who hold virtually every kind of religious and philosophical view imaginable. Often I am moved by the intensity of their spiritual searching and by the depth of their commitment. At the same time, as the years have gone by, I myself have become even more convinced of the uniqueness and truth of the Gospel of Christ.
Is that merely stubbornness on my part, or self-deception? No, it comes first of all from a deeper and growing understanding of who Jesus Christ was—and is. The Bible says that Jesus Christ was God in human flesh, that two thousand years ago God deliberately came down and took upon Himself human form in the person of Jesus Christ. Jesus was not just another great religious teacher, nor was He only another in a long line of individuals seeking after spiritual truth. He was, instead, truth itself. He was God incarnate. He alone could say, “I am the way and the truth and the life” (John 14:6).
The proof of that claim is that Christ broke the bonds of death through His resurrection from the dead, an event that was witnessed by hundreds. That sets Him apart from all other persons who have ever lived.
When I seek to point people to Christ, it is because I am convinced that He alone is God’s answer to life’s deepest problems. I have seen Him bring change in the lives of countless individuals who have turned to Him in true repentance and faith. One of the New Testament’s most compelling images of spiritual conversion is found in the phrases “born again” or “new birth.” As I mentioned earlier, Jesus used it in His interview with the religious leader Nicodemus: “I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again” (John 3:3). We each need what Jesus was teaching: a spiritual rebirth or renewal from within, by the power of God.
How is that possible?
Nicodemus asked the same question. Jesus replied that from one standpoint it is a mystery, for a spiritual rebirth is something only God can do. On the other hand, it takes place as we turn in faith to Christ and submit ourselves to Him. God Himself takes up residence in our lives through His Holy Spirit. He begins to change us from within and gives us a whole new reason for living. Whether it is a marriage that is restored, or an alcoholic who is released from his or her addiction, or a teenager who finds new direction and meaning, it all happens because God is a work.
As I noted earlier, on May 2, 1996, the United States Congress graciously presented Ruth and me with the Congressional Gold Medal.
In my remarks that day, I spoke of the coming third millennium of the Christian era and the moral and spiritual challenges it would present. No doubt we will continue to see staggering technological achievements in the future, just as we have in the past one hundred years. And yet no century, despite our progress in technology, was as bloody and as tragic as the twentieth century. Why? Because our basic problems come from the human heart—and our hearts remain unchanged. That is
one reason why the task of evangelism will always be essential, because only God can transform our hearts and replace our selfishness and greed with love and contentment.
No one knows the future, of course; only God knows the future, for it is in His hands.
What new opportunities await us in the future, if God grants us more time before Christ comes again?
What new tyrannies will attempt to capture our world, and what new ideologies will deceive humans to take the wrong path in life?
Only God knows.
Certainly, some trends we see today may make evangelism more difficult. American Christians will face new challenges from living in a society that is increasingly pluralistic, not just religiously but in its lifestyles and its views about morality. Rampant, aggressive secularism may force Christians onto the defensive, or even reduce them to a despised minority. It has happened before. And the loss of our children to drugs or sensualism or the moral relativism propagated by mass entertainment does not bode well for our future.
Developments in technology mean that the various societies now influence one another in ways we never could have envisioned a few generations ago. The world is changing, and with it the methods of evangelism will change also. But the message will not change, for it is timeless, meant for every generation.
What is that message?
More than anything else, I yearn for people—including the readers of these pages—to understand the message of Christ and accept it as their own.
I recall an old Methodist preacher who came to Harringay Arena in London in 1954. “I have come here every night for ninety-three nights,” he told us, “and I have heard only one message.” He meant it as a compliment, for he knew as I did that there is only one Christian message.
The message is, first of all, a message about God. God created us in His image. He created us and loves us so that we may live in harmony and fellowship with Him. We are not here by chance. God put us here for a purpose, and our lives are never fulfilled and complete until His purpose becomes the foundation and center of our lives.
The message is also about the human race, and about each one of us. The Bible says that we have been separated and alienated from God because we have willfully turned our backs on Him and are determined to run our lives without Him. This is what the Bible means by sin—choosing our way instead of God’s way, and not giving Him the moral chaos and heartache of our world. The headlines scream every day that we live in a broken, sin-ravaged world.
But in addition, the message declares that God still loves us. He yearns to forgive us and bring us back to Himself. He wants to fill our lives with meaning and purpose right now. Then He wants us to spend all eternity with Him in Heaven, free forever from the pain and sorrow and death of this world.
Moreover, God has done everything possible to reconcile us to Himself. He did this in a way that staggers our imagination. In God’s plan, by His death on the cross, Jesus Christ paid the penalty for our sins, taking the judgment of God that we deserve upon Himself when He died on the cross. Now, by His resurrection from the dead, Christ has broken the bonds of death and opened the way to eternal life for us.
The resurrection also confirms for all time that Jesus was in fact who He said He was: the unique Son of God, sent from Heaven to save us from our sins. Now God freely offers us the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
Finally, this message is about our response. Like any other gift, God’s gift of salvation does not become ours until we accept it and make it our own. God has done everything possible to provide salvation. But we must reach out in faith and accept it.
How do we do this?
First, by confessing to God that we are sinners and in need of His forgiveness; then by repenting of our sins and, with God’s help, turning from them.
Second, by committing our lives to Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior. The best-known verse in the New Testament states the Gospel concisely: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:16-17). God in His grace invites us to receive His Son into our lives today.
If you have never done so, I invite you to bow your head right now and by a simple prayer of faith open your heart to Jesus Christ. God receives us just as we are. No matter who we are or what we have done, we are saved only because of what Christ has done for us. I will not go to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds. I will go to Heaven for one reason: Jesus Christ died for me, and I am trusting Him alone for my salvation. Christ died for you also, and He freely offers you the gift of eternal life as you commit your life to Him.
When you do, you become a child of God, adopted into His family forever. He also comes to live within you and will begin to change you from within. No one who truly gives his or her life to Christ will ever be the same, for the promise of His Word is true: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation” (2 Corinthians 5:17-18).
We have seen this happen countless times all over the world, and it can happen in your life as well. Open your life to Christ today.
The year World War II ended, I became a full-time evangelist. In the uncertainty of those times, many people were ready for a message that pointed them to stability and lasting values. In the providence of God, we were able to take advantage of the spiritual hunger and search for values that marked those years. Yet times changed, with everything from the sexual revolution to the disillusionment of the seventies sweeping our world and now the explosion of the Internet and the reality of globalization, leading to new challenges and new opportunities for evangelism.
The same will be true in the future. Yet one thing will not change: God’s love for humanity and His desire to see men and women yield their lives to Him and come to know Him in a personal way. The human spirit is never satisfied in a lasting way by anything less than God. We were made for Him, and anything less than Him leaves the vacuum of the human heart unfilled. The growing secularism and moral chaos of our age may actually make many people more open to the Gospel. As St. Augustine prayed to God many centuries ago, “You have made us for Yourself, and our heart is restless until it finds rest in You.” It will be an exciting time to be alive.
No, I don’t know the future, but I do know this: the best is yet to be! Heaven awaits us, and that will be far, far more glorious than anything we can ever imagine. As the Bible says, “Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). This is the hope of every believer. It is my hope, and I pray that it is your hope as well.
I know that soon my life will be over. I thank God for it, and for all He has given me in this life.
But I look forward to Heaven.
I look forward to the reunion with friends and loved ones who have gone on before.
I look forward to Heaven’s freedom from sorrow and pain.
I also look forward to serving God in ways we can’t begin to imagine, for the Bible makes it clear that Heaven is not a place of idleness.
And most of all, I look forward to seeing Christ and bowing before Him in praise and gratitude for all He has done for us, and for using me on this earth by His grace—just as I am.
* * *
1. On June 14, 2007, Ruth Bell Graham departed this life. Her funeral service was held in Montreat (near the Grahams’ home), and she was buried on the grounds of the recently completed Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Appendix
Sermon for National Day of Prayer and Remembrance
Message by Billy Graham
National Cathedral, Washington, DC Friday, September 14, 2001
We come together today to a
ffirm our conviction that God cares for us, whatever our ethnic, religious, or political background may be.
The Bible says that He is “the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles” (2 Corinthians 1:3-4, NIV).
No matter how hard we try, words simply cannot express the horror, the shock, and the revulsion we all feel over what took place in this nation on September 11. It will go down in our history as a day to remember.
We say to those who masterminded this cruel plot, and to those who carried it out, that the spirit of this nation will not be defeated by their twisted and diabolical schemes. Someday those responsible will be brought to justice.
But we especially come together to confess our need of God. We have always needed God from the very beginning of this nation, but now we need Him especially. We’re facing a new kind of enemy. We’re involved in a new kind of warfare and we need the help of the Spirit of God.
The Bible’s words are our hope: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea” (Psalm 46:1-2, NIV).
But how do we understand something like this? Why does God allow evil like this to take place? Perhaps that is what you are asking now. You may even be angry at God. I want to assure you that God understands these feelings that you may have.
We’ve seen so much on our televisions—stories that bring tears to our eyes and make us all feel a sense of anger. But God can be trusted, even when life seems at its darkest.
What are some of the lessons we can learn?
First, we are reminded of the mystery and reality of evil.