Contributor:
Chad Roberts

Billy Graham is often called, “America’s Pastor.” He is one of the best representatives of Christianity in our lifetime. Just the mention of his name brings respect and admiration. How many of us grew up seeing videos of thousands of people walking to the altar as, “Just As I Am” played in the background? Perhaps your own salvation was influenced by the mighty evangelist? He was faithful to not only preach the gospel to America, but to the world! In his illustrious career, he preached to some 215 million people. He hosted over 400 crusades in over 200 countries and territories. When asked if he would consider running for the Presidency of the United States, Dr. Graham eloquently said, “I am a preacher of the gospel. I would have to take a step down to become President.” When I think of Billy Graham, I keep going back to a wonderful book written by John Piper called, “The Godward Life.” Piper explains how we should view people God chooses to use in extraordinary ways.

“What shall we make of such a man? Neither a god nor a goal. He should not be worshiped or envied. He is too small for the one and too big for the other. If we worship them, we are idolaters. If we envy them, we are fools. Mountains are not meant to be envied. They are meant to be marveled at the sake of their Maker. They are mountains of God…We are to benefit from them without craving to be like them. When we learn this, we can relax and enjoy them.” (John Piper, The Godward Life, pp. 264-265).

Billy Graham is a mountain standing on the landscape of Christianity. It is my hope, as you read about his life and accomplishments, that it causes you to look past the man and look to the Christ he has so faithfully served throughout his life.

From 1947 until 2005, he preached the gospel to millions. He has received hundreds of awards, including the Congressional Gold Medal, Nigeria named a mountain after him, Southern India named a town after him, North Carolina named a freeway after him, and even Hollywood gave him a star. President Ronald Reagan awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award a President can bestow. President Reagan said, “His contribution to the well-being of mankind is literally immeasurable. The world is a better place because of Billy Graham.” At his death, Dr. Graham was the fourth private citizen to lie in honor at the US Capital. He befriended and prayed for every Commander in Chief since President Eisenhower.

His Early Years
He was born November 17, 1918, on his family’s dairy farm outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. His parents were devout Christians, and his grandparents were both veterans of the Civil War. Each night, his mother, Marrow, would read the Bible to Billy and his four younger siblings. Following the scripture reading, his father, William Franklin, would lead them all in prayer. The Graham’s regularly attended the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church in Charlotte, but, even with a firm spiritual foundation from his family, Graham was plagued with doubts.

Charlotte was a popular preaching destination in the 1930’s, receiving evangelists and revivals quite well. God’s sovereign plan led Billy to attend the revival of a popular evangelist of the day, Mordecai Ham. Evangelist Ham preached with power and conviction, and it impacted Billy’s heart leading him to respond to the gospel. At the age of sixteen, Billy had become born again. There wasn’t anyone in his life, including himself, who could have predicted how God was going to use him to reach the world with the good news of Jesus Christ.

His College Years
He graduated from Sharon High School in May of 1936. He wrote in his yearbook, “My hope and plan for the future is to serve God, and do His will as a minister of the gospel.” He attended Bob Jones College in Cleveland, Tennessee. However, the restrictions that dominated the culture at the college obstructed his spiritual growth, so he left after one semester. Bob Jones Sr. took his fist and pounded his desk telling Graham that if he wanted to be a success in ministry, he would remain at Bob Jones College. Bob Jones, although a good and godly man, was wrong. Graham transferred to the Florida Bible Institute where he thrived and gained a great love for preaching. He would often go into the swamps of Florida and preach to wood stumps as though they were his congregation.

After his time in Florida, God led him to attend Wheaton College in Chicago, Illinois. At Wheaton, he made two of the most significant decisions of his life. He struggled with his belief that God’s Word was infallible, but, as Billy’s faith grew, he came to the firm conviction that God’s Word was inerrant and infallible. He carried this conviction throughout his entire ministry. Even though he had doubts he had to work through. I am thankful that God is not afraid of our doubts and sincere questions. The Lord does not scorn or discard us as we are searching for truth. Once Dr. Graham settled his own convictions in his heart, he never again wavered. What a testimony! What a legacy!

Another significant decision he made while at Wheaton was to ask Ruth Bell to marry him. Ruth had grown up in China as a missionary’s child. Her father, Nelson Bell, was a general surgeon outside of Shanghai. Her parents insisted she attend college in the United States; Ruth’s plan was to never marry and become a missionary to Tibet. It’s interesting how God has a way of changing our plans in life.

Billy said the moment he saw Ruth he was in love. He knew instantly that she was to be his wife. Jokingly, he admitted it took her nearly a year to come to the same conclusion!

Billy married Ruth Bell on August 13, 1943, and they would go on to have five children, nineteen grandchildren, and numerous great-grandchildren. It is something special to see their marriage license displayed in the Billy Graham Library knowing how God unfolded His plans for their life.

Almost immediately after being wed, Graham took a pastorate position at First Baptist Church of Western Springs, Illinois. His decision to pastor First Baptist Church was one of the first in a series of chain events where God was going to give him a vast platform to preach the Gospel to the world.

Songs In The Night Radio
His friend, Torrey Johnson, brought him the idea of taking over the Songs in the Night radio program. It already had a large audience as it was a 50,000-watt broadcast, which was significant in the 1940’s. The program was about to be canceled because of lack of funding. Billy, along with his new bride and new congregation, accepted the offer, and he began broadcasting from the basement of the church.

The radio program needed a game-changing play. He felt a well-known voice would give it the right direction. He decided to visit the office of George Beverly Shea, one of the most well-known singers in America at that time. He asked the secretary if he could meet with Shea, but she told him that Shea was too busy. When Graham saw Shea through an office window, he simply opened the door and asked if he had a moment to talk. Shea accepted Graham’s offer to be the song director for the Songs in the Night radio broadcast and a lifelong friendship and partnership was created that day.

Speaking requests began to pour in. Conflicting with his pastoral responsibilities, the Graham’s thought it best to resign from the Church. He became the first full-time evangelist with Youth for Christ. At the age of thirty, he accepted an offer to become the President of Northwestern Bible College in Minneapolis, Minnesota. He was the youngest sitting president of any college or university in the United States at that time. He served in this position until 1952.

The Greater Los Angeles Crusade
A remarkable turning point came in Graham’s ministry in 1949 when the organization, Christ for Greater Los Angeles, invited him for a three-week crusade. Two weeks into the crusade, they pondered if the Lord was finished and considered closing out the meetings. Unexpectedly, a popular radio host, Stuart Hamblen, announced on his radio program that he had converted to Christianity under Graham’s preaching. This created quite a stir in Los Angeles.

Another interesting conversion took place at this series of meetings. The former Olympic star and prisoner of war, Louie Zamperini became a believer. Louie’s life is shown in the film, Unbroken, but what they did not show was how he came to Christ. Zamperini’s marriage was in shambles as he was drinking himself to death. When Mrs. Zamperini heard that Billy Graham had a tent revival, she told her husband, “We are going.”

Louie listened to Billy Graham plead with sinners to come to Christ. It angered him. “Who is this man to tell me I’m a sinner?” Louie got up to leave the meeting and said suddenly, he began walking the opposite direction…he was walking toward the altar! Louie prayed and gave his life to Jesus that night and was forever changed!

At the same tent revival, perhaps the most significant event happened in Graham’s ministry. William Hearst, a newspaper publisher who had built America’s largest chain of newspapers, sent out a telegraph that simply said, “Puff Graham.” Instantly, he had enormous media coverage and the crusade extended to eight weeks. An unbelievable 350,000 people came to hear him preach, of which, 3,000 were saved. This one event made him a national figure in America.

His life was not about to slow down; if anything, it was going to get busier. The demands on his schedule would greatly affect his home life. He once said to a reporter of CBS, “Well, I have to give the credit to my wife and to the Lord because my wife stayed home while I traveled all over the world and she reared them, and she taught them and she spanked them and she loved them and they all love her. And we all know that she is the spiritual leader of our family.”

A reporter once asked Ruth if she ever considered divorcing Billy. She said jokingly, “Divorce? Never. Murder, sometimes.” She wrote about Graham’s absence, “I would rather spend two weeks out of the year with Bill than any other man full time.”

ABC & NBC Broadcasts the Gospel
In 1950, an unprecedented event happened; he signed a contract with ABC to begin airing his sermons to a national audience. It was Ruth’s suggestion to call the national program, “Hour of Decision.” On November 5, 1950, from Atlanta, Georgia, he preached to an estimated radio audience of nine million people.

Five years later, NBC joined ABC in broadcasting his sermons. He was now heard on over 800 radio stations across the country. NBC offered him a five- million–dollar contract to air his preaching on television. He refused and continued preaching crusades in person.

Five million is a fortune today, image what it was in the 1950’s, but Billy understood that the gospel cannot be purchased like that. How tempting must it have been to accept that contract and take it easy for the rest of his life? Thank God he didn’t!

The London Crusade
In 1954, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association (BGEA) was invited to London, England where they rented the Harringay Arena for March 1, 1954. The press had already made a spectacle of the American evangelist coming to Great Britain. His opening remarks set the tone for the crusade, “We’ve not come to the city of London to save England. We have not come here with any great ideas that we are going to tell you how to do it. We haven’t come here to try to reform you. We have come here at the invitation of these churches to help lead you in a crusade to win men to Jesus Christ and help promote the Kingdom of God in Britain.”

Thousands began coming forward for salvation. The London media attacked the crusade by saying the response was due to the emotional singing of “Just as I Am.” The wise evangelist told his song director, Cliff Barrows, not to sing or play any music. That night, Graham led the invitation and hundreds responded in silence. For the next thirty days, he gave invitations without any music. By the end of the month, the same reporters who condemned the music were saying, “Give us back ‘Just as I am.’”

The London Crusade of 1954 lasted twelve consecutive weeks with two million in attendance and it is estimated that over 40,000 souls converted to Christ. Graham wrote in his autobiography, Just as I Am, “If our 1949 Crusade in Los Angeles marked a decisive watershed for ministry in the United States, the London Crusade in 1954 did the same thing for us internationally.”

The New York Crusade
Another noteworthy crusade was at Madison Square Garden in New York City. From May 15 until September 1, 1957, people flooded the arena to hear the Gospel preached. During a sixteen-week time period, two million people poured into the arena, and millions more watched from their living rooms all across America. An incredible 56,000 decisions for Christ were recorded. George Another interesting fact about the New York Crusade was that Beverly Shea introduced, “How Great Thou Art;” for the first time to an American audience. Obviously, it became an instant classic.

Well Done Good & Faithful Servant
Billy Graham passed from this life into eternity on Wednesday morning, February 21, 2018, at his home in Montreat, NC. He was 99 years old. Ruth Bell Graham, his beloved wife of 64 years, passed on June 14, 2007. I cannot imagine the reunion they had on the shores of Heaven!

Billy once said, “My home is in Heaven. I’m just traveling through this world.” One of my favorite sayings by Dr. Graham shows how humble his heart was toward the Lord. He said, “I am not going to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds or read the Bible many times. I’m going to Heaven just like the thief on the cross who said in that last moment: ‘Lord, remember me.”

Ruth had the right perspective on death as well. For she once said, “Death can be faced, dealt with, adjusted to, outlived. It’s the not knowing that destroys interminably…this being suspended in suspense; waiting – weightless. How does one face the faceless, adjust to nothing? Waiting implies something to wait for. Is there? There is One. One who knows…I rest my soul on that.”

Both Ruth and Billy are buried on the grounds of the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC. One might think they are buried in the most expensive of caskets, but they are actually buried in simple pine boxes. These boxes were made by prisoners from Angola Prison in Louisiana.

The way they were buried is the way they lived. They modeled that the things of this world cannot compare to the things of eternity. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 4:18, “As we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.”

You can visit Billy and Ruth’s final resting place at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte, NC. It is well worth your time to visit the 40,000 square foot facility. I think the Graham’s will continue to have a considerable influence on Christianity. Christ was their treasure, salvation was their message, and now heaven is their home. The way they lived is the way they died, and they will always be remembered for loving Jesus.