Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Comments on Evangelist Billy Graham

Evangelist Billy Graham (AD 1918 - 2018) led a remarkable life.  Even the dates of his birth and death are remarkable.  He trusted Jesus Christ as his Savior in 1934 in a revival led by Evangelist Mordecai Ham (AD 1877-1961).  Graham has been known for his evangelistic work, preaching to millions, his books, personal morality, humility, fidelity in finances, opposing racial segregation, and always pointing people to Jesus. 

His son, Franklin Graham is faithfully and ably carrying on the ministry of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and Samaritan’s Purse. 

Below are a few of many comments about Evangelist Billy Graham. 

Ken Hemphill
“Dr Graham’s promotion to heaven has allowed those commenting on his death to point people to JESUS. Clearly he had the gift and calling of the evangelist. Why not schedule an evangelistic meeting and use a gifted vocational evangelist to honor Dr. Graham and share JESUS.”

-Ken Hemphill; February 22, 2018; on twitter.com.  Dr. Hemphill is past president of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and now serves as an administrator at North Greenville University. 


George W. Bush
“God's work within me began in earnest with Billy's outreach,” Bush wrote in the [Wall Street] Journal February 23. “His care and his teachings were the real beginning of my faith walk - and the start of the end of my drinking. I couldn't have given up alcohol on my own. But in 1986, at 40, I finally found the strength to quit. That strength came from love I had felt from my earliest days and from faith I didn't fully discover until my later years.”

Bush, America's 43rd president, wrote of the 1985 instance when Graham invited him on a walk around the Bush family estate in Maine and their conversation turned to spiritual matters.
"I mentioned something I'd been thinking about for a while - that reading the Bible might help make me a better person," Bush wrote. "He told me about one of the Bible's most fundamental lessons: One should strive to be better, but we're all sinners who earn God's love not through our good deeds, but through His grace. It was a profound concept, one I did not fully grasp that day. But Billy had planted a seed. His thoughtful explanation made the soil less hard, the brambles less thick.

-President George W. Bush, in Wall Street Journal; BP

Richard Land
"I grew up in a home with a Christian father because of Billy Graham. Dr. Graham came to Houston’s Rice Stadium for a crusade in the early 1950s. Some of the men from the local Baptist church in our neighborhood invited my father to go with them to hear Billy Graham.

It was there that my father accepted Jesus as his personal Lord and Savior and became a faithful deacon and Christian father for the rest of his life. Similar stories have been repeated literally hundreds of thousands of times across the globe. I am eternally grateful that God sent Billy Graham to us and that he answered God’s call and became the greatest messenger for the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ since the Apostles."

- Richard Land, president of Southern Evangelical Seminary and former president of the SBC Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission.  BP

Paige Patterson
"The eyes of a North Carolina farm boy sparkled as never before this morning when Billy Graham entered heaven. After nearly 100 years spent largely in an effort to 'rescue the perishing and care for the dying,' the world's evangelist was called home to a prophet's reward.

"Never accused of the hoarding of wealth or of sexual misconduct, his careful practices of conduct place him in a category of a man whose life was a proclamation of Christ as well as His message. His faithfulness to the proclamation of God's plan of redemption - undergirded by his initiatives on racial justice and his concern for the lost -- set the standard for all who would attempt to preach the riches of the Gospel. His allegiance to sacred Scripture was legendary. Never did he allow doubt to shake his confidence in God's Word."

-Paige Patterson, president, SWBTS


-David R. Brumbelow, Gulf Coast Pastor, 2-27-AD 2018.  




More articles in lower right margin.  

1 comment:

  1. Excellent compilation of encouraging remarks, David. We're fortunate to have lived in the era of Billy Graham. Evangelicalism in general has changed (for the worse in my view) since Graham was one of the shapers and movers from first generation in 50s-90s. Lord bless, brother. With that, I am...Peter

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