The mission conference Susan and I attended a couple of weeks ago was held at The Billy Graham Training Center at The Cove near Asheville, North Carolina. This 1,200 acre retreat center is dedicated to God for teaching, prayer, rejuvenation, and fellowship with God and man. In the buildings are many pictures of the Graham family throughout the years. Russ Busby’s book Billy Graham — God’s Ambassador chronicles with word and picture the life and ministry of a preacher who has been all over the world.
Many have interviewed the evangelist, and newspapers across the world have written their opinions, but I wonder what God might say about one of his servants. I’ll not get it exactly right, but it is good to remember that our Father in Heaven sees each of us clearly. He can evaluate perfectly the lives we live on this earth. As Billy Graham spends his last days in his home state of North Carolina, he continues to echo the humility he often shared with those who judged him: “I am counting totally and completely on the Lord Jesus Christ, and not on Billy Graham. I’m not going to heaven because I’ve read the Bible, nor because I’ve preached to a lot of people. I’m going to heaven because of what Christ did.”
So here’s a proposal of what God might say. In brackets I’ll share facts of his life or quotes from Mr. Graham himself.
I am going to select an ambassador — someone who will represent Me well and communicate My message around the world. There’s a little boy on a dairy farm in a southern state that I’m going to choose. He is learning to work from his daddy as he gets up at 3:00 every morning to help milk their seventy-five cows. He is an energetic little boy who loves My creation and loves to play outdoors.
I am going to let him learn about Me from his mom and dad and Sunday school teachers, but when he is seventeen years old he’ll realize he must make a decision to give his life to Me. [This happened in 1934 during the last verse of the invitation song on the last night of a revival in Charlotte.]
A few years later I am going to call him to preach, and this young man will answer My call. I am going to let him continue his education at Wheaton College near Chicago and there I will connect him to his life partner, a beautiful girl named Ruth. [Billy and Ruth were married August 13, 1943 after they graduated from Wheaton.]
I’ll choose where I want My ambassador to speak and I’ll bring huge crowds to hear his message. I’ll open doors no one would think possible. People will hear that I love them and that My Son is their hope.
Billy will be criticized often, but he will not shrink back because he knows I am the truth. [His first famous revival was held in Los Angeles in 1949. Meetings were held night after night for eight weeks as Billy preached sixty-five times. In 1950, Billy held campaigns in six other U. S. cities and preached to 1.7 million people. Over the next decades Billy preached to millions of people all over the world. His largest crowd was in Yoido Plaza in Seoul, South Korea where 1.1 million people gathered to hear God's truth. Billy was even permitted to preach in communist countries where normal religious freedom did not exist. He said, "I have had the privilege of preaching the Gospel on every continent in most of the countries of the world. And I have found that when I present the simple message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, with authority, quoting from the very Word of God — He takes that message and drives it supernaturally into the human heart."]
I will show My heart to the citizens of his land and the world regarding race. I love all people and there should be no discrimination. All people are the same at the foot of the Cross and My message is for everyone. [Billy was a friend to Martin Luther King, Jr. When told he had to segregate his audiences in the 1950's, Billy said he would not speak unless people of all races could sit where they wanted. In Jackson, Mississippi, Chattanooga, Tennessee, and Birmingham, Alabama, separating ropes were removed and blacks and whites sat together.]
I will let My ambassador sit with world leaders. I will let My servant encourage them and pray with them. I will let rulers, governors, and presidents know I care about them and that I want them to look to Me for wisdom as they make decisions. [Billy met with all these Presidents: Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jerry Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. He encountered other leaders: Winston Churchill, Golda Meir, Queen Elizabeth II, King Hussein, Kim Il Sung, Mikhail Gorbachev, Margaret Thatcher, Pope John Paul II, the list goes on and on...]
Billy Graham is just one of My ambassadors. Will you be one too? [Billy's words: "I realize my ministry will someday come to an end. I am only one in a glorious chain of men and women God has raised up through the centuries to build God's church and take the Gospel everywhere."]
(Facts and quotes are taken from Billy Graham — God’s Ambassador, by Russ Busby, published in 2007 by Harper Collins Publishers.)
“We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God.” II Corinthians 5:20-21