Billy Graham — when I was growing up as a teenager, and even today in my experience —
I said to Noël this morning, he was just larger than life.
I didn’t expect to get this emotional.
I can remember standing as a 15-year-old on the porch
beside the basketball backboard that was fastened to it — it’s funny how clear this is —
and thinking, What would we do if Billy Graham died?
When I step back and just ask about, What was his greatest impact, both on the
world and on me? My answer is thousands and thousands of
people came out of darkness into light. Their eyes were opened through the work
of the Holy Spirit in the mouth of Billy Graham. Jesus said to Paul,
“I’m sending you to open their eyes.” Isn’t that amazing? “I’m sending you to open their
eyes that they may turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God
and that they may receive forgiveness of sins and a place among those who are sanctified.”
That’s what happened to thousands and thousands of
people. So if you talk about impact, how can you measure the impact when somebody
is not going to go to hell and spend eternity in misery, but is going to have
everlasting joy in the presence of God because this man opened his mouth,
and God Almighty used him to rescue thousands and thousands of people
from everlasting destruction.
I still love the old, old story.
I love the gospel that Billy Graham preached,
and I love saying out loud with people or privately to God,
“How great thou art.”
Years ago, I attended a Billy Graham crusade in Anaheim, California.
I don’t remember the date. I think it was when I was in seminary out there.
And I sat out in the left-field bleachers.
There were 50,000 people there that night,
and I could see from where I was as the 50,000 people wrapped around the infield.
And when Cliff Barrows, who was a good friend of mine because I grew up in the
same town he did and liked him tremendously,
when he led “How Great Thou Art,” as he always does,
I got about two bars out and couldn’t sing anymore
because I had never heard 50,000 people sing praises to God.
And my heart was so stunned with that event,
that I’ve never forgotten it and what it did to me.
Nothing had ever before or since seemed so right and so beautiful and so joyful
as 50,000 creatures singing praise to their Creator.
It was an experience unforgettable.
And I really believe that that night I got a little teeny glimpse into heaven.
♪ How great thou art ♪
♪ Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee ♪
♪ How great thou art ♪
♪ And when I think, that God his Son not sparing, ♪
♪ Sent him to die, I scarce can take it in ♪
♪ That on the cross, my burden gladly bearing ♪
♪ He bled and died to take away my sin ♪
♪ Then sings my soul, my savior God to thee ♪