Billy Graham was the exception. Most of the more well-known evangelical leaders of our day....the bad ones and the average ones and also the exceptional ones....as the years pass by....they quite naturally to human nature take on a little more confidence in themselves and their position then they should. Folks....this is even the best of the best that God has blessed us with.
Billy Graham....for whatever reason....traveled a somewhat different route. He started out with a little too much confidence in himself. Oh....he was always humble....please don't get me wrong....but the enormous attention given to him led him to embrace politics as if that was part of his calling.
He almost reached his 100th birthday. Maybe it was his relationship with Richard Nixon....(Graham was only about 50 years old at the time)....but something later told him to slow down....and put politics in its proper perspective. More likely though it was in how he saw that God's judgment was surely coming to this world....and to America. His book titles started to change somewhat. Other evangelicals would comment that he was getting a little too serious about this stuff. The following is part of a March 2, 2020 post:
The Supreme Court decision on Roe v. Wade came down on the same day that former President Lyndon Johnson died....January 22, 1973. Watergate would consume the rest of the year. In November Billy Graham held a crusade in St. Louis, Missouri. In one of his nightly messages he thundered about the Babylonian king Belshazzar. Nebuchadnezzar was dead and his grandson took the vessels previously taken from the temple in Jerusalem.....and all present in that great feast of his drank from the holy vessels. That's when the hand appeared....writing on the wall....as the book of Daniel describes to us. Billy Graham pointed out to the people in the packed arena....once again this back in 1973....that America was becoming as Babylon had been under Belshazzar.
Folks....that crusade was over forty-five years ago. I was partying on the Pitt campus at the time. Did I somehow catch that particular night's message? Possibly....as I did spend some time at home....and I did surf the 13 or so channels....but at the time I would not have known the Old Testament book of Daniel from a bottle of Jack Daniels....but here's the thing....what Billy Graham saw in the America of 1973....was absolutely nothing in terms of rebellion to God as we have today! Reverend Graham would continue to preach this message....with increasing fervor....until he went to be with his Lord more than forty-four years later.
Was Billy Graham incorrect or premature with his message of judgment forty-five years ago. Was he about a half century too early to give such a message? No....Jeremiah prophesied God's warnings for forty years. Most of God's prophets in the Old Testament did not live to see their prophesies come true....and Billy Graham would never see his beloved nation undergo the full judgment of God.
Billy Graham's last crusade was in 2005....in New York City....Flushing to be exact....that hosted the World's Fair in 1965....the last time that I have been to New York City. He said in a 2011 interview that he wished he had "stayed clear of politics"....and even that he may have back then...."gone over the line." Franklin Graham said of his father's last year....2017...."he just basically quit talking. But his mind was still good. So even if he didn't talk to me, I would sit beside him and I'd talk to him." He had served God's purpose.....he had warned us for decades.....and it was time to go home. Franklin Graham made the same mistakes on politics that his father had....only ten times over. He writes today in defense of Trump that his father voted for him....and had hopes in him. So did I....so did I....but I didn't put my head in the sand when Donald Trump's mask fell below his chin....and I saw the face of a wolf....for I began to read about who this man was....(85 books as of today)....who injected himself right smack into the middle of the church....prophesying of great things....peace and security....the whole time. I do not believe that Billy Graham would have missed what has transpired in evangelicalism in the past four years....where evangelicals now look to politics as the answer....and listen now more to podcast and cable and radio gurus instead of reading the Word of God.
Jeremiah's words in chapter 18 verse 11 were ignored by the "men of Judah"....and...."the inhabitants of Jerusalem"....those words being...."Thus says the LORD: 'Behold, I am fashioning a disaster and devising a plan against you, Return now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good"....for the people's response as God summarized it in verse 12 was...."That is hopeless! So we will walk according to our own plans, and we will every one obey the dictates of his evil heart..." Billy Graham had no input to us throughout Donald Trump's four years....but whatever it would have been....we wouldn't have listened to him anyway.
