Billy Graham
Billy Graham
William Franklin "Billy" Graham, Jr.is an American evangelical Christian evangelist, ordained as a Southern Baptist minister, who rose to celebrity status in 1949 reaching a core constituency of middle-class, moderately conservative Protestants. He held large indoor and outdoor rallies; sermons were broadcast on radio and television, some still being re-broadcast today. In his six decades of television, Graham is principally known for hosting the annual Billy Graham Crusades, which he began in 1947, until he concluded in 2005, at the...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionReligious Leader
Date of Birth7 November 1918
CityCharlotte, NC
CountryUnited States of America
I never pray on a golf course. Actually, the Lord answers my prayers everywhere except on the course.
Heaven is full of answers for which nobody ever bothered to ask.
Be to the world a sign that while we as Christians do not have all the answers, we do know and care about the questions.
I have been asked on hundreds of times in my life why God allows tragedy and suffering. I have to confess that I really do not know the answer totally, even to my own satisfaction. I have to accept, by faith, that God is sovereign, and He is a God of love and mercy and compassion in the midst of suffering.
Everywhere I go I find that people... both leaders and individuals... are asking one basic question, 'Is there any hope for the future?' My answer is the same, 'Yes, through Jesus Christ.'
The only thing I could say for sure is that hell means separation from God. We are separated from his light, from his fellowship. That is going to be hell.
I remember the first sermon I ever preached. I had four sermons. I preached them, all four in ten minutes. And that was the beginning, in a place called Bostwick, Florida, in northern Florida, in a little tiny church, and on a cold night, about 40 people. And I was so nervous.
I think that I failed by not studying more, and praying more, and spending more time with my family.
I'm not a righteous man. People put me up on a pedestal that I don't belong in my personal life. And they think that I'm better than I am. I'm not the good man that people think I am. Newspapers and magazines and television have made me out to be a saint. I'm not. I'm not a Mother Teresa. And I feel that very much.
I'm glad to know that we do have political leaders that believe in God, and that has been true from the days of George Washington.
I have many friends that don't claim to be followers of Christ. As far as day-to-day friendship and being together at various functions, I don't think that there should be any difference at all.
I have never targeted Muslims. I have never targeted Jews. I believe that we should declare the fact that God loves you, God's willing to forgive you, God can change you, and Christ and his kingdom is open to anybody who repents and by faith receives him as lord and savior.
I think we should love sinners, and welcome them, and open our arms to them, and then we don't totally accept them into our fellowship as believers and as Christians until they have repented their sins and changed their way of living.
I'd grown up in a Presbyterian church, but I really didn't know Christ personally in my heart. I knew him, but I didn't know him. And there's a difference between an intellectual faith and a personal, heart faith in which I opened my heart to him and let him rule my life.