Category: Billy Graham

Jesus loves, saves and builds up. Satan hates, condemns and tears down. Who does your example tell us that you follow?

Three lines of attack have been leveled against Billy Graham:

1. He is a Mason.
2. He is a Catholic.
3. He denied that Jesus is the only way to Heaven.

There are a lot of different stories told, but they all fall under one of those three headers.

Dr. Graham never drank, or caroused, or cheated on his wife. No one ever accused him of lying or stealing. He was never rich, he was an employee of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which was run by an independent board. Dr. Graham never sat on the board and he never ran the organization that bore his name. He lived all of his adult life in the same house, on the same farm in North Carolina… It was comfortable but not even close to anything you could call a mansion or a mega-home… There really was very little that one could accuse the Evangelist of doing or being that was even slightly wrong.

There are many Masons in Heaven because Billy Graham was unafraid to visit their lodges or preach the Gospel there. There are others in Heaven because he rented Masonic Halls to preach in when he was starting out… So, there are photos of Billy with Masons… “Aha! That will give ammunition to the narrow minded little bigots!” I can almost hear Satan shouting for joy… Never mind that if you were ever there, or if you listened to those programs on tape, all the good man ever did there was what he always did, preach the Gospel.

Some may not understand but when Billy started to preach, Catholics were threatened with their immortal souls if they so much as attended a picnic sponsored by an Evangelical Church. Reading a Gospel Tract was a mortal sin and they were absolutely forbidden to read the Bible for themselves. Most Catholics went to confession every week, ate fish on Fridays and never missed Mass. It was a closed society… Good Catholics would run in terror if you started to talk about Jesus…

Then, Billy Graham went to see the Pope. The Pope liked Billy and the world reeled in shock and awe when the Pope gave Catholics everywhere the right to go to Billy’s crusades and listen to him do what he always did, preach the Gospel… Millions of Catholics found Jesus at those crusades… some of them left the Catholic Church, many stayed, but they had met Jesus and that changed everything… But we have some old photos of Billy with the Pope and that is enough to bring out the bigotry and hatred in those willing to listen to the Devil…

Then, as an old man, Billy was interviewed on TV. Perhaps he was not as sharp as he once was… Maybe he never saw the trap, but he answered the question anyway… Many have pulled two or three sentences out of those interviews and used them as a reason to damn his soul and ruin his reputation. What he really said, in context, is that a man or a woman in any religion, being convicted by the Spirit of God, could find God and find salvation through the Grace of God, even if they had never heard the Name of Jesus…

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

God has witnessed to all men everywhere through Creation. Because of that witness, God says that they are “without excuse.” If they are without excuse when they reject God, would God not save those who, based on that witness, call out to him for mercy? Would God condemn those who call on him because they have never heard his Name?

No one doubts that salvation is in Christ alone. The only issue at stake here is, is it necessary to know what his Name is? Is it Jesus, the Son of God, who saves or the “magic” in his Name? Is it Jesus as both God and man who saves or is his name a magic mantra that saves those who pronounce it correctly?

Would Jesus reject a sinner who cried out to Him, confessing his sins and begging for salvation… just because the Missionary who was supposed to tell him about the Son of God stayed home and worked for McDonalds? No, God says that He has called all men everywhere… Can a Muslim or a Hindu who sees God in the Creation and calls out for mercy be saved? Billy and I maintain that God is just. Some would tell me that I am lost because I pronounce the Name of God in English and not in Hebrew… I do not believe that any more than I believe that God rejects penitent sinners because they have never heard his Name… But a couple of phrases, uttered by a very old mind, in a very old man, are enough to provide all the witness the bigots need to damn his eternal soul…

…and yes, I know that those who see his Name as a magic mantra will condemn me as a heretic.

Fifty years of Gospel sermons, a righteous life, faithfulness to the same woman for life… none of this counts for anything to the damning bigots… that is nothing compared to some old photos with Masons and the Pope and a TV interview made when senility was already setting in… No, that is far too important… Preaching the pure, Bible Gospel for fifty years to 250 million people (live) and billions on TV, counts for nothing… The 96 million people who testified that they met Jesus at his crusades are all liars, damned to the Pope’s Masonic Hell… Just ask a Facebook Christian…

Not me, no thank you… I will stand on a life lived in the public eye with not so much as a single scandal. I will stand on fifty years of documented and recorded Gospel sermons in which no heresy can be found. I will stand as one of the millions who attended his crusades and found the message faithful and true. I will stand with the billions who listened to him preach on TV, and although I was already saved, I will stand with the millions who found Jesus under his ministry.

Most of the haters will never read this, their minds have been snapped shut… A few videos, by those who’s jealously forced them to try to destroy that to which they could never attain, have convinced them that Billy was a heretic… I really want to be there when they try to explain that one to God. That should be good for more than a few laughs…

If your god has led you to hate and destroy such a man… you might look for another God…

David…