Billy Graham Boston MA 1982

from our archives the Billy Graham classics Boston Massachusetts 1982 right now we take you to the John F Kennedy School of Government on the campus of Harvard University as Dean Graham Allison presents mr. Graham to the packed forum Billy Graham's own career is not unlike that of the American preachers who shaped the values of this Republic Billy Graham seems to have taken literally the scriptural injunction to go into all the world and preach the gospel he is preached on every continent of the world and in more than 50 countries it is therefore with great anticipation that we welcome to Harvard tonight to Reverend Billy Graham Dean Allison esteemed faculty and administration students and guests I'm both honored and humbled by the invitation of Dean Allison to participate in this ongoing series of public affairs forums when I read the list of past speakers and some of the future speakers that you're going to have here I felt like the man I heard about in my part of the country who decided to enter his mule in the Kentucky Derby and they said you don't expect your mule to win do you and he said no but look at the company he'll be in and that's the way I feel a little bit like that but I don't come here tonight to pretend that I know all the answers or that I'm an expert or even a philosopher on the theory of government or a scholar or even a theologian by what we mean by theologians today I make no pretense of being any of these I am as you know a Christian clergyman I'm called an evangelist I used to resent that term evangelist because it conjured up ideas of emotionalism anti-intellectualism anti-church brimstone and hell and so forth but then as I began to study the word I began to realize that it was used in the old Greek city-states for an announcer they didn't have newspapers or television in those days so they had a man that would go around and announce the news and that word was carried over into the New Testament called the Evangelist an announcer unannounced in the New Testament sense of good news of what is called the gospel and that's what I became and I confess that I've not always seen many of the complexities that are involved in the subject that I'm assigned tonight I'm still learning I'm on a pilgrimage the more I learned the less Matic I become about some of them my stance as you know is that of a Christian who takes the Bible seriously now I realize that this may not be your perspective and we may not come out exactly the same place always because we may start from different perspectives and reference points but it is unfortunate that we often failed to see what each other's assumptions are and often we do not even seriously examine them I heard about a bridge it was being built in Pennsylvania some years ago and it was written up in one of the magazines and the workers started building from both sides and when they reached the middle of the waterway they found that they were 13 feet apart and each crew had started by using a different reference point to begin their work and the result of course was inevitable we live in a highly complex world and one which is also very fragile we have the first generation to realize that we may well be the last generation you may be the last generation on this planet with this in mind let me tonight briefly state four affirmations concerning this subject first I believe that political decisions have an inescapable moral and ethical dimension to them Hitler's decisions about racial superiority and the final solution involved a moral decision the situation in El Salvador today involves serious questions about justice the treatment of the poor and the use and abuse of power in our world the racial situation in southern Africa involves a host of grave ethical and moral questions which cannot be evaded many other examples could be cited including a vast array of economic social and human rights issues in our own nation the question of rightness and wrongness simply will not go away but it is at the heart of every major issue that we face in the world today secondly government is not an end in itself but it is to be a servant to bring about greater peace and justice for the good of humanity I know this is general but when this goal of government is perverted government becomes corrupt or totalitarian or both as a Christian I believe God has given the institution of government to humanity for our good the Apostle Paul stated the person in political authority is God's servant to do an agent of justice I believe we must keep clearly before us the goal or purpose of government or it will easily become perverted thirdly there are certain moral principles which is a Christian I support and urges guidelines in determining the right course of action I know of course that this is the nub of the whole problem because it is one thing to acknowledge that political decisions have a moral dimension and a different and vastly complex thing to reach any agreement on what those moral guidelines are one of the great problems to which we seem not to address ourselves seriously is the problem of what is right and what is wrong who sets the moral standards who says it's wrong who says it's right as individuals or as a society the State Highway Department of Pennsylvania made a mistake when they did not have guidelines when they did not take the reference points that were available to them in building that bridge and we could do the same thing I personally hold the basic principles of the Ten Commandments because I believe the Creator has given them to us but I believe that they were given to us because they will bring about what is best for human society and so I accept the Ten Commandments the Sermon on the Mount and the golden rule as the moral guidelines for our lives whether we live by them or not is another question fourthly I would suggest that government is only good as those who govern a man who has no regard for integrity and his personal and business relations will normally not have any regard for integrity if he becomes a political leader government will never be better than the men and women who have given their lives to it and they never will be better than the world and life view they accept and on which they operate either the law of love will prevail or the law of hatred violence and dishonesty will prevail I've also been on a pilgrimage as far as the arms race is concerned I believe that the human race sits under the nuclear sword of damocles the world is facing the most critical moment since creation never before has mankind held in its hands such awesome weapons of mass destruction that could destroy life on this planet within a matter of hours man's technology has leaked far ahead of his moral ability to control his technology now I have shared with you some of my pilgrimage and I'm sure that many of you have had something of a pilgrimage in your own lives as you have realized the problems of our world your own problems your own dilemmas your own search for purpose and meaning of life and the responsibility every human being has to work towards solutions but this evening I would like to invite you on another pilgrimage a pilgrimage which is spiritual in nature it would be tragic if you were to spend a lifetime pursuing success or fame or material gains or humanitarian ideals or any other NGO worthy as it may be and yet were to omit the greatest pilgrimage of all the pilgrimage of the Spirit I remember when mr. you thought retired as secretary-general of the United Nations they had a banquet in his honor and he stood up that evening and the first thing he said he said everything I have ever been and M today or ever hope to be iota Buddha now there weren't many Buddhists there but everyone in that room respected him for his the dedication to his own faith and for declaring and openly and boldly before that particular group and I want to declare to you tonight that I believe that Jesus Christ is who he claims to be and that I would like to challenge you to study his life when I was at Yale maybe 15 or 20 years ago giving a series of lectures at wills Lee Hall the head of the law I've forgotten society of what the name of the society was now but he invited me to lunch with with the cabinet and I went to lunch and he told me he was an atheist I said have you ever read the New Testament he said no I said you have rejected Christ he said yes I said and you have never read his life never read his biography no I said that doesn't seem to be quite honest and intellectually fair and I said I want to challenge you to read the New Testament and to read it in the next six months would you do it and the other fellows around said now he's challenged you and they were they kidded him and finally said I'll do it and he wrote me a letter he said I'm no longer an atheist he said I'd rather call myself an agnostic he said I don't really know that's what I agnosticism is of course I don't really know but he at least taken that step and he said I'm going to continue reading because he said you're right about one thing it does something to you and he said it's doing something to me and I'm not quite sure I like what it's doing he said I'm disturbed and so I call upon you to do the same I know that we're a pluralistic group here tonight and I know you come from many religious backgrounds and I would in no way impose my thoughts on you except to give you what I believe because that's what a university is all about we hear different points of view different religious leaders political leaders economic leaders and so forth when we hear discussions and we should discuss and we should debate and we should even argue that's what it's all about and I thank you for giving me a hearing tonight god bless you [Applause] there are three kinds of peace spoken of in the Bible the first is in the spiritual order or peace with God you see in the beginning according to the Bible God created man in his own image placed him in a perfect environment and told him that the world was his god never meant that there would be suffering or death or injustice or war but he gave to man the possibility of making his own moral choices and he said if you disobey and break the moral laws of the universe you will suffer and die if you keep them you will live and build a beautiful world there came a point where a man deliberately rebelled against those laws and he began suffering and he began to die and man today is not man a woman is not what he or she was meant to be Carl Jung the great psychiatrist said it is becoming more and more obvious that it is not starvation not microbes not cancer not war but man himself who is mankind's greatest danger Bertrand Russell once said it is in our hearts that the evil lies and it is from our hearts it must be plucked out now the Bible asks the question where the wars come from who starts them what is the underlying cause of wool in James the fourth chapter here is the passage what causes fights and quarrels among you don't they come from your desires that battle within you you want something and can't get it you kill and you covet but you cannot have what you want you quarrel and fight in other words we need changing on the inside because the whole human race according to the Bible is infected with a flaw there's a moral flaw in all of us whatever our ethnic background may be whatever our culture whatever our race whatever language we speak whatever part of the world we come from there's a flaw in human nature that flaw is called in the Bible by a three-letter word sin we've sinned against God in me we need reconciliation with God we're separated from God and without God we never find the answers and solutions that are total in our lives I talked to a man some time ago just a few weeks ago a very well-known man brilliant man one of the most brilliant men of our generation who would be known to all of you he said I thought there was no end to my physical strength on my mental ability until he said I found I had serious heart trouble and might die and he said for the first time in my life I began to think philosophically and religiously and he said all the things that you have been talking about are things that I'm now thinking about for the first time in my entire life and he said now he said I'm spending my time studying to try to find my way I'm on a pilgrimage he said to the God who a few months ago I laughed as to whether he even existed enough can we be changed the Bible tells us that we must repent of sin and receive Christ into our hearts and whether you're a Jew or whether you are Catholic or Protestant whether you call him the Messiah whether you call him by the Christ or whatever name you may give him the Bible says therefore being justified by faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ the Bible says and having made peace through the blood of his cross by him to reconcile all things unto himself and then not only is there the spiritual order but there's also the psychological order peace in the psychological order the peace of God on the coast of North Carolina it's called one of the the places where ships go down more than any other place been sunk by storms it's a stormy area and dissipating of a story the waves are lashing the shore the Lightning is flashing you can almost hear the thunders you look at that picture and there's a little bird under the crevice of a rock with its head under its wings asleep and the title of the pictures piece and that's the peace that God promises the turbulence of the world will continue the problems of the world may get worse but in the midst of you you can have a serenity and a peace and a joy the Bible says the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your minds and hearts through Christ Jesus do you have that psychological peace and then the last piece taught in the Bible relational order peace on earth you've gone to a symphony concert and you've listened as the different musicians tune up the most discordant noise that you can ever hear then the maestro comes out he steps on the stage he waves his baton and the most beautiful music comes out the world we hear and the world that we're seeing in the press and on the television is filled with the discordant noises of racial prejudice of war of building bombs of all these things and it's getting worse and not better but one day before a man blows himself up the Bible teaches that there will step onstage the Savior who is going to come with all of his holy angels and going to set up a kingdom of which there'll be no end and when he prayed that prayer thy kingdom come Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven that prayer has never been answered but someday it will be answered but till then you and I have a responsibility to work for the poor and the needy and the starving of the world we have a responsibility to work for peace now because we don't know when that moment they come the Bible says don't speculate on that be faithful and the Bible says there'll be a special judgment that will come upon those that when he comes is not working the whole world is asking the question what can we do to be saved as a human race and his individuals have you made that commitment there can come a time while you're at Yale searching for truth for purpose and meaning for your life how to repair damages to relationships that you want to keep to give you strength and help as you go out into the job market whatever you can find it in a personal relationship with God and you can have peace with God the peace of God and you can find peace with your fellow man by going with him now in the place where he was crucified there was a garden and in the garden a new Sepulcher where Ian was never man yet laid there laid they Jesus therefore because of the day of preparation for the cephalic ax was nigh at hand the first day of the week cometh Mary Magdalene early when it was yet dark unto the sepulchre and seeing the stone taken away from the sepulchre then she run it and cometh to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved and saith unto them they have taken away the Lord out of the sepulchre and we know not where they have laid him Peter therefore went forth and that other disciple and came to the sepulchre so they ran both together and the other disciple did outrun Peter and came first to the sepulchre and he's stooping down and looking in saw the linen clothes lying yet went he not in then cometh Simon Peter following him and went into the sepulchre and see if the linen clothes lie and the napkin that was about his head not lying with the linen clothes but wrapped together in a place by itself then went in also that other disciple which came first to the sepulchre and he saw and believed for as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise again from the dead then the disciples went away again unto their own home but Mary stood without that the cephalic of weeping and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the sepulchre and seeth two angels in white sitting at the one the head and the other at the feet where the body of Jesus had lain and they say unto her woman why weepest thou she saith unto them because they've taken away my Lord and I know not where they have laid him and when she had thus said she turned herself back and saw Jesus standing and knew not that it was Jesus jesus saith unto her woman why weepest thou whom seekest thou she supposing him to be the gardener saith sir if thou have borne him hence tell me where thou has laid him and I will take him away jesus saith unto her Mary she turned herself and saith unto Him rabboni that is to say master jesus said unto her touch me not why not yet ascended to my father but go to my brethren and say unto them I ascend unto my father and your father and to my god and your God Mary Magdalene came and told the disciples that she had seen the Lord and that he had spoken these things unto her I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures and that he was buried and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures and that he was seen of Cephas then of the twelve and that he was seen of above five hundred brethren at once of whom the greater part remain unto this present but some are fallen asleep now at Christ be preached that he rose from the dead shall say some among you that there is no resurrection of the Dead but if there be no resurrection of the dead then is Christ not risen and if Christ be not risen then how preaching is vain and your faith is also vain yea and we have found false witnesses of God because we have testified of God that he raised up Christ whom he raised not up if so be that the dead rise not for if the dead rise not then is not Christ raised and if Christ be not raised your faith is vain ye are yet in your sins then they also which have fallen asleep in Christ are perished if in this life only we have hope in Christ we are of all men most miserable but now is Christ risen from the dead [Music] now tonight I want you to turn with me to a familiar passage of scripture Galatians the sixth chapter Galatians the sixth chapter and the fourteenth verse but God forbid that I should glory save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world is crucified unto me and I under the world just after the war cliff barrows and I came together he led the singing and I did the preaching and his wife and my wife and before of us went to England and we lived in England during the winter of 1946 and 47 now London was almost totally devastated and one of the things I remember is that in all that devastation after the war and all the rubble there stood st. Paul's Cathedral and on top of st. Paul's was a cross I remember when Coventry Cathedral was being built because it had been destroyed during the war and it was nearing completion a cross was Lord by helicopter and placed on the top a huge 25-foot wooden cross stands above the fields of the Buried horror a Belsen concentration camp a tiny cross placed there by Sir Edmund Hillary the first man to conquer the peak of mountains is buried on the snow and the ice at the summit of Mount Everest now you many of you are very religious and you have embossed upon your Bibles across or you wear a cross around your neck and the thing that I want to ask you tonight is this what does the cross mean to you why do all the Catholic churches and all the Protestant churches have a cross that's the one thing we agree on is the cross the whole Christian world looks to the cross why did Paul say that he gloried in it more than anything else in all the world Paul could have gloried in his education he was one of the most educated men of his time he could have gloried in his religion he was very religious he could have gloried in his ability to speak several languages he was fluent in several he could have gloried in the fact that he was a Roman citizen but he didn't or he could have gloried in certain things about Jesus Christ other than the cross his spectacular miraculous birth born of a virgin the Virgin Mary or the great teaching of Christ even today educators say there's never been a teacher like Jesus Christ or his great social work his compassion for the poor and the needy his concern for the hungry and the sick his amazing resurrection from the dead his future glory when he's going to rule the world and his kingdom is going to come he could have guarded any of those things but he said no I glory only in the cross and he said god forbid that I should glory in anything else except the cross why well I want you to think a moment and look at that cross it was the most cruel of all punishments because the victims sometimes would hang there for several days it took them several days to die and on this occasion they were crucifying three people - thieves murderers and Jesus in the middle the soldiers entered the guardhouse and brought Jesus with the two other condemned men they were beaten 33 times all 39 times on their bare backs with leather thongs with steel pellets on the end a crown of thorns had been put on Jesus brow our cross was laid upon his back the procession started Jerusalem was filled with a carnival-like atmosphere at that time and the procession went through the main streets so that all might see that the criminal and be warned of a similar fate if he broke the laws of Rome a big crowd was following just a few of Jesus friends were following and Jesus became weakened by the loss of blood then he fell and so Simon of Cyrene Ian African helped him carry the cross the soldiers went quickly and methodically about their task of driving home the nails in his hands and the spike through his feet the crowd Mills around Gerry he saved others himself he cannot save they laughed and they mocked and they made fun of him come down there just one more miracle they say but he didn't do it he stayed then you know why he stayed there because of you because he loved you because you see only in Jesus Christ can we find forgiveness of sins he was bearing our sins on the cross people asked me constantly as they write is there any hope for me can't Christ save me prostitutes alcoholics robbers murderers prisoners people filled with racial prejudice people who hold in their hearts anti-semitism is there any hope for me people who have done many evil things both corporately and privately is there any hope for me a bishop of a church in another country came to me one time some years ago now and he told me that he did not believe that he was saved he said I've been to theological school in England he said I've been a bishop now and he told me how many years but he said I have so many doubts that I'm that my sins are forgiven and I'm going to heaven and he said I've come to you to ask you if you would pray for me and pray with me and very simply I talked to him just like he was a little child as though he had never heard the gospel before tears came streaming down his face and he got on his knees and he prayed a very simple prayer which indicates to me that you can even be a clergyman being the church I know a man in st. Louis pastor of a large church he was converted to Christ under his own preaching he'd never known Christ and suddenly the Spirit of God spoke to him I know a man here in Boston who was pastor of a church that was dying he had a brilliant education from one of your great theological seminaries here and his little daughter got sick and he thought she was dying and he said Lord he said if you will raise up my daughter from now on I'll turn to the Bible and preach nothing but the Bible and accept your word as the word of faith and that happened within a year his church was packed out now he's passed of a great church in Florida some of you know him Paul gloried in the cross because it is the only way of salvation nothing else will save the cross is the only way there is a way the Bible says so there there are the ways of salvation so we're taught by many teachers that seemeth right but the end thereof is the way of death there's only one way by the Cross and that's one reason why people don't like to talk about the cross or the exclusiveness of salvation we like to think that there are many ways and there are many ways that people worship in them any ways that people pray and God does hear the prayers of all people all over the world whoever calls upon the name of the law is going to be heard but there's only one way outlined in the Bible and I as a minister of the gospel must declare unto you what the Apostle Peter says there's therefore now no other name under heaven whereby we must be saved jesus said I'm the way the truth and the life no man cometh to the Father but by me I didn't say that Jesus said Jesus said as I've already quoted enter in at the narrow gate for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leadeth to destruction and many there be that go in their way because narrow is the gate and hard is the way which leadeth unto life and few there be that find it notice he says it's hard it's not easy to follow Christ you pay a price he said if you're not willing to deny self and take up the cross you cannot be my follower you see we would like something cheap and something easy his demands were so high that many people refused to go with him any further they'd go so far and then they'd turn away because he turned to a crowd one day and said count the cost count the cost if you follow me that means that I become Lord of your life if you follow me that means you become my learner my disciple and you must do my commands you've got to love your neighbor as yourself if you follow me if you follow me you've got to be concerned about the needs of the world if you follow me you've got to be willing to take up the cross I'm going to down a cross I'm going to be executed that means that you're willing to go back to your school and back to your home and back to your neighborhood and tell the people that you know Christ and let them see Christ in you and that won't be easy but if you'll do that he'll be with you he doesn't ask us to live the Christian life alone I cannot the Christian life I'll be honest with you I can I'll do it but Christ can live it through me if I will let him and he can produce the fruit of the Spirit he didn't give me a love and a joy and a peace that I'll never find anywhere in this world he can give me the certainty of my eternal life that Jesus also warned us that not everyone that saith unto me Lord Lord shall enter into the kingdom of heaven but he that doeth the will of my father who is in heaven many will say to me in that day Lord Lord have we not preached in your name and in your name with cast out demons and in your name we've done many wonderful works and then he said I will profess unto them I never knew you depart from me ye that work iniquity you see you can go to church you can be a good person and maybe really never know Christ I know many people that live moral lives that are agnostics and even atheist there comes a point that comes a moment sometimes somewhere when you must receive Christ into your heart Paul gloried in the cross because it expresses the depth of sin because it shows the love of God because it's the only way of salvation and fourthly because he knew that it gave a new dynamic to life once you've been to the cross you can never be the same therefore if any man be in Christ he is a new creation old things are passed away behold all things have become new the scripture says you'll never be the same once you come to Christ I remember the night I came to Christ I stood with about three or four hundred other people made my commitment to Christ and while I was standing there I felt like a fool I started to turn around and go back a woman next to me was weeping and I didn't have any tears I had no emotion at all except fear afraid that of standing in front of so many people but I went home that night and I remember was a moonlight night and we lived on a farm and I looked out across the field and across the woods and I knew something had happened to me that night I didn't know what if you'd ask me the next day what had happened to me I could not have told you I now know that first step was so weak and my faith was so weak and I had so many doubts but my goodness the transformation that began working its way into my life over a period of time was so tremendous and it's still working and it's still growing and I'm still learning and he gets better every day and then fifthly fifthly it's a motivation for service a motivation for service did you see mother Teresa getting that award and then she won the Nobel Peace Prize two or three years ago and she's won so many awards and she said I owe it all to the Cross Martin Luther King received the Nobel Peace Prize and they asked him something about it and he said it was built upon my father's evangelical preaching I know his father and I knew Martin Luther King of course and his father always preached the gospel and believed in the cross and so did Martin Luther King jr. do you know Christ it's a motivation for service what motivates you to go out and help the hungry and the poor and the oppressed my son spends his time a great deal of it in the third world helping the poor and the needy going to little dispensaries in little hospitals and sending doctors to help them and he was out on one of those boats in the China Sea helping pick up those refugees a couple years ago what motivates him why does he go to some place in Africa go all through New Guinea I go through India or Bangladesh at some of these places to try to help because he loves Christ its Christ it motivates you what motivates you or do you have any motivation at all to help others and then Paul glory in the cross because he knew that it guaranteed a future life the cross was followed by the resurrection but God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself I'm the scripture tells us in a grand anthem in the book of Revelation the fifth chapter and they sang a new song saying thou art worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals for thou was slain and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred and tongue and people and nation and has made us unto our God a kingdom of priests and we shall reign on earth what a glorious future we have because of the cross some of you are watching by television pick up that phone and call that number that's there right now and talk to the person and tell them your need and share with them and they will talk to you and you can find Christ tonight or you can find help for your problem or your need whatever it is now what was the attitude of the crowd that was there that they'd Christ dying on the cross first there was the attitude of apathy sitting down they watched him there that's indifference many here this evening who are completely indifferent to what I'm saying into the gospel the mockings the abuse in the atrocity of that ancient pagan mob were less painful to Christ than the indifference of a modern world upon which the light of the gospel has been shining all these years here in New England no place in all the world has had more gospel than you've had in your past history how many today are indifferent too much is given much is required you see more is going to be required of you where you've had the gospel for so many years in so many Bibles and so many churches and now the television in the radio than those people in China or people in other countries that don't have the gospel as freely as we have it today and then there's the attitude of the skeptic in the cynic and they that pass by railed on him wagging their heads and saying are you that destroyed the temple and you build it in three days say to yourself come down from the cross and they're skeptics here tonight I know that we've had many a skeptic come to the meeting and have his life changed I remember the great scientists from the University of Minnesota who came skeptical but three days after that service he found Christ and became a wonderful Bible teach on the faculty at the University then there's the attitude that saves now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother and his mother's sister and then there was the attitude of the Centurion who said truly this is the Son of the Living God my wife was born and read in China and in Chinese the word come is written with three characters each of which is a cross with a person on it we're translating tonight in Chinese both Mandarin and in Cantonese the cross in all languages means come to the cross find salvation come to the cross and find peace come to the cross and find forgiveness come is the invitation of the whole Bible come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy-laden and I'll give you rest come to the cross I'm asking you tonight to come to the cross you say well what do I have to do three things Christ has paid the price on the cross he's been raised from the dead that is the heart of what is called the good news the gospel the good news is that God loves you he gave His Son to die for you he will forgive you of your sins he will give you eternal life tonight you don't have to wait to the morrow tonight that's the good news but you must receive it how do you receive it first by repenting of sin that means to turn to change your thinking to change your mind to change your attitude and to change your way of living let Christ come and be in control of your life that's repentance saying to God I have sinned and I'm sorry for it forgive me that's repentance but then you must by faith receive him and that word faith may trip you up faith means that you totally commit to Christ just as I'm standing on this platform and my body is committed to this platform so you stand with your whole life and everything you have you put on Christ your hope is in him and him alone he becomes the one that you trust totally and completely for your salvation there was a minister preaching on the thief on the cross once and some man yelled from the congregation and said what about that thief on the cross and quick as the flash the minister said which thief because you see one died and was lost and one died and was saved and that's the only story of death bed repentance in the whole Bible so you better not wait the Bible says today is the day of salvation now is the accepted time nowhere in the bible does it promise you tomorrow and jesus said you must do it publicly he said if you're not willing to acknowledge me publicly before men I will not acknowledge you before my father which is in heaven that's the reason I ask people to come forward publicly you say you're coming forward doesn't actually save you it's coming forward as a symbol of an inward decision you're making in your heart you're coming and standing with Christ at the cross and saying by coming I do repent of sin I do want to change I do want his forgiveness I do want a new life I'm going to ask you right now to get up out of your seat and do what we've seen thousands through New England dude I'm going to ask you to come and stand in front of this platform and say by coming I want sin forgiven I want to know when I leave this stadium that Christ is with me and that Christ has forgiven me and that I'm going to heaven if you have a doubt in your mind don't you leave this stadium till you've settled it because you may never have another moment when your heart is this close to the kingdom of God you're not here by accident I believe you're here in the Providence of God you get up and come right now we're going to wait on hundreds of you quickly I'm going to ice it no one leave the stadium this is a very holy and sacred moment and you'd be in an attitude of Prayer you can bring your friend with you if you're with friends or relative so you've come in one of those buses they'll wait on you you get up and come and make this commitment here in Boston we've already seen hundreds of people and you that are watching by television pick up the telephone and call the person on the other end and have a talk with them you see that number there [Music] [Music] [Music] as these are coming forward this evening here at Nickerson field take time to call that phone number on your screen write the number down if the line is busy call back we want to help you again [Music] year that are watching by television can see here in Boston Massachusetts many hundreds of people coming to make their commitment to Jesus Christ you can make your commitment right where you are just say yes to Christ pick up the telephone and call that number god bless you and be sure and go to church next Sunday [Music] our program is sponsored by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association

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Length: 50min 39sec (3039 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 07 2016