Billy Graham's Address for the Inauguration of R. Albert Mohler Jr.

I have my watch dr. mola governor Jones dr. Honeycutt and dr. McCall former presidents of this great institution trustees of southern faculty staff students distinguished visitors I know two or three visitors here that could pay the rest of that that you need for that school [Applause] I was at the governor's home for dinner the other night in Ohio and this one particular man who is here tonight was there and he put a check in my pocket and it didn't say what it was for just blanked but he signed it so I filled it in it would go to help out crusade in Japan in January he's here tonight I hope he knows who I'm talking about Carl we can use your help the unfortunate thing is he lives in Ohio we might move into Kentucky temporarily and get the governor to making to get the governor to make him a Kentucky Colonel but it's a tremendous privilege and honor to be here tonight at the events at Southern Seminary I've been here before as some of you may know we came in this very auditorium and held a crusade back in the 50s that was a long time ago when most of you just little boys and little girls but coming here reminds me of a story that I've told many times and I told it here about a man that lived near my brother in North Carolina and he decided that he was going to enter his mule in the Kentucky Derby and he was told I asked you don't think your mule will win that Kentucky Derby though he said no but look at the company he'll be in and that's the way I feel every time I come to Kentucky look at the company I've been I've met so many people here from all parts of the country and all parts of the world some of friends that we've known in years past I wish I could have come and spent more time with you I recently asked a university president what he thought was the greatest need of our hour and after careful consideration the president responded I may surprise you because I'm not a religious man but I believe that the greatest need that we have at this hour is a spiritual awakening which will restore individual and collective morals and integrity throughout the nation and I agree with that from Joel the second chapter that's repeated again in acts by in the second chapter these words I'm going to read from Peters account in Joel in acts 2 but this is that which was spoken by the Prophet Joel and I shall come to pass and it shall come to pass in the last days saith god I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams and on my servants and on my handmaidens I will pour out in those days of my spirit and they shall prophesy and I will show wonders in heaven above and signs in the earth beneath blood and fire and vapor of smoke the Sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before that great and notable day of the Lord come and it shall come to pass that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved young men will have visions you have elected a young man here with a tremendous vision not only for the future of this Theological Seminary but the future of evangelism and missions in the Southern Baptist Convention and in the world old men will dream dreams in our context where I'm an old man that means that they will know how to support the vision of the young here's a young man and I want to tell you I supporting with all my heart and will pray for him daily from now on and I think we need to support these young men that God is raising up and it's not easy for an old generation to hand the torch to a new generation that's coming up but that's what's happening here tonight and I thank God for the young man and the young women that he has raised up not only in this seminary but in other parts of the world they are those on the board and the faculty and among friends that will support you in their prayers and their gifts and their love there will come hard times they will come difficult times it always happens whether it's in marriage of whether you're taking a new position or whether you're in a seminary or whether you're in a you know I was called when I was about that same age to be president of a small Bible school in college in Minneapolis Minnesota and that's the reason my headquarters is in Minnesota and I went there like a fool I didn't know they were so deep in debt and I stayed there about five years and I learned a great deal I learned a great deal about how much I had to be humble about and I could brag on my humility because I I was humbled humbled by what I found and what I learned and when I left there I took several of the top people with me and they're still with me tonight as associates and we have gone all over the world evangelizing and preaching the gospel and I thank God for that experience that I had at Northwestern in Minneapolis which was a school that was loosely connected with the conservative Baptist Convention of the north wasn't well-known in those days it's better known I suppose now but I remember the first person that came to see me was the librarian and she said Mr Graham she said do you know how much I make a year at this school and I said no I don't she said I make so much I said my goodness that's not enough she said I know that's why I've come in to see you and she said could you help raise my salary and I said I'll do my best I didn't know that I was going to go through the faculty and trustees and they had to call a special meeting and asked me if I could do rescind that they did finally raise the whole faculty I think 5% of something like that but I learned very early that it's not always easy there are many decisions that you have to make and one of the things that will be difficult but dr. Mohler will be the great expectancy there is of him at this moment and he'll have to make hard decisions and it won't be a decision that everybody will like there's no decision that you can make him that work that will please everybody he knows that better than anybody but I believe God has raised him up for such an hour as this I remember the first time I came here dr. Duke McCall was president and he and I were very had become very close friends and I remember the thrill and the joy it was to stand before that student body and the faculty and talk about Christ and to realize that they were going to the ends of the earth with the gospel of Christ as professors and as evangelists and as pastors and that's what happened and wherever you built throughout the world you see Southern graduates and people that have come from here and dr. Honeycutt followed along with the same pattern and now comes dr. mola now he has come young enough to be here at least 40 years and I've tried to figure out how old I would be 40 years from now I will have been in heaven a number of years but if we if we're able to look down here I will be watching and praying up there for him and for you and for all of us because I think he's laid out a tremendous vision of what can be done through the largest denomination Protestant denomination in this country that's making an impact all over the world the first time that I ever addressed the Southern Baptist Convention and with my knees shaking and my hands trembling and the preparation filling the palms of my hand as they are tonight dr. Archie Lee was the president and I remember he introduced me with all that powerful flowery language that he had when I stood up that was just like that and tonight I'm deeply grateful for the introduction dr. mola has given me and I remember being in Philadelphia one time and I was to address the Presbyterian Church on evangelism there a General Assembly and as I was coming down on the elevator a man got on the fifth floor and he said I understand Billy Graham is on here and dr. bunnell who is the minister of the 5th Avenue Presbyterian Church turned in my direction said yes there he is this man looked me up and down for about three or four seconds and he said my what an anticlimax and so after what he has been said and what you've read in the ads they took in the paper I'm an anti-climax I'm sure but you know a young clergyman called on Sir Winston Churchill in the mid 50's nine times Winston Churchill said in that brief interview I see no hope for the world now this is called Freedom Hall and nearly 60 years ago President Franklin Roosevelt gave a speech and he said when the war is over the Second World War he said there will be freedom of speech everywhere and he emphasized that freedom of worship everywhere freedom of want everywhere freedom from fear everywhere freedom where I have those freedoms gone I listen to the news tonight about Haiti and we listen about Somalia and about Bosnia and every day we wonder what is happening in our world and those are nothing compared to the people that are being killed in other parts of the world like Kashmir where the Pakistan is and the Indians of fighting daily over that piece of property which is a very beautiful part of the world and all over the world they're little wars I believe governor Jimmy Carter said recently that the Institute down there in Atlanta or the center down in Atlanta studying 32 major little wars that are going on the atomic bomb is now in more countries by far than it was when the Soviet Union seemingly fell at least its government the world is a very dangerous place right now maybe more dangerous than any time in history I was in North Korea last year and nobody goes to North Korea they don't allow any Americans to go and I was the first American to address the students of Kim il-sung University in Pei young their capital and as I stood before those six or eight hundred students and faculty I thought to myself about all the problems that the United Nations are having about the atomic weapons accusing North Korea of developing atomic weapons and they may be I have no way of knowing but I know that those students had the same longings the same heart the same fears that we had they're searching for something they want something and they don't know what it is and that's true all over the world we held a crusade last year in Moscow in Olympic Stadium and it was jammed to capacity every night and every night we'd have 10 to 20,000 people respond to the invitation I had to tell him to turn around go back to their seats I knew they'd misunderstood what I was saying and then when I would say it the next time as carefully as I knew how even more would come there was a hunger a spiritual hunger and I found that true in the United States wherever we go and the greatest need we have in America at this hour is a spiritual awakening that will change our moral value system and let or we're going to become a chaotic nation we've had revivals in the past in 1917 34 Jonathan Edwards and George Whitfield we talked about George Whitfield he got on horseback and went up and down the East Coast and when Princeton seminary burn of Princeton University burned down he went to England and raised the money he always got sick on the boats he went back and forth 34 times can you imagine on those little boats and he got the money to build some of our institutions and this institution owes a great deal to Princeton Univ because the first two presidents that you had got a lot of their training and inspiration out of Princeton and that was born out of revival then in 1800 along the James River when the country was in deep trouble some people gathered to pray and out of that prayer meeting came a great revival that swept this country in 1858 when gold was discovered in California morals had collapsed there was a prayer meeting on Fulton Street on in New York City and out of that prayer meeting of businessmen came a Great Awakening that swept the country and hundreds of thousands of people were converted and came into the churches of all denominations there been many major awakenings like that in recent years I find that people today alone Lee when I preached on loneliness on television we get thousands of letters I print there's no subject I preached on that there's a greater response and when I preached on London's so many people that within marriage alone people in school alone people and on every block in the city are lonely they need joy and hope in fellowship I find that there's a despair in this country in addition people in the midst of a very impersonal computer age a hungry they're hungry and thirsty did you know that in the next three or four years we're going to be able to get 500 channels on your TV set and the TV set is going to be hooked to the telephone and to all the different instruments in your home it'll all be one package and you'll have more information flowing into your house and into your mind then you could ever dream about and this is going to cause us to become a sardine village we'll be so packed together and so much information that we could destroy ourselves and some of that information we're going to be getting is going to be pawnography there's going to be crime we're going to be taught how to commit every sort of crime there is we're already being taught that and our young people know mountain no matter where you go what city you go in I just came from Jacksonville gave a speech that day before yesterday at the new Mayo Clinic down there and the papers were filled with crimes in Jacksonville and wherever we go the crimes crimes killing murders of the most vicious sorts I didn't hear about that when I was a boy growing up I'm sure they had them but we didn't have television to bring it to us instantaneously it seems to me that CNN has a camera on everybody there is and at keeping I was at CNN two weeks ago and they gave a wonderful luncheon for us and invited all the top editors of the newspapers and me managers of all the other TV stations and radio stations around Tom Johnson is president of CNN and that was and when they came to the question period of questioning me that's what they questioned me about what can we do what's happening how can we slow this thing down how can the tide be turned Norman Lear found of people for the American Way a strong liberal recently said I'm shocked by the hole in America's heart there is a hole in our heart that only God can fill Pascal the great 17th century scientists and philosophers stated in every human heart is a god-shaped vacuum that only God can fill Jesus said put God first and everything else will fall into place we as a nation need to put God first we've taken God out of the schools and put sex in sex education for kids and taken out prayer I heard about a teacher that came upon a group of her students and they were kneeling down outside and they were playing something on the ground and she said what are you doing they said we're shooting marbles she said oh thank God she said I thought you were praying and that's against the law yes our nation can be changed it could start with you revivals start in the heart of somebody somebody asked her if you're going to if you want to eat an elephant how would you eat an elephant one bite at a time are you willing to make that kind of a commitment today that you'll be in your place faithful loyal a yielded in mind the mind of Christ dominating your thinking our body that is yielded are you willing to make a commitment to evangelism that you will go out as a believer and help to witness to other people about Jesus Christ may God awaken us to the fact of his presence in his love his death on the cross that's the reason he came he loves you he died for you on the cross He shed his blood it's hard for us to realize what that meant the son of the Living God the Lord of all creation dying at the hands of Roman soldiers who are putting nails in his hands and nails in his teeth and a spear in his side and he was praying for them Father forgive them they know not what they do I have a feeling we're gonna see some of those soldiers and have then he said my God my God why hast thou forsaken me and in that terrible mysterious moment that no theologian can really explain God laid on him your sins and mine and the sins of the whole world his blood was shed for you because he loves you he's interested in you and there are people in this audience and any crowd this large you're not certain that you have made your commitment to him he's made his commitment to you but you haven't made your commitment to him because he requires repentance and faith they go hand in hand you can't divide them repentance means that you change your way of thinking and your way of living faith means committal you commit totally completely to him as Lord and Savior I know that we need a spiritual awakening can we organize one there are generalizations about awakenings first there's the sovereignty of God sometimes we just don't understand they just start but it's gone secondly there seems to be a fullness of time in Habakkuk must have realized that God has a time for awakenings he prayed O Lord revive thy work in the midst of the years in the midst of the years make known thirdly there's the spiritual power of a minority the awakening seemingly never occurs without concern to burdened dedicated people and it always starts with prayer and the study of the scriptures out in Portland Oregon there were some ministers that were so concerned and so burdened about their city they didn't know what to do so a few of them got together they didn't know what to talk about they had no program they had no plan for the meeting and they just set that how about our they set that nobody said it work finally one of them got up and confessed a sin in his life then another one got up and then another one then another one and then they began to pray then they met the next week in prayer and it went on and on until today in Oregon you can see the impact of those prayers even in the political life of Oregon and the social life of Oregon and in the spiritual life where hundreds and thousands of people during the past two or three years have come to Christ they have a prayer Mountain in Korea South Korea and people go there by the thousands every day and pray all night no wonder Korea is now emerging as perhaps one of the most Christian countries in the world as far as numbers are concerned I remember on my father's farm in North Carolina just south of Charlotte some businessmen began to pray and I didn't pay any attention I thought my father had gone a little too far in religion and I was in high school and out of that prayer group came a prayer for revival and Awakening and a man from Louisville Kentucky came there and he stayed there about two months and preached night after night after night from the Bible and I was converted and many people that I know today that a clergy were converted in that revival that could happen again I don't find any scripture that would indicate that we cannot have a revival any time that we meet God's conditions for revival and there seems to be a sense of unity Tom Phillips informs me that they found 20,000 prayer groups in America praying for revival right now 20,000 prayer groups praying for one specific event a revival and I believe governor Jones but we're going to see that revival I believe we're going to see an outpouring of God's Spirit on a scale we have not seen in many years you know there was something wrong with the church at Ephesus and when John wrote to them under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he said you've lost your first love television pouring into our homes newspapers to read radio every kind of thing is drowning out the voice of God we can't pray anymore we can't think anymore we're afraid to be alone anymore we have to have something going all the time the moment you get in your room that television is on the moment you get in your home the radio has to go the moment you get in your car the radio is on and I remember I used to hear sermons about separation from the world we don't hear that anymore very much being separated from the world so that our hearts can hear God if God spoke would we hear him I'm sure he's speaking now through his word and I'm sure God is speaking at Southern Seminary through the professors and through students and certainly through this brilliant young president that you've called God is going to speak and God is going to use you somebody asked Carlisle Marny when he got to Charlotte to Pastor one of the largest baptist churches in the south how you like your church he'd been there about three years and he said live and found the church yet and they said you haven't found the church he said no he was talking about that church within the church that we have in all of our churches there's a small dedicated people that love the Lord and pray and win people to Christ and the vast majority in the church sit idly by and don't get in on the blessing and there's always great opposition are there evidences of revival in America I think there are we could dream for a moment what would happen first there would be moral reform everyone is asking how can we turn the tide spiritual revival secondly awakening get up priorities straight get back to the Bible thirdly awakening could be the basis of restoring our first love and a reconciliation and unity within the Southern Baptist Convention we need we need to love one another we can disagree of course but we need to love one another and some of the things that I've said that people have said on all sides into controversies that have gone on I cannot believe would be from the mouth of Jesus I think that we need a love that we've never known before and I'm praying for baptism of love that will sweep this convention and it can start at Louisville at the seminary this seminary is looked on this seminary has looked on as the leading educational institution perhaps in the world for Baptist you have a tremendous responsibility that doesn't mean that you give up your convictions at all there come times when you have to stand there come times when there has to be confrontation but it must be done in a spirit of love and I think that it can be I think that can be recovered by the Holy Spirit we're praying that the Spirit of God will come in mighty powers he came at Pentecost and we may speak different languages but our hearts are bound together by faith in Christ you know it reminds me of a football game the team is deep in its own territory it's late in the game unable to move the ball on the field or 11 men who need rest or 12 men who need rest including the referee and in the stands of 50,000 people excited they need exercise those in the field seem to spend most of their time in the huddle some seem to have forgotten the plays and the aim of the game some like the coziness of the safety of the huddle dr. mole informs me that Southern Seminary is tackling this since the 1970s the center for world evangelization has been at Southern Seminary and dr. Mullen forms me that this is being expanded to a center of missions evangelism and church growth as you've heard tonight and I'm greatly encouraged by the seminaries renewed commitment to leadership in training ministers of the gospel to go out and evangelism we in the church spend so much time planning strategy and analyzing the end and criticizing our own team members but there's a growing togetherness among people who believe in evangelism I believe that evangeline evangelism is one word that we can gather around and every time we've held a conference throughout the world on evangelism we've gotten people from all different Christian groups from a hundred and forty a hundred and fifty countries and they come to Amsterdam but they go to Berlin or they go to some other places you will have dr. Karl Henry speaking here tomorrow one of the great theologians of this century maybe the greatest who helped lead that conference in Berlin in 1966 and people came from all over the world who hadn't ever been together and didn't even know each other and my what an outpouring of the Spirit of God there was dr. Duke McCall was there he was one of our speakers and I believe it could all happen again next year God willing we're going to come back to Louisville for a few days and it's going to be a conference Fri tendrán evangelist people who do the same kind of work we do for America and Canada and they're going to come from those two countries maybe Mexico will be included I don't know and we're going to come here for a few days next year and we're going to pray that they will be an outpouring among the on those evangelists and that Southern Seminary will feel the impact of it and all the churches of Louisville will feel the impact yes an awakening could bring a challenge to our young people and our young people needed desperately and the evangelization of the world the evangelization of the unawakened could bring about the evangelization of the world in our generation it could be done with all the modern technology with television do you know what we're planning just our little group next year no 1995 we're going to be in one place and go to the whole world at the same time on prime-time television in every country of the world that will let us in and we've been in contact with the head of the television in China for one-fourth of the population lives we know those people we've made friends with those people the prime minister mr. lee fong has become a friend and others and we're praying that somehow God will open that door in an amazing way because there is a hunger in China today for the word of God such as I have not seen and we believe that Russia is open and the other countries of Eastern Europe many of them are open for that type of an evangelistic venture we need your prayers and we want to join hands with Southern Seminary in both theology and evangelization and we'll do everything in our power to support dr. Mohler and the faculty and the staff and the trustees of this great institution you certainly have my love and my prayers I've only said about 1/3 of what I wanted to say I'm sorry I shouldn't have put this watch up here but god bless you thank you for this great privilege I kind of a great privilege and joy to be here with you god bless Kentucky god bless Louisville god bless the seminary and God bless the Southern Baptist Convention and the Presbyterians as well I'm contrasted we'd be seated a moment a few years ago I went to a small Bible School just a few miles from where dr. Mohler comes from down the road a little way and I stayed there nearly four years and almost every year we had a freeze and that would get the oranges and there was a man that lived there that owned an orange grove and the students would go out and pick those oranges before it would freeze try to at least his name was Van Deventer and he wrote the song that they're going to sing now I surrender all and I want to ask you how many of you tonight would say I want to rededicate in my life to Christ I want to dedicate my life to the evangelization of the world and I'm willing to pay any price I'm willing to change my whole life to do what God wants me to do the governor was telling me a little bit of while ago about the crash in the plane the helicopters why did he why was he spared and he and his associates were holding hands and praying as tough as the helicopter was going down I'm sure there's a reason and there's a reason why you were here tonight there's a reason why I'm here and that reason may be that you rededicate your life to Christ in a new and meaningful way and say tonight Lord I'll be what you want me to be I want to pray more and I pledge to read the Word of God more and I pledge to ask the Holy Spirit to fill me and use me in a new way if you want to pray that kind of prayer with me stand up and we'll have our prayer together while you're standing there we'll sing the song I surrender all the JW Van Deventer wrote all to Jesus I surrender all to him I freely give I will ever love and trust him in his presence daily live then we'll have the seminary him and then dr. McCall will lead us in our prayer our Father now God we pray that I would bless those that are standing there doing it in dedication to thee and this is a solemn holy moment you're working in all of our hearts you're working in my heart now and Lord I want to rededicate my life to you right now I say Lord take me forgive me of my sins fill me with thy Holy Spirit and use me in a way that you've never done before bless the seminary and especially annoying your servant that's taken up the leadership in Christ's name we pray amen [Music]

Channel: Southern Seminary

Views: 68,407

Rating: 4.7909837 out of 5

Keywords: Billy Graham, Sermon, Albert Mohler, Southern Baptist, SBTS, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary

Id: ysAN6v_c96Q

Length: 41min 44sec (2504 seconds)

Published: Wed Feb 21 2018