From our archives, the Billy Graham Classics. Tonight, I want to read
a passage of Scripture that was on the cake that they presented
to my oldest grandson the day that he was confirmed,
and this was on the cake. In the third Epistle of John,
the fourth verse. “I have no greater joy
than to hear that "my children walk
in the truth.“ Of course, John was
talking about those young converts of his,
that he called his children, but here we could apply it to our families
and to our own children. You know, the other night, a 20-year-old couple got married
on Friday night in Ohio. They came to Toronto
on their honeymoon, attended the crusade
Tuesday night and responded to the invitation
to receive Jesus Christ and the counselor said the husband immediately started taking his role as
the spiritual leader of the home because he said, "We're going
to get into the word of God." And the counselor added what
a wedding present that was. There was a man here
the other night who is one of the chief karate
instructors in South Africa on his way home
to Johannesburg. And after taking some
refresher classes in Japan, he stopped here for two days. He attended the crusade,
accepted Christ as his Savior, 41 years old. He said, I'm rushing back
to Johannesburg to tell my wife and family that
I have found Jesus Christ. And we've had story after story
and if I'd had time tonight, I was going to tell you
some more stories of people that have found Christ
here in this tremendous crusade here in Toronto
during these days. But I want to get quickly to
what makes up a happy home or how you can have
the right kind of a home. And the first point that
I would like to make is that God performed the first
marriage in the garden of Eden and it was God's idea to have
a family in the first place before the cities
and governments, written language, before nations, temples,
churches, there were families and the family is the most
important institution in the world. The first miracle that
Jesus ever performed was at a wedding
at Cana of Galilee and Jesus was underscoring
the importance of the home because if the home goes,
the nation is going to go. It was my privilege
the other day to talk to the prime minister
of this country and today
to the premier of Ontario and on both occasions
it was interesting how we got to this idea of
how the home is a basic unit and the home cannot be separated
from the health of the nation or of the province. Many today are wringing their
hands with fear and insecurity, but more important than
what happens at Wall Street or what happens at
the United Nations is what is happening
to our families. In the home character is formed. Integrity is born. Values we live by
are made clear. Goals are set. Attitudes are formed
that last a lifetime. Is your home built on
a solid foundation? That's the question
I want to ask. Remember the man
Jesus told about that built his house
on a rock. This your house built
on a rock? Is your home secure tonight
or is it filled with tension? Is it about ready to break up? We've had more couples
come forward here that were living together
without marriage, or more couples come forward
here that had been separated and more couples
that had been divorced that have come here together
and be reunited than almost any crusade
we've held in a long time. And it indicates to me that this
is a growing problem in Toronto and it's a growing problem in
this part of Canada as well as in the United States
and other parts of the world. The third point
I'd like to make is that our modern life puts
tremendous pressures on the home and the family. You know, some of the pressures
that the home faces today. It reminds me of Nehemiah,
the fourth chapter where the scripture says,
"There is much rubbish "so that we're not able
to build a wall." And we see rubbish everywhere. Rubbish on television and
in films and in magazines, making fun of the home, making fun of marriage, making light of one of
the holiest of all institutions, the marriage and God has indicated from
one end of the Word to the other that when the home fails,
the society is going to fail. And I tell you this, unless
we have a spiritual revival and our homes are renewed, the nation is going to be
destroyed. There is no way that we can
escape the judgment of God unless we come back to Christian
or to God-fearing homes. You know, we're living
in cities today. All over the world
people are moving to cities. As a boy on the farm,
I could watch my father work and was made part of that work. Today a man goes to work
in a factory, or an office and his wife goes off
to work too and often the children never see either one of them
doing their jobs and they never become
a part of it. In small rural communities
of yesterday, everyone knew everyone, teachers and parents were
friends, but the working mother
or the two-career family is already upon us and many times
it's impossible to escape it because of taxes
and because of inflation, and all the rest of it. In order to make a living, both parents have to work
in many instances, but Ezekiel 16 says, “As is
the mother, so is her daughter.” As is the mother,
so is her daughter, which indicates that we as
parents ought to set the example in front of our children of
Bible reading, of prayer, of integrity, of truthfulness, of honesty and let them see
in us Jesus Christ because one could say
as the father, so the son as well as the mother
and her daughter, and we have that responsibility
as Christians, but we're glorifying today
not getting married. I read the other day that 1,500,000 couples are living
together in the United States without any intention of
ever getting married. And the number of those getting
married is decreasing and the number of divorces is
mounting until one of our great
sociologists said recently, at Columbia University, that we may not have
any homes at all by the end of
this century. It may be something
of the past. And sex is now treated by many
like a physical appetite to be satisfied
completely apart from any meaningful relationship. Just like you go out
and buy a hamburger to satisfy your appetite,
so you go out and have sex. That's not what God meant it
to be at all. It's a holy gift from God to be
used within matrimony, But there's a satanic attack
on the family today. Even Christian families are
feeling it. I've never heard so many stories
of Christian families even having so much tension
and so much difficulty. We've never had more books
on the bookshelves telling us how to solve
our family problems or sexual problems
than we have today, and yet somehow, we are more miserable. We are more broken. We're more torn. We're more hurt than
we've ever been. Why? Because we have not taken
the word of God into account because God has laid down
the rules and the regulations for successful and happy home
and we broken them. We thought we could do it
some other way and we've found
that we failed. Let's come back to the Bible. Let's come back to
the Word of God and build our homes
on this book and the God that performed
the first marriage. The fourth point I would like
to make is that the family is still
the most durable institution in the world. Historically, the family has
survived all attacks, but many today want love
without commitment. The latest polls indicate that
young people may be turning back toward the family relationships
and commitments and it's most encouraging. Perhaps the tide is
beginning to turn. I pray that it will be, I believe it is beginning
to turn in the United States and I'm happy to see it
because you see, even in Russia and China
where they profess atheism, they are finding that cannot
build a strong society without a home. They experimented at first
without homes. They laughed at marriage, but now they've changed
their minds. And then the fifth thing
I'd like to say is the family needs help
and encouragement. God is interested
in your family, your marriage, your children. He shows us the ideals
and the goals for the family and he's willing to help us. Ezra said, “Then I proclaimed
a fast there to seek of him "a right way for us
and for our little ones.” Seeking God's will
for your family. That's what Ezra was doing, seeking the will of God
for his family. Have you sought God's will? Have you gotten on your knees and committed your children
to the Lord time after time, Do you gather them together
for family devotions? Or are you too embarrassed to
or too hypocritical to? What keeps you from doing it? Because it's been proven
statistically that the homes that have
Bible reading and prayer and go to church every Sunday, there's only one divorce
in 400 marriages. While the national average in
the United States is now almost one out of
every two marriages. The answer is God. The answer is spiritual. The answer is surrendering
your heart and your life to Jesus Christ as parents,
as children so that every member of the home
knows Jesus Christ and loves the Word of God. And then the next point
I would like to make is that the husband-wife
relationship is the key to the family's success. Nearly all the psychologists or
sociologists that I've talked to and the books that I've read indicate that the home will
only rise so high as the husband-wife relationship. The children seeing love between
the husband and the wife. You see many people get married
without any idea of how much is at stake and laying the foundation
for failure in the very beginning,
in courtship. You be careful who you go with
and fall in love with. Be sure that he or she is
God-fearing and loves Christ. The scripture says, “Be not
unequally yoked together.” How many of you have tried it
and failed? There must be
a spiritual oneness. There are three people
that make up a marriage, the husband, the wife and God and be sure God is
in your marriage. You see so many are marrying
someone with whom they've have a very little
chance of having a successful marriage. Seventeen Magazine made a survey
some time ago of young men and they asked
the young men many questions and one of the questions was, what do you want your girlfriend
to have on the first date? And the number one answer was
a good figure. I would say
the number one answer as far as I'm concerned would be to love the Lord with
all her heart and all her mind. Many marry without being aware
of the ideals and the goals which God has set
for marriage. You see God planned marriage
for people with some maturity. Now you can be mature
when you're 17, you can be mature
when you're 18 and you can be
absolutely immature at 40. I see some little teenage
40-year-olds trotting around and there are many of them. The scripture says, "For this cause shall a man
leave his father and mother." You must be people who are ready
to emotionally leave home. Now you think about that. We're always to love
our parents. I don't care where you go
to the ends of the earth. You are to love
your parents, you're to confer with
your parents. You're to honor
your parents. You're to enjoy
your parents. But when you get married, you must realize that
they can never, that you can never again
depend on them as you did when
you were little children. Many parents ruined
the marriage of their children by refusing to turn them loose. Learn when to turn them loose. For this cause shall a man leave
and his wife must be first. The husband must be first while
still honoring and loving and seeking the advice and
the counsel of the parents and the parents must learn
how to turn loose and when you turn them loose. I'm going to tell you something. When you turn them loose, they'll come back to you
closer than ever as adults and you'll enjoy them
as much as you ever did. And then God wants marriages
to be permanent until death do us part. Many people enter
the marriage vow without any idea that
this is for keeps. A young man at the marriage
alter thinking to himself, “if this doesn't work out,
I'll get a divorce.” Yes, tensions are going to come. There's going to be
that adjustment period and you keep adjusting
the rest of your life. There’ll be problems,
there'll be disagreements But you are to accept
each other's faults. Your wife is not perfect, and
your husband is not perfect. You found that out
after about two days. That first morning
you saw her in curlers (laughter) and that first morning when she
saw you get up bleary-eyed (laughter) And it's not always romantic but we are to be together in a relationship that
God has formed. We become one flesh and many people that had been
married for many years have loved each other so much
and been together so much and know each other so well that they begin to
look like each other. That's actually true. People tell me that
I look like Ruth. If that's true, I'm getting
mighty good looking. (laughter) And I'll tell you when I haven't
seen her in two weeks, she looks better than ever. But there must be
a lifetime commitment when you come to Christ. It's forever. Repeat it to yourself
forever, forever, forever, till death do us part. Don't ever intend
to entertain the idea of separation and divorce,
if you know Christ. He can hold you together. There is no problem that you
face that cannot be solved by the Lord Jesus Christ, and then God's ideal is for the husband and the wife
to be faithful to each other, faithful to each other. I read the other day,
that's 70% in a survey. 70% of the men it indicated
were cheating on their wife. I just can't believe
that statistic. I cannot allow myself
to believe it. It didn't say how many wives
cheated on their husbands, but I want to tell you,
the Bible calls it adultery. And the Bible says that no
adulterer will be in heaven. We don't realize what a vial
and terrible thing it is to break the marriage vow
with that type of a sin. I know it's old fashioned. I know that's out of date, but that's the teaching of
the Word of God and the Word of God never,
never, never, never changes. It's the same. God hasn't changed
in all these centuries. Do you think that God is
changing his whole nature to accommodate himself
to your sins? No. He's the same, yesterday,
today and forever. And the same God that hated
the sins of Sodom and Gomorrah hates the sins that
we're committing today in the countries of the world
that I travel in because it's worldwide. To have an affair is said
to put spice in a marriage. I read that the other day
in some newspaper. It's a sin against God and
it breaks the marriage vow and many of you are asking, "Well, what can I do
to help my marriage?" The first step is to turn
your life over to Jesus Christ. Let him come into your life. You say, well, how do I do that? We've seen hundreds and even
thousands here in Toronto, come to Christ. Be willing to repent
of your sins. That's the first step. Realize that God loves you
in spite of your sins, in spite of your failure, he loves you and he's willing
to forgive you, but you must be willing
to repent and that word repent
means to change. Change your mind, change the direction
of your life and determine that you're going
to bring your life under the Lordship of Christ. If you failed in the home, if you failed at being a parent, if you failed at being
a husband or wife or an obedient child
in the home, surrender your life to Christ
tonight and let him come
into your heart and help you to be the right
kind of a husband or wife or the right kind of a child. We had a man come forward
in Las Vegas to make his commitment to Christ and he and his wife were
in the divorce courts, and he called her on the phone
and he said, I'd like to come and see you
and said, I'd like to settle this divorce
business. And she didn't know
what he meant. And so they got together
and they went to the little restaurant where
they'd been before and they fell in love
all over again. They called their lawyers
and said, call it off. We are being reunited
in Christ. That can happen to you. Maybe you and your wife
haven't separated, but spiritually
you're separated, emotionally you may
be separated, psychologically separated. Let Christ come in
and bring you together. And then our children need help. Our children need help. They need your love. You know, I heard a
psychiatrist say many years ago that helped me. They said, you know, your children may come
to a point where they do rebel because most children come
to a point where they're seeking
their own identity and they may rebel for three
or four years or five years, a little bit, maybe some of
them, while they rebel. The psychiatrist said, let them know that
you disapprove, but that you love them. And when they come through
that point of rebellion and when they find
their own identity, the love will still be there. Let the love of Christ
dominate your family, dominate your relationships
within the family, and you can have
a wonderful home. It's not too late to repair it. It's not too late to change. You can start tonight. What do you have to do? Be willing to repent of your sin
and receive Christ by faith into your heart. Notice I said, by faith. You may not understand it all. You may not understand what I
mean when I say accept Christ by faith. You don't have to
understand it all. Come by simple childlike faith like a little child is
trusting his father. You trust
the heavenly father. Put your hand in his hand
tonight and say, "Tonight, I want Christ." You see, he died on the cross
for you. He shed his blood for you. He rose again from the dead
and He's alive and the Bible says
He's coming back again. You believe that
and accept that and that He's willing to come by
the Holy Spirit and live in your heart tonight
right now. You don't have to live
the Christian life alone. You don't have to be that husband alone
or that wife alone or that child alone
or that teenager alone. Christ will come into your
heart right now tonight, if you'll let him, and on this
wet, damp, cold evening. What a wonderful moment to let
Christ come into your own heart and you become
the right kind of a husband, the right kind of a wife, the right kind of
a son or daughter. I'm going to ask you
to receive him right now. I'm going to ask
hundreds of you to get up out of your seat
right now and come out here on this field
and stand here as a moment of recommitment
or a moment of receiving Christ. Whatever your reason for coming. You may be a member of
the Anglican Church or the United Church or
the Pentecostal Church or the Catholic Church, or you may not have
any religious background. I don't know who you are, but I'm going to ask you to come
and say, tonight, I want Christ in my heart. I want Him to be my Lord
and my Master and my Savior and I want to go back and be
the right kind of a husband and the right kind of a wife. I want him to forgive my past. I want him to change me. I want to be the right kind of
a young person in the home. I've been rebellious
against my parents and I haven't lived
the Christian life in the home, but I want to
from this moment on. You may be here with
your fiancé or your sweetheart and you want to dedicate
your lives together to Christ. You come as people are
already coming. You get up and
come right now. No one leaving. As hundreds are responding
to Mr. Graham’s invitation to make a public commitment
to Jesus Christ, you can make
that same commitment right where you are. Just pick up the phone
and call the number you see on your screen. Special friends are waiting to talk with you
and pray with you about this most
important decision. ♪ And that thou bidst me
come to thee ♪ ♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come. ♪ You that had been watching
by television can see now that God has been
wonderfully working and that you can come to know
Jesus Christ as your Lord and your Savior. Right now, accept Him and if
you'll make that commitment, we'll send you
the same literature we are going to give
to people here. Many hundreds and thousands of
people have come to Christ here in Toronto, Ontario and you can come to Christ
where you are. Give your life and your heart
to him right now. God help you to make that
commitment tonight and go to church next Sunday. If you just prayed that prayer
with my father or if you have
any questions about a relationship
with Jesus Christ, why don’t you just call that
number that is on the screen. There will be someone there
to talk with you, pray with you and
answer those questions. And remember,
God loves you! If you would like to commit
your life to Jesus Christ, please call us right now,
toll free at 1-877-772-4559. That's 1-877-772-4559. Or you can write to us at: Billy Graham 1 Billy Graham Parkway Department C Charlotte, NC 28201 Or you can contact us on the web
24/7 at PeaceWithGod.tv. We'll get the same helps to you
that we give to everyone who responds at the invitation. On behalf of
Franklin Graham and the Billy Graham
Evangelistic Association thank you for watching and thank you for your prayers.
