American people, I thank you in the Name of Jesus for standing behind this great man to fulfill the mission which was given to him by God, and I do pray that God will bless America for giving the world such a great man like Billy Graham. In November 1995, on his 77th birthday, Mr. Graham named Franklin to succeed him as head of the Franklin Graham has drawn criticism since the Sept. 11 attacks for denigrating Islam. And I have learned this week as never before that everybody has a Billy Graham story, and even this week President Trump told us about his Billy Graham story. Thank you.But Lord, at this time, we pray very especially for Franklin and for Will as they continue to uphold the legacy that Your servant, Billy Graham, had to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ to the nations of the world. We’d talk about the Bible. He refused to “preach Jim Crow,” as he put it, and in the turbulent 1960s he made several “visits of racial conciliation” to the South.Mr. My other brother and sister have gone on, and I was reminded when I heard that my brother had died of the song that the choirs used to sing, “I’m the eldest. Mr. Clinton asked Mr. Graham to offer prayers at his inauguration in 1993.President George W. Bush said that it was after a walk with Mr. Graham at the Bush family’s compound in Kennebunkport, Me., that Mr. Bush, as a younger man, decided to become more serious about his faith and quit drinking. He has taught by example. Graham’s image was tainted in 2002 with the release of audiotapes that Nixon had secretly recorded in the White House three decades earlier. We are blessed and honored that you are here. I wanted to go talk to my mother and father. It’s not wish. And I knew my answer was yes.”After graduating from the Bible Institute, Mr. Graham went to Wheaton College in Illinois, among the nation’s most respected evangelical colleges. His own compensation, he said, would be limited to his expenses plus “the salary of a fairly well-paid local minister,” or about $50,000 in 1980 (the equivalent of almost $160,000 today). She has kept that decision until now. He believed that the Bible teaches us the truth about God in Christ Jesus. The association’s books were always open to inspection.By maintaining fiscal integrity and personal probity — he stuck to his rule never to be alone with a woman other than his wife — Mr. Graham kept himself untarnished by the kind of sex and money scandals that brought down evangelists and religious broadcasters like The Grahams lived on a 200-acre mountain retreat in Montreat, N.C. His wife, Recognizing his influence, presidents made a point of seeking friendly relations with Mr. Graham; Lyndon B. Johnson did so assiduously. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”Our service continues as Mr. Graham’s long-time pastor, Dr. Don Wilton, pastor of the First Baptist Church of Spartanburg, South Carolina reads scripture and leads us in prayer.Mr.
Questions swirled in my mind. Mordecai Ham, an itinerant preacher from Kentucky, who was credited with “saving” Billy Graham, in the autumn of 1934, when Billy was 16. They love it. It governed how he lived, and it governed how he died. “Suddenly, what a clergyman was saying was in the headlines everywhere, and so was the box score of commitments to Christ each night.” Time, Newsweek and Life magazines followed suit.Mr. “But God, being rich in mercy because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses and sins, made us alive together with Christ and raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the Heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. And if I sat in the room I felt a little uncomfortable like I was intruding. If we follow Him and trust Him and believe Him to be true he will give us, not a better life. His uncompromising testimony of God’s great love, all of us children came to see the world and our Father in Heaven through my father’s eyes.I think the most compelling vision I have ingrained in my memory is my father, the preacher, the evangelist standing behind this pulpit right here…in stadiums around the country and around the world, and his voice booming, proclaiming the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. To my family, Government leaders, notable guests, my father’s friends and pastors and church leaders, and the wonderful supporters who stood behind him with their prayer support all these years, and to my father’s incredible staff; we’ve come here to honor a man of God. You have done that all your life in all the world.”On a personal note, you [impacted] my life far greater than one can imagine. They want to talk about themselves, but don’t talk about yourself. We’ve gathered in this very beautiful place for a service of thanksgiving and celebration for the life of William Franklin Graham, Jr., better known to the world as Evangelist, Billy Graham, a preacher of the Gospel of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Let Him be heard.Let the church say, “Amen.” Let us say us one more time for the Father, and the Holy Ghost. Sometimes I’d come in there to see him, and he’d say, “Franklin, I miss your mother more today than I’ve ever missed her in my life.” The last few years of my mother’s life my mother was sick in bed, and she would lie in bed on her side, and my father would come in, and he would sit beside her, and the two of them would look at each other, just look at each other, I mean, eye to eye for hours. He was dependent completely on God.At one time he said to me, “Do you want to be successful in your ministry?” I said, “Of course I want to be.” He said, “Sami, people, they all want to talk about themselves. And then as he got weaker we went from sixty minutes to five to ten minutes, but the pattern was always the same. The church I pastored at that time attendance was a mere 300. And many of you know that we live on the side of a mountain, and as I wound myself up the mountain I rounded the last bend in my father’s driveway, and my father was standing there waiting for me.As I got out of the car he wrapped his arms around me, and he said, “Welcome home.” There was no shame.