“Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.”
I love that statement and it reveals Dr. Graham’s heart and love for his Savior and the Gospel he preached.
His funeral was truly his “Last Crusade”. It is the “home going” of one who couldn’t wait to see his Savior.
The Friday noon service started with the evangelist’s family bringing in his casket, followed by renditions of some of Graham’s favorite music. The 2,000 invited funeral attendees listen to—or sang together six of Billy’s favorite songs.
- “Until Then” (Stuart Hamblen, 1958), performed by musical artist Linda McCrary-Fisher
- “All Hail the Power of Jesus’ Name” (Edward Perronet, 1779), congregational singing led by Tom Bledsoe
- “Above All” (Lenny LeBlanc and Paul Baloche, 1999), performed by musical artist Michael W. Smith
- “Because He Lives” (Bill and Gloria Gaither, 1970), performed by Gaither Vocal Band
- “To God Be the Glory” (Fanny Crosby/William Howard Doane, 1875), congregational singing led by Tom Bledsoe
- Amazing Grace, bagpipe escort led by Pipe Major William Boetticher
In 1976 I attended and participated in the Billy Graham Crusade in Seattle. I also attended his “School on Evangelism.” I had heard criticism from many in my theological circles of his ecumenism and other methodologies and felt it best to find out for myself by being actively involved in the Crusade. Some were well founded. But what you can not mistake is that he was a man of Godly character and a passion for the Gospel.
Coming from a humble farming background, Graham has confessed to many mistakes in his remarkable career. Yet nothing has tarnished his uniquely broad appeal.
Ministry and public mistake were made. And how could they not be; he was a man, like all of us, prone to human failings. There were missteps I wish would have never happened.
I would love some sort of clarification for his infamous interview with Robert Schuller on the exclusivity of Christ and the Gospel. But his example of evangelism clearly counters one strange interview about the uniqueness of Christ.
He disappointed and even angered conservatives when he returned from his 1982 trip to the Soviet Union, naively praising the supposed religious freedom behind the Communist Iron Curtain.
There was also the personal friendship Billy Graham had President Richard Nixon. He was not quick to see the dark profoundness of Nixon’s conspiratorial and paranoid tendencies, illustrated by the Oval Office recordings of private meetings. In one of those recordings, Dr.Graham’s was deeply moved to apologize for disparaging remarks about Jews in the media. Because of Billy Graham’s personal and public integrity, most within Jewish community forgave Graham for these remarks of which he does not remember making.
If it hadn’t been for his own personal and ministry integrity, openness, and devotion to God and the Gospel, any of these missteps could have buried the average minister. No one who has been in the ministry for long can say they haven’t made their share of mistakes. It is because of loving congregations and God’s grace we survive our blunders.
The Rev. Billy Graham’s children remembered their father on Friday as someone so thoroughly devoted to spreading the Gospel. They spoke of a life lived at home and as he preached it in stadiums, with a personable humility and an unwavering focus on the Bible.
As his oldest son told the funeral congregation, “The Billy Graham that the world saw on television, the Billy Graham that the world saw in the big stadiums was the same Billy Graham that we saw at home. There weren’t two Billy Grahams, He loved his family. He stood by us. He comforted us. He left us an enduring legacy: His uncompromising testimony of God’s great love.”
He was truly, “America’s Pastor.”
-Michael Holtzinger