God’s mercy is stronger than our misery. Hear more from Billy Graham in this 1982 message from Boston, Massachusetts. Watch more #MondayNightClassics every Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern.
From our archives…
The Billy Graham Classics.
Now I want you to
turn with me tonight
to the 5th chapter
of John’s Gospel,
to the 5th chapter
of John’s Gospel,
the 5th chapter
of John’s Gospel.
I won’t read it to you,
I’ll just tell you the story.
And you will be able to
pick it up as I tell it
and save the time
of reading it.
Jesus was going up
and down the country.
And He was preaching
and teaching;
and the scripture says that
He taught as one
having authority.
He never did say, “I hope
this is the way to heaven.”
He said,
“This is the way.”
He said,
“This is it.”
He taught with great simplicity
also.
He always told stories
to illustrate spiritual truth.
He also spoke
with great urgency.
He indicated that
what He was saying was
very important
and that you must listen.
And He also taught
with repetition.
Someone has suggested
that He repeated himself
perhaps as much as
500 times.
And then, another interesting
thing about Jesus,
He kept the law,
the laws of Rome.
He said, “Render unto Caesar
the things that are Caesar’s
“and unto God
the things that are God’s.”
He never led a demonstration
against Rome.
You never find Him
leading a vigil.
And Rome was
a strong and powerful
and cruel nation that occupied
His own homeland.
I don’t know if they had
martial law
like we read about today
in some countries,
but they certainly
controlled it.
But Jesus never led
a fight against them.
But what he said,
and what he did,
and what he taught undermined
the whole Roman Empire
within a relatively short time
after his death, burial
and resurrection.
He taught with authority.
He taught with compassion,
as we’ve already heard tonight.
And He had compassion upon
the poor and the needy
and the oppressed
and the sick.
But Jesus’ fame
began to spread abroad.
He makes His way to Jerusalem
to attend a great feast.
Now had I been in Jerusalem
at that time,
and had I been looking
for Christ,
where would I look for Him?
I probably would have gone
to the Temple,
where all the religious leaders
were.
And I would have said
I’m sure that He’ll be here.
But that’s not where he was.
Jesus was at
the pool of Bethesda
that had a pathetic crowd
of broken humanity.
He was where the people were
hurting the most.
And so, Jesus had gone
to this place
that was almost like
a hospital.
It had nine porches.
Bethesda.
And Nehemiah had built
nine gates to Jerusalem
and one of them was called
the sheep gate.
And that’s where this pool was
located, at the sheep gate.
And when Jesus went through
the sheep gate,
He probably was reminded
of the fact that
John the Baptist had said,
“Behold the Lamb of God
“that taketh away
the sin of the world.”
Jesus was the great lamb
that was to come.
Because, you see,
through this sheep gate
came the lambs
that were to be slaughtered upon
the alters as sacrifices to God,
looking forward to
the day when
the great lamb of God
would come.
Because, you see,
all the animals
of the Old Testament
that were slain,
were slain in anticipation of
the one that was to come
that was to lay down His life
for the sins of the world,
on the cross.
And the most vivid
expression or description
of the cross is found in Isaiah,
the fifty-third chapter,
eight hundred years before
Christ was even born.
And you find descriptions of
the death of Christ
upon the cross
in the Old Testament,
because the Old Testament
looked forward to the day
when Jesus Christ would
become the great lamb of God,
and offer Himself upon the cross
for our sins.
And you’ll never understand
the Old Testament.
Many people call it
a bloody religion.
Yes, there was a lot of blood
shed in the Old Testament
on the Jewish altars,
but that meant something
That showed
the hideousness of sin
because the blood that was shed
on Jewish altars was for sin.
And that blood was
symbolic of
life that was leaving
the animal,
that was only made good
when Christ laid down
His life upon the cross.
When he laid down His life
upon the cross,
that made all the sacrifices
made in the Old Testament
made them good and
acceptable to God,
because they were only
symbolic of
that which was to come
in Jesus Christ,
because Christ’s death
was planned
before the foundation of
the world.
Because God could look forward
and see you and me
as lawbreakers
and sinners
in need of a savior,
and He was offering His own Son,
the Lord Jesus Christ
to die upon that cross
as the great Lamb of God.
And Jesus, I’m sure,
when He went through
that sheep gate
and saw these sheep
going through,
could not help but think
that in a short time,
He would be on the cross
shedding His blood for our sins.
Now, these porches contained
a great many sick people.
And they had an idea,
the pool was bubbling.
They had an idea that
every day an angel came,
or every few days
an angel came,
and stirred up the water
and made it bubble,
and if you were the first person
into that water,
you would be healed.
And so people, as soon as
the water started bubbling
early in the morning,
they would all try to be
the first one in.
This poor man that Jesus went to
had tried for 38 years.
He’d been paralyzed
for 38 years!
He couldn’t get in there first.
How discouraged
he must have been.
Jesus looked upon that scene
of terrible misery
and he had compassion
upon them.
He sees the moral
and the spiritual
and the psychological and the
physical cripples here tonight,
because, you see,
there are people here tonight
that are physically well,
but spiritually
you’re a cripple.
You don’t have
peace with God.
You don’t have the assurance
in your heart
that your sins are forgiven.
You don’t know that
you have eternal life.
You’re not certain of it.
Oh, you might have been
baptized or confirmed,
or you joined a church
somewhere
and you have some
little bit of religion.
But you’re not sure of
your relationship with God.
You have a doubt about it.
Well, before this night is over,
settle it and make sure.
Come to the cross where
Christ died for your sins.
He sees you.
He sees the moral cripples here
and the spiritual cripples
and the psychological cripples
and even the physical cripples.
And the Bible describes us all
as sick.
The root cause of the world’s
problems tonight is sin.
Sin is the sickness.
Sin is the problem,
and we go around
treating the symptoms,
when the root cause is sin.
We’re lawbreakers.
We’ve come short of God’s glory,
and the Bible says,
“all have sinned.”
You’re a sinner.
I’m a sinner.
A lawbreaker.
We’ve all broken God’s law
and we’re headed
toward judgement,
and we’re headed
toward hell.
Now it describes the different
people who were sick there,
which we can spiritualize and
apply to ourselves tonight.
First, it says
the impotent people.
Who are they?
They are the ones who
had the law of Moses,
but they had no power
to keep it.
You try and keep
the Ten Commandments.
Not a person in this audience
has ever kept
the Ten Commandments.
Nobody.
There’s no such thing as
a person being morally perfect.
And then the scripture says
this.
If you break one commandment,
you’ve broken them all.
So, I have to say, “I’ve broken
all the commandments.”
And yet, if you’ve broken
only one commandment,
you’ve broken them all and
that makes you a sinner
and no sinner can be accepted
in the sight of God.
You must be clothed
in righteousness
to come into
the presence of God.
God is a Holy God.
Yes, these people
were impotent.
They had no power
to keep the law.
You see, that’s the reason
I cannot say I live
the Christian life.
I can’t live it.
I can’t live by
the golden rule.
Christ has to live it
through me and in me.
That’s the reason,
when you come to Christ,
He gives you the gift of
the Holy Spirit.
The Holy Spirit came
in this age
to help us live the life that
Christ taught and to obey him.
And then it says
the blind were there.
Blind, and you say,
“Well, I’m not blind.”
You may have
20/20 vision,
but your spiritual eyes
are blind.
You’re blind to the fact that
you’re a sinner before God.
You’re blind to
your spiritual needs
because the Bible says that
you were supernaturally blinded.
Do you know who blinded you?
Listen to this in
II Corinthians 4:4,
“In whom
the god of this world
“hath blinded the minds of
them which believe not,
“lest the light of
the glorious gospel of Christ,
“who is the image of God,
should shine unto them.”
The god of this world is
the devil.
Satan blinds us.
He puts blinders on us.
Only the Holy Spirit can remove
that blindness.
That’s a supernatural act
of God.
When you receive Christ,
He removes those blindfolds.
Then it says
the halt were there.
Who were they?
Well, they’re the cripples who
were spiritually and
psychologically crippled.
They have no strength
to obey their conscience.
Why?
Well, you’d like
to read the Bible,
or you’d like to pray,
but you’re just too crippled
to do it.
Too spiritually crippled.
You don’t have
any desire to pray.
No desire
to read the Bible.
No desire really
to go to church.
You go just because
it’s the thing to do, maybe,
or because your parents
want you to go.
You know Christ will not
let you be
a half-way Christian.
And there are some people
trying it though.
They’ve got one foot in
the kingdom of God,
and trying to keep
the other foot in the world.
They’ve got them
in both camps,
and neither one is happy.
Step on one side
or the other.
Go all out for Christ.
And then he said
the withered were there.
Who are they?
They had withered hands.
Our wills have been
paralyzed by sin.
You see the Bible teaches
there are three little men
living inside of us.
There’s the intellect,
the emotion, and the will.
Now by wisdom,
by your intellect alone,
you cannot come
to Christ.
There is that step of faith.
Timothy Dwight,
who was president of Yale
until the later part of
the last century,
The second Timothy Dwight said
that truth can only be
dimly seen by the intellect.
And how right he was.
Just dimly seen.
You can never come
to the truth
by the intellect alone.
It must be faith.
There is that step of faith
that you must take
and receive
by faith.
But my emotion looks at
Christ on the cross
and I say
I can love Him,
He died for me.
I look at the judgements that
are in the Bible and I’m afraid.
That’s emotion.
But the thing that God is really
getting at is your will.
He wants you to say,
“I will receive Him
as Savior and Lord.”
But, you see, your will has been
affected by sin.
Paralyzed in some cases.
You just can’t say that.
When you got married,
or when I got married
a number of years ago,
the minister said,
“Will you have this woman to be
your lawfully wedded wife?”
I didn’t say,
“I love her.”
I didn’t say,
“Well, she’s lovely.”
I didn’t say, “Well,
we get along fine.”
I’d already settled
all of that.
I said, “I will.”
I yielded my will to her.
I yielded by will.
Just a simple declaration.
And that’s what you say
to Christ.
Now isn’t it interesting that
you go and stand
in front of a minister
and he signs a piece of paper.
Maybe the wedding lasts
30 minutes
or 15 minutes
or 40 minutes
or however big you have
the wedding,
maybe 5 minutes,
and you’ve made
a lifetime commitment,
supposed to be.
Just by saying,
“I will.”
And when you come to Christ
you say, “I will,”
and that’s a lifetime
eternal commitment forever.
And He receives you
and forgives you
and cleanses you.
What a wonderful good news
that is.
Now this man had been waiting
38 years.
He’d tried everything else.
He had tried 14,000 times
to get in that water,
if you count every day.
And perhaps you could
do that.
But he was now hopeless,
helpless lying there
on that pallet, crippled.
No friends to help him
in the water first.
And Jesus goes up to him
and He went to him
probably because he was
the worst case there.
And he said, “Do you want
to be healed?”
And I want to ask you tonight,
“Do you want
spiritual healing tonight?
“Do you want
your sins forgiven?”
If you do, you that are
watching by television,
pick up the telephone
and call that number that is
on the screen right now
and if you don’t get it
immediately, keep calling
and talk to someone about
your need tonight
and get it settled
over the telephone.
And you that are here
in this great audience,
you can get it settled
this very night,
this very moment
by saying yes
to Jesus Christ.
But, you know Jesus’ question to
this man sounds almost cruel.
Every day he’d tried.
But then you start
to think about it,
it wasn’t so cruel
after all.
Do you really want
Christ in your life?
Do you?
Do you really want Him
to come into your heart?
Are you really ready
to meet His demands
and surrender
everything to Him
and make Him
your Lord?
It’s not easy.
It means that
some of those things
that you’ve been doing
that are wrong
you’ll have to give up.
It means there will have to be
new attitudes in your life.
It means that He becomes Lord
of all of your decisions.
He helps you to make
the decision about marriage.
He helps you
in your vocation.
You must turn to him
at every turn.
And read the Bible
and pray and witness.
And get into the church.
It means that your total life is
committed totally to Him,
as Lord and Savior.
Do you really want that?
Jesus said to this man, “Do you
really want to be healed?”
Do you?
You can be tonight.
You see, the closer we get to
Him and realize His demands,
the more we’re not sure.
Jesus said,
“Will you be made whole?”
Would you let Christ
make you whole tonight?
Apparently, this man answered,
“Yes, I want to be made whole.”
That’s all you have to say.
“Yes, I want to be made whole.”
Now, there are three important
things that happen.
You must have faith.
Jesus said,
“Rise.”
Now, this man had been
trying to rise for 38 years.
And just at the command of
Jesus Christ to rise?
But he had faith
in Jesus Christ.
He looked up and he saw
something,
and he felt something,
and he knew something
that was different than
anything else that
had ever come
into his life.
And when Jesus said,
“Rise,”
by faith he took that first step
on those paralyzed legs
and he walked.
He’d tried it
a thousand times before
and had failed.
Now he looked at Jesus
with faith.
Something about the way
he looked,
or the voice of authority,
“If thou shalt confess with
thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
“and believe in thy heart that
“God hath raised Him
from the dead,”
you can be saved tonight.
And then there must be
repentance.
You see, you have to leave
the old lifestyle.
He had to leave
that old pallet.
Take it up
and throw it out.
That old dirty place,
and get out of that place
with all of that thing
that was there.
The old lifestyle
had to change.
And what a new lifestyle
this man had
because he was
jumping around.
His legs were
as good as new.
For the first time in 38-years
he was not paralyzed any longer.
That could happen to you
tonight spiritually.
And then you have to
accept the responsibility.
Accept the responsibility.
Jesus said, “Walk.”
Walk a new road.
Walk the narrow road
with Christ.
Walk in discipleship.
And when he did that,
there was
instantaneous healing.
And it’s interesting to me that
the people that came to Jesus
in the New Testament,
Most of them came to Christ
and had instantaneous,
instantaneous
conversion to Christ.
They received Christ
right then and there,
in a moment.
And they did it openly
and publicly.
Nobody, except Nicodemus,
ever came to Jesus by night.
And we’re not sure that was
the night Nicodemus
really found Christ.
But all the people that came
to Jesus came to him
publicly and openly.
And He said, “If you’re not
willing to acknowledge me,
“publicly and openly,
before men,
“I’ll not acknowledge you before
My Father which is in heaven.”
He said, this is
a public decision.
You see, when He died
on the cross,
He died publicly
for you and for me.
Now we must publicly
say yes to him, openly.
It’s not something done
in a secret or quiet place
necessarily.
It may be made in secret, yes,
but there comes a time when
you make it public and open
and you make
your witness known
either by
the fruit of the Spirit
or by telling people
or however.
And Jesus told him
a very interesting thing
in verse 14
in this passage.
Jesus met him later
at the Temple.
And Jesus said something
to him
that I want you
to always remember.
He said, “Sin no more, lest
a worst thing come upon you.”
What could be worse than
38-years of paralytic?
Jesus was teaching that man
something about judgment
and something about hell
that is yet to come
if we go on
the way we’re going.
The narrow road, He said,
leads to eternal life.
The broad road, which
most of the people are on,
leads to destruction.
Yes,
you must do something.
Jesus told this man
to do something.
Rise and walk.
I’m asking you tonight
to get up out of your seat
and walk and stand
in front of this platform,
as we’ve seen thousands do
all over New England
and say by coming symbolically,
I want a new life.
I want to know
my sin is forgiven.
I want to know that
I have eternal life.
I want to receive him tonight,
or I want to recommit
my life to Christ tonight.
I want to settle
this thing.
I want Christ tonight.
I’m going to ask you to get up
out of your seat right now,
hundreds of you and come and
stand in front of the platform.
And as you stand here, that will
be a symbol, an outward symbol,
a public symbol of
what you’re doing inside,
the decision
that you’re making.
And then after
you’ve all come,
I’m going to say a word to you
and we’re going to have
a prayer together.
Then we’ll give you
some literature
to help you in
your Christian life.
And then you can go back
and join your friends.
If you’re with friends and
relatives, they’ll wait.
You get up
out of your seat
and you that are watching
by television.
Pick up that telephone
and call someone right now.
So you come right now
from all over,
hundreds of you just get up
out of your seat.
Now you may be a member of
the best church in town,
whatever religious background
you come from.
I’m not asking you to join
a specific church tonight.
I’m asking you to come to
the person of Christ.
You may be
a professing Christian,
or you may not have
any religious background
or Christian background.
And if you’ve come
in one of those buses,
they’ll wait.
It’ll take you about
a minute or two
to come from that top stand
up there,
so start now quickly.
As many people are already on
the way you come and join them.
♪ Just as I am,
without one plea ♪
♪ But that Thy blood
was shed for me. ♪
♪ And that thou bidst me
come to thee, ♪
♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come. ♪
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 and
if the line is busy, call back.
We want to help you now.
♪ To rid my soul,
of one dark blot. ♪
♪ To Thee whose blood
can cleanse each spot, ♪
♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come. ♪
As you can see here
in Boston, Massachusetts,
Boston University
football stadium,
hundreds of people
have already come
and many more
on the way
to make that commitment
to Jesus Christ.
You can make
that same commitment
where you are
in your hotel room,
at home,
or wherever you are.
Say yes to Christ
and call that number
that you see
on your screen.
God bless you
and be sure 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’s on the screen.
There will be someone there
to talk with you,
pray with you and
answer those questions.
And remember,
God love 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.
It’s Anne, she’s in trouble.
If you don’t take it to the edge
every chance you get,
you’re dead already, baby.
(woman)
I was in trouble,
and I didn’t know what to do.
(slap)
Where are the Jews?
I knew that I could
take on the world.
It’s like you’re in a dream,
but not really a dream,
this is reality.
I don’t really believe
in all this,
but I know something crazy is
happening right now.
(Billy Graham)
There’s only one way,
only one hope.
♪ Hear the sound of
a brand-new day. ♪
♪ Witness the story
that never fa-a-ades. ♪
♪ Come, come with me, ♪
♪ To the Billy Graham Library. ♪