For as long as he was able, Billy Graham continued to point people to the hope of the Gospel. On the 6th anniversary of his passing, watch one of his final recordings along with testimonies from illusionist Jim Monroe and musician Lacey Sturm—and a special message from Franklin Graham.
This is Franklin Graham.
Six years ago,
my father, Billy Graham,
went home to be with the Lord.
In the last years
of his life,
he would say,
“I’m not afraid of death.
“It’s just that dying part
I’m not too sure about.”
Well, God called him home.
And the last few years
of his life
he really wanted to preach
one more message on the cross.
And so we helped him
prepare this message.
Over 7 million people viewed it
and over a hundred thousand
committed their lives
to Jesus Christ.
We thought,
Let’s show it again.
And I want to share
this very special program
with you now.
Thank you,
and may God bless you.
(Newscaster)
Young Billy Graham
hailed another
Billy Sunday.
Reverend Billy Graham,
one of the most inspirational
spiritual leaders
of the 20th century.
(Clinton)
We need you, we love you,
thank you for coming,
Billy Graham.
(Carson)
Would you welcome, please,
evangelist, author,
educator,
Dr. Billy Graham.
Our recipient, the man who
honors us by being here today.
What is your purpose?
Go into the whole world
and proclaim this message.
(Graham preaching)
You shall know the truth
and the truth shall
make you free!
(echoing)
…shall make you free…
shall make you free…
(Graham)
As I look back over my life
it’s full of surprises.
I never thought I would
become friends with people
in different countries
all over the world.
(Graham preaching)
“For God so loved the world,
“He gave His only
begotten son.”
I want us to look
at the cross tonight.
(Graham)
I see how God’s hand guided me.
Love one another!
(Graham)
When I began preaching
many years ago
it was not with any thoughts
that I’d be preaching
to large audiences.
Come to the cross!
This gospel is for everyone!
(Graham)
God has done this.
Christ is alive!
In modern America today
there is a vacuum of the soul.
(Graham)
Our country’s in great need
of a spiritual awakening.
(Graham preaching)
Come to the cross in
repentance…
(Graham)
There have been times
that I’ve wept
as I’ve gone
from city to city
and I’ve seen how far people
have wandered from God.
Of all the things that
I’ve seen and heard,
there’s only one message
that can change people’s lives
and hearts.
There is a way
if you come by the way
of the cross.
I want to tell people
about the meaning of the cross.
Not the cross
that hangs on a wall
or around someone’s neck…
(Graham preaching)
We receive our freedom
purchased by the ransom
at the cross.
…but the real cross of Christ.
(Graham preaching)
The cross expresses
the great love of God for man.
It’s scarred and bloodstained.
His was a rugged cross.
His real purpose for coming
was to die!
I know that many will react
to this message,
but it is the truth.
And with all my heart
I want to leave you
with the truth…
God says, I love you,
I love you.
I love you with
an everlasting love.
…that He loves you,
willing to forgive you
of all your sins.
(Graham preaching)
On our churches,
we have a cross.
It’s embossed on our Bibles.
(echoing) …on our Bibles…
on our Bibles…
(Sturm)
The cross really didn’t have
any meaning to me
except for something artistic
that rock stars wore.
(Graham)
It’s an ornament that
we wear around our necks,
Christians and non-Christians.
But talk about the depth and
the real meaning of the cross
and it becomes an offense.
Why is that?
I developed
a pretty heavy skepticism
about religious things.
(Graham) The cross is offensive
because it confronts people.
Even so, it’s a confrontation
that all of us must face.
(audience groaning)
(Munroe)
Being a magician is the most
fun thing in the world to me.
I tend to like
questions
a lot more than
answers.
As a magician,
you’re very skeptical
and you realize that
most of what’s going on
behind the scenes
is fake or false.
The idea of
an all-powerful God
seems incredibly silly,
and when I talked to people
that would go to church,
I can remember
thinking that they
were just falling
for a simple magic trick.
It’s like the Wizard of Oz
behind the curtain
controlling everything.
I’d grown up understanding
how to make people believe
something was real
when it was really not.
I am a master of phoniness.
I’m a charlatan by craft,
but I began to ask myself
a big God question,
and I said,
“God, if You are real,
“then I need You
to bring me back
“behind the curtain.
“I need You to show me
how it works
“and I need You to make this
so real to me
“that I cannot ignore it.”
(Sturm)
My mom always
told me about God.
I think I had an idea
that God was big and good,
but as time went on,
and I saw more and more
tragic things
happen around me,
I think that was
the beginning
of me just
questioning
everything
about life
and about God.
When I was ten years old,
my stepdad came
to pick me up
and he said that my cousin,
Kelly, was dead.
I remember being
so mad and really just
deciding that
if God was big and good,
why wouldn’t He protect
my cousin
who was so tiny
and so awesome.
Such a funny,
brilliant little guy.
Why wouldn’t God
protect him
from a huge muscled guy
like his stepdad
who beat him to death?
(Graham)
I look out across an audience,
when I stand up to preach,
and I think of all the people
with their different backgrounds
and their various needs,
and I know that they are objects
of God’s mighty love,
to the point that
He gave His Son,
His only Son to die
upon a cross,
and the cross was the most
terrible form of execution
by the Romans for criminals.
And Jesus endured all that
in our place
because of our sins.
We deserve
the cross.
We deserve hell.
We deserve judgment,
and all that that means.
I know there are many people
that dispute that.
People don’t want to hear
that they’re sinners.
To many people it’s an offense.
The cross is offensive,
because it directly confronts
the evils which dominate
so much of this world.
(Graham preaching)
You see, the Bible teaches
that all of us are wrong.
We’ve all gone astray.
We’ve every one
turned to his own way.
Filled with envy and hate
and strife and greed and lust
and all the other things
that could pull the trigger.
(Sturm) I remember thinking
that same year
that my cousin died
about the depth
of the evil
in the world.
I never wanted to have kids.
It was just a new person
to suffer.
That was the year
I started to cry myself to sleep
every night
and stopped believing in God.
I couldn’t get away from
my own depression.
And I remember
thinking,
I’m tired
of the pain
in my heart.
I’m tired of
going to bed that way.
I’m tired of feeling
like a burden.
I’m just tired of not knowing
why I’m alive.
And so, I remember
the night I laid in bed
and I knew
I was gonna
commit suicide
the next day.
I knew that
I was not gonna
live past
tomorrow.
(Munroe)
I spent my life pursuing magic.
I was successful,
but I had no idea
how close I was to death.
I will never forget the day
this man walks into my room
and he said,
“Mr. Munroe, I don’t know
how to tell you this
“but you have,
you have cancer.”
(metal clangs)
I said, “What?”
And he looked at me
and he said,
“Mr. Munroe,” he said,
“We cannot cure you
of your disease.”
My wife and I were,
we were in a bad place.
“God, where are You?
“I guess You aren’t that great.”
I had been married
for five years.
I had just a three-year-old girl
and a two-year-old little boy
and I needed, I needed
more time with my family.
Facing death,
I started reflecting on
the choices that I’d made,
and the mistakes that I’d made.
(Graham)
All of us are sinners.
We’ve turned
our back on God.
And that’s a very
dangerous thing for us
as individuals.
Sin is a disease
in the human heart.
It affects the mind
and the will and the emotions.
Every part of our being
is affected by this disease.
How can we break this bondage?
How can we be set free?
God helps us
break those chains.
The Bible says,
“If any man be in Christ,
he is a new creature.
“Old things pass away.
“Everything becomes new.”
He can make you
a totally new person.
(Sturm)
On the day that I planned
to commit suicide,
I came home from school
and my grandma was there,
and she wasn’t supposed
to be there.
And she looked at me and said,
“There’s something wrong
with you.
“You’re gonna go to church.”
I was like,
no way I’m going to church.
And she screamed
at the top of her lungs,
like, we were fighting
back and forth,
and I just didn’t want to listen
to her yell anymore,
and so I decided,
fine, I’ll go,
and then afterwards,
I’ll go ahead
and follow through with my plan.
So I went to the back
of the church
and slumped down in my chair
and hated everybody
in the room,
and the pastor
started speaking,
and I hated him
more than anyone.
And he says,
There’s a suicidal spirit
in the room,
and of course,
all the hair stood up
on the back of my neck
and I was,
well, this is really weird.
And I got up and
went to the door.
A white-headed man
is standing there
and he stopped me,
and was like,
“The Lord
“wants me
to speak to you.
“He wants you
to know
“that even
though
“you’ve never
known
“an earthly father,
“that God will be
a better father to you
“than any earthly father
could ever be.
“God knows the pain
in your heart.
“He’s seen you cry yourself
to sleep at night.”
The idea was so
overwhelming to me.
He’s like,
“Do you want me
“to pray for you
“so that Jesus
can take
“the pain out
of your heart?”
He put his hand
on my shoulder
and started
to pray.
It was as if
the God of
the universe
showed up
right in front
of me,
and the first thing
I noticed
was that God was
holy and good.
The second thing
I noticed
was that I was
so not holy
and not good.
(Graham) We are sinners.
We have broken God’s laws.
We deserve judgment,
yet Jesus
took it for our sake.
On that cross
God was laying
on Jesus our sins.
They not only
put nails in His hands,
but before that
they’d scourged Him.
A Roman scourge
was a terrible thing.
They beat a person
almost to death,
and then they took
that cross
and made Him
carry the cross
which was,
in his weakened condition,
was almost impossible.
But He carried that cross to
a place outside of Jerusalem,
and then they put nails
in His hands,
but that was not
the real suffering.
The real suffering is
when He said,
“My God, why hast Thou
forsaken Me?”
In that terrible moment
He and God the Father were
separated.
He shed His blood,
and the shedding of that blood
carries with it God’s very life.
(Graham preaching)
The blood
is the meeting place
between God and man,
and the Bible says,
“Without the shedding
“of blood there’s
no forgiveness”,
and that’s what Christ
was doing on the cross.
He was making
atonement for our sins,
and He was shedding
His blood.
Now, when you
take the blood out
that means you’re
giving your life,
and that’s what it means.
It means the life of Christ.
The cross and
the resurrection of Christ
offers forgiveness of sin,
offers a whole
new life
and offers you
eternal life
if you come to the cross
by repentance and faith.
(Munroe) Unless something
drastic happened,
my life was gonna end.
The cancer doctor looked at me
and he said,
“Mr. Munroe,” he said,
“We cannot cure you
“of your disease.
“There is something, however,
that we would like to try.
“It’s called
a bone marrow transplant.
“The problem with your body is
that your white blood cells
“are making bad copies
of bad copies.
“Your body is deceiving itself.
“It’s playing a trick on itself.
“So, what we need to do is
“we need to completely
destroy your system,
“and what we’re hoping to do
“is we’re hoping to find
someone in the world
“whose DNA matches yours
close enough
“to grow a brand-new
immune system,
“a brand-new blood system
from scratch.
“We’re gonna substitute
someone else’s perfect blood
“on your behalf so that
you can live again.”
(Graham preaching)
God said,
“Without the shedding
of blood
“there is no forgiveness.”
There has to be a substitute
for you
who will take the judgment
that you deserve;
the death that you deserve,
and that substitute
became Jesus Christ.
(Munroe)
I was thinking to myself,
“Man, my time is running out.
“I am dying of cancer.”
It’s been hard to deal with.
Right now Peyton is
three years old
and Gavin is two years old.
My two babies,
should this take my life early,
I love you.
They began the most vicious
concoction of chemo,
the goal of which was
not to just destroy
the cancer in my body
but was literally to destroy me;
it was hell;
it was a slow death.
I really am scared.
I’m really trying not to be
fearful, but I am fearful.
I’m trying to be strong
for my wife
and for my, for my family;
but I’m pretty scared.
We were waiting
to hear from
the National Bone Marrow
Donor Program,
seven million people currently
registered on the database,
and there was one perfect match
for me, just one;
it was
a nineteen-year-old female.
And then I’ll never forget,
on April twenty-third,
they brought this bag of blood
into my room
and everyone was hoping
in that moment
that my body would
receive that new life,
that new blood.
I sit here today, one hundred
percent completely cancer-free
and through the experience
I came to clearly see what
Christ did for me on the cross.
He gave his blood for me
so I could have eternal life.
I’m reminded of a verse
in Galatians 2 that says,
“It’s no longer I who live,
“but it’s Someone else who
lives on the inside of me.”
John 17:3, it says,
“This is eternal life,
“knowing You, God,
“and Jesus Christ
“whom You have sent.”
I’m fully convinced
of the claims of Jesus,
as a skeptical person
and as an illusionist.
I know that
the God of the universe
has brought me back
behind the curtain
just like I asked Him to.
Cancer was how He did it
through my life
and there’s a spiritual cancer
that’s eating us away
on the inside
and we’re all longing,
we’re all begging for someone
to step in and to save us
from that condition.
And that’s what Jesus did
on the cross
through His resurrection.
(Sturm)
If God had looked at me
and said, Go away forever,
He would have been right,
it would have been justice.
The same time I felt that,
I felt Him inviting me
to an embrace
of grace and
love unconditional.
It was like God was saying,
I love you.
I know you’re tired of the way
you’ve been living,
and I will make you new
if you’ll let Me.
My heart was just, yes!
It just said, yes,
I need that, I want that.
Please…
And that’s why I woke up
the next day.
I just felt such a peace
and a joy almost
that I’d never felt before.
(baby crying)
Jesus saved my life
and on top of everything else,
the life of my son
and the new baby.
That wouldn’t be
if Jesus hadn’t intervened
and rescued me.
The almost overwhelming thing
is to think that
Jesus became sin
and it was my sin,
and it was things
that I’ve done
that held Him on the cross.
It was things that I’ve done.
He hung naked
on a cross,
bleeding,
in a shameful way,
so that I would never
have to be ashamed
for the things
that I’ve done.
The truth is…
the truth is
there is no other way
besides Christ and what He did.
There’s no life outside of that.
(Graham)
There is no other way
of salvation
except through
the cross of Christ.
Jesus said, “I’m the way,
the truth and the life.
“no man cometh to the Father
but by Me.”
The only way to the Father,
Father God,
is through His Son,
Jesus Christ.
Now why Jesus?
He’s the only one
that was born into this world
without sin.
But more than that,
He was the righteous one.
And when you come to Him,
you’re clothed in
His righteousness.
God no longer sees your sin,
He no longer sees
your own heart,
He sees Jesus.
(Graham preaching)
Now I don’t understand
all about it.
There are many things
about the cross
and about salvation
that I do not understand.
And I’m not told that
I have to understand it all.
I’m told that I’m to believe.
And that word “believe”
means commit.
I commit my life
totally to Him.
Jesus Christ from
the cross says,
“I will save you,
“I will forgive you.
“I will change you.
“I’ll make you a new person
“if you come to the cross
by repentance and faith.”
Come to Christ!
(echoing) …come to Christ,
come to Christ…
When you come to Christ,
you come by the way
of repentance.
Repent means to change.
To change your way of living
and turn from your sins,
and turn to Jesus Christ,
and say, “I’m a sinner,
“I need forgiveness.
“I know that You’re the only one
that can change me.”
♪ Hope went dark ♪
♪ That violent day ♪
♪ The whole earth quaked ♪
♪ At love’s display ♪
♪ Three days silent ♪
♪ In the ground ♪
♪ This body born ♪
♪ For heaven’s crown ♪
♪
♪ But on that bright ♪
♪ And glorious day ♪
♪ Heaven opened up the grave ♪
♪ He’s alive ♪
♪ And risen indeed ♪
♪ O praise You for ♪
♪ The mercy tree ♪
♪ Death has died ♪
♪ Love has won ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Hallelujah ♪
♪ Jesus Christ has overcome ♪
♪ He has risen from the dead ♪♪
(Graham preaching)
The Bible says
in spite of our rebellion
and rejection,
God loves you.
He loves you so much that
He gave His Son to
die for your sins.
And when Christ died
on that cross,
He became guilty of lying.
He became guilty of slander.
He became guilty of jealousy.
He became guilty
of the most filthy, dirty sins.
Christ took the hell
that you and I deserve.
Now, God says, receive Him!
Believe Him!
Put your trust
and your confidence in Him,
and I will forgive your sins,
and I will guarantee you
eternity in heaven.
It’s all yours,
and it’s all free.
All you have to do
is receive it.
Today, I’m asking you
to put your trust in Christ.
I’m going to ask you to
pray this prayer,
sentence by sentence,
after me.
Dear Heavenly Father,
I know that I’m a sinner
and I ask for Your forgiveness.
I believe You’ve died
for my sins
and rose from the dead.
I turn from my sins.
I repent of my sins.
I invite you to come
into my heart and life.
I want to trust and follow You
as my Lord and Savior.
In Jesus’ name,
amen.
(Graham preaching)
He’s alive!
I’ve given my life,
not to a dead Christ,
but to a living Christ!
I know where I’ve come from.
I know why I’m here!
I know where I’m going!
Do you?
Thank you for watching.
If you’ve prayed that prayer
with my father,
that’s the most important
decision that you’ll
make in your life.
And we’d like to send you
some literature to help you
grow in your new relationship
with God through faith
in His Son Jesus Christ.
So if you’ll just go to
the website or call the number
that’s on the screen
we’d like to send you something.
It’s free, there’s no cost.
We want you to have it.
God bless you, thank you.