Billy Graham's wife, Ruth, is someone I admire for so many reasons and I've written about her a few times:
The wives of pastors are so often overlooked and it's so often that these women put themselves aside for the sake of the preaching of the gospel. These women who come alongside and serve their husband, helping him, loving him, and denying self. I admire that so much. Do you know how much strength, self-control, perseverance, dedication, hard work, and love is required to accomplish that? Though her husband is the one widely known, it is she who he credits most often for what he accomplished in his life (see #2 and 3). Though I spent more time reading her work, he is also someone I admire.
The respect for this couple grew immensely after reading Ruth Bell Graham's Footprints of a Pilgrim. And even more so when I listened to Billy pay tribute to his wife, who died 10+ years before her husband. I'm sure that those 10 years were difficult for him and it thrills my heart to know that what he says about death is now his reality,
"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."
He is in the presence of God! If it were for nothing else he said, I would respect him for that one alone. It is by far my favorite.
There is so much to be said about this man, but like Jennifer Briggs Kaski, I enjoy hearing what he said. Still, I love how Kaski wrote about him in the intro to her book, Quotable Billy Graham, "He has preached to more than a hundred million people, from tents to cathedrals to stadiums. About three million people have answered his urgent admonitions to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. A 1995 crusade in Puerto Rico was translated into 116 languages and watched by 1.5 million people. All this by a man born in 1918, who has never held office, scored a touchdown, cut a CD, made a movie, or pocketed a million in a year. Yet he has made Gallup's list of the world's ten most-admired men forty-one times in fifty-three years. His book Angels sold a million copies in ninety days in 1975. He was presented with America's 114th Congressional Medal of Freedom." And she wrote this book in 2002, so it is quite old! Imagine all that he did and said between the publishing of this book and the day he died! Enough on that, listen to what he had to say, especially on his wife...
2. "She's been a marvelous person to be able to stay here, raise five children, nineteen grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. She's been the one that's done the work and kept up with them and talked with them and loved them, taught them Scriptures and so forth. She let me travel all over the world preaching the gospel. I think if there's any secret in our marriage, it's Ruth. There's very few women I've ever known like her." (Midwest Today, January 1997)
3. On Ruth's illness, "It didn't test my faith because I knew she was going to be all right whether she lived or died, because she lives halfway in heaven anyway." What a marvelous thing to be said of anyone...
4. He said something very similar about himself, "My home is in heaven. I'm just traveling through this world."
5. He told students in 1964 at Harvard Divinity School . . . “I used to think that in evangelism I had to do it all, but now I approach evangelism with a totally different attitude. I approach it with complete relaxation. First of all, I don’t believe that any man can come to Christ unless the Holy Spirit has prepared his heart. Secondly, I don’t believe any man can come to Christ unless God drives him. My job is to proclaim the message. It’s the Holy Spirit’s job to do the work, period.” (Catherwood, 230) John Piper's "God Did the Work, Period" Tribute to Billy Graham
6. "I'm not going to heaven because I'm good. I'm not going to heaven because I preach to a lot of people. I'm going to heaven because of God's grace and mercy in Christ on the Cross. I haven't worked for it. It's a free gift from God for me."
7. "I've stuck to the same message. I have different texts, different illustrations and different stories and all the rest, but the Gospel is the Gospel. There's only one Gospel, and the human heart is the same." (Midwest Today, January 1997)
8. "I remember when President (Lyndon) Johnson thought that I should run for president and he said his organization would back me, or the other party, the same thing. Those were not even temptations. I just said, "I will never do anything in my entire life except preach the Gospel." (Fox News Sunday, January 1, 2000)
9. "In 1951, when there was segregating of the audience in Chattanooga, Tennessee, they put ropes up to divide the audience, with the black people sitting behind and the whites sitting up front. I went down and personally removed the ropes." (Midwest Today, January 1997)
10. "You cannot control the length of your life. You can control the depth."
Although I enjoy reading and listening to Billy Graham, he is not my hero. Christ alone has the key to my heart and while I feel paying tribute to Billy Graham is a good thing, let's not forget the reason why Billy Graham lived - for the glory of God alone. With that said, here's one to end with...
"American youth must have a hero. It may be a football player, a general in the army, or some other glamorous person. Jesus Christ is the hero of my soul and the coach of my life."
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