The recent death of Billy Graham has inspired many of us to put in writing what he meant to us personally, and what he has meant to America and the whole world. He has preached the Gospel, in person and via electronic media, around the world - and literally millions say they came to know Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior through a Billy Graham outreach.
In 1999, as an Elder in the Fil-Am Church of Corona (now the Corona International Christian Fellowship, CICF) one of my ministries was doing the Sunday Worship Service bulletin. Viewing this as an opportunity to edify and encourage folks in our fellowship, I usually included an insert in the bulletin sharing the Gospel or other information which I felt would be helpful,edifying, and/or instructive for our members. For the October 10, 1999, Sunday bulletin I included an insert titled "The Chains Of Eternity." Below is a slightly edited reprint of that 1999 bulletin insert:
THE CHAINS OF ETERNITY
Life is a continuous chain of events - cause and effect. If one event in the chain is changed, the effects can be great, possibly changing history. Fictional novels have been written about people who are able to go back into their past and do something differently. I am sure we have all had such fantasies at some time, i.e., if only I had taken this path and not that one.
Several years ago their was a television show titled "Quantum Leap" about a scientist who was able to time travel into the past. But he was warned that no events were to be changed - for the effects on the world could be catastrophic.
There was another television show on the PAX network titled “Twice In A Lifetime.” The story line is about a person who has had, or is having, a traumatic event in his/her life, i.e., terminal cancer, suffering the lingering effects of a youthful abortion, lost a child through neglect, and many other painful events. In this television show, the people are divinely granted an opportunity to go back into their past anonymously for an opportunity to convince their youthful self to alter his or her lifestyle, possibly preventing the troubling event from occurring in their older life.
Why these thoughts on the chain of life events? Because we, as born-again Christians, are links in a real, divinely designed chain of events. To illustrate, let’s follow a chain which involves a man who is familiar to all of us, Billy Graham. Although this chain began in the Garden of Eden, we will jump into it in the 1860s, and follow it through Billy Sunday, to Mordecai Ham, to Billy Graham, to events which have influenced our lives, and to events happening in our lives today.
In the late 1860s a young lady, Sarah Dunn, was decorating her family home in Waterloo, Iowa, when she felt the Lord was calling her to ministry. It seemed that she heard an audible voice asking, “What are you doing to decorate your heavenly home?” Thoughts of perishing souls marching into an eternity without Christ began to flood Sarah’s mind.
Later she moved to Chicago, and in 1873 she met and married Colonel George Clarke, a real estate business man. He shared her spiritual desires and together, in 1877, they opened the Mission Sunday School in a small storefront in Chicago which would seat 40 people. There the homeless and downtrodden found warmth and the love of God through George and Sarah Clarke.
In 1880, they moved to a larger facility in a building vacated by the notorious Pacific Beer Garden. Dwight L. Moody, the great evangelist of the 1800s, recently back from an evangelistic crusade in England, suggested they change the name to Pacific Garden Mission, which is the name of that mission to this day.
At this point in time, as very frequently happens, several momentous eternal chains seem to overlap. During Dwight L. Moody's crusade in England, Horatio G. Spafford, a wealthy Chicago businessman and a friend of Moody, was going to England to help him in the crusade - to give the Spafford family a vacation to recover from the recent death from Scarlet Fever of their four year old son - and to recover emotionally from the financial loss they had suffered in the great Chicago fire of 1871. Due to last minute business problems Spafford sent his wife and four daughters on the ship as scheduled, assuring them he would follow on the next ship.
Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the ship S.S. Ville du Havre, carrying his family was struck by another ship and sank. Spafford's four daughters were lost at sea while his wife survived. Heartbroken, he immediately took the next ship to join his wife. It was on this voyage, while reflecting on his great loss, that God gave Horatio Spafford the peace of mind to write the great hymn we all have sung so many times, “It Is Well With My Soul.” How many of us have found peace and assurance from the words of that hymn?
In the late 1800s Billy Sunday was a professional baseball player for the Chicago White Stockings (now the White Sox). He was a heavy drinker, a carouser, living a fast worldly life. As the story is told, in 1886, Billy Sunday was drinking in the seamier part of Chicago when he first heard the Gospel from the Pacific Garden Mission’s roving Gospel Wagon.
That night Billy Sunday visited the Pacific Garden Mission, liked what he heard, and finally one Sunday evening publicly invited Jesus into his heart. He continued to visit the mission, became an eager Bible student, and frequently gave his testimony at the mission. Later, he left professional baseball and the lucrative income it provided to work for the YMCA. In 1910, he started his own full time evangelistic ministry.
In 1923, Billy Sunday held a Revival Meeting in Charlotte, North Carolina, and one of the men saved at this revival meeting was Thomas Wilson, father of Grady Wilson, a long time friend of Billy Graham and a fixture in the Billy Graham evangelistic team. Thomas Wilson and a group of other Charlotte businessmen, all of whom had come to the Lord at Billy Sunday’s revival meetings, formed a group called the Billy Sunday Laymen’s Evangelistic Club, later to be renamed the Charlotte Business Men’s Committee which is still active today.
In 1934, the depression was on and many people had little faith to carry them through the hard times. The Charlotte Christian men’s group, most of whom were saved at the Billy Sunday meeting in 1923, held an all-day prayer meeting to discuss inviting Dr. Mordecai Ham to Charlotte for a Revival Meeting (they were not yet called Crusades). Even though the local pastoral association was not in favor of the revival meeting, these Christian laymen made it happen. Vernon Patterson, leader of the laymen’s group, later prayed that “out of Charlotte the Lord would raise up someone to preach the Gospel to the ends of the earth.” That prayer, most certainly, was answered in Billy Graham.
The Mordecai Ham Revival Meeting lasted eleven weeks and two of the converts of his evangelistic outreach were Grady Wilson and Billy Graham, who at the time even though both were teenagers in Charlotte, did not know one another. Yet, they soon became strong friends and through divine guidance their spiritual growth and lives seem to run in the same path. Through college and early pastoral endeavors their lives became entwined and a few years after Billy started his crusades Grady Wilson joined his team and is still very much a factor in the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Crusades.
In the late 1940s an organization called Christ For Greater Los Angeles wanted to have a revival meeting in Los Angeles. They invited Angel Martinez, a dynamic Baptist evangelist in Texas, to be their speaker. He turned them down because his heart was more into church revival, rather than large mass meetings. In his place, they invited the virtually unknown Billy Graham.
During the early weeks of the Revival Meeting in Los Angeles, William Randolph Hearst, the powerful newspaper tycoon - and a non-believer - was led, even though there is no evidence that he ever attended any of the meetings, to instruct the editors of his many newspapers to give Billy Graham full-blown, all-out coverage in their newspapers. That crusade, publicized by the Hearst newspaper empire, catapulted Billy Graham into the national and international spotlight. God was working.
In Los Angeles Suzy Hamblen, a Christian lady and the wife of Stuart Hamblen, famous radio celebrity and songwriter in Hollywood, came to the meetings. One night she went to the Prayer Tent and asked them to pray for her husband to be converted. To make a long story short, she finally got Stuart to attend one of the meetings where God laid conviction on his soul.
But, instead of coming to know the Lord, Hamblen did a quick exit and headed to the mountains to hunt. Halfway to the mountain retreat, a blizzard forced him to return to Los Angeles. He felt God’s hand in all this and went back. Hamblen and his wife went to visit Billy Graham and some of the crusade team at their hotel. That night Stuart Hamblen invited Jesus Christ to be his Lord and Savior. After that he did nothing but Christian music. One of his songs I’m sure you will recognize, “It Is No Secret What God Can Do.” How many times have you sung that song?
Bill Gray Note: I have two Friends who were successful secular singers and musicians - Jun Polistico and Leon Patillo - who did the same thing. When they met Jesus Christ and believed - they turned from their secular world and its music and dedicated their lives to God and His music.
Billy Graham calls the people who come forward at his altar calls “inquirers” not converts. He explains this with the story of Sam Jones, a Methodist evangelist. At one of Sam Jones’ meetings a drunk staggered up to him and belched, “Mr. Jones, I am one of your converts!” Jones looked him over and answered, “You look like one of my converts. But, it’s plain to see that you are not one of the Lord’s.” In Billy’s thinking, after you have been established in your Christian walk for a year or so, and involved in a local Christian fellowship, THEN you can be called a convert.
Point of interest, Greg Laurie in his Harvest Crusades does the same for those who come forward at the Harvest Crusades. Many counselors, and an extensive follow-up effort, works to link those coming forward with a local Christian fellowship where they can become active believers.
At the 1952 Washington DC Crusade, Billy Graham met Senator Willis Robertson, father of Pat Robertson of the “700 Club.” Senator Robertson was the one who introduced Billy into the Washington political community. This led to his one-on-one personal friendship with many congressmen, senators, cabinet members, and presidents. Even though we most often see evidence of influence from the other side, the Prince of Darkness, in Washington DC - I know that God, through Billy Graham, has greatly influenced many decisions in our federal legislative bodies.
Tom Phillips, president of Raytheon Corporation, was saved at a Billy Graham crusade. He later was influential in leading Chuck Colson, one-time top aide to President Nixon, to Christ. We all know of the wonderful work Chuck has done for the Lord through his Prison Ministries. God’s chains of eternity have many links and many intertwined connections.
At a 1957 crusade Ethel Waters, world-renowned singer of movie and Broadway fame, came to a meeting. After experiencing the crusade, she asked if she could be a member of the choir. For the rest of her life she was considered an honorary member of the Billy Graham Crusade family, singing at many meetings. If you are younger, you might not recognize Ethel Waters’ name. But, even if not - I bet you will remember a song she introduced in the Broadway play "A Member Of The Wedding." That song is “His Eye Is On The Sparrow.”
In the late 1950s my wife, Dory, attended the Billy Graham Crusade in her native Philippines. At that crusade, Billy Graham touched her life and through her he has touched me. Now, I am a link in that eternal chain.
One of the early workers in the Billy Graham Crusades was Dawson Trotman who set up their first system for following-up the people who came forward at the crusades. Dawson Trotman later founded the Navigators and through the Navigators my friend, Pastor Ed Dacio, pastor of the Corona International Christian Fellowship (CICF), became a born-again Christian during his college years in the Philippines. Through that chain, everyone at the Corona International Christian Fellowship, where Ed is pastor, is a link in the Billy Graham spiritual chain of events.
You have your own Christian chain of life events. Everything you do, day to day, affects many other people as you travel through life. Each event, or connection, is a link in God’s divinely planned chain of eternal life. Make sure that you are prepared for that task. Be in the Word of God, the Bible, daily ~ Be in communication with God, through prayer, daily ~ And then you will know that you are in the will of God, daily. If you do this, you will never be a weak link in His eternal chain.
In The Guideposts Treasury of Faith Ralph L. Woods wrote the perfect description of “A Genuine Christian.”
One evening during the latter part of his life the late John Ruskin (1819-1900), artist, scientist, poet, and philosopher - sat at a window in his home watching a lamplighter, with torch in hand, ignite the street lamps on a distant hill. Since it was dark the lamplighter himself could not be seen, but his progress up the hill could be observed as successive lamps were lit.
After a few minutes Ruskin turned to a friend and said, "That illustrates what I mean by a genuine Christian. You may not know him or ever see him, but his way has been marked ~ by the lights he leaves burning."
“Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16
Have you taken a serious look at your eternal chain of events? You may be surprised who has influenced you - and who YOU have influenced and pointed toward the cross.
God bless, have a wonderful, blessed day,
Bill
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