Evangelist Billy Graham did it again in NYC in 2005

 

 

Can a Billy Graham crusade restore one’s faith? That is what Kevin Murray and his girlfriend from New Hyde Park, Long Island, wanted to know on Saturday night. “I have lost a lot of faith,” Murray said as he waited for Graham to appear. “I am Catholic. When my girlfriend and I talk, we ask ourselves, How could the priests not have known about the child abuse scandals? I don’t go to church anymore.”

Murray is like a lot of folks I interviewed this past weekend in New York. They had heard of Billy Graham and decided to check him out as a last pit stop before they lost hope.

President Bill Clinton also came to the crusade that night to tell what Billy Graham has meant to him. Clinton told the audience that he had visited several Graham crusades, starting 46 years ago. As a 9-year old boy, he was impressed with Graham’s insistence on preaching to an integrated audience in Arkansas right in the midst of a bitter fight over school desegregation. “I’ll never forget it. I’ve loved him ever since,” the former President said. “He’s about the only person I know who I’ve never seen fail to live his faith.” Clinton asked his wife, Hillary, to attend the crusade with him. From South America, he faxed his wife (in South Africa at the time), urging her to return to see Graham. Arriving at the crusade, the former President declared, “I want to tell you what an honor it is to be here as a person of faith with a man I love.”

On this greatest stage in the world, New York City, Billy Graham demonstrated that he is still a man of singular importance in bearing the Christian message of Jesus Christ’s love and hope. Hobbled by multiple illnesses, the 86-year-old Graham seemed to gather strength as his three day crusade in the 1964 World’s Fair grounds in Flushing Meadows-Corona Park of Queens brought people from around the globe to pay tribute to what the evangelist means in their lives. At the end of the Sunday evening crusade he told the 90,000-person crowd, “I’m not finished yet!” During six decades in public ministry, Graham has counseled 11 Presidents and conducted 417 evangelistic crusades in 185 countries.

According to New York City police and park officials, 230,000 people attended the three days of meetings. Graham officials totaled about 9,400 people coming forward to the evangelist’s invitations to commit to Christ. …

At the crusade, Graham opened with his trademark, “God loves you!” He spoke with a strength and vibrancy of a loving father. The evangelist’s message is a simple one of sin and love, destiny and salvation, loneliness and hope. Graham’s elemental message sounds out the DNA of the evangelical movement.

One Chinese American woman told me she “felt revival and refreshment by going back to the basics.” Mega-bestselling author and pastor Rick Warren, who flew into New York to be with Graham, said that the impact of Graham’s message on him has been profound. “Billy Graham taught me to keep the message simple. He taught me never to lose my focus on Christ,” he said.

And now, Murray, the disillusioned Catholic New Yorker, says, “Look at the Holy Spirit moving! People are rising. Me too!”

See the rest of the article by Tony Carnes at Christianity Today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[20160425_0600]