The Cross - Billy Graham's Message To America

Evangelist Billy Graham delivered what is being dubbed his final “sermon” to America on Thursday night. Through a special video broadcast called “My Hope America,” Graham warned that the nation is in “great need of a spiritual awakening” and that he has wept over how far the nation has moved away from God.

Evangelist Billy Graham (Credit: AP Photo/Nell Redmond, File)

The video, which is available online and through select broadcast networks across the nation (it will air on TheBlaze TV this weekend), was released today on Graham’s 95th birthday.

“I want to tell people about the meaning of the cross … the real cross of Christ,” a passionate Graham proclaimed in the video. ”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.”

Graham then went on to discuss his view on the importance of accepting Jesus Christ and following the Christian savior.

His pre-recorded message was interspersed with fiery selections from the preacher’s past sermons as well as personal testimony from musicians Lacey Sturm and Lecrae Moore.

“People don’t want to hear that they’re sinners. To many people it’s an offense,” Graham proclaimed. “The cross is offensive, because it directly confronts the evils that dominate so much of this world.”

He went on to explain that the Christian message demands that believers embrace a new lifestyle — one that directly confronts mankind’s sinful nature.

“Sin is a disease in the human heart. If affects the mind and the will and the emotions. Every part of our being is affected by this disease,” Graham said.

The evangelist told viewers, though, that God can renew their spirits and that “there is no other way of salvation except through the cross of Christ.”

Graham also warned of a cultural slide in American society — one that he is clearly worried about. He said that the nation is in great need of “a spiritual awakening.”

“There’ve been times I’ve wept as I’ve gone city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God,” he told viewers.

At the end of the broadcast, Graham invited viewers to become followers of Jesus.

“Today, I’m asking you to put your trust in Christ,” he said, offering a prayer that would invite prospective believers into the faith.

Watch Graham’s message below:

Video: The Cross - Billy Graham's Message To America

Part of "My Hope America With Billy Graham" - an urgent new message of Hope from Billy Graham, featuring Lacey Sturm and Lecrae 

Video: Party in NC to Mark Billy Graham's 95th Birthday

Among the hundreds of guests, approximately 800, were North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, New York real-estate magnate Donald Trump, Founder of The Blaze Glenn Beck and former President Bill Clinton. Singers Ricky Skaggs and Michael W. Smith were set to lead the audience in a refrain of Happy Birthday as 1,000 cupcakes were served.

Glenn Beck tweeted… They only gave me one cupcake… My wife Tania must have phoned ahead.

The Palins Arrive for Billy Graham’s 95th Birthday Event

  Happy 95th Birthday Billy Graham!!!

Franklin Graham's Sermon at John Brown University - Even More Poignant After Events In Egypt

Franklin gives an excellent speech to all the young students calling for them to join him in using internet “Keywords” to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ!

Franklin Graham's Address: January 18, 2011

-->  Video:  Franklin Graham’s Address   <--

Franklin Graham Says Tucson Memorial Service 'Scoffed' at Jesus

President Obama garnered praise from across the political spectrum for his moving speech last week at the memorial service for the Tucson shooting victims, including from his usual critics on the right. But don't count the Rev. Franklin Graham as a fan of the event.

In a speech on Tuesday at John Brown University, a private Christian college in Siloam Springs, Ark., the son of the revered evangelist Billy Graham voiced "dismay" at the way the Tucson memorial service was conducted, arguing that it was not as explicitly religious -- mainly "Christian" -- as those following the Oklahoma City bombing and the 9/11 attacks.

Graham was particularly upset that the Tucson memorial featured a Native American who called upon "father sky and mother earth."
"There was no call for the name of God to put his loving arms around the people who were hurting, the people that were suffering," Graham said. "Why? Why did they take God out of it? Why did they leave him out?

"Because the world scoffs at the name of Jesus Christ," Graham said, his voice rising in anger. "They scoff when you say he's the son of God."

Graham went on to say that the scoffing and persecution against Christians is only going to get worse.

Initial reports of Graham's speech indicated that he may have been including Obama in his critique, though a review of the video shows that Graham says he "felt sorry" for the president "because I knew he was uncomfortable in that situation."

Graham was referring to the pep rally atmosphere and the prayers by the Native American, an associate professor of medicine at the University, Carlos Gonzales, who is a Pascua Yaqui Indian and fifth generation Arizonan. (Graham called him a native of "the Yuppie tribe or something, I didn't quite get it.")

Graham also stressed his empathy for the president in an op-ed in The Washington Times on Tuesday, saying he was "proud of Mr. Obama" in Tucson in contrast with how he viewed the rest of the event.

"The president read from the Scriptures, and a couple of others," Graham noted in his speech at John Brown University. But also said that no one mentioned God at the Tuscon event, and he said that is the way things seem to be going in America.

"And I believe the memorial service that we saw in Tucson is the template for what you are going to see in a secularized world."
The White House declined to comment on Graham's remarks about the service.

As USA Today's "Faith & Reason" blogger, Cathy Grossman, noted, Graham's critique seems "odd" given that Obama's speech -- which many agreed sounded more like a sermon -- cited the consolations of Psalm 46 plus the laments of Job.

Moreover, Department of Homeland Security head (and former Arizona governor) Janet Napolitano preceded Obama and read from Isaiah 40 and U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder read from the Second Letter of Paul to the Corinthians.

A strong majority of Americans also liked Obama's response to the Tucson shootings, with an ABC News-Washington Post poll this week showing 78 percent approval overall, and 71 percent approval from Republicans and conservatives.

The Tucson speech was actually fairly typical of Obama's Scripture-based rhetoric, and The Los Angeles Times explored how the president consulted his Christian spiritual advisers in composing it.
"Yet," as Grossman writes, "Graham believes the victims of the Tucson shooting, those who knew and loved them and all who wanted to show solidarity with them -- Catholic, Jewish, Protestant and beliefs unknown -- were scoffing at God as they wept and cheered the speakers."

Franklin Graham, who has become something of a shepherd to Sarah Palin (she accompanied him to Haiti last month), is becoming known for rhetoric that is far edgier than anything his father ever said, even in Billy Graham's haler days.

He has regularly disparaged Islam, calling it an "evil" religion, a blast that got him booted from official National Day of Prayer celebrations last year. And he once made fun of Hinduism's deities, saying that "No elephant with 100 arms can do anything for me. None of their 9,000 gods is going to lead me to salvation."

Franklin Graham took up some of those themes again on Tuesday at John Brown.
"Even in our government today, you can't pray to Jesus in many public meetings. You can pray to God or a god. You can mention Buddha or the name of Muhammad, but you can't pray to Jesus Christ," Graham told the students.
"We know that we are going to be persecuted for standing up for the name of Christ."

DAVID GIBSON  -  Religion Reporter

As Mike Huckabee said on this show last week (as well as several other experts on the Middle East and Islam), Americans need to be paying attention to what is going on in Egypt.  Those that are behind this uprising are not the average guys in the street and once they take over and attack Israel, it will not be over… but rather the beginning!!  Islam considers Israel the Little Satan. They consider America the Big Satan.  If we do no stop singing Cumbaya and ignoring the Muslim infiltration in this country immediately, by the time we wake up, it will be too late!!

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