Billy Graham’s Homegoing – 5 years

February 21, 2023

Categories: Billy Graham, Remembering Rev. Billy Graham

“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.” – Billy Graham

Today, on the 5th Anniversary of Billy Graham’s homegoing to heaven we remember and honor him and all that God did in his lifetime. Over the course of his life, Rev. Graham preached the Gospel in over 185 countries, proclaiming the eternal hope of Jesus Christ in all of his messages. In the same confidence that Rev. Graham had in Jesus, we share with you five Bible verses based on the eternal hope of Jesus with his own thoughts related to these scriptures, praying that you also will find hope and confidence these promises.

In hope of eternal life, which God, that cannot lie, promised before the world began.

Titus 1:2

“Life is a glorious opportunity, if it is used to condition us for eternity. If we fail in this, though we succeed in everything else, our life will have been a failure. There is no escape for the man who squanders his opportunity to prepare to meet God. Our lives are also immortal. God made man different from the other creatures. He made him in His own image, a living soul. When this body dies and our earthly existence is terminated, the soul lives on forever. One thousand years from this day, you will be more alive than you are at this moment. The Bible teaches that life does not end at the cemetery. There is a future life with God for those who put their trust in His Son, Jesus Christ.”

-Billy Graham, from “Daily Devotion: Life is Eternal”

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.

John 3:16-17

In a statement in 1995, Billy Graham said this:

“My favorite verse of Scripture was taught to me by my mother when I was just a little boy.

For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. John 3:16

This is the one Scripture that I always preach on in a crusade, usually on the opening night. I suppose it is the most familiar passage in the Bible. It has only twenty-five words in the English translation of it, but it is the Gospel in a nutshell. Someone has called it a miniature Bible. The word “whosoever” in this verse means the whole world. Whatever the color of a person’s skin, whatever language he speaks, God loves him and God is willing to save him. To me that is marvelous. It also says that life doesn’t begin when you die, it begins here and now.”

-Billy Graham

So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the thing that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

2 Corinthians 4:16-18

“The resurrection of Christ brings hope. The late Emil Brunner once said, “What oxygen is for the lungs, such is hope for the meaning of human life.” As the human organism is dependent on a supply of oxygen, so humanity is dependent on its supply of hope. Yet today hopelessness and despair are everywhere. Peter, who himself was given to despair during the episode of Calvary, writes in a triumphant note, “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

There is hope that mistakes and sins can be forgiven. There is hope that we can have joy, peace, assurance, and security in the midst of the despair of this age. There is hope that Christ is coming soon—this is what is called in Scripture “the blessed hope.” There is hope that there will come some day a new heaven and a new earth, and that the Kingdom of God will reign and triumph. Our hope is not in our own ability, or in our goodness, or in our physical strength. Our hope is instilled in us by the resurrection of Christ.”

– Billy Graham, from “Daily Devotion: The Hope of Resurrection”

Keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life.

Jude 1:21

“The Bible is a revelation of the fact that God is love. Many people misunderstand the attribute of God’s nature which is love. “God is love” does not mean that everything is sweet, beautiful, and happy, and that God’s love could not possibly allow punishment for sin.

When we preach justice, it is justice tempered with love. When we preach righteousness, it is righteousness founded on love. When we preach atonement, it is atonement planned by love, provided by love, given by love, finished by love, necessitated because of love. When we preach the resurrection of Christ, we are preaching the miracle of love. When we preach the return of Christ, we are preaching the fulfillment of love.

No matter what sin you have committed, or how terrible, dirty, or shameful it may be, God loves you. This love of God is immeasurable, unmistakable, and unending!”

-Billy Graham, from “Daily Devotion: The Love of God”

From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.”

Matthew 4:17

“We were not meant for this world alone. We were meant for Heaven, our final home. Heaven is our destiny, and Heaven is our joyous hope. In reality not everyone agrees with this. “You are free to have your own opinion,” a young man wrote me recently, “but as far as I’m concerned once you are dead, that’s it. When we die we’re no different from an animal lying by the side of the road. The only life we’ll ever experience is the one we’re living right now. Life after death is just a myth.”

My reply came from the bottom of my heart. “Your letter deeply saddened me,” I wrote, “because it means you are living without hope–hope for this life, and hope for the life to come. Have you honestly faced how empty and meaningless this will make your life?” I then urged him to turn to Jesus Christ and put his life into His hands, for He alone can give us hope for the future. What would our lives be like without any hope of life beyond the grave?”

-Billy Graham, from Nearing Home