Remembering Billy Graham
Billy Graham, perhaps more than any person since the apostles, influenced more people in the name of Jesus Christ. His singleness of purpose set him aside. He had a wholesome absorption with Jesus Christ and an insatiable desire to introduce others to Him. His message never got off target. His life and his message complimented each other. His influence on our culture is greatly missed.
Like millions, I knew his public persona. Having known his children and grandchildren, I gained understanding to the off platform Graham. The result was even greater respect for their “Daddy Bills.”
Like so many others I had my Billy Graham moments.
I chaired committees in three Graham Crusades and knew his staff well. They respected him and sought to emulate his example. That in itself was an indirect compliment to him.
Once when he was conducting a crusade in Birmingham, Alabama three friends and I flew over in a private plane, got a cab and went to the meeting. After it ended we lingered and visited. By the time we got outside the stadium the crowd had thinned and all cabs had left. We tried to “hitch a ride,” and finally got a car to stop and pick us up.
In conversation with the young man I learned he was a graduate student at the University of Indiana working on his doctoral thesis in speech. His assigned topic was to find the means by which Billy Graham manipulated the masses.
His professor had told him if the came back with “that Holy Spirit stuff” he would fail him.
The student told how he had followed Graham through several crusades and as a result was going to fail his course because there was no way other than the Holy Spirit to explain Graham’s success.
The Graham organization developed a lovely retreat center new Black Mountain, North Carolina. When speaking there once his daughter Anne Graham Lotz invited us to spend our time there in their parent’s cottage of her parents. It was a modest tasteful cottage in keeping with the practical nature of the Grahams. We spent the night there. I didn’t say we slept there. I was so impressed I stayed awake most of the night just reflecting on the man and his meaningful ministry. Millions of people have lived and died as better persons because of his devotion to the One he delighted to direct people to.
The apostle Paul wrote of individuals who were followers of him and of Jesus Christ. By that he was saying I am intent on following Jesus so closely that if you are following me you are following Him. That was the evident conviction of Billy Graham.
He and Ruth, his wife, lived in their modest home in the mountains near Black Mountain, North Carolina. Knowing his sense of humor I am confident he would have loved this bogus story.
Allegedly he went into town to pick- up some items in the grocery store. Upon exiting a wouldbe robber pulled a gun on him demanding his wallet. Handing it over, it fell open exposing his driver’s license with his name and photo on it.
The bandit looked at it and then at Graham and asked, “Billy Graham! Are you the Billy Graham?” Upon answering in the affirmative the bandit handed his wallet back to him saying, “Here Dr. Graham, keep your wallet, us Baptists gotta stick together.”
The Rev. Nelson Price is pastor-emeritus of Roswell Street Baptist Church in Marietta and a former chairman of the Shorter University Board of Trustees.