Reverend Billy Graham Turns 90
Billy Graham celebrated his ninetieth birthday this week. Graham has preached in person to more than 215 million people in more than 185 countries during his more than 70 years of ministry. Billy Graham is believed to have spoken face-to-face with more people in more places than any other person in history. Hundreds of millions more have been reached through television, video, film and webcast. Billy Graham has led hundreds of thousands of individuals to make personal decisions to live for Christ, which is the main thrust of his ministry. In 1950 Billy Graham founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. Through that ministry Graham has broadcast the gospel around the world, printed a magazine that is regularly distributed to more than 600,000 subscribers, and produced and distributed more than 125 evangelistic productions and films.
This year also marks 50 years since Billy Graham first came to Australia in 1959. He had a tremendous impact upon Christian people in the community in general. His crusades were well attended everywhere he went. Many significant present church leaders, such as the Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, made commitments to Jesus Christ in those crusades as young people. The crowds in Sydney filled both the Sydney Cricket Ground and the Sydney Showground. In Melbourne the largest crowd ever in that city gathered in the Melbourne Cricket Ground with 120,000 people present. I was there.
While Billy Graham was in Melbourne he had a special school for evangelists. It was my ambition to preach the gospel to many people in public buildings, open air rallies, on radio and maybe even on the new medium of television. I wanted to take advantage of what Billy Graham would have to teach us. I was overjoyed when I received a letter from America indicating that I could attend even though I would be the youngest person by far in that crowd. Twenty years later, Billy Graham again came to Australia, and this time when he came to Sydney I was the newly appointed superintendent of Wesley Mission. The opening Sunday afternoon rally that Billy spoke at, the first crusade, was in the stands at Randwick Racecourse. They were packed. I was privileged to say the opening prayer that was heard not only by the 50,000 people present, but by the audience of a worldwide radio broadcast and a television audience of tens of millions of people worldwide.
After that service I received a message that Dr Graham would like to see me during the following week. That one meeting turned into three private meetings. Billy Graham asked if I would like to join their team as a special lecturer in the School of Evangelism. I wrote and thanked Dr Graham for his invitation and indicated that I would be honoured to go once a year to a major centre of the world where he was conducting a crusade to give the lectures, but I could not go four times a year as he had requested. I travelled first to San Jose in California. This is in the heart of Silicon Valley and I was to preach in a number of preliminary crusade meetings before Reverend Graham arrived. Spartan Stadium was the place that we had the meetings. My first appointment as an associate evangelist was to speak in San Quentin prison. Hundreds of prisoners sat there listening to the musicians that were with the team before I spoke. I also gave a lecture, the first of three, to some 2,000 ministers that came from around the United States to the School of Evangelism.
On the Sunday morning of the San Jose crusade I was invited to speak at Crystal Cathedral with Dr Robert Schuller. I had previously spoken on the same platform with him at some Church Growth and Evangelism workshops. Dr Schuller very generously invited me to preach on that morning and on his television program The Hour of Power. I was to meet with Billy Graham on many other occasions in many other crusades. It was also a privilege on his behalf to attend a number of Schools of Evangelism, Church Growth and Nurture and to lecture graduate students at Wheaton College and, on behalf of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, to speak in great churches in Memphis, Fort Worth and Norfolk, Virginia.
Billy Graham followed those lectures with an invitation to me to lecture in 1984 in Amsterdam to 10,000 evangelists who gathered there for the first International Conference on Evangelism. This was followed by a second such conference in 1986 when I spoke to more than 10,000 evangelists from around the world. It was a privilege to meet with leading evangelists from around the world and to build a network of friendships between these men and women who give their lives to proclaiming the gospel in every corner of the earth. It has been one of the greatest thrills of my life to be so involved. My personal knowledge of over 40 years is that in Billy Graham we have seen one of Australia’s and one of God’s great preachers, one who has honestly and fearlessly proclaimed the gospel and fulfilled in the most honourable way the work of an evangelist. Now Billy Graham is 90 years and in frail health but we still honour him—not only a great evangelist, but also a remarkably good man.
REV THE HON. DR GORDON MOYES AC MLC
