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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781630472313 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Morgan James Publishing |
| Publication date: | 11/04/2014 |
| Series: | Morgan James Faith Series |
| Pages: | 172 |
| Sales rank: | 298,822 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.00(w) x 7.80(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
Evangelist to the World
Clutching his black Bible in one hand and a microphone in the other, Billy Graham stood outside in the howling wind in San Juan, Puerto Rico, near the Hiram Birthorn Stadium. The year was 1995. A satellite dish in the background was only one piece of a dazzling array of technology that had been assembled for one purpose — to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association had worked for more than a year to coordinate the largest single evangelistic effort in the history of Christianity. That year, from March 16 through 18, Dr. Graham's preaching was transmitted from seventeen satellite pathways to thirty satellites across twenty-nine time zones for a total of 300 hours of transmission. His words were interpreted in forty-seven languages. Musical clips and testimonies appropriate to various areas of the world were spliced into regional programs. For example, the Mandarin language version featured a testimony by tennis star Michael Chang and a Chinese Christian musical group. Thousands of venues around the globe were set up to receive the messages and project them on video screen. The settings ranged from a refugee camp in Rwanda to the rainforests of French Guiana. The largest hall in Burundi was packed out, with many looking in through the windows and doorways. In Cameroon, more than two thousand responded to the invitation to accept Christ. In Bangladesh, nearly 25 percent of the four thousand who attended gave their lives to Christ.
The numbers tabulated after the event were staggering:
• 185 countries reached
• messages heard in 117 languages
• 3,000 mission locations involved
• over 10 million seats occupied per night
• 1 to 1.5 million Christian workers trained in preparation
• over 500,000 prepared counselors
• 1 billion people viewed the broadcast in 117 countries
• another 3 billion attended video missions at various sites
At a satellite meeting in Kazakhstan, a student told her counselor, "I've tried everything, and now I turn to God as the last hope. … Something happened for which I've waited all my life."
Billy Graham has preached the Gospel message to more people in live audiences than anyone else in history — over 210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories. Hundreds of millions more have been reached through television, video, and film.
Spanning more than ninety years, Billy Graham's story cannot be contained in a single book. The stories of changed lives through his preaching could not be contained in a roomful of books. This short biography attempts to capture the key turning points in his life.
Several years ago, on his CNN program Larry King Live, Larry asked Billy Graham how he wanted to be remembered. Without a pause, Dr. Graham responded, "I want to be known as someone who was faithful. When I reach heaven, the Lord will respond, 'Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into my rest.'"
Let's look at how Billy Graham has made this journey of faithfulness.
CHAPTER 2Near the Clean, Fresh Smell
Four days before the end of World War I, on November 7, 1918, Morrow Coffey Graham gave birth to a baby boy in a farmhouse near Charlotte, North Carolina. She named him William Franklin Graham, Jr. and called him Billy Frank.
The roots of the Graham family were deep in southern soil. Billy's two grandfathers, Ben Coffey and Crook Graham, fought in the Confederacy during the Civil War. As a result of wounds suffered during Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, Coffee had only one leg and one eye, while Graham carried a Minié ball fired from a Yankee muzzle-loading rifle for the rest of his life.
Billy grew up on the family's three-hundred-acre dairy farm. Every day at three in the morning and again after school, he helped the hired hands milk seventy-five cows. The family chores left little time for idle play, but Billy had a reputation for being a bundle of energy, rushing from one activity to another.
One day his mother had had enough of his hyperactivity and hustled Billy Frank off to the doctor. In his office, she explained, "He never runs down, and it isn't normal. He's got way too much energy."
"Don't worry," the doctor said reassuringly. "It's the way he's built." The physician's words were almost prophetic.
As soon as Billy learned to read, his mother encouraged him to develop a habit of reading as much as he could. He was spellbound with the tales of Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest and the whole Tom Swift series. Among his favorite adventure stories were those of Tarzan. A new book was released every two months, and the young Graham could hardly wait for the next episode.
Billy often hung from the trees in his backyard and practiced his version of the Tarzan yell. It often frightened those driving horses down the road. Years later, his father would say, "I think all that yelling helped develop his voice."
One of his school bus drivers recalls another side of the youngster. Sometimes when Billy got off the bus with the other boys, he would reach underneath and turn the shutoff valve to the gas tank. The driver said, "I would go about a hundred yards and the engine would sputter out. I'd get out and shake my fist at him, but he'd only give me a laugh. It made him a hero to the other kids."
During his growing-up years, Billy learned the value of money, and his father taught him firsthand the importance of free enterprise. Every now and then when a calf was born on the farm, the elder Graham turned it over to Billy Frank and his friend Albert McMakin to be raised. When the calf reached the veal stage, the boys would market it and split the proceeds.
In general, the town newspaper was full of local stories, and radio was in its infancy. One day, William Graham, Sr. put together his first crystal radio set and located pioneer radio station KDKA in Pittsburgh. The family gathered around the squawking receiver and held their collective breath. For what seemed like a very long time, Mr. Graham turned three tuning dials to locate the station, and finally something intelligible broke through the static. Billy Frank and his siblings shouted, "That's it! We have it!"
A few years later, the Graham family was one of the first in the area to have a radio in their car. When his parents went into a store to shop, Billy Frank stretched across the backseat and listened to the mysterious distorted broadcast sounds. These wireless relays from Europe sounded like they were coming from a magical seashell. In particular, Graham was fascinated with the speaking style of a German named Adolf Hitler. While Billy Frank didn't understand his language, the intonation somewhat frightened him.
The barns on the family farm were roofed in tin, and on rainy days Billy loved to sneak sway into the hay barn and lie down on the sweet-smelling slipper piles of dried grass. He would listen and dream as the rain pounded the tin roof. The still and solitary sanctuary seemed to help shape his character. Even as an adult, when visiting a busy city, Graham would often find a quiet church where he could meditate in the cool, dim stillness.
There were plenty of animals on the farm, and from a young age, Billy learned to love dogs. The farm also had cats, and once, without knowing any better, Billy took a cat and shut it in a doghouse. While these animals hated each other by some ancient instinct, after spending the night together, they came out friends forever. The seeds of such an experience were planted in his heart. If bitter animal enemies could learn to work together, then people who were at odds with each other could also find ways to get along.
As a young boy, Billy had a close brush with death. When he was sick, his mother gave him what she thought was cough medicine but was actually iodine. Realizing her mistake immediately, she made a quick phone call to his Aunt Jennie, who suggested, "Give him some thick cream to neutralize the iodine." This remedy no doubt saved his life.
When Billy was nine years old, the dairy prospered enough that the Graham family was able to move into a larger, two-story, brick Colonial house that his father built for $9,000. The move meant a big change for Billy, his younger brother, Melvin, and his two sisters: no more baths in the washtub on the front porch — the family now had indoor plumbing. Billy Frank and Melvin shared a room that was sparsely furnished with twin beds and a white dresser.
The elder Graham had a reputation as an excellent horse trader, which carried over to his sale of cows. He often took Billy along with him during these short trips. During one sales call at a farm about five miles away, Mr. Graham was explaining the excellent qualities of a particular animal when Billy Frank interrupted. "Daddy, that cow really kicks when you're milking her. She's very temperamental."
On the way home, Billy's father gave him some unforgettable instructions about not interrupting business negotiations.
Due to a shortage of cash and leisure time, Graham family outings were few and far between. But on an occasional Saturday night, the family would pile into the car and drive to the nearby country grocery store or sometimes even into Charlotte to Niven's Drugstore. On these special excursions, the treat was either an ice cream cone or a soft drink — but never both. Then, as the four children waited in the car with their mother, Mr. Graham would go into the barbershop for a shave.
Mother and Daddy Graham rarely went out for entertainment. But about once a year, they attended a potluck picnic at a community hall a mile away, which featured plenty of music. A favorite song of Mr. Graham's was "My Blue Heaven."
Sometimes the whole family went to see the movies. Some of the stars of the day were Will Rogers, Marie Dressler, and Wallace Beery. Nudity on the screen was rare at this time, but there were few restrictions. During a movie preview, a brief shot of a woman swimming in the nude flashed on the screen. Mrs. Graham grabbed Billy Frank's hand and commanded, "Close your eyes!"
The family always looked forward to spending two or three days each year on vacation. Usually they went to the beach, driving about eight hours to either Wilmington or Myrtle Beach. After arriving, Mr. Graham would inquire at the various boardinghouses until he located the cheapest. Usually he managed to get a room and food for about a dollar a night per person.
Billy Frank's first long trip was to Washington, DC, four hundred miles from his home. His cousin Frank Black drove, but he wasn't interested in spending much time sightseeing because he had to get back home to his girlfriend. They went through the entire Smithsonian Institution — not the large complex of today — in forty minutes! On the same trip, they climbed every step of the Washington Monument.
Billy Frank's younger years were filled with experiences that made that time his happiest, even though when he was big enough, he had to help with some difficult family chores. The longest hours were spent in his mother's garden guiding the plow behind a mule to lay fertilizer down on the freshly sown seeds. Of course, the reward was that in the spring, summer, and fall, the Grahams enjoyed acres of corn, wheat, rye, and barley, and a variety of fresh vegetables.
When Billy's Big Ben alarm clock sounded at 2:30 a.m., he sometimes wanted to slam it on the floor and burrow back under the warm covers. But then he would hear the heavy footsteps in the hallway outside his upstairs bedroom, and he knew his father was up and expected his oldest son to hustle down the hill to wake up Pedro, one of the hired hands. Billy also knew that there would be no breakfast until all of the cows were milked. This was added incentive to get moving on the day.
Joe McCall, another one of the hired workers, usually called the cows into the barn: "Whoo-ee, whoo-ee, whoo-ee!" Instinctively, the cows headed to their stalls, where Billy Frank and the others fastened the stanchions around their necks. If a cow was particularly active, they also put kickers or restraining chains around their hind legs. Then Billy would set his three-legged stool and tin milk pail on the floor beneath the cow's working end. He'd press his head against her warm belly and begin working the udder "faucets" careful to keep out of the way of the swishing tail.
Billy repeated this process each morning in twenty stalls. And in the afternoon, after school, he milked the same twenty cows. The entire task took his flexible fingers about an hour and a half each time and translated into the commendable rate of five minutes per cow.
After the milking was done, Billy picked up a shovel and cleaned out the fresh manure from each stall, and with the help of the hired hands, he brought fresh hay from the hay barn next door to refill the feeding troughs.
One of Billy Frank's favorite rituals was carrying the five-gallon milk cans over to the milk-processing house. Before he was old enough to carry the heavy cans, he loved to watch the muscular men carry them down to the spring and set them into the clear water to cool. From there the milk was bottled and taken to town for delivery to homes.
Billy especially loved to watch Reese Brown, a black foreman on the farm for fifteen years. A few of the farmers were critical of the elder Graham because Reese was perhaps the highest paid farmhand in Mecklenburg County, earning three dollars a day. But Reese was one of Mr. Graham's best friends. He had served with distinction in World War II as an army sergeant and was very intelligent. He was also one of the strongest men Billy Frank knew, with a great capacity for hard work. In the eyes of Billy, there wasn't anything that Reese didn't know or have the ability to do. If the young Graham did something Reese thought was wrong, he didn't hesitate to correct him. Almost like an uncle to him, Reese taught Billy to respect his father. Billy played often with Reese's children and enjoyed his wife's fabulous buttermilk biscuits in their tenant home.
After early morning chores, Billy Frank would head to the breakfast room at about five-thirty. Mrs. Graham chopped wood for the stove and cooked for the hungry men while they worked in the barns. With Billy's sister Catherine and the maid helping, Mrs. Graham served up grits, gravy, fresh eggs, ham or bacon, and hot homemade rolls. It was a traditional farm breakfast with all the milk they could drink.
After the hours of hard work, the fresh air of the dairy, and the good food, Billy Frank was ready for almost anything — except school. Some nights he got only three or four hours of sleep, and he often felt tired in the classroom. He contends the fatigue contributed to his poor grades. In elementary school, he made mostly As but in high school, he only had a C average.
Billy loved to read history, and also found he had a deep and abiding love for sports, especially baseball. One of the great thrills of his boyhood was shaking hands with Babe Ruth. In fact, Billy dreamed of becoming a professional baseball player someday, but wasn't quite good enough to continue in the sport. Ironically, Billy wasn't much aware of a professional baseball-player-turned-preacher named Billy Sunday, who was at the height of his ministry when Mr. Graham took his five-year-old son to hear him. Billy was overwhelmed with the huge crowd. He had no trouble being quiet, because his father had warned him that unless he was quiet during the service, the preacher would call out his name and have him arrested by the local police.
Throughout his school years, Billy dated several girls and enjoyed holding hands and kissing as much as any other young man. But he attributes his parents' strong love, discipline, and faith to keeping him on the straight and narrow. It never seemed right to him to have an intimate relationship with anyone except the woman he was married to.
Once during his senior year, he took part in an evening rehearsal of the school play. One of the girls in the cast coaxed Billy into a dark classroom. This particular girl had a reputation for making out with the boys. Before Billy realized what was happening, she was begging him to make love to her. His teenage hormones were as active as any other healthy young male's, but when this moment of temptation came, he silently cried out to God for strength and then darted from the classroom.
His sexual restraint wasn't for lack of knowledge. Like other teens, Billy discussed these appealing topics with other boys. He had the added tutor or one of the farm hands, Pedro. This older man was good-natured, but took the young Graham aside to confide in him about his sexual experiences with women.
It was Pedro who tried to teach Billy to chew tobacco. One day, Mr. Graham caught his oldest son with a chaw in his cheek, and that day became the last one that Pedro worked on the farm. Billy received a memorable thrashing from his father.
When it came to alcohol, Mr. Graham absolutely forbade it. He devised an unusual means to teach Billy Frank and his sister Catherine about the substance. Soon after the Prohibition Amendment, forbidding the sale of alcohol, was repealed, Mr. Graham brought home two bottles of beer and placed them in front of Billy Frank and Catherine in the kitchen. He handed a bottle to each of them and ordered, "Drink all of it." The shock of his unusual request turned them both against the bitter taste.
(Continues…)
Excerpted from "Billy Graham"
by .
Copyright © 2015 W. TERRY WHALIN.
Excerpted by permission of Morgan James Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Table of Contents
Foreword,
Chapter 1 Evangelist to the World,
Chapter 2 Near the Clean, Fresh Smell,
Chapter 3 Completely Changed in a Moment,
Chapter 4 College: More Than an Education,
Chapter 5 More Education, and a Mate for Life,
Chapter 6 Beginning to Travel for Christ,
Chapter 7 Insight Into the Scriptures, and the Modesto Manifesto,
Chapter 8 Foundations for the Future,
Chapter 9 Meeting the President, and Family Privacy,
Chapter 10 Ministry Overseas,
Chapter 11 The Life-Changing Impact of the Printed Page,
Chapter 12 Miracles in Manhattan and Beyond,
Chapter 13 Confidant and Preacher to America's Presidents,
Chapter 14 Training Others in Evangelism,
Chapter 15 Passing the Baton,
About the Author,
What People are Saying About This
"Every Christian should take time to study the lives of great heroes of the faith-after all, we stand on their shoulders. Billy Graham, a beloved treasure in the kingdom of Christ, is one such saint. If you want to cultivate a passion for souls, get to know Mr. Graham in the pages of this book. I promise you'll be blessed!"
-Joni Eareckson Tada, Joni and Friends International Disability Center
"I've had the honor of knowing both this book's author as well as its subject. Dr. Billy Graham led me to Christ in July of 1973. As I sat in my San Jose California apartment, Dr. Graham extended an invitation to receive Jesus as savior. The net was thrown, and I was caught. Over the years, I've been privileged to know and serve with Dr. Graham. He is a man of exceptional humility and spiritual power.
In Terry Whalin's book, we glimpse Billy Graham the man as well as his ministry. These fifteen short but informative chapters paint a proper portrait of this extraordinary man of God. Terry's strength is his ability to capture Billy's life with poignant stories and providential incidences. I recommend the book and pray God would raise up more men and women dedicated to proclaiming the good news found in the Christ that Graham preached."
-Skip Heitzig, Pastor, Calvary Albuquerque
"Our polarized, divided world dearly misses the spirit of grace that Billy Graham brought to the world. I'm very glad Terry Whalin has written a biography that introduces him anew."
-Philip Yancey, bestselling author of What's So Amazing About Grace?"
"Terry Whalin's love and respect for Billy Graham shows clearly in this riveting work. Yes, this is a story of one man's life and the team who supported him. It also clearly gives credit to the power of God's Spirit on whom Billy Graham relied to accomplish everything from Christianity Today, Conferences for Evangelists, a superb television and media ministry, to the remarkable Crusades around the world. I highly recommend this book, a book you will not want to put down. It will be a blessing to all who travel through its pages."
-Tom Phillips, Billy Graham Evangelistic Association Vice President, Billy Graham Library
"My great grandmother saw Billy Graham preaching, I've always heard it was on the steps of the courthouse in Georgetown TX, and she turned to my grandmother and said, "You just watch. That young man is going to change the world for Christ." It's been a part of our family lore ever since then. Reading through the book, trying to pinpoint the time frame of that story, I think it must have been when Billy took that swing through Texas down to San Antonio in 1950. Hard to believe, that would have been 64 years ago, and look what has happened since then.
Well written and succinct, Billy Graham is an honest look at the man and his calling, his struggles to stay humble in the limelight, the difficulty of separation from his family, and his constant calling on God for the next step."
-Deborah Bedford, bestselling author of His Other Wife and, with Joyce Meyer, The Penny and Any Minute
Working with the Rev. Billy Graham on his memoir, Just As I Am, remains the highlight of my career. The story of the dairy farm boy who became the world's greatest evangelist and spiritual confidant to heads of state never grows old. In America's Greatest Evangelist, veteran author Terry Whalin offers a quick reading account of Mr. Graham's life, jam packed with anecdotes that bring him to life on the page. It's a fun and interesting read that promises to inspire and challenge you in your walk of faith.
-Jerry B. Jenkins, Novelist & Biographer
"Nothing will be more encouraging in your Christian life than to discover the sovereign work of God in the life of Billy Graham! Billy's story is your story and my story…what happens when the hand of God touches your life and leads you in the steps He has ordained for you! Every chapter reveals new vistas of God's grace in one life."
-Glenna Salsbury, Author of Heavenly Treasures and The Art of the Fresh Start
"It has been my privilege to serve as a Crusade Associate and as a vice chairman of three of Billy Graham's crusades over the years. My life has been deeply blessed and impacted by his ministry. I pray that this biography written by my friend, Terry Whalin, will be a great encouragement and inspiration to you in your service for God."
-Paul Cedar, Chairman and CEO of Mission America