THE CHURCH MILITANT
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Tuesday, February 27, 2018
BILLY GRAHAM LED MILLIONS ASTRAY WITH FALSE HOPE, ALTAR CALLS~FRANKLIN GRAHAM CONTINUES HIS CORRUPT ECUMENICAL LEGACY
BILLY GRAHAM LED MILLIONS ASTRAY WITH FALSE HOPE, ALTAR CALLS~FRANKLIN GRAHAM CONTINUES HIS CORRUPT ECUMENICAL LEGACY
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets. –Luke 6:26
The famous Evangelist, Billy Graham, died today at the age of 99. His dynasty as the world’s foremost preacher lasted the vast majority of the 20th century and into the first decade of the 21st century. His crusades, filling stadiums and drawing crowds in the hundreds of thousands, even over a million once in Seoul, Korea, are a legacy that will be remembered forever. But what did Billy Graham’s crusades really accomplish for the Kingdom? Billy Graham was undoubtedly an ecumenicalist, as he praised the pope as his “brother” and treated Roman Catholicism as a valid expression of the Christian faith. Speaking of Pope John Paul II after his death, Graham stated,
I think he’s with the Lord, because he believed. He
believed in the Cross. That was his focus throughout his ministry, the
Cross, no matter if you were talking to him from personal issue or an
ethical problem, he felt that there was the answer to all of our
problems, the cross and the resurrection. And he was a strong believer.
Of course, the pope of the Great Whore is no more a strong believer than Satan or the demons, of whom even believe and shudder (James 2:19). Graham’s affirmation of Roman Catholics did nothing except extend a false hope to millions who are caught up in the idolatrous religiosity of the Roman whore. Graham was even known to partner with Catholic churches during his crusades and send “converts” of his altar calls to Roman Catholic churches. In 1957, according to San Francisco News, Billy Graham stated, “Anyone who makes a decision at our meetings is seen later and referred to a local clergyman, Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish,” and according to the Florida Catholic, Sept. 1983, 600 people were turned over to the Catholic religion as a result of the Orlando crusade. Graham received an honorary doctorate from Belmont Abbey, an Jesuit Catholic school, in 1967.
Billy Graham at Belmont Abbey with “Father” John Oetgen in 1967.
Graham’s insistence on “decisional” regeneration and conversion has led to a massive influx of Charles Finney-like emotional evangelistic tactics that now invade the professing church. The idea is that anyone who might be “seeking” peace with God can simply “decide” to follow Jesus, pray a prayer asking Jesus into their hearts, and no longer be under the curse of Hell. This false gospel is now pervasive in many evangelical churches today and masquerades as a “traditional” form of Arminianism, yet this gospel of synergistic decisionalism doesn’t, in most cases, address the need for pure grace among the lost that comes only through the saving knowledge of the truth of Jesus Christ found alone in Scripture apart from any works of righteousness. To make matters worse, Billy Graham not only affirmed Roman Catholics as valid Christian brothers and sisters, but, during an interview with the Universalist, Robert Schuller, Graham denies the exclusivity of Christ and even states that those who have never heard the name of Jesus Christ can be saved as long as they are turning to “only light that they have.” In other words, you can worship a false god and still be saved, according to Graham.
While we mourn the loss of a fellow human made in the image of God, we should not be quick to elevate Billy Graham to hero status among the Christian faith. While only God ultimately knows his fate and the state of his heart, we can be certain that much of what he preached and taught and affirmed was antithetical to the truth of Jesus Christ and His gospel, and, for this reason, we should mourn for all of the souls he has led astray.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, and research purposes:
(Friday Church News Notes, February 23, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) -
Evangelist Billy Graham died on February 21, 2018, at age 99. He has been called “America’s Pastor” and was consistently voted one of the world’s most popular men. This reminds us of Jesus’ words in Luke 6:26, “Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.” For the pragmatic objective of gaining a wider audience, Graham compromised endlessly. He largely invented “ecumenical evangelism,” which has done so much to build the apostate “one world church.” He turned thousands of converts over to wolves in sheep’s clothing in heretical churches. Refusing to obey Jude 3 and earnestly contend for the faith once delivered to the saints, he pampered and praised every type of false teacher, including theological modernists who deny Christ’s divinity, virgin birth, and resurrection, and Roman Catholics who trust Mary to get them into heaven. For example, in his 1959 San Francisco Crusade, Graham honored the notorious Episcopal Bishop James Pike by having him lead in prayer. In an article in Christian Century, Pike declared that he no longer believed the fundamental doctrines of the Christian faith. Refusing to obey Acts 20:27 and declare all the counsel of God, Billy Graham narrowed his message to a pathetically small element of truth and focused on the “positive.” He promoted all sorts of unscriptural things, including Pentecostalism, Christian rock music, and corrupt Bible versions, such as the Today’s English Version, which twists every major text dealing with Christ’s deity. By 1966, Graham said belief in the virgin birth is not an essential doctrine and claimed that it is possible that Adam was an “ape-man” (United Church Observer, July 1966). By 1988, Graham told U.S. News & World Report that theology no longer meant anything to him: “World travel and getting to know clergy of all denominations has helped mold me into an ecumenical being. We’re separated by theology and, in some instances, culture and race, but all that means nothing to me any more” (U.S. News & World Report, Dec. 19, 1988). (Extensive documentation of these things can be found in Billy Graham’s Sad Disobedience, available as a free eBook from www.wayoflife.org.) THE DAY THAT BILLY GRAHAM WELCOMED PILGRIMS TO A MARY SHRINE (Friday Church News Notes, March 9, 2018,www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - New Evangelicalism, with its brash “repudiation of separatism,” exploded on the scene in the late 1940s and transformed the face of Christianity in my lifetime, and Billy Graham was its most prominent face. (See New Evangelicalism: Its History, Characteristics, and Fruit, which is available as a free eBook to read or download from www.wayoflife.org.) No one did more in this generation than Billy Graham to make the Roman Catholic Church acceptable to “evangelicals” and to build the one-world apostate church. The apex was when he stood outside of the shrine of the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora in Częstochowa, Poland, in 1979, with a Catholic bishop and greeted the pilgrims who were venerating Mary as the sinless Queen of Heaven and interceder for sinners. What could be more confusing than for a Baptist preacher to do such a thing rather than lift his voice against this cursed false gospel? A photo of the event was published in Graham’s own Decisi on magazine in February 1979, but the caption under the photo merely said, “Mr. Graham greets people outside a national shrine at the monastery in Częstochowa.” Graham was in Poland at the invitation of the late Pope John Paul II, who was a great Mary worshiper. The Black Madonna was one of his favorite pilgrimage sites. In his general audience of December 13, 1995, he called Mary “Mediatix” and “Co-Redemptress” and spoke of her “exceptional role in the work of redemption” (“Council’s Teaching on Mary Is Rich and Positive,” Dec. 13, 1995, L’Osservatore Romano, English edition). In his general audience of May 7, 1997, the Pope said, “Mary is the path that leads to Christ” (Vatican Information Service). How many Polish people have gone to an eternal hell because of Rome’s false gospel? Yet Graham did not have even any clear word of warning about this. He often praised the Pope but never exposed his false gospel. Graham preached in Rome’s churches and accepted Rome’s awards but did not condemn Rome’s great errors. Graham’s visit to Jasna Gora was a real event, but it was also a metaphor of how that Graham invited multitudes upon multitudes of people into the arms of Rome throughout the world, Rome with its false sacramental gospel and false sacramental christ and its false spirit. To bless false teachers is an exceedingly serious business. “Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ, he hath both the Father and the Son. If there come any unto you, and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed: For he that biddeth him God speed is partaker of his evil deeds” (2 John 1:9-11).BILLY GRAHAM’S ECUMENICAL GOSPEL A TWO-EDGED SWORD (Friday Church News Notes, March 9, 2018,www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - I grew up in a Southern Baptist home and some of my earliest memories are hearing Billy Graham preach on radio and television. He was upheld as a spiritual hero by everyone I knew. It has been said that Graham preached the gospel to more people than any person in church history, but his great ecumenical compromise (working with and supporting every type of church) was a two-edged sword that probably sent more people to hell than to heaven. Consider my wife’s conversion. When she was a teenager, she and her mother heard Graham preach on television when they were living in Alaska. That led them to attend church where they were eventually saved. But in a significant way, it was in spite of Graham that they were saved, because he taught people to go to “the church of your choice.” He did not carefully distinguish between churches. When my wife’s mother decided to go to church the following Sunday, she intended to go to a Methodist church which probably did not preach a clear gospel at that time and place. She was under the impression that “all churches are the same,” and Billy Graham had said nothing in his message or invitation to indicate that her thinking was wrong. The only reason she ended up in a Baptist church where a plain gospel was preached was because the Lord graciously intervened. It was winter, and she couldn’t get up the icy hill to the Methodist church, so she went to the Baptist church instead, not because of Billy Graham but in spite of him. This is why Billy Graham was called “Mr. Facing Two Ways.” His ecumenical gospel saved some and damned more. As we document extensively in the book Billy Graham’s Sad Disobedience (available as a free eBook fromwww.wayoflife.org), he turned multitudes of seekers over to Roman Catholic, Orthodox, and modernistic Protestant churches. Contrariwise, the apostle Paul did not merely preach “a positive gospel”; he preached the true gospel and also exposed false gospels. He said, “But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed” (Galatians 1:8). Strong language and godly language. Paul plainly identified the Galatian heretics as those who were cursed. Like His Master, Paul did not warn of error in vague generalities.BILLY GRAHAM AND CHRISTIAN ROCK (Friday Church News Notes, March 9, 2018, www.wayoflife.org, fbns@wayoflife.org, 866-295-4143) - Billy Graham had a huge influence on the spread of Christian rock music. Before I was saved, I lived and breathed rock & roll music, and I know for a fact that there is nothing godly in rock music, and I am talking the music and not the lyrics or words. Secular rockers know and readily admit that their music is largely about sex, and such music can never be redeemed for the worship of a thrice holy God. “Christian rock” is confusion. It is apostasy. It is deception. It is wickedness. Following are just a couple of the many quotes we could give along this line: Gene Simmons of KISS said, “That’s what rock is all about--sex with a 100 megaton bomb, THE BEAT!” (Entertainment Tonight, ABC, Dec. 10, 1987). Jimi Hendrix said, “Perhaps [my music] is sexy ... but what music with a BIG BEAT isn’t?” (David Henderson, ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss the Sky: The Life of Jimi Hendrix. p. 117). Tina Turner said, “Rock and roll is fun, it’s full of energy ... It’s naughty” (Rock Facts, Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and Museum). Luke Campbell of 2 Live Crew said, “The sex is definitely in the music, and sex is in ALL ASPECTS in the music.” Observe that these quotes refer to rock’s rhythm rather than to the lyrics. These rock & roll experts are saying that the sexuality is in the rock rhythm. Yet Billy Graham was so lacking in spiritual discernment and so controlled by pragmatism that he used rock to draw crowds of young people. When Graham died, he was applauded by Christian rockers of every stripe (“In Memory of Billy Graham,”www.classicchristianrockzine.com). I don’t know of even one Christian rocker who warned of Graham’s great compromise, because they are one spirit with him in one world church building. Christianity Today’sobituary documented Graham’s role in popularizing Christian rock as follows: “In the 1990s he reengineered the formula for his ‘crusades’ (later called ‘missions’ out of deference to Muslims and others offended by the connotation). His standard ‘youth night’ was revolutionized into a ‘Concert for the Next Generation,’ with Christian rock, rap, and hip-hop artists headlining the event, followed by Graham preaching. This format drew record numbers of young people who cheered the bands and then, amazingly, listened carefully to the octogenarian evangelist” (Marshall Shelley, “Evangelist Billy Graham Has Died: America’s Pastor Shaped Modern Evangelicalism,” Christianity Today, Feb. 2018). For those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, this is a very loud warning about a deep level of spiritual compromise. A person’s view of Billy Graham tells a lot. He was Mr. Ecumenism, Mr. One World Church, and those who love him are part of that “church,” though most are ignorant of the fact. It is an issue of spiritual discernment or the lack thereof. An individual that has the spirit of Psalm 119:128 and Jude 3 cannot be a part of any type of ecumenism. Loving all of the truth and hating error and fighting for the faith once delivered to the saints is the very opposite of what Billy Graham stood for. Billy Graham talked about the truth, but he had no passion to fight for it. That is not biblical Christianity. Biblical prophets and preachers are warriors. “Therefore I esteem all thy preceptsconcerning all things to be right; and I hate every false way” (Psalm 119:128). “Beloved, when I gave all diligence to write unto you of the common salvation, it was needful for me to write unto you, and exhortyou that ye should earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints” (Jude 1:3). ________________________________________________
Chapter 5 from The Rise and Decline of Billy Graham: He Tried to do Right the Wrong Way
Don Boys, Ph.D.
I have climbed out on a limb in stating that Dr. Billy Graham made many major mistakes in his ministry that did great harm to the Christian cause. Moreover, he should be held up as an example lest others follow his compromise that always leads to corruption. He was never corrupt in his personal life for he was exemplary in his finances and his family; however, when one is careless with obeying the Scripture, it always leads to corruption in doctrine. While most people denigrate doctrine, which really is only truth, the Word must be preached, defended, and lived.
Graham swapped his commitment to truth for the bowl of porridge known as compromise that gave him an international bully pulpit. I think he failed and preached pabulum most of his illustrious life as the following facts clearly document.
I know many pastors and laymen who trusted Christ under Graham’s ministry; but that is not the criterion. Was he faithful in the work of the ministry? The answer is “no.” Graham showed some courage, especially in his younger days, when he removed the ropes that were to separate Blacks from Whites at his Chattanooga Crusade in 1953. But he believed that courage, convictions, and commitment to the Word were not as important as reaching the masses. He thought he had to give a little to get a lot. Surrendering Bible doctrine brought him much more than he expected.
He told the Lutheran Standard in a 1961 interview that water baptism can save a person! Dr. Graham said of infant baptism: “I do believe that something happens at the baptism of an infant …. I believe that a miracle can happen in these children so that they are regenerated, that is, made Christian through infant baptism.” That statement is not surprising since his own wife and three of his children were sprinkled, not baptized. However, surrendering on the subject of baptism brought him many new friends and supporters.
In an interview with McCall’s magazine, January 1978, entitled “I Can’t Play God Any More,” Graham said, “I used to believe that pagans in far-off countries were lost—were going to hell—if they did not have the Gospel of Jesus Christ preached to them. I no longer believe that. … I believe that there are other ways of recognizing the existence of God—through nature, for instance—and plenty of other opportunities, therefore, of saying ‘yes’ to God.” Graham’s defenders cannot plead his age or Parkinson’s disease. His statement is perversion of the Gospel and cannot be excused, defended, or ameliorated. His defenders need to ask themselves how they can still support him with that statement hanging around his neck. And would they support their local pastor if he said the same thing? I will ask all my critics to these columns those questions. Christianity Today magazine came to Graham’s defense saying that he was misquoted; however later interviews substantiated the early remark and his staff was kept busy doing damage control and readjusting his halo so his followers would not be disenchanted, discouraged, and dissuaded from supporting his work.
I heard Graham say the following, “He’s calling people out of the world for His name, whether they come from the Muslim world, or the Buddhist world, or the Christian world, or the non-believing world, they are members of the Body of Christ, because they’ve been called by God. They may not even know the name of Jesus, but they know in their hearts that they need something that they don’t have, and they turn to the only light that they have, and I think they are saved, and that they’re going to be with us in heaven.” (May 31, 1997 interview with Graham by Robert Schuller with emphasis added.)
But it gets worser and worser! Graham continued, “I’ve met people in various parts of the world in tribal situations, that they have never seen a Bible or heard about a Bible, and never heard of Jesus, but they’ve believed in their hearts that there was a God, and they’ve tried to live a life that was quite apart from the surrounding community in which they lived.” He could not have made it any clearer: He believed in universalism and spouted it on television for the world to hear!
That statement is classic universalism that has been condemned by orthodox Christians for over 2,000 years. So, why does almost everyone dismiss Graham’s belief of it with the wave of the hand? That question must be answered by Graham’s supporters.
Graham’s major error was in changing his mind about whom he would work with in his city-wide crusades. He said, “I have promised God I will never have on my committee working in an active way in any of my campaigns men who do not believe in the virgin birth of Christ, who do not believe in the blood atonement of Jesus Christ, who do not believe in the verbal inspiration of the Bible–these men will never be on my committee. I have promised God.” But he reneged.
I could take pages and prove that he had the most radical unbelievers on his committees as well as many Roman Catholic priests, sending convert cards to all of his supporting churches. Graham was sending new professing Christians to the wolves contrary to his earlier commitment. On Nov. 11, 1957, Graham told the San Francisco News, “Anyone who makes a decision at our meeting is seen later and referred to a local clergyman–Protestant, Catholic or Jewish.” Gasp!
Graham is known as “Mr. Facing Two Ways” reminiscent of John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. One day he had glowing praise for Bob Jones University, John Rice of the Sword of the Lord, etc., and the next he was climbing into bed with the most radical modernists in America. This supports the fact that compromise will usually take one farther than he wanted to go.
We are commanded to “earnestly contend for the faith” which I have tried to do. I have just climbed out on a limb and handed my critics a saw. They can do their worst.
Boys’ new ebook The Rise and Decline of Billy Graham: He Tried to do Right the Wrong Way!is available here.
(Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of Representatives; ran a large Christian school in Indianapolis, wrote columns for USA Today for eight years; authored 17 books and hundreds of columns and articles for Internet and print media publications; defended his beliefs on hundreds of talk shows. These columns go to newspapers, magazines, television, and radio stations and may be used without change from title through the end tag. His web sites are www.cstnews.com and www.Muslimfact.com and www.thegodhaters.com . Contact Don for an interview or talk show.)
Mid-Winter Unregistered Baptist Fellowship March 19-20 March 19-20, 2018 Victory Baptist Church Johnny Jarriel, Host Pastor 500 SW 9th St Okeechobee, FL 34974 863-763-0669 pastorjvbc@gmail.com – www.victorybaptist-okeechobee.com
Services begin Monday 7 pm All day Tues. 9 am Through Evening service that begins 6:30 pm Lunch and dinner Tues. served by the church No registration charge. Be prepared to be called on to preach from the floor.
FOR MORE INFORMATION: www.unregisteredbaptistfellowship.com Evangelist Don Boys will speak Monday and Tuesday night.
Of course, the pope of the Great Whore is no more a strong believer than Satan or the demons, of whom even believe and shudder (James 2:19). Graham’s affirmation of Roman Catholics did nothing except extend a false hope to millions who are caught up in the idolatrous religiosity of the Roman whore. Graham was even known to partner with Catholic churches during his crusades and send “converts” of his altar calls to Roman Catholic churches. In 1957, according to San Francisco News, Billy Graham stated, “Anyone who makes a decision at our meetings is seen later and referred to a local clergyman, Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish,” and according to the Florida Catholic, Sept. 1983, 600 people were turned over to the Catholic religion as a result of the Orlando crusade. Graham received an honorary doctorate from Belmont Abbey, an Jesuit Catholic school, in 1967.
