Just a few weeks ago, I had the privilege of proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Seoul, Korea, at the 50th anniversary of my father’s historic 1973 Crusade, where he preached to more than 3 million people. That year, on June 3 alone, a crowd of 1.1 million gathered at Yoido Plaza—a runway used during the Korean war—to hear my father’s message from God’s Word.
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At the anniversary event, an overflow crowd of 70,000 came to hear the Gospel at Seoul’s World Cup Stadium. I was joined in Seoul by my sons Will and Roy and our good friend Dr. Billy Kim, who served as my father’s interpreter in 1973. We celebrated God’s faithfulness and the saving power of God’s Gospel. The last time my father spoke with Dr. Kim, he told him, “Let’s have one more Crusade in Korea,” so I’m sure my father would have been very excited and thankful about what just happened. I preached the same Gospel message that my father preached then, and just like 50 years ago, God’s Spirit worked to bring many to repentance and saving faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Even though five decades have passed since that wonderful Crusade, the needs of the human heart haven’t changed. There is a new generation of people who need to know that God loves them and cares for them, and that they can have a personal relationship with God when they repent of their sins and call on the Name of Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. They need the sure and eternal hope that only God can give.
By God’s grace and through His power, the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association has been proclaiming the same, simple Gospel message around the world for more than seven decades now. We know the Gospel itself is the “power of God to salvation” (Romans 1:16). In all we do, we always seek to come alongside the church, as well as other ministries that share the same passion for evangelism that we have.
Just a few weeks before I was in Seoul, I spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) Convention in Florida, the world’s largest association of Christian communicators. NRB member organizations represent millions of listeners, viewers and readers.
I touched on how my father used television and radio from the early days of his ministry, and today at BGEA, we work to proclaim the Gospel by every effective means available to us.
I also shared how my father used his platform to help others in ministry. As large corporate tech companies are increasingly hostile to the Christian faith, we at BGEA are taking proactive steps to help ensure we can keep on proclaiming the Gospel regardless of “progressive” policies that seek to silence us. These moves make it possible to offer strategic help to like-minded ministries that face the same dangers.
Make no mistake, the cancel culture from woke businesses, schools and corporations is coming hard after Christians who are faithful to the Gospel of Jesus Christ in matters involving mankind’s sin, God’s holiness, and Jesus as “the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). As Jesus advised His disciples on His last night with them: “If the world hates you, you know that it hated Me before it hated you” (John 15:18).
I warned the thousands at the NRB convention that a storm is coming, and we’d better be ready because it appears as if all the demons in hell have been turned loose. Never before in America have we seen such open contempt for the Word of God.
And when I say demons, I mean just that.
We know that Satan and his rebellious, unholy allies were cast down out of Heaven at one point. “And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon; and the dragon and his angels fought, but they did not prevail, nor was a place found for them in heaven any longer. So the great dragon was cast out, that serpent of old, called the Devil and Satan, who deceives the whole world; he was cast to the earth, and his angels were cast out with him” (Revelation 12:7-9).
Behind the disdain and hatred for Christ and His followers is the evil one, plus his minions who for a season have been allowed by God to work evil on Earth. Remember that the devil is a deceiver, a murderer, a destroyer by his own sinister, wicked nature.
He and his demonic hordes—who knows how many—are especially adept at lying. The devil lied to Eve in the Garden, telling her “you will not surely die” (Genesis 3:4). But of course both Eve and Adam believed the lie and the fall of mankind into sin began for all.
Speaking to the Pharisees about the devil, Jesus said, he “does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it” (John 8:44).
One of the big lies in our culture today is that persons are free to change their gender, biological identity or their sexual preferences. That is a demonic lie. The Bible says, “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them” (Genesis 1:27). This is the authoritative, unchanging truth of the Word of God.
Another demonic lie in our culture today is that a baby in the womb is simply a mass of tissue—without value, soul or meaning—that can be aborted. The Bible says, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:13-14). The Apostle Paul said that he had been set apart for the Gospel “from my mother’s womb” (Galatians 1:15).
Perhaps the greatest demonic lie in our culture is that we are all basically good, with no responsibility toward anyone except ourselves. The Bible says that “there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God … there is none who does good, no, not one” (Romans 3:10-12). The Bible says, “each of us shall give account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).
The good news is that Satan has already been decisively defeated on the cross by the Lord Jesus Christ (Colossians 2:15). He works his woe, but he knows that his time on Earth as the deceiver and destroyer will soon be over (Revelation 12:12), and he and his rebellious demons will be forever cast into the burning lake of fire (Revelation 20:10).
Until that time, we stand on the all-powerful, never-changing truth of God’s Word, and we refuse to buy into any of the enemy’s wicked tactics. In Christ Jesus, we are always more than conquerors, whatever the culture may futilely say. ©2023 BGEA
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New King James Version.
Photo: Thomas J. Petrino/©2023 BGEA
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