A Visit With Billy Graham

My lifelong friend, O.S. Hawkins, and I had the privilege last week of spending some time with Billy Graham. It was truly a special time. O.S. and I made a memory we’ll never forget.

We went up to Billy’s mountaintop home in Montreat, North Carolina. It’s a beautiful location with a wonderful view, as you can see from my iPhone photo. He still lives in the log cabin designed back in the 50s by his beloved wife, Ruth, who went to heaven three years ago.

Billy is now 92. And although his sight and his hearing are not great, his mind is still sharp. We had a very engaging visit. His grandson, Tullian Tchividjian, a great young pastor who is now leading Coral Ridge Presbyterian, in Fort Lauderdale, was also there. Tullian is one of 20 grandchildren, and there are also 40 great grandchildren. It was great to see that sweet relationship between Tullian and the man he calls “Daddy Bill.”

We talked about everything from his crusades in Fort Worth and Dallas back in the 1950s and the most recent one here at Texas Stadium in 2002 where Prestonwood was so involved. He’s very interested in what is going on in churches. He knows Prestonwood well. In fact he told me a story. He said, “I recommended Prestonwood. A man called me who was moving to Dallas. He’s a Methodist and he wanted to know what church he should attend, and I said, ‘You know, you really should consider Prestonwood.’ And the man said he knew Prestonwood, but his wife was on the board at SMU. So they ended up going to a Methodist church.”

I wasn’t really sure where the story was going and then Billy gets to the kicker—the man was George W. Bush! He got a real kick out of telling me that.

Spending time with him, I was taken once again by his humility, his grace. He has always been a true Christian gentleman. And I’ve always admired his integrity. With so much craziness and lack of integrity in Christian ministry today, just to see him, his character and the quality of his life is a true honor. I was also taken by the fact that this is a man who traveled the world and walked with kings and presidents and now his life is centered in that small spread on the mountain, and basically from his bedroom to his chair. And yet he seems perfectly content with where he is in his life. He looks forward to going to heaven and joining Ruth. But before he goes, he wants to preach one last sermon. He’s prayed about it and already has his text, Galatians 6:14: But God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world is crucified unto me, and I unto the world.

That verse is up in every room of his house in big letters. He’s memorizing it and meditating on it because he wants to deliver that message one last time ... in God’s time ... before he goes to heaven.

In honor of this great man, I am preaching “Living the Cross” from this verse this Sunday.

God only made one Billy Graham and he has been a prophet to the nations for our generation and he’s spoken to more people than anybody in the history of the Christian faith. To be in his presence, in his house, is like being in the house of one of God’s prophets. God’s presence is very real... he’s not alone in that house ... the presence of God is very powerful in that place. I will forever treasure that special time we experienced with Billy Graham and that sense of God’s presence in a man whose life has been fully dedicated to Christ.