Billy Graham has passed away

[Reformed]

May Eternal rest be granted unto him O Lord and let perpetual light shine upon him.

Rev. Graham was indeed a tireless worker for the Kingdom of God. My sincere condolences to his surviving family members for their loss.

Eternal rest was granted to him at his conversion. No need to pray for it now.

 

[Adonia]

Eternal rest was granted to him at his conversion. No need to pray for it now.

Sorry, but being on this earth and dealing with all we have to deal with even though we have Christ is not having eternal rest, only actually being in heaven brings that to us.


Billy said he would not be dead when he left this world and got to heaven and he is absolutely right. Can you now understand how we can ask the saints in heaven to pray for us? You can rightfully ask Mr. Graham as an everlasting member of the "communion of saints" to pray for you right now. We all are alive in Christ, even though some of us have gone to sleep.

 

[thatbrian]

Was Lazarus dead before he was raised by Christ?

 

[rsr]

Enough. Please take your dogmatic discussions elsewhere; there a plenty of other places. I should be surprised at how rude some people can be, but I'm not.

 

[Reynolds]

You tell me. Does Jesus + Anything save?

The man just died and all you can do is bash him. Sad. Truly sad. I believe this speaks volumes about you.

 

[thatbrian]

The man just died and all you can do is bash him. Sad. Truly sad. I believe this speaks volumes about you.

If the president of the SDA just died, would you react in the same manner?

How am I "bashing" if I play a clip of BGs own words?

 

[Reformed]

Sorry, but being on this earth and dealing with all we have to deal with even though we have Christ is not having eternal rest, only actually being in heaven brings that to us.


Billy said he would not be dead when he left this world and got to heaven and he is absolutely right. Can you now understand how we can ask the saints in heaven to pray for us? You can rightfully ask Mr. Graham as an everlasting member of the "communion of saints" to pray for you right now. We all are alive in Christ, even though some of us have gone to sleep.

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Bill Graham's mediator is the risen Lord Jesus Christ, not the pope of Rome or the prayers of dead men. Billy Graham cannot pray for or intercede for us. There is one who intercedes for us with the Father, the eternal Son of God.

 

[kdm1984]

I've been reading responses on social media and here to the news of his death. His life and beliefs are getting heavily assailed, not surprisingly, by atheists (saw much nastiness from atheistic readers of online BBC news and The Guardian through Facebook links), and Calvinists.

I've spent a lot of time reading online debates (I actually read much more than I engage), and what I've observed with a shocking degree of consistency, is that most atheists and Calvinists have a surprisingly similar spirit: they usually feed on aggressively criticizing those who disagree with them, and both seldom show the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) -- let alone much humility.

Remember what Paul said: having all the knowledge in the world (atheists and Calvinists often exhibit great head knowledge), without having love, makes us nothing.

Billy Graham may not have had all the knowledge. But he proclaimed Christ, and he exhibited the fruits of the spirit more than the majority of those from the other groups I have seen.

I'll leave the hair-splitting to everyone else. Or best yet, we should leave it to God, Who alone knows where Graham's spirit resides.

 

[thatbrian]

I've been reading responses on social media and here to the news of his death. His life and beliefs are getting heavily assailed, not surprisingly, by atheists (saw much nastiness from atheistic readers of online BBC news and The Guardian through Facebook links), and Calvinists.

I've spent a lot of time reading online debates (I actually read much more than I engage), and what I've observed with a shocking degree of consistency, is that most atheists and Calvinists have a surprisingly similar spirit: they usually feed on aggressively criticizing those who disagree with them, and both seldom show the fruits of the spirit (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control) -- let alone much humility.

Remember what Paul said: having all the knowledge in the world (atheists and Calvinists often exhibit great head knowledge), without having love, makes us nothing.

Billy Graham may not have had all the knowledge. But he proclaimed Christ, and he exhibited the fruits of the spirit more than the majority of those from the other groups I have seen.

I'll leave the hair-splitting to everyone else. Or best yet, we should leave it to God, Who alone knows where Graham's spirit resides.

Do you have any idea what became of most of the people who "came forward" at a Billy Graham "crusade"? If you did, you might be singing a different tune.

 

[InTheLight]

Do you have any idea what became of most of the people who "came forward" at a Billy Graham "crusade"? If you did, you might be singing a different tune.

Of course, with your mind reading skills you have acquired this information. I envy your superior abilities. It must give you enormous advantages in life. Why do you lower yourself and mingle with folks like us that lack telepathy?

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Baptist Believer]

You sir are an absolute heretic and the word of God is not agreement with you on this.

I'm sorry you feel the need to condemn. There's no point discussing with you the verses you quoted since you have already reached your conclusion. May God grace His grace to you each day to live faithfully.

 

[kyredneck]

I am not a huge fan of Graham and consider Schuller to have been in heresy, but I think Graham was correct on this point. However, it is certainly NOT universalism, despite the name of the video.

In both Galatians and Romans, Paul makes much of Abraham being called by God without any Law or religious ritual and then demonstrates that our faith in like that of Abraham's. While all persons who will be saved by (and in) the Person (aka "name") of Jesus the Christ, not everyone is going to have all the details. If we claim such a thing, then we are saying that all persons in the Americas prior to Christian missionaries (many of them Roman Catholic) arriving and making contact, are outside of God's grace. We are also claiming that persons outside of an area of human Christian witness are outside of God's grace.

In nature and existence, all persons are given knowledge of God. Those that choose to follow that knowledge and seek to know God can find Him. God's Spirit works both with and well beyond our personal and corporate efforts to call a people to Himself.

That's how there will be people of every tribe and nature in God's new creation.

If you want to have that conversation, please start another thread.

In short...

(1) Regarding God saving outside "His Word." Since you are using "Christ" in your questions, I assume that you are misusing a capital "W" and actually referring to written scriptures. God saved Abraham and many other people over the years outside of access to written scriptures. The scriptures do not mediate salvation, although they are incredibly helpful for God's people.
(2) Regarding God saving outside of "His gospel." I have no idea what you mean here. The gospel is simply knowledge of God communicated to humankind and can be communicate many different ways. When I write "many different ways," you need to understand that I am not talking about any old religious viewpoint (religions are quite different), but simply ways that the knowledge can be "heard" and understood. A believe in the true and living God may look like a poor adherent of another faith because they really don't believe the false parts of whatever faith in is their culture.
(3) Regarding God saving outside of "His Christ." I thought I made it clear in my previous post that all persons who are saved are saved through Christ, even if they have incomplete knowledge of Him. Just like Abraham and others.
(4) "Why would Jesus have died?" Because in God's divine providence. the Father, Son and Spirit worked together to demonstrate their love for humankind, demonstrating both justice and grace in the act of atonement, death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ. There are books worth of things to be said about that, but the question is quite irrelevant to the issue of whether or not someone can come to faith without an explicit Christian witness borne by human means.
(5) Why would Jesus have given the Great Commission? To give people more opportunities to hear the gospel and to make God more well known in the world so that we can more adequately serve God. God wants His people to be personally involved in the redemption of the world and to build up the community of the Kingdom of God as we reign with Him in this present age and the age to come. Remember, if we have a view of the full gospel of Christ (not a reductionistic version of the gospel that is solely focused on the atonement and whether or not certain people "get into heaven"), then this answer is obvious.

BB, you sound a whooole lot like an Old Baptist! But so did Billy Graham at times...

 

[Eric B]

The Evangel-ist

 

[Adonia]

Who coined the term, "passed away"?

I don't know, but the

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Amen to that brother, that is what we believe.

Bill Graham's mediator is the risen Lord Jesus Christ, not the pope of Rome or the prayers of dead men. Billy Graham cannot pray for or intercede for us. There is one who intercedes for us with the Father, the eternal Son of God.

Don't you dare ever ask anyone to pray for you as that is an intercession. Go directly to Jesus, to God Himself and by-pass brother Robert or Sister Jane. See how silly you are?

 

[Yeshua1]

How have you come to that conclusion? Would you have said what he did in that clip?

I would ask the question more "Did Billy graham ever confess Jesus as being His Lord, and did he have any fruit at all to evidence was a saving confession of faith?"

 

[Yeshua1]

1 Timothy 2:5 For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Bill Graham's mediator is the risen Lord Jesus Christ, not the pope of Rome or the prayers of dead men. Billy Graham cannot pray for or intercede for us. There is one who intercedes for us with the Father, the eternal Son of God.

What need have we of Mother Mary, or Aostles Peter/paul and John interceded for us when we have the very Son of God Himself doing that for us? IF His work is not enough, than we all are still lost !

 

[JonC]

What need have we of Mother Mary, or Aostles Peter/paul and John interceded for us when we have the very Son of God Himself doing that for us? IF His work is not enough, than we all are still lost !

When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me speaking words of wisdom.

 

[Jerome]

Yeshua1/Dachaser/JesusFan, please respect the board administrators' request:

per Admin Council, "threads concerning the late Billy Graham are closed until March 21 (thirty days after his passing). This is due to the negativity they are generating."

 

[HankD]

Billy traversed the whole venue of conservative Christianity from fiery fundamentalist to ecumenicalist.

I will say I was disappointed with the RCC compromises of the latter years but have no doubt he was mightily used of God to bring souls into the kingdom.

IMO - best to leave it to God to determine gold, silver, precious gems, wood, hay, stuble...

 

[Yeshua1]

Yeshua1/Dachaser/JesusFan, please respect the board administrators' request:

per Admin Council, "threads concerning the late Billy Graham are closed until March 21 (thirty days after his passing). This is due to the negativity they are generating."

I will, but I thought only negative postings were being forbidden?