Tag: Reverend Billy Graham

“America’s Pastor” Billy Graham to Lie in State in US Capitol Rotunda Next Week – Why It’s Appropriate

On By kingsjesterIn Christianity, PoliticsLeave a comment

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“Someday you will read or hear that Billy Graham is dead. Don’t you believe a word of it. I shall be more alive than I am now. I will just have changed my address. I will have gone into the presence of God.” – Reverend Billy Graham

ABCNews.com reports that

The Rev. Billy Graham’s body will lie in honor in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda next week, the first time a private citizen has been accorded such recognition since civil rights hero Rosa Parks in 2005.The two-day viewing in Washington on Feb. 28 and March 1 will be part of nine days of mourning for postwar America’s most famous evangelist, who died Wednesday at his home in North Carolina’s mountains at age 99.

“America’s Pastor” will be laid to rest March 2 at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway at the worldwide headquarters of his evangelical empire in Charlotte, buried in a simple prison-made plywood coffin next to his wife, Ruth, who died in 2007.

His tombstone will read “Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.”

U.S. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Thursday announced the plans to honor Graham at the Capitol, a rite usually accorded presidents and other statesmen. A viewing will also be held at Graham’s Charlotte library on Monday and Tuesday.

The North Carolina-born farm boy reached hundreds of millions of listeners around with the world with his rallies — or what he called “crusades” — and his pioneering use of television.

More than anyone else, Graham built evangelicalism into a force that rivaled liberal Protestantism and Roman Catholicism in the U.S., and he became a confidant of presidents and other leaders.

His coffin was built by inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana, who typically construct caskets for fellow prisoners who cannot afford one.

Graham’s son the Rev. Franklin Graham toured the prison in 2005 and said he was so moved by the simple boxes lined with a mattress pad with a wooden cross nailed to the top that he asked for ones for his mother and father.

The funeral at Graham’s Charlotte headquarters will be held in a tent in the main parking lot of the library in tribute to the tent revivals in Los Angeles in 1949 that propelled him to international fame, family spokesman Mark Demoss said.

The impact which Rev. Billy Graham made on this terrestrial ball cannot be overstated.

According to The Billy Graham Library,

In over 55 years of ministry, Billy Graham has preached the Gospel message to more than 215 million people in over 185 countries around the world. The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, which he founded in 1950, reaches out to millions more each year through radio and television broadcasts, films, literature, training, events, and the Internet.

The biggest accomplishment that any of us can ever hope to achieve is to make a difference for the good in somebody’s life.

Rev. Graham made a difference in the lives of 215 million!

Yesterday morning, as I was watching Fox New’s “America’s Newsroom”, Bill Hemmer sat down for an interview with Cardinal Timothy Michael Dolan, the Arch Bishop of the New York Diocese.

Cardinal Dolan made the remark that when you watched Rev. Graham preach at one of his Crusades, there were no teleprompters. There was nothing “fancy”. It was just Rev. Graham and an open Bible.

Cardinal Dolan went on to say that Rev. Graham preached the Word of God from “The Inherent Word of God” in a way which touched the souls of those who were not only at the Crusades, both also those who were watching and listening around the world to his broadcasts on television and radio.

His unashamed love of God and his total devotion to spreading the message that ‘GOD LOVES YOU”! transcended foreign languages and cultures and brought people throughout the world to the knowledge that they “had an advocate in Jesus Christ The Righteous”.

Those of you who may not be a “Christian” are probably saying,

That is all well and good. But, why does this civilian deserve the honor of lying in state in the Capitol Rotunda? What about the “Separation of Church and State”?

Well, first off, please find for me in our Constitution where it calls for the “Separation of Church and State”.

Next, please find a more influential American over the last century than The Reverend Billy Graham.

On September 14, 2001, 3 days after the largest Terrorist Attack ever perpetrated on American Soil, Rev. Graham spoke the following words to a nation in mourning…

This week we watched in horror as planes crashed into the steel and glass of the World Trade Center. Those majestic towers, built on solid foundations, were examples of prosperity and creativity. When damaged, those buildings plummeted to the ground, imploding in upon themselves. Yet, underneath the debris, is a foundation that was not destroyed. Therein lies the truth of that hymn, “How Firm a Foundation.”

Yes, our nation has been attacked, buildings destroyed, lives lost. But now we have a choice: whether to implode and disintegrate emotionally and spiritually as a people and a nation; or to choose to become stronger through all of this struggle, to rebuild on a solid foundation.

And I believe that we are starting to rebuild on that foundation. That foundation is our trust in God. And in that faith, we have the strength to endure something as difficult and as horrendous as what we have experienced this week. This has been a terrible week with many tears.

But it also has been a week of great faith. In that hymn, “How Firm a Foundation,” the words say, “Fear not, I am with thee; O be not dismayed,/For I am thy God, and will give thee aid;/I’ll strengthen thee, help thee, and cause thee to stand,/Upheld by my righteous, omnipotent hand.”

My prayer today is that we will feel the loving arms of God wrapped around us and that as we trust in Him we will know in our hearts that He will never forsake us.

His words helped to bring hope and healing to our nation and they ring out as true today as they were when he spoke them.

To this day, America remains a Majority-Christian Nation, with 70-75% of our population proclaiming Jesus Christ as their Personal Savior.

The only other non-politician to lie in state in our nation’s Capitol was Civil Rights Pioneer, Rosa Parks. Just as she broke down barriers, so did Billy Graham. Just as she fought to free her people from the chains of discrimination, the Rev. Graham fought to free Americans from the shackles of sin which bound us and kept us from a relationship with the One who loves us.

America’s Pastor deserves to be honored as an American Hero and a Warrior for Christ.

Please allow me to end today’s post with the following prayer, written by The Rev. Billy Graham…

Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, ‘Woe to those who call evil good,’ but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery. We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare. We have killed our unborn and called it choice. We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable… We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self-esteem. We have abused power and called it politics. We have coveted our neighbor’s possessions and called it ambition. We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression. We have ridiculed the time-honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from sin and Set us free. Amen!’

With the Lord’s help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we once again can be called ‘One nation under God!’ AMEN

Amen.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Petulant President Pantywaist to Create New Democrat Voters Tonight

On By kingsjesterIn PoliticsLeave a comment

AFBrancoAmnestyLameDuck11192014PROLOGUE: In 1955, America’s Pastor, Reverend Billy Graham, said the following prophetic words:

Many Christian parents are becoming fearful that they cannot properly train their children in this lawless and wicked age. We have received scores of letters in our office asking, “What is the answer? What can I do with my son? My daughter?”

We are beginning to reap what has been sown for the past generation. We have taught the philosophy of the devil, who says, “Do as you please.” Behaviorism has been the moral philosophy of much of our education in the past few years. Psychiatrists have told parents to let their children do as they please, lest in restraining them they may warp the children’s personalities.

We have taken God out of our educational systems and thought we could get away with it. We have sown the wind, and we are now reaping the whirlwind. We have laughed at God, religion and the Bible.

Many of our educational leaders sneer at the old-fashioned idea of God and a moral code. Movies feature sex, sin, crime and alcohol. Teenagers see these things portrayed alluringly on the screen and decide to go and try them. Newspapers have played up crime and sex until they seem glamorous to our young people.

Instead of publicizing the good and constructive things that teenagers do, we have played up the sensational lawbreaker. We have taught our young people that morals are relative and not absolute.

United States President Barack Hussein Obama is one of those children.

Tonight, Petulant President Pantywaist is going to come on our TV sets to tell us that he is going to grant amnesty to 5 million individuals who broke our nation’s law by coming across our borders illegally. Additionally, in a nutshell, he is going to tell us that he is well within his Constitutional rights to do so, and there is nothing we can do about it.

The little brat will probably hold his breath and jump up and down until he turns blue, also.

Do you realize that 3 Americans have been beheaded by ISIS in videos which have been seen around the world, and President Barack Hussein Obama has done nothing at all about it?

Oh sure, he sent some of our planes, and some of his allies’ planes, on bombing runs, in a vain attempt to bomb a guerrilla force, which never stays in one place very long, into submission.

Like every single grand scheme that Obama has come up with, this has not worked either.

So, what makes Obama believe that granting amnesty to all of these criminals will magically turn America into a better country?

It is because his huge ego will not let him believe otherwise.

And, because his political party’s only hope to stay alive is to create new voters.

As I wrote a couple of years back, Obama suffers from Educated-Beyond-His-Own-Intelligence Syndrome.

He also suffers, as I have written, from a great disconnect with the lives and opinions of average Americans, like you and me.

The majority of the nation did not want Obamacare, but he and his Democratic minions wanted it, so here we are, stuck with it.

The majority of Americans, do not want Obama to grant amnesty to illegal aliens, but he and his Democratic minions want it in order to be able to win elections, so again, we will be stuck with it.

Obama and the Far Left do not care what damage their ideas do to our country, because they believe in their own intellectual superiority and infallibility.

“Even though Socialism has failed everywhere it has been tried, we will make it work in America. After all, we’re smarter than they were.”

They overestimate themselves greatly.

It’s not the fact that this generation of Liberals are a bunch of snotty little brats that really gets my goat. It is the fact that they have no sense of history and are so ungrateful as regards the sacrifices made by their fathers before them.

Take Barry Soetoro, otherwise known as Barack Hussein Obama, for example. It is quite evident to anyone with the brains to figure it out,(of course, that automatically excludes liberals) that Obama cares more for these non-citizens, who he is fixing to grant amnesty to, than the individual Americans who were so savagely beheaded by the Muslims, whom he wrote that he would stand beside if the political winds turned in an “ugly direction”, as noted in his “Bomber” Bill Ayers-penned autobiography, “Dreams of My Father”.

Barack Hussein Obama assumed the office of the presidency, riding on a crest of Americans who wanted to be part of something historic, with the election of the First Black President.

After his poor performance in his first term as president, he was reelected by Americans who wanted to maintain their lifestyle of existence on the government dole, and who were afraid that if Obama did not get back into office, they would lose their so-called “benefits”.

So, as the night closes in, just as it happened with the middle of the night passage of Obamacare, Americans will be powerless to prevent what will happen this evening.

And, it will be the result of a generation of brats with no moral compass whatsoever, with no national pride, and no sense of the gifts which our Founding Fathers, through the grace of Almighty God, have bestowed upon them…the blessings which they have garnered, free of any exertion of their own, simply by being born in the greatest nation on God’s Green Earth.

We are witnessing a generation of self-centered spoiled brats, led by a self-centered spoiled brat, spoiling a sacred land, and doing their best to tarnish this Shining city Upon a Hill.

I for one, am sorry that Reverend Billy Graham had to live to see his prophetic words come to pass.

By the way, it is no coincidence that Obama is speaking on a day which is celebrated in Mexico as Revolution Day, their “4th of July”.

God Save the Union.

Until He Comes,

KJ

Vote Like Your Freedom Depends On It

On By kingsjesterIn Politics4 Comments

Well, here we are:  Election Day 2012. Four years in the making: President Barack Hussein Obama vs. Mitt Romney. At stake: this Sacred  Land, the Shining City on a Hill,  Land Where Our Fathers Died, Land of the Pilgrims’ Pride, the United States of America.

Yes, once again, as Ronald Wilson Reagan said in 1964, it is A Time For Choosing:

The Founding Fathers knew a government can’t control the economy without controlling people. And they knew when a government sets out to do that, it must use force and coercion to achieve its purpose. So we have come to a time for choosing.

Public servants say, always with the best of intentions, “What greater service we could render if only we had a little more money and a little more power.” But the truth is that outside of its legitimate function, government does nothing as well or as economically as the private sector.

Yet any time you and I question the schemes of the do-gooders, we’re denounced as being opposed to their humanitarian goals. It seems impossible to legitimately debate their solutions with the assumption that all of us share the desire to help the less fortunate. They tell us we’re always “against,” never “for” anything.

We are for a provision that destitution should not follow unemployment by reason of old age, and to that end we have accepted Social Security as a step toward meeting the problem. However, we are against those entrusted with this program when they practice deception regarding its fiscal shortcomings, when they charge that any criticism of the program means that we want to end payments….

We are for aiding our allies by sharing our material blessings with nations which share our fundamental beliefs, but we are against doling out money government to government, creating bureaucracy, if not socialism, all over the world.

We need true tax reform that will at least make a start toward I restoring for our children the American Dream that wealth is denied to no one, that each individual has the right to fly as high as his strength and ability will take him…. But we can not have such reform while our tax policy is engineered by people who view the tax as a means of achieving changes in our social structure….

Have we the courage and the will to face up to the immorality and discrimination of the progressive tax, and demand a return to traditional proportionate taxation? . . . Today in our country the tax collector’s share is 37 cents of -very dollar earned. Freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp.

Are you willing to spend time studying the issues, making yourself aware, and then conveying that information to family and friends? Will you resist the temptation to get a government handout for your community? Realize that the doctor’s fight against socialized medicine is your fight. We can’t socialize the doctors without socializing the patients. Recognize that government invasion of public power is eventually an assault upon your own business. If some among you fear taking a stand because you are afraid of reprisals from customers, clients, or even government, recognize that you are just feeding the crocodile hoping he’ll eat you last.

If all of this seems like a great deal of trouble, think what’s at stake. We are faced with the most evil enemy mankind has known in his long climb from the swamp to the stars. There can be no security anywhere in the free world if there is no fiscal and economic stability within the United States. Those who ask us to trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state are architects of a policy of accommodation.

They say the world has become too complex for simple answers. They are wrong. There are no easy answers, but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. Winston Churchill said that “the destiny of man is not measured by material computation. When great forces are on the move in the world, we learn we are spirits-not animals.” And he said, “There is something going on in time and space, and beyond time and space, which, whether we like it or not, spells duty.”

You and I have a rendezvous with destiny. We will preserve for our children this, the last best hope of man on earth, or we will sentence them to take the first step into a thousand years of darkness. If we fail, at least let our children and our children’s children say of us we justified our brief moment here. We did all that could be done.

President Ronald Reagan also said:

If we ever forget that we are One Nation Under God, then we will be a nation gone under.

President Barack Hussein Obama once said, on 6/28/2006:

Which passages of scripture should guide our public policy? Should we go with Leviticus which suggests slavery is okay? Or we can go with Or we could go with Deuteronomy, which suggests stoning your child if he strays from the faith? Or should we just stick to the Sermon on the Mount? A passage that is so radical that it’s doubtful that our Defense Department would survive its application. Folks haven’t been reading the bible.

In April of 2008, Obama said at a fundraiser:

You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton Administration, and the Bush Administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. And it’s not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

President Barack Hussein Obama recently said in front of the UN, while lying about the cause of the attack and murder of four Americans on 9/11/12, at the Consulate in Benghazi, Libya:

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.

Is this what you want for our country’s future? Your Freedom of Speech, your Freedom of Religion, regulated by the State, as it is in Canada, where Christian Pastors are arrested for speaking their minds from the pulpit? Do you want the Greatest Country on God’s Green Earth reduced to the status of another Greece, with rioting in the streets? Or, another Venezuela, where a dictator gets re-elected by “98 per cent”? Do you want a country where “Honor Killings” of teenage girls are covered under Sharia Law?

I don’t. I stand with America’s Pastor, Rev. Billy Graham, who recently wrote:

The legacy we leave behind for our children, grandchildren and this great nation is crucial. As I approach my 94th birthday, I realize this election could be my last. I believe it is vitally important that we cast our ballots for candidates who base their decisions on biblical principles and support the nation of Israel. I urge you to vote for those who protect the sanctity of life and support the biblical definition of marriage between a man and a woman. Vote for biblical values this November 6, and pray with me that America will remain one nation under God.

Amen, Reverend, Amen.