{"id":422346,"date":"2021-04-14T17:51:06","date_gmt":"2021-04-14T21:51:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=422346"},"modified":"2021-04-14T17:51:12","modified_gmt":"2021-04-14T21:51:12","slug":"our-nation-is-ripe-evangelist-greg-laurie-seeks-to-bring-billy-grahams-legacy-to-new-generation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/our-nation-is-ripe-evangelist-greg-laurie-seeks-to-bring-billy-grahams-legacy-to-new-generation\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Our Nation Is Ripe\u2019: Evangelist Greg Laurie Seeks To Bring Billy Graham\u2019s Legacy To New Generation"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">32<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Four-nation-is-ripe-evangelist-greg-laurie-seeks-to-bring-billy-grahams-legacy-to-new-generation%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=422346&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1955.jpeg?w=1200&amp;h=800&amp;ixlib=react-9.0.3\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\" \/><\/div>\n<p>When news broke early on Feb. 21, 2018, that Billy Graham had died, I was working at a landscaping company about eight miles from Montreat, North Carolina, the tiny mountain town where Billy lived.<\/p>\n<p>I remember the day well. Minutes after I learned of his passing, I watched a swarm of police cars hurtling down Interstate 40 at high speed toward Montreat. The press with all of their paraphernalia descended shortly afterward. Loud helicopters hovered over the typically quiet area all day. It was an unforgettable disturbance in the otherwise ordinary community, which is small enough for me to have repeatedly interacted with several members of Graham\u2019s family.<\/p>\n<p>For <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2018\/03\/02\/snatching-coals-from-the-furnace-a-millennials-perspective-on-billy-graham\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">such reasons<\/a>, Billy Graham will always be memorable to me. However, according to a <a href=\"https:\/\/lifewayresearch.com\/2017\/11\/09\/lifeway-research-billy-graham-had-a-far-reaching-legacy\/\">Lifeway Research<\/a>&nbsp;poll conducted months before his death, more than half of my fellow 18- to 34-year-old Protestant churchgoers said they had never interacted with Graham\u2019s ministry. A staggering 16% of that same demographic did not even know who Graham was, despite his distinction of having preached in person to nearly 215 million people, which is more than anyone in history.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cCalled By God To Change The World\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Pastor Greg Laurie of Harvest Christian Fellowship in Riverside, California, recently explained to The Daily Wire how he hopes his new book, \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Billy-Graham-Man-I-Knew\/dp\/1684510597\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Billy Graham: The Man I Knew<\/a>,\u201d will reinvigorate Graham\u2019s legacy for young people who have never heard of him and desperately seek spiritual answers.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"500\" data-dnt=\"true\" readability=\"6.8367346938776\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">My new book, &#8220;Billy Graham: The Man I Knew&#8221; comes out this Tuesday! You can order it at <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/WwgkUvsNKx\">https:\/\/t.co\/WwgkUvsNKx<\/a> and Harvest.og <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/qdiryfrHrX\">pic.twitter.com\/qdiryfrHrX<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Greg Laurie (@greglaurie) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/greglaurie\/status\/1380535701662404616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">April 9, 2021<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>\u201cI think there\u2019s a whole generation of people who have heard the name Billy Graham, and they don\u2019t know who he is,\u201d Laurie said. \u201cHe\u2019s sort of like a one-dimensional figure, like Abraham Lincoln on a $5 bill. They know he was an important historical figure, but they really don\u2019t know why, because they didn\u2019t grow up watching him on television or going to his crusade events.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Laurie, who in 1990 founded the large-scale revival events called&nbsp;Harvest Crusades, said he wanted to introduce the rising generation to Graham&nbsp;because he believes \u201cthere\u2019s so much we can learn from him.\u201d&nbsp;As an evangelist himself, Laurie sketches from his unique perspective an intimate portrait of the larger-than-life figure he came to know as a friend. Offering pastoral insights along the way, he chronicles across 34 chapters what he described as \u201cthe story of a humble dairyman\u2019s son who was called by God to change the world.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think it\u2019s good to hear a story of a man who made it almost to 100 with his integrity intact and became the most effective evangelist in human history, second only to the apostles,\u201d said Laurie. \u201cHe reached more people and led more people to Christ than any other man who ever lived. And he did it with integrity and with the love of his family.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a man who started and ended his spiritual race very well,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cJust A Country Preacher\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cBilly\u2019s life almost reads like a Bible story,\u201d Laurie observed. \u201cYou read of Gideon hiding from his enemies, the Midianites, but an angel of the Lord calls him. You read of David keeping watch over his flock of sheep when the prophet anoints him. The Lord called Billy when he was the son of a dairy farmer.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Laurie notes he doesn\u2019t think Graham \u201cin his wildest dreams ever thought he would end up doing what he ended up doing.\u201d He was slated to become a dairy farmer like his father and brother in Charlotte, North Carolina. His dream was to be a professional baseball player, but God had other plans.&nbsp;After he made a serious conversion to Christianity during a revival conducted by evangelist Mordecai Ham, the teenage Graham began to feel pulled to the pulpit.<\/p>\n<p>Years would pass before Graham was ready for the world stage. Laurie traces Graham\u2019s years of preparation with detail, which were fraught with failure and frustration. He went to three different colleges and took seven years to graduate. His tenure as the president of a Bible school showed that his gifts were not administrative ones. A short stint as a pastor taught him, among other things, that the pastorate was not what God had called him to do.<\/p>\n<p>Throughout his setbacks, however, he met people and learned lessons that would prove invaluable when he became the world\u2019s most famous evangelist. When, in 1949 at age 30, he was catapulted to international prominence almost overnight after media tycoon William Randolph Hearst ordered his newspapers to \u201cPuff Graham\u201d during his Los Angeles Crusade, he already had a decade of preaching under his belt. He would learn quickly how to navigate the dicey, cutthroat world of diplomacy and public relations, such as when a botched meeting in the Oval Office left President Harry Truman angered and put off.<\/p>\n<p>Being close to powerful people came with its particular sources of pain. \u201cCertainly he got stung by his relationship with President Nixon, whom he had a close friendship with,\u201d Laurie recounted, noting how Nixon had even come to one of his crusades to share a few words with the audience when he was vice president. \u201cAnd so when he heard the Watergate tapes and saw another side of the president, that was really shocking to him and hurtful.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut I would add this: He also continued to care for the president; reached out to him privately without any fanfare after he was out of the Oval Office, because he just had compassion on people. It wasn\u2019t about people in power. He would reach out to them and he would speak to them, but he also reached out to people who were unknown because he just had a genuine concern for others.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Even as his ministry took him into the halls of power, Graham remained humble. \u201cBilly would often say, \u2018I\u2019m just a country preacher,&#8217;\u201d Laurie remembered. \u201cAnd that might sound to some like false humility, but in the case of Billy, he was just telling the truth. He was just a country preacher.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cGod chose him,\u201d Laurie maintained. \u201cBilly was asked the question, \u2018What do you want to ask God when you get to heaven,\u2019 and his response was, \u2018I want to ask Him, \u2018Why did you choose me?\u2019\u201d Graham used the image of \u201ca turtle on a fence post\u201d to describe his ministry, a Southern colloquialism for something that obviously could not have happened by itself.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think Billy understood that God placed him where he was. And he had a natural humility in private as well as in public that I saw many times,\u201d Laurie said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>\u201cOur Nation Is Ripe For Another Spiritual Awakening\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As a millennial reading his book, one of the things that struck me most about Laurie\u2019s overview of Graham\u2019s life was how little I could relate to the world in which Graham grew up. His generation had its profound trials, to be sure, but the spiritual pitfalls facing young people then might seem quaint to a generation that is coming of age when virtually every institution is coming apart. Religious institutions are no exception. According to a recent Gallup poll, U.S. membership in houses of worship has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/u-s-church-membership-dips-below-50-for-first-time-poll\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">declined below 50%<\/a>&nbsp;for the first time ever.<\/p>\n<p>In response to such statistics, Laurie said, \u201cOne of the signs of the End Times, which I believe we\u2019re living in\u2014in fact, I\u2019m teaching on the Book of Revelation right now\u2014is some people would <a href=\"https:\/\/www.biblegateway.com\/passage\/?search=Matthew+24%3A11-14&amp;version=KJV\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">fall away from the faith<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He clarified his belief that rates of church membership are not necessarily an indication of how many people have genuine Christian faith, and that most of the media are not particularly inclined to highlight when large numbers of young people believe in Jesus Christ and go on to impact their communities.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut having said all that, I do believe our nation is ripe for another spiritual awakening,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>Regarding how Graham viewed the spiritual trajectory of the nation during his later years, Laurie said, \u201cI think Billy was very concerned with how things seem to be; people seem to be less interested in spiritual things than they were before.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBut, you know, that\u2019s been true of every generation. I mean, Billy started in the 1940s and he made it to the 2000s. And I think every generation thinks this is the worst generation, that it\u2019s never been so bad. In some ways there\u2019s truth to that, and in other ways, every generation has its unique challenges and the gospel is the answer to every generation and to every culture,\u201d he continued.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI don\u2019t think Billy spent a lot of time lamenting the problem as much as he spent on focusing on the solution. And he knew the solution was people coming into a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. That was his message.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Remembering the impact that the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s had on him and his generation, Laurie said, \u201cI think we\u2019re due for another one of those, for sure, because young people need to see the message of Jesus Christ. Not a politicized message, not a message wrapped in any other agenda, but just: You can have a relationship with God through Jesus Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd, you know, Billy was so effective in reaching our generation. And I think we\u2019re also ripe for another Billy Graham\u2014actually, 100 Billy Grahams, maybe even 1,000 young people called to bring the gospel to their generation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The reason Graham was so effective, Laurie believes, is that \u201che was open to do what God wanted him to do.\u201d To that end, he hopes his book will \u201cinspire another generation of younger people to make themselves available to God.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>WATCH:<\/p>\n<p>\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"The Cross | Billy Graham TV Special\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IZOL7V2LpSw?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/p>\n<p><strong>Related<\/strong>: <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/news\/theyre-enslaved-tucker-carlson-warns-against-americans-increasingly-replacing-religion-with-politics\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">\u2018They\u2019re Enslaved\u2019: Tucker Carlson Warns Against Americans Increasingly Replacing Religion With Politics<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><i>The Daily Wire is one of America\u2019s fastest-growing conservative media companies and counter-cultural outlets for news, opinion, and entertainment. Get inside access to The Daily Wire by becoming a <\/i><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/subscribe\"><i>member<\/i><\/a><i>.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When news broke early on Feb. 21, 2018, that Billy Graham had died, I was working at a landscaping company about eight miles from Montreat, North Carolina, the tiny mountain &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2312204,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1955.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018Our Nation Is Ripe\u2019: Evangelist Greg Laurie Seeks To Bring Billy Graham\u2019s Legacy To New Generation","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-422346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/fb_image-1955.jpeg?w=1200&h=800&ixlib=react-9.0.3","fifu_image_alt":"\u2018Our Nation Is Ripe\u2019: Evangelist Greg Laurie Seeks To Bring Billy Graham\u2019s Legacy To New Generation","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=422346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/422346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2312204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=422346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=422346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=422346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}