Building Relationships | Billy Graham Classic Sermon

from our archives the Billy Graham

[Applause]

classic I want you to turn with me to

Luke’s gospel the 10th

chapter the 10th chapter of Luke’s

gospel if you have a Bible with you

beginning with the 25th verse and behold

a certain lawyer stood up and tempted

him saying Master what shall I do to

inherit eternal

life he said unto him what is written in

the law how readest thou and he answered

said thou shal love the Lord thy God

with all thy heart with all thy soul

with all thy strength and with all thy

mind and thy neighbor as

thyself and he said unto him thou Hast

answered right this do and thou shalt

live but he the lawyer willingly to

justify himself said unto Jesus and who

is my neighbor who is your neighbor and

Jesus answering said a certain man went

down from Jerusalem to Jericho and fell

among Thieves which stripped him of his

rment and wounded him and departed

leaving him half dead and by chance

there came down a certain priest that

way and when he saw him he passed by on

the other side and likewise a levite

when he was at the place came and looked

on him and passed by on the other side

but a certain Samaritan as he journeyed

came where he was and when he saw him he

had compassion on him and he went to him

and bound up his wounds pouring in oil

and wine and set him on his own beast

and brought him to an end and took care

of him and on the tomorrow when he

departed he took out two pence and gave

them to the host and said unto him take

care of him and whatsoever thou spendest

more when I come again I’ll repay thee

which now of these three thinkest thou

was neighbor under him that fell among

the

thieves and the lawyer said he that

showed mercy of on him then Jesus said

unto him go and do thou

likewise now Jesus gave this little

story and answer to two questions posed

to him by this

lawyer Master what shall I do that I

might inherit eternal life now the first

mistake the lawyer made was there’s

nothing you can do to inherit it you

cannot inherit eternal life from your

parents or your

grandparents

you could say I was born in a Christian

home but that doesn’t make you a

Christian or born in a Christian

Community but that doesn’t make you a

Christian you could say you were born in

a garage but that doesn’t make you a

motorc

car now the second question he asked was

this who is my neighbor who is my

neighbor now there are three things

wrapped up in that question who is my

neighbor first it was a social question

who is my neighbor my neighbor was the

person who is close to me of course my

boyfriend my girlfriend roommate husband

wife mother father person next door your

professor your friends but today we must

take a wider look because of modern

communication and modern technology the

whole world has become our neighborhood

and everyone is our neighbor that lives

on this little planet because we are a

small planet and we have technology in

our hand now that have made this a very

very small planet and we are

demographically moving closer and closer

to each other and we become a

neighborhood without becoming a

Brotherhood and this is one of the great

problems that we face in the world

today and Jesus said Thou shalt love the

Lord thy God with all thy heart and soul

and strength and mind and thy neighbor

as

thyself you had to love the people of

Africa you to love the people of the

Soviet Union you are to love the people

of China you to love the people of Latin

America you to love the people of Europe

you have to love all of those people you

say but there are some of those people I

don’t even know but we have to love them

and we pray for them pray for the whole

world every day and so this story

teaches many

things and one is about

relationships there are several

relationships in loving our neighbor

that I would like to mention tonight the

first is the race question I remember

back in the early days of

1950s uh when we were just starting Drew

Pearson who was a columnist a famous

columnist in this country wrote me a

letter and he said Billy he said would

you uh be

willing to go to Clinton Tennessee that

was the first incident big incident we

had racial incident that we had in the

40s and 50s was in Clinton Tennessee he

said do you have guts enough encourage

enough to go there and preach to an

integrated

audience and I said yes I do if you’ll

go with

me and he went with me and I remember

Senator keola and different ones of the

Senate were there and they sat on the

platform and the head of the White

Citizens Council had declared that he

was going to blow up the meeting or he

was going to stop the meeting or he was

going to do something that it’ll never

be held the meeting was the gospel was

preached and one of the first people

that came forward to receive Christ was

the head of the White Citizens Council

and from then on he found out that he

was to love the black man and that he

had a responsibility in this race

question and you see the story of this

Good Samaritan is really a story about a

race

question

because the Jewish people of that day

had very little to do with the

Samaritans they were of a different

ethnic background and this is a story

that Jesus tells directly to teach who

our neighbors are our neighbors are

people of A different race or a

different cultural background and we’re

to love

them when Jesus went back to his

hometown in Nazareth he was well

received until he spoke about the race

problem and when he spoke about that

they tried to Stone

him and then secondly there are the rich

and the poor relationships in the world

today the rich the poor Nations the rich

people and the poor people in James 2 it

says hath not God chosen the poor of

this world rich in faith and HS of the

Kingdom which he hath promised to them

that love him but ye have despised the

poor and we read the statistics pouring

out about 60,000 people a day starving

to death or 1 billion in the world today

who are on a starvation diet and then we

read about all the money we spend for

dog food in this

country and then we read about all the

money that we all the garbage that we

waste and somehow there’s an inequity in

the world that we have to

face now the gospel of Christ has no

meaning unless it is applied to our

fellow man who hurts and is in need and

I would like to ask you a question

tonight when is the last time that you

shared your life with another person or

someone of another race

or your material Goods with the poor or

your knowledge with those who crave

knowledge or your skills with the

untrained you stop to teach them what

you

know and then thirdly there’s the

relationship with the obsid sex now

instant sex we’re told is in while

enduring relationships are

downplay now this was a problem in the

oldest book in the world job and job

said I’ve made a covenant with mine eyes

why then should I look with lust upon a

maid the Apostle Paul told young Tim

Timothy to flee youthful lust Peter said

abstain from fleshly lust which war

against the soul now we say there you go

there’s God again telling us we can’t

have a good time no God is not saying

that there’s nothing wrong with sex

we’re all here tonight because of

sex and it’s a wonderful GI gift of God

God gave it to us but we to use it

properly he meant it was to be used

within the confines of marriage and he

says Thou shalt not commit

adultery why because he doesn’t want you

to have a good time no to protect the

marriage if you commit immorality before

marriage it affects your marriage my

oldest son-in-law is a psychologist and

he’s told me how many people with guilt

you know uh there was a article in in

the paper I think just two days ago

about how many women in America commit

adultery over 50% of the American women

admitted to committing adultery and yet

70 or 80% said they feel guilty now why

do they feel that way there’s something

in their conscience that tells them it’s

wrong and they suffer and many of them

have to go to psychiatrist and

psychologist or to a clergyman or to

someone and and talk to them about this

guilt and then God said that to protect

your body

we thought we had all the venial

diseases licked with

Penicillin then comes along herpes

simplex too and many articles are

appearing about it it’s like a raging

plague through the population there

seems to be no cure and just when it

seemed that the pill and sex education

and other methods of contraception were

giving us a new Freedom then there

suddenly appears this disease with no

known cure and then thirdly God says

Thou shalt not commit immorality to

protect you

psychologically there was a girl from

one of our great eastern institutions

quoted in one of the magazines some time

ago saying after I’ve had a sex

experience I always feel guilty why deep

emotional disturbances insecurity they

often feel

unloved well there are many

relationships I could talk about that

involve Us in loving our neighbor trying

to protect our neighbor trying to help

our neighbor

I could talk on parent daughter and son

relationships the Bible says honor thy

father and thy mother but young people

have a hard time forgiving their parents

they

forget what an Agony and what a burden

their parents carry for

them and parents sometimes forget that

they were once young themselves and

there should be a bridge and the bridge

can be

Christ because Christ can help you to

forgive as Christ forgives you of of

your sins you can help Christ can help

you to forgive your parents and help you

parents to forgive your children and to

love them because they’re the closest

neighbors you’ll ever have and they come

under this when Jesus said Thou shalt

love thy neighbor as

thyself now I want to get back to this

story before my time is gone some of you

are watching by television and there’s a

number there that on your screen you can

pick up your phone and call and talk to

a counselor standing by in various parts

of the country right now and they will

talk to you and if you get a busy signal

call and call and call

again and they will help you in your

need of Christ your need of God or some

spiritual problem that you’re facing now

you notice in this passage Jesus said a

certain man Jesus believed in the worth

of the

individual and Jesus spent most of his

time with individuals not just great

crowds and it’s all always the

individual that he was concerned about

he said that he sees the sparrow fall he

has the hairs of your head numbered the

Bible teaches that God loves you as an

individual you’re not just a person lost

in a crowd here tonight you are an

individual before God people talk about

Mass evangelism this is not mass anytime

you get two or three people together

that’s mass and if you get 5,000 or

10,000 that’s mass and you get a little

bit more that’s Mass

but we’re individuals and you’re

standing or sitting before God tonight

as an individual not just someone lost

in the crowd he sees you as though you

were the only person living tonight and

Jesus said a certain man he loves people

and Jesus hugs us one by one because he

loves us and greater love hath no man

than this that he lay down his life for

his friends and the Lord Jesus Christ

died on the cross and while he was on

the

cross he was thinking about you because

he was God he could look down the

centuries and call you by name on that

cross and say I love you I will forgive

you if you will come to

me and then the man in our story was on

his way to Jericho from Jerusalem now

Jericho was a border City and it was a

center of black marketing and crime and

international Bandits and the road from

Jerusalem to Jericho in those days was

called the bloody way but it was also a

great city of

priest and it says a certain man this

certain man that Jesus is telling about

fell among Thieves which stripped him of

his clothes and wounded him now all the

world is a bit like that sin is

rampaging through the world it’s

ravaging Humanity violence and terrorism

robbing and raping and all the things

that we read about in the newspapers and

all the things that we do the little

things that are called sin in the Bible

so that the Bible says that all have

sinned and come short of the glory of

God every one of us are law Breakers and

that’s what sin means the breaking of

the moral law of God and we’ve broken

God’s moral law now these thieves

wounded and stripped this

man and departed leaving him half dead

alone and

forsaken he was knocked out and when he

came to he was crushed and broken and

unable to move himself and the scripture

says that you and I are that way sin has

made us dead in our trespass passes and

in our sins the scripture says she that

liveth in pleasure is dead while she

liveth you see that means that you can

be alive physically but spiritually your

soul your spirit that lives inside of

you that’s the part of you’re going to

live

forever that’s the part of you that

dreams and thinks and the real you

that’s going to live forever that part

of you is dead it’s dead toward God you

don’t have any desire to read the Bible

and pray and witness and live a good

life

you have a desire sometimes but you’re

unable to do it why because you’re Soul

your spirit is dead it needs to be made

alive and that’s what Christ can do

tonight he can make it

alive he can take a dead person here

tonight and make you alive now there

came along some what I call Salvation

quacks the world is full of false

Messiah there are over 400 people

claiming to be Christ in Los Angeles

alone I read some time ago I don’t know

how many in

Tacoma are in the state of Washington CS

Lewis the great professor at Cambridge

or Oxford he’s taught at both

universities once said all religions are

a perversion or a preview of

Christianity Jesus said take heed that

no man deceive you we have a lot of

deceivers now he warned that many false

prophets shall rise and deceive many

Paul said evil men and seducers shall

whack worse and worse deceiving and

being deceived so there came by a priest

now you’d think a priest would certainly

help a man that’s broken and crushed and

knocked out like this man was but he

passed by on the other side he probably

had a religious conference he was going

to a very important wedding that he had

to perform I don’t know but he re

represented religion in all of its

forms and Paul wrote to Timothy of those

having a form of godliness but denying

the power power thereof and I want to

tell you this religion doesn’t save

anybody religion is man’s attempt to

reach

God Christianity is God’s attempt to

reach man there’s a vast difference

Jesus said ye are they which justify

themselves before men but God knoweth

your hearts for that which is highly

esteemed among men is an abomination in

the sight of God oh yes we can be

religious

leaders but be

insincere and I told the other night

about the bishop of a church that asked

to see me and he said I’m a I have a

doctor’s degree from the University I’m

a bishop in the church but he said I

really do not know for sure that I know

Christ and he knelt down and he wept and

accepted Christ as his Lord and Savior

and he was sure for the first time in

his life he’d had to become like a

little child all over again and there

are many of you like that that are in

the church and leaders of the church but

deep in your heart you’re not sure how

you stand before Christ then it says a

levite came by he stopped and looked at

this uh man and passed by on the other

side now this levite represented the law

The Ten Commandments people say they can

be saved by doing the best they can or

by keeping the law a poll was taken

recently in New Jersey that said 92% of

the people said they hoped to go to

heaven but most of them were were unsure

they were not certain now the Bible says

you can be sure you mean to say Billy

that I can know that I’m saved I can

know I’m forgiven I can know I’m going

to heaven yes you can know it Paul said

I know whom I am believed and am

persuaded that he’s able to keep that

which I’ve committed unto him against

that day John said these things have I

written unto you that believe on the

name of the son of God that you may know

that you have eternal life you can know

it and it’s a wonder F thing to walk

down the street or to go to bed tonight

and know that every sin is Forgiven and

that if you died during the night you’re

going to go to

heaven how not by works of righteousness

which we’ve done but according to his

Mercy he saved us I’m going to heaven

because of the mercy of God I’m going to

heaven because of the grace of God I

don’t deserve it I deserve judgment in

hell I’m a sinner like you but I have

repented of my sins and received Christ

into my savior and I’m trusting in the

Cross of

Christ so the wounded and the deric man

was left to Die the priest and the

levite unable or unwilling to help him

then there comes a man along with from

another race another religion and he

could have felt no responsibility at all

but he did he was a Samaritan he had

compassion on him a former prime

minister of one of our countries

recently said I’ve never known such a

time in in his lifetime in my lifetime

when there’s such a shortage of love I

read of a woman in London who died at

102 and for the last years of her life

she had nightly made the entry in her

diary no one call today no one loves me

she died

alone this Samaritan of another race of

another religion went to

him he didn’t just love him and leave

him Jesus doesn’t just love him

but he died on the

cross and he died for us and for you but

God who is rich in Mercy for his great

love where with he loved us and the

scripture here in this passage that

Jesus is teaching says that this man

went over and bound up his wounds and

poured in oil and wine but he did

something else God doesn’t just convert

US and change us

tonight but he goes with us he keeps us

and brought him to the end and took care

of of him in other words this man went

with him to an end put him on his

donkey Peter says we’re kept by the

power of God this Samaritan had his own

ambulance with him the donkey took him

to the first Good Samaritan Hospital in

history and on the tomorrow when he

departed he took out money and gave it

to the inkeeper and said unto him take

care of him and whatever you spend when

I come back I’ll pay

it we sang tonight or last night the

hope of

Tomorrow Because He Lives I Can Face

Tomorrow looking for that blessed hope

and glorious appearing and the great God

and our Savior Jesus Christ Christianity

is good news not just good advice good

news that you can be forgiven that you

can have a new life and that you can

make a commitment to someone who will

love you and go with you from here

tonight to help you change your way of

life you have a moment to decide tonight

is the night for many of you and it may

never come again like it is

tonight the scripture says he that being

often reproved shall suddenly be cut off

and that without

remedy there comes a moment when you

face God as you do tonight and you face

the cross and you must

decide and I ask you to come forward in

these meetings and stand in front of the

platform and say symbolically by coming

I do indeed repent of my sins and

receive Christ you say what do you mean

by

repentance that word repentance means

simply to

change you say God I have sinned I’m

sorry I am willing to change my way of

life if you’ll help

me I’m willing to

change are you willing to say that and

then you come secondly by faith and put

all of your confidence in Christ on the

cross for your forgiveness and your

salvation and then thirdly you’re

willing to follow him and you’re willing

to go back home and be a good

neighbor are you willing to say that

tonight that’s what it

means if you are you can get up and come

now why do I ask you to come

publicly because he said if you’re not

willing to acknowledge me publicly

before men I’ll not acknowledge you

before my Father which is in heaven and

it’s always been interesting to me that

every person that Jesus called in the

new Testament he called publicly so I’m

going to ask you to publicly do what we

have seen about a thousand people each

evening do since we’ve been here I’m

going to ask you to get up out of your

seat right now in a moment and come and

stand in front of the platform and after

you’ve all come and stood here I’m going

to say a word to you have a prayer with

you give you some literature to help you

in your Christian Life you can go back

and join your friends you get up and

come right now

now as you can see many hundreds are

making their way forward to make

decisions for Jesus Christ you can do so

too simply by calling the number on your

television screen train counselors are

standing by ready to talk with you if

the lines are busy just write the number

down and call back

later

[Music]

you that are watching by television can

see here in the Tacoma Dome here in the

state of of Washington on a beautiful

evening hundreds of people coming from

every part of this great Stadium to make

their commitment to Jesus Christ you can

make the same commitment where you are

just pick up the telephone and call that

number that you see on your

screen make that commitment it’s my

prayer that you will and be sure and go

to church next Sunday and God bless

you

if you just prayed that prayer with my

father or if you have any questions

about a relationship with Jesus Christ I

would just call that number that is on

the screen there’ll be someone there to

talk with you pray with you and answer

those questions and

remember God loves

you if you would like to commit your

life to Jesus Christ please call us

right now toll-free at

877772

4559 that’s

877772

4559 or you can write to us at Billy

Graham 1 Billy Graham Parkway Department

C Charlotte North Carolina

28201 or you can contact us on the web

247 at peacewithgod.net

[Music]

Evangelistic Association thank you for

watching and thank you for your

prayers Jesus Christ promised that he is

going to return to the Earth and ladies

and gentlemen Jesus Christ is going to

keep that promise are you ready the hope

of the coming of Christ ought to make us

walk as Disciples of the Lord Jesus

Christ we are to be fault and we are to

be light in the world

and we’re to work as though Christ may

not come for a thousand years but we’re

to live as though he may come

tonight you’re invited on a journey of

Discovery at the Billy Graham

Library retrace Billy Graham’s path from

Humble Farm Boy to International

ambassador of God’s love through

multimedia photos and memorabilia but

the fruit of the spirit is love that is

a supernatural tour the restored Grand

Family Home Place browse Ruth’s attic

bookstore and have a meal at the Grand

Brothers Dairy Bar enjoy special

exhibits events and seasonal activities

for the whole

family admission is free so come walk

this journey of Discovery at the Billy

Graham

Library