A series of man-made disasters took place around the time of Billy Graham’s 1989 Central New York Crusade. In this message from Syracuse, Mr. Graham explains how all evil starts in the human heart.
in 1949 of bold and dynamic young
preachers set out on a journey that
would have an impact on every continent
for generations to come
for more than 50 years and to more than
210 million people Billy Graham is
passionately spoken about the certainty
of wholesome found in Jesus Christ there
are many things about cuts that I don’t
understand or comprehend I accept his
revelation of himself by faith he’s
brought races and denominations together
toward a common purpose as he’s preached
in 185 countries around the world he
belongs to the whole world
he is stood alongside presidents met
with dignitaries and world leaders and
today Billy Graham is recognized among
the most influential religious leaders
in the history of the world
[Music]
from our archives the Billy Graham
classics now tonight I want you to turn
with me to the 22nd chapter of Matthew’s
Gospel and I want to speak on the
subject a cure for heart trouble then
one of them which was a lawyer asked him
a question tempting him and saying
master which is the Great Commandment in
the law and jesus said unto him thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart and with all thy soul and with all
thy mind this is the first in the great
commandment and the second is like unto
it thou shalt love thy neighbour as
thyself on these two Commandments hang
all the law and the prophets think of it
all the law and all the prophets hang on
these two Commandments I want to give
you the scripture text again so you can
memorize it it’s Matthew 22 and 37 38 39
and 40 and it’s no mistake that Jesus
made he did it deliberately he listed
the heart first to love the Lord thy God
with all thy heart and all thy soul and
all thy strength you know here in
Syracuse as yet of the city on i-69 T
there’s a huge billboard announcing that
Syracuse is the heart of New York State
and I believe it is it’s the heart of
New York State and President Roosevelt
Franklin Roosevelt and Eleanor Roosevelt
were associated worldwide with central
New York and Bernard Baruch who was one
of the great philosophers and advisors
to six presidents and one of the most
brilliant Jewish leaders in the country
and a friend to me once was asked by
Eleanor Roosevelt said if my head says
one thing in my heart another which
should I follow and Bernard Baruch said
to mrs. Roosevelt follow your heart you
say your heart is
Center of your life you know if you
think about your heart your physical
heart it beats a hundred thousand
strokes every 24 hours it contracts four
thousand times an hour our blood weighs
about 25 pounds and all of it passes
through the heart every four minutes in
proverbs 23:7 the scripture says as a
man thinketh in his heart so is he and
the heart is used throughout the Bible
considered far more than a bodily organ
it’s the seat of our emotions as boys I
remember we used to write initials on
trees off on the side of some barn our
girlfriend’s name and a picture of the
heart Valentine’s Day is a day for
sweethearts as US and the symbol is a
heart when we become frightened or
excited
we put our hands over our hearts at the
center of our emotions when we salute
the flag like we did the other day at
the Rotary Club when they were saluting
the flag of singing the star-spangled
banner we put our hands over our hearts
saying some of the great patriotic
things we put our hands over our hearts
the heart is also the seat of decisive
action the Bible says The Fool has said
not in his mind but in his heart there
is no God and the scripture says in
proverbs 4 keep thy heart with all
diligence for out of it are the issues
of life the heart is the seat of belief
as well as the basis of doubt Christ
said for out of the heart proceed evil
thoughts and murders and adulterers and
fornication and thefts and false
witnesses and blasphemies but you have
something wrong with your heart and I
have something wrong with my heart our
hearts are diseased by disease that the
Bible calls sin you see the Bible the
heart is also the seat of life the Bible
says your heart will live forever think
of it your body is going to die
go to the grave but your heart your soul
your spirit will live forever a thousand
years from tonight it’ll still be alive
when God looks at man he doesn’t look at
the color of his skin the kind of
clothes he wears or his social position
the Bible says out of the heart of a
black person or an oriental person or a
white man a woman out of the heart of
the issues of life and no physician on
earth can tell one from the other we’re
all alike in the sight of God the Bible
says man looks on the outward appearance
but God looks upon the heart and in the
scriptures the heart is considered the
symbol of the entire person when Steven
of Colonna fell into the hands of his
assailants and they asked him in
derision where and now is your fortress
Stephen placed his hand over his heart
and said here is my fortress Helen
Keller who was blind and deaf and dumb
wrote the best and most wonderful things
in the world cannot be seen a touched
but a just felt in the heart when Sir
Walter Raleigh had laid his head upon
the executioner’s block the officer
asked if his head lay right and Sir
Walter Raleigh answered this way it
matters little my friend how the heart
lies provided the heart is right for how
the head lies it’s whether the heart is
right or not you see the heart has come
to stand for the center of the moral
spiritual and intellectual life of a
person it’s the seat of a person’s
conscience in life an extremely
important and the question I want to ask
you tonight is this is your heart right
is your heart right is it right with God
because if it’s not right with God your
sins are not forgiven you’re not going
to heaven when you die our hearts have
to be right I do not ask about your
outward life I don’t ask about your
intellectual life or your financial
status or your social life
I’m asking about your heart what
your heart dig deep into your heart
tonight in your thinking how are you
toward God are you right with God the
Bible says prepare to meet thy God and
before you can prepare to meet God your
heart has to be right and your heart has
to be touched by the Holy Spirit now
what does the Bible teach about the
heart the Bible teaches that our hearts
are sinful their sinful mine is yours is
we’re born with it from Adam and Eve
it’s passed on from generation to
generation and the Bible says first of
all that our hearts are full of evil
imaginations
proverbs 6:18 a heart that devises
wicked imaginations what do you imagine
what are your fantasies what do you
fantasize about and then secondly the
Bible says the heart is desperately
wicked and deceitful Jeremiah 17:9 the
heart is deceitful above all things and
desperately wicked who can note that
your heart that’s what the Bible thinks
of your heart that’s what God thinks
about your heart and my heart now by the
Bible says the heart is far from God in
Matthew 15 this people draweth 9 to me
with their mouth and honoureth me with
their lips but their heart is far from
me how many of us go to church and sing
how many of us go to church and listen
to the clergyman how many of us
outwardly live a fairly good life but
our heart is far from God we don’t have
that experience with Christ in which
he’s in our hearts all day long and we
think about him and pray to him and he’s
close to us but he should be and we’re
not bearing in our bodies and lives the
fruit of the Spirit which is love and
joy and peace and gentleness
faithfulness and then the Bible says our
hearts our treasury of evil mark 7 jesus
said for within out of the heart proceed
evil thoughts
evil thoughts come from the heart
adultress you might commit adultery with
your body but it starts in the heart and
in the mind and fornications and murders
and thefts and covetousness and
wickedness and deceit lasciviousness an
evil eye blasphemy pride foolishness
all these things the Bible’s Jesus said
come from the heart so the most
important thing in the world for you
tonight is to be sure that your heart is
right with God and that you have been
forgiven of all those things and how
many today have darkened hearts I’m
sometimes absolutely amazed at their
ignorance of the world and the ignorance
comes from the fact that they don’t know
God they don’t know the Bible they don’t
know God’s plan of the ages and so they
make so many mistakes because their
heart is dark and Satan has blinded
their eyes and many times I’ve talked to
people who have very little education
but they know God and they know more
about what’s wrong and how to write it
than those people with all the brilliant
education you see there’s something
wrong with us that we don’t recognize in
the world in which we live our world is
secular our world doesn’t want to take
into account that God exists all that
man is made in the image of God his
heart is made in God’s image and made
for fellowship with God and without God
it’s dark you see he darkens out and the
devil darkens our understanding sin
darkens our understanding sin paralyzes
our will does the conscience and defiles
the heart and then the Bible says that
we have unbelieving hearts take heed
brethren lest there be any among you
with an evil heart of unbelief in
departing from the Living God Hebrews
the 3rd chapter and then our hearts are
blind
Ephesians for having the understanding
darkened being alienated from the life
of God through the ignorance that is in
them because of the blindness of their
heart our hearts are blind would you
like to have your heart illuminated by
the Spirit of God you that are watching
by television can pick up the telephone
and call that number on the screen right
now and there’s a counselor standing by
ready to talk to you about how you can
have a new heart because he promises a
new heart to all of those that put faith
in and trust in him and you can do it
right now what a wonderful thing and
then the Bible says our hearts are
deceitful the heart is deceitful above
all things think of it above all things
your heart is deceitful it deceives you
the deceives other people and then in
Psalm 101 it says that our hearts are
proud him that have a high look and a
proud heart I’ll not recognize says God
then the Bible says our hearts are
rebellious but this people have a
revolting and rebellious heart they’re
revolted and gone the Bible says that
our hearts are idolatrous we think of
other things more than we think of God
and anything that you think more of than
you do of God becomes idolatry and maybe
that box in the corner in your room that
we call television and you spend more
time and television than you do in the
Bible more time thinking about what
you’ve seen on the television than you
do in the Bible and sometimes I have to
get down on my knees and confess that
I’ve done the same thing and I say Oh
God cleanse me and forgive me I’ve spent
too much time in front of that screen
tonight I should have been reading and
soaking up your word and spending time
in prayer for people in Africa and
people in other parts of the world where
there’s so much hunger and so much
homelessness and so much suffering then
the Bible says our hearts a stony and I
will take the stony heart out of their
flesh
but the Bible says our hearts a stony
hard cold and barren that’s your heart
that’s what the Bible says that’s how
God diagnoses you are you go to a
cardiologist to get diagnosed and he
puts instruments on you it gives you a
stress test or whatever or you take a
cardiogram
or take an angiogram I remember when the
first time I had an angiogram at Mayo
Clinic in Rochester Minnesota I was a
little bit nervous about it and I lay
there and I said to the doctor there
were several doctors I said when are you
going to insert that tube and put that
die in my heart because that a big
screen up there he said it’s already and
look up that I didn’t even know it when
they did it and I’d been told by people
to all mine and they had me nervous
about the Bible also says that our
hearts can be hardened you see Pharaoh I
was watching a little bit of the Ten
Commandments the other night when I was
home they had it running on one of the
stations and how Pharaoh hardened his
heart in Exodus 7 it says and the Lord
said unto Moses Pharaoh’s heart is
hardened he refuses to let the people go
God sent ten plagues to soften Pharaoh
up and he promised every time he’d let
the people of Israel leave Egypt they
were slaves in Egypt but he didn’t do it
he broke his promise every time and he
hardened his heart and let me tell you
something the Bible says he that
hardened his heart being often reproved
shall suddenly be cut off in that
without remedy in other words they’ll
come the last time that you harden your
heart and it’ll all be over be no more
chance for you because you see when you
harden your heart it builds a little
ring around it and the Holy Spirit may
speak to you again but your heart will
be hard up it’ll be like Pharaoh’s heart
getting hard on harder every time until
when God speaks
to you you can no longer hear him what
about you is your heart right God takes
our heart out and Ponder’s it think of
the Almighty God
studying your heart every way of a man
is white in his own eyes but the Lord
hundred the hearts proverbs 21:2 the
scripture says if thou say us behold we
know it not does not he that pondered
the heart considerate and he that
keepeth I soul that he not know it and
shall not hear end it to every man
according to his works he knows your
heart he studies it you can’t fool him
you can’t hide he knows all the secrets
how do you stand before God is your
heart right with God then the Bible says
he weighs the heart and tries our what
do you mean he weighs the heart
well he weighs your heart by the ten
commandments he wasted by the Sermon on
the Mount he weighs it but the great law
that we just read he weighs it by the
life of Christ he wasted by the
teachings of Scripture on the way we
ought to live
he weighs your heart how much do you
weigh but there’s something else all the
way through the scriptures we read about
the blood of Jesus Christ somebody said
don’t you think that the scriptures have
too much about blood some have called it
a slaughterhouse religion there is a lot
about blood in the scriptures but the
Bible says without the shedding of blood
there’s no forgiveness of sin if Jesus
Christ had not died on that cross and
shed his blood for you there’s no way
you could be forgiven of your sins it
means that his heart bled and it is only
through the cleansing of that blood that
we can be forgiven and then the Bible
says that God prepares
heart by the Holy Spirit he prepares
your heart your hearts already been
prepared for this meeting tonight he
prepares but the many experiences in
your life the Bible says the
preparations of the heart in man are
from the Lord many of the experiences
that you thought were terrible what was
God preparing you the Bible says he
opens the heart acts 1614 whose heart
the Lord open it how wonderful for God
to prepare the heart then open the heart
then he enlightens the eyes of your
understanding being enlightened without
the Enlightenment the opening and
preparation by the Holy Spirit
no one could receive Christ you see
salvation is of the Lord we receive but
it’s all of God he’s the one that gave
his son on the cross he’s the one that
sent the Holy Spirit to convict you he’s
the one that made it possible for you to
come here tonight so that you can
receive him into your heart and the
Bible says that he gives a new heart
God says an old heart will not do you
have to have a new one and God doesn’t
just pack you up a new heart also I will
give you in a new spirit will I put
within you and I will take away the
stony heart out of your flesh and I will
give you a heart of flesh God says a new
heart is what you need what about you
have you received this new heart from
God you say now Billy I have been
baptized
I’ve been confirmed and I tried to live
a good life I don’t succeed that I try
and I try to get to Sunday school once
in a while and I go to church or I watch
on television some church service and we
think that’s enough but it’s not enough
oh yes you may be born again
at the moment of confirmation but many
of you need to reconfirm your
confirmation valves you need to come to
the Lord and say Lord I haven’t kept
those vowels I want to reconfirm them
I want to rededicate my life to what I
promised at confirmation of what was
promised for me at baptism many people
like that
thousands of people whether Europe what
denomination it makes no difference a
little Sunday school girl was asked
which of the Beatitudes she would rather
be like she said pure in heart they
asked why she said because I could
obtain a pure heart
I would possess all the other good
qualities spoken of in this chapter if
your heart’s right the rest of you is
going to be right to Christ changed the
pattern of living he said a good man out
of the good treasure of the heart
bringeth forth good things and an evil
man out of evil treasures brings forth
evil things Christ said except a man is
born from above he cannot see the
kingdom of heaven how do you receive it
first you must repent of sin you have to
say to God Oh Lord I’m I’ve sinned I’m
sorry I’m willing to change my way of
living that’s repentance I’m willing
notice you can’t do it yourself God has
to help you even in the repenting and
then you receive him by faith when I
stepped up on this platform the other
night for the first time I didn’t stomp
it and check it to see if it had been
built to hold a man I had faith in the
people that put it here when you sat in
that seat you didn’t look it over and
feel it see if it had hold you you
believed in the people that built it
that’s the same kind of faith we’re
talking about here faith in Christ not
in anything else except Christ and what
he did at the cross and the resurrection
when God raised him from the dead and
he’s alive and I’m going to ask you to
do it as we saw last night
a thousand people do I’m going to ask
you to get up out of your seat from up
then the top gallery in the ground
that’ll take an extra minute or two and
all of you down here that God has spoken
to and in the choir you may be a leader
in the church last night we even had a
car German come but you may want to make
that commitment I’m going to ask you to
make that commitment tonight and say
Lord I want a new heart I want to leave
here a new person I want to walk a
different road jesus said there two
roads is a narrow road in the broad road
you’re on one of the other which one are
you on young people older people whoever
you are I’m going to ask you to come and
stand here publicly why do I do it
publicly when Jesus died on the cross he
died publicly in your place and God laid
on him all of our sins publicly 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
there’s something about coming and
making it public that he requires and it
also psychologically does something for
you and then you must follow him and
serve Him it’s not just a one-time
experience this is the beginning of
something new that’s going to be daily
with you in which you are trusting him
you’re willing to take up the cross and
deny self and follow him you’re willing
to look on your neighbors and the needs
of the world in a new way I’m going to
ask you to get up and come right now and
after you’ve all come I’m going to say a
word to you and have a prayer with you
and give you some literature to help you
in your Christian life and if you’re
with friends or relatives or you’ve come
in a group they’ll wait but you get up
and come we’re only going to keep you a
few moments here just get up and come
right now hundreds of you that God has
spoken to there’s a little voice inside
that says you ought to come you come
tonight
from here you up I and in the choir God
has spoken to some of you get up and
come
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[Music]
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you can make that decision to follow
Jesus Christ just as these many hundreds
are doing here in Syracuse New York the
number on your screen is your number to
call for spiritual help and counseling
so make that call now it could be the
most important call you’ve ever made
[Music]
we’re in the Carrier Dome this beautiful
magnificent structure here in Syracuse
New York and the central part of the
state and what a wonderful part of
America this really is and tonight as
you can see they’ve been hundreds of
people respond to come and make their
commitment to Christ or to renew their
vows to Christ and you need to do the
same thing that are watching you may be
in a hotel room you may be in your own
home whatever make your commitment to
Christ tonight he’ll come into your
heart and if you will pick up the phone
and call that number that you see and
there’s a counselor standing by to say a
word to you to help you may God help you
to make that commitment tonight god
bless you
[Music]
there are still time to make your
personal decision for Jesus Christ
special friends are waiting to talk with
you and to pray with you just call the
number now on your screen and if the
line is busy write the number down and
call again in a few moments we’ll be
here as long as the calls keep coming in
if you just prayed that prayer with my
father or if you have any questions
about a relationship with Jesus Christ
I’ll 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 yet one eight seven
seven seven seven two four five five
nine that’s one eight seven seven seven
seven two forty five fifty nine or you
can write to us at billy graham one
Billy Graham Parkway Department C
Charlotte North Carolina two eight two
zero one or you can contact us on the
web 24/7 at peace with god TV will get
the same helps to you that we give to
everyone who responds at the invitation
on behalf of Franklin Graham and the
Billy Graham Evangelistic Association
thank you for watching and thank you for
your prayers
you