George Palmer hated everything Billy Graham stood for, so he plotted to kill the evangelist at a 1959 Crusade. This is the story of how God changed his heart.
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i was always told that i would amount to
nothing
and that i’d end up on the streets
if you tell a person that continually
that’s what you believe that you’re
worthless you’re useless
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the story really starts when i was seven
and a half when in 1949
my father died he just finished planting
100 cherry trees and then
had a heart attack and was taken to
hospital
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and i never forget when i was told that
my dad had died
i just couldn’t handle that and i
remember running up into the top paddock
i screamed at god god i hate you i hate
you with all my heart
i hate you and i will never love you
hatred i found is like a cancer
it doesn’t stay dormant it grows
i was just so angry with god
i had a vile temper i really did
if anyone did anything to me i’d pick up
a chisel and throw it out
we had a big gang fight
we captured the leader of the other gang
and we held his hand on the ground and
we ran a car backwards and forwards
over his hand and broke every bone in
his hand
it’s all i ever thought of was hurting
people
we heard that billy graham was coming
he was a man that i hated we hated
christianity
and he stood for everything we hated
i do not believe that you have come here
to hear a man
i believe you have come to hear a
message
i want you to listen to this minute of
what i’m going to say
because this is the most important thing
i’ll say
you must be willing to repent of your
city
billy graham stood for everything that i
detested
it was something that drove me and made
me exist
day by day
the only reason the 10 of us went to
that
crusade was to kill billy graham
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i made up ten zip guns so each member
had one of those
i said to the guys come on we’re going
on the green
and we spaced ourselves so that we could
see each other
around where billy graham was preaching
we decided that we would leave it until
the
appeal time not before but during the
appeal
we would kill billy graham there are
thousands of youth here today
that have burdens that need to be lifted
my gum was under my jumper and i’m
standing there and i looked around at
this crowd
and i thought what the dickens are all
these people doing here
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and i turned back around and then
suddenly a voice said to me
what are you doing here george
and i quickly turned back around to have
a look and see
who was there and nobody was there that
i knew
and i got very uncomfortable about that
i could tell you
very uncomfortable the spirit of god is
speaking and he’s here tonight and you
know he’s here
and there’s a little voice down inside
of you that says you need christ
that is god speaking okay i know this is
you god
you took my dad you hurt me so much
why should i love you why should i care
about you
and god sent me out george i didn’t take
your dad to hurt you
and indeed he said i would never hurt
you
full stop
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well by this time i’m starting to melt a
bit
now remember that i hadn’t cried since
seven and a half
i tell you before you leave this great
stadium
you can find an answer to the dilemmas
the mysteries of life
if you will come and surrender yourself
without reservation to jesus christ
i thought about it for a while and then
the appeal came
i suddenly began to weep
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and i cried and i cried and i tried
my zip gun was under my jumper i put it
on the ground
and i ran to the front
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there may be many factors that led you
to this moment but there is a climactic
moment
when you give your life to christ
and you do it by faith faith in christ
the amazing thing was that nine out of
the ten of us got converted
that night then we were all a blobbling
mess
we really were and we talked about
you know how wrong we were and the
things we’d done and all this
it was quite a night let me tell you
quite a night
god took this person that hated him
with every part of his being
yet god took him and loved him
it’s amazing how god can take a
situation like
like we were in and he can change a life
completely and i thank him every day for
that
i really do
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you