As 1975 came to a close, Billy Graham commented on the civil unrest, uncertainty, increased crime and drug addiction, massive debt, and pattern of broken homes that plagued not only the United States but many parts of the world.
on this eve of the bicentennial year
ladies and gentlemen Billy Graham
good evening
I’ve just returned from a three-month
trip around the world it took me through
Asia various countries in the Middle
East and Europe
I’ve talked with church leaders
political leaders Educators newspaper
editors military leaders
I visited with a number of heads of
state
I wish that every American could have
been with me on this trip
it has been an eye-opener to me
for example someone has said that if you
haven’t been in Asia in the last six
months you don’t know Asia
the world is changing so rapidly that I
hardly know it anymore
at midnight we enter
1976 the year of our 200th birthday with
a paradox of moods on the part of the
American people
on the one hand many are excited
thrilled and optimistic about the next
year
on the other hand as a news magazine
says Americans are in a bitter and
fearful mood
there’s no doubt that many are confused
discouraged cynical afraid and
disillusioned
with our scientists warning us of an
all-out atomic war before the end of the
century
now while we Americans will be glued to
our television screens tomorrow watching
the football games
the rest of the world is reeling and
rocking from crisis to crisis
dangerous explosions are almost
everywhere
we’re on the edge of a precipice
one newspaper reports that over 25 Wars
have been fought this past year or are
now being fought
most of them don’t make the headlines
but people are being wounded and killed
nevertheless
when I hear so much talk of peace
I’m reminded of what God Said through
Jeremiah to the false prophets of his
day
he said they’re shouting peace peace
when there is no peace
the psalmist warned about dealing with
those whose words are smoother than
butter
those who say I’m for peace but when I
speak therefore War
let’s face it there’s never been so much
talk of Peace nor such a worldwide
preparation for war
as there is today
here at home many of our problems are
getting worse with every passing day
the crime rate jumped faster this past
year than any year in American history
drug addiction continues to soar as
strong A drugs arrive daily by the plane
load
massive debts threatened some of our
major cities with bankruptcy
family life falters and thousands of
children have made orphans every month
from broken homes
abortion has brought the population
growth to a standstill
as I return home
I have a feeling that the American
people are almost drugged and are
oblivious to the events at home and
abroad
that caused the atomic clock
to move closer to midnight
now what is wrong it’s almost a paradox
that America possessing all the economic
affluence for enjoying life
virtually leads the world in crime
narcotics abuse pornography immorality
and even debts
we seem to be naive to what is happening
in the real world
so what do we do we watch spectator and
entertainment events on television and
try to forget it all hoping that it will
somehow go away
or we take another high ball and try to
relax
the rest of the world watches our
self-inflicted wounds with amazement
they cannot understand why we wash so
much dirty Linen in public
but tonight
before we take a look at the future
we should look at the past and remind
ourselves of the roots from which we
sprang 200 years ago
I do not see how anyone could study the
history of America
without recognizing religious influences
that have helped mold this nation from
the very beginning
in 1835 an astute French visitor to the
United States reported upon my arrival
in the United States the religious
aspect of the country was the first
thing that struck my attention
in no other nation’s founding documents
can we find so many Declarations of
allegiance to God
time after time in our history there
have been appeals to the Supreme judge
in seeking to build a new nation
this idea of freedom as a right of all
men everywhere is absolutely unique
among nations
but where did it come from
any search for its origin takes us back
to our father’s God author of Liberty
it takes us to the creation of man
whom God made in his own likeness
free to roam and replenish the Earth
free to decide how or even whether he
would serve his creator
and man of course chose rebellion and
today because of that choice by our
first parents we’re alienated from God
and because of this alienation we are a
suffering planet
with the ultimate result of death
for every generation
but this idea of freedom also takes us
back to the Old Testament prophets
proclaiming in the face of kings and
shouting from dungeons man’s god-endowed
right to Freedom unto God
it takes us back to an angry Moses
daring Pharaoh’s wrath to demand let my
people go
and later leading a great Army of the
enslaved into a new country
where they could at God’s behest
Proclaim Liberty throughout the land and
to all the inhabitants thereof
these words from Leviticus 25 10 are
inscribed on America’s Liberty Bell in
Philadelphia
it also takes us back to Jesus Christ
who’s standing in Nazareth boldly
declared his Destiny to preach
Deliverance to the captives to set it in
Liberty them that are bruised
Liberty and freedom
these were the Flaming revolutionary
words the early followers of Christ cast
again and again Into The Tinderbox of
men’s hearts and hopes
now that the thing that tyrants feared
was that this ideal of the free man in
God
that ideal has always been terrifying to
tyrants
and that is why religious liberty is
being curtailed in so many parts of the
world today
you see if you give men the Bible
and freedom to Proclaim its message
they’ll soon be free
and it was in pursuit of this ideal that
those hundred and two brave men and
women clamored aboard a tiny vessel
called the mayflower one chill day in
1620. and with prayers on their lips and
visions of a new nation unto God
they set sail for a far unknown land
the night before the historic Dawn when
the pilgrims landed
they had crowded into her tiny hold to
sign their famous Mayflower Compact
based on biblical principles as they saw
them
later to be called the birth certificate
of American democracy
and the Puritans who followed during the
Great Migration of 1630 through 1640
also laid it on the line their reasons
for coming to Massachusetts Bay
the opening sentence of their New
England Confederation says we all came
into these parts of America with one in
the same end namely to advance the
kingdom of the Lord Jesus Christ
not all of course were dedicated
Christians after the Puritans that
crowded a diverse lot of adventurers
slave Traders ex-prisoners and
unbelievers
but it is a mark of the Puritans
Vitality that their ideals largely
prevailed
in those early days of America
Americans who scoff at their straight
lacedness and earlier intolerance should
never forget that it was the Puritan’s
religious faith and his passion for
self-rule
that gave us much of our political and
social democracy that has lasted these
200 years
but both patriotism and puritanism
tended to wane and weaken in the third
generation
by the middle of the 18th century
problems for the young country began to
mount
many of them are the problems we face
today
for example inflation is nothing new in
American history
in the late 1700s during the days of the
American Revolution they Too Faced
inflation in 1779 ducks and chickens
were sold for a few pennies each
in just two years time they were costing
250 dollars each
there came a time that money was hardly
worth the paper it was printed on
that’s where the saying came not worth a
continental it meant that the money
issued by the Continental Congress had
become valueless
we should remember that as we Face
inflation today
that it’s not nearly so bad as was faced
by our forebearers and they licked it
how did they do it
by sheer courage discipline hard work
prayer and faith in the future of
America
remember the people that found that
America did not have telephones
radio
television electricity automobiles
airplanes inside Plumbing or
refrigerators they had no tractors or
bulldozers to help them with their
farming or road building
they had no supermarkets to go and Shop
in they had no social security
no guaranteed welfare
the fastest they could travel was by
horseback
yet they succeeded
where we seem to be failing
they scratched dug worked sweated and
prayed to build a nation from New York
to San Francisco
many times during American history there
have been great spiritual Awakenings
that have affected the nation and
strengthened its moral and spiritual
fabric
one of those was called the Great
Awakening of the 1740s
it strengthened the nation for the
bitter days of the Revolution that was
yet to come
great evangelists like George Whitfield
from England and Jonathan Edwards
proclaimed judgment and Grace
calling on the people to turn to God
this Great Awakening say historians
cradled and paved the way for the
revolution
under such eloquent preaching set those
young people
who would soon be called the founding
fathers of America
and from under such preaching came in
like John Adams who wrote
Statesmen May plan and speculate for
Liberty but it is religion and morality
alone
upon which Freedom can securely stand
and John Adams continued a patriot must
be a religious man
you know the Declaration of Independence
reflects the feelings of men to whom
religious Faith was all important
there was not an atheist or an agnostic
among the 56 who signed that declaration
some of them were deist
some of them believed only in a Supreme
Being they did not believe in Jesus
Christ
but before they Strode forward to append
their Cigna to us each bowed his head in
prayer
the declaration’s giant step was being
taken they Affirmed
with a firm Reliance upon the protection
of Divine Providence
in declaring themselves free they said
they were assuming the separate and
equal station to which the laws of God
entitled them
the self-evident truth they voiced was
that men were endowed by their creator
with inalienable rights
and before the world they appealed to
the Supreme judge of the world for the
source of their intentions
such Expressions were no mere polite
gestures to God
they were a firm commitment to the
principle that God must be Central to
any form of government
and because they signed that document
some of those men were captured and
hanged
some were stripped of their possessions
some were jailed
and I have to ask myself tonight
at another hour of American crisis
do we have that kind of Courage
would you be willing to sign would I be
willing to sign
how many people today would be willing
to put their life on the line for
Freedom as those men did 200 years ago
11 years later
After the Revolution was won
they’re assembled in Philadelphia men
from 13 colonies charged with creating
one of the most revolutionary political
documents of all time
yet there were flaws
they were men who had never known the
concept of democratic Liberty and
freedom
for example
slavery was a part of the social
structure both North and South
Catholics could vote in only three of
the 13 states
Jews were not permitted to vote in New
Jersey or in New Hampshire
women could not vote anywhere in America
in the hindsight of 200 years they made
many mistakes
but what they produced was nothing short
of a miracle of God
when the Constitution was submitted for
ratification
the people demanded a Bill of Rights
that would settle certain fundamental
freedoms once and for all
they were implied in the Constitution
but the people wanted them in black and
white
and in the Amendments making up the Bill
of Rights where was religion
it was first in top Place speech
assembly and petition followed religion
in the First Amendment and those were
quickly approved but for three and a
half months the house and the Senate
debated the phrasing of religious
freedom changing the words around adding
deleting clarifying at no time in the
history of the world
has so much care and attention been
lavished on one sentence of legislation
the final wording was this
Congress shall make no law respecting an
establishment of religion or prohibiting
the free exercise thereof
it was not government renouncing
religious faith
it was government protecting our
religious Faith by forever removing
religious rights from tampering by any
Public Authority or self-seeking
hierarchy
here we have a guarantee that America
would never have a civil religion
but we would have freedom of religion
not freedom from religion as some have
mistakenly interpreted that Amendment
in every area of American Life
the Faith of Our Fathers has left its
indelible imprint and nowhere more than
in our educational system
when our forefathers stepped a show on
the new world their First Act was to
establish a home
next they erected a church then they
started a school
the Puritans and the pilgrims came to
the new world determined to provide
education for their young
in the lands they’d left education was
the privilege of the few
therefore those early Americans flung up
their rude School houses all across the
advancing Frontier
do you know what their first textbook
was
it was the Bible
their first task to teach children to
read came from the Bible
founded also by the churches where
America’s first institutions of Higher
Learning a few years after the pilgrims
landed Harvard College came into being
it’s motto for Christ in the church its
main purpose a training center for
clergy
in 1701 Yale College was founded by a
group of Evangelical clergymen for the
same purpose
Princeton was brought into being by the
Presbyterian revivalistic party
the University of Pennsylvania stemmed
directly from George whitfield’s
electrifying preaching during the Great
Awakening
it was in the American churches too
that women first came into their own
the pilgrim woman was a new breed along
with her man she stepped onto these free
Shores with freedom shining in her eyes
at home in her community and in her
church she began her god-given
fulfillment as a woman derived from the
teachings of the Bible
we’re a bachelor different people today
than we were 200 years ago
our society is far more complex more
pluralistic
but of this one thing we can be sure
God has not changed his laws have not
changed he is still a god of love and
mercy
but he is also a god of righteousness
and judgment
and any individual or nation which
ignores his moral and spiritual laws
will ultimately face God’s judgment
I believe that every problem facing us
tonight as Americans is basically a
spiritual problem
crime is a spiritual problem
inflation is a spiritual problem
corruption is a spiritual problem social
injustice is a spiritual problem
the lack of a will even to defend our
freedoms is a spiritual problem
the Lord speaking through his servant
the prophet Isaiah said quote
I was ready to be sought by those who
did not ask for me I was ready to be
found by those who did not seek me
I said here am I to a nation that did
not call on my name I spread out my
hands to all the rebellious people
but they followed their own devices
are people who provoke me to my face
continually
when I spoke you did not listen but you
did that which was evil in my eyes
and judgment came
the great question before us tonight on
the Eve about 200th birthday
and on the eve of 1976 a crucial
election year is
will this nation survive this Century as
a free Society or even the next five
years
as a free Society
as I come home from my three-month World
Tour
this is how crucial and how critical the
problems of the present hour seem to me
I do not believe that we will be a free
democracy 24 years from now in the year
2000
unless unless a dramatic change takes
place within the hearts of the people of
this nation
it was James Russell law American poet
of the last century who put the
challenge to us
when asked by a French historian
how long do you think the American
Republic will endure
Lowell replied
so long as the ideas of its founding
fathers continue to be dominant
one of those ideas was that the Bible
was true
and that our entire social and political
structure was to be built upon its laws
and its teachings
another idea that our founding fathers
had was that God was Supreme
that is why they put on our coins in God
we trust
another early idea certainly not shared
by everybody was that every person
needed Jesus Christ in his heart
as tonight we enter a historic year
America is troubled
our people are filled with frustration
fear and confusion
according to a series of articles in the
Los Angeles Times in October thousands
of radicals are highly organized from
coast to coast
with the determination to overthrow this
country
we’ve heard testimony before Congress
recently that highly trained terrorists
have arrived in the United States to
begin Terror tactics during the
bicentennial year
will they succeed
it will depend on the patriotism
courage and Faith like those early
Americans had when they landed first on
these Shores
is God going to allow a cataclysmic
judgment to fall Upon This Nation
as has fallen upon nations of the past
who have turned from God and forgotten
him
or
will God send to us another great
Spiritual Awakening that has saved us in
the past
during the last 12 months
thousands of Americans have been turning
to God we’ve seen it in our own Crusades
from coast to coast and in throughout
the world wherever we’ve been
prayer groups and bible study groups
have been springing up all over the
nation
churches and other religious
organizations are reporting that
millions are living a more disciplined
Christian Life
this is encouraging even though it only
involves a minority of Americans
in a similar time to ours when only a
minority with True Believers
Isaiah the great Hebrew Prophet said
except the Lord of hosts had left unto
us a very small Remnant we should have
been like Sodom and we should have been
like unto gemara
but God is warning us tonight
that judgment is going to fall Upon Us
in a very short time unless we as a
nation repent of our sins and turn to
God
in pleading with ancient Israel God said
come now and let us reason together
saith the Lord though your sins be a
Scarlet they shall be as white as snow
though they be red like Crimson they
shall be as wool
if ye be willing and obedient ye shall
eat the good of the land
but if you refuse and rebel
ye shall be devoured with the sword for
the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it
will America turn to God at this late
hour
or will America continue on the broad
road that leads to destruction
it will soon be too late to decide
already the storm clouds are gathering
I’m calling upon Christians everywhere
to a time of humiliation
prayer and fasting during this 200th
anniversary
there’s no possible solution to the
problems we Face apart from a change in
the spiritual atmosphere
you who are listening to me tonight
by asking the question what can I as an
individual do
I feel so helpless in the midst of the
present crisis
I want to do something but what
what did those early pastors and
teachers and evangelists Proclaim
the heart of the message of Whitfield
Edwards Wesley tenet and hundreds of
other clergy along the frontier was
basically the same message I offered to
you tonight
first
recognize that God loves you the Bible
says that he is not willing that any
should perish but that all should come
to repentance
secondly be honest before God admit that
you’ve broken his laws and chosen to go
your own way instead of his way be
willing to let him change your life
third receive Jesus Christ into your
heart as Savior and Lord
fourth be a living example by your good
works the Apostle James said faith
without works is dead
this proves that you mean business with
God
pray for those in Authority be a good
citizen help the poor help the
distressed and help the oppressed of the
world
fit
get involved in the political process
this coming year is an election year
I would like to challenge every deeply
committed American who is qualified to
think about running for political office
I do not believe that we as Americans
and Christians should withdraw we need
men and women of integrity and Christian
commitment who will run for political
office this coming year no matter to
which political party you belong
on this New Year’s Eve if you will do
these things you could have a part in
helping America to be the kind of
country you want your children and
grandchildren to grow up in America is
Too Young To Die