The world might be changing rapidly—but God never changes. Hear how this truth can bring you hope in this 1994 Billy Graham sermon from Atlanta, Georgia.
From our archives,
The Billy Graham Classics.
(applause)
Our world is changing
so rapidly
and I want to speak tonight
on things that never change.
I want you to turn with me to
the 12th chapter of Hebrews,
beginning with verse 26,
talking about Mt. Sinai, when
Moses was receiving the law.
It says,
“The whole earth shook
but now God has promised
saying, ‘Yet once more
“I will shake not the earth
only, but also the heavens”
“And this word,
yet once more,
“signified the removing of
those things that are shaken,
“as of those things
that are made;
“but those things which
cannot be shaken shall remain.
“Wherefore, we receiving
a kingdom which cannot be moved,
“let us have grace whereby
we may serve God acceptably
“with reverence
and godly fear,
“for our God is
a consuming fire.”
God shook the earth.
Next time he’s going to shake
both the heaven and the earth.
And I believe we can feel
the tremors already
in the world in which we live.
It’s beginning to shake as
it’s never been shaken before.
And the year 2000 has long been
a mystical point in time.
A year by which
we would have solved racism,
poverty, disease,
crime, war.
All of these things
would have been solved
by the year 2000,
so we were told at
the beginning of this century.
And this century was called
the twentieth century,
The Christian Century.
In fact, a magazine came out
that is still published today,
and I read it, called
The Christian Century,
but this has been anything but
the Christian century,
with the two world wars and
all the upheavals going on
throughout the world.
We solve one problem,
and it seems another one
breaks out somewhere else.
And diseases that we thought
antibiotics had cured,
no longer cure them.
Tuberculosis.
And then there’s
the dreadful disease of AIDS.
Nobody knows
the answer to it yet.
Sometimes we hear about
a new medicine
or a new thing
that has been done,
but then they tell us
it hasn’t been proven yet.
And during the time of
Jeremiah the prophet
the people were too busy
to listen to the Word of God.
And people in America today
are not listening to
the Word of God.
At least they’re not doing it.
We say that 50% of the people
or 70% of the people,
in some polls,
go to church.
But what about the other 50%,
what about the other 40%?
What are they doing?
People who pretend
nothing was wrong
have finally had to change
their minds.
In Jeremiah he said,
“We hope for peace,
but no good has come.
“For a time for healing,
but there was only terror.”
“The harvest has past,
the summer has ended,
and we are not saved.”
This is a period of
political change.
Look at the changes going on
in the political world today.
Then it’s a time of
social change.
A hundred twenty-five cities
in the world have
a population of one million
or more.
In five years, that will be
three hundred cities.
Then look at
the fragmented families.
Half of all marriages
in the United States
end in divorce.
The structure of
American society is changing.
More Americans are living alone
today than ever before.
Twenty to thirty million adults
live alone.
In Dade County, Florida,
there are 123 nationalities
in the school system.
And the religious changes.
One observer says this massive
spiritual search in America is
the most significant development
in our country today.
Many of you here tonight
are here tonight
because you’re seeking.
You’re seeking for something
that you don’t have.
Money doesn’t supply.
Sex doesn’t supply.
Drink doesn’t supply.
You’re looking for
something else
and you’re not quite sure
what it is.
And you’ll never find
that total satisfaction
till you find God,
until Christ lives
in your heart.
(applause)
Many of you are searching for
forgiveness of your sins.
You know that
you’ve sinned against God.
I know it.
The Bible says all have sinned
and broken God’s laws.
The Ten Commandments are
God’s moral laws,
and if we break one of them
the Bible says
we’ve broken all of them,
and Billy Graham has broken
all of them,
and Billy Graham is a sinner,
and Billy Graham deserves
judgement and deserves hell.
Albert K. Lewis
many years ago said,
“Man cannot live
without meaning.”
The Bible says
Jesus said,
“And there shall be signs
in the sun, and in the moon,
“and in the stars;
“and upon the earth
distress of nations,
“with perplexity;
“the sea and the waves roaring;
“men’s hearts failing them
for fear,
“and for looking after those
things which are coming
“on the earth;
“for the powers of heaven
shall be shaken.”
And that passage,
that word that says,
distress of nations means
pressed from all sides.
Perplexity means
there’s no way out.
There’s coming a time when
we’re going to be pressed
from all sides.
You as an individual,
or a family,
or a state, or a nation,
pressed from all sides,
and there’ll be no way out.
But there is a way out.
But there’s only one.
President Kennedy said,
a quarter of a century ago,
“No man entering
upon this office
“could fail to be staggered
upon learning
“the harsh enormities of
the trials through which
“he must pass
in the next few years.”
“Each day,” he said,
“the crisis multiplies.
“Each day their solution grows
more difficult.
“Each day we draw nearer
the hour of maximum danger,
“and time is not our friend.”
What would he say today?
The world is changing
so rapidly.
And they say
the next five years
it’s going to change more than
the last 30-years put together.
Technology is changing us.
Our world is changing rapidly.
But there are some things
that never change.
Some things that
will always remain,
no matter how much
the world changes.
First, the nature of God
does not change.
“I am the Lord, I change not,”
it says in Malachi 3:6.
“God is not a man
that he should lie,
“neither the son of man
that he should change,”
the Scripture says.
In James 1:17 it says
“There is no variableness
nor shadow of turning with God.”
And that means that
He doesn’t change
as much as an eyelash.
God is the same
a million years ago
as He is today,
and He’ll be the same
a million years from now.
He doesn’t change
in the slightest.
We change,
but God doesn’t change.
God is unchanging in
His holiness.
He’s absolutely pure, and He is
so pure He cannot look upon sin.
“Holy, holy, holy is
the Lord Almighty,
“which was, and is,
and is to come,”
the Scripture says.
God is unchanging in judgement.
Yes, He’s going to judge
the world.
You and I are going to stand
before the great judgement of
God, if you don’t know Christ.
And you’ll be judged not only by
the things you do,
but the things you think,
your intents, your thoughts.
The secrets will all be there.
Think of how He can record
everything.
All your thoughts,
all the things
you’ve tried to sweep
under the rug.
He has it all on tape
and he has it on a big screen.
He’ll have big screens
like you see up here
and on this side.
And it will all be there.
There won’t be
anything missing.
And He is going to judge you
accordingly.
Because He is unchanging
in judgement.
“The Lord shall judge
the ends of the earth,”
the Scripture says.
But God is unchanging
in love.
I’m so glad that’s true.
Because if there is one thing
I hope when this crusade is over
that you will understand
that God loves you.
And God loves you.
And God loves you.
And God loves you.
(applause)
He loves you.
(applause continues)
And that word love is not
the word that we use.
It’s not eros love
It’s not sensual,
sexual love.
It’s not phileó love,
friendship love.
It’s a love that’s found
only regarding deity.
God Himself.
It’s a new word.
It’s a new dimension of love.
And He loves you
with such a love
that you cannot imagine.
He loves you so much that
when he saw you were a sinner
and under the condemnation of
sin and on your way to
judgement and hell,
He gave His Son on the cross
for you.
And He shed His blood
for you.
And because of that,
God can say to every one of us,
“I forgive you.”
“Your sins are buried in
the depths of the sea.”
“I’ll remember them against you
no more.”
I’m counting on that.
That’s the grace and the love
and the mercy of God.
And then the second thing is,
the nature of God
is not changed,
but also, the Word of God
is not changed.
The Word that’s in this book.
“The grass withereth,
the flower fadeth,
“but the Word of our God
shall stand forever.”
Think of it.
What’s in this book,
and we carry it,
or we have it in our homes
and we let the dust collect
and we have all kinds of
little papers in it,
things that we want to remember,
but we never read it.
And yet God is expressing
in this book
all the suggestions
and rules and regulations
for a happy and
and successful life
And then thirdly,
the moral law has not changed.
“Thou shall have
no other gods before me.”
What is another god?
Anything that you think more of
than you do God.
Maybe that television set is
your god.
Maybe that book
that you’re reading,
or that girl that
you’re going with,
or maybe that boy
that you’re going with,
or maybe your business,
or maybe something else
has become your god.
It takes more of your time
and love and energy
than worshipping
the true God.
“Thou shall have
no other gods before me.”
And then,
another one is,
“Honor thy father
and thy mother.”
And today we have
a lack of authority,
a rebellion against authority
on the part of young people,
and we read it every day
in our newspapers.
Suppose parents had
the authority they had
a few generations ago?
We’d have a different world,
but unfortunately–
(applause)
As somebody said,
everything is run by
a switch in the home,
except the children.
(laughter)
And parents are afraid of
their children today.
They’re afraid
their children will sue them,
because you can sue your parents
today.
I’m not going to get into
all of that,
but I want you to know
that there’s something
mixed up somewhere,
and I think I know
what it is.
Ted Koppel was right
when he said,
“When Moses came down
from Mt. Sinai
“and he had those ten things,
“they were not just resolutions,
“they were Ten Commandments.”
They were commandments,
and we’re to keep them,
but we can’t keep them.
You cannot keep any of
the Ten Commandments
except by the help of
the Spirit of God.
He will give you
the supernatural power
to keep those commandments.
He can help you turn your eye
the other way
when you look at that beautiful
woman to lust after her.
He can help you
to pull your hand back
if you’re going to steal
something.
He can help you if
you’re going to tell a lie.
He will bring it
to your mind
and you’ll pull back from it
and tell the truth.
And then fifthly, the way of
salvation has not changed.
“Neither is there salvation in
any other,
“for there is none other name
under heaven among men
“whereby we must be saved.”
Jesus said, “I am the way,
the truth and the life.
“No man cometh to the Father,
but by Me.”
Think of it.
He said, “I am the truth.”
I’m the embodiment of
all truth.
Now either he was a liar,
or he was a maniac and needed to
go see a psychiatrist,
or he was who he claimed to be.
One day, that was
the intellectual problem
I had to face.
Who was Jesus Christ?
Was He who He claims to be,
the Son of the living God;
the way, the truth,
and the life,
that nobody can get to heaven,
nobody can get saved,
nobody can know God
except through Him,
or not?
I wrestled with it.
And I finally said,
“Lord, I believe.”
And just that little decision
in my heart to say that
I believe You are
who You claim to be,
and I accept you as my Lord
and my Master and my Savior,
and I repent of my sins,
and I come to the cross.
And I’m looking forward to
that day of the resurrection.
In the last generation, that was
the only way of salvation.
It’s the only way of salvation
today, is through Christ.
It’ll be the only of salvation
a hundred years from now.
But, you know,
you can go to church,
you can claim to be
a Christian,
but still not really know
Christ.
There are thousands of people
that are church members,
you’ve been baptized,
or you’ve been confirmed,
but deep down in your heart
you’re not sure that
Christ has forgiven you.
You’re not sure that
if you died tonight
that you’d go to heaven.
No, God does not change,
but you must change
if you’re to get to heaven,
and if you’re to have salvation.
First, you must repent.
What does repentance mean?
It means to change,
change your mind,
change your way of living.
“Repent ye therefore
and be converted
“that your sins be blotted out,”
the Scripture says.
“God now commandeth
all men everywhere to repent,”
the Scripture says in Acts.
He commands you to repent.
Have you ever repented?
Have you ever really
changed your way of living?
And then the second thing
you must believe.
Now this is not just
believing with your head.
“To Him give all the prophets
witness that through His name
“whosoever believeth in Him
“shall receive
remission of sins.”
Are you sure that
your sins are forgiven?
I was a member of the church.
I’d been baptized.
I went to church every Sunday,
because my parents made me.
And yet, deep down inside,
I knew something was wrong.
I didn’t have the peace
and the happiness
and the joy that
the Bible talks about.
I didn’t have
the absolute assurance that
I was right with God.
I wanted it, but I didn’t know
exactly what to do.
So there came a time when
I did get on my knees
and I repented of my sins.
I said, “O God, I’m a sinner.
I’m sorry for my sins.
“I turn from my sin,
and I turn to Christ,
“and I believe.”
“But as many as received Him,
“to them gave He power to become
the sons of God,
“even to them that believe on
His Name.”
That means–
Believe means that you put
your whole weight on Christ.
You’re putting
everything on Him.
And then you must confess
Christ openly.
That’s why I ask people
to come forward in our meetings,
by the thousands,
on every continent,
all over the world.
I remember we held a crusade
about five or six years ago,
in the great Olympic stadium
in Moscow,
and it was packed to capacity,
and it looked
a little bit like this.
And I asked the people to
come forward to receive Christ,
a nd a third to a half of
the audience started coming.
I told them to go back to
their seats.
I thought
they’d misunderstood me.
And then I explained it
carefully again,
and even more came.
And outside,
there were thousands outside
watching on a big screen
and they came to that screen.
We must confess Christ openly.
Jesus Christ died on the cross
openly for you and me.
Out in the open,
people could see Him,
naked, bleeding, dying.
He said, “If thou shalt confess
with thy mouth the Lord Jesus,
“and believe in thine heart
“that God hath raised Him
from the dead,
“thou shalt be saved.”
Have you openly confessed Him?
Dr. Harrington told a story
in one of his sermons
about U.S. Air flight 427
that crashed near Pittsburgh.
They were trying to find
some of the things
that came out of that plane,
to see if they could find
what caused the plane to crash.
And they had to set about
the gruesome task of
salvaging and identifying
whatever parts of bodies
they could find.
One rescuer,
turning through the carnage,
discovered a seventh pair
of hands.
One was female
and one was male.
They clasped in a last
and lasting human bond.
That’s all that was left
of them.
We don’t know if they were
husband and wife,
or lovers taking a trip
together,
or perhaps even just strangers
cast by fate
to be sitting
next to each other.
We will never know.
But that doesn’t matter.
The lesson to see from it is
that whoever they were,
they grew strength
and courage and love
and support from
a human touch.
Holding hands,
they went out into eternity.
You’re going to go out
into eternity,
and Jesus has his hand
outstretched to take yours.
He wants to lead you
into heaven,
to the very presence of
God Himself.
The question for us tonight is
this, “Who’s holding your hand?”
Are you trying to scramble in
on your own,
or are you going to take
the hand of Jesus
that’s outstretched to you
tonight?
I’m asking you to make
that commitment tonight.
Say yes to Christ.
I’m asking you tonight
to receive Christ
in a new way
in your life.
And say,
“Lord, from this moment on
“I want you to be my Lord
and Savior and Master,
“and I want to put You first.”
I’m going to ask you to get up
out of your seats
and come right now.
He has His arms outstretched
saying,
“Whosoever will,
let him come.”
You come.
You’re watching
the Billy Graham Classics.
Please call the phone number
on the screen right now
for spiritual help and guidance.
♪ Just as I am,
without one plea ♪
♪ But that Thy blood
was shed for me. ♪
♪ And that Thou bidst me
come to Thee ♪
As hundreds are responding
to Mr. Graham’s invitation
to make a public commitment
to Jesus Christ,
You can make
that same commitment
right where you are.
Just pick up the phone
and call the number
you see on your screen.
Special friends are waiting
to talk with you
and pray with you about
this most important decision.
You’ve seen here
in Atlanta, Georgia,
these hundreds of people come
to make a commitment to Christ.
Whatever commitment
they’re making, God knows,
because He reads their hearts
and their minds.
And they’re saying yes to Christ
as best they know how.
And you can make
that same decision
where you are.
You may be in a hotel room.
You may be at home.
You may be off in
a foreign city somewhere,
but you can say yes to Christ
and He will receive you,
and forgive you
and change you,
and go with you
from this moment on
to help you face the problems
you’re facing in your life.
May God help you to do that.
If you just prayed that prayer
with my father,
or if you have any questions
about a relationship with
Jesus Christ,
why don’t you just call that
number that is on the screen.
There will be somebody 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 1-877-772-4559.
That’s 1-877-772-4559.
Or you can write to us at
Billy Graham
1 Billy Graham Parkway
Department C
Charlotte, NC 28201
Or you can contact us on the web
24/7 at PeaceWithGod.tv
We’ll 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.
Tonight, I’m glad to tell
you as we close
that the Lord Jesus Christ
can be received,
your sins forgiven.
The Billy Graham Library is
a place for all walks of life,
to recharge,
reflect,
renew your faith,
and return again and again!
I hope you don’t think
this is like one of
those cop shows
you see on television.
It’s Anne,
she’s in trouble.
If you don’t take it to the edge
every chance you get,
you’re dead already, baby.
I came, I saw, I conquered.
We’re in a bad place.
God, where are you?
(Billy Graham)
Is there any hope?
Yes, there’s hope!
(Franklin Graham) What should
a man give in exchange
for his soul?
I was in trouble,
and I didn’t know what to do.
(slap)
Ow!
(Nazi)
Where are the Jews?
I knew that I could take on
the world.
It’s like you’re in a dream,
but not really a dream,
this is reality.
I was forever changed.
and just said,
“I can’t believe this is real.”
I don’t really believe in
all this, but–
I know something crazy
is happening right now.