Is there life after death? Hear Billy Graham’s answer in this 1966 message from Greenville, South Carolina. Follow our account to enjoy #MondayNightClassics every Monday at 8pm (ET).
From our archives,
The Billy Graham Classics.
♪
♪ The love of God is
greater far ♪
♪ Than tongue or pen can
ever tell ♪
♪ It goes beyond
the highest star ♪
♪ And reaches to
the lowest hell ♪
♪ Could we with ink
the ocean fill ♪
♪ Or were the skies
of parchment made ♪
♪ Were every stalk
on earth a quill ♪
♪ And every man
a scribe by trade ♪
♪ To write the love of
God above ♪
♪ Would drain
the ocean dry ♪
♪ Nor could the scroll
contain the whole ♪
♪ Though stretched
from sky to sky ♪
♪ O love of God,
how rich and pure! ♪
♪ How measureless
and strong! ♪
♪ It shall forevermore endure ♪
♪ The saints’,
the angels’ song ♪
♪♪
[applause]
Now tonight I want you turn
with me to Job
the fourteenth chapter and
the fourteenth verse,
Job the fourteenth chapter,
and the fourteenth verse.
Now Job is in the Old Testament
and it’s the oldest book
in the world.
There is no known book
in the world
as old as the book of Job .
And yet, Job asks a
question that I’m sure disturbs
many of you tonight.
He asks a question that every
great philosopher
has wrestled with.
He asks a question
that every great thinker
and intellectual at some time,
wrestles with.
He asks the same question that
one of the greatest scientists
in this country asked
me about three weeks ago.
He said science knows nothing
about it but he said,
“I’m disturbed about it
and worried about it.”
Here is the question.
If a man die,
shall he live again?
If a man die,
shall he live again?
The problem of
death and life.
Or life and death.
Haven’t you ever
thought about that?
You’ve been to a funeral,
for a few moments you’re solemn,
you’re thoughtful.
That night you go back,
you go to bed,
you think about it.
One of these days
they’re going to be taking me
out to the cemetery.
They’ll be saying
some words over me.
Is that the end?
Is it all over?
You know what
the Bible says?
The Bible says there’s a time
to be born and a time to die.
Birth is a happy event.
Death is a tragic event
and we have tears.
You take the fifth chapter of
Genesis and
you’ll see the list of all those
men that lived to be old men.
Adam lived nine hundred
and thirty years, but he died.
Methuselah lived to be nine
hundred and sixty-nine years,
but he died.
I read about a man
the other day in Brazil that
they claim lived a hundred and
thirty-four years, but he died.
At the end of every life is
death.
Life is very brief.
The Bible says
it’s a tale that is told.
It’s a weaver’s shuttle.
It’s a flower that fades.
It’s like the grass
that withers.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
expressed it once when he said,
“Art is long, and time is
fleeting and our hearts
“though stout and brave,
“still like muffled drums are
beating
“funeral marches to the grave.”
And that’s exactly where
we’re all headed.
It’s appointed unto man
once to die.
Thou shalt die and not live.
Now the question is, “Are you
ready to meet God?”
Because the Bible says, “It’s
appointed unto man once to die,
“but after that the judgement.”
There is something after death
according to this book.
Now again, I say I can’t it to
a scientific laboratory and
prove it to you,
but this book teaches
from Genesis to Revelation
that this life is only
a preparation room for eternity.
There is another life.
The Old Testament teaches it.
The New Testament teaches it.
Jesus taught it.
The apostles taught it.
If a man dies,
shall he live again?
That’s the question Job asks.
That’s the question
millions are asking tonight
and the answer from
the Bible is a resounding yes.
Yes, there is a life
after death.
If a man dies,
shall he live again?
Cicero, the great Roman said,
upon this subject,
“I entertain no more than
conjecture.
“I spent a great deal of my life
searching for the answers.”
Mrs. Roosevelt,
Eleonor Roosevelt,
in one of her columns
a few years ago said,
“It’s instinctive for man to
believe in life after death.”
And it is.
You never find a tribe
anywhere in the world,
you never find a culture,
you never find a civilization
anywhere in history
that didn’t believe in some form
of life after death.
And when the early forefathers
and Pilgrims came
to this country,
they thought they had found
some tribes in New England
that didn’t believe,
tribes of Indians that didn’t
believe in life after death,
but they soon found when
they communicated with them
that they believed in
the happy hunting ground.
Yes, man instinctively,
something down inside says
there must be a future life.
There must be something
beyond this life.
But, after all, there is only
one authoritative person
that can speak
on this subject
because He came
from the grave.
He rose, and his name
was Jesus Christ.
About two or three years ago
I had the privilege of having
an interview with
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer
in his last year in office as
Chancellor of Germany.
He had invited me.
I was preaching in Germany.
He’d invited me to
come and see him
and I didn’t know
what about.
I was quite surprised and,
of course, flattered
to get the invitation.
And I went.
He greeted me.
Big, tall giant of a man.
The man that had almost
singlehandedly brought democracy
back to Germany after the war.
And I wondered what does this
great man want of me?
The first question
he asked me was this.
He said, “Do you
believe in life after death?”
I said, “Yes, sir, I do.”
I said, “I believe the Bible
teaches it.”
He said, “I do, too.”
He said, “I am studying the
resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
And he said, “When
I leave office as chancellor,
“I intend to spend the rest of
my life studying
the resurrection of Christ,
because”, he said,
“if Christ is alive,
there is hope in the world.”
He said,
“If Christ is not alive,
there is no hope that I can see
that civilization can be saved.”
Wasn’t that something?
Yes, Jesus Christ is alive.
He rose from the dead and
that day,
that Easter Sunday morning,
That first Easter when Mary, and
Mary Magdalene and Salome
went to the grave expecting
to anoint a dead body,
they saw the angel sitting
there and they said,
“Where is Jesus?”
The angel said, “He is
not here. He is risen.”
I submit to you tonight that
that’s the greatest news
the world has ever heard.
He is not here.
He has conquered the grave.
He’s alive.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe
that there is more proof that
Jesus Christ rose from the dead
than almost any other fact
in Roman history.
I don’t believe there is a fact
in ancient history today
so well proven as
the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
But even if there is no
proof, no historical proof,
no scientific proof,
and there is,
I would still believe it
because I believe
this book is God’s
inspired word and
the whole early church went up
and down the country preaching
the resurrection of
Jesus Christ.
That was the thing that shook
the Roman empire.
That a man had
risen from the dead.
That he was alive.
That death could not hold
him.
Christ is alive.
He’s a living Savior.
And yet many of his followers
and Christians live and act
as though he’s dead.
He’s not dead.
He is alive.
And the Bible says that
at a given moment,
a given signal,
He’s coming back to this earth
to set up His kingdom.
And what a Kingdom
it’s going to be.
It will be a world
in which there will be no tears,
no sorrow and no death.
There’ll be no suffering,
there’ll be lno war,
There will be no police forces.
There will be no armies.
It is going to be a glorious
world ruled by one person,
The Lord Jesus Christ.
He’s alive.
I’ve given my life not to a dead
Christ, but to a living Christ
and I’m following
a living Savior
And he’s given me
a song to sing.
He’s given me
a flag to follow.
He’s given me something
to believe.
I have reason for existence.
I know where I’ve come from.
I know why I’m here.
I know where I’m going.
Do you?
God said, “Hezekiah,
get your house in order.
“You’re going to die.”
Now you and I are going
to die, because, you see,
The Bible teaches that
you and I have a body,
but living inside our body is
the real you, your real person,
and that’s the part of you
that lives forever.
Your body is going to go
to the grave,
but you, the real you,
your intelligence,
your memory, your personality is
going to live forever and ever.
According to the Bible,
you will never die.
and you’re going to spend a
million years, a billion years,
in one of two places,
according to Jesus.
Not according to Billy Graham,
but according to Jesus.
Jesus talked a great
deal about heaven,
but he talked three times more
about hell than he did heaven.
The other writers of the Bible
don’t have too much to say
about hell, but Jesus talked
about it all the time.
In the Sermon on the Mount,
I’ve had fellows say I don’t
believe in hell,
I live by the Sermon on
the Mount.
Well, you’ve never read
the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus talked about it.
Now what did he mean by it?
He said, “The Son of Man shall
send forth His angels and
“they shall gather out of
his kingdom all things
“that offend and them which do
iniquity and shall cast them
“into the furnace of fire and
there shall be weeping and
“wailing and gnashing of teeth.”
What did he mean?
Matthew 25:41,
“Then shall he say unto them
on his left hand
“depart from me you
cursed into everlasting fire
“prepared for the devil
and his angels.”
What did he mean?
He is saying that hell was never
made for man.
He is saying that God will never
send anybody to hell.
If man goes to hell,
he goes by his own free choice.
Hell was created for
the devil and his angels.
Not for man.
God never meant
that a man should go there.
And God has done everything
within his power
to keep you out.
He even gave His Son to die
on that cross to keep you out.
Because, you see,
when God made you,
he made you
a free moral agent.
You can live any kind of life
you want to.
You can live a good life;
you can live a bad life.
You can break God’s laws;
you can obey them.
You can shake your fist
in God’s face
and there’s nothing
God can do because
when he created you,
he gave you a gift
of free choice.
You’re not a robot that you push
a button and you jump and obey.
You’ve got a right to
resist God, to reject God.
But the Bible says in spite of
our rebellion and rejection,
God loves you.
He loves you so much that
he gave His Son
to die for your sins
and when Christ died
on that cross,
we don’t understand all that
happened on that cross,
but we know one thing,
that he took the hell and
the judgement that you deserve,
and I deserve because of our
sins, He took it on that cross.
And that’s why that terrible
expression from his lips,
“My God, my God,
why has thou forsaken me?”
Because you see the very meaning
of hell is separation from God.
And in that terrible moment
a shadow passed
between God, the Father
and God, the Son
for the first time
since eternity began.
Christ dying for you and
he suffered the pangs of hell.
He became guilty of lying.
He became guilty of slander.
He became guilty of jealousy.
He became guilty of the most
filthy, dirty sins
and when those sins came
into his soul,
your sins and my sins came
into his soul.,
God could not look because
God cannot look upon iniquity,
God is so holy.
Christ took the hell that
you and I deserve on that cross.
Now God says receive him,
believe in him, put your trust
and your confidence in him
and I will forgive your sins and
I will guarantee you eternity
in a place called heaven.
It’s all yours and
it’s all free.
All you have to do
is receive it.
What an offer.
He offers you tonight
eternal life.
Now eternal life doesn’t
begin the moment you die.
Now when you die,
as a Christian,
eternal life doesn’t
begin there.
Eternal life begins
the moment you receive Christ.
Now many of you here
in South Carolina
and in North Carolina
and all over the country have
been reared in Christian homes.
Or you go to a church.
You live a fairly decent life
and you’re sort of living on
the reflected afterglow of
your parents’ religion,
but you’ve never really
received Christ for yourself.
You’ve never really
trusted him for yourself.
You don’t know Him really.
You’re not really sure that
you’re ready to meet God
and the Bible says,
“Prepare to meet thy God.”
Are you prepared?
Are you sure you’re prepared?
You know the Bible says,
“These things I write unto you
that believe on the name of
the Son of God that you may know
that you have eternal life.”
I can stand here without
being egotistical,
without being conceited.
I can stand here tonight
and say to you
on the authority of this book,
I know my sins are forgiven.
I know I’m going to heaven.
I know that I’m going to live
as long as God lives
because the moment
I received Christ,
I became a partaker
of God’s own life.
Now I’m going to live
a billion years
and I’ll only have begun.
I know that.
Not because of any
goodness of my own.
I’m not going to heaven because
I’ve lived a good life.
I’m not going to heaven
because I’ve preached
to great crowds of people.
I’m going to heaven because of
what Christ did on that cross.
“For by grace are ye saved,
through faith,
“and that not of yourself,
“nor of works,
lest any man should boast.
We’re not going to heaven
because we’re good.
We’re not going to heaven
because we work.
We’re not going to heaven
because we pay.
We’re going to heaven because of
what he did on the cross
and all I have to do
is receive it.
And it’s so simple
to receive Christ
that millions stumble
over its very simplicity.
You see God made it so simple
that children can believe.
He made it so simple
and easy that a blind man,
a deaf man, a dumb man
can believe.
A man of any race can believe.
A man of any nationality,
of any language can believe
and that’s all God says
you have to do to get to heaven.
Just believe.
Now that word believe is
a little more
than maybe you think it is.
It means commitment.
It means surrender.
It means that I give everything
I have to Jesus Christ and
trust him alone for my
forgiveness and my salvation.
It means that the moment
you receive him
your name is written in
the book of life.
Is your name in
the book of life?
Are you sure you’re going
to heaven?
Are you prepared
to meet God?
If there is the slightest doubt
in your heart tonight
that you’re prepared to meet God
don’t you dare leave
here without settling it.
Why?
Because you may never have
another hour
or another moment like this.
You can’t come to Christ
any time you want to.
The Bible says,
“He that hardeneth his heart,
being often reproved,
shall suddenly be cut off and
that without remedy.”
Thousands of people have
prayed for this crusade.
The Spirit of God
has brought you here.
Hundreds of people have come to
Christ already in this crusade.
The way is prepared,
your heart is prepared.
The Spirit of God is
speaking tonight.
This is the hour;
this is the moment and
you may never have
this moment quite
like this again.
I’m going to ask you to commit
your life to Christ,
to make sure that
your name is written in
the book of life,
to make sure that
you’re going to heaven and
to receive tonight eternal life.
And here’s the way
we’re going to do it.
I’m going to ask you to get up
out of your seat right now,
hundreds of you, get up out
of your seat and come and
stand in front of
this platform right now,
quietly and reverently.
I’m going to ask that nobody
leave the service, please.
Get up out of your seat, men,
women, young people.
You may be members
of the church,
you may be an usher,
you may be a choir member.
Get up out of your seat and
come and stand here.
And after you’ve stood here,
I’m going to say a word to you,
have a prayer,
give you some literature
and you can go back
and join your friends.
That’s all there is to it.
But it’s very important
that you come and
make this public declaration.
Jesus said if you’re not willing
to acknowledge me before men,
I will not acknowledge you
before my Father
which is in heaven.
You get up and come right now.
There is something about
coming forward that settles it
and seals it in your heart.
You get up and come, quickly.
Now I’m going to ask that
everyone be in prayer.
Bow your heads and pray.
Pray for the person to the
right of you and left of you,
in back of you and
in front of you.
Perhaps no one
ever prayed that
they would come
to Christ before.
Many people are
already on the way.
You get up and join them
and come.
What an hour, what a moment
for you to come to Christ.
We’re going to wait as
you come.
♪ Just as I am ♪
You’re watching
the Billy Graham Classics.
Please call the phone number
on the screen right now
for spiritual help and guidance.
♪ But that thy blood
was shed for me ♪
♪ And that Thou bidst
me come to thee ♪
♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come ♪
♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come ♪
♪ Just as I am
and waiting not ♪
♪ To rid my soul
of one dark blot ♪
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.
♪ I come, I come ♪
♪ Just as I am
though tossed about ♪
♪ with many a conflict,
many a doubt ♪
♪ Fightings within
and fears without ♪
♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come ♪
♪ O Lamb of God,
I come, I come ♪
To you that have been watching
by television,
you’ll be leaving the service
now in just a moment.
You can make the same
commitment and
the same decision that
these are making.
And the same Christ that
will come into their hearts
and give them assurance
will do the same for you.
You may be sitting
in a bar somewhere.
Maybe you’re in your living room
at home
or maybe you’re in
a friends’ home.
Maybe you’re in some
unusual place
that I couldn’t even think of
at the moment.
And you need Christ,
and you need God in your life.
You can receive him right now
and He can bring about
a tremendous change.
And then go to church on Sunday.
Have a talk with the minister.
Tell him the decision
that you’ve made
and get to work for Christ.
and live in this brand-new
dimension of living;
the spiritual dimension.
Good night 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,
why don’t you just call
that number 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
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, North Carolina 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.
We are to wait for the coming
of Christ with patience,
(echo) patience,
patience, patience.
We are to watch
with anticipation.
The Scripture says,
Christ is coming when
you’re least expecting him.
Coming as a thief.
He said, be prepared.
Get ready.
Prepare to meet thy God.
Are you prepared?