Even though He had power and authority, Jesus stayed on the cross to die because He loved you. Hear more about His sacrificial death in this Billy Graham sermon preached in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1982. Watch more #MondayNightClassics every Monday at 8 p.m. EDT. CONNECT with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association: on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BillyGrahamE… on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/BGEA on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BGEA on Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bgea on YouTube: / billygraham on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bgeaofficial
from our archives the Billy Graham
classics
now tonight I want you to turn with me
to a familiar passage of scripture
Galatians the sixth chapter Galatians
the sixth chapter and the 14th verse but
God forbid
that I should Glory save in the cross of
our Lord Jesus Christ by whom the world
is crucified unto me and I under the
world
just after the war Cliff barrows and I
came together he led the singing and I
did the preaching
and his wife and my wife and the four of
us went to England and we lived in
England during the winter of 1946 and
47. now London was almost totally
devastated and one of the things I
remember is that in all that Devastation
after the war and all the rubble there
stood Saint Paul’s Cathedral and on top
of Saint Paul’s was a cross
I remember when Coventry cathedral was
being built because it had been
destroyed during the war
and he was nearing completion a cross
was lured by helicopter and placed on
the top
a huge 25-foot wooden cross stands above
the fields of the Barrett horror of
Belson concentration camp
a tiny cross placed there by Sir Edmund
Hillary the first man to conquer the
peak of mountains is buried on the snow
and the ice at the summit of Mount
Everest
now you many of you are very religious
and you have embossed upon your Bibles
across or you wear a cross around your
neck and the thing that I want to ask
you tonight is this what does the cross
mean to you
why do all the Catholic churches and all
the Protestant churches have a cross
that’s the one thing we agree on is the
cross
the whole Christian world
Looks To the Cross
why did Paul say that he gloried in it
more than anything else in all the world
Paul could have gloried in his education
he was one of the most educated men of
his time he could have glory in his
religion he was very religious he could
have glory and his ability to speak
several languages he was fluent in
several he could have glad in the fact
that he was a Roman citizen but he
didn’t
or he could have glory and certain
things about Jesus Christ other than the
cross his spectacular miraculous birth
born of a virgin the Virgin Mary or the
great teaching of Christ even today
Educators say there’s never been a
teacher like Jesus Christ
or his great social work
his compassion for the poor and the
needy his concern for the hunger and the
sick
his amazing Resurrection from the dead
his future Glory when he’s going to rule
the world
and his kingdom is going to come
he could have glory in any of those
things but he said no I Glory only in
the cross and he said God forbid that I
should glory in anything else except the
cross
why
well I want you to think a moment and
look at that cross
it was the most cruel of all punishments
because the victims sometimes would hang
there for several days it took them
several days to die
and on this occasion they were
crucifying three people
two thieves murderers and Jesus in the
middle
the soldiers entered the guard house and
brought Jesus with the two other
condemned men they were beaten 33 times
so 39 times on their barebacks with
leather thongs with steel pellets on the
end a crown of thorns had been put on
Jesus brow a cross was laid upon his
back the procession started
Jerusalem was filled with a
carnival-like atmosphere at that time
and the procession went through the main
street so that all might see
that the criminal
and be warned of a similar fate if he
broke the laws of Rome a big crowd was
following
just a few of Jesus friends were
following
and Jesus became weakened by the loss of
blood then he fell
and so Simon of cyrenian Africa and
helped him Carry the Cross
the soldiers went quickly and
methodically about their task of driving
home the nails in his hands and despite
through his feet the crowd Mills around
jeering he saved others
himself he cannot save
they laughed and they mocked and they
made fun of him
come down do just one more Miracle they
say
God I trust God. God weapon is only Wisdom.