The Power Of The Gospel

By Phil Scovell




     My youngest son and I flew to Charlotte, North Carolina to
spend the weekend with my oldest son.  The next day.

     The first thing we did was go to the Billy Graham Library
which had more than just a profound effect upon me it impacted me
spiritually.  I first noticed it went we approached the
buildings, walking down the walk ways, but I didn't say anything
until we were leaving.  What did I notice?  I'll explain later.

     The library is built to look like the farm upon which Billy
Graham was raised.  The original house is there, moved from about
three miles distance, and about 90 percent of the house was
reconstructed from the original.  It also has many of the original
tables, chairs, and other things needed to house a family.  On the
Library grounds, There is also a silo, and the area is constructed
to resemble a farm house in a wooded area.  You enter a barn like
structure, check in at a desk, and soon join a tour.  No, it is
free, just like salvation.

     Your first stop is a mechanically constructed cow.  A
recording comes on and she tells a little of what it was like back
in the days Billy was growing up on the farm, milking cows,
feeding the animals, working the fields and typical farm chores.
The cows mouth, eyes, and tail move as she talks briefly about how
life began for Billy Graham.  In the background, are chirping
birds, chickens, and pigs that occasionally make their sounds from
various parts of the barn.

     From that point, you move through various rooms with various
themes that are characteristic of the life and times of Billy
Graham.  A greeter is at each room to offer some brief
instructions, such as, the nature of the room, and what you are
about to here.  Nearly every room has audio and video tapes which
start playing so even for a blind person, it is pretty informative
without additional sighted assistance.  People from the recordings
are sharing how God changed their lives through the Gospel
preached by a man who was  nothing more than a young farm boy at
heart.  This included his mother, his wife, Ruth, of whom Billy
always said Ruth was the finest Christian he ever knew in his
life, his son, and many others testifying what it was like to have
personally known Billy Graham and how Jesus had come into their
heart and life and changed them through his preaching ministry all
around the world.

     For me, it was like walking back into the history of my life.
Room after room, and sound recordings and television productions
of past Billy Graham crusades that began playing, reminded me
time and time again of my own life.  The presidents he knew and
prayed with in the White House, the movie stars, and other famous
people are all documented with pictures and magazine and newspaper
clippings throughout the library.

     Each room progresses through various stages of his life, the
times in which he ministered, and the world events that were
occurring.  I was able to identify with nearly all of these
various events due to my age growing up as a child during most of
those earlier events and later, of course, as I entered adulthood.
This created a very personal spiritual atmosphere for me because
many references were made to Billy Graham and how his ministry
flourished especially in 1957 when he began his television
broadcasts in black and white all over the country and soon all
over the world.

     It was in late 1957 that my dad and I sat at home alone one
evening and watched a Billy Graham crusade broadcast on our TV.  I
well remember this man, and his strong voice, described in simple
terms the suffering of Jesus as he died upon the cross for my
sins.  He even suggested that due to the horrible beatings Jesus
took from the soldiers and the Roman cat of nine tails, his back
and sides lay in ripped open tatters of skin.  He suggested,
although not mentioned in the Bible, that perhaps buzzards, or
vultures, may have landed on the arms of the cross to pick away at
the lose skin hanging from our Savior's torn body.  Later that
night, since mom and my baby sister were gone over night to a camp
out at a nearby lake with the teenage girls from our church, my
dad and I lay in the darkness.  I was afraid to be alone upstairs
so dad had said I could bunk with him that night.  "Dad?" I said.

     "What," he answered in the darkness.

     "Who was the preacher on the TV talking about tonight?"

     "He was," dad replied, "talking about Jesus.  You know, the
man who died on the cross for our sins you have heard about in
Sunday school?"

     "Yes," I said quietly.  "I remember the stories.  This is
the same man from the stories I hear at church in Sunday school?"

     "It sure is the same man, son.  Why?"

     "Well, what did the preacher mean tonight?" and I commented
on the vultures possibly picking the skin fragments off our Lord's
wrecked and tortured and ripped body.

     Dad explained how Jesus was stripped of his clothing in front
of everybody, and tortured by the soldiers by beating Jesus,
punching Him and slapping him in the face over and over again,
ripping his beard out, flesh and all, his back being literally
torn open with a whip made to tear the skin of His back and sides,
he described the extreme bloodiness of the torture, the crown of
thorns they pounded down upon his head, the spike sized nails they
used to drive into His hands and feet on to the heavy wooden cross
and then lifted Him up into the air for all to see.  My dad
explained what hung on the cross did not even look like a human
being by the time they got done beating and torturing him.

     I felt sorry for this man in my own way.  "Why, daddy?" I
asked.  "Why did this happen to Jesus."

     "Son, He did it for us.  We all have sinned.  We are actually
born sinners.  We can't go to Heaven as the sinners we are born
but Jesus died on the cross, was buried, and on the third day,
rose from the grave.  He is now in Heaven."

     "I remember all that now from Sunday school, dad, but what
can I do?  I would like to do something for Jesus for all He did
for me on that cross the preacher talked about tonight."

     My father, a preacher himself, told me I could do something
for Jesus and for myself.  "All you have to do is pray, say that
you believe Jesus died on the cross for your sins, realize His
blood can cleanse you, and that you believe He died and was buried
for three days and then was resurrected.  Then just ask Jesus into
your heart to save you.  Could you do that?"

     "I can't remember everything to say but I would like to pray,
dad.  I want to be with Jesus in Heaven."

     Switching on a bed lamp, we got out of bed and got on our
knees next to the bed.  Dad said, "Just say these words after me,
Philip, and I'll help you say the words.  Ok?"

     "Ok, daddy."

     The bedroom felt different, somehow, like somebody was in
their with us.

     Repeating words similar to what I write now, my father prayed
and I echoed, "Dear Lord Jesus, I'm just a little boy.  I don't
understand everything but I believe Jesus died on the cross for my
sins.  I believe His blood was shed for my sins.  I cannot save
myself and go to Heaven without your help.  Forgive me of all my
sins and I believe you died and rose the third day for me.  Come
into my heart and save me.  In Jesus name, Amen."

     It didn't take very long and what we prayed was way simpler
than I just wrote just now but I often have people ask me, after
being born again for over 50 years, did it work?  The answer is
simple.  Yes.  I told my mom the next day that it felt as if a
wind blew into the bedroom and blew right through my body.  I saw
dirty and black mud washing right out of my body as the wind blew
it all away.  Then, when it stopped, I felt clean like I had taken
a bath inside and out."  That feeling, by the way, has never left
me in all these many decades of walking with the Lord and all of
this due to a man on television preaching a simple message about
Jesus Christ who died and suffered for our sins."  My life has
never been the same.

     So, you see, walking through the library, hearing the various
testimonies, and hearing various clips of Billy Graham as he
preached from year to year until modern times, had more than just
a little effect upon me personally.

     The tour itself inside the library ended in a small chapel
where we all sat and listen and watched on a screen as Billy
Graham preached a short five minute message of the Gospel and how
to receive Christ as your Lord and Savior right then and there if
you had not done so before.  They passed out cards with the
Gospel and showed you what to pray in order to be born again.
Then they asked you to sign it to indicate if you were born again
or if you have just prayed and asked Christ into your life.  There
is no way on earth that any person could have gotten through that
tour, especially in the chapel at the end, and say to God some day
at the Great White Throne judgment, "But Lord, I never heard you
died for my sins."

     Leaving the building, we walked down to where his wife, Ruth,
is buried in the prayer garden and then we walked back to our car.

     Walking to the library and away from it, speakers are
strategically and masterfully placed which are continually playing
soft Christian music.  The uniqueness of this was how the speakers
were placed and balanced.  You never once walked out of sound and
into more sound but instead, you felt as if the entire time, and
every place you walked on the grounds of the library, that you
were being bathed in pleasant soft music.  It was as close to
sensing the presence of the Holy Spirit you will ever experience
but more than that, the whole place, inside and out, God as my
witness, felt as if you were walking in the presence of God and
the peace and presence of the Holy Spirit.  I found myself
blinking back tears the entire time we were on the grounds.  I cry
even now just thinking about the man who preached so down to earth
that even a little five year old boy got the message so he could
do something for Jesus because Jesus had suffered so much for him
to go to Heaven.

"For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved," (Romans 10:13).

Are you?


It Sounds Like God To Me.
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