Last night, Karen and I watched a film called “The Heart Is a Rebel”, made in 1958. It included scenes of Billy Graham preaching at Madison Square Garden in New York City in 1957. There were solos by Ethel Waters and George Beverly Shea. The spectators were well-dressed. You can read about the meetings which began on May 15, 1957 at: https://billygrahamlibrary.org/1957-new-york-crusade/. More than sixty years later, although many things have changed, the love of God for mankind has not.
When I was in my final year at Concordia University in Montreal, I drove with friends to the Chicago area to attend the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship student missionary convention. The theme of the convention was “Declare His glory among the nations” – Psalm 96:3. One of the highlights of the convention was the message by Billy Graham, nearly twenty years after he preached for sixteen weeks in New York City.
Looking at John 1:14-15,, Billy Graham observed that this passage tells us that God has declared His glory and reminds us that we have beheld His glory. It also challenges us to declare His glory to the nations. Graham noted: “John knew the glory of God and he couldn’t keep silent. Many people mocked him, but he did all he could to point others to the coming Christ.
How do we respond to the glory of Christ? Three words I want you to remember: conviction, commitment, conduct. That’s how we respond.
First, conviction. There is a conviction that Jesus Christ is who He claims to be, the Son of the living God. Do you believe that?
Second, a Christian will have committed himself to Christ as Lord and Saviour, totally without reserve, holding nothing back. That’s why the Scripture places so much emphasis on the heart and not just the outward actions. This involves the total man – the emotion, the intellect, the will, all of it. Are you willing to be his man and his woman regardless of what He might want you to do in the future? How are you going to answer that tonight?
Third, there must be conduct. We must live what we believe. Jesus said that we would be known by our fruit. And the greatest fruit is love. Do we really love this world for whom Christ died? Are we acting upon that love?”
More than ever, people from all over the world are at our doorstep. We must share the good news of salvation through faith in Christ with them.
Scripture for the weekend: “And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. John bore witness of Him and cried out, saying, ‘This was He of whom I said, ‘He who comes after me is preferred before me, for He was before me.’” John 1:14-15 (NKJV)
Thought for the weekend: “The Bible is like a gold mine in which one finds one inexhaustible vein of treasure after another. Like a diver in the sea who, having brought up many jewels from the depths of the ocean, still finds greater riches of gems lying on the floor, the reader discovers inexhaustible treasures in the Bible.” – W. A. Criswell (from his book “Why I Preach that the Bible is Literally True”)
Steve