An Evening at the Library

On Thursday we drove down to Spartanburg.  There we got together with about a hundred people from our church, boarded buses, and drove over to Charlotte to the Billy Graham Library for an after-hours tour and dinner. It was a wonderful evening! 

I have wanted to go the Billy Graham Library ever since it opened several years ago, but somehow we have never gotten there.  That's a shame, really, since it's so close by.  Now I want to go again!  I loved being there Thursday as part of a group visit, but with a group that large the disadvantage is not being able to linger over exhibits they way I might have liked to.

In any event, we had a wonderful time at the Library.  There are exhibits that chronicle the early years of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.  And events about crusades in this country and around the world.  There's his childhood home, which has been restored on the property.  There's an exhibit about his wife Ruth.

One of my favorite exhibits had to do with a time Billy Graham preached in Moscow, back in the days of the Soviet Union.  A choir made up of soldiers, dressed in their uniforms, had learned to sing "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" in English.  As I stood there and listened tIo those Russian men.....Communist, atheist......singing "His truth is marching on"......I couldn't help but wonder what might have been the long-term result of that experience.  Did the seed planted by the truth of that song, together with hearing the Gospel proclaimed, bear fruit?  In one of them?  In more than one?  I wonder.

Another of the things that really impressed me as we walked through the exhibits was the sheer numbers of people that Billy Graham has preached the Gospel to.  The millions who have heard him in person at Crusades.  The billions who have heard him by way of radio or television or other technology.

We had a wonderful evening at the Library.  We spent time with some of our good friends.  We made new friends.  We had a delicious dinner.  It was a delightful time.  If you ever get the opportunity, you should go.  You'll be glad you did.  It's an extraordinary place!

My absolutely favorite thing about the Library is that, although it bears his name, it really isn't about Billy Graham at all.  Certainly, his life story and the story of his ministry is told through the exhibits.  But it isn't about him.  It's about how God used Billy Graham, a farm boy from North Carolina, to advance His Kingdom.  It's about what happens when a person's heart is completely committed to Christ.  It's about the Gospel.  About the cross.  It's all about Jesus.

"For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life."  (John 3:16 KJV)