83,500 attend what may be Graham’s final crusade
The Layman Online, October 21, 2002
Evangelist Billy Graham may have preached his last mission – in Dallas on Oct. 17-20 – but, at 83, despite suffering Parkinson’s disease and other ailments, he says, “I never want to say never.”
If it was his finale, 83,500 people, including 15,000 in overflow seating in an adjacent parking lot, were there for the historic sermon – an attendance record for a Texas Stadium event.
The Billy Graham Evangelistic Association now uses the term “mission” instead of “crusade” in deference to the bitterness Muslims have toward the Crusades.
For the record, the association has scheduled no additional missions for the world’s most famous evangelist, who has been preaching to huge revival crowds for nearly 60 years.
Dallas added another 255,000 people during five services, including a total of 165,500 on Saturday and Sunday, the last two nights. More than 12,000 people went forward.
Graham preached as he always does – simply and powerfully to persuade nonbelievers that Jesus Christ died to save them from their sins and to bolster Christians into a deeper commitment to Christ.
“God had a son, and he sent him to rescue us, to save us,” Graham said on the opening night, after being introduced by former President George Bush. “I remember one time, I was walking with one of my sons. We stepped on an anthill and some of the ants were dying and some were wounded. … And I said, ‘Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could go down there and help those ants and tell them that we didn’t mean to do that.’ “And my son said: ‘Dad, we can’t. We’re too big. They’re too little.’ And I said, ‘That’s exactly what God was.’ God became man.”
Graham, a Southern Baptist, has had close ties with evangelical Presbyterians. The first edition of The Presbyterian Layman in April 1968 included a photo of Graham and some of the board members of the Presbyterian Lay Committee when they were helping to plan a crusade in New York.
Ruth Bell Graham, wife of the evangelist, is the daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to China and her brother, the late Clayton Bell, was pastor of Highland Park Presbyterian Church in Dallas until his retirement in January 2000. Bell was visiting the Grahams at Montreat, N.C., on July 4, 2000, when he died in his sleep.
The Graham family regarded the late Calvin Thielman, an evangelical leader at Montreat, as their family minister. Thielman died Aug. 19.