Billy Graham Just As He Was, Part 1

Just a few days shy of his 16th birthday, Billy Frank, as his friends knew him, was focused on baseball, not the Bible. Though barely making it onto his high school baseball team at Sharon High School in Charlotte, North Carolina, the lad still had dreams of playing professional baseball.

But William Franklin Graham, Jr., was destined for other things in life. The change began in 1934, at a “tabernacle” with an evangelist who had a strange name: Mordecai Ham. He was a fiery Baptist preacher who was described as a “fighter” when young Billy Frank resisted invitations to Ham’s crusades. As Graham would later recall, “‘Is he a fighter?’ I asked. That put a little different slant on things. I like a fighter.’”

Ham’s direct preaching—including what Graham perceived as a finger pointing directly at him—made its mark: “I have no recollection of what he preached about, but I was spellbound. In some indefinable way, he was getting through to me. I was hearing another voice … the voice of the Holy Spirit.”

No longer reluctant to hear the evangelist Ham, Graham returned nightly. But to avoid the pointing finger, Billy Frank and a friend sat in the choir behind the preacher—even though neither could sing.

Finally, after hearing a sermon about God’s love for us while we were still in our sins (see Romans 5:8), Graham responded to the preacher’s persistent invitations to come forward and accept Christ.

As he later wrote, “No bells went off inside me. No signs flashed across the tabernacle ceiling. I simply felt at peace … happy and peaceful.”

Accepting Christ as Savior changed the direction of Billy Frank’s young life. Gone were the dreams of pro baseball. Instead, he would finish high school and go to Bible school, first at a Bible college in Florida, and finally at Wheaton College near Chicago. There he met Ruth Bell, the daughter of missionaries, to whom he was married for 64 years until her death.

Graham ended up presenting the gospel message in person to more people than anyone else in history: 210 million people in more than 185 countries and territories. But first a personal crisis would test the commitment a young Billy Frank made in 1934.

Reflect: Have you made a commitment to follow Christ? How did you feel if and when you first made that commitment? Make it a habit to recommit yourself to Jesus every day.

Key Bible Texts

Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me. (John 14:6 KJV)