Hope | Billy Graham Classic Sermon

One of the greatest needs in our world today is hope. In this 1988 Billy Graham sermon preached in Rochester, New York, hear how you can find it.

From our archives, the Billy Graham classics.
Is it possible that man with his fall and human nature can bring about peace in our world, Winston Churchill said no.
Winston Churchill said that our morals are lagging far behind our technological advance.
Just think what’s happened in a 100 years. A 100 years ago, we didn’t have radio.
And certainly no television. And we barely had a few automobiles, and no one seen any, at least in the part of the world I lived in.
We didn’t have airplanes. The first airplane flew in this century, 190 3 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and it just flew a few yards.
And all of this has happened so quickly. And human nature has not changed.
We’re still human beings capable of any kind of crime, and we’re capable of war.
And so the time has come for to look up some of those passages in the Bible that have to do with the future of our world.
And we ask ourselves, is there any hope?
A person can live a lifetime without sex, a person can possibly live 75 days without food, I read about a man and a hunger strike in Britain that lived 70 days without food, and possible to live about 10 days without we are told by sociologists and psychologists and psychiatrists and clergy to live without hope.
And one of the great needs in our world today is hope.
And many young people have lost hope, and that’s why many of them are rebelling and turning to drugs turning to other things.
They see no hope as they look into the future.
We read about the greenhouse ecology And they talk about Armageddon. They talk about global genocide.
They talk about the end of the world.
And we’re seen almost daily on in the press on radio, some or television, some reference to it.
Our New York philosopher says, as never before, America a philosophy of hope and confidence.
The former prime minister of Canada making a speech recently said, billions of people are living today without hope.
And he said hope is the greatest need of our generation. They’re tempted to give up. They opt out.
And so we tend to hide from reality and responsibility as many people today are searching for hope.
So the zodiac sign being studied, as never before. Spiritual mediums are prospering.
Computers are being used on a massive scale to predict the future We hear a lot about astrology, and the best selling off of herb Cohen says, the most widespread feeling of these days is one of lessness and helplessness, and what oxygen is to the lungs, such as hope to the meaning of life.
In our passage that I want to read now, there are four things that I want you to see.
They all begin with a v. Luke, the 21st chap beginning at verse 25.
And there shall be signs in the sun and in the moon and in the stars.
And upon the Earth’s distress of nations with perplexity, the sea and the waves boring, men’s hearts failing them for fear.
And for lifting after those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of heaven shall be taken.
And then shall they see the son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory?
And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up.
Look up with hope and lift up your heads for your redemption draws near.
The 4 things that beginning with the that I want you to see first, there’s a view of the world today.
When these things begin to come to pass. What things, things that we’ve been just talking about?
The the disciples ask him a question him. They said in Matthew 24, when shall these things be?
What shall be the sign of your coming?
And what will be the end and what will be sign of the end of system of evil, but the kingdom of god is going to ultimately triumph.
God is not going to retreat.
God is going to control the whole thing before it’s over, and the kingdom of god will prevail.
And, Jesus, answer in Matthew, 24 of these questions, took 94 verses. He gave a whole scenario.
Jesus said one of the factors would be fear.
Mirror of the impending annihilation, and that’s what Greek scholars tell us the powers of heaven shall be shaken means.
We will be fearing. There will be wars and rumors of wars, he said.
And in this century, which was called the Christian Sentry.
There’s a magazine called the Christian Sentry that was started in 1900 because they predicted that they was going to be the Christian century.
It looked like the whole world was becoming good and filled with love at the beginning of this century And there was tremendous optimism in Europe and America and all over the world.
And in this century, what’s happened.
We fought the bloodiest wars and more people have been killed in wars in this century than all the other centuries put together in the past 1000 years.
What happened? Human nature was not put into the equation.
God’s answer to the real deep problems of our lives was not taken into account.
Wars and rumors of wars. Then he said there will be signs in the sky.
I’m seeing the militarization of outer space involving American and Soviet killer satellites equipped with laser weapons nuclear bombs and neutron bombs that can descend from the skies anywhere in the world.
All of these things, taking place, signs in the sky.
We talk about SDI and all the other things has to do with signs in the sky.
We now told that many nations have on the of getting the atomic bomb.
And suppose some little nation gets its back to the wall and starts throwing bombs.
And that could start a chain reaction.
They’re many things that I’ve heard at some of these conferences as scenarios coming from scientists and some of our top educators.
Jesus said another sign would be disease and famine and hunger and suffering on a scale unprecedented in the history the world, and more people today are starving and suffering from disease with all of our modern medicine with everything we have.
And then he said there would be immorality on a wide scale. People will be swapping wives.
And as in the days of noah, so shall it also be in the days of the coming of the son of man, they ate, they drank, they married wives, and they were given in marriage.
And the divorce statistics all over the world, including the Soviet Union, including Great Britain, where we have our friends on the platform, they could tell you stories.
What’s happening all over the world.
And in 2nd Timothy, 3, 15, I was sitting on a plane one day, and sitting beside me was a man that I met, and he was a very well known sociologic professor from 1 great universities.
And I happened to be reading the 3rd chapter of Timothy and Phillips translation.
And, uh, he said, what are you reading? Said, well, I’m reading a part of the Bible.
He said, do you mind if I read and see it?
He said, I’ve never really read much in the Bible. So I let him read this passage.
But you must realize that in the last days, the times will be full of danger.
Utterless self centered and greedy for money full of big words.
They will be proud and abusive without any regard for parents.
They will be utterly lacking in gratitude, reverence, and normal human affection.
They will be remorseless, scandal mongas, uncontrolled and violent and haters of all that is good.
They will be treacherous, reckless, and arrogant, loving what gives them pleasure instead of loving god.
They will maintain a facade of religion, but their lives deny the truth keep clear of people like that.
When he finished reading that, he turned to me and he said, you know, that’s really a description of our country today.
He said, is that really the Bible? I said, yes. And that was written more than 2000 years ago.
It’s a prediction of what’s going to happen in the future. He said, it’s happening now.
He said, we see it every day, and all the papers that I have to and the papers I have to read in the books I’m writing.
He said, I’m going to take this.
I may use this whole thing in the next book that I put out.
And then Jesus said there’ll be worldwide evangelism, Matthew 2414, and this gospel of the kingdom shall be proclaimed in all the world for witness to all nations, then shall the end come.
Now the whole world at this moment can hear about Christ by radio, television, the printed page.
There’s nowhere that you can go that someone couldn’t tune in.
Do you know how any television sets they have in China in color.
Over 400,000,000 in China. Who’d have thought that?
And the television that they have in the Soviet Union has different lines to it more along the European line and much clearer than we have in the United States.
And in China, it was our privilege to go to the universities to several universities and proclaimed the gospel and answered questions.
Who would have ever thought that? I was talking to a Chinese man here last night, a leader.
And he said, you know, that’s the first time we think in history that a clergyman has gone to see the prime minister of China.
On the second after he was inaugurated, the new premier, Mister Lee Phung, invited us to come.
And we went our entire party, and we spent 50 minutes with him.
And the Chinese press reported it in some detail, and they reported what was said by me and what was said by him because we were the only 2 that did the talking.
Jesus does not say when these things will take place, but the next word that I have is It says that we’re to watch and we’re to look.
When it begins to come to pass, we’re to look up. There should be hope, not fear.
The world that’s outside of Christ may fear at the possibility of nihilation But you and I as believers, we look forward with great hope to the coming kingdom of god because Christ is going to come back He may come tonight in your sleep.
When a person dies, That’s the end of the world for them.
People ask me when is the end of the world going to come?
When you die, that the end of the world for you.
But the end of the age that we now live in with all of its sinfulness and all that’s going to be wiped away, and the kingdom of god is going to come.
Thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth.
Jesus prayed, I believe that prayer is going to be answered in some future day.
But for you, it’s an immediate decision. It’s immediate thing. How do you stand before god?
Jesus doesn’t say when these things reach their worst point, nor does he say when these things have reached completion lookup, he says when these things begin to come to pass, in my judgment, many of them have begun to come to pass.
And we could look up and put your eyes on Christ, not on the newspapers, not on the television screens for your hope.
Your hope is in Christ.
He’s the one that has made the promise, that his kingdom is going to ultimately prevail.
He’s going to come back.
And in 1st thessalonians, possible Paul said in the 5th chapter, and when men shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction comes.
Several times, the expression is used concerning his coming.
A thief in the night a number of places in the new testament.
He will come when you least expect him as a thief in the night, and it may be a death.
And that may be a as a thief in the night.
And Jesus is in heaven now where he’s preparing a place for us, the scripture says.
And Paul said, behold, I show you a mystery.
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye.
Christ coming in a moment in the twinkling of an eye. Do you know how fast that is?
It’s not like a clap of thunder that takes a long time.
General electric reported that an eye blink takes 1100ths of a second.
That’s how quick and is going to come like a flash of lightning.
And for you that know him, it’s something to anticipate many of us are so taken up with this world and the pleasures and the sensuality of this world and the money that we make and the lifestyle that we live, that we don’t wanna leave this earth.
We hold on as long as we can.
But for all of you, the world and the lust thereof is going to pass away, but he that does the will of god shall abide forever.
I would rather know Jesus Christ as my lord and savior and live in the poorest country in the world where you had nothing than to be a millionaire in America and not have Christ.
Christ gives hope and peace in the midst of all the troubles and all the culties that the world has today.
But Jesus said, then shall 2 be in the field.
The one shall be taken in the other Watch therefore for you. No. Not what hour your lord hath come.
Therefore, be ye also ready for in such an hour as you think not the son of man coming.
Are you ready? He said, be ready.
How do get ready, be sure that you have repended of your sins.
Repentance means to change your way of living, means to change your mind. It means that change takes place.
You’re going in this direction in your life. You turn and go another direction.
You can’t do it yourself because god has to help you in the repenting.
And then you must, by faith, receive him into your heart.
You come to the cry where he died for you.
He took all of your sins, and he took your judgment.
Because the scripture says, when you die, you’re going to go to judge there’s going to be a day of judgment in which all of us will give an account of what we’ve done here and the things we’ve thought and our thoughts and intents will be judged judged.
And then the 3rd v, the vision of hope, where to look up, the scripture says where there is no vision the people perish.
Peter Jenkins, writing in the Guardian and Great Britain said some time ago, We’ve all moved into unknown territory, and there’s no clear vision of what the future will resemble.
Jesus gives us a clear picture of the future.
Paul said, if in this life only, we have hope in Christ, we have all men most miserable.
If this is all there is, this life, we’re of all men most miserable.
But there’s a future life. There’s something to look forward to.
Something to be happy about. Something to be expected.
Many times, my wife and I go to bed and we talk about it.
And we say, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Christ would come tonight?
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if while we’re sleeping? We would just slip into his presence.
I’m looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to his coming if he comes in my lifetime.
I’m looking forward to death, because you see the sting of death has been removed by his resurrection.
He’s alive. And because he lives, we’re going to live too, What a hope we have.
I remember many years ago, I was preaching in Germany, and I was invited to visit, uh, Conrad Adna.
I had never met him.
I didn’t know he knew I existed, but we were preaching in various parts of Germany, and there was a lot in the press about it.
So he invited me to come and see him at 11 o’clock in the morning, and I went.
And when I walked in, he offered me a cup of coffee.
He was in his last year as chancellor of Germany. And he started right in.
He said, young man, do you believe in the resurrection of Jesus Christ? Well, I was surprised.
I said, yes, sir. I do. He said, so do I.
He said, if Jesus Christ did not rise from the dead, I see no hope for the human race.
He said there’s not one glimmer of hope as I sit here in my office, unless that hope lies in the resurrection Christ.
And he said, when I leave office, I’m going to spend my time writing about this hope.
And we talked for about 40 minutes about the hope of the resurrection.
Many people are thinking about that today.
People in high places and low places, people at universities, I go to universities today, whether it’s in the Soviet Union or China or Europe or in Britain, where it’s been my privilege a number of times to Oxford in Cambridge and take the questions from faculty and from staff and from students.
And they all ask the same questions, almost all over the What’s the purpose of my life?
Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? What is the hope of our world?
What a mess the world’s in? What do you what do you what’s the cause of it?
And I try to answer them from the scriptures.
And it’s interesting how deep their questions are, how profound their questions are, how thoughtful their questions, and all those universities Do you know Christ?
Does he dominate your life? Dante once wrote about a man entering And he said, all hope abandoned, ye who enter here.
There’s no hope for those that are outside of Christ.
But there’s hope which is laid up for you in heaven. Hope for handicapped people.
Hope that you’re going to have a new body. Hope for the poor people.
That someday you’ll have more than you can ever possibly dream.
Hope for the people that have been discriminated again.
Because you’re going to go to a place where there is absolute toll total social justice.
There’s hope even for rich people that god will forgive us for having so much in a world that has so little because all of us are rich.
I’m rich compared to the world’s standards. Paul wrote to Titus.
Looking for that blessed hope and the glorious appearing of the great god and savior Jesus Christ.
He wrote in hope of eternal life, which god that cannot lie promised before the world began.
And, Peter said, the apostle are looking for and hasting under the coming of the day of god.
We’re looking for new heavens and a new earth Quarend, Duvelet’s righteousness said, Peter.
The apostle John wrote, beloved now, we, the sons of god, and it does not yet appear what we shall be, we know that when he shall appear, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.
And every man that hath this hope in him purifies him self, even as he is pure.
Do you have that hope in your heart? We’re to thrive on hope.
The Bible says in Romans 15. In Romans 12, it says we’re to rejoice in hope.
Romans 5 says we’re to witness in hope, knowing that experience work of hope, do you have this hope in your heart that there’s a great out there for all of those who let Christ dominate their lives.
Happy as he whose hope is in the law.
Isaac Watts sent set millions of people singing, oh, god, our help in ages past, our hope for years to come.
She spear wrote in the merchant of Venice through the medicine of hope.
I have the hope to live and am prepared to die. Do you have hope.
Then the last be, the victory assured.
The scripture says in Psalm 20 47, lift up your heads.
And today, I can recall so many of those great Psalms. Set to music.
I will lift up mine eyes under the hills from whence cometh my help, my help, cometh from the lord, which made heaven and earth.
I lift up mine eyes, and I looked to Christ, and my help comes from him.
He enters in to us, and he will give you the lift to the kingdom of god at no cost to you because he paid the price.
The only cost to you is that you submit surrender, believe, repent, of him, that you never dreamed that you’d have because it’s not easy to follow Christ in our present generation.
But when you surrender to him, the Holy Spirit comes to live within you, He gives you a power that you don’t now have to produce the fruit of the spirit, love, and joy, and peace, and long suffering, and gentleness.
All these fruit is yours because the Holy Spirit will produce it in you and through you and give you a love that you never knew before.
It’ll be a supernatural that he’ll give you with your wife or your husband or your neighbors or your friends or the people that you’re at school It’s all yours in Christ.
Yes. There’s hope. Hope for the future.
It’s ended in the person of Christ who died for our sins and rose from the grave and is alive now.
Everything I have, whoever hoped to be on him. And so must you.
If you were to know him, and if you were to be a member of the kingdom of god.
I’m going to ask you today to do something that we’ve seen several thousand people do this past week.
I’m going to ask you to get up out of your seat right now and come and stand in front of the form and say by coming, I want to rededicate my life to Christ.
You might have been baptized.
You might have been confirmed, but you’d like to Think what you promised at confirmation.
You’d like to rededicate yourself to that, or you may have never received Christ before, you might have thought that you received him, but you did really not sure.
And you want to make certain.
You come, we’re going to wait hundreds of you that god is speaking to.
You may be in the choir all these weeks.
Don’t let this day finish without you making your commitment and view over there.
And I’m going to ask that people not leave the stadium and block the aisles because this is a marvelous moment.
You can make that decision to follow Jesus Christ just as these many hundreds are doing here in Rochester, New York.
The number on your screen is a number that you can call for spiritual help and for counseling.
Call that number right It could well be the most important call you’ve ever made.
There are many of you that have been watching by television, and you can see that here in Rochester, New York, many hundreds of people have come today to make their commitment to Christ.
You need to make your commitment to Christ. And you can do that right now.
I’m going to ask you to do it wherever you are. Say yes to Christ.
And if you will, pick up the telephone and call that number that you see on screen.
There’s somebody there that will have a prayer with you and say a word to you.
God bless you and help you to make that commitment.
Have you just prayed that prayer with my father or if you have any questions about a relationship with Jesus Christ, I would just call that number that is on the screen.
There’ll be someone there to talk with you, pray with you, and answer those questions.
And remember, god loves you.
If you would like to commit your life to Jesus Christ, please call us right now toll free 772-4559.
That’s 1877-772-4559. Or you can write us at Billy Graham, 1 Billy Graham Parkway, Apartment C, Charlotte, North Carolina 28201.
You can contact us on the web 247@peacewithgod. Tv.
We’ll get the same helps to you that we give to everyone who responds at the invitation.
On behalf of Franklin Graham and the Billy Graham evangelistic Association, thank you for watching and thank you for
It’s Anne.
She’s in trouble. If you don’t take it to the edge every chance you get, it’s already, baby.
I was in trouble, and I didn’t know what to do.
Help. Where are the Jews? I knew that I could take on the role.
It’s like you’re in a dream, but not really a dream is a reality.
I don’t really believe in all this, but I know something crazy is happening right now.