America’s DIFFICULT Future & Franklin Graham’s Prayer For His Grandchildren

Franklin Graham joins Kirk Cameron to discuss America’s weakened church, having fallen away from the authority of Scripture and biblical preaching. Learn about the importance of voting Christian leaders into office, and what Graham personally prays for his grandchildren in America’s difficult future. Don’t miss this conversation from Takeaways with Kirk Cameron on TBN!

God isn’t a god that has culture changes, that god changes with the culture, uh, to meet culture. No.
And and that’s what’s happening. And so many churches have have gotten into and fallen away from, the, the authority of the scripture.
We have to remember the word of god is true.
And it the and the Bible is true cover to cover.
You just don’t pick out portions of the scripture, uh, and believe that, and then discard the others that you disagree with.
You have to accept it all and live it.
What is giving you hope as you travel and and meeting needs around the world?
What what gives you hope for Christianity?
Well, uh, Kirk, as as far as, uh, hope is Jesus Christ, that’s the only hope that we have.
Uh, your politicians are not going to save this world.
Um, uh, there’s not a government out there that’s gonna save this world. It’s only Jesus Christ.
And so, Kirk, I think the opportunity that, uh, we have to present the gospel, uh, when Jesus took our sins to the cross, The Bible says, and he teaches clear that we’ve all sinned, uh, every one of us is guilty, uh, that Jesus came on a rescue mission, he came to save us from sin.
Uh, and so he died and shed his blood on a cross. He was buried for our sin on Thursday.
God raised his son to life. Uh, this is the only hope for the world is Jesus Christ.
And so when I travel around the world, we always work with churches and work through the churches.
And to see, especially the churches in subparts of the world like Africa are are so strong in their faith, and then you come to, like, Western Europe, and even parts of this country where you see the church so weak in its faith.
It’s encouraging, uh, to see some of these other countries and how strong they are and I always encourage them to send missionaries to America.
Uh, we we need to be, uh, evangelized.
Uh, we’ve been with those with so many of our communities have lost, uh, their faith.
And, uh, so I do have hope, Kirk, but, uh, Mahwag hope is in Jesus.
Franklin, you are an expert at assessing and meeting needs.
And through your disaster relief efforts, you’re meeting physical needs around the world through Samaritan’s purse, Uh, you’re also meeting spiritual needs, uh, through the evangelistic efforts that you, uh, initiate and lead Uh, what do you think are the greatest needs for Christianity right now for the church?
I’ll have to get back to the Bible. And, uh, and to believe the Bible.
Uh, there are a lot of people who will say, oh, yes, we we we we read the Bible but you’ve got to, uh, hear the word of god and keep it.
You’ve got to be able to put it into your heart and live it.
And what we have today is, uh, so many people have compromised Uh, that’s compromised on the word of god.
You see, god’s word doesn’t change. Uh, Kirk, it’s the same yesterday today, uh, tomorrow. Uh, forever.
And and god isn’t a god that has culture changes that god changes with the culture, uh, to meet culture.
No. And and that’s what’s happening.
And so many churches have have gotten into and fallen away from Uh, the the authority of the scripture.
We have to remember the word of god is true.
And it the and the Bible is true cover to cover.
You just don’t pick out portions of the scripture, uh, and believe that, and then discard the others that you disagree with.
You have to accept it all. And live it.
And that’s so important that we live our faith Kirk and that we, uh, lift up Jesus and everything that we do Uh, the problems that we see in this country is because the church has failed.
Uh, it’s failed miserably. We need to be speaking out on moral issues.
We need to be, uh, taking a stand. Uh, for the unborn.
Uh, we need to, uh, and I appreciate the way you’re, uh, taking on, uh, the drag queens and some of these others in the on the public square by going in and reading your book, uh, to counter some of that other stuff we see but we it’s like every demon in hell has been has been, you know, set loose and, uh, we’ve got to stand firm for the word of god.
For for centuries, people have looked to the United States of America as a beacon of light and a beacon of hope, and and and seeing that that that hope is really rooted in a biblical Christianity.
And you’re here telling us that you are seeing the church in America weakening And you’re seeing it strengthened in other places like Africa and in Asia, uh, South America, what are they doing that we are not doing here in America that is making them grow in strength?
Uh, just that they they believe the Bible and they accept the Bible as the word of god and the near word of god.
And so if you take like the Anglican church in Africa, Uh, there’s a real division between the anglican church in in England and the church in Africa.
Of course, the church in Africa is so much larger than the Anglican church in the UK.
And of course, uh, missionaries a 100 years ago, 150 years ago from England, uh, started the churches, and so many of the churches in Africa.
But today, uh, England has fallen away. Uh, there the big debate is, of course, over homosexuality.
And, uh, the church in Africa does not accept that.
And, uh, and so there’s taken a stand, and there are many of them have split with, uh, the church in England.
And if if if if England continues to go the way it’s going, uh, they’ll lose all their churches in Africa.
And I just appreciate that bishops in Africa taking a stand, and they’re not compromising.
And it’s so important that we don’t compromise Uh, you you get a god’s word is the same.
He doesn’t change. And, uh, and that’s and that’s what gives me hope in knowing that I serve a god and worship a god who doesn’t change, and you can count on him tomorrow.
The next day being the same.
And so we’ve just got to follow his word, believe it, live it, and, uh, take a stand for his word.
And if if churches would do that, it’d go back to biblical preaching, they would say their their numbers increase The churches in this country, Kirk, that are full, uh, are churches where the word of god is is taught.
And, uh, people they don’t want to hear Frank on Graham.
Uh, they don’t want to hear some by, uh, you know, uh, Greg Lawrie, a skip, what they want to hear is God’s words.
So when Greg Lawrie opens up the word of god, He’s presenting god’s word and people come.
They wanna hear it. Uh, and it’s so important that we that we preach god’s word.
And if we do, our churches will be full.
And, uh, I so they talk about the churches dying in America and there are many of them are those that have quit preaching the word of god.
They are. They’re suffering. People are walking out. They don’t wanna they don’t wanna hear that mess.
But, uh, if you preach the word of god and you’re doing that faithfully, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, uh, your your church is going to to increase.
Well, that is that is a good word. The word of god is our is our life. It’s our hope.
It’s it’s our future
The most important need right now is spiritual food.
Our church is is starving to death for lack of spiritual food.
And no one feeds the poor better than you do.
Uh, Franklin and Samaritan’s purse and the way that you reach out and meet people’s needs like that every single day around the world as people are leaving churches, is the remedy to focus on evangelism, getting out there maybe outside the church and preaching the god, uh, preaching the word of god on the streets, or is it preaching the word of god to our children in our own home and seeing the kitchen table as the as the field of evangelism or both.
It’s all of it. No question. You you you would we’ve got to preach the word in church.
Um, parents have got to, uh, present the scriptures, uh, to our children.
And yes, we need, uh, we need evangelism.
Uh, we need to be out sharing the word of god with a with a loss.
No question about it, but I just, uh, Kirk Justin, uh, growing up my parents.
Uh, we had, uh, devotions before we went to school.
Now when I say devotions, my mother or father would read a passage of scripture and lead in prayer.
And then we’d go to school.
The next, uh, that evening, uh, we’d have a longer devotions and they’d take a passage of scripture and read it.
And then we as a family, that’s us questions, and we’d answer those questions and talk about it.
And then we’d get on our knees, and then all of us would pray in that circle.
Uh, we we did that, uh, every day, uh, 7 days a week.
And I would encourage parents to pray with your children read the scripture to your children, discuss it with your children, and it doesn’t have to be long.
So in the morning, we’re all, you know, kind of rushed to go out the door to go to school, And so devotions was, you know, 4 or 5 minutes.
In the evening, it was 20 minutes, but my parents never made it long so long that we just got bored It was short enough to where we were excited, and that’s, uh, and I did that with my children growing up, um, Jane and I, we have 4 children, and we’d started off with Bible reading every morning, and then we memorized scripture together.
And, um, there was a a soma came together and put together some verses called the gospel alphabet.
So a verse that would, uh, start with, uh, the letter of alphabet like A, all of Synagogue, shore the glory of god.
B, behold the lamb of god that taketh away the sin of the world. C, come on to me.
All you, that labored and heavy laden. I’ll give you rest.
E, even so it’s not the will of your father. But anyhow, it’s just to give you an example.
Those are you just go through the whole alphabet, but you teach that to your children.
And, uh, and the parents you’ll learn too, and it just meant to teach the word of god.
And, uh, because if you hide god’s word in your heart, Uh, when the when your children and go or for us, when we go through the the storms of life, having that anchor to hang on to, and that’s the word of god.
How do we, as the family of faith, not only regain Christian influence in our culture but actually move to leading and defining our culture by our Christian values.
We’re not gonna change the culture.
I don’t think Kirk uh, but at the same time, we could be an influence in the culture and we could be an influence by by good versus evil.
Stand up for truth. Oh, we’ll be mock, we’ll be laughed at, we’ll be sneered at, but stand up for truth.
It may be willing to stand up for the word of god.
And if we’ll do that, I think god will bless us and god will use us.
Are we is America gonna go back the way it was a 100 years ago? No. It’s not Kirk.
Uh, it’s that’s just not gonna happen. Uh, not in my opinion.
Uh, I, and I think we have lost the the America that that I grew up in that you grew up in.
I think, uh, we’ve lost it, but that doesn’t mean, uh, god’s not working.
Doesn’t mean that god can’t use us.
It doesn’t mean that there’s not a need for the gospel There’s more need today for the gospel than ever.
And, uh, because people, you know, people go into drugs. They go into sex. They go into all these things.
And it’s leaving them empty. And the people try the transgender route that it’s empty.
Uh, they’re looking for satisfaction and they’re not getting it. And they’re looking for answers and they’re not getting it.
All they’re getting fed is lies that people want to know truth, but the people looking the wrong places.
And so for us to be able to stand up and present the truth of the Bible, uh, god’s word to a sick and dying world Uh, there’s a lot of hungry souls out there.
A lot of thirsty souls out there that are waiting to hear the word of god.
They want to hear truth. And so I’d encourage people just to stand for god’s truth and, uh, let him do the rest.
And he can do so much when when when we do just what you said.
And, uh, personally, I’m praying for a 3rd great awakening here in America.
And, with with with good men like you and organizations like BGEA and Samaritan’s purse, uh, you know, I I hope and believe that we can get there.
Apart from all the work that you do around the world, you’re a hero at home as a as a father And as a husband, and in fact, I heard, uh, that when when Sissy joined us, she said that you’re called, uh, you’re lovingly called Grumps, by your grandkids.
Is that true? And and how did that name come around?
Uh, I think my wife picked it out.
Oh, okay.
Oh, yes. No. We’ve we’ve got, uh, 13 grandchildren, Kirk. Uh, great kids.
We love them all, and, um, thank god for them.
What is your personal prayer for your grandkids?
And, um, and and and even their children, uh, with regard to the world that they will be living in.
I pray for my grandchildren is that they’ll grow up to me, men and women, that will serve the lord Jesus Christ and that they’ll make him center of their life.
That’s that’s my my prayer, uh, for my grandchildren.
Uh, because they’re gonna be living in a much different world court than what I was raised in.
And it’s gonna be so much tougher to take that stand for Christ, uh, because people that take that stand for Christ will be hated.
Uh, Jesus warned us it’s coming.
And so my grandchildren, I think they’re gonna be, uh, living in a very difficult world.
And so my prayers, they’ll just be faithful and that they’ll stand up, uh, for Christ to not be afraid.
You know, if we’re paying attention to the news and what’s going on in our children’s schools, uh, we can see that there is quite the competition for who’s gonna get to teach our children It seems to be the increasing theme that the government wants to step between parents and their kids.
And we heard some politicians say things like, you know, it it really takes a village, uh, and that gets, uh, um, you know, they double down and then say, well, you know, we’ve gotta get past this this private idea thing that children belong to their parents and recognize that children belong to all of us in the community.
Uh, we even have the president beginning to talk about this, and this is a a very ominous sounding rhetoric.
Because this is, uh, ultimately what happens when you see authoritarian, uh, folks begin to take over uh, by co app co opting the children.
Uh, how has this happened on our watch?
Well, 1st of all, it’s a this has nothing new.
This is what the communist did, uh, in Russia and Eastern Europe.
Uh, so the communist trained the children, took the children. And here’s the way we changed this, Kirk.
It’s who you vote for. And I think we just have to recognize our votes are important, and I encourage people to vote, uh, at, uh, school boards.
We need churches need to have Christian men and women running for school boards, and we need the majority of the school boards to be Christians.
And, uh, so that when an atheist or communist is on the school board, they want to have a pornographic book or if they want to have a, uh, promote sex change for young people, uh, to have the school board say, no.
We’re not gonna we’re not gonna go along with that. And, uh, we’re not gonna support that.
And, uh, so let’s have a vote.
Well, there’s more of us now than there’s a view so the Christians win.
You’ve got to have the votes, Kirk. You gotta have we gotta stack it.
And so I would encourage Christians to run for school boards.
I would run, uh, encourage Christians to run uh, for city council, uh, for county commissioners, and you’ve got to have a thick skin because you’re gonna be attacked.
If you stand up for Christ and you’re on a public square, they’re gonna attack you.
So you just gotta have a thick skin and you just gotta smile and and and let them say those mean nasty things and call you names and, uh, but you gotta be firm and you gotta hang on to to the word of god and trust him.
And realize that they hate they actually hate Jesus Christ, and that’s why they hate us because we represent him, but we need Christians at every level of government Yes, we need them in Washington, but doesn’t mean everyone is going to be a Christian that we vote for.
Uh, we just need to vote for one that will stand for moral authority.
And, uh, so you sometimes you may have to choose between this one or that one, but choose the 1 and vote for the 1.
Get fine to support the one who believed in what we we stood for.
What I hear you calling for is cultural engagement of the family of faith Uh, what would you say to those who say, you know, uh, when a storm is coming, I duck out into my tornado shelter.
And we see such a big storm coming. I just wanna keep me and my family safe.
How do we keep our families strong in faith and in practice and and and keep from sliding into cultural disengagement.
Uh, it’s a teacher, children at home, the word of god. Stand up.
Uh, for the the word of god. Take your children to church. Don’t send them to church.
Take them to church. There’s a big difference, Kirk.
There’s a lot of families that will parents will go to church and they’ll drop the kids off and then they go do something else for an hour or 2.
Uh, you’ve got to take your children to church. And that and do that.
But at the same time, get involved politically. I’m talking up. I’m talking about we need a revolution.
Uh, we we need a revolution of Christian men and women who will take that stand, who will take our our courts back, who’ll take our our city square back who’ll take Washington back, but it’s gotta be done by Christians running for office and getting out there and voting.
And, uh, let’s get the right men and women in and then hold them accountable.
And so if we vote for someone and they don’t do what they say they’re gonna do is we need to hold them accountable.
And, uh, run them out of office if they don’t, uh, do what they say they’re gonna do.
But that’s the only hope if if if we do that, maybe god will give us, uh, a few more years
We look at the news. We we look around.
We see we see our culture, and we recognize that Christianity, which has always been the tap root that has supplied the nourishment to the tree of liberty here in America is being replaced by secular humanism and other ungodly ideas, and some of their arguments have been effective to, um, dismantle Christians in the public square.
For example, uh, some from other ideologies, uh, the LGBTQ movement, uh, drag queens, uh, for instance, will say that Christian ideas about the lgbtq community, uh, are just unlive unloving they’re they’re intolerant.
They’re not inclusive. They’re unacceptable. Is that an accurate statement, or is there a flaw in in in that accusation?
No. I don’t think there’s a flaw in it, uh, because, uh, lgbtq, this is SIM. Okay? Uh, transgender.
So that this is sin. And, uh, it’s it’s a sin against god.
And so it’s not that, uh, that I hate the lgbtq people. No.
Not, but I’m gonna love them enough, Kirk, to warn them.
But we just we we can’t, uh, you know, try to love them in a sense. So, okay.
Well, yeah, we see your point. That’s kind of, yeah, you got a good idea and try to appease them.
We just have to love them enough to be frank blunt uh, is his sin.
Call it what god calls. That’s what god calls. He calls it sin.
And, uh, god is gonna judge all sin one day. All sin.
And so it this is this is serious business.
And so we need to be honest enough with the lgbtq community to love them enough to warn them.
And to speak the truth in love.
And and we we know it’s it’s going to come at a cost culturally with relationships and family and friends and work, but, uh, I’m so glad someone spoke the truth in love to me, or I wouldn’t be a Christian today.
I’d still be stuck in my sin I headed down that path of of death and destruction.
Franklin, I I read a book when I was in high school called animal farm.
And in in that book, animal farm, you you’ve you’ve You’ve got this situation where the 7 commandments for all of the animals were written on the side of the barn by the pigs But slowly, the pigs who were in leadership began to change, uh, ever so slightly, the rules for the rest of the animals.
For example, one of them was, uh, no animal shall sleep in a bed. But eventually, they changed it.
No animal shall sleep in the bed with sheets. And many of the animals had forgotten the original rules.
Uh, I find that happening in our day today where we have those who are changing, uh, not just the 10 commandments, but the constitution and and where we know that a rule is we’re not gonna discriminate against race, religion, uh, or sex, That’s now been changed to race, religion, and sexual orientation.
How do we preserve those biblical commandments and truths, uh, not only in the Bible, but in our Constitution here in our culture and not let them be watered down, uh, by those who try to destroy us.
Vote and, uh, vote for Christian men and women and encourage Christian men and women to run for office, Kirk.
That’s the only way you could do it.
During the pandemic, many people got comfortable not going to church. They were able to watch a streamed service.
And while that’s convenient, uh, that that’s had some real effects on not only the church and people’s personal relationships with god and those in the church, but the entire culture here in America.
Uh, what’s your assessment? Is is is it okay for us to continue that way, or do we need need to get back into meeting in person?
Yeah.
I think we need to be back in the pews, uh, Kirk.
Now I I understand that people that work there are people that travel that they may not be able to have a a church, uh, as they used to have church.
Uh, I understand that. And there’s some great services on on television online.
And but I would encourage people when you can go to church and absolutely take your children to church.
And if you’re a young family, a young mother or father, you take your children to church.
Parents can get back to discipling and evangelizing their own children.
And maybe we can we can get our schools and our churches back to the word of god.
And our government leaders, men and women of fearless faith and moral integrity, and we can see a time of refreshing in our country and we can be at shining city on a hill once again for the rest of the world.