Truth and Freedom

In a world that seems fake, what is truth? Billy Graham points to the ultimate source of truth in this 1969 message from New York City. Watch more #MondayNightClassics every Monday at 8 p.m. Eastern.

“God never takes away something from your life without replacing it with something better.”
― Billy Graham

From our archives, the Billy Graham Classics.
Tonight, I want to turn to John’s Gospel, the eighth chapter, the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel.
And this passage of Scripture, the 32nd verse, the 32nd verse of the eighth chapter of John’s Gospel.
And ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
These are the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.
He, he’s having a debate with some of the religious leaders of his day and he said, ye shall know the truth.
Now, that word shall, could be translated must, you must know the truth if you are to be free tonight, I want to talk about truth and freedom.
We hear a great deal about both today.
You know, there’s an old Scottish oath upon which our American oath is based and it reads this way, I pledge before Almighty God before whom I will give an answer on the day of judgment to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Jesus said, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
Now, in this passage of scripture, Jesus discussed two personalities.
He discussed God on the one hand who is truth and Satan on the other, who is the, who is a liar and the author of lies.
Now, here’s what Jesus said. He was pretty rough in some of the things he said.
He turned to these religious leaders and he said, you are of your father, the devil and the last of your father, you will do.
He was a murderer from the beginning and abode not in truth because there was no truth in Him.
When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own for he’s a liar.
And the father of lies, Jesus said that there is the lie and the truth.
And in second Thessalonians, the second chapter, we are told that in the latter days of this age, there will be a system called the lie and a great delusion will sweep over the people of that generation.
They will believe a lie and they will reject the truth. Many people think we’re living in that generation.
And the Apostle Paul said in the first chapter of Romans that the people of that day had changed the truth of God into a lie.
And then secondly, not only do we exchange the truth of God for a lie, but Paul said in Romans, the first chapter in the 18th verse, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.
In other words, you can know the truth and not live it.
This is holding the truth of God in unrighteousness.
The Bible says, the wrath of God is against such people.
And that’s why Christ was so bitter in his denunciation of the hypocrites.
You hold the truth intellectually, but you don’t live it.
Jesus said, you serve me with your lips, but your heart is far from me.
You can hold the truth in unrighteousness. And that brings about the wrath of God.
And then thirdly, Paul said judgment according to truth, Romans 22.
But we are sure that the judgment of God is according to truth.
In other words, someday God is going to judge the world.
Yes, there’s a day of judgment coming just as certain as I’m standing here, a day of judgment is coming and God is going to judge us according to the truth.
Did we live by the truth? Did we believe the truth? Did we accept the truth?
What was our attitude toward the truth or did we exchange the truth for a lie or did we hold the truth in unrighteousness?
God will hold us accountable? That scripture says Jesus said, you must know the truth.
I am the truth will make you free now, you know, that’s what philosophy has been doing and that’s what science does.
And that’s what we do in psychology, in every field of study, in every discipline. We’re searching for truth.
We are trying to find what the laws are. We are trying to find what the truth is.
Now early in childhood, we soon learned the truth that fire is hot. We learned that ice is cold.
We learned that doing wrong makes us feel guilty and doing good, makes us feel good. We learned that early.
You see, all of us really are on a quest for truth.
What is the truth about myself? Where did I come from?
Why in the world did God ever put us on this planet?
If there’s a God and where are we going? Is there? Life after death, I’m searching for answers.
All of us are consciously or unconsciously. We ask ourselves these questions. What is truth?
The same question, Pilate asked 2000 years ago and that’s why a lot of these kids are taking LSD and mind expansion, psychedelic drugs.
They’re trying to find some experiences that will lead them into some sort of a spiritual truth.
Now, truth is important in mathematics. It’s important in chemistry.
It’s important in science and it’s important in the spiritual life. It’s important in morality.
It’s important to find the truth. Jesus said, you shall know the truth.
No guesswork, no speculation is allowed in aviation.
You can make one mistake nowadays and make crash into another plane. You must know the truth.
Now, job said, I know my redeemer lives.
The Apostle Paul said, I know in whom I have believed.
The Apostle John said, you can know that you’re saved.
The Bible teaches that you can know the truth. You can find the truth.
You can believe the truth. But what is the truth?
Every religion and every philosophy may have some of the truth, but there is one place you can find all the truth.
Where is it? Jesus said, every, everyone that is of the truth.
Hearth my voice, Buddha said, I’m still searching for truth at the end of his life.
But Jesus made this astounding claim. Jesus said I am the truth.
Jesus said I am the truth. I am the embodiment of all truth.
And if you’re going to get to heaven, you’ve got to believe that and you’ve got to take it by faith.
Well, you say anybody that would come along and say, I’m the embodiment of all truth.
He must be mentally deranged. He’s an egomaniac. Yes, you can, you can make that.
You can make a case for that. Or maybe Jesus just told a lie.
He knew it wasn’t true and he just lied. Yes, that’s one of the options.
But suppose he is the truth.
Suppose he is the embodiment of all truth and you reject it and exchanged the truth for a lie, then you have made a fatal error for eternity.
Now, I personally believe that Jesus is the truth.
I believe that he is the embodiment of all truth. I have accepted that by faith.
And when I took that step and took that stand, it changed my life and it’s very simple and he made it so simple that you can know the truth that a blind man, a deaf man, a black man, a yellow man, a red man can come and know the truth.
The educated man to know the truth, the uneducated, to know the truth.
I know people that don’t have any education at all and they know this truth and it gives them a satisfaction and a joy.
And I know professors at the great universities and I know some of the great scientists, they have come and accepted this as the truth and bowed in humility before the Christ back of science.
And it’s changed their lives, truth, but profound as truth in simplicity so that anybody can come and anybody can believe even Children once said, we search the world for truth.
We call the good and the pure and the beautiful from grave and stone and written scroll from all the plowed fields of the soul and weary seekers of the best.
We come back laden from the quest to find that all the stage is set in the book our mothers read.
It’s here, Jesus Christ, the story of Christ. He is the truth.
And Jesus said this in that same chapter in the 24th verse.
He said, if you believe, not listen to this, if you believe not that I am, he, you will die in your sins.
If you believe not that I am the embodiment of all truth, you’re going to die in your sins, you must come and believe and accept and commit.
Yes, Christ claimed to be ultimate truth.
And Jesus told the truth, he told the truth about sin.
Where does the lust and the greed and the pride and the hate and the jealousy and the fighting come from?
Why does, why do people hate each other? Why do they fight and kill?
And every generation has a war. We’ve had 55 wars since world war two.
Why, why all of this throughout history? The Bible tells us man has a disease of the heart called sin.
For, from within, out of the heart of men.
Perceive evil thoughts and adulteries and fornication and murders and thefts and covetousness and wickedness and deceit and blasphemy and pride.
All of these things come from within and defile a man.
We’re suffering from only one disease in the world. Our problem is not a race problem really.
Our problem is not a poverty problem. Our problem is not a war problem.
Our problem is a heart problem. We need to get the heart changed, the heart trans full.
That’s why Jesus said you must be born again.
You must have a new nature, a new heart that will be dominated by love.
Ah, but we go out and say we ought to love each other and we, and we soon find that we don’t have the capacity to love each other.
Where are we going to get it? We get it from Jesus.
You see the spirit of God comes into our heart.
The moment we receive Christ, and he begins to produce in your heart, love and joy and peace and patience and temperance.
All of these fruits of the Spirit are produced supernaturally by the Holy Spirit.
When you receive Christ, he told the truth about what is wrong with the world.
And then he told the truth about our social responsibility, our responsibility to our fellow man.
In the 25th chapter Matthew, beginning at verse 35 you’ll find it.
People were hungry, they were sick, they were tired, they were cold and they were visited in prison and they were visited and they were helped.
And at the judgment, Jesus commended them. They said, but lord, we didn’t know that we visited you.
We didn’t know that we fed you. We didn’t know that we did that for you.
Jesus said, if you did it under the least of these, you’ve done it unto me and every time that you give of your time and your energy and your money to help those in need, you’re helping Jesus, you’re giving to him.
And then he told the truth about judgment.
He warned us to flee the wrath of God.
Every idle word that men shall speak, they will give an account in the day of judgment.
He said, there is a judgment coming. He told the truth about repentance.
He said, except you repent, you shall perish.
You say but how do I repent you say? Oh God, I’ve sinned.
I’m willing to change my way of living. I’m willing to live in a new dimension of life.
I’m willing to follow you and serve you no matter what the cost that’s repentance.
And Jesus said, if you don’t repent, you’re going to perish. He told the truth about that.
He told the truth about conversion. He said, except ye be converted and become his little Children.
You cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven, be converted. We’re frightened of that word in religion.
We use it in everything else but not in religion.
Young people want an experience, they want something that means something.
They have their happenings and they want to do their thing and they want to take their drug, they want their kicks.
And in the church we’ve stifled out any kind of religious experience.
Jesus said you need to be converted. I can remember the day I was converted.
I had an experience with God.
It wasn’t an emotional experience with me. Some people, it is nothing wrong with emotion.
We’ve got certainly emotional intellectualism today on campus.
I see these intellects on campus on television and boy, they’re shouting it up pretty loud for their cause and what they believe.
Now we allow emotion for everything except Christ.
If anybody sheds a tear on religion, they say too much emotion.
And that’s one of the devil’s lies and the devil’s tricks so that we’ve lost all feeling in our faith and all joy in our faith and all the excitement and the thrill that these early Christians had.
Jesus said, you need to be converted.
Now, the word conversion simply means to change, turn around, you’re going in one direction on the broad road that leads to destruction, turn around and go in the right direction, go the narrow road that leads to eternal life.
That’s what it means. Conversion to change, to turn around. Has that happened to you?
Have you changed your way of living? Have you had an experience with Christ? Do you know him personally?
Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free.
Now, I know that there are many people that think they’re free already and they don’t know Christ.
They think they know how to live.
The Bible says there is a way, there is a way outside of Christ that seems right in demand.
It seems the right thing. But the end is death and judgment.
I have a little boy and when he was much smaller, three years of age, we were loaned a boat down in Florida and uh we were going down the river.
My friend Lee Fisher was back there trying to get the fishing gear ready.
And I was running the boat and my little boy and Ned said, daddy, I wanna run this boat.
And I said, no, I don’t think you know how to run it Oh, yes, I know exactly how to do it.
He said, and he pushed my hands out of the way.
So I let him have the wheels and he was heading right toward the rocks.
You see, we all say, Lord, we know how to run our lives. Don’t you interfere?
We’re, we’re gonna be all right. We can handle it. Nothing we can’t handle.
But Jesus warns us that you’re heading for the rocks.
You’re in trouble, emptiness, neurosis complexes of various thoughts set in and ultimately, the judgment repent, be converted while you can.
Now is the accepted time. Today is the day of salvation. Now, what does the truth do?
It sets you free? Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free from what first it sets you free?
Christ set you free from the penalty of sin. Yes, there’s a penalty to sin. Now, we’re all sinners.
Every one of us is a sinner and we’re all under the penalty of sin, which is death.
The wages of sin is death. The Bible says now death carries with it.
The idea of separation from God in this life and in the life to come, the rich young ruler came to Jesus and he said, what must I do to inherit eternal life?
He wanted life here and he wanted life to come because he felt the deadness of his spirit and the deadness of his soul.
But he wasn’t willing to pay the price. There’s a price.
If you come to Christ, the rich young ruler tried to bargain with Jesus.
He wanted Jesus to lower the flag.
He wanted Jesus to change the rules for him so he could get into the kingdom.
But Jesus will never lower the flag. He’ll never compromise. He’ll never change the rules.
You’ve got to come to Christ just like people did 2000 years ago.
If you’re ever to get to heaven, we live in sophisticated America.
We thought we had all the answers and look at us sending a man to the moon with one hand and building gigantic bombs and rockets with the other to blow the world to pieces.
Campuses torn apart society being ripped apart.
Now we don’t have all the answers because you see, we rejected the truth.
We rejected Christ, receive Christ in your life.
Let him come and put the pieces back together in your life, forgive your sin and give you purpose and meaning to your life and take the penalty of sin away.
There is therefore now no judgment to them that are in Christ. He removes the penalty.
Secondly, he set you, he can set you free from the power of sin.
He said, whoever committed sin is the servant of sin in this chapter.
But when you receive Christ, this power of sin to dominate your life is broken.
Sin shall no longer dominate in your life. Said Paul to the Romans sin.
Shall no longer have Dominion over you.
You can reckon yourself to be dead, to sin so that sin may be in your life.
You may commit a sin, but it doesn’t dominate you. You don’t make sin a practice in your life.
You have power of sin, the spirit of God living in you through a new nature that God gives you.
And then thirdly, he sets us free ultimately from the very presence of sin.
You read the revelation, the 21st chapter and the 22nd chapter.
And you will see the most glorious description of heaven and the future world.
And then it says this, it says on the outside of this new world, this utopia that is called heaven that God is building.
Now for those that trust him for without other sorcerers, the hormones, the murderers, the idolaters and whosoever love and maketh a lie.
All liars, all people that live a lie will be on the outside.
He said, excluded and banished from the presence of God. Jesus said, I am the truth.
Ye shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free.
There was an ad in the New York Times today, a whole page that said, come to life.
Great big bucks car. Let us come to life. I’m asking you tonight to come to life.
Come to the truth, to the source of life, to Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
Someday we’ll be removed from the very presence of sin and the devil and all eyes, we shall overcome someday till then.
We can have God’s life right here on this earth. We can have a little bit of heaven.
We can be set free from the bondage of sin and slavery and the devil right now, Christ can set you free.
I’m asking you tonight by faith to receive him, to receive the truth. Notice.
I said by faith, you cannot come with your mind alone because your mind was affected by sin.
You have to come like a little child, except you become his Children and be converted.
Said Jesus, you have to come like a little child by simple childlike faith and receiving.
And if you will, he comes into your heart gives you a new nature and you can go out and live a new life.
Now. It’s hard and it’s tough and it’s rough to follow Christ.
I don’t want you to come under any false illusion.
But when you make that commitment, you don’t go back into the world and back to your house and back to your neighborhood to live the Christian life alone.
He goes with you. I’m going to ask you to come tonight and receive him openly and publicly.
Every person that he called in the New Testament. He called publicly. There was a reason for it.
He said, if you’re not willing to acknowledge me before men, I’ll not acknowledge you before my father, which is in heaven come publicly.
I’m going to ask you from all over the stadium to get up out of your seat.
Hundreds of you and come and stand in front of this platform quietly and reverently and say tonight, I want to receive Christ, I want the truth.
I want the truth to dominate my life.
But you get up and come right now from all over men, women, young people.
God has spoken to you tonight. You need Christ. You come.
We’re going to wait as hundreds are responding to Mister Graham’s invitation to make a public commitment to Jesus Christ.
You can make that same commitment, right?
Where you are just pick up the phone and call the number you see on your screen, special friends are waiting to talk with you and pray with you about this most important decision.
I do not know whether you can see this great scene here at the garden in New York or not.
But hundreds of people are coming from all over this great amphitheater to receive Christ as the way and the truth and the life in their hearts.
You can make that same commitment right now in your home where you are watching by television.
God help you to make that commitment tonight.
If 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 at 18777724559. That’s 1877772 45 59.
Or you can write to us at Billy Graham one, Billy Graham Parkway Department C Charlotte, North Carolina 28201.
Or you can contact us on the web 24 7 at peace with God dot 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 your prayers.
Jesus Christ died for the world, whatever country, whatever the color of your skin, whatever language you speak.
Jesus Christ died for your sins.
It’s Jesus.