Will the World Survive?

There’s a lot of evil in the world today—but that’s not how it will be forever. “Like you trade in an old car and get a new car, God is going to trade in this present system of evil … trade it in for a new age, and that new age will be the Kingdom of God. And that new age is going to prevail,” Billy Graham explains in this 1985 message from Anaheim, California.
“I don’t want to see religious bigotry in any form. It would disturb me if there was a wedding between the religious fundamentalists and the political right. The hard right has no interest in religion except to manipulate it.”
― Billy Graham

From our archives, the Billy Graham classics.
Now I want you to turn with me to the 24th chapter of Matthew, the 24th chapter of Matthew, beginning at verse 36 the 24th chapter of Matthew beginning at verse 36.
But of that day and hour noeth no man.
No, not the angels of heaven but my father only but as the days of nor are so shall also the coming of the son of men be for as the days that were before the flood, they were eating and drinking and marrying and giving and marriage until the day that Noah entered into the art and knew not until the flood came and took them all away.
So shall also the coming of the son of man be.
Now the question that I want to ask tonight is this and I want to answer it from the Bible.
Is the world coming to an end? Is the world going to come to an end?
There are some people that feel that some of you young people that are here tonight will see that moment.
We may see it in our own lifetime, half of all Americans surveyed just two months ago, believed that a nuclear war will happen in their lifetime.
A month ago, just after the hijacking of that 8 47 flight, a conference of world experts was assembled in Washington to discuss the terrible and real threat of nuclear terrorism.
A terrorist organization getting a hold of nuclear bombs and starting a chain reaction that could destroy much of the world.
Could it happen? Dr.
Carl Sagan on network television, his current consensus of opinion of nuclear physicists, he says that it would take only 100 of the existing bombs to plunge the northern hemisphere into the nuclear winter.
Having burned up a third of the human race and leaving the earth covered with a blanket of darkness.
One of Hollywood’s biggest hits this summer has been Clint Eastwood’s the Pale Rider which has as its subtitle, a quotation taken right out of the revelation of Jesus Christ and hell followed with him.
A German scientist said the other day, it’s now possible to depopulate the earth.
Historians like William vote, say the day of judgment is at hand and then comes something startling to me shocking.
There is a strange silence from the church about what the Bible teaches.
We have church leaders like myself that are calling for the reduction and the destruction of all weapons of mass destruction.
I am not a pacifist, I am not for unilateral disarmament, but I do believe that we can reach accommodation to destroy all weapons of mass destruction if our hearts were right.
But that’s where Jesus said, you must be born again.
Our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked who can know them said Jeremiah.
But you know, the Bible does not teach that the world is going to come to an end.
The Bible teaches that there will be an end to an age, the age of the Holy Spirit, the age that we’re now in and that a new age is going to be ushered in.
In other words, like you trade in an old car and get a new car.
God is going to trade in this present system of evil that we call cosmos.
Our world system trade it in for a new age and that new age will be the kingdom of God and that new age is going to prevail.
Now let’s turn to the Bible in the New Testament, the new birth is mentioned nine times, repentance is mentioned 70 times baptism, 20 times.
Someone has said I have not counted them and I don’t know whether this is exaggerated or not.
But somebody has said that the second coming of Jesus Christ is mentioned over 380 times.
Certainly it’s mentioned many times. Christ said is the days of no war.
So shall also the coming of the son of man be now the story of Noah has become popular again, in fiction and in cartoons as a matter of fact in the Los Angeles Times TV, log this past week and the program advertising it talked about Noah’s animals.
Now, the picture of civilization in Noah’s day runs like this. It’s listed in Genesis. The 6th chapter.
It says that they were filled with wickedness, evil, imagination, corruption, violence, every imagination of man’s thought was evil.
Does that sound like our day?
We can’t help but imagine evil when we watch enough television and see so much violence and crime and read about the crime in our newspapers every day.
People that are being raped and murdered and mugged and all the rest that’s going on.
We can’t help but think about it.
Our minds are there and we’re, and many of us have become afraid.
It was a world in which marriage was abused. Sex perversion prevailed.
It was a world in which violence prevailed again and again.
In the United Nations sponsored World Conference for women in Nairobi.
The matter of violence against women came up for discussion, violence against Children, people who abuse their Children, crimes of violence continued to escalate.
It’s a world with a decadent religion.
I’m not talking about Christianity because almost everybody in the world is religious, everybody, but it’s a decadent type of religion.
It’s not true faith in God.
Now, it’s also, it was also a world threatened by the judgment of God.
God said, I’m going to judge this generation and some of you that are watching by television.
You’ll see a number on that screen, pick up your phone and call someone.
They’re waiting to talk to you now and they’ll answer your questions and help you.
Now, God said I’m going to judge the world.
I’m going to make it rain for 40 days and 40 nights and I’m going to destroy a man whom I created.
He’s gotten too evil and I’m going to start the human race over again.
But then God saw one man in all of the filth and the dirt and the violence and the perversions.
He saw one man living for him. His name was Noah. Noah dared to walk with God.
He believed in God and true belief determines how you live. He lived a disciplined life.
He was a man of moral integrity. He worshiped God. He dared to stand alone.
He was a non conformist. They laughed at him at the place that he worked or they laughed at him in the social events that he went to his neighbors and friends couldn’t understand him.
They called him strange because he talked about God and he prayed and he believed in God that God somehow was in control.
The Bible says by faith, Noah, by faith.
Notice by faith, Noah being warned of God of things not seen as yet moved with fear, prepared a ship.
God said, I’m going to send the flood, but I’ve got to save Noah, his family, Noah lives for me and God cannot judge a person that is living for Him, a person that has come to Christ at the cross and had his sins forgiven and is living a life for Christ cannot be judged.
There’s therefore now no judgment to them that are in Christ, Jesus, you will never stand at the great judgment day.
If you’re in Christ, that’s the one place of refuge. Now, Noah could not be judged.
So God said, I’ve got to find a way to save Noah and his family.
So God came to Noah one day and said, Noah, I’m going to destroy the world.
I’m going to start over. I want you to build a big ship.
I want you to make it a go for wood, pitch it within and without with pitch 450 ft long, 45 ft high, 75 ft wide, three stories, put one win in it and put one door in it and start building.
Now. Now, can you imagine how people laughed to build a big ship as big as a modern ocean liner in the middle of the desert.
There was no water but Noah, I suppose paid union wages.
So he’s able to get people to work for him and they started building that ship.
And I imagine it became a big tourist attraction like Disneyland.
People came from everywhere to see the crazy people to see this crazy man building this ship out in the middle of the desert.
And all he had to go on was God’s word. That’s all.
Now today, you and I have God’s word that predicts the future judgment up on the world.
But we also have all the scientific evidence that it can happen and may happen and probably will happen.
According to many of our scientists and political leaders and people all over the world in the capitals of the world are frightened when I was in the Soviet Union.
The one thing almost everybody wanted to talk about was peace. How can we get peace?
They even took me to the Kremlin to meet with some of the leaders in the Kremlin Members of the Pilot Bureau and there are only 14 members and they talked about peace.
How can we achieve peace? And our people meeting in Washington with the president and people meeting in Geneva that have been appointed, trying to find a way to peace and if ever man’s hearts are failing them for fear and wringing their hands and nobody seems to have the answer.
It’s now. And if they don’t find an answer, goodbye, unless God intervenes and that’s exactly what’s going to happen.
God will intervene. Christ is going to come back and that’s the glorious hope that every one of us has in our hearts.
Now, during all, during all this time, Noah preached, he worked and preached, it says that he was a preacher of righteousness and repentance and he would call upon the people repent of your sins.
Turn to God. A flood is coming. Now, they had never heard of a flood.
They’d never had a flood before. And, uh, the meteorologist disputed him all the time.
There’s no sign of any rain. There’s no sign of a flood. He’s a fool.
He doesn’t know what he’s talking about. He’s not scientific.
So he was scoffed at and the carpenters that helped him build it the arc of the ship.
They didn’t believe they were working for their wages.
Even some of Noah’s family had a difficult time believing, but he just went right on and he hadn’t heard from God in 100 and 20 years.
Think of it. Now, he had that one message from the Lord and he believed it.
He accepted it by faith. That’s what a man of faith nor was.
And 100 and 20 years later, he was still working on that ship and one day he finished it and when he finished it, God came to him and said, Noah, I’m going to give the world seven more days, seven more days to repent.
And if they don’t, the judgment is going to come.
The Bible warns that the world is in for judgment and the bright spot on the horizon is the resurrection of Christ and his promised return.
It’s the hope of the prophets, Isaiah 66.
It tells that the Lord is coming with fire and chariots like a whirlwind to render his anger and fury in the New Testament.
There’s so many passages that I could take an hour reading them to you.
Christ said I go to prepare a place for you.
And if I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself and where I am there, you may be also one of the TV programs to top the Nielsen ratings last week was highway to heaven.
The only highway to heaven in this Bible is Jesus Christ. He provided a way to heaven.
He provided a way of salvation.
He said I am the way I am, the way I am the truth.
I am the life.
Can you imagine somebody standing up and saying I am the way and no man can come to God except through me.
Can you imagine somebody saying I’m the embodiment of all truth, all scientific truth, psychological truth.
I am the embodiment of all religious truth, moral truth. What the man’s crazy.
He’s either a liar or he’s crazy or he’s who he claims to be.
And that’s the decision you have to make.
If Jesus Christ is who he claims to be the Son of God and the only way of salvation, the only way to escape the coming judgment, then you better make your way to Christ fast tonight.
Don’t wait because we never know when our hour is coming because you see the end of the world for you could be tonight the moment you die, the moment you die, that is the end of the world for you.
And that could come at any moment.
But for the whole population of the world, it’s not going to come the way some scientists think because they don’t take into account.
God. God is a God of love and mercy. He’s a god of planning. Yes. He’s a God of judgment.
Yes. But they are going to be people that are going to be saved out of all this mess.
And God is going to build a new world and a new kingdom and that day is going to come as sure as I’m standing here, Yemen of Galilee.
Why stand ye gazing into heaven?
When these disciples saw Jesus ascending into heaven and the tears were in their eyes and they saw their master going and two men stood by them in white apparel and said, you men of Galilee.
Why do you stand here gazing into heaven?
This same Jesus that’s taken up from you is going to come in like man as you’ve seen him go into heaven.
He’s going to come back. When is Christ going to come? We don’t know.
He said, but of that day an hour. No, no man, no, not the angels of heaven.
But my father only Christ said, be y ready for in such an hour as you think, not the son of man cometh.
Are you ready? Are you ready?
Be quiet and still a moment and think about that. Are you ready?
In Amos? 4? It says prepare to meet Thy God. Are you prepared?
You say Billy, what do I have to do to be prepared? I’ve already been baptized.
I belong to a church. That’s not what I’m talking about. That’s fine. You ought to be.
But have you really received Christ into your heart as Lord and master? Have you repented?
Have you repented of your sins?
Repentance means to turn to change, change your mind, change your attitude about God, about yourself, about your neighbors.
It means that you have a different lifestyle under the lordship of Christ.
It means that you love the oppressed.
It means that God will give you a new power to love people of another race.
It means that God is going to come into your life in the person of the Holy Spirit and give you the power to love and to have peace that you’ve never found and to have purpose and meaning to your life.
It means heaven in this life as well as heaven to come.
It means that God will come in and help you in your marriage.
It means that God will help some of you young people to choose the right person to marry.
There are so many things that will happen to you when you come to Christ, that’s repentance.
It means a change and a lot of the old things that are wrong in your life.
You’ve got to turn loose on, you’ve got to quit. You have to pay a price.
It’s not easy. And we’re not offering a cheap grace and a cheap conversion and a cheap following Christ.
Jesus said, if you come after me, you’ve got to deny yourself and take up a cross.
He said, it’s not going to be easy. He said, all that live godly in Christ.
Jesus Paul said, shall suffer persecution. They’ll laugh at you like they laughed at Noah.
And your faith must be in Christ. Your faith doesn’t have to be strong.
It doesn’t have to be big.
Just the faith of a mustard seed, a little seed that you can hardly see if it’s centered in Christ.
It’s enough. So you repent and you put your faith and your commitment in Christ.
Are you ready? Have you prepared?
You’ve come to this meeting tonight, probably expecting to live many more years.
But you don’t know, don’t wait, make your commitment now, we’ll never see another site like this.
Maybe in southern California, we’ll never have another moment when you’re so close to the Kingdom of God as you are tonight in our crusade in England.
Last month, I heard of a man that was killed in a car crash after committing his life to Christ early in the day.
I’m early in the week.
I’m certain that he was glad and thankful today that he made that commitment to Christ.
There was a five year old girl who was going to visit her grandparents and she was flying alone on an airplane for the first time.
And her mother had arranged for the child’s grandfather to meet her at the airport when she arrived.
And throughout the days of anticipation and preparation, the mother assured her daughter that she doesn’t have to worry.
Her granddaddy would be there to meet her when she arrived.
When the mother put her daughter on the plane and a tear rolled down both their cheeks as they said goodbye.
The mother asked, darling, are you scared? The little girl replied, no, maybe a little.
But whenever I get worried, I just think about who’s going to meet me on the other end and everything’s all right.
When we get worried, we think about who’s going to meet us on the other end.
I’ll tell you who it is. Jesus is going to meet you on the other end.
A woman here came for rededication wanting God to help her with her anger to her husband who had left her and then came back without even an apology.
And as she was being counseled, she looked past the councilor’s shoulder right here in this stadium and gasped.
She said, there’s my husband.
He had been in the stands heard the message and was making a first time commitment to Christ and they left the stadium with their arms around each other.
That’s what Christ can do. A 32 year old technician at McDonald Douglas came to accept Christ the other night.
He said money has been getting in the way of my relationship with Christ.
And I want to turn over my love for money to him.
I want him to be the Lord of my life.
A student at Cal Tech said I saw all these Christians who seem to be so happy.
I thought there’s something missing in my life.
I’m going out to the stadium and see what it is and he came and found it in Jesus Christ as his savior and his Lord.
There was a 20 year old man who said he was born in China.
He grew up in Korea and this week he came to Anaheim Stadium and gave his life to Christ.
And he said I should have done this years ago, but I didn’t know I could tell you story after story.
We have stacks of them that counselors have turned in of what’s happening here.
Now, that could happen to you tonight.
You say, well, Billy, you’ve been calling people to come forward and make their commitment.
You couldn’t do that with all these people back here. What are you gonna do?
I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. We’ve got it all planned.
I’m going to ask that no one leave the stadium.
Now, this is very important and everyone be quiet, very quiet.
I ask people to come forward publicly because every person that Jesus called, he called publicly.
He said, if you’re not willing to acknowledge me before my father or before men, I will not acknowledge you before my father, which is in heaven.
The only exception to that would been Nicodemus. And we’re not sure that that was the night.
He made his commitment because he came to see Jesus by night.
But all the others that Jesus dealt with, he did it publicly in the open.
I’m going to ask you to make your commitment to Christ in the open tonight.
I’m not going to ask you to come forward and stand as we’ve done every night since we’ve been here, there’s no room, but I am going to ask you to do something that may be even harder and I hope it is harder, the tougher it is, the more you’ll mean it.
I’m going to ask that we bow our heads and have silent prayer, pray for the person to the right of you and left of you and back of you in front of you.
Then I’m going to ask every person here tonight.
You are not sure you are ready to meet God. You’re not sure your sins are forgiven.
You’re not sure if you died, you’re going to heaven.
You want to be sure you want to open your heart and let Christ come in and you are ready to repent of your sins and receive him by faith as savior and Lord he said, but as many as received him to them, gave him power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name.
If we confess with our mouth, the Lord Jesus and believe in our hearts, that God has raised him from the dead, we shall be saved.
I’m going to ask you to stand where you are as a silent witness, just stand up and stand there for a while and then we’ll all have prayer together in a few minutes in a few minutes.
I’m going to say a word to you and have a prayer with you and then you can sit back down.
But I’m going to ask you to stand up where you are, hundreds of thousands of you just stand up right where you are up in that upper place all over.
Don’t applaud. Now, please let people take their time, think about it and just stand where you are.
There’s a phone number on your screen that you can call now for spiritual health and counsel and as the people are responding here, make that telephone call and you that have been watching on television, you can make the same commitment that you see many hundreds of people here making.
You can say yes to Christ in your hotel room, in your living room, in your bedroom, wherever you are, God help you to make that commitment and be sure and go to church next Sunday, as you’ve watched the telecast this evening, God has been speaking to your heart.
And again, we would want to encourage you take time tonight to express your desire to receive Christ as your savior.
And Lord people are standing by ready to talk to you and to help you.
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.
We still have a window of opportunity to reach a lost and dying world with the truth of God’s love.
It’s not too late. We’ve got an opportunity to tell others about Jesus Christ.
What are you gonna do with it?