23rd March, 2005

GAVIN BOX

"Franklin Graham rallies just won't work today with Australian audiences. They are too sophisticated. They won't go to see a big-name American preacher like Billy Graham, like our grandparents did when all they had was radio to entertain them."

I had heard these words about a year ago from well-meaning friends when we first heard that Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham, was coming to Melbourne.

Offering a hand of support in the audience at the Festival Victoria event in the Telstra Dome on Friday night. PICTURE: Gavin Box "Celebrated Australian singer Marina Prior then took to the stage to sing the popular love song 'You Raised Me Up'...It was an electrifying moment. Prior the performer clearly wasn't just singing the song; she was worshipping God. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That strange, warmth Ken Duncan spoke of came over me. God had arrived."

So it was with a degree of apprehension I made the 50-minute road trip from Geelong to Melbourne for the first night of Graham's three days of meetings at the Telstra Dome, a 53,000 seat sporting facility in the heart of the state capital.

Forty-six years earlier, Graham's father drew crowds of 130,000 to another sporting facility in the same city.

I had heard reports of large numbers of people coming to know Christ at Franklin Graham meetings throughout the world, suggesting God's hand was equally on the son as the father but how would Franklin Graham be received here?

Australia is far from the church attending nation it was in the 50s and early 60s. Its people live in a post-modern, secular culture and don't take well to outsiders telling them how to live.

We arrived early, about half an hour before the 7.30pm meeting, to see a modest crowd starting to slowly take their seats in the bottom tier of the three-tiered facility.

It didn't look promising.

At 7.30pm one of the festival organisers took to the stage and welcomed patrons, speaking briefly about how the festival came about after local churches had invited Franklin Graham to come to Victoria three years earlier.

As is the custom of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, rallies are held only at the invitation and with the support of local churches. The association is not about elevating the visiting preacher or the personality above the ministry of the host churches.

Live music performances followed and in between the life stories of high-profile Australian Christians were playing on the big screens usually reserved for live action sporting replays.

Straight away, they got my attention.

Noted landscape photographer Ken Duncan, whose photos hang in boardrooms across Australia and around the world, was among those who told their story. He told, in that disarmingly honest, no-nonsense way, of his own dramatic experience of God.

Duncan related that it was out of sheer desperation he encountered the reality of Jesus Christ. Diagnosed with gangrene in the leg and facing the prospect of losing a limb, he cried out to Jesus. “If you fix this up, I will follow you,” he says of his prayer.

Eleven hundred people respond to Graham's message on Friday night. In all, more than 6,500 offered their lives to Christ during the three-day event. PICTURE: Gavin Box "Graham spoke in a measured but direct way, peppering his message with anecdotes from Australian culture and Biblical references, but always returning to a simple appeal: We are all sinners. Jesus died for you. God loves you. He wants to forgive you, but you have to make a choice. Stripped down, cut back, trimmed bare. This was 100 per cent pure Gospel and back-to-basics Christianity."

Doctors could not explain what happened next. Dying flesh had somehow regenerated and been replaced by healthy tissue. “You'd think anyone would follow Jesus after that,'' Duncan said. “But I reneged on the deal. I went right back to living the way I did before.''

Then, some time later, another personal crisis hit. Duncan was alone, in the Australian bush, when he came down with hypothermia. Again he cried out to Jesus. Immediately, he felt a strange warmth fill him from the inside out.

Back home, Duncan decided to go to a church to find out about Christianity. He didn't understand all that the preacher was talking about, but felt compelled to stand up and come forward to the front when there was an invitation to receive Jesus Christ.

“I just felt this incredible peace come over me and was crying for joy,'' he said.

“Tonight you'll hear a message from Franklin Graham. He's a good bloke and he's got a good message. I encourage you to listen to him.''

By now the first tier was starting to fill out and the people were making their way to the second tier.

Celebrated Australian singer Marina Prior then took to the stage to sing the popular love song You Raised Me Up:

"You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;

"You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
"I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
"You raise me up: to more than I can be."

It was an electrifying moment. Prior the performer clearly wasn't just singing the song; she was worshipping God. The hairs on the back of my neck stood up. That strange warmth Ken Duncan spoke of came over me.

God had arrived.

“The greatest privilege I have is to give glory to God,'' Prior said as she finished the song. “I believe it's what I've got my voice for.”

Prior then told her own story of becoming a Christian as a young girl, only to walk away from Christ during her university days because the church wasn't "cool''. She then spoke of how she went on to achieve money, success, fame and good family life - “everything this world tells us we need to be happy and fulfilled'' - only to find herself laying awake at night thinking there has to be more to life.

“I re-embraced my Christianity and life has never been the same. I am now totally fulfilled; truly full. There is a God-shaped hole in each and every one of us,” she said. “If you have a yearning and hunger inside you; it's God calling you.''

When Franklin Graham finally made his way to the stage, the second tier was almost full.

Graham spoke in a measured but direct way, peppering his message with anecdotes from Australian culture and Biblical references, but always returning to a simple appeal: We are all sinners. Jesus died for you. God loves you. He wants to forgive you, but you have to make a choice.

Stripped down, cut back, trimmed bare. This was 100 per cent pure Gospel and back-to-basics Christianity.

At times, I suspect he could have worked the audience had he wanted to. But he didn't. He drew parallels between Australia's proud wartime history and Jesus Christ as the “most courageous man in all of history'' - all the while knowing he would be beaten, despised and put to death on a cross, “yet He came''.

He also spoke of Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance, where the names of all fallen Australian soldiers are recorded for posterity, and spoke of a place where “your name can be remembered forever in the Lamb's Book of Life''.

“Why Jesus?'' said Graham. “There is no other way to God; no other way to heaven.”

“Aren't there lots of religions? Isn't Christianity exclusive?”

“No. There is only one way to heaven and that's through Jesus Christ.”

“He is the only one in all of history who took away your sins. No other religious leader came on earth to take away your sins. He shed His blood for you.''

Graham said man's predicament was sin - breaking God's laws.

“Break even one of God's laws and we are banished from God for all eternity. Telling a lie - we've all lied. But God can forgive you. Adultery, theft, not honouring your mother and father - these are a sin against God.

“We have many liberties in our modern world, but God's laws don't change. God's standards are not different. We've all broken them, but Jesus came to save us. God doesn't want to take life. He wants to save it. He devised a way for banished people to come to Him.''

Hollywood star Mel Gibson, who invited Graham to a private preview screening of the movie The Passion of the Christ, summed it up well, said Graham

“The only place I appear in this movie is holding the nail, just before the Roman soldier hits the nail in Jesus' hand,'' Gibson told Graham. “I wanted people to know that Mel Gibson's sins helped put Jesus on the cross.''

But on the third day, said Graham, God raised Christ from the grave. “He's alive, He's in Heaven and He's here tonight.''

Graham finished his message inviting people to come forward in the auditorium to accept Jesus Christ.

“Being religious is not good enough, you have to surrender your life to God through Jesus,'' he said. “Every person Jesus called, He called publicly; He died publicly for you. That's why you need to make a public stand for Christ.

“You're not coming to Franklin Graham - I can't save you, but Jesus Christ can.''

I shut my eyes for a moment as Graham prayed, then looked up and wondered: would anyone respond?

Then they came. Eleven hundred people, streaming forward from the 17,000-strong ocean of people like, as Jesus said, a great catch.

My eyes were drawn to one person walking alone in the long journey from one side of the stadium to the front of the stage.

Crossing over from death to life.

POSTSCRIPT:
In all, more than  92,400 people attended the three days of rallies with Franklin Graham at the Telstra Dome. More than 6,500 people accepted Graham's invitation to accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour.