The Billy Graham Test
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Stories
Contents
“The Billy Graham Test” by John Sumwalt
“Correctly Hearing Each Other” by Frank Ramirez
The Billy Graham Test
by John Sumwalt
Romans 8:22-27
And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (v. 26)
The first time I heard Billy Graham preach was on the radio in the barn while milking cows. The barn radio was a window on the world for a farm kid in the 50s and 60s. Later I would see Billy on TV, but I first knew him as a disembodied golden voice ringing out over a herd of pampered Holsteins.
So, when it was announced one morning that the Billy Graham film, “The Restless Ones” was going to be showing at the theater in town, I knew I had to find a way to go. I convinced Dad to let me have the car on a Sunday afternoon, picked up a friend, and we went to the movies. I found the film deeply moving. When Billy gave his famous altar call at the end I went forward and renewed my commitment to Christ. It marked the beginning of a long period of introspection, increased devotion and more than a little self-righteousness that was both puzzling and irritating to my family and friends.
I eventually grew out of what I now view as a rather narrow and limited understanding of Jesus and the Christian faith. But I never stopped admiring Billy Graham. I do not share his view of salvation. I do appreciate the zeal with which he preached and tried to help people throughout his life — and I admire his integrity. One incident in his life stands out.
At the time of his death, at the age of 99, in February of 2018, columnist Debbie Lord, wrote: “As Americans mourn the death of evangelist Billy Graham, you would be hard-pressed to find a time where ‘America’s Pastor’ was held in anything other than the highest regard. Graham managed during sixty years of preaching the gospel to sidestep even a hint of scandal — sexual, financial or otherwise. However, a revelation in 1994 of a conversation he had with then-President Richard Nixon turned out to be a source of embarrassment for Graham — not at the time it was disclosed by Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, but years later when a tape of the conversation was released.
At first, Graham denied comments Haldeman made in his book, The Haldeman Diaries that Graham and Nixon had disparaged Jews in a conversation following a prayer breakfast in Washington D.C. on Feb. 1, 1972. Haldeman said Graham had talked about a Jewish ‘stranglehold’ on the country. ‘Those are not my words,’ Graham said in May 1994. 'I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms.' Graham was believed and the matter dropped until 2002 when tapes from Nixon’s White House were released. The 1972 conversation between Nixon and Graham was among those tapes, and Graham had to face the fact that he had been recorded saying the things of which Haldeman accused him.”
Debbie Lord added: “After the release of the tapes, Graham was horrified, according to Grant Wacker, a Duke Divinity School professor who wrote a book about Graham. He publicly apologized and asked for forgiveness from Jewish leaders in the country. ‘He did not spin it. He did not try to justify it,’ Wacker told NPR. ‘He said repeatedly he had done wrong, and he was sorry.’”
Confession of wrongdoing is the hardest personal work any of us must do. And it is work that we cannot do on our own. Family members and friends in the church can help. But it is God’s presence in our lives that makes the difference if we will permit it.
The Apostle Paul put it like this, "... the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
No less a spiritual leader than Billy Graham had difficulty accepting in himself and publicly confessing a sin that was contrary to everything he had preached. His personal witness, when confronted with this sin, may have been more important than any sermon he ever preached.
Billy allowed the Spirit to heal his soul. He was able to accept that all of us are tempted to do evil, that we often do it despite our best intentions, and that we are all accepted just as we are, as was sung after the altar call at every Billy Graham crusade: “Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, Because thy promise I believe, Just as I am I come."
* * *
Correctly Hearing Each Other
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 2:1-21
And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? (v. 8)
Way back in the dark ages, when I was a kid, you heard “Top 40” music on your transistor radio. It was great to walk around with your music. The problem was we heard the music on AM stations that sounded scratchy. In addition, we couldn’t play the same song over and over again or look up the lyrics on Google. We only heard the songs when the station chose to play it, so it was entirely possible to get the lyrics wrong.
I wasn’t a big fan of The Doors, but their song “Light My Fire” was on all the time when I was in junior high school. There was this line warning the young woman to whom it was addressed, that things could go wrong “and our love become a funeral pyre.” But I heard, distinctly, “…and I’d love to be a feud umpire.”
What, do you ask, is a feud umpire? Well, I came from a large family, and us kids always fought. So, a feud umpire was obviously a parent. I assumed Jim Morrison of The Doors was saying he wanted to become the parent of several children, right?
As it turns out, mishearing the lyrics was a common affliction. I’m glad to know I wasn’t alone.
Some people heard the famed chorus to the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” as “She’s got a chicken to ride.”
More than one-person misheard Elton John’s “Hold me closer tiny dancer,” as “Hold me closer Tony Danza,” an actor who used to play a character on a show called “Who’s the Boss?”
Uncle Kracker’s hit “Drift Away” included the line “Give me the beat boys and free my soul.” It was heard as “Give me the Beach Boys,” which isn’t a bad choice.
The Fifth Dimension proclaimed, “This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius,” but some thought it was the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.
When Starship, one of the many incarnations of The Jefferson Airplane, sang “We built this city on rock and roll” many heard it as “We built this city on sausage rolls!”, which considering the popularity of Philly cheesesteaks might not be such a bad idea.
There’s a food theme going here, isn’t there? Dare I mention that some misheard the Beatles’ singing “I want to hold your ham.” Or that Iron Butterfly’s “In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey” which makes no sense at all, is heard as “In a glob of Velveeta, honey”? Or when Paul Young sang “Every time you go away you take a piece of me with you,” people heard, “you take a piece of meat with you.”
We can only imagine what some people thought the subject of one song looked like when instead of hearing the Monkey’s sing “Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer,” they heard “now I’m gonna leave her.”
In “Bad Moon Rising” Creedence Clearwater Revival sang “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” but I and many others heard, “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
There’s always a danger mentioning any song by Abba, because their songs stick in your head and run on an endless cycle once you hear them, but regarding the “Dancing Queen” they sang, “See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen,” but people hear “See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.”
According to the website “Stacker” there’s a word for this – “ mondegreen.” The author Sylvia Green recalled in a 1954 article how she misheard the last lines of a 1765 poem she loved, “They have slain the Earl O’Moray/ And laid him on the green.” What she heard was they not only killed the Earl but also “And Lady Mondegreen.”
One of the themes of Pentecost, when the apostle Peter speaks and everyone understands in their own language, is that the damage done at the Tower of Babel is finally undone, we see that sometimes the problem isn’t that we’re speaking other languages, but we’re supposedly speaking the same language, using the same words and phrases, and we still don’t hear each other right.
(You can find these and many other mistakes on several different websites. Take your choice if you want to find more, or different examples.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 23, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
“The Billy Graham Test” by John Sumwalt
“Correctly Hearing Each Other” by Frank Ramirez
The Billy Graham Test
by John Sumwalt
Romans 8:22-27
And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. (v. 26)
The first time I heard Billy Graham preach was on the radio in the barn while milking cows. The barn radio was a window on the world for a farm kid in the 50s and 60s. Later I would see Billy on TV, but I first knew him as a disembodied golden voice ringing out over a herd of pampered Holsteins.
So, when it was announced one morning that the Billy Graham film, “The Restless Ones” was going to be showing at the theater in town, I knew I had to find a way to go. I convinced Dad to let me have the car on a Sunday afternoon, picked up a friend, and we went to the movies. I found the film deeply moving. When Billy gave his famous altar call at the end I went forward and renewed my commitment to Christ. It marked the beginning of a long period of introspection, increased devotion and more than a little self-righteousness that was both puzzling and irritating to my family and friends.
I eventually grew out of what I now view as a rather narrow and limited understanding of Jesus and the Christian faith. But I never stopped admiring Billy Graham. I do not share his view of salvation. I do appreciate the zeal with which he preached and tried to help people throughout his life — and I admire his integrity. One incident in his life stands out.
At the time of his death, at the age of 99, in February of 2018, columnist Debbie Lord, wrote: “As Americans mourn the death of evangelist Billy Graham, you would be hard-pressed to find a time where ‘America’s Pastor’ was held in anything other than the highest regard. Graham managed during sixty years of preaching the gospel to sidestep even a hint of scandal — sexual, financial or otherwise. However, a revelation in 1994 of a conversation he had with then-President Richard Nixon turned out to be a source of embarrassment for Graham — not at the time it was disclosed by Nixon Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, but years later when a tape of the conversation was released.
At first, Graham denied comments Haldeman made in his book, The Haldeman Diaries that Graham and Nixon had disparaged Jews in a conversation following a prayer breakfast in Washington D.C. on Feb. 1, 1972. Haldeman said Graham had talked about a Jewish ‘stranglehold’ on the country. ‘Those are not my words,’ Graham said in May 1994. 'I have never talked publicly or privately about the Jewish people, including conversations with President Nixon, except in the most positive terms.' Graham was believed and the matter dropped until 2002 when tapes from Nixon’s White House were released. The 1972 conversation between Nixon and Graham was among those tapes, and Graham had to face the fact that he had been recorded saying the things of which Haldeman accused him.”
Debbie Lord added: “After the release of the tapes, Graham was horrified, according to Grant Wacker, a Duke Divinity School professor who wrote a book about Graham. He publicly apologized and asked for forgiveness from Jewish leaders in the country. ‘He did not spin it. He did not try to justify it,’ Wacker told NPR. ‘He said repeatedly he had done wrong, and he was sorry.’”
Confession of wrongdoing is the hardest personal work any of us must do. And it is work that we cannot do on our own. Family members and friends in the church can help. But it is God’s presence in our lives that makes the difference if we will permit it.
The Apostle Paul put it like this, "... the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.”
No less a spiritual leader than Billy Graham had difficulty accepting in himself and publicly confessing a sin that was contrary to everything he had preached. His personal witness, when confronted with this sin, may have been more important than any sermon he ever preached.
Billy allowed the Spirit to heal his soul. He was able to accept that all of us are tempted to do evil, that we often do it despite our best intentions, and that we are all accepted just as we are, as was sung after the altar call at every Billy Graham crusade: “Just as I am, Thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve, Because thy promise I believe, Just as I am I come."
* * *
Correctly Hearing Each Other
by Frank Ramirez
Acts 2:1-21
And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? (v. 8)
Way back in the dark ages, when I was a kid, you heard “Top 40” music on your transistor radio. It was great to walk around with your music. The problem was we heard the music on AM stations that sounded scratchy. In addition, we couldn’t play the same song over and over again or look up the lyrics on Google. We only heard the songs when the station chose to play it, so it was entirely possible to get the lyrics wrong.
I wasn’t a big fan of The Doors, but their song “Light My Fire” was on all the time when I was in junior high school. There was this line warning the young woman to whom it was addressed, that things could go wrong “and our love become a funeral pyre.” But I heard, distinctly, “…and I’d love to be a feud umpire.”
What, do you ask, is a feud umpire? Well, I came from a large family, and us kids always fought. So, a feud umpire was obviously a parent. I assumed Jim Morrison of The Doors was saying he wanted to become the parent of several children, right?
As it turns out, mishearing the lyrics was a common affliction. I’m glad to know I wasn’t alone.
Some people heard the famed chorus to the Beatles’ “Ticket to Ride” as “She’s got a chicken to ride.”
More than one-person misheard Elton John’s “Hold me closer tiny dancer,” as “Hold me closer Tony Danza,” an actor who used to play a character on a show called “Who’s the Boss?”
Uncle Kracker’s hit “Drift Away” included the line “Give me the beat boys and free my soul.” It was heard as “Give me the Beach Boys,” which isn’t a bad choice.
The Fifth Dimension proclaimed, “This is the dawning of the age of Aquarius,” but some thought it was the dawning of the Age of Asparagus.
When Starship, one of the many incarnations of The Jefferson Airplane, sang “We built this city on rock and roll” many heard it as “We built this city on sausage rolls!”, which considering the popularity of Philly cheesesteaks might not be such a bad idea.
There’s a food theme going here, isn’t there? Dare I mention that some misheard the Beatles’ singing “I want to hold your ham.” Or that Iron Butterfly’s “In-a-gadda-da-vida, honey” which makes no sense at all, is heard as “In a glob of Velveeta, honey”? Or when Paul Young sang “Every time you go away you take a piece of me with you,” people heard, “you take a piece of meat with you.”
We can only imagine what some people thought the subject of one song looked like when instead of hearing the Monkey’s sing “Then I saw her face, now I’m a believer,” they heard “now I’m gonna leave her.”
In “Bad Moon Rising” Creedence Clearwater Revival sang “There’s a bad moon on the rise,” but I and many others heard, “There’s a bathroom on the right.”
There’s always a danger mentioning any song by Abba, because their songs stick in your head and run on an endless cycle once you hear them, but regarding the “Dancing Queen” they sang, “See that girl, watch that scene, dig in the dancing queen,” but people hear “See that girl, watch her scream, kicking the dancing queen.”
According to the website “Stacker” there’s a word for this – “ mondegreen.” The author Sylvia Green recalled in a 1954 article how she misheard the last lines of a 1765 poem she loved, “They have slain the Earl O’Moray/ And laid him on the green.” What she heard was they not only killed the Earl but also “And Lady Mondegreen.”
One of the themes of Pentecost, when the apostle Peter speaks and everyone understands in their own language, is that the damage done at the Tower of Babel is finally undone, we see that sometimes the problem isn’t that we’re speaking other languages, but we’re supposedly speaking the same language, using the same words and phrases, and we still don’t hear each other right.
(You can find these and many other mistakes on several different websites. Take your choice if you want to find more, or different examples.)
*****************************************
StoryShare, May 23, 2021 issue.
Copyright 2021 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to the StoryShare service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons, in worship and classroom settings, in brief devotions, in radio spots, and as newsletter fillers. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to permissions@csspub.com or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
