Fifth Southland Crusade Opened by Billy Graham

Evangelist Billy Graham opened a 10-day crusade Friday night at Anaheim Stadium--his fifth major crusade in Southern California since 1949 and the first in which his familiar message of the need for personal salvation was simultaneously translated into 14 languages for a large multi-racial audience.

Graham has said the Anaheim rally will “probably be the last large stadium crusade I will have in America.”

An estimated 40,000 people attended the first meeting, according to stadium officials. Crusade organizers hope for a total turnout of 600,000 people over the 10 days.

“There are twice as many people here as I expected,” Graham told the crowd Friday. “We are going to see a mighty outwork of the spirit of God here in the next 10 days.”

Describing Southern California as “the most pluralistic part of America,” the evangelist observed that the multi-lingual, multi-racial population was one he had “never dreamed of” when he held a crusade in Anaheim Stadium attended by 384,000 people in 1969. “I feel like God . . . is bringing people, to whom we used to send missionaries, right here to Southern California,” Graham said in an interview before the first meeting of the crusade.

“I want to go in with a freshness, speaking to Southern California as if I’d never been here before,” he added.

At Graham’s crusades, his half-hour-long messages follow about 40 minutes of spirited singing, prayers and “testimonials” by entertainment personalities. George Hamilton IV, the country-western recording artist, sang “I’ll Fly Away” Friday.

Graham was flanked by his two sons, William Franklin Graham Jr., 33, and Ned Edman Graham, 27, on the platform “for the first time in recent history,” the older son said. William heads Samaritan’s Purse, a worldwide Christian relief and development organization. Ned is a student in the state of Washington.

Simple Sermon

Moving from side to side of a light-colored wooden pulpit on the platform above second base, Graham delivered a simple sermon on the need to make a commitment to Christ.

“From that top balcony up there, it’s going to take you six or seven minutes,” the evangelist said, to reach the outfield. There several thousand “inquirers” gathered for counseling at the close of Graham’s sermon.

“Whatever your culture, you come. This is the most important moment of your life. Oh, I know it’s a long way, but it’s a long way into eternity,” the evangelist said.

Graham’s first major evangelistic campaign in Southern California--an eight-week tent revival in downtown Los Angeles in 1949--pushed the young Southern Baptist preacher into international prominence. He then set a record attendance (100,000 at the final crusade meeting) in 1950 at the Rose Bowl, and one in 1963 that still stands--135,254 crammed the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a meeting.

Concentrate on Youth

Graham said the Anaheim crusade will concentrate on reaching youth. He said people between 15 and 25 constitute the largest percentage of the audiences responding to his invitation to “commit your life to Christ.”

Four of the 10 Anaheim meetings have been designated as “youth nights.” Other events will include “military night,” “country-western night” and “international night.”

Translators, stationed in the stadium press box, broadcast Graham’s messages over low-power transmitters as he talked. Meanwhile, the various non-English language groups, seated together in reserved sections, listened to the sermon in their native tongues through battery-powered radios provided by the crusade.

Simultaneous translations were made in Spanish, Korean, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Arabic, Taiwanese, Vietnamese and Cambodian.

Opening-Night Focus

Graham’s opening-night focus was on why God allows so much suffering in the world:

“If God so loved the world, why is the world in such a mess, why are there 40 wars going on, why is there so much suffering . . . in the hospitals, why are there so many problems? I want to talk about that,” he said.

“God is a God of judgment, who is going to judge sin. He is going to judge the world . . . God has a taping machine; he is not only going to tape what you say and do, but what you think. Every deed is written in that book under your name and someday it will come out on a gigantic screen for everyone to see.

“But there is another book, because God is a God of love. If you don’t get anything else out of this crusade I want you to hear this: God loves you and . . . has taken all of your sins so you don’t have to go to the judgment.”

‘Called to Preach’

Asked if he felt he had accomplished his life’s goals, Graham, recovering from a recent bathtub fall in which be broke three ribs, said in the interview before the meeting that he felt “called to preach until the end of my days. I have miserably failed, I know, many times. I feel a sense of inadequacy. I feel at times a great sense of guilt. If I had my life to live over again, I would spend more time in study and less time in speaking.

“I never dreamed that at the age of almost 67, I’d still be holding these crusades. No evangelist in history has ever gone this long.”

He added that through the years he has placed an increasing emphasis on “the cost of following Christ. There’s no cheap, easy way; it is the way of the cross.”

In America, the evangelist said, “temptations, freedom and materialism” in some ways make it more difficult to be a disciple of Jesus than in Communist-dominated lands, where identifying with the church often invites government persecution or harassment. People there consciously choose to accept the sacrifice that their faith brings, Graham explained.

‘Social Gospel’ Agenda

Roger Tompkins, chairman of the crusade’s general committee, said that the crusade also has a “social gospel” agenda. During the final three nights of meetings, six vans will transport collections of non-perishable food items brought to the stadium to the needy in Orange and Los Angeles counties.

“We can’t feed them forever, but this is a part of what Christians ought to be doing,” Graham told the audience Friday night. “If the rock stars can do it, how much more should we as Christians be doing it--and taking the lead.”