Billy Graham - Interactive guide to the Greater New York Crusade

Posted June 26, 10:15 p.m. ET

Graham focuses on Judgment Day at crusade's finale

By GARY STERN, The (Westchester, N.Y.) Journal News

NEW YORK - Billy Graham did not say farewell, or anything like it.

On the last night of his three-day crusade at Flushing Meadows Corona Park in Queens, widely expected to be his final crusade, Graham hardly mentioned the possible end of his ministry.

Instead, he focused Sunday on the end of the world.

"When the situation in the world is close to what it was in Noah's day, you can look up and know that Jesus is close to coming," he said.

It was classic Billy Graham, steady and focused, warning of God's impending judgment, as he has since the 1940s. He said that death is probably near for him - but that death could be near for any of the 90,000 who attended Sunday night.

"If I died right now - and it's a possibility - I would go straight to heaven and see Jesus," he said to cheers.

Even though Graham's team has talked as though the 86-year-old evangelist, who has been ill for years, is unlikely to hold another full-scale crusade, Graham was unwilling to concede. He said that he is talking to an Anglican priest about possibly accepting an invitation to preach in London next year.

Many in the crowd smiled as Graham talked about pressing on.

"We understood that his crusades were coming to an end, and we couldn't think of a better place for the last one than right here in New York," said the Rev. Joe Cortese of Mount Vernon, a Bronx pastor and a member of the crusade's executive committee. "If it is his last crusade, tremendous. If New York should not be the last, to God give the glory."

There were many moments of seeming finality, such as when George Beverly Shea, 96, Graham's vocal soloist since 1947, sang "How Great Thou Art" for the last time at a crusade. Shea, who has said that he is retiring after the New York crusade, became associated with the hymn when he sang it almost every night through a 16-week crusade at Madison Square Garden in 1957.

One crusade organizer, the Rev. Bob Johannson, even thanked God for allowing Graham to end his career in New York.

"We are humble you have chosen New York to conclude the crusade ministry of Dr. Billy Graham," he said.

Through his three-day crusade here, Graham repeatedly declared that the world is in a desperate place. But he didn't call for political solutions, for better cooperation between Democrats and Republicans or among nations. The answer to poverty, AIDS and so many other ills, he said, is faith in God.

When each individual turns away from worldly concerns and puts his or her faith in God, Graham explained, the state of the world improves. Only then are we closer to the answers that seem out of reach, he said.

He talked a lot about death. It's been one of his main themes since he was a young, vibrant preacher. Each person must face his or her mortality, he said over and over, and prepare for the day of facing God's judgment.

It was the same message he has offered in thousands of sermons. One was on June 13, 1969, at Madison Square Garden: "Every idle word that you speak, every thought, every intent, everything that you ever did in the dark, everything that you swept under the rug, everything that you thought had been hidden, will all be brought to light at the judgment, and we are going to be judged by that man - that man, the Lord, Jesus Christ."

Of course, Graham believes that the way to God is through Jesus. He made this point each night in Queens, but refrained from addressing the spiritual fate of those who belong to other religions. He talked several times, in fact, about his warm relations with New York's Jewish community.

Perhaps the closest he came to saying something provocative about other faiths was on Saturday, when he intoned: "Buddha said at the end of his life, 'I'm still searching for the truth.' Jesus was the truth.' "

Graham's preaching was predictably simple and direct, a no-frills style that has been both credited for his long-term popularity and disparaged for its repetitiveness and lack of depth.

But the crowds soaked up every word, like they were sitting at the knee of a wise, old grandpa who had seen it all and was closer to the truth than anyone else. There is also something comforting about listening to an octogenarian with Parkinson's disease, prostate cancer and fluid on the brain talk about dying with complete serenity, and no trace of fear.

"It's a thrill to be able to see him, hear him," said Mildred White, 49, a member of the Ridgeway Alliance Church in White Plains, N.Y. She came Sunday with about 80 members of her church. "We're thinking this is his last crusade and we won't see anything like this again."

This crusade clicked along like clockwork, as Billy Graham crusades always have. No one preached too long. Musical acts said "Amen" after three or four songs. Graham's longtime master of ceremonies, Cliff Barrows, kept things moving.

Sunday night, it was musical headliner Michael W. Smith, a longtime sensation in the Christian music world, with 18 albums and 10 books, who had the responsibility of whipping up the crowd just before Graham preached.

The entire event built up each night to Graham's relatively brief sermon, concluding with his call to those ready to give their lives to Jesus Christ. Organizers said that 8,700 people came forward during the altar call through the three evenings, including 2,700 Sunday. Total attendance for the three days came to about 220,000.

Graham's 52-year-old son, Franklin Graham, sat beside his father all three nights. He has already taken over the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and is now the one who travels the world to preach. He recently returned from Paraguay and Angola and will start a crusade on July 8 in Chisinau, Moldova.

Franklin Graham is smooth and well-groomed, but it's far from clear that he will be embraced by a vast cross-section of the world as his father has been.

In the days after 9/11, while Billy Graham fumbled for explanations and assured the nation that the victims of terrorism were in a better place, Franklin Graham lashed out at Islam as "a very evil and wicked religion."

Some saw his approach as ill-fitting for a Christian leader at a time when Christians and Muslims have to learn to co-exist in many parts of the world or they are destined to face dangerous conflict.

On Saturday, Franklin Graham talked about turning away from God when he was a partying college student at SUNY Stony Brook. But at 22, he said, he felt an emptiness in his life and repented.

"If you're here tonight and you're not sure how you're going to spend eternity, invite Jesus into your heart," he said. He received a warm but hardly enthusiastic response.

Flushing Meadows Corona Park was hardly a perfect site for the crusade. It was hard for many to get to, and the park's lack of a primary open space left many far from the stage. But Graham's team felt that Madison Square Garden was too small and they couldn't get access to Central Park or Shea Stadium.

But the venue likely didn't matter to Graham, who has preached his Gospel the world over, from Aarhus, Denmark, to Zurich, Switzerland.

The reception Graham received in Queens was worthy of his final sermon to the United States, if that indeed turns out to be what it was.

"I've met so many people here who came to Christ when I was here in 1957," Graham said. "I know the Holy Spirit is working in our hearts right now."