This article first appeared on LDS Living.
On Wednesday, February 21, Reverend Billy Graham passed away at the age of 99. USA Today and newspapers across the country are remembering Graham as the nation’s best-known Christian evangelist, a man who shaped faith in America for over 60 years.
About his passing, the First Presidency released a statement published by the Deseret News:
“We express our deepest condolences at the passing of Reverend Billy Graham. His decades of ministry stand as a legacy of his love for the Redeemer of all mankind, and we admire his courageous voice of moral witness to the world. We pray God’s blessings will be upon his family and all who knew and loved him.”
Remembering his father, Reverend Franklin Graham told TODAY, “God for some reason just touched my father and blessed him, and so the successes, he’d want everybody to know that it was God that did it, and not him. . . . My father said years ago, ‘When you hear that Billy Graham is dead, don’t you believe it for a second. He said, ‘I’ll be more alive than ever before.’ He’s in the presence of God, so we rejoice and we’re thrilled that his suffering is over.”
Graham met with political leaders, presidents, rulers, and people the world over sharing his message. Many have been sharing that message on social media after Graham’s passing, republishing one of his most popular quotes: “I have one message: that Jesus Christ came, he died on a cross, he rose again, and he asked us to repent of our sins and receive him by faith as Lord and Savior, and if we do, we have forgiveness of all of our sins.”
