From the writings of the Rev. Billy Graham

Many do not know Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Savior. Before Jesus commanded to love thy neighbor, He said, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind (Luke 10:27–28, NKJV).

For the spiritually dead, there is no communication with God. The world of the physically deaf is one which those with normal hearing find difficult to comprehend. But we walk in the world of the spiritually deaf every day; many men and women are more than deaf and blind, they are dead. “You were dead in your trespasses and sins” (Ephesians 2:1, HCSB).

Millions of people long for a world of joy, light, harmony, and peace; instead, they are engulfed in a world of pessimism, darkness, discord, and turmoil. They search for happiness, but it eludes them. Often their despondent attitude leads to a circle of cocktail parties or bars where they obliterate the reality of their world with the unreality of alcohol. Sometimes they are led to drugs, immorality, or an all-consuming pursuit of a hobby or a sport.

All these are symptoms of the great escapist disease caused by an insidious infection called sin. Many people want to dissect God under their own microscopes. After establishing their own methods of analysis they come to no conclusions; God remains the great cosmic silence, unknown and unseeing. Its ear is too dull to hear the truth; people’s eyes are blind. They do not want to see. They do not want to hear. They hurry to their doom. However, God does communicate with those who are willing to obey Him. He penetrates the dark silence with free, life-giving discoveries in nature, the human conscience, Scripture, and the Person of Jesus Christ.

(This column is based on the words and writings of the late Rev. Billy Graham.)

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