Evangelist Billy Graham's Counterfeit Plan Of Salvation

Galatians 3:1-3, “O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh?”

I ran across a YouTube video today in the suggested links. This sermon is from 1971, preached by the famous evangelist, Billy Graham (1918-2018). ...

Billy Graham's Prophetic Word In 1971 Is Happening RIGHT NOW

Kindly said, this is not the Gospel. Toward the end of the video, the narrator says to "surrender your life" to Christ to be saved. He says to "give your life to Jesus Christ" and to "turn from your sins" to get to Heaven, but there is no Gospel. Hundreds of millions of lost sinners have foolishly fallen for this deadly trap, coming to religion without ever being born again. So sad.

Here is the gospel: God says that we are sinners and that no amount of good works or behavioral changes on our part could ever make us holy enough to enter Heaven. God sent His only begotten Son to pay for all of our sins. Jesus paid for our crimes by dying on the cross for us all. His dead body was buried in a grave. On the third day, Jesus arose from the dead. The instant you believe this, He knows it and He saves you. John 6:47, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me hath everlasting life.” The free gift is based solely upon your trust in what Jesus did for you and has nothing at all to do with what you do for Him. Ephesians 2:8-9, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: Not of works, lest any man should boast.”

So, for anyone to tell you to turn from your sins, give your life to Jesus Christ, or surrender your life to Him to be saved is preaching a counterfeit plan of salvation. The Apostle Paul plainly defines "the gospel" for us in 1st Corinthians 15:1-4 as Jesus death on the cross, burial and bodily resurrection the third day. Too many preachers are guilty of embellishing God's simple plan of salvation, and in so doing they obscure and confuse the truth of the Gospel, hindering men from coming to the light of the truth of the Gospel to be saved.

Salvation is not a reward for the righteous, it is a gift for the guilty.

Salvation is not doing your best, it is having Christ's best put to your account through receiving Him by faith.

Turning away from sinful ways would be a work. Faith puts all of the merit where it belongs, on the object of our faith, Jesus and His work.

If to “repent” means to forsake our sinful ways TO BE SAVED, but Jesus already paid for our sins by dying on the cross, then what are we repenting from?

The true Gospel always points you to CHRIST; a false gospel always points to YOU.

If salvation is truly by grace, then you don't need to start or stop anything to be saved. Eternal life is a free gift from God (Romans 6:23).

One is saved by God's grace through faith in the finished Work of His Son on the Cross as payment in full as our pardon for sin.

Please don't let a lying false prophet deceive you. Satan's greatest weapon is to con people into living the Christian life without ever being born again. This is what 99% of the pseudo-Christian religious world are guilty of doing today. They're living an elaborate lie!

According to John 20:31, the Book of John is God's Gospel tract to humanity. In John we find the word "believe" mentioned at least 85 times, but there is no requirement to turn from your sins, give your life to Jesus Christ, become a Christ follower, life a lifestyle of repentance (Ray Comfort's favorite line), or surrender your life to Christ to be saved.

The reason why the friendly man in this video is so woefully deceived is because he has been hoodwinked by Billy Graham's false gospel. Mr. Graham skirts around the truth, beating around the bush, never honing in on the target of the Gospel itself. This is one of the Devil's most effective strategies to deceive his victims, by circling in orbit of the truth without ever landing. Put another way, the most effective deception is the half-truth, because in part it can be defended with incontestable logic.

I think one of the best illustrations I can give of the Gospel is a clever optical illusion that was popular in the 1990s called “Magic Eye.” I used to enjoy looking at Magic Eye in the Chicago Sun-Times newspaper in the 1990s. The way it works is simple. You hold the image close to your face, but then slowly back your eyes away from the image while staring through it. If it works, you will see a 3D image floating in the foreground, which looks absolutely amazing. Some people cannot see the 3D image. It doesn't work for everybody.

This is exactly how the Gospel works. Millions of people stare at religion their entire lives but never see the truth of the simplicity that is in Christ, which is to say, the Gospel. That is why it is so imperative for Bible preachers to continually preach the Biblical truth, “Ye must be born again” (John 3:3b). I recently heard a related sermon on the topic by Pastor Jack Hyles (1926-2001) titled, “The Parable Of The Tares.”

The hellbound false prophets in Matthew 7:21-23 boasted of their "many wonderful works" done in Jesus' name. They were living the Christian life, following Jesus as the "LORD" of their life, but they had failed to simply REST in the finished redemptive work of the dear Savior (John 6:40). It's not what you can do for Jesus that saves you; but rather, your faith in what Jesus has already done for you 2,000 years ago through Calvary's cross. You just need to believe that Jesus did it all for you.