Billy Graham Quotes

In our desire to make Christ known and to increase the influence of the church, we are many times prone to think that Christians and the church can be made popular with the unbelieving world. This is a grave mistake on the part of the church.

~ Billy Graham

It is vitally important for local church leaders to keep in touch with the spiritual state of their members, to discuss their level of biblical knowledge, and to teach them how to study God’s Word and pray.

~ Billy Graham

The church is far greater than [a building or denomination]. It includes the whole family of God—that vast unseen fellowship of men and women throughout the ages who belong to Christ. Paul wrote of “God’s household, which is the church of the living God” [1 Timothy 3:15 NIV).

~ Billy Graham

God speaks to us through our conscience. This may be a “still small voice” that will not let us go until we do what we know is right . . .we must never silence that inner voice—[but] check what we think it is saying against the Scriptures.

~ Billy Graham

Conscience is the detective that watches the direction of our steps and decries every conscious transgression.

~ Billy Graham

Conscience is a vigilant eye before which each imagination, thought, and act is held up for either censure or approval . . .There is no greater proof of the existence of a moral law and Lawgiver in the universe than this little light of the soul. It is God’s voice to the inner man.

~ Billy Graham

Do not be content to skim through a chapter [of the Bible] merely to satisfy your conscience. Hide the Word of God in your heart.

~ Billy Graham

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.

~ Billy Graham

Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate the Christian from the man of the world. In America, for example, churchgoing has become popular, but churchgoing may not necessarily be accompanied by genuine depth in prayer and Bible study or a change in lifestyle.

~ Billy Graham

Satan] invades the Sunday school, the Bible class, and even the pulpit. He even invades the church under cover of an orthodox vocabulary, emptying sacred terms of their biblical sense.

~ Billy Graham

I am afraid the church is trying to speak out on too many issues that really do not concern the church. There are certain issues we know to be wrong—racial injustice, crime, gambling, dishonesty, pornography. On these matters we must thunder forth as the prophets of God.

~ Billy Graham

In some churches today and on some religious television programs, we see the attempt to make Christianity popular and pleasant. We have taken the cross away and substituted cushions.

~ Billy Graham

In thousands of churches [people] are led astray theologically. Thus spiritually and morally they are drifting aimlessly, without compass or guide.

~ Billy Graham

The church in America has been deeply infiltrated by the “world,” and in the process it is beginning to copy and resemble the world in many of its activities.

~ Billy Graham

Preaching the whole council of God involves man’s environment and physical being as well as his soul. There is no doubt that the church is in danger of getting off the main track and getting lost.

~ Billy Graham

God did not ordain that the church should drift aimlessly in the seas of uncertainty without compass, captain, or crew.

~ Billy Graham

The church should be setting the pace. The church should be taking its proper place of leadership in the nation . . .God help the church to wake up!

~ Billy Graham

The church holds the key to revival. It is within our grasp.

~ Billy Graham

America and Western Europe are on a moneymaking, pleasure-mad spree unparalleled in the history of the world. God is generally ignored or ridiculed. Church members in many cases are only halfhearted Christians. Judgment is coming.

~ Billy Graham

We have been trying to solve every ill of society as though society were made up of regenerate men to whom we had an obligationto speak with Christian advice.

~ Billy Graham

God’s church is a Bible-centered church, and it grows strong under persecution.

~ Billy Graham

Before three thousand people were brought into the church on the day of Pentecost, the disciples had spent fifty days in prayer, fasting, and spiritual travail.

~ Billy Graham

The Bible nowhere teaches that the church will ultimately convert the whole world to Jesus Christ. There has never been a generation in history, nor will there ever be generation, in which the majority of the people will believe in Christ.

~ Billy Graham

Thousands of people have entered churches without discovering a vital experience with Jesus Christ. The substitutes have been handed them in the guise of religious rituals, good works, community effort, or social reform . . .none of which can gain a person a right relationship with God.

~ Billy Graham

There will come a time when people hungering for the truth will seek it where it is supposedly disseminated, such as books and churches, but they will not hear the Word of the Lord. Instead of receiving a message to satisfy their spiritual longings, they will hear a sermon on some current political or social problem, or a sermonette on art and literature. And so they wander from one place to another, going from hope to despair, and eventually giving up.

~ Billy Graham

Unless the church quickly recovers the authoritative biblical message, we may witness the spectacle of millions of Christians going outside the institutional church to find spiritual food.

~ Billy Graham

What right does any church have even attempting to approve of lifestyles or certain acts for which God prescribed the death penalty in the Old Testament?

~ Billy Graham

There are many who sit in some churches week after week, year after year, without hearing the whole Gospel and knowing what it is to be born again. They hear a gospel which is incomplete, and consequently not good news at all.

~ Billy Graham

Statistics indicate that the church is rapidly losing in the population explosion. There are fewer Christians per capita every day.

~ Billy Graham

The church has lost its ability to discipline members who live openly in sin. Consequently, we have lost our witness in the community.

~ Billy Graham

The church is a storehouse of spiritual food whereby the inner man is fed, nourished, and developed into maturity. If it fails, it is not fulfilling its purpose as a church.

~ Billy Graham

It could be said that going to church will not make one a Christian. But . . . refusing to fellowship with believers will not make you one either.

~ Billy Graham

I hope the day will never come when the church abandons the “class meeting” and the prayer service . . .The old-fashioned “testimony” meeting should be revived, for through this medium we can share with others our faith and triumphs as well as our needs and mistakes.

~ Billy Graham

Down through the centuries the church has contributed more than any other single agency in lifting social standards to new heights.

~ Billy Graham

The church isn’t just a particular building or congregation but the spiritual fellowship of all who belong to Jesus Christ. If we belong to Christ, we also belong to each other.

~ Billy Graham

Many churches have molded their programs around the community—not the Word of God.

~ Billy Graham

The Lord did not design the church to cater to people’s needs—the Lord breathed life into the church to proclaim His truths.

~ Billy Graham

The church does not prey on the lost, it prays for the perishing.

~ Billy Graham

It is unbelief that shuts the door to heaven and opens it to hell. It is unbelief that rejects the Word of God and refuses Christ as Savior. It is unbelief that causes men to turn a deaf ear to the Gospel.

~ Billy Graham

The subject of heaven is much easier to accept than the subject of hell. And yet the Bible teaches both.

~ Billy Graham