Billy Graham - How To Be Born Again

HOW TO BE
BORN AGAIN

OTHER BOOKS BY BILLY GRAHAM

Angels: Gods Secret Agents

Answers to Lifes Problems

Death and the Life After

The Holy Spirit

Hope for the Troubled Heart

The Journey

Peace with God

The Secret of Happiness

Unto the Hills

HOW TO BE
BORN AGAIN

BILLY GRAHAM

1977, 1989 by Billy Graham

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any meanselectronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording, scanning, or otherexcept for brief quotations in critical reviews or articles, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

Published in Nashville, Tennessee, by Thomas Nelson. Thomas Nelson is a registered trademark of Thomas Nelson, Inc.

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Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from The New AmericanStandard Bible ( 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971 by the Lockman Foundation and used by permission). Scripture quotations marked The Living Bible are from The Living Bible, Paraphrased (Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, 1971) and are used by permission. Scripture quotations marked NIV are from the NewInternational Version of the Bible ( 1973, 1978, 1984 by International Bible Society). The quotation marked Goodspeed is from The New Testament: AnAmerican Translation by Edgar J. Goodspeed ( 1923, 1948 by the University of Chicago). The quotation marked TEV is from the Todays English Version of the Bible ( 1976 American Bible Society). The quotations marked Phillips are from The New Testament in Modern English (rev. ed.), ( 1958, 1960, 1972 by J. B. Phillips).

ISBN 978-0-8499-3160-4 (TP)

ISBN 978-0-8499-1127-9 (TP)

Library of Congress catalog card number: 77-76057

Printed in the United States of America
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CONTENTS

T oday being born again is big news. Time magazine carries a feature story on Born Again Faith. Political candidates give the subject as much attention as the latest economic statistics or the energy crisis. A former Black Panther leader and radical of the 1960s returns from exile and announces, My life has turned 180 degrees. I have been born again. A man who was deeply involved in one of the most publicized political scandals of our time writes a bestseller explaining the change in his life as a result of being born again. A Gallup poll comes up with the astonishing conclusion that more than one-third of those who are old enough to vote have experienced born again religious conversions.

Born again!

Is it possible? Can life be transformed?

Whats it all about? What does it mean?

Is it real? Will it last?

How is a person born again?

The expression born again is not a new term, invented by modern journalists to describe recent religious trends. The term born again is almost two thousand years old. One dark night, in the ancient city of Jerusalem, Jesus turned to one of the best-known intellectuals of his time and said, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God (John 3:3). In those words Jesus told us of both the necessity and the possibility of new birthof spiritual transformation. Since that time untold millions throughout the ages have attested to the reality and the power of God in their lives through being born again.

A young Marine Corps officer, a veteran of the Vietnam War, described publicly the night battle in Vietnam when he and his troops came under enemy attack. Only a few were lifted out alive by helicopter. The sixteen surgical operations he endured had helped to restore his physical powers, but now he was speaking of the spiritual rebirth he had received since returning home. He said, We bear an allegiance to the flag of our country, but unless we have been born again through faith in Christ, all our religion is worth nothing.

This lieutenant had been born again.

I think of the great Dutch Christian, Corrie ten Boom, who is now in her eighties. Her story of courage in the midst of Nazi persecution has inspired millions. She tells of an experience when she was only five years old when she said, I want Jesus in my heart. She described how her mother took her little hand in hers and prayed with her. It was so simple, and yet Jesus Christ says that we all must come as children, no matter what our age, social standing, or intellectual background.

Corrie ten Boom, at the age of five, had been born again.

I have had countless people tell me, in person and by letter, how they were born again and their lives were changed. A man from Milwaukee wrote, Tonight my wife and I had come to the brink of ending our marriage. We felt we could no longer stay together under the conditions in which we were living. Both of us admitted that we thought we no longer loved each other. I no longer enjoyed her company nor appreciated my home life. We made bitter statements about each other. We could make no compromise, nor could we agree on how to improve our marriage even if we were to try.

I believe it was Gods will that I turned on the television and listened to your message about spiritual rebirth. As my wife watched with me, we began to search our hearts and felt a new life within us. I prayed that God would come into my heart and truly make me a new man and help me begin a new life. Our troubles seem rather slight now.

Both this man and his wife were born again.

What does it mean to be born again? It is not just a remodeling job, performed somehow by us on ourselves. Today we hear a lot about recycling, reconstruction, and reshaping. We renovate houses and add on more rooms. We tear down old buildings and build new ones in our cities, calling it urban renewal. Millions and millions of dollars are spent every year on health spas, beauty resorts, and exotic cosmeticsall by people hoping to reshape their faces or renew their bodies.

In like manner, people frantically pursue all sorts of promised cures for the renewal of their inner lives. Some people hunt for renewal at the psychiatrists office. Others search for spiritual renewal in exotic oriental religions or processes of inward meditation. Still others seek inner peace and renewal in drugs or alcohol. Whatever the path, however, they eventually come to a dead end. Why? Simply because man cannot renew himself. God created us. Only God can re-create us. Only God can give us the new birth we so desperately want and need.

I believe this is one of the most important subjects in the entire world. Governments may be elected or may topple. Military machines may advance and retreat. Men may explore outer space or probe the ocean depths. All of these events are part of the grand plan for humans on this planet.

But the central theme of the universe is the purpose and destiny of every individual. Every person is important in Gods eyes. That is why God is not content to stand with His arms folded (as it were) and simply watch the human race wallow in misery and destruction. The greatest news in the universe is that we can be born again! For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16).