Who is on your list of "most admired men or women"? Here's my number one pick for "most admired".....

Late last month, Gallup published their list of "Most admired men for 2011." Barack Obama was number one on the list which was enough to cause me to question the validity of the entire list. But number four on the list was the Rev. Billy Graham. There have been years when he held the number one spot, but for 2011, to come in at number four is still quite an accomplishment! There are many young people, and those under 30 who probably don't even know anything about Billy Graham. If you are one of them, let me bring you up to speed with this incredible man of God who, long before the days of satellite television and the internet, preached the gospel to more people around the world than any other human being.

Record crowd in attendance at L.A. Billy Graham Crusade

My first encounter with Billy Graham came when I was 14 years old. My church youth group decided to attend his L.A. Crusade which was being held at the Los Angeles Coliseum. Initially, my interest lay in the fact of seeing the Coliseum filled with 70 or 80,000 people since I had never been in a room with more than a couple hundred people. But, as you might have guessed, I got more than I bargained for. God was speaking to me through Billy Graham and for the first time, I was hearing about Jesus Christ and the good news that I could be forgiven of my sins and have a relationship with God.

On the fourth night, Youth Night, God was calling me to himself. How did I know this? During Billy's message that night when he preached on David and Goliath, my heart was pounding so hard and loud that I surely thought anyone around me could hear it. Later that evening, along with about 3,000 others, I went forward to surrender my will to God's along with seeking his forgiveness for my sins and asking Him to change my life. That was way back in 1963. To put this in perspective, this was the same year that JFK was assassinated and the Beatles arrived on the scene.

Since that night, I continue to live my life as a follower of Jesus Christ, and Billy Graham continued to preach the Gospel to millions worldwide until his retirement in 2005. In 2008, it was estimated that over the course of his lifetime, he preached to over 2.2 billion people in person, on TV, radio and movies.

BillyGraham in now 92 yrs. old. For some reason, I think this will be the year that God takes him home. The young man that I remember seeing in L.A.Times photos doing an early morning run along Santa Monica Beach is now confined to a wheelchair, suffering from Parkinson's disease. His voice is weak, no longer strong and vibrant as it once was when he preached to thousands.

Here's what I want you to know about Billy Graham. In an age of hypocrites and evangelistic scandals, he was the real deal. He was a man who walked the talk. He would never allow himself to be alone in a hotel room with someone of the opposite sex. He was always aware of his weaknesses and set safeguards in place to protect himself and his ministry from succumbing to temptation.

Another evidence of his integrity came in the early 1950s when NBC offered Billy a $5 million dollar, 5-year contract for a weekly series, but he turned it down to honor his pre-arranged commitments to conduct crusades around the world. Also, in 1950 when Billy and his associates formed the Billy Graham Evangelistic Assoc. headquartered in Minneapolis, they set in place several layers of accountability to assure that there would be no co-mingling of funds. Billy was paid a modest salary and never ever used ministry funds as his personal ATM. Anyone donating money to Billy Graham could rest assured that their gift would be used for the sole purpose of preaching the gospel.

In the early 1950s, Billy Graham was on the cutting edge of racial integration long before it became a "fashionable liberal cause." He tore down the ropes that had been erected in his crusade tents and auditoriums to separate whites from blacks. He also refused to speak in some auditoriums where they imposed segregation. He opposed the KKK and even paid the bail to secure Martin Luther King's release from jail. For someone born and raised in the south, this was huge, and very risky on his part, but he kept appealing to a colorblind God.

During the Cold War, he was the first evangelist to do mass evangelism in Eastern Europe as well as the Soviet Union. In 1973, he held a crusade in South Africa where he openly denounced apartheid. On Sept. 22, 1991, he held largest crusade in the U.S. with over 250,000 in attendance at Central Park in NYC.

I have included a couple of videos of Billy Graham, one is from the same L.A. Crusade where I first heard him and came to Jesus. That same crusade set a record attendance for the Los Angeles Coliseum which still stands today.

The days of mass evangelism in a stadium are over, but there is still a need for men and women who have a passion for the Good News and who walk the talk, not seeking to please men but to please God. For me personally, Billy Graham is number one on my list of "Most Admired" men of the 20th century.

How about you? Who is on your list of "most admired people"? What qualities in them do you admire and why? Let me know who makes YOUR list of "most admired."

No Apartheid in Israel

Note: From time to time, I'll be sharing posts from other bloggers who have greater credibility or authority than I have on the subject they are addressing.  This post was originally written by journalist, Stan Goodenough on Wednesday, March 9, 2011. Stan and his family live in Jerusalem, Israel.

This post originally appeared at his blog, Jerusalem Watchman "No Apartheid Here" 

Stan, who is from South Africa, has a unique understanding of what we call "apartheid." Here is Stan's edited post. ( I have posted a link at the bottom if you want to read it in its entirety.)

Anti-Israel groups and individuals in about 14 countries are currently caught up in claiming that Israel engages is apartheid against the Palestinians who live there. 

The goal of these outraged organizers, their purpose is to force Israel to convert to a one-man-one-vote democracy. They hope to achieve in Israel what they did with South Africa.

Luminaries who promote the idea that Israel perpetrates the same sins South Africa once did are former US President Jimmy Carter and Liberation Theology “Christian” Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

Together with United Nations investigators and human rights groups, they have all rallied around this “sexy” lie: Israel is an apartheid state.

Is there any justification for this? Any at all?

What was apartheid?

In 1948, the year Israel declared independence, South Africa’s white government began enacting laws to enforce the segregation of different races.

Known as the “Apartheid Laws,” they would apply to people who, until that time, had all been South African citizens; they would solidify the power and dominance of the whites.

Like carefully placed bricks in a wall, the legislation established an enduring edifice of institutionalized racial discrimination. It would persist for 46 years and wreck tens of millions of lives with massive injustice and suffering. The minority whites, for our part, directly benefitted from the system, enjoying one of the highest standards of living in the world.

Dismantled in the early 1990s – largely due to intensified international pressure – its painful legacy wracks that nation until today – a woe for which there is no anticipated cure.

I am a South African who was born into, and lived through nearly half of, the apartheid era. During my childhood and teenage years my family relocated repeatedly, living in every corner of that country. I changed schools 13 times, and in three years as a member of the South African Defense Forces I was stationed in five different military bases across the land. I know South Africa well.  I know apartheid well. I know Israel well.

And believe me, no factual or accurate comparisons can be drawn between that South Africa and this Israel.

None whatsoever.

Let me tell you what Israel would have to do to qualify as an apartheid state. But first, a couple of clarifications:

The charge is that Israel’s treatment of the Palestinian Arabs is similar to White South Africa’s treatment of South African black citizens (which included full-blood “Africans,” mixed-race “coloreds” and the descendants of immigrant Asian laborers).

The whole argument collapses right there, because the Palestinian Arabs have never been Israeli citizens. Nor did/do they have any national history as “Palestinians” – neither in Israel nor anywhere else. They are Arabs – their country of origin is Arabia.

For starters, then, it is fallacious to compare Israel’s relationship with the Palestinian Arabs in any area to the apartheid governments’ relationships with their black South African citizens.

Let us then turn to the Israel’s Arab citizens. Most are also Palestinian Arabs, but unlike the majority of their people – who remain stateless – they were willing to take citizenship and be integrated into the country of Israel.

Israeli Arabs comprise a little over 1.5 million of Israel’s 7.7 million citizens – approximately 20 percent of the population. They are, therefore, a minority. They live in 15 towns and cities, mostly in and around the Galilee. They have full voting rights. Five Arab political parties are represented in the Knesset; there are 14 Arab members of Knesset, one has attained to a ministerial portfolio, one is a former and another is a current deputy Knesset Speaker.

Israeli Arabs enjoy complete freedom in their country. They can live, study, work and travel where they please. They have national health coverage and enjoy the same benefits as their fellow, Jewish, citizens.

What they do not have to do, is serve in the IDF (although some Druze and some Bedouin choose to do so and have served with distinction; even laying down their lives.)

The majority of Israel’s Arabs identify their nationality as “Palestinian.” Many, including some of the parliamentarians, openly support the PLO goal to destroy Jewish Israel and replace it with a Muslim Palestine.

To suggest that Arabs in Israel live in any way comparable to the miserable existence endured by black South Africans is to do a terrible injustice both to Israel and to apartheid’s victims.

Jerusalem Watchman "No Apartheid Here"