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|---|---|
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24 Elders Significance
00:05:27
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| Does Billy Graham have any significance in prophecy, do you think, his death? | |
| Well, you know, two or three days before the funeral, I'm reading some verses in Revelations chapter 5. | |
| And something just jumped out at me, and I started thinking about it, and I'll kind of share that with you. | |
| In Revelations chapter 5, it says, the Father is giving the scroll. | |
| You know, the scrolls, the book of Revelation with the seal, sealing it. | |
| And in chapter 5, he's giving the scroll to Jesus in the presence of the 24 elders and the four creatures. | |
| But I got to thinking about the 24 elders, and the thought hit me, who are the 24 elders? | |
| And traditionally, if you talk to many theologians, they'll tell you, but this is not based on scripture, it's conjecture. | |
| But most theologians believe it makes sense that the 24 would be the 12 disciples and the 12 leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel. | |
| Well, you know, by definition, an elder in a church or a ministry organization are kind of like the top spiritual leaders. | |
| Okay? | |
| So the thought actually hit me years ago. | |
| Instead of 12 and 12, what if the 24 elders are the greatest spiritual leaders of all time? | |
| Because if you look at the 12 and 12, you're including Thomas the doubter as one of the 24 elders. | |
| Wow. | |
| You're including Matthias, who replaced Judas, and you never heard of him again after he won the spot by drawing lots. | |
| In the Old Testament, you know, some of the leaders of the 12 tribes of Israel weren't that outstanding. | |
| So if you go with the 12 by 12, you've got some less than great spiritual leaders, and you're eliminating Enoch, who walked with God, Abraham, Isaac, Noah, Moses. | |
| In the New Testament, you're eliminating Paul, who wrote half of the New Testament. | |
| So the thought hit me, what if the 24 elders are the 24 greatest spiritual leaders of all time? | |
| And if that was true, now listen, this is not, thus saith the Lord. | |
| God didn't tell me this is the way it is. | |
| This is just your thought. | |
| This is just a thought. | |
| Yes. | |
| Okay? | |
| It's really no more unscriptural than the 12 and 12, because the Bible doesn't say. | |
| But if it is the 24 greatest spiritual leaders of all time, could Billy Graham be the 24th elder? | |
| Now, if you think about recent prophetic words that there would be like an acceleration of the Lord's coming at his death, and in Revelations 5, the Father is passing the scroll to Jesus in the presence of the 24 elders. | |
| That would mean that the unsealing of the scroll couldn't happen until all 24 elders were seated. | |
| Wow. | |
| That's a great question. | |
| So that's an interesting thought. | |
| It is. | |
| And take a look at Billy Graham, a man of the highest integrity. | |
| I mean, not to compare man with man, but he actually had a higher level of integrity in my book than some of the disciples. | |
| And not to put them down, but you know, when he was a man of high integrity, in Billy Graham's lifetime, half of the people ever born on planet Earth were alive in his lifetime. | |
| Wow. | |
| Billy Graham probably is safe to say that he led more people to Christ than any man in history. | |
| He literally reached the world, the Great Commission, with his ministry organization. | |
| And think about this. | |
| The very fact he lived virtually 100 years, like you say, from conception. | |
| That's right. | |
| The thought that hit me was, could God have extended Billy Graham's life so that the 24th elder wouldn't be seated, the four horses couldn't be unsealed until his death, God could have extended his life to give us more grace time. | |
| Yes. | |
| You know what I mean? | |
| Like I say, you know, part of interpretation is common sense. | |
| To me, there's a certain amount of common sense here that the 24 elders would be the greatest spiritual leaders of all time. | |
| And here's an interesting thought. | |
| Some people said that Billy Graham's ministry accelerated in 1948 when William Randolph Hearst, you know what I mean? | |
| It wasn't necessarily a good bio of Billy Graham, but it put him in the newspapers all across the country. | |
| And then that following year, 1949, is when Stuart Hamlin was saved. | |
| Right. | |
| And Cliff Barrows was part of the team in 1949. | |
| And George Beverly Shea in 1949. | |
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70 Years Of Ministry
00:00:34
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| And they stayed with him for the whole duration of his ministry. | |
| Until they passed before him. | |
| Billy Graham started Youth for Christ. | |
| Yes. | |
| Started Songs in the Night in Chicago with them. | |
| He was part of it in the early times. | |
| So think about this. | |
| If Billy Graham's ministry is celebrated 1948, the year of the rebirth of Israel, he dies on the 70th anniversary of the rebirth of Israel. | |
| That's a good thought, too. | |