By Mark Ellis —
After the passing of the most impactful evangelist of the 20th century, some have wondered if the powerful anointing resting on Billy Graham will fall from God on another evangelist, or, perhaps many.
Elijah’s understudy, Elisha, once asked the great prophet for “a double portion” of Elijah’s spirit to rest on him after Elijah’s assumption to heaven.
When a chariot of fire lifted Elijah into a whirlwind, his mantle (cape) fell to the ground and Elisha picked it up. The miracles continued to flow from God through the younger man.
Some mentioned as possible successors to Graham include Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, T.D. Jakes, Joel Osteen, and Graham’s children, Franklin and Anne Graham Lotz.
“I don’t think any single person will be ‘the next Billy Graham,’ ” Graham’s biographer, William Martin, told the Charlotte Observer. “That’s in part because evangelical Christianity has become so large and multifaceted – in significant measure because of what Graham did – that no one person can dominate it, regardless of talent or dedication. It’s just not going to happen.”
Martin noted that at many of Graham’s conferences, attended by thousands of itinerant evangelists from over a hundred countries, Graham would tell them: “You are my successors.”
“They would even call themselves “little Billy Grahams” going out and preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in ways that his organization had taught them.”
The leader of the charismatic prayer movement known as The Call, Lou Engle, wrote on the day of Graham’s death: “It is my conviction that his passing is the signpost of a new day of evangelism and stadium Christianity breaking forth in America again.”
A few days before Graham’s death, Engle was fasting and praying when God impressed upon him thoughts about Elijah passing his mantle to Elisha. Immediately Engle thought about Billy Graham and wrote in the margin of his Bible next to 2 Kings 2, “I will not let you go Billy Graham until you let a double portion of your spirit be upon me and a new generation of evangelists,” according to The Briefing, an online publication from Engle’s organization.
Benny Hinn prophesied in 2012 that when Graham passed to his reward, it would mark the beginning of the greatest revival on Earth. “Billy is about to go home and when he does, I’m telling you, the whole church, get ready,” Hinn noted.
Other prophetic leaders, such as Chris Berglund have shared similar ideas: “At Billy Graham’s home-going the greatest evangelistic outpouring will be ushered in,” according to The Briefing.
“A pastor friend also dreamed a few years ago of Billy Graham’s passing,” The Briefing noted. “In the dream he watched the mantle that was on his life lift from him, then hover for a moment, then burst into what he understood to be about 1000 pieces. Each of them shot with force into people all over the world, who then carried within them that same powerful anointing for evangelism.”
Many will be watching and praying for a double portion of the spirit that empowered Billy Graham to fall upon the next generation — for the greatest revival the world has ever seen.
https://www.godreports.com/2018/03/who-will-succeed-billy-graham
It is hard to know what to believe about B. Graham. All my life I had believed he was a godly man and no doubt he started out that way. But did he finish that way? Maybe it was only somewhere in the middle he came unstuck. Watching him on Larry King telling him that there are other ways to God and that people of all faiths can reach God. The late Dave Hunt on You Tube reveals much of Billy Grahams beliefs.
As a fairly new preacher, he once spent a whole week in the Vatican in audience with the pope and came out of that time, with a different Gospel. Most of the time, that is, in his rallies he preached Christ as the only Way and said the right words in those meetings, but in interviews and in meetings with heads of state, prime ministers and presidents and so on, he preached a different message.
I always wondered why, if he was such a godly man, did “all men speak well of him;” when Jesus said the very opposite would happen to true followers of Himself.
“Woe to you when all people shall speak well of you!…”
Why did the media all over the world make him look good?
Why was he popular with presidents and prime ministers? I believe it is because the Vatican saw Billy as a means of being a harbinger of the One World Church they are trying to pull together under the Pope.
It is notable too, that at the crusades, the volunteer counselors were instructed to encourage the catholics to stay in their own church and to those who had left it, to go back there.
How can catholicism marry with Bible Christianity? They are diametrically opposed.
I believe the Vatican had great hopes in B. Graham and that that is why he was so well accepted by prime ministers, presidents and kings. The Vatican has influence in those people.
Nevertheless, he did preach the Gospel publicly and through that many came to Christ. Because it is the preaching of the Gospel that is the power of God unto salvation.
Did he change his position in his last days? One hopes so. I sincerely hope he rejected the ecumenical, embrace-all religions ideology the Vatican fed him with and came to Christ alone.
But then I wonder if that were so, why do we not see or read him recanting it publicly?
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