It was a great experience to sit in Madison Square Garden last month and watch the Billy Graham crusade meetings. For the two nights I attended, the Garden was packed solid and overflow audiences of five thousand or more watched by closed-circuit television in other parts of the building.
I was struck by the number of blacks who attended and who participated in the meetings. Simon Estes has one of the most magnificent voices I have heard in a long time. I can still feel the goose pimples that rose as I heard him sing. But more striking than everything else was the audience response to Mr. Graham’s invitation to receive Jesus Christ. They came and they kept coming—hundreds of them every night. They were wooed and won, not by the voice or the charisma of the speaker, but by the Holy Spirit, working through a chosen vessel.
We live in an age of unrest and irreligion. But in this dark picture there are bright spots, and we must not overlook them. God is at work in many places around the world, and people are being converted. Although revival and awakening on a large scale have not yet come, there is the sound of the wind in the mulberry trees in many places. We should continue to pray for the larger outpouring of God’s Spirit.
