By Troy Anderson
When it happens, it will be the greatest event in history—dwarfing Noah’s Flood, the Exodus and parting of the Red Sea, the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the invention of the printing press, Reformation and Renaissance, the French and American revolutions, the first and second world wars, and the atomic and technological ages.
In the world of newspaper journalism, headline writers have prepared for this event with what is known as “Second-Coming type” — giant, bold headlines reserved for the world’s biggest news events.
As an award-winning journalist who has spent nearly a decade writing articles and books about current events and Bible prophecy, it was an incredible honor to interview world-renowned evangelist Billy Graham several years ago about the Second Coming of Christ.
During my 26-year career, I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews with some of the world’s most prominent faith and political leaders, celebrities, and experts in geopolitics, military affairs, intelligence, economics, science, and eschatology.
Of all those interviews, the one with Billy Graham, who died February 21 at age 99, stands above the rest as not only the most historically significant but also one that profoundly changed my life and career.
In an exclusive interview in 2013 that was later published in various media outlets, Graham told me that signs of the end of the age are “converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.”
“The Bible indicates that as the time for Christ’s return approaches, evil and social chaos may well intensify,” Graham said. “Are we living in those days? Only God knows the future and the answer to that question; the Bible makes it clear that we aren’t to predict the exact time of Christ’s return or claim to know when it will happen.
“At the same time, many of the signs or events that Jesus said must take place before His return are certainly in place. Never before, for example, has it been possible to penetrate virtually every corner of the world with the Gospel, as Jesus predicted (see Matthew 24:14).”
Graham said the “fourth and last watch is the coldest hour before the dawn.”
“It’s the one that most people dread because it is so cold and you’re still sleepy. I think that we’re in the fourth watch in our world. We’re coming toward the end of the age, not the end of the world or the earth but the end of the age – the period that God has set aside for this particular time. There’s a great deal to say in the Bible about the signs we’re to watch for and when these signs all converge at one place we can be sure that we’re close to the end of the age. And those signs in my judgment are converging now for the first time since Jesus made those predictions.”
A Life-Changing Interview
Little did I know, but this interview would radically change my life. At that time, I was a typical mainstream journalist, having spent two decades working as a reporter and editorial writer at the Los Angeles Daily News, The Press-Enterprise, and other newspapers, and as a freelance journalist for Reuters, Newsmax, Christianity Today, National Wildlife, Human Events and other media outlets.
But the interview with Billy Graham, along with the “America at the End” article I wrote for the December 2012 issue of Charisma magazine, changed my life and career direction.
After writing the Charisma article, the producers of 2016: Obama’s America – one of the high-grossing documentary films in modern times – contacted me to suggest I write an end-times book and documentary screenplay. Shortly afterward, my co-author Paul McGuire – a Fox News and History Channel commentator and former host of the nationally-syndicated Paul McGuire Show – and I decided to pitch a book and film idea to a literary agency.
The agency, one of the nation’s top Christian literary agencies, agreed to represent us, and then our agent sold the book to FaithWords/Hachette Book Group. Our first book, The Babylon Code: Solving the Bible’s Greatest End-Times Mystery. The Babylon Code, was released on Oct. 6, 2015, and become a bestseller. It featured my interview with Billy Graham.
About a year later, following the surprise election of Donald Trump as president, FaithWords/Hachette agreed to publish the second book in the series. Trumpocalypse: The End-Times President, a Battle Against the Globalist Elite, and the Countdown to Armageddon was released January 2, 2018. Trumpocalypse, which features my interview with Billy Graham and his daughter Anne Graham Lotz, also became a bestseller.
Now, we’re working with a film producer to turn Trumpocalypse into either a docudrama film for theatrical release or a television series. We’re in talks with another producer regarding The Babylon Code.
We believe these films can continue to spread the message of Billy Graham to the world for many years to come.
“Our world is desperately seeking answers to the deepest questions of life— answers that can only be found in the gospel. That is the reason for my hope, that there can be changed hearts and a changed society as we yield ourselves to Christ,” Graham said.
America’s Nineveh Moment
Not long before my interview with him, Billy Graham penned a prophetic letter to America. In it, he lamented the downward spiral of the country’s moral standards.
“My heart aches for America and its deceived people,” he wrote. “The wonderful news is that our Lord is a God of mercy, and He responds to repentance. In Jonah’s day, Nineveh was the lone superpower of its time— wealthy, unconcerned, and self- centered. When the prophet Jonah finally traveled to Nineveh and proclaimed God’s warning, people heard and repented. I believe the same thing can happen once again, this time in our nation.”
Inspired by the letter and Graham’s subsequent My Hope America broadcast during the week of November 7, 2013 — his ninety-fifth birthday— thousands of Christians spent the next several years encouraging America to turn back to God. As the 2016 presidential election approached, this effort accelerated significantly, and many faith leaders sounded the alarm that the nation’s future was at stake.
I believe Billy Graham’s prophetic words are coming true, and Jesus is now reaching out to America and the world, inviting us to return to him. Some faith leaders are calling this our “Nineveh Moment.” We believe if we repent and turn back to God, that America will go on to fulfill its destiny that began with the Pilgrims to take the good news to the ends of the earth.
“The United States is going to have to turn from its evil ways….,” Billy Graham said in the interview. “First, we need to repent of our sin and turn back to God; that’s the biblical admonition through the Old and New Testaments. Second, we need faith to believe. And then obedience. God gave us the Ten Commandments, which we need to take seriously. But we have no power within ourselves to live up to them. That’s where the gospel of Christ comes, in giving us a supernatural power to live that kind of life. It’s much easier for me to talk about the love of God, and it’s very difficult to tell a person, f you don’t repent you’re going to hell. But that’s exactly the way it is . . . We need spiritual renewal now. And it can begin today in each one of our lives, as we repent before God and yield ourselves to him and his Word.”
Anne Graham Lotz, Billy Graham’s daughter, agrees this is our “Nineveh Moment.” She cites Joel 2: 12– 13 (NIV), where God says, “‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments.’” “In other words,” Lotz says, “stop giving lip service and just being sort of glib with things, but you truly grieve over your sin, you repent, you return to God. He says, ‘Who knows? He may turn and relent and leave behind a blessing’ ” (Joel 2:14 NIV).
When Billy Graham Goes to Heaven
Anne Graham Lotz’s remarks preceded her father’s death on Feb. 21, 2018 at the age of 99. She said that she believes her father’s long life may be linked to the “return of Jesus.”
Graham Lotz says her father’s life and ministry have been very unique in history. “There hasn’t been anything like it, and just as his life was global in scope and very significant, I believe his death will be also. It just stands to reason that God used his life and God will use his death if he takes him before Jesus comes back.”
Graham Lotz says her mother went to heaven ten years ago, and many people in her family thought their father would follow quickly because “they were so entwined, so in love—that he’d be here ten years later, I never would have thought that. So, then I know my father’s life is in God’s hands, and I believe the Bible says that our days are numbered, so for whatever reason God’s purpose for Daddy isn’t finished. I’ll tell you [Troy] what I based it on. I told him [Billy Graham] this years ago. In studying Genesis 5, there is a genealogy, and when Methuselah was born—he lived the longest of anybody on earth—and his name means, ‘When he died it shall come.’”
Extrabiblical tradition maintains that Methuselah died seven days before his grandson Noah and his family escaped the Great Flood in a giant wooden ark. Like Noah, Billy Graham spent his life calling people to repentance, and his sermons on the Second Coming of Christ were seen and heard by tens of millions of people worldwide over many decades. It took Noah 120 to build the ark.
“He had been preaching righteousness and warning people, and telling them that judgment was coming and that they needed to come into the ark and be saved,” Graham Lotz says. “So, then you wonder if Methuselah died, and then Noah is there in the door of the ark, preaching salvation in the Old Testament sense, inviting people to come into the ark and be saved from the Flood that was coming. The Bible tells us Noah went into the ark and it was seven days later before God closed the door. So, for seven days he’s getting everything settled and then the New Testament tells us he was a preacher of righteousness. We also know that when Jacob died they mourned for him for seven days. And so, was that a mourning period for Methuselah in which God was also speaking to the world that he loved, inviting them to be saved from the judgment that he knew was coming? I don’t know if that is right or not, but we know that judgment came. We know that all the people who refused to come into the ark were destroyed. They came under God’s judgment because they hadn’t accepted his offer of salvation. So, I told Daddy years ago I wonder if his life would sort of be like that when he goes to heaven.”
In our interview with her, Graham Lotz said she expected days of worldwide mourning following her father’s death.
“I would expect that there will be programs and things that would be on the news about his life,” Graham Lotz says. “I would expect also that because they are giving biographical sketches, or going through his life story, that they would have to give the gospel, too. I don’t know how you could talk about Billy Graham and describe him without talking about the gospel and the cross of Jesus. And so that makes me wonder will there be a time when the world, in a time of mourning and they are focused on Billy Graham, but more than that they are focused on the gospel, and it will be one more time God has in reaching out to the whole world. Matthew 24:14 says when the gospel is preached to the whole world then the end will come, and there are many ways today that the gospel is being preached to the whole world. I’ve just wondered if God is holding Daddy for whatever time heaven thinks will be the most effective time to take him to heaven, and then at that moment one more time the gospel will be preached to the whole world.”
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