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“Billy Graham was an iconic minister of God whose life is worth celebrating. He lived his life for God. It is on record that countless number of people received the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ through his simple message of love and hope. Through his crusades alone, God used him to reach a worldwide audience of millions of people, because the mighty hand of the Lord was upon him”
Those are the words of the Presiding Bishop, Sword of the Spirit Ministries, Francis Wale Oke, paying tribute to late globally renowned preacher, Billy Graham.
Oke, in a statement issued at the weekend, said Graham was the son of a humble Presbyterian North Carolina farmer, who was converted after he was ministered to by a travelling evangelist when he was 16.
Billy Graham died last Wednesday at the age of 99. He was widely regarded as the most influential preacher of the 20th century.
“We are not mourning, we are only celebrating a life well lived because to live is Christ and to die is gain”, Oke said. “But we will miss him greatly, we will miss a roving evangelist whose nature was clouded with grace. We will miss his simple message filled with the wisdom and the power of God, and we will miss his uncommon grace that influenced political leaders and millions of people in the direction of Jesus Christ. Truly, he has gone to be with the Lord and by the grace of God we will see again at the feet of Jesus in glory. We will indeed miss him”.
Bishop Oke who is also the promoter of Precious Cornerstone University, Ibadan commiserated with the Graham family and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and prayed that the Lord will comfort and strengthen them and give them the fortitude to bear the loss.