Quotes by Billy Graham

There is a great identity crisis among students today. Who am I? What is the purpose of life? Where did I come from? Where am I going? The Bible has a direct answer to this great big philosophical question and unless God seals the vacuum among youth today, then some other ideology will, because young people must have a faith. They must believe in something to find fulfillment in their lives.

I have found that most young people really want us to spell out a moral code. They may not accept it or believe it, but they want to hear it, clearly and without compromise.

In America we have an idolatry called the “adulation of youth.” Apparently distressed by their inability to communicate with the younger generation, many adults simply imitate it.

If we would take the traits that characterized the Pilgrims and make them our own, we could regain hope. We could recover the spiritual and moral strength that we have lost. We could offer a thrilling challenge to our young people.

Millions of young people are shifting from one side to the other. They are like unguided missiles filled with energy and ambition and yet somehow not “fitting in.” Peer pressure leads them astray . . . [and] in thousands of churches they are led astray theologically.

All young people sin, and sin produces discord, repellent vibrations which rifle the concert of life until the strings are gutless and flat. The kicks soon lead to kickbacks.

[Young people,] dress as attractively as you can. You are an aristocrat, a child of God.

In earlier periods of history, adolescence was virtually unknown . . . Today, the span between childhood and adulthood may extend over ten years. Deferred adulthood is synonymous with deferred responsibility.

Young people are experts on leisure, water skiing, dancing, rock music, rapping, TV watching . . . by and large, chores are a thing of the past.

Wherever the Word of God is hidden or ignored, there will be certain destruction.

Young people are caught up in whatever appears to be the most bizarre. They look for truth and settle for folly. False religions and the occult are clever in reaching seekers who want to experience a rush of any kind.

Don’t rebel, but give God the opportunity to change your life and help you over the problems of youth, for they are many.

Parents do overindulge their children, giving them a profusion of material things . . . without the stabilizing effects of earning one’s way, of making decisions, of sweating hard to attain some kind of goal, young people are grievously handicapped.

Do young people have the moral stamina to carry through in case of economic depression? . . . The real tests of the [younger] generations have not yet come, but they are on their way!

The Bible teaches that there will be a famine of the Word of God in the last days . . . spiritual starvation leads to spiritual death.

Confrontation is the special business of young people. They confront their parents, peers, society, law enforcement officers, and themselves, but primarily they confront God.

What is the most difficult word for young people to pronounce? It’s the word no. When we say no [to what is against God], He will help us to stand by it. He will give us courage.

I am in favor of hanging the Ten Commandments in every schoolroom in the country so young people can know the difference between right and wrong. They don’t know the difference and we’re seeing the evidence of that all around us every day.

I come in contact with mixed-up people, young men and women caught in the anguish of their own unpreparedness, intellectuals who have been seduced by false science, and rich men held in the grip of insecurity. They have no commitment to any goal. They lack an anchorage for their real self. And I long to take every one of them by the hand and lead them into the presence of the One who said, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” [Matthew 11:28 KJV].

It is strange that the world accepts enthusiasm in every realm but the spiritual.