The Cross - Billy Graham's Message To America

Evangelist Billy Graham delivered what is being dubbed his final “sermon” to America on Thursday night. Through a special video broadcast called “My Hope America,” Graham warned that the nation is in “great need of a spiritual awakening” and that he has wept over how far the nation has moved away from God.

Evangelist Billy Graham (Credit: AP Photo/Nell Redmond, File)

The video, which is available online and through select broadcast networks across the nation (it will air on TheBlaze TV this weekend), was released today on Graham’s 95th birthday.

“I want to tell people about the meaning of the cross … the real cross of Christ,” a passionate Graham proclaimed in the video. ”I know that many will react to this message, but it is the truth and with all my heart, I want to leave you with the truth.”

Graham then went on to discuss his view on the importance of accepting Jesus Christ and following the Christian savior.

His pre-recorded message was interspersed with fiery selections from the preacher’s past sermons as well as personal testimony from musicians Lacey Sturm and Lecrae Moore.

“People don’t want to hear that they’re sinners. To many people it’s an offense,” Graham proclaimed. “The cross is offensive, because it directly confronts the evils that dominate so much of this world.”

He went on to explain that the Christian message demands that believers embrace a new lifestyle — one that directly confronts mankind’s sinful nature.

“Sin is a disease in the human heart. If affects the mind and the will and the emotions. Every part of our being is affected by this disease,” Graham said.

The evangelist told viewers, though, that God can renew their spirits and that “there is no other way of salvation except through the cross of Christ.”

Graham also warned of a cultural slide in American society — one that he is clearly worried about. He said that the nation is in great need of “a spiritual awakening.”

“There’ve been times I’ve wept as I’ve gone city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God,” he told viewers.

At the end of the broadcast, Graham invited viewers to become followers of Jesus.

“Today, I’m asking you to put your trust in Christ,” he said, offering a prayer that would invite prospective believers into the faith.

Watch Graham’s message below:

Video: The Cross - Billy Graham's Message To America

Part of "My Hope America With Billy Graham" - an urgent new message of Hope from Billy Graham, featuring Lacey Sturm and Lecrae 

Video: Party in NC to Mark Billy Graham's 95th Birthday

Among the hundreds of guests, approximately 800, were North Carolina Gov. Pat McCrory, former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, New York real-estate magnate Donald Trump, Founder of The Blaze Glenn Beck and former President Bill Clinton. Singers Ricky Skaggs and Michael W. Smith were set to lead the audience in a refrain of Happy Birthday as 1,000 cupcakes were served.

Glenn Beck tweeted… They only gave me one cupcake… My wife Tania must have phoned ahead.

The Palins Arrive for Billy Graham’s 95th Birthday Event

  Happy 95th Birthday Billy Graham!!!

The Reality of 2012 Voter Turnout: The White Voter

Battleground Watch:

The largest divergence among conservative and liberal polling critics this election is the debate over who will actually show up at the voting booth this November. Differences between the amounts of Democrats versus Republicans included in the poll are frequent. But embedded in each of these assumptions are questions on the racial make-up and how that varies from election to election. Democrats consistently talk about the “coalition of the ascendant” where the fastest growing segments of the population are minorities. As such they make up an ever-increasing segment of the voting population but also vote overwhelmingly in favor of Democrats. With a shrinking white population and a growing minority population Democrats argue demography as destiny and count on political majorities for the coming generation. That may be true if everything in life moves in a straight line (it doesn’t) but is that true today?

This is the bone of contention between the competing Presidential campaigns and critics of today’s polls. Democrats want to argue the steep increase in minority percentage of the voting electorate from 2008 election was a fundamental shift in the electorate whereas Republicans want to argue the steep increases were a one-off bounce. Both agree on the general direction of the trend. Neither agree how severe that trend will be in 2012. This disagreement is the basis for Democrat over-confidence and lopsided polling today in an election where the two candidates are most likely within 1-2% of one another.

What’s missing in all this analysis is who did not show up in the 2008 election: White voters. Looking back at those results, every voter turnout rate by race (relative to eligible population) was up versus 2004 except the white vote according to Pew Research (April 30, 2009). Blacks were up +4.9%, Hispanics were up +2.7%, Asians were up +2.4%. But the percentage of White voters who showed up at the polls relative to who was eligible dropped -1.1% (Census Bureau, Current Population Survey, May 2010). This has nothing to do with minorities making up more or less of the electorate. This is simply saying from 2004 to 2008 White voter registration (which actually dropped 104k) and actual turnout of White voters (which increased 500k) did not keep up with voting age White population increases.

Within this drop of White voter turnout, over 3x as many men as women comprised those voters staying home in the election. This happened for any number of reasons ranging from a disinterested national party to a disorganized Presidential campaign to a demoralized voting block–all are true. But the bottom line is one of the advantages Barack Obama enjoyed in 2008 was that a meaningful percentage of white voters simply stayed home in 2008. Side note: for anyone who wants to pin the depressed turnout on racism, wouldn’t the opposite have occurred in 2008 if racism really were a motivating factor in the white turnout?

Where this trips up the Obama campaign.

In 2008 Democrats achieved incredible levels of voter registration and turnout of this “coalition of the ascendent” such that Blacks, Hispanics and Asians made up 24% of the voting electorate — all historic highs. Bolstering the appearance of Democrat advantage are countless media stories reporting on Mitt Romney’s struggle appealing to minority groups. Little attention is paid to Barack Obama’s (and Democrat candidates before him) difficulty appealing to White voters who made up 74% of the electorate. Such historic minority levels for the composition of the electorate are predicated on a demoralized and ineligible (meaning unregistered) white population much like in 2008, as demonstrated above.

If John McCain achieved a white voter turnout rate equal to George Bush in 2004, that would have meant 1.7 million more White votes. While all of these votes would not have gone to McCain (nor were they all in battleground states), a super-majority of these voters likely would have voted Republican considering the make-up of the missing voter (white male — Obama’s worst demographic) and the motivated nature of the Obama voter in 2008 (i.e. if they were Obama supporters, only a scant few percent would have stayed home). Those missing votes would have been more than enough to flip the results in any of North Carolina (14k), Indiana (28.5k,), Nevada (121k), Iowa (146k), Colorado (195k), Virginia (234k), Florida (237k) or Ohio (260k) where Obama’s victory margin (in parentheses) is based on a 43% vote share of a decreased turnout.

Today Barack Obama receives approximately 40% of the White vote in polls but often dips below this level especially when polls fail to massively over-sample Democrats. The President is also facing an increasingly enthusiastic bloc of White voters motivated to vote against him (this shows up in every survey) based on his poor record in office. Additionally, Republicans have aggressively targeted the above mentioned states with voter registration efforts reversing or seriously muting the registration advantage Obama enjoyed in 2008. Net gains for Republicans voter registrations in Nevada (53k), Iowa (140k), Colorado (91k) and Florida (240k) all speak to a very different and Republican electorate in those states. On top of registration, voter contacts from the Romney campaign surpassed 26 million eligible voters across the battleground states to date. This is as much as 10-15x as much as the McCain 2008 campaign. This does not dismiss the aggressive and active Obama re-election effort but it simply points out that compared to 2008 he is no longer battling an unarmed opponent.

All of this is to say when David Axelrod or similar Obama campaign talking heads argue aggressively for polls with a racial composition at meaningfully greater minority levels than the 2008 historic turnout, there is another side of that coin and it works heavily against the turnout models of both the Obama campaign and of the vast majority of polls being published today.

Want things to change? Help educate people and help get out the conservative, independent, evangelical and white vote!! Many are not registered.

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O'Leary: NRA, Evangelical Uprising Will Win in 2012

The GOP has a clear shot at retaking the White House in 2012, but winning will require strong support from core groups such as the National Rifle Association, Christian conservatives, and the ever-expanding tea party movement, veteran political consultant and best-selling author Brad O’Leary tells Newsmax.

“How can Obama be beaten? You have to talk to the people about what he really believes.” says O’Leary, publisher of The O’Leary Report and co-author of a book in process titled “How Obama Can Be Defeated in 2012.”

“You’re not going to be able to fight this election and win unless you have the support of the NRA. That’s a truism we can start with,” says O’Leary, who adds that the current administration’s poor record on gun rights has cost the Democrats dearly in recent elections.

Video:  O’Leary :  NRA, Evangelical Uprising Will Win in 2012

“In his heart, President [Barack] Obama would love to take on the NRA. He believes that restrictions on owning a gun can be put in place by the states. Hardly anyone in America would be able to own a gun,” O’Leary says. “Will the Democratic Party, who suffered such a calamity in the last election, have the guts to take on the NRA? I think they’ll choose to be hypocrites all the way.”

The NRA's power will be on display next month at its annual members' meeting in Pittsburgh. Attendance hit a record of 71,000 last year, and this year's event could draw an all-time high of 75,000.

In a wide-ranging interview with Newsmax.TV, O’Leary also expounded on:

• The solid cadre of national conservative candidates and how that field is likely to shake out this election cycle
• The administration’s efforts to appoint activist judges to rewrite the Constitution and impinge on American freedoms
• Obama’s brand of Christianity and how it fuels his strong belief in the redistribution of wealth.

Like NRA members, O’Leary says Christian conservatives are likely to be driven to the polls in record numbers in 2012 to hold the line on issues and positions they feel the Obama administration is threatening.

“Religious conservatives … weren’t out in massive number last election but they’re there,” O’Leary tells Newsmax. “Anyone who thinks we solved gay marriage, and solved many other issues that would turn people out doesn’t know anything about America.

“Since the Civil War, churches have played an important part in turning out their people to vote in elections,” he says.
Even with the NRA and the Christian vote secured, however, GOP candidates need to be mindful of the burgeoning power of the tea party, O’Leary adds.

“Any successful candidate . . . is going to have to have the support of groups like the tea party,” he insists. “They are not going away. They didn’t come to the table and elect so many people, especially electing 700 new state representatives, [to] then fade into the darkness of politics.

“They are going to have more time to organize, more time to turn people out, and they’re going to get you focusing on the issues.”

O’Leary says he thinks all of the candidates being mentioned in the 2012 GOP presidential mix will be willing to take the gloves off and challenge Obama on the issues in a way they didn’t in 2008.

Most of the candidates and potential candidates now aren’t getting a lot of attention from voters because they aren’t as “flashingly politically famous as we’ve had in previous elections.”

O’Leary’s take on some of the top GOP contenders:

Mitt Romney: “Tested. Good organization and business background. Hasn’t quite learned the terms that are going to sell his vision yet.”

Mike Huckabee: “Has a certain warmth that gets through to his audience and will get through to America.”

Sarah Palin: “She loves her family so much and owes so much to them. Running for president is very difficult, but if she decides to run, she has the right priorities!”

Tim Pawlenty: “Started slow. Picked up momentum. He could be the last guy standing.”

Haley Barbour: “Successful at everything he’s done. The more you see Haley, the more you like him.”

Rick Santorum: “Been silent politically for years. Just allowing himself to get re-known by the American public.”

Donald Trump: “Hard time believing someone as successful as Trump is going to take the time necessary to run for president.  But he is beholden to no one and speaks his mind.”

On the subject of activist judges, O’Leary calls Supreme Court justices Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor “total examples” of the administration’s desire to effect liberal legislative changes from the bench.

Source: Newsmax

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