People Are Done with Hollywood's Empty Messages

A New Beginning presents a book about the greatest evangelist of the 20th century, Billy Graham, written by his friend, Pastor Greg Laurie. I bring insights that maybe other books have not really touched on. I also weave in a lot of my personal experiences, one-on-one with Billy, things he said to me, and things I gleaned by watching him. So if you want to learn more about this man that changed the world, get your copy of Billy Graham, The Man I Knew.

Yours for a gift of any amount at Harvest.org. A new wave of filmmakers is rising, and guess what? They're Christians. I want to talk to you about something that I think is very exciting.

It's happening right now. There's a whole new wave of filmmakers sweeping the industry, and the big surprise is many of them are followers of Jesus Christ. Let's start with a little contrast.

Exhibit A of what not to do. Disney's recent debacle, Snow White. Did you know over $240 million was spent to strip this classic of everything that made it charming and meaningful, and what did they turn it into?

I think a mediocre disappointment that completely missed the mark. So the original Snow White was Walt Disney's first feature film, and the first full-length animated film ever made. It was a smash hit, and it launched the Disney name, An Empire. And Walt Disney himself, he understood his audience. In fact, he once said, and I quote, The important thing is the family. If you can keep the family together, that's the backbone of our whole business, catering to families.

That's what we hope to do. End quote. So Walt Disney got it. People don't just want entertainment, they want meaning. They want stories that they can watch together with their family. Fun fact about Disney, did you know in Walt Disney's original plans for Disneyland, it actually had a church on Main Street?

Okay, so let's contrast Snow White with something on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. A film series that's connecting with audiences all around the world. It's called House of David.

Have you seen it yet? It's streaming exclusively on Amazon Prime Video. So Prime Video is available in 240 countries and territories, and check this out, has over 200 million subscribers.

And guess what? House of David hit number one in the US on the platform. That means it's reaching millions of people that are loving this series. So this incredible series was envisioned and directed by my good friend John Irwin, who also directed Jesus Revolution, which is the film about my life and how I met my wife and how our church started and the great spiritual awakening known as the Jesus Movement or Jesus Revolution. Now, House of David tells the powerful biblical story of Israel's second and greatest king and has captured audiences.

All of the episodes are out now and people are clamoring for season two, which by the way is now in production. So my wife Kathy and I had the privilege of going to Greece where part of this series was filmed, and we created a companion documentary style series called Beyond House of David, which is also on the Amazon platform. In these four episodes, I share the gospel and help viewers understand what these stories mean for their lives today.

So thank you, Amazon, for putting that out there. I also wrote a devotional to accompany this series called House of David. Thirty days with the man after God's own heart. And by the way, it's the number one book in Old Testament biographies on Amazon right now.

You might want to order a copy for yourself. And let's not forget The Chosen, directed by Dallas Jenkins. Millions of people around the world are watching the life of Jesus unfold in a way we've never seen before on screen. What's amazing to me is that both John Irwin and Dallas Jenkins want people to go beyond the show and actually open the Bible for themselves.

That's the goal to get back to the source material. Now, of course, both of them take liberties in telling these biblical stories, but keeping the arc of the story intact. But I think this is one of the greatest evangelistic opportunities the church has had in a long time.

Great tools that we can use. We can invite friends and neighbors and family members over to our home and have watch parties and watch an episode of House of David or The Chosen and use Beyond House of David as a tool that presents the gospel. By the way, one particular episode of Beyond House of David called Facing Your Giants has the gospel presented complete with a prayer that a person could pray to accept Christ.

So what an amazing thing is happening in film right now. I think it's the next frontier of evangelism. So I'm old enough to remember when contemporary Christian music began in the 70s. I saw it at Calvary Chapel of Costa Mesa, and this is reflected in the Jesus Revolution film.

And I had a front row seat to the birth of what became an industry. Now, as it began, it was just a bunch of Christians who had their lives changed and happened to be musical artists and wanted to reach their culture. Now contemporary Christian music, or CCM as it's called, has its own record labels, radio stations, billboard charts, and more.

That's great. But when it came to Christian filmmaking, let's just say we had sort of a rough start, low budgets, cheesy dialogue, maybe a little too syrupy, maybe a little too preachy, but that's changing. We made the film Jesus Revolution. I told John Irwin, hey, let's surprise the audience and make it grittier and more realistic than people would expect, and let's make sure the gospel is crystal clear without sacrificing the artistry. And I think John nailed it, especially the baptism scene. There's even a moment where Jonathan Rumi, who plays Jesus in The Chosen and in this film plays Lonnie Frisbee, the evangelist, speaks with my character, played by Joel Courtney, and they're out there in the water.

And before he baptizes Joel or Greg, he leads him in what we call the sinner's prayer. I remember practicing it with Jonathan before he went into the water, going over it again and again. And when you watch it on the screen, it feels so real. And it was one of those art imitates life moments. But actually, in this case, it became life imitating art imitating life, because when we were filming these scenes in the water, we had people actually accepting Christ and wanting to be baptized for real. I remember one of the actors had a part in the film where his character is baptized, and then afterwards he said, can you baptize me for real?

And I said, well, you need to be a Christian. And I explained the gospel to him, he prayed with me, and I baptized him in his wardrobe still in the water, right next to where they were still filming scenes for the actual Jesus revolution film. I think that's why it has such a realistic feel, especially in those moments, because God was actually at work. Okay, so then after the film was released, we heard amazing stories of people praying the prayer with my character on the screen in movie theaters and doing spontaneous baptisms, some making the trek all the way down to Southern California to be baptized in the famed Pirate's Cove, as well as those that would even be baptized in one instance in the fountain outside of a theater. So we held this big event that we called the Jesus Revolution Baptism, again at Pirate's Cove, the same place we baptized people in the 70s. Here's a little B-roll footage of what those old baptisms look like, you can see me with my long hair and beard there. But we did a recent baptism, and it turned out to be the largest baptism in American history. 20,000 people showed up at Pirate's Cove, and we baptized 4,500 people. One really cool story was of an elderly man, he was 85 years old, it took him quite a while to get down to the beach there at Pirate's Cove, which is challenging to navigate.

You know, when I was a kid I would jump from rock to rock and it was no problem, but as you get older it takes a while to get over those rocks and then to get down those very steep stairs. This 85 year old gentleman slowly made his way to the beach, and we baptized him when we heard that he had come to Christ watching the movie. And he said, I want to be baptized where the movie was shot. And his family said, we never thought he would come to Christ. But God used a Christian film to reach him.

Then we went back to Pirate's Cove for another Jesus Revolution baptism, and we baptized 2,000 more people. So what's the takeaway here? People are hungry. They're hungry for truth. They're hungry for hope.

They're looking for something that matters. Let's take a quick look at what Hollywood elevated this year at the Oscars. So what won best picture this year? Anora. Basically a sexually explicit drama about a Brooklyn stripper who marries the son of a Russian oligarch.

Isn't that romantic? It won best picture, best director, best actress, best supporting actor, and best original screenplay. It made about $40 million at the box office, which is less than Jesus Revolution by the way. And then there's Amelia Perez, a musical about a transgender drug cartel leader. Yeah, you heard that right. It made around $15 million at the box office.

Critics raved. Audiences, not so much. This is not what people are looking for right now. They're not interested in this overly sexualized propaganda that leaves them feeling empty. Again, what they want and what they need is hope, redemption, a savior.

And guess what? That's exactly what we as Christians have to offer. Mel Gibson, one of the great filmmakers out there and actors as well, is currently working on the sequel to The Passion of the Christ, which was a global phenomenon. And this new film is called The Resurrection of the Christ. Then there's Kingdom Story Company that's working on I Can Only Imagine Part 2 and much more. So this gives me hope for the future.

Listen to this. Steven Spielberg, a very successful director, once said, and I quote, film has the power to make you feel something deep, sometimes even to change you, end quote. That's why film is the perfect medium for the gospel, because Jesus still changes lives. Speaking of film, there's a film out now that's got a lot of people buzzing. It's called A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet. By the way, I think that could have won film of the year, and I think he could have won the Oscar for actor of the year.

But anyway, I digress. This movie dives into the early 60s and tells us the story of the legendary Bob Dylan. Now, Bob Dylan, born Robert Zimmerman, burst into the folk scene with his signature Wayfarers and harmonica and changed music forever. Bob Dylan influenced everyone from The Beatles to Jimi Hendrix.

You name it, he influenced them. In fact, if there was a Mount Rushmore of rock music, Dylan would be chiseled right up there with Lennon, McCartney, and of course, Elvis Presley. And Bob Dylan has really been a musical chameleon. His style changes from era to era, from album to album, from folk to electric rock.

But here's the twist you may not see coming, and this is what I really want to talk about. Listen to this. In 1979, Bob Dylan, the ultimate counterculture rebel, became a born-again Christian. You heard that right. The guy who gave us Blown in the Wind and Like a Rolling Stone found Jesus Christ as his personal savior, and he wasn't quiet about it.

Picture this. Bob Dylan, raised in a tight-knit Jewish family in Minnesota, complete with bar mitzvah, suddenly drops an album called Slow Train Coming, a gospel-centered musical collection that I think was one of his best recordings ever. It wasn't a publicity stunt. It was real. Dylan himself said, and I quote, So how did this even happen?

Well, it wasn't overnight. Dylan's songs always sort of had biblical echoes. Think of Knocking on Heaven's Door and others. He'd always been curious, dipping into the Bible, even checking out a Billy Graham crusade. Bob Dylan said Billy Graham was the greatest preacher of my time.

Clouds parted. Souls got saved. I mean, he was impacted by all of these things, and the seeds were sown. But in the late 70s, he connected with The Vineyard, a church tied to the Jesus movement.

And for five months, he dove into intense Bible study. And the result? Slow Train Coming, a platinum album that outsold classics like blood on the tracks. So critics were split. Some loved it. Others called it hate-filled.

Fans? Well, some booed him off stages, begging for the old Bob Dylan. But he wouldn't budge, preaching little mini sermons about the end times between songs. And in fact, Dylan himself reflected on this shift, saying, and I quote, Music wasn't like it used to be.

We were filling music halls. But I'd walk out, look up at the sky, and know there's something else. A lot of people died along the way, the Januses and the Jimmys.

People get cynical or comfortable, and that kills you, too. But God chose to revive me, end quote. So Bob, of course, is talking about musical legends like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, part of the so-called 27 Club, which also includes rock stars like Jim Morrison, Brian Jones, and later Kurt Cobain and Amy Winehouse, all gone at the age of 27. Bob Dylan saw the emptiness of that life, and he turned to Christ.

By the way, my wife Kathy and I actually saw this firsthand. We went to the Santa Monica show that Dylan was doing in 1979. And I have to tell you, it was not a packed house, and the crowd was heckling him, yelling out, sing, like a Rolling Stone. But Dylan stuck to his gospel guns.

It was bold, I have to say. Even some of his so-called buddies took shots at Bob. John Lennon of the Beatles wrote a snarky parody called Serve Yourself, answering, you've got to serve somebody. Keith Richards from the Rolling Stones quipped, he was the prophet of profit. But Dylan had found something bigger than rock stardom, a relationship with God through Jesus Christ. By the way, that's what the young Bobby Zimmerman had been searching for in his youth. This is what his earlier classic songs were actually pointing toward. The answer, as he wrote, was blowing in the wind. You know, we live our lives like a story that's being told.

That's what the Bible says. In these chapters from Bob Dylan's life are significant because four decades and many chapters later, his story is still unfolding. He's still charting new territory. Over the last 20 years, he's released rockabilly, swing, jazz, blues, and even a Christmas album. So this fear over Bob Dylan's spirituality is mostly in the past. Every few years, there's a new interview, and the questions about his faith will eventually arise, and he usually gives a noncommittal answer, saying in the end, it's all about the music. So listen to his music. For instance, on his latest record, Rough and Rowdy Ways, released in 2020, Dylan hardly hides his gospel leanings.

His song, I've Made Up My Mind to Give Myself to You, makes that abundantly clear. On another track, Goodbye Jimmy Reed, Dylan sings about the kingdom, the power, and the glory of God. So it appears that Bob Dylan still believes the gospel.

Many of his generation are gone now. People he directly influenced that I referenced earlier, like John Lennon and Jimi Hendrix. But Dylan is still here, still touring, and closing shows with a song called Every Grain of Sand from His Gospel Period. Here's some of the lyrics of this song that he often ends his concerts with. And I quote, I gaze into the doorway of temptation's angry flame. And every time I pass that way, I always hear my name.

Then onward in my journey, I come to understand that every hair is numbered like every grain of sand. So as a complete unknown hits streaming platforms, it's a chance to see Dylan's early days and maybe spark a conversation about the faith journey that shocked the world. So speaking of evangelism, let me close with a story about a time that I introduced a friend to Billy Graham. So we were at the Billy Graham Training Center at the Cove in North Carolina. My friend, named John, was understandably excited. After all, here was Billy Graham, the most recognizable evangelist of our time, a man who stood before presidents, kings, and millions of ordinary people, always pointing people in the same direction to Christ. So my friend said, would you introduce me to Billy?

I said, of course. I said, Billy, this is my friend John. And John said to Billy, Billy, thank you for all your years of faithfulness. And Billy looked back at him and said, I wish I had done more. I wish I had done more. And Billy Graham wishes he had done more.

Where does that leave the rest of us? But let me tell you something about Billy. I got to know him very well. And that wasn't a false modesty.

It wasn't the kind of self-effacing comment we toss around to sound humble. He meant it every word. So in an age where headlines love to broadcast the feelings of some ministers and rarely mentions the quiet, unspectacular faithfulness of so many others, those words carry a certain weight, don't they? We celebrate when a Christian leader finishes well, and rightly so. Let's be honest. At the end of the day, faithfulness is not really extraordinary.

It's just us doing our job. I can tell you from me personally, Jesus Christ plucked me like a brand out of the fire. I was going the wrong direction fast, and I heard the gospel on my high school campus, and I put my faith in Christ, and it changed the course that I walked from that moment forward. And now to me, serving the Lord is a joy. It's a privilege.

Here's the bottom line. We all want to do what we can with our lives and live them well for the glory of God. Jesus told a story about a servant who pointed out to his master that when he was told to do something, he was merely doing his duty. And that's really what we're all doing. The Bible says you're not your own.

You've been bought with a price. Therefore, glorify God with your body. You know, Christ saved me. He called me. He saved you if you're a Christian, and he's called you. And when it's all said and done, we're just doing our duty.

But what a privilege that is. So I have a friend who's a police chief, and he called me one Saturday with the worst news imaginable. His healthy, physically fit 22-year-old son was running a marathon and collapsed at the finish line and tragically died of a heart attack. I went to see my friend down at the hospital, and his whole family was gathered there in the room where his deceased son was lying on the bed. They all happened to be in town because it was the grandfather's 90th birthday, and then this tragedy took place.

It was a very sad scene. I asked the chief if he wanted me to say a few words, and he said, please do. So I stood before this group of people, and I told them that because this young man, whose name was Larry, had put his faith in Christ, he was in heaven. And if we have put our faith in Christ, we will see him again. And all of our loved ones who have died in faith, who have preceded us to glory, will see them as well. They're not just a part of our past. They're also a part of our future. I pointed out that we lost our son 16 years ago.

In fact, just recently, on April 1st, he would have celebrated his 50th birthday. But it's a reminder that we just don't know how long our life will last or how long this race we're running is. Look, if we're running a race, then we are, because the Bible compares the Christian life to a race. Paul said in the final epistle, he wrote, I fought the good fight, I kept the faith, I finished the course, henceforth there is later for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will give to me in that day, not to me only, but to all who love his appearing. We're running a race, and we need to run it well, and we need to run it to the end, and we want to finish well.

That's the key. In fact, Paul also wrote, I want to finish my race with joy. Speaking of running races, my son Christopher, who I mentioned is in heaven, and I used to run on the beach. Now, when he was in high school, Christopher was a long-distance runner, and I was a short-distance runner. So I would challenge him to a race, and I would always pick a spot that favored me instead of him, like a rock just so far that I knew I could get to as a sprinter more quickly than he would get to as a long-distance runner.

And I always won those races, and I took great pride in that. But then one day I said, hey, Christopher, you want to race? And I picked a rock in the distance, and off we ran, and he beat me, and he really beat me this time. And I said, well, you finally beat the old man. Well, he beat me to heaven in the race of life too.

But here's another thing to think about. If the Christian life is a race, it's not just a long-distance run. It's also a relay race. We're not running against each other. We're not competing with fellow Christians. The enemies of a Christian are the world, the flesh, and the devil, not other Christians. So we're carrying this baton for so far, and this baton is the gospel. The gospel's not a trophy to polish.

It's a treasure to carry, to steward, and most importantly, to pass on. And when our race is over and we pass that baton on, we've done our duty. Scripture says of King David, when David had served God's purpose in his own generation, he fell asleep.

I love that. He fell asleep. By the way, that is a description of dying. It's only said of a believer that they fall asleep when they die, never of a non-believer.

So that's the goal, nothing flashing, nothing dramatic. Just this, serve your purpose and your generation and your time, then fall asleep. And when you do that, you've just done your duty. And one day, as believers, we will hear the Lord say to us, Well done, good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your Lord.

Hey everybody, thanks for listening to my podcast. Before you go, I wanted to let you know about the important work we're doing here at Harvest. You know, we've had the same goal these last 50 years, which is simply this, we want to know God and we want to make Him known. And we do that in a lot of ways. Documentary films, animation, radio, television, large-scale evangelistic events, and more. If you want to be a part of what we're doing to fulfill the Great Commission, you can support us with whatever you can give at harvest.org slash donate. Again, that's harvest.org slash donate. And thanks so much.