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Our days on earth are like a shadow.
−King David
Do you know how many minutes there are in a day?
Fourteen hundred and forty.
Do you know how many hours there are in a week?
A hundred and sixty-eight.
It's interesting to me that rich people
cannot buy more hours.
Scientists cannot invent new minutes.
You cannot even save time to spend it
on another day.
You've got a little time today and you say:
I'd like to save it up for tomorrow."
You can't do it.
Do you number your days?
Do you realize how important every single day is?
Defining Moments
Moment of a lifetime
I'll never forget that moment.
It was so...
unexpected.
Besides, I wasn't ready to do what they were
asking me to do there.
One day I got a call and then they made me an offer;
it was a huge offer.
They had told me: "You'll work as an actor."
It was really like a dream.
The producers were taking a huge risk with me;
it was not only a new channel, it was a new soap opera,
but I was also a new actor.
I had never acted and they were putting all their hopes in me;
It was at that exact moment that I had to choose,
it was all or nothing.
I knew it could change everything for me.
Moment of questioning
I remember the first moment when I became completely blown away
and intrigued with the idea of being a magician.
That was the moment I knew that I could actually be good at this.
It's the most fun thing in the world for me.
I tend to like questions a lot more than answers,
and what a magic trick does is it forces you
into a place of questioning, and it pulls the rug of reality
out from underneath you to where you're literally left in a place
where you don't know what is happening.
I was 9 years old when I heard myself
on a loudspeaker for the first time, it was a bit strange
because I wasn't used to hearing myself
so loudly, but I kind of enjoyed it.
I realized at that moment
I was doing what I wanted to do the rest of my life.
There is a time for everything...
and a season for every activity under heaven.
−King Solomon.
As a magician you're very skeptical and you realize
that most of what's going on
behind the scenes is fake or false.
The idea of an all-powerful God seems incredibly silly,
and when I talked to people that would go to church,
I can remember thinking that they were falling for a simple magic trick.
It's like the Wizard of Oz, behind the curtain,
controlling everything.
I grew up understanding how to make people believe
something was real when it was really not.
I am a master of phoniness. I'm a charlatan by craft.
But I began to ask myself a big God question.
I said, "God, if you are real, then I need you to bring me back
"behind the curtain.
"I need you to show me how it works
"I need you to make this so real to me
that I can't ignore it."
I'll never forget the day this man walks into
my room and said, "Mr. Munroe,
I don't know how to tell you this, but you have cancer."
I said, "What?"
He looked at me and said, "Mr. Munroe, we can't cure you
of your disease."
My wife and I...were... in a very bad place.
"God, where are you?
I guess you aren't that great."
We had been married 5 years,
we had a 3-year-old girl and a 2-year-old little boy,
and I needed more time with my family.
I needed more time.
Honestly, success brought all sorts of problems into my life.
Being famous made me start looking
for ways to cover up all of those deficiencies
and holes in my life and try to function better
in that dysfunctional way of life.
Fame began changing my humility, my simplicity,
and fame started giving me a certain power and control
that made me think I had it all here,
and that if I said, "Boom, I want that,"
I could get it, because from one day to the next
I went from having nothing, to having it all.
They brought me in to do a soap opera
where there were twin brothers,
and one of them was in a state of amnesia,
and the doctor assigned to that brother,
the psychiatrist, was Mara; that's how I met her,
I met her on a set,
and then we started falling in love and ended up getting married
and sharing the same family.
That was like a dream for me,
and when I had all of that, I realized I wasn't satisfied;
I identified myself with fame at times,
with possessions, in such a way
that money was becoming my God.
Everything that went on in my life
that people couldn't see, was very hard.
I'd be away from home 8 or 9 months
shooting all sorts of scenes,
and that started affecting my family.
I began acting very neurotic at home.
I started losing my patience with Mara,
and with my children.
I didn't want to come back home and I suppose
they wouldn't have felt comfortable with me being there either.
That was the dream of being able to have a wife, a family, a big house,
and a nice car, and when I had all of that,
I realized I wasn't satisfied.
I hated what I should have loved,
I loved what I should have hated.
At times in my life I...
felt my life had no meaning really,
I had no desire to live.
No one ever told me that in that successful career,
when you reach the top there's nothing.
On the outside you look good,
but on the inside you are searching for something
that you haven't found yet.
There has to be more to life than this.
I take after my father a lot.
My earliest memories of him are from the time I was 2 years old.
In fact, a lot of my artistic side
comes from him.
We had a happy family, but soon after I was born,
my dad became an alcoholic.
And when I was 6 1/2 years old,
my dad died of cirrhosis of the liver.
To have my father die when I was 6 1/2 years of age
was maybe one of the most difficult things
I had to experience and, more difficult still,
was the time my mother found love again
after my father died,
and I had to adjust to a new family,
and began seeing myself in my heart as an orphan
carried by the wind wherever it took me.
That's where music really played a very important role,
it became my refuge, my escape.
I remember at some point I fell in love
with a young man who broke my heart.
When my heart was broken,
all the feelings of being an orphan began to resurface, feelings of loss.
And I thought, "If only God had intervened
"to avoid my father's death,
maybe I wouldn't have to suffer like I have all my life."
I was very angry with God.
I hung around with people who questioned the existence of God,
people with vices
who introduced me to the vice of drinking.
What I had sworn I would never do, that's what I was doing.
Death had become a part of my daily thinking.
Millions are crying,
"What can I do to be saved from the pressures of life?"
The pressures are just so great.
We have great technology that saves us time,
but we have less time than ever.
The tensions in the home, problems at work,
health problems, making ends meet.
We want to scream at life. We want to escape from life.
Adlai Stevenson once said, "It's not the days of your life,
but the life in your days that count."
We have so much time, and for what?
The broken things in your heart and in your life
can be restored in Christ
if you put your faith and confidence in Him.
He died on the cross,
He rose from the dead for you.
He wants to give you guidance in your life.
He wants to give you peace, joy, and the security
of knowing that if you died you would go to heaven,
but first there must be a change,
you must change your course;
the Bible calls that repentance.
Repent.
I've been playing main characters for almost 20 years,
and I always made sense of the characters,
but I never made sense of my life.
When I studied a soap opera, if I didn't understand something
about the character, what I had to do
is ask the creator, the creator of the soap opera,
I would call him and I would say, "Why does he have such
an unpleasant relationship with his father?"
But if I had a question about my life,
I didn't even know who the Creator was,
I didn't know who to run to to help me.
A friend of mine worked in the same soap opera I was in
and he worked with the lighting crew
and he wore a t-shirt that said:
"Just one man can make the difference."
But on the back it said: "Jesus."
I don't know what happened but it drew my attention and I came over and said:
"Claudio, how can just one man make the difference?
"What's up with this Jesus?
Why don't you talk to me about Jesus?"
The next day he came with a Bible in his hand
and he shared Jesus Christ with me;
I called Mara and told her, "Mara, Claudio brought me a Bible.
Will you go to church with me?"
And that day both of us went to church,
that day we really had an encounter with Jesus,
our life changed like that,
it was like changing from black to white, bam!
It's really the greatest miracle that has happened in our life.
I was lost for a long time until I found out
that Jesus had died on the cross
to save my life from sin and place me
in the right place.
He fulfilled everything that needed to be fulfilled,
only Jesus can fill your heart.
Lord Jesus, we thank you...
It was incredible, only God can redeem that way;
God is the only one who can give you an identity.
"What is your life?
"You are a mist that appears for a little while
and then vanishes.
−James 4:14.
Time is collapsing on us,
how much longer do we have?
The psalmist requested
that the Lord remember how short my time is.
"My days are like a shadow that declineth
"and I'm withered like grass,
"But thou, o Lord, shall endure forever,
And thy remembrance unto all generations".
Think about it, God endures forever,
but on this earth we are like a shadow that's declining.
We all are dying.
From the moment you were born, you started dying.
How much longer do we have?
The oncologist looked at me and said, "Mr. Munroe,
"we can't cure you of your disease.
"There's something, however, that we would like to try,
"it's called a bone marrow transplant.
"The problem with your body is that your white blood cells
"are making bad copies of bad copies.
"Your body is deceiving itself. It's playing a trick on itself."
He said, "What we have to do is destroy
"your immune system completely and hope to find
"someone in the world whose DNA matches yours enough
"to grow a brand-new immune system,
a brand-new blood system from scratch.
"We are going to substitute someone's perfect blood on your behalf
so you can live again."
God said without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness.
There has to be a substitute for you who will take the judgment
that you deserve, the death you deserve.
And that substitute became Jesus Christ.
I thought to myself, "My time is running out,
I'm dying of cancer."
It's been hard to deal with.
Payton is 3 and Gabin is 2.
My two babies... Should this take my life early
I love you.
They began the most vicious concoction of chemotherapy
the goal of which was not just to destroy the cancer in my body,
but literally to destroy me.
It was hell. It was a slow death.
I'm really scared.
I'm trying not to be fearful,
but I am fearful, I'm trying to be strong
for my wife and my family,
but I'm really scared.
We are waiting to hear from the National Bone Marrow
Donor Program, where 7 million people
are currently registered in the database
and there was one perfect match for me.
Just one, a 19 year-old female.
They said, "Mr. Munroe, your bone marrow transplant
"is scheduled for April 23rd.
"You are going to get a brand-new birthday."
They said, "You'll be like a baby
"inside the womb again, the nurses will celebrate
your new birth at the hospital."
I had heard that terminology before, too,
at the churches I had attended. Literally, I was going to be born anew.
I'll never forget it, on April 23rd they brought
a bag of blood into my room,
and everybody was hoping in that moment
that my body would receive that new life,
that new blood.
I sit here today, 100% completely cancer free.
And when they look at my blood today, they see a 19 year-old female.
They see her. They see XX chromosome.
I'm reminded of a verse in Galatians 2 that says,
"I no longer live, someone else
"is living in me.
And the life I now live, I live by faith."
She saved my life.
Oh really?
She saved my life; I almost died of leukemia.
She's my bone marrow donor.
There she is.
John 17:3 says: "And this is eternal life,
"knowing you (God) and Jesus Christ
whom you have sent."
I am fully convinced of the claims of Jesus,
as a skeptical person and as an illusionist.
I know the God of the universe has brought me
behind the curtain as I asked him.
Cancer was how he did it through my life,
and there's a spiritual cancer that is eating us away
on the inside and we all long for,
we are begging for someone to step in
and save us from that condition.
God looks at your heart and God sees
that you have a spiritual heart disease.
And that spiritual heart disease is called sin.
We are all sinners, which means we have all broken
God's laws, we have disobeyed God.
We have rebelled against God; and because we have rebelled,
we will have to face a judgment.
Oh, yes, a judgment is coming; one of these days
you will stand before God on the Great Judgment Day
and you'll have to give an account for your life.
You'll have to give an account for what you did
with Jesus Christ this very night,
because there will be a judgment.
But God's judgment
is also tempered by his love and mercy.
He is willing to forgive you tonight,
to give you a chance tonight.
No matter how much time you've wasted in the past
you can still have a tomorrow.
My goal was to be famous.
To fill my pride and emptiness with the applause of the people.
They invited me to participate in a Christian event
on the Island of Puerto Rico.
When I walked through the door for the rehearsal,
I found myself in an environment I had not experienced
in a long time, since my childhood.
I remember when I entered that auditorium,
that the light in that place
collided with my darkness.
I began trembling uncontrollably.
And when the rehearsal ended, I sat in my car
and said: "Okay, God, if you exist,
"if you are interested in me,
"if all that they say in the Bible is true,
you have until tonight to prove it to me."
That night, an unknown woman came to me
who knew so many things about my life.
And God gave me the chance to recognize that the desires
of my heart were motivated by self-destructive instincts,
and she told me: "You have two roads to choose from today."
She enabled me to have a reaction
and an encounter in my soul,
a violent collision with the truth that I needed His presence
more than anything else.
My heart shouted, "I can't live without you,
you are my father and I need you!"
Some of you think you are too bad to come to God,
have done too many things, and gone too far.
God isn't waiting to judge you.
God isn't waiting to condemn you.
God loves you.
He sent his Son to die on the cross for you.
To shed his blood for you.
He wants to put his arms around you and receive you.
And he will carry you and forgive you and love you, and be your friend.
If I suffered so much from the death of my father,
imagine how much a father suffers from the death of his child.
He did that for me.
He sent Jesus so I could be adopted
through His blood.
♪ Abba, my Father ♪
In the midst of my worst circumstances,
He was going to find a way to get my attention.
Though I was angry when I opened the door
of my heart,
He understood my need of him was far greater than that rebellion.
♪ Great God of glory, strength, and power ♪
♪ You shake heaven and earth♪
♪ Oh, hallelujah, hosanna to the King, blessed Redeemer♪
♪ I will always adore you ♪
♪ Abba, my Father ♪
He loves me, and to know that such a powerful and majestic God
is not only the King of all creation, but also my Father...
In Romans chapter 6 it says: "For the wages of sin is death,
"but the gift of God is eternal life
through Jesus Christ our Lord."
In 1 Peter it says: "He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree,
that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness."
He became sin, think about it.
Jesus Christ, as pure and wonderful as he is...
The greatest person, the holiest person that ever lived...
The Son of the Living God, became sin.
He had never known sin
and he became guilty at that moment of adultery.
He became guilty of lying, of idolatry.
He became guilty of every ugly, dirty thing you can think of
because it was your sins poured out on him.
Through Christ, we can have the most fundamental relationship in life restored.
You say, "Billy, what do I have to do?"
First, you must repent of your sins.
The Apostle Peter said, "Repent ye therefore, and be converted,
that your sins be blotted out."
What does repentance mean?
Repentance means you come to God and say,
"God, I'm sorry I've sinned."
And we are all guilty. Every one of us.
Everyone that's ever been born is guilty.
Have you repented? Are you sure of it?
It means you not only say, "God, I'm sorry."
It means you ask him to help you to turn from your sins
and change your way of living.
To get rid of those old habits.
And then you must come by faith, because without faith,
it is impossible to please God.
The word "faith" means you trust fully.
The Bible says in Romans 4, "But to him that worketh not,
but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly,
his faith is counted for righteousness."
I need righteousness to enter heaven, and I don't have any.
Billy Graham is a sinner.
I have no righteousness of my own.
I come in the righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Then the Bible says: "For by grace are ye saved,
through faith...not by works lest any man should boast."
If you could work your way to heaven,
you would go up to heaven and boast to everybody, "Look what I did.
I was a good person, I got here on my own."
But no, you will only get there because of Christ.
The fact that time is short calls for us to do something about it now.
Because the Scriptures say in 2 Corinthians 6:2,
"Now is the accepted time." Not tomorrow.
Today, today, if you hear his voice harden not your heart.
You hear a message like this and it can be very dangerous
because you'll harden your heart and the next time you hear the Gospel,
your heart will be harder and harder.
Come to Christ now.
If there's even a whisper in your heart
that you need to come, come and say, Lord,
You have all of me tonight.
I want to be sure I'm ready to meet you.
Come to me, come to me, come to me.
If you want to receive Christ, you can say a prayer like I did.
Like I did.
Like I did.
Dear God, I am a sinner.
I'm sorry for my sins.
I want to turn from my sins.
I believe Jesus Christ is your Son.
I believe that Jesus died for my sins and that you raised him to life.
I want to trust Jesus Christ as my Savior and follow Him
as my Lord, from this day forward.
Jesus, I put my trust in you.
I surrender my life to you.
Please come into my life.
Fill me with your Holy Spirit.
I pray this in the name of Jesus.
Amen.
Amen.
Amen.
"Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved."
−Romans 10:13.
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