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Author: Billy Graham
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About the Book

"Peace with God" by Billy Graham is a book that explores the concept of finding peace and contentment through a relationship with God. Graham discusses the importance of faith and trust in God, offering guidance on how to overcome fear, doubt, and uncertainty by drawing closer to Him. The book offers a message of hope and encouragement for those seeking spiritual fulfillment and inner peace.

Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, was a singer, guitarist and songwriter whose music innovatively mixed country, rock, blues and gospel influences. Who Was Johnny Cash? Johnny Cash grew up in a poor farming community and joined the Air Force in 1950. He co-founded a band following his discharge, and within a few years Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two had scored hits with songs like "Walk the Line." Cash's career was nearly derailed in the 1960s by a serious substance-abuse problem, but his marriage to June Carter and acclaimed album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968) put him back on track. In later years, Cash joined the country supergroup the Highwaymen and released a series of recordings with producer Rick Rubin. Early Life Cash was born on February 26, 1932, in Kingsland, Arkansas. The son of poor Southern Baptist sharecroppers, Cash, one of seven children born to Ray and Carrie Rivers Cash, moved with his family at the age of 3 to Dyess, Arkansas, so that his father could take advantage of the New Deal farming programs instituted by President Franklin Roosevelt. There, the Cash clan lived in a five-room house and farmed 20 acres of cotton and other seasonal crops. Cash spent much of the next 15 years out in the fields, working alongside his parents and siblings to help pay off their debts. It wasn't an easy life, and music was one of the ways the Cash family found escape from some of the hardships. Songs surrounded the young Cash, be it his mother's folk and hymn ballads, or the working music people sang out in the fields. From an early age Cash, who began writing songs at age 12, showed a love for the music that enveloped his life. Sensing her boy's gift for song, Carrie scraped together enough money so that he could take singing lessons. However, after just three lessons his teacher, enthralled with Cash's already unique singing style, told him to stop taking lessons and to never deviate from his natural voice. Religion, too, had a strong impact on Cash's childhood. His mother was a devout member of the Pentecostal Church of God, and his older brother Jack seemed committed to joining the priesthood until his tragic death in 1944 in an electric-saw accident. The experiences of his early farming life and religion became recurring themes in Cash's career. Military Service and Musical Aspirations In 1950, Cash graduated high school and left Dyess to seek employment, venturing to Pontiac, Michigan, for a brief stint at an auto body plant. That summer he enlisted in the U.S. Air Force as "John R. Cash"—military regulations required a full first name—and he was sent for training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas, where he met future wife Vivian Liberto. For the bulk of his four years in the Air Force, Cash was stationed in Landsberg, West Germany, where he worked as a radio intercept officer, eavesdropping on Soviet radio traffic. It was also in Germany that Cash began to turn more of his attention toward music. With a few of his Air Force buddies, he formed the Landsberg Barbarians, giving Cash a chance to play live shows, teach himself more of the guitar and take a shot at songwriting. "We were terrible," he said later, "but that Lowenbrau beer will make you feel like you're great. We'd take our instruments to these honky-tonks and play until they threw us out or a fight started." After his discharge in July 1954, Cash married Vivian and settled with her in Memphis, Tennessee, where he worked, as best he could, as an appliance salesman. Pursuing music on the side, Cash teamed up with a couple of mechanics, Marshall Grant and Luther Perkins, who worked with Cash's older brother Roy. The young musicians soon formed a tight bond, with the crew and their wives often heading over to one of their houses to play music, much of it gospel. Cash, who banged away on an old $5 guitar he'd purchased in Germany, became the frontman for the group, and they honed their unique synthesis of blues and country-and-western music through live performances. "He was a decent singer, not a great one," wrote Marshall Grant, in his 2006 autobiography, I Was There When it Happened: My Life with Johnny Cash. "But there was power and presence in his voice." Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two In July 1954, another Memphis musician, Elvis Presley, cut his first record, sparking a wave of Elvis-mania as well as an interest in the local producer, Sun Records owner Sam Phillips, who had issued the record. Later that year Cash, Grant and Perkins made an unannounced visit to Sun to ask Phillips for an audition. The Sun Records owner gave in and Cash and the boys soon returned to show off their skills. Phillips liked their sound but not their gospel-driven song choices, which he felt would have a limited market, and asked them to return with an original song. The trio did just that, beginning work on the Cash-written "Hey Porter," shortly that first Sun session. Phillips liked that song, as well as the group's follow-up effort, "Cry, Cry, Cry," and signed the newly branded Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two. "Hey Porter" was released in May 1955 and later that year "Cry, Cry, Cry" peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard charts. Other hits followed, including the Top 10 tracks "So Doggone Lonesome" and "Folsom Prison Blues." But true fame arrived in 1956 when Cash wrote and released "I Walk The Line," which catapulted to No. 1 on the country music charts and sold 2 million copies. He released his debut album, Johnny Cash with His Hot & Blue Guitar in 1957, and cemented his fame with chart-toppers like "Ballad of a Teenage Queen" and "Don't Take Your Guns to Town." Drugs and Divorce By the early 1960s, Cash, who had relocated his family to California and left Sun for Columbia Records, was a musical superstar. On the road for 300 nights a year with the group now known as the Tennessee Three, he was often accompanied by June Carter, who co-wrote what became one of the Man in Black's signature songs, "Ring of Fire" (1963). Cash also sought to establish himself as an actor, starring in the movie Five Minutes to Live (1961) and a few Western-themed TV programs. But the schedule and the pressures that faced him took a toll on his personal life. Drugs and alcohol were frequent tour companions while Vivian, left home to take care of their family, which now included daughters Rosanne (b. 1955), Kathy (b. 1956), Cindy (b. 1959) and Tara (b. 1961) grew increasingly frustrated with her husband's absence. In 1966, she finally filed for divorce. Cash's personal life continued to spiral out of control. The following year, after a serious drug binge, Cash was discovered in a near-death state by a policeman in a small village in Georgia. There were other incidents, too, including an arrest for smuggling amphetamines into the United States across the Mexican border, and for starting a forest fire in a California park. "I took all the drugs there are to take, and I drank," Cash recalled. "Everybody said that Johnny Cash was through 'cause I was walkin' around town 150 pounds. I looked like walking death." Remarriage and Revival Cash got the lifeline he needed from his old touring companion, June Carter, who helped him refocus on his Christian faith and get the drug addiction treatment he needed. The two were married on March 1, 1968. With his new wife, Cash embarked on a remarkable turnaround. In 1969, he began hosting The Johnny Cash Show, a TV variety series that showcased contemporary musicians ranging from Bob Dylan to Louis Armstrong. It also provided a forum for Cash to explore a number of social issues, tackling discussions that ranged from the war in Vietnam to prison reform to the rights of Native Americans. The same year his show debuted, Cash also took home two Grammy Awards for the live album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison (1968). A critical and commercial success, the album was credited with helping to revive the artist's popularity. In early 1970, Cash and Carter experienced more joy with the birth of their first and only child, John Carter Cash. The ensuing decade offered up more success for the artist, as Cash's music career flourished with the release of hit singles like "A Thing Called Love" (1972) and "One Piece at a Time" (1976). He also co-starred with Kirk Douglas in A Gunfight (1970), wrote music for the feature Little Fauss and Big Halsy (1970) and published a best-selling autobiography, Man in Black (1975). In 1980, he became the youngest living person to be elected to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Cash continued to maintain a busy schedule, and he increasingly teamed up with other musicians. In 1986, he banded with old Sun Records colleagues Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis and Roy Orbison to record the widely popular compilation The Class Of '55. Meanwhile, he joined forces with fellow country stalwarts Kris Kristofferson, Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings to form the Highwaymen, which released three studio albums between 1985 and 1995. In the early 1990s, Cash stepped into the studio with U2 to record The Wanderer, a track that would appear on the group's 1993 release, Zooropa. Throughout this time, though, Cash's health problems and his continued battles with addiction were nearby. After undergoing abdominal surgery in 1983, he checked himself into the Betty Ford Clinic. In 1988, Cash again went under the knife, this time for double-bypass heart surgery. But, like always, Cash pushed on. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1992, and in 1994 he teamed with music producer Rick Rubin to release American Recordings. A 13-track acoustic album that mixed traditional ballads with modern compositions, American Recordings earned Cash a new audience and a 1995 Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. He followed with another Rubin-produced album, Unchained (1996), and in 1997 he published his second memoir, Cash: The Autobiography. Final Years, Death and Legacy Cash's physical health became more of an issue in the late 1990s. He was diagnosed with the neurodegenerative disease Shy-Drager syndrome—a misdiagnosis that was later corrected to autonomic neuropathy—and was hospitalized for pneumonia in 1998. Still, the artist continued making music. In 2002, he released American IV: The Man Comes Around, a mix of originals and covers, including songs from the Beatles to Trent Reznor of Nine Inch Nails. The album, recorded at the Cash Cabin Studio in Hendersonville, Tennessee, was the fourth Cash-Rubin compilation. Over the next year, Cash's health continued to decline. He was devastated when his longtime love, June Carter, died in May 2003, but he continued to work. With Rubin at his side, the singer recorded what would become American V: A Hundred Highways. Just a week before his death on September 12, 2003, from complications associated with diabetes, Cash wrapped up his final track. "Once June passed, he had the will to live long enough to record, but that was pretty much all," Rubin later recalled. "A day after June passed, he said, 'I need to have something to do every day. Otherwise, there's no reason for me to be here.'" That November, Cash was posthumously honored at the CMA annual awards, winning best album for American IV, best single and best video. In 2005, the story of his life and career through the late 1960s was made into a feature film, Walk the Line, starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as Carter. In 2006, fans were treated to new music from the late artist. May brought Personal File, a two-CD set of unreleased material recorded decades earlier. In July, American V: A Hundred Highways was unveiled. Starkly arranged and sometimes mournful, the songs highlighted Cash's older and rougher sounding voice, which seared with a raw honesty. Not surprisingly, Cash's influence continued to resonate. In 2007, the community of Starkville, Mississippi, paid honor to the performer and his arrest there in 1965 for public intoxication with the Johnny Cash Flower Pickin' Festival. The following year, the late artist won another Grammy, for Best Short Form Music Video for God's Gonna Cut You Down. "I think he'll be remembered for the way he grew as a person and an artist," wrote Kris Kristofferson in 2010, upon Cash's selection by Rolling Stone magazine as the 31st greatest artist of all time. "He went from being this guy who was as wild as Hank Williams to being almost as respected as one of the fathers of our country. He was friends with presidents and with Billy Graham. You felt like he should've had his face on Mount Rushmore." In 2010, additional material from recording sessions with Rubin were released as American VI: Ain't No Grave. In December 2013, it was revealed that another album from Cash had been unearthed. Out Among the Stars, which had been recorded in the early 1980s but never released by Columbia Records, was discovered by John Carter Cash in his father's archives. Underscoring the singer's sustained popularity, the album became a chart-topper following its release in March 2014.

How Did Evil Begin

Why is there a Satan? Why does a being exist whose name means accuser — a “devil,” which means slanderer, a “deceiver of the whole world” (Revelation 12:9), a “ruler of this world” (John 12:31; 14:30; 16:11), a “god of this age” (2 Corinthians 4:4 NKJV), a “prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), a “Beelzebul, the prince of demons” (Matthew 12:24)? Where does he come from? How did it come about that he ever sinned? The letters of Jude and 2 Peter give us clues. Jude 6 says, “The angels who did not stay within their own position of authority, but left their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains under gloomy darkness until the judgment of the great day.” And 2 Peter 2:4 says, “God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment.” It appears, then, that some of God’s holy angels (we may assume, in principle, that Satan is included, whether these verses refer to his original rebellion or a later one) “sinned,” or as Jude says, “did not stay within their own position of authority.” In other words, the sin was a kind of insurrection, a desire for more power and more authority than they were appointed by God to have. So Satan and the other fallen angels originate as created holy angels who rebel against God, reject him as their all-satisfying King, and set out on a course of self-exaltation and presumed self-determination. They do not want to be subordinate. They do not want to be sent by God to serve others (Hebrews 1:14). They want to have final authority over themselves. And they want to exalt themselves above God. Most Popular Answer But these thoughts about the origin of Satan do not answer the question we began with: Why is there a Satan? They simply push the question back to the very beginning. Why did any holy angel sin? Here is the most popular answer of our modern era: All of God’s creatures were created “free moral agents.” If God had made them otherwise they would have been mere machines with no will of their own. . . . To be a “free moral agent” implies that one has the power of “choice.” . . . As long as Satan chose the “Will of God” there was no “Evil” in the Universe, but the moment he chose to follow his own Will, then he fell, and by persuading others to follow him he introduced “Evil” into the Universe. (Clarence Larkin, The Spirit World, 12–14) There are at least two problems with this presumed answer: (1) it does not answer the question and (2) it assumes that God cannot exert sufficient influence on a morally responsible being so as to keep that being safe in the worship of God — to keep him from sinning. ‘Free Will’ Philosophy First, it does not answer the question, Why did any holy angel sin? To say that a perfect angel sinned because he had the power to do so is no answer. Why would a perfectly holy angel in God’s infinitely beautiful presence suddenly be inclined to hate God? “Free will” — that is, ultimate self-determination — is not an answer. It explains nothing. “Free will” is a name put on a mystery. But it is not the biblical name. Because the Bible never teaches that there is such a thing as ultimate human, or ultimate demonic, self-determination. That is a philosophical notion forced onto the Bible, not taught by the Bible. In fact, that philosophical notion was one of Satan’s first designs for humanity — to persuade Adam and Eve that they could be ultimately self-determining, and that this would be good for them (Genesis 3:4–5). Both of those ideas were false. They could not become ultimately self-determining, and it was deadly for them to try. The human race has been ruined by these notions ever since. Slandering God’s Saving Power Second, Larkin’s appeal to angelic self-determination assumes that God cannot exert sufficient influence on a morally responsible being so as to keep that being safe in the worship of God forever. Larkin’s deadly mistake is to assume that if God exerted such influence, the angels “would have been mere machines with no will of their own.” This too is a philosophical assumption forced on the Bible, not taught by the Bible. In fact, the Bible pervasively teaches the opposite — that God can and does exert sufficient influence on morally responsible beings (his children!) to keep them safe in the worship of God forever. When the Bible says, for example, that God will “cause [us] to walk in [his] statutes” (Ezekiel 36:27), and that he is “working in us that which is pleasing in his sight” (Hebrews 13:21), and that he “works in [us], both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Philippians 2:13), and that the work he began in us he “will bring . . . to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” (Philippians 1:6), and that he “will sustain [us] to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 1:8), and that “those whom he justified he also glorified” (Romans 8:30) — when God says all this, he means for us to stop talking nonsense about such glorious influence turning us into machines. It doesn’t. It is life-giving grace. It is effective. It keeps us safe forever. And to call it machine-making is slanderous. If God did not exert sovereign influence over our wayward hearts, we would all fall away. Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, Prone to leave the God I love. Here’s my heart, oh, take and seal it, Seal it for Thy courts above. “If God did not exert sovereign influence over our wayward hearts, we would all fall away.” God’s “sealing” (Ephesians 1:13) — his decisive, keeping influence — does not turn us into machines. It keeps us safe in the worship of God forever. No one who is justified will fail to be glorified (Romans 8:30). Heaven will never see an insurrection among the saints. Not because we are better than the angels, but because the blood of Jesus secured the new covenant for God’s elect, where God says, “I will put the fear of me in their hearts, that they may not turn from me” (Jeremiah 32:40). He bought this pledge for his children by his blood. They will not commit treason. Let us praise such sovereign, merciful, keeping influence. God save us from slandering his saving power. It is false when Larkin assumes that God could not have kept his holy angels from sinning — safe in the worship of God. It is false to assume that such sovereign influence would make angels, or humans, into robots. It doesn’t. Redemption’s Stage What then is the answer to the question, Why did any holy angel sin? The answer is that God had a wise and gracious purpose. That is why it happened. Some of God’s holy angels sinned because their fall would set in motion a history of redemption that would fulfill the infinitely wise purposes of God in creation. All the “unsearchable . . . judgments” and all the “inscrutable . . . ways” of God flow from the depths of his wisdom (Romans 11:33). “O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom have you made them all” (Psalm 104:24). He is “the only wise God” (Romans 16:27). All that happens from eternity to eternity happens according to the wisdom of the one “who works all things according to the counsel of his will” (Ephesians 1:11). And we know it was a gracious purpose because God’s plan before the creation of the world was to show grace to unworthy sinners. Sin came into being as part of a plan to show grace to sinners. “[God] saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began” (2 Timothy 1:9). The plan before creation was that Christ would be the Lamb slain for sinners — sinners whose names were “written before the foundation of the world in the book of life of the Lamb who was slain” (Revelation 13:8). Christ slain for sinners was the plan before any human sinned. Two Unassailable Truths But notice what question I am not answering here. I am not answering the question, How did the first sin happen in the heart of a holy angel? The why question I have answered by saying the first sin happened as part of God’s wisdom and purposes and planning. But that assumes God was able to see to it that the first sin happened without himself being a sinner, and without making the first sinning angel into a machine. I do not know the answer to the question of how God did this. This, to me, is one of the great mysteries of biblical teaching that I cannot explain — how God governs the will of sinful beings, yet, in doing so, does not sin, and does not take away their responsibility. I see that it is true, because the Bible teaches it, but how God does this remains a mystery. Recall that above I said that “free will” — ultimate self-determination — is the name some people put on this mystery. Then I added that this is not the biblical name. Because the Bible never teaches that there is such a thing as ultimate self-determination, except in God. The Bible doesn’t give the mystery a name. Rather it teaches two truths again and again: God governs the hearts and minds of all sinful beings without himself sinning, and they are truly and justly accountable for all their sins. Sovereign over Satan Since we are not told explicitly how things transpired in the fall of Satan, it is illuminating to study how God relates to Satan’s will now. Is God helpless when a satanic will chooses to do evil? Can God restrain that will? Or would that only turn the will into a machine? The biblical answer is that God has the right and power to restrain Satan anytime he pleases. Consider these examples. 1. Though Satan is called “the ruler of this world” (John 12:31), Daniel 4:17 says, “The Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Satan’s world rule is subordinate to God’s. 2. Though unclean spirits are everywhere doing deceptive and murderous things, Jesus Christ has all authority over them. “He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey him” (Mark 1:27). 3. Satan is a roaring lion, prowling and seeking someone to devour (1 Peter 5:8). Peter explains that the jaws of this lion are, in fact, the sufferings of persecution: “Resist him, firm in your faith, knowing that the same kinds of suffering are being experienced by your brotherhood throughout the world” (1 Peter 5:9). But this suffering, Peter says, does not happen apart from God’s sovereign will: “It is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God’s will” (1 Peter 3:17). 4. Satan is a murderer from the beginning (John 8:44). But God decides, finally, who lives and who dies and when: “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that” (James 4:15). 5. When Satan aims to destroy Job and prove that God is not his treasure, he must get permission from God before he attacks his possessions (Job 1:12) or his body (Job 2:6). 6. Satan is the great tempter. He wants us to sin. Luke tells us that Satan was behind Peter’s three denials. “Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat” (Luke 22:31). But Jesus is sovereign over this tempter’s work, and its outcome. He says to Peter, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22:32). Not “if you turn,” but “when you turn.” Christ rules over all of Satan’s designs. Satan aims to fail Peter. Jesus aims to fit him for leadership. 7. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:4 that Satan “has blinded the minds of the unbelievers.” But two verses later, God removes that blindness. “God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). So now back to the question about the origin of Satan’s sinfulness. Is God helpless before the will of his own angels? Is there a power outside himself that limits his rule over their choices and plans? My conclusion is that, from cover to cover, the Bible presents God as governing Satan and his demons. He has the right and power to restrain them any time he pleases. Guarding the Mystery The sum of the matter, then, about where a sinful Satan came from is this: He was a holy angel who mysteriously came to prefer self-exaltation over God-exaltation. He fell into the delusion that ultimate self-determination was possible for a finite creature, and that it was preferable to submitting to God. This fall was part of God’s all-wise plan. It did not take him off guard. How God saw to it that this part of his plan came to pass, without himself sinning and without turning Satan into a machine, I do not know. “From cover to cover, the Bible presents God as governing Satan and his demons.” Trying to explain this mystery with so-called “free will” — that is, ultimate self-determination — is unbiblical and vacuous. It is unbiblical because the idea that any of God’s creatures has ultimate self-determination is not taught anywhere in the Bible. And it is vacuous because it does not explain anything. Simply asserting that a holy angel had the “power of choice” offers no explanation of why a perfectly holy being in God’s infinitely beautiful presence would suddenly be inclined to hate God. We should probably take our cue from the reticence of the Bible to speak about Satan’s origin. He is there in the first pages of the Bible with no explanation. The mystery of his first sin remains just that. We surround it and guard it with biblical truth, lest unbiblical and vacuous explanations spread like a smog over the Scriptures and obscure the glory of God’s saving purposes. Article by John Piper Founder & Teacher, desiringGod.org