It Is No Secret
Though the 1949 Los Angeles Crusade was to launch Billy Graham to worldwide fame, the meetings appeared to get off to a slow start. Arriving in Los Angeles before the crusade, Mr. Graham gave a news conference, then eagerly waited for the next day to see how the crusade would be publicized. Not a single newspaper carried the story.
But among the supporters Graham did have was the influential Presbyterian Bible teacher Henrietta Mears, who invited Billy to her home in Beverly Hills to speak to a group of Hollywood personalities. Present that day was a hard-drinking star of cowboy westerns named Stuart Hamblen who also hosted one of the most popular afternoon radio shows on the West Coast. He was infamous for his gambling and brawling.
The two men took a liking to each other, and Billy longed to win Stuart to Christ. But as the three-week campaign neared its end, there was no sign that the big cowboy was under conviction.
Sensing that momentum for the meetings was building, the local crusade organizers wanted to extend them; but Billy was hesitant, having never done that before. He put out a "fleece," and asked God for a sign. The next morning at 4:30, he was awakened in his room at the Langham Hotel by a phone call. It was Stuart Hamblen, and he was in tears. Billy woke his wife and friends who gathered in another room to pray while Stuart and his wife Suzy, drove to the hotel. That night, Stuart gave his heart to the Lord Jesus.
It was the sign Billy needed to extend the meetings.
Meanwhile, Stuart excitedly told the story of his conversion on his radio show, and the local newspapers picked up the story. Soon all of Los Angeles was buzzing about the Billy Graham meetings. The resulting publicity launched a half-century of mass evangelism virtually unparralleled in Christian history.
Shortly afterward, Stuart Hamblen reportedly met movie star John Wayne on the street in Los Angeles. "What's this I hear about you, Stuart?" asked the actor. "Well, Duke, it's no secret what God can do." "Sounds like a song," said John. Stuart went home, sat down at his piano and wrote "It Is No Secret." He went on to write 225 other songs before his death in 1989.
Excerpt from "Then Sings My Soul" by Robert J. Morgan
Thomas Nelson Publishers
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