Franklin Graham: Teach God’s Word Without Compromise 

Our world recently lost two bold and uncompromising voices for the Gospel. Aileen Coleman, an Australian missionary to the Bedouin tribes of Jordan for more than 60 years, died July 9, and Dr. John MacArthur, a California pastor for 56 years, went to be with his Savior five days later. 

Aileen, whom I met when I was 18 years old, taught me what it means to have guts for the Gospel. The world may not know who Aileen is, but the King of kings and Lord of lords does. John MacArthur could get more out of a Bible verse than anyone I knew and has for years contributed articles to Decision magazine. On his deathbed, John’s heart was on 1 Corinthians 15:55: “O Death, where is your sting?” “I feel no sting,” he said. “I feel no fear.”

Our sin-sick world needs to know that our souls can face death without fear, as long as we have repented of our sins and trusted Jesus Christ as our Savior and Lord. That’s been the message of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association for more than 75 years. As long as the Lord gives me strength to preach, that will be my message. 

Unfortunately, far too many pulpits these days are compromising God’s Word. God’s commands for every preacher of the Gospel haven’t changed since the Apostle Paul’s pastoral charge in 2 Timothy 4:1-4: “I charge you therefore before God and the Lord Jesus Christ, who will judge the living and the dead at His appearing and His kingdom: Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Con­vince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.”

Beware of teachers who turn ears away from hearing and obeying the Gospel.

We can’t shy away from sin in preaching the Gospel. We are all sinners who have fallen short of God’s glory. People need to understand the awful nature of sin and its consequences before they can appreciate how much they need a Savior. We don’t have to be slaves to sin. The remedy for sin is the cross of Jesus Christ.

Some popular pastors and so-called Christian media influencers try to redefine God’s love to condone promiscuity as well as homosexual and transgender lifestyles, while defying the Lord’s clear teaching on marriage, sexuality and the sanctity of life. 

Some hide behind 1 John 4:8: “God is love.” But remember—the very essence of loving someone is caring for them enough to tell them the truth and warn them of peril. 

That’s why I felt it was important to speak out recently on Facebook when professing evangelicals Chip and Joanna Gaines featured a homosexual couple in their new television series. While we are to love people, we should love them enough to tell them the truth of God’s Word. God’s design for marriage is between one man and one woman. Sadly, the Gaineses are promoting something that God defines as sin, which is in itself sinful and not an expression of God’s love. Affirming or promoting any other type of marital relationship than what God calls good in the Bible is the equivalent of calling God a liar. 

In Matthew 19:4-6, Jesus was clear: “‘Have you not read that He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”

In this passage, Jesus affirms the Old Testament teaching in Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”

For the same reason, transgenderism is not rooted in reality and certainly isn’t Biblical.

God doesn’t make mistakes when He creates human beings. Psalm 139:13-15 says, “For You formed my inward parts; You covered me in my mother’s womb. I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that my soul knows very well. My frame was not hidden from You, when I was made in secret, and skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.”

Our degenerate culture is reminiscent of apostate Israel, which had forsaken Almighty God and instead adopted the godless culture of surrounding nations. The Prophet Isaiah’s warning then is just as timely now: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20).

Bible-believing Christians must not compromise the Word of God when people—now more than ever—are obsessed with their personal identity. Gender and sexuality have become the throne to which our culture bows. Humanity worships the created instead of the Creator. 

But God’s amazing grace and forgiveness offers more than freedom from slavery to sin. His life-transforming power enables those who love Him with all their heart, soul, mind and strength to be in the world but not conformed to it.

The Apostle Paul encourages God’s people in Romans 12:2: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

That is why Aileen Coleman and John MacArthur are heroes of the faith. They both refused to compromise God’s calling on their lives. Their legacies of souls saved and lives changed for eternity will never pass away because they faithfully obeyed and taught the Bible. ©2025 BGEA

Scripture quotations are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version.