Franklin Graham on Dad's 97th Birthday: 'His Mind Is Still Clear'

The Rev. Billy Graham celebrated his 97th birthday on Saturday, and his son says that the beloved evangelist's mind is "still clear" and that he still wants to share the word of God with the world.

"Even though he’s not able to preach anymore, his mind is still clear and his desire is still there to tell the world about God’s love for them and how God sent His Son, Jesus Christ from Heaven to Earth to take the sins of all mankind to the cross, die, and arise on the third day," The Rev. Franklin Graham said of his father on Facebook. 

"My father’s desire is that all men and women everywhere would come to know Jesus Christ as their personal Savior and trust Him and follow Him as their Lord."

Graham concluded the post by encouraging followers to wish his father a happy birthday online. As of Saturday morning, the post had nearly 120,000 replies and almost 300,000 "likes."



Graham also wrote of how his father found God at the age of 16: "He came to faith in Christ just a week before his 16th birthday and went home and told his mother what he had done. He knew for sure that his heart had changed."

On Friday, Graham told Fox News that his father "realizes he's getting ready to step through that portal of eternity" into Heaven, and wanted to be clear in his book, "Where I Am: Heaven, Eternity, and Our Life Beyond,"  on how a person can be best prepared for eternity.

"My father said he was never afraid of death; he said it was the dying part of it he wasn't too sure of," Graham said, noting that the recent book, released at the end of September, will be his father's last.

"At 97, he just doesn't have the strength or energy to start another project like this," Graham said. "He actually started this before his 95th birthday two years ago, and it was about 90% finished, and then he got sick."

The family did not think the elder man would live until Christmas, said Graham, so the book was set aside, and "he's gotten better, he's gotten a little stronger, [so] he went ahead and finished the book."

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