The year of our Lord 2025 began with the city of Los Angeles engulfed by an inferno.
On Easter Sunday, as Christians around the world celebrated the Savior rising from the dead, Rev. Franklin Graham, president of Samaritan’s Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, was in Los Angeles with two messages.
The first was that, just like Jesus, Los Angeles could rise from the ashes.
The second? Residents of Los Angeles who fled the wildfires described the heat as being “like hell.” Graham was there to assure them it would be far worse were they not to repent.
The message came during an appearance on Newsmax, while he was there before Easter to promote his special, “Hope From the Ashes.”
“From the rubble of what many called ‘Hell on earth,’ Franklin Graham brings a powerful message of hope. Special new music from Michael W. Smith and Charity Gayle sets the stage for this timely TV special,” the website for the special said.
“Easter is a time of new beginnings,” Graham told Newsmax. “And I want the people of Los Angeles, California, to know that they can have a new beginning.”
However, there was a powerful message in the destruction that was wrought on earth — and how it’s mirrored in the afterlife.
“So many people said out there, as they were fleeing, said this was like Hell. Those flames were like going through hell,” Graham noted.
Do you support Rev. Graham talking about hell as he tries to bring people to Jesus?
“And so my message is, Jesus came to save us from the flames of hell,” he added.
“And I want people to know, that’s why Christ came, that’s why he’s risen, he’s alive — and this Easter, we celebrate not a dead Savior, but a risen Savior,” Graham continued.
“He’s alive, and he’ll come into every heart that repents of their sins and believes on him and trusts him as their Savior.”
Easter is a time of new beginnings.
We chose LA as the site for filming this year’s Easter program because so many people said fleeing from the flames was like going through Hell. I want everyone to know that Jesus Christ came to save us from the fires of Hell and that all who… pic.twitter.com/tW9XzgbGHN— Franklin Graham (@Franklin_Graham) April 15, 2025
It’s a reminder, as we celebrate the period between Christ’s rising and Pentecost Sunday — the day when the Holy Spirit descended upon the apostles of Jesus — what this period means for us as Christians, especially those of us who walk through modern Babylon.
For us, Babylon can be anywhere — our own personal Babylon may not even be a place of physical dissipation, but a spiritual hole.
But were one to identify the city most likely to be Babylonian in these United States, you’d be hard-pressed to find one that fit the bill more neatly than Los Angeles, where vile entertainment is pumped out to produce squandered, ill-gotten wealth.
And yet, even then, those fleeing these catastrophic fires knew what they felt like: the flames of hell. We know, in the back of our mind, that those flames are real. Something that instinctive isn’t just a construct or metaphor.
Try to push it away, but let me assure those who went through the tragedy in southern California earlier this year, believer or unbeliever, sinners all, some undoubtedly saved, many more in need of saving:
The flames of hell are hotter than the earthly ones. They do not dissipate. No one will put them out.
These are bold words from a bold man — and proof that, just like his dad Billy, Franklin doesn’t pull punches.
For those affected, our prayers continue to be with you and your families during this time, such that you may find the material comfort you need. But even more so, we pray that you would find the spiritual assurance in the Savior that saves from these flames forevermore.
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