(Taken from Rev. Tasler's next Daily Devotional, Every Day With Jesus,
due to be published later this year.)
When Dr. Billy Graham died recently, he was buried in a casket made by three convicts. Inmates Liggett and Bowman were given life sentences for murder, and Krolowitz was serving thirty years for armed robbery.
The Louisiana State Penitentiary where they were serving their time is nicknamed “Angola” since it was built on a slave plantation to which thousands of people were forcibly taken from Angola in Africa during the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries.
Some years ago, newly appointed Warden Burl Cain watched as a casket holding the remains of a deceased prisoner broke apart during burial. He immediately instituted a program in the prison wood shop that good caskets be made for all inmates who died while there.
When Billy Graham could not make his scheduled visit to Angola in 2005 due to poor health, son Franklin Graham and his sister Ruth came with the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Hearing the Gospel, dozens of prisoners, and also Warden Cain, received Jesus as their Savior.
Billy Graham then asked that his own casket be made there. And so it was that a handmade plywood casket made by convicts containing the body of one of the world’s great evangelists, lay in state in the U.S. Capital and later was buried in North Carolina at a service attended by over two thousand people.
It was a fitting tribute to what the Gospel can do for sinners, because our Lord Jesus died on a cross between two convicts. And before He died, Jesus told one of them the precious news, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Some years ago, newly appointed Warden Burl Cain watched as a casket holding the remains of a deceased prisoner broke apart during burial. He immediately instituted a program in the prison wood shop that good caskets be made for all inmates who died while there.
When Billy Graham could not make his scheduled visit to Angola in 2005 due to poor health, son Franklin Graham and his sister Ruth came with the message of salvation in Jesus Christ. Hearing the Gospel, dozens of prisoners, and also Warden Cain, received Jesus as their Savior.
Billy Graham then asked that his own casket be made there. And so it was that a handmade plywood casket made by convicts containing the body of one of the world’s great evangelists, lay in state in the U.S. Capital and later was buried in North Carolina at a service attended by over two thousand people.
It was a fitting tribute to what the Gospel can do for sinners, because our Lord Jesus died on a cross between two convicts. And before He died, Jesus told one of them the precious news, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)
Lord, thank You for forgiving us our sins and allowing us into heaven.
Rev. Bob Tasler, www.bobtasler.com
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