Billy Graham · Psalm 35

Billy Graham on Psalm 35

We could not find a Billy Graham sermon on Psalm 35 in BGEA's published archive. Here is that honest answer, along with what the psalm is and how it gets preached responsibly.

"Billy Graham Psalm 35" is a real, recurring search — and the honest answer is that no such sermon appears to exist. Searching BGEA's published devotions and its sermon archive turns up no Billy Graham message devoted to Psalm 35. The title circulates on video platforms, usually inside "morning prayer" or "prayer for protection" compilations that pair Graham's name, and sometimes audio from unrelated recordings, with narration over the psalm text. Those compilations are assembled by third-party channels; they are not published by the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

A page that invented a sermon to capture this search would be worth less than no page at all, so this one does something different: it says plainly that the sermon does not appear to exist, points you to where you can verify Graham's actual preaching for yourself, and then explains what Psalm 35 is, since that is presumably part of what you were looking for.

What Billy Graham Actually Taught

There is no confirmed Billy Graham sermon, devotion, or published message built specifically around Psalm 35 in BGEA's official materials. If you have encountered audio or video attributing a Psalm 35 sermon to Graham, it is worth checking whether it is a compilation from a third-party channel rather than an official BGEA publication — this is a documented pattern with several of the psalm-specific searches connected to his name.

The most reliable way to see what Graham actually preached on any text is BGEA's own audio archive of more than 1,600 sermons, free at billygraham.org/sermons, alongside the Billy Graham Classics collection of his best-known crusade messages.

A Closer Look at Psalm 35

Psalm 35 is attributed to David and belongs to a category scholars call an imprecatory psalm — a prayer that asks God to act against the psalmist's enemies. It opens, "Plead my cause, O Lord, with them that strive against me: fight against them that fight against me," and moves through vivid, sometimes uncomfortable imagery of pursuit and vindication before turning, as many of these psalms do, toward praise.

Imprecatory psalms are some of the hardest texts in the Psalter to preach well, because they sit in tension with the New Testament's call to love enemies and pray for persecutors. Responsible preaching on Psalm 35 generally does three things: takes the psalmist's raw honesty about injustice seriously rather than sanitizing it, locates the psalm within the Old Testament's own framework of appealing to God's justice rather than taking personal vengeance, and reads it in light of the fuller picture the New Testament gives of how believers are to relate to those who wrong them.

Read this way, Psalm 35 becomes less a template for cursing enemies and more a permission slip: it is honest before God that being wronged genuinely hurts, and it insists that the appropriate response is to bring that pain to God rather than either suppress it or act on it directly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where can I find Billy Graham's sermon on Psalm 35?

We could not find one. Searching BGEA's published devotions and its sermon archive turns up no Billy Graham message devoted to Psalm 35. Videos circulating under that title are typically third-party compilations, not official BGEA publications. For his verified preaching, search the free official archive at billygraham.org/sermons.

What is Psalm 35 about?

Psalm 35 is a psalm of David asking God to defend him against those who oppose him unjustly. It belongs to the category of imprecatory psalms — prayers that appeal to God's justice against enemies — and moves from a cry for vindication toward praise.

Is Psalm 35 an imprecatory psalm?

Yes. It contains language asking God to act against the psalmist's adversaries, which places it alongside psalms like 69 and 109 in the imprecatory tradition — one of the more difficult categories of the Psalter to preach responsibly.

How do you preach an imprecatory psalm like this one?

Most careful preaching takes the psalmist's honesty about being wronged seriously, situates the appeal within the Old Testament's framework of trusting God's justice rather than personal vengeance, and reads the psalm alongside the New Testament's call to love enemies rather than treating it as a template for cursing them.

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