I Became A Christian And My Life Got Worse

0:00 So before we get going, Ken Ham got a hold of me before this podcast and said that I should not have you on, that I needed to be very leery of having Ray come for it. Now, why would Ken say such a thing, Ray? Because he thinks I'm immoral. You know, he's Australian, I'm a New Zealander. Yes. And Australians, they talk different than New Zealanders. They, through the nose, it's not as cultured. And their criminal backgrounds and can't admit- Heavy criminal backgrounds. Heavy criminal backgrounds. And Australians, men, don't know how to show affection. Best you'll get from an Australian is, I kind of like you even if you are an idiot. That's about all you'll get from an Australian.

0:41 So Ken really loves me. And so for the last seven years, every day he has texted me and his texts are full of insults that I'm a moron, I'm an idiot, I'm short, I'm ugly, I can't preach, people never heard of me, he'll call me up with a... with people on the video saying, these people have never heard of you. These people. Have you ever heard of Ray Comfort? And he interviewed me yesterday about this book. Oh, by the way, the most texts in one day, there were 223 texts in one day. 223 texts from Ken Ham? From Ken Ham. Between us. In one day. Yeah, yeah. That's abuse. Most of them are insults. And it's just wonderful because if you've got a friend and you say...

1:23 I hope your day's going well. He says, it's going good. That's the end of the conversation. That's not it. But if he calls you a moron and says, what are you doing? That's love. It just makes you laugh. So he interviewed me yesterday about Compelled, my book, and most of it was insults. He got his book and showed how big it was compared to my book. That would be Ken. Because I'm just very short and he's big and all this sort of stuff. Anyway, at the end of the interview, he said, is there anything else you'd like to cover? And I said, yes, your face. And that was a great end to the interview. So yeah, Ken and I love each other. Our ministries are intertwined because we have the same vision. We respect God's word. We fear the Lord. We exalt scripture.

2:04 And so we often do things together as ministries. Absolutely. I'm delighted. And he gave me the foreword for the book. His ability to communicate with, his love takes your discernment to figure that out. In other words, what I love about Ken is that he just doesn't give things away like that. He just doesn't, like say, oh, I love you. How you doing? Have a nice day. If Ken says it, he means it. But when he says, I don't like you, that is his... His precious way of saying, I really love you immensely.

2:46 And I know that if he's going to watch this right now, he's going to somehow say something now bad about me. And I'll take that as a profound compliment. Absolutely. We love him. The interview we did yesterday, it's about... 30, 40 minutes long, his team said, we just want to use the outtakes. The outtakes? Yeah, because they said that was the best part. That's probably true. Knowing you guys, that's probably true. So the book, what's with the book? What's Compelled all about? My journey as a Christian is a mini book of Acts. It begins with my birth. When I was born, I was born with a tract in my hand, which I gave to the doctor that delivered me.

3:27 It's just because of my background and why it is that I'm so compelled to reach the lost. I look at myself as a normal biblical Christian. That's right. I'm on fire for God. I'm a man that's found everlasting life while I'm surrounded by people who are sitting in the shadow of death. Well, let me lift it up a little bit. I'm like a firefighter, and in front of me is a building with people in it that are screaming, and I've got a ladder to climb to try and rescue them. And that's what the Bible likens us to in the book of Jude. others having compassion, making a difference, pulling them from the fire, hating them in the garments spotted by the flesh. And when I look at the contemporary church, it's as though the world's forgotten or the church has forgotten.

4:08 Maybe that was a, yeah. Maybe the church has forgotten that hell even exists because we're so caught up in everything but what we see in the book of Acts. Book of Acts, they came bursting out of the upper room. They didn't carpet it out, put an air conditioning, a little notice at the front tonight, 7 o'clock, all welcome, come and join us. Revival here next Saturday night. Yeah, they didn't say that. From 7 to 9. Yeah, they come bursting out. That's right. Because Jesus said, go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. And so that's been my life from the moment I came to Christ. I've had an overwhelming experience. passion for the lost. And I've had something that's driven me that overwhelms me. And that is the high octane fuel of gratitude.

4:52 That's what drives me. I cannot put into words my gratitude to God for delivering me from death and saving me from a very real hell. And my whole life has been, I cannot but speak that which I've seen and heard. And so the moment I became a Christian, I came back to my house. I put a billboard out the front of our house with scripture on it. I purchased a printing press and put it in our home. I had scripture written on my car. I purchased a 34-seater bus and had 14-inch lights. professional sign writing. Jesus said, I'm the way, the truth, and the life. And on the other side, I'm the whatever, way, the truth, and life, whatever.

5:34 And then I began preaching in the square, in our city, right in the heart of our city. Oh, that's what I said. I had a business. I used to make leather jackets to order for people, and I had a surf shop. On the front window of the surf shop, I put John chapter 3, verses 1 to 16, and three-inch professional lettering. Wow. Wow. Because I had... Sorry, what year was this? This is 1972. So this is right in the middle with America, or in America. You're in Australia at the time. New Zealand. No, no, you've just said... I know, New Zealand. New Zealand, yes. You're in New Zealand. At that time, at the same time, the Jesus movement's taking place in America. Exactly, yes. It was the same movement in New Zealand. Because you're describing your van and the signs and the sayings.

6:16 Yeah. That was going on all over Orange County. Absolutely. And so... I love that testimony because it's the work of the Spirit of God who knows no continents or islands. He's moving and he's moving in your life. This is what's going on with you. So you have a surf shop and that's an interesting combo, Ray. Surf shop and leather jackets. How does that? Well, do you remember Easy Rider? Of course. Yeah, remember the fringe jacket? Of course. I made 230 fringe jackets. What happened was before Easy Rider came out, I saw a well-known surfer wearing a leather jacket with fringes on it. He's just standing on a beach. And I'm like, whoa. You know, when there's a surfer here or anything he's wearing, you think it's cool.

6:56 Yeah. So I made one. And I didn't realize my grandfather was a leather worker on one side and a dress manufacturer on the other side. So it was in my bones. I naturally knew how to make jackets. So I made one. And I thought, this is cool. And then I made another four and hung them in my bedroom. And some guys heard about it, drove up our driveway and purchased four jackets. And I thought, whoa. Four? Four. And I worked at four. And I had one left. I worked in a bank at a time. So I quit my bank job, opened a leather gear shop, and began making those jackets. And I could make a leather jacket with fringes on. to order for someone within an hour and three quarters of me measuring them up. Just measure them up.

7:36 So they come back in an hour and three quarters and they got a friend's checker. It was unlined. It was just rough. And I ended up making 235 of them because of the fact Easy Rider came out at that exact time and made that very, very trendy. And so I had a very successful business. I had my own home, lovely wife, everything I wanted at the age of 20. I had a Solomon experience. I didn't have the wives of Solomon, the riches of Solomon, or the wisdom of Solomon, but I had the experience of Solomon. I grew old prematurely. At the age of 20, I'd done everything I wanted. I traveled, rich art, put me on a cruiser, went to Tahiti, Fiji. I'd done everything. I thought, what's next?

8:17 And life became futile. Oh, man. Chasing the wind. And one night, looked at my wife. I'd just gone to sleep. We're newly married. And I wept at the futility of life, the fact of death. Just tears streamed down my cheeks. I looked to the heavens and cried out, why? It made no sense that where we're sitting in the shadow of death, death was going to grab every human being, drag it into this blackness that no one talked about. And at the same time, man was putting a man on the moon and didn't know what was happening here on earth. People were dying. Didn't care about it. Wow, so true. And so six months later, I didn't realize that God heard that prayer. I didn't even pray. That why was just a cry. Oh, yeah, he heard it. And he heard it. And I was on a surfing trip, and there was an open Bible on a desk.

9:00 And I, for some reason, started reading it, and I read this. You've heard it said, by them of old, you shall not commit adultery. And I stopped. Well, if there's a heaven, I'll make it, because I've never committed adultery. And then I saw what came next. The next verse. It blew me across the room, so to speak. But I say to you, whoever looks upon a woman to lust for her has committed adultery already with her in his heart. And I was just condemned, because I was like every male, burned with unlawful sexual desire. I had no idea I believed in God, but I didn't know he saw my thought life and that was the revelation That brought me to the foot of the cross and that's when I came back from that surfing trip Like a man on fire and I put a soapbox in the heart of our city City of 350,000 people and I preached the gospel every day for 12 years every weekday for 12 years and Nowadays, I mean I was just a raving fanatic in those days nowadays.

9:54 I'm far worse I Because I'm closer to death. I'm coming up to 77. Are you? So I'm so grateful. Thank you very much. I am so grateful that God saved me from death. Because when you get to this age, every morning you wake up, you say, whoa, I got another day. And I'm so grateful that I use every minute I can to reach the lost. And so this book gives the background of what happened, but... Let me share, if I may, just if I'm talking too much. No, no, this is... In the surfing scene, I had a surf shop, and so I had a close relationship with all the surfers. I started a club that gave discounts to surfers on surfboards, 240 people, members.

10:37 And so I was very familiar with these guys, and when there was no surf, they were bored. And so they started using drugs, LSD and other drugs. And... After some time, I counted up, I became a Christian. They stayed doing what they were doing. Five of them had died from that surf scene. And so I produced a little paper, eight-page paper, called My Friends Are Dying. People heard of it. This businessman heard of it. Gave money towards it, and we put it into every school in New Zealand, that little paper. Yeah. Wow. And just saying about, be careful of drugs. So I wrote a book called My Friends Are Dying that became a national bestseller. And the reason it became a bestseller is because I opened a drug prevention center as a Christian on High Street, which is an unfortunate choice of street names for a drug center.

11:27 Yeah, that's... High Street, it didn't go down. It sticks, though. Yeah, it sticks. So I had this drug prevention center where I'd send teams out to schools and we'd preach the gospel in the schools. Drug prevention. Hadn't fake marijuana plants that I got from the US, the smell of marijuana and books on marijuana. Anyway, two drug addicts came in to see what I was doing. And I got to know them. One of them was the type of girl that you'd imagine in a cowboy movie that just, she's the... Friend of every cowboy. She's sort of a bit of a loose lady. She was like that. And she did a little swirl in the center. And I got to know her and a friend. And while they were in there, National TV called and said, we'd like to interview you because a drug addict just died in prison, overdosed, and we don't know how they get drugs in prison.

12:14 Can we interview you? And I said, sure. They said, we'll be there in three minutes. National TV. So I put the phone down and thought, I have no idea. Yeah, they get drugs into prison. So I turned to these drug addicts and they said, oh, they inject oranges. They put LSD under postage stamps. Okay, I had no idea about this stuff. I had no idea. So five minutes later, I'm on national television saying they inject oranges. They put LSD under postage stamps. Everybody knows that. So I became thrust forth as an expert on the whole drug prevention thing. And that opened wide an itinerant ministry for me because I preached the gospel. Oh, my goodness. With all service groups and schools that invite me and all sorts of things happen. So about two weeks after that incident, the police called and said, we've found two bodies.

12:59 And there's a girl with a green Bible with your name signed in it to her. And that overdosed and they were dead. And so that grieved me. So I... began preaching the gospel in different places around the country, and no longer could I do jackets because I was so busy doing this. And so my pastor asked if I'd come out full-time with the church, and that opened an itinerant ministry to me where people saw that I preached the gospel, and that churches would say, would you come and teach us how to evangelize? And so I began doing that, and that gave me access. Tell me if I'm talking too much. Keep going. That gave me access to church growth records that I didn't know existed.

13:39 And I found that 90% of those making a decision for Christ, under the sound of the modern gospel, were falling away from the faith. It was in our church, in churches I visited, in church records. And I thought, if you go fishing and 9 out of 10 fish get out of your net, you better check your net. Something's wrong. So I did. It was a Friday afternoon. I opened a sermon by Charles Spurgeon. And this is what I heard him say. What will you do when the law comes in terror? When the trumpet of the archangel shall tear you from your grave, when the eyes of God shall burn their way into your guilty soul, when the book shall be opened and all your sin and shame shall be punished, can you stand against an angry law in that day?

14:22 And I thought, whoa, that's different from... God has a wonderful plan in your life. And I thought, what is he doing? I thought, he's using the moral law, the Ten Commandments, to bring the knowledge of sin. So I tucked it in my memory banks, had to travel to about 100 miles to the small church, and I was preparing, and I looked at Galatians 3.24, and I'll never forget what I read. Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. But I didn't read it as that. This is what I read it as. Wherefore the law was Israel's schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. And I thought, it doesn't say that. It says us. Exactly. And so I closed up the Bible. I said, I'm going to go and experiment on a sinner.

15:02 So I went to these hot pools, sat in this hot pool, and a big guy sat next to me. And instead of saying, and I asked Jesus into my heart, and that God-shaped vacuum got filled, and my marriage came right, and I was just so happy as a Christian. I didn't say that. Yeah, good for you. I said, I had to face God on judgment day, and he'd given me a conscience, and I knew right from wrong. I knew it was wrong to lie and steal, lust, fornicate, and blaspheme, because God had written his law upon my heart, and he'd set aside a day in which he'll judge the world in righteousness. And if I died in my sins, I'd end up in hell justly. But God's rich in mercy, and he provided a savior. And I preached Christ crucified. Never forget what happened. It was a very cold day. In a thermal pool, he stood up and he was a steaming man.

15:45 He was big. And he stood there steaming. He looked at me and he says, I've never heard that put so clearly in all my life. That's right. And it was like a light went on his head and a light went on my head. So I went back to our city and I began studying the gospel proclamation of men like Spurgeon, Wesley, Whitfield, Luther. Edwards. Think of Jonathan Edwards. He's very reminiscent. He was in the hands of a hangry God. No wonderful plan. Enfield, Connecticut. Amazing. So I saw they said, if you do not precede grace with the moral law, you'll fill the church with false converts. And the whole principle is so simple. That's it. You do not give a cure to a man who doesn't believe he has the disease. You've got to open the symptoms of the disease so they'll appreciate and appropriate the cure.

16:27 So I formulated this into a teaching called Hell's Best Kept. Of course. And I began teaching it. I was invited to Hawaii to teach. Someone has to go there. Yes, someone's got to go. And I preached in a missionary base. And a pastor from California sat in, and he was at Calvary Chapel, Pastor Gary Anstall. Oh, yeah, okay. He totally disagreed. He said, no, no, this is wrong. He began studying it and began calling him in New Zealand day after day. reading Bible verses to me. And he said, one day just said, I believe God is calling you to bring this message to the church of the U.S. America must hear this message. That's right. He said, what do you pray about coming over here? So we prayed about it.

17:08 And in three days, 13 crazy weird things happened. Like I said to a guy, just a friend, you know, I'm thinking of selling my house. He said, I'll buy it. And he did just like that. I thought I've got a house. My father-in-law, who's a Christian, I went to tell him, he says, God spoke to my heart three days ago that you were going to the U.S. Went to tell my mom and she actually cussed me out. She's Jewish. And she said, you're taking my grandchildren from me. And she was just angry. Three days later, she called and she said God had spoken to her heart that I was going to go to the U.S. So all these things kept happening. Came to the U.S., and I'm squeezing things up here, but for the first three years, it was very, very quiet.

17:49 No one knew who I was. In New Zealand, I had an established itinerant ministry, and if I mentioned my pastor, that's, oh, Peter Morrow, yeah, sure, come and preach. He's your pastor. No one knew who he was in the U.S., and I felt like a Jehovah's Witness. I had no credibility. I had no credibility. But then, I filled in that time by going to MacArthur Park. Are you familiar with MacArthur Park? Yeah, of course. I heard about it in New Zealand because of the song. Yeah. Someone left the cake out in the rain. Yeah. And so I went there to preach and it was horrific. Sorry, what year was this? This is 1989. Yeah, I went there to preach, and I didn't realize, I just felt directed by the Lord. It mentions why in here.

18:29 To preach there, I didn't realize it had the highest murder rate in Los Angeles, the highest murder rate. And when I went there, I thought they're all dealing drugs, and I went to do my usual thing, and I got a dollar bill out. to illustrate that faith without works is dead. Who would like this? And I went to give it, and it got ripped in two by the guys that ran forward and panicked over money. And a girl whispered to me, she said, her name was Snow. She said, you shouldn't. you will get murdered for your money. Preach with your back to this tree. And from then on, I preached with your back to the tree. And it was very murderous. People got killed regularly. They were in such a sorry state.

19:11 I took sandwiches to them. I used to be a wet field going to the coal mines. Yeah, yeah. I'd say to Sue how hungry they were, and I'd break down in tears, and we'd make sandwiches, and I'd bring sandwiches back to them. Then I began tending wounds. One guy had a knee. If you get an orange and go like that, that's what his knee looked like. Oh, gosh. And I got him to go to the doctor's, and they said he had gangrene. And there was a lot of that there, and I'd bathe their wounds and stuff like that. And then the police put a substation in the middle of the park. Everything scattered, and my whole ministry was gone. However... Just a little after that, a well-known minister called and he said, I've heard Hell's Best Kept Secret.

19:51 I want to fly you to San Jose. I want you to preach it to a thousand pastors. I preached it to a thousand pastors. He put it on video and screened the video to 30,000 pastors. And suddenly our ministry just exploded. And I had credibility instantly. God had opened doors. And so that's what I go into details about that in the book. And... how the doors opened, David Wilkerson, remember David Wilkerson? Oh my goodness, of course. I called him from New Zealand. I wanted him to come to New Zealand and do a crusade there. Twice I got up in the middle of the night to call him. Second time I called because I couldn't get through to him in New York.

20:33 His manager came on, his crusade manager, and said, Mr. Wilkerson is not available. I said, I'm calling from New Zealand. I mean, waiting up for two hours to speak to him. He said, Mr. Wilkerson's not available. Long story short, David Wilkerson calls me in 1991, calling from his car, he says, I've just heard how it's best kept secret. I wanna fly you to preach my church. So I had the joy of having breakfast. Wasn't that Times Square Church? Yeah, Times Square Church. I had the joy of having breakfast with David Wilkerson. And Jack, I don't think I heard a word he said. I was just thinking, that's David Wilkerson. I could reach out and poke his eye. I could right now because this is the cross and the switchblade guy.

21:14 And here's something crazy that happened. Oh, he said to me over breakfast, he said, I had a guy in my church just recently preaching. He was a little off, so I stopped him halfway through the sermon and sent him on his way with a big honorarium. And it was like he was saying to me, you just stay online here. Exactly. And he got me back, which was great. Wow. But this is what happened when I got back. This is what a doofus I am and how Ken Ham's right about me being a moron. I got back to LA. At LAX, I see Pat Boone. getting his luggage. So I went up to him and I says, hi, how you doing? Nice to meet you. I said, have you heard of Dave Wilkerson? He acted as Dave Wilkerson in the movie The Cross and the Switchblade with Eric Estrada.

21:57 And I was saying, have you ever heard of David Wilkerson when he acted the part? I forgot Eric Estrada. Eric Estrada was the gang member. Was he the Nicky Cruz guy? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And so it was just wonderful that David Wilkerson put his blessing on the ministry along with this other minister that preached it. We got it preached to 30,000 pastors. Anyway. That's amazing. Yes. No, please. No question. Fast forward, Kirk Cameron heard Hell's Best Gap Secret. He said he listened to it twice. First time, didn't make sense. Second time, he pulled his car over the side of the road and says, am I a false convert?

22:38 I'm going to a church and I'm going to preach something that's not true. And he called and he said, can I have lunch with you? And I said, let me check my calendar. Yeah. Anyway, Kirk came over and we had the joy of spending three hours over lunch and he just had question after question after question. And he said, I want to combine ministries with you. And what that did was open up doors that normally wouldn't open to me. Because Christian television, if I may say it, TBN, had Kirk going to be interviewed. The interviewer got sick one night. And so they said, Kirk, would you host? And he said, yeah, I want to interview Ray Comfort. And so he got me on. He interviewed me for 15 minutes, and he got my notes and preached Hell's Best Kept Secret on worldwide television.

23:24 Next day, our website crashed. It had over a million, it was called Hits or whatever happened. Right. Crashed. And so TBN said, come back and teach more. He said, no, no. we will produce a television program that teaches Christians how to share their faith biblically. Long story short, we're in our 11th season. It's gone to 190 countries over a 20-year period, and it's equipped Christians on how to address the conscience rather than the intellect to follow in the footsteps of Jesus. So I look back and just say, wow. And I've even missed out a lot of the things that happened on the way there. But I look back and just say, Lord, you did wonderful things. with a guy who's a nobody from nowhere.

24:04 A little country. People hadn't even heard of New Zealand. And Jack, I want to tell you something. I have no talent. Absolutely none. I can't sing. Sue is the only one that's ever heard me sing because it's so bad. If I sung down the beach, the tide... I'm tracking what... I resemble these remarks. Okay. If I sang down the beach, the tide wouldn't come in. It's that bad. I can't dance. I can't clap. I've been in black churches down south, up on the platform, and I'm embarrassed because I cannot do what they're doing. And so I pretended to read my notes because they're all dancing and clapping, and I don't know how to clap in the same beat. I'm useless at sport.

24:45 I couldn't play sport. I couldn't run. I couldn't do long jump. High jump was out. The only thing I could do was hurdles because I'd go under the hurdle. So when I became a Christian, I found an amazing truth in that God uses people without talent. Yes, sir. He goes past the sons of Jesse and goes for the little guy in the back looking after sheep. Hallelujah for that. And I come from a country that looks after sheep. I don't know if you know, but New Zealand. It's true. New Zealand. Yeah, New Zealand has. More than anywhere in the world, right? Yep. It has 4 million people and something like 40 or 50 million sheep, although they're not sure of the exact amount because the guy that counts them keeps falling to sleep.

25:26 I wish I had that kind of wit. Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah. People raise their eyes. So anyway, when I became a Christian, I found that God uses people without talent. And anyone, anyone can exercise faith. Anyone. It's true. Faith is a level playing field. And Jesus said. Children do it the best. Yeah, absolutely. No talent. Jesus said, if you've got faith as a mustard seed, you'll move mountains. That's not real mountains because where would you put them? Like, anyone seen Mount Everest? Oh, those Christians again. What's the benefit? Yeah, yeah. It's talking about great things can be accomplished if you'll just trust God. Big things. And that's what I look back and say, Lord, you've taken this little nobody from nowhere and used me for big things.

26:09 I love it. Extremely humbled. So love it. I want you to keep sharing. We've got the time for you to jump back onto some things that you might have left out. But before we do that, first of all, 100% agree with you. But here's what I want to challenge you. I know the answer, but I want to hear from Ray Comfort. I want our audience to hear this. What in the world, Ray, has happened to the American church that left off preaching the true gospel of God. Because Jesus, the disciples, the first word out of their mouth was repent.

26:54 It presupposes that something was said about being an adulterer or a liar or a thief or whatever it is. Therefore repent and believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved. But we have churches that won't even mention the word repent. But how did the American church get away from the true gospel? When did this happen? Really good question and we can see it happen in the Old Testament. What happened with Israel again and again? That's what happened. Moses is up in the mountain. Lose sight of Moses.

27:34 They go straight into idolatry. Why is idolatry so acceptable, so attractive to sinful man? Because an idol has no moral dictate. An idol doesn't say you shall not commit adultery. Right. You've got an idol, your own image of God. You can fornicate. You can look at the idol. An idol is your creation of a deity that approves of everything that you want to do. That's exactly right. And this is what's happened in the contemporary church. Wow. There's been a hatred for the moral law. Satan hates that law. There's been a concerted effort to get rid of the Ten Commandments in courts. You can't have them. It offends somebody. Don't have them in schools. Don't have them in churches.

28:14 Don't have them anywhere. Why? Because Satan hates that moral law. You get rid of the moral law, you get rid of Moses, and you end up with a golden calf. You get a wrong image of God. And so you've got a God, and this is the God that's spoken of by politicians. They will say, I believe in God, God and country, and then they'll blaspheme as an name in the next sentence. And then they'll just rip, exactly. Because they've got no fear of God before their eyes. And God who? Who are you talking about? That's exactly right. I've heard Christians give testimony to being delivered by God for 30 minutes how God did this for them, and I thought, you could have been a Muslim. saying the same thing. True. God delivered me. God did this. God did that. They don't preach the gospel, which is the power of God to salvation.

28:54 But this is what's happened. When the law is taken out of the pulpit, then you get a wrong image of God preached. Yep. And the reason... Modern preachers don't talk about hell is because they cannot say God has a wonderful plan for your life. He's the love of your soul. You're going to hell if you die and your sins are the lake of fire. It's too big a gap for them. So they don't want to discredit God by talking about hell. That's going to paint him as a tyrant. And what makes hell reasonable is the moral law. That's right. Paul reasoned with Felix of righteousness, temperance, and judgment. I just read that this morning. I had no idea. Of course, we're going to... Wow! And Felix... You almost convinced me to be a Christian.

29:35 And Felix trembled. He trembled. So we need to make Felix tremble. We need to give the Philippian Jander his own personal earthquake. Why? Because there is a fear that has torment, but there's a fear that's good. A fear that's good is a fear that will make you put on a parachute when you're going to jump. That's your friend. It's not your enemy. That fear is good for you. It's going to make you cling to the parachute. Right, right. The Bible says the fear of God is the beginning of wisdom. And Jesus said, fear not him who has power to kill your body, and afterwards do no more, but fear him. That's the power to kill your body and destroy your soul in hell. So there's nothing wrong with making someone fear. Make them tremble so they'll embrace grace. Show them the disease so they'll appreciate the cure.

30:17 I often say to people, okay, you're a doctor. You've got a cure in your pocket, but someone in front of you looks really healthy. He goes to the gym every day. He looks great, but you know he's going to be dead in three weeks because he's got a terrible disease. You've seen x-rays. That cure, are you going to give it to him now or show him the x-rays? And people say, well, give him the cure. That's not going to work. He's not going to take it. He's going to say, look at me. He's going to be offended. No, if you're a doctor that cares about this patient, you're going to say, look at these x-rays. This is poison. It's seeping through your system. And you look at him and say, look, he's beginning to sweat. Good. This is what I want. I want him to see how serious this is. And so by the time he's sweating, he's going to say, doc, what should I do?

30:58 Now you got him. And what's happened in America is we've preached the cure, the cure, the cure, the gospel, the gospel, the gospel. Who doesn't know John 3.16 in America? They can recite it. They're familiar with the cure, but they don't know anything about the disease. And that's what we've messed up. So this leads me to say this. And again, this is unrehearsed. I don't mean to be offensive if I come across it. So some time ago, Ray, you'll know the timing better than me, I think. Let's say in the last five years, we started seeing on social media posts from college students where there's a revival.

31:41 300 people were baptized. You saw these posts. Then it's on the news. I was on Fox being asked this very question. They didn't like my answer. But this group is posting. We had 5,000 people show up. We sang worship songs and we had baptisms. I'm just judging it by the posts. That's all I know. It's happening all over the United States. College campuses. UCLA. Asbury College. All these things are happening. America starts talking about the revival. Our friend Charlie Kirk, before he passed, he was talking about young men are in droves are going back to the church.

32:24 We're seeing all this report. Ray, the reason why I was kind of silenced is that on national news, I said, we cannot call these revivals because we've not allowed time enough to, to see if there's a cultural change. Because wherever the church is revived, the culture is affected because the people become holy and very much attractive. God will see to it, to the lost. They will come and see what's happened here. What must I do to be saved? And they said, you got to wait.

33:04 You can't call it a revival until you see the fruit of it. And the reason why he said that, Ray, is because in not one of those posts, Did I hear the word repent? Not one. So I'm still, unless somebody convinces me otherwise, this has been now like four, five, six years. We're not seeing a cultural shift toward righteousness because I think people sing worship songs and they got wet. I don't see the evidence of repentance. That sounds hard, but What do you think about that? You've heard about these college revivals that are taking place. Are they legit?

33:45 Are you hearing the gospel preached? I can't help but be skeptical like you because people come up to me, how many people got saved through your ministry? I say, I'm sorry, I don't have access to the Lamb's Book of Life. If I did, I'd better give you the details, but we'll have to wait till that day because there's such a thing as true and false conversion. And it's very easy to get false converts, the stony ground hero. Remember the stony ground hero? Of course. Receives the world with joy and gladness. There's no contrition. Jesus said, straight is the gate and narrow is the way that leads to life and few there be that find it. Broad is the path that leads to destruction and many go in that way. It's not the world. It's a way of entering a false conversion. And speaking to sinners, James says, cleanse your hands, you sinners.

34:27 Purify your heart, you double-minded. Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to heaviness. Wow. That's the straight gate. And when Jesus spoke of the straight gate, he said, strive to enter the straight gate. That word strive is the same word from which we derive a word agonize. Agonize, though. Yeah. I can't even say it because of my accent. But that's the way of entry. It's not, oh, Jesus is in my heart now. I've got everlasting life. See how many people are walking around where they say, oh yeah, I went to church a month ago. I prayed the prayer. And life's great. I've got everything I want right now and fire insurance later. Everything's fine.

35:08 But there's no change. Yeah, absolutely. Man, I remember, so my life was just as lost as yours, but For me, everything was fine. I had no wake-up call. Everything was great. Plans are going fine. No reason to accept the gospel. Didn't even know it, to be honest with you. But life is great. This is super. And I, too, I was making money, all legally, young, 19 years old. Things were just going crazy. Love hard work, so that was paying off, all that stuff.

35:48 And when I heard the gospel... In fact, the message that was preached, Greg Laurie gave me the message decades later. The message on that night, it was June 20th. It's a Monday night, June 20th, 1977. He preached a message from Revelation chapter 20 and the sermon was titled How to Inherit Hell. That was the first sermon I'd ever heard in my life. When he went down the list of those who wind up in hell, I wasn't guilty of everything, but I was guilty of enough. I remember Ray listening to him talk at that time, Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, Chuck Smith.

36:35 And I remember looking at the palms of my hands. I thought my hands were clean. My palms had sweated so much that... dust or dirt had filled in between the cracks. I remember looking and I knew that if I did not accept Christ, I could die tomorrow. I just knew this is the end of my life. I went forward and when I accepted Christ from that moment on, certainly for the first three years after that, my life became horrible. I was going to say the same thing.

37:16 My life got worse when I became a Christian. I became a Christian. My life got worse. Yes. I lost the career. I lost the job. I had everything fell apart. And I had nothing but Jesus only. In fact, he took all my resources away to make money. And so... And his wisdom, I had nowhere to go but to church. And I went every night of the week and just immersed myself in the scriptures. But I got to tell you, it took me years, Ray. It took me years. I thought, I mean, I know I was saved. But I immediately went about to try, and a lot of this had to do, I think, with how I was brought up, to try now, okay, I'm saved.

38:01 I'm a Christian. God, you're going to, I'll show you how great of a decision you made by bringing me into the family. I'm going to pray three hours a day. I'm going to fast once a week. I'm going to tell people about Jesus. I'm going to, wrong motives. But my point was, I went from salvation to salvation. to really a heavy, heavy trip because I immediately took it into the works realm. I went works instead of grace. And boy, I tell you, it took me three years to actually die to me trying to, what's the word, try... After salvation, I tried to reform myself. And God's patient, and he's got his way of wearing us out.

38:46 Come now, let us reason together. Right? Isaiah 118. And I lost that fight. I happily lost that fight. And there was a day, it was a Saturday, I'll never forget it, where it's almost as though a lightning bolt came out and landed in the apartment. And it was the revelation of God's grace in my life. But that revelation of God's grace was so perfectly precious because I had gone through being so convicted at the moment of my salvation and then not understanding it rightly where Pastor Chuck Smith spoke about grace.

39:29 But I said to myself, it can't be that easy. I went hard. Instead of saying, oh yeah, God loves me. I'm good. Everything's fine. It was, why would God love me? I'm a filthy, stinking wretch. And that was a really, really hard thing. My life was very fruitless. It wasn't because I was out sinning. It's because I was fruitless because I wasn't enjoying and being thankful. You mentioned the word grateful of the grace of God. Rightly, we should give God praise over his grace, but people don't, if they've never understood this trauma of being a lost sinner.

40:13 And so, man, Let me share a little bit about, from the book. Yeah. It's a little bit more candy, if I may say that. When I preached open air in the city of Christchurch in New Zealand, it was a place called Speaker's Corner. When I arrived, there'd be like... Like in London, there's a Speaker's Corner. Yeah, it was named after Speaker's Corner. Yeah. Yeah. There was a wizard there that I crossed swords with every day for 12 years. We became friendly enemies. His name was Jack, believe it or not. He would dress as a wizard. I'd be on first lunch hour. He was on the second lunch hour. And sometimes he'd get a crowd of 300 people. He'd let me on his ladder to preach to his crowd. I took him home for dinner and we became good friends and swapped birthday presents and Christmas presents.

40:55 And I thought if Jesus could call Judas friends as he betrayed him, I could befriend this wizard. So we became great friends. When I was preaching, this is probably late 1970s, to a crowd of about 60 people, suddenly a woman showed up next to me. She was attractive. She was in her early 30s. She was wearing black. She had black gloves on without the fingers in it before it was trendy. She had a six-foot wooden staff. She spoke in perfect King James English. She butted in while I was preaching and said to the crowd, The God of Israel is going to divorce you as a nation. You have sinned against the Lord. Then she got a whiskey bottle, smashed it on the ground, then took the rings off her finger and threw her at the crowd as a sign that God had divorced our nation.

41:41 So I was like, she followed me for two years. It reminded me of the woman that followed Paul in the book of Acts. Sergius Paulus's voice. Yeah, and it was really annoying because she would say to the crowd, this man speaks the truth. And I'd, don't line me with you. We don't need you. Yeah, and so when she would cuss, I'd go, yes, because it showed the difference. Yeah. Anyway, I took her to lunch. I was very unwise in those days. I wouldn't do it now. And over lunch, she said to me, you know, when your spirit visits my spirit in the night, I said it does not, and it didn't. Yeah. But, oh, what an interesting thing to have that woman.

42:21 I could tell how, if I may use the word anointing, how much anointing was on me by her reaction to, As she stood in the crowd. She would sometimes physically shake when I was preaching. Yes. That was very interesting. So that was, her name was Petra. Petra. Yeah. Interesting. Petra, yeah. I really liked her, believe it or not. Another thing that happened is when I preached, when I had my friends who were dying, printed my book, the gang started coming to listen to me preach. There was what was called the mongrel mob gang and the black power gang. They were really filthy. They smelled. But I thought, they're listening to me.

43:03 And there's a guy named Baldy who was the head of the gang. I said, Baldy, would you like to get a lunch, you and your gang? He said, no. Us to lunch? I said, yeah, follow me. I ran ahead to try and get to the restaurant to ask for permission because they smelt. Yeah. And they got there before I could even ask the manager. And they just came in. And we became good friends. A couple of them home to lunch. So what happened is that I decided to make a movie, a 16-millimeter movie called My Friends Are Dying. And I said to my cameraman, I said, go into the square and get some casual shots of people that are standing around where I normally preach. That day the wizard contacted me and said, boy, did you miss it today? He had a deep raspy voice.

43:45 He said the gangs started a gang fight with axes and knives and they were fighting and he says the TV cameraman got the whole thing on camera. I said, did he have dark hair? He says, yeah, that was him. I went and said, John, did you get that footage? He says, I got it. The police seized the footage and used its Supreme Court evidence. I said to the police, we missed you arriving. Could we film you doing it again? And they said, you scratched our back, we'll scratch yours. And they brought in squad cars into the square, which we filmed, jumping out after screeching in to nobody. And we put it in the film. Wow. The film, which I thought would get nobody to come to it because it was a Christian film, 2,300 people showed up for the premiere.

44:28 1,000 people had to get locked out, including the pastor who's in church we showed her. So that got at national publicity, which was wonderful. My friends, Baldy and the other gang, went to jail because of my film. Because they were seen? They were seen in the film. So I was asked to go and preach the gospel and show the film, the gangs wanted the film shown in the prison. So I showed up at the prison and there were so many prisoners wanted to see the film because they had the gang fight in it. They had to have three sessions. First session it was just packed, I don't know how many, 200 prisoners. And I thought this is scary, all these prisoners in here, how are they gonna stay? And the film finished and they were rustling to get and leave.

45:10 And suddenly a big prison guard stood up and said, Mr. Comfort's going to speak to you. Stay where you are. And nobody moved. So I preached the gospel to them, which is wonderful. Second time, they're rustling. They're starting to leave. And the big guard gets up and says, stay where you are. Mr. Comfort's going to speak to you. Third session, I looked around. The guard's not there. Uh-oh. So I stood up and said, stay where you are. I'm going to preach to you. Are you serious? And nobody moved. And so Baldy was really angry at me. He said, not because you got the footage. It's because you didn't show our gang as having won that gang fight. That's all he was worried about. Oh, gosh. He'd gone to prison because of it. So I look back and think of all these wonderful things that have happened through the years.

45:51 And I... And I'm in awe. Well, we're in awe of you. And I mean that sincerely because you, would you, correct me if I'm wrong, please, because I may be wrong about this. Because for those of us in America, I mean, your ability to witness you. so much on film, so many people, TBN, other channels have carried you doing what you do so effectively. Nobody else does it like you. But over the years, as you have been more and more established in the American church, you have put out videos. They're world class for the audience. It's not seeing them. We're going to encourage people to see them.

46:32 But there is one that just, for me, was such a great effect. And I'm curious, is that true for you? Or what is your famous, most famous or most effective film? I'm thinking about 180. 180, still to this day, in my opinion, is just unmatched in you going out and doing what you do, though you do this a thousand times. And I think what made it so unique is the people that you interviewed that particular day or for that filming. Tell me about 180, because I want everyone on our program to watch, download, whatever, 180.

47:12 It was a mistake, 180, believe it or not. I went to the local college making a film called Hitler's Religion. That's what I'd studied. The book? Yeah. Yeah, I did. That's a great book. Oh, thank you. It's Hitler, God and the Bible. Yes, great book. Yeah, thank you. So I thought, we'll make a movie. The publishers will love it. We'll call it Hitler's Religion because Hitler was religious. He was a baby kisser. That's how you get votes. You believe in God and kiss babies, and he was a baby kisser. And so I went around and I started asking students, have you heard of Adolf Hitler? And they said no. I said, what are you kidding? Have you heard of Adolf Hitler? Do you know who Hitler is? No. Is he an actor? Stuff like that. And I thought, this is just crazy.

47:53 This is impossible. And so I was in awe at the ignorance, and I found one guy who had dreadlocks. I laid down and he knew who Hitler was. He said he was an evil, evil man. And so I talked to him and I thought, great, I've got a student. Oh, this guy, huh? Yeah. So then for some reason I said to him, what do you think of abortion? He said it's a woman's right to choose. So I said to him, you're no better than a Nazi. And boy, did we cross swords for about... Four minutes, him and I just crossed swords because I said, you're killing babies just like Hitler killed Jews. You don't call them human just like Hitler didn't call Jews human. That's how you're doing it. And finally, I just said to him, out of the blue, is it a baby in the womb?

48:35 He said, yes. I said, it's okay to kill a baby in the womb. When? And he went. You got caught. And he just walked off angry. And I filmed him walking off because I was filming this whole thing. And I actually zoomed up, turned off the camera and heard boom as the camera came on. No, that's what I said. It was in full sunlight, and I couldn't see the screen, and I turned the camera off as I started, and I just felt a fool. I didn't tell a soul. And so I came back to a ministry, and I thought, man, that guy couldn't answer the question. So I began going back and asking the students, is there a baby in the womb? They said, yeah, it's a woman's right to choose. So I could get a baby in the womb.

49:16 When? And what happened was the conscience. So crystal clear. The conscience kicked in. It was the conscience doing its duty. They knew it was wrong to murder a human being. They knew it in their hearts, in their conscience. And so these people changed their mind. So I came back to Eze, the president of our ministry. showed him the footage. He said, this is not Hitler's religion. This is a pro-life movie. He said, go out and find some women who changed their minds. And that's when I went out again, and we found this woman, a lovely lady who absolutely changed her mind instantly when she understood that it was a baby in the womb, and that God had given her a conscience, and she knew it was wrong. And so we published it, and it just took off. But the wonderful thing is My daughter, Rachel's Wayne, Izzy's wife, and Izzy came over.

49:59 They spent the night at their house for some reason. That night, we were trying to think of what's a name for this movie. What's a name? We can't think of a name. We don't want to ruin it by calling it something it's not. In the morning, I got up and said, I've got a title, 180. My daughter looked at me and she said, that's the title I got during the night. I love it. It was just amazing. So it said, I think, five or six million views on YouTube. We gave away a million DVDs in colleges throughout the U.S. And God still does it. Everyone, for those who have never seen it, they've so must make that a priority and see it and then share it with others because just the genius of the Holy Spirit on you.

50:45 And here's the beautiful thing. You're going out to proclaim the gospel. And the Holy Spirit is doing what he promised to do, that he would convict the world of sin. You give the truth, because I don't believe we have the ability to bring someone under conviction. That's the spirit of God's job. But he uses us as we proclaim the message. It's just remarkable truth. thing that he allows us to be involved in. When that conviction comes, I've never seen it. I don't know if anyone has ever done this. Where you have your camera rolling and you can see the Holy Spirit working on someone's heart in real time where their mind changes.

51:35 They either come around to the truth and Or they begin to see the fallacy of themselves and where they're at. But you've got such an amazing winsome way. I've never seen anything like it. And yet, I love how you opened up. What you're doing is actually normal Christianity. It's normal. Where the church is at today, collectively in America, if not the world, we're so subterranean. Yeah. We've got to get here. We've got to just be ground level to be normal. If somebody, for example, the COVID thing, our church was open.

52:16 To me, that's normal. That's not something special. But it was so, what's the word? Rare that people viewed it as special. And that's sad because it shouldn't be special. So what can I ask you? I mean, all of the book, it's you. What do you want the reader to come away with, with your book? I want them to be encouraged and compelled. The whole, it reads like a novel, just how God is... opening doors, special doors, and using, as I said, somebody to proclaim a special truth.

52:57 It's got over 100 photos in there of rare photos of my brothers and my sisters, my mum and dad, and different things that are very interesting. But the uniqueness about this whole book is the whole thing is written in a New Zealand accent. Actually, are you going to do an audio book version of this? Yes, I'm doing it at the moment. And it's a miracle. Are you going to do it? Yes, I'm halfway through it. I'm halfway through it. And my technician is so patient because I've got the gift of reading words that aren't there in a sentence. I have that gift. Yeah. That word's not there. Can't they see it? I see it. Yeah, that's exactly it.

53:38 I read the scriptures to sir every night before we went to sleep for years. And that really helped. But when I first began, I could hardly read a sentence out loud. And so I'm seeing a little miracle happen when I read my book on audio. Oh, by the way, I started crying as I was reading it. Just so moved by my own testimony, which is weird to have an audio book where the guy reading the book starts weeping. But I did because I am... But wait, why is it weird? Think about it. Nobody does that. I get it. But what's the reason? The reason's not weird. You were overwhelmed by the grace of God moving in your life. Yeah. He took us from the pit.

54:18 And this is such a great thing. Testimonies, it's proof that testimonies are powerful. Well, Paul used his testimony three times in the book of Acts. Yeah. You know? Yep. So no one can argue with a testimony. A man with an experience, someone once said, is not at the mercy of a man with an argument. Hmm. What did you say you're 77 years young? Coming up to 77, 5th of December. Now people will send me gifts. They'll send you gifts. What's next? Where's the ministry going? Do you have a team now? Have you raised up? Yes, we've got our own studio.

55:03 Glad you mentioned that. Yes. Oh, my gosh. Update me on this. Tell the people about this. Yeah, when I first spoke at your church and gave out about 500 of these gold coins that are going to be given out. It's just amazing. We went to a different company. And if you look at that, can you see the quality of it now? It's remarkable. And then the gospel on the back couldn't really be read unless you turned it. Have a look at it now. The new company has just been amazing and they're cheaper. And now you can actually see the gospel message. And we're going to give away a million of those during the Olympics. Coming to Los Angeles. Coming to Los Angeles.

55:43 And already half a million dollars has come in from people who want to see this a reality. We're going to make them free of charge and free shipping. Listen to this. It's got perceived value. It's got weight to it. Who isn't going to grab this with both hands and who isn't going to be congenial to the person who just gave to them? Say, why are you giving this to me? Why are you giving it to me? Well, it's got the gospel on the back. Make sure you read it. Am I seeing this right? It's got the Statue of Liberty. Mm-hmm. And I need my glasses. Hollywood sign. Oh, the Hollywood sign. And then it's got what looks like the, is that the Liberty Tower, Freedom Tower? Yes, I think it is.

56:23 I think it is. And it's got a runner on there. And a runner? So it immediately has a link with the Olympics. And there's supposed to be 10 to 12 million people coming to the U.S., for the Olympics. So it's livingwaters.com forward slash gold is where people can get details of this. Details, but not only details, but if they want to support, if they want to help. Yes. So wait, give that address again. livingwaters.com forward slash gold. And let's just be honest. Can you guys just use whatever is sent or do you have a specific amount that you're still lacking? We will get... The amount of coins will depend on how much money comes in.

57:05 Half a million dollars is coming at the moment. We'd like to get 2 million coins to give out, even 3 million. If God supplies our needs, we'll go ahead. But we have to order them months beforehand. So we need the money to come in now. I'm sorry for saying this. Is it 28? It's 28. So in a few months, we're about to say it's next year. Exactly. It's less than a year and a half out. So I would encourage people... In fact, think about this. I'm a firm believer that God wastes nothing. I love his economics. That said, your Ray Comfort, you can only be one place at one time.

57:48 Your vision and idea for this witnessing, what do you call on this coin? Is that a name? It's a gold coin. It's a gold coin. This witnessing tool, this is your most controversial, Brilliant track. Think of this. Well, who's going to rip that up? Exactly. In 100 years' time, it'll still be speaking to people. So what I would encourage people to do, you guys know that we don't ask for money. I'm asking you to send your money to this location. They can give it that spot. Yes. And maybe earmark it, email, tag it, however. The Olympic coin. I don't know. I'm making this up right now.

58:28 Whatever you want to call it. And you may not be able to be in L.A. for the Olympics, but the world is coming to Los Angeles. This is your opportunity to actually be a sender, right, of a missionary venture. And in some way through Ray and his team be a goer simply by getting enough of these things. handed out in Los Angeles as the world comes to L.A.? We're going to mail them out beforehand. They're free of charge, shipping free. At the moment, we're aiming at a million, but we really would like to go to two or three million. We want to encourage churches in Australia, in Russia, in China...

59:12 send a team missionaries to LA. This is a prestigious city. During the Olympics, we're going to give you gold coins to give out, people. So it's 18 months, nearly two years away. So you've got time to plan. It's brilliant because a lot of people, you're right, this is so good because people come from around the world anyway. And there's going to be a lot of Christians in that migration to come to these games. Why not come equipped? Yes, bring a team. Bring a team. Bring a team. Man, this is so great. Ray, this has probably been the most serious conversation we've ever had. And good for that. Because compelled.

59:52 It was Jeremiah who was compelled. He couldn't keep quiet. Paul the Apostle was compelled. Moses was compelled. I delight in the fact that when God gets a hold of us and goes to work... He does that work whereby we must proclaim. We cannot be quiet. We cannot sit and hide it. And you have been such an example. And your witness must be emulated. And I'll end with this. When you said that you got saved and you had to tell people and that you had a burden for the lost, this is heavy.

1:00:36 When you said that, to me, that's normal. Can someone be saved, Ray, and not have those passions? I would say to someone who has no concern for the loss, they need to examine themselves and see if they're in the faith. Charles Spurgeon said, have you no wish for others to be saved? Then you're not saved yourself. Be sure of that. Why? Because any human being could not stand there while a child drowns. No way. No firefighter could sit there in his cabin, in his truck, while people burned to death. Love doesn't do that. It's compelled. It reaches out. And so if there's nothing in you that reaches out, how do you know the love of God dwells within you? Better you hear this now than on Judgment Day, when many will cry out to Jesus, Lord, Lord, we did many wonderful things in your name.

1:01:21 He said, apart from me, you work of iniquity, lawlessness. I never knew you. I never knew you. So the love of Christ compels us. Ray, I love you, man. Thank you, brother. I so appreciate you. God bless you. Thank you.