Doug Batchelor - Personal Testimony

[Music] Jesus was out on the Sea of Galilee with the apostles and during the night they were caught in a severe storm matter of fact the disciples who were seasoned fishermen they thought they were going to think and in the middle of the storm they saw the lightning flash and it exposed that Jesus was asleep in the boat during the storm and they woke him up and they asked the dumbest question in the Bible they said Jesus do you not care that we are perishing of course God so loved the world he sent his son so that we don't have to perish and Jesus woke up and he looked around and he spoke one word in Hebrew it's Shalom Greek a he says peace be still and as soon as he spoke the water was completely flat it became glassy calm the clouds parted starry moonlit night and the storm was over perfect calm now the disciples were scared before they woke Jesus up after Jesus calmed the storm they were really scared what it says now they were exceedingly afraid they thought who is this in what manner of man that even the wind and the waves obey Him but now they can't use the sail there's no wind so Jesus directs them for some strange reason they rowed to the South Eastern Shore of the Sea of Galilee which is a deserted area outside of the Kabbalists and there's a cemetery up on the steep hill they see these caves and tombs pagan cemetery and as it is starting to get daylight it's kind of creepy it's that early Twilight where you can see the shadow of the eastern sky and they pull the boat up on the shore and some of the disciples get out maybe they're looking for firewood to build a fire and dry themselves off I don't know and all of a sudden they hear this horrible shriek and they all jump about three feet off the ground because their nerves are already rattled and out from one of the tombs this creature comes charging down the hill towards them it's looks like it's part man and part Yeti abominable snowman or Bigfoot or something long dirty matted hair he's got chains hanging off his wrists and his ankles and his eyes are glaring and his teeth are gnashing he's foaming at the mouth has no clothes on his body is covered with scars and cuts and he comes rampaging down the hill towards them what do you think the disciple said oh good we can talk to him about Jesus I don't think they were thinking about giving out Bible tracts or witnessing they were thinking about life preservation and and they probably went charging back to the boat and pushed it off in the water with awaken when rowing off as fast as they could and then when they got about a hundred yards from shore they did a head count and realized Jesus was not with him it's supposed to be 14 in the boat there were only 12 and so if you saw a character like this come charging down the hill towards you you'd probably run the other direction but Jesus did not run and they turn and follow that man fall at Jesus feet in a posture of worship and the reason that Jesus did not run is because he's not afraid of the devil and by the way if you've got Christ in you you don't have to be afraid either because the Bible says he that is in you is greater than he that is in the world Jesus said what is your name he said Legion because many devils had entered into him a Roman legion could have thousands of soldiers and so this man is so thoroughly gone that he fills with Devils that you heard of a person being possessed by a devil maybe you read in the Bible where it says Mary Magdalene Jesus cast Seven Devils out of Mary I'd hate to run into somebody with seven Devils you probably all run into people with devils you just don't know it once you get to thousands it's hard to hide as is true with this man's case this man is exhibit a of a perfectly lost person you cannot be any more lost we think about it in the mind of a Jew if you were near the dead or touching the dead you're unclean man was cutting himself he had blood and scars blood was unclean you read on in the story and there's a herd of pigs grazing on the hill above him pigs are unclean he's naked he's covered with chains he's self-destructive this man is lost Jesus did not run Jesus is exhibit a of God's plan for a man now on the shore that day you see God's plan for your life do you all know God has a plan for your life let me tell you real quick I don't know all the details but I'll tell you one thing I know about God's plan for your life a Christian is a follower of Christ to be christ-like is Jesus plan for you to be like his son if you follow Jesus you become like him you know what they said about the apostles they could tell that they'd been with Jesus because they acted like Jesus how many do you realize you believe God has a plan for your life there's a plan there's a purpose for your life hopefully you know what that is do you know the devil has a plan for your life exhibiting of the devil's plan for your life is this man of course this is a g-rated version of the man because the Bible said he was naked the devil's plan for your life is to erase the image of God the man was always in the mountains in the tombs crying everything in this story is symbolic of what it means to be lost just think about it for a second who typically lives in tombs dead people that's a trick question do dead people live in tombs would you know what I mean who do you usually find in tombs dead people right what does death represent in the Bible he that has the son has life he that has not the son has not life Jesus I've come that you might have life and if we don't have life we're spiritually dead Jesus one time someone said Lord I want to follow you but first I've got to bury my father and Jesus said let the dead bury the dead but what does that mean when I first read it I tried to conjure up images of zombies conducting funerals the dead bury the dead what does that mean but Christ is saying those that don't know him are spiritually dead what else do you learn about this man what is he wearing now we're in anything and he doesn't care after Adam and Eve encountered the serpent in the Garden of Eden you know Adam and Eve when it says they were naked it's really they were clothed with these invisible robes of light when Moses talked to God it says he glowed and out of an EVE talking to God before sin they glowed and after they sinned the light went out and they saw their nakedness the devil wants to strip us he wants to shame us people without Christ live in shame and guilt that's what the devil wants to do you can read about the man and the parable of the prodigal I'm sorry the parable of the Good Samaritan man falls among thieves and the thieves beat him and they robbed him in May strip him you can read in the Bible about Acts chapter 16 these seven boys tried to cast the devil out of a man they didn't know Jesus but they heard that Paul was doing it and they said in the name of Jesus who Paul preaches and the devil said to them this demon-possessed man who had this supernatural strength is that I know Jesus and I know Paul I don't know you and he jumped on these seven young men and beat him up and wounded him and they fled wounded and naked the devil wants to strip people and shame them something else he is wearing he's got chains chains in the Bible or a symbol of bondage Bible says we are holding by the cords of our sin I've got a theory my theory is God designed us to all be addicts follow me as it's an ugly word but follow me we're designed to be totally in love with God and preoccupied with God and consumed by an attraction for God if God is not at the middle of your life you will fill that vacuum with something else if if you don't have God in the middle of your life you are some kind of an addict some of you might think the passage I use no drugs or alcohol well the question is what is your addiction if it's not God when it's something might be some money some people are workaholics we kind of praise them some people are addicted to shopping some people earn it the other spend it and be both kind of addicts some people hoard things the different kind of addiction some people are addicted to passion and sex all different kinds of addictions out there and of Christ is not the middle of your life then you're going to just be enslaved to something this man was it chained also tells us that he was cutting himself self-destructive it says he was cutting himself with stones now I remember the first time I heard a few years ago about problem of self cutting and it's more prevalent among young women than men where they just are trying to find some sensation and somehow cutting themselves it gives them some feeling of control and life and and I frankly I'm not an expert I don't understand it but I know it's not God's will for us to hurt ourselves you can read in the Bible when the prophets of bale this devil god when they wanted to please their God they pulled out knives and Lance's and they cut themselves your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit God doesn't want you to hurt you saw everything about this man is it's really reflecting a lost world Jesus crossed the stormy sea and he comes to the shore and he reaches this one man now the amazing thing is for the reason this man is a hero of mine in the Bible and you might think pastor Dunn why because he was as far from God as anyone could be but what there was something left of that man's individuality in him he had a little piece of himself in spite of all the devil's that drilled him I want to pause right there how do you get to the place where you have a Thousand Devils is anyone born that way I think that you can get worried you're so good at telling the devil yes when temptation comes you get to where you can't say no and that man was so preoccupied with living for worldly pleasure and sensual pleasure and giving in to any temptation and addiction he basically handed over the reins of his life to a spectrum of diabolical agencies but there was something of him left inside and when Jesus came to the shore in that desolate place the devil started probably talking in his head and I saw no what are we going to do this is Jesus he's going to set him free whoa and the man realized this is my only hope and he went to Jesus just like he was you can think of anybody in the Bible farther from God than that man but he did something right he came to Jesus as he was you probably if you're Christians sung the song just as I am without one plea except your blood is shed for me that man came just as he was he was poor and wretched and naked covered with scars surrounded by pigs living among the dead but he came to Jesus and the Bible says Christ cast the devils out of him the devils all went up and like a tornado they ended up filling a herd of pigs it was up on the hill and the pigs all went berserk they went running off the cliff like a avalanche of pork chops and they went bouncing down the hill and they drowned in the water below because Jesus cares more about people than pigs and Jesus figured demons are unclean pigs or anything put them together raising christ allowed that to happen it is an interesting story because Jesus was loving there's only two times in the Bible something died in connection with Jesus everywhere he went he healed and he raised a fig tree died and these pigs died but you know when all those pigs drowned Matthew says there were 2,000 of them Sea of Galilee is not that big you can see across it 2,000 pigs floating to the surface in a Jewish lake got everybody's attention it probably rendered the whole lake unclean for a while it was not kosher for sure it can eat fish out of that lake for a little while and the reason you find this story in Matthew Mark and Luke is because everybody in Israel knew about Jesus helping this one demon-possessed man Christ set him free and you know when the people of the town came because they lost all these pigs they came and they saw the man it says he was sitting at the feet of Jesus clothed and in his right mind which is something you should probably never forget there is a connection between being in your right mind and being clothed but he came to Jesus and he set him free and the people of the town were scared everybody in this story is scared the disciples are scared of the storm then they're scared when Jesus takes away the storm then they're scared of the demoniac then he heals the demoniac then they're scared when he's healed and scared before the storm this year and after the storm they're scared when he's demon-possessed they're scared when he's normal and they asked Jesus to leave and Jesus said if you want me to leave I'll leave that's a very important point if you want God in your life you need to ask him he will not force himself on you jesus said I'll stand a thorn and knock Christ has manners Revelation chapter 3 I knock if you open the door I will come in and abide with you sometimes we ask him to leave Jesus will not force himself on us when they said leave he got in the boat to leave and the man out of whom the devil's were cast he came to Jesus said Lord let me go with you and she says no I didn't set you free to just sail around with me I sent you free to go tell others what God did for you and he sent them out preaching now that's why this story is very precious to me is because I feel like that man and at this point I'll do a little transitioning and share my personal story everybody wants to be happy most people the world think that happiness comes from having more money or having popularity being better looking wanting everyone to like you but I don't believe that's where happiness comes from I have an unusual set of parents that's a picture of mom and dad obviously many years ago black and white there is different as any two people could be my mother was a Democrat my father was a Republican my mother was from New York City my father was a country boy from Oklahoma my mother was Jewish my father was a Baptist she was in show business he was a businessman I think just as different as they could be she could sing and play the instruments I never heard my father play anything but the radio and I don't know that I ever heard him sing once in my life just that's that's probably the reason they were only married for about six years long enough for my brother and I to be born a little bit about my father dad was a very successful businessman he was a pilot and I'm a pilot my brothers were pilots and after World War two dad was a pilot in World War two he flew in Europe out of England was there a d-day captain in the Air Force and saw a lot of death began to think if there's a God why would he let all this suffering happen and he kind of gave up on God but after the war he started to buy planes you used to bought the US military surplus and he started an airline and he started an international air leasing company and he ended up at one point owning two airlines and he was these are just some magazines George Bachelor international air lease most influential person of the year he was a friends of Howard Hughes you know a lot of people in the aviation industry knew Miami South Florida George baths were mr. Miami's mr. aviation at one time he owned controlling interest in two Airlines least aircraft to the military made millions of dollars we had all the toys when I was living with that I went back and forth between mom and dad and boarding schools dad had a yacht yet several this is the last one that he had it's actually called the bachelor party that's actually a picture of it this is inside it was really nice testimony in Fiji with some guys that took me out and Karen out scuba diving and it was a different boat and I told can you get chairs like this in your boat next time and dad used to race cars he would race these Formula one cars and lived them you know tried to find happiness through money this is actually dad racing one time even as he got older he had the toys Edie Ferraris in our house Jaguars Maserati Rolls Royce we owned all of those cars I had a lot of money but he wasn't happy every night dad drank himself to sleep and just to give you an idea this is a picture of dad with wife number three there were five of them wife number one died in a plane crash with my dad's four son everybody has tragedy in their life my mother was wife number two after I was born they found out my older brother had cystic fibrosis and so dad never had any other children because he realized there was a great risk there I was very fortunate that I was born healthy um when Dad divorced Betty this is Betty here she was Miss Kentucky when dad divorced Betty because she signed a prenuptial agreement she was only able to get seventeen million dollars that's us not New Zealand Donald Trump when his wife Ivana divorced him she only got 14 million because she signed a prenuptial agreement it was the largest divorce settlement in Florida history and this is you can't read this I'll try and read this to you at 71 aviation pioneer George bachelor is not ready to descend he runs one of Miami's most successful companies he pilots jets he races cars and is soon to Wed a bride age 29 which is part of the reason he divorced wife number three I suppose someone else got involved here's the Miami our old business section at 71 Bachelor going on 16 so that was a pretty aggressive now that's a the last picture that I have of myself and my father and my brother and yes my brother and I we had the same mother and father but we didn't alone he had flaming red hair he had freckles and brown eyes and I don't have I've got blue eyes I don't have freckles I don't have hair but we were the same as far as I know same mother and father that's a picture of my brother actually that may be the last picture that's what my brother and his wife Karen I just saw her sandy a few weeks ago at the foundation and my father and that was wife number four yes Karen's checking my math right now sure she married him for his good looks in winning disposition but yeah you know he was she took him to Rome and and he made a donation to the Catholic Church and he was able to meet Pope John Paul the second and if you donate two million dollars you could probably meet the Pope also but he wasn't happy I saw my dad all through my life he just had to drink himself to sleep every night he had a lot of money and he had worries and stress Karen's a physical therapist who's as giving dad a neck rub because of the stress and I don't know why I snapped this picture but so I saw this growing up and a lot of our friends they had money you know the Bible says what profit is that if you gain the whole world and lose your soul a man's life does not consist in the abundance of things that he possesses jesus said do not lay up for yourself treasures on earth where thieves break through and steal and moth and rust does corrupt well I had never seen rest before like Fiji everything rests in Fiji at least on part of the island stainless steel that's mom will talk about her for just a minute I'm the cute one on the left it's my brother my dad named Falcon and I after airplanes I I did okay Douglas is sort of a normal name after the DC craft Douglas McDonald Falcon was named Alec and it's tough having the name Falcon back slur he got teased a lot in flaming red hair and he was small because of his cystic fibrosis growing up even though he was two years older than me I was always his size because he was his growth was slowed because of his disease and he really struggled and I got in a lot of fights in school because kids were picking on my older brother and so I got in a lot of trouble now mom was involved in show business she started as a songwriter and mom used to write songs for Elvis Presley and I don't know if anyone remembers Andy Williams Frank Sinatra some of these names she was an actress but her acting shoe is always small kind of be klas movies and if any of you ever saw the 10 commandments you saw my mother but you didn't know it because it was so quick she was in the movie it's great I tell the kids there's grandma here she goes that was it but but she hung around Hollywood n't you knew some of the people but most of the time mom really was successful she did plays on Broadway in New York and she's a songwriter she's very talented but most of her success was as a film critic she was the president of the Los Angeles Film Critics she lived in Beverly Hills and she was on ABC Good Morning America and had her own syndicated program called Ruth's bachelor's Hollywood and so the people in the show business really were afraid of mom because when you're a film critic if a movie comes out you see how the movies terrible the production houses lose millions of dollars and if you say the movie was great they get a lot more in ticket sales and so it's a very powerful position and there's a lot of corruption the stars I'll try to bribe the critics to say something nice and the producers and and the movie companies but mom knew a lot of people in Hollywood and they were friends and a lot of artists growing up we would see I didn't know Muhammad Ali this is mom with Cassius Clay and some of you can recognize mom she with a I guess he served Paul McCartney now and Sylvester Stallone a young one this is mom with Natalie Wood someone said they look alike a little bit one of the older James Bond's Roger Moore and you know I got lots of pictures like this I could show but it actually gets tedious after a while here's mom with Sally Field and mom with Clint Eastwood Numan he was a pretty nice guy but you know as I saw growing up a lot of these people they're famous everyone knows who they are they're talented they weren't very happy and a lot of them were on drugs and had very serious personal problems or they were extremely vain or you wouldn't even want to talk to him because all they wanna do is talk about themselves it's like the story of the actress at a Hollywood party and she's chatting away to a friend and she's going on and on talking about herself and finally she realizes and she's at all so sorry we've been doing nothing but talking about me let's talk about you what do you think of me I'm sort of how it is you know there it's just such a it's a it's an industry where it's all about me and and you know when you just spend all your time thinking about yourself you self-destruct you kind of cut yourself with stones I remember I had a friend growing up he was an actor he's a child actor in his teens good-looking I don't know that I've ever met anyone more talented he could sing he can dance he could play instruments act very creative and he locked himself in a garage in upstate New York turned on the car and committed suicide good-looking healthy had money miserable and I just saw a lot of misery in this life and that's what money doesn't bring happiness this long with Dustin Hoffman does he look happy and when mom died even though all those people were afraid of her and they all knew her Karen and I were there at the hospital with my grandmother and my aunt nobody else was there nobody sent cards nobody sent flowers and she pretty much died in obscurity and alone and you know if you're going to be important to someone be famous to God in heaven doesn't matter what the world thinks of you because they can't reward you God can and yet some people young people they think all what do you want to be I want to be a star I want to go to hobble to be famous why do you think those people are really happy that's not where happiness comes from this was I think a picture of mom with a if there's a movie years ago about a dog named Benji this is the dog I grew up in New York City mostly mama I was born in California I'm gonna be ever heard of Burbank California it's where the studios are dad had an airport there and that's where mom and he met and so I was born there but when a divorced dad went to Florida mom went to New York City and my brother and I sort of bounced around between New York City and Florida and Miami because my father was so driven to make money and he was so busy traveling and my mother was so busy with her work they often put us in boarding schools or summer camp and just throughout every summer we my brother and I got sent off to camp and eventually Falcon couldn't go because of his health but they sent me to military school when I was 5 years old I went to two military schools the first military school five years old less that's absolutely true I was a youngest cadet at blackfox Military Academy this is a picture when I went to New York military academy this is where Donald Trump went to military school matter of fact he was a senior I just want you to know he's older than me he was a senior about the time I was in BA whatever was 11 years old there but that's only 2 of 14 schools I went to because between Maine and New York military academy in Florida and California I went to 14 different schools I went to Catholic schools military schools to Jewish schools and talk about that more confuse a kid go to Jewish schools and then to Catholic schools and when I was in military school they have they said every Sunday you've got to go to services they said Bachelor where you're going I said I don't know if I go to the Jewish services my dad gets mad if I go to the Catholic service my mom gets mad so I used to rotate every Sunday between the services so I was real mixed up but most of the schools I went to taught there was no God I went a lot of public schools I got into trouble got kicked out of school several times I got put back one year and I wasn't very happy because most of the schools I went to basically taught evolution that you and I are just evolved over billions of years and life is a big biological accident everything is a coincidence and there's really no purpose it's just a biological anomaly that we exist and we are aware of our existence and that when you die you turn into fertilizer and that was in hope you had a good time and I thought you know if people are unhappy most of the time and if you die and you just turn back into fertilizer when I get it over with and so I started thinking about suicide when I was still just a teenager actually I started probably about 7 years old when I was in New York City with mom I find my way to the roof of these tall apartment buildings and I would literally go and I put my feet on the edge and I used to kind of look over the edge and I'd played this game where I'd see how far out I could go before I start feeling my center of gravity 20 stories up and I was just flirting with death all the time because I I really wasn't happy the reason I didn't just jump is because I thought what if I like hit a car or tree or something and I just get all crippled and mangled and then I'm worse off than before I was afraid what if I don't succeed because I read somewhere that a lot of suicide attempts fail by the way more women attempt suicide than men but men are more successful than women I don't know if that's anything to brag about but I didn't want to fail I remember one time I was in a lot of trouble my I was alone mom was out for the evening I was in trouble at school I was very unhappy I was and I felt like no other kids like me and that's very important when you're teenager and I went into mom's bedroom I just wanted to go to sleep and never wake up and I knew mom took sleeping pills every day because she would mention it every night and I went to her medicine cabinet and I found a bottle and it said valium take one at bedtime I thought that's it I want to go to sleep and never wake up and I made up my mind I'm going to do it and I filled my hand with the pills and I got some water and I kept looking at the pills and I the reason I hesitated was I looked at the bottle I was 13 years old my thought allium it doesn't say sleeping pills anywhere on the bottle says valium take one at bedtime so how do I know valium is a sleeping pill so what a valium might be some kind of special pills for ladies sickness problems and I thought what could happen to me if I took a whole a handful of these who knew what would happen so I put the pills back in the bottle and again about that time I remember they they had a commercial on TV in New York about beer and it was for Schlitz beer and it said you only go around once in life get all the gusto you can I thought there's a good model for life disco you're going to die have as much fun as you can do die doing something exciting and so that I started to live that way I started just being as reckless as I could I would was just flirting with death all the time I was playing with explosives and electricity and I was stealing cars I was when I was with my dad in southern Florida this is a picture of the island my dad lived on he was actually the north side of that Island I could Karen and I've been there once seat after he sold the house and went back 30 years later nothing too the people that want the healthy was a weirdest thing in the world when my dad died I went to the house where we grew up he sold his house to two accountants that never budged the furniture he sold it furnished the carpet was the same the pictures on Hudson is try to time warp the banister I used to slide down they had green shag carpet I couldn't believe it we used to rake our carpet and they're still there 30 years later anyway that was the house it was up about three boats in the backyard he had a yacht ski boat and I had a little sailboat and my friends around the island role millionaires um you had to go by a security guard to get on the island the other bridge goes to another island but there's only one bridge onto both those islands called the sunset Islands you've heard a Firestone tires I used to date Amy Firestone you've heard of Hoover vacuum cleaners sandy Hoover lived on the second island we used to play together and he can always only strange sandy Hoover his parents owned the Hoover vacuum cleaner industry you know what his goal in life was he wanted to be a bus driver he was so excited about the idea of driving the bus I'm not kidding you he would ride his bicycle up to a bus stop and they'd go cook everybody off I'm not kidding you and the last time I saw sandy he was a limo driver he just he realized money doesn't bring happiness and so I really like to drive that's what makes me happy so these are the kids that we grew up with but we started getting into trouble because I began to break into homes and steal and I started doing it with the other kids of the millionaire's on the island yeah we didn't need to steal we had money we were spoiled but we were bored and so for the excitement because we felt like life has no excitement we were not only using drugs we were breaking into homes the end didn't matter what you stole you know we'd see I dare you break into that house does the like you're still on it dare you to break in and we have a few drinks and I'd break into a house and I'd steal something why people were still there and I come out with like a tennis racket I mean play tennis to steal something it didn't matter you know we'd steal cars because on the island they leave their keys in their cars and I remember I wrecked a Jaguar XKE in Reverse one time and after I wrecked it I pulled it back into the yard and parked it because it was wrecked in Reverse my stepmother it was her car my stepmother thought that someone had pulled into our circular driveway hit the car and pulled out but ways to steal other cars and just go jewelry riding and you know it was really sad we get bored and so what do you want to how we broke into my house let's break into your house now we'd get bored and we'd all be stealing from these houses because there was a security guard the police were sure the thieves were coming by boat and so we would sit there and smoke pot and look out on the water and see the police boats certainly in the island trying to catch the thieves and it was the kids of the millionaire stealing from the others well when I started using drugs it was with my mother and I remember when I was 13 years old that one day mom said well Doug eventually I know you're going to do this on the street I just assumed you do it at home and mom rolled a marijuana cigarette and smoke it with me and then it became a rat a regular thing two or three times a week I say oh come on mom come on she's okay and we'd smoke pot together eat ice cream and watch TV and when my brother would come visit my brother had a lung disease he couldn't smoke and he found out he said that's not fair I can't smoke she said look I'll make you some hashish brownies and so mom would make marijuana or hashish brownies for my brother and one day I took son to school I gave him to the teacher said my mom's a really good cook you're selecting so I began to learn to use drugs from my mother and father when I was with dad I mean he was a hippie he was a redneck my dad drank all the time dad have you he was sort of a functioning alcoholic most of his life he had a bar in the house and has an abundance of alcohol to my friends and I would come over during the day we'd drink and then the butler would replace it because he thought my father was entertaining or something and then my dad never knew it was missing so I started drinking a lot and it began when I was very young I'd go empty his martini glasses and I developed a taste for it when I was young and then as I got older it was a lot more and harder drinks and I'm not going to belabor the story but I've just I've been in and out of jail several times probably seven different times I've been shot at chased by the police and in reform school my parents were the sytems of what to do with me and obviously I was just trying to find a purpose to life I was all mixed up I ran away the first time when I was 13 years old and ran off into the mountains I just wanted I hated the city I always wanted to be in nature which is why I'm excited about being here in New Zealand and last time I ran away I was 15 years old and I moved to Boston I went hitchhiking from Miami up to Boston I was kind of breaking into homes and stealing I was stealing cars and televisions and I have a part-time job as a security guard sure I was believe it or not when I was 16 years old I lied on my driver's license I had a learner's permit you know when you're 16 you can get a learner's permit in the US my birthday is 1957 if you want to I took the 7 and I carefully turned it into a 2 and I got a counterfeit ID that said I was much older than I was and so here I had a weapon I'm walking around Boston I'm a security guard I'm guarding places at night and I'm stealing during the day because if you walk out of a house at night with a TV you look suspicious but if you do it the day in the they just think you're moving but then my friend who is also security guard a friend named Gerry he found out about what I was doing I said oh man are you going to tell on me is it on Doug I don't need to tell on you he said your Karma's gonna get you the Karma is it whatever you do comes back he was very religious what do you mean he says it's a law of life you get what you give I'm not going to tell said God's going to catch up with you so now there's no God he said you'll see and I started to watch and I woke up in my apartment one morning not long after he talked to me and I remember I told him I said Jerry I sold that television set I got rid of it nothing happened to me nothing's going to happen he said you'll see I woke up in my apartment a few days later the door was open when I woke up and I looked at my TV was gone and my radio and you'd be surprised I called the police right away to report it I was very upset I was absolutely indignant that there wasn't better crime control in that city and I started watching and I noticed that everything I did seemed to backfire I'd steal something and my friends were all thieves they'd steal it for me there's no longer among thieves or I would you know like break into a house and steal something while I was drinking or hi and I'd hide it and I'd wake up where I put it and I really couldn't remember I know there's some money hidden in a wall in Maine right now and I never did find it or I I'd steal something and I'd risk my life to like steal a stereo or something I get back and I plug in and I find out it's broken I just think about got killed in Boston stealing or in actually Brooklyn stealing a broken stereo and I started thinking crime doesn't pay and what convinced me was a little thing I went to someone's house and I went in their kitchen and I saw I was invited to their house but while they were doing something else in the kitchen I saw they had in their cupboards a brand new box of Krusty's instant pancake mix I don't know if you know about Krusty's but it's instant pancake mix and it was the whole wheat pancake mix and even though I'm drinking and using drugs and all these things I was very health conscious and I just wanted whole wheat pancake mix and so I stole the pancake mix and put it in my car and on the top of the box it was stamped a dollar 19 that's before the bar code had a blue stamp that very same day while I was gone some friends came through my house uninvited I had a brand-new jar of this powdered orange juice called Tang ever heard of that Tang they drank the whole thing it was a brand-new jar right there by the empty jar was the lid and it was stamped with the same blue stamp one dollar nineteen cents and I looked at the Pancake makes one dollar 19th of a crime doesn't pay whatever you do comes back you know Jesus teaches that he says with what measure you meet it'll be measured to you do unto others as you want them to do unto you and it's sort of a law of life so I started thinking well maybe there's a God that really shook my world I thought maybe there's a heaven maybe there's the other place and I knew where I was trending and I thought I'm not interested in Christianity Christians are all hypocrites so I began to look for God you know I looked at Christians as well in Ireland the Christians are blowing up the Protestants and the Catholics and they all say they're Christians Jesus said love your enemy don't killing each other Christians are all hypocrites and I'd look at the televangelists on TV begging for money now they're all hypocrites got a Rolex watch and he's begging that you give your last penny and so I I was disgusted with Christian yeah I made the mistake a lot of people make when I wanted to find out what a Christian was instead of looking vertically I looked horizontally a Christian is not a follower of Christians a Christian is a follower of Christ Christian's will let you down Jesus will never let you now don't look at what people do look at what Christ did he will never let you down there's a lot of counterfeits out there buried in all the broken glass of Christianity there's a diamond and don't let all the broken glass confuse you so I said ah Christians are hypocrites I started looking at all the other religions and you know back then the Beatles were very big and they were sort of into the Eastern religion so I got into Transcendental Meditation and I mixed a little bit of that in with Buddhism and I was trying to find God through yoga and that's where you find God by standing on your head and the only thing I discovered was my hair fell out when I did that and I tried to find God through you know my grandparents were Jewish my mother was Jewish and so they got the Kabbalah and so I I started to look into the secret arts of the Cabal and I was making a big potluck out of the whole thing mixing it all up into sort of a hash and I'd gone to Catholic school and so I was a little of this and a little that I was the most religious person you ever met I believed in the teachings of Jesus a little bit and I believed in reincarnation and I believed in meditation I believed I was God because someone said oh you God is in you you are God that's all really and it always struck me as kind of strange that if I was God I would think I'd be smart enough to know it nobody would have to tell me and you know you're gone I had no idea well you're pretty known God you don't even know it but that's what I've been told and so I was getting all this mixed up but I was searching and God knew I was searching well right about that time something interesting heaven my father flew up to see me in Boston and he said Doug you need to go back to school I tried everything you know all these things he says your brother's sick you need an education and he said I found a school you're going to love this it's two schools actually that are on a boat they sail around the world and all these girls because I said you know military school there are all boys back then now they're girls in the military school I went through the back pain it was only boys and I'm not going back to military school and so now there's girls and he said you'll see the world and they scuba dive and they snorkel and a water ski and and I like those things and he finally convinced me he was pleading with me and so he flew me from Boston to Milan Italy we went down to Naples and got connected with the boat and actually go and got connected to the boat with Genoa and we sailed in Naples and in general I found out that dad had sort of tricked me he didn't tell me everything about this school and if you want to look it up it's called the Flint school abroad but the school was a place where politicians and millionaires from around the world they take their kids to keep them out of trouble if they were getting mixed up in drugs or some kind of cult you know one time when I was looking for God I went to a Christian mission and they said you come to our mission we'll give you a free meal but you got to listen to his preach for half an hour so they're not right well I was on the streets back then Santa Monica California I said okay I'll go to your mission so they preached and we listened and all the drunks were there in the drug addicts and then they said is a really good meal and then a friend said you know if you go to the Hari Krishna temple they'll also feed you if you go to their service well sure that sounds a lot cooler than Christianity so I went to the Hari Singh temple and there the service was very simple they jumped up and down I don't want to be a suspect but I'm just telling you what my observation they jumped up and down for an hour and a half and they said honey Krishna Hari Krishna Krishna Krishna Hari hari hari Rama Hari Rama Rama Rama Hari Hari I never forgot it because they did it for an hour and a half and they played the drums and they had to these guys are wearing the saffron robes and they shaved their heads and gals and and they're going how to recreate a honorary crease and increase and increase and everyone's actually watching it for a while I'm thinking about where I'm going to eat I came to really want a meal hour goes by and I finally I'm going to the restroom I went I just hung out the baths waiting for the music to die down and finally when the started to feed I went out there and my friend from Brooklyn that was with me he was getting into it and I said this is hypnosis and I could see how people were getting caught up in some of these things my mom was in show business I knew a little bit about you know kind of crowd hypnosis and what was happening and so people went to this school on the boat these millionaires paid very expensive to put their kids there they had a good education but they taught atheism it's not like they just plot evolution they had curriculum that was especially designed to undermine any faith in religion and now I was very religious and I'm in my room and I'm meditating I was into a religion then called Shakti the spiritual science of DNA God is in your DNA molecules and I was meditating and and I learned something interesting even though the boat taught atheism we were sailing from northern Africa across the Mediterranean to Spain and I know it doesn't look very big on a map but the Mediterranean sees much bigger than you think when you got in the middle of it and it takes days in a sail book to get across and this was wintertime and we got into a storm a very serious storm you can read in the book of Acts about a storm Paul gets in and waves were completely going over the boat the nose of the boat would go through a wave and part of the wave would roll from the bow to the stern things were washing overboard the wind was howling like a hurricane you could scream at a person a few feet away they couldn't hear you the mainsail ripped everybody was seasick the captain was seasick the Sun went down the captain said if you fall overboard we can't even turn around the water is cold you're probably not going to survive more than five minutes we will mark the spot and tell your parents but we can't risk in a storm like this putting the ship broadside to the wind and that put the fear in us and they had me on deck standing watch everyone else was in the middle cabin seasick and when you went below deck it looked like someone had taken the boat and turned it upside down and shook it the mattresses and the books and everything we're in the halls I mean what do you think atheists do when they think they're going to die it's amazing it's astounding everybody knows exactly what to do they know what to say they know who to talk to nobody was going on recruiting the hoary creases everybody was talking to God as a lord save us and they're making promises if you save us they promise him they know what they're doing wrong is that if you say I'll never do it again but fear is the wrong reason to serve God and as soon as that the storm was over everyone forgot their promises if you're serving God just because you're afraid what are you going to do when you get to heaven you're not going to want to serve Him anymore you need to serve Him because you love him who he is well when I got back I went home for Christmas break and I said I'm not going back to this school I didn't tell my dad and I told my brother I sold all my stuff to my brother in Miami and I took off hitchhiking I wanted to go back to California to some mountains I found when I was 15 years old and I took off across the country and this is you know it's like 4,000 miles I don't know what that is in kilometres but it was a long way and it's the middle of winter now Miami's warm but Oklahoma in the middle of winter gets way below freezing and I got out on the road I got stuck on Interstate 40 in Oklahoma for hours I was out there begging for a ride you do hitchhiking here in New Zealand on Amin and every time I truck went by nearly froze and I stood there and I got so desperate at times I got on my knees and I begged and you know yeah it's an amazing amount of rejection when every time you see a car going your direction and you see they've got room in the car just one person a little backpack and they get the heater on and they see you they look at your you make eye contact and they go by and they're basically saying I don't want to ride with you and you do that for hours and it's a lot of rejections and I started feeling pretty low I was too proud to call home I was hungry I was sick because I was drinking the day before and I was still hungover plus I was cold shivering I had no money I was playing pool the night over I know I was telling me how religious I was but I'm still drinking and playing pool and doing a lot of things wrong and so I desperation I prayed I didn't know how to pray I knew a Jewish prayer murukku thought of the way Elohim milk to prayer for the bread I thought what am I going to do with that and so I I didn't know how to pray like no one really I knew our Father which art I didn't know how to pray so I just talked to God is it God I know I've been terrible and I really was I was really rotten him selfish I didn't care about anybody because I didn't think anyone cared about me and I said will you please forgive me I thought I was going to die out there and I said I was ready to die before I called him for help and so will you please forgive me and I asked God for four things I said please help me get a ride to where on going I still had like 1500 miles to go I said please help me get some food I was hungry help me get some money I was broke and the fourth thing I prayed for a ride with someone normal because the people who had been picking me up work I got picked up by this guy drinking and he was on a windy road he said I can drive without the land lights on watch this and he turned off the lights and scared me half to death you think it's dangerous to pick up hitchhikers it's dangerous they hitchhike they say the only people this is what they said on the streets the only people that will pick you up when you're hitchhiking are crazy people and Christians and I get picked up by all the crazy people I got taken up by some college students that were smoking so much pot that they couldn't see out the windshield and they ran across the middle of the road into oncoming traffic and I said this is my stop guys I'm out here so I said Lord give me a ride with someone normal as soon as I finish praying the next vehicle stopped there was a white van the guy picked me up he took me nearly 2,000 miles 1,500 miles to the door of where I was going right to the door in California he fed me the whole way out I didn't ask him to every time we stop you said let me buy your food let me buy your food he gave me $40 when he dropped me off it's all the things I prayed for except he also preached to me all the way from Oklahoma to California I didn't ask for that and he was a born-again Christian he thought everyone else should be he was so excited he was totally unattainable a station the restaurant about God he was just in love with God and I had to sit there and listen to her growl that's cool you know I'm going to complete the Bible you know I'm know when the Ark and AD are they're all fairytales I thought and so well I thought I'm going to find God through nature and so when he dropped me off I moved up into the mountains into a cave and I was about so what I was 15 years old when I first found this place visiting my grandparents these are the mountains of both Palm Springs California you know all the movie stars live and way up above Palm Springs is a very tall mountain it's 11,000 feet I don't know how to convert that to meters mount San Jacinto and way up in these desert mountains there was a creek that went down the mountains were very hot but down in the creek there were some trees that grew and there was a cave by a waterfall and it was a beautiful spot does it just give you a picture this is from where I took the previous picture this is looking uphill there was snow on that mountain much of the year and I moved into this cave believe it or not my brother came up to visit me once and he took this picture and the cave was deeper off to the left this is sort of the open part right by the cave there was a waterfall and a creek that's my cat stranger he just showed up one day so I called him stranger and he kind of took care of the kangaroo rats and the mice and the small varmints rattlesnakes in the cave so he was very valuable and I would never wore any clothes when I was up there what you saw was the g-rated picture once or twice a week I'd hiked into town and I Panhandle I'd beg for money play the flute beg for money and I would dig in the garbage can behind the market and when my grandfather found out my grandparents lived a few miles away in Desert Hot Springs when they found out that I was digging in the garbage can for food and they told my father it broke his heart can you imagine here my father worked all his life he was so poor during the Depression and going through the war and making all this money and trying to get his son educated and Here I am I'm eating out of the garbage and I just disappeared when I ran away and ever called him he was so busy with his work I just thought he doesn't care about me I just never even call him and it broke his heart and I can't help but think what your Heavenly Father must think when he gives his son that we might have eternal life and all the treasures of heaven and instead we go to the garbage of the devil in the world and it doesn't satisfy with a miracle that I didn't mention is when I moved up in the cave oh here's one more picture of the cave so yeah I have a pole there and I got my food up on the pole because I had these squirrels it used to get my food I had to put it up on this slippery pole when I first moved into the mountains there was a Bible in the cave and do you guys have Gideon Bibles here in New Zealand the hotel rooms someone asked me one time I said Doug was it a Gideon Bible I thought that was kind of funny you know they thought that begin ian's after they do all the hotel rooms they start putting them in caves everywhere that wasn't a Gideon Bible but it was a King James Bible and I I didn't believe the Bible I thought it was odd you know someone else had camped there before so it wasn't that peculiar there was some old pots and pans the ceiling was black from the smoke and I thought one of these days I'm gonna have to read that and then all these Christians would argue with me they've done are you born again are you saying to find what do they taught you washed in the blood what are they talking about so I thought I'm going to read the Bible so I can argue with Christians because I like to read I never read anything like the Bible before I read little pieces of it in Catholic school that had just like picked it up and rented and I got through is okay that was interesting I read through the story of Moses and the exodus but then when they started building the sanctuary he got a little tedious they're measuring all the things as I went to my friend there was a Christian he said no dig you got to jumped in the New Testament read about Jesus so I went to the New Testament and I read the story of Christ and every day I would eat banana bread because I'd go to the market and I get old bananas they threw away and I made banana bread I was made good banana bread anywhere we're talking about and I'd even anta bread and I'd read the Bible and I didn't work I had read for hours and I read Matthew Mark and Luke and while I was reading a real struggle was in my mind because I thought this can't be true Jesus never really lived and I went looked it up in the encyclopedia they all said he really lived as a wow that's amazing I thought he was just sort of a fable from history like Hercules or something I know he really lived and then I read about the teachings of Jesus and I felt so stupid because I was reading all these things where Jesus said turn the other cheek and I went oh he's the one that said that I had no idea I heard people quoted or ways to go the second mile or he to cast the first stone love your enemies and when I have no idea Jesus said all that I felt really ignorant and you know I didn't understand everything because I was reading the King James Bible and every time it said brethren we don't say brethren in New York City I thought it said breezin say the breathin came together and hot semi what does that mean cloud of breathin in the book of Acts that's all I've meant there's some of those old words I didn't understand and but I thought to myself I only have three choices CS Lewis said the same thing it just a little differently I thought well either Jesus was crazy where Jesus was a liar or he's telling the truth you don't really have a third option a fourth option it's just one of those three CS Lewis says he's either Lord or liar or lunatic I said he won crazy because I've never heard such brilliance in my life is when I read about Jesus he wasn't a liar because he could have died to save his life he said I am the way the truth and the life so my final option was maybe Jesus was who he says he was and God came to earth in the form of a man for three reasons he came us to show us what God is like he came to show us how to live as our example and then he came as our substitute to die in our place for our sin because all the penalty for sin is dead if Jesus is not your substitute you're on death row and you know I thought I've tried everything else now I'm making a long story short that the Holy Spirit kept working with me and I thought Lord I finally got on my knees up in the cave and I prayed and I don't even remember exactly what I prayed I mean I don't even remember the date kind of interesting the Bible I never did tell you this in the front of the Bible there's a note and it said someone's name I don't remember the name and there was a date and I don't remember that it's a born-again on such-and-such a date I hope whoever finds this book finds the same peace and happiness I found something written in the front of the Ba'ath home I never thought anything of it and I don't know exactly when it happened but sometime that year I got on my knees and I prayed and I said Lord I'm a mess now I was running around naked up in the mountains with long hair and a beard and eating out of garbage cans and using drugs and drinking and stealing I was still feeling I was very religious but I thought all these corporations have too much and they charge too much so it's okay to steal from them I could rationalize anything was a big zero and life had no purpose and I said Lord if you'll forgive my sins give me some peace take away and I seventeen years old but I had a lot of guilt and I invited the Lord into my life and everything began to change I had tried every religion that I could think of but when I came to Jesus and I asked him in it was real and miracles started to happen amazing things I would pray I'd be on the street and say Lord could you please provide something to eat and a lady walked up and handed us four dollars I mean just think of miracles that we're just basic things where I pray for food I went into a restaurant with no money and I said Lord I have no money can you please provide food and the waitress came up and said what would you order and I said I have no money she said I'm going to buy your food today I'm just amazing things right they don't happen as much now because God expects me to have faith but I needed signs back then he gave them to me at one point I want to go too long here I said Lord I can't live in the cave forever I don't know I'd like to tell others what you've done for me and but I live in the cave so I don't know how that's going to happen but I just said Lord if you want me to tell others about you you're going to have to show me would you believe within a week I called my mother from Palm Springs I had to call her collect my mother said Doug will you be at the airport this week I'm coming with a film crew from NBC they heard that my son's father's a multi-millionaire and he's living in a cave and they think it's an interesting human interest story they flew to Palm Springs from Los Angeles they rented a helicopter they flew with an NBC film crew up to my cave and interviewed me and asked me so what's going on in your life that would make you want to live up here like this well I talked to him a little bit about you know the cities in nature and then I talked about what God was doing for me right after I prayed and said Lord if you want me to tell other people about you you're gonna have to give me a sign and you know from that day to this day it's like Jesus said to me I feel like that demoniac I came to Christ just a absolute mess but he accepted me as I was and he gave me a purpose for living and that means no matter who you are no matter what your addictions no matter what your problems are God's got a plan for your life happiness does not come from Fame it does not come from fortune you know I went to see my brother not long before he died he struggled with cystic fibrosis Falcon and Falcon was good he went to college even though he knew he'd never be able to work for dad he had a nice home in Miami Beach he married a successful lady she's a lawyer home on the water both toys I was the black sheep I was out walking with my brother one day you walk a little bit he'd stop he'd coffee try to breathe he's struggling to breathe and he said Doug life isn't fair he said here used to make fun of my religion he said God's not fair Doug is it I'm smart but I'm sick said you're healthy but you're stupid this is useless you throwing your life away brothers can talk to each other like that and then he told me he said then I would give everything I have if I could have your lungs and live a normal life what he meant was if I could just live seventy years he died at 35 vikon if I could live a normal life I give everything I am I own for a little more of this life and it kind of made me ashamed sometimes that I think I'm unwilling to sacrifice anything for Jesus and everlasting life my brother said ëno is I know I'm terminal he said I feel better Doug because I know your terminal do you're gonna you're going to die because we're all terminal only way to get out of this world alive is if you live until Jesus coming or you get a glorified body because he resurrects you but we all have just a little bit of time and the purpose for this life is that you might know God in His love and share God in his love it's all about a love relationship with God and sharing it with your neighbor now I don't know exactly what brought you here and I don't know if you saw the ads on first light I don't know if or friend invited you some of you might have walked in to take pictures of the cardboard Cathedral and these what's going on here and you you're here whatever brought you here I believe it's a divine appointment because the Holy Spirit is saying I've got a plan for your life you [Music]

Channel: Autumn Leaves NZ

Views: 28,636

Rating: 4.8403044 out of 5

Keywords: Doug Batchelor, Personal Testimony, Autumn leaves Productions, Caveman, Cardboard Cathedral, Demoniac man, God Changing lives, God, The Doug Batchelor Testimony

Id: mnUyoHNg73E

Length: 69min 15sec (4155 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 27 2017