Lon Solomon on FOX News, part 1

welcome to Washington I'm Britt Hill a student at the University of North Carolina in the late 1960s and early 1970s found his life turned upside down when he began looking for deeper meaning beyond life as a fraternity brother and a campus drug dealer Pastor LAN Solomon is now the pastor of a mega church with thousands of members in McLean Virginia just outside Washington DC the church sponsors Bible study groups on Capitol Hill and throughout the federal government and inner city ministry in Southeast Washington credited with helping teenagers avoid drugs and violence a clothing ministry center for disabled children and support groups for divorced and abused women doing the Lord's work says lon Solomon is not for the glory seekers you see God's not looking for big shots God doesn't need prima donnas God is not interested in divas the kingdom of God always has moved forward and the kingdom of God always will move forward on the backs of men and women for whom no job is too menial if the Lord asks them to do it men and women for whom no sacrifice is too great if the Lord asked them to do it pastor Solomon joins me here now to talk about the influence of the Evangelic old church on our culture and our government welcome to you sir thank you very Christmas merry Christmas to you first of all tell me a little bit about your story you're a Jew I am a college student right what was your life like well when I went to college things were pretty good and then I began looking around for meaning and purpose in life and did all the things that they say you're supposed to do joined a social fraternity began drinking and partying and and did well in school and my life was just empty and so then I got deeply involved in drugs and went to the original Woodstock 1969 and really yeah yeah was there I'm one of the few people that actually bought a ticket I said I wish I had it today and but even in the drug culture which was supposed to enlighten you and give you meaning and purpose it didn't really work and I went even back to religion looking both in Eastern religions and in Judaism but at the end of that whole process which lasted four or five years I was just empty and I didn't even know while I was while I was getting up in the morning and then I wasn't he was selling the stuff I we were smuggling dope in from Amsterdam and we were cutting it up selling it mostly hashish I put myself through the last couple years of school selling dope and using it I used a lot of my own dope I didn't make that much money because I used too much my own dough and but anyway just really not doing well and I met a street preacher in 1970 in Chapel Hill well you were walking down the street walking down the street tripped out on LSD that day and he was handing out broadsides tracts about Christ what do you look like hmm 45 year old man with a beard and just looked kind of normal and he had his Econoline van that he drove into town with with Bible verses written all over the side and and I passed him my dog got into a dog fight right in front of him and he helped me pull the dogs apart and there I was like as close as I am to you now eyeball to eyeball with this guy and he you know all I can tell you is when I looked into his eyes I knew he had what I was looking for and so I made a point over the next several weeks to come back and talk to him some more and make a long story short he began telling me about Jesus Christ now I was born and raised Jewish I had never heard I mean I knew Jesus died on a cross but if you'd offered me a million dollars I couldn't have told you why and he challenged me he said have you ever read the Bible I said no have you ever a New Testament said no he said well how do you know Jesus Christ can't be the Messiah of Israel and I said well I don't know so I was a chemistry major so he he was very clever he said to me well if you're a chemistry major you know the scientific method don't you and I went well yeah you know you you collect the facts you examine the facts you make a conclusion he said well how can you make a conclusion about Jesus you haven't collected the facts or analyzed the facts yet and I made sense so he challenged me and I started reading the New Testament never read it before in my life he's read the Old Testament no I'd never read the Old Testament either never read the Bible and as I began reading I began saying to myself you know what this guy Jesus might just really be who he said he was and I got to Matthew chapter 11 where Jesus says come to me all you who are burdened and heavy laden and which I was and I'll give you rest you'll find peace for your soul and I remember saying bingo that's exactly me and maybe this Jesus can really do it so I got down on my knees and I said you know god I don't even know if you're real and this Jesus character I'm really confused about but my life is worthless and if you can give me peace and give me rest and make it worth living you can have it because it's not worth much to me so I said I'll tell you what I'll do he says no your life was not worth it not worth much to me you were talking about ending it second of Benny yeah absolutely I mean I didn't even know why I was getting up in the morning I had no reason why I was alive I lost all hope of ever finding any meaning or purpose in life I tried everything I could think of and I basically was just saying you know I don't see why you go on why should I have a family work for 40 years you know retire I mean let's just end it now and I really was thinking about that so what happened well I got on my knees and I said my god I'm gonna give you my life for a month that's what that man had told me to do I didn't have his phone number I didn't know a Christian in the world I mean you know I'm a drug dealer Wow I don't know people that carry Bibles around and I said let me give you my life for a month and at the end of that month if you haven't proved to me that you can make my life worth living I reserve the right to take my life back but if you prove to me that you can make my life worth living you can have it for good amen now now in the greatest Salvation prayer ever made but you know there's a great verse in the Bible Brit that says man looks on the outward appearance but God looks on the heart and I think God looked on my heart and said Solomon that's the worst salvation for ever in my life but your hearts right and I'm an honor that and you know all I can tell you is if you if a person knows Jesus in a real impersonal way they know what happened next he mu next he moved into my life and I mean in a couple of weeks I just knew something that happened to me that had never happened before and I went back and said Lord deals a deal I don't know what you're gonna do with a hippie with long hair and love beads and motorcycle boots but here I am yours now it was almost 35 years ago and at that time I take it at that picture that we're showing on the screen right now was what you really look like that is what I really look like that's an actual picture from that time and how long was it before that life and the appearance that it depicts went away well after I came to Christ which was spur in the spring of 1971 the man who led me to Christ challenged me to get out of Chapel Hill he said you know this is just a bad town for you or your old drinking buddies drug buddies girlfriends are here so where'd you go so I started hitchhiking around the country with my dog and just I'd always wanted to do it and I'd always been afraid a few bucks in your pocket still had nothing oh yeah nothing's broke absolutely everything I owned was in a knapsack on my back half of that was my dogs really yeah with his food and everything so I just hitchhiked around the road took an odd job here there and had some fun doing that I mean this was the you know this was different world back then and then I came to Washington in the fall of 1971 and a man named Bob Porter who was an ex-alcoholic who had come to Christ and was doing Street witnessing down in Alexandria Virginia picked me up and kind of mentored me and I've been here ever since we want to hear more about that and the ministry that you've developed and what it means in a moment stay with us more when reverend lon solomon pastor lamb solomon after a break

Channel: Michael Tolosa

Views: 39,023

Rating: 4.8614717 out of 5

Keywords: lon, solomon, mclean, bible, church, mbc, fox, news, brit, hume

Id: RXQMNB5w7zI

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 28 2007