Pistol Pete Maravich christian testimony

we all know as brothers in sisters there's just something about the Lord that gives you such a confidence and a boldness that he just seemed to take care of everything I was uh when I got in here today I was picked up by Jimmy walk I'd never seen Jimmy he and I and I would like to thank he and the whole Walker family for inviting me here it's a real pleasure to come here in Phoenix and I've been here since I I left and the last time I played at a basketball game I think was about oh I don't know maybe 1979 or 80 but it's just a real pleasure we had many conversations on the phone about this particular event and and there was just a real pleasure for me to come out here in fact when he picked me up he ran me all over the place meeting all kind of people and I was a little bit confused it's been balling my finger well okay tell Jimmy thanks I guess there's as part of the surprise as Glenn you know see see the only difference is Glenn still plays and I don't just but they remind me of a story about how confused that was today because he had to be going all these places had me go over to Paul's practice and all these different little things and I heard this story last week and it was about a little boy who came down to his mother and said I'm mama is it true that when I was born that I literally came from dust and she said yes that's right son he sure did and she and he said well is it true then that when I died that I'm just gonna be dust again and she said that's true son that's right so well I got a problem on this she she said what's that said you got to come up in my bedroom look under my bed cuz I don't know if somebody's coming or going I I don't play basketball anymore and I really don't want to give too much time to this but I played so much as a child I'll get into that in a minute that I should be able to do a couple things I long as I don't fall in the pool here I used to be able to spend the ball I've let my fingernails grow gland that's the first to have in my life since are you here now but it's kind of tough to do thanks a lot Jimmy I really appreciate this wherever you are it's a real nice guy hey surprise do you want me to do it on the platform there but the lights are good in your face too when you try to do I used to be able to do all this kind of stuff but like I said I don't really do it surprisingly I'll do I'll do others I try to do one more this is really called outside in this is pretty tough I can get daddy right there I used to do nothing one more thing for I used to do this it's almost like Glen when he had his real high voice back in 20 years ago and and I've seen a lot of kids get high voices from trying this particular drill that I did 30 years ago but this is it this is actually called the ricochet drill and and then it goes into the bullet ricochet it was preceded by a coordination and then into what's called speed quickness of hands hopefully my hands will be quick enough and I'll I'll be alright but actually I'll try to do it here Dobbs you just need to throw the ball air and catch it then what you do is you just you just gradually throw it harder and harder okay [Applause] thank you very much I was sitting in my home last week my kids had just gone off to school and my wife had taken off to run some errands and I was sitting at the it's about 8 o'clock in the morning now I was sitting on my breakfast table and I was just sort of in the spirit thinking about what I should come out here and speak about asking the Lord if he wanted anything special for me to share I started getting things from him that really just gave me a real heart feeling for for and compassion for all the people that I've come across that don't know Jesus Christ as our Savior you know I was sitting there and all of a sudden about a year and a half ago my wife and I went through a terrible tragedy I was restoring an old Victorian home and I just gotten back from China 10x NBA players went over there to play six games of against Olympic teams and when I'd gotten back which we were out for about a month some friends came over when we were showing them the house that we were doing we went upstairs this old Victorian house has 13 foot ceilings and so to the top of the floor I was about 14 feet which would be to give you an idea what that is to be the top of a backboard and so we had these friends we had our two children with us and I we'd gone upstairs with them and there was no banister so we told our kids to you know stay away from the stairs just gonna be here a second we were showing them and as careful as we are with our children I'd forgotten that they didn't even really think about it I'd built in a little closet an upstairs room in that closet was an air-conditioning vent an old that had been stuffed up with insulation and it really happened very quickly they both kind of ran in there we didn't see him and all of a sudden it was like that my wife heard a very loud thump and when she went back there a Joshua my little two year old at the time wasn't there I just kind of knew what happened and I dashed down the floor and I went in there and I saw my little son lying there in a pool of blood he had landed an impact had hit him directly in the eye on his where he hit on this part of his head he was in a semi-conscious state of taking CPR in the past and my wife never did see him actually didn't because there's something I I'll live with all my life but it was a moment in my life just a few months before that I'd prayed a prayer to the Lord and said Lord you know you saved me and I'll never ever take anything for granted in my whole life again I just won't do it no matter what happens in my life I'm just going to count it all joy I really am I'm what kind of joy and i'ma leave it to you because that's the only person that's going to heaven as that person to trust in Christ well anyway I picked him up and he was just a lifeless little body his heartbeat was so faint that I didn't know whether he was going to make it or not they're all rushing to the hospital when I got him there and there wasn't even any doctors there at this particular Hospital the guy that was supposed to be there was off who's at lunch or something like that and just so happened I had a Christian painter there and a Christian carpenter and they started praying [Music] they found a doctor and he came in and checked him out and I was in prayer in the other room my wife was literally away with just had lost it completely and we didn't know what was going to happen to Joshua about ten minutes later the doctor came out he happened to be an eye surgeon and he says people Joshua's going to make it and I said thank God for that I said that's just great one he said but we've looked in his eyes just very quickly and it looks like all the muscles of his eyes have been of his eyes been torn away there were such massive swelling on his head on the impact that they felt that it there was no way I couldn't have done tremendous damage so I'm going back in there and check him out and and you just waiting here I'm so fine I just went back in prayer and my prayer wasn't that Josh be healed my prayer was according to God's plan and Joshua's life that it just be worked out and so about 15 minutes later the doctor came back to me and he said P he says I really can't believe what happened and I said what's that doctor he said we look in Joshua's I just now and it's as clear as a bell there's no contusions there's no there's no broken bones his neck is there's nothing I mean it's just absolutely clear plus the fact he's just gonna be perfect there's nothing wrong with him except this massive swelling that is taking place well that was just a little miracle in my life and as I thought about this I started reflecting back on my own life on my own life when I was like 11 years old and I was running through the woods one day and I just happened to be running we were playing hide-and-seek and it was my turn to find the kids I was running through the woods and as I ran down the woods I didn't see it but there was a low Bob wire fence and I ran into it smack and it caught me right here at the thighs and grappled me and flung me out and brought me back and I hung upside down by this barbed wire fence I remember screaming and yelling for my friends to come and they didn't come because they were hiding from me it really didn't help much finally one of them did come and help me up and got me off and I really never saw the hand of God there that protected me there was another time that I was born and I wasn't born but I was raised in Clemson South Carolina we used to go out to a railroad trestle on the Seneca River it's about 40 feet high and it was telephone wires joined this particular movement that was going on back then in the 50s you had to go out there and you had to wait to the Train got to the beginning of the tracks and then you either had to jump or get mashed so two of us went out there and I was having to be one of them and you could not leave and you could not jump until after the train came the train had come so many times before and got and it stopped before but knew what was gonna happen and decided from time and time again that he wasn't stopped anymore because he knew kids would jump so we were standing there and lo and behold the train was coming and I was all excited and just it was just a block couldn't wait you know was I gonna jump or was I gonna get smacked because you couldn't make it off the tress it was about 30 feet high 30 or 40 feet well at that moment that it came and it got to the end of the track I you had about five seconds and he was going about 45 miles an hour I guess blowing his horn blowing and blowing blowing I finally jumped we both jumped at the same time I really never thought about the hand of God that protected me in that moment in my life nor did I think about him one time when I went off into a little place and we used to go up on the Highlands in North Carolina we should come down this this embankment where there was a waterfall and you would slide down and you'd fly in you'd slide into what was called a washing hole it was a place where you would go down in here and it would just literally throw you back up like a washing just tumbling machine under there was a little cliff and nobody knew where that cliff led to because like I said we you know it's just a hole I remember one time going in there and sort of catching myself before I swung back up holding myself under and then going along the inside of the wall thinking to myself of course being cool that well all those kids apply think I've drowned not knowing that if I would have probably went another two feet I've been sucked up into somewhere else but I never I never really noticed the hand of God that was over over me protecting me nor did I notice at the time that I got in a car drunk and was driving with a bunch of my friends and as I was driving that car and hit a parked car going 50 miles an hour and literally got stuck in the windshield of the glass and had to beat the glass the whole windshield out from from me just to get me out of the car as I got out and walked around and nobody was hurt and here was I I never thought about how God overruled and kept Pete Maravich here and it's been that way in my life hundreds upon hundreds of times that I've literally reflected back at the times that I really shouldn't be here but I am here and I'm here for one purpose and I grew up in Clemson South Carolina when I was 4 years old the only thing I ever knew was basketball much like Glen Campbell sings and he's one of the greatest singers of all time there's just no doubt in my mind I see listen to him in college I mean like it was unbelievable in college all the songs he sing tonight back in those days and by the time I was 5 years old I was already playing organized basketball my parents baited me into the game they'd never forced me and when I was 7 years old my dad came to me and he says Pete he says I don't have any money to send you to college you're gonna have to get a scholarship if you get a scholarship they'll pay your weight only make twenty nine hundred dollars a year and that's just not going to pay your way by the time you get there and if you're good enough Pete you might even make it to the pro basketball that's where the greatest players play and they're so few they're so few like one in 20,000 make up to the NBA that play the game and if you get there you might play on a team that wins a World Championship and you'll get a big diamond ring feet so big and has on their world champions and you'll be declared as the rest of the team one of the greatest at that particular time not only that Pete you'll be able to make money they'll pay you for doing it they'll pay you for playing something that you enjoy doing well from that day my I decided to commit my life totally to basketball I was dedicated possessed and obsessed by I was so dedicated to it I'll tell you some of the things I used to do we left two and half miles outside of town in Clemson South Carolina and I used to get the basketball and I'd dribble in all the way I would not accept a ride I was dribbling with my right hand and dribble back home in my left hand five miles a day to the gym where I'd play eight to ten hours a day when I finally got a bicycle when I was about 11 years old 10 11 years old I learned to dribble the basketball on my bicycle all the way and it made a lot easier to get into town too and I got there quicker and I dribbled the ball literally on the riding bicycle they got so bizarre that my dad came to me one day and he says Pete come on get your basketball let's go in the car so where we going he says I'll tell you when we get there he went over and he went on this specific highway and there weren't many cars there and he said now look I want you to get in the backseat stick yourself out that back window there and you start driving the ball I'm gonna drive at various speeds I want to see if you can really control this and so I did that and he'd go 5 10 15 miles an hour and 20 miles an hour and of course if you realize when you're trying to drip a basketball out of a car or a bicycle you got to throw it way out in front because he's won't beat and it's coming back it really comes back quick along with a lot of rocks and to see the faces on the people that just happened to be driving by was something in itself it really was I used to take the basketball to bed with me I slept with the basketball till I was about 13 years old I would get in bed I'd lay in the bed for 1 hour before I ever went to sleep and I would repeat three things fingertip control backspin follow-through fingertip control backspin follow through as I released it laying down I was completely possessed by the game I just go around my house blindfolded dribbling the ball because I knew where everything was of course the dismay of my mother sometimes I didn't and I knew how to dribble the ball very fast out of the house nice to get the basketball and and I would dribble out in thunderstorms not little rainy not Sun showers but thunderstorms lightning everything else you couldn't even see I used to sneak out my back window I'd go to this little spot where there's a mud hole it was kind of a real hard mud and I'd start dripping the balls of mud and everything splashed up on me and literally scared to death because of the thunder and lightning because I felt like if I could dribble in that mud net water and everything else control it I could certainly do it on a court when someone was guarding me see I was so committed to the game of basketball in fact from the time I was five years old I was 17 years old I played over 20,000 hours of basketball and the March Reader's Digest they had a story in there about television how it affects young people's mind or any person it wasn't for against television it just says how it affects one's mind and it said that the average person by the time he's 20 years old sees 20,000 hours of television and I kind of paralleled that with my life 20,000 hours of people watching television I've been spent twenty thousand hours of hard sweat playing the game of basketball when I was 12 years old there's my first time ever played in a regular game for junior varsity I made the junior varsity I was 12 and I was at 13 I started on my high school team and played five years of high school basketball I was four foot nine and a half and and when I was 12 years old so some of you youngsters to think that you're not you know tall enough you will be and so I at that time at 12 the reporter came up to me after the game and he I used to shoot the basketball from down here because I was too weak to shoot it from up here and so I used to take the ball and take it and release it like this and this reporter saw him and he says what looks like this guy is drawing a pistol and he wrote that up and that name is stick stuck ever since I just threw that in I know that doesn't interest you at all I just wanted to say say that but he asked me after the game he came up and interviewed me my first interview I ever had and I wish that had been my last but he said were you gonna do when you grow up custom Pete and I said well I'm gonna play pro basketball I'm gonna be on the team that wins a world championship get a diamond ring and make a million dollars and he literally fell off his chair what laughter and I said what are you laughing about he said a million dollars they don't make that kind of money this was in the 50s and that he was right but I just felt like at some point in my life I would my early church life was absolutely probably zero I was not raised in a Christian home I was raised in a church home I was raised with telling Pete you got to go to church it's good to go to church you got a unique church neat Church church Church and my parents didn't really go to church that much they went when I was a small baby when we moved down to Clemson they really didn't have the time to go to church anymore but they made sure I did go so I went through a couple different churches wherever my friends went I went but when I got into church they I didn't never even hear anything I never heard who Jesus Christ was when I was young because I didn't want to hear see I was sitting there and literally count ticks in my head 1 2 3 up to a minute and that would go for an hour until I got out of there I felt that if some if I was in this church for an hour somebody in Philadelphia LA or Boston or New York was playing basketball and when it came down to get that scholarship I would not get it see and I progressed on into my teenage years when I was 14 years old was the first time I ever had my first taste of alcohol I had a beer at 14 years of age on the steps of the Methodist Church in Clemson South Carolina and I liked it I really did like it I liked it a lot and for something I can tell you young people here tonight it's this don't ever take that first drink and don't ever take that first drug because it'll never be your last and relate to destruction because that's literally what almost happened in my own life ninety-eight percent of all people in jails today started with that first drink eighty-five percent of over 500,000 people in correctional institutions today committed their crimes while under the influence of a mind-altering substance drugs or alcohol and many of them don't even remember committing the crime but that's what it'll do to you and all of a sudden I this this tremendous commitment that I had everything else kind of went down the drain I didn't have it anymore and I'd played so much up until that time when I was 14 15 go on in 16 17 but all of a sudden I had time on the weekends to do other things I saw the opposite sex for the first time my life you see I was completely obsessed with basketball I didn't do whatever other people did my god was basketball there God was sex alcohol and whatever else but I didn't see any of that until I was 14 and then I my eyes opened up and I enjoyed it and I started getting into it it was like a little toehold in my life you see cuz that's the way the enemy works he just gets a toehold in your life that's all he wants he wants a toehold because we all try to justify things we do and then that toehold led into Pete Maravich became a foothold and the foothold became a stronghold and that stronghold became an entire possession I'm not scared to tell you here I was an alcoholic I can't get people write that up because I've never been to a clinic or anything and all my friends drank just like I did and they were alcoholics too and the thing about it was that as I as I kept following my own desires because see I chose the road I wanted to go down I can't blame God for anything see we have a choice here and I had my choice and I picked that broad road it talks about two roads in the Bible the broad one their own I chose the broad one I was fulfilling my own fleshly desires and I enjoyed it I enjoyed it a great deal because there's a great pleasure in sin there's a lot of pleasure in it because of her what nobody would do it but I found out now that the pleasure of sin is not at the beginning it's not worth it at the end at least the sting that is when I was 18 years old I was asked to go out to Lake Arrowhead out in San Bernardino California to a Campus Crusade for Christ they asked me to come out there and do what you just saw here what was called Showtime they said would you come out here into your clinic feet I said well sure I'd be great I'll bring one of my friends and we'll just come out there California and there have been that'd be fun so we got in the car and I was just reaching my 18th birthday literally right before what was to be called the pistol Peter era in southeastern conference basketball and so I I drove out to him we partied all the way out and we had fun and we chased girls and we just were in every every bar we could find and everything else took us three or four days to get out there and and as I drove up on this campus I noticed that there were people sitting around praying and holding hands under trees and things of this nature and I became very embarrassed I didn't want any part of that and I told my friend I said hey we got a hurt and get out of here I'm gonna do this clinic and get out of these people are nuts I mean what are they smoking and put that beer down we don't want it you know we don't want to see him with this with this beer so I checked into this place it was for three days and I asked him what am I supposed to do my clinic they said well Pete we're not sure yet but if you just bear with us we're gonna have you over here with this group I said what do you mean what am i gonna do is there's well nothing just nothing to do we just put you it wouldn't be all right no I said okay so I stayed with this group my friend one with another group and for three days I finally heard who Jesus Christ was I could die if I would have died before that I could never claimed ignorance but the thing about it was I heard I heard how he had died for me I heard number one that I wasn't a very good person see I thought I was always good I mean I'm a pretty good guy never really hurt anybody I mostly hurt myself I should go out and get drunker an alcohol was such a stronghold in my life everybody's got something that strong wholesome don't they that's what I thought because everybody I went out with did there was just something else it was the same thing I did not hurt then I wasn't very good and the guy kept reading out of the Bible you read he read me Romans 3:10 23 what it says I'm no good there's no one righteous not one in fact I'm just a worm a piece of decaying wood I didn't like that I didn't like it at all because he I didn't understand but then he told me how he told me how Jesus Christ went to the cross for me and he didn't have an impact don't peep my heavens I wasn't concern about that to me it was just a story it was a story it was nice that's nice see but he told me that Christ paid the sin for me the penalty Romans 6:23 he paid it and then I'm that if I was ever gonna be saved it was only by the grace of God because no matter where you go to church or how many times you go to church or if you there's some people born in a Christian home think to Christians it's like saying if you're born in a garage your car it just doesn't work that way and we have a lot of churchianity today not Christianity but he kept going through it you know and he said and this is this this is like this Ephesians 2:8 9 he went through that saved by grace through faith in the gift of God not of ourselves I started thinking about it and everything but it really didn't have an impact not at all and then you got the John 3:16 I don't know how many of you even know any of these verses I could repeat them all to you but I don't want to do that John 3:16 is probably the most talked-about verse in the Bible for God so loved the world he gave His only begotten Son some people put and forgotten son in there instead of begotten because that's what he used today but he read that to me and then he went to I said I kind of heard this he says in Pete let me tell you something there's no other way to get to heaven I said how do you know I hear there's a lot of different ways he said well if you read your Bible you'll see that John 14:6 he says Jesus says he's the only way didn't say was part of the way or some of the ways is he the only way he says he's the only truth not part of the truth some of the truth he's the only truth and that means that if Jesus Christ is the truth then everything that I read in that Bible about Jesus Christ and what he said is the truth or it's a complete lie there's no middle ground friends there's no middle ground you see I believe that book that's on that table there is 100% the inerrancy of God in fact I know it see I know it now but after the end of three days there there was no impact on my life we went out to the beach Bill battle who was an all-american football player with a bicep as large as my thigh said we're going out to the beach I'm taking this group with me we're gonna witness for Christ and I said what do you mean witness well what is this but we mean witness what were you talking about see because I I didn't understand he's used come along he we just want to which one sure we do here so I went along with them and and we went out on the beach ISM out there California beaches and he he goes up to the worst-looking group this is back door in this 60s this is the most revolutionary time the rebellious time in our history probably it's led to so much of the rebellion today and yet he went through the worst looking group guy had tattoos all of his own hair down he was smoking a joint drinking there was about four or five of them they were mean-looking they didn't smell very good everything and I stayed way in the background but you know the Lord has a way to use people you see he went up to this guy who was a meanest looking guy right behind his head he says you know something I would really like to share something with you folks and this guy was literally gonna turn around and punch him I know cuz he turned around he said look go right ahead oh that bicep was right in his face if anything impressed me it was that that did impress me I said wow how God gets people's attention it's amazing so they witnessed and I don't remember I think someone left right away they said are you Jesus freaks and all this kind of stuff and I just kind of turned my head I don't want no part of it at the end of three days there was a there was a thousand kids I was part of it and Bill bright whose founder Campus Crusade gave a message much like Billy Graham had an invitation for people to come receive Christ then he had him to come publicly and receive him the home behold my friend was sitting next to me he got up I said what are you doing says Pete I don't know what to tell you I really don't know what to tell you I've just received Christ into my life I said Kenny a man can't you something you ate or something and I grabbed him by the arm I literally tried to steal away his salvation I said you don't go through you embarrassing me I'm never saying that and he pulled away and he went up there he says you don't understand I said no I don't and he walked up there and I remember sitting there and say well you're not gonna get me god you're not gonna get me I'm not going out in that Highway dressing those sandals in that white robe I've seen those people out there hitchhiking with a little bag and I'm not gonna be there I'm not gonna do that I'm gonna play pro basketball being a world championship team and make a million dollars boy that's what I wouldn't like but you know as I've reflected over that time how many times I've cried and wish that I'd receive Christ in my life then you know why because God has sent me there for a purpose not to do a clinic I never did one nobody even asked me but he put me there for one reason Pete come home now come home now because you're about to embark on a tremendous amount of personal tragedy and destruction in your life it doesn't have to be that way but you can choose that way and you don't have to but I rejected God I rejected Jesus Christ and I wanna on into college and I did a lot of things in college I've said I've set something like around 50 basketball records from high school college in and pro and the amount of trophies and awards and plaques that I have the amount of honorary mayor ships and keys the cities that I have except the time when I go to those cities and try to get the keys they don't ever give them to me the could literally really not go around this entire pool area now I have a trophy from 1972 in a box it's never been open in six foot five inches and one is 6 foot 5 1/4 inch tall the exact height of me I've never seen it I've never opened the box but they're all stored away they did only do anything for me but I've had all those trophies Awards I've had popularity I've had Fame a tremendous amount of Fame back in the 60s tremendous amount of pop every when we played before over right out of million people in college in three years and that's pretty good and I had all this adulation and people wrote me I got thousands of letters a week from fans we idolize you Pete Maravich you're my idol you're this you're that and I wasn't a role model at all not at all I wasn't a role model for young people at all none zero and then after my college and I was all-american and I was leading I'm the leading scorer of all time in college basketball it'll be broken someday I'm the leading scorer of average over 44 points a game for a three year period I just hold just all kind of Records my high school records are still in hell I still hold the record for the all-star game I scored 47 points in the East West high school all-star game back in 1965 but still there it hasn't been broken and some great players have come through there and then I went in the pros you see and I'd had a lot of fun in college a lot of fun too much fun fact I was in nine accidents in college and walked away from every one of them knowing that one time I was coming home from putting on a clinic in Pennsylvania and I drove 700 miles and and I stopped for the night there's a halfway point I went down to a local pub local little bar sat in there and they had about two beers and the young lady came over to me I said how are you sweetie I said I'm just fine did you mind if I sit down here I said well suit yourself so I was sitting there I wasn't there at two minutes when a guy came up to me about six foot five about 270 pounds say what are you doing my girl I said I'm not doing anything with her sir I'm just sitting here I'm just having this cold beer here I don't want any trouble I didn't you know and he started pushing me he started hitting me in the shoulder and I grew up with kid knowing that you never backed down from anybody I don't care what the odds I won going back down I told him to get his hands off of me and all this and before long one thing led to another and they said y'all get out of here if you're gonna fight he said yeah come on so I said fine so I got up and I went out quickly and I made myself through the crowd and I got outside and I stayed behind the door and I was really gonna get this guy when he came out but he never came of course I didn't wait there about two minutes and he didn't come you see and so I said I better get out of here not left and I walked out in the parking lot as I was walking in the back of the parking lot out toward up I saw a telephone booth where I was gonna call a taxi to go to the Holiday Inn where I was staying as I was walking out I heard this guy came out and yelled to me then little did I know that another guy had gone around the other side and they both had Black Jacks which I didn't know and a guy the whole story is that the guy just literally they just hit me from behind and beat me up pretty good as I laid there on that parking lot that night [Music] that girl came up and I was all blood and she took a 25 automatic pistol and she put it in my mouth and cocked it and she says you're a dead man Pistol Pete how about that and I remember laying there and from the depths of my heart I said yeah kill me because then I'll have peace but you know something there's a god up there that overruled Satan that night - he overruled him and I know that and that's why I fall on my face morning noon and night thank God for saving me and I went into the pros and I signed the largest contract in the history of sports not basketball sports at the time it made the Guinness Book of Records it lasted 30 days [Music] they start pouring out a lot of big money back then and I searched all through the 1970s for what meaning there was to life I had to know the meaning what was the meaning and I got involved in all kind of different things I was involved in yoga and TM I was involved very heavily in UF ology philosophy I was involved in different religions Hinduism especially I was involved in everything but the thing about it is none of it really satisfied me they were just all brief interludes of satisfaction much like my own life was brief interludes of just ego gratification satisfaction I never I never paralleled that my life was literally just sinful I was rebellious against God in heaven I rebelled against him I said I don't need you I don't want you so it wasn't his fault what was going on in my life but his arms are always outstretched for Peter Maravich always and all through that time in fact the 1976 I decided I was gonna live to be 150 years old and I got very heavily into nutrition because I was into Hinduism and I was into the Karma and all these other types of situations and I became a vegetarian and then a fruitarian and a macrobiotic and I many dos and I maxi dosed on vitamins and I fasted 25 days and I sat in all kind of different positions and I was searching for life friends I was really searching for life because my life had no meaning at all my life had absolutely no meaning at all and in each one of these stops each one of these stops I'd have something else it just didn't satisfy me in 1980 I quit basketball I just quit I walked away from it because of immaturity and because of the fact that I just got tired of it all I just got tired of it I got tired of my life and I became a recluse for about two years I sat in my home we had our first son Jason he was only one and a half years old and I was set there for hours at a time trying to teach him seven and eight year old puzzles because I want I wanted my son Jason have what I did I wanted him have a high intellect see I want him to be an intelligent person I want him to be able to go to the right parties and say the right things I thought that was important I really thought that was important and so my wife used to come to me and she says Peter you really need to go see someone because you're really flipping out I said what do you mean she says you haven't left this house in two weeks I said yeah I am I'm not you know I'd what the garage and stuff but I was really lost and in 1982 I went to bed one night it was like any other night Pete Maravich had all the material things you could want he had all the wealth you could want one person could want that's all I needed I used to carry around $5,000 in my pocket in cash in 20s I never carried any change but out all that stuff and none of it ever satisfied me not the money not the wealth not the success there's so many people out there with this success syndrome I've got to reach success all the young people today they want success you know where that success is leading these young people I'll tell you where it's leaving them in their grave last year over 5,000 teenagers committed suicide between 14 and 18 teenagers committed suicide today in this country it happens every day like that there's an organization in England called exit you know what they do they teach people how to commit suicide and they're backed up everybody's reaching out for life everybody's reaching out what's the answer nobody wants to reveal nobody wants it revealed to them they don't want to know the truth I didn't want to know the truth in 1982 I went to bed and I laid there in bed I couldn't sleep I didn't understand it and all of a sudden everything started coming up in my life all the sin every sin I've ever committed and I've committed many let me tell you many sins in my life and there's nothing hidden and I'm not airing all my dirty laundry here I'm not trying to I don't want to give Satan any credit but I can tell you this it all came up and it also came up when I was 18 when I could have received Christ and it was 5:30 in the morning now and I laid there crying with two pillars back up in my back with an unsaved wife next to me now I'm sitting there crying and I said God I punched you I've kicked you I've cursed you I've used your name in vain I've mocked you I've embarrassed you I've plucked your beard I've done all those things and yet do you really I mean will you really forgive me the things that I've done and I was about to get over on the side of my bed and what happened to me doesn't happen everybody and what happened to me happened to me and that's why I'm talking out of my shoes many people don't believe it anything oh just don't believe it maybe with many theologians don't believe in God but it happened to me but the time I was about to go over and sat at bed receive Christ in my life however crude it would have been because there's no sinner's prayer in the Bible you do it from your heart God spoke to me audibly right there in the room he said be strong and lift thine own heart literally audibly not in my spirit filled the room I looked around the room I was in total shock I'd never heard anything like that before and I was so shocked that I reached over and I woke my wife just shaking her like crazy I said Jackie did you Jackie did you hear what the Lord said to me did you hear that you must understand Jackie's seen me go through all kind of trips in my life and she just kind of looked at me in the dark haze that it was at 5:30 in the morning and said Pete you really have gone nuts haven't you and she just went back to sleep through all the tears through all the times I want to over on my bed and I said Jesus I know you're real because I've tried everything else I've got nowhere else to go I'm history if you don't save me I won't last two more days and he saved and it's not a story folks but he saved me that day my life has never been the same since never it has never been the same since it's not something that just happens to and you forget about it when enter in inward manifestation of Jesus Christ comes into your life you'll never hold him back you'll never hold him back Matthew 5:16 let your light shine before men in such a way but your good works may be seen and glorify your father in heaven because all Christians every Christian it comes to know Christ it's supposed to let his light shine and I can tell you this folks I would never want to be on that tightrope because of my pride because of embarrassment because of peer pressure because of my mother my dad or my friend what will they think or what will they think you think Glen Campbell cares what anybody thinks right now I guarantee did and for eternity to be praising God just like I will be and attorneys a long time I heard attorney explained one time think of the earth as a solid steel ball solid steel ball suspended by a chain infinitely into the heavens and think of a little tiny hummingbird that comes through the steel ball earth once every 10,000 years and flaps its wings once against the solid steel bar and then flies away for ten thousand more years when the inertia of those wing flaps makes a solid steel ball earth dust in the same way with the chain that suspends it you still got eternity it's something that all of you are gonna have to grip one day in your life I'm not up here to speak generalities Jesus Christ changed my life money didn't do it women didn't do it friends didn't do it pastors didn't do it wealth didn't do it success present being a company owning your own business having your own boat whatever you can think of whatever's holding you back from Christ they won't do it do you realize that if you live to be 80 years old you have only lived over a little over 700 thousand hours and half of that $350,000 is spent sleeping and watching television if you're the average person I don't have much time left and the time that I have I'm giving tindora Jesus Christ I'm giving it to him because that's what I'm called to do I'm not called to come up here I'm not called to be nice and speak in generalities and Pete you might offend some people that's fine I heard a pastor say one time agent Rogers if you don't make a mad saturd you haven't done your job I feel compassion for people that I've never felt before everybody I meet I feel for because you see there is a heaven and there is a hill and I could stand up here and I could even talk to you about evolution for the next two hours if you wanted to but I don't need to do that you can just go and read Sir Frederick Hoyle from Cambridge the foremost evolutionist and mathematician and astronomer of our time we just recently said not too long ago I have been duped for twenty years through my mathematical experiments there is no possible way that we came from primordial soup in fact I know we have been created you can call it God I don't but we have been created from something and he says anybody that teaches that it's utter nonsense of the highest order quote unquote and yet our kids in school every day are taught that exact thing and by the time they get out of school they are taught twelve thousand hours of evolution and secular humanism but you know hell is a real place folks did you know as we've been here already there's literally been thousands of people died between eighty four ninety four people die every minute in the world two million people died last year in the United States thirty million people died last year in the world thirty million people died last year all that by conservative estimates of theologians and Christians over ninety percent or in the abode between death and judgment there there it's real your spiritual you're gonna live forever you got nothing to do with it SOI mine I praise God I know where I'm going and I hope you do too I hope you really tonight well we'll look at yourself examine yourself are you really happy because see hell is not a good place to go and Jesus talked about Hell morning talked about heaven and God don't want anybody to go there and here we are with our finite little minds of three percent use of our saying there is no God here we have an expanse of a universe here that nobody knows where it goes and the atheist says there is no God out there somewhere how can any man say that and how can any fool believe it you know what they do in hell I'm much more sure some of you like to get this over with but there's gonna be a lot of weeping in hell there's gonna be a lot of wailing there's gnashing of teeth probably because of anger or probably because of the fact they know they've been separated for God forever there's isolation their spiritual blackness there's no light in Hell absolutely no light there's been testimony the fact of people that have died come back there's been testimony in the fact even non-religious scientists dr. Cooper Ross who spent her last 25 years in death and dying she was before a thousand scientists and doctors in Los Angeles not too long ago and she got a standing ovation when she declared there is life after death I know it and she's not even religious not always their spiritual blackness but there's two things here here that won't be there two things that we grasp on to here you see one of them's light you see these lights light gives you mental stability nobody likes to be in a dark for a long period of time and something to grab onto solid solid things material things what hell is a bottomless pit you don't grab anything there and you know you can spend 10 20 30 40 50 thousand centuries in hell and never accomplish one thing there and know that you don't have one less second to spend there and I'm telling you folks I cry at night for people that I don't even know I cry for my brother who's unsaved but I pray for it constantly and you never prove God you'll never prove although all the evidence is there in fact I probably could prove them to you just from the research I've done but you don't need the proof of me you got the atheist the evolutionist the biochemists in California the nuclear scientists they've all done their own evidence and they've all fallen flat on their face of course you don't read any of that I really hope I pray that you that have never had a relationship with Christ and it's not important that you know who Christ is it's important that he knows you because Matthew 7:23 says I never knew you depart from me you who practice lawlessness everybody knows who Christ is especially in America you can walk that tightrope you can be just like me for every person just like me that God allowed to go through as a testimonial there's literally tens of thousands in the pit of hell one day mark my words from my heart you'll be standing there and from the judge of the universe and it doesn't matter don't say well I've got time I can do it tomorrow I can do it next week because you don't have any time it gives you today and your life your life ends when it ends there's no coming back examine yourself think about it give Christ a chance I guarantee you you will literally be a totally different person when you receive Jesus Christ in your life he will do something to you just like he's done to me to Glenn Campbell to Paul Westphal and there's so many others he will do it for you no matter what you think no matter what your ego is no matter how much money you got what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet lose his soul what does it property you own everything two things I want to say I'm finished said that about 10 minutes ago you know if I came to you right now John and I had I was a government agent and you and you answered your door and he said I work for the government yes sir what do you want I paid my taxes well I know that we just want to give you this what is it well open it up and you open it up and there in that case was 1 million dollars in cash he said wait a minute what do you mean you want you wanna give this that's right we're giving everybody a million dollars we just want to give it to you we like you it's free you can have it take it I'm sure there's not one person in here that wouldn't take it we can all use a million dollars couldn't we yes we could and yet for two thousand years God has been trying to give you eternal life free and you said no I don't want it but it's free I don't want it you don't have to do anything for it you can't accomplish it's free here take it just trust in me that's all I don't want it Paul Westphal right now was the peel off that chair and he started gagging and choking and start turning blue before all these people everybody would be dismayed everybody running out trying to get doctors but there might not be enough time because the only thing that's going to save in this oxygen what if I went right under this stage and had oxygen and I went over to Paul Westphal and Paul was there blue in the face gagging just about to die and I said here Paul take this oxygen is free it'll save your life take it I'm sure Paul look up at me and say oh no Peter I don't want that but it's free Paul take it no I don't want it 2000 years guys tried to give you and you and you eternal life free and you've rejected it just like I did people believe me from the deepest ends of my heart this is no jokes no story I didn't fly 5 and 1/2 hours to come out here just to see CC y'all and say how you doing here's hogs from the basketball it's gonna happen if you just give Christ a chance and you that are Christians believe me believe me when I tell you that it's not the atheist and the secular humanists and the Communists and the Socialists and the fascist and the economic democracy whatever title whatever label you put on it they're not the reason the United States is going where it's going on the world it's because of the Christian because he's become complacent because he doesn't stand up for Jesus Christ in the workplace because he doesn't mention the word Jesus Christ anybody because he wants to speak in generalities because he wants to believe a half-truth if you don't believe that Bible 100% or if you're not going to a church it is I'm telling you right now again from my heart you better leave that church because if you take one thing out of there you might as well take it all because you've made yourself God see that's what a lot of pastors have done they've made themselves gods oh this is not applicable I've really enjoyed this I've enjoyed it I appreciate your attention it was such a pleasure for me to come out here and here Glen Campbell well not when Jimmy told me Glen Campbell was coming saying I was just well I was a static I really music it's the most powerful thing we have and to have a man like Glen Campbell singing to our Most High God there's just something that feeds my heart because he has such an impact now on the world and we'll thank you all very much may God touch you that haven't been touched and bless you that have it may extend all of you mercies traveling tonight wherever you go thank you

Channel: 1avardac

Views: 45,742

Keywords: Pete Maravich, christian, born again, LSU, Atlanta Hawks, New Orleans Jazz, Utah Jazz, Boston Celtics, NBA, basketball

Id: R1Dyh8IFswY

Length: 55min 42sec (3342 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2019