July 21, 2026 • 53 mins
For generations, Pastor Chuck Swindoll has helped millions of people understand Scripture with wisdom, warmth, and clarity. In this special conversation, Pastor Greg Laurie sits down with one of his lifelong heroes—not simply to conduct an interview, but to learn from a pastor whose ministry, leadership, and integrity has shaped the church for decades.
Together they reflect on the experiences that form faithful servants of God. Pastor Greg shares his unlikely journey from a broken childhood to a lifetime of ministry, while Pastor Chuck offers a profound perspective on preaching, humility, suffering, leadership, and what it means to finish well.
More than an interview, this is a candid conversation between two preachers—one drawing out the hard-earned wisdom of another whose life has been marked by grace, endurance, and unwavering faithfulness.
In this interview you'll hear:
- How God prepared two very different men for ministry
- Chuck Swindoll's timeless wisdom on preaching and shepherding God's people
- Greg's testimony of coming to Christ during the Jesus Movement
- Lessons learned from Billy Graham and Chuck Smith
- Why suffering often produces deeper compassion in those God uses most
- A moving discussion about grief, faith, and finding hope in life's hardest moments
Don't miss Part 2 of this conversation next week!
Subscribe to The Greg Laurie Show for weekly, inspiring conversations.
Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Life audio. When you have been hurt deeply, you change great. Yes,
you become more thoughtful, more compassionate, more caring. That is
the making of a good shepherd, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm really excited to be in studio with really a
living legend, one of the greatest Bible teachers of all time,
one that has been a blessing to me for decades.
I've listened to him his radio show, of course, his
podcast a much more. He's a prolific author. He's on
two thousand radio stations. Insight for Living is the name
(00:57):
of his program. I'm here with Pastor Chuck Lundall.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
How long have we known each other?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh? My goodness, Well, eh, I did in the early seventies,
maybe the eighties. It could have been the early seventies,
the eighties. I mean, I've been listening to you. I've
been listening to you so long. I remember when your
radio show was called new Standards. Well you do go back, yeah,
then you became Insight that it.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Was nineteen seventy seven, yes, and then seventy nine we
changed an Insight for Livings.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes, yeah, But to this day I listened to you
all the time. I hate to say this, don't take
it the wrong way. But I listened to you, and
you put me to sleep. Okay, but in the best
way possible.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
A people jump me that all the time. But I said,
young put people to sleep. I'm like my ANESTHESIOLI. Yeah,
they go right.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Out, man, Yeah no, But it's you're you know, you're teaching.
I mean, I believe, Chuck, And I've said this publicly.
I believe that you were the greatest living preacher that
I know. I mean, I mean, it's hard to say
the greatest because we all have certain preachers we love
for different reasons. But but just kind of you've only.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Heard about three or four so on one of it.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I've heard many preachers, many preachers. I love to listen,
you know, though I am a preacher, I love to
listen to preaching. Yep. And I love to read. And
a lot a lot of the people I listen to
are no longer alive, you know. I love to I
found some guy that does an AI version of Spurgeon sermons,
so it's like, you know, it's reading the sermons of
(02:35):
Spurgeon and they're so rich and deep.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh yeah, you know. But I'm a Spursian fan too.
I've got about. I don't have everything he's written, but
I've got a number of the v he wrote.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, I feel what you do so well. And there's
a phrase you use, you offer theology without apology. I
like that, yep, because you have content. It's biblically rich
and deep. But it's I've always found you to be
very practical. Fact. There's a joke told that I've tried
to tell on five occasions and it bombs every time.
(03:10):
And for some reason, this joke works for you, but
when I tell it, it doesn't work. And I want
to tell you what the joke is. It's a story
about the guy who fell in love with the opera singer.
Oh yeah, And I think his in telling that, people
think it's a true story. Oh yeah, and they start
feeling better. Tell us that joke.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, he fell in love with the opera singer.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I can't believe her starting the present this interview like this,
but I'll tell it. He fell in love with this
lady and he kept going to the opera and more
she sang one opera after another. Yeah, And finally he
asked her, would you consider going out with me? And
she said yes, and they fell in love and he
(03:52):
got married. Yeah, just almost in a whirlwind.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Well, the night of the first night together, she pulled
out a false eye and put it in a little box,
and pulled out her both set top and lower and
upper teeth and put them in another box. And she
pulled off a prosthetic leg and popped it in the
(04:17):
frame that she had for it. And I think she
had hearing age she had to take out. And he
looked at her, he said.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Hey, lady, sing sing, Yes, so I told that you.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Didn't that funny.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
But it's hilarious. But it's a little twisted, and that's
why I like it is.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, you gotta be careful because there are people there
with prosthetic Yeah, that's it. I think the glass eyes.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I think I'm telling the true story in the pumps,
but I haven't given up. I'm gonna keep trying to
tell it. But you seem to be able to tell.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It about it, Well, some of my jokes are a
little risky, so you gotta be careful that. But anyway,
I got to California and you and you'd lived there
all your life, yes, and I got there in seventy one,
so we got underway in that north central heart of
Orange County. Yes, and I was there for the explosion
(05:09):
and you were too, You were part of the explosion.
And I want to go back. Yes, in your life
very early, tell us sort of a quick and dirty
analysis of your beginning, your home, your world, when you
(05:31):
were lost. Yeah, and how you became a Christian.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay, Well, I was born in nineteen fifty two. I
didn't find out till much later that because there was
a man's name on my birth certificate that I found
out later was not my biological father, and in fact,
I was the product of a one night's stand. My
mother was incredibly beautiful, and Chuck, that's why I'm so handsome.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I wondered what it was. Yeah, boy, that's great.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Now. She my mother was literally a dead ringer for
Marilyn Monroe. And I'm not exaggerating oh much. She really was.
She was a man magnet. So she was married and
divorced seven times. And she was from a Southern Baptist family,
raised going to the church, but she was the prodigal
child and she went out and got married over and
(06:21):
over again. So she had a fling in Long Beach
and I was conceived, and so she married a man
quickly put his name on my birth certificate and I
found that out much later. But she was also a
raging alcoholic. And when I say an alcoholic, I mean
she drank to access every night where she would pass out.
So in many ways, I had to grow up quickly
(06:41):
and become the almost like the adult, even though I
was a child.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Are you the only child?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, I have a half brother, but he was not
with us for most of my childhood. He lived with
his father. So you kind of raise yourself in many
ways I did. I jokingly tell people, you know, I
was raised by wolves, and I mean I had no
one to teach me anything, so I had to fend
for myself. I learned to think for myself. It was
(07:08):
I had to develop survival skills, and I had to
look up for my mother because she would drive really drunk.
In fact, one night I wasn't with her. This night,
she drove over the median into an oncoming lane in
the steering wheel almost cut her in half, and she
almost died. But she you know, she just lived this
(07:28):
tumultuous life. But you know, you look back and you
realize that you know, got had a plan for us
even before we were born. And I can see, like
the Sama says, in my mother's womb, you formed me.
And I can see that even the bad things that
happened to me in my life were preparing me for
(07:49):
what I needed to do, which was to see my
need for Christ, which happened at the age of seventeen.
So fast forward, I unfortunately followed on my mother's footsteps.
I was drinking myself partying. Then I got into drugs,
and it was even before I was a Christian. I
knew drugs was a dead end. I didn't want to
(08:12):
go that way, and it was almost like process of elimination,
chuck like, well, I know the answer is none on
my mother's lifestyle. I know the answer isn't the lifestyle
I've chosen.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And on my high school campus, the Jesus Movement was
happening and all these young kids were coming to Christ.
And I happened upon one of their meetings on the
front line of my high school campus, Newport Harbor High
School in Newport Beach, and there was they were singing
worship songs and right there at school. Yeah, and I
(08:46):
found that an interesting thing. Normally they meant in the
science room at lunchtime for their little Bible study, but
the air conditioner broke that day, so they went outside
on the front lawn. I would have never gone into
a classroom to see this. I came across it. I
sat down at a distance, close enough to hear what
they were saying, but far enough away where people wouldn't
(09:07):
think I'm becoming a Christian, because I had no intention
of doing that. But I looked at them singing. I
looked at the peace they seemed to have. And then
a guy got up to speak, and he gave a
little gospel presentation, and one statement stuck with me. He said,
Jesus said, you're either for me or against me. And
I looked at the Christians and I thought, well, I'm
(09:29):
not one of them. Does that mean I'm against Jesus?
But I knew so little about Jesus. My knowledge of
Jesus was watching the ben Her movie. Oh see, it
was like watching King of Kings, another movie about He
was distant, kind of a glow up there, but I
believed he was there. I believed he was there what
(09:50):
I knew of him. And when I realized that I
could have a relationship with Jesus Christ. This preacher, whose
name was Lonnie Frisbee, invited people to come to Christ.
I went forward and I prayed, and that was the
day that Christ came into my life. Oh we seventeen man.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, but I thought you you you did have a Bible, No,
you did have any training whatever in the scriptures.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I don't think i'd ever opened the Bible in my mind?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Have you ever been to a church?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I had. I lived with my grandparents for a while
when my mother was out running around, and I went
to church with them a few times. Okay, but it
didn't I was like, didn't click. It was just boring
to me. It didn't make sense to me yet.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So I was just a blank slate, which in some
ways was good because I was you gonna have to
unlearn something, didn't have to unlearn anything. So good. I
had no negative impressions of the church. I had no
impressions of the church. So I was ready to hear
the word of God, you know. And I thought about
a parallel in our lives, Chuck, because I heard Jucy
(10:57):
recently that you you know, your brother Orville and your
sister Lucy each one was fat by your parents.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
They didn't give you that attention. And your mother even
said to you you were an accident because you weren't planned.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I didn't know what accident. Man. I was about five.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's pretty horror.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Five. I thought I didn't just have an accident. You
can't mean that. Yeah, yeah, well you're a mistake. Well
that confused me even more. When you're young, you hear that,
you think, okay, here I am. Well, you know, they
had a dilemma because my dad was wild about Lucy
(11:42):
and my mother just adored my brother. He was multiply
gifted in so many ways. At a concert pianist, man,
he was playing you know, the heavy tunes, the real
concert pieces before it was fifteen.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, and a scientific mind and all that. And here
I was interested in football, interested in sports, interested in girls,
and some other things going on around me. But none
of that was interesting to my parents. They focused on
it and it wasn't hidden, it was overt.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Was that true in your family?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, my mom was just too preoccupied to really pay
a lot of attention to me. But you know, I
think of the remember David, you know Jesse, Oh yeah,
brought out all of his sons before the pumpet.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Samuel said, does you have anything? He said, oh, you know,
I do have one more. How many of us would
do that? You have all of your sons in there
if Samuel's coming from visiting.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
But David later wrote, when my mother and father forsake me,
the Lord will take me out. So I think that
in both of our lives, perhaps as hard as that was,
that played into what we became and what we ended
up doing.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
You know it did, honestly, Greg Uh, it never really
crippled me emotionally. I mean, of course I missed the
closeness that many had with their mother or with their dad.
But I didn't curl up at a ball and you know,
(13:26):
cry myself to sleep. I was never abused or shoved
aside or mistreated, but there was there was clearly favoritism
that My brother never moved the grass, never did what
you know, My jobs were to throw out the trash,
mopped the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, especially the toilet and
(13:49):
the basin and the tub, and and he never did that.
He was busy practicing. Wow and man could he play
that piano. My sister and I would do the dishes.
And she would say to me, I knew I shouldn't
have stopped taking piano lessons because he read a new
the dishes. Anyway, your story goes on, Well.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, So I was attending Calvary Chappelin Costa, Mesa, and
there was a little Bible study up in Riverside. I
was living in Orange County. That's about forty five minutes away.
And it was young people and they needed someone to
come and take this study over. And I went up
there and began to teach it. I was I'd been
a Christian two years.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
You've been listening to Chuck Smith.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I've been listening. Well, Chuck got me on to some
good books, you know. He said, Greg, you need to
get a strong, exhaustive concordance.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Good for him.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And then I started building my library and at eighteen,
I was reading Spurgeon, Martin, Lloyd Jones, G. Kimball, Morgan,
Harry Ironside Man. So I got going with some really
good books. And you know the other thing, Chuck, because
I didn't have any godly adults growing up, I wanted
to hang around older people more than people my own age,
(15:03):
because I wanted to learn.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
I found the same thing true.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, and I really encourage younger preachers today, you know,
to find older preachers and older people in general who've
walked with God and learn from them and listen to them.
I had the privilege later in life of getting to
know Billy Graham crit quite well. Yes, And as he
was ending his crusade ministry, I was starting mine, and
(15:27):
he asked me to help him work in his sermons
and freshen his illustrations up. So I got to spend
a lot of time being with Billy in his home
and on the road. I can tell you personally, he
was everything you hoped he would be. He was down
to earth, humble, godly.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Honestly, one of the most humble men I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Really, people don't believe that. It's the truth. Yeah, genuinely humble.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
He really was.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
That's wonderful. I didn't realize you were that close.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Well, and so I bet I was constantly asking him questions.
I thought, I've been enrolled in the finest evangelistic university
on earth with access to the greatest evangelist I think
of all time, apart from the Apostles, Billy Graham. So
I took full advantage of it. Oh yeah, And I
wrote a book about it, even called Billy Graham the
(16:17):
men I knew. But he was he was. He didn't
like to talk about himself.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Though I know the feeling.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
You'd ask him something and he said, well, tell me
about yourself, And he had always changed his subject now
and I think that was one of his secrets. Is
it was a genuine humility that he had. But so
I learned from godly older men and women, because I
was also looking for some parent figures, like a father figure,
a mother figure, but someone who was godly.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So you went to the church, yes, and you became
the teacher.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, I didn't know it was going to be a chrue. Yeah,
I was teaching, and then it began to grow and
they started calling me pastor. Well, I hardly felt qualified
to be a pastor at the age of twenty. I
hadn't gone to Bible school or any kind of school seminary.
And I was studying every day and I was, and
(17:11):
I have to say, and sometimes I was. I was
things I knew that I believed, but I was working
them out theologically and teaching them that evening sometimes And
so it was on the job training. But this began.
I was looking for someone to take it over, and
I couldn't find anyone to take it over. I was
looking for someone older, more mature, and no one had
(17:34):
the time or the interest. And I had this little
flock of about one hundred people at that point. Then
it became two and three hundred people, and I.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Thought that was pretty good size.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Man. Yeah, so I thought, well, if I'm going to
be their pastor, i'd better start preparing. So, you know,
I did the best I could, studying as much as
I could, learning from people like you and others, and
you know, and here we are to the present day.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Isn't it remarkable? His hand was on you all alone. Yes,
And you didn't really and you come from that background.
The last thing in your mind is you're going to
become a leader of other people. You're doing your best
figure out how you're going to be led and how
you're going to live your life.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, well, I'm wonderful. I started out, Chuck, I wanted
to be a graphic artisan, specifically a cartoonist or did
you really So? One of the ways I coped with
the crazy life I was living is I would draw
cartoons and I created my own little world of characters,
and that's what I aspired to be. I used to
correspond with Charles M. Schultz, you know, the creator. He
(18:40):
would very graciously write me letters and encourage me and
are you really? And one time I wrote him, I said,
can I have one of your comic strips? Signed? I
was so bold, I don't know why I was. And
he sent it to me and I lost it. Oh,
and I was in some you're going to say, you
have it framed. I have a letter, he wrote me framed. Still,
(19:01):
but I lost the cartoon strip, which would now be
worth thousands of dollars, but not to mention the sentimental value. Sure,
but but you know, I when I became a Christian,
one of the first things they did was I drew
a little comic book called Living Water, and it was
an evangelistic track, and that was sort of my first
taste of ministry where I was starting to develop not
(19:24):
just as a pastor but also as an evangelist.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And you're writing now, you're beginning to write yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Not like you though, not like you, because don't you
I heard you say once that you would write your
sermons out. You didn't type them. You wrote them out?
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, did you ever become a typist?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Uh? No, I didn't type anything. I wrote them.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Now, Well, it's a great way to remember.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, thoughts disentangle themselves over the lips and through the fingertip. Nice.
I'll learned that years ago, and and they really do.
And I found if I could push those words through
my fingers, yeah, I can make it happen. So I'm
left handed and on my fourth finger, I have a knot,
and my publisher would always say, let me see that, Nott,
(20:15):
I make sure it's nice and big. You would always
talk to me about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Well, I think you have an extraordinary ability given to
you by God, Chuck. And I'm sure it's all a
part of how you were raised from your childhood to
being in the Marine Corps, well to you know, your
harder days as you started out ministry. But you take
that would just complex and make it understand a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yes, I love to do that. Yes, I love to
do that. I love to take the difficult and complicated
and make it so simple people can say, oh, I
get it, I get it, Yes, and they can't believe
it's in the Bible when they realize how they can
grasp this. I think there's a one of the secrets
(21:00):
of speaking publicly is simplifying. Yes, you gave a good
quote earlier, now share that with our right.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Well, you were telling the story of when you went
to a Billy Graham crusade and after he finished his message,
you turned to Cynthia and said, that was so simple,
and Cynthia said, honey, he knows what he's doing. And
you were sort of kind of a little perplexed by.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Angel Stadium and they were people sitting all around me,
and I thought, nobody's going to go forward, was I
roll or what?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So I mentioned to you that I saw an interview
that Billy Graham did with David Frost, a British interviewer,
and Billy said to David Frost, I studied to be simple.
And I think it's interesting because you know, if you
listen to the younger Billy Graham, he spoke rapidly, and
some of his earlier messages almost were like Bible studies.
(21:56):
But as later in life, especially when he entered his
final years, it got simpler. It did simpler it. I
saw him in New York and this final sermon, and
he just turned to the crowd and he said, God
loves you. Then he turned to another section, God loves you,
and he turned to the others, God loves you.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
He didn't have the full capacity he had when he
was younger, but even a diminished Billy was better than
most preachers because he had lived this godly life. Sure,
and he was almost like a prophet of God just
giving this simplified message.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Remarkable. Well, you obviously have developed the same thing. Try
and now you're in this gathering, and at some top
point along the way, you emerged into a church.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yes, it continued to grow. And one day in the
eighties I got a call from some publication and they said, well,
as a pastor of a megachurch. And I'd never even
heard that term.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I hadn't either. I didn't know what that meant when
I first heard that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
So suddenly you find yourself pastoring a large congregation of
thousands of people. It's not something I aspired to do. Frankly,
I felt that God was calling me to be an
evangelist for the first years of my ministry. But then
it dawned to me that God had called me to
do both. I was called to be a pastor and
an evangelist. But I'll say this, I love to do crusades.
(23:28):
We still do them today. I love to speak give
evangelistic messages, and they're quite different in their structure and
delivery than in teaching that. My favorite thing to do
is to be at home with our church and just
teach them the word of God. That's my sweet spot. Yeah,
happy place in the pulpit. You know you've done your work.
(23:50):
Oh yeah, and you know, and you've and you're delivering
that message.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Open that book up. Yeah, and you watch those faces
light up. There's nothing like that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Oh, that's great. That's great. Now you you live all
these years and you've watched changes take place. Yes, talk
about that if you will. How have things changed in
the realm of evangelism? Yeah? Is your approach pretty much
(24:23):
the same or have you altered it to fit this
particular era in which we live? And how is that
different from the way it once was you first got underway?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Very excellent question. I think that the essentials don't change.
It's you know. I once asked Billy Graham Billy if
an older Billy could speak to a younger Billy, what
advice would you give yourself? And I'd like to ask
you that question after But and he said, I would
tell myself to preach more on the blood and the
(24:56):
Cross because that's where the power is. So I think
you always need to remember that. Berchan would say, as
an evangelist, you make a line to the cross, the powers,
and the cross in his death, his resurrection, the need
for the person to repent of their sin put their
faith in Christ. But everything has changed so dramatically, not
(25:18):
only in the lat I've been preaching for over fifty
years now and it's changed a lot over the years,
but I would say even in the last ten years
it's changed dramatically. Like when I started doing evangel those crusades,
you know, the internet was just coming into place. There
were no cell phones yet. But today with the cell phone,
(25:43):
you know, and with the young generation and the impact
that's had on them, it's a very different time. Their
attention span is very limited. Yes, I find that they're
almost completely biblically illiterate. There was a time when you
could say Noah's Arc or Adam and Eve in the
garden references from scripture. This young generation don't even know
(26:07):
what you're talking about. So I find I have to
define everything as I go. I don't assume if I
say you need to accept Jesus Christ into your life,
I don't assume they even know what that means. And
I find that I have to break that down and
explain what I mean by each of those terms, even
accept Christ into your life or you know. So I
(26:28):
find it's like Paul and marsh Hill. He took time
to assess the culture. He took time to study the
philosophies that were popular, and then he used the story
of the unknown God they erected for the one god
they may have missed among the thousands that they worship.
And he said, today I want to talk to you
about the unknown God. But he built a bridge to
(26:50):
his audience. But then you know, he brings him the
message to the Gospel. So I find that I'm constantly adapting,
and I use cultural references to start, But it always
comes down to the power of the scripture.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Where you were when were you led to move it
into a true crusade where it became harvests crusade which
is known all over the country.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Now, well, I was, I always gave invitations for people
to come to Christ like you do, Chuck and your messages. Yes,
and we would do little outreach events here and there.
But Pastor Chuck Smith in around nineteen eighty nine asked
me to come down and speak at his church and
do sort of an outreach Bible study for youth what
(27:38):
you did on Monday nights. And it began to grow.
It got really large. We were overflowing, and it was
Chuck's idea to go to a larger venue. And he said,
let's go to a bigger venue and do a crusade,
like a Billy Graham crusade. And I said, okay, well
that'd be great Chuck. You know I could speak, and
some of the other guys could speak. He said, now
I think you should just speak. And then I said, well,
(28:00):
where do you want to go? And he said the
Pacific Amphitheater, which seated around, I don't know, eighteen thousand people.
I said, well that's a pretty big place, Chuck, and
he said, well, we serve a pretty big God. And
so we took a step of faith and went there.
We broke their attendance records in the first week. And
then the next year we went to Angel Stadium and
(28:21):
we've been there ever since.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, that's ron known that in the Angel Stadium. And
what a great, great crowd you have, what interest there is?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, you were with us when we did it here
in Texas at AT and T Stadium, and that was
the largest crusade we've done with over one hundred thousand
people in attendance.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
It was a wonderful experience.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It was great. So you know, so, yeah, that's it
was his idea. And you know you've heard the expression
if you see a turtle on a fence post, you
know he didn't get there by himself. Right. So I
think I look at my life and I see these
things that God has done, and I just realized I
could have never done these things. But I know that
(29:04):
the Lord is on the Door's not unlike you, because
I've heard you say you never planned on having a
radio ministry. You never planned on becoming a writing ministry,
or the chancellor of never DTS or starting a new
church later in life. Right, that was a very bold move.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Right. I was fifty nine when I went to Dallas
Seminary and then I started the church here. I was, well,
my goodness, I was getting up in years by then,
and they wanted me to come as president. I couldn't
say no fast enough and Sidy said to me, why
(29:45):
did you say no? I said, because I'm not presidential.
I'm not one of those, you know, wonderful, beautiful minds
that you know walk around a seminary. And there she said,
they know who you are, they know what they're asking.
And I said, it's just I'm not this is not me. Well,
(30:07):
they came again and I said no, and they came
the third time, and long story short, I finally came
to realize that God wants me to say yes, yes,
and he wanted me to go as a shepherd. I
could do that, and I shepherded the students. I haven't
shepherded the faculty. Some of those men said to me
(30:29):
they never had heard a grown man say to them
I love you in their lifetime. Yes, And I regularly
told him that, and that isn't you have to be
brilliant to do that, right, But you do have to
be vulnerable, yes, And you have to be willing to
say that to another man. Greg I've had men just
(30:53):
weep when they hear that. And when I got ready
to leave the seminary several came into my office at
different times and they just cried because they said, We've
never had someone who really loved us like this, Which
(31:13):
tells you that's what really cuts through, is it, that's
what really reaches the heart? Speaking of that brings up Kathy.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I was just going to ask you about Cynthia, but
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
So you're you're rolling along teaching the Bible and this
group is growing, and Chuck has got ideas for you,
and where does Kathy fit into all this?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Well, I was doing this little Bible study and there
were these three girls that showed up. It was Kathy
and her two sisters. And I don't know why, but
she caught my eye, Kathy, and it's almost like a
light was shining down on her, and it was actually
her sister holding a flashlight over her head.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Not really, I appreciate, But you're also a red blooded
American boy.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, And I don't want people to think I'm just
like checking out girls while I'm preaching. But I did
notice Kathy, and afterwards I said to her, Hey, would
you like to go out and get some dessert after church?
And she said yes, and so we went. The three
of us went out or the four of us or
three sisters and me. Then the next time I spoke,
(32:17):
I said the same thing, when I go ahead and
get some dessert, and she got her sisters and we
went out. Then the third time, I said, well, let's
go get some dessert after church, and she said I'll
get my sisters. And I said, I don't want your sisters,
I just want to go with you, and so chuck
we we we fell in love pretty quickly. But there
could not be two more opposite people than Greg and Kathy. Really, oh,
(32:40):
we're just the exact opposite. I'm messy, she's very neat.
I'm usually very close to being on time. She's sometimes late.
She you know, she's cute, I'm fat. What can I say?
We're different. But we had three big breakups like I
don't want to be see you ever again, and we'd
(33:01):
break up, then we then we would get back together,
and then we'd break up again. So we got it
all out of our system.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Got all the wake ups all the way, and then we.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Got married and we have celebrated fifty two years of
marriage together. And and so you know, I couldn't have
done what I do have done and what I do
without her. She's my number one counselor and she'll always
tell me the truth.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Good and yeah, we need wives for that reason.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Sometimes a little too.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Much, well I know, but you got to have it.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, And she's been with me through all of it.
You know, we went The hardest thing we've gone through
is when our son died in an automobile accidents in.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yes, it was, yeah, and it was I.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Couldn't believe it when I heard it. Yeah, everything in
my life at that moment stopped. I'm serious. We prayed
for you as a family and sent in as a
couple because we identified we have two boys and we
have two girls, and so I couldn't imagine losing one
of them. It's like you couldn't if you don't mind
(34:10):
walk through that with us.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Well, we have two sons, Christopher and Jonathan. Yes, and
Christopher was a little bit of a wild boy. He
was always a good boy, but he had a wild side.
He went on a went for a time where he
was a prodigal walking away from the Lord. Always was
respectful and loving and a good son, but he was
(34:34):
away from the Lord. He made a recommitment to christ
and was walking with the Lord and had gotten married
and had a baby, our first granddaughter, Stella. He became
a very talented designer and he was the lead designer
at our church in Riverside. He was on his way
to church early in the morning, about nine oh one,
(34:59):
and he he collided with a Caltrans vehicle and we
we found you know, I was my wife was having
a Bible study with his wife, Brittany and some other ladies,
and Brittany was texting Christopher like what are you doing
or something. He wasn't answering, and I texted him and
(35:21):
no answer. Then I was calling the church. I couldn't
get an answer. I knew something was terribly wrong, but
I didn't know what it was. And then people started
showing up at my house. And then finally some of
our pastors told me that Christopher went to be with
the Lord. And it was like, you know, I don't
know how to describe it. It's like all the air
(35:42):
left the room. It's like time stopped. I collapsed and
I just thought my world. You know, I'm a Christian,
I'm a pastor, but I thought my world just ended.
Like how do you survive this?
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I felt if words could kill you, I could have
died from hearing those words. And Kathy saw me and
actually took my face in her hands and she said,
it's going to be okay. And she doesn't even remember
saying this. And there's only one person who could have
said that to me, and it was her, and okay
meaning not that this is good. We will survive this,
(36:20):
we will make it, will make it, because I just
look like, how do you survive this? And even though
as a pastor had presided over many services, sadly many
first children who died, I thought, well, I know a
little bit about this.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
It's quite different when it's your own.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
It's completely different.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Did you take some time off?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I did take some time off. I but you know,
here's the interesting thing. I just fell on the floor
and I prayed a job like prayer, and I said, Lord,
you gave him to us, and I give him back
to you. And people have asked me when of you
felt the presence of God more than any other time
in your life. And I would say that was the
moment that God was with me. You know, his strength
(37:02):
is made perfect in weakness. And I was just saying, interestingly, Chuck,
you kind of play a role in this, and you're
teaching from a distance. I was listening to your teaching
on the radio and you talked and I don't remember
the exact quote. It might be a Toeser quote, but
it's something before God can use him and he is
(37:22):
to hurt him. Is this Ringabella Tozer?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Is doubtful? God can use anyone greatly until he has
hurt him deeply.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yes, that's a hard one.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I've had some people say I don't believe that. Yeah,
that nice, God cruel. Yes. On the contrary, when you
have been hurt deeply, you change. Yes, you deepen. Yes,
you deepen, you get quiet, You become more thoughtful, more compassionate,
(38:04):
more care more understanding. That is the making of a
good shepherd. There's a Scottish saying, some things are better
felt than tellt people can tell when you have a heart.
(38:30):
You don't get a heart by taking a course on
how to get a heart. You don't read a book
on here's how to develop a heart. You go through
the heartbreaks of life and out of that emerges an
incredible world that never had been developed before. Yes, so
(38:56):
that you have a capacity now that you have because
you have lost someone so close to your own heart,
and you'll never forget it.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It prepares you to touch the lives of those who
come with that empty, dreadful expression. I feel lost. I
feel like I can't go on. I feel like I've
I've reached the end. And you can say you're gonna
(39:35):
make it. Yeah, and let me tell you how I
know you, and you can tell them your story. Yes,
I love another Toeser quote, and you'll love this. May
not The inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be
traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridor
(39:55):
of the kingdom like children in the marketplace, always shattering
about everything, but pausing to learn the true value of nothing.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I love that quote, Bob. You've learned the true value
of life and the true meaning of death and grief
and sorrow and bone deep pain. There aren't words you
(40:31):
can use to describe what you and Kathy endured. You
may try, but only those who have lost one of
their own will say that's exactly the way it was
with me.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Gives you a capacity, a depth, and that may explain
Greg why even though you may not have had all
the academic training you may have I wish you would
have had, or you may not have had all the
breaks that you would love to have had, or those
(41:11):
first seventeen eighteen twenty years of your life you know
at the knee of some godly individ Wait wait, wait,
You've had the Lord Jesus Christ right there in the
depth of your life, at moments that defied explanation, as
(41:36):
you reached in and quietly developed you in ways you
would not have been developed. Job writes Job twenty three
ten through twelve. Get this, but he knows the way
that I take. When he has tried me, I will
(42:00):
come forth as gold. My foot has held his steps
his way of I kept it, not declined. Neither have
I turned back from the command of his lips. I
have esteemed prized value the words of his mouth more
than my necessary food. Yes, that's why in deep grief
(42:24):
you lose your appetite. You're feeding on divine manner that
comes to minister to you from the heaven least provided
for you by the Lord your God. I so respect
(42:46):
you for going through it and being able to talk
about it and letting it change you. I've seen people
refer to it almost glibly. Oh yeah, me lost to No,
don't don't say it like that. Joe Bailey lost three boys.
(43:11):
Three boys, one is a baby, uh, one older, and
the other in a sledding accident, of all things. And
Joe said he wrote a book called A Few from
the Hearse.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I read that book, loved the book.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Joe's gone now, but his son was one of our
interns at Fullerton, and and and Joe said, some came
and and then they talked and talked and talked and
talked the whole time. I couldn't wait for them to leave.
You experienced that. And some came and sat by us,
(43:55):
said very little, if anything, loved us, And I never
wanted them to go away. I love that statement. Yeah,
I love it. When will we learn say less so
(44:15):
that you can minister more? Yes, when you get alongside
people and you put your arm around them and you
tell them you understand, you're helping them see aside of
Christ they have not seen before, and you're not saying
much at all, That's why I'm glad you. I was
(44:39):
reluctant to get into it, not knowing how you have
worked it through. But it's obviously changed you.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Yes, well, thank you for all that you said. That
was just so powerful, And I know that's going to
be a blessing to so many people as it was
to me personally. It's like I was given the greatest
person counseling session from the greatest preacher on the worst
moment of my life. And it meant so much to me.
(45:12):
And I'm going to go back over what you've said
to me. It was very moving to me. Greg.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
You have depth. You may feel young, you may feel,
you know, overwhelmed. My opportunities that opened on. God knows
what he's doing. Yes, God knows what he's about. Yeah,
he knows who he's using. He not only knows your name,
(45:43):
he knows the depth the length of those tests. He
plans both the depth and the length of tests. So
when you stand to speak, you know what, Greg, I
don't even have to be told this. You're not important
at all. You are quietly amazed that they're even there.
(46:09):
I constantly live like that. I'm constantly surprised that someone
reads for something I write, or they listen when I speak,
or or they they enjoy things that I enjoy when
I'm sharing it with him, And I just think, Lord,
you're too good. How could you use a kid that
(46:30):
wasn't even wanted, like you've used me, and like you're
using Greg, And what an absolute privilege. Stay surprised, Yes,
just stay surprised. I'm convinced Graham when he stood there
(46:51):
and watched the stadium field fill up first base and
then out in the outfield, and more than in the
in the into the bullpen. They had to put them
right there at Angel Stadium. Remember yes. And I thought,
said to Cynthia, how wrong I was when I said
it was so simple, It was too simple. You're You're right.
(47:12):
He knew exactly what God would have him say. Sometimes
we just need to step aside in our spirit and
let him take it, take the credit, take the glory,
take the message, take the opportunity. I spent too many
(47:35):
times in my life saying no, no, I can't do radio.
I don't do radio on I don't even listen to
Christian radio. And Alexander said to me, well many people do.
And he said, can I show you a little sample?
And I said, yeah, sure. Well I took it home
(47:55):
and played it with Cynthia listening, and I go wow.
He kind of put it together, and he said, we'll
be the first broadcast that goes out up where we
used the live audience. Everybody else went to a studio
back then. But you're gonna we're gonna use I said,
you mean all the coughing and sneezing and baby crying.
(48:15):
He said, yeah, that's real life. And they loved that. Oh,
and he was so right. I was so wrong. And
when the dear friend in our church made me to
write the book for those who hurt, I just spoken
on it and I said, no, I don't do books.
I'm got my hands full doing sermons. He said, you
(48:37):
got to write this book. Whatever it costs, i'll pay
for I said, I don't know what it costs. I
don't know how to write books. I don't do books.
You've got to do this within a book. He almost
yelled at me, So I said to my secretary. The
next day, Larry Crusing came down the isle of day.
Last night he was flaming. I found out later his
daughter had run away. He was hurting, and he said,
(49:01):
what you said is exactly what I needed to hear.
I need to read it and read it again and again.
I finally found a publisher that would. I was nobody.
I'm still nobody, but at least I've written a few things,
and back then nobody wanted to publish it. No, but
(49:22):
there's not a place for that. That little book is
still in print. So Monoma Press, a little press up
in Oregon. John Bendy said to me, oh, we'll take
this manuscript. We'll make this into a gift book. Indeed
they did, along with Second Wind Killing John's Pulling Thorns,
(49:46):
growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, Come before Winter,
all of those from little excerpts of things I've been
writing our church under heading of thinking Over. I never
dreamed it would ever go into them. I'm telling you, Greg,
I never dreamed I would ever be a writer. Ever.
(50:07):
That's the truth. I'm not trying to be humble. I'm
saying I didn't. I didn't have the thought of that.
And it was like, good night, you're kidding. That's the
first response when they said, man, these books are flying
off the shelf. When's the next one, I said, I've
(50:28):
already written a book, that's the thing. But they want
more books. You know how that goes, Greg, There's always
a place for anyone who will truly let God lead
his life. Stay out of the way, lie Lo, stay surprised.
(50:59):
We don't need agents. Well, we don't need big time
people out front. We don't need flags. We don't need
to promote our own stuff and carry our books in
the trunk of our cars and beg people to buy him. No, no,
God will take care of them. He brought David out
of the sheep folds from following the hues great with young.
(51:22):
He brought him to feed Jacobs people and Israel his inheritance.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Get this.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
So he fed him according to the integrity of his heart,
and he guided them with skillful hands. Yes, so I'm
seventy eight inns with those beautiful verses.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Took him from the sheep, and he felt oil running
down his neck, and he thought, what's this? You know,
average God run down the north swim and start buying
crowns because they're going to be king. Yeah, Nope, David
went right back with the sheep.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Next time we see him, he's fighting a giant not
to be seen. But because this uncircumcisedful esteem has no
right to talk about God's people like he's been doing.
And he took that sling and He slung at the rock,
hid it right between the running lights, knocked it right down,
(52:23):
took that head and walked up to Saul and said,
well here it is, Saul goes, who is this? David
has never impressed with himself? And then Saul, you know,
began to chase him. Twelve thirteen years David said, what
have I done? Said to Jonathan, what have I done?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:47):
What have I done against Saul?
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Nothing?
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Nothing? Why is he trying to kill me? It's all
part of learning, Dave. You're learning the king it, You're
learning how kings live. You'll continue to be shot at
and speared, talked about and criticized. Stay at it, stay
at it. Cynthy and I have the favorite line, stay
(53:11):
at it. Yeah, stay at it like you and Kathy.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yes,
Life audio. When you have been hurt deeply, you change great. Yes,
you become more thoughtful, more compassionate, more caring. That is
the making of a good shepherd, everybody.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
I'm really excited to be in studio with really a
living legend, one of the greatest Bible teachers of all time,
one that has been a blessing to me for decades.
I've listened to him his radio show, of course, his
podcast a much more. He's a prolific author. He's on
two thousand radio stations. Insight for Living is the name
(00:57):
of his program. I'm here with Pastor Chuck Lundall.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
How long have we known each other?
Speaker 2 (01:03):
Oh? My goodness, Well, eh, I did in the early seventies,
maybe the eighties. It could have been the early seventies,
the eighties. I mean, I've been listening to you. I've
been listening to you so long. I remember when your
radio show was called new Standards. Well you do go back, yeah,
then you became Insight that it.
Speaker 1 (01:23):
Was nineteen seventy seven, yes, and then seventy nine we
changed an Insight for Livings.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes, yeah, But to this day I listened to you
all the time. I hate to say this, don't take
it the wrong way. But I listened to you, and
you put me to sleep. Okay, but in the best
way possible.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
A people jump me that all the time. But I said,
young put people to sleep. I'm like my ANESTHESIOLI. Yeah,
they go right.
Speaker 2 (01:48):
Out, man, Yeah no, But it's you're you know, you're teaching.
I mean, I believe, Chuck, And I've said this publicly.
I believe that you were the greatest living preacher that
I know. I mean, I mean, it's hard to say
the greatest because we all have certain preachers we love
for different reasons. But but just kind of you've only.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
Heard about three or four so on one of it.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
I've heard many preachers, many preachers. I love to listen,
you know, though I am a preacher, I love to
listen to preaching. Yep. And I love to read. And
a lot a lot of the people I listen to
are no longer alive, you know. I love to I
found some guy that does an AI version of Spurgeon sermons,
so it's like, you know, it's reading the sermons of
(02:35):
Spurgeon and they're so rich and deep.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
Oh yeah, you know. But I'm a Spursian fan too.
I've got about. I don't have everything he's written, but
I've got a number of the v he wrote.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
Well, I feel what you do so well. And there's
a phrase you use, you offer theology without apology. I
like that, yep, because you have content. It's biblically rich
and deep. But it's I've always found you to be
very practical. Fact. There's a joke told that I've tried
to tell on five occasions and it bombs every time.
(03:10):
And for some reason, this joke works for you, but
when I tell it, it doesn't work. And I want
to tell you what the joke is. It's a story
about the guy who fell in love with the opera singer.
Oh yeah, And I think his in telling that, people
think it's a true story. Oh yeah, and they start
feeling better. Tell us that joke.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
Yeah, he fell in love with the opera singer.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
And yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:31):
I can't believe her starting the present this interview like this,
but I'll tell it. He fell in love with this
lady and he kept going to the opera and more
she sang one opera after another. Yeah, And finally he
asked her, would you consider going out with me? And
she said yes, and they fell in love and he
(03:52):
got married. Yeah, just almost in a whirlwind.
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Yes.
Speaker 1 (03:55):
Well, the night of the first night together, she pulled
out a false eye and put it in a little box,
and pulled out her both set top and lower and
upper teeth and put them in another box. And she
pulled off a prosthetic leg and popped it in the
(04:17):
frame that she had for it. And I think she
had hearing age she had to take out. And he
looked at her, he said.
Speaker 2 (04:25):
Hey, lady, sing sing, Yes, so I told that you.
Speaker 1 (04:30):
Didn't that funny.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
But it's hilarious. But it's a little twisted, and that's
why I like it is.
Speaker 1 (04:37):
Yeah, you gotta be careful because there are people there
with prosthetic Yeah, that's it. I think the glass eyes.
Speaker 2 (04:42):
I think I'm telling the true story in the pumps,
but I haven't given up. I'm gonna keep trying to
tell it. But you seem to be able to tell.
Speaker 1 (04:49):
It about it, Well, some of my jokes are a
little risky, so you gotta be careful that. But anyway,
I got to California and you and you'd lived there
all your life, yes, and I got there in seventy one,
so we got underway in that north central heart of
Orange County. Yes, and I was there for the explosion
(05:09):
and you were too, You were part of the explosion.
And I want to go back. Yes, in your life
very early, tell us sort of a quick and dirty
analysis of your beginning, your home, your world, when you
(05:31):
were lost. Yeah, and how you became a Christian.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Okay, Well, I was born in nineteen fifty two. I
didn't find out till much later that because there was
a man's name on my birth certificate that I found
out later was not my biological father, and in fact,
I was the product of a one night's stand. My
mother was incredibly beautiful, and Chuck, that's why I'm so handsome.
Speaker 1 (05:56):
Is that right?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (05:57):
I wondered what it was. Yeah, boy, that's great.
Speaker 2 (05:59):
Now. She my mother was literally a dead ringer for
Marilyn Monroe. And I'm not exaggerating oh much. She really was.
She was a man magnet. So she was married and
divorced seven times. And she was from a Southern Baptist family,
raised going to the church, but she was the prodigal
child and she went out and got married over and
(06:21):
over again. So she had a fling in Long Beach
and I was conceived, and so she married a man
quickly put his name on my birth certificate and I
found that out much later. But she was also a
raging alcoholic. And when I say an alcoholic, I mean
she drank to access every night where she would pass out.
So in many ways, I had to grow up quickly
(06:41):
and become the almost like the adult, even though I
was a child.
Speaker 1 (06:46):
Are you the only child?
Speaker 2 (06:47):
Well, I have a half brother, but he was not
with us for most of my childhood. He lived with
his father. So you kind of raise yourself in many
ways I did. I jokingly tell people, you know, I
was raised by wolves, and I mean I had no
one to teach me anything, so I had to fend
for myself. I learned to think for myself. It was
(07:08):
I had to develop survival skills, and I had to
look up for my mother because she would drive really drunk.
In fact, one night I wasn't with her. This night,
she drove over the median into an oncoming lane in
the steering wheel almost cut her in half, and she
almost died. But she you know, she just lived this
(07:28):
tumultuous life. But you know, you look back and you
realize that you know, got had a plan for us
even before we were born. And I can see, like
the Sama says, in my mother's womb, you formed me.
And I can see that even the bad things that
happened to me in my life were preparing me for
(07:49):
what I needed to do, which was to see my
need for Christ, which happened at the age of seventeen.
So fast forward, I unfortunately followed on my mother's footsteps.
I was drinking myself partying. Then I got into drugs,
and it was even before I was a Christian. I
knew drugs was a dead end. I didn't want to
(08:12):
go that way, and it was almost like process of elimination,
chuck like, well, I know the answer is none on
my mother's lifestyle. I know the answer isn't the lifestyle
I've chosen.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (08:23):
And on my high school campus, the Jesus Movement was
happening and all these young kids were coming to Christ.
And I happened upon one of their meetings on the
front line of my high school campus, Newport Harbor High
School in Newport Beach, and there was they were singing
worship songs and right there at school. Yeah, and I
(08:46):
found that an interesting thing. Normally they meant in the
science room at lunchtime for their little Bible study, but
the air conditioner broke that day, so they went outside
on the front lawn. I would have never gone into
a classroom to see this. I came across it. I
sat down at a distance, close enough to hear what
they were saying, but far enough away where people wouldn't
(09:07):
think I'm becoming a Christian, because I had no intention
of doing that. But I looked at them singing. I
looked at the peace they seemed to have. And then
a guy got up to speak, and he gave a
little gospel presentation, and one statement stuck with me. He said,
Jesus said, you're either for me or against me. And
I looked at the Christians and I thought, well, I'm
(09:29):
not one of them. Does that mean I'm against Jesus?
But I knew so little about Jesus. My knowledge of
Jesus was watching the ben Her movie. Oh see, it
was like watching King of Kings, another movie about He
was distant, kind of a glow up there, but I
believed he was there. I believed he was there what
(09:50):
I knew of him. And when I realized that I
could have a relationship with Jesus Christ. This preacher, whose
name was Lonnie Frisbee, invited people to come to Christ.
I went forward and I prayed, and that was the
day that Christ came into my life. Oh we seventeen man.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Yeah, but I thought you you you did have a Bible, No,
you did have any training whatever in the scriptures.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
I don't think i'd ever opened the Bible in my mind?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Have you ever been to a church?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
I had. I lived with my grandparents for a while
when my mother was out running around, and I went
to church with them a few times. Okay, but it
didn't I was like, didn't click. It was just boring
to me. It didn't make sense to me yet.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
Yep.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
So I was just a blank slate, which in some
ways was good because I was you gonna have to
unlearn something, didn't have to unlearn anything. So good. I
had no negative impressions of the church. I had no
impressions of the church. So I was ready to hear
the word of God, you know. And I thought about
a parallel in our lives, Chuck, because I heard Jucy
(10:57):
recently that you you know, your brother Orville and your
sister Lucy each one was fat by your parents.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
That's right.
Speaker 2 (11:07):
They didn't give you that attention. And your mother even
said to you you were an accident because you weren't planned.
Speaker 1 (11:15):
I didn't know what accident. Man. I was about five.
Speaker 2 (11:18):
That's pretty horror.
Speaker 1 (11:19):
Five. I thought I didn't just have an accident. You
can't mean that. Yeah, yeah, well you're a mistake. Well
that confused me even more. When you're young, you hear that,
you think, okay, here I am. Well, you know, they
had a dilemma because my dad was wild about Lucy
(11:42):
and my mother just adored my brother. He was multiply
gifted in so many ways. At a concert pianist, man,
he was playing you know, the heavy tunes, the real
concert pieces before it was fifteen.
Speaker 2 (12:01):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
Yeah, and a scientific mind and all that. And here
I was interested in football, interested in sports, interested in girls,
and some other things going on around me. But none
of that was interesting to my parents. They focused on
it and it wasn't hidden, it was overt.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (12:23):
Was that true in your family?
Speaker 2 (12:24):
Well, my mom was just too preoccupied to really pay
a lot of attention to me. But you know, I
think of the remember David, you know Jesse, Oh yeah,
brought out all of his sons before the pumpet.
Speaker 1 (12:38):
Samuel said, does you have anything? He said, oh, you know,
I do have one more. How many of us would
do that? You have all of your sons in there
if Samuel's coming from visiting.
Speaker 2 (12:48):
But David later wrote, when my mother and father forsake me,
the Lord will take me out. So I think that
in both of our lives, perhaps as hard as that was,
that played into what we became and what we ended
up doing.
Speaker 1 (13:02):
You know it did, honestly, Greg Uh, it never really
crippled me emotionally. I mean, of course I missed the
closeness that many had with their mother or with their dad.
But I didn't curl up at a ball and you know,
(13:26):
cry myself to sleep. I was never abused or shoved
aside or mistreated, but there was there was clearly favoritism
that My brother never moved the grass, never did what
you know, My jobs were to throw out the trash,
mopped the floors, cleaned the bathrooms, especially the toilet and
(13:49):
the basin and the tub, and and he never did that.
He was busy practicing. Wow and man could he play
that piano. My sister and I would do the dishes.
And she would say to me, I knew I shouldn't
have stopped taking piano lessons because he read a new
the dishes. Anyway, your story goes on, Well.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Yeah, So I was attending Calvary Chappelin Costa, Mesa, and
there was a little Bible study up in Riverside. I
was living in Orange County. That's about forty five minutes away.
And it was young people and they needed someone to
come and take this study over. And I went up
there and began to teach it. I was I'd been
a Christian two years.
Speaker 1 (14:32):
You've been listening to Chuck Smith.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
I've been listening. Well, Chuck got me on to some
good books, you know. He said, Greg, you need to
get a strong, exhaustive concordance.
Speaker 1 (14:40):
Good for him.
Speaker 2 (14:41):
And then I started building my library and at eighteen,
I was reading Spurgeon, Martin, Lloyd Jones, G. Kimball, Morgan,
Harry Ironside Man. So I got going with some really
good books. And you know the other thing, Chuck, because
I didn't have any godly adults growing up, I wanted
to hang around older people more than people my own age,
(15:03):
because I wanted to learn.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
I found the same thing true.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
Yeah, and I really encourage younger preachers today, you know,
to find older preachers and older people in general who've
walked with God and learn from them and listen to them.
I had the privilege later in life of getting to
know Billy Graham crit quite well. Yes, And as he
was ending his crusade ministry, I was starting mine, and
(15:27):
he asked me to help him work in his sermons
and freshen his illustrations up. So I got to spend
a lot of time being with Billy in his home
and on the road. I can tell you personally, he
was everything you hoped he would be. He was down
to earth, humble, godly.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Honestly, one of the most humble men I've ever met.
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Really, people don't believe that. It's the truth. Yeah, genuinely humble.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
He really was.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
That's wonderful. I didn't realize you were that close.
Speaker 2 (15:56):
Well, and so I bet I was constantly asking him questions.
I thought, I've been enrolled in the finest evangelistic university
on earth with access to the greatest evangelist I think
of all time, apart from the Apostles, Billy Graham. So
I took full advantage of it. Oh yeah, And I
wrote a book about it, even called Billy Graham the
(16:17):
men I knew. But he was he was. He didn't
like to talk about himself.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Though I know the feeling.
Speaker 2 (16:25):
You'd ask him something and he said, well, tell me
about yourself, And he had always changed his subject now
and I think that was one of his secrets. Is
it was a genuine humility that he had. But so
I learned from godly older men and women, because I
was also looking for some parent figures, like a father figure,
a mother figure, but someone who was godly.
Speaker 1 (16:47):
So you went to the church, yes, and you became
the teacher.
Speaker 2 (16:50):
Well, I didn't know it was going to be a chrue. Yeah,
I was teaching, and then it began to grow and
they started calling me pastor. Well, I hardly felt qualified
to be a pastor at the age of twenty. I
hadn't gone to Bible school or any kind of school seminary.
And I was studying every day and I was, and
(17:11):
I have to say, and sometimes I was. I was
things I knew that I believed, but I was working
them out theologically and teaching them that evening sometimes And
so it was on the job training. But this began.
I was looking for someone to take it over, and
I couldn't find anyone to take it over. I was
looking for someone older, more mature, and no one had
(17:34):
the time or the interest. And I had this little
flock of about one hundred people at that point. Then
it became two and three hundred people, and I.
Speaker 1 (17:41):
Thought that was pretty good size.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
Man. Yeah, so I thought, well, if I'm going to
be their pastor, i'd better start preparing. So, you know,
I did the best I could, studying as much as
I could, learning from people like you and others, and
you know, and here we are to the present day.
Speaker 1 (17:59):
Isn't it remarkable? His hand was on you all alone. Yes,
And you didn't really and you come from that background.
The last thing in your mind is you're going to
become a leader of other people. You're doing your best
figure out how you're going to be led and how
you're going to live your life.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Yes, well, I'm wonderful. I started out, Chuck, I wanted
to be a graphic artisan, specifically a cartoonist or did
you really So? One of the ways I coped with
the crazy life I was living is I would draw
cartoons and I created my own little world of characters,
and that's what I aspired to be. I used to
correspond with Charles M. Schultz, you know, the creator. He
(18:40):
would very graciously write me letters and encourage me and
are you really? And one time I wrote him, I said,
can I have one of your comic strips? Signed? I
was so bold, I don't know why I was. And
he sent it to me and I lost it. Oh,
and I was in some you're going to say, you
have it framed. I have a letter, he wrote me framed. Still,
(19:01):
but I lost the cartoon strip, which would now be
worth thousands of dollars, but not to mention the sentimental value. Sure,
but but you know, I when I became a Christian,
one of the first things they did was I drew
a little comic book called Living Water, and it was
an evangelistic track, and that was sort of my first
taste of ministry where I was starting to develop not
(19:24):
just as a pastor but also as an evangelist.
Speaker 1 (19:27):
And you're writing now, you're beginning to write yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2 (19:31):
Not like you though, not like you, because don't you
I heard you say once that you would write your
sermons out. You didn't type them. You wrote them out?
Is that correct?
Speaker 1 (19:42):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (19:43):
Yeah, did you ever become a typist?
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Uh? No, I didn't type anything. I wrote them.
Speaker 2 (19:49):
Now, Well, it's a great way to remember.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
Well, thoughts disentangle themselves over the lips and through the fingertip. Nice.
I'll learned that years ago, and and they really do.
And I found if I could push those words through
my fingers, yeah, I can make it happen. So I'm
left handed and on my fourth finger, I have a knot,
and my publisher would always say, let me see that, Nott,
(20:15):
I make sure it's nice and big. You would always
talk to me about that. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
Well, I think you have an extraordinary ability given to
you by God, Chuck. And I'm sure it's all a
part of how you were raised from your childhood to
being in the Marine Corps, well to you know, your
harder days as you started out ministry. But you take
that would just complex and make it understand a lot
of people.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
Yes, I love to do that. Yes, I love to
do that. I love to take the difficult and complicated
and make it so simple people can say, oh, I
get it, I get it, Yes, and they can't believe
it's in the Bible when they realize how they can
grasp this. I think there's a one of the secrets
(21:00):
of speaking publicly is simplifying. Yes, you gave a good
quote earlier, now share that with our right.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Well, you were telling the story of when you went
to a Billy Graham crusade and after he finished his message,
you turned to Cynthia and said, that was so simple,
and Cynthia said, honey, he knows what he's doing. And
you were sort of kind of a little perplexed by.
Speaker 1 (21:24):
Angel Stadium and they were people sitting all around me,
and I thought, nobody's going to go forward, was I
roll or what?
Speaker 2 (21:33):
So I mentioned to you that I saw an interview
that Billy Graham did with David Frost, a British interviewer,
and Billy said to David Frost, I studied to be simple.
And I think it's interesting because you know, if you
listen to the younger Billy Graham, he spoke rapidly, and
some of his earlier messages almost were like Bible studies.
(21:56):
But as later in life, especially when he entered his
final years, it got simpler. It did simpler it. I
saw him in New York and this final sermon, and
he just turned to the crowd and he said, God
loves you. Then he turned to another section, God loves you,
and he turned to the others, God loves you.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
Know.
Speaker 2 (22:18):
He didn't have the full capacity he had when he
was younger, but even a diminished Billy was better than
most preachers because he had lived this godly life. Sure,
and he was almost like a prophet of God just
giving this simplified message.
Speaker 1 (22:34):
Remarkable. Well, you obviously have developed the same thing. Try
and now you're in this gathering, and at some top
point along the way, you emerged into a church.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Yes, it continued to grow. And one day in the
eighties I got a call from some publication and they said, well,
as a pastor of a megachurch. And I'd never even
heard that term.
Speaker 1 (23:00):
I hadn't either. I didn't know what that meant when
I first heard that.
Speaker 2 (23:04):
So suddenly you find yourself pastoring a large congregation of
thousands of people. It's not something I aspired to do. Frankly,
I felt that God was calling me to be an
evangelist for the first years of my ministry. But then
it dawned to me that God had called me to
do both. I was called to be a pastor and
an evangelist. But I'll say this, I love to do crusades.
(23:28):
We still do them today. I love to speak give
evangelistic messages, and they're quite different in their structure and
delivery than in teaching that. My favorite thing to do
is to be at home with our church and just
teach them the word of God. That's my sweet spot. Yeah,
happy place in the pulpit. You know you've done your work.
(23:50):
Oh yeah, and you know, and you've and you're delivering
that message.
Speaker 1 (23:54):
Open that book up. Yeah, and you watch those faces
light up. There's nothing like that.
Speaker 2 (24:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Oh, that's great. That's great. Now you you live all
these years and you've watched changes take place. Yes, talk
about that if you will. How have things changed in
the realm of evangelism? Yeah? Is your approach pretty much
(24:23):
the same or have you altered it to fit this
particular era in which we live? And how is that
different from the way it once was you first got underway?
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Very excellent question. I think that the essentials don't change.
It's you know. I once asked Billy Graham Billy if
an older Billy could speak to a younger Billy, what
advice would you give yourself? And I'd like to ask
you that question after But and he said, I would
tell myself to preach more on the blood and the
(24:56):
Cross because that's where the power is. So I think
you always need to remember that. Berchan would say, as
an evangelist, you make a line to the cross, the powers,
and the cross in his death, his resurrection, the need
for the person to repent of their sin put their
faith in Christ. But everything has changed so dramatically, not
(25:18):
only in the lat I've been preaching for over fifty
years now and it's changed a lot over the years,
but I would say even in the last ten years
it's changed dramatically. Like when I started doing evangel those crusades,
you know, the internet was just coming into place. There
were no cell phones yet. But today with the cell phone,
(25:43):
you know, and with the young generation and the impact
that's had on them, it's a very different time. Their
attention span is very limited. Yes, I find that they're
almost completely biblically illiterate. There was a time when you
could say Noah's Arc or Adam and Eve in the
garden references from scripture. This young generation don't even know
(26:07):
what you're talking about. So I find I have to
define everything as I go. I don't assume if I
say you need to accept Jesus Christ into your life,
I don't assume they even know what that means. And
I find that I have to break that down and
explain what I mean by each of those terms, even
accept Christ into your life or you know. So I
(26:28):
find it's like Paul and marsh Hill. He took time
to assess the culture. He took time to study the
philosophies that were popular, and then he used the story
of the unknown God they erected for the one god
they may have missed among the thousands that they worship.
And he said, today I want to talk to you
about the unknown God. But he built a bridge to
(26:50):
his audience. But then you know, he brings him the
message to the Gospel. So I find that I'm constantly adapting,
and I use cultural references to start, But it always
comes down to the power of the scripture.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
Where you were when were you led to move it
into a true crusade where it became harvests crusade which
is known all over the country.
Speaker 2 (27:16):
Now, well, I was, I always gave invitations for people
to come to Christ like you do, Chuck and your messages. Yes,
and we would do little outreach events here and there.
But Pastor Chuck Smith in around nineteen eighty nine asked
me to come down and speak at his church and
do sort of an outreach Bible study for youth what
(27:38):
you did on Monday nights. And it began to grow.
It got really large. We were overflowing, and it was
Chuck's idea to go to a larger venue. And he said,
let's go to a bigger venue and do a crusade,
like a Billy Graham crusade. And I said, okay, well
that'd be great Chuck. You know I could speak, and
some of the other guys could speak. He said, now
I think you should just speak. And then I said, well,
(28:00):
where do you want to go? And he said the
Pacific Amphitheater, which seated around, I don't know, eighteen thousand people.
I said, well that's a pretty big place, Chuck, and
he said, well, we serve a pretty big God. And
so we took a step of faith and went there.
We broke their attendance records in the first week. And
then the next year we went to Angel Stadium and
(28:21):
we've been there ever since.
Speaker 1 (28:22):
No, that's ron known that in the Angel Stadium. And
what a great, great crowd you have, what interest there is?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
Well, you were with us when we did it here
in Texas at AT and T Stadium, and that was
the largest crusade we've done with over one hundred thousand
people in attendance.
Speaker 1 (28:40):
It was a wonderful experience.
Speaker 2 (28:42):
It was great. So you know, so, yeah, that's it
was his idea. And you know you've heard the expression
if you see a turtle on a fence post, you
know he didn't get there by himself. Right. So I
think I look at my life and I see these
things that God has done, and I just realized I
could have never done these things. But I know that
(29:04):
the Lord is on the Door's not unlike you, because
I've heard you say you never planned on having a
radio ministry. You never planned on becoming a writing ministry,
or the chancellor of never DTS or starting a new
church later in life. Right, that was a very bold move.
Speaker 1 (29:24):
Right. I was fifty nine when I went to Dallas
Seminary and then I started the church here. I was, well,
my goodness, I was getting up in years by then,
and they wanted me to come as president. I couldn't
say no fast enough and Sidy said to me, why
(29:45):
did you say no? I said, because I'm not presidential.
I'm not one of those, you know, wonderful, beautiful minds
that you know walk around a seminary. And there she said,
they know who you are, they know what they're asking.
And I said, it's just I'm not this is not me. Well,
(30:07):
they came again and I said no, and they came
the third time, and long story short, I finally came
to realize that God wants me to say yes, yes,
and he wanted me to go as a shepherd. I
could do that, and I shepherded the students. I haven't
shepherded the faculty. Some of those men said to me
(30:29):
they never had heard a grown man say to them
I love you in their lifetime. Yes, And I regularly
told him that, and that isn't you have to be
brilliant to do that, right, But you do have to
be vulnerable, yes, And you have to be willing to
say that to another man. Greg I've had men just
(30:53):
weep when they hear that. And when I got ready
to leave the seminary several came into my office at
different times and they just cried because they said, We've
never had someone who really loved us like this, Which
(31:13):
tells you that's what really cuts through, is it, that's
what really reaches the heart? Speaking of that brings up Kathy.
Speaker 2 (31:22):
I was just going to ask you about Cynthia, but
go ahead.
Speaker 1 (31:25):
So you're you're rolling along teaching the Bible and this
group is growing, and Chuck has got ideas for you,
and where does Kathy fit into all this?
Speaker 2 (31:35):
Well, I was doing this little Bible study and there
were these three girls that showed up. It was Kathy
and her two sisters. And I don't know why, but
she caught my eye, Kathy, and it's almost like a
light was shining down on her, and it was actually
her sister holding a flashlight over her head.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
Not really, I appreciate, But you're also a red blooded
American boy.
Speaker 2 (31:56):
Yeah, And I don't want people to think I'm just
like checking out girls while I'm preaching. But I did
notice Kathy, and afterwards I said to her, Hey, would
you like to go out and get some dessert after church?
And she said yes, and so we went. The three
of us went out or the four of us or
three sisters and me. Then the next time I spoke,
(32:17):
I said the same thing, when I go ahead and
get some dessert, and she got her sisters and we
went out. Then the third time, I said, well, let's
go get some dessert after church, and she said I'll
get my sisters. And I said, I don't want your sisters,
I just want to go with you, and so chuck
we we we fell in love pretty quickly. But there
could not be two more opposite people than Greg and Kathy. Really, oh,
(32:40):
we're just the exact opposite. I'm messy, she's very neat.
I'm usually very close to being on time. She's sometimes late.
She you know, she's cute, I'm fat. What can I say?
We're different. But we had three big breakups like I
don't want to be see you ever again, and we'd
(33:01):
break up, then we then we would get back together,
and then we'd break up again. So we got it
all out of our system.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Got all the wake ups all the way, and then we.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Got married and we have celebrated fifty two years of
marriage together. And and so you know, I couldn't have
done what I do have done and what I do
without her. She's my number one counselor and she'll always
tell me the truth.
Speaker 1 (33:26):
Good and yeah, we need wives for that reason.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
Sometimes a little too.
Speaker 1 (33:30):
Much, well I know, but you got to have it.
Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah, And she's been with me through all of it.
You know, we went The hardest thing we've gone through
is when our son died in an automobile accidents in.
Speaker 1 (33:42):
Two thousand and eight.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
Yes, it was, yeah, and it was I.
Speaker 1 (33:45):
Couldn't believe it when I heard it. Yeah, everything in
my life at that moment stopped. I'm serious. We prayed
for you as a family and sent in as a
couple because we identified we have two boys and we
have two girls, and so I couldn't imagine losing one
of them. It's like you couldn't if you don't mind
(34:10):
walk through that with us.
Speaker 2 (34:13):
Well, we have two sons, Christopher and Jonathan. Yes, and
Christopher was a little bit of a wild boy. He
was always a good boy, but he had a wild side.
He went on a went for a time where he
was a prodigal walking away from the Lord. Always was
respectful and loving and a good son, but he was
(34:34):
away from the Lord. He made a recommitment to christ
and was walking with the Lord and had gotten married
and had a baby, our first granddaughter, Stella. He became
a very talented designer and he was the lead designer
at our church in Riverside. He was on his way
to church early in the morning, about nine oh one,
(34:59):
and he he collided with a Caltrans vehicle and we
we found you know, I was my wife was having
a Bible study with his wife, Brittany and some other ladies,
and Brittany was texting Christopher like what are you doing
or something. He wasn't answering, and I texted him and
(35:21):
no answer. Then I was calling the church. I couldn't
get an answer. I knew something was terribly wrong, but
I didn't know what it was. And then people started
showing up at my house. And then finally some of
our pastors told me that Christopher went to be with
the Lord. And it was like, you know, I don't
know how to describe it. It's like all the air
(35:42):
left the room. It's like time stopped. I collapsed and
I just thought my world. You know, I'm a Christian,
I'm a pastor, but I thought my world just ended.
Like how do you survive this?
Speaker 1 (35:56):
I have no idea.
Speaker 2 (35:57):
I felt if words could kill you, I could have
died from hearing those words. And Kathy saw me and
actually took my face in her hands and she said,
it's going to be okay. And she doesn't even remember
saying this. And there's only one person who could have
said that to me, and it was her, and okay
meaning not that this is good. We will survive this,
(36:20):
we will make it, will make it, because I just
look like, how do you survive this? And even though
as a pastor had presided over many services, sadly many
first children who died, I thought, well, I know a
little bit about this.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
It's quite different when it's your own.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
It's completely different.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
Did you take some time off?
Speaker 2 (36:39):
I did take some time off. I but you know,
here's the interesting thing. I just fell on the floor
and I prayed a job like prayer, and I said, Lord,
you gave him to us, and I give him back
to you. And people have asked me when of you
felt the presence of God more than any other time
in your life. And I would say that was the
moment that God was with me. You know, his strength
(37:02):
is made perfect in weakness. And I was just saying, interestingly, Chuck,
you kind of play a role in this, and you're
teaching from a distance. I was listening to your teaching
on the radio and you talked and I don't remember
the exact quote. It might be a Toeser quote, but
it's something before God can use him and he is
(37:22):
to hurt him. Is this Ringabella Tozer?
Speaker 1 (37:26):
Is doubtful? God can use anyone greatly until he has
hurt him deeply.
Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yes, that's a hard one.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
That's a tough one.
Speaker 2 (37:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
I've had some people say I don't believe that. Yeah,
that nice, God cruel. Yes. On the contrary, when you
have been hurt deeply, you change. Yes, you deepen. Yes,
you deepen, you get quiet, You become more thoughtful, more compassionate,
(38:04):
more care more understanding. That is the making of a
good shepherd. There's a Scottish saying, some things are better
felt than tellt people can tell when you have a heart.
(38:30):
You don't get a heart by taking a course on
how to get a heart. You don't read a book
on here's how to develop a heart. You go through
the heartbreaks of life and out of that emerges an
incredible world that never had been developed before. Yes, so
(38:56):
that you have a capacity now that you have because
you have lost someone so close to your own heart,
and you'll never forget it.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (39:12):
It prepares you to touch the lives of those who
come with that empty, dreadful expression. I feel lost. I
feel like I can't go on. I feel like I've
I've reached the end. And you can say you're gonna
(39:35):
make it. Yeah, and let me tell you how I
know you, and you can tell them your story. Yes,
I love another Toeser quote, and you'll love this. May
not The inadequacy of much of our spiritual experience be
traced back to our habit of skipping through the corridor
(39:55):
of the kingdom like children in the marketplace, always shattering
about everything, but pausing to learn the true value of nothing.
Speaker 2 (40:07):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (40:09):
I love that quote, Bob. You've learned the true value
of life and the true meaning of death and grief
and sorrow and bone deep pain. There aren't words you
(40:31):
can use to describe what you and Kathy endured. You
may try, but only those who have lost one of
their own will say that's exactly the way it was
with me.
Speaker 2 (40:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:50):
Gives you a capacity, a depth, and that may explain
Greg why even though you may not have had all
the academic training you may have I wish you would
have had, or you may not have had all the
breaks that you would love to have had, or those
(41:11):
first seventeen eighteen twenty years of your life you know
at the knee of some godly individ Wait wait, wait,
You've had the Lord Jesus Christ right there in the
depth of your life, at moments that defied explanation, as
(41:36):
you reached in and quietly developed you in ways you
would not have been developed. Job writes Job twenty three
ten through twelve. Get this, but he knows the way
that I take. When he has tried me, I will
(42:00):
come forth as gold. My foot has held his steps
his way of I kept it, not declined. Neither have
I turned back from the command of his lips. I
have esteemed prized value the words of his mouth more
than my necessary food. Yes, that's why in deep grief
(42:24):
you lose your appetite. You're feeding on divine manner that
comes to minister to you from the heaven least provided
for you by the Lord your God. I so respect
(42:46):
you for going through it and being able to talk
about it and letting it change you. I've seen people
refer to it almost glibly. Oh yeah, me lost to No,
don't don't say it like that. Joe Bailey lost three boys.
(43:11):
Three boys, one is a baby, uh, one older, and
the other in a sledding accident, of all things. And
Joe said he wrote a book called A Few from
the Hearse.
Speaker 2 (43:29):
I read that book, loved the book.
Speaker 1 (43:32):
Joe's gone now, but his son was one of our
interns at Fullerton, and and and Joe said, some came
and and then they talked and talked and talked and
talked the whole time. I couldn't wait for them to leave.
You experienced that. And some came and sat by us,
(43:55):
said very little, if anything, loved us, And I never
wanted them to go away. I love that statement. Yeah,
I love it. When will we learn say less so
(44:15):
that you can minister more? Yes, when you get alongside
people and you put your arm around them and you
tell them you understand, you're helping them see aside of
Christ they have not seen before, and you're not saying
much at all, That's why I'm glad you. I was
(44:39):
reluctant to get into it, not knowing how you have
worked it through. But it's obviously changed you.
Speaker 2 (44:52):
Yes, well, thank you for all that you said. That
was just so powerful, And I know that's going to
be a blessing to so many people as it was
to me personally. It's like I was given the greatest
person counseling session from the greatest preacher on the worst
moment of my life. And it meant so much to me.
(45:12):
And I'm going to go back over what you've said
to me. It was very moving to me. Greg.
Speaker 1 (45:19):
You have depth. You may feel young, you may feel,
you know, overwhelmed. My opportunities that opened on. God knows
what he's doing. Yes, God knows what he's about. Yeah,
he knows who he's using. He not only knows your name,
(45:43):
he knows the depth the length of those tests. He
plans both the depth and the length of tests. So
when you stand to speak, you know what, Greg, I
don't even have to be told this. You're not important
at all. You are quietly amazed that they're even there.
(46:09):
I constantly live like that. I'm constantly surprised that someone
reads for something I write, or they listen when I speak,
or or they they enjoy things that I enjoy when
I'm sharing it with him, And I just think, Lord,
you're too good. How could you use a kid that
(46:30):
wasn't even wanted, like you've used me, and like you're
using Greg, And what an absolute privilege. Stay surprised, Yes,
just stay surprised. I'm convinced Graham when he stood there
(46:51):
and watched the stadium field fill up first base and
then out in the outfield, and more than in the
in the into the bullpen. They had to put them
right there at Angel Stadium. Remember yes. And I thought,
said to Cynthia, how wrong I was when I said
it was so simple, It was too simple. You're You're right.
(47:12):
He knew exactly what God would have him say. Sometimes
we just need to step aside in our spirit and
let him take it, take the credit, take the glory,
take the message, take the opportunity. I spent too many
(47:35):
times in my life saying no, no, I can't do radio.
I don't do radio on I don't even listen to
Christian radio. And Alexander said to me, well many people do.
And he said, can I show you a little sample?
And I said, yeah, sure. Well I took it home
(47:55):
and played it with Cynthia listening, and I go wow.
He kind of put it together, and he said, we'll
be the first broadcast that goes out up where we
used the live audience. Everybody else went to a studio
back then. But you're gonna we're gonna use I said,
you mean all the coughing and sneezing and baby crying.
(48:15):
He said, yeah, that's real life. And they loved that. Oh,
and he was so right. I was so wrong. And
when the dear friend in our church made me to
write the book for those who hurt, I just spoken
on it and I said, no, I don't do books.
I'm got my hands full doing sermons. He said, you
(48:37):
got to write this book. Whatever it costs, i'll pay
for I said, I don't know what it costs. I
don't know how to write books. I don't do books.
You've got to do this within a book. He almost
yelled at me, So I said to my secretary. The
next day, Larry Crusing came down the isle of day.
Last night he was flaming. I found out later his
daughter had run away. He was hurting, and he said,
(49:01):
what you said is exactly what I needed to hear.
I need to read it and read it again and again.
I finally found a publisher that would. I was nobody.
I'm still nobody, but at least I've written a few things,
and back then nobody wanted to publish it. No, but
(49:22):
there's not a place for that. That little book is
still in print. So Monoma Press, a little press up
in Oregon. John Bendy said to me, oh, we'll take
this manuscript. We'll make this into a gift book. Indeed
they did, along with Second Wind Killing John's Pulling Thorns,
(49:46):
growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, Come before Winter,
all of those from little excerpts of things I've been
writing our church under heading of thinking Over. I never
dreamed it would ever go into them. I'm telling you, Greg,
I never dreamed I would ever be a writer. Ever.
(50:07):
That's the truth. I'm not trying to be humble. I'm
saying I didn't. I didn't have the thought of that.
And it was like, good night, you're kidding. That's the
first response when they said, man, these books are flying
off the shelf. When's the next one, I said, I've
(50:28):
already written a book, that's the thing. But they want
more books. You know how that goes, Greg, There's always
a place for anyone who will truly let God lead
his life. Stay out of the way, lie Lo, stay surprised.
(50:59):
We don't need agents. Well, we don't need big time
people out front. We don't need flags. We don't need
to promote our own stuff and carry our books in
the trunk of our cars and beg people to buy him. No, no,
God will take care of them. He brought David out
of the sheep folds from following the hues great with young.
(51:22):
He brought him to feed Jacobs people and Israel his inheritance.
Speaker 2 (51:26):
Get this.
Speaker 1 (51:27):
So he fed him according to the integrity of his heart,
and he guided them with skillful hands. Yes, so I'm
seventy eight inns with those beautiful verses.
Speaker 2 (51:39):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (51:41):
Took him from the sheep, and he felt oil running
down his neck, and he thought, what's this? You know,
average God run down the north swim and start buying
crowns because they're going to be king. Yeah, Nope, David
went right back with the sheep.
Speaker 2 (52:00):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (52:01):
Next time we see him, he's fighting a giant not
to be seen. But because this uncircumcisedful esteem has no
right to talk about God's people like he's been doing.
And he took that sling and He slung at the rock,
hid it right between the running lights, knocked it right down,
(52:23):
took that head and walked up to Saul and said,
well here it is, Saul goes, who is this? David
has never impressed with himself? And then Saul, you know,
began to chase him. Twelve thirteen years David said, what
have I done? Said to Jonathan, what have I done?
Speaker 2 (52:45):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:47):
What have I done against Saul?
Speaker 2 (52:48):
Nothing?
Speaker 1 (52:49):
Nothing? Why is he trying to kill me? It's all
part of learning, Dave. You're learning the king it, You're
learning how kings live. You'll continue to be shot at
and speared, talked about and criticized. Stay at it, stay
at it. Cynthy and I have the favorite line, stay
(53:11):
at it. Yeah, stay at it like you and Kathy.
Speaker 2 (53:14):
Yes,
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