🔥 STABBED THROUGH THE HEART—THEN HE MET JESUS FACE-TO-FACE ✝️

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I went face to face with Jesus. No matter what
anybody thinks, nobody can ever steal that from me or
pull that back from me. I know how real he is.
And he started talking to me. He said, son, you've
been running from me. And then a slideshow of my
life began. I saw me chopping up cocaine. I see
me partying with lots of women. I was very promiscuous.

(00:23):
He's showing me slideshows of the sex, of the drugs,
of the rock and roll, of all the sins. Everything
that I glorified, everything that I was running to, he
was showing me like a slide show. And then all
of a sudden, every time I would show it, he
would show me my depravity. I would cringe, but he didn't.

(00:43):
He wasn't showing me this out of judgment. He was
showing me my life. You've been running from me, son.
And then he said, if you continue down this road,
then all of a sudden the slide show stops and
two dungeon doors to my right open up. In the
most extreme heat that I've ever felt in my life,
I'm looking at these flames. He's showing me the lake

(01:04):
of hell. Two doors open up, and from the slideshow
comes a lake of hell, and I hear screams. I
hear people screaming. I hear chanting. I look down, and
I'm seeing cages down in there, and I don't see Satan.
I didn't go to heaven and see Satan. the pearly gates.

(01:25):
I didn't see gold dust. I came face to face
with Jesus. And I'm having a dialogue now. And now
he's showing me this slideshow. And he says, if you
continue down this road, this is what's going to happen.
You're going to spend eternity somewhere, son. It's what he said,
just like that. And he said, this is where you're,
this is the lake of hell. But son, if you'll
run to me harder than you've been running from me,

(01:47):
I'll let you live.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Okay, Pastor Rod, thank you so much for your appearance
on the Cross Files podcast. We are honored and blessed
by you so much. Pastor Rod, do you mind if
you open us.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
Up in a word of prayer, please?

Speaker 1 (02:07):
I'd be honored.

Speaker 3 (02:08):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (02:09):
Father God, we just thank you. Father God, we just
love you. We honor you. And we just welcome you, God,
into this broadcast. And we just thank you, Father, that
you're going to meet each and every one of us
intimately and individually. So, Father, I just pray for encounters
with you. I'm thankful for every humor and every person
that will watch the rebroadcast of this video. And we're

(02:31):
thankful for them. But, Father, we're thankful that you're here.
We welcome you here today. And we welcome everyone who
will watch it, who will rewatch it, who will share it.
And we're thankful for each one. But, Father, we just
need you. We're nothing without you. And this broadcast is
all about you, Father. It's all about who you are.
It's not about me. It's not about a man. It's

(02:52):
about you. And so, Father, we just invite you, Holy Spirit.
I feel you even now that you're coming into this broadcast.
Thank you. Just thank you, Father, that you move. Only
you can move on the hearts of man and woman. So, Father,
we just invite you to come and do what only
you can do. And we'll give you all praise, all glory,
and all honor in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
Thank you so much for your prayer and blessing everybody
who watches or listens to it.

Speaker 3 (03:17):
Thank you so much, Pastor Rod. We really appreciate you.

Speaker 1 (03:21):
Okay.

Speaker 3 (03:21):
Thank you so much, Pastor Robert. Honored and blessed. Hey, everybody.
Whether you're watching or.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Listening to the Cross Falls Podcast with my partner in crime, Michael.

Speaker 1 (03:32):
Welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:33):
And tonight, or whenever you're listening to this, whether it's
in the morning or afternoon or evening, we've got a
very special guest here, Pastor Rod Parker. Hi, Rod.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Hi. Good to see you guys.

Speaker 3 (03:48):
Good to meet you, Pastor Rod.

Speaker 2 (03:50):
And if you don't know, folks, Hatcher Rod Parker is
a revivalist, deliverance minister, and author whose powerful testimony of
near death, bondage, and supernatural breakthrough fuels his message of freedom.
Once trapped in shame, addiction, and despair, Rod encountered the
life-changing power of deliverance. Today, he ministers in churches, revivals,
and gatherings across the nation, equipping believers to break strongholds,

(04:13):
walk in their God-given authority, and burn with the fire
of his presence. Rod and his wife reside on a
ranch in far north Texas, where they raise cattle, horses,
and chickens. and run a community farm store. Pastors Rod
and Suzanne founded Jesus Encounters, a retreat center as a
safe place where people can experience Jesus on the real.

(04:37):
At Jesus Encounters, they minister one-on-one to those in need
of inner healing and deliverance or who need advanced healing
for trauma and SRA abuse, that's satanic ritual abuse. Their
passion is to see people heal in spirit, soul, and
body so they can live out their God-given purpose here
on earth. Rod Parker Ministries believes in the power of
God's love, the divinity of Jesus Christ and the guidance

(05:00):
of the Holy Spirit. They believe through faith, the word
of God activated and prayer. We can overcome any obstacle
and live a life of purpose and meaning.

Speaker 1 (05:09):
Amen.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
Thank you so much, Pastor Rod.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
Pastor Rod, could you tell us the beginning of your
story here?

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Yes. It's such an honor to be here. I just
want to say thank you for having me on and
just look forward to getting to connect even more. And
you guys know a little bit about my story, but
for your audience, yes, I'm a pastor and I'm honored
to be called a pastor and flow and the gifts
and all that. But I was a mess of the
nineties and I haven't always been a pastor. And so really,

(05:38):
we just kind of like to start maybe with a
little bit of my childhood and kind of give you
guys a 40,000 foot view of the childhood and kind
of where I got started. I was born into a
Christian home on both sides of my family. My biological
mom and dad were involved in a denominational church with
a lot of legalism and a lot of standards and
stuff like that. And so they were divorced though at

(05:59):
one years old. And so at one years old, divorce
hit my life. And that's really where generational stuff begins
because a lot of divorce is generational curses that it
gets passed down. And so right from the start, They
were from a denominational church in the 60s, and you
just didn't get pregnant, number one. So I think they
were dating. They got pregnant with me. They got married,

(06:22):
and then I was born, and it just didn't work.
My mom was 18, and my dad was 17. They
were just kids. And after a divorce, my mom kind
of wanted to get out of that legalism where they're
measuring the length of your dress and women couldn't wear makeup.
And it was, yeah, it was a pretty strong standard
in that day. So she grew up under that bondage
and under that heaviness. And she wanted to go. And

(06:45):
so she did. She ran to the world and married
a guy that was a charmer, but really he was
a womanizer. He was an alcoholic. He came from an
abusive life. And so he was an abuser. And so
at age five, I'll kind of fast forward to kind
of back and forth. Like I said, my parents were divorced.

(07:05):
My mom quickly got with this guy and remarried. And
that just broke my dad's heart. And there was a
lot of Jerry Springer kind of stuff. I'm talking about
David Cohn fighting. And so there was a lot of
dysfunction that I witnessed at a young age. At five
years old, my dad won custody of me. I was
five years old. I had to be in a courtroom
and pick which parent I wanted to live with because...

(07:29):
The life I was living with my stepdad and mom,
my dad didn't like it. He didn't like the partying
and the drugs and all the violence and all that.
But I was raised by partially my two grandmothers, Pentecostal
praying grandmothers. So this broadcast is not just for the
old folks or the young folks. It's for the praying mother,
the grandmother praying for her prodigal, because that's really what

(07:51):
I am. I'm a prodigal who has come home not
just once, but two or three times. And so my
story is pretty wild. So buckle your seatbelts. And because
it's not always pretty, I'm going to take you through
the valley of the shadow of death. And there's been
mountaintop experiences that I'm thankful for. And thank God that

(08:11):
the Bible says that we, though we walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, doesn't say we stay there.
The key word. And so I'm just thankful for the
Holy Spirit moving in on this call. And so my
prayer is that I know there's a lot of people
that have probably had a story like mine who have
had abuse at a very young age. And so I

(08:32):
just really want you to know that God hears you,
God sees you, and he's no respecter of persons. And
if he brought me through it, he can bring you
through it. And so that's really what my story is
all about is his redemption and his grace. So I'm
going through that. I'm five years old. I'm having to
pick if I want to live with my dad or
my mom. I'm sorry for getting emotional. It's just sometimes

(08:56):
the Holy Spirit gives me a grace to be able
to go right back there. And so I do that.
My dad wins custody because I got to go to
church all the time with my dad and be with
my grandmothers and all that. So I saw that as
a place of safety. And I saw being with my
mom kind of a place of craziness, really. And my
mom couldn't handle that. When my dad got custody of me,

(09:17):
that kind of went on back and forth for, I
don't know, six months, a year. And then my mother
and my stepdad had remarried and started a family. And
so I never really felt like I really was wanted
with my stepdad and my mom. Or when I would
go with my dad, I didn't really feel totally wanted.
It felt tolerated, if you will. Not celebrated, but tolerated

(09:38):
going back and forth because my mom and my stepmom
had a lot of friction. And so I think there
was a little bit of resentment there. And I felt it.
But I loved it because I always got to be
with my grandparents. And so they really were my safety blanket,
my intercessors, my cheerleaders, that whole thing. They helped raise me.
So my mom, the last visitation, she didn't bring me back.

(10:00):
And so she basically crisscrossed the nation. The guy that
she was married to was a fraud. And she didn't
know him. She didn't realize that she was marrying someone
with so much dysfunction. But they got married pretty quick
in the relationship. Long story short, we start traveling from
state to state. Before I was the age of 13,
I probably lived in 25 states. And so he was

(10:20):
getting from the feds because what he would do is
he would go to another town and he would steal
mail and he would make fake driver's license. So he
could go steal insurance checks and just become that person,
go to the bank and cast a check. And so
the feds were on him and we didn't even know him.
So I would, there'd be a U-Haul in our driveway,

(10:41):
sometimes at 12, two o'clock in the morning, we're getting
woke up and being actually having to leave and pack
our stuff in the middle of night to leave. And
so that's kind of, so growing up, I was the
new kid a lot in school. And a lot of
times I wouldn't even get to say goodbye to my friends.
Being the new kid, a lot of times you come
in and people want to try you out. They want
to see what the new kid has. And I was small.

(11:03):
And so I grew up scrappy, having to fight for
my right, if you will. And- Fast forward, I'm age
13 now. It's coming, fixing to come full circle with
my stepdad and my stepmom and my real mother. We
come back to Texas after hitting all those states. I
didn't see my dad, my biological father for about seven years.
We didn't even know that the feds were on our trail.

(11:25):
They knew it and he knew it. But as a kid,
we were oblivious. We were just having fun, doing our thing.
I didn't know it until I started seeing unmarked cars.
We come back to Texas. We moved just a couple
miles from my father, my biological father. And I'm starting
to get to see and get visitation with my father.
And things were pretty good, but then I start seeing
unmarked cars in the alley circling our house. They'd finally

(11:48):
caught up with my stepdad. And I think they thought
my mother was part of it. So they came in
and raided the house, guys. At that time, I had
a little brother and a sister and a stepbrother. So
I had three other siblings in the house that I
was growing up with. Loved them very much. We're very close.
But one day, one afternoon after school, they came in

(12:08):
and raided the house and got the driver's license board
and all the evidence and arrested both my mother and
my stepdad. Watched them handcuff them, put them in a car.
And I freaked out. That was traumatic for me. I
was basically chasing cops and trying to hit cops and
keep them from loading my mother up. And I remember
chasing one cop car with my mom in it down

(12:30):
the alley, throwing stuff at it. And then, so here
we are. Now we've got me and my older stepbrother
and my younger brother and sister. And I have to
make a call to California. to my grandparents, to my
mom's parents to come get my siblings because I just
had to make, my dad technically had, my father, my
biological father technically had custody of me. So I just

(12:52):
had to make a phone call and I went a
couple miles away. But my brother and sister had nobody.
And so we called the grandparents in California. They came
down and picked up my siblings, took them back to
California because they had my mom arrested. She was incarcerated
for four months while she was being investigated. They finally
turned her loose because they saw that she didn't have
any involvement. But so now I'm a 13 year old rebellious,

(13:15):
but angry kid growing up and all this dysfunction. Now
my dad, my biological dad and my stepmom, they get,
that's what they inherit. They get a 13 year old
kid that really didn't want to be there. And by
this time, my dad had started a family. I have
three sisters on my dad's side. So I come in
13 years old into a house with three sisters. And

(13:37):
so my stepmom probably didn't give her a little bit
of a rub and a little bit, There, we locked
horns a lot and kind of had a hard time
at first. But I went from one environment of never
going to church, not even on Easter or Christmas or
any of that. to go into a home and living
in a home where we went to church seven or
eight days a week, if it was possible. Seriously, that

(14:00):
side of my family founded a church and my dad
was the worship leader and the lead elder. And so
we would go three or four or five times a
week and we would open the church, close the church.
Our life was church. And so I grew up singing
in the choir and helping to lead worship and things
like that. And so I loved Jesus. I loved the

(14:21):
presence of Jesus and really kind of learned how to
do church, if that makes any sense. I was just
kind of went from this one extreme lifestyle into church
24 hours a day, it felt like, and living in
a fishbowl because my family was... We.

Speaker 4 (14:38):
Live in Western North Carolina, travel a lot. I have
my two children and my wife and I'm curious, is
it better to go.

Speaker 1 (14:46):
To church all the time?

Speaker 5 (14:47):
I've thought about it. We also transplant for the normal listener.

Speaker 4 (14:51):
I'm asking for myself, but also for the people out
there that are thinking like they hear a lot of
corruption in churches.

Speaker 5 (14:56):
What's better, like to have a balance of church or
going eight.

Speaker 4 (15:01):
Days a week, so to speak, like you said?

Speaker 1 (15:04):
I think it would really depend on the church. I
think it's a great question. And I think that's a
question that a lot of families are juggling and wonder about.
But I really believe it's the church. What kind of
church is it? And so I recommend a community church.
There's all kinds of different types of churches. but to
find that the Bible does say, forsake not the assembly.
So some people say, we are the church, and I

(15:25):
can just click on my favorite four or five people
on Facebook or on social media, and then there's no accountability,
there's no tithing, there's no walking out and becoming a disciple.
So I don't think that you need church eight days
a week, and I don't think you need it three
days a week. But I think having a good balance,
you hit that word well ago, I think a good balance...

(15:47):
is is the answer and but that's easy to say
striking a balance sometimes is way harder than just talking
about oh you just need to balance it and so
i would just really bring that before the holy spirit
as an individual a dad a husband and wife spouse
team and go you know what we need to bring
this before the lord and have the lord lead you

(16:08):
in that area but i think every disciple of jesus
should be a part and plugged in and planted somewhere
amen That could be once a week. That could be
once a month. That could be whatever that is between
you and the Father. But I really believe in that
whole thing, forsake not the assembly, because there's so much
that we get out of sharpening each other. And we're

(16:30):
better together. The Bible says we're not friends. We're brothers
and sisters, and you need your family. And so there's
times where iron sharpens irons, Michael. Sometimes I'm going to
need to be able to sharpen you, and sometimes you
can sharpen me. Yes, sir. And that's why I think
church and being a part of a community is very
important for a family.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
I know that from your story that your dad is—
and was and is a very godly man, Pentecostal.

Speaker 3 (16:59):
Pastor, I believe.

Speaker 1 (17:00):
Is that right?

Speaker 3 (17:01):
And a founder of the church that you went to.
And even though it was a.

Speaker 2 (17:05):
Little bit legalistic or a lot of it legalistic, but
still the Holy Spirit still moved through them.

Speaker 3 (17:09):
I went to a church like that, too, for about
two years.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
And so you have the dichotomy of Here's this godly,
loving father and then a very abusive stepfather.

Speaker 3 (17:21):
Do you feel like the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
Has healed your heart because of the abusive nature of
your stepfather?

Speaker 1 (17:28):
Absolutely. Praise God. It's really part of my redemption story
is that, guys, I loved Jesus, and I knew how
to do church, and so I didn't have a salvation problem.
I could preach the sermons. I grew up in church.
I ended up being elevated as a pastor and a
leader in men's ministry. I could preach messages. I could
do altar calls and get people saved because I'm a

(17:50):
soul winner, number one. I didn't have a salvation problem.
I had a sin problem. Okay, and then deliverance. Without deliverance,
I couldn't get over my repetitive cycles of sin. I
couldn't get through sometimes the strongholds, being able to overcome
the strongholds. Because a stronghold is not a demon, and

(18:11):
a demon is not a stronghold. So once I started
getting free, and I explained it almost like an onion, right?
And I'll tell you more of my story about how
I was stabbed through the heart and lungs. Some of us,
I'm truly a miracle walking. You are. And so we
can talk about that. But it was through some of
these encounters that I had. And if your audience is

(18:31):
somebody struggling and even believing in miracles, I want you
to know if you're looking at me, hearing my voice,
I am a walking, talking miracle. I'm a walking dead man.
And so I try to, and I die to self
every day. We have to, the Bible says, if we die,
we live. But I truly was stabbed through the heart
and lung. And I've had some encounters, some supernatural encounters

(18:52):
that have changed me forever and really started getting me
into the journey, should I say, of deliverance. Because I
don't believe and I don't teach that deliverance is a
one and done thing. I do revivals and I do
deliverance meetings and things like that and healing and deliverance
meetings all over the nation and all over the world.
And people will come to the altar and they think

(19:14):
that they can get fixed in a 30-minute service. That
they take 30 years to do. And then return back
to the repetitive cycles of sin. Because every time we
do that, the Bible says that the demons can come
back seven times worse. You're going to probably think this
is funny. I tell people, look, if you're not really
ready to drop your sin, drop your pride, drop your dignity.

(19:36):
Because I think we're a little bit too dignified in
the church. When you're ready to drop some pride and
come to the altar. Noddling those sins. Don't come to
this altar. Because otherwise I'm not doing you any favors.
I don't beg anybody to come to the altar, but
I'm like, if you want. to if you're sick and
tired of being sick and tired you're sick and tired
of going around the same mountain doing the same sin
falling into the same deal come to this altar because

(19:59):
the deliverer is in the house even in this you
may be listening to this call i feel the holy
spirit i can't deliver it's back But as I admit
myself and humble myself, the Holy Spirit uses me like
a conduit. And there is no demon. There's no demon
that's even safe on this broadcast or in these counties. Amen.
When we're full in who we are and in our authority.

(20:22):
Because it's him that does it.

Speaker 3 (20:23):
He's God.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Hallelujah. The Holy Spirit is on this call right now. Hallelujah.
But I had to encounter Jesus face to face. And
it burned me in forever. That's why I burn like
I do. That's why I run with passion because I
promised Jesus in the ceiling tiles of Parkland Hospital that
I would run to him harder than I ever ran
from me. I've been stabbed through the heart and lungs.

(20:47):
And I didn't have a heartbeat. So I could tell
you a lot about church and I could quote scripture
and all that kind of stuff, but I didn't have
a salvation problem. There's a lot of people that are
going to listen to this broadcast that you've walked the aisle,
you've checked the box, you've got the insurance policy, Christianity,
you've done all those kind of things. But you have

(21:07):
a sin problem. You don't have a salvation problem. The
only way to get past the sin problem is to
walk this thing out called deliverance and inner healing and
let the Holy Spirit layer by layer. And so I
can go into talking about the night that I was
stabbed and how I got to actually meet Jesus face
to face.

Speaker 2 (21:28):
Master Rod, we would just love to have you continue
the middle of your story, including the life in the
fast lane and being unfortunately stabbed in the heart. But
then what the enemy is intended for evil, God is
intended for good, but God.

Speaker 3 (21:43):
So we'll just let you continue, sir.

Speaker 1 (21:45):
Right. So we'll fast forward to I was about 17.
I'm playing church. I'm going to church eight days a week,
learning how to do church, doing all those things. And
I love Jesus. I love the presence. And so I'm
a singer. My family, I come from worshipers and worship
leaders on both sides. And when I was in high school,
I was in a show choir and I was also
a wrestler. So back when I went to high school,

(22:07):
it was still cool to be in choir or ensemble
and be an athlete. And so I played baseball, I
wrestled and played football. And so I enjoyed singing. Some
of the kids from church went to my school, my
high school, and they were in choir. So whenever I
went to there, when I came, I had a family
right there at school. I was one way at school, guys,

(22:28):
because I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be,
I liked the girls, that whole thing. And little did
I know, I had all kinds of issues growing up.
I had abandonment issues. I had rejection kind of wounds
that were going on. And I guess that's really why
I really chased after both things. I was really a hypocrite.
I was one way at school and tried to be

(22:51):
in the popular club. And then at church, I was
another way. I was part of the leadership and all that.
So I would act one way at church, be another
way at school. 17 years old, I'll fast forward. I'm
17 years old, start to party a little bit. starting
to smoke pot, starting to drink, and kind of do
that on the secret, on the down low. And got

(23:12):
hooked up with a kid named Robbie Van Winkle from
our town, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice. And so he was Robbie
Van Leekle before he was ever Vanell Ides. And so
I'm 17. I start partying with him, living both lives.
And so my stepmom got sick of that because I'm
bringing magazines that I shouldn't be looking at into the house.
And I got three little sisters. And I mean, I'm

(23:35):
talking about some strong standards. You couldn't listen to country music.
You couldn't listen. So I was a good athlete. I
couldn't even go to the dances. Couldn't go to homecoming.
those kind of things so I would secretly kind of
do that stuff because I was one person at school
and I was kind of one person at home and
they celebrated the fact that I was a pretty good
athlete but when it came to getting to enjoy those

(23:57):
kinds of things with homecoming and all the different things
at school I wasn't able to participate so it was
kind of weird I go from one extreme to another
and Robbie and Lincoln and I start hanging out a
little bit And I started smoking weed, hanging out with
the wrong crowd, and my mom kind of gives me
an ultimatum. At that time, my dad's youngest brother came
to live with us, and he was four years older

(24:19):
than me. He was kind of like my big brother.
So he came in, lived with us for a little while,
and he was a bad influence. So my stepmom came
in one day after many warnings and said, look, if
you guys don't go by my rules, you can pack
your bags and leave. And so I thought, great, see
you later. That was like, that was my exit. And
so we went and got us a one bedroom apartment.

(24:41):
I'm still, when you look back at the big scene,
I'm still in high school. I'm 17 years old. I'm
a senior in high school and I have an apartment.
And now I've got, now my apartment becomes the party pad.
It's where everybody wants to hang out. We're It's coming
to our parties. And actually, the way I met Robbie
Van Leekle, a.k.a. Vanilla Ice, I was having keggers at

(25:04):
my apartment. I'm not proud of this part of my story,
but it is part of my story. And I'm having
keg parties and X parties and Coke parties, all this
kind of stuff. Yeah, it was wild and crazy. So
buckle up your seatbelts because here comes a turbulent little
time in my life. But I'm there. And Robbie Van
Leekle didn't want to pay the cover charge to get
into the party. So we got into a scrap right outside,

(25:26):
and that's how we met, and that's really how we
ended up being friends. I know that sounds wild, but
we scrapped, and the next weekend, we're friends. And that
song was written in the front room of my one-bedroom
apartment as we're passing a water ball. Ice Baby. That
song was written in the front room of my apartment.
We didn't even know that we were writing a song.
We were making up dance moves and making up raps.

(25:48):
Back then I had long hair down to my shoulders
and I could break dance and sing. Wow. All that
kind of stuff.

Speaker 2 (25:55):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:56):
Interesting.

Speaker 2 (25:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:57):
So rap was just kind of hip hop and rap
was just kind of getting started. And I still love
a little bit of hip hop and a Anyways, because
I'm a worshiper, it's a gift that God gives you,
and you want to be able to use that gift. Well,
we're doing, and before we knew it, there was a song.
And before we knew it, here we are on tour.

(26:18):
And then we get asked to open for MC Hammer.
They can't touch this tour. You remember the balloon pants
and the parachute pants? Can't touch this?

Speaker 3 (26:25):
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 (26:26):
So we were opening. Our band, Vanilla Ice, was opening
for MC Hammer. And so this wasn't a very long
lifestyle for me, but I was known as Dr. Feelgood, guys.
I'd get the girls to the parties. I would have
the drugs. I'd have all the party favors. And I
was kind of known. And again, I'm not proud of this,
but I like to tell it because it's part of

(26:47):
the story. Because I want to be able to reach everybody.

Speaker 2 (26:50):
I was fully into MC Hammer in 89 and 90.

Speaker 3 (26:53):
Me too. In Sacramento, California.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
I don't know if you were there, Pastor Rod, but
I was a 17-year-old girl with my Christian ex-boyfriend. We
were together five months, but it wasn't right.

Speaker 3 (27:05):
But anyway, when we went there, oh my gosh. So
even though he was.

Speaker 2 (27:10):
A white guy from California, he was dancing up a storm.
And probably the first and last time he ever danced
up a storm to MC Hammer. And yes, we were
both Christians and we didn't feel like a conflict because
we thought that MC Hammer was a Christian and he
had that in his lyrics. But then some of the
lyrics weren't so Christian. But I know I've heard that

(27:31):
he is now a pastor in Tracy, California, I believe.

Speaker 1 (27:34):
Really?

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Now, if you were there in 1990 in Sacramento, California,
I think it was I forget which Coliseum it was
or what arena it was.

Speaker 3 (27:42):
But but I.

Speaker 2 (27:43):
Remember that I was like, OK, here's MC Hammer. It
was just so electrifying. And but there was a couple
of bands before that. I wasn't sure about the lyrics.
I was like, I'm not sure about that. But anyway,
do you remember being there? Because it would be really funny.

Speaker 1 (27:57):
If you were. I don't know. The 90s for me,
to be honest with you, in that time was a blur.
We literally went from one concert, one event to the next.
But I'll tell you something funny. I was actually born
in Bakersfield, California. Oh, my gosh. I'm a transplant. I'm
a California kid. And I was born in California and

(28:19):
moved to Texas when I was like seven. Something like that. Oh, okay.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
So you were transplanted in California and in Texas.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
Oh, okay.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (28:26):
How interesting.

Speaker 1 (28:27):
I want my testimony to be able to reach those
who maybe are still messing with the vape stick. Maybe
you're still struggling with smoking weed. Maybe you still... Maybe
you have some issues. You love Jesus. But maybe you
just have some strongholds. Maybe you have some issues. But
I was... I was known for having the best cocaine
in Dallas. And so I started partying. When that song

(28:47):
started climbing the charts, you can imagine. Everybody wanted to
be at our parties, guys. And I look back on it,
and it's almost like a blur, because I stayed high
all the time. I was either high, drunk, or coming
down and getting ready to start the next party. And
so really, that's really what my role was when I
went on the road, was to line up the parties,

(29:09):
to almost kind of be security, and have the girls there,
have the party favors there, and all that. It kind
of ended very abruptly in Hollywood. We were opening Our
song went number one that day, and we were supposed
to open for MC Hammer. We said, no, no, you
guys are opening for us. We're number one. We've been
opening for you. So the entourages in the back got
into a fight. And so we all went to gym,

(29:31):
except for MC Hammer and Vanilla Ice, right? And this
was on our senior halls set behind the set. My
parents at the time, to give your audience an idea
of how crazy my life was, is my parents had
no ideas of Hollywood. There would be some weekends I'd
be in Hollywood. We'd be up wherever. In San Diego,

(29:52):
we'd be wherever, partying. And so I had to call
my dad because I'm in jail, nobody to get me out,
to get a bondsman to bail me out of jail
in Hollywood. So that was kind of my end of
being on the road. I never got any credits for anything.
I don't take any credit because that song was a
collaborative kind of a thing with a lot of people

(30:12):
doing that. And so I came home, but I had
a blank book. Well, I came home now because we
were partying with Dallas Cowboy Hall of Famers, Dallas Maverick
basketball players. I was dating and had Dallas Mavericks and
Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and the local strip club girls and
all that kind of stuff was in my black book.

(30:33):
And so I just came home and I just continued
the parties. And so I had a built-in clientele. Now
I have a clientele that can afford what I'm pushing.
Because before, just being in high school, selling a little
bit of weed and selling a little bit of this,
I didn't really have the clientele. But once I had
been doing those parties, now I had a clientele. So
I came back and started slinging drugs all over Dallas,

(30:55):
started working with the cartel, and I was actually passing
lots of pounds of marijuana across the Texas border. It
was craziness. And I'll take you to the night I
was stabbed. I just... won an arm wrestling contest. It's
about two o'clock in the morning. I have a downtown
apartment at this time, a gated community downtown right by

(31:15):
Reunion Arena. And that was kind of where my clientele
was because I was always down there partying with celebrities.
And I thought I had arrived, guys, because back then
the world glamorizes the making money and fast cars, sports cars, women,
all that is super glamorized. And so that's what I
was chasing. I was chasing it hard and I didn't

(31:35):
want to be a hypocrite. So I was like, you
know what? I know what the church world is. I
know all that, but I'm not going to be a hypocrite.
I'm going to go for it. And so I dropped
out of high school. And so I kind of had
something to prove. I wanted to prove to everybody that
I could make it. And so here I am partying with,
if I named their names, a lot of them are
in the hall of fame. Some of them became friends

(31:57):
of mine. They were my clients. I'm thinking I'd arrived.
I've got a pocket full of a hundred dollar bills.
I've got I'm partying. I've got it going on. I
start reading my own mail. And so I'm downtown. I
won an arm wrestling contest that night. So I'd been
up for a couple days on a binge. I was
coked up, X'd up, whiskied up. And we come back

(32:19):
to my downtown apartment. I'm counting out. I'd won $ 2, 200
that night, and I'm counting them out on my bed.
And my apartment was so small that I'm counting them out.
I was going to put the money in the safe
because I had drugs in the apartment. I had guns
in the apartment, ecstasy, all kinds of stuff in the apartment.
But I knew that there was a rival. drug dealing

(32:40):
gang and a pimp that lived in the same apartment complex.
And we were competitors a little bit, but I had
a different clientele. So I didn't really see him as competition,
but I knew he was there. But I'm counting out
these $ 100 bills. I look up, y'all, and my front
door was unlocked. They just walked right into my front
living room. I look up and it was like deer

(33:00):
in the headlights. Their eyes are big. My eyes are big.
These are six, about six black guys walk in my apartment. Well,
my brother is in the kitchen, fried up and making
some breakfast. It's two o'clock in the morning and we're hungry.
And we'd been partying and we were had, we are
the champions in the background. We're having a good time.
I just won all this money. We look up, these
guys walk again. Guys, we didn't even think about calling 911.

(33:24):
That wasn't the world we were living in. As soon
as I saw them, it was like me and my
brother Glock guys, and it was like they messed up.
They came in our apartment, and now it's on. And
so they spun out, ran down three flights of stairs,
ran through the pool area, and I saw what building
they ran into. I'm like, oh, we got you now.
They go to the third floor. We were right on

(33:44):
their tail. We go in, and as soon as we
get up there, they open the door, and one guy...
throws a punch. My brother throws a punch. The fight's on.
And it was brutal. All I can say is it
was very bloody. Everybody went to the hospital. When we
opened the door, there was a lot more than just
the six guys that came into my apartment. There was
probably eight or ten. And they started coming at us

(34:06):
with whiskey bottles and they had knives. It was crazy.
But I'm not bragging, but I was in the best
shape of my life. And I knew how to fight.
I knew how to be scrappy. And we walked through
those guys like they were paper targets, literally. I rode
this one guy down three flights of stairs, almost like
a cat would be on top of a surfboard. And

(34:27):
at the end of it, I jumped up and I
ended the fight really quick by kicking him in the head.
And I thought it was over. And again, I'm not
proud of this stuff I'm talking about. But I want
people to know that if Jesus did it for me,
For a guy that was full of sin, full of hate,
full of lust and perversion, he'll do it for you.
It doesn't matter where you're at. Jesus is there. Jesus

(34:50):
is there. But I want you guys to know I'm walking,
I'm running back. We slayed these guys and we're celebrating. Yeah,
we slayed them. My brother goes down, one goes back
through the pool area. And there's two ways to get
back to the apartment. One was through the parking lot
and one's through the pool area. I take the parking lot.
My brother takes the pool area. I hear footsteps coming
up behind me. So I spin around, and I'm like,

(35:13):
do you want some? And this guy knew he had
a knife in his hand, but he had it fisted.
I didn't see it. And so I throw a punch.
It was a haymaker. I just barely grazed him, and
he punched me right in the chest. And it felt
like just a punch in the chest. But right when
I was through the fat sack of my heart and
through my lung. And so, and I had no idea.

(35:34):
So I have all this adrenaline, all these drugs, whiskey,
all this stuff. I'm 10 foot tall, bulletproof. And I
just think he punched me in the chest. He turned
around and took off running. And I'm thinking that's weird
because again, I didn't feel no pain. I didn't feel the,
I didn't see the knife and I didn't feel any pain.
It didn't even knock the air out of me when
he hit me in the chest. So I'm wearing a

(35:54):
white satin shirt from, I'd just gotten home from partying.
So I had this white satin shirt on. And I
start jogging back up three flights of stairs to my apartment.
My brother hears me coming up the stairs. I can
still hear him celebrating. He opens the door and he
has gear in the headlights. He goes, dude, you've been stabbed.
And he just ripped my shirt open. I looked down

(36:16):
and there's a blood stain on that white shirt about
the size of a softball at the time that I
didn't even know it was there. And when he ripped
my shirt open, I looked down, and I could hear
my lung sucking air, because by then, I'm here giving
shark pains, running several flights of stairs, and I'm out
of air. I can't breathe. So I hit my knees
in the entryway of the house, the apartment, roll over

(36:39):
my back, and I'm saying my goodbyes to my brother,
my sister. It felt the way I explained it. It
seemed like that I had saran wrap over my face,
and I knew everything that was going on, but I
couldn't breathe. And so they call 911. So I don't
know if you guys have ever heard of Parkland Hospital,
but that's where they took JFK when he was assassinated
in Dallas, Texas. I was only three or four minutes

(37:04):
from that hospital. And at that time, it was the
number one hospital in the world for trauma, for heart
surgeries and things like that. So they call 911. It
seemed like an eternity because I can't breathe. And it
was probably just a few minutes. They come up there
with a gurney. They load me on the gurney. They
almost dropped me two or three times as they're taking

(37:24):
me down three flights of stairs. And all I can remember, guys,
is I was so sarcastic. I was angry and wanted revenge.
I even told the paramedics, the only one that was
trying to help me. I said, you guys are going
to kill me before you ever give me the hospital.
I remember them loading me in the ambulance. And I
felt the gurney hit me in the back. And they

(37:45):
blowed me in the ambulance. I look up and I
heard the accelerator of the ambulance gas it. And then
I see all the IV shaking. And then everything goes black. Nothing.
Next thing I know, I don't know if it's probably
just two or three minutes. Next thing I know, guys,
it's my spirit now is hovering in the portico of

(38:09):
Parkland Hospital. And at the time, I was in the
remodeling business and the construction business, and my spirit was
hovering at the drop ceilings. You know what I say
when I talk about ceiling grid and the drop ceiling?
That's the way Parkland Hospital's emergency room was, but Port-au-Caché
outside had drop ceiling in it. I used to install
those drop ceilings. So I'm sitting there, and my spirit's

(38:29):
about 12 or 14 feet hovering in the Port-au-Caché of
Parkland Hospital. And I look down, and this is like
watching a movie from 14 feet high, like a drone
just hovering. I look down, and I see this ambulance
coming through the ricochet. As I focus in, they're opening
the doors. They're frantically unloading a body. I look down

(38:50):
and focus in on it, and it's me. It's my body.

Speaker 3 (38:55):
Oh, my goodness.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
And my spirit's sitting there going, that's me. And then
all of a sudden, because my brother... phoned my dad,
which only lived a few minutes away when the emergency
was happening. I see my spirit. So my spirit leaves
the ceiling tiles and it begins to start chasing the
gurney into the double doors open, the two glass doors
for the emergency. They're taking me through. And here comes

(39:18):
my dad. He's chasing and running in. He's chasing the gurney.
My spirit is just following this. And I hear my
dad chasing the gurney and he's speaking in a prayer language.
and he's prevailing in a prayer language and my body's
my spirit's following my body and all of a sudden
i go right back into my body and now i'm

(39:38):
awake i wake up and i said dad i love
you i'm sorry I'm not going to make it.

Speaker 3 (39:45):
I'm dying for more.

Speaker 1 (39:47):
And I don't even really remember why I would say
I'm sorry. But I remember I said I was sorry
a couple of times because my dad told me many times, son,
you need to come back to church. He was praying
for his son because he never knew where I was
going to be. I was living a wild life. And
so he told me that he would tell me that
if you don't straighten up, I'm afraid of the call
I'm going to get one day. He got that call.

(40:09):
And so here I am. I'm saying I'm sorry to
my dad. I'm not going to make it. But I
want your audience to really key in on this because
the Holy Spirit really allows me to go right back.
It's a grace that he's given me. And I want
you guys to know that your words have power. And
God used my dad to start a miracle. And he

(40:30):
literally spoke life because the Bible says that your tongue
speaks life or it literally speaks death. And so I'm
sitting there, he's travailing in a prayer language. I come to,
and I say, dad, I'm not going to make it.
I love you. I'm sorry, but tell everybody I love them.
I'm saying all my goodbyes. He said, he stopped in
his prayer language. He said, no, son, you'll live and

(40:50):
you'll not die. Amen. Then he goes, awesome. And so
then they said, sir, we have to take him to surgery.
And so someday my spirit leaves my body. I'm back
up in the ceiling tiles now, and I watch them
charge the paddles to get a heartbeat because I had
no heartbeat. I flatlined. I coded right then, and they

(41:14):
shocked my body, and I watched from the ceiling tiles.
I watched my body come up off the gurney, come
back down with no heartbeat. They charged them up again,
and they hit me again. My body comes off of it,
and I think they got a blip. I don't know.
I'm not sure because everything got bright at that point.
I see them rush me to surgery. through another set
of glass doors. And then all of a sudden it

(41:37):
gets this brightest light. It's almost like this light sucking
me up even further into the ceiling tiles. I'm about
12 feet up and I can see the ceiling tiles.
And this is a funny thought, but I used to
install those ceiling tiles. And as my spirit's up there,
I'm sitting there critiquing their workmanship. I'm like, how did

(41:57):
these clowns get paid? Isn't that crazy? I'm sitting there.
It's out of level. It's out of square.

Speaker 4 (42:02):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (42:03):
All this, I'm going, these guys were clowns, right? As
this is taking me and sucking me up. And I
believe it was taking me into the second. Because right
at that point, I began to come face to face
with the King of Kings, with Jesus himself. It got

(42:23):
closer and it's getting closer and it's getting closer. It
was so bright and beautiful that I realized I see
a silhouette. And then it's getting closer and getting closer
that I'm seeing his face. But what was the most
impactful thing was his beautiful blue eyes. I was experiencing
when I was focusing in, I'm experiencing now the most

(42:47):
beautiful blue you've ever seen in your life. The most beautiful,
every color was like blues and greens and browns. But
it was blue, primarily like blue. And it was prettier
than any ocean I've ever seen, any sky I've ever seen.
Now I'm coming almost nose to nose, y'all, with Jesus,

(43:07):
face to face with Jesus. And I realize there's no
doubt in my mind that it's Jesus. There's no doubt
in my mind that I'm now face to face with love.
And even when I'm talking to you right now, that's.

Speaker 3 (43:20):
Where I'm at right now.

Speaker 1 (43:22):
Right now, I'm face to face with Jesus. And I
want your audience to know that he's not mad at you.
We don't serve a God that's with a big gavel
that's ready to judge you and send you to hell.
He doesn't want anyone to go to hell. Jesus. He
loves you. He's a loving father. And I had daddy issues.
I was abused as a young man. Every kind of

(43:44):
abuse that you can imagine. But right now, I'm face
to face with love. I'm face to face with the
original creation of love. Amen. So I'm feeling love for
the first time. I'm feeling peace. My life was crazy
and it was so scary at times. But as a
little boy, I used to cry myself to sleep and
I would just cry out to Jesus even as a

(44:04):
little boy. But I knew now I'm face to face
with peace. And now there's a dialogue that starts happening.
And for your audience, just so that you kind of
can get, can be there in this frame with me
is I'm nose to nose almost with Jesus. And he
begins to start talking to me like a son. And

(44:24):
I had son and dad issues. So at a moment,
as a miracle, as soon as he began to speak
to me, he said, son, right then I was able
to truly accept my son shit. Now I'm starting to go, oh,
you're my dad. You're my father. You're real. I'm having
this encounter with him and I'm trying to smell his breath.

(44:47):
I can feel his, we're so close that when he's
talking to me, I can feel his breath hitting my cheeks.
I remember kind of going, putting my nose up and
kind of trying to smell him and take him in.
But I was so engulfed in his eyes. It was
like I was brought in and all I could really
focus on was his face. And people ask me all
the time, Rod, you came face to face with Jesus.

(45:09):
What does Jesus look like? And I can tell you
what he doesn't look like. I can tell you he's
not a white boy. He's not a black boy. He's
not a Mexican. He's Middle Eastern. He's a Jew. And
he's the most beautiful person. The most beautiful man I've
ever seen in my life. He is.

Speaker 3 (45:28):
Absolutely. Thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (45:30):
He's Middle Eastern. I can see the crevices in his eyes.
But just a beautiful human being. And then he starts
talking to me. He begins to talk to me. And
as he's talking to me, I'm receiving my sonship. As
he's talking to me, I'm experiencing for the first time,
I'm experiencing true peace, not counterfeit love, not counterfeit peace,

(45:52):
not counterfeit anything. Right? I'm experiencing Jesus. And he says, son,
you've been running from me. And I'm not going to
apologize for my tears, but I just want your audience
to understand where I'm at. He's allowed me, given me
a grace to be with you. So that's why I

(46:13):
have no problem having faith, because I feel sorry for
some people that have never had this kind of encounter,
because I don't require a whole lot of faith. Because
I went face to face with Jesus. No matter what
anybody thinks, nobody can ever steal that from me or
pull that back from me. I know how real he is.
And he just started talking to me. He said, son,

(46:34):
you've been running from me. And then a slideshow of
my life began. I saw me chopping up cocaine. I
see me partying with lots of women. I was very promiscuous.
And so he's showing me slideshows of the sex, of
the drugs, of the rock and roll, of all the sins.
Everything that I glorified, everything that I was running to,

(46:56):
he was showing me like a sledge. And then all
of a sudden, every time I would show it, he
would show me my depravity. I would cringe, but he didn't.
He wasn't showing me this out of judgment. He was
showing me my life. You've been running from me, son.
And then he said, but if you'll run to him.
And then he said, if you continue down this road,

(47:17):
then all of a sudden the slideshow stops and two
dungeon doors to my right open up. And the most
extreme heat that I've ever felt in my life. And
I love fire. You know, I'm a pyro. I love
all that. So I know what heat's about. But I'm
looking at this flames. He's showing me the lake of hell.
Two doors open up, and from the slideshow comes a

(47:41):
lake of hell, and I hear screams. I hear people screaming.
I hear chanting. I look down, and I'm seeing cages
down in there, and I don't see Satan. I didn't
go to heaven and see... the pearly gates. I didn't
see gold dust. I came face to face with Jesus.
And I'm having a dialogue now. And now he's showing

(48:02):
me this slideshow. And he says, if you continue down
this road, this is what's going to happen. You're going
to spend eternity somewhere, son. That's what he said, just
like that. And he said, this is the lake of hell.
But son, if you'll run to me, harder than you've
been running from me, I'll let you live. Yes, Father,

(48:23):
I'll run to you. I'll run to you way harder
than I've ever ran from you. And so I'm told it.
So then everything went black. The conversation kind of ended.
Everything went black again. And I'm told 10 days later,
I wake up in ICU. So I was asleep. I
was a chronicle. My church, I told you I came
from a church that believes in miracles. They believed in prayer.

(48:44):
Now they have the denomination, non-denomination Bible church. And they'd
grown to a mega church status. And so literally there
was people praying for me all over the world just
to wake up.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
So I'm a miracle. I wake up and I wish
I could tell your audience. This is what I was
talking about. When I talked about though I walked through
the valley of the shadow of death and there's mountaintop
experiences and all that kind of stuff, I wish I
could tell your audience as soon as I woke up
that I was ready to just go raw Jesus and
tell you about my encounter and all that. But no,

(49:19):
I did the 360. I did the 360. I did
the opposite. I woke up and I wanted all the credit.
All I could think of was revenge. Because I was thinking,
if I start telling people that I just had an
out-of-body experience, that I just met Jesus, they're going to
put me in a padded cell somewhere. Because they were
already putting my kid and my friends in rehab. And

(49:41):
a lot of them had in and out of rehabs
and this, that, and the other. The life I was living,
as crazy as it was, I'm thinking, if I start
telling people that I had a face-to-face meeting with Jesus
and all this, they're going to think I'm crazy. And
I don't know if I'll ever get out of here.
And I'm thinking, then I begin. I want your audience
to really understand. capture this, because I didn't know this

(50:01):
at the time. I agreed with the enemy right then.
The enemy was lying to me and tried to rob
me of the miracle, rob God of the miracle, because
I began to agree with the enemy. Oh, that was
a hallucination. That couldn't have been real. That's what the
enemy was saying to me is you were high before
you ever got stabbed. You were drunk before you ever

(50:22):
got stabbed. Cracked my chest, had to do work on
my lung and my heart, had to give me all
this morphine and lots of drugs. And it was the drugs.
That didn't happen. That wasn't real. So before I could
ever even talk, I had a trach down my throat
and a hose off my lung and a hose off
my heart. And I'm in ICU, and all this is

(50:43):
going through my brain as I wake up. And I'm
sitting there going, what I experienced in the ceiling tiles, oh,
that was just the drugs. And so I suppressed it.
I didn't even realize that NDE, near-death experience, was an issue,
or was a thing, until about a year ago. I
started telling my story, and I suppressed this story for

(51:04):
over 25 years. I didn't tell it. I thought, yeah,
I couldn't tell it. I didn't tell it. I find
that as I start telling my story, I meet other
people that have near-death experiences, and it's very common for
people to suppress the story for years and years. So, yes,
I'm feeling convicted. All I could think about, guys, when

(51:26):
I woke up was I had a room full of
people that had been praying for me. All I wanted
them out of my face because I had so much
pride that I didn't want people to see me in
that condition, and I just wanted revenge. I was like,
to be honest with you, I was like Scarface. Y'all
ever watch the movie Godfather or Scarface? During that time,

(51:47):
I was living that kind of life. I was like,
these guys screwed up. I woke up. You didn't finish
the job. So now I get to, so all I
could think of was revenge. And within a few days
after me waking up within 24 hours, they had the
trach out, they had the hoses out and they had
me up walking because they didn't want polarity and all

(52:09):
that to set up in my lungs. So I'm starting
to charm the nurses and flirting with the nurses and
I'm getting stronger. And yeah, I'm thinking I'm all that.
This is my world and you're just living in it.
And I'm Superman or something. Right. Cause I just overcame this. And,
I was thinking like, I must be a bad man.

(52:30):
And I'm walking, they're saying, Rod, if you can make
three or four laps around this nurses station, we'll let
you go home. And so it wasn't very long, within
three days, I'm getting released. But right before I was released,
I had the Texas victims of crime show up in
my room. And I had over a million dollars with
the doctor bills. And they showed up, filled out all

(52:51):
the application. When I say I'm a miracle, and there's
layers of miracles here, Yes. The victims of crime in Texas,
victims of crime, picked up my bill. And I didn't
owe a penny.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
Praise God.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
That's awesome. That's just one layer of the miracle, right?
So I go home and I go to my dad's
house with my three sisters because they can help me recover.
I've got staples down my chest and I'm thinking about revenge.
So all I could think about was getting back. I
had said nothing about the out-of-body experience. I had said

(53:26):
nothing about the experience in the ceiling tiles. So I
conned my sister into taking me back to my apartment
so I could get some clothes and get some gear
and stuff like that. Well, I had a plan. So
I knew that they hung out every day at 5 o'clock,
6 o'clock, that gang that stabbed me. They hung out
in the parking lot that I got stabbed in. It
was a gated community, so I had my sister park outside.

(53:47):
I went inside and told her I'd be back in
a few minutes. I pulled my shirt off. I got
my staples still in my chest. I put my. 357 Magnum,
shiny Smith & Wesson behind my buckle, and I go
walk down to that parking lot. And I'm looking for them.
And so I walk back. I do this to guys
for 10 days. 10 days straight, I go to this

(54:08):
parking lot looking to kill somebody, looking for revenge. I
look in their eyes and I say, you guys better
hope I don't recognize any of you because I'll shoot
you and kill you right here. You tell them I'm
looking for them. And by the grace of God, nobody
said anything wrong. Nobody said anything out of line. And
I didn't recognize anybody. So I'll fast forward another week. Now,

(54:29):
three weeks in, it's time for me to go get
my staples out. I walk into this, go back to
Parkland Hospital. My sister had to drive me there, the
same one that had been kind of chauffeuring me back
and forth to my apartment. So I'm sitting there in
this matting of a man. And early on, you guys
told I told you that it was a rival gang.
It was a black guys. I'm sitting there at this time.

(54:50):
I've never been racial in my life. At all. But now,
because I was stabbed by a black person, now I
got a chip on my shoulder and I was a
little bit, I was a ticking time bomb that hadn't
got the revenge I wanted yet. So it's time to
get my staples out. My sister's sitting right next to me.
I'm in this little room, this little waiting room. I
go sign my name and I'm fixed to go through

(55:12):
this procedure to get the staples taken out. God is
my witness. My sister's sitting right there. The door opens
into the waiting room. This giant of a man walks down.
He looks like an offensive lineman from the Dallas Cowboys.
He looks like the guy from the Green Mile. Did
you ever see the Tom Hanks movie, Green Mile? Yeah.
That dude walks in the door.

Speaker 3 (55:31):
Yes, I love that movie.

Speaker 1 (55:33):
Yeah, me too. It's one of my favorites. But this
guy walks in the door. He goes and signs his
name at the little place to sign in. It's only
me and my sister and him. He comes and sits
in some chairs right across from me. But when he
walked in, he and I's eyes locked in. And I
grew up kind of street. He looks at me like
he just saw a ghost. He's looking at me. He's

(55:55):
locked in. I'm locked in on him. He walks over,
signs his name. And as he's signing his name, he's
looking at me. And he comes over and sits right
across from me. Now he's like, almost like me and
you are, Michael, right here. We're looking at each other, right?
And it's awkward. Okay. But he's eyeballing me. And so
I look over at my sister and I used to

(56:15):
be pretty scrappy. And so when I would scrap guys
that were bigger than me, I would always get started
before they get started. I'm going to know there's a
fight before they do. Right. So I looked over at
my sister and I don't know what I was thinking,
but I look over at my sister. I said, this,
I use the N word. I said, don't quit eyeballing me.
I'm going to hurt him right here. And I said

(56:36):
it so loud that I knew that he hurt me.
We were three feet apart, right? I wanted him to
hear me. He never stopped looking at me and started
looking at me harder. Now I've got a decision to make.
This dude is close to 300 pounds, probably 63, 64.
I'm 5'1, 60, and he crushed me. I mean, his

(56:59):
thigh was as big around as my shoulder. It was huge.
And I'm thinking... so I'd have drunk, was lying in
the sand, right, if this guy at this point eyeballed me,
I'm gonna hurt him, so I'm sitting there, and I
pictured myself, I told you guys I was a wrestler,
I was kind of crazy, I pictured myself jumping into
the chair next to him, and punting his head off

(57:21):
his shoulder, and then beating him down, I knew that
the only chance I had was to jump up in
that chair, and kick him in the head, and then
beat him down, because otherwise he'd That's how I'm not
proud of that. Okay. But that's the mentality. That was
my mindset. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (57:37):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (57:37):
That was my mindset before deliverance. I knew Jesus. I'd
been to church. I felt the presence. Right. But I
had a spirit of rage. I had a spirit of
murder on me and it was a spirit. And here
I am. I jump up in the chair next. I'm
looking down on him. I'm like, dude, why are you
eyeballing me? And guys, he looks up at me and

(57:58):
he said, sir, I'm so sorry. And he begins to
almost start crying. His face starts jerking. His eyes begin
to water and fill up. He goes, sir, I'm sorry
for being disrespectful. I didn't mean to stare. But you're
a miracle. And I go, what? I step down off
the chair. What do you know about me, man? You

(58:18):
don't know me. He goes, you're right. I don't know you,
but I know you're a miracle. See, I was born
with a heart. issue. I had defective heart valves and
I was in, I was at Parkland hospital laying in
the emergency room, ready to have emergency procedure done on
one of the valves of my heart. And I'm laying
there and I watch a, I watched them bring your

(58:40):
dead body. I heard them on the radio saying that
they lost you in the ambulance and that you had
coded and they were prepping and getting the team ready.
And your emergency was more important. It took more of
a priority than mine. I'm laying behind a curtain and
I watched them, Will your dead body park into the
emergency room? And then I watched a man, I guess,

(59:02):
that came in chasing the gurney, speaking in a prayer language.
And you were saying sorry, and you were saying your goodbyes,
and your dad said... no, son, you'll live and not die.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
And here you are. You're a miracle.

Speaker 1 (59:14):
And by that time, I'm in tears. I'm sitting there going, whoa,
because this guy just unpacked all of my out-of-body experience,
all of my face-to-face meeting with Jesus that I hadn't
even admitted. I don't know. enough or I didn't have
enough courage I didn't have enough maturity whatever it was
you can chalk it up to whatever it was but

(59:36):
I never I wanted all the glory all the things
that I wasn't willing to even talk about here this
guy three weeks later is unpacking it and my sister
is sitting right there listening to it I asked him
I beg him forgive me I'm so sorry for using
the calling you what I called you and acting the
way I've called I just begin to start repenting to

(59:57):
this guy telling him I'm sorry So about that time,
I'm a mess on the floor right there in the
waiting room. Thank God it was only my sister and
him and me. And all of a sudden, the door opens.
The nurse says, hey, Mr. Parker, it's time for you
to come back. We'll take you back now. I'm like,
all right. So I shook this guy's hand. I said,
we'll talk. It was like, later, dude, we'll continue this conversation.

(01:00:19):
So I go back. And it was about a 45-minute
procedure where they're plucking my staples out of my chest.
And the whole time I'm sitting there, I'm thinking of
all these questions I got from this guy that just
read my mail. Right. And told me everything that I
was unwilling to even admit. And so I get up
and immediately I start looking through all the rooms because

(01:00:40):
I was first. And so I thought, surely he's getting
his staples out, too, because he had open heart surgery.
They had the same. We had staples down our chest,
just the same. So he was there. His excuse was,
I'm here to get my staples out, too, because we
had open heart surgery at the same time. So I go,
those rooms start trying to find him and I can't
find him. And so I go to the nurse's station.

(01:01:01):
I'm checking out. And I'm like, hey, the guy that
was in here, this big black dude, I said, can
you give me his information? Where's he at? And she
acted like she didn't know what I was talking about.
So I think to this day, I think he was
an angel. I think he was an angel that placed
there for me to have an encounter, another encounter to say, no,
that's no, son. That wasn't the drugs. That wasn't an hallucination.

(01:01:24):
That wasn't that. That was real. That was me. and
so awesome yeah and so that from that point i
started then having then out of responsibility i'm like okay
god that conversation i told you i made some you
made some proclamations i made some promises i promised you
i'd run to you harder i've ever ran from you
and so once yeah when i came back out i

(01:01:47):
asked my sister i said can you take me to
the church and i began to run to him hard
right then but we had the keys to the church
it was a wednesday about three o'clock and i began
to Lay before the altar at that church and begin
to repent and ask the Lord to peel me back.
And so I began to chase after Jesus way harder
than I was running from him. And so I got

(01:02:09):
to climb the ladder at that point. I'm going to
fast forward because I know we're probably getting close to
running out of time. But I want your audience to
know that there's peaks and valleys in life. And... So
even in the church, there's success, right? What you would
call success. My uncle was a well-known TV person, personality.

(01:02:30):
He wrote best-selling books, and we had thousands going to
our church. And he was really one of my mentors
and one of my heroes. And so I began to
start climbing the ladder of what I thought success was.
I learned how to put three points in a message together,
three points in a hook. I learned, and now my
story can be one of redemption. And so they were

(01:02:51):
really this. So now the prodigal came home and they're
elevating the prodigal. And I'm loving it. I'm running hard
towards Jesus. I start, I didn't realize it, but I'm
climbing this ladder that I didn't even know was there. Because,
and so I'm elevated to a men's ministry pastor and
this and the other. And then now. then I married

(01:03:11):
and started having children and I start being used admissions.
And I start, then we start becoming a multi-campus and
we grew to thousands and went to a multi-campus type deal.
And so I became a campus pastor at one of
our churches and grew it from nothing up to 1500 people.
And then what happened was another, another major storm and
another major encounter is fixing to happen. So I leave

(01:03:35):
covenant church and, And I'm married. I have three kids.
And I start reading kind of the headlines, right? I'm
thinking everything's going great. But I stopped doing my morning devotionals.
I stopped doing the things that I knew I needed
to do to stay close to Jesus. Here I am preaching,
doing all these things, have three beautiful kids. I have

(01:03:56):
the house on the hill. I had a successful remodeling
business because I was always bivocational. So I had a
construction company and I was pastoring at the same time
because I never pastored for money. So God blessed me
in the construction business. And I look up, guys, and
I fell into sin. Before I knew it, I fell
back into sin. And now I'm looking at a divorce.

(01:04:21):
My ex-wife wants a divorce. So now I've done very well.
I've got six rent houses. Now she packed all my
stuff and I'm in a rent house and it's empty.
It's vacant. And all that's there is a flat screen
TV and a futon. And this is where spiritual warfare,
this is where I'm getting into. You can have a
lot of church. but no Jesus. You can have a

(01:04:43):
lot of church and no deliverance. The enemy doesn't care
if you go to church as long as you keep
going and you stay in the same chains you showed
up with, right? And so he didn't have a problem
with me going to church. He didn't have a problem
with me, all that. So now I have spiritual warfare
going on. Now I'm fixing to lose my wife, my children,
my business, my status at church, all this stuff, because

(01:05:06):
now everybody knows I fell into sin. And my wife
files for a divorce. I'm in a rent house. I
got a Bible open in my lap. I've got Christian
television on the flat screen. And I got that same
357 Magnum that I went to that parking lot with
every day. And so now I'm saying, we're going to
have a shenanigans. Because I didn't want a divorce. I

(01:05:31):
didn't want to put my kids through what I'd lived through.
And so I'm sitting there trying to share a visitation.
I'm begging. My ex-wife, please don't divorce us. I didn't
want any of that. My kids are begging me to
come home. So I remember very, very distinctly, I had
to put them in the car. Their mama took them
from my house. I walked back in that house and

(01:05:53):
there was an aura. There was a spirit of death,
spirit of suicide. And I began to start agreeing with
the enemies, the lie that my kids would be better
off without me here. that everybody that loves me, that
I'll hurt everybody. Rod, you've always hurt everybody that you love. Rod,
you know, you can't be faithful to one woman. You know,
you've never been faithful to one woman. You got, you know,

(01:06:14):
you're always going to want to smoke a little bit
of weed because I could smoke a little bit of weed.
So I was living two lives. I was, I'd slipped
back into sin, smoking a little bit of weed and
I could go, I could go sell a $ 200, 000 remodel
after I'd smoked a little bit of weed. It just
kind of knocked the edge off. So I was like
a high functioning, right and living living i hated myself

(01:06:39):
because i didn't like to be a hypocrite but i
was that's what i was i was doing those late
night clicks looking things i shouldn't be looking at smoking
a little bit of this doing a little bit of
that and i look up and now i have spiritual
warfare going on i think so lose my wife my
business my status at church and so i said all
right god if you don't show up to me and
show yourself real to me just like you did in

(01:07:00):
the ceiling tiles i'm gonna blow my brains all through
this living room And so I wasn't playing Russian roulette.
I put a bullet in every cylinder, and I put
that gun in my mouth, and I said, all right,
here's how it's going to go down, God. I'm going
to close my eyes, and I'm going to open this Bible,
and you're going to speak to me. And sure enough,

(01:07:21):
I closed my eyes. I put the gun in the
roof of my mouth. I pulled back the revolver of
the hammer, and I opened the Bible up. And when
I opened it, I put my finger down on Hebrews 11.1.
And that says, now... is the substance. And all I
could see was the big, huge, like a big billboard
that said substance. Now faith is the substance of things
hoped for, but in the midst of things not seen.

(01:07:44):
That's Hebrews 11.1. And I was addicted to all these
kinds of substances. He said, Rod, I'll be your substance abuse.
I'll be your nicotine. I'll be your crutch. I'll be...
anything i'll be your all in all you've been looking
at this you click on this as a crutch you
do this as a crutch you do this as a
crutch rod i want to be your substance abuse now

(01:08:06):
faith is the substance and i pulled the gun out
of my mouth i was wrecked and i just had
to come to g it was beautiful and he said
rod i'll be there for every want need or desire
And so that kind of launched me into what God's
doing with me now. That really, I knew I had
a suicide on me. I started down this road of deliverance.

(01:08:30):
And I say it a lot, that deliverance doesn't just
happen just once. Deliverance really should be in freedom as
a lifestyle. And it's as we follow after Jesus and
as we're disciple and as we're able to pull down
the strongholds because I could cast demons out of you
and they're going to squeal. They're going to run off.
They're going to flop around the floor. They may cry

(01:08:50):
a little bit. They may do whatever, but they have
to go because of the power in the name of Jesus, right?
But a stronghold is not a demon and a demon
is not a stronghold. What is a stronghold? A stronghold
is an agreement with the enemy that you've agreed with
knowingly or unknowingly. Like I will always be, I'll always
have a temper or I'll never be enough. I grew

(01:09:12):
up on the wrong side of the tracks. I'll always
want to smoke a little bit. I always want to
step out and do my little thing. All those things,
those are lies of the enemy that we sometimes subconsciously
that we agree with. That's a stronghold. I can't cast
that out of you, friend. You have to pull that.
I can't cast that. You built it. I can't. So
you have to tear it down. So that's what the

(01:09:33):
book really, this message of my book. I've got a
copy of it. I'll hold it up for people who
might want to see it. It's called From Death to Deliverance.
I'm telling people, actually take them to my rock bottom.
And I hope that your rock bottom is not my
rock bottom. My rock bottom was coding with no heartbeat
at Parkland Hospital before I had any sense and started

(01:09:56):
this journey. And deliverance doesn't just happen once. It truly
is a journey. It's a journey with Jesus. And same
to deliverance. So, you know, That's really kind of what
the book talks about. It talks about how did I overcome,
not that I had it. How did I overcome a
spirit of perversion? How did I overcome a spirit of murder?

(01:10:16):
How did I overcome these things? It's through the washing,
the daily pulling down of strongholds. Yes, I said daily.
So I can cast demons out of people, and that's
the easy work. They go because it's under the blood
of Jesus. It's the daily pulling down of scrolls. It's
that discipleship. It's walking it out. And so it's walking

(01:10:36):
it out through the word of God. So it's like
it's the glue that holds everything together is the daily
washing of the word. So we cast demons out. Amen.
It's almost like replacement theology. But then we say, get
filled up with the Holy Spirit. Get filled up with
the Word of God daily. And so that's what we're doing.

(01:11:00):
We're going across the nation, telling people the story. Talking
about the message and seeing the redemption power of Jesus
hit tents, it hits conventions, churches, parks, wherever I'm invited
to come preach. And so we're seeing revival through this
story come to happen. So I know I'm going to

(01:11:23):
stop and pause and let you guys ask any questions
that you like. But I'm just, I'm thankful to be
here and I'm thankful for the redemption side of my story.

Speaker 2 (01:11:31):
Because amen we're thankful for you too.

Speaker 1 (01:11:35):
It's jesus that sets the captives free and we can
love jesus we can be christians and we can be
good people right and still it's still yes still an
oppression because i believe i'm going to end this i
just feel an anointing to say this is that there's
a big there's a big argument there's a big that

(01:11:55):
Christians can't have demons, right? A big argument throughout the church. Christians, demons,
you know what? I agree with that. A Christian cannot
be possessed by a demon if you have the Holy
Spirit in you, okay? But here's the way it works out.
The word possessed... was mistranslated. Most of the highest, most

(01:12:17):
respected theologians in the world agree that they misused the word.
They should have never put the word possession in there.
They should have used the word oppression. Okay, so I'm
sure you guys would agree that Christians can be oppressed.
If we're still messing around with sin, that opens doors. Oh, yes.
It opens all kinds of avenues. And so you would
agree with me that Christians can be oppressed, right?

Speaker 3 (01:12:39):
Oh, definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:12:41):
So we could cast out demons, but Christians can totally
be oppressed. You can be oppressed with the spirit of murder.
You can be oppressed with the spirit of perversion. You
can be oppressed with the spirit of addiction, of same-sex attraction.
There's a lot of people. I'm talking to somebody right now.
I just feel the Holy Spirit. I'm talking to somebody
right now. That you love Jesus. But you have same-sex attraction.

(01:13:02):
And you don't understand why. That's the Spirit. I can
tell you why. It's a spirit, and all you have
to do, this is not a salvation issue. Jesus loves you,
and he wants to set you free, my friend. All
that is a demonic spirit, a spirit of oppression on you,
trying to mess with your mind. And the biggest problem
that we have throughout the world and throughout the church

(01:13:22):
is in the church, we don't have a spiritual problem.
We have an identity problem. Because when we truly understand
our identity, then we can walk in our authority. When
we walk in our authority, then we can cast those
demons out and walk in our purpose and truly be
the disciple that Christ wants us to be. He says,
only be bold, only be courageous. And these last days,

(01:13:42):
if we're not willing to call it out, and speak
the word and let the full gospel of the word
be preached and be followed. If you love me, follow
me is what Jesus said. And I believe in, I
just believe, I believe him, believe his word. And I
believe the word activated is powerful.

Speaker 5 (01:14:00):
This is such a tremendous blessing tonight.

Speaker 1 (01:14:03):
Wow. Wow.

Speaker 4 (01:14:05):
I just had a cousin sadly take his own life
last year. So I was down there in your area.
I don't know if you're still in Dallas area, but.
You guys are powerful men, I have to say, and
the women of Texas too.

Speaker 1 (01:14:19):
Just respect, sir.

Speaker 4 (01:14:23):
And what I saw conquered his life, and I believe
he's in heaven. I don't think suicide is eternal damnation.
The Lord is so gracious. Your testimony with him and
his eyes and just so blessed. I'm taking notes, sir.

Speaker 1 (01:14:36):
I can prove it. Very touched.

Speaker 5 (01:14:40):
What you're saying at the end of all this is
really speaking to me about the Word. So I'm curious
if you wouldn't mind getting a little bit into this
in our last moments here about the daily washing of
the Word. I saw my cousin on the phone with
his two ex-wives, lawyers, and it was the end of
his life.

Speaker 1 (01:14:59):
He was here.

Speaker 4 (01:15:00):
We're up here in Western North Carolina, beautiful mountains. He
was trying to get healing, and it was just too
much for him. And he was such powerful in the flesh.

Speaker 1 (01:15:07):
So strong. So successful.

Speaker 5 (01:15:09):
A contractor.

Speaker 1 (01:15:11):
Very rich.

Speaker 5 (01:15:12):
I went to his town. It's Stevensville.

Speaker 4 (01:15:15):
Everybody loved him. He left such a huge footprint. His
funeral was like the entire city was there.

Speaker 1 (01:15:21):
But he couldn't.

Speaker 4 (01:15:22):
His flesh could not surmount this. He couldn't figure out
this issue. There were so many things.

Speaker 1 (01:15:29):
Now.

Speaker 4 (01:15:31):
How is the word able to carry us to, because
what I saw was he was Christian, was Don Basham's grandson,
is all this deliverance, Holy Spirit, baptism, teach everything. What
you're teaching now, how does the word carry us so
that we're not trying to flesh it through or punch
it through. I've got all these stories. I've got all

(01:15:51):
this stuff. And I think about Toby so strongly. Maybe
it's because of your very handsome hats or I don't know.
And your countenance and you're a Texan and you have this,
this throne, this church over your head. We wanted to
buy a church just like that. How does the word
carry people.

Speaker 1 (01:16:08):
That you're talking about discipleship? You're talking about getting people free.

Speaker 4 (01:16:11):
Even after meeting Jesus, you could still get to the
point of wanting to commit suicide.

Speaker 5 (01:16:16):
Where does the word carry?

Speaker 4 (01:16:18):
How can people not have to go through that?

Speaker 1 (01:16:20):
What you went through? Yeah. Does any of that make sense? Totally, 100%.
I think it's a great question. Thanks for the question,
by the way. And as Christians, we walk the aisle,
we check the box, we get the insurance policy, right?
We're this once saved, always saved type mentality where we
check the box at the Billy Graham or we watched

(01:16:41):
a little bit of whatever. And so we've got this
insurance policy Christianity, and we think that we're all getting
under the hood. especially in texas especially christians right everybody
identifies as christian but i'm going to address this about
going their long way around answering your question because a
lot of people say oh trust my heart hey brother

(01:17:01):
but the bible says that we can't trust the heart
wickedly it's wicked above all else who will know it
right so as christian as as And I have a
problem with everybody trying to use that word so loosely.
I like to say we're Jesus followers, that I'm a
follower of Jesus. So there's a lot of people that
check the box and say I'm a Christian, but they're

(01:17:23):
not necessarily Jesus followers. And so the Bible says, be
not conformed to this world, but be ye transformed. By
the what? The renewing of your heart? No. By the
renewing of your mind. This is where we get it off,
where so many of us go wrong, the crossroads. They
check the box. They did all that. I'm a good person.

(01:17:43):
I pay a little bit of tithe. I can identify
as a Christian. I go to church whenever I go
to church. And so on the outside, I've checked all
that off. But I'm not doing this daily relationship thing,
this daily washing of the word. You know what? Because yesterday,
that's why it's so important to take this day, my
daily bread. Yesterday's bread is for yesterday. And a lot

(01:18:04):
of times we want to eat yesterday's bread or we
want to eat tomorrow's bread. This worked last month. I
had a great revival and we're still trying to eat
off of that revival or that great thing that happened
a year ago or 10 years ago or last month. No,
we can't live on yesterday's bread. We can't live on
tomorrow's bread. yesterday's history yesterday's history tomorrow's a mystery today

(01:18:28):
is a gift and we have to live for today
and so i say that the only way that we
can stay delivered only way that we can be truly
jesus followers is to make this day my daily bread
take the word of god because otherwise otherwise it's just
words on a page if you don't activate it in
your life right so there's revelation and revelation really is

(01:18:53):
not revelation until it's revelation to you until you have
that light bulb moment oh my gosh and so what
i recommend is people get into the word and the
word is so important because jesus said he is the
word So if you want a word from God, don't
chase a local prophet. Don't chase a local pastor. Get
into the word. If you want a word from the Father,

(01:19:13):
get alone, get with him, repent, have this intimacy thing
going on, and get into the word. But do I
believe in prophecies? Do I believe in prophets? Absolutely. I
believe every Christian should be prophesied. But to get back
to your question is, why is the word so important?
It's the daily washing that holds its... a hole in

(01:19:35):
a boat it's almost like the commercial right where they
have that oxy whatever stuff that you put on what
right now we're a bunch of people we got a
bunch of holes in our boat right we've got issues
here we got issues here if we don't fix this
then we're trying to we're trying to patch it or
we're going to sink the boat but but i what
i say is the word of god coming into your

(01:19:56):
head be not conformed to this world And he says,
the Bible says he'll have no idol before me, not
your business, not your hobbies, just like even your, was
it your cousin or your uncle? Yeah. He may have
been a wonderful guy, but if he let money and
success really rule him, and I was that guy back

(01:20:18):
in the day where I had a business and I
put digits and status and all that kind of stuff
before God. Jesus, even while I was a Christian. And
I ended up in a ditch almost blowing my brains out.
It's because I didn't do what I'm telling you. I
didn't renew my mind daily. I didn't take this day
my daily bread. I didn't crawl up in his lap

(01:20:38):
and have intimacy with Jesus. He says, come to me
as a child. So all I can tell you is
our heart, as Bible says, is wickedly evil above all else.
Who can trust it? So what I recommend is when
people begin to start reading their Bible, And getting that
daily word in their brain, it's almost like it comes

(01:20:59):
in and it begins to transform your mind. And it's
almost like a drip, like an IV drip. And it
drips about 12 inches down to your heart. And then
as you take more word in and as you walk
it out, and as you take more, you're activating it
in your life. Because there has to be activation, right?
The only thing that pleases is our faith. That is

(01:21:21):
the currency of heaven. That is the currency in the kingdom.
If you want to get God's attention, exercise your faith. Okay?
It's the only thing that pleases God. Not how many
scriptures you have memorized, not your church attendance, not how
many thousands you've dipped into the coast, how many podcasts
you've done, how many people have gotten. It's all important stuff.

(01:21:42):
It is important stuff. But the most important thing and
the only thing that moves his heart and the only
thing that pleases him is your faith. So when you
start taking the Bible and you start activating, you get
it down in your knowing, right? It starts transforming you.
And I tell people, I say it a lot, read
your Bible. Nobody remembers anything else I say. If you

(01:22:02):
start reading the Bible until it begins to start reading
you back, until it starts talking to you back, then
you know, okay, that transformation is starting to happen. Then
that trick. It's that drip. It starts changing your heart.
Then you start opening up different areas of your heart
where you can truly have deliverance and freedom to walk
this out on a daily basis. And that's why I

(01:22:25):
say deliverance is not one and done. Repentance is not
one and done. I repent lots of times a day.
I mean, I'm just being honest with you. I'm a
pastor in front of my name. Yes, I've written a book.
And yes, I've seen thousands saved and we've seen thousands delivered.
But you know what? I'm not perfect. There's only one
perfect man that walks this planet. And that was Jesus.

(01:22:45):
And I just say, you know what? Repent. And repentance
is not just saying I've been a jerk and I'm sorry.
Repentance is changing. It's a pivot. It's a change of direction. Right?
And if we stumble, then we stumble. We pick ourself up,
pull our pants up, and keep moving forward. Repent and
be quick. So I preach to be really good at repenting.

(01:23:07):
Be really good at... Yes. That's good.

Speaker 3 (01:23:09):
Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (01:23:11):
Those are the two big things why people can't get
free because they'll come to me all the time. They've
gotten some freedom, but they can't stay free. That's because
two major roadblocks. There is unrepentant sin in your life.
The two major roadblocks to not being able to get
freedom is unrepentant sin and unforgiveness. Yes. And I was

(01:23:31):
guilty of that as I forgave everybody else. I could
forgive you. I could forgive anybody. I couldn't forgive myself.
That was the hardest one because I've done some terrible
things that I talk about in the book and we
don't need to get into, but I couldn't forgive myself, y'all.
I couldn't receive his grace. I could preach about it
and I could talk about it and I could go

(01:23:53):
through the motions really good, but to really receive that
for myself, that's a huge one. So what I say
to people is be tender towards the Lord. and draw
near to him the bible says if you draw near
to father he'll draw us near to you not the
other way around not the other way around let's not
get it messed up amen draw near to jesus he's

(01:24:13):
waiting on you and when you draw near to him
he'll draw near to you and then open that bible
invite the holy spirit into your reading and then begin
to get it down in your knower that's what we
say in texas i'm gonna get it down in my
knower then i can get the Right? We all have
a note. Because you know what? If we don't activate
the word, then it's just words on a page. But

(01:24:36):
when you begin to activate the word, then you see
transformation happen in lives. You see your life walk and
you live in purpose and you walk in authority and
you walk in power. Amen. For sure.

Speaker 2 (01:24:49):
My heart is really moved by your testimonial, Pastor Rod,
and you never have to apologize for shedding heartfelt tears
when you recall about the grace of Jesus in your
life and the moment of truth when you were in heaven.
Jesus showed you a snapshot of your life and then
gave you a taste of where you would go had

(01:25:12):
you not repented and gotten right with Jesus.

Speaker 3 (01:25:14):
And that was just so powerful.

Speaker 2 (01:25:17):
More than talking about your time in the fast lane
with Robbie Van Winkle, Vanilla Ice, or whatever. That might
be the hook to start listening to your story, but
I would say the pinnacle of your story is definitely
when you are face-to-face with Jesus and.

Speaker 3 (01:25:36):
There's so many things that are similar.

Speaker 2 (01:25:38):
Even though I'm obviously Asian and from California, but I also,
believe it or not, had gone through things that were
similar in terms of backsliding.

Speaker 3 (01:25:49):
And Three times, in fact.

Speaker 2 (01:25:51):
So I came to know the Lord when I was 15,
16 years old. Backslid before I met my ex-husband. Backslid
after he and I got divorced. And then I met
my husband when I was 27, 28. And we've been married.

Speaker 1 (01:26:03):
I'm 53 right now.

Speaker 3 (01:26:03):
So we've been married for 20 plus years now.

Speaker 1 (01:26:05):
But I.

Speaker 2 (01:26:11):
Backslid a little bit when i was with him after
years of marriage and i totally have grace for you
brother because i see myself in some of the things
that she had said which is backsliding two three times
that was me.

Speaker 3 (01:26:28):
For sure and i.

Speaker 2 (01:26:31):
Am also really moved by the fact that you say
you And this is crucial that if we come to
Jesus and we have our house swept clean, in other words,
where we come to know the Lord and we fully
repent the first time and we have our heart filled
or our house filled because.

Speaker 3 (01:26:51):
The Bible calls our spirit or soul a house.

Speaker 2 (01:26:55):
And then if we get delivered of demons by repenting
and get right with him and then you go back.
backslide into sin headlong. And then you come back to Jesus.
The Bible says that those critters, those demons that left
you the first time are going to bring seven times
worse of their buddies to inhabit that house.

Speaker 3 (01:27:15):
And so what would you tell somebody? I feel, I
really feel this strongly.

Speaker 2 (01:27:19):
That there are Christian kids that maybe were homeschooled or
raised with Christianity, but they think that they've missed out
by not living in the fast lane, by not dating
a bunch of people, living promiscuously and not experimenting with
sex or not experimenting with drugs and alcohol and whatever,

(01:27:40):
a new.

Speaker 3 (01:27:40):
Age and whatever.

Speaker 2 (01:27:41):
What would you tell that Christian young person out there
that's thinking about going into all these different things, thinking
that that Life is that vitality of life and fulfillment
are in that. What would you tell that Christian young
person out there who's thinking of backsliding, who was backslidden?

Speaker 1 (01:27:59):
Well, I'm thankful that I had an encounter with Jesus
and got filled with the Holy Spirit early on. I
was 15 years old at a church camp. And I
was beautifully slain in the spirit. And I'm sitting there going,
I'm not going to get slain in the spirit. I
ain't going down. And the Holy Spirit was just so strong.
And so I've had encounters with him that I really
truly couldn't maybe explain, but I could never deny. Right.

(01:28:22):
And I know there's people watching. There's young people. There's
old people that will watch this. Middle-aged people that will
watch this. And all of us have experienced that. We
probably had some kind of encounter or felt that feeling
or whatever that we may not be able to explain,
but we can never deny. And I want the person
that's listening to this right now that's struggling, Maybe you're
thinking of backsliding. Maybe you have backslidden. You know what?

(01:28:44):
You're seeing whatever you've done. That's just the fruit. That's
not the root. The reason there's a root there. If
you've gone back to repetitive cycles of sin, if you've
fallen back into sexual habits, if you've fallen back into
licking on the wrong thing, drinking, whatever, any addiction, things
like that. That's just the fruit. You know what? I'll

(01:29:06):
tell you, the grace, his grace is way bigger than that.
My Jesus is way bigger than any sin. And so
I just want to really encourage you. The Bible says,
come to me as a child. So I really encourage
people that, especially because I had a face-to-face encounter with Jesus.
And I'm telling you, Jesus isn't mad at you. I'm
talking to somebody right now. Jesus isn't mad at you.

(01:29:28):
He's not some big judge, judgmental God with a big,
huge brown devil who's sitting there ready to judge every
one of your mistakes to send you to hell. Well,
Jesus is a loving father and he wishes that no
one would go to hell, but he wants, he wants,
he's jealous for you. The Bible says he truly is
jealous for you. And this is what I love. And

(01:29:49):
this is why I stay tender to the Holy spirit
is because even as a grown man, I see myself
almost being like his favorite, John, right? He said, John
is my favorite. John wanted to hear his heart. Right?
So I see myself right in the middle of sin.
You could crawl up in Jesus' lap and you could
put your head on his chest and he will accept

(01:30:09):
you and love you and you could come as you are.
You don't have to get cleaned back up to come
back to Jesus. You don't have to get cleaned up
to go to church. You could show up just like
you are. You can receive Jesus right now. You can
rededicate your life right now. You can come on right
back home right now because Jesus is way bigger than
your sin. And You know what? He loves you, and

(01:30:32):
there ain't nothing you can do about it. So I'm
talking to somebody right now. He loves you, and there's
nothing you can do about it. He can't love you anymore,
and he can't love you any less. And so I
just want to really encourage your audience to have intimate
times with Jesus. Time spent. Purpose. If you'll just purpose.
It can be just five minutes. But if you'll give

(01:30:52):
him your first five minutes before you start scrolling on
your phone. The Bible says also that every first thing
throughout Scripture is redeemed. So if you'll give him your
first five or ten minutes before your feet hit the ground,
before you grab the phone and start scrolling and all
that kind of stuff, he redeems that. But I promise
you that if you'll just have intimate times with Jesus,

(01:31:13):
and I'm a veteran in this, but every day I
visualize myself, every day, crawling up in his lap, saying,
how you doing, Dad? Here's my junk, Dad. Here's my issues.
Here's my wounds. Here's my hurts. Here's my blah, right?
And he'll meet you right there. And that's what I
want to encourage your audience. It's not about church attendance,

(01:31:35):
which I think we started this thing out talking about.
Find yourself a good spirit-filled, spirit-led church who will arm
you up and make you a dangerous Christian who believes
in casting out demons. Because I believe a lot of
churches are demon daycares because they just don't go.

Speaker 3 (01:31:52):
Absolutely. I totally agree.

Speaker 1 (01:31:55):
Right? And so bottom line is get involved in a
spirit-filled church or church. watch somebody. I would rather see
somebody watch their favorite spirit-filled preacher than go to some dead,
woke church that doesn't believe in the gifts, because the
enemy could care less. He loves it. He loves all
these woke churches and all these people showing up, going

(01:32:16):
through their Sunday rituals, and then they leave, and before
they get out of the parking lot, they're already thinking
about the sin that they want to go do. Okay.
60 something percent of even pastors from pulpits are addicted
to porn. It's because they believe in deliverance. Yeah. They
believe in deliverance, but they don't, they deny the power.
They believe they'll talk about this, but deny the power.

(01:32:38):
And I'll tell you what, I can't bring anybody out
of a wet paper sack. I say it all the time,
but as I fast, as I pray, as I get
humble myself and I let the Holy spirit work through me,
There's no demon that's safe. And we even teach self-deliverance
and we open up our ranch for retreats. So if
any of your audience is listening, we have couples retreats,

(01:32:59):
singles retreats, men's retreats, women's retreats. It can be one,
it can be 10, but we have a ranch here
and we go deep because what I started doing is
I started leading people that were not free at altars
around all over the United States because it couldn't get
done in one altar call. So if you're a person
that wants some one-on-one inner healing and deliverance, that's what

(01:33:20):
we do. We meet with people on Zoom, or you
can come to the ranch and have a three-day or
a five-day intensive and leave out of this place 100% free.
We've administered to folks that have been satanically, ritually abused.
And that's a whole other topic, probably for another show.
But that's going super deep. But it's a real thing.
And there's been a lot of people who have been satanic,

(01:33:42):
ritually abused their whole life. Sure. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2 (01:34:07):
I hate to say this, but many churches that I
go to, I just see people going in.

Speaker 3 (01:34:10):
With their demons and leaving with their demons.

Speaker 2 (01:34:12):
And yes, they'll be moved by the Holy Spirit, but
there's not the things that Jesus mandated us to do
as Christians, as believers. Drive out demons and heal the
sick and what have you.

Speaker 3 (01:34:23):
And I'm saying that it's easy. It's a lot easier
said than done.

Speaker 2 (01:34:27):
Even as a charismatic Pentecostal myself, ever since I was
20 years old, It's not been easy. I've tried to
do it, and sometimes I was successful, sometimes I wasn't.
I would say most of the time I wasn't successful
because I haven't received the teaching of how to do it.
And yes, I've gone through Zoom sessions with other deliverance
ministers and what have you where I was successful. somewhat free,

(01:34:50):
but I could tell that I'm not 100% free. So like,
for example, like you were saying that the spirit of
self-destruction or death is a spirit.

Speaker 3 (01:34:59):
Also, lust can be a spirit.

Speaker 2 (01:35:01):
I know not a lot of Christians believe that, but
there's a spirit of fear, lust, anger, rejection, discouragement, and
they all have names and they're all engineered. They're all
sent on a mission by the enemy to try to
drag people down. Why does the scripture say to wear
the armor of God, the helmet of salvation, the breastplate

(01:35:23):
of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the spirit,
loins girded with the belt of truth and the feet
shod with the readiness of the gospel of peace.

Speaker 3 (01:35:30):
Why does the scripture say that?

Speaker 2 (01:35:32):
Because we are in a spiritual war every single second
of every minute of every hour of every day. If
you are a threat to the enemy, if you are
truly living for Jesus, you will always be in the war. Now,
if you're saying, oh, I'm not in a war, I'm
just fine. That means you're going the same direction that
the enemy wants you to go, basically.

Speaker 1 (01:35:51):
Yeah, and a lot of people think, oh, I don't
have a gun. I don't have a fight in this.
I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't
have to pick a side. Even if you don't pick
a side and you don't think you have a dog
in this fight, you just picked a side. You're not
picking a side. You picked a side, right? Because we are.
I see that all the time. It's funny that you
said that every second of every minute of every hour
of every day, spiritual warfare is happening. Whether you want

(01:36:12):
to believe or not, spiritual warfare is going on, and
the enemy wants to do nothing but to steal, kill,
and destroy. And I can't tell you how many churches
that I go to, you guys, and I do this
to prove a point. I'll say, how many believers do
we have in here? If you're a believer, raise your hand. Everybody's,
every hand goes up. Sometimes both hands go up, right?

(01:36:33):
And I'll say, okay, Mark 16, 17 says this. Don't
get mad at me. Mark 16, 17 says, these signs
shall follow those who believe. You shall. There's no might there. Okay?
It says, you shall cast out demons in my name.
Then you shall speak in other tongues. Here's what we've
got at the church. We've got it reversed. Okay? We

(01:36:54):
speak in tongues 300 miles a minute, and nobody's casting
out demons. So at best, if we all raised our
hands five minutes ago and said, yes, we all identify
as a believer, these signs shall follow, they shall. It
doesn't say they might, maybe. These signs shall follow. Key words,
follow those who believe, right? At best, in a lot
of our churches in America, we have a bunch of

(01:37:16):
unbelieving believers, right? Yes, absolutely. What I'm going to do
right now is before I leave. You and Michael and
your audience are going to leave out of here becoming
demon warriors, demon slayers. Because you can repeat after me.
In Jesus' name. When you say come out in Jesus' name,
now you're a demon slayer. Now you're armed and dangerous

(01:37:39):
because they only come out in the name of Jesus.
I believe God's a God of priority. And in Mark 16, 17,
first he says, you... Might cast out demons? No, he
says you shall first. So that's his priority. First, we're
supposed to get rid of the demons. Then we can
pray in a prayer language.

Speaker 2 (01:37:58):
Yes.

Speaker 1 (01:37:58):
Yes. That's why we're facing around the world and every
sphere of influence. You think about finance, political influence. pharmakia
drug world mean everything every sphere of influence is dominated
right now by demonic forces you look at the at
the takeover of america with islam the islamification of america

(01:38:19):
what's going on every sphere of influence right now is
being basically dominated by demonic spirits and it's because the
church quit doing its job 60 70 years ago they
quit that the pastors really dropped the ball because they
we've watered down the word and that's why the bible
says don't change one thing you don't change a punctuation

(01:38:40):
you don't add to it you don't take away from
it we got to have preachers and leaders and guys
like you podcasters who are bold and mighty to preach
the full counsel gospel of jesus christ and turn the
lion of tribe of judah loose the lion of the
tribe of judah lives inside of you so he can
live free amen Quit protecting him. He doesn't need your protection.

(01:39:04):
He needs your obedience to turn him loose, set him free,
and become a demon slayer. Because, I mean, two-thirds of
Jesus' ministry, he went about casting out demons and freeing
the captives. Amen. You can't find in my Bible anywhere
where there's a deliverance ministry. So I don't like to
get put, I hear, I'm a deliverance minister. It's the
ministry of Jesus. Yes. Deliverance is the ministry of Jesus.

(01:39:27):
You can't, there's no office of deliverance ministry in the Bible. right?
So it's the ministry of Jesus. Two-thirds of his ministry,
he went about casting out demons, even in churches, right?
So you just have to be bold and courageous and
know your identity. That's what I said before, is I
think our biggest problem, even as Christians, so you're my sister,

(01:39:47):
and I just want you, before you even off this podcast,
I hope that when we're done, that you understand your
identity even more, because when you understand your identity, Then
you can understand your authority and you'll walk in it. Amen.
And then you can walk in your purpose, right? Amen.
I believe that so many of us just don't understand
who we are. And once we get that revelation of

(01:40:09):
who we are, could you imagine if you were Donald
Trump's daughter? You'd act different. If you were Eric Trump
or Trump Jr., you'd have a little bit of a swan, right?
But your daddy, if you truly get that in your brain,
my daddy is Jesus Christ, the King of kings, the
Lord of lords. That's my daddy. Yes. You have a

(01:40:30):
message that's called, who's your daddy? Right? When we truly
understand who we are, then we can walk out the Bible. Otherwise,
it's just words on a page. Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:40:41):
For sure. Absolutely, Pastor Rod.

Speaker 2 (01:40:43):
Pastor Rod, we thank you from the bottom of our
hearts to share your testimonial and share what the Lord
has shown you and share the book that you had
typed out. And we really are just excited to read it. Actually,
I will listen to it on Audible because I saw
it on Audible. That's the best way for me to quote, unquote,

(01:41:05):
read it.

Speaker 1 (01:41:06):
The Audible was just launched last week. So it's called.

Speaker 3 (01:41:10):
From Death to Deliverance.

Speaker 1 (01:41:14):
And it's on Amazon. It's on Faith and Flame. Or
you can go to my website at rodparkerministries.org. That's an
easy way to get it as well. And we have
lots of other resources. Got a lot of information about
our retreat center there on the website as well. If
anybody's interested in one-on-one deliverance. Amen.

Speaker 3 (01:41:33):
And once again, your website is?

Speaker 1 (01:41:35):
Rod Parker Ministries.

Speaker 3 (01:41:38):
Rodparkerministries.org.

Speaker 5 (01:41:41):
Okay, awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:41:43):
And then it's also on Amazon, so people can purchase
it there as well.

Speaker 2 (01:41:46):
And then people can not only purchase your book on
your website, but also get information with regards to getting
deliverance either at your retreat or via Zoom.

Speaker 3 (01:41:54):
Is that right, Pastor Rod?

Speaker 1 (01:41:55):
Or if you're a pastor, a leader, a men's group leader,
if you'd like to book me and have a revival
and see a mighty move of God happen, I would
love to hear from you guys. You can book me
right there on the website as well.

Speaker 3 (01:42:09):
Thank you, Pastor Rod.

Speaker 5 (01:42:11):
Thank you so much.

Speaker 3 (01:42:13):
Absolutely. Thank you so much, Pastor Rod.

Speaker 2 (01:42:15):
Do you have like a partying thought or something that
the Holy Spirit is really impressing on your heart and mind,
Pastor Rod, that you haven't said yet?

Speaker 1 (01:42:23):
Probably just to tell your audience that Jesus isn't mad
at them, that they see he sees you, he hears you,
he loves you, and he wants true relationship with you.
And try to see yourself, even as a grown man
or grown woman, maybe you're up in age right now,
I want you to see yourself being able to crawl
up in Jesus' lap and putting your head on his

(01:42:45):
chest so you can hear his heartbeat and you can
hear his voice. Because I'll tell you, he speaks to
us and he leads us in whispers. It'd be whispers
of the Holy Spirit, little unctions of the Holy Spirit.
And I can tell you when the Holy Spirit speaks,
hell yells. Hell is always yelling.

Speaker 3 (01:43:03):
Oh, it does.

Speaker 1 (01:43:04):
When the Holy Spirit whispers. It's true. When the Holy
Spirit whispers, hell yells. Know the difference. And when you
hear his voice, heed the call because delayed obedience is
still disobedience. His word says that obedience is better than sacrifice.
Somebody's watching me and the Holy Spirit's been nudging you

(01:43:24):
to do something. He's called you to do something. And
you've been waiting. You've been hesitating. Quit waiting. Quit hesitating.
And move forward with Jesus. He'll be right there by
your side. But he wants your obedience. So I just
want to say, God bless each and every one of you.
So appreciate everybody's time. And I would love to see
feedback at this message. If my testimony has touched you,

(01:43:47):
the Bible says, how do we overcome the evil one
by the blood of the lamb, which happened 2000 years
ago and the words of your testimony. So everybody's testimony
is powerful. And I would love to hear the impact
of maybe how my story, how my testimony has, has
impacted your life.

Speaker 2 (01:44:04):
It definitely has impacted ours for sure, Pastor Rod. Anyway,
thank you so much, Pastor Rod. Thank you so much
for listening or watching this Strange O'Clock CrossFiles podcast with
our beloved brother in Christ, Pastor Rod, who is full
of wisdom, godly wisdom. And thank you so much for
listening or watching the CrossFiles Strange O'Clock podcast. Thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:44:36):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:45:06):
Thank you.

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