Jim Bakker

Most of you are so young you don't know who I am, and that's good.

It's not listed in the Bible, but my spiritual gift, my specific calling from God, is to be a television talk-show host.

I feel like God has forgiven me of so much, that I will forgive everyone who has hurt us.

I don't know, examination I guess. And then they put the jump suit back on me again. I went through the compound - I remember somebody shouting, Jim don't let them break you.

My dream became bigger and bigger. And the box got bigger than the message, than the Gospel.

The box got bigger, the outside, the buildings. And all that we were doing. I had to raise about $1 million every two days just to stay alive.

When you put your total faith in God, no matter what happens, to a person who's a true believer, if you die, you know you're going to heaven to be with God.

So you can't lose serving God, and that all things work together for good.

When I first went to prison, I was even questioning where, God, where are you?

They've all been through bad things. So bad things happen to people. They happen to all the great men of God.

You know, I try not to look back, because looking forward is so much better than looking backward.

To try to raise a son from inside the prison walls is a very difficult thing. But I want to say to the world my son at 16 was the one who tried the most to get me out of prison.

In the book of Colossians, it talks about that because of what Christ did, we are pure. We are without judgment on ourselves. And only through him can we do something like this.

It was dripping and, you know, and there was a whole line of cameras and microphones. I felt like - you remember the honor guards, only it was a dishonor guard.

Why should I apologize because God throws in crystal chandeliers, mahogany floors, and the best construction in the world?

I called the doctor, during writing the book, the psychiatrist who treated me at that time, Dr. Jackson. And I said, Dr. Jackson, whole pieces are missing. I don't understand what happened to me.

They put chains on me; they chained my waist, my legs. Put me in the back of a squad car, and I literally blacked out. I didn't even - there's whole pieces missing.

I write about it in the book and, you know, explain that. But that was the technicality that actually got my sentence reduced - that Alan Dershowitz used to have my sentence - it came down eventually to eight years.

And God knows I needed to be forgiven. So I had to forgive everybody. And then God - as I read in the word, you're supposed to pray for your enemies. Try that one on.

I think - there's always going to be a percentage of people who maybe aren't as good as others.