EVEL KNIEVEL'S TESTIMONY Transcript

Thank you, Robert. How many of you here are old friends of Robert Knievel? Stand up, stand up. I want to see you. You recognize some of these fellows? Yes, I sure do. I sure do. Thank you for coming. Some of them I've known for 45 years, raced motorcycles with them at Ascot in California. Some are recent friends, but I see my friend Bert Bachman here. I just, uh, I called them all, told them I was going to be here today and asked them to come, so they're here. Thank you so much for coming.

Well, I grew up in Butte, Montana, worked in the mines there underground a mile, and I had a tough life growing up. I was raised by grandparents, and they just loved me to death, but I don't know how I got on the wrong tracks. I always—I started off just being a wild person, doing things that weren't right against society. I never wanted to be told what to do anyway. In Los Angeles, I started my motorcycle show, and as time went on, I earned a lot of money and, uh, my name got to be known. I was kind of ashamed of the "Evel Knievel," but I did the Joey Bishop Show one night, and he said, "You got to have the greatest name." I was glad when that was over.

That might be. We better check that Guinness Book of World Records out. I think there are people that have probably broken more bones than that. But, uh, they're close enough. They're close enough. Somebody said, "Is he going to bring his motorcycle with him?" And I said, "No, it's in the Smithsonian Institute." That's where it is. They have one of my jump motorcycles in the Smithsonian. I'm very proud of it, and I am planning to build a new—I'm not going to call it a museum—I'm going to build a new Evel Knievel experience. Uh, I don't know exactly where, maybe in Las Vegas, and, uh, it'll have all of my memorabilia anyway.

So, took a tour of this beautiful place yesterday with Robert and I tell you something, I've never seen a more beautiful compliment to God and to Jesus Christ in my life than this Crystal Cathedral. I just got to see.

And when the call came a couple of weeks ago, my secretary said, "There's a man on the phone. He says his name is Evel Knievel, and he has to talk to you, Dr. Schuler, because he's accepted Jesus Christ." I picked it up, and you said to me—in my mind, out of the blue, came a line. Do you remember what you said? Came a line, a line. You said, you said a thought came into my mind, and it was, "Evel, the god you're praying to is never going to give you anything." No, no, he wasn't. I was empty. I was just empty. The god I was praying to was a god that I thought maybe could answer my prayers, but I didn't realize that I needed to go through a living God, and I did. And I'm just beginning to really get the feeling of Jesus Christ inside of my body, and it's grown and grown and grown. It's become such a wonderful thing since then in the time we've spent together. I just can't believe it.

I'm so complete now that I'm not even afraid to get on an airplane and fly back to Tampa. That's how I feel. I never thought that I would be here, ever. I just, uh, was a person who always believed in God—there was a God power. But I always had trouble believing in the Jesus Christ, the son of God. I, uh, I don't know why I fought it so hard. I just did. But I think maybe it was the power of prayer. Maybe God just got sick and tired of me fighting it so much, he reached out and grabbed me and said, "Look, I just want you. You've got to stop this nonsense. You just, you just come with me."

Before the Daytona Bike Week this year, I started thinking about God more and more, and I called people and talked to them. I don't know why, I just did. I called a friend I hadn't talked to in 30 years. His name is Eldon Wright, and he belongs to the New Hope Community Church in Portland, Oregon. I talked to him, and he called me back a week later. He said, "I've had my whole church praying for you. The whole church is praying for you." And I said, "Well, that's not the first time that this has happened." My daughter's had her whole church praying for me in Bozeman, Montana, my ex-wife Linda, she's had her whole church praying for me in Butte, Montana, and she's prayed for me for 25 or 30 years that I would become a Christian.

I get letters from people, hundreds of letters, from people saying, "We read an article about you where you don't believe in organized religion. You've got to believe in Jesus Christ." So I don't know what in the world happened. I don't know if it was the power of the prayer or God himself, but it just reached out—either while I was driving or walking down the sidewalk or sleeping—and it just, power of God and Jesus just grabbed me. It just took a hold of me so strong, I can't tell you how strong it was. I became a person who was filled—was just filled—with Christianity all of a sudden. I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did. I believed in him. I just, I don't know what happened to me. I just, uh, I rose up in bed in Daytona, the second night I was there. I rose up in bed, and I was by myself, and I, I said, "Devil, devil, you bastard, you get away from me. I cast you out of my life." I went to the balcony of my hotel room. I said, "I will take you and throw you, throw you on the beach. You will be dead. You will be gone. I don't want you around me anymore."

I did everything I could. I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put his arms around me and never, ever, ever let me go. I just, all of a sudden, was just overcome by the spirit of God almighty. And my wife, Crystal, she had been trying to help me with things I wanted, even though she didn't believe at the time. She doesn't believe like I do. She went out, got me a Bible I could read that had, uh, passages underneath the verses so you could better understand them. She went and got me a videotape called "Jesus of Nazareth," which is a wonderful videotape. She got me a book, uh, called "The Case for Christ," which is a wonderful book to read. And I, uh, I've had so much help from my whole family.

I know that there's more to life than what I've had. I read—I wrote a book called "Evel Ways." I said, "I've had a life better than any king, any president, or any prince." Hogwash! I didn't have Jesus Christ in my life. I was talking about the Rolls-Royces (I had five of them), the Ferraris (I've had five of them), the Stetsons, the Lamborghinis, the jet airplanes—two of them. I flew one alongside the other so I could read my name on the side of them. Yeah, Evel Knievel. My dad said, "Who are you going to impress at 40,000 feet at 600 miles an hour? Why don't you go down and buy a truck, drive along the freeway?"

The diamonds and the gold and the racehorses and the women and the booze—I want to tell you something. I've been a sinner. You're looking at a real sinner. But not anymore. You're not looking at a sinner anymore.

I've had everybody—I've had everybody in my family try to help me. My son and my wife came here today from Montana and Las Vegas, and friends that came to see me and be with me, and I just, uh, I just, uh, I'm so happy. This is the biggest step that I have ever taken in my life.

Dr. Schuler is right. I'll tell you the difference between a Christian and an atheist. A Christian wants to believe. They want to believe everything about Christianity and Jesus. An atheist does not believe in God because he doesn't want to. He stays away from it. He gets mad. He doesn't want to hear about it. That's what an atheist is. Do not let us come with any patronizing thoughts in our mind to say, "Oh yes, Jesus was a minister of his time," or a biblical person, a person who believed in God, who taught us, he was a teacher, a great human being. Jesus did not offer us that. He didn't offer us that he was the son of God; he is the son of God. If you don't believe that Jesus Christ is what he says he is, you will surely die. You'll die in your sins. Believe me, you've got to believe. Oh, you've got to believe in Jesus Christ.

It'll give you—I don't know how many of you here have felt what I have felt. Let me see, uh, raise the hands of how many of you have had the feeling that I have, telling you that I, that I feel. No? God bless you. Isn't it a wonderful feeling? Isn't it a wonderful feeling to say, "I have a God that I can believe in, a real God that I can believe in"? Isn't it a wonderful feeling to wake up in the middle of the night and say, "Well, I'm glad I woke up. I can go back to bed in a few minutes and sleep, but in the meantime, I'm going to think about Jesus Christ"? It's such a warm, wonderful feeling to me.

Dr. Schuler, I don't know how to thank you for asking me to come here. I know that I called you and told you that I wanted to be on your show because I'd seen your show. I watch it every once in a while, and I saw Andy Griffith—Andy Griffith and Randy Travis on a few weeks ago, and Andy said that he'd given his heart to Jesus Christ. And when I began to believe like I did, I thought to myself, "Why don't you call Robert Schuler and see if you can be on his show?" So I did, and you said to me, "Well, that's wonderful news. It's good news to me, the best news I've had in a long time. Of course, you can be on the show." So we talked about it, and so we agreed that I'd be here today, and then a couple days later you called me and you said, "Would you mind if I flew to Florida to meet you?" And I said, "Well, it's a five-hour flight. You're 80 years old. Are you sure you want to come? Are you sure you want to come down here to have dinner with me?" And he said, "Yes, I do." Well, I knew why. He wanted to see if the real me was telling the truth, that's why. He wanted to investigate it.

Anyway, when he got off of the airplane, I was there to meet him, and I took him to his hotel and he said, "You know, the only reason I came here was to see you. I have no other business here." I said, "I know why you came. You came here to see if I was for real. You came here to see for yourself with your own eyes. You wanted to take my hand and hold it and give me a hug and bless me. I know that you did that. And I want you to know something: I picked you. I picked you too, Robert. I picked you because I think that you have a message to give to everyone in the world, and I think you do it in such a wonderful way. I wanted to scream to the world that I am a born-again Christian, and I'm so proud of it. I'm just so proud. Thank you—oh, thank you."

I asked Robert, I asked Robert if he would—he said to me, "Would you like me to baptize you?" I said, "I'd give anything to be baptized by you." So, if you're ready, I'm ready, my friend.

Robert, Evel Knievel, you have accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior?

And you believe he lives by his Holy Spirit within you this very moment? He's here?

Then I baptize you, Robert Evel Knievel, in the name of the Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, his Son, your Savior, and in the name of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

And now may the Lord bless you with eternal life and continue to bless you with the exploding power of faith and hope and joy and love and peace that's in your life today like you've never had it before. Thank you, Jesus Christ, for coming into his heart and life, to renew our faith in you and to see that you are alive, reaching out to people and answering prayers. Give him health. Help him through these times when he experiences pain. Bless his loved ones. And the special blessing he needs more than anything else is something I don't know and only you know it. He'd guess wrong, but give it to him, God. Amen. Amen.

I want you to know that I sometimes made a jump and I said to people, as I was sitting back there for my final run at the takeoff ramp, that I could feel their good wishes and their prayers coming across from the stadium, across the grounds, across the field to the jump, and I could feel them praying for me. I said this after the jump, that I knew they were praying for me. I could feel it. And I'll never forget in London, England, I had 80-some thousand people sitting in a grandstand, and I felt that.

I want to tell you something. I never ever have looked into the eyes of a crowd, of throngs of people, to see and feel what I feel here today. I love you all. Thank you so much for coming to this beautiful church and praising God this day, and I'm so glad that I'm here with you. Thank you. Thank you.

Conversion itself is not hard, once the sinner comes to see himself as a needy, damned destitute sinner, in need of salvation which no one can provide, except the living God, by grace thru effectual faith.

But coming to that point is what is hard, due to love of sin, or faith in alternative objects of faith, versus surrender to the Lord Jesus, the Divine Son sent by the Father, trusting Him to save your by His sinless atoning shed blood, by His merits, not any of our own or church, etc.

But which is confessed, shown in baptism and following the Lord as part of a sound evangelical church. (Acts 10:34-57)

Yet the testimony of Robert Craig Knievel - actual name - was at the Crystal Cathedral, which God planned.

For,

According to an article in Christianity Today, (CT) sometime during Daytona Bike Week last month, Knievel's resistance finally gave way to belief. "I don't know what in the world happened. I don't know if it was the power of the prayer or God himself, but...the power of God in Jesus just grabbed me. All of a sudden, I just believed in Jesus Christ. I did, I believed in him! ...I rose up in bed and, I was by myself, and I said, 'Devil, you...get away from me. I cast you out of my life.' I just got on my knees and prayed that God would put His arms around me and never, ever, ever let me go." (Photo: Rev. Robert H. Schuller with Knievel on Palm Sunday-Courtesy of Crystal Cathedral)

One thing apparently led to another, and after a visit by Rev. Robert Schuller, who baptized Knievel, he eventually found himself giving his testimony at the Crystal Cathedral on Palm Sunday.

According to the CT report, Rev. Schuller (who took over last year for his retired father) could see from the people's reactions to Knievel's testimony that this would be no ordinary service. Deviating from the normal script, and transition into the offering, Schuller went up front and said, "I believe there is somebody who needs to be baptized here. Maybe up on that balcony or by that door or by that wall. So come forward." (Photo: Knievel is baptized-courtesy of Crystal Cathedral)

Then Schuller, with the help of four other pastors and a "candy dish" of water, walked from person to person who had moved to the front, crying while baptizing them and going on to the next one. The spontaneous response went on for 30 minutes, and then continued in the next service. In all, between 500 to 800 people were estimated to have made first time, or recommitments to the Lord. - http://65583.stablerack.com/apps/articles/default.asp?blogid=0&view=post&articleid=33325&link=1&fldKeywords&fldAuthor&fldTopic=0

Now,

Shepherd's Grove is a congregation of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Irvine, California, United States. The church was founded by Robert H. Schuller in 1955 as the Garden Grove Community Church and renamed to Crystal Cathedral Ministries after its church building, the Crystal Cathedral, in 1981. The congregation is now pastored by Bobby V. Schuller, grandson of Robert H. Schuller, and the organization has changed its name to Shepherd's Grove Ministries. As such, the church continues to advance the weekly production of Robert H. Schuller's well-known Hour of Power Christian television program.

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