Posted on 03/03/2018 11:23:02 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Controversial televangelist Jim Bakker has said that the late Rev. Billy Graham once visited him in prison in some of the lowest moments of his life, where he hugged him and told him that he loves him.
Bakker, whose ministry came to a grinding halt in 1987 after he was accused of paying hush money to his secretary for alleged rape, and later served five years in prison for various fraud charges, traveled to Charlotte on Tuesday to pay his respects to Graham, who died at the age of 99 last week.
The televangelist, who hosts "The Jim Bakker Show" in Missouri, told WBTV that Graham showed him remarkable kindness and visited him when he was in prison.
"Billy Graham came into my prison when I was there. He wrapped his arms around me when I was a mess. I was cleaning toilets at that moment and I was at a very low moment in my life," Bakker said. "Billy Graham walked in and threw his arms around me and said, 'Jim, I love you.'"
Graham's wife, Ruth, who died in 2007, even invited him to their home in North Carolina after he was released from prison.
"And Ruth Graham is so amazing, it would take me hours to tell. As I got out of prison, I was at the Graham home, I was at the church with Ruth Graham and all," he recalled.
"But they represented Jesus Christ to somebody who the world said was fallen and would never preach again."
Bakker said that he has received love from the whole Graham family and noted that he is looking forward to walking with the late evangelist in Heaven one day.
Bakker, who has often preached about the end of the world, wrote last week for the "The Jim Bakker Show."
"Some believed and have declared that the death of Billy Graham would signal the beginning of the last days. I don't know this to be a fact, but I do know, according to the Scriptures, we are truly living in the final days before the coming of our Lord, Jesus Christ."
He reflected that the number 99, the age at which Graham died, is a number that means fruitfulness.
"At an age of double fruitfulness, Billy enters Heaven, leaving an abundant legacy of fruitfulness that no man has ever before achieved," he wrote.
Baker, who in 1987 was dismissed as an Assemblies of God minister, continues to garner controversy for statements he makes on his show, such as arguing in August 2017 that Christians will start a "civil war" if President Donald Trump is impeached.
Other Christian leaders, such as Saddleback Church Pastor Rick Warren, have praised Graham for his willingness to speak with people of all backgrounds and beliefs, and share the Gospel.
"He put Catholics and Protestants, Calvinists and Charismatics, Fundamentalist and Evangelicals, Liberals and Conservatives, all on the platform together. He was criticized for it, but he knew that God blesses unity and harmony," Warren recalled in a Facebook post last week.
Mr. Baker really needed a friend at that time. So much had gone wrong for him during that year. Billy Graham showed he was not a ‘fair weather friend’, but someone who still had faith that Jim would get through this. Most of the very famous people treated him as ‘toxic’ during his incarceration.
Romans 5:7-9 New King James Version (NKJV)
7 For scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone would even dare to die.
8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
9 Much more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath through Him.
1 John 4:10 King James Version (KJV)
10 Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us, and sent His Son to be the Propitiation for our sins.
I watched Jim and Tammy Faye a lot back in the day. They were hilarious.
Oh, we’re blessed! We’re blessed! We’re blessed!
So please send in a thousand bucks for a condo and you will be saved.
Warren is an apostate.
It figures he would use the Billy Graham's death as a platform to push his Antichrist false ecumenism, New Age paganism, and Chrislam.
http://www.discerningtruth.org/showthread.php?250-Is-Rick-Warren-a-False-Teacher
The first two lies ever told, still work today. You won’t die. You will be like a god.
I kept thinking poor Tammy would take off and fly with the gugungous false eyelashes she pasted on. They were like wings. Why nobody took that woman aside and discussed her lashes and her makeup is beyond me. Oh well, she never lifted off. Maybe they were trying for a miracle.
I certainly did not care for him associating with Obozo the antichrist.
..my family and I were just discussing Warren—an apostle of end times apostasy for sure...
And now Jim Bakker is back to bilking the elderly, selling them crap they don’t need at twice the market price after hours on his show instilling fear into them.
I suffered a small portion of the evil that befell Bakker in precisely the same time frame, when the power of the state treated religion as its eternal enemy. He was a man of joy who felt the Holy Spirit leading him to a New Jerusalem. The government and other enemies saw only a miracle they could not control and darken. So they destroyed it and tried to destroy the man. Broken but unbowed, Bakker continues to witness to a sin filled world with the irrepressible love of Christ.
Well, he was a persecuted innocent man, if you want to ignore the criminal fraud for which he was convicted.
Good. If anyone saw Ruth Graham’s testimony at her father’s funeral and not be moved (her story was much the same as Bakker’s) then they must be made of stone.
I hope that level of personal suffering is now over for you, just as it is for Rev. Jim Bakker. Good luck to you.
*Unity* does not mean unity with lies or the enemy.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.