Louisiana Legends; Jimmy Swaggert

Funding for the production of Legends is provided in part by the Friends of LPB. When I visited my famous rock star cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis,

and saw his luxurious automobiles, his fabulous home and his wardrobe of over 100 suits, I felt for my life savings of $2 plus change in my pocket and I looked at my car held together with baling wire. I knew I had to make the most important decision of my life. Those are the words of Jimmy Swaggart, surely the most successful and famed evangelist in our world today and a Louisianian. And, Jimmy, who has told me to call him Jimmy, welcome to Louisiana Legends. Well, Gus, thank you. Thank you and I thank you for your involvement, you know. Being a Louisianian and a Baton Rougean, I want to commend you on your excellent contribution to the city, the state. Thank you, sir. Everything else considering. Let me ask you. That was a big day. That obviously was a pivotal point in the life of Jimmy Swaggart. I, you took me back a long ways, Gus, back nearly a quarter of a century ago. And Jerry Lee, of course, I love him very, very much. He and I were

closer and are closer even today than most cousins would be. We grew up learning to play the piano together and probably there have been few men and maybe several generations have had any more talent than Jerry Lee had. Jerry Lee has had tremendous personal emotional problems and if he hadn't had the talent that he has, he couldn't survive whatsoever. Those were trying times. Frances and I were just starting in evangelistic work, felt that God would want us to do this. Donnie was a baby and to, to someone that's, that's very young, you, you things like cars, suits etc. probably mean more than they would when you get a little older. You realize it's not so much there anymore. And I had some decisions to make, and the Lord helped me to make them. I've never regretted them. Not one single solitary time. I remember one time when Jerry Lee's

song was, I guess it was number one in the nation. He and Presley were vying for the number one spot. And it's an ironical thing that the man that, that worked the sound for Presley up until the day he died is now one of our sound men. And, but anyway, I addressed a school assembly. Jerry Lee was the biggest thing in the nation, he and Presley were. And a little girl came up to me right after the thing was over, and she, she was very sincere. She said, "Aren't you sorry that you went in the direction that you have gone and didn't go or follow your cousin?" And I knew she was sincere. She didn't say it flippantly, and I don't know if she understood what I told her. I told her that no I wasn't. I was doing what I felt God wanted me to do. I felt it was the right thing. And that's hard to understand. It really is. But God had called me to do this, and I've tried my very best -- even though I feel like I've failed miserably

to be honest with you -- because the Lord has been so much better to me than I ever could deserve. But that doesn't mean he dislikes Jerry Lee. I want that understood. Let me ask you a question. You mentioned Elvis Presley. We're talking about Jerry Lee Lewis. I'll give a third name, Hank Williams. Seems to me that those three men had or have a couple of things in common: (a) a genius, each in his respective fields of music, genius (b) an almost most sad cursed existence and here's the question I want to pose to you as a man whose business is men and their souls. Do you think that God might extract a price for genius? I think that it's not so much God extracting a price for genius, Gus. I think it's that genius itself extracts the price. With every blessing, there is a tiny bit of curse that goes along with it. I don't care what it is. If you've got real ability, I don't mean mediocre. I mean real

ability in some area, there's also a hook attached to it. Always. It's a little curse. Most - now let me change that - some can overcome it and pull out and make it. Some, it gets the best of them, and it drags them down. It's almost like the Jekyll and Hyde thing. It's very close to that similarity. That's the reason I ache for my cousin and I hurt for him because we are so much alike in so many ways. Not that I'm even beginning to say that I could play a piano like Jerry Lee can. Don't misunderstand. But I know and had I not had the parents I had, my wife that's been the Rock of Gibraltar, the mercy and blessings of God, Jimmy Swaggart probably would never, never have been able to do what little good we've done. I'd have never been able to have done it. And it's so

close, so close there. And that's the reason I pray for him constantly and I believe in one day he's coming back. Was growing up in Ferriday, Louisiana, pretty tough existence? You know, your biography which I very carefully read in preparing for this program, you did not start out as a man of God or a boy of God. If you'll pardon the word, you were one hell of a kid, Jimmy, and goodness sake, what a transformation! Your folks, for example, who... your father who later became a minister. Right. Your father ran a still. When I was, before I was born, he did. He didn't after I was born. This was during the Depression. People were hungry in those days. You're not old enough to have seen that and I'm not either. We're both products of it, but not products in it, but products of it.

And my dad ran a still a little bit. He was just a kid himself, I think, my dad to be. He was 19 years old and my grandfather went to, went to, went to jail. Jerry Lee's dad went to jail. Mickey Gilley's dad went to jail. My uncle in whose home I was born 47 years ago went to jail. Goodness. The, the men sent by Elliot Ness, and I know everybody knows Ness, with double barreled shotguns in the crook of their arms leveled them on my, all of my people. Now, understand they were just trying to put some bread in their mouth. They were not like some particular people. It was, it was hard times. And my mother was eight months pregnant with me. This was in February of 1935 and this hardnosed revenue officer looked at my mother to be, looked at my dad to be, and puttin' handcuffs on the rest of them with those sawed off shotguns in their arms and he told my dad, he said, "Son, I hate to take you to jail. Your wife

about to have a baby and you're just a kid. I'm going to turn my back for 10 seconds and if you're here when I turn back around, you're going to prison." And my dad could have given him eight seconds back, and but no I came out. It wasn't hard growing up. Nothing is hard for kids. Kids adapt easily. Jerry Lee and I, Mickey Gilley, Mickey's been tremendously, you know, we're all cousins. I wish I could sit here and tell you, Gus, that I was the model of perfection and all of that stuff, but I was anything but that. Let me ask you this: At a very early age though, you became religious and then it grew. As a kid being religious, particularly in that world, surely that must have set you apart from other kids. [Swaggart] It does. It's hard. [Weill] I would think that that would have been a rather lonely existence. You hit it right on the head, Gus. It is, in many cases, a very lonely existence. Churches nowadays. I know

we're building a church here in Baton Rouge and it's just growing immensely, the Family Worship Center. And we do everything we know to do to provide activities of every nature for the kids because they need it. But, in those days, there was no activities provided, period. And I had certain convictions as a kid, things that I felt. This was, this was after I felt the Lord had saved me, understand. And it was hard. It was lonely. At times, Gus, to be frank and honest with you, I didn't make it. I didn't stand the test. God was just merciful to me. I'll be frank with you. Had the Lord not been kind and gracious and merciful to me, I don't. I don't speak harshly of one single young man in prison today 'cause I'd a wound up there as sure as I'm sitting in this chair if my mother and dad hadn't have been kind and patient and the Lord had not been merciful. I'm a product of his mercy and grace. I'll be frank and honest with you.

The first time that you determined to preach a street service, get your Bible and go out on the streets, I think in Mangham, Louisiana... That's it. You got it That's right. That has to be a frightening experience. I don't know. Surely it crosses your mind. Will they laugh at me? Will people look at me like I'm crazy? Will they throw oranges at me? That has to be a terribly frightening experience. When I made the change, when I came from doing about everything I was big enough to do and a lot of things I wasn't big enough to do... me and Jerry Lee and Mickey and the whole bunch of us. I made the change, totally, completely. I'm gonna cut all the ties of the past and did my very best to live like I ought to live and do what I ought to do. That first day you're talking about. I don't guess I will ever forget it, no matter what. It was, I was so scared my knees were smiting one against the other, but the

the hardest time of all, Gus. I was raised in Ferriday. In Mangham, no one knew me. And so I could manage that. I asked a grocery man if I could borrow a plug in his store, plugged in our amplifiers and had a street service. It was hard. But the hardest thing I ever did in my life was -- and I felt I had to do it -- because of I'd you said I was a hell raiser and you're just about right, I was. And was park a big old two-ton truck right beside Volk's Drugstore in Ferriday, Louisiana, right smack downtown, if you can, if Ferriday's got a downtown. And climb on the back of that thing and have a street service in my home town with people walking by that knew me. It, it took all the grit. I will be honest with you. I don't know if now I could do it. [Laughter] I don't know if I could. Are you saying this? That before a man can have the ego, the confidence, the audacity to tinker and to try and change other men's souls which is.

That he, he must first get honest and get right with himself? That's, that's absolutely imperative and it's a long process, Gus. It doesn't happen overnight. It's a long process. Moses was 40 years in the backside of the desert, God preparin' him. And I couldn't stand in Moses' shadow, don't misunderstand me. Joseph spent years in prison. David was hunted like an animal for 12 years before he became king of Israel. It's a long preparation process. The disciples. Somebody called 'em The Dirty Dozen. Then when Jesus chose them but it, it took a lot of molding and making and all of us are human, Gus, and we've all got idiosyncrasies, inconsistencies, flaws, things that aren't right. God works with us. We have to be pliant and pliable in His hands. And even as we grow, we seem to fail, to be honest with

you. But it takes a long time before that you are at the place and maybe you never get there. I don't know. Maybe you never get there. Maybe you just do the best you can. God helps you in spite of yourself. Maybe that might be a better answer. Well, for example, I'm 49 years old, a couple of years older than you are. God has never spoken to me. That is, I've never been conscious of a deity addressing me. What, what kind of what kind of a feeling is that then for a man to say that, that's so. Can you describe it? What? That sounds for a man to say God's, but that sounds awful pompous to be honest with you. And I've never heard any voices in my life or seen anything. Don't misunderstand me. I seek God. I guess I could say without exaggerating every single day of my life in prayer. I don't mean just a few words of God help us today. I mean sometimes hours. Because the task that I believe he's given me to do, I feel like I'm unworthy to do it. What is your task if I can interrupt? To

evangelize the world... [Weill]the whole world...[Swaggart] Every single individual in it will have an opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. I know I can't do that, but I've got to try. That's my job. That's the reason we're on television in almost every free nation in the world. How many stations, Jimmy? Right now, about 650. That counts the daily and the....that's paid stations. Now cables, we're talking about nearly to 2 to 3000. You never know where cable systems go, you know, everywhere. And we're also building churches in other countries of the world, Bible schools, we're sending missionaries, we're printing literature. We're building schools, just plain little schools. Secular schools in Third World countries. We've got 41 right now, either built or under construction or soon to be started. We'll probably wind up building 50 to 75 in Haiti alone. Now these are not elaborate affairs. They're very inexpensive things. The little kids are given

a little uniform. We purchase that for them. They are given one meal a day, a hot meal, and it's not much but it's good to them. They are given an excellent education. And when I say excellent the rudiments: reading, writing, arithmetic, etc. These are the most poverty-stricken kids you could ever think of, understand. We're taking care of now nearly 50,000 of these. And that will grow as we go. As, as a man achieves the worldwide success that you have certainly achieved, does he ever have problems with his ego, for example? Do you ever have to sit down with Jimmy Swaggart and say: "Now wait a minute, you know, let's keep our feet on the ground." Do you? Do you ever have to do that? Let me. I don't know. I've always thought, Gus, that I've never been troubled by ego. Maybe, maybe I'm troubled much more than I think. Maybe. Maybe egos come in different shapes, sizes and colors and everything else. I, I look at what I have to do, and the older I get,

the more I realize I can't do it without God's help. I realize that so much. That it's you're talking about the souls, the eternal souls of men. And who am I to engage myself in something like this? We don't look at it like success or lack of success. It's just trying to do the will of God. Jesus, He told his disciples right before he was crucified. He got on his knees, put an apron around his waist, took a basin of water and washed their dirty feet. He was teaching them the lesson of humility. I don't know if I've ever learned it. I don't know if I ever will. What do you do when, when you're weary of spirit? Or are you sometimes weary of spirit? Well, certainly. Every man gets tired of....[Weill]How does Jimmy Swaggart handle it? And that's a valid question, because I can tell you that most people who see you on television -- which is how most people see you -- or in these giant revivals that you hold. They would say to themselves: Now there is a man who surely has no doubts.

He's confident. My goodness, he's achieved this. But I think there's something comforting about knowing that a man like you has some doubts and, and gets tired and weary. I do get tired. I do get weary. I wouldn't say that I have doubts. There's one problem that's always troubled me, Gus. It bothers me. I was talking with a missionary the other day, Mark Montane. He's worked 30 years in Calcutta, India, and he and I, I found, had a mutual fear, a doubt, a problem and it's this. What about the millions, the hundreds of millions of people that know nothing of God. They haven't had the opportunity to hear as me and you have. They don't live in the United States or Canada whatever. They they live in the heart of Equatorial Africa wherever it may be. What about those people? It's my job to get the message to them but, in spite of all we do, we don't get it to all of them. How does God judge those people? And I know that in Genesis it says the judge of the earth will do right. That's troubled me a lot. It always

has. He was talking to me. It troubles him. We know God will be totally fair and honest in what he does. He's that way. I, I don't really have doubts about God, about what I do, about what he's called me to do. I don't really. That sounds, that sounds bold, pompous and maybe somebody might say what you just don't know enough about what you're doin' to doubt. That might be true. I don't know. But I'd like to think it's not true. I do get tired. I do get weary. I do get frustrated. I get frustrated at times when I see what needs to be done. I am the vehicle, the instrument that's supposed to do it and I'm thralled, I'll be honest. I have a temper like other people have. I'm impatient. Like you probably aren't. I, I've had to pray with those things constantly. I've had to pray over 'em with tears at times.

It seems to me as I watch you that the part of your calling that I personally would find the most difficult and I've wondered how a man gets himself up for that is the constant need to beg for money.... [Swaggart] That is a problem..... [Weill] That has to be a nightmare. We are, we are having to do that less now because we've won the confidence of an awful lot of people in the country, which I thank the Lord for. I don't enjoy it. I wouldn't do it for anybody but God. That's a wonderful answer. I wouldn't do it for myself. I wouldn't do it for anybody. It is rough. For the Lord. It's rough. I'll be frank with you. I have to stand before congregations and tell them we've got to have nearly a quarter of a million dollars a day. And I know what the news says, and I don't blame the news at times. Because sometimes things are done that doesn't look right. And sometimes things are done, Gus, that aren't right in the realm of the gospel. I'd like to think that we've handled every dollar like we ought to handle, and I know it sounds like I'm trying to say I'm some paragon of righteousness. No, it doesn't. But I'd like to think we have. I've tried.

Because a lot of the people that give the money.... we have a lot of millionaires that support the work. But we have an awful lot of people, Gus, that are very poor. They work hard for what little they get and they give it and it's, it's, it's more of a sacrifice for them to give $10 than it is for some people we have to give $10,000, see, and God taught me a lesson on that one day. He said if you ever abuse it or misuse it, he said, you'll not only answer to me in the judgment, but you will answer to those people and stand before them. That is the awesome thing, because when you handle... I don't really handle it. I don't even see the money, to be honest with you. But when you, when that much money is in your control... this year it will take almost $60 million to run the organization. That's a lot of money. That's a lot of money. A lot of people would say well you're not capable of handling that kind of money. Well, that may be true and it may not be true. But you have a tendency, if you're not careful, to become

careless with amounts that maybe 20 years ago looked large, but now look small. And that's what you have to stay on top of constantly -- that every dime and dollar has to be accounted for and to stand before people to constantly be asking them for help. That's probably the most unpleasant aspect I would think of the ministry. Do you watch other evangelists on television? I watch some. Some I don't have an ounce of respect for and some I respect greatly. I wouldn't dare say who or whom. I won't put you on the spot, but I will ask you this: Those whom you do not have great respect for, what qualities turn you off? Dishonesty. [Weill] Dishonesty. [Swaggart] Dishonesty. What I would construe as dishonest. I feel that if I write people and tell them I'm building a school or a church or a bible school or missionaries or whatever it is, showing television

programming in a certain country and I don't do that, I've lied to those people. I've got to do exactly what I tell those people that we will do. And in a letter I've got to be honest. If I write you a letter, Gus, and I say Dear Gus (and computers can do brilliant things nowadays). Yes. God has spoken to my heart and said that you ought to give $50 to our work. That would be the basest to me dishonesty, corrupt dishonesty, that any minister of the Gospel or anyone could engage himself in. For the first place, God may tell you to give me $25 for our work, but he's not going to tell me to tell you that, that you ought to give it. I may ask you for $25 but I'm not going to say that God told me to tell you to give it. That's wrong. That's dishonest. Will some of these ministries that are riding high and whom you obviously feel are built on a false basis or premise, will they come and go and will they disappear from our airwaves? I'm just curious.

No, not really. They won't, Gus. And let me put, put it this way. I'm not God. I judge, I try to judge the tree by the fruit it bears. That's all any man can do. What I would look at something and say well I don't think that's exactly right. That may not be the truth of the matter. It may not be correct. They may be... it may be more right than I know. And God's the final judge. I'm not the judge. I can only pick the fruit. But I'm not the judge, really. As I familiarized myself with your life, I was overwhelmed at one thing that you had accomplished and overcome and perhaps it said more to me about you than anything else, and I'm sure I'm not divulging a secret. Your church in 1955 I think or in 1959 turned you down for ordination. The Assemblies of God church meeting in Lake Charles turned you down. [Swaggart] That is right. That had to be the most devastating,

crushing....... [Swaggart] It was. But it was, it was. You know, here's what God will do. Now there's a little sequel to that. Anything that's a disappointment, Gus, if you'll put it in God's hands, he'll make a growth situation out of it for you. He'll bring good out of it. I grew by that. I got on my face and the men that were responsible. I thought whether they were or not. In my spirit, I got down and I said, "God, until I can love those men, respect them, I'm not getting off this floor." And God worked something out in my heart and I think it was a tremendous growing period for me. Because there was no reason for their action. None. And the sequel to that is: Just two weeks ago our organization sent us the largest gift they had ever had to build a tabernacle that's much needed here in the state, and I was thrilled that we could do that. But the Lord worked everything out beautifully. He always does. One more question and it has to be a brief one. [Swaggart] And incidentally, some of those men. [Weill] Yes sir.

That were on that board now are on my board. That's only our Lord working. In 40 years it's a real good possibility that Jimmy Swaggart and Gus Weill won't be here. Or in 60 years, Iet's say, we probably won't be here. You may pull it off, you know, you've got some contacts that I don't have. I doubt it. Here is my question. How would, how would simply you like to be remembered? I would like to be remembered as someone that tried their best to love God and love people and to do the will of God. And if you do the will of God, you will help people. God's kingdom is not in things. We've got cameras, all that kind of stuff and an organization, television equipment. But that's not God. God is people. He's where people are hurting, where they have a need, where they're sick, where they're hungry, where they're in pain. That's where God is. Are a lot of people hungry and in need? Oh, Gus, the whole world, the world is. [Weill] The whole world is.

Jimmy, on behalf of this, of these stations and the state of Louisiana and its citizens and all those hungry people who you're making a heck of an attempt to feed in all kind of ways, thank you so much. You're a Louisiana Legend. You're a world legend. You're an incredibly successful evangelist, and you're a lovely man. Thank you so much. Thank you. That's very kind of you to say that. I could never measure up to it, but thank you for your kindness. Funding for the production of Legends is provided in part by the Friends of

LPB.