Dear friends:

Last night on TBN (thank God for TBN), the host, Paul Crouch's son, was interviewing Pat Robertson's son, Gordon, who has been co-hosting the 700 Club the past few years.

I was attracted because I had once known Gordon and he was talking about the early history of CBN, before and after I started there in 1974.  It was fascinating.

But what was especially interesting was Gordon's personal testimony, which he shared with emotion and sometimes sincere tears.  I will try to remember....

Gordon said he rebelled against religion because his parents were always in poverty, living in old houses in Portsmouth, Virginia, impossible to heat.  All the houses have since been condemned and torn down.  While at the same time he experienced affluence when he visited his grandmother, wife of the late U.S. Senator Willis Robertson (1887-1971).  He decided he did not want that kind of life, so he studied law so he could make money.

He felt called to the ministry at age 5, he said, but he later became a backslider, a "bad backslider," he said.

After college, he practiced law about ten years and had made "partner" in his firm, and felt he had "arrived."  One day in his "proud" and "bad" backslidden condition, the phone rang and it was Pastor John Giminez of Rock Church of Virginia Beach.  John told Gordon that he had a dream about him and wanted Gordon to accompany him on a ministry trip to India the upcoming Monday.  Since that was Thursday, Gordon assumed it was too late to get a visa, so agreed to go -- if a visa could be obtained.  Giminez called back the next day and said he had the visa already!  So on Monday off they went to India -- a pastor and a badly backslidden lawyer!

After a long air flight, then long train ride, they finally arrived at their destination.  One day backslidden Gordon was asked to preach to 15,000 and to his surprise, a number of people came forward at the end.  The words of a converted Brahman woman especially touched his heart.

When their time was up, Gimineze shockingly told Gordon that he had another dream and that Gordon was supposed to stay there while he went back to the U.S.!  Gordon stayed, and spent the next three weeks preaching from village to village.

In one village, one morning about 3 a.m., he was awakened in his cheap hotel room to a great commotion in the streets.  He dressed and went down to discover the Hindus were having a big religious celebration.  People were wildly worshiping various Hindu gods.  He was especially moved to see one old woman on the ground, on her face, worshipping a stone and crying out to it for help.

At that moment, Gordon said he suddenly heard the voice of Jesus behind him.  Just out of nowhere, the voice said, "You are of the same blood she is"

The voice also said, "No one has told them." Gordon wept as he related this.  It was obviously a very real and moving experience.  He also sensed this was the confirmation of a calling on his life to "tell" people about Jesus, which he has been doing ever since.

Gordon wanted to confirm this unusual experience with the Word, so he spent the next three days seeking the Lord and confirmation in Scripture, which he received.  I cannot remember all of it, but the first day the Lord showed him Acts 17:26: "And (God) hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth, and hath determined the times before appointed, and the bounds of their habitation."  That confirmed the blood part.  Each day there was a different confirmation, one from Isaiah 53 but I cannot remember the verse.

I don't know the chronology, but Gordon's life was dramatically transformed by that trip and experience and he soon left the law practice and joined his dad at CBN. He became director of Asia operations, stationed in the Philippines, then later co-host of the 700 Club.

Gordon is no doubt heir-apparent to his father.  I never knew that soft, spiritual side of Gordon, but I am glad to learn about it.

Jim