Jim Bakker Show - Billy Graham and Jim Bakker's Lowest Moment - Full Story
Aired: 2018-02-28
Duration: 08:38


=== The Wife Who Gave Dignity (07:58) ===

[00:00:00]  What Ruth did for me.
[00:00:01]  Yes.
[00:00:02]  Ruth gave me dignity.
[00:00:04]  Yes, she did.
[00:00:05]  The wife of Billy Graham gave me dignity.
[00:00:08]  And I said, I'm bringing her flowers.
[00:00:10]  Yes.
[00:00:11]  There I am.
[00:00:12]  Somebody had a picture there, camera.
[00:00:15]  And the only reason I want to lay flowers at Billy Graham's grave is just to show my heart.
[00:00:23]  I don't know how to show my heart.
[00:00:26]  Do you understand that?
[00:00:28]  I just want to say thank you, Billy.
[00:00:33]  I never push my way into people saying I never, you know, but I want to honor in this last moment.
[00:00:43]  I just, I'm so thankful for what Billy has done for the world.
[00:00:49]  For the world.
[00:00:50]  But when I was in that prison, the lowest day, probably up to that moment in the prison, I was sick.
[00:01:05]  I had pneumonia.
[00:01:07]  I never once laid in my bunk in my cell and did not do my job.
[00:01:16]  I cleaned toilets for five years every day.
[00:01:22]  I would not lay in the bed, even though I felt like I was dying.
[00:01:28]  You know, I got pneumonia.
[00:01:33]  You know why I wouldn't do it?
[00:01:34]  Why I wouldn't let somebody out?
[00:01:37]  Because if I didn't do my job, another inmate would have to do my job.
[00:01:48]  They would have to do my job and probably their job.
[00:01:52]  And I was never going to have an inmate say, that Christian, that Jim Baker hole there.
[00:01:58]  Now, he lays in bed when I'm doing his work.
[00:02:04]  But that morning, I cleaned my toilets.
[00:02:09]  I had my shoes that had holes in the toes.
[00:02:14]  They were my toilet shoes.
[00:02:15]  I had two pairs of tennis shoes.
[00:02:17]  That was rich in prison.
[00:02:19]  That was abundant living to have two pairs of tennis shoes.
[00:02:22]  I had a good pair that I could wear to the visiting room to see Tammy Sue and my family.
[00:02:29]  And I'm serious.
[00:02:33]  My toes were hanging out of my shoes.
[00:02:35]  Yes.
[00:02:40]  And the guard called me.
[00:02:45]  He said, they say Baker and they never say Jim.
[00:02:49]  Baker, you have a visitor.
[00:02:54]  And I said, it's not visiting day.
[00:03:00]  I didn't know who it was.
[00:03:01]  I didn't know what it was.
[00:03:03]  He said, you need to go to the warden's office right now.
[00:03:06]  I thought, oh, God, help me.
[00:03:08]  I'm in trouble.
[00:03:09]  Going to the warden's office usually meant they're going to...
[00:03:13]  Yeah, that's the principal's office if you're a kid.
[00:03:16]  It really is.
[00:03:21]  I had on my old clothes.
[00:03:25]  I had on my wrinkled toilet cleaning clothes.
[00:03:28]  Not my visiting, my family clothes.
[00:03:32]  It's two different sets of clothes you had.
[00:03:34]  Yes, perfectly pressed.
[00:03:37]  And your ragged tennis shoes.
[00:03:38]  My ragged tennis shoes.
[00:03:42]  And also, I had hair.
[00:03:47]  It was disheveled.
[00:03:48]  It was so disheveled because they wouldn't give you anything.
[00:03:52]  Hairspray could be a flame gun.
[00:03:55]  You'd put fire to a spray of hair.
[00:03:57]  You ladies could get in trouble.
[00:03:58]  Oh, yeah.
[00:04:00]  Don't smoke if you're going to spray hair.
[00:04:03]  You could go up in flames.
[00:04:04]  Because, you know, it's really dangerous.
[00:04:06]  Right.
[00:04:06]  And so in prison, they don't give you anything.
[00:04:09]  No hair goop, no nothing.
[00:04:12]  And so my hair was disheveled.
[00:04:16]  My clothes were disheveled.
[00:04:18]  I was sick with pneumonia.
[00:04:21]  I looked like a man that had been sleeping under a bridge for years.
[00:04:29]  So I walked over to the warden's office across the prison yard and I stood out there and I remember I stood on a piece of carpet and somebody, one of the guards, just walked by.
[00:04:53]  He said, Baker, what are you doing here?
[00:04:54]  And I said, well, they called me to the guard.
[00:04:57]  They see the prince, not the principal, the warden.
[00:05:04]  And he said, well, you can't stand here.
[00:05:08]  Go stand over there.
[00:05:12]  Somebody came out of the office and they said, Baker, you have a visitor.
[00:05:22]  I said, well, it's not visiting day.
[00:05:25]  Who's here?
[00:05:27]  He said, Has nobody told you?
[00:05:31]  Billy Graham is here.
[00:05:37]  He said, Do you want to see him?
[00:05:42]  I looked down at my shoes with my toes hanging out and my wrinkled clothes.
[00:05:47]  And I was sick.
[00:05:50]  I looked bad.
[00:05:53]  And I thought, oh, the last time I saw Billy, he was on my show.
[00:05:58]  I have a picture of it right there.
[00:06:02]  The only picture I have of Billy and me on a show.
[00:06:05]  And the last time I had been with Billy Graham, I was on TV with the who's who of the world.
[00:06:12]  The who's who of the world at a meeting at the National Religious Broadcasters Convention.
[00:06:20]  We've been honored to be the program that would bring that meeting to the world.
[00:06:27]  Right.
[00:06:28]  And I thought, oh, I don't want him to see me looking like this.
[00:06:37]  But he came, so I had to go out.
[00:06:43]  I walked into the room.
[00:06:47]  And there was the warden who was there, and assistant wardens, and everybody wanted to see Billy Graham.
[00:06:54]  But when I walked in, all I could see is this six-foot-something man, and I'm a five-foot-something guy.
[00:07:05]  And I walked in.
[00:07:08]  He threw his arms around me.
[00:07:14]  And he held me.
[00:07:16]  Wow.
[00:07:18]  And he said, Jim, I love you.
[00:07:22]  Yes.
[00:07:24]  How could anybody love me looking like that?
[00:07:30]  I had been disgraced to the world.
[00:07:34]  And a man who on the radio, like a day before, I'd heard, this is what I heard.
[00:07:41]  Billy Graham voted as one of the top three most respected men in the world.

=== Man In The Coffin (00:55) ===

[00:07:50]  And here he is in my prison Holding me in his arms.
[00:08:00]  Telling me that he loved me.
[00:08:03]  Wow.
[00:08:05]  And I didn't feel love very much anymore.
[00:08:13]  And that's the man that's lying in that coffin today.
[00:08:20]  That's right.
[00:08:20]  Wow.
[00:08:22]  That's why I just want to put flowers on his queen.
[00:08:30]  That sounds silly, but there's nothing else I can do for him but preach the gospel and win souls to Jesus Christ.