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Jan. 19, 2026 - Jim Bakker Show
28:17
The Jim Bakker Show with Don Dickerman
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Jim Baker's Redemption Story 00:13:31
Welcome to the Jim Baker Family Show.
Our special guest is Pastor Don Dickerman.
Our co-host today is Reverend Mondo de la Vega.
And now, here is your host, Pastor Ricky Baker.
Hello, friends.
You're watching the PTL Television Network.
It's exciting.
You have tuned in with us today.
Friends, we have with us Don Dickerman.
You're not going to want to miss this show.
Mondo, what an incredible time to be alive.
United States of America.
You know, people can say, well, we're going through hard times, there's trials, there's tribulations, but I choose to believe that God is still on the throne.
And if he's on the throne, he's going to take care of his people.
Isn't that right?
As long as we are in alignment with his will, everything's going to be all right.
Amen.
And alignment meaning being obedient of what God's word has to say about his will.
Yes.
Because a lot of times we pray for what we want instead of what God needs from us.
Amen.
And those two different things can parallel and look like it's godly, but one of them is going to demand obedience out of you.
The other one is going to be, you know, a sacrifice of your own.
God likes obedience better than sacrifice.
You've seen that all throughout scripture.
Man's will is sacrificing God's will is being obedient.
That's right.
You know, Don Dickerman wrote a book called Death Row Redemption: Untold Stories of Forgiven Felons.
I think it's an incredible thing.
You know, we have a prison ministry that we're partnered with, and I was actually just with Pastor Juan Martinez, where he actually has now had over 20,000 plays on his podcast in the prisons around Texas and around the United States of America.
What an incredible thing.
But Don, I want to ask you a quick question.
What compelled you to write that book about the untold stories of forgiven felons?
You know, that's a common question, I get.
I've been going into prisons for so long, since 1974, and my reason or my call was always evangelistic to see men and women born again.
And over that time period, I've been in over 850 different prisons all around the world.
And during that time, I began to meet people that were, I guess, what you would call infamous inmates, well known for their crimes.
And as I would share with different people, different places, people would always encourage me.
You need to write about that.
You need other people need to know about that.
It's incredible how God's grace has reached so many of these people.
And it is incredible.
But you know, God's grace reaches not only to the bottom, it reaches beyond the bottom.
It reaches anyone, anywhere, anytime.
And the only condition is receiving it.
So my reason for writing it is to encourage people.
You haven't gone too far.
You won't go too far for God's grace to reach you.
Don, you have a fascinating ministry over the years.
Can you talk about who were some of the most infamous people that God led you to?
Who were they?
And how did you get there?
I was associate pastor at Shady Oaks Baptist Church in Hearst, Texas.
Got a phone call one night from a lady in the church and she said, my husband just shot a man.
Well, you don't expect to ever get that phone call, but I did.
And I went to see the man who he shot.
I went to see him first at Petersmith Hospital in Fort Worth.
And fortunately, he did not die.
But her husband, who did the shooting, eventually received a 25-year to life sentence in one of Texas' many prisons.
And I'm talking about 150 or so.
So the time came when she asked me to go with her to visit her husband.
Well, I'd never been in a prison, but I thought I knew a little bit about him.
I thought all the inmates had scars on their faces and, you know, looked like thugs.
And I thought I knew, but I didn't.
So I went with her one day to a prison called the Ferguson Unit in Midway, Texas.
We visited with her husband through a piece of glass and he's on the other side.
We're on one side.
And there were kids.
They were young men.
They looked like me.
They looked like my kids.
They looked like people.
And I really couldn't get that off my heart.
I knew I would be back.
I didn't know how or really why.
But the inmate, her husband's, her wife's husband, asked me if I would come and preach in their chapel.
I didn't even know they had chapels in prisons.
In Texas, there's some beautiful chapels.
At any rate, he said, let me go get my chaplain, Chaplain Dick Kastner, who is still a friend of mine.
And Chaplain Kastner said, you're welcome to come preach.
And he gave me a date to come preach in their chapel.
I'll never forget that.
I'm standing in front of 400 inmates and I remember telling them, I said, y'all take it easy on me.
This is my first time in prison.
And they laughed and said, it's our first time too.
It was a prison for first offenders.
At any rate, we had a good service.
And one of the inmates who came for salvation that night eventually had been out of prison and pastored a large church in Nashville, Tennessee.
I began to get mail from inmates who would write to me and mostly just talk.
but I began to get a lot of mail and guys would transfer to different prisons and write to me and say, would you come to my prison?
Well, before long, I guess now having been in over 850 different prisons, I've been in almost every prison in the United States.
Several in Alaska, in the Caribbean, was recently, it seems recent to me, but it was over 20 years ago.
I was in a prison in Ireland to visit with the meanest man in Ireland.
And the way that came about, you probably find this interesting, is through my friend David Berkowitz, the so-called son of Sam.
Well, David read an article about the meanest man in Ireland.
And he sent me that article.
He said, would you write to this man and witness to him like you did to me?
And he said, I can't write to him because I can't write to other inmates.
So I wrote to this man named Eddie Ferncombe, meanest man in Ireland.
That was his title.
And I witnessed to Eddie through the mail.
He accepted Christ by mail and eventually asked if I would come to prison in Ireland and take him through deliverance.
The meanest man in Ireland.
He had stabbed over 15, 16 people before he was 15 years old.
He was a gang leader in Dublin.
And so I could continue with those stories, but that's pretty much how it happened.
I did go to Ireland and I did take Eddie through deliverance.
And he's free today.
He's free.
He's out of prison, but sometime now, he communicates with me by text.
So there's tons of stories.
I know both of you are familiar with prison just because of Jim's involvement with prison.
It was through a Florida chaplain that I was encouraged to get in touch with Jim Baker.
As it turned out, Jim got in touch with me.
But Chaplain Barrick Glover in a Florida prison told me that Jim had been in to visit.
And he said, Brother Don, this is not the Jim Baker you've heard about.
This is the Jim Baker that God did something in his heart.
And he's welcome in my prison.
This is fascinating because you made me think about something.
And I knew your name was so familiar to me because I heard your name from our father, Pastor Jim Baker, years ago.
And I was introduced to one of the pastors there, Larry Wright.
And they were telling me stories back then about how you came into that prison and helped heal our father.
And we want to thank you on behalf of our partners, on behalf of our family, Reverend Don, because people like you walk into the mess where God is creating a message.
And when I'm looking at your book, I'm looking at chapter 13, and you write about the men who shot John Lennon, Mark David Chapman.
Then you write about Charles Manson.
You write about Ted Bundy.
You write about, I cannot wait to get this book in my hands.
And I love your heart, sir, and thank you because very few people are willing to be obedient to walk into a prison cell with what many have labeled infamous people, yet they also need Jesus.
And Ricky, you and I have talked about spiritual deliverance.
That's right.
And this is what deliverance looks like.
And sir, can you walk us through the process of understanding how to deal extensively with spiritual warfare?
Believers and Oppression 00:06:15
And what connection have you observed between violent crime and severe mental illness and demonic influence when it comes to oppression?
Oh, well, you know, that's what Jesus said, or what the Bible says about Jesus in the book of Acts, that he was a man that was full of the Holy Ghost.
He went about doing good and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.
So when you talk about or when you think about deliverance, people automatically think about possession.
Well, that's not at all what we deal with.
We deal with oppression.
And believers are oppressed by the devil.
That's what they do.
They came to steal, kill, and destroy.
So they torment their tormentors.
And so Jesus came to give us what he called in the book of Matthew, children's bread.
This is interesting.
Jesus was with the disciples one day at the Sea of Galilee.
And he said, today we're going to Tyre and Sidon.
And this is interesting.
That's 53, 58 miles down from the Sea of Galilee to the Mediterranean, to the coastline where Tyre and Sidon were located.
That's Baal country.
The people in that country were not believers.
They worshiped Baal.
Well, I'm sure the disciples wondered the whole time, why are we going to Baal country?
Why are we walking 53 miles down the rocks and the train.
Jesus didn't tell them, but they found out when they got there.
The Bible says this Canaanite woman, a non-believer, a non-Jew, came to him and said, my little girl, my little girl, is grievously vexed with the demon.
Help me.
You know, Jesus ignored her.
He didn't say a word to her.
And she said, I know who you are.
I know you're the son of David.
I know you can do it.
And he said, listen to what Jesus said.
It's not right to take the children's bread and give it to the dogs, the non-believers.
He said, what you have asked for, healing and deliverance, is children's bread, and you're not one of the children.
She fell at his feet and worshipped him, recognizing him as the son of David, calling him Lord and Master.
And he said, oh, you're in now, woman.
Great is your faith.
And the little girl was healed from that instant.
Well, what happened?
What she asked for was children's bread, healing and deliverance.
It's for believers, for the oppressed people.
And the Bible says in the book of Galatians that we are the children of Abraham.
Because of our faith, we've been grafted in and we are the children of Abraham.
So children's bread is for believers.
And as I would go from place to place and I've seen probably 100,000 inmates except Christ, but I'd never seen anybody healed or deliverance or delivered.
I've seen thousands saved, but I had never seen anybody healed or deliverance until a special time in my life.
I want to tell you briefly about that time.
I'm preaching in a federal prison in Central Texas, trying to recall the name of the prison now, but it was a federal prison.
And all prison officials, all prison guards, officers dress alike.
Officer's Excitement Motioned Toward 00:03:38
They even have white shirts, maroon ties, and gray pants.
So I knew what to expect going to this federal prison.
So I go in the federal prison and they escort me back to the chapel where the inmates gathered for their worship service.
And I was the speaker for that night.
I was a guest preacher.
So I noticed something unusual.
There was an officer seated in the congregation, worshiping with the other inmates.
There was also one on duty standing in the back.
Basically, his job is just to make sure nothing happens.
that's not supposed to happen in the service.
So after the service was over, the officer that was seated in the service came up to me and he motioned to the officer on duty, I'll walk him to his car.
I want to talk to him.
So we headed out across the grounds at that federal prison toward the front gate.
I remember the night so well, stars bright, clear night, good temperature for the middle of Texas.
And we had prayer on the parking lot.
And he told me he lived across Interstate 37 in a town called Beeville.
Now I'm staying in Corpus Christi with my wife.
And I was visiting maybe five presents in the area.
Corpus Christie was the closest, best place for me to stay.
So I headed back toward Interstate 37.
And before I got on the freeway, I noticed a 7-Eleven type store, a gas station.
I pulled in to get a Dr. Pepper.
Before I even got out of the car, this officer pulled up behind me.
And he runs up to the car and taps on the window.
And he motioned to roll the window down, but you don't do that anymore.
You let it down, you know.
So I did, and he was so excited.
He was like T.D. Jakes, except he was a white guy.
But he was so excited.
He said, brother, I would have followed you all the way to Corpus Christi to tell you what I have to tell you.
He said, while you were preaching, I had this vision of you standing in a big black pot and oil was bubbling around your feet.
God's About to Pour It Out 00:05:35
Not boiling, just bubbling around your feet.
And he said, all around this pot, as far as you could see, were sick people.
And as the stench went up from their sickness to the heavens, it was nauseating.
And that oil began to bubble up and it covered you.
It just covered you.
And as it ran down your arms and touched the people, they were healed.
And he said, get ready, brother.
God's about to pour it out on you.
I remember praying on the way back to Corpus.
God, I don't know how to do this.
They didn't teach me this in the seminary.
They taught me how to get people saved.
And I love doing that, but I don't know how to get people healed and delivered.
I started getting letters from men saying, I know you don't know this, but while you were preaching, heat just came all over me.
And I used to have this, but I don't have it anymore.
I began to receive so many letters like that.
And I got, I got, it's humbling.
I want to tell you that it's humbling to stand before people and know that the word from the gospel that you speak, God is honoring with his presence and his Holy Spirit.
I saw it so many times.
I got bolder and bolder.
Sometimes even to the point that God would show me some things that were going to happen before they happened.
I could like see spiritually into a service before the service even happened.
I don't know how to explain that other than it was supernatural anointing.
And I'm pretty sure you both understand what I'm talking about.
Amen.
Wow.
One of the strong, you know, there's not a lot of people who say, I'll go to one prison, two prisons, 850 prisons he visited in life.
Don Dickerman, I want to say thank you for the ministry that you've had.
Mono, what an incredible thing.
We need to support other men and women who are doing things like this, don't we?
Life-changing.
I can feel the anointing just hearing this story.
Amen.
What a humble.
You have to love the Lord to do that.
Listen, you have to love what God loves.
And this is why we love doing this program, because when you support it, you get to hear this powerful stories from a man that has walked into the prisons.
This is somebody's son.
This is somebody's daughter.
And thank God that Mr. Dawn heard the mandate to go into the prisons and present the gospel to the very least of this.
And I want to tell you something.
When you support this ministry, this is what you're doing.
I mean, Pastor Jim Baker, our father, went through prison and you wrote to him.
You stood with him.
And the reason why we're still here today is because you continue to pray and support this ministry.
Don't stop now.
God is on the move.
And I want to tell you something.
God is calling you.
God is calling us to stand together and believe for a miracle.
Listen, this is the year where God is going to give you boldness to step out and believe for a miracle for someone else.
Ricky, this is amazing to hear this story.
You can order this book.
Death for redemption.
Absolutely.
I can't wait to get this book in my hands.
That's right.
I think it's incredible.
Death for redemption, untold stories of forgiven felons.
Friends, you say, well, I've never been there.
I've never done that.
I've never been on death row.
Well, friends, if it wasn't for the blood of Jesus Christ, every single one of us would have deserved that.
But friends, thank you that we have the Jesus Christ who came down Mondo.
He died for our sins.
We have Jesus Christ.
We have the Holy Spirit.
I think it's incredible that each and every once can not only receive it, but give it to somebody else.
Give it to somebody else who's in the time of need.
Friends, make sure to pour out your love on somebody else today.
Why?
Because you may be the catalyst in their life that changes their circumstance like Mr. Don Dickerman was.
Don, I want to say thank you for being on the broadcast with us today.
It's all the time we have for today.
We want to say, God bless you and your wonderful work, and we'd love to have you back soon.
God bless you.
Remember this, friends.
If you're watching this, God loves you.
He really does.
Bye-bye for today.
We're out of time.
God bless you.
Thanks, London.
The Jim Baker Family Show has been a voice of truth, preparation, and hope for generations.
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