Best of 2020: Pastor Greg Laurie Then & Now: Making a Deal with God

The following message from Pastor Greg Laurie is made possible by Harvest Partners, helping people everywhere know God. Hey, I want to hear from you. Would you consider emailing me? You can reach me at Greg at Harvest dot org. Again, that's Greg at Harvest dot org.

And you can also make me one of your friends on Facebook and drop me a comment. Ever tried to make a deal with God? A very young Pastor Greg Laurie recounts how he used to bargain with God to help get out of a jam. We were driving along and it was raining and suddenly our car started fishtailing.

We started losing control. And, you know, and I remember crying out, Oh, God, help me get me out of this one. I'll serve you. I'll obey you.

I'll do this and do that. And all of a sudden our car got back in the lane. God had got me out of another fix, but I wasn't going to serve him. Well, we're glad you're joining us today on a special edition of A New Beginning. Pastor Greg Laurie is here with me in the studio and Pastor Greg is part of our series of most requested messages of the year. We're going back into our archives. In fact, this is not even going into our archives. It's actually coming from somebody else's archive from many years ago. We didn't even have a copy of this message.

This goes back to the 70s, I think. When you were 24 years old, you gave this message. And the first thing I've got to ask you is how do you feel about hearing your message from that long ago? Do you agree with everything you said? You know, that's actually a good question.

You know what? The 66-year-old Greg Laurie likes the 24-year-old Greg Laurie. I agree with what young Greg said and, you know, he wasn't bad. Here's what I like about him. His voice was very high. My voice has dropped a bit since then. He spoke very quickly, but what I like about him is he based it on the Bible. And that's how I started out and that's where I still am because, you know, the power is in the Word of God, Dave, but this is a very unusual message in that I gave my complete testimony and I was very interested to listen to it because, you know, as you go back in your memory, you wonder, do I remember things exactly the way it happened? It's sort of like I came across the Dead Sea Scrolls of Greg.

Like this was very close to when it happened. It was only a few years after my conversion and there were a few details in this story that you're about to hear that I tell about my life that I had actually forgotten about and I thought, oh yeah, that's right. I didn't mention that in my last telling of my testimony. So it was really fascinating to listen to.

It's almost like it's another person, but yet it is me. And so we're going to play it for you now, a 24-year-old me sharing my testimony of how I came to put my faith in Jesus Christ. Now this is something I don't normally do because I don't like to dig up the past, but sometimes I think it's good to do for the point of just sharing what Christ can do in a life. And I want to just take a few minutes to go a little bit into my life before I knew the Lord and share a bit of my own personal testimony and how I came to know Jesus Christ.

Right now I'm 24 years old and I accepted the Lord when I was 17 years old. I was going to Harbor High School. I was born in Long Beach in 1952 and my mom was married and divorced seven times. And so I had a really lousy childhood. I never had a father that I could find security and I never had the family image, you know, Ozzie and Harriet type of a thing. Milk and cookies after school.

I never had that. I was brought up in an environment where I very quickly, I believe, matured a little quicker than most children my age because when most kids were out playing baseball with their buddies and stuff, I was getting an insight into the very adult world that I was soon to join. And a lot of times they didn't have younger friends. I was around adults more than young kids and I watched them swap wives and drink their way around and try to have fun and wake up the next morning. And I just looked at their lives and saw the emptiness in it really quickly.

And I knew that I wanted something more, but I didn't know what I really wanted. So as a young boy and I got into school, I went into military school because my mom didn't have time to watch me. She had to work and believe it or not, I was a straight A student on the honor roll. Good kid.

Private Laurie, you know. And as I was in military school, it got to a point where I was going to get out. And so I transferred out into a public school and I was so used to the discipline. And back in military school, you say, yes, sir, to your teachers and the teachers wear uniforms. And you wear uniforms and it's just like the army, except you're a bunch of little kids, you know.

It's really kind of a strange place. And so I got out of military school into a public school and there was absolutely no discipline any longer. I could do whatever I want. So I totally reverted into my other nature, what I really wanted to be. And just basically was a rotten kid. In the sixth grade, I caused a lot of trouble. I caused so much trouble and made so many enemies and I would write things on the blackboard when the teacher was gone and yell things at him in the middle of class and make up jokes and draw weird pictures of the teacher in various environments doing strange things. And so they would call me into the office and tell me they were going to expel me. My mom called him and said she would sue the school system if they expelled me. So they decided to leave me in school. And my teacher hated me so much that once when I was outside and the rest of the class were there, she said, you know what I'd like to do to Greg Laurie?

I would like to bury him up to his neck in the sand and let red ants eat his head. I really, the teachers hated me. But I loved it, you know, because to have teachers down on you is just like kind of an ego thing. One day my teacher really got me though. I was in the sixth grade.

I won't tell you what I used to call him, but I called him what I usually call him. And he picked me up by the seat of the pants and spanked me. And it hurt. And everyone saw me get spanked. Oh, it was horrible. I couldn't believe it. And so I was really mad after that.

And I really sit out to cause trouble. I got in the seventh and the eighth grade. I went to Harborview Elementary School. Then I transferred to Lincoln Junior High School.

That's local around here. And I got in there and, you know, and I was starting to grow and that and all and noticing girls more. And of course, I noticed girls before that, but beginning to aggressively go out and dates and, you know, the Sadie Hawkins dance and all that kind of stuff. But I always had a problem with girls.

I was scared of them. I would get these big infatuations. I'd see a girl and fall in love with her. You know, I was always into meeting the perfect girl, but I'd get around it and I would freeze up. I didn't know what to say. I could talk to anybody, you know, make them laugh, say lots of things. But I'd get around a girl I like.

My heart would start beating and I'd act like a total jerk, you know. So I got into high school and at that point I was starting to think about what direction I wanted to take in my life. I was thinking, you know, what do I want to be really? And I looked around at the different types of people. And we had every kind of guy in our high school. We had bikers, we had athletes, we had surfers.

We had the people who were into their study and all that. And I started looking over at the athletes. And I don't know about your schools, but the school I went to, this was Corona Del Mar High School, CDMHS. We had different sections where the athletes would stand in one section and the surfers would stand in another. The athletes would stand in one section where their letterman jacket put one foot up on the planter and their cheerleaders would stand around and drool, you know.

And if a freshman went through senior square in my school, they'd can them head first in the trash can. And then they had the surfer section. And this was this long planter where all the surfers sat. You know, it's funny, to me surfers all look the same. You know, they got the blonde hair cut in the hang-tin t-shirts and the sandals.

They all just sit there going, stoke a bokeh, man, you know. So all the surfers sat in one part. And then there were these weird people, they hung around the vending machines, you know. I don't know what they were. They were like, hey man, vending machines, you know.

Strange. And then there were those who liked to hang around in the library and study at lunchtime. I never could understand that at all. And so I decided I wanted to go out for sports. Now, as you can see, I never was a great physically built person. But I was always good at track and running and things like that. And so I went out for football for a split end. Because I figured, you know, I don't have to sit around and get annihilated in the front line there. I can run out for passes and be a hero and all that. And so I went out for football and I was doing pretty good.

And it was hard because, you know, you got to get out there and hit these bags. And our coach was really some sort of a nut or something. He wanted you to hit this thing, this big metal thing with these pads on it and hit it until your ears started bleeding.

He goes, Bleed! You know. So we did it, you know. It was that big macho image, being an athlete. And I worked and got the butch haircut and went out and got all my football equipment. And I was called into the office about a week before season started, told I couldn't go out because my grades were too low.

That really bummed me out because I'd worked for months, you know, in the training and after school and giving up my time. And I thought, oh man, forget that. And so we'd go to dances at night and drink a six-pack of Colt.45 and that kind of thing. And then a friend of mine told me about smoking marijuana.

Now I'd seen the movies, you know, in school that they show you that were made in 1930. Where the guy smokes it and turns into a raving maniac and runs out and murders puppies and things like that. So my friend told me, he said, man, smoking grass is really good.

You're really going to like it. And I said, no, it's bad, you know. And I had all these ideas in my mind and he said, no, let's go ahead and do it. And so we sat down in this room and it was really dark and it was just like I thought it would be. And I was expecting the, you know, the police to come bursting open with submachine guns, Elliot Ness, you know.

Nothing happened. We got loaded and I kind of liked it. So I thought, that's kind of fun.

I think I'll get loaded and drink a little on the side. And again, it wasn't a big thing to me. It was still just a social thing, just going through the normal antics. And I could walk across the campus and everyone would come up to me, go, hey, Greg, hi, Greg, how you doing? I knew everybody. I was popular, but I didn't have any friends. You know, I didn't have anybody that I really could sit down and open myself up to. I always joked a lot that make fun of people and walk up and put them down. And that was my big act in life.

But I was really, you know, empty inside and I was trying to cover it over. Well, you're listening to A New Beginning today, a special edition of the program. And who is this guy that we've been listening to for the last few minutes? Yeah, who's this crazy kid using our air time today? This 24-year-old weirdo talking.

He has a very high voice and he speaks too quickly. Oh, wait, it's me. It's me from 42 years ago. Yeah, as we mentioned in the beginning of the program, Dave, we recently came across this old message that I did when I was 24 years old. And in this particular message, I share my story of how I came to put my faith in Jesus Christ. And so we thought our listeners might enjoy it. So we're going to pick up where we left off. Here's the rest of the story from a 24-year-old, Greg Laurie.

Hey, it rhymes. I started getting into smoking grass a little bit more. And this was in the 60s. And it was when the so-called hippie movement started gaining popularity. You know, tune in, turn on, drop out Timothy Leary and all his garbage that he gave out and that kind of a thing. And I started seeing him on the news and hearing about these rock concerts and people coming into this hippie thing where, you know, you get natural with people and you love your brother and you love sisters and free love and loving at the park. And I thought, hey, man, that is where it's at.

They've got the answer. And so I was getting in trouble a lot at Corona Del Mar High School. I was called into the office just about every other day for something or another. So I decided to transfer to Newport Harbor High School because I'd heard that over at Harbor High, you could get loaded in the front lawn and no one would even hassle you. So I transferred over and, you know, it was mostly true. I started hanging around with a bunch of friends that were really into getting loaded and I started growing my hair long and doing the whole thing and really becoming a hippie. You know, I was so proud of myself.

And it's a funny thing because someone that takes drugs, they often think they're a little bit better than you, especially someone that does it more than just a social thing. And I walked around and thought, you know, as Jimi Hendrix would have put it, I was experienced. You know, I'd come into a new dimension. It was like everyone else was lame, but I was really into what was happening and I was into a different realm of thinking in a different realm of awareness. And I really had an answer and I was really proud of myself. And I started dropping LSD, taking acid. And I started doing it on a regular basis and really enjoying it and thought I was coming into a whole new awareness of thought. And I have drawn cartoons my whole life. And I started doing my art and drawing these little cosmic creeps, you know, on paper. And we started growing marijuana in our backyard and really getting into it.

And I just thought this was so far out. And I'd run into some of my old friends, my old athlete, you know, beer chugging buddies. They'd see me and I knew what they were thinking.

They're thinking, oh, Greg has just become a pothead. But I knew that I was really turned on and they were just lame and they didn't know, you know. I had it together, I thought. And so one day we went down to Laguna Beach.

We were going to buy a kilo of grass. And we went down and got it and put it in the trunk of our car and we were driving back. It was a very rainy night. And driving near Laguna Beach along the cliffs, you know that, you know, if you go off a cliff, you're in trouble. And we were driving along and it was raining and suddenly our car started fishtailing.

We started losing control. And we slid into the other lane and we were going right and they hit on traffic. And my friends were freaking out and I was in the backseat. And I saw the headlines in the paper the next morning, drug freaks killed on the freeway.

And I could see the old lady's going, it serves them right, you know. And I thought, I don't want to go this way. And I remember crying out, God, if you get me out of this one, I'll serve you, I'll obey you, I'll do this and do that. And we're spinning out and all of a sudden our car, we got back in the lane.

I went, thanks a lot, God, you know. God had got me out of another fix but I wasn't going to serve him. It reminds me of the story of the guy that was slipping down a house. He was losing control and he couldn't get hold of himself. And he was going, God, help me, God, help, help, help. And he was almost at the edge of the roof and all of a sudden this belt loop got caught in a nail. He said, it's okay, God, I got caught in a nail. That's where I was at. Whenever God would get me out of a jam, I would say, you know, oh, it's all right, God, it worked out. Not realizing that he was the one that worked it out.

And so it got to a point where I started to get loaded with my friends four, five, six times a day. I had about a D-F average. I didn't care though, you know. People would say, your grades are low.

I'd say, who cares? What good is an education? What good is this life?

I look at these people that tell me about an education and I saw that they had so little and they were so empty inside and I thought I was really getting a real education. You know, I was learning about life the right way, I thought. And so, you know, just getting into that and taking acid on the weekends and that was my whole life. You know, I walked in front of Chuck Smith's house probably about five or six hundred times before I was a Christian. And it's funny because they told me this later. They used to look out the window and pray for us because we on the corner, we used to deal drugs out of this guy's house and have big parties and get loaded and sit out in the front.

You know, hey, well, for a space out, nothing. And they used to drive by and look at us and pray for us all the time. And little did I know that, you know, later on that those people were going to be a real major part of my life. Walked right back and forth in front of their house, never knew. But they prayed for us and, you know, praise the Lord, it worked, sort of.

God's still changing me. And so, things just began to progress and one time we were walking across a parking lot and we were holding a lot of drugs on us. And I saw a cop parked over in the shadows and I knew he was going to bust us any minute. And I looked in and I saw his face and he was reputed around the Newport Beach area. We called him baby face. It's because he had a face like a 17-year-old but he was about 30 or so and he hated hippies. He hated them.

And he would harass you to no end. And so, we were walking along and we started dropping the drugs through our pants legs and everything, trying to get rid of them. All of a sudden he got scratched.

You know, the siren and the whole thing. He's about 20 feet away. Pulls around, takes us out of the car. All right, you hippie freaks. Goes down, starts frisking us.

He didn't find anything. And I remember saying, Oh God, if you get me out of this one, Lord, you know. Well, he got me out of it and I was happy and shined it on again.

And so, we went over and we would get loaded with our friends and just kept doing it and doing it. And then one day, I think the thing that probably every person that takes drugs, maybe fears happened to me. I took acid one night and I had a bad trip.

It hit me wrong. It went into my bloodstream. I started to panic and made it rush and I just started going wacko right there in the room.

The room started spinning. I started seeing all these strange faces and I kept hearing this voice yell out to me, You're going to die. You're going to hell.

You're going to hell. And I just freaked out, man. I started screaming. My friend said to physically hold me in the room because I just totally gone overboard. For sure, I was dying. And then one of my friends came in and I remember crying out, Oh God, help me.

God, help me. And it just got worse and worse and everything just got more wiped out. I couldn't see anything and everything was just a horrible experience. Just so much of Satan. That's why so many people who are into drugs often go off into mystical type things because there's no doubt about it. It opens you up. I did not believe in the spiritual realm but as I took drugs, and I'm not attributing it to drugs, I'm just saying it opened me up and I got more into Satan himself and saw that there really was an evil force. But fortunately, by God's grace, He was able to get hold of me before I went too far. And so I came down that day off and I said, I'm never taking LSD again in my life.

That's it. That scared me, man. I'll just smoke weed and forget the acid. But then my friends kept taking it and I really wanted to get turned on again, the acid. So we had an English class and we were supposed to go watch West Side Story and Romeo and Juliet for our class. And I loved Romeo and Juliet. That was one of my favorite movies because, again, I always had the thing meeting the perfect girl and falling in love. So I loved that movie and I went and my friend said, Hey, let's take LSD.

Oh, hey, that'll really be good. So we took acid and sat in the movie. I was sitting there watching the movie.

I could have been watching The Wall for that fact. And this girl was sitting in front of us and she turned around for a minute and turned back and I just looked at the girl. Here I was, stoned, watching Romeo and Juliet and I see this girl and I start going, There she is. I've met her finally, you know.

And I knew that this was the one. And so I really wanted to meet this girl. So the next day, Monday at school, I was walking across the campus and I saw her. And I went, All right. She was talking to a friend of mine.

I'll just walk right up there. And I looked down and she had a black book with gold edges on it. And I went, Oh, no, she's a Jesus freak. Now, if you want to be popular in school, you don't become a Jesus freak.

I just looked at her and, you know, wow, what a bummer. And so I started watching her and I'd watch her go across the campus. And I didn't like the Christians because the Christians would walk across the campus Monday morning at eight o'clock first period and sing. You know, not Friday, fifth period.

Monday, first period. And anyone that could be happy at that time was a little wacko as far as I was concerned. And they would be singing about Jesus and carrying their Bibles. And I just couldn't identify with that. And so I saw this girl. And one day I was sitting out in the front lawn and a friend said, Hey, there's a guy on campus, man. He's selling orange sunshine. That's LSD. And he says, Why don't you go get some?

I said, All right, you know, for the weekend. And so I went walking across the campus, looking for this guy. And I started hearing this, you know, Jesus. And I looked over and here's about 50 of these Christians sitting love, love, love. Is that the way Christians dance, you know? Then they all point up to this guy.

What are they pointing at? So I just looked at him and I saw that girl. Her name was Chris. And I saw her there and I went, There she is, man. And then I saw this guy talking.

He was sitting down and he had long hair and a beard. And I said, Well, he kind of looks like sort of a turned on guy. Maybe he has some good things to say. Maybe I'll listen to this guy. So I sat down close enough to hear what they were saying, but not too close.

So people would think I've become one, you know, because I don't want to do that. And I sat down and listened and I kept looking at Chris, you know, going, Oh, man, I'd sure like to get to know her. And I started listening to this guy. And he said something that just shook me up. He said, Jesus said, You're either for me or against me.

I thought, What? He said, Jesus said, You're either walking with me or you're scattering against me in opposition to me. And I stopped and thought, Well, does that mean that if I'm not like one of these Christians, that I'm against God? And I thought, I'm not against God, man. God got me out of a lot of jams. I believe in God.

You know, I've called upon him and he's helped me out. But yet I'm not like one of these people. And I began to realize that either I was for Christ or against him. I was always considered to be neutral to myself, you know, in between.

But I realized that to be undecided at that point was to be decided. It really touched my heart. But of course, he and I wasn't going to become a Christian. It just touched my heart.

It was interesting. I mean, there's just no way I would become a Christian. And so the guy said, Now, there's some of you that want to give your lives to Christ today. I want you to stand up right now, right in the front of a high school. I mean, there's hundreds of kids sitting around eating sandwiches and, you know, to stand up there and go, Jesus, I mean, that just is crazy. And people got up and started going up there. And I looked out the ground and I started feeling this funny sensation inside, something I'd never known before. And it was a very alien sensation. And it was something just drawing me and calling me. Now I know it was the Holy Spirit.

And I looked out the ground. I said, I'd like to do it. I really would. And I'd like to see if it's real. I've tried everything else. Why couldn't I try that?

But I just can't do it. And then about a moment later, I was up there. I don't know what happened, but I got up there and the people put their arms around me, which worried me a little bit. And they prayed a prayer. I don't even remember what I prayed.

I don't even remember what happened. But I'll remember it was after we were done praying. That girl came running up to me and said, Praise the Lord, brother! That girl, Chris, I like.

And threw her arms around me and hugged me. And I thought, hey, maybe this Christian stuff isn't too bad of an idea. Again, my motivation for going in and hearing the meeting that time was totally wrong.

I wanted to meet a girl, but the Holy Spirit had different plans for me. That's Pastor Greg Laurie, a young Pastor Greg Laurie, just 24 years old, giving us his testimony of how a troubled kid ended up coming to the Lord and serving the Lord. And he has more to share next time here on A New Beginning. Now, we've titled this trip Back in Time, Pastor Greg Laurie, Then and Now. It's one of the earliest recordings we've come across of Pastor Greg's teaching.

It was one of the most requested presentations of this past year. And if you missed any part of today's program, order a permanent copy on CD by calling 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300. You know, Pastor Greg, we each have people in our lives that need to meet Jesus personally. Our hearts ache for them to enter into that relationship.

And we have a resource, actually an entertaining movie, that very well could play a role in them meeting the Lord. Isn't that right? Yeah, it is. It's called A Rush of Hope. How do we describe it? We could call it Evangetainment.

I just created a new word. It's entertaining, but it's evangelistic. It seems like the two are mutually exclusive. If it's entertaining, well, there's no real message in it.

Or if it's evangelistic, well, that's not entertaining. I think this is both because it is cinematic. It was shot by filmmakers that know what they're doing. Kingdom Studios, directed by John and Andy Irwin, directed by Ben Smallbone.

It's shot in beautiful locations in Colorado and Montana. And it includes scenes from films that you've probably seen before, like I Can Only Imagine, I Still Believe, and Woodlawn. And we tell these compelling true stories of lives that were changed by Jesus Christ. And then I bring a message at the end where I share the gospel in a very understandable way. And I extend an opportunity for a person to accept Christ. And I even lead them in a prayer.

And guess what? We've seen thousands of people pray that prayer and ask Jesus to come into their life. And now, for the first time ever, it's available for you on DVD to show to your friends, to show to your family, to show to anyone you want to show it to. And we'll also give you a special code where you can stream it to show it on a phone or a tablet or send a link to someone else to watch. So if you want your own copy of our cinematic crusade called A Rush of Hope, contact us and we'll send you one for your gift of any size. Sure, we could have charged for this, but we thought, let's get it to people.

We want more people, not less people to get it. And so we'll give it to you for whatever you can send. Now, some may only be able to send a little.

Some can send a little bit more. Some of you can be generous and help us out, but we'll take those resources you send and we'll use them to continue to develop projects like A Rush of Hope and continue to bring the gospel to our generation. Because I think you would agree with me when I say America needs a gospel.

Let me expand that. The world needs the gospel. This radio broadcasts to certain different parts of the world and this film can go all over the globe with your help. Order your copy of A Rush of Hope and we'll send it to you as quickly as possible. And in advance, thank you for whatever you can do to help us financially. Yeah, the world has never needed the hope of the gospel more than it does right now.

And it's a strategic time to put your investment to work through a new beginning. So write us today for your copy of A Rush of Hope. Along with a DVD, we'll include some resources to help you host a watch party in your home.

And we'll include that special digital download code so you can watch the movie on your tablet or smartphone or computer. So write us today at A New Beginning, Box 4000, Riverside, CA 92514. Or call 1-800-821-3300. That's 1-800-821-3300.

And we can take your call anytime. Or go online to harvest.org. Hey everybody, Greg Laurie here, personally inviting you to join us for what we call Harvest at Home. It's a Bible study. It's a worship service. It's church in your home. Maybe you're not able to get out to your church right now. If so, join us for Harvest at Home. People are listening in from around the world. And listen to this. We have seen thousands of people make a commitment to follow Christ. So join us this weekend for Harvest at Home at Harvest.org. Well, next time, more of our trip back in time. From 1977, Pastor Greg gives us more of the story of his journey to Christ. Join us as we continue our series of most requested studies of the past year, here on A New Beginning.