Every day this program deals with something unique and interesting and today's program will be no exception. We're going to talk to one of Christendom's most enduring and influential icons. He is Dr. Pat Robertson, and he is with us virtually today, like everything else. We're going to talk about his ministry and his life and times, and especially his brand new book, I Have Walked With the Living God. I want to know more about that. Pat's on the line with us. Pat, it's so good to have you here.
Pat Robertson: Jim, it's good to be with you. We've been friends for so many years and I congratulate you on all the work you've been doing. So it's a joy to be with you today.
Dr. Dobson: I was on your program many times and it's about time you were on mine.
Pat Robertson: Well, thanks for returning the favor. It's my pleasure.
Dr. Dobson: Pat, you're 90 years old and you're still going strong and we're very honored to have you join us. I want to start by reading just a portion of your bio from your book. It is most impressive. Pat graduated Magna Cum Laude with a Bachelor in Arts, from Washington and Lee University. He has a Juris Doctorate from Yale Law School and a Master of Divinity from New York Theological Seminary.
He's written 21 books, including The Secret Kingdom, which was the number one religious book in America. Pat and his wife Dede, have four children, 14 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren. Pat, I'm going to start by asking you to name them all.
You know I was kidding, don't you?
Pat Robertson: I know you were, and by the way, I'm up now to 17 great-grandchildren and two more going, so I'll have 19 before the ones that are in the womb are born. So I'm getting there, 19 great-grandchildren.
Dr. Dobson: Let's start with a health report. How are you doing these days?
Pat Robertson: You know, I'm doing great. I'm like an old car. I've got a pacemaker that keeps my heart going and I've I had my prostate taken out and I don't have one of them so I don't have cancer. I had a fall off a horse, I broke eight ribs and ruptured my spleen so I lost about a third of that. And I've had a bunch of stuff going on over the years with ... I'm still going strong. And for that, I work out about three times a week and lift weights and do all that, so I'm very vigorous.
Dr. Dobson: Praise the Lord. In 2011, I fell off a horse too. I grew up in Texas. And so I was very, very familiar with horses and feel comfortable on them. The horse was just standing, we weren't even moving. I had a $500 Texas hat on that somebody had given me and I liked it. It was white and the wind blew and that hat blew off and I reached over to get it and my foot came out of the stirrup and I went down. I landed on a six gun and I broke my scapula and my clavicle. I was in the hospital for 17 days. So I've done what you've done.
Pat Robertson: Well, I really enjoy it. I was riding, what they called her dressage, I was into a high level dressage and I had some great horses, but this one horse spooked. A dog started chasing him and he took off and I lost a stirrup and he just was wild. I tried my best to control it, but I couldn't do it and finally, I went off. And Oh boy, the rest, they say, is history. I was bleeding to death. My spleen was torn all to pieces, but anyhow, I'm all recovered, Jim. I'm good as gold.
Dr. Dobson: Well, so am I. Those are beautiful animals, but they're dangerous. You have to know what you're doing. Pat, I just quoted a few of your accomplishments, but that wasn't even the beginning of it. Of course, I didn't even mention the 700 Club and you're the founder of Regent University and so many other accomplishments. You have had a very full life, haven't you?
Pat Robertson: It's been amazing. I was coming out of the seminary and I was asking God what to do, and he led me very clearly to come to Tidewater, Virginia and to buy an old television station. I only had $70. I didn't even own a television set, and I didn't know anything about television. And God said, "Buy a station." And here this old station had been taken off the air and I came down and began that first ministry. It was a miracle. That was 1961. It's been quite a time since.
Dr. Dobson: You talk about starting from scratch, you really had to begin putting it together from virtually nothing and look what the Lord has done with it.
Pat, let's go back to your childhood. Your father was a U.S. Senator wasn't he?
Pat Robertson: He was a Senator. He went to Congress when I was two years old and he served for about 14 years in the House of Representatives and then he was elevated to the United States Senate. He served 20 years in the Senate. So he was there about 34 years. I laughingly say when I was two that I first learned Mama, and then I learned Daddy and then I learned constituent. All I heard about was, "Don't do that. What will the constituents think?" So I grew up trying to behave myself in the public arena because of what the constituents would think.
Dr. Dobson: So did you spend time hanging around the U.S. Capitol?
Pat Robertson: I worked up there for the Appropriations Committee when I was in law school. I had my first congressional campaign, it was crazy, I was in the seventh grade and we had something called Robertson for Congress. I was in that little committee and it was sort of a joke because I was just a kid, but I was involved in politics from the early get go. So before long, along the way I ran for President and in my book it's quite a story of how I got that going.
Dr. Dobson: Yeah. I want to know more about that. Were your Mom and Dad both Christians?
Pat Robertson: My father was the son of a Baptist preacher and he kind of made a decision when he was a youngster, but at my mother's funeral, my father knelt down beside the bed where we were and I led him to Christ.
Dr. Dobson: When did you first give your heart to the Lord?
Pat Robertson: I was about 23 years old I think. I told my mother that I had wanted to go into religious work and my mother was a deeply committed Christian. And she said, "You know Son, you didn't quite sound right." And I knew why, because I really hadn't come to the Lord. I asked her advice and she said, "Well, I know these people, this guy named Cornelius Vanderbreggen. He, he might talk to you." So I said, "All right, I'm living in New York and I was in business and I took the train down to Philadelphia and we met in this fancy hotel. I thought, here this Cornelius Vanderbreggen was, and this was the hotel Jim, I mean really fancy. I mean, where the waiters wore white tie and tails, it was a fancy stuff.
He brings out this great big black Bible and puts it on the table and I was just embarrassed out of my mind. I thought, "These people are going to throw us out for being religious fanatics." And I thought, "Oh my goodness." And then he said, "All right, Pat, you're here. Tell me a little about your experience." And I told him. And he said, "Any Muhammadan could have told me what you told me, isn't there something more?"
And at that time, something came out of me and I said, "Yes, I believe that Jesus Christ died for the sins of the world and for my sins too." And then it was like a voice in my ear, repeating something I read from the book of Romans, which said, "If you confess with your mouth, the Lord Jesus, and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you'll be saved." I knew at that moment that I had come to the Lord and boy I was transformed. I mean, it was amazing. You know, I used to be quite a party boy and I got back to my apartment in New York and the first thing I did, I had a bottle of Ballantine Scotch, and I poured it down the sink. My wife said, "What are you doing? That's expensive stuff." And I said, "Well, I've just found the Lord." That was the start of it.
Dr. Dobson: Isn't it amazing how the scriptures can reach out and talk to you when you didn't even know what you were looking for? There it was.
Pat Robertson: Exactly. I mean, my mother had prayed for me. My aunt had dedicated me when I was just a little baby to the Lord and I had this Godly heritage and I couldn't get away from it.
Dr. Dobson: I just read something about you that I didn't know. You were a Lieutenant in the Marines in Korea, weren't you?
Pat Robertson: That's right. I was Assistant Adjutant of the First Marine Division. When we were engaged we were in a place called the Punchbowl and Heartbreak Ridge in North Korea. It was a freezing cold winter and I was there with the Marines. I'm proud of that time of service.
Dr. Dobson: Why did you get out of the military?
Pat Robertson: Well, I was a civilian. I joined the ProLiant Platoon Leader Class when I was in college. When I graduated from college, I got a commission in the Marines and my parents gave me a trip to Europe for a summer so I was over there studying at the University of London. I went to Paris and I was sitting in one of those Paris sidewalk cafes, and I was reading a paper and it said, [Le Guerande Carre foreign language 00:11:35] and I didn't know what Carre was, but it said a group called the Fussilio Maurande were being called up. Well the Fussilio Maurande is what I was, I was a Lieutenant in the Marine Corps, and when I got back to America from Europe, I had orders to report to Quantico. I went there for training, and then from training, I went on over to Korea.
Dr. Dobson: I assume you were not in combat at that time because you were a lawyer. You were in the Adjutant General's Office.
Pat Robertson: Well, I was in a combat unit. I've been given three battle stars. So the Marine Corps considered it combat. I was with a combat division, but I just wasn't in the front line, although my MOS is Combat Infantry so I was trained in all the skills of how to shoot-
Dr. Dobson: I'll bet that we've just told people something that they didn't know. And here's something else that I didn't know. When you became a civilian, you lived for a time in a hippie commune in Brooklyn, New York. What was that all about?
Pat Robertson: Like Ted Turner said, "I was country before country was cool." I lived in a commune before communes were cool. When I got through seminary, the Lord gave me a scripture, Luke 12:33 and I said, "What am I doing next?" And the thing said, "Sell what you have, give to the poor and come follow me." And so I put an ad in the paper, sold my furniture and moved in with a friend who was living in Bedford Stuyvesant, one of the worst slums in America. He had a parsonage there and in the parsonage was a former Madam of a house of prostitution. There was several other people. One guy was a big fellow. He was a little bit mentally disturbed. We were all living together in this commune. I had my wife and two little children at the time and we were living in that environment.
You talk about rough. Jim, I was praying, "Lord, what do I do now?" I told my wife, I said, "Are you willing, if we buy the house next door that had been a house of prostitution and we make it a mission here in Bedford Stuyvesant?" And she said, "Okay, if the Gods wants you to do it, I'll do it. And I'll be with you." I was sitting there in that old church with a little light on, and the Lord said, "Read Jeremiah 16:2." And I said, "Okay, Lord." I opened the Bible and it was the most beautiful scripture I think I've ever seen. It said, "Thou shall not take a wife or have children in this place." And I said, "Praise God, I'm out of here."
Dr. Dobson: That's called proof texting.
Pat Robertson: I told my wife, "Honey, we're leaving and pack your bag." I had an old '53 DeSoto and we had a Uhaul trailer and a few baby beds and some pots and pans, and I took off for Virginia and they say, the rest is history.
Dr. Dobson: Did you ever practice law?
Pat Robertson: I never did. I graduated from law school, but I never practiced. I went into business right out of law school. I was with W.R. Grace in New York. Then I was in business with a couple of friends from law school, but I never practiced law as such, but I've sure practiced it since. I was taught corporations. I was taught SCC. I was taught tax law and my specialty was learning how to form corporations and I've done a lot of that since.
Dr. Dobson: Ah, well, tell me about Dede. When did you get married? How did you meet her? And tell me about your life together?
Pat Robertson: Well, while I was in law school, they had a nursing school at Yale and they had a mixer over in the law school. I went over there to see how these girls were doing. She was trying to get away from this guy and she went over to the punchbowl to try to get away from him. When she did she got close to the candles and her hair caught on fire. And I showed up, Sir Galahad, and put the fire out of her hair.
Dr. Dobson: Oh you're kidding.
Pat Robertson: And of course her, wonderful thing, said, "He put the fire out of my hair and he started a fire in my heart." We got married, not too long after that.
Dr. Dobson: Well, let's talk about the 700 Club. How did that come about?
Pat Robertson: I was praying. I came down to Virginia and I bought this little old TV station. My first year, I think our total income was $8,000. And the second year it was $20,000. We were struggling. I mean, I had almost nothing. And you know, it was a great temptation to walk out of the thing, but I was saying, "God, what do you want me to do?" I'd been reading a book about a man named Charles Muller. You remember the one over in England, that had those orphans. He never asked anybody anything. He never solicited money, he always trusted the Lord. So I thought I will do the same thing. And as I was praying, God basically said to me, "I didn't call you to be George Mueller, I called you to broadcast to the world." And I said, "Okay, Lord." So I said, "Our total need is for 700 people to give $10 a month, that'd be $7,000." And I said, "That will take care of our budget."
And so I started something called the 700 Club and we had a telethon. In our first year, we get 300 people to give $10 month. It wasn't exactly what we needed, but about the third year of doing that, God moved in, in a tremendous revival. He shook the area we were living in. It was unbelievable what God did, and people were being healed. One woman said, "I'm walking softly in my home because of the power of God coming through your radio station." It was just a fabulous time. And that was the 700 Club.
And so a couple of years later, we did the same thing and God moved again. I thought, "Well, we'll call our program, The 700 Club." Because it sells like 007, it sounds like something kind of interesting. That's how it started, around 700 people to give $10 a month.
Dr. Dobson: You knew then that God's hand was on you, didn't you?
Pat Robertson: I did. I did. But you know, I tell you though, a lot of times you're just young, you have to test God and God tests you. You always question, "Am I doing the right thing? Have I got it right?" And when you're just starting out, you're not sure. Later on I know for sure a lot of things, but in those days, the Lord was just teaching me little, by little, by little. This book I've written called, I Walk with the Living God, God has come out of the pages of the Bible and he's been real to me. Step, by step, by step, I've seen his hand.
Dr. Dobson: This is a book of stories about your life and they're really interesting. If I can share my own experience, I was at USC School of Medicine and I felt like God wanted me to leave there and start a radio program. We started with nothing also, or very little. And I got a grant from Tyndale House in exchange for a book that turned out to be The Strong Willed Child. They gave me $35,000 to start the ministry with and two years later, I had run out of money. If all of the bills had come in, we would have been $30,000 in debt.
And so, one day a friend of mine knocked on the door, and he's a godly man, and I invited him to come in. My mother was there and my wife and we went into the bedroom and got on our knees. And I said - I'll never forget my prayer - I said, "Lord, I thought that this is what you wanted me to do. I thought I felt Your leading and we have gone on that basis. But if I did hear You right, this would be a good time to hear from You." That was in October and in November, $60,000 came in. And from there, The Lord had just revealed Himself in so many ways, I couldn't miss it. It's wonderful when that happens, isn't it?
Pat Robertson: Well, this is amazing parallel to what I've seen because I got down here and I was living on faith and I was going to trust God, little by little. And then somewhere along the way a man came to me and he said, "OK, I want to help you a little bit." The next thing I know, I had run up about, oh I think $15,000 in debt or something like that. And I said, "I can't do this to the Lord." And I said, "God, there's a particular day. If I don't hear from you, I'm going to consider that you didn't want me to do this and I'll pack it in. And whatever's here in this operation of this television thing, I'll sell and try to liquidate these debts and quit."
A friend I'd known in New York came down to Virginia and I didn't know anything about it and he didn't know that I needed the money. He came into my living room and before another thing happened he said, "God has sent me down from New York." He said, "I want to give you something." So he handed me a check and it looked like 8-0, and I thought, "Well it's $80, that's kind of sweet, but it won't meet my need." And I looked on it. It was 8-0-0-0. It was $8,000 and it paid the bills. Honestly, it was the night before I was going to close it all down. God heard and sent it. It's exactly what you're talking about. Isn't it amazing how these things parallel each other?
Dr. Dobson: Well, I think the Lord has to let you know that He's the source of your strength. That you think you can do it on your own. You have a whole different perspective on who runs it. And you know, He lets you struggle. He just does. People think when you're a Christian, everything just goes swimmingly but, He lets you go through some difficult times and you learn from that.
Pat Robertson: That's right. They said, the whole idea of the chicken and the egg. If that chicken doesn't peck on that egg, the little chick, he doesn't get strong enough to live. You know, if you try to help him and crack that shell open, he dies. He can't live. There was a time I had to trust Him for a thousand dollars. Now, I have to believe Him for several hundred million and I'm used to it. I can believe God for all kinds of things now.
Dr. Dobson: Well, He has blessed you in everything that you've done. The title of your book is I Have Walked With the Living God.
Pat Robertson: That's right.
Dr. Dobson: Pat we're out of time, but if you don't mind, I'd like to just continue to talk to you and we'll let people hear this next time.
Pat Robertson: Okay. That'll be fine.
Okay. It's a pleasure to have you on. I have respect for you and we want to talk about your presidential run and other things. So stay tight. All right, I'll be here.
Roger Marsh: And that concludes part one of a truly historic conversation today here on Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, as we've been listening to Dr. Dobson talking with his dear and longtime friend, Pat Robertson. They've been discussing Pat's legacy as well as his brand new autobiography titled I Have Walked With the Living God, and when you visit today's broadcast page at drjamesdobson.org, you can learn more about this powerful new volume. Simply go to drjamesdobson.org, and then tap on the broadcast tab at the top of the page.
Today's edition of Family Talk is, as always, a production of the James Dobson Family Institute. JDFI is completely listener supported, so your prayers and faithful financial support are deeply needed and greatly appreciated. Learn how you can partner with us when you go to drjamesdobson.org. That's D-R jamesdobson.org. Or you can call (877) 732-6825. That's (877) 732-6825. And be sure to join us again tomorrow for the conclusion of Dr. Dobson's powerful conversation with Pat Robertson, as they discuss more insights from Pat's new book, I Have Walked With the Living God. That's coming your way on the next edition of Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk. I'm Roger Marsh. Thanks for listening.
This has been a presentation of the Dr. James Dobson Family Institute.