SID: Tell me about the time you were in a bar in Mexico. Now, you weren’t in the bar preaching.
JESSE: No. What happened was, you know, I was a rock entertainer. This is in, we were in McAllen, Texas and were going to go across the border to Reynosa, Mexico to Boy’s Town. We were going to change the red light district. Don’t look at me weird. I was a sinner. That’s what you do. So we went in, there’s no way my mother knew where I was. I was playing rock music. So we’re in there. All of a sudden, in this bar, in Reynosa, Mexico, in Boy’s Town, this guy says, “Is there a Jesse Duplantis here?” And I listened. And then he said, “Is there a Jesse Duplantis here?” And Jimmy Spencer was my drummer, he said, “That’s your real name.” I said, “Yeah, but Jimmy, there ain’t nobody who knows we, who knows my name.” Who knew my name? He said, “You know anybody?” “No.” “Is there a Jesse Duplantis here?” I said, “Yeah.” And I got up and walked to the phone, and I went, “Hello?” And my mother said, “I see you, you little devil from hell in that terrible place. You better get outta there. God’s gonna kill every one of you.” And I went, “Okay, Mama.”
SID: Okay, wait, Jesse.
JESSE: That’s a true story.
SID: How did she have the phone number? How did she know where you were?
JESSE: After it was all said and done, I went home. I said, “How did you know that? There’s no way you could know that bar in Reynosa.” She said, “The Lord spoke to me. Your boy, he,” the Lord showed her where I was. I came back and I said, “Jimmy, we got to get outta here ’cause God’s gonna kill us.”
SID: Jesse, I have an idea that there is, you are creating, with humor and with your stories, just a hunger for people that have the same relationship with God that you do. Is there a prayer that you can pray to jump-start us?
JESSE: What it is, is that you just sit down and try to, and get out of the religious way of thinking. Sit on your couch, wherever you are in your house, and just say, “Lord, I need to talk to you. I want to be your friend.” See, that’s another thing I read, that Abraham was a friend of God. Wait a minute. If Abraham can be a friend, how come I can’t be a friend? You know what the Lord told me? He said, “I need friends, Jesse.” See, most people pray to him and never talk to him. Now I want to tell you something, what’s going to happen, you’re going to feel foolish, you’re going to feel silly because your intellectual activity, your range of research, your induction and reason, that’s all in the mind. But see, you’re getting out of your mind. You say, “Lord,” all of a sudden you’re going to hear something, First, you’ll sense the presence. He’ll come in that room. I mean, you’re going to get some goose bumps. You’ll go, whoa. Because see, the body can’t handle anything spiritual. It just reacts. It doesn’t know what to do. But that spirit goes [pfft]. It will pull real quick. Your spirit is in 100 percent contact with God if you’re born again. What your problem is, is that your soul is real. You want me to prove it to you? If you go to a mall today, you see somebody in a wheelchair, ready for this, your spirit says, go over there, grab him, pull him out. In the name of Jesus, rise and walk. Your spirit goes, yes! Your mind says, control yourself, fool, you’re crazy. You’re gonna get a lawsuit here if you don’t watch yourself. You see, that’s the intellectual activity.
SID: Jesse, you got to tell me this story because it’s so amazing. God calls him into ministry.
JESSE: Yes.
SID: And for a year he doesn’t get a speaking assignment.
JESSE: Yes, that’s right.
SID: And then he gets angry and starts talking to his telephone. Tell me about that.
JESSE: Yes. The Lord, I was at a church, he said, Sunday morning, this is when I got out of the music business. He said, “You walk down there and ask them for a ministry.” I said, “I ain’t even in Bible school. I’m no preacher.” He said, “You go down there and you ask them for a ministry.” And I just, I said, I ain’t doing this. I ain’t doing that. Finally, a couple of weeks went by. Finally, I went down and I said, “Lord, forgive me. Forgive me.” No, it was a year. “Forgive me. I want this ministry.” Now before when he told me to do that, I was getting people writing me, you know, those Gospel businessmen and all that kind of stuff, confessing and all because I was in the rock world.
SID: Right.
JESSE: I thought I should submit. I didn’t get one invitation for a solid year. And in my frustration, that would be January of ’76, that year, and I said, “Lord, I went down in January of ’75 and asked for a ministry, and you, why didn’t I get any invitations?” He said, “You made me wait.” Just like that. He said, “How do you like it? You like it?” I said, “No.” He said, “Never make me wait again.” I said, “I’m yours to command, sir.” I went into the ministry. I came home. I quit my job. I don’t tell you to do that just because Jesse did it. Got home, looked at the phone, I said, “Ring!” And Jesus was there [ringing sound], it rang. It was a yellow phone, an old yellow phone, and I thought this must be my daddy. I picked it up and there was a man, Sabine, Calcasieu Tabernacle in Lake Charles, Louisiana. He said, “I was praying and the Lord said for you to come preach. Can you come tomorrow night?” This was a Thursday afternoon. I went there Friday night. And ladies and gentlemen, from that day forward, I have been preaching almost every day. I have over 9000 requests I can’t even get to. I’m trying. I’ll get all of them if I can. And I mean, from that point, but you know what, I’m not making God wait no more. And he told me to go on Sid Roth, so I did.
SID: I’m so glad you did. Aren’t you glad he did?
