When I Am Weak Thou Art Strong Jimmy Swaggart

R everend J immy Due south waggart

Apology Sermon

delivered 21 Feb 1988, Family Worship Centre, Baton Rouge, LA

Extended Audio mp3 Extract

Everything that I will attempt to say to you this morning volition be from my heart. I will not speak from a prepared script. Knowing the consequences of what I will say and that much of it will exist taken around the world, as information technology should be, I am positive that all that I want to say I volition not exist able to clear as I would want. But I would pray that you will somehow feel the ache, the pain, and the love of my heart. I have always -- every single fourth dimension that I have stood before a congregation and a television camera -- I have met and faced the issues head-on. I have never sidestepped or skirted unpleasantries. I have tried to be similar a man and to preach this gospel exactly as I have seen it without fearfulness or reservation or compromise. I tin do no less this morning.

I do not plan in any way to whitewash my sin. I practise not call information technology a error, a mendacity; I call information technology sin. I would much rather, if possible -- and in my estimation it would not be possible -- to brand it worse than less than it actually is. I take no ane but myself to blame. I exercise non lay the fault or the blame of the charge at anyone else's anxiety. For no one is to blame but Jimmy Swaggart. I have the responsibility. I have the arraign. I accept the fault.

Many times I accept addressed the media in a very stern mode, and I have chastised them for what I thought and believed was error in their reporting or their investigation even. This fourth dimension I do not. I commend them. I feel that the media, both in print and by telly, radio, accept been fair and objective and even compassionate. Ted Koppel on "Nightline," I feel, did everything within his power, in going the second, third, fourth, fifth, tenth mile to brand doubly certain that what he reported was at to the lowest degree every bit fair and every bit honest as he, the spokesman for this earth-famed news program, could make it. And I thank him for his objectivity, his kindness, and his fairness.

And I besides want to express appreciation to the entire media everywhere, just especially here in Baton Rouge -- Channels 9, two, and 33, the newspapers, the radio stations. They've been hard, but they have been fair. They have been objective and at times, I believe, they accept fifty-fifty been compassionate -- fifty-fifty my former nemesis, John Army camp, that nosotros have disagreed with very strongly. And I beloved you, John. And in spite of our differences, I call back y'all are i of the finest investigative reporters in the world -- and I hateful that.

I want to address myself as best as I know how to those that I have wronged, that I have sinned against. Commencement of all, my wife, Frances: God never gave a homo a better bride and companion to stand up abreast him. And equally far as this gospel has been taken through the airwaves to the great cities of the world and covered this globe, it would never have been done were information technology not for her forcefulness, her courage, her consecration to her Redeemer, the Lord Jesus Christ.

I accept sinned against you [looking straight at his married woman in the audience]. And I beg your forgiveness.

God said to David 3,000 years ago, you take done this affair in surreptitious, but I will practice what I do openly before all of State of israel. My sin was done in secret, and God has said to me, "I will do what I do earlier the whole world." Blest be the name of the Lord.

God could never requite a man, a begetter, a government minister of the gospel, a finer son than he has given me and his female parent -- Donnie and my cute and lovely girl-in-law, Debbie. Donnie has stood with me. I take relied upon him. And in these trying days, his mother and myself, nosotros do non know what we would have done without his force, his courage, and his utter devotion to the Lord Jesus Christ. Donnie and Debbie, I have sinned against y'all and I beg you to forgive me.

To the Assemblies of God, which helped bring the gospel to my fiddling beleaguered town when my family was lost without Jesus -- this motility and fellowship that ...has been more instrumental in taking this gospel through the...night of darkness to the far-flung hundreds of millions than maybe in the try in annals of human history. Its leadership has been empathetic and kind and considerate and long-suffering toward me without exception, only never for one moment palliating sin, both on the national level and this esteemed district level. But to its thousands and thousands of pastors that are godly, that uphold the standard of righteousness, its evangelists that are heralds and criers of redemption, its missionaries on the front lines...property back the path of hell -- I have sinned against you and I have brought disgrace and humiliation and embarrassment upon you. I beg your forgiveness.

This church [Family unit Worship Center], this ministry, this Bible college [Jimmy Swaggart Bible College], these professors, this choir, these musicians, these singers that have stood with me on a thousand cause platforms effectually the globe, that have labored unstintedly [sic] and tirelessly to lift upwards that smashing proper noun of Jesus Christ, to tell the weary that He is rest, and the sin-cursed that he, Jesus, is victory, my assembly -- and no evangelist e'er had a greater group of men and women, given past the mitt of God -- have stood with me unstintedly [sic], unflaggingly. I have sinned against you lot. I have brought shame and embarrassment to you lot. I beg your forgiveness.

To my fellow television receiver ministers and evangelists, yous that are already begetting an almost unbearable load, to go on to say and tell the great story of Jesus' dear, I have made your load heavier and I have injure you. Please forgive me for sinning against you.

And to the hundreds of millions that I have stood before in over a hundred countries of the earth, and I've looked into the cameras so many of you with a heart of loneliness, needing help, have reached out to the government minister of the gospel as a beacon of calorie-free. You that are nameless -- most I will never be able to see except past faith. I have sinned against you. I beg you to forgive me.

And most of all, to my Lord and my Savior, my Redeemer, the One whom I have served and I beloved and I worship. I bow at His feet, who has saved me and washed me and cleansed me. I have sinned against You, my Lord. And I would ask that Your precious blood would launder and cleanse every stain, until information technology is in the seas of God's forgetfulness, never to be remembered against me anymore.

I say unto y'all that spotter me today, through His mercy, His grace and His love, the sin of which I speak is not a present sin; it is a past sin. I know that so many would inquire why, why? I accept asked myself that x,000 times through 10,000 tears. Possibly Jimmy Swaggart has tried to live his entire life as though he were not human. And I take thought that with the Lord, knowing He is omnipotent and omniscient, that there was nothing I could not exercise -- and I emphasize with His help and guidance. And I think this is the reason (in my limited knowledge) that I did non find the victory I sought because I did not seek the assist of my brothers and my sisters in the Lord. I accept had to come to the realization that this gospel is flawless even though information technology is ministered at times past flawed men. If I had sought the assist of those that loved me, with their added force, I look back now and know that victory would take been mine. They take given me strength forth with the pity of our Savior in these last few days that I have needed for a long, long fourth dimension.

Many ask, as I close, this: will the ministry go on? Yep, the ministry building will continue. Under the guidance, leadership and directives (equally best we know how and tin can) of the Louisiana District of the Assemblies of God, nosotros will continue to take this gospel of Jesus Christ all over the globe. I step out of this pulpit at the moment for an indeterminate catamenia of time and nosotros will leave that in the easily of the Lord.

The Bible college of these young men and young ladies whom I have tried to set a standard for and have miserably failed, its most esteemed president, Ray Tresk -- I, also, beg you, the future pastors, evangelists and missionaries, to forgive me. But this Bible college will continue.

I close this today with the words of some other human being that lived 3,000 years agone -- and I started to say who committed sin that was worse than mine, simply I have that back. And if the Holy Spirit volition permit me to borrow His words, I volition review that which is as real now every bit when it was penned in Jerusalem:

Have mercy upon me, O God. According to thy lovingkindness; according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies, blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions; and my sin is ever before me. Confronting thee, thee only, take I sinned and done this evil in thy sight, that thou mightest be justified when thou speakest, and be articulate when thou judgest.

Behold, I was shapen in iniquity; and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, 1000 desireth truth in the inwards parts; and in the hidden parts 1000 shalt make me to know wisdom.

Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be make clean; launder me, and I shall exist whiter than snow. Brand me to hear joy and gladness; that the basic which thousand hast cleaved my rejoice.

Hide thy face up from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean eye, O God; and renew a correct spirit within me. Bandage me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.

Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall exist converted unto thee. Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, thou God of my salvation: and my natural language shall sing aloud of thy righteousness.

O Lord, open thou my lips; and my oral fissure shall shew forth thy praise. For thou desireth not sacrifice; else would I give it; thou delightest not in a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite center, O God, thou wilt non despise. Do good in thy proficient pleasance unto Zion; build thou the walls of Jerusalem.

And so shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offer and with whole burnt offer; then shall they offering bullocks upon thine altar. [Psalm 51]

Thank you. Thank you and God bless you lot.

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Text Source : Giuliano, J.1000. (1999). Thrice born. Macon, GA: Mercer University Press.

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