The Eric Metaxas Show - Ché Ahn (Encore)

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

Miracle Monday features international evangelist Ché Ahn who shares how God brought him from a life of hardcore drug use to discover a life of renewal, healing, and miracles.

Folks, welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m.investments.com. That's legacy p.m.investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. They say it's a thin line between love and hate, but we're working every day to thicken that line, or at least to make it a double or triple line. But now here's your line jumping host, Eric Mattaxas.

I have a very special guest today. As you know, on Miracle Mondays, we try to have someone on who believes in miracles, who's maybe experienced some miracles, whose life itself is a miracle. Today, I am thrilled to have in the studio with me all the way from Pasadena, California, Che-On, A-H-N. How do I describe Che-On? He's the founder and president of Harvest International Ministry, a worldwide apostolic network of churches in over 60 nations. My goodness.

He's also the International Chancellor of Wagner University. He's received his master's and doctorate in ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. He's written many books. He's been married for 40 years to his wife, Sue. They have four adult children, six grandchildren. I think that says it all. Chey Ann, welcome to the program. Well, thank you. What an honor to be on your show.

Listen, it's my honor to have you. I've known you for many, many years. You haven't known of me, but I've known of your ministries. What was the one with fire in the title? I can't remember that or the, it was, or Teen Mania or what was? It was something you did here in New York like 12 or 13 years ago. Well, we did the call New York. That's what it was.

The call New York. It was the call New York. Yeah, 2001. That's, you know what? 2001. Yeah, after 9-11. That is 18 years ago. Yeah, and it's interesting because initially, when we came to mobilize the pastors, actually, they were very, very rude. They said, we don't need the call to come in. And then after 9-11 hit, they said, we need to gather together and have a solemn assembly. We need to come together and repent of our sins. And before we knew it, over 100,000 people showed up in Flushing Meadow.

The fact that that is 18 years ago completely blows my mind. Yeah, it's been a long time. Because I spoke briefly. I was on the stage, and I remember being amazed at the crowd. It was a huge crowd. And I grew up in Flushing Meadow. I mean, I grew up a couple of miles from there, and we would, as a kid, growing up in Queens, New York, I would hang out there. And so to see thousands and thousands of people, then that's when I met you.

But for folks who know nothing about you, what is your story? How long have you been, by the way, in Pasadena? Well, I moved in 1984, but I grew up in Washington, D.C. in Montgomery County, Maryland, so this outburst of D.C. My father was the first Korean Southern Baptist pastor in North America, so he immigrated in 1958. From Korea. From Korea, South Korea. There was no Korean Southern Baptist Church in the United States.

He was the first one, and so they wanted him at the nation's capital. There was a handful of Korean students who were studying at Georgetown, George Washington, Washington, Catholic University, to help rebuild Korea after the Korean War, which ended in 53, actually is a ceasefire that took place. And so they wanted the Korean government, wanted the top students to learn public policy, how to do government, and to rebuild Korea. And so there were around 200 students in Washington, D.C., but they wanted a Baptist pastor. There was a Presbyterian church. There was a Methodist, but not a Southern Baptist, and it was like my dad won the lotto. He, applied and he got the job because it was so hard to immigrate. I mean, it's hard now, but back in 58,

to immigrate to the United States, it was almost impossible because the U.S. government realized there was no Korean and Southern Baptist Church. So you were born here? No, I, here's the problem. We had a visa problem. So my sister, my mother and I, we were separated from my dad for three years. And so finally, after three years, during my formative years, so almost when I was five, then we got the visa to come to the United States. And so to say the least, when I was the least, I saw my dad, I couldn't recognize him because, you know, I was just two years old when he left. People have no idea what others go through. I mean, when you, when you describe that and how many people want to come to America. But, I mean, the idea that your father is a Southern Baptist preacher

in America. Well, he passed away, but he was a primary. No, no, I mean, but in those days that he's from Korea. Right. And so, so you were raised in the faith, in the Christian faith. Well, I was, but I rejected Christianity very early on because of two things. You know, there was no kids in my Sunday school. It was just students, college students. And so there was no families. There was no other kids my age. And then I went to an elementary school, Forest Grove Elementary School. And my sister and I were the only two people of color in all white elementary school. And now, if you go to that school, is very, very diverse. But back in those days, it wasn't until the fifth grade, I remember someone of color coming in.

And so there are no other Asians, no African Americans, no Hispanic. And so we stood out. And so I got in fights all the time because people were calling me chink, even though I'm not Chinese. That's a drug-to term for Chinese and Jap, even though I wasn't Japanese. You know, by the way, I have a little joke. I say you could tell the difference between a Chinese, Japanese, and a Korean. If you see a rich-looking Asian, they're Chinese, smart-looking Asian, they're Japanese. But if you see a handsome-looking Asian, he's Korean.

So that's a... Ha! Ha! Yeah, so anyway. Yeah. So anyway, but I got in fights all the time, and I wanted to be so accepted. Plus, my parents were working day and night just to survive in America, and so as a result of that, my craving for acceptance and to be popular led me into the whole hippie drug culture of the late 60s and early 70s. I joke I may have been the first Korean hippie in North America because I never met anyone. I stopped cutting my hair for three and a half years, and my dad is freaking out.

He doesn't know what's going on. and by the time I'm 15, I'm doing everything under the sun, heavy drug user, cocaine, heroin, LSD. And then by the time I'm 17, I'm pushing drugs to support my habit. And so I was totally out of control. But one thing my parents did was pray for me. And I really want to encourage people not to stop praying no matter how bad it looks. Because the Bible says, in the X 1631, believe on the Lord Jesus and you and your family will be saying, And so my parents prayed me into the kingdom.

And so I'm here by the grace of God. I got radically saved at a deep purple concert. So that gives you a little clue where I was at. Wait a minute. You got saved at a deep purple concert. Yeah, in May 1973. They were just touring with smoke on the water, new song that came out in 72. And they were touring in 73.

And it was at the Baltimore Civic Center. I made the concert, $15,000 tickets sold out in two hours. So they were the number one band in a number one band. America at that time. And during the intermission, I had an encounter with God where the Lord spoke to me for the first time. I'm not talking about audibly in the small still voice, because I was having this for two weeks, this visitation from the Lord, Jesus, without anyone witnessing to me. That's why I'm saying the power of... When you say that, because people are listening, and I'm really one of them, like you're thinking,

what do you mean by that? I mean, here you are, you know, you're a teenager, right? You are big time into drugs and you're selling drugs. You go to a Deep Purple concert. Now, you say that for two weeks up to that, God had been somehow communicating with you or visiting you. What do you mean specifically? Okay, so two weeks before,

my friend's house were at a party. Just guys bonging on marijuana and smoking and drinking beer. Nothing heavy. It wasn't like we were tripping on acid or anything. But I was just bored because I was just doing that every day. It was just so monotonous, you know, day in, day out, just getting high.

So I went to another room, and I was into Zen Buddhism at that time, just experimenting with Eastern religion. Right. So I went to the room just to go through my chant, and after saying the stupid chant, I was saying it incessantly for almost a year. And finally, I just said, you know what, this is the stupidest thing I've ever done. I said that to myself. I got nothing out of it, Eric. And Jesus said, duh. Yeah, come on.

No, but this is how he said that. So I said, God, I said this audibly, by the way, no one was in the room. I said, God, I don't even know if you exist. But if you do exist, if my parents, what they told me is true, that there's a heaven and a hell. Well, I don't want to go to hell if there is a hell, but I don't know. So reveal yourself to me. So I was expecting him to show me if he does exist in the days ahead. But as soon as I prayed that right there in the party, the presence of God came all over me, and I started to weep,

because I felt so much love and peace and helped me. Alone in the room. And I was sobbing. And I knew it was Jesus. I just knew because I just prayed if what my parents told me as a Christian pastor, if Jesus is the way, if there is a heaven and hell. And so I thought I was having some kind of emotional breakdown. But it lasted for three days.

Every day that presence came on me and I would just start weeping. And I said, what is going on? No on witness to me. Are you kidding? Now, hold on because we're going to go to a break. Jay on is my guest. It's Miracle Monday. I love these kind of stories.

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It's a Korean name. Uh, Che, uh, I, you know, I've been aware of you for many years, but it's Ken Fish, our mutual friend, uh, who's been on this program many, many times, who connected us recently. And I was just so thrilled that you were in New York and you could do this. And we're talking to you about your life story. And it's amazing. You just were telling us about what, there's no other way to describe it, a miracle. I mean, so many people are longing for this, including me, you know, I'm always praying because there's nothing more amazing when God reveals himself. And you say, why? Why does you reveal himself to other people? Why not to me? Why can't I have this experience? So you're talking about some amazing experiences that you said for three days in a row. Right. You feel this supernatural presence of Jesus.

Of course, I didn't know what I was going through at that time. But now, looking back, I knew it was the presence of the Holy Spirit. But still, I didn't change. I still did the drugs. I still slept around. I was just in total sin and rebellion. And so now two weeks later, I'm at the Purple concert. and my best friend stood in line to buy the tickets.

So we had the best seat in the house, like at the Baltimore Civic Center, third row, center stage. Whoa. And so, you know, there was another band, Rory Gallagher from Georgia played beforehand, and then there was intermission. During the intermission, I'm thinking about this encounter I had, the three days of presence and revelation of Jesus and weeping, and yet here I'm parting at the Deep Purple Concert. And so two guys came up to me during the intermission. I thought they were trying to crash my friend's seat because I was saving seats for them as they're walking around trying to pick up some girls.

And so I'm saving their seat. And he sits down right next to me. So I leaned over to tell him these seats are taken. But before I could get one word out, he says to me, I know what you're thinking about. You think you're right with God, but you're not. If you really want to follow him, you have to show that you really mean about following him. and Eric, my hair stood on the edge. I didn't know who they were.

I don't know if they were angels to radical Christians giving me a prophetic word. People just show up and they seem to know what you're thinking and what you're going through. To this day, I don't know. To this day, you don't know. I don't know who they were. It rocked me. And I cried out to God, okay, God, what do you want me to do? And I heard the inner voice of God, throw away your drugs, leave this concert and follow me.

Wait a minute. So you are alone. You're guarding your friend's seats. Right. Two guys come up to you and they look like they're part of the scene there. Exactly. And so we're guessing either it was angels. Right. Or it was two young men that got a powerful prophetic word from God to come and talk to you.

Right. And it was right. It was right on because I was thinking about God during the intermission. I was thinking about the encounter I had just two weeks before. So did you? were they there when this other stuff happened, or did they say this and walk away? They just got up and walked away.

And then my friends came back. Deep Purple came on with smoke on the water. The first song, smokes pouring out of the stage, lights were flashing. The crowd, 15,000 run up to the front and I'm trapped. And God spoke to me just a few minutes before, throw away your drugs, leave this concert. So I could rationalize and say,

I'm stuck. I can't leave this concert. There's a wall of people. but I heard his voice so clear I knew I had to fight through the sea of people. I had to intentionally, and this was my repentance, I had to repent by throwing away my drugs, leaving the auditorium, the Civic Center, and following him. And Eric, that was the last time I did drugs. I was instantly delivered from drug addiction.

And God's my witness. I've never gone back, never backslid and never, you know, compromised. And look, you did some serious drugs. Yes. Talking just about weed. you're talking about LSD. I mean, to drop acid and to do heroin. But that's what most of my friend thought I had flipped out on drugs.

Well, I was going to say, that's a logical conclusion. It's like you're seeing things. Yeah, but they said, you know, you'll be back after a few weeks. And sure enough, 49 years later, I'm in more love with Jesus today. Acid flashbacks do not cure you of drug addiction. No, it doesn't. Only God can cure you. Exactly.

I mean, seriously, Chey, that's amazing. I thank God for my parents' praise. So, of course, my grandmother is praying for me. She passed away a few years ago at the age of 101. And Eric, if your grandmother's praying for you, you don't have a chance. You will get a radically say. Everybody says that. Well, let me tell you, we need to know that miracles are real.

You're sitting here. You're rational. You're not making this up. And people need to know this stuff happens. And I think part of the reason they need to know is they need to know what could happen to them. Right. And God wants to speak to them. But they also need to know you can pray for somebody and stuff happens.

happens, God hears your prayers. You just don't know when, how. I mean, as your parents are praying for you, they, you know, probably, you know, they sometimes think like, when is it a God? Are you ever going to do anything? Exactly. And then this happens. Did you go to your parents and tell them what happened? Well, yeah, I did. And my dad didn't believe me because I was such a con artist. I was such a liar, pathological. I was just constantly lying to get out of my drug bust and getting caught. And I was. And I was such a con artist. I was such a liar. pathological. I was just constantly lying to get out of my drug bust and getting caught. And I said to myself, how could I show my dad I really have given my heart to Jesus Christ? And I heard the Lord say, get a haircut. I hadn't cut my hair in three and a half years. Now, when you say, you heard the Lord say get a haircut, do you mean you hear an audible voice? No, no, no, inner voice, because this was not on my radar. I know when God's speaking to me, because I'm not even thinking about it, I'm not even thinking, three and a half years and not getting a haircut. See, Che, the reason, the reason I asked, these questions is because I'm fascinated

with how God speaks to people because I think a lot of times Christians they talk about it as though everybody knows and I think you know when somebody says God spoke to me to get a haircut because I've had miracles too where I God says something or whatever and you want to know how did that happen how is that different

from my inner thoughts? It has to be different from your inner thoughts and for me when I have it sometimes I'll have an inner thought but it will be like highlighted by the Holy Spirit It's not like my normal thoughts. Right. And then other times, like you're saying, it comes out of nowhere.

You know you don't think I should get a haircut. It's like, it's this like foreign thing enters your brain. But one of the things I ask myself, and now I teach on this, is that if you're sensing a prophetic word or you receive a prophetic word, how do you know is of God and not your own thought or imagination or someone is missing it? Number one, you need to be able to die to that word. Number one, just lay it on the altar. If this is of God, then he's going to bring it to pass. But if you are invested into seeing it come to pass, you may start moving the arm of the flesh and trying to make that word, prophetic word, come to pass. And we see Christians do that all the time, which is why I think so many people are skeptical of all the stuff we're talking about, because they have seen people do it wrong and they've seen people do what we Christians call it in the flesh.

In other words, it's that person's will. I mean, I've heard millions of times people come up to me and say, I think God said this. And I think, you know what? I don't think God said that to you. And the fact that you're saying God said that to you, that's sin. You better be careful when you say God said because it better be God. But secondly, you have to ask yourself, what does the Bible have to say about it? But if the Bible is silent, you have to ask yourself this other question.

Is this going to be, am I going to be more Christ-like by moving in this direction? And getting a haircut was being Christ-like for my dad, because my dad didn't understand. And so it was honoring to him. So when I got my haircut, he said, I believe, okay, something has happened to you. I mean, the scripture commands us to honor our mother and our father commands us. Exactly. And so anything we can do to honor our parents is of God. There's no question about that.

And you knew your father disapproved of your hair at the time. Right. And as a way of honoring him and showing him that, I mean, that is powerful. And so I'm guessing, I think you just said it, that it did speak to him. He did realize this is not a joke. So I realized I did hear from the Lord. It wasn't just, you know, my own imagination. Again, it was not on my radar at all.

Yeah. And so I'm so glad I did. And God reconciled with my dad. And see, I think the fruit of the Christian walk is that, you know, was it an acid trip? No, because now, you know, here I am married 40 years and a beautiful, beautiful wife. Four adult children, all of them are serving Jesus. Three of them are full-time ministers. And six grandchildren, I see the fruit of that decision to make Jesus the Lord of my life. It's been so amazing. So blessed. Not that we don't go through trials and problems in difficult times, but I feel so blessed in the midst of all the different. times. Well, it's amazing. Well, let's continue with the story. So you're a young man. You have this experience. You cut your hair. You leave off drugs, sleeping around. Now what? Well, on top of that, I was a high school dropout. And so that is the unparnedable sin for an Asian immigrant to come

to the United States. Can I tell you? My parents are immigrants from the old country. And I know exactly what you were talking about. I mean, they grilled into us. You have to be a straight A student. You had to be the top of your class. And my sister was valedictorian. She, you know, She ended up going to Smith College. My brother was top of his class. Nobody is fiercer and academically ambitious and smarter than the Koreans, except I got to say this, the Greeks. Go ahead, go ahead. Right.

And especially if you're a Greek immigrant because her parents are going to just really pound into it. They don't want you serving rice pudding for the rest of your life. Right, exactly. So my brother, he went to Duke. He's a medical doctor. My sister was smarter. She went to Johns Hopkins and married a doctor. And so anyway, but for me, I was a high school dropout, Eric.

And so you can imagine the shame. They were just absolutely confused. And so the next thing I did was I went back to school. And I had to catch up because I was so far behind because of, you know, all my drug days, you know, and my brain was fried on LSD. And I would joke, my vocabulary was reduced to one word, wow. Oh, my gosh. And I was so brilliant.

I can say it backwards. We are going to go to a break. This is Miracle Monday, folks. We got a lot. We haven't scratched the surface. Don't go away. Every day, the parallel economy grows bigger and bigger. It's powered by everyday Americans who are sick and tired of all the woke propaganda being jammed

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They also come in a ton of additional sizes and all new colors. Just go to Mypillow.com, click on the Radio Podcast Square, to grab a pair of the all-season slippers for $25 limited to 10 pairs at checkout. Enter promo code Eric or call 800 978-3057, 800-978-3057 for this incredible offer. These won't last long, so please order now. Hey, the folks. Welcome to the Ericman Taxis Show. I'm not here. Chris, I'm not here. It seems like you're here.

Well, it seems like I'm here now, but when we air this, I will not be here. I will be away far, far away. No, but we thought we would pre-record a segment which that's this segment right now because we people write us letters and things and I thought some of which we can share some of which we can share so I wanted to read this one uh someone wrote uh well we've got a few here yeah that are kind of cool and so I thought let me let me read them so this one says uh this is from Torrey um it's uh well it says hello Eric I read your biography of Dietrich Bonhofer a few years back. It may be one of the most impactful books I've read.

For context, this person writes, Tori writes, I was raised in a small town of mostly German Americans in Wisconsin, and my high school managed to avoid studying World War II during history classes. Now, that is interesting because the shame, it's why I wrote the Bonhofer book. As a German, your shame for the Holocaust for what happened, you're trying to process that. And so in a sense, I wrote my book to help Germans and others understand that there were many good Germans. I was going to title the book, actually, The Good German. Because I thought to myself, nobody really talks about the fact that there were Germans like Bonhofer who stood up in the face of evil, who spoke out for the Jews. It really, I felt it was a story that needed to be told, and that's why I wrote it.

But it's interesting that Tory writes that, you know, growing up in Wisconsin among so many German Americans, they didn't even study World War II. She writes, even in the 70s, 1970s, the subject was too raw. In the past few years, I felt a profound sense that Bonhofer's story was pressing on us, on our culture. It felt as if you wrote letter to the American Church, that's the new book, in response to my own yearning. That, it just means a lot to me. And I do think that when I was writing the Bonhoeffer book, I had no clue what I would discover. So as I'm writing the story of what happened to Germany,

I'm kind of like smelling the future. Like I'm thinking this, I feel like this could happen in America. Because the church during his time, they didn't really respond in a... Well, they didn't understand what was happening, and therefore they didn't do what could have been done to change things. Right, right. So I kind of felt like I could sort of see this happening in America. and I felt it a little bit when I was writing the book,

but in recent years, it's become really clear to me that, oh, yeah, that's exactly what is happening now. People want to know how evil took over in Germany was because of the silence of the German church. I talked about on the Jordan Peterson podcast, and in many other places, I've never ever, ever felt God calling me to write a book. I had never felt that feeling before that I've got to write this

in obedience to God because this is happening now and I need to write this, and I need to reach the Christians and the Christian leaders that are capable of being reached. Some are not. Some have just somehow tuned this out permanently. They're doing their own thing. Yeah. We also get a letter which is asking a question, so I'm going to read this if we have the time. This is about the concept of women pastors. It says, Eric, recently the Southern Baptist Convention removed Saddleback Church from fellowships. because Rick Warren ordained a woman pastor. Next year, the SBC Convention will move to exclude from fellowship all Southern Baptist

churches that have women pastors. They're using the scripture 1st Timothy Chapter 3 to say that being a pastor is limited to men. It seems to me that God can call whomever to do anything. Paul wrote Timothy within the context of a patriarchal society. What's your position on this issue? Thank you. and I think the name of the person who wrote this is Ivan. Well, this is a complicated one for me.

I don't know what I think about this. I don't have really, really firm views on this subject. When somebody says it seems to me that God can call whomever to do anything, that's really vague. I don't know what that means. You know, God cannot call a man to give birth. There are certain fixities in what we call reality. so to say that God can call someone to do anything,

it's just too vague for me. I don't know what that means. Whether women can be ordained as pastors, I speak at churches where they have the husband and his wife or pastors, so-and-so and so-and-so, and I don't have a particular problem with that, but what I find interesting is the idea where people get upset when somebody does have a view on it, and they just say, well, that's not right.

Like, you should, you should, in other words, if the Southern Baptist Convention has a fixed view on this, you don't need to be a member of the Southern Baptist Convention. But if you want to be a member of the Southern Baptist Convention, you have to go along with their rules, and don't be shocked if they say, if you break our rules, you can no longer be a part of the club, because those are the rules of the club.

And it's the same thing with the Catholic Church. You know, you've got people angry about Catholic time. It's like, look, the doctrine is the doctrine. obviously women can do ministry and so what are the limits of that and how does that work? I don't know. I don't know. But it's interesting because there was another church that's, I think it's called Elevate. It's I think Ferdick, Steve Ferdick is the pastor, whatever.

They're in North Carolina. And they recently, I read, had decided to leave the Southern Baptist Convention over this issue because they don't like this issue of, you know, that they're not able to have a woman pastor. And I think, from what I know of that church, I believe it's elevate, but it's in Charlotte, North Carolina, where I was recently. But I think some of these churches are just leaning woke. These evangelical churches are leaning woke or they're being silent in the face of evil. They're trying to be hip, trying to go with the crowd, trying to go with the culture. That's not God's calling on the church. It's why I wrote my book letter to the American church.

So I think that's the real issue here. That's the deeper issue. And they're using the women ordainment thing to kind of, you know, as an excuse, but the reality is that they kind of want to do their own thing. And I'm not cool with that, man, dig. Thanks for listening. I'm sitting here with Che on, and we are talking about miracles. Chee, when you're sharing with me, this is exciting to know that, you know, God is still alive and doing crazy, beautiful things in people's lives. There's so many people who kind of think, does God exist? Is he really going to? When you share your story, it encourages me. And so you're telling us that you've had this radical transformation, miraculous. You know it's God. You don't have any doubt. So you go back to high school, again,

to honor your father and mother. But also, I had this feeling that I was called into vocational ministry. And I realized I had to get an education. I couldn't continue to just say, wow, man, you know, that's cool. You know, just talk like a hippie anymore. And so, um, But, you know, Eric, what I went through was nothing unusual during that season because millions of teenagers came to know Jesus Christ, many of them very more radical than my conversion. It was called the Jesus People Movement, which historically was from 1967 to 1977. And so my friend, one of my friend was a biker for the Hells Angel, murdered a man in Los Angeles. He was a junkie. And God instantly delivered him from heroin addiction.

He became a pastor. So that's the kind of transformation we saw during the Jesus People movement. And so, you know, here I was, you know, I was still a nice guy. I didn't kill anyone. I was doing drugs, parting, but I was totally selfish, of course. But the change I saw with some of my friends during the Jesus people, but I know Michael Brown, for example, he's a dear friend of mine as well. I mean, he was a heroin addict, you know. Michael Brown spoke when I was there 18 years ago, when the call came to Flushing Meadow, Queens, New York.

That's right. I remember he spoke. I spoke. And he, I remember hearing him at Times Square Church when I met my wife there and whatever he used to preach there. But his story, he's been on this program many times. Classic, classic story, the drugs. And then suddenly Shazam, God comes into his life. Now, you probably know my friend Greg Lori. He's been on this program time. I mean, it's hard to believe, like, how many people had miraculous Jesus encounters at that time. And of course, Jay, we don't need to get to it now because I want to hear the rest of your story. But eventually,

I want to talk about, you know, there's a hunger that that would happen today. I believe it's going to happen again. I do as well because we need to see the power of God, especially in young people's lives. It just, there's nothing to compare to it. Exactly. Well, anyway, so let's keep the story going. So you decide suddenly you want to go into ministry. Yeah, I thought it called.

It was probably a year after my conversion when I was 18. Well, your siblings became doctors. Yeah, well, my sister. I used to give drugs to her, you know. Here she is at Smith College, top of her class, brilliant. But she didn't know the Lord. And when she came home for summer, she saw the change in my life. She saw me doing dishes for my mom.

And so as an Asian male, I didn't do a thing in my home. But take out the trash, clean up for my mom. And she knew I had changed. And that's why I try to encourage people, you are a witness whether you like it or not, either for or against Christ based on your character, your servant's heart. And so she was doing the laundry and she said, I want what my brother has. That's her prayer. And she encountered Jesus and came to know the Lord in a beautiful way. It was just amazing what happened to her. And then my brother, when he turned 13, which was like a year later on his 13th

birthday, I had a chance to see, he had his friends over for his birthday. And I had a chance to share the gospel with his friends and my brother. And they all gave their lives to Jesus Christ. And to this day, his best friend, just recently thanked me for leading him to the Lord when he was 13 years old. Of course, my brother is in his 50s now, you know, and he's a surgeon for Kaiser. But it's amazing. And it's part of our church. He's still following me as I follow Jesus Christ. I mean, really just came out to California to do his residency and got a great job and plugged into our church.

So you, okay, so you go. And, of course, your father at this time is a pastor. Yes. And you decide, but you're the only kid in your family. who decides I want to go into full-time ministry. Yeah, which shocked him, of course. Of course, the drug addict, of course, is the one who... But, you know, one of the last words he said to me before he passed away, he said,

son, I love you, which he never did growing up because as Asians, it's just not part of our culture to express love, but he says, son, I love you, and I'm so proud you're a pastor like me. And so that's so melted my heart. And so it was just like the reconciliation, you know, it was a Malachi, four, five, and six type of thing where God's turning the hearts of the fathers to the children, hearts of the children to the fathers. And that's, I think, the key to revival for our nation. I think we really need to turn our hearts towards our children and to ask for forgiveness for anything

we've done to hurt them. And then the kids need to turn their hearts back to their parents, honor them, obey them, and to really repent. And I believe that could be the spark to see a revival, at least based on Malachi chapter 4 versus 5. and six. Man, I, I guess we'll just want to kind of continue your story. So, so you finish high school and then what? You decide that you're going to go into seminary? What do you do?

Well, no. My dad asked me if I would go to seminary and I gave him a promise I would, but that would be years later when I went to Fuller in 1984. But I enrolled at University of Maryland because I loved the Bible study I was part of. I was part of a great Bible study with 2000. kids meeting on a Tuesday night. What? Part of the Jesus' people movement called Tag. Take and give. Take what God's

given to you and give it away. I remember tag. Yeah. The tail end of Tag in the 80s probably. Yeah. It ended in 1980, but it was very, very strong when I joined in 1974, 75, etc. It became part of the leadership there. And then that movement became a church planning

movement, and I became a pastor in 1979. called Gathering of Believers. That was the name of the community. And I was ordained in 1979, Meriden 79. And so now I'm in ministry, and then I have this incredible dream

in 1982, September 2nd. And in the dream, an African-American appeared to me, and he says, the Lord's calling you to Los Angeles for there's going to be a great harvest in L.A. And I woke up, woke up my wife. I told her the dream.

She immediately bore it We're talking about 3,000 miles from Washington, D.C. I knew no one in L.A. No relatives, no friends. But we got down on her knees, and we just said, if this is a view, we threw a fleece out, have my pastor approached me to say, I would like to send you out to planet church, where would you like to go? Those are the words I said, if he says something like that, then I'll know as a sign from you. And sure enough, my pastor took me out to lunch, and he said, I've been sensing that we need to send you out to planet church, where would you like to go? and he almost fell out of his chair when I said L.A. Because he was thinking, anybody, I mean, can you believe this stuff? All right, folks, we will continue this extraordinary story. There's so much more with Cheon. This is the Eric Metaxis show.

Don't go away. Hey, folks, this is Eric Mataxis show. I'm talking to Che on. Che, we just got to continue the story. So you're telling me it's what? 179, 1980. What's the year? Yeah, 1979.

I was ordained. In 1982, I received this prophetic dream. Okay, so 82. You're married three years. years, you're ordained, and you are in D.C. area. Yeah, pastoring, loving my job, loving the area. And you're telling me you get one of those dreams. I have had two in my life where you say, this was a freaky God dream. This is nothing like a normal dream. And you said that in the dream, an African-American. Now, why are you going to tell us? I have no idea. I mean, my church in Maryland

was predominantly white, and the church I planted became predominantly white with smattering of Asians, you know? Yeah. By the way, even though I'm Asian, you know, I tell people I'm like a banana because I may be yellow on the outside, but I'm white culturally. So I've always pastored a Caucasian congregation predominantly. Right. Now, my new church, H. Rock Church, Harvest Rock Church, is very multi-ethnic, so it's very diverse.

But I don't know why it was a black man. And I wonder, I wonder, two reasons. Maybe he was the angel of Los Angeles because we don't know what. I was going to say, you always wonder, or when you get to heaven, you'll meet him. Yeah, right, exactly. But the other thing is that I got very involved with the African American community when the riots of 1991, 92, took place in L.A. L.A. riots. Okay.

So God tells you in a dream and you know it's God. How do you know? In other words, when you have a dream like that, did you? Well, one of the things I was going to say, you know, we talked about. about laid on the altar and as it based on God's word. What's the word have to say? Of course, God wants us to fulfill the Great Commission. And of course, Christ-like character. It can't be out of selfish ambition. They can't do it out of just your arm of the flesh. This is something that actually was just so overwhelming. In the natural, I wouldn't want to do it because I knew no

one in L.A. But this is the fourth thing I share about getting a confirmation is that you've got to have Ghali counsel. You can't just go out on your own. And so I wanted to bounce this off my parents, Sue's parents. They're both medical doctors in Washington, D.C. And, you know, her mom's a pediatrician. She's still alive, by the way. And so, you know, I thought surely they would say no. Of course, I wanted my pastor to initiate.

But all of them said that this is of God. And so they sent us out with their blessings. So I knew it was of the Lord because of the Ghali Council, of course, following the Word of God. So it wasn't just a dream and going on a dream and said, man, what did you say? I'm just going to do it. I wanted to make sure because I don't want to be deceived either. Right.

Okay. So you obviously move across the country away from your family. Yeah. Big deal. Huge deal. Yeah, 3,000 miles. And, of course, you know, we left everything behind financially. They put me on salary for six months and then I was on my own.

Trust God or die, basically. Yeah. I have three kids at that point. We call it church growth, by the way, because I was only married for like four years. We had a child almost every year. And then my daughter was born in California, our California baby, Mary. And yet, and Eric, here's the honest truth. The first 10 years was absolutely terrible and it was hard.

Because I came out of a very successful church. The church was around 3,000 members. And I thought Bible study of 2000, the moment I moved to California, it's just going to blow up. But after like a year, we had 20 people, and that included my kids. kids and Lou Engel's kids. Ah, I forgot about Lou Engel. He was at the call, too. Yeah, he's a visionary founder of the call.

You know what? That's exactly right. I forgot that. It was Lou Engel and you. But I had to put it together. Yeah, well, that's okay. The visionaries never put anything together. I think I'm a visionary.

Okay, so you, so you struggle, but it's just interesting to me to process this. A lot of times when God speaks, it is tough, and it's why he spoke. In other words, to say that, when you go through the tough stuff, he made it clear he was behind it. Absolutely. You don't just go, did I miss God? You knew you didn't miss God.

Yeah, just like Joseph. We're going to break here. Actually, we're at the end of an hour. We'll have more with Cheon, an hour too. Don't go away.