Sid Roth

Sid: My guest by way of telephone is Sr. Pastor of Miracle Place Church in Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana.   We found out that Ricky was in what TV portrays as the fun life.  He started out with thing like alcoholic and marijuana and quickly moved into hard drugs and shooting heroin, and then became a dealer. He got arrested a number of times and he escaped from jail; they were going to put him in prison.  And he was running from the police in the woods for 56 days.  He had no water; he had no food; I mean the things he had to go through to survive it’s unbelievable.  And he finally went to his mother’s house and his mother didn’t even recognize him because he had dropped so much weight. And he had been just living in the wild like a wild person for 56 days.  And so the police caught him, he was booked; he was facing life in prison.  He’s in the cell and officer’s that was involved in that chase trying to find him when he was in the woods walks in.  His name is Officer James and he sees him in the cell and he gives him a Bible. What happened next Ricky?

Ricky: Sid I’m hopeless my friend; I’m facing a life sentence in Angola. Twenty-two years old watched my whole life flash before me because of chasing the wrong things in life; drugs and alcohol; the party life.  And so here I am looking for answers; their talking about giving me a life sentence and I realized that I wasted my life.  Some kind of way that I’ve wasted my life; I’ve gotten off I’m chasing the wrong thing.  I’m doing the wrong thing and now I’m in jail so I started looking for answers.  And so I think that every person needs to be honest with themselves and asking this one question.  “What in the world is the vision of life? What is the purpose for life?”  And that’s what I started asking myself. I got real here I am in jail and this is reality and this is serious. And so I started looking for answers and Ernest James the Jailer; and by the way he is the one that chased me across the field.  He brought me a Bible back and he said Ricky he says, “Every question that you need answered the answer will be found in this book,” and man I was desperate; just desperate. So I started reading the Bible. And as I started reading the Bible  I realized that life was really about serving God and was really about serving people and doing that which was right.  And so the more I read the more hungry I got for His word and then ultimately Sid something supernatural happened in my heart and my life.  And all I can say is the desire in my life; all of the sudden the desire to want to live in the world; to chase drugs and to chase woman and to do the party thing all of a sudden in my heart in my life I had another desire a desire to want to love; a desire to want to serve; a desire to want to do what was right.  And so that’s what’s taking place in my heart and in my life.  And you know I reached a place where I was sick and tired.  I call it sick and tired of being sick.  And that’s where there’s a lot of people in our world today and they’ve tried all the things of the world and yet there’s still something missing in their life.

Sid: Okay, so alright you’re in jail you’re reading the Bible you now get sentenced to prison what happened there?

Ricky: They sent me to penitentiary and what I did was I committed my heart to God from the Bible.  And so I went on to jail and in jail I used that time to become all that I could possibly be for God.  I used that time to study the Bible. Did over 100 Bible correspondence courses…

Sid: Now what did they sentence you to?

Ricky: They sentenced me to 7 years in the Department of Corrections from St. Francisville.  Now I still got the charges that I’m facing in New Orleans which is possession with the intention to distribute 14 pounds of Marijuana and an ounce of Ecstasy there.  So they sent me right on to the penitentiary and…

Sid: So what is prison like?

Ricky: Prison is like being caged like an animal; prison puts you in a tremendous bondage like on a chessboard. You’re in checkmate; you can’t go backwards; you can’t go forward you are captive you’re in bondage it’s a terrible feeling.  I’ll never forget I was standing in the yard; I saw the guard towers and here’s the guard up there with a rifle in their hand and razor wire on the fences. As I look through the razor wire it was almost like this is a bad dream; this is a terrible nightmare.  I can’t believe that I’m in prison because I’m a middle-class guy; I came from a pretty good family moneywise. And how did I get here?

Sid: Now you had at this point accepted the Lord, but even in prison you backslid a little bit.  And you felt like God spoke to you; tell me what did He say.

Ricky: Well Sid I started hanging out with people I shouldn’t have been hanging out with at one time.  And of course I had just started living for God so I was real young.  They convinced me to go out in the yard and smoke a joint.  And so here I am on the yard, I smoke a joint but when I smoked that joint I felt a conviction in my heart that I had never felt before. I knew that I was a different person; I knew that life was not for me anymore.  Something supernatural had taken place in my life as a result of committing my life to the Lord. And so I went into the dormitory I was so convicted I didn’t want anybody to see me and I felt strange and so I was scared to even face anybody.  I got up on my top bunk; I pulled the covers over my head and I asked God to forgive me no less than 1,000 times.  Then it seemed that I was brought to a crossroad in my life in the valley of decision.  And this was the crossroad; “If you choose to live for Me (God) I will give you your wife back and I will cause My blessing to be in your life.  But if you choose today at the crossroad to go the way of drugs the way you’ve been living you are going to lose everything and you’re going to live half of your life in prison.” That’s what I heard in my heart. And I made a decision with my freewill that for me we were going to serve God and we were going to do what was right.  And I made that decision 18 years ago and it’s been the greatest decision that I’ve ever made. I got a wonderful wife; my wife is still with me thank You Lord.  I got great kids and a dynamic church that I pastor.

Sid: How long did you spend in prison?

Ricky: I did right at 4 years almost 4 years.

Sid: Four years but according to what you should have had you should have had life.

Ricky: But something supernatural happened there too Sid because I wasn’t even supposed to come up for parole.  Three felony convictions; I had 3 felony convictions and if you’re convicted to 3 felonies you’re not eligible for parole.  Yet they still brought me on the parole board and gave me parole. I had favor! Listen let me tell you something happens when you serve God.

Sid: Now you were concerned, and of course your wife is saved now but you were concerned when you were in prison your wife wasn’t saved.  Did you pray much about her?

Ricky: My goodness I had over a 100 Bible correspondent courses I did and I had many of those correspondent course praying for my wife.  And ultimately prayed my wife in and that’s what rescued and salvaged my marriage. I would not be married today if it wouldn’t have been for my commitment to serve God.

Sid: Now the thing that intrigued me wasn’t anything that you said so far. The thing that I heard about you Pastor Ricky, and by the way how large is your church today?

Ricky: Eight hundred and fifty people.

Sid: And did you take over a big church?

Ricky: No sir; we started from scratch and I’ll tell you I’ve taken people off the streets.  We’ve built this church with people that came off the streets with drugs and alcohol.  I have what we call an “All way house.” And that means just simply “All the way for God!”

Sid: Half way doesn’t work.

Ricky: No, if you want a halfway house we’ll find a half way. If you want to go all the way and by the way Sid in anything that you want to do in life and…. you got to be committed; you got to go all the way.  And if you go all the way…

Sid: So in drugs you went all the way and in crime you went all the way; and now you’re going all the way for God.

Ricky: Always have been 100%

Sid: But Ricky the thing that intrigued me is not anything that you’ve said so far about you.  The thing that intrigues me about you is you had a revelation of God’s love and you communicate that; you exude it to the people.  Tell me what that was.

Ricky: What I found out that it’s not about religion; it’s not about tradition; it’s just simply loving God and loving people. And if we’ll just live by that principal then God’s blessing and God’s favor will be upon us and in our life.

Sid: Now listen so many miracles are taking place in your church but we’ll stop right here. I’ll tell you what Mishpochah I believe that you’re going to get a physical healing on tomorrow’s broadcast.  Do you know someone caught up in drugs; caught up in the glamor of the fast life?   They may not be a dealer; they maybe at the early stages but there are so many people that are about ready to take the path that Ricky took and many of them will die before they have a chance to really live.