Amazing Facts

Announcer: This presentation is brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry. Coming to you from New York City at the historic Manhattan Center with your host, Doug Batchelor. Join this exciting journey of discovery as we learn the truth about Bible prophecy, explore the timeless wisdom of God's Word, and see how it relates to our lives today. Stay tuned. Your Amazing Facts adventure begins now.

Doug Batchelor: Hello friends, welcome back to Prophecy Odyssey. In our previous episode, I told you a little bit about my childhood and all the trouble that I caused. I often thought of ending my life in suicide. But God did not leave me in that hopeless state. He reached me in a remote cave in the California mountains, and He gave me a new lease on life.

The truths that He taught me changed everything for me, and I know they can do the same for you. Make sure to get your copy of the Prophecy Odyssey Bible lessons and our free offers so that you can discover what I learned. More on that later. So thank you for watching and God bless as you continue the Prophecy Odyssey adventure.

Of all the drugs I've used, and I've used just about everything, more of my friends died from alcohol than anything. I say that because I meet some Christians who think a little alcohol is okay. One out of seven people that drinks becomes an alcoholic. Would you keep a dog that bit one out of seven people that came to your house? Christians shouldn't drink. If nothing else, it’s because it’s a bad witness for other people.

So I would drink. And the thing was that we had a butler and a maid at the house. So I'd drink during the day while Dad was at work with my friends. The butler would be out working in the yard, and the butler would come in and he'd say, "Oh, looks like Mr. Batchelor's stock is down." He'd restock it; my father never knew it was missing. So we drank a lot.

And when I was with Mom, I knew where she kept her pot. She kept it in the spice rack in the kitchen. And so not only did I smoke with her, but I used to take some extra. And so I started using drugs. I started breaking into homes and stealing. And when I was living with my father on the Sunset Islands, my friends—you ever heard of Firestone tires? I used to date Amy Firestone. You ever heard of Hoover vacuum cleaners? Sandy Hoover, we used to play with him; he lived on the island.

And I could start naming these different people, multimillionaires, and they were our friends. And we all got in trouble together. We would get bored, all these rich spoiled kids. And "What do you want to do?" if it wasn't drugs, LSD or drinking or something, we'd say, "Let's break into a home," just for the excitement. And we started breaking into the homes of the other millionaires. They'd dare me to do something; I’d do anything just for attention.

And the sad thing was there was a raft of burglaries on the island, and so the millionaires were calling the police. They figured that these thieves were coming by boat, and we used to see the police boats circling the island looking to catch the thieves. It was the kids of the millionaires on the island stealing from each other. And during this time, no satisfaction, no happiness. I just began to get into more and more trouble.

Finally, my mother said, "George, Doug needs more freedom. Military school has been too restrictive. He needs to express himself." My mother was an artist. She found a school in Maine where there were no rules. It was called a free school. This is one of the only pictures I've got. I'm the one at the bottom with his legs crossed and long hair. I know it's a muddy picture, but that's all I could get offline.

It was called Pinehenge. It was an experimental school. It lasted five years; the experiment failed. The idea was, "Don't make the children do anything. Let them be free. You don't have to go to class if you don't want to. You don't have to go to meals if you don't want to." The school really only had three rules: there was no fighting, no drugs, no sex. Do you think the kids listened to the three rules? There were coed dorms for all ages. We had kids from eight to eighteen. It was crazy. I'm surprised it was legal.

But I went to this free school. You can look it up online if you think I'm kidding, friends. So, talk about mixed up. I went from the strictest school in North America, New York Military Academy, a rule for everything—and I praise God I went to that school because I fold my underwear still. Well, she folds it too. But I make the bed in the hotel room. We check out of the hotel room, I make the bed. And then I went to a school with no rules.

And a lot of kids attempted suicide. I learned you have to have discipline in your life or you cannot have happiness. If you don't have self-control, you will not succeed. So I got into a lot of trouble. By the time the first time I ran away from home, I was 13 years of age. I stole from my mother, took a bus upstate New York, got in a tent, and I'm by myself, I'm going, "Okay, now what do I do?" And I got lonely. I eventually came home.

Ran away again when I was 14 years of age with a friend. By the way, I met this friend years later; he became a colonel in the army. It was really interesting. And he and I ran away, got arrested in Pennsylvania on the train, flew us back to New York, we escaped again, moved up to the mountains, got arrested again. My mother said to my dad, "I can't handle him anymore."

She sent me to live with my dad. And I got in trouble with my stepmother. She said, "He's impossible. He can't stay at home." My dad also owned a hotel. He moved me into his hotel. I was so mixed up. I got arrested—I’ve been arrested seven times. I was in jail at one point for a week before I told them my real name. I thought, "I'd rather be in juvenile hall than back home in the mansion." Isn't that crazy? That's how unhappy I was. Just totally out of control.

Finally my dad said, "I don't know what to do with you." Everybody thought, "Doug, don't you want to work for your father? Get an education, take over the business. Look at all the money you'll have, look at all the things you'll have." I said, "Yeah, and I'll drink myself to sleep every night like him." What profit is it? They're not happy. So I said, "Dad, I don't know what..." He said, "I don't know what to do." I just walked out of my dad's office, I got on the highway, Interstate 95, I started to hitchhike.

I'm 16 years old. I went up to Boston. I had faked my driver's license. It said—in case you're curious, I'm born 1957. My mother's an artist. I took the seven, I made it a two. And I used that to get a phony ID, a real one, that said I was much older than I was. So I was able to get a driver's license, and I was able to get a job as a security guard.

I was in Boston, and I was breaking into homes and stealing. Stealing televisions, stealing cars, and working as a security guard at night. Work for a company called Business Intelligence. Now, I never stole from the place I guarded because they paid me. And I did my stealing during the day because if you walk out of a house during the day with a television, they think you're moving.

So I had a friend named Jerry. He was a security guard. He found out about my day job stealing. I said, "You going to turn me in?" He said—he was very spiritual, he was into these Eastern religions—he says, "No, man, I don't got to turn you in. Your karma's going to get you." I said, "What do you mean, karma?" He said, "Whatever you do comes back." I said, "There's no God." I said, "I stole that TV set, and I got rid of it. Nothing happened, nothing will happen." He said, "You'll see."

And a few days after we had that conversation, I woke up in my apartment in Boston. My door was open, and I looked and my TV was gone. And my radio. And I was mad. You know what I did? I called the police. And I said, "What is this city coming to?" I said, "You guys get out there and find them." And I started watching, and everything I did seemed to backfire. I would go and steal something—and my friends were thieves—they’d steal it from me.

Or I'd steal something while I was drinking or high, and I'd hide it, and I'd wake up and say, "No, I know I hid the money. Where'd I hide it?" I remember with my friend, Jay Samuels, I was in Brooklyn stealing, and the police found out, and we were chased by the police and shot at. And I can tell you all these different stories, but everything was going wrong. I stole a car in Boston, drove down to New York City, got a flat tire.

Couldn't get in the trunk. Could steal the car, but I couldn't get in the trunk to change the tire. Had to hitchhike from New York City back to Boston in the rain, miserable. And I started thinking, "Maybe there's a God." But you know what convinced me? It was a small thing. I didn't just quit stealing cold turkey. I tried to taper off because I said, "This karma thing, there may be something to it." I'd steal a stereo and I'd get back to my house, huffing and puffing, and plug it in; it's broken. A broken stereo.

So I went to someone's house, and I stole a box of Krusteaz instant pancake mix, a brand new box. I did it because I was very health conscious back then. I was a hippie. I just want whole wheat pancake mix. I'm drinking, smoking, using drugs, but just whole wheat pancake mix, because I'm going to take care of myself. So I stole this box of pancake mix. On the top of the box—this is before they had the barcode—it was stamped $1.19.

I got back to my place that same day. Some people came to my place uninvited. I had a brand new jar of Tang instant breakfast drink. They took the jar, opened it up, they drank every bit of it, and there by the empty jar was the lid, and it said $1.19. And I looked at the pancake mix and I said, "Crime doesn't pay. There must be a God." But I wasn't interested in Christianity. I'd spent too much time looking at Christians.

And I said, "They're all hypocrites." I'd been to enough religious services and went to Catholic school. And I remember the priest standing up there doing communion while he's smoking and drinking. I'm going, "What's with this?" And I'd turn on the news, it said the Catholics and Protestants are killing each other in Ireland. I said, "They both claim to be Christians." I thought Jesus said "Love your enemies." They're blowing each other up. They're all hypocrites. I made the mistake many people make: when I wanted to know what a Christian was, I looked at Christians.

If you want to be a Christian, don't look at Christians. A Christian is not a follower of Christians. A Christian is a follower of Christ. People will let you down; Jesus will not let you down. Keep your eyes on Christ. If you're going to look at people, the devil will get someone for you to look at that will disappoint you. Jesus will not disappoint you. So I said they're all hypocrites.

So I was—this is during the Beatles era, and so I began to get into the Eastern religions. And I got into meditation and Buddhism, and I got into transcendental meditation and yoga. That's where you look for God by standing on your head. And all I found was my hair fell out when I did that. And then I was a little bit into Hinduism, and I knew something about Judaism, and I got a little into the Kabbalah and some of the mystic sciences.

I kind of made a hodgepodge of all these different religions. I was looking for the truth. I even went to Southern California. I was hitchhiking around the country. I hitchhiked from Florida to California and back. I went all over. I went to a Hare Krishna temple in Santa Monica, California, because they promised a free meal if you went to their service. I went to the Christian mission—we were living on the streets back then. I was too proud to ask my dad for help.

And the Christian mission said, "If you'll come in," they'd close the doors, and all these drunks and derelicts would come in and addicts, and they say, "We'll give you a free meal, but you have to listen to the preaching, then we feed you." Fair enough. So we'd sit there, and I felt bad because all of my friends, we were all so obnoxious and these Christians were so nice. They'd be sharing testimonies and they'd preach a little sermonette, then they'd bring out really nice food with apple pie, and it was great. We used to say, "We'll see you next week."

Hare Krishna said, "We'll offer you free food if you come to our service." I said, "Okay." So I went with my friend Jay. And the service involved jumping up and down—not trying to be disrespectful, I'm just telling you what happened—jumping up and down and saying, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare, Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare." I never forgot that because they did it for two hours over and over.

And I'd spent enough time in Hollywood with friends that were into hypnosis and stuff. I thought, "This is just hypnosis. This repetition puts you in a state of hypnosis." And I told my friend Jay, I said, "I'm going to the bathroom." I said, "Tell me when the food comes out." I stepped out and I'm in the bathroom, I'm in there, and they've got the drums going and the bass, and they're all "Hare Krishna, Hare..." I go in there and check on my friend Jay, and he's getting into it. They gave us yogurt and raisins for all of that.

So but I was searching for God. I was trying everything. I thought there must be a God. Well, I went back to Boston, and my father flew from Florida up to see me. And he begged me, said, "Doug, you got to go back to school." He said, "Falcon is sick. He's barely making it through college because the people are smoking and he's struggling. He had to keep going to the hospital and having therapy." And he said, "You're healthy. You need to get an education. Don't waste your life."

He said, "I found a school." I said, "I'm not going back to military school. There's no girls." And he said, "No, no, there's girls." He said, "I found a school. It's on a boat. It's actually two boats together. They sail around the world. And they have girls. You can scuba dive, you can waterski, you can go spearfishing, you can have some adventure, see the world." And he's begging me. He said, "I've got a briefcase here. It's got a million dollars in it. I'm getting ready to make a million-dollar deal."

And he said, "You could have this business. You could work with me. Get an education." I said, "All right." My father got me—I went to—I don't know how he got a passport. You know if you have enough money you can get a passport in one day. In fact, I think I showed you a picture a minute ago. It was my passport picture from when I was 16 years old. My dad got that. He flew me to Milan, Italy, to join up on the boat. School was already in session; I joined late.

And it was called the Flint School Abroad. If you want to look it up, friends, some people doubt the story. This is actually a picture of the school. Two boats, sailboats, they sail together, they went around the world. School was on the boat. And my father handed them my passport, he said, "I'll see you later." And then I found out I'd kind of been tricked. It was a special school for the children of politicians and millionaires that had gotten mixed up on drugs or with cults to get them out of that influence.

And then they taught atheism. They showed films on Darwin. They said, "There is no God. You got to make your own life. This is your only life. You got to be successful." And now I'm meditating, now I'm into Shakti, the spiritual science of DNA. And I'm in my room meditating. I learned an interesting experience. We sailed around the Mediterranean and I had some experiences, and you have to read the book; there's just not time to tell it all.

But I noticed one time we were going from Northern Africa, Tunis, Africa, over to Port of Mahon, Spain. And the Mediterranean looks small on a map, but you get out there in the middle, and it's a big ocean. You don't see land for days. And we got into a winter storm. It was during Christmas. And water began to come over the edge of the boat. And everything underneath the boat looked like it had been shaken apart.

And the wind was blowing like a hurricane so the sail was cracking so loud that it sounded like thunder clapping. And you could yell at a person 10 feet away and they couldn't hear you. And the nose of the boat was going through waves and things were washing overboard. And the water was cold. And the captain told us, "If you fall overboard, we cannot turn around in this storm or we will capsize. We will mark the place where we lost you."

That'll settle your nerves. And everybody was seasick. And the captain was seasick. And the main sail ripped. And what do you think atheists do when they think they're going to die? Nobody was going, "Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna." People were praying, they're talking to God, they're confessing their sins. They know what they've done wrong because they're promising God they'll never do it again if He gives them another chance.

And I was praying and making promises. Now, is that the right reason to serve God? It might be a good starting point. Some people turn to God out of fear; it's not the best reason. The reason to serve God is if you love Him. If the only reason you're serving God is because you're afraid He's going to punish you, then you won't want to serve Him in heaven. You want to serve Him because you love Him now. You really love Him.

Jesus said, "If you love me, keep my commandments." Well, we survived the storm. And I convinced the captain to let me go home. I was being a real troublemaker, but he said, "Doug, what do we need to do to get you to cooperate?" I said, "You let me go home for Christmas break and I'll obey the rules." I wasn't going to class, I wasn't doing my stuff on deck. Military school, you misbehave, they beat you. They couldn't do that on this school.

And so I said, "You let me go home Christmas." He got on the phone right there and he called my dad, woke him up because of the time change. "Mr. Batchelor, sorry to bother you, we've got good news. Doug has shown remarkable progress. We're going to let—we think he's ready to go home Christmas." My dad was thrilled. As soon as I got on the plane in Madrid, Spain, I said, "I'll take a beer, I want a pack of cigarettes." You could smoke on the plane back then.

My friend said, "Oh, you're in trouble." I said, "You guys are never going to see me again." And they never did. As soon as I got to Florida, I took off hitchhiking. I went on vacation first with the family, snow skiing up in Canada, then I came back. And when it came time to go back to school, I got on the freeway, I sold all my stuff to my brother. He didn't know I was going to run away; I just said I needed some spare change.

I got on the road, I started hitchhiking from Florida to California. I wanted to go live in the mountains and find God through the American Indian religions. And halfway out I got stuck. It's wintertime in Oklahoma. And I was freezing. I'm by myself, I had been drinking the day before at a bar, I lost all my money at a pool hall playing pool, making dumb bets, drunk. I'm broke, I'm sick, I'm hungry.

And then I'm standing on the road and I've got Florida clothing on and it is below zero and I'm freezing to death. Too stubborn and proud to ask for help. And every time a truck went by, three seconds later I'd turn around because the wind from the truck would hit you. And after hours I became desperate and I prayed. I said, "God, I know there's a God." I was convinced now there was a God because of karma. Jesus teaches karma, says, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." What goes around comes around, friend, I can tell you.

Blessed are the merciful, they will obtain mercy. I said, "I believe there's a God." I said, "Lord," I asked Him for four things. I said, "Will you please help me get a ride to where I'm going?" I said, "I'm freezing." I said, "Lord, will you forgive me? I've been a rotten person, I know." I mean, I really was a pretty bad person. And I said, "Lord, help me get some money. I was broke. Help me get some food."

And the fifth thing I prayed for is a ride with someone normal because I kept getting picked up by crazy people. I got picked up by people that would—they were drinking and they're on a winding road. He says, "Watch this, I can drive with the lights off." They turn off their lights. I got picked up by two college students that were smoking so much pot, the car was filled with smoke. They ran across the median into oncoming traffic. I said, "Oh, this is my stop, let me out."

So I said, "Lord, give me a ride with someone normal." I'd been there for hours. As soon as I finished praying—I didn't know how to pray, I didn't say "In Jesus' name"—said, "Lord, please help me." A vehicle stopped, white van. Pick me up. This man took me from Oklahoma to my destination in Palm Springs, California. He gave me $40 when he dropped me off. He fed me all the way out. I was hungry. Every time he fed me, I said, "I've got no money," "No problem, I'll pay for it."

And thing I didn't pray for is he preached to me all the way from Oklahoma to California. He was a born-again Christian, and he was preaching to everybody along the way, and I had to kind of like listen to him or jump out of the car. And I thought Bible's a fairy tale, Christians are hypocrites. So he let me off, and I went up into the mountains. This is actually a picture my brother took years later.

I wanted to now find God through nature. I moved up in the mountains and I moved into a cave. And I lived up in these deserted mountains, way back up in the desert mountains. Karen's been up there a couple of times with me, way up above Palm Springs. You go back down the other side; there's an oasis. Almost no one knows about it. During COVID, I went back up with my 25-year-old son at the time and barely made it. It's hard to get to.

11,000-foot mountain there, called Mount San Jacinto. And I lived in a cave for a year and a half. I took off all my clothes because now I'm going to find God through nature. Friends, this was the '70s, flower children, it was crazy. I know, it doesn't make any sense. I would hike down to town once a week to Palm Springs, I'd play the flute and I'd panhandle. And I'd get food out of the garbage can behind the market.

My father found out from my grandfather I was dumpster diving, and it broke his heart. He worked all through the Depression so his kids would never be poor, and now he finds out his son is digging in the garbage for food. You've got a Heavenly Father that gave His Son Jesus so that you could be rich. And we go to the devil's dumpster, and it breaks His heart. I was living up in the mountains in this cave. Here's a picture of my cave. I had a cat named Stranger. I know the pictures are a little rough.

Here's my cat. Had a pool right outside my cave with a waterfall, beautiful spot. Somebody had left a Bible in the cave. I thought, "I'm going to read the Bible so I can argue with Christians," because I kept meeting these converted hippies, and we called them Jesus freaks back then. They had the Jesus movement back then. And I'd argue with them, and they'd talk about sanctification and washed in the blood, and I thought these people are crazy. But I didn't know the Bible, so I thought, well I need to at least—I was a good reader. I need to read the Bible.

Well, I'll tell you what, friends, that's a dangerous business. I started reading the Bible. I got bogged down there in Exodus, and I jumped and I read Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Every day I'd eat banana bread because I'd get the day-old bananas from the market for free. The guys at the market knew me. And I'd eat banana bread, I had a Dutch oven I put on the fire. And then I'd eat the Bread of Life.

And I read through the Bible. And somewhere along the way, something happened. I'd tried everything. I looked at all the religions of the world. I had no prejudice. I could have been anything; I didn't care. I just said, "I want to know the truth." And as I'm reading the Bible I'm going, "This can't be true. Noah and the ark and Adam and Eve and..." But a voice inside said, "This is the truth. This is the truth." I said, "But Jesus didn't really live; he's a legend."

I went down to the library and they said, "No, he lived. We date history from his birth." And finally I said, "Well, I've only got one of three choices." I said, "Either he was a liar, or he was a lunatic, or he's the Lord." Jesus came into our world for three reasons. First of all, He came as our example, to live a life that we might follow His steps. He came to show us the Father. He said, "If you've seen me, you've seen the Father."

And then He came as our sacrifice. He died on the cross as a substitute for all of our sins. But we must come to Him. We repent of our sins, we confess. He'll receive us with loving arms. Why don't you ask Him now?

Hi friends, I trust you're being blessed by what you're watching. If you want to be doubly blessed, then you're going to want to get the Prophecy Odyssey study guides that go along with these presentations. There's 15 study guides. They're beautifully illustrated and they will greatly enhance your Bible comprehension. So if you'd like to get them, simply follow the instructions that you see on the screen. You will be glad you did.

Friend, perhaps you need a little hope and direction in your life as badly as I did. You know, I found it in God's Word. That's why I'm inviting you to request your free copy of a little book I wrote called The Ultimate Resource so that God can set you free too. To get your copy, follow the instructions on the screen and we'll send it to you absolutely free right away.

Announcer: This presentation was brought to you by the Friends of the Amazing Facts Ministry.