The Life and Tragic Ending of Jimmy Swaggart

The Life and Sad Ending of Jimmy Swaggart Jimmy Swaggart was born Jimmy Lee Swaggart on March 15, 1935, in Faraday, Louisiana, U.S. to parents W.L. and Minnie Bell Swaggart. After a dramatic salvation experience at the age of eight, young Swaggart felt the call of God on his life. He spent hours reading the Bible, praying, and, after a certain revival meeting, decided to ask God for the talent to play the piano. Musical ability runs in the Swaggart family. Both W.L. and Minnie Bell were gifted musicians. During the Great Depression, they were able to earn a few precious dollars by playing the fiddle and guitar at dances. And two of Reverend Swaggart's cousins rose to fame in the music industry rock'n'roll legend Jerry Lee Lewis and country music superstar Mickey Gilley. But unlike his cousins, Reverend Swaggart did not rely on natural ability. Instead, he promised the Lord that if he would give him the talent to play the piano, Jimmy would never use it in the ways of the world a promise he has kept to this day. Along with the talent that God did give him to play the piano, Reverend Swaggart believes the Lord also gave him an understanding of what the Holy Spirit wants regarding praise and worship a perception demonstrated throughout his music ministry. Reverend Swaggart's first album, Some Golden Daybreak, was released in 1958 and became an immediate favorite. Since then, he has sold more than 17 million recordings. Swaggart recorded several gospel albums in the 1960s. In 1969 he began The Camp Meeting Hour, a radio show featuring gospel music and preaching that was soon broadcast nationally. His continued success as a gospel music artist enabled him to launch a local television ministry, which began in 1975 with a weekly program. Swaggart soon garnered a large viewing audience across the country. By the mid-1980s his weekly telecasts reached approximately two million households in the United States, making him one of the most popular and successful televangelists of the era. Jimmy Swaggart Ministries have been on the radio for 51 continuous years. The Camp Meeting Hour, Reverend Swaggart's first radio program, aired on January 1, 1969, in Atlanta, Georgia. Within five years, The Camp Meeting Hour was airing on 700 radio stations in the United States. In 1995, JSM started the Sun Life Radio Network, which currently airs on 78 radio stations around the world and on the Internet. Today, the ministry owns and operates 75 radio stations that carry programming 24 hours a day, seven days a week. In 1973 Reverend Swaggart started production of a 30-minute weekly television program titled, The Jimmy Swaggart Evangelistic Association Presents Jimmy Swaggart, also known as the Jimmy Swaggart Telecast. That same year, the evangelist hired a local television crew to tape his meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana. At that time, he was the Christian organization attempting to tape live church services. The process took some refining, but by 1975, Reverend Swaggart and his television crews were able to capture the services live and replay them on his weekly program. In 1979, the Jimmy Swaggart broadcast increased to a one-hour format and was watched by millions of viewers on Sunday mornings. Two years later, in 1981, Reverend Swaggart added a 30-minute daily television program called A Study in the Word, which still airs today. The sudden growth from television presented the next step in world evangelism, translating the broadcast so the programming could be seen and heard in the native languages of other countries. When his career was flourishing, he suddenly got involved in the accusation, Swaggart publicly accused fellow televangelist Jim Bakker of immoral sexual behavior. This denunciation, which some saw as a move by Swaggart to take over Bakker's empire, precipitated a closer look at Swaggart's own life, leading to the revelation that he had performed voyeuristic acts with a female prostitute. Despite his tearful on-air apology in February 1988, Swaggart was defrocked by the Assemblies of God in April but continued to act as an independent Pentecostal preacher. In October 1991 police in Indio, California, found Swaggart in the company of a prostitute after stopping him for a traffic violation. During that period he lost a $10 million defamation lawsuit for the accusations of sexual misconduct he had lodged against Gorman, the parties later settled out of court for $1.85 million. After those scandals, Swaggart turned control of Jimmy Swaggart Ministries, Inc., over to his son, Donnie. Swaggart made a comeback in 1995 with the launching of the Sun Life radio network on national radio stations and later internationally on the Internet. His ministry through a monthly magazine, The Evangelist, and through an interdenominational church known as the Family Worship Center of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, continued into the 21st century. In 2009 Jimmy Swaggart Ministries launched the Sun Life Broadcasting Network, an international Christian television network to air both live and pre-recorded programs. Probably, right now is his worst time when his health is slowly deteriorating. Thank you for listening to the story about the life of Jimmy Swaggart Like and comment on your opinion in the comments section below.