Madison Square Garden
Leap before you look. Make your move before you are ready.
I wasn’t ready to go to the new Madison Square Garden in 1971. The only preacher who had ever preached there was Billy Graham. None of the healing evangelists had gone there yet. A couple of preachers around the turn of the century had preached in the old one. I was staying in the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York City. It was located right across the street from Madison Square Garden. I woke up that morning, jumped out of bed, saying, "Good morning Jesus. This is the day the Lord hath made." Then, I started my daily routine. At that time, I always ran in place for at least 30 minutes to get exercise because I was on the road, preaching night and day and I was trying to take care of my body. I was only 30 years old at the time and the full weight and responsibility of the ministry had just fallen on my shoulders. For you who don't know, I was influenced during the 1940's and '50's by the Healing Revival that hit America right after World War II – 1946. If you are interested in this movement and you love history, then you need to get three books: "All Things Are Possible" by David Harrell, Indiana University Press, "Miracle Workers, Reformers, and the New Mystics" by John Crowder, Destiny Image, and my book that I wrote in 1999 and just recently updated, called "Only Believe," Revival Press, Destiny Image.
I'll try to give you a quick overview here. God raised up a number of men and women who had supernatural experiences with Him and received powerful gifts from God. At that time, there were at least 200 evangelists using tents and auditoriums, mostly old armory buildings or fairgrounds buildings because there weren't many big auditoriums and community centers in those days. The main leaders in this Healing Revival were William Branham, Oral Roberts, Jack Coe, A.A. Allen and Kathryn Kuhlman. There were many others with powerful supernatural gifts, signs, wonders and miracles.
When I got through jogging in place, I began praying, actually just entering into the presence of God through worship and a grateful heart. I would celebrate Him and then just sit there in His presence not saying anything, just someone in love who just loves spending time with that Special One – both talking and listening. As I was listening, I received a strong urge in my spirit to go over to the window. I opened the curtain and looked out and the first thing I saw was Madison Square Garden. Like a flash, a powerful impulse came in my mind. I knew it was God talking to me.
"You are going to preach in Madison Square Garden. It will be filled with people. Thousands will be saved and healed."
I didn't stop to think and analyze it and ask myself or a group of advisors such things as: How are you going to pay for it? 22,000 people are a lot of people – where are they going to come from?
When I looked out the window and saw Madison Square Garden and heard God's voice speak, I ran out of the hotel and across the street. I must have looked pretty foolish. I started laying hands on that huge building that covers a city block. It was like I was doing the patty-cake on the wall as I started creeping around the block. This was December 11, 1970, in New York. I had forgotten to put a coat on; all I had on was a short-sleeved shirt. So there I was, doing the patty-cake on the walls of Madison Square Garden in a short-sleeved shirt, in freezing weather that I didn't even notice.
In 1970, it was the middle of the hippy culture, when L.S.D. and other hallucinatory drugs were the norm, even being advocated by Dr. Timothy Leary and others. In New York City, heroin and marijuana were running rampant. I noticed about halfway around the Garden with my patty-cake escapade, three long-haired hippies had joined me and started putting their hands on the walls of the Garden, doing the patty-cake just like me. One of them was a guy with long hair halfway down to his waist, with a long beard, wearing an old trench coat. He had glassy eyes. His appearance seemed about like an Old Testament prophet who was having visions. He smiled at me and said, "Groovy, man."
When I was doing the patty-cake on the walls, I was quoting from Deuteronomy 28:8: "The Lord shall command the blessing upon...all that thou settest thine hand unto." My first thought was this: three hippies joined me and the one said, "Groovy, man." I thought, "Oh no. These guys are going to mess up my spiritual act of faith so that I can't preach in Madison Square Garden." But I kept going. They kept following me. Before long other hippies and street people joined us, until there were probably 30 or 40 of them by the time I finished. Half of them were on a trip. The others were taking other drugs, but I began to talk to them about Jesus and what I had been doing and told them, "I will be back in eight months, preaching in Madison Square Garden, with a 'Compassion Explosion.'" Those words just came out of my mouth.
When: 8 months
What: Compassion Explosion
The next day I flew home to Arizona, met with some of my top staff members and the Board of Directors and told them what I was going to do. I said, "I'm going to Madison Square Garden and preach in eight months and I'm calling the event 'Compassion Explosion.'"
I started receiving all kinds of advice. "Don, do you realize we owe a million dollars to our vendors?" This was not long term debt. It was current.
My mentor, A.A. Allen had just died on June 11, 1970. This was just six months after he died. We were a million dollars in debt when he died and I hadn't been able to catch up. It's a miracle that we survived. Our total yearly income when he died was 3 million a year and we had carried debts of a million. We were in a terrible cash flow crunch. Question after question. Good questions that any businessman would want to know. "You probably won't even be able to rent the Garden. They are probably booked two years in advance. How are you going to pay for it?" I don't even know if I heard a thing any of them said. I just knew it was going to happen.
I assigned my business manager, Allan Erwin, to come up with a plan to do this. I said to him, "I don't want a feasibility report telling me the pros and cons of doing it. And I don't want a report saying 'we can do it, but it's going to take longer.'" I told him that this had to happen by the end of September. Then I said, "You have three days to get me this plan." Then I called in a couple other staff members. One was a graphic artist. I told him to develop the "Compassion Explosion" theme for advertising purposes. The other one I assigned to put together a budget, working with Allan Erwin. I wanted all of them within three days. Three days later I met with Allan, Bill and Jon.
The first thing Allan said to me was, "You have asked to do something that has never been done." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Do you know that no healing, Charismatic, Pentecostal evangelist has ever gone to the new Madison Square Garden? You will be the first one." I said, "Allan, I remember reading about John Dowie from Zion, Illinois going there." He said, "That was the old Madison Square Garden. The only preacher who has gone to the new Madison Square Garden is Billy Graham." I shouted, "BILLY GRAHAM!" He was in his prime at that time. He was the most respected and influential preacher in the world, counselor to all the Presidents since Eisenhower. He filled up huge coliseums around the world.
I guess that was the first time that it really dawned on me how vast this undertaking was. I'll admit I started having thoughts of doubt and fear. I hadn't even tabulated yet about how much money it would take. If you could have got into my mind at that moment, it would have been like a little insecure child who had just recently lost his dad whom he loved and thought he was the greatest dad in the world that no one could ever measure up to. My dad was famous, powerful, anointed.... I never saw a demon who could stand in his presence without doing what he told them to do. The greatest miracle that I had ever seen took place under his ministry. He had daring faith that took on the hard cases. He pioneered the revelation of God's prosperity for His people. He was the greatest soul winner that I have ever seen. He must have averaged at least 1,000 souls saved every night under his big tent that was larger than a football field. He was a man who paid the price to operate in the Quantum Supernatural Power. He not only preached signs, wonders and miracles, but actively had them occur in his ministry.
A.A. Allen was my spiritual father. He discipled me night and day for 12 years. As these thoughts raced through my mind in a moment's time, I missed him. Then in a vision-like moment, I wished that I could stand on the platform of Madison Square Garden and introduce him like I had done thousands of times:
"Ladies and Gentlemen, it's my very happy pleasure to present to you the man that God has raised up with a Supernatural Miracle-Working Ministry, spearheading Miracle Restoration Revivals across America and around the world. The Rev. A.A. Allen."
Suddenly, I came out of that trance-like state and my thoughts returned to what Allan was saying. I heard him say:
"There is only one date available and only because the music group Sly and the Family Stone had changed their dates. That would be September 11th."
Before he could say anything else, I interrupted him and said, "We'll take it."
Allan said, "Maybe you should wait until I tell you how much it's going to cost."
I said, "No, on December 11th, I told some hippies in New York I would be back in eight months. September 11th will be exactly eight months."
Allan said, "OK. Here goes. It will cost $22,000 just for the rent alone. Then, you are required to pay for all the union staff and this will cost another $22,000, so that's $44,000, just to rent it. Maybe you should consider going to the smaller auditorium there at the Garden. It seats 5,000. That would only cost $10,000 total." Now, remember this was in 1970's dollars. Just to give you a point of reference to go to the 5,000 seat auditorium today would cost $100,000 so that makes it about ten times as much.
Allan started listing all the other costs: advertising, organizing, etc. This was going to cost $250,000 in 1970 dollars. None of that bothered me. I knew it was going to take a lot of work, prayer, organizing...to do it, but as far as I was concerned, it was already done on December 11th. Without thinking, I had run out of my hotel and laid hands on the Garden and spoke to the hippies, "I'll be back to preach in Madison Square Garden in eight months." I took a Quantum Leap and God did it through a series of miracles. Quantum Supernatural Power.