Determined not to quit

This morning my church held an Evangelism Training Clinic that anyone could watch through its website. Unfortunately, I was at work, already feeling worn down from four days in a row of performing physical labor inside a building with poor air-conditioning (a new AC unit was installed but malfunctioned and now they're waiting on a part!!!) during an extended spell of super-high humidity--off the charts, in fact, if you ask me.

I will continue on with testimony, etc., tomorrow now, but in honor of the training clinic, which I look forward to hearing about in the morning (via the live Sunday services over the website), here are a couple of articles from the past joined together:

"I used to preach on the street in Alabama and when I came to Chicago (1978) I'd go downtown into the Loop and stand and watch all these people going by--all these people running to and fro in darkness," says Richard Jordan.

"We understand something that is of eternal value, but if you turn a little light on, people run like sour bugs. I don't know about you, but if I think about that enough I get aggravated and I get a little depressed.

"Shining His light in darkness is a challenging thing, is what I'm trying to say. It's challenging in every way and the world doesn't get it. Everything you do--you know, we do radio, TV, fair ministries, on and on. I just talked to lady yesterday telling me 'how frustrating it is that I have this information and my family just won't see it.'

"I want to look at a guy who faced the same situation--Noah. Hebrews 11:1 says, [1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

"That actually is not a definition of faith; it's a description of what faith does. Faith is what provides the substance of things hoped for. You have this hope; this stuff out in the future, but you don't have any evidence right now that that's true. You have a promise and faith is what gives the conviction that what that future thing that's coming is a reality. It's the evidence of things not seen.

"Faith comes by hearing. Faith is dependent on what God says. You're persuaded. In Romans 4 it says Abraham was 'fully persuaded that, what he had promised, he was able also to perform.'

"That's the better definition of faith. This is a description of faith's work; of faith's accomplishment. That's why he says in verse 6 that without faith it is impossible to please Him. There's that thing we know and yet you have to have faith to see it; faith to understand it. Because it's the Word that gives light.

Hebrews 11:7: [7] By faith Noah, being warned of God of things not seen as yet, moved with fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; by the which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is by faith.

"He was 'warned of God of things not seen as yet.' Noah was given some hidden information. We've been given some hidden information about a future event that was completely unbelievable by everybody you talked to.

"Noah says, 'Hey, God's going to destroy this planet with rain.' And you know what everybody said to him? 'That's scientifically impossible.'

"Look back at Genesis 2: [4] These are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the LORD God made the earth and the heavens,

[5] And every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the LORD God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground.
[6] But there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.

"The ecology system before the Flood was that it didn't rain. There was a mist dew that came up and watered. The hydro-system was different.

"In Noah's day, when he was told, 'It's going to rain; the skies are going to open up and water is going to come down and cover the whole planet and destroy everybody,' he told others, 'I'm building a boat; you got to get into that boat.'

"For 120 years, Noah goes about building that boat because God told him what was going to happen in the future and He believed what God said. But he couldn't point to scientific evidence. He couldn't point to experience.

"Can you image how people horse-laughed him? Can you imagine what people said about him? What his kids had to experience when they went to school? Go down to the mall? 'Your old man's crazy, you know that?!'

"He goes over to the lumber yard and gets lumber and people say, 'Are you nuts?!' They say to the boys' girls, 'Why, you going to marry into that family?! Are you nuts?!'

"But what does light do? It reproves. So Hebrews 11 says he condemned the world. How? By building the ark.

"He didn't have any evidence to point to except what God said and the world didn't get it because nobody believed him. After 120 years he only had his family as converts. You think, 'Man, you talk about feeling like your ministry's not getting anywhere!' But he believed what God said.

"You and I are building an ark for people to get out of the world into the Body of Christ. All we have to do is point to God's Word, but you know the world doesn't see in God's Word what we see in it."

******

"If you don't preach the message God gave to us through the Apostle Paul, you're going to fail to do what God wants done. You'll be like in Ephesians 4 where you produce saints 'tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine' and carried off into confusion.

"We have a book in the office where all the pastors of our assembly from 1900 to today signed it when they became the pastor. On September 1, 1923, J.C. O'Hair signed it. The ministry he had until 1958 had to do with the 'preaching of Jesus Christ according to the revelation of the mystery' and standing for dispensational Bible study and that continues with us. That's what we teach and preach. His people, the ministry of the old North Shore Church--the grit, the determination. They were determined not to quit.

"When my wife and I moved up here in 1979, here was a church that at one time had been 1,000 to 1,200 people and it was down to about 60 and all the people in the church that were still there were over 60. My wife and I show up in our mid-30s and these great saints who loved the Lord, loved the message of grace, loved His Word, but one thing, they weren't going to quit.

"They were at that little corner down there at Wilson Avenue and Sheridan Road in Uptown--the worst neighborhood in the city of Chicago at the time. Most dangerous neighborhood in the city of Chicago. You'd get out of the car in the bank parking lot across Wilson Avenue and get in a group and it's all secured and fenced in and walk across over there.

"I remember Beulah Peterson, she was the organist and taught school . . . If you teach English in the government schools in Chicago you're pretty tough. We walked up those steps one evening and there was a drunk sitting there and Beulah says, 'Get out of the way,' and he looks up and says, 'Give me a kiss,' and like that, she took her pocketbook and 'POW,' hit him on top of the head. 

"Franklin Anderson and Roy Faber grabbed him by one foot and the other foot and dragged him out to the curb and I'm sitting there thinking, 'I ain't messing with her. She might be old but . . . '

"And they loved God's Word and they loved the message of God's grace and they weren't going to quit. They had a zeal for the sound doctrine and to reach other people with it. They were part of the first missions that went around.

"Pastor Kurz's mother, Julianna, got saved because some people from the church--Bob Price went door to door sharing the gospel and Alex, who was 7 years old, started coming to the assembly. Bob made Julianna so mad she was going to come and set him right, but she wound up getting saved.

"They actually had a radio station with a transmitter in the bell tower of the church back when you used a crystal. It was there until the '30s when the FAA came in and took over all that stuff. They wanted to get the message out and share it with others.

"Well, our folks here, the same kind of way. No less noteworthy in spirit and determination and grit and sound doctrine. Our ministry extends all the way around the world through that kind of effort. The TV, the radio . . . 

"The love of Christ constrains us. Why does it do that? The love of Christ is made manifest. You know what motivates the life of a Believer? It's not, 'Oh how I love Jesus.' It's, 'Oh how much He loves you and me.'

"When you see how much He loves you and you fall in love with Him who is the lover of your soul, and you're not doing it to get Him to love you, you're doing it because you can't do less for someone who loves you that much, the love of Christ constrains us.

"I've told you before, that word 'constrain,' when my wife and I were dating, she's shorter than I am, and I would stand down on the step and she would stand up a step, and our noses were nose to nose. 

"I would put my arms around her and pick her up and walk across the porch with her and I would say to her, 'One day I'm going to take you home with me,' and I'd sit her down and one day I put my arms around her and picked her up and walked off and I still got her.

"The love of Christ puts its everlasting arms around you and picks you up and walks across the portals of life into eternity. That's the constraining power."

*****

Colossians 4:5: [5] Walk in wisdom toward them that are without, redeeming the time.

Ephesians 5:15: [15] See then that ye walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise,

[16] Redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

"That issue of time. That's not the issue of, 'Well, it's 8:20 and I need to be sure that by 9 o'clock I've done these things.' It's not just the moment that you're living in.

II Timothy 3:1: [1] This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.

"That's more than just a date on the calendar; it's the times in which we live.

"There's an illustration of this in I Chronicles 12: [32] And of the children of Issachar, which were men that had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do; the heads of them were two hundred; and all their brethren were at their commandment.

"The world you live in is designed by God to work on systems of cycles. They work in 80-year cycles, the average lifespan, then the 80-year cycles work in 500-year cycles, which work in 1,000-year cycles and there's this repetition in the cycles.

"The 'times' is the issue of where you are in the cycle. Ecclesiastes 3: [1] To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

[2] A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
[3] A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
[4] A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
[5] A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
[6] A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
[7] A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
[8] A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

"Paul says to redeem the times because the days are evil. The cycles that we live in are evil; the days of the times of the cycles are evil.

Ecclesiastes 1: [2] Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.

[3] What profit hath a man of all his labour which he taketh under the sun?
[4] One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

"Vanity means nothing, emptiness, nothing real. Without God, everything is empty. Nothing has a purpose without God. Life is total futility."