The Book

The place is North Chicago; the time is the spring of 1978.  It is a cool Saturday morning as I and a group of students from Hyles-Anderson College (comprised of young men and women, ranging in age from 18 years to the early 30’s) have traveled for an hour and a half by bus from Hammond, Indiana to do battle on these mean streets.  These streets are the domain of gangs of adolescent and teenage youths (mostly boys with a few girls that lack respect for themselves) that are known by such names as ‘Latin Kings’, ‘The Lords’, ‘Black Disciples’, ‘Imperials’, and ‘The Popes’.  They are feared by all those that live on these streets with good cause; to inform on them or to aid the authorities in any way usually results in harsh consequences.  If the authorities were to remove a few of them, dozens more would be back to take their place and take revenge. 

During the day, the streets seem to be peaceful with local commerce, people coming to and fro in normal daily activity.  The mailman is making his rounds, the local grocery on the corner is bustling with shoppers, workman are repairing potholes left behind by the winter snows, all seems well.   Satan, however, is not asleep; his unwitting army has repaired to safer strongholds such as abandoned buildings, basements of tenements, and utility tunnels under the streets.  They await the shield of darkness to undertake their dastardly deeds or the cover of narrow alleys out of sight of the police.  They watch for unsuspecting lone individuals upon which to prey; they drag them into secluded places with threats of violence and have their way.  At the least, the result is great harm and loss of property; many times the authorities are unaware. 

What has brought these Soldiers of the Lord to this place; are there not safer places to do God’s work?  The answer, of course, is yes but the question arises are there places of greater need?  They are inspired by the words of II Timothy 2:1-3 which concludes by saying, “Thou therefore endure hardness, as a good soldier of Jesus Christ.”   Most of them will witness this hardness for the first time in their young lives but they are confident that were sin abounds grace does much more abound; they have all availed themselves of the whole armor of the faith.  To not do so would be fool hardy. 

They have a plan to make the activities as safe as possible; the ladies travel in groups of three accompanied by two men; the men also travel in groups of three.  The system has worked for a number of years without any mishap.  The activity is completely voluntary; there are few of the ladies who do not take part.   The area they cover is about ten square blocks in a Latino section of the city.  The streets are narrow with tan brick three and four story apartment buildings interspersed with red brick houses some of which are boarded up.  Fires have left a few vacant lots with fencing along the street to keep the kids out.  The students spend their entire Saturday going from tenement to tenement knocking doors along the poorly lighted hall ways and engaging people on the street. 

The people of the community have great respect for these tireless youth who have come to give them the goodness of God’s Grace.  Many of the residents know these soldiers of the faith by name and invite them into their crowded two bedroom apartments for lunch and rest from the weary activities.  The girls pitch in to help with the kids as they tell Bible stories.  Their love for the children is quite evident to the parents who are willing to let the kids make the long bus ride to church the next day.   Many of the men take lunch at the famous Hero Sandwich Shop; the home of the Hero sub.  It looks like an old fashioned diner that you might see in one of those old black and white movies from the past with a long counter and floor mounted swiveling stools. 

The bus ride back to the college usually began about five o’clock in the afternoon as the sunlight was fading and the city lights were beginning to come on.  The drivers (one of which was myself) had to keep the dome lights on in the bus and the students enjoyed visiting with one another on the long ride back.  On one occasion, a number of the students were talking on the subject of how many times they had been out on the dangerous streets of Chicago without any mishap.  Most attributed their safety to God’s divine intervention which most assuredly was true.  The matter was left to that conclusion but a few wondered if there might be a special reason. 

 The next Saturday, a few of the men determined to make contact with one of the ‘Latin Kings’ who were the overlords of their area.  It wasn’t as easy as one might imagine; these guys were normally very secretive taking great effort in hiding their association with criminality.   The men worked the streets until late afternoon praying that God would give them the opportunity to lead one of these gang members to the Lord in order to make inroads into the world of the street gangs.  The students carefully poked around some of the narrow alleys and vacant lots talking with an occasional young person but had not made contact with anyone who admitted to being in a gang.

Then, unexpectedly, three of the men made contact with an older teenager who walked up to them and began asking questions; he had been watching them for the past two months and was satisfying his curiosity.  The teen was short and scruffy wearing jeans and a dark wind breaker over a tee shirt.  The conversation got around to the salvation of the teens soul and his eternal will being.  The students could see that the teen was convicted of his sinful ways but would not commit himself to the Lord.  When asked why, he said to do so would bring great harm to him and his family.  This was an unexpected realization for the students.  This young gang member would like to be out of his gang environment (that much was more obvious as they talked) but did not trust enough in God’s protection to make the step of faith.

As the young gang member was about to leave, one of the students asked, “If the gangs are that powerful, what keeps them from harming us or running us out of the community.”

The gang member turned and said, “That does.”  pointing to the side of one of the students. 

“What?” said the student.

“The Book.”

“You mean this Bible.”

To which the gang member replied, “Yes.  We all know that ‘The Book’ protects you guys.  If we were to try to hurt one of you guys, we would be in trouble with God.”

Little did he realize how much trouble he was already in.  One of the students exclaimed, “Then here, take my Bible.”

The gang member reached out his hand then hesitated not quite ready to make such a step of faith.  Maybe one day he would avail himself of the courage of God and make the choice for eternal life.  He then turned in despair and walked away. 

The students seem to know that they would probably not see him again.  The teen had taken a big chance just talking to them and would not likely risk another encounter.   They prayed to God, that moment, that one day God would deliver the teen out of his satanic trap.  The students gloried in the fact that all this time they had been armed with the greatest weapon that was possible to defend them, the Sword of the Spirit.  That truth was to be with them for rest of their lives and give them great assurance.