February 1987
"Though It Tarries, Wait ..."
(Habakkuk 2:3)
It doesn't seem reasonable that God would allow us to stumble right at the threshold of the final great harvest that He called us to announce. Not after all the miracles He has done for us here in this place. We are His witnesses — both of this vision and of His marvelous grace and provision.
And yet, humanly speaking, we still have almost a year of large quarterly payments, and beyond those the final balloon payment of $8 million. As always, we continue to be utterly dependent upon the Lord to provide all that we need.
Back in May, 1986, we began preparing for this last great financial push. Bob Coleman, as so often before, was the one to suggest a workable plan.
One day in a phone conversation with a friend, he mentioned his concern about the huge balloon payment coming due in a little over a year, and his friend suggested, "Why don't you just ask 8000 people to give $1000 each, and be done with it?"
Bob gasped in amazement, then answered, "A thousand dollars is a lot of money!" How well he knew! He had been scraping along for years on only a fraction of the support he
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was entitled to. "Raising his support" seemed the hardest thing he had ever attempted. So he hesitated just a moment, then audaciously challenged, "How about you? Would you give $1,000?"
"Well, you know," his friend answered after a pause, "I don't have a lot of money. But if I knew it was the last $1,000 that you needed to pay for your property once and for all, even I would give $1,000. I'd be glad to!"
The last thousand! ... The words rang in Bob's ear. "Even I could somehow scrape together that much if I knew it was that important — if I knew it was the last thousand! And there must be a lot of other people just like me."
That was the beginning of our "Last $1,000 Campaign."
We did a lot of praying about this idea and felt that God had confirmed that it was His way when soon afterward a friend of the Center called and offered a substantial sum to help fund the campaign. He knew it would not be cheap. We would need funds for brochures, for postage, for whatever it would take to make people aware of our need.
After so many years of asking only for a one-time, small gift, we wondered how our backers would respond to this plan. But not a one criticized. In fact, most seemed relieved that we were asking for a larger amount at last. "We want you to be done with the financial burden," they said, "and be able to give all your energy to the things God has called you to do."
Even so, we still felt constrained to consider all such large gifts (except for those from foundations) as advances which one day (as the small gifts continued to come in over the years) we hoped we would be able to return (if from churches) or reassign to some other mission project chosen by the original donor. For years we had kept an accurate accounting of all gifts over the $16 we had requested so that we could count such funds as this type of "revolving" fund.
So that the $1,000 participants would not have to risk losing their money, should we not be able to make the final payment,
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we promised to put all the "Last $1,000" funds in an interest-bearing escrow account so that we could return them to the donor in that event. It seemed the only honorable thing to do.
But we felt with all our hearts that God would provide . . . though we didn't know just how.
As the October 1, 1986, mortgage payment time drew near, we once again didn't have the necessary $300,000, and began to wonder if the $1,000 campaign was actually hurting our regular giving. As so often before, we prayed earnestly and long about our situation, and just in time, God once more provided for us ... as usual, in ways we could not have guessed.
For one thing, in light of the Last $1,000 Campaign, Point Loma officials agreed to let us pay only the interest part of the amount due for both the October and the January first payments. That decision cut the amount due almost in half.
Then, unexpectedly, two large personal donations came in, neither of which was restricted as a "Last $1,000" gift.
Then, the day after receiving an unexpected $30,000 bill, Ralph's secretary opened his mail and looked in astonishment at a $35,000 check. It had been sent by the Back to the Bible Broadcast, with the following explanation. "We were recently named in a will and received a large sum of money which we want to share with you and two other agencies. We are enclosing $35,000 for you to use as you need." We were humbled by their generosity, as well as very grateful.
More importantly, the unsolicited gift showed that God had not forgotten us. He was continuing to take care of us. What a comforting thought!
Between the time we started the campaign until February of 1997 almost 1.3 million came in for that final balloon payment — $909,000 in cash, and the rest in pledges.
"Do you think you dare trust God to bring in the rest on
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time?" was a question not often stated but very real in the minds and hearts of everybody, I'm sure.
Our only answer had to be, "Dare we not trust Him? He has always taken care of us in miraculous ways. If we draw back in unbelief now, He will have no pleasure in us. (See Hebrews 10:38.) We must live by faith. Or, stated another way, it is only by faith that we will live."
I have to admit that once in awhile during this period of time my own faith wobbled. It is not easy to believe where you can't see and to expect something that has no real basis except your hope. Yet, when God is the One who had issued the call and when He had promised faithfully to provide all that we needed, then to have faith wasn't quite so difficult.
But prayer is always crucial. When I was in one of those "wobbly" stages, I earnestly sought the Lord about the balloon payment still ahead of us. As I prayed, my heart calmed, and I felt convinced that He had heard and would answer in His own way and time. Yet, as I often do, I asked Him for a special verse to lean on when my faith grew weak, and this is what He gave:
"This is what the LORD says to his anointed,
to Cyrus, whose right hand I take hold of
to subdue nations before him
and to strip kings of their armor,
to open doors before him
so that gates will not be shut:
I will go before you
and will level the mountains;
I will break down gates of bronze
and cut through bars of iron.
I will give you the treasures of darkness,
riches stored in secret places,
so that you may know that I am the LORD,
the God of Israel, who summons you by name.
(Isaiah 45:1-3)
By May, 1997, the gates began to open. Those mountains that had barred us from all the provision we needed had begun to crumble. But we still waited for the complete fulfillment of His promise, even as we must continue to wait with great eagerness to see the complete fulfillment of that brand new thing He promised two thousand years ago — that final harvest of the nations.
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In spite of the hard work put into it, the "Last $1,000" Campaign seemed almost to stumble into existence. The eight million dollars was due in October of that same year, and it took a lot of faith to believe that we could possibly make that payment. Yet, as I prayed, the words of Hudson Taylor who founded the China Inland Mission (now OMF International) came to my mind: "God would not have taught us to trust in His name and have brought us thus far just to put us to shame." The road behind us was long and difficult. The road ahead was still unknown, seen only by faith. But I claimed the promise given to Habakkuk so many centuries ago when to him everything seemed so impossible:
The vision is yet for an appointed time;
But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie.
Though it tarries, wait for it.
Because it will surely come;
It will not tarry.
Habakkuk 2:3 (NKJ)
"It will surely come; it will not tarry." So be it Lord!
