never should of brought with him when he left in the first place, and now standing in that, I’m sure, remorseful situation—and I’m now to the point of this message where I hope it can come down where we live—he gets a chance to start over.  And in the 14th verse of this 13th chapter God says, “And the Lord said unto Abram, after that Lot was separated from him, Lift up now thine eyes, and look from the place where thou art northward, southward, eastward, westward:  For all the land which thou seest....”  He could look north clear up to the snowy mountains of Mount Herman or the peaks, west to the plains of Sharon along the Mediterranean coast from those highlands, south it would climb toward the uplands of Judea, east to the Jordan rift and the watered plains that Lot had already chosen.  “Look north, south, east, west: For all the land which thou seest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed for ever.”  “Arise, walk through the land in the length of it and in the breath of it; for I will give it unto thee.”  Then Abram removed his tent and started walking.

Now what’s this message got to say to us today?  Am I borin’ you?  That’s all introduction.  Message’s very short.  We’ve had an interesting journey these 14 years.  I told you the first Sunday I never really thought we would be—for simply taking a First Amendment stand—we would be yanked off of Channel 30.  I remember the night.  In fact I think we made every news media in town as they wrote from the Lawyers Weekly to every other newspaper what they call ‘The Last Hour on Channel 30.’  

          And I remember as they pulled that plug—all we’d done was take a stand, that’s subsequently been vindicated over and over again, on First Amendment—and that screen….  I was looking at the monitor as the plug was pulled and it went black and I said—because we were on radio at that time, simulcast, so I was still talking on radio—and I

said to many of you that are here the same message I’m saying today.  We don’t have any choice but to move forward in Faith in God’s promises that “He’ll build his church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” and a host of other promises that we’ve selected from God’s Book and claimed as ours on the authority of 2nd Corinthians 1:20 and I asked you to declare your Faith that night.  How many were listening that are here?  Over 10 million dollars was pledged after we went black but it was 3 years before we came back on.  And to those that have collector’s copies of ‘The Last Hour on 30,’ we’re on 30 right now and the last hour’s a long way away—I can tell you that!

For 3 years—3.  Three hard years tested our Faith!  But the worst test was as I drove to our Sanctuary in Glendale that next Sunday—because in spite of what I’ve learned from these Bible characters that it’s not an easy road to have Faith in God’s promises and seize them and reach up through the midst of time and grab hold of something that you know God has said that can apply to you in your situation and hang onto it like a rocket shaking loose from gravity, in the reverse sense you’re pulling down that promise of eternity until it effects time.  As I drove to Glendale, I wondered as I drove how I’m gonna stand in front of this congregation that I’ve been saying “You trust in God and He’ll see you through,” and what am I gonna preach now that they pulled that plug because I never really thought it would happen?  I really didn’t.  Well, you that were there know what I preached—same thing I’m preaching today.

I had the same feeling when we accepted the challenge to move downtown.  You know how many epitaphs have been written over us?  You that are here from San Francisco, San Francisco before the ink dried on the epitaphs there, they pulled the plug on Sunday night for the