Jesus Saves!

by David J. Stewart

The Chicago United Mission, 34 S. Desplaines in Downtown Chicago.

What a wonderful truth! Jesus Saves! I recognize that sign above because my father used to be the director of the Chicago United Mission in Chicago for many years. This photo was taken in 1977, which would have made me 10 years old at the time. I remember frequently seeing men lying in the street as I and my father entered the mission. Some were able to be helped, others you just had to call 911. It's not easy seeing a man lying in the gutter. The Devil always shows us the neon lights, not the dead bodies. Thousands of men and women on skid row were helped by the Chicago United Mission. I grew up in this mission, spending much of my there helping my dad. I always had fun serving pumpkin pie on the the holidays. We always had big feedings on Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas. These were the holidays that brought in the contributions to keep the mission doors open. For some reason, Christian people don't think that people are starving 365 days a year. Hundreds of homeless people were fed on a daily basis, in addition to the dozens who slept on the floor overnight to escape the brutal cold Chicago winters.

I watched the construction of The Presidential Towers from the first piece of equipment to arrive. I have vivid memories of those days. The Mission had a string band (a Salvation Army tradition). My mother played the piano. Different church groups volunteered to preach, sing and help out in the soup line once or twice a month. I miss the string band. One man played the accordion. Another man brought his violin. We even had a guy who could play a saw. Many men found Jesus Christ at that mission.

There used to be a big "Shell Gas Station" advertisement right around the corner from the "Jesus Saves" sign in the photo above. My father cleverly used the "hell" in Shell to reach the lost. He painted over the sign to make it read "From HELL to...", and then he painted a big arrow to the neon JESUS SAVES sign in front of the building.

I remember working up on the roof (which was always leaking). We had hundreds of one gallon tin cans (empty food cans) to catch the dripping water from the roof. I had fun shooting rats with my BB Gun (not the Red-Rider, a Crossman). Those super rats were as big as cats! Even the cats ran from them.

I remember the prayer room where my father and others witnessed to men who had come forward for help. Many found salvation, some just needed a place to stay for the night. The mission saw people from all walks of life come through it's doors... former doctors... military veterans... people with mental illnesses or epileptic seizures... some just tired of life and stuck in a rut. Of course, booze was the problem in most cases. Billy Sunday knew what he was talking about when he said, "The curse of Almighty God is upon the liquor tavern." Men on the streets live in constant fear of being jack-rolled (mugged). There were plenty of murders. Frequently, men froze to death while under the numbing effect of alcohol. When the city of Chicago decided to clean up skid row in the 1980's, they gave each homeless man a voucher for $40 to go away (basically a bus ticket out of town). All the cheap hotels (like the Star Hotel) closed down. Whereas these men once could afford to rent a small chicken wire room for a few dollars a week, now they were FORCED onto the streets. Many died. Thank God for the earnest efforts of those outreach ministries who do help the poor.

The Chicago United Mission was closed down in the early 1980's because the owners of the land decided to sell it. The mission was torn down, along with the remains of the Legion Hotel next door. Al Capone decades before had frequently visited the Legion Hotel during it's heyday. I remember walking around in the Legion Hotel before it was demolished. The old 10 oz. bottle soda machines were still there, so we took them over to the mission. It must have been amazing in it's heyday. I never saw the Legion Hotel in operation because it had closed down years before. The land where the Legion hotel and the Chicago United Mission once stood is a parking lot today.

It was quite interesting, the mission had an access door to a room UNDER the sidewalk in front. In that room, we found all kinds of antiques and rusted items. I remember my father handing me a very old and rusty Red-Rider BB gun that he had found in that room. I cleaned it up as best I could with oil, cocked the spring-loaded handle down, and then pulled the trigger. I learned a very painful lesson... never leave the handle open when you pull the trigger on a Red-Rider BB gun. I managed to lose my little pinky finger-nail when the handle recoiled back. Ouch!

Interestingly, skid row was predominantly Caucasian in the 1970's. Today, skid row exists in different forms... the new skid row in Chicago is mostly African American and expands across many areas of the city due to illegal drugs, booze and lack of employment opportunities. The skid row of today is self-induced by our government's continued efforts to deliberately flood illegal drugs into America's neighborhoods by the billions. The illegal drug industry in America amounts to a staggering $500,000,000,000 a year. The illegal drug problem is behind nearly every evil on the street in America... prostitution... murder... rapes... gangs... auto theft... home break-ins... child abuse... money laundering... you name it!

"The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, God damn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people" ... "God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."

—Jeremiah Wright (in a sermon from 2003)

Congresswoman Maxine Waters in California has documented the CIA's continued trafficking of illegal drugs into America. Before it was through Mena, Arkansas; now it's happening in Florida. Also, former narcotics officer for the LAPD, Mike Ruppert, has exposed the drug problem in America. Truth is stranger than fiction. Tens-of-millions of Americans are suffering because of the illegal drug market, and alcohol is still a major problem in society as well. We need Billy Sunday's to rise up all across America.

Though I miss those great memories at the Chicago United Mission, I will never forget that wondrous Jesus saves sign out front of the mission! I was amazed to find this photo. It really took me by surprise. I never thought I'd see that old mission again, especially 25 years later. Jesus Saves! There is no greater truth in the world.

As a final word, the Bible has nothing good to say about the world's phony religion. The only positive mention of religion in the Bible is in James 1:27, "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." Pure religion according to the Word of God is to help the needy. Most churches help themselves. Too many believers are sitting-on-the-premises instead of standing-on-the-promises. Let us not be guilty of preaching "Jesus saves" while neglecting the poor.

"But whoso hath this world's good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?" —1st John 3:17

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