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PRAISING GOD FROM THE PENITENTIARY

It was probably the hardest shopping trip of his life. Richard and his wife Mildred had a list of things to buy, things he could take along on this unique outing. So they packed:
"Six undershirts, 6 briefs, 1 belt, 1 collared shirt, 1 pair of dress slacks, 1 pair of leather sole shoes or boots, 2 pairs of socks, 1 sweatsuit, 1 tennis racket, 4 tennis balls, 4 racket balls, 1 pair of sneakers."

Now, you might say, that doesn't sound so bad. Tennis balls, tennis rackets. Richard is off to Club Med, sounds like. Actually, Pastor Richard Dortch was putting into his suitcase the things the United States Marshall Service had told him he could bring into prison. Because he, inmate #07423-058, soon to be a federal prisoner for his role in the Jim Bakker / PTL scandal, was packing up to enter Eglin Prison in Florida.
I left one thing off the vacation list. "One single edge razor." Electric razors, you understand, were forbidden in a federal prison, because clever inmates knew how to hotwire electrical devices for unauthorized purposes. So at 9:30 at night, the evening before he was to go to jail, his last night of freedom, Richard and Mildred Dortch drove to a K-Mart to buy a single-edge razor.
In his book, Integrity: How I Lost It, and My Journey Back, Dortch writes from the bottom of his heart about how it felt to know that he, a Christian minister, ordained in the Assembly of God denomination, was about to go to jail like a common crook. There was shame and embarrassment involved, certainly. He'd let down his family, his friends, his ministry partners. But he had the same fears as any other normal person about prison. He feared the loneliness, the isolation, the danger. Would he be stabbed? Raped? Persecuted for being such a high-profile, wealthy inmate next to the guys who had maybe robbed K-Mart for a razor? He knew he was going to be classified with a CIM rating: Central Inmate Monitoring because he was a well-known personality, subject to physical attack.
And there was more to worry about.

"When you are there [in prison] for a sentence of three years or more," he writes, "there is an eighty percent chance that you will leave divorced."

And Richard Dortch was facing an eight-year sentence. Would Mildred still be there when he got out?
He writes about how it felt to know that he had a week left. February 2, 1990 was seven days away. Then six. Five. Five days, and I'll be in prison. He was 58 years old, a sufferer from Crohn's disease, which sometimes caused him excruciating pain. Would he survive these years in federal lockup?
Well, friend, a story like this takes us right to the heat and the flames of our theme park for this week: the fiery furnace. The place of trials and pain. The place where Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego found themselves . . . and sometimes you and I find ourselves there too.
Matthew chapter five has the Bible verse we want to consider all this week, and this is Jesus Himself speaking, of course, so we take these words seriously. Verses 10 and 11:

"Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of Me."

And then these four, seemingly impossible words added on: "Rejoice and be glad." It's hot in that fiery furnace, so rejoice and be glad. It's lonely there in Eglin Prison, Richard Dortch, so rejoice and be glad. It's depressing in that cancer ward, Voice of Prophecy radio listener, so rejoice and be glad. The stillness of death tears at your heart as you stand by the grave of your beloved spouse, there in the cemetery after the crowds have all gone home, so rejoice and be glad. Friend, does the Bible really mean this? Is it wonderful to be in that fiery furnace?
You might be tempted to say, "Sure, it's not bad in the furnace . . . as long as you don't burn up." But a lot of Christians have gotten burned in the fire. The person we love the most in all this world does die. Cancer does strike unexpectedly, and the people of God die in the same proportionate numbers as anybody else out there. How wonderful is it to be persecuted, anyway?
Richard Dortch, after the build-up of dread, counting down the days and feeling the calendar tighten around his heart, finally was just plain IN prison. And he wrote later:

"It was at night, when it was quiet and I was on my bunk in the midst of twelve men, when I felt desperately alone. The feeling grabs you . . . strong . . . hard . . . I'm alone; I'm missing days out of my life!"

And he did indeed suffer severe bouts of that Crohn's disease, sudden, jarring attacks made the more painful by the loneliness, the isolation.
But I want to share something with you about his experience. Because Richard Dortch, admittedly a man who had made serious mistakes, was still a Christian. Now, he wasn't a man being persecuted — prison, that is — because of righteousness. He deserved jail, and was the first to admit it. Still, he was a repentant, born-again man, who spent his final Sunday before freedom listening to a sermon by his pastor, Dr. Larry Freeman. And so these verses, these promises in Matthew 5, about rejoicing during hard times, were guarantees and challenges he could claim. And he wrote much later these words:

"The secret of growing in grace is to be in a place where you need grace."

Aren't those words true? This Christian minister grew in prison; he learned to love God more there, trust Him more. On those loneliest of nights, when he felt like he had no friends, when he didn't have the loving arms of a faithful wife to comfort and embrace him, whose arms did he have but God's? Where else could he turn for comfort but to the words of Jesus?
And prison was a learning, growing experience for Pastor Dortch. He began to see his problems, his prison sentence, almost as a gift from heaven. Not that God willed that he should commit sin, be caught, and pay with a prison term. It's never God's will or plan that we should break His law or the government's. But the hardship itself, as he grew through this trial, became a blessing. In fact, he wrote later, thinking about it:

"I have stopped my foolish whimpering about my testings and trials coming from Satan." That's interesting, isn't it? He adds this: "I am absolutely convinced that the vast majority of my lowest moments have been sent by the Lord."

Let me add a follow-up thought. Friend, if you're a Christian, I know that you've drawn courage and inspiration by this old Bible story, in the book of Daniel, about these three kids in a fiery furnace. You've been blessed by it, just as I have. Can you imagine the positive good that has come to Richard Dortch's ministry, his ability to share Christ with others, now that he's been through this? Now that he's been to jail and back?
Here's an interesting footnote. Dortch's son, Rich, said to him right at the time of sentencing:

"Dad, if you and Mom were in a missionary service, and a call was given to go to a mission field where there were people who needed help, you would respond. You would probably be the first ones on your feet. Look at this as a mission field, and you'll be all right."

That's very profound, isn't it? And just consider the results. Richard Dortch, today, is the president of a ministry called Life Challenge, Inc., which helps professional men and women in times of crisis. Imagine, just imagine, what it means to would-be counselees to know that the man helping them has been through this fire himself! They know he can relate; they know he understands the pressures they face. They know his testimony, his confession about the power of Jesus Christ to restore . . . is real. Just as the influence of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego spread like wildfire — no pun intended — when they emerged successfully from that furnace, this experience of persecution has empowered Richard Dortch's ministry in a way no one could ever imagine.
I think it's no accident that this Bible passage about "blessed are those who are persecuted," etc., comes just exactly six verses before these powerful words every believer should commit to memory:

"Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

Well, friend, all of this might have worked out better for Richard Dortch than you think it is for you. He was paroled in less than a year and a half, and you might still be rotting away in a jail cell, or at least the prison of your own secret pain. But let me share this final thought from a man God saw through to the other side.

"Faith is not determined," Dortch writes, "by winning or losing." By getting paroled or not getting paroled, we might add. By sickness or by health, prosperity or adversity, death or life. Etc. Etc. "But," he writes, "by simply resting in the plan God has for us."

Sometimes we rest. Sometimes we rejoice. Sometimes we wait. But friend, if God is with us, we never have to wonder. C. S. Lewis, writing to someone he had never met, an American lady:

"Beneath are the everlasting arms, even when it doesn't feel at all like it."