by James O. Henry Spiritual Life Committee, Chairman, Biola Campus Expansion Campaign L a u n c h in g a fund-raising cam paign of such magnitude at
assures us that God will not with hold anything from us which is necessary to meet our specific needs. But, establishing a legiti mate need, and being agreed that God’s grace is sufficient to meet that need, is not enough. We must exercise faith that can and will do the job. The children of Israel, in their journey from Egypt to the Promised land, are an excellent example of this very fact. They had experienced God’s deliverance dur ing the Passover in Egypt. They had experienced deliverance by Almighty power at the Red Sea. He had provided them with sweet water from the bitter waters of Marah. He had given them the heavenly manna to sustain them in the desert. He had provided water from the rock at Rephidim. He had given them victory over Amalek who stood in their path. All these things God had done for Israel, and yet when they arrived at Kadesh- bamea, their faith failed complete ly. They refused to trust God and were fearful of the giants in the land. God was willing and able to give them the land, but because their faith failed, He could not do for them what He wanted most to do. For their lack of faith, all that generation who were over 20 years of age (with the exception of Ca leb and Joshua) perished in the wilderness and never entered the land. We must not wander in the wil derness of opportunity until this generation passes. Instead, we must trust God to do for us that which we cannot do for ourselves. He will rid the land of giants but, in faith, we must go up and possess it.
a time when so many demands are being made upon our material re sources may seem to some a little ambitious and even fool-hardy. The obstacles are a bit frightening to those of us engaged in the cam paign. However, we take courage in the statement of the Apostle Paul to the Philippian Christians when he said, “My God shall sup ply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus,” (Phil. 4:19). There is one thing we must do at the very outset of this campaign and that is to determine whether or not we have a legitimate need, and if we are convinced that we do have, then we must pursue it to its climax. Throughout the history of Biola, it has been our philosophy that we should provide Christian training to all who desire it. With this philosophy in operation, plus our recent accreditation, our stu dent body has increased more rap idly than our facilities over the past few years. One needs only to visit our campus and see the crowd ed conditions under which we are now working, or to observe the 250 students crowded into their buses which transport them to the old downtown buildings where they must be housed for lack of sufficient dormitory facilities on the new campus, to be convinced of the great need for additional build ings. Being assured that we have a legitimate need, we take courage in this promise of God given through the Apostle Paul which is quoted above. The little word, all
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