H is for joy; Summary

The following program is produced as a public service feature by the radio division of the Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. With cooperation from the Federal Bureau of Narcotics and the Illinois division of narcotic control we present. H is for joy. This is program number 26 program 25 you heard a drug addict say that the only one left for him to call upon for help was God. On that same program there was another voice you heard the voice of Mr. Kenneth Jones. Mr. Jones is the director of the Christian anti narcotic Association in California. He

has an unshakable belief in the power of the Almighty God to sustain the Addicks ability to stay off the junk. This is how he phrased it. I never saw anyone to my knowledge come out and really stay off the stuff and beat it unless they accepted the Lord Jesus Christ. Obviously Mr. Jones would conclude that only with the help of a supernatural power can drug addiction be cured and the individual freed of the agonizing desire to escape from the reality of our present society. But we may ask how did Ken Jones arrive at this point of view. What made him decide that this is the only solution to the problem. Before he answers those questions here's some background information about Ken Jones. He never went beyond the eighth grade in his education for 27 years he was addicted to the various narcotics you heard about on H is for joy. His body was never a muscular physically strong

body. He never really worked long or hard enough to learn any trade or type of work. His friends consisted mostly of those associated with the business of the underworld. He knew few from what we might call the mainstream of humanity. His life of forty six years was a pillar to post gutter to jail existence during which he learned to rob cheat lie hate and almost kill any who stood in the way of his escape drugs. That's a very brief capsule version of the material Mr Jones included on the tapes he sent us. It doesn't present exactly what you would call the good life. In fact as Mr Jones put it my life was miserable and I felt there was no hope for me. It's an unusual point at which a human being survey's himself and reaches the conclusion that for him there is no hope that for him there's no one to turn to

that in his frantic attempt to escape from reality. He's had to ultimately come face to face with that from which he tried to escape. He's alone afraid and hook. Why is it he can't turn to his friends his suppliers of narcotics those with whom he's lived his life. Why can't he call on them. I didn't know any legitimate people and just all I knew was pickpockets and thieves conmen gangsters hoodlums fiends ex-cons and all of the underworld characters of one type or another members of legitimate society. Well I look down upon me for being a dope fiend and then I thought how that if I lived a decent life I was to get off the dope somehow try to make it. I'd have to live honest I'd have to work I'd have to find something I could do it and see how I could do it. But if I did find out that there was something I could do. Got a job and

people find out about me they'd probably spit on me want to and then I'd want to hurt them. And with that the feeling that I had toward society didn't like policeman on I thought society were all unpaid policeman. They would bury a fellow like me. In the penitentiary if they could but the rest of my life. So that's the way my thinking went. I thought how in the world would I ever get straightened up. How will I ever get off of this. No hope for me no use in me even trying to think. Again he had come face to face with the same thought. There's no hope for me. However Ken Jones found a thread of hope he remembered that he had once been visited by some kind people while he was in jail. He knew these people call themselves Christians and they also knew they had been kind to him. He thought that perhaps they could help him. He was out of jail now home but still the awful terror of his addiction shattered his

every move his life. Somehow some time somewhere Ken Jones was told there was a god. And now at a time when all the names that struck his ear came tumbling into his foggy mind. This was the one that stood above all others. And this is what Ken Jones 27 years addicted to narcotics did. And so one night just before I went to bed just grasping at a straw again I said to myself God if I could just see some Christian person would invite me to church I'd go. Then I went to bed got up the next morning forgot all about my prayer and about the middle of the day a man started coming up the driveway and I said to him Do you want to see Mrs. Jones. And he said no. He wanted to see me. You see I thought he was a policeman and I was just a course just automatically getting ready to tell lies and to protect myself against

the rest. But when he said that he wanted to see me he there was a sort of a grin on his face that made me think well this was a friend and not a foal. And then he told me who he was. And it was a fellow I used to know very well but I hadn't laid eyes on him in 21 years. And so you can see how God really just the tailor made me an answer to prayer. I says Howard you know it was just last night and I forgot about my prayer. I said told God if someone would invite me to church that I used to know years ago I'd go. And so then he invited me and I went to church with him. And then I sort of mentally pinch myself several times during the church service. I was sort of suspended like and just in the fog had broken me and all and I thought well I've spent most of these many many years in the joints and in the hole doing time in the hole in the penitentiary and I thought Here I am in Turkey this year was a strange feeling to me. And after the service

was over this fellow that invited me asked me if I would like to go again I said yes. So he invited me to go next Friday Night Passage in the college auditorium where Stuart Hamilton who had been converted under Billy Graham was to be the speaker. Well I listen. I put my hat down went clear down to the front found a place way over on the right. I knelt there and I have said often times that many times that I figured I was there pretty close to an hour. And when I raise my head all of the 4000 people were gone and around 100 people have come to the altar and all gone. There were three man across the altar for me. And then the man and his wife that invited me were sitting behind me there a ways back. And finally I raised my head. The man was turning out the lights and I began to apologize to these folks for keeping him so long. And then I tried in I suppose pretty feeble way to tell him that I appreciate him sticking with me and trying to help me. I didn't tell him about me be an adult brain or anything but I told him I says I guess there's no

hope for me and I sure felt like it too. So there was a young student on my left. He says to my friend how would you like to go a little church where I attend I believe that some people could pray you through and I don't know what he meant but since I learned because they prayed for me and there was a wonderful spirit in the church I went the next Sunday night. And so when the altar call was made it seemed like an unseen hand off said this how many times seemed like an unseen hand just hurled me into the altar and I lived there no one having to say brother can't you pray or show me a verse or trying to squeeze me in headfirst or anything at all just seem like I just poured out my heart just seemed like unconsciously just going right to the business of getting in the heart first and letting Christ come into my heart. So I prayed in tears or repentance I was made so sorry for a life of sin that night and so I learned I got through by the time we was through praying there I was through with sin and I knew what it was for a person to pray you through it it was a wonderful witness in my soul that

all my life of sin was over and that I was just confident that I would never take up another not even a puff of a cigarette I know how a Christian ought to live. So I left a life of sin in God knowing that I was assuming that I had a stomach full and I had enough of it that i hate of sin by that time. Why he just took away the desire no desire for adult. Hate the stuff but immediately I found myself with a burden all I could see was I'm a sheeted bodies tormented mind people just crying aloud for a helping hand and I just seem God just burdened me and made me to feel that he was calling me to preach the unsearchable riches of Jesus Christ and the life of testimony to those who are yet in chains of habit. Vice and crime in the underworld. And I realized that I was a weak creature down through the years and I didn't have any reason to believe that in my own strength I was any stronger than I'd ever be in thought I just believed his simple promises. And this statement such as My grace is

sufficient for thee his strength is made perfect in weakness his strength is made perfect in weakness. That was Mr Kenna's Jones of the Christian at the narcotic Association. Ken Jones reached his conclusion and for him it was a cure from the habit of drug addiction. As we said before this is program number 26. It's the last program of the series. And like Mr. Jones We feel that it's time for us to reach some conclusions. To recap all the material presented in this series in the time remaining is an impossibility. However there are some things that ought to be said. Our research into the topic of drug addiction has taken us from a state of no knowledge to one of some knowledge. It's been said that a little knowledge can be dangerous but we don't pretend to know all there is to know about drug addiction. As outsiders looking into this situation some things have seemed to become rather obvious to us with regard to the problem of drug addiction. There seems to be three major schools of

thought. One is that the control of the problem lies in an adequate state national and international law and legal procedures or to that the problem is really one of a medical nature and should be handled by people in the field of medicine or thirdly that the problem is really one of social maladjustment and can properly be brought under control by the successful amalgamation of not only the legal and medical aspects but also those of a religious connotation as well. These are the suggestions as to a possible solution. We are not going to say which we feel has the most mare if you will think as we've asked you to do on H is for joy. We believe the conclusion you reach will be the right one. Then once you've reached a conclusion we would ask of you one more thing. Recognize that the knowledge you have acquired through this program is not complete. In fact it has only given you the point at which you can really begin to learn.

Perhaps all it has done is made you conscious that such a problem called drug addiction exists. Nevertheless it is at this point that you must take over on your own more knowledge must be sought more thought must be given for the destructive potential of narcotic addiction has overtones even more thunderous than those of an atomic blast. A drug addiction is a sure but slowly creeping death. If allowed it has the potential of destroying not only those who let it rule their lives but also those who sell it. In the last analysis it is a terrifying comment on the moral state of man when he sells or allows to be sold a chemical that has the insidious ability to rule the body and control the human mind. Therefore it's up to you as well as sociologists doctors lawyers and theologians to recognize and actively to teach and learn. That neither in fact.

Nor any symbol can h ever indicate joy. Scripted by Edwin and her production by Bill Oberg This is Ted Seeley speaking. The preceding tape recorded program was made available to the station by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This is the end of a radio network.