Lisa Barry: Wouldn't it be nice if you could go to the mailbox each day and find a letter from God telling you exactly what you are to do that day? Although the direction might be clear, I'm still not sure we'd be willing to do it. Nevertheless, it reveals how each of us wants direction. The same holds true for young people. Today on Gateway To Joy, special guest, Bob Lepine, talks to Elizabeth about the unique ministry she has had with Christian students over the years. Let's get started.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love" (Jer. 31:3). That's what the Bible says and "underneath are the everlasting arms" (Deut. 33:27). This is your friend Elizabeth Elliott talking today with Bob Lepine.

Bob Lepine: That's right and I have to tell you that in coming to do these programs, well I wanted to recount for you a story of my daughter coming home from school. This was a couple of years ago. She was fourteen at the time. She said "Dad, I'm going to start getting together with my friend Heather for a Bible study." I said, "That's great. I think that would be wonderful for you and Heather to get together for a Bible study." She said, "Yeah, we're going to read that book Passion and Purity." I had to turn so she didn't see my jaw drop.

Had I ever suggested to my 14-year-old that she ought to read Passion and Purity; it would have been tossed out quickly, you know that, don't you. But when her friend Heather suggested that they go through it together, that was a good idea. You have always had a terrific rapport with students: high school students, college students. You just seem to connect. I remember awhile back you said you were going to Moody Bible Institute. You said the thing you were looking forward to the most was that they were giving you a half an hour to meet with the students. You said the rest of it they could keep, but you wanted that time with the students. You have always enjoyed that haven't you?

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes.

Bob Lepine: Why?

Elisabeth Elliot: I just consider it a tremendous privilege if you can get kids to listen to some old lady. I don't know why young people are willing to listen to me. But they seem to have been ever since many, many years ago when I first was asked to start speaking to people and finding that there were an awfully lot of them out there who really hung on my words. I am very grateful that many of them read the book called Passion and Purity. I could see the terrible messes the kids were making of themselves and I just prayed that the Lord would enable me somehow to give them a clear, clarion call to abstinence. This body that God has given to you is the only one you are going to have. The great question that I want to ask these young people is, "What are you going to do with it? Are you going to let somebody else mess around with that body of yours before you get married? What chaos. You are going to be wanting to kick yourself around the block if that's what you have done."

Now of course I know I'm talking to kids right now who have been sleeping around. They couldn't even count the number of times. Some of them have come to me and said "What am I supposed to do now? I have made a mess of things." The blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sin. You may never be able to forget the mess you've made, but God can forget. God can change your life.

Bob Lepine: The book Passion and Purity actually came a little earlier than expected because you were speaking to nearly 20,000 college students at KC83, an event Campus Crusade for Christ was putting on in Kansas City; and you spoke on the subject of endurance to those college students. Passion and Purity was hot off the press. It was there for that event, brand new. In fact I got a tape of that message from KC83 from a woman I know who is in full-time missionary work and has been for the last 18 years.

The result of that message sealed it for her. The Lord used it to call her for full-time missionary work and she's still doing that today. I thought it would be fun for your listeners to hear just a portion of that message from almost 20 years ago now as you spoke to those 20,000 college students about having purpose and meaning in life. Let's listen.

"If there's one thing that seems to be a problem for students these days, it's making up their minds. They don't have any difficulty whatever knowing what kind of music they like, what they want on their Big Macs and what kind of car they would buy if they had about $40,000 to throw around. They know the answers to those questions, but I'm talking about things that matter a little bit more than those things.

"Things like, 'Oh, you know, I'm just not really sure whether I can hack it with this roommate for the rest of the year. And I mean, like, I really don't know whether I should major in political science or home economics. And I mean, like, you know, it's just really hard; and I'm just not really sure I know what I am really going to be. And you know, like, maybe I should switch and I'm not sure I came to the right college. And well my career, you know, like, my Dad wanted me to be a doctor, lawyer or something like that; but I'm just not really sure what I want to do. And then there's this girl in my life and well we've got this neat, like, you know, relationship and all; but I mean, like, you know, um I'm just not sure I'm ready for all that stuff and, like, commitment and all, you know what I mean. I haven't really made up my mind.'

"Am I ringing any bells out there? What have you made up your minds about in the last, let's say, two years? You know what you want in music and a car and on a hamburger. Do you know what you really want in life? The Kechua Indians in the jungle of Ecuador had a very handy word that worked for an answer to anything. The word was younga and it means for nothing, for no particular purpose.

"I remember one time a young Indian came to my husband Jim Elliot and told him that he wanted to be baptized and Jim said, 'Why?'

He said, 'Huh?'

Jim said, 'Why do you want to be baptized?'

He said, 'Younga' for nothing, for no particular reason.

'Well', Jim said, 'You are going to have to come up with a better answer than that.'

"What do you live for? Younga?"

Bob Lepine: That's Elisabeth Elliot from KC83 and you still can talk like a teenager pretty well can't you? You still do that from time to time, don't you?

Elisabeth Elliot: Oh yes, I have plenty of occasions to talk like a teenager.

Bob Lepine: Do you look at teenagers and do you think they have solved the issue of what they are living for, or are they in the same place that those college students were twenty years ago?

Elisabeth Elliot: I'm not sure I'm competent to tell you the answer to that, but my feeling is that there is not a whole lot of change. When they reach a certain point, you know 11-or 12-years-old, then they consider themselves adults, and they don't want to be told what to do by their parents or their teachers. Whatever everyone is doing, they want to do, and that's what leads to so much sorrow and wreckage in their lives.

Bob Lepine: I was with my son recently. He has just turned 13-years-old and as we were talking I said, "There's going to come a time where you really have to settle in your own heart and life this issue of lordship, sovereignty and obedience." In fact, we had just listened together to your message when I talked with him about that. I said, "Do you think you've done that yet?"

He looked and he said, "I don't think so." Then he said, "Do you?"

I said, "Well I don't know son if you have or not."

I think everyone faces a point where even if you came to Christ as a child, you have to confirm that decision throughout your life, don't you?

Elisabeth Elliot: Yes. The question is whose am I? Is this body of mine, mine? Well, I didn't make it but it belongs to me and I can do anything I want with it. Yes, you can. You can make a mess of it or you can offer it to God. I mean if we really are honest and sincere about wanting to follow Jesus Christ, then we have to surrender to Him--all that I am, all that I long for, all that you want from me Lord, here I am, do anything you want with me. Does a teenager, dare I say, have the guts to say that to God? Do anything you want with me.

What if God wants me to do something that's really hard. You know really, really hard. Yeah, well very likely He will. That's exactly what He's going to do. It's going to be hard. "Yeah, but Mrs. Elliot, I have this really neat relationship with this guy and sometimes he gets a little too close, and I don't know, I just don't really know what I'm supposed to do in a case like that. I mean well, you know it's really hard."

Bob Lepine: And your answer to that young lady? What does she do in a case like that? There are plenty of things in life that are really hard, just really, really hard.

Elisabeth Elliot: Right. There is a Savior. There is a Savior who loves you with an everlasting love. Will you put yourself under His blessing and ask Him to cleanse your heart, to set you going on the right path and to give you the strength and the grace to say no to these terrible things that kids are doing today. This is a great worry for moms and dads. We can't be with our kids all the time. We can't tell them to stop liking someone. What do we do to help protect our children's purity? Make sure your children bring their friends home.

Don't let them go to their house. Invite them to your home. Let them see what a Christian home is like. Let the young man talk to the father. If it's a boy who lives in the house and he's got his girl friend there, she can talk to the mother. Children really need to be surrounded and upheld and blessed and watched over so carefully and they don't want to hear that. As soon as they are 11-or 12-years-old, they are adults; but you as a father and I as a mother who only had one child, I was on my face before God

asking that God preserve her from the wickedness that was going on.

Bob Lepine: As your children push back on those boundaries that you put around them as a parent, you begin to fear you are going to lose your relationship with them if you keep the boundaries in place. But you're saying persevere, you won't lose the relationship.

Elisabeth Elliot: A great deal depends on how the child is handled and how earnest and how honest the father and the mother are. Of course we have the story in the Bible of the prodigal son and here was a father who loved his son and had to watch him go off into a far country and eat pig food. That father must have gone through horrible agonies and we know of many cases in today's world where the similar thing happens. So we can't engineer our children's lives. But we can set an example. I think the most important thing that my parents did for us was to have that family prayer time immediately after breakfast.

My father had to make a certain train, there was no flexibility whatsoever as to when the train came and went. So we had to be finished by 7:20 a.m. so that we could go into the living room, sing a hymn, sing all the stanzas. My father would read the Bible and we would get down on our knees and he would pray for each one of us by name and then we all joined in the Lord's Prayer at the end. I have often talked to parents about the necessity for doing something like this. Oh well, we can't always get together like that. You know we can't get up that early; all kinds of excuses. If you are serious about training your children in the way they should go, God is going to enable you to find a way to do it.

Lisa Barry: With that I need to break in here and wrap things up for today. Thanks again to Bob Lepine, who has for the last two days been highlighting the depth and breadth of Elisabeth's ministry. It is quite a legacy that's revealed through radio and books alike. In fact one of those books we are making available today is called The Music of His Promises. The suggested donation for that is $11 and it's yours when you get in touch with us to request it. Our toll-free number is 1-800-759-4JOY. Call anytime day or night 1-800-759-4569. If you prefer to write, our postal address is Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska 68501. That's Gateway To Joy, Box 82500, Lincoln, Nebraska 68501. Or dial up our Web site at gatewaytojoy.org. Gateway To Joy has been a production of Back to the Bible. Tomorrow we'll continue this round table discussion, so make it a point to join us then for more Gateway To Joy.