JOLIET, Ill. (AP) - Who in the Bible received a second chance from God?
Donald Horschler posed this question to his adult Sunday school class at Faith Bible Church on Jan. 15. Horschler, 95, of Lockport, who has taught Sunday school since he was 18, received several answers: King David, Jonah and Samson.
But they all summed up his point about God.
“He supplies our need, doesn’t he?” Horschler said.
A Christian since he turned 12 and a Bible student since age 16, Horschler has devoted his life to bringing God’s word to others. In addition to teaching, Horschler is also a Gideon.
He recently celebrated 75 years with this “body of believers dedicated to making the Word of God available to everyone,” according to the Gideons International website at www2.gideons.org.
Horschler’s current activities with the Gideons include speaking at churches and distributing New Testaments to students, hospital patients and - cell to cell - prisoners at Stateville Correctional Center in Crest Hill.
“There’s no verse in the Bible that says I can retire,” Horschler said. “So I’m going to do this until I die. Who knows? That may be closer than I think.”
Horschler said he became convicted of his sinful nature at age 12. He had started smoking cigarettes at 8 and sometimes told lies. Would he go to Heaven if he died?
That’s what led Horschler to “accept Jesus as his lord and savior” at Ridgewood Baptist Church in Joliet. And he quit smoking.
“I tried chewing tobacco but it made me sick,” Horschler said with a chuckle.
At 17, Horschler taught vacation Bible school to fifth-grade girls at that same church. The following year, he started teaching Sunday school to seventh- and eighth-grade boys, which Horschler continued until he entered the U.S. Navy at age 20.
Just before Horschler entered the Navy, he began dating the late Lorraine Johnson, whom he married in 1945 at a former Methodist church in Lockport where Johnson taught Sunday school.
Horschler said Johnson wrote him every day his military service kept them apart - a total of 900 letters. They were married for 59 years before death and had three children.
It was because of Johnson that Horschler ended up at Faith Bible Church.
When Horschler met Johnson, she was also teaching Sunday school at Faith Bible Church. Participating in three churches was impractical; they decided to make Faith Bible Church their home church.
Up until 25 years ago, Horschler taught teens, his favorite age of students, he said, even though it’s rare today to find these students coming to church in suits and ties.
“It’s the age when they’re making decisions for life,” Horschler said. “And many of them make decisions they wish they hadn’t made later on.”
Horschler feels modern teens experience more temptation - and experience it sooner - than their peers of the past. In Horschler’s childhood, chewing gum in school was a punishable infraction.
“Now you have to wonder if they’ve got cocaine or marijuana,” Horschler said. “I think more temptation can get kids into wrong things earlier. They can watch anything they want on TV and a lot of it is leading them in the wrong direction. They see adultery on TV and learn not to be faithful to one woman and move in with anyone and not be married. I like to give them some Biblical principles.”
Horschler believes having Biblical principles can make a difference. Each week at Stateville Correctional Center, he speaks to adults who didn’t grow up with these principles - or even with basic Biblical knowledge.
“One prisoner called me over and asked if it was true that Eve was tempted by a boa constrictor,” Horschler said.
Few inmates refuse the pocket New Testaments Horschler offers. Often, they ask questions. Horschler may spend 15 minutes outside a cell, answering questions.
Horschler speaks this advice to inmates nearing their release date.
“I counsel them to find any good Bible church and find people who believe the word of God and let them encourage you and help them,” Horschler said.
Almost as an afterthought, Horschler added one last reason why he diligently spreads the Gospel. Before Horschler left to serve in the Navy, his mother told him God promised her Horschler would come home.
Her words returned to Horschler the day a bullet missed him. But a tree fell on the man next to Horschler, crushing his chest and killing him.
“Thankfully, I came home in one piece. I could have been killed like anybody else,” Horschler said. “I think God saved my life so I could talk with you today.”
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Source: The (Joliet) Herald-News, https://bit.ly/2jyoOyo
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Information from: The Herald-News, https://www.theherald-news.com/
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