Transcript
Speaker: The following podcast is a Jill Devine Media production.
Speaker: Welcome back to Normal Goes a Long Way. I'm your host, Jill Devine, and let's go ahead and continue with the sermon series based on the book, The Story, in this week's episode. All right, three friends decided to go deer hunting together, a lawyer, a doctor, and a preacher. And as they were walking, along came a big buck. and all three of them shot at exactly the same time.
Speaker: Immediately, the buck was dropped to the ground, and they all rushed to see exactly how big it was. ah The only problem was that they couldn't determine who it was that actually shot the deer.
Speaker: And so a heated debate ensued. And a few minutes later, ah a game officer came by and he said, what's the problem here? And the doctor told him that they were debating which one of them it was that shot the buck. And the officer went over, took one look at the deer, and within a few seconds, he said with very much confidence, oh, the preacher shot the buck.
Speaker: and they all wondered how he knew this so quickly. And the officer said, easy. The bullet went in one ear and out the other. All that's a little harsh and not that much funny.
Speaker: But take it from me. Pastors have a tough gig. But you don' you don't need to be a preacher to know the feeling. Some of you are teachers and happy summer vacation to you.
Speaker: ah Some of you are bosses. ah Some of you are parents. You get it. You get it. ah You'd like to think that some of your words have some staying power. But you know the feeling in one ear and out the other.
Speaker: And God knows more than any of us. The Lord, the God of their fathers sent word to them through his messengers again and again because he had pity on his people and on his dwelling place.
Speaker: But they mocked God's messengers, despised his words, and scoffed at his prophets until the wrath of the Lord was aroused against his people and there was no remedy.
Speaker: He tried again and again and again, but his message was received in one ear and out the other. No matter how many times, no matter how many messengers God sent to warn his people, they repeatedly ignored him.
Speaker: ah Through his prophets, God warns, he begs, pleads with these two kingdoms, relentlessly trying to convince them to turn away from their wickedness and so that they would enjoy a great relationship with him.
Speaker: and And that really is the whole theme of the story. It's relationship with God. God wants relationship. And so he says, I love you.
Speaker: I want you to be part of family, y'all. I want you to enjoy it all of the blessings that I have for you. So I want you to trust me and love me. And I want you to know put me in the top spot in your life.
Speaker: But the people of Israel and the people of Judah, just couldn't do it or wouldn't do it. They couldn't resist worshiping the false gods of their neighboring nations.
Speaker: And since they didn't worship the one true God, they also rejected his rules for living. And they had become a horribly inaccurate reflection of God's character.
Speaker: And the Bible tells us that it got so bad that they even threw their own children into the fire as sacrifices to pagan gods, and and they performed evil acts with others.
Speaker: Now, God is patient, but he is not permissive. If God were to look the other way and let them just continue in their wickedness, no one would ever see who he really is.
Speaker: No one would ever want to be drawn to him. and so he sent his messengers and he warned them, ah but in one ear and out the other. And so it was time for God to act.
Speaker: And he did so decisively. In the story today, the kingdom dissolves. They went from compromise to captivity.
Speaker: History tells us that in 722 BC, the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom of Israel, slaughtering them by the thousands. And those who survived received iron hooks through their nose so in their lower lip, and they were led away as slaves.
Speaker: 136 years later, such was the case for Judah in the south as Jerusalem fell at the hands of the Babylonians and they destroyed the temple. They carried out the Ark of the Covenant and and God's chosen people.
Speaker: Wickedness, warning, Judgment, slavery, dispersion, Assyrians, Babylonians, Israel, Judah, 722, 586 BC, ancient history. What does this have to do with you and me?
Speaker: Well, this week i read a book about preaching and it contained this line. It said, tell someone to do something... and you change them for a day.
Speaker: Tell them a story and you change them for life. Well, I don't know that's true. So I'm gonna do both. Tell you a story. I've told this one only just once before and that was a long, long time ago.
Speaker: and some of you, i don't know, one of you might remember. But maybe, but again, maybe it went in one ear and out the other. So as an aside, i like this story.
Speaker: My wife does not like this story at all. So you can be the judge. I call it the Anna Hurley story. And it begins with a buddy of mine named John Gunderson, with whom I went to college with at Concordia in River Forest, Illinois, way back 1984. That's over years. who John and I were suite mates together my freshman year. He was a sophomore.
Speaker: And the best way that I could describe him is by saying that he was just really a good guy. He was from Wisconsin, you know, one of those guys. He grew up working on his family's a dairy farm, a great guy, the kind of guy you hope your daughter marries someday.
Speaker: Will Gunderson, or Gundy as we called him, he was always working. Always working. He had a campus job, but he also took on odd jobs all the time. There's a bulletin board by the dean's office, which I passed by once or twice on my way to visit Dean Davis. But this bulletin board had job postings from people in River Forest who wanted someone exactly like John Gunderson to come over and pull weeds or clean out their garage.
Speaker: Well, Mrs. Weaver, the dean's secretary, she was on a first-name basis with John. ah Me too, but for other reasons. John knew, or she knew John, and she recommended John all the time because he was just like such a good guy, and he was such a hard worker.
Speaker: Well, anyway, one day, Gundy gets this call from Mrs. Weaver, and she has this primo, great job lined up for him. He is to go to the rich part of River Forest, and by the way, it's all rich in River Forest.
Speaker: Really, it's a nice place. ah Great big houses line the streets, and a This particular job was way down on Bonny Bray Avenue in the nicest part of River Forest. It's really something, so like something out of the movies, you know? There it is, this big old stone house sealed off by a 10-foot-high concrete wall, kind of spooky in a way, mysterious to say the least.
Speaker: And so Gunderson has this job there on some Saturday morning, and and he was to arrive at precisely 9.30 sharp. He was to push the button on the outside of the great iron gate and the one that closed off the one and only entrance. And so at exactly 9.30, he pushed the button and a voice comes on the speaker and says, what's your name? State your business. And he says, my name is John Gunderson from Concordia on Augusta Street.
Speaker: And I'm supposed to do some work here, I think. And she asked a few other questions to make sure that was, in fact, the John Gunderson from Walbatosa, Wisconsin, who had been sent by Mrs. Weaver from Concordia College.
Speaker: Well, once all that was settled, These iron gates roll back on the tracks, and he drives his beat-up Chevy Caprice over the brick drive, past the manicured lawns, right up to another but smaller iron fence with another speaker and another set of questions.
Speaker: And finally, this gate also opens, and he approaches the house, and he went to the front porch as he was instructed, and there a lady met him on the porch, and she asked him for some identification.
Speaker: And so he showed her his student ID and his driver's license, and she looked that over, and she was satisfied, and she invited him into the house. And there he sat with Anna, who was in her mid-30s, and her sickly mother, Irene.
Speaker: And they visited, and they interrogated him at length, finding out, you know, that he truly was a nice person, which all students from Concordia are. ah Well, she gave John just a small list of chores to do,
Speaker: And they really didn't seem all that important that he would have to be such a trusted individual to do these kinds of jobs. But he spent a couple hours doing this and that, and then they paid him three times the going rate.
Speaker: Sweet deal. Well, about a week later, there's another message. Miss Anna Hurley called the office and specifically oh wanted John Gunderson and only John Gunderson to come back to the house on Bonnie Bray.
Speaker: Same arrangement, same time, same drill. He didn't have to show his ID this time, but it was just about the same thing as before. He visited with the mom and with Anna at length.
Speaker: He was given a small little list of chores to do. He did them, got paid a lot left, left. A week later, the same thing. Same instructions, same kind of visit.
Speaker: But this time Anna said, okay John, I believe I can trust you and have you do the job that we really need to have done. This particular job is one that you had to be checked out for.
Speaker: And she took him to the back part of the house that he had never seen before. He hardly knew it was there. um And on one wall of this room in the back of the house, there seemed to be a hole. It didn't look like a door. it was just an opening kind of in the wall.
Speaker: And she led him through that opening in the wall. And they went but down the carpeted stairs into a basement den kind of thing. And on one wall, there were there were books. and And she told John to turn around.
Speaker: And look at the books and not to look at her until she told him. And so he turned around and looked at the books. A few seconds later, she said, okay. And he turned around and there in the paneled wall was another opening to a room.
Speaker: And they went into this secret room. And he noticed a number of file cabinets and a small antique desk. but what really caught his attention was the whole wall in the back was an enormous door to a vault.
Speaker: It looked like one of those vaults that you see in a bank, you know, had a big wheel on it a handle. And what Ann had needed was somebody to move all those file cabinets and the desk from downstairs in the basement up to a study in the second story so that she could work there.
Speaker: She explained that her father, Arthur Hurley, used to work in this hidden office right up until the day he died, which was just about a month ago. And he taught Anna how to take care of the family books and the accounts, which were stored in these file cabinets.
Speaker: ah But she didn't want to work in the basement. And who could blame her? kind of creepy. And so she wanted everything moved upstairs, and there was no way that she could do it. She was in a little out of shape, and she wasn't used to manual labor.
Speaker: Now, her father, Arthur Hurley, he had made millions in the copper smelting business, mining and smelting copper from South America.
Speaker: But actually, that was the second fortune he made. The first came from involving a quarry and delivering limestone all over Chicago. It was a good business.
Speaker: And since Arthur was a kind of frugal sort of man, had a pretty good-sized nest egg of stocks and plenty of cash in a bank saved up.
Speaker: But then came the bank crash and the stock market crash and the Depression.
Speaker: found himself penniless And he lived those hard days of doing without. And during those tough times, he made himself a promise. He said, I'm going to be rich again, but there is no way anybody is ever going to take it away from me again.
Speaker: and so after the war, he started this copper business and it quickly became very successful And he hid his money in iron boxes in the ground until he bought this property on Bonny Bray Avenue in River Forest.
Speaker: And he built ah huge wall around the place. And on top of that wall, he put black metal spikes all around the top of it. And he put up an iron fence inside that wall.
Speaker: And he put up a fortress inside that iron fence and he built this enormous vault in the basement with a big door. And he said, no bank is ever going to get my money again.
Speaker: I will guard what I have worked for. will guard it to protect my wife and my child and her children, maybe her children.
Speaker: And after... You know, Arthur Hurley. he taught us He taught this lesson to Anna. Well, ah he he taught her everything there was to know. He taught her about the security system.
Speaker: He told her, make sure you always keep your mouth shut. No one is to know anything about this. Don't trust anyone with anything ever.
Speaker: Guard what's yours and guard it carefully.
Speaker: And so John Gunderson spent the day moving all the records upstairs in the file cabinets in the little desk. And then he went back to the dorm. And John would continue continually, you know, on on occasion, you know, every once in a while, he he would get calls out to to go so back to Bonnie Bray and visit with Anna and and do whatever little jobs that she needed to get done.
Speaker: you know, he was now kind of like a trusted part of the family. He was allowed to go to different places throughout the house and make small repairs and paint, you know, places where no one had ever been gone before.
Speaker: and And he was there for Anna. but They kind of became friends, and he was there for Anna when her mother Irene passed away in January.
Speaker: And then one bright fall day, he went to the estate, and when the door opened, Anna, she came bounding out of the porch. She was different today.
Speaker: Her hair was all fixed up. She had makeup on. ah She had this new designer style dress. Her voice was different. She had a big smile on her face. And John said, Anna, boy, you, you, you look different today. And she replied, I feel different.
Speaker: Since the last time you were here, i met a man, ah wonderful man, a charming man. His name is Donald Rosello. And i I think he's the one.
Speaker: I think I'm in love. And John was happy for her. And she said, in a few hours, Donnie is it coming over and I can't wait for you to meet him. but And sure enough, around noon, Donald Rosello pulled right on up. Gates opened up right up for him. And he drove this sweet looking Camaro. And he was handsome. He was friendly, you know.
Speaker: Maybe a little too friendly, John thought. But Anna was in love. And the next time Gundy went out, she gave him a very large bonus, and she said, John, I've appreciated knowing you.
Speaker: You've been a good friend. You're a wonderful young man, um but we won't need you here anymore. Donnie feels that he can do these sorts of things now, and and it's it's better not to have too many people around.
Speaker: And that was the end of the Anna Hurley story. until the fall of 1987.
Speaker: John got another call. Anna had asked him to bring some of the other students with him to help her move. He thought that she must have gotten married.
Speaker: So a group of guys from the floor went out with him, and the great iron gate was already opened. And John went up to the door, and he knocked,
Speaker: But when it opened, John was taken aback because Anna was completely disheveled. Her hair was all messed up.
Speaker: She wore a ratty bathrobe, sweatshirt, pajama pants, and she looked very, very tired. And John said, so you're moving.
Speaker: And she said, yes, I'm moving. And John got the guys started and then found Anna and they went to the kitchen and she sat down at the table and she began to cry.
Speaker: She said, I don't know where I'm going to go. Donald, Donnie, he talked about marriage. He talked about the stock market and having a legacy fortune for our children one day and our grandchildren and And my father had been so against any type of investment.
Speaker: But Donnie was so persuasive. He said it was for our future and our family and we would be set generations from life.
Speaker: And so he proposed marriage and I readily accepted. The clock was ticking, you know. ah We didn't have a date set, and he kind of kept putting it off, and I didn't want to nag him about it.
Speaker: Well, to make a complicated story short, what he did was he convinced Anna that she should allow him to invest the money, but she wouldn't have to worry about it anymore. She could relax, and that he was going to take care of everything.
Speaker: Well, this went on for about a year and a half. And the gist of it while Donnie Rosello was away on one of his business trips, he had been gone for well over a month, and had received a certified letter from an attorney.
Speaker: it was a corporate attorney. And the letter explained that the house now belonged to a corporation for which he worked, and She had 60 days to move out of their property.
Speaker: And she read the letter again and again and again. This couldn't be. How could this happen? There must be some kind of a mistake.
Speaker: And this is before cell phones, yeah. and she But she tried calling Donnie, and she couldn't find him. Anna hired lawyers, and and they did some check-ins.
Speaker: And they discovered that during the whole time, Rosello had been laundering the money. And he had it covered up in such a way that it was impossible to get it back.
Speaker: And they tried. The whole law firm tried. But in the end, John moved Anna Hurley out of the home on Bonnie Bray Avenue.
Speaker: ah He heard from her maybe a few more times. That's the end of the story.
Speaker: He never knew what happened to Anna until it was time for John to graduate. The Tribune ran a small article about her.
Speaker: Anna Marie Hurley, the daughter and only heir of the late Arthur S. Hurley estate, was found dead in the 1700 block of Archer Avenue in Bell Rose Park.
Speaker: She was described as homeless living out of her car.
Speaker: The end.
Speaker: Sad story.
Speaker: My wife doesn't like sad stories. And this one definitely is that. But here's here's the thing. If Anna Hurley had known but I'm about to tell you, she wouldn't have lost her fortune.
Speaker: She wouldn't have lost her inheritance. She wouldn't have lost her dignity. She wouldn't have lost everything her father had left her and taught her carefully guard.
Speaker: She wouldn't have lost any of that.
Speaker: Because the words that I'm about to tell you are not my words, they're words from God. They're simple words. ah Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.
Speaker: Proverbs 4, 23. Above all else, guard your heart,
Speaker: Don't let this one go in one ear and out the other. should memorize it. ah You should have your children memorize it. You should teach them what it means.
Speaker: but Remind them often to guard their hearts.
Speaker: You see, what no thief had been able to do by force, Donnie Rosello was able to do. He found the weak point. It wasn't the big concrete wall or the iron gate or the security system or the hidden room in the basement. it wasn't the vault.
Speaker: No, those were not weak links.
Speaker: For all of the educating, all of the preparing of life that Arthur and Irene Hurley had so carefully prepared for their daughter, Anna,
Speaker: had failed to tell her to guard your heart.
Speaker: Yes, guard your money. Yes, guard your intellect, guard your body. But above all else, they should have instructed her guard your heart.
Speaker: Well, the story I have told you is true. just as a parable is true. So Arthur and Anna, John Gunderson, Donnie Rosello, they don't really exist.
Speaker: I made those names up. They're actually former students of mine. And Donnie Rosello played infield for the Chicago Cubs.
Speaker: I kind of took a story, I modified it one from when I heard from a at Colorado Christian University. So no, the Hurleys don't really exist, except they do.
Speaker: They are Israel and they are Judah and they exist as much as anyone who ignores God's word of warning and are so secure with everything else in life but who have failed to guard their hearts.
Speaker: And so yeah, it's a BC thing, but it's also a 2025 AD It's not just about a bunch of Old Testament folks.
Speaker: It's about you. It's about me. Your money, your kids' education, your health, these are all important matters.
Speaker: But it don't matter at all if God is not first importance to you. Because you're building on sand and the other stuff won't last.
Speaker: Only what's in the heart. So guard it.
Speaker: The Bible tells us that we are God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved. So spiritually speaking now, through baptism in Christ, you and I have been born into quite a family.
Speaker: God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil, or fade, which is kept in heaven just for you.
Speaker: So guard it.
Speaker: That's all.
Speaker: That's the message. I'm telling you, because God loves you and he wants relationship with you now and into eternity.
Speaker: Faith in Jesus Christ is your most valuable treasure. It is priceless. It is irreplaceable.
Speaker: It is worth more than a whole row of houses on Bonny Bray Avenue. You have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ. You are all set up.
Speaker: If you'd like to dig a little bit deeper, we encourage you to head to normalgoesalongway.com. We have some discussion questions that will help you do so. And come back on Thursday.
Speaker: Ms. Hannah and Ms. April will present to you Chapter 17, The Kingdom's Fall for the kiddos with Normal Goes a Long Way for Kids.
