God Will Take Care of You: The Salvation of J. C. Penney

Hi, I thought it was time for some good news, so I'm going to be talking about the good stuff today. My name is Rick Bloodworth. This is the Common Sense Christian channel, and recently we've been talking about a number of things from current events to the current conditions of our economic outlook in America and the world to the point where While I believe we need to be looking at these things realistically, I think we can get a little bit depressed and maybe get a little bit worried about our situation, and that is not the purpose of this channel. The purpose that I had in mind when I started this channel was to, in fact, discuss some of the things that are going on right now, because I think we're going through some very serious times right now, and they're just going to get more and more serious. But at the same time, I think we need to be looking at them from a Christian perspective, from an eternal perspective, and not getting too caught up with the day to day. And by that, I mean, we don't need to lay awake at night worrying about what might happen to us. We need, I believe, to be aware of what's going on, but I also need, I believe we need to do that from a perspective of preparation and, and proper concern instead of that hand wringing worry that, that keeps you awake at night. And there's a very big difference between worry and concern. And I believe we need to be concerned and take proactive measures, but, but And this lesson is actually on worry. And it comes from a gentleman that some of y'all will be familiar with. Everybody probably will be familiar with his stories. It's J. C. Penney. J. C. Penney was born About 1875, his, his parents were, were, were good God fearing people. His, his father was a Baptist pastor, as a matter of fact. They, and his parents had 12 kids, but only six of them survived into adulthood. It was a much more difficult time back then when, when J. C. Penney was born. When he was eight years old, his father called him in and said, you really need to start earning something. If you want to wear clothing, if you want to wear new clothing and so Jim, as he was called, he was, he was James Cash Penny Jr. and he was called Jim. So, so Jim started raising hogs and, and through that he was able to make a little bit of extra money and he was able to put a little bit of money into the family budget in that way and purchase his own clothes in that way. So he was taught. responsibility at a very young age. We might look at that now with, with a little bit of disapproval. But back then that was pretty common. It was needed. Everybody had to have some sort of a contribution in a family and especially in rural America. Well Jim's father passed away from tuberculosis when he was very young and, and, and so, so Jim, J. C., Got a job. I had already had several different jobs, but when he was about 19 years old He got a job with a gentleman that owned a dry goods store and and he made two dollars and 27 cents Now I looked at that and I thought well, that's pretty good money when I started out I think I made 95 cents an hour plus 10 percent of the waitress's tips because I started a job when I was 15 years old as a busboy. And then when I was 16, I was able to get a real job that paid minimum wage. I think, if I'm not mistaken, I started out at about 2. 35 an hour for minimum wage. And so when I heard he made 2. 27 back in, oh, the late 1800s, I thought that was pretty good until I found out that was per month. that he was making that. But he did get his experience. He did, he did learn the trade. And by about 1902, he had come into contact with, with a couple of businessmen and their wives who owned some stores. They were called the Golden Rule stores. And, and so they had J. C. Penny. opened up a store for them in Kimmerer, Wyoming, and made him one third partner in that store. Well, J. C. Penney was married by that time to a man, to a woman named Marta. And, and, and he and Marta ran that store. They had their, their residential quarters above the store. And, and their furniture was, I think their table was a big packing crate that had come in and, and their chairs were smaller, but boxes that some of the dry goods had come in, and during the day, they would work side by side in that dry goods store, that Golden Rule store, and they'd, they'd keep their, their first son under the counter where Marta stood, and she'd take care of him when he woke up and was hungry, of course but that's how they got their start. And as the next few years progressed, so did their business, and they eventually went partners into three different stores for the Golden Rule company. And then the partners of the Golden Rule decided it was time for them to retire, and they sold out to J. C. Penney. And so he eventually called the stores J. C. Penney Under the Golden Rule, and finally dropped the Under the Golden Rule, and just called it J. C. Penney. By the time The Great Depression hit, I believe he had something along the lines of 1, 600 stores that were in every state in America. And, and so he was very successful, but of course the Great Depression with the stock market beginning with the stock market crash in 1929 really set the company back. And J. C. Penney said that though he had been very prudent in his business. He hadn't taken out a lot of loans. It was still a very difficult time, and, and so he started having some financial difficulty, especially with all of his different partners. And, and, as so many men that were prominent at that time did, he received a lot of the blame. For the Great Depression, even though, as he said, he had nothing to do with it. He was just a big businessman, caught up with everybody else. Well, by that time, his first two wives had died. Marta had died of pneumonia a number of years earlier, and he'd grown up. a woman named Mary and, and she passed away of an illness just shortly after that. And so now he's on his third marriage and, and his third wife was injured in a horse accident the year before the stock market crash. And by, by the time all the problems really got going, they were, He was estranged from his wife and, and from the child that they had had together, or the two daughters that they had had together. And so, as things got harder and harder, J. C. Penney just really kind of descended into a great depression of his own. He, it became physical. He broke out in shingles, just huge red patches. on his skin with painful sores. And so he consulted a doctor who, who recommended that he check himself into a sanitarium hospital so that he could try and get well. And so he went to battle Creek, Michigan, and was at a, at a hospital sanitarium trying, trying to recover from, from both his, his mental and his physical He said finally there was, there was one night he had been given a heavy sedative and, and, and he went to sleep sure enough, but he woke up from that sedative and, and he was just overwhelmed with the understanding or realization in his mind that he was going to die. And so he wrote to his wife and he wrote to his to one of his sons and, and told them that he didn't believe he was going to live through the night and gave them apparently the final instructions that he wanted them to have. Well, the next morning he was surprised when he woke up and, and, and so he got up and he started going through the sanitarium hospital. And there was, there's a little chapel down there. Each morning, the doctors and the nurses started off with a devotional time. And, and so, he came in just as they were singing a hymn. God will take care of you. And he said there, there was just a transition that started to come over him. Again, he had been raised in a Christian home. His, his father was, was a Baptist minister, but, and, and his first store was named the Golden Rule. He tried to go by Christian principles, but he really never embraced Christianity prior to this. And then after they, they finished the song in that little chapel, God will take care of you. They started with a message from Matthew chapter 11. And this, this was the message. Jesus in Matthew chapter 11, starting in verse 27. All things have been committed to me by my father. No one knows the son except the father, and no one knows the father except the son, and those to whom the son cho chooses to reveal to him. And then this was the part. Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I am gentle and humble in heart, and you'll find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light. Well, as, as J. C. Penney listened to this message of incredible hope, this, this, this beautiful invitation by Christ to, to come unto him, those who are weary and heavy laden. And if there was ever a description of any man, that was a description of J. C. Penney. And so he determined at that point that he was going to get baptized, that he was going to start worshiping faithfully. And he said, he was, he was a number of years later being interviewed and, and he said in his 71 years of life, that was how old he was at the time of the interview. He had never had a more, beautiful or meaningful 20 minutes. Because he felt like that 20 minutes in that little chapel with the singing and the message that was brought that day absolutely turned his life around. And he said it was at that moment that he realized that all the problems he had were nobody's fault. But his own being estranged from his wife and his children the, the difficulties that he had compounded in his mind to the point where it actually became a physical condition on his body that he thought was going to kill him all his own, all his own fault, because he had not learned to come to Christ. and to place his burdens upon Christ and exchange them for a burden that could be carried by a man. And he really did change his life. He, he he was able to, to get out of the hospital and, and get back to, to business, so to speak. But it was with a different mindset. at this point. He had always tried to treat people well, including his partners in business, because each store he tried to open with a one third partner or, or somebody who had come in and get one third interest in, in that business, in, in that particular J. C. Penney store. And so he was very, he had always been very concerned about, about treating people well. But, but again, now, now it's different. He formed an alliance with a group of, of businessmen and, and even radio personality and a preacher. One of the businessmen was, was that, the founder of IBM. The radio personality, television personality was Arthur Godfrey, and, and the minister was Norman Vincent Peale, and, and they formed an alliance that would help executives that were going through difficult times. It was called Forty and Over Club or something like that, he started getting involved with Christian publications. He continued in his business, but now his focus was different. He said he never worried from that point on, from that moment in the chapel, or at least he never let worry control his life after that. Because, let's face it, we all succumb to the temptations of worry from time to time. But again, it just simply turned his life around, changed his life significantly. I think he lived until he was about 94, 95 years old. He died in, in 1971. So I guess he was at least 95 since he was born in 1875. But, but what an incredible life that he had. His stores were interesting because he resisted for the longest time ever allowing people to buy with a credit card or, or he wouldn't allow the stores to have a JCPenney credit card. credit card because he knew it would get people into debt. They would end up buying things that were more than they could afford. And so finally, when the corporation voted to go to, to, to issuing credit cards, it was against his will, but he supported them. He was always very loyal to his corporation and to his, to his people. He had a lot of influence on a lot of different people. In 1940, he had a young man at a store that he visited that he taught to wrap packages with a minimum amount of paper and ribbon. That young man's name was Sam Walton. He just, he had an incredible influence and a godly influence at that. He wrote three different books and each one has a has, has a focus on, on what we're really here for. And while he was a tremendous businessman and made pretty good money, his focal point from that moment of the chapel on was, was God and, and trying to live for God. Well, this would help you and I, wouldn't it? He went through the Great Depression, World War II years, and, and that was a very difficult time in America, but he was able to conquer his worry, or maybe more accurately, he was able to allow God to take his worry away. When he accepted Christ's invitation to come unto him for it, those who are weary and heavy laden, you might feel weary and heavy laden. You might look at some of the events that, that we have going on today. And, and, and like me, you're, you're confused as to why people would act that way. Why do people treat each other in such harsh ways? And why do, why do people who want to be involved in wickedness want to force that wickedness on, on people who don't want to take part in it? It can, it can be beyond concerning at times for us. It can go into worry. It can go into anger and other unhealthy emotions. I want to say again, the, the times we live in are unsettling. And they require our attention, they require some preparation, they require a proper amount of concern on our part. But we don't have to worry. We don't have to let it destroy our health like J. C. Penney did, and we don't have to let it take our life like J. C. Penney nearly allowed it to do. We can, we can be weary and heavy laden and then we can turn that burden over to Christ. And we can change, we can trade our crushing burden that we've been trying to carry by ourself for, for his gentle burden. One, one that's fully manageable with his help. One that comes replete with responsibilities to our fellow men to try and help them to where they can come to Christ weary and heavy laden and trade their crushing burden for one that's manageable. There is a life in Christ that is satisfying. It's, it's beautiful. It is peaceful. There's contentment contained in this life, if we'll just accept it. And it begins with this same secret that J. C. Penney learned almost too late. We can, we who are weary and heavy laden, we can come to Christ, and we can trade him our heavy load for his light load. his pleasant load, and then we can get about the business of serving Christ. We can still take care of our physical things, and we still must take care of our physical things. But now we've got a spiritual perspective. We're planning on going to heaven by the grace of God and by the sacrifice of Christ. And we understand we have our part to do, but our part's just minuscule compared to what they have already done and what they'll continue to do for us if we'll just let them. Are you tired? Are you weary? Are you heavy laden? Is it affecting your sleep? Is it affecting your health? Is it affecting your relationships? Why not exchange your crushing load for Christ's gentle It's a great offer for those who have taken it up. They've found that it's the only way to live. You very likely have already found that out in your life, but if you haven't, why not try it again? The passage is found in Matthew chapter 11. If you'll read it, if you'll think about what it means, and if you really employ it into your life, it will change your life if you'll let it. And then you can turn your back on worry. and you can start to live for God and for Christ. And someday you'll get to live with them forever. That's the lesson for today. I hope it's something that, that encourages you. I hope it's something that uplifts you and gives you hope for the future. But until next time, I pray that God will richly bless you as you seek to serve him to the very best of your ability.