He Intervenes
Have you adopted as your own personal point of view the belief that God answers prayer and that He still does miracles?
Transcript
Alright, thank you very much, and hello again radio friends. How in the world are you? Doing okay? Oh, it’s a joy to be back with you and I want to continue talking with you for a day or so about this matter of meaning in your life. It starts, as I said, with deliverance. The Lord brought us out of Egypt. We were Pharaoh’s bondmen, that means slaves. We were slaves and the Lord brought us out. The idea of deliverance. Can you say, my precious friend that you’ve been delivered from the thing that has plagued you, your fear or your doubt or your uncertainty or your hurt or whatever it may be?
We need deliverance, yes we do. It’s not just the bank robber and the murderer who need to be delivered from their sinful ways. But you and I, following our own human desires, land up in bondage to them, don’t we? As Isaiah says, “We have turned everyone to his own way, all we like sheep have gone astray.” And we end up straying from God when we follow our own ways and we end up in bondage. So let Jesus deliver you. The last time we got together, I was saying that the way to deliverance is simply to ask God for it.
“Call unto me and I will answer thee,” God says, “and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not.” “Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Walter Kallenbach was a jazz trumpeter with a famous nationally known jazz orchestra a good many years ago, highly talented and highly skilled and completely unbelieving and without any consciousness of his need of God. A faithful old minister of the gospel befriended Walter Kallenbach and from time to time would speak to him about the things of eternity.
Dr. Kallenbach said he would scoff at the old man and say, “I don’t need your God and I don’t need this religion and I don’t need as you say to be saved.” And the dear old pastor would say to him again and again, “Walter, someday you’ll know that you need the Lord Jesus Christ and when you realize that, just look up wherever you are and say out loud, ‘Jesus, Jesus, save me’ and He will”. Dr. Kallenbach came to preach at my church. He was blind now and had artificial eyes in those eye sockets. Highly perceptive, able to get about without a great deal of help, entirely independent, and having since his conversion, memorized all of the New Testament and much of the Old Testament so that he would read his Scripture verbatim from memory. A remarkable man.
And I talked with him and got acquainted with him and then he told me how his conversion to Christ had come about. He said, on one of the occasions when there was a break in the schedule of this large orchestra with which he performed, he went back to the place where he’d established his home somewhere in the hills, I believe, of Pennsylvania. And hunting season was on and so he and some of his buddies climbed into the brand new car that Walter had just bought, an imported car with a strange gear shift which he alone knew how to operate. And so he drove the car to the end of a little mountain trail and then they hiked down up the mountain from there and positioned themselves so as to be able to hunt successfully, I don’t know what game they were hunting for but whatever it was, there they were. Now, the excitement began and when some game was sighted, one of the party swung his shotgun around not realizing that Walter Kallenbach was in the line of fire, discharged both barrels and many of those lead pellets found their way into his face and eyes.
The excruciating agony of it was too much, almost to bear. And he was blinded, of course. But there he was, desperately wounded. How are they going to get him down? Somebody else operated the steering wheel and the clutch and the break of this new fangled car and Walter, wounded as he was, operated the gear shift until they got down to where there was help and then he lost consciousness. He told me that when he regained consciousness, he smelled the astringent antiseptic smell of the hospital.
He felt that his face was swathed in bandages. He felt the stinging burning pain of all the wounds that he had suffered. And he knew that he was in desperate trouble. Not quite realizing the seriousness of his situation even yet but knowing that he was in trouble and knowing that he had need he remembered the old minster’s words, “Walter, someday, you’re going to know that you need Jesus. When you do, just say, ‘Jesus, Jesus, save me,’ and He will.” And so Walter Kallenbach, there in that hospital room said aloud, “Jesus, Jesus, save me.”
And he said there came such a peace to his heart even at that moment and he was started then on a life of trusting in the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. His wounds were healed, his eyes were gone, and those wounded eyes were replaced with artificial eyes in his eye sockets. He went on to seminary, finished seminary with honors, and embarked upon a career as an itinerant evangelist, and it was in that capacity then that he came to preach for me year ago as I pastored at a local church in Illinois.
Call. I told you this simply to illustrate the fact that all you need to do is to call on God and He’ll deliver you. Ask Him for it right now. I don’t know who I’m talking to. Somebody in the grip of alcohol or drugs or sex or sin of one sort or another or some deep hurt that you can’t handle or some sorrow that has threatened to devastate you or some disappointment that has turned life upside down or whatever it may be, you need deliverance and Jesus is able to deliver. He is able to deliver them that are in any testing, the Bible says, He’s abundantly able to deliver. Our God is able to deliver.
And Ephesians 3:20 says, “God is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.” Exceeding abundantly above everything you can ask Him and then go on everything you can imagine, He can go beyond that. What a wonderful, wonder working God we have. Call on Him, okay? Now, what else gives meaning to life? He says, “The Lord showed signs,” that’s out word “miracles,” “miracles and wonders, great and sore, upon Egypt, upon Pharaoh, and upon all his household, before our eyes.”
You remember what we called the story of the Plagues of Egypt? Do you remember that? They had all these different plagues in Egypt and if a Pharaoh at first would say, “All right, you can go,” and then he would harden his heart. “Thou shalt know that I am the Lord, I will smite the waters that are in the river and they shall be turned to blood and the fish that’s in the river shall die and the river shall stink and the Egyptians shall loath to drink of the water of the river.” And this happened. All the waters that were in the river were turned to blood, the fish that was in the river died, the river stank, the Egyptians could not drink, and the magicians tried their best as well.
Seven days were fulfilled. And the Lord said, “Go to Pharaoh and say, ‘Let my people go and if you refuse to let them go, I’ll smite all thy borders with frogs.’” Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt and the frogs came up and covered the land of Egypt. But when Pharaoh saw there was respite after he said, “Please ask God to take this away,’ he hardened his heart and didn’t let them go”. And so the Lord said to Moses, “Say to Aaron, stretch out thy rod and smite the dust of the land that it become lice throughout all the land of Egypt. They did so.
Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod and spoke to the dust of the earth to become lice in man and in beast. And Pharaoh said, “Please, let this be taken away.” And then there came the swarms of flies, a grievous swarm of flies into the house of Pharaoh. Swarms of flies but Pharaoh hardened his heart at this time also, neither would he let the people go. Then you have the grievous murrain – this was a disease upon all the cattle – that came, one of the plagues. And pestilence on the people – a plague came to the people, another plague.
And then the hail came down. There was hail and fire mingled with hail – very grievous. Oh, what a list of plagues. And then there was a plague of locusts in Exodus chapter 10. The locusts, “and they’ll fill every house and be all through the land. They covered the face of the whole earth and then there was a plague of thick darkness, a darkness that could be felt”, it said, over the land of Egypt for three days. Now you see there, then you had the final judgment, the judgment upon every first born in the land of Egypt.
Now, this is the miraculous intervention of God in human history. And the answer to the question, “what does it all mean,” is first, God is the God of deliverance. He delivered us from bondage. Second, God is in the God of the miraculous. He is the God who intervenes in human history miraculously. Now, I don’t believe that you can order God about. There are some people who teach that you can come casually and without any thought and just tell God what to do. I don’t believe that. I think God is almighty, He is holy, you have to approach Him with reverence and respect, and our prayer, as I said to you the other day, always needs to be “Nevertheless not as I will but as Thou wilt.”
But after all has been said and done, He is also the God who answers prayer and who deigns to intervene in the matters of everyday life. Have you adopted as your own personal point of view the belief that God answers prayer and that He still does miracles? Have you adapted as your own personal point of view that God can and does intervene? I’ll tell you it’ll make a difference. God expects you and me to do our best. “Seest thou a man diligent in his business? He shall stand before kings, he shall not stand before mean men,” the Bible says.
“Not slothful in business, reverent in spirit, serving the Lord,” says Paul in Romans. God expects you and me to do our best in the affairs of everyday life. Of course, He does. To be lazy and sit around singing hymns and expect God to take care of you in answer to prayer is a travesty on Christian beliefs. The Bible doesn’t teach this. The Bible teaches work and thrift and diligence and integrity and all of the things that you and I prize as being a way of success in our life. Beyond that, however, there are points in life – and you know this so well, many of you – where having done your best, you come to the end of your own resources and at that point, you look up and say, “Lord, it’s up to you.” And then you have a God who answers prayer and who deigns to intervene in your life in miracle power.
Dear Father, today, I pray that Thou will put meaning in our lives through miracle, in Jesus’ name, Amen.
Till I meet you once again by way of radio, walk with the King today and be a blessing!
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