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ABC Prayer Crusade

Glenn Coon

The Answer Was Created

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Let them, that sufferer according to will of God, commit the keeping of their souls to him in well-doing. As unto a faithful creator, you may want a place on your slip of paper. Why you think that the Holy Spirit inspired the apostle Peter to use the term faithful creator for our Lord Jesus Christ. Why didn't he use the term faithful redeemer? Why didn't he use the term faithful crucified savior? Why didn't he use the term faithful creator? Probably when the apostle Peter wrote this, this epistle maybe 30 minutes or maybe the same day before he wrote what we have just read together, he wrote something else and it's found in one Peter chapter one, verses 18 and 19. It says that we were redeemed not by silver and gold from our vain tradition, by from the tradition of our fathers, but by the precious blood of Jesus Christ as a lamb without blemish and without spot. Our redemption is through the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen. That's right. Now he builds on this redemption in Jesus Christ and said, now look, you can now completely relax. You can commit yourself in well-doing under the Lord as a faithful creator. You know, my friends, the blood of Jesus Christ on Calvary would've been absolutely meaningless. Were not the blood of Jesus Christ, our maker and our creator, right? Amen. There are thousands of people that were crucified. Billions of people have died, some in Iman and various kinds of suffering. The suffering of Jesus Christ on Calvary takes deep significance in the fact of who he was. He is the one who formed man out of the dust of the ground and then he came down past Stella Worlds and systems and planets to the sin cursed world and let this dust that he'd made in the hands of man, he permitted that dust, made in the hands of man, placed a cruel thorn, a crown on his brow. He permitted the mouth and lips and tongue that were made by his own hands from the dust to curse him, to revile him, To scandalize him. Who was it? It was our faithful creator who could have blotted the universe out. My friends with one thought, but no, he wouldn't do it. He came down and died on Cal's cross for you and me. And he wants us to know that he was no ordinary man who suffered and died for you and me. He said, you can commit your souls. You can commit yourselves in well-doing to him as your faithful creator. You know it would do you and me very well to spend more time studying the closing scenes of the life of Jesus Christ. I have never yet seen an individual, I've never met an individual yet who's had a nervous break, who has been Christ centered. Think of that. I've never seen a person who is complaining over the circumstances of life, who is Christ centered. I've never yet seen a backslider who is Christ centered. All we need to commit the keeping of our souls to Jesus Christ, our redeemer, our faithful creator. There's another reason why he said faithful creator. What could that be? And that brings us to a wonderful story of a precious Nazarene Christian. You know, we've ano, we've, we've announced the topic tonight, Nazarene's claim promises too. This Godly Nazarene Mother had lost her husband about three years before. Her little boy, Andy and his younger sister Ruth and is still younger. Sister Esther were just little folk. Andy was seven and he was the eldest and they were facing poverty. In fact, one morning as they sat around the table, there was absolutely no food, just salt shaker, the plates, the silverware, and there they were, no food. The children broke into tears. Mommy, no food. Not this morning children, but we'll be praying that Jesus will give us something today. She said, I think when we come back from church today, fort was on a Sunday. She said, I think when we come back from church about noon, I think that there'll be some food. They came back from church, sat around the table absolutely empty. She said, now you children go out and play. And she said, I don't want any of you to come back in the house till I come out. So she kind of guided them out because they were slow to move out. Their hearts breaking and their stomach's aching. She said, now Andy, you watch your little sisters and keep track of them. I'll be back in a few minutes. And with that she slipped back into the house to the bedroom, but little seven year old Andy as still as a mouth and as swift as lightning followed at a safe distance where his mother couldn't see And she was on her knees in the bedroom with the open Bible and she had her hand on the Bible and he heard his mother praying something like this, dear Lord, you know how hungry we are? We have nothing to eat. We haven't had anything to eat all day. But dear Lord, you've promised, you've promised. Andy didn't know for years exactly what that promise was. He heard the mother say this, you've promised if we bring to you our tithes and offerings that you'll open the windows of heaven and you'll pour us out a blessing. And Lord. And as she prayed, she wiped a tear from her cheeks. Dear Lord, I ask you to give us food. That's the A of prayer. Jesus said, ask. Right? And then she used the B of prayer. Jesus said, believe Lord, I believe you're giving us food today and the C of prayers to thank God that we are receiving the fulfillment of the promise. And she said, in Lord, thank you. We are receiving it. There will be food. Thank you, dear Lord. In Jesus' name. As she started to arise, Andy darted out ahead. So she never knew. They heard every word that she'd spoken. He saw her with her hand on the open Bible. He didn't know what the promise was. Later he learned, of course it was Malachi three, eight to 12. As he was outside, just a few seconds before his mother came, she came out the door, looked in the children's faces, they looked up in a mother's cabinets. And mother said, children, when we return from the meeting tonight, there will be food. They went to the meeting tonight with their empty stomachs. They returned home. As they're coming up to the side door, they found the screen door halfway open and between the screen door and and the door was a huge platter just packed of steaming hot summer supper. They took it in the table. You can imagine how they thank God that he'd answered their prayers, but that is no. Do you know what impression that prayer and that statement and that gesture of mother, can you imagine what effect that had on that little boy? He would never forget what kind of a God our God is. And Jesus said in John 17 verse three, this is life eternal, that they might know the the only true God and Jesus Christ, whom thou Andy was getting acquainted with a real God. It's real. It's real. I know it's real. Don't you? Can you say amen? It's real. God is real. His promises are true. Jesus never fails. We can commit ourselves under him as unto a faithful creator for he shed his blood that we might live. Andy had a picture of God, he was forming a relationship with God that would last for years and years. And I have found in my ministry, my friends, that the prime need of the human heart is acquaintance with our Lord and Savior. The prime need is not where the dead. It's good to know, but that's not the prime need. Do you agree? The prime need is not even to know which day is the Sabbath. That's not the prime need. The prime need is to know our Lord and to know and experience a personal relationship and know that when he said, I'll forgive your sins, if you confess to know their forgiven, to know when he says, I'll cleanse you to know that God is true, that he has cleansed up from all the guilt of sin. This is a personal relationship with God. And that was what Andy was experience experiencing at the age of seven and eight and nine and 10 and 11. Now having this beautiful childlike relationship with God. You know what happened? That relationship, that answer to prayer was based on the Bible and the Bible is God's love letter to us. So as soon as Andy could read, he began to just pour over this book. He loved the message of God to him. Why shouldn't he? How can he help but equate it with that steaming heart supper. When Andy was about 11 or 12 years of age in the Sunday school, they, they taught the children to memorize the 10 Commandments. And when Andy came down to the fourth commandment, the seventh days of Sabbath, he was amazed. He was memorizing it with the other commandments. He went to the pastor, the pastor's name was wise, pastor wise. He went to the pastor and he said, pastor, how come when the fourth commander says the seventh days of Sabbath of the Lord, how come that we're keeping the first day? And the pastor who was a godly man, he patted little Andy on the shoulder and he said, Andy, you just follow the teachings of the church and everything will be all right. And then he had a far off look for about for a long minute. And then he turned to Andy and he said, Andy has some seventh day Adventist been talking to you? And he said, no, pastor, who are they? But somebody had been talking to him. It is the Lord who answers prayer when a little boy and his younger sisters and his dear mother need something to eat and he impresses someone to bring to them a steaming hot supper, my friend, such a God I'll, I'll not soon forget. And in this childlike simplicity, he said, but that's what it says. And that brings us to another great lesson. Do you know it is a lot easier to learn than it is to unlearned and especially friends when we, a person spends years and years going through Christian schools and is told this to be a fact and that to be biblical and this to be scriptural. And the thing is part of his very being. And then all at once, he is told that this is not true at all. Something else is biblical. It's very difficult to unlearn. But poor little Andy didn't have much unlearning to do. All he had to do was learn. And his simple childlike trust in Jesus Christ who came to him at his conscious point of need led him to say, pastor, but this is what the Bible says. This is what the Bible says. You know, it's amazing what God can reveal to us if we'll just relax later on. Andy was reading in the New Testament about, about the final judgment, about the second coming of Christ, About where the dead are. See, he had already drunk in of the love of God. He'd already given his li life to Jesus Christ. His sins were forgiven and cleansed. He was God's child. Now he can branch out and learn other things, but never forget the prime need is to have that personal relationship with Jesus Christ. From there we can go on and on to the great truths of the Bible, but never let any truth of the Bible ever eclipse the person and the relationship with Jesus Christ. Amen. And you know, then he came across some amazing things. He learned that the Bible says, the Bible says that the judgment is at the last day, the Bible says God is reserved the wicked to the day of judgment. So the judgment is not. Now, Paul said he reasoned of judgment to come. And Jesus said in Matthew the 16th chapter, when I come again, then I will reward. Andy went to the pastor. He said, pastor, there's something that's puzzling me. Now, remember Andy was a boy, a teenager, pastor, there's something puzzling me very much. He said, you know, we are believing that when men die, they go to heaven Or they go to their punishment immediately. That's what we have been taught, right? Pastor, yes, Andy. He said, but Pastor, he said, let me give you an example as to what's puzzling me. He said, if a man goes to hellfire when he dies, he said, let's take a man who lived 200 years before Hitler. We'll say that he was a moral man. He didn't steal from anybody, didn't kill anybody, but he never accepted Jesus as his savior. Now if when that man died, if he went to hell fire, He would be burning 200 years longer than Hitler, that monster who's responsible for the death of millions of people. And he said, pastor, that couldn't be God. Why did Andy get his picture of God before that steaming hot supper? Jesus Christ was a loving God. He was a faithful God. He was a loving creator. And he had such a picture of the love of God that he couldn't not, he could not possibly conceive of God as being so unjust as to burn a comparatively innocent man, hundreds of years longer than Hitler, the monster, you know who is talking to Andy, the Holy Spirit. Jesus said, thank you Father Lord of heaven, earth. You've hidden these things from the wise and prudent. You've revealed them unto Dames. Again, Andy said, pastor, here's another thing that we've been learning in, in, in church John 14, one to three, Jesus said, let not your heart beat troubled. Do you believe in God, believe also in me, in my father's house or many mansions? If it were not so, I'd have told you, I go to prepare a place for you. If I go and prepare a place for you, I'll come again and receive you under myself that where I am there you may be also. And he said, pastor, what honor would be, would there be any sense to Christ coming in for his children to take us to heaven if we'd already gone to heaven at death, pastor, surely that would make sense. And he said, what would be the use or the need of a final judgment if wicked men went to hell at death and righteous men went to heaven at death. There they were in heaven or hell for thousands of years. And then the judgment sets pastor to decide whether they've gone to the right place or not. He said, pastor, that can't be God. And the who was teaching a Sunday school class and a youth group, Sunday school class, Sunday morning and youth group at night, and every time he taught them, you know who he's talking about, the Lord my friends. When you and I get steaming hot answers to prayer, you know who we ought to talk about the Lord? What are you talking about? What are you discussing in your home? Friends? Let's determine as never before. We'll talk about the matchless love of Jesus Christ. What do you say? So in his class in the Sunday school class, he went above mere things to talk about the Lord, the Lord's love, the Lord's justice. He talked about the Sabbath and what Jesus has said is his holy day, he talked about God's justice, that he wouldn't punish one man hundreds of years longer than another man. And the first man is so innocent in comparison, he talked about his coming and how ridiculous it would be for him to even need to come or for there to be a resurrection or a final judgment if men went to heaven or hell at death. He was innocent. He wasn't cantankerous, He wasn't arrogant. He was just sharing the love of God. One Sunday morning as he got up to stand before his class, a couple young men walked in and Andy greeted them with a hand of fellowship and they said, Andy, we've been asked by the church to take your place. We'll now teach the class. That night, as he stood before the youth, another couple young men walked in and Andy shook their hand and they said, we have been asked by the church to take your place. Years now passed. Andy was married. He would go to church occasionally, but he was greatly, greatly worried. He went to the pastor and he said, pastor, I just can't understand this. The Bible says one thing and my pastors are saying something else. The pastor loved Andy. He loved him so much. He believed in him so much that he told his mother. He said, you know that boy is called of God to be a minister and I'll never rest satisfied until I see him preaching the word of God, my friends. What is the basis of the Bible? What are all Bible doctrines about? They're about the character and the plan of our Lord Jesus Christ. Paul said, I speak the truth in Christ. Oh, I want to beg you, my dear friends, to do what I decided many years ago to do, never to study a Sabbath school lesson, never to conclude it without finding the very place that Jesus has in that lesson. He's all together lovely. He's the fairest of 10,000. He's the lily of the valley. He's the bright in the morning star. He is our wonderful redeemer. He's our faithful creator, and he wants us above everything else to have a fellowship, a fellowship with him, so we can say to men and women, this is my Lord. This is my God. This media was brought to you by audio verse, a website dedicated to spreading God's word through free sermon, audio, and much more. If you would like to know more about audio verse or if you would like to listen to more sermons, please visit www.audio verse.org.

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