Coming to you from the Morning Star Mission sponsored studio. This is Carl and crew on Moody Radio.
Anyone that's been born of God is now a child of God. By the way, did we remember this little something for free here? Not everyone is a child of God. In fact, we're born with our backs to God and as enemies of the cross. So children of God are those that have come to faith to believe that Jesus Christ died for their sins, rose again, and gives us victory by relationship through Jesus Christ, filled with the Holy
Spirit sealed in the Holy Spirit. Ephesians one. And that we will be gathered up together one day with God in this new Jerusalem. And that's going to be an incredible ride, man. Not cherubs and little clouds, no entrepreneurism, adventure. Um, all that was going on in the garden less sin is going to be there and more. And I think sometimes we'll look at the garden and we think, oh boy. Some of you, you know, think about a garden and you're like, I don't know if I want to hang
out in a garden my whole life. Well, that's not the New Jerusalem, but the presence of God and the absence of sin is going to be an incredible ride. Now, you are children of God, but as children of God, we want to live in victory. We want to take hold of the abundant life that Jesus promises. And we want to have 30, 60, 100 fold. We want to produce fruit. We don't want to be holding on to talents that God gave us. We want to be investing
those in a way. Right? So that when the metaphor is when we go to be with the Lord, he says, way to go. Well done, good and faithful servant. We all want to hear that. So the question is, how do we do that? And if we look at the Word of God, we find in Second Timothy that we're called to look at the totality of God's Word and to glean from those stories all kinds of lessons that we can take and apply to our life. We're going to talk about the need to emulate people from Scripture.
Not all aspects of their life, but certain aspects of their life. So when you look at the life of Abraham, you find a man who is, wow. He's the father of all who believe. We find this in Romans. We find the apostle Paul hearkening back to Abraham over and over again. We have so much to owe to Abraham. He is the template for authentic faith. He believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness. And you got to ask the question, well, what in the world
did Abraham believe God for? Well, remember this when he pulled him out of a tent, he said, hey there, look at these stars. And oh boy, I got to do a quick bunny trail here. There is more being discovered. They are now concluding that the density of some stars. You ready for this? They've underestimated the density. And they're estimating that some stars density creates such weightiness that a sugar cube. Of a certain mass of a star could be millions of tons. Wow. Millions of tons.
That's hard to even get your mind around.
You can't. You can't get your mind around that. I've been doing a deep dive. Just kind of hobbying around while I'm on my phone. Just checking out the wonders of creation. I mean, it's just mind boggling, so I digress. He shows Abraham all these stars. He says, count them if you can and you can't. And he said, so shall your offspring be. Now, could Abraham do that? Could he? Could he pull that off?
Not in his own strength.
No way could he even get his mind around it.
No.
No. No possible way. So he couldn't do it, and he couldn't get his mind around it. And he's the father of all who believe. So I want to give you a word of encouragement this morning. You might have gotten up this morning feeling like Carl Ali young thunder super day. It's the name of our team in here. Man, I'm against the wall. I'm really up against something. I can't do it. Great. You've never been more positioned for
God to take over your life and transform you. Bottom line, till we come to the end of ourselves, we're not ready to have faith like Abraham. I can't even get my mind around what a new life would be. Carl. Good. Now you're positioned for something great. Because the life that God offers us through His son, Jesus Christ, is beyond imagination. You can't even get your mind around it. Reaffirmed, by the way, in Ephesians 320 and 21. And we certainly can't take hold of it ourselves. It's a gift from
God so that no one can boast. In fact, I'm going to throw a net out here right now. Ali. Someone got up this morning feeling like you are so far from God. I'm telling you, you are not far from God. You just have your back to God. And you were born that way. And God wants to reach into your heart. Today I'll get back to another application from Abraham here in a moment, but we've got to do this for someone this morning. You need to know that God loves you. You need to know that he
cares and that he can transform your life. And I want you to know that much like Abraham, I know you feel this morning like, all right, all the promises of God. I can't even get my mind around them. I've heard that Jesus saves, and Jesus can transform and Jesus can set captives free. And, Carl, I've got chains around me. God can do what you can't. God can do in the 11th hour more than you can do in the prior ten. God can deliver you when you
feel like you're absolutely beyond hope. That's the great news of the gospel. And so I'm just asking you, as Jesus told his disciples in John 14. Believe in God. Believe also in me. So let me tell you, the faith of Abraham is our model. Today is the day for you to believe that God can do what you cannot do in your life. And that it's beyond even getting your mind around how in the world could God do this? Your act of faith is to say, I give my life to God totally and completely. You might
have believed in God. But you've never believed God to really change your life. It's the full surrender of everything that you are. Everything that you hope. Everything that you dream to God. And saying, God, you take my life, you take over. I'm done. And it's admission, isn't it, Ali? That I'm a sinner. I can't do this because I'm in the way of this thing.
Yeah. I mean, it's getting to that place where you realize I have I. There's nothing good in me. I bring nothing to the table.
Nothing to the table. And that Jesus came as the perfect sacrifice for our sin. And he died for us. Died for you. And it's believing that you're a problem. Jesus is the answer and that you're willing to turn around from this direction you've been walking and follow Jesus now the rest of your life. Leaving behind all that was. And taking hold of all that can be. That's what God wants for you today. And if that's your heart, I'm going to pray with you right now. And then
we're going to give you a link. I want you to get a phone nearby right now. Get get it in your hand, because we're going to send you something that's going to help you. But today is your day of salvation. So I just got three questions for you. Number one, are you willing to admit today, for the first time in your life, at the end of the day, I'm the problem. I'm a sinner and I agree with God.
That's true. Okay. That's awesome. That's a breakthrough and a half because you're done blaming everyone else or everything else. And now you're saying it's me. Great. Jesus is the answer. Do you believe that he died for your sins, truly, and that his sacrifice is the only thing that could pay the price to give you this free gift of salvation.
Is that true of you? Good. And are you today turning around and following Jesus, saying all that I dreamed, all that I imagined, all that I was working on. I'm leaving that all behind to follow Jesus Christ. Today I'm giving my whole life to him for the first time in my life today. Is that you? Good. You see, this prayer of salvation is really a cry of the soul. It's a cry of faith that says I'm done. Jesus is my answer. Today I follow him. And get your
phone ready. I'm going to pray for you right now while you're getting your phone ready. And if you're driving, get to the side of the road right now. Jesus. Thank you that you took this moment here today to prompt us to invite our friends to follow Jesus for the first time ever. God, just like Abraham, they can't imagine how this is all going to work out. But by faith, they're believing that you can do what they can't do. And I give you thanks today, in Jesus name, Amen.
If that's you, we want to send you something that's going to give you some encouragement, some next steps. Just text the word new to 800 555 7898. Text new E to 800 555 7898. You're going to get an auto reply that has some hyperlinks. Click on each one of them. How to what to look for in a church. How do I buy and read the Bible? Text new to 800 555 7898. Welcome to the family.
Yeah, welcome to the family. Okay. What a great person to emulate. You're emulating Abraham, who by faith believed God for something that he could not do, and that faith was counted to him as righteousness. Way to go.
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What attribute of a person in Scripture would you most want to emulate? Got a couple text messages. This one says Elihu from job.
Yeah. Yeah.
Huh? Is that his boldness to deliver the heart on popular truth to job and his friends? He was considerably younger. Uh, very young in comparison. But he knew and admitted he was not on their level, but in their culture. He was risking his very life to do what he did. But he boldly gave them the truth anyway.
He gave it to him straight up. He cuts to the chase and all the bravado of job's friends and all the junk that was going on. He was a voice of reason.
I love that.
That's a It's a great character.
You know, for me, I think the faith of Peter is what I want to emulate. I the the first set of verses that came to my mind were John 67 through 69, where Jesus says to the disciples, do you want to go away as well? After all, these crowds just left him because of some difficult teaching he gave. And Peter said, Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed and have come to know that you are the Holy
One of God. That even after all these people are like, nope, we're done, we're out of here. That Peter is like, no, we believe you're you're the Messiah. You have the words of life and we're going to stick with you. I mean, that would have been hard to do. Yeah. And I want that faith, too.
Yeah. That's beautiful. I mean, he was he was a pistol man. Peter. Something else, a biblical character that I really drilled deep on was Abraham. And there's an aspect of Abraham that I've never discussed before on radio. And I think it's often overlooked because we look at Abraham as the father of all who believe. Yes. And we look at his belief that is coined in Genesis 15, verses one through three, I believe. And then it's repeated by the apostle Paul in Romans and then again in
the other letters. It's he's a champion of authentic faith. And by the way, if Abraham is the father of all who believe his life and what he believed God for is a template for us to follow, and I think it's the best biblical template you can possibly have. Just take everyone back to that aspect of his life. But the other thing that's often overlooked is his humble dependence on God. Think about it. Genesis 12 one through four.
He not only believed God, he immediately left his home and his family, and he sojourned away to a place that he did not even know. You look at Genesis 13. Deference in conflicts. His nephew lot. He let him get the prime land while they were sojourning, and he didn't need to. He could have pulled rank and said, no, get him behind me, young man. But he didn't. Sodom and Gomorrah. He appealed to God. God, if there's just a few righteous here, would you spare this city? Right?
Just humbly yielded to God. Acknowledgement of God's role. He consistently. This is Genesis 1422 through 23, gave credit to God for the blessings and successes that he had. He even told the king of Sodom, don't tip me, man, this is all from God. He's a this is big stuff. Willingness to sacrifice Isaac. That's humble dependence, man. Humility and relationship with God. Seen over and over again. Ongoing prayer. Worship.
Building altars to honor God. His life characterized humble dependence in a big way, and I think what gets overlooked is he's the father of all who believe. So we look at him as a template of of belief, but he's a template of humble dependence, like on steroids. This guy was he clung to God. And I think one of the biggest things is his deference to lot. You know, lot was a reckless guy, and he could have said, sit down, young man. I'm your senior. No, you're not
getting the prime land. And by the way, God's already spoken to me. Every time you try to pull this kind of stuff, you're going to get your turkey in a squisher. No, he let him go out and taste it himself. He was quite a guy.
And you and you think about Abraham. Was he was he perfect? No. Certainly not. And he had moments of of doubt.
Unbelief.
Unbelief where he, you know, tried to kind of maneuver things and to try to speed up what God was, had promised him. Yeah.
I mean, there were a lot of aspects of Abraham, as with any human being that you can look at and go, ooh, that wasn't so great. But repeatedly, you see a humble dependence at critical moments that are unbelievable. Really cool. So think about it today. Who are you emulating? And why don't you grab Abraham's humble dependence today? Just think about that. Yes, he's the father of all who believe his faith is a template. And by the way, you might be wondering, well, what did he believe God for?
Because that's what you got to ask. You believe? Well, what what's the content of his belief? He believed God for something that was beyond imagination. He couldn't get his head around it. And there's no way he could have pulled that promise down from heaven to earth. It was.
It was humanly impossible. And oftentimes we're wanting to kind of add a little guide to our life, but from the life of Abraham, we see that Abraham believed God, and what that meant was a total and complete surrender to a sovereign God, and only he he alone could give him the very gifts that he promised him. It's a beautiful picture. Look at these characters in Scripture and you find evidence after evidence of someone that we can emulate, or an aspect of their life that we can emulate.
Pretty cool, isn't it?
It is. And so as you're reading Scripture today, that's a little that's a little challenging challenge for you. Who are you reading about and what can you pull out from their life and go, yes, Lord, today, give me this.
This is Curl and Crew on Moody Radio.
Think about it. Who's that.
Person from.
Scripture that you would love to emulate? Maybe not all their life, but at least a portion of it. You go, man, that one right there. Let's go to the phones. Nikki in Lockport, Illinois. What do you say?
Hi. I, I thought of Esther because of her. Her amazing courage and her gumption to stand up for her people, for such, you know, such a time as this.
Yeah. Hadassah was her Hebrew name. Esther. You're right on. What? A woman became queen and saved the Jewish people from annihilation. Quite. Can't. I bet you're looking forward to meeting Esther in the New Jerusalem. Nikki?
Yes, yes I am.
That's so cool.
One of my favorites. I love that whole story.
The whole story is epic. It's the whole book named that. Guys, check it out. Esther. What a woman.
Let's go to Randy. First time caller from Illinois. Tell us who's the person and what attribute.
Yes. Uh, my my person would be Caleb. I'm a pastor in my 60s, and I really want to be a Caleb. That when I'm in my 80s, there's still some hill country to take.
I love that.
Isn't that great? You're with me, Randy. I can ask you this because you've been a pastor a while, haven't you, Randy?
Yes.
How old are you?
64.
You're my age on the button. But let me go back to this. This observation of Caleb. Isn't it funny how when we get older, we start looking at different attributes of people? Because you didn't think about Caleb when you were 40?
No, I didn't. Yeah.
It's a cool thing. How long have you been pastoring? Since, uh, early on.
I've been preaching every Sunday since I was 20 years old.
Oh, my goodness, faithful man. Way to go, Randy. I'm proud of you. Thank you. Thank you for being so faithful. May God bless you this year, bro.
Yeah. Thank you. God bless you guys.
Uh, Rick in right here in Illinois. What do you say? Who's that biblical character you look at and go, I want to be like that.
Oh, the woman at the well, man, you know, it's, uh, her life was a train wreck. Jesus comes to her, she's transformed. She goes, tells her whole village about Jesus, they get transformed. And and historically biblical history, you know, tells us that her name was Photina and she was considered on par with the apostles. She was a powerful woman of God, and she was a train wreck. And she became an a seller.
You know, that's a great word. Yeah, I did I saw that you called in and I heard that you I didn't know who in the world identified her name. But in Eastern Orthodox tradition, Photina is her name, and it means enlightened one. And again, we don't have any inspired, canonized word of God that says that. But the early church saw her as a rock star of a hero. And she was. I mean, this is a woman that her testimony is Randy, Rick just said, turned a whole city on to Jesus.
It's unbelievable.
It's unbelievable. You know what's great about her story? Although her life was a train wreck when Jesus spoke into her life. She's like, I got no more shame. Let me tell you. The real skinny on this thing. It's powerful. Bernadette in Indiana. What do you say, Bernadette?
Um. Joshua, do not be afraid. Do not be discouraged.
Yeah. And give us your thoughts on that one. He was not only told that, but he did that, didn't he?
He did. He did? Yeah. It's just it's so challenging to do what God says to do it. There's no question, no hesitation. Just do it. And I wish that I could just do that in life, the way the world is right now with little kids. Everything is just very hard to have that strength, not be afraid and not be discouraged.
Yeah. Right on. Bernadette. Way to go from Indiana. Um, awesome. Because he did. I mean, why did God tell Joshua not to be afraid or discouraged?
Because the tendency was going to be to be afraid and discouraged.
The giants were still there. Yeah.
Yeah.
And it's funny because he and Caleb were they were the two guys that came back and said, look, there's giants, but have you seen the fruit and the the scarcity mindset dudes want out cost them 40 years in the wilderness. That was a big decision.
Yeah.
So the Giants were still there. And that's why God had to breathe some courage into him. But Joshua ultimately went for it.
Yeah. And I mean, he was 40 years older than when he went into the towns as a spy the first time. And and so that may have been a factor. And then you spent 40 years in the wilderness, which is can get kind of comfortable. Hey, at least out here I'm not being attacked, you know. So there are plenty of reasons we have to feel comfortable and get afraid of the change that God's bringing into our lives. But we can be courageous.
Yeah, they had battles in the wilderness, for sure. But, I mean, it wasn't anything like they were going to face when they crossed the Jordan. But the interesting thing is that You're right. I hadn't even thought about that. What a great layer to this thing. He's 40 years older. Yeah. All that vim and vigor of his youth is now worn off. And he's like, hey, boy, that fruit looked good. Caleb. It was good fruit, right? Yeah, it was Joshua. Promise
you it was great because. Have you seen those guys? Suckers are huge. Yeah, and they're mean. You see what they do to their own people.
Mhm.
Yeah Joshua I do, but we can do this I promise you. I'm not sure anymore bro. That was 40 years ago I mean think about these conversations.
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Who's your hero as a kid growing up?
Ellie that's a good question. Honestly. My hero was my older sister.
Yeah, yeah, that's right.
I'd forgotten that. You know, she was two years older than me and in my mind, she was everything that I felt like I wasn't.
Can I do a dad moment? Give me permission.
Well, wait. Okay, sure. Go ahead.
Alli's sister, Erica, was Miss America.
Yes, that is true.
She was Miss America.
She was. But this was even before.
I met her. Not that I'm name dropping or anything, but I've met Erica.
And this was well before. Yes, she won this big pageant a while ago.
But this was.
Well before that.
Isn't she an attorney?
She's an attorney. And so. But growing up, she just. She was so bold and so confident, and.
She just went for it in.
Life. And so she was such a leader. And I was naturally really quiet and shy. But I always wanted to be the bold one. And so I would just watch what she did.
And try to emulate.
It was very gracious in trying to kind of bring me along. So I was like this little kid in the shadow of my older sister, but she was always trying to kind of push me out to, to be my own person.
That's cool.
But she was my hero.
Young Thunder, who Thunder. Who is your hero?
It's a good question. I don't.
I was just to let you off the hook. I was cogitating on this one, too. Yeah. And my heroes were probably Jerry rice.
Yeah.
Uh, because he was a phenomenal wideout. And so I would have these seasonal heroes. I never had one of these superhero heroes. I always thought that was weird.
Yeah. No, I.
Mean, why would you idolize Superman? He's a fictitious character.
A fictitious character. I think there's qualities that you admire. You want to be a hero. You want to. You want to be a hero yourself.
You never threw on a cape as a kid. No, really?
Oh, I totally did that. I was big on Batman. Yeah.
When I, when I, when I, when I got dressed up, I. The craziest thing I ever did was I went as a fur trader trapper. And I talk about how things used to be. No joking. I took in I took in, I had pelts that my dad had because he had he had tanned some game that he had gone and hunted. So I went into I went into O'Malley Elementary School for the kind of the the Halloween dress up thingy, and I had pelts all over me.
Real fur.
Real fur. Wow. And, uh, and I had, you know, cords wrapped around for a belt. And then I had traps dangling off my belt, which were traps. They were iron traps.
This feels very Alaska. Yeah, very, very Alaska.
And the only thing the teacher told me is then don't set the traps.
Otherwise, the only thing.
They didn't tell me to check him at the front desk. They just said, don't set the traps.
Interesting. Okay. So you. That would mean you at least looked up to.
Well, I looked up to adventurers. Oh, okay.
That makes sense.
So I think that was, you know. What about you? Superdog?
I'm trying to think, too. Yeah. They weren't like, you know, animated characters.
So some Greek scholar.
Socrates.
I think it was because I was so into music, even very young. So it had to be like musicians, dancers, Nureyev, Mikhail Baryshnikov, things like that. That that would be to me what would be the people that were running through my mind? Like I said, musicians, people heard on the radio, that kind of thing.
Coming up, we've got a real group of heroes here, and it's found in acts 17, so I don't leave you dangling here. But in acts 17, verse ten through 15, we get a picture of some real heroes, and they're kind of like surprising heroes, right? Isn't that a good way to say it?
Yeah. For sure.
Because you might go, well, what's heroic about them? We'll break it down. Coming up. Wasilla, Alaska. One theater, one showing.
Is this the Star Wars theme?
Yeah, man.
No, it's a Superman.
Oh, Superman.
This is Superman.
I'm sorry. You see, I don't know my superheroes really well. I thought that was Star Wars.
No. It's close. It kind of sounds a little Indiana Jones y.
Yeah. Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
But, man, maybe the.
Star.
Wars. You want some Star Wars? Yeah. All right, give me a Star Wars.
I don't know that stuff, but, I mean, it has. It does have.
Stuff.
I've never seen it, but it does have a very hero vibe to it.
She's never seen Star Wars.
Yeah.
Back it up.
You need to change that.
Not one. One of them.
And you're getting on him for never watching Mary Poppins or whatever it is.
Sound of.
Music. Sound of music?
Yeah.
Classic.
So is Star Wars.
I think. Yes. That would fall into the classic category.
This is Star Wars.
Oh, they do sound very.
They're very close.
Somebody ripped someone off.
You know what? I bet they're the same composer. I'm gonna check. Because I feel like composers often have kind of the same sound or theme. Yeah, yeah.
You know, all this stuff. I mean, there's something about. I mean, what? Remember the mean Joe Green Coke commercial?
Oh, that was so good.
Hey, kid. Catch.
Yes.
I mean, the kid was just changed for the rest of his life. Now, the kid was fictitious.
And he got paid.
An actor, but whatever. But it was a great story. I mean, there's something.
Powerful about looking to someone else who's doing something that you think. Man, if only I could be like that someday.
We got it for you. Take it away, Ali.
Acts 17. Starting with verse ten, the brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now, these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things are so.
Boom! Okay. Eagerness. Reception. Checking it out. It was kind of reaganesque. Trust but verify. And we know because of. And this is where when you begin to read the scriptures in context, you discover stuff that's really cool. So Paul and Silas came to Berea on the second missionary journey, and he actually kept Silas on and called Timothy in. And here's why they were so hungry for the Word of God. They brought more teachers in to say, all right,
let's break it down for you. So we don't know how long they were there, but we know that this church grew mightily in the Lord. Why? Because they were checking it out for themselves. What a heroic thing to emulate.
And when you think about your time taking in or radio shows or podcasts or a sermon on a Sunday, this is a great practice to receive the word with all eagerness, and then go examine the scriptures to see if what you're hearing lines up with the Word of God. Not only is it just a great way to make sure that you're hearing truth, but it also enriches you personally when you don't just hear somebody else say what the Bible says, but you actually see those words jump off the page to you.
You're right on. And that is absolutely true. This is why doubling down and taking the time to either revisit a message from Sunday, or to have the Bible open and see along with them. Okay, this does jive. There's something it takes it from auditory to some new kind of tactile thing that you're doing that gets that thing embedded in your soul. It's worth it, guys. So let's make them our heroes today.
Be like the Bereans.
Yeah, be like the Bereans.
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We're talking about emulating people and events in Scripture, and the tendency is to look at some events in Scripture and some of the truths that we find in God's Word and actually believe. Oh, isn't that great that that happened then?
Yes. As if somehow there's a we serve a different God, or I mean, we can even chalk it up to, well, we just live in a different time. And so therefore maybe the expectations a little different now.
Yeah. We're in the Age of Enlightenment. That's what we are in the West. And enlightenment has put the construct of God in a box by virtue of the fact that it is a closed system by which we operate in it. This is why all self-help books leave no room for anything supernatural. It's about grinding and chunking in this little box that we have right here. And it
felt prompted. Boom crew of the spirit yesterday when I was walking out of here and I just felt deeply prompted, I got to get Ahold of Doctor Samuel Niemann, and I think we need some back story here. Thank you, brother, for coming in today.
You're welcome. Carl.
I think we need some back story here, because it's almost as if we need to be challenged deeply in the West. Not that we don't have enough resources, but that we've diminished the God of all resources. We need to be challenged to look at what God is doing around the world. So I want you to back up for those that are new to you. Doctor Damon, a great professor here at Moody Bible Institute, has a phenomenal outreach center right here in Chicagoland to people primarily from
the Middle East. But give us your heart as a kid growing up, from from being raised and really steeped in Islam, at least your daddy was. And in Pakistan. Tell us, tell us your story.
Yeah. I was born and raised in Pakistan. My dad was a former Muslim. He came to Christ. So thank God I was raised in a Christian home, accepted Christ as a nine year old kid in a devotional and serve the Lord with crew and an Om. And then my younger brother was martyred, shot and killed by Muslim extremists. But even at that early age, Carl, I saw God's hand in many situations. I remember coming, we were coming from, from from a village after an evening meeting and we
crossed a bridge. And my dad, it was kind of getting chilly. He said, you know what, I'll just close this window of the car. And three seconds later the glass just shattered. Someone had shot us. Someone had shot at our vehicle. And somehow, by God's grace, he, you know, the Lord prompted him to just close the window and, uh.
It protected.
Your life. It protected us. I mean, I, I have seen God's hand in many situations in Pakistan, in many other countries. I've met many people who have seen God work and who are seeing God work even now in their life.
You know, it's interesting, the central passage I was going to use. Ali knows that this is one of my favorites. It's it's a story out of Second Kings, and it's about four lepers, and it's about a city that was under siege by Ben-hadad, a Syrian king. And these four lepers begin to shuffle their feet, knowing we're dying here. Let's just go to the Syrians. Just. We'll just go over there. And as they walk there, God supercharged the sound of their feet to sound like armies and cause
them to flee. Now that's a miracle. Yes. And a miracle. I want to give a definition here. Boom! Crew, before we go on with Doctor Samuel Naaman. A definition that I felt prompted to write down is this. It's it's an interruption of natural law and common expectations to bring validation to God's transcendence. Confirmation of Jesus's deity and salvation
to the lost. So as we think about miracles, it is truly God intervening in our system for which he set up the system to move extraordinarily and uncommonly, and in ways we might not expect. And what a tremendous discussion we get to have this morning.
Doctor Norman, you mentioned your brother, and I know many people listening for the first time are going to hear that and go, whoa, wait. What do you mean? Your your brother was martyred for his Christian faith. Uh, tell us a little bit more about what happened and what that did to your faith.
Yeah, yeah. So, you know, we were very active in our ministry in Pakistan, and my father started getting threatening letters from the underground Muslim movement that, uh, and many people came to Christ from the, from the majority religion. So he was warned that he should stop the work and leave the city. And if that doesn't happen, they'll kill their son. Because they knew that I was studying in South Korea. And of course, my father himself, who
was a former extremist, didn't budge. And he said, no, I will continue to serve the Lord. And then they carried out that threat. Now I had two options, right. Either we will be exactly. Either we will be very bitter or I will be very bitter and angry and quit. I had finished my team was accepted for my doctoral work, but I, I believe, I firmly believe that the martyrdom of my brother gave me a new zeal and passion to hands off evangelism. You know, just gloves off. Whatever happens,
happens because there is nothing else to offer. Now. There's nothing else to give. I mean, what worse can it? What worse can happen to me, you know? But God has been I mean, he passed away in 1990. I mean, it's 2024 and the Lord has taken me to crazy places in strange situations. And I firmly believe that when the time will come, yes, I'll go home to be with him. But till that happens, I'm not going to stop. I'm not going to stop.
The interesting thing about that is that that could have been a point in time when you saw God's hand not choose to intervene and block that bullet. But the bullet took your brother? Yes. But you did not stop believing the God of miracles. No. Why?
Why? Because he. You know, I have seen his his blessings so many times, Carl. And even after that, even after that, I have seen his his amazing power in so many ways. Praying over people. And I'm not a, you know, divine healer or TV. God is, God is. And you know, I also believe that as we were having conversation before we came on air, he chooses to act where he chooses to act, and he will, regardless
of our understanding or not, he will. And I believe that that in the non-Western world, when when we quote unquote. Are not enlightened. Thank God, if in enlightenment takes us away from the. From the God of the Bible, we don't need that kind of enlightenment, believe me. With due respect to my Western friends, people believe when they pray, they believe that God will intervene and he does intervene. He does intervene. He does protect and he does heal
in many different. And he does saves people in gospel proclamation ministry globally wherever we go.
Uh, it's interesting because Craig. Craig Keener, great theologian, phenomenal scholar, a highly respected man of God, has written in his book Miracles Today. Full citation of modern day miracles. Even the raising of the dead. Sure. What is it that we're going to need to do here? To kick this box open of the incredible shrinking God that we have in American Christianity in. The irony is we have everything resource wise, and yet we limit the God of all things.
I think the problem, Carl, I feel, is that, as you just said, as we have everything, we feel that we don't need God's intervention. We can resolve, we can resolve it. We can go to a doctor. We our technology, and we can solve every problem. But I think for us in the West, the basic the first thing is this we come to the throne of grace, to Calvary in all humility and say, Lord, we are helpless and hopeless without you, and we need you in a fresh way.
It happened, it happened. Great awakenings, you know. So it's not that it cannot happen again. The revival cannot come again. I believe that when we humble ourselves, go before the Lord. Lord, these are all my gifts. I bring it to you. I need you in a fresh way. He will meet us, I firmly. And by the way, things happen in the West also. I mean things happen in our do. Things happen for the last 30 years that we have our South Asian Friendship Center in Chicago. And amazingly, things happen
among the Muslims and Hindus. We when we had our bookstore, you know, for 20 years on the street, people used to come to us for prayer and there was a common understanding in our neighborhood. You go to SFC and things change.
Oh.
Right. Here in Chicago.
That's.
The expectation right here or right here in Chicago. And we saw happening we saw God healing marriages. That's a miracle. We saw healing physically. Yes. We saw people coming out of trauma. We saw abuse going away. Of course, in many situations we saw God, God intervening. Right here in Chicago. And I can give you example after example.
You know, when you think about a miracle coming up, let's talk about what what should our expectation be. Because some would say every morning that you wake up and take a breath is a miracle, that when you see a sunrise or a baby born or snowfall or there are so many miracles that happen every day. So what should our expectation be? Should we be satisfied with those miracles? Or should we actually expect more? Coming up, we've got more with our special guest, Doctor Samuel Naaman.
Tune in whenever you like. Check out the podcast wherever you like to stream.
You know, I think back to a time where I had a cousin who was very ill and who was told had hours to live. And of course, we did what we're supposed to do as Christians. We were praying. But if I'm honest, the prayer was perfunctory. We we thought, this is his time.
Sure.
And then I got a phone call that miraculously, he was sitting up in bed. He was talking. He was drinking orange juice. And my daughter, who was about four at the time, she's sitting there listening to me go. What? No. No. Really? So I get off the phone and she's excited. She goes, what happened? What happened? And I told her and she goes, well, but we prayed. Why are you surprised? And her question was so honest. It was convicting to me because her
thought we prayed. So of course. Yeah, but now you're shocked. And it challenged my faith doctrine. Our guest this morning. Oftentimes we pray but don't necessarily expect God to answer.
We don't Ali. And see the faith of a four year old child. Your daughter. She knew in her childhood that when we pray, the Lord will respond and God will answer. And she's asking, mom, mom, why are you surprised? We prayed.
We prayed.
We prayed. pray? I mean, I believe that this is this is, you know, Carl was asking, you know, what do we need? I believe that we we need a childlike faith. Like your daughter simply said, when we pray, Lord, you will not. You may or you wish you will according to your will, though you will. But we need to pray with expectation. But for that to happen, I think our walk with the Lord is has to be
very clear and very strong and solid. I believe that in many parts of the non-Western world, people have no one to go to. All they know is the Lord Jesus Christ, their local church, or the local pastor. And they gather and they pray with expectations. And the Lord shows up in a in a mighty way. The Lord protects God's people in a mighty way. I have seen that happening in my life. You know, somehow the attack or the blast or fighting or whatever happened before us.
And when you call, email me yesterday, I said, so what will I share? I remember our team in Afghanistan, you know, a few years ago, and we were there for a month of medical missions, and somehow the Lord was with us in a mighty way. And the Lord protected us many times, multiple places. The attack happened. The suicide bombing happened before us or after us. And the Lord, somehow in his own sovereignty, protected us in many different ways. Yeah.
And I mean, I have seen this happening in many other parts, many other parts of the world where he intervenes, where he intervenes.
You know, I want to undergird this for you guys. What we're talking about here this morning. Boom. Crews, you're listening in. We're talking about miracles and having the faith to emulate what we see all over in Scripture. But
this issue of childlikeness is spiked in Matthew 11. So when you were mentioning this about your daughter, I thought immediately about this, And this is what Jesus says, I declare to you, I thank you, father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things of the kingdom, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding the enlightened Western world. Could we add that in
parenthetically easily and revealed them to little children? Now, those two words in the English little children are one word in the Greek, and it's nepos, and it means one without words. It means infant or baby. And the irony is, you know what an infant or a baby or one without words can bring to God nothing. Isn't that something? And then he goes on to say that classic passage come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden. In fact, the parenthetically, you might feel like, oh, I
don't have anything to bring to God today. Did you know that that's exactly how God wants you? Yeah. And then Scripture. Scripture said cites something that undergirds the really the answer to this question is it okay to pray for miracles? Well, that's a fair question, don't you think?
Yes.
Well, look at this. This is acts chapter four. So there had been a a big movement of God in the early followers of Christ were being persecuted. And they came back together to meet and to pray, and they began to pray. Oh, God. Peter and John have just been released. But we got to keep this gospel going forward, right? And this is what they say, among other things, that
they prayed and then they prayed. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servants to continue to speak your word with all boldness while you stretch out your hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. Well, what we find in the acts account is that there was prayer for miracles and miracles of the interruption. Of natural law and common expectations to bring God's supernatural transcendence
into a situation. So we've we've seen God move. Sure, we believe God can move. As we're talking about this right now. What what is it that needs to break free inside of us? That we might see God move? Not for our entertainment or for our glory, but for his glory.
Yes.
What do you believe?
I feel, Carl, that we pray with expectations. We we go back. And probably.
I love that.
Probably it will be helpful for us to see About and and have a little bit of study about the early church, how they prayed and the Lord intervened and maybe get connected more with the non-Western. What the Lord is doing, I feel that. Yeah. And you you can I mean, there are snippets, there are news and believe that, wow, if God can do this in China or in Brazil or in Nigeria, we worship the same God and plead before the Lord to bring a fresh awakening of himself, and the Lord will meet us.
I don't know if I shared this on mic or off, so I might be sharing it again, but Craig Keener, in his study of his phenomenal work, the title of which is Miracles Today, great theologian, phenomenal scholar, and he did a deep dive on what's God doing today. You. Here's a shocking stat 90% of Chinese disciples of Christ today have witnessed and seen God heal and move in miracle power 90%. It's an expectation they have and they've
seen that personally. The other 10% have witnessed it. But we're talking about people that have experienced it personally, you know. Where does this leave us? Well. We can't let the enlightenment of the West dictate our understanding of God. Is that fair?
I will say so, yes.
Okay, so let's just break this down. We just can't let that happen. And we need to start praying and believing.
And I think we also can't let our common experience dictate the expectation because, you know, we you can't get past the fact that some people can't get past the fact. Well, I prayed for that miracle X, Y or Z. And a lot of times it's related to the healing of a loved one and the, the thing that people will kind of push back. I didn't see it. I prayed I had faith in scripture. When someone prayed with faith,
they saw the miracle. And so how do we kind of bridge that gap between what often we do experience, which is sometimes disappointment and and maintaining that expectation that God, maybe you didn't move where I wanted you to here, but nothing changes about what I believe to be true about you.
I will say that these are selfish prayers, right? I mean, it's okay. It's okay to pray. But we also cannot dictate what God should do and what God cannot do and not do. Wherever the Lord showed up, he showed up to have his glory, not my glory. And yes, he responds to our prayers according to his will. You see, this is where I always pray. I said, we will continue to pray for healing, for I mean, I pray every day in my classes. I ask students to give us and.
Good for.
You.
And here also in our classes.
Good for you.
When we have seen the Lord intervene in the lives of aunts and uncles and grandmas. Believe me when we simply said, guys, when we pray, listen when we pray is a small community. At 8 a.m. in the morning, you're half asleep. The Lord will hear. But one caution is this we plead before the Lord. Lord, may your will be done according to your will. He will show his glory. And Ali, he's showing his glory in the lives of many young people here at Moody Bible Institute also.
You know, it's fascinating because one other thing, on my deep dive last night on this, I was reading something by Piper, and he has two segments because he's asked the question, Does God still do miracles today? And he said, we got to remember that in the New Testament they were far and few is how he titled it in between. But he said even to this day, they happen far more often than we might imagine. And you know what's funny? We put healings in this category here, but we neglect
to remember. We pray for relational healing, and God doesn't always do it right. There's going to be some relationships that go all the way out of this natural realm, into the into the spiritual realm beyond, and never be healed. And yet God does heal relationships, and God does heal, and God does move in power, and he rolls up windows and God prompts my dad. My dad still hangs on this one. He there's a there's a street in Alaska called Braga. And when the lake goes green on Braga,
there's another street that comes in just perpendicular or. Excuse me. It just cuts across grain at a weird kind of angle. And my dad said the light went green and he felt absolutely prompted by the spirit. Don't move. He said I almost couldn't put my foot on the gas. This is not common for my dad. And he came home and he told I was a little guy and he told my mom, he called her Eva. He said, Eva. I didn't put my foot on the gas. It must have been for four seconds I couldn't get my foot to.
And then a car came through that intersection, ran a red and was moving at 70, 80 miles an hour. And he said, I would have absolutely been killed. We got to remember that God is bigger than the box we put him in. Be expectant without being demanding, right? Yeah. And open to what God might do. You know, I feel prompted. Would you pray for us?
Sure.
Heavenly father, we come before you. Give us humility. Bring us to your throne. And, Lord, we do pray that you may intervene in the lives of many of our listeners.
Yes.
And allow them to pray with expectations according to your will. Father, show us. Meet us in a special way in this country and beyond, and allow us to love you more and more, and expect that you are our God of many, many, many miracles in our lives and helpless. Help us to rejoice in those things. Yes, we love you, Lord Jesus. In your precious name we pray.
Amen.
Amen. And let it be. Thank you brother.
Thank you.
Doctor Samuel Lehman. Always a treat in here, right, Ali?
Oh, boy. Rich and faith.
Start your day moving closer to Jesus. You're listening to Carl and crew.
Talking miracles today. And it's a discussion that we don't have possibly enough. It's an expectation that God is going to move. Enlightenment is the age that we live in now, and enlightenment has caused us, inadvertently, to put a box around. God don't need a lot of fanfare around that, because when you look at the amount of miracles that we find in the scriptures, for which I've got a little list here, could I read a few? Ali?
Sure.
So we go through some of these. Just look from creation of the universe, the flood, Noah's Ark, confusion of languages at Babel, plagues in Egypt, water to blood, frogs, gnats. Flies. Livestock. Disease. Boils. Hail. Locust darkness. Death of the firstborn. Parting of the Red sea. Bitter water made sweet manna. Quail provided. It goes on and on and on. I'm just going to firehose you here, guys. Just going to fire hose you. Victory over the Amalekites!
Fire and smoke on Mount Sinai. Aaron's staff buds. Earth swallows cause rebels. That's a heavy duty one. Balaam's. Donkey speaks. Jordan River parts. Walls of Jericho. Fall. Sun and moon. Stand still. Gideon's fleece. Samson's strength. Lion killing thousand men with jawbone. Killing. Bringing down the temple. Widow's oil and flour. Raising the widow's son. Fire in Heaven from Mount Carmel Elijah. Taken to Heaven in a whirlwind. Elisha's miracles. Healing Jericho's waters.
Multiplying the widow's oil. Raising the Shunammite son. Purifying poison stew. Multiplying loaves to feed 100 men. Floating axe head. That was a good one. Healing of leprosy. Daniel in the lion's den. Fiery furnace. New Testament. Let's go to this. Turning water to wine. Healing the official son. Healing a man with an unclean spirit. Healing Peter's mother in law. Cleansing a leper. Healing a paralytic, calming a storm. Feeding 5000.
Walking on water. Feeding 4000. Jarius daughter raised from the dead. Healing a woman with an issue of blood healing. A man blind at Bethsaida. Healing a mute and demon possessed man. Raising Lazarus. I could go on and on just in. Jesus. I'll move to the apostles. Healing a lame beggar. Peter heals many. Paul heals a crippled man. Paul and Silas
freed from prison. Raising Eutychus from the dead. Most theologians agree that there's about 150 that are direct miracles, but there's so many more subplots, like the four lepers that are wandering off to see if they might find some food in the Syrian army that has the city of Samaria under siege and God miraculously made their feet sound like the armies of Egypt, and they were certain that they had been conspired against. And they ran for their lives,
leaving behind everything. And that ultimately changed the entire economy and the opportunity for Samaria to get out from under the clutches of evil King Ben Hadad of Syria. They go on and on. Craig Keener, scholar, phenomenal author, has written extensively on this. It's called Miracles Today. It's a book that came out in 2021. Amazing citations of every kind of miracle you can imagine, including raising from the dead. And you might say a couple of things. One is,
why don't we see these today? Probably because we live in a post-enlightenment kind of culture where we've put God into a box, we got resources out the wazoo. We've got them all over here. All kinds of resources, all kinds of tools. But have we stopped believing God for things that are outside natural law and outside of common expectations? And what a danger it would be if we were stuck there, right, Ali?
Oh, yeah. And and when you think about miracles, you go, okay, well, I mean, the the the miracle of a baby being born or the the miracle. Sometimes I think we want so badly to see a miracle that we are willing to. I don't want to say lower the bar, but I think sometimes I've seen this happen in, in church where we were desperate to see a miracle. So we kind of make the expected miraculous.
So explain that to me.
So, you know, when you we want to see the miraculous, right? Like, we we.
Maybe I think I think I think for some, yes. But for many listening, maybe the expectation that God would move miraculously is not on their radar.
Okay, so then.
But.
But.
Stop.
The. So you disagree with the premise?
Well, no. I think for some you're right. I think we want to see it. And I think what you're saying is that sometimes you read things into what is natural, supernatural, right.
Because we think because there feels like there's this disconnect between I read this scripture, I believe that God can, but I don't see much of that anymore. So it's like, well, well, this is a miracle. I saw that, you know, we can.
All see what you're saying. Yeah. So we we almost reduce God by trying to look at the natural and go, oh, well we ascribe. Oh well something happened there. Both can be true. So what if we though believed God not with our needs being met, but for the glory of God? I wrote a definition down here of miracles that I believe captures. I stole a phrase of this from Craig Keener. Again,
phenomenal scholar and theologian. But here's a working definition I have for this morning an interruption of natural law and common expectations. That's the keener ism right there to bring validation to God's transcendence. Confirmation of Jesus's deity. That's in fact,
he said that's why they were done. And salvation to the lost in the early church did pray this God, look at the threats that we're having from all the people around us, and grant to your servants continued power to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal. And signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus. And when they prayed, that place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were filled with the Holy Spirit.
A keener in his book. Fascinating to me. I was just like, whoa, really? Their study, and this is in the last few years, their study of what's going on in the church in China, the underground church in China, 90% of disciples, our brothers and sisters in China have personally witnessed a miracle touch from the Lord.
That's amazing. I don't even know how to comprehend that 90%.
So I think you're right, Ali. There's a tendency to want to see this God of miracles. And so we ascribe miracles when it's just the natural providence and goodness of God in everyday life. And then we're left with can God move outside the natural realm in a supernatural way that upsets our common expectations in a way that we see God move? And every indication that we have all throughout Scripture is that although Miracles are far and few between. They are happening all over the place today
as we speak. God's showing up to people in the Middle East in visions in the middle of the night, revealing to people who are far from God that Jesus is real. And then some have said, well, you know, the gospel is going forward into those places because they're unreached people. We're unreached people here.
Very much so.
And so it could be that we simply need to believe that God is a God of miracles. By the way, do we trust in miracles? No, we trust in God. But part of trusting in God is believing that God works outside the realm of natural and common expectations, and he moves in power. Why? For his glory and to show his providence and his power. And the deity of Jesus Christ is confirmed and souls are saved. What an awesome thing. Something. And this is not presuming upon God,
but it's believing that God can move. And you might ask, maybe you would ask of me, Carl, have you ever seen a miracle? I have, I've seen God move miraculously. I shared here a few minutes ago about my dad. And, you know, it's interesting how that's etched in my heart as a little boy. How God saw God's hand keep him from putting a foot on the accelerator when he normally would have just gone right through that street, and he would have been T-boned by a car because my
dad believed that God intervened in that moment. Absolutely. There's no question. And can we dare to believe that God can intervene in marriages in the lives of wayward kids, miraculously show up in someone's dreams? Yes, he's doing it all around the world, and one of the great dangers with the post enlightened world that we live in is that we put God in a box, and we ought not do that. There's so much more.