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Muskegon SDA Church

Jason Sliger

Hindered Prayers

Loving Father in Heaven, we are grateful that we can come into your presence again this morning.

We thank you, Father, for the countless blessings that we have encountered just between the time that we woke up until now.

And Father, as we linger in your presence a little longer together as a family, we pray that you would speak to us through your word.

Thank you, Father, for we ask it in Jesus' name.

The great Adventist missionary, Eric Behar, once told a story about a man in the Solomon Islands by the name of Rangoso.

This was during the time of World War II, and the missionaries in the Solomon Islands were asked by those people in charge to leave the islands because they didn't want any harm to come to them.

And so as the missionaries left the islands, Rangoso was the 1 who was put in charge of the Adventist church in the Solomon Islands.

He was a great man of God who loved his people.

Well, 1 day, 1 of the generals that was in charge of the movements in the Solomon Islands during World War II came to Rangoso.

Rangoso had developed a relationship with the authorities, helping them in various ways during this wartime endeavor.

And so this general came to Rangoso and he said, Listen, there is a ship that has just arrived that is full of supplies, and I would like you and your friend to offload the ship for us." It just so happened that the arrival of this ship coincided with the day of rest that we know of as the Sabbath.

And Rangoso told his friend, this commander, listen, it's the Sabbath right now, and we would be more than happy to help out, but our Bible tells us and our God has asked us to rest on the Sabbath day, and so we don't do any work on the Sabbath, but once the sun sets, we would be more than happy to help unload the ship.

Well, as you can imagine, the general was not very happy with this response and he said, listen, this was not a request, this is an order.

I'm commanding you and your friend to go and offload the ship, We need the supplies right now.

Rangosa once again tried to explain to this man the concept of the Sabbath and that they don't work on the Sabbath day, but once the sun set, they would be more than happy to help.

Well, the general lost his temper and he took his pistol out of its holster, turned it around and grabbed it by its barrel and started to hit Rangoso in the face with it.

He hit him so many times that it broke his nose and knocked him out cold on the ground.

Well, when Rangosso finally came to, he sat up And the general gave the command for Rangoso and his friend to be taken and to be shot by the firing squad for disobeying orders.

So they led them off, they lined them up, the firing squad came, they lined up, and the general came and he said, on the count of 3, I want you to shoot.

And so they got their guns and they hoisted them up and they aimed them at Rangoso and his friend and the general said, 123.

He was a little flustered by that because he learned how to count when he was in grade school.

So he kind of got his composure back together again.

He said, on the count of 3, I want you to shoot.

And in fact, after that, that general lost his speech for 2 weeks.

Well, they didn't know what to do with Rangosa because the general couldn't speak anymore, and so they put him in prison.

They took him and his friend and they put him in the island prison for disobeying orders.

And so there they sat, this great leader in the Adventist church was now in prison.

But there were 300 Adventists throughout the Solomon Islands who believed in a God who answers prayer.

And they had a very sophisticated way of communicating with 1 another.

They kind of developed this type of Morris Code and they would beat out these messages on their big bass drums from the top of the mountains and it would be carried from 1 mountain to another and from 1 drummer to another and they sent out a message to all the admonists in the Solomon Islands that on a specific night, at a specific time, that they would pray for Rangosu and his friend to be released from prison.

They had learned the story, thankfully the missionaries had taught them this story, they had learned the story about the early New Testament church and how they had prayed for Peter when he was in prison and God sent his angel to deliver him.

They said, surely if God could do it back then, he can do it again today.

And so on that certain night, that message went out to all of the surrounding area and the Adventists bent their knees in prayer, praying to God to release their fearless leader.

Well, that night, There was a tall man who came to the gate of the prison.

He grabbed the padlock and unlocked it, opened the gate, and walked into the prison camp up to Rangoso and his friend.

He said, listen, I want you to come with me.

So Rangoso and his friend got up, they walked out of the prison, the gate was closed behind them, and they walked down to the water's edge.

And this tall man said to Rangoso and his friend, get into the canoe, there was a canoe there with 2 paddles in it.

Rangoso and his friend looked at the canoe and then they looked back to thank the man and he was gone.

Well that night, Rangoso was released from prison, and Eric Behar had the chance of actually talking to Rangoso face to face.

And he asked him, who was it that released you from the prison that night?

And without skipping a beat, Rangoso said, the same angel that released Peter from his prison released us from our prison that night.

300 Adventists praying for 1 prayer request.

And I dare say that these precious people probably did not have as much truth as you and I have been entrusted with.

But they believed in the power of prayer.

You know, as I think about this story, and there are many others like it that I will share with you during our time together in this series, I ask myself the question, why don't we see these kinds of answered prayers in our own lives?

Right, we read them, the book, Incredible Answers to Prayer, fantastic book.

There's all kinds of answers to prayer in there that just inspire me and inspire you.

But as I hear these incredible answers to prayer, I have to ask myself, why don't we see it in our own life?

Why don't we see these types of incredible answers to prayer in our own personal lives?

Why is it that we have to read about it and be able to experience it?

Now, let me be quick to say that I'm sure there are some of us here tonight who have had incredible answers to prayer.

But I think there's room for more incredible answers to prayer.

I think there's room for us to lean upon the omnipotent hand of our heavenly Father instead of trying to do things ourself.

So I wanna share with you this morning 3 things that might be hindering you from having incredible answers in your prayer life.

But before I do that, let me be quick to say, and let me emphatically state, that we serve a God who answers prayer.

The Bible tells us in Matthew chapter 7 and verse 7, ask and it shall be given unto you.

The Bible tells us in Mark chapter 11 and verse 24, therefore I say unto you, what things soever you desire when you pray, what does it say?

Believe that ye receive them and ye shall what?

The Bible also says in John chapter 15 in verse 7, if ye abide in me and my words abide in you, you shall ask what you will and it shall be done unto you.

There's a number of promises in God's word.

We could spend a whole sermon period just quoting 1 promise after another where God says, if you pray, I will answer.

The Bible's full of those types of promises.

Why is it that we don't experience them in our own lives?

Well, let me share with you 3 things that might be hindering you from experiencing prayers being answered like the prayer that was answered in the life of Rangoso.

Number 1, I hope you take notes on this because this is very practical stuff that you can go back and apply in your own personal life.

The first thing that you might find to be a hindrance in your prayer life is something that we are all more familiar with than we need to be.

The Bible tells us this in the book of Isaiah, chapter 59, verses 1 and 2.

Behold, the Lord's hand is not shortened, that he cannot save.

Neither his ear heavy, that he cannot what?

So listen, there's nothing wrong with the upside.

There's something else that is happening that causes him to have to turn away when we pray.

And he goes on and he says this, verse 2, but your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he, what?

Now again, as I said before, this is something that we are more familiar with than we ought to be.

But the Bible makes it very clear that there is something that hinders God from being able to answer our prayers and hear our prayers, and that is what?

David tells us the same thing in Psalms chapter 66 verse 18.

If I regard, which means to cherish, if I cherish iniquity in my heart, the Lord will what?

And for those of you that didn't get a chance to come to our 10 days of prayer, the format that we use, and if you were careful to listen to Jim Griffin's prayer this morning, you would have heard him following this format, where we started with praising God for what he has done for us, and then we moved into confession, asking God to forgive us for our sins.

And then once we confessed our sins, we made our requests known to the Heavenly Father, and then we concluded our prayer time by praising the Lord again.

The Bible tells us that if we regard, if we cherish, if we are holding known sin in our lives, the Lord cannot hear our prayers.

So we have to ask ourselves the question, is there some sort of sin that I am regarding in my life that is causing God to not hear my prayers.

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Hindered Prayers

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