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ABC Prayer Crusade

Getting Through to God

Glenn Coon

01-Oh God, Do You Care?

In our prayer seminar, we want to know in getting through to God, to whom are we getting through?

Our attitude toward the God of prayer can completely change our whole attitude of prayer.

For instance, if God is eager to answer our prayers, then we'll approach him from a completely different attitude than we will if he's reluctant.

Like the woman in the jungle and she throws her baby into the mouth of the crocodile hoping that way to somehow appease her God and overcome his reluctance.

If we can understand who this is that we're talking to, then we can better understand the science of prayer.

I'd like you to notice several facts tonight.

Number 1, our Father in Heaven is eager to answer our prayers.

Many individuals as they have passed through turmoil and trial and all kinds of horrible experiences are wondering, is God there?

Brother and sister Newhart received the word that their son who was Just on his honeymoon was involved in an accident.

He and his wife lost their lives and their honeymoon trip.

Some dear friends of ours had their lovely little baby all the baby clothes prepared oh they were welcoming their little baby with open hearts and glad some spirits but the little baby passed away in a few days.

The first wonderful answer is found in Calvary Romans 8 32.

He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all, How shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

You know I'm thinking friends that that when we get into these real heavy problems there's a tendency to forget that our Father in Heaven so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son.

He gave Jesus to die for you and me that horrible death.

In deepest humiliation he didn't just die a physically suffering death, he died a separation death from his father, he died a second death, he went through the horrible humiliation of 1 who could have spoken a word and the world would have been snuffed out, his enemies could have ceased to have existed and yet he gave his son he didn't give his son friends for an adopted child we'd say that isn't that wouldn't that be wonderful thing if he gave his son his only begotten son for an adopted child wouldn't that be tremendous he gave his son for enemies he gave his son for sinners He gave his Son for those who hated him and our Lord went through the most horrible suffering for us.

He that spared not his own son but delivered him up for us all how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?

Somebody said where was God when my son was was perishing in Vietnam Someone else said he was the same place.

I thank the Lord that we have a God who is not merely eager but he's so eager that he poured out all heaven in the gift of Jesus Christ.

I have found that when you and I really raise doubts in regard to God's love, we forget Calvary, we forget the awful suffering of the Son of God, we forget that God himself who is the embodiment of love suffered intensely in the death of his son.

He presents God as a parent, a heavenly parent, but not all parents are good.

Some are evil, some are cruel, but when we look to Calvary we see what kind of a parent God is.

And Jesus said if you evil parents, Luke 11 13, if you know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Heavenly Father, that is the 1 who gave his only begotten Son, how much more will he freely give the Holy Spirit?

And when he says he'll give the Holy Spirit All the blessings of heaven come to us through the Holy Spirit.

Retainments come through the Holy Spirit.

Conversion comes through the Holy Spirit.

Forgiveness is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Eternal life is the gift of the Holy Spirit.

So he said he'll freely give him as a good parent.

Even an evil parent will give good gifts.

What about the God who gave his son to die on Calvary?

Several years ago there was a minister and his wife who lived in Boston Massachusetts and in the dead of winter there was a tremendous blizzard that started.

They had a little 18 month old baby and as the blizzard was starting this little baby girl had a fever.

The fever raged for 4 days and the blizzard raged for 4 days coincidentally as the blizzard subsided the fever subsided but the little girl had eaten nothing she was very weak She kind of wobbled out of bed and wobbled over to Mother and looked up into Mother's face and she said, Mommy, apple?

She was so weak she could hardly say apple.

And Mother knew there wasn't an apple in the house.

So mother gave a searching look in the direction of daddy and the little girl followed mother's eyes and the little girl walked over to daddy and put 1 hand on 1 knee and 1 on the other knee and she looked up into daddy's face and she said, daddy, apple?

And daddy knew there wasn't an apple in the house.

And he knew that the blizzard had left the snow waist deep.

You know you can't walk through snow waist deep.

You have to wallow on all fours, unless you've already shoveled a path, and there's no path.

He put on his heaviest winter attire, wallowed through the snow on and on, hopping and puffing finally somewhere, I don't know where, he found an apple.

He came back with this apple again, wallowing through the heavy snow, walks in this house all exhausted, goes to his little daughter and hands her an apple.

Why did that father go through all of that heavy, exhausting labor just to get 1 apple?

Jesus said if an earthly father, if we were sinful, will do that much for a child, what will God do as we reach up and lay hold of his promises?

Many years ago I was attending a service in the large Constitution Hall in Washington DC.

A very noted evangelist had been advertised and to tell you the truth I had some prejudice in my mind concerning him but I thought I will go and find out why he gets such audiences.

As I sat there and there were thousands of people in that large auditorium, he stepped to his feet and he opened his Bible to the Second Chronicles chapter 16 verse 9 and as he read that verse, though I had read my Bible through many times, This verse had never made an impact on me until then.

The eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth to make himself strong in behalf of those whose hearts are perfect or who are settled looking to him.

I said isn't that a picture of God looking all over the world hoping that somebody will look skyward to receive what he has to offer?

I said my thank the Lord this is God he's the God of Calvary he's the wonderful heavenly parent.

And he's looking around, hoping that people look skyward.

And you know, just about this time as I present this, I imagine someone in my audience is saying, if God is that kind of a God, how come that I've not been able to get through to him?

How come that some of my most urgent prayers have never been answered?

Here's a text of scripture that sometimes I claim as many as 3 and 4 times a day.

It is Isaiah the 42nd chapter and the 16th verse and the Lord is speaking.

He said I will bring the blind by way that they knew not.

I will lead them in paths that they've not known.

I will lead the blind in a path they've not known?

Oh I thought that we had the right to sort of tell the Lord now this is the way I'd like to get my answer and if he's really going to answer he would answer the way I asked him to.

In 90 cases out of 100 in my own life I have received answers in a way that I have never expected.

So if we start shaping God up and saying Lord this is the way you you must answer Lord if you're there you must do it the way I tell you.

Oh, no, no We can't pit our finite creaturely human wisdom against the wisdom of the infinite creator He said I will do it in my way.

My way is infinitely better than your way Your concepts are earthly you're sinful creatures.

When our daughter Juanita was just a little tight, 1 day I walked in the front room and I was horrified.

She was just placing in her mouth a Gillette safety razor blade.

And I saw her open her mouth and put this blade on her tongue.

Before she could close her mouth, the Lord had impressed me to open my mouth because I noticed that my daughter did a lot of the things she saw her daddy do.

Those were the only times I was ashamed of her.

So I opened my mouth and I said, Neeta, and she opened her mouth a little more and I saw that razor blade blade just teetering on her on her tongue I said Neeta Neeta Neeta and she looked at me that razor blade was just teetering Very slowly I walked in her direction, I placed my thumb and finger in place, placed my thumb and finger right in her mouth, Neeta, Neeta, and I slipped the razor blade right out.

02-I Have Trouble Everywhere

When I was a little boy and through many, many years, all I knew was problem-centered praying.

I didn't stop to realize that the Lord has actually commanded us to think positively, to speak positively, and to pray positively.

Philippians chapter 4 verses 7 and 8 says, whatsoever things are lovely Think on these things Whatever things are truthful think on these things Whatever things are of good report think on these things This is what God commands But friends, you know, I didn't know anything about that.

It never made an impact on my thinking whatsoever.

Now when we obey the Lord's command and we think positively and we talk positively and we pray concerning solutions instead of problems except to identify the problem, notice what happens.

In Proverbs the 23rd chapter in the seventh verse it says, as a man thinketh in his heart so is he.

So if we think solution-centered thoughts we become solution-centered.

If we think problem-centered thoughts, we're problem-centered.

And in 2nd Corinthians, the third chapter in the 18th verse, it says, by beholding we're changed in the same image so if we become solution centered we our whole lives become positive and beautiful.

If we are problem-centered in our thinking and in our speech and in our prayer, our whole lives become problems.

When I was a little boy in school, there was another boy that stammered.

And of course, you know, there's always 1 bright boy in school, and This bright boy was able to mimic this stammerer.

And of course, we boys, we just laughed to see how beautifully he had mimicked the stammerer.

Let me interrupt myself to say this, friends.

Fathers and mothers, instruct your boys and girls never, never, never to be a party to making fun of some other person who may not be just like us.

And so this boy that mimicked the stammerer, I met him a few years later.

By beholding, by talking, by mulling over this thing, he became what he talked about.

I heard sometime ago of 5, I think it was 5 psychiatrists that did a deep research on suicide And you know the report came back that every 1 of them except 1 You've guessed it Committed suicide 2nd Corinthians 318 says We beholding are changed in the same image.

What we mull over, what we talk about, even in prayer, we become like, you see.

Also when I was a little boy in school, I wanted to learn to ride a bicycle.

How many people here at this hour have ever learned to ride a bicycle?

They had just installed a telephone at our home and there just beside the road was this telephone pole and as I got on this bicycle somehow I became frightened for fear I was going to ride into that telephone pole.

I said I'm afraid I'm going to ride in that telephone pole and I glued my eyes on the telephone pole and I became so frigid.

You've guessed it, I rode right into the telephone pole.

I said, I never want to do that again, so I looked in the opposite direction and on the other side of the road was a great big maple tree, many times as big as the telephone pole.

And I looked at that maple tree and I thought if I couldn't avoid the telephone pole how in this world can I ever in this world avoid the maple tree it's so big it's so huge I'm afraid I'm going to write into it and I glued my eyes on it and I looked at it and I talked about it and I thought about it?

You've guessed it, right in the maple tree.

What we talk about, what we look at, what we meditate upon, what we pray about, we become.

Also back home, there was a wonderful, eloquent, most eloquent minister, I think, that my father and mother had ever heard.

He was as sincere as he was eloquent, beautifully sincere.

With him was a young man whom we would call nowadays an intern.

And this older minister was such a beautiful speaker.

His whole soul seemed to well up in love for the Christ of Calvary.

Oh my, the young minister just sat there and listened to his to his older minister preaching.

Oh he thought I wish I could be like him.

The older minister, however, had some injury to his hip, and he limped, limped all of his life.

The young minister was looking, watching, observing, listening to how the older minister put his words together and you know 6 months later that young minister was preaching almost like the older 1 but something almost humorous took place.

The younger minister was also limping, but there was nothing wrong with his hip.

By beholding, we're changing the same image.

You know why there are so many thousands of people praying and praying and praying and they never get through to God.

There are 15 individuals some time ago that engaged in a special program and experiment.

They believed that if they would pray every day for 1 or 2 hours a day without exception they could solve any problem.

There were others who felt that they needed to go to a psychiatrist twice a week or so.

There were others who felt there was no way they could solve problems so they went into a group therapy.

But these 15 people said we believe with all our hearts that prayer is the answer.

So they agreed to pray every day from 1 to 2 hours.

At the end of 9 months, the end of the experiment, what kind of progress do you suppose those people made?

When I was confronted with that question I said probably 90 percent, maybe 95 percent.

Because they prayed about their problems instead of praying about solutions that God has promised.

You see the Bible gives us 3, 573 promises or clusters of promises.

It can go into many more thousands and each of these promises when we claim that promise we have the right to focus our attention on the solution that's promised but they didn't do it.

1 of those men would be praying something like this, a man who got nowhere with his prayer, he said dear Lord I have a temper I have a terrible temper but Lord my dad had a temper too and My grandfather he was awful and even on my mother's side my my mother can cackle like a hen a setting hen But she got it.

She she got it from her mother and her grandmother But Lord, I wish I didn't have this temper Lord.

Oh please deliver me from this temper and you know what happens the next day?

The next day and in addition to having scolded his wife the first day, he kicks the cat the second day.

This temper is terrible Lord, it's getting me down.

I don't know how I'm ever going to be ready to meet the Lord.

And the next day he hits the dog and kicks the cat and scolds his wife.

By beholding, even in prayer, by discussing, by fixing our attention, by talking and talking and talking and mulling over problems, we become part of the problem.

I've wondered for many years why it is that so many people talk about the 7 last plagues.

It's all right to study it, but why should people keep talking and talking and talking about 7 last plagues until they become a plague?

They talk about pestilence till they become a church pest.

They talk about a time of trouble till they become troublemakers.

By beholding we're changed the same image.

The Bible presents solution-centered praying.

In the book of Genesis chapter 32, we have the story of Jacob and his night of wrestling.

And as Jacob was wrestling he claimed 2 specific promises of the Lord, solution-centered promises.

And not merely did he claim a solution, but when he was through praying he acted out the solution.

You'll find there in the 31st chapter how he actually believed that the Lord was hearing him to such an extent that all of his actions conformed to the solution-centered prayer.

In 2nd Chronicles the 20th chapter, King Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, was confronted by many nations.

He knelt down in sackcloth and ashes and he claimed a promise that God had made a solution centered promise.

03-My Drowning Brother Saved

Some time ago we were holding a series of meetings out in Texas and a young lady came for counsel and Brother Steve and brother David and I were there together in our motor home and she said 1 of the problems she had was witnessing and I'll never forget brother Steve's reply.

He said, sister, the reason you have a problem in witnessing is you don't have anything to witness for.

30 minutes later she walked out of that motor home with something to witness, to witness to Jesus Christ.

I'd like to share with you some of the steps that I personally took in witnessing for Jesus.

And more or less, these are the same 7 steps that sinners have taken generally through the ages.

In Isaiah the sixth chapter, Isaiah said, I saw the Lord, and then followed the call to witness.

In the first chapter of Jeremiah, he said, the Lord talked to me, and then followed his witness.

The apostle Paul said, he heard the voice of God and Jesus talked to him and he captured a picture of the crucified and then he went out to witness.

When I was 6 years of age, in a little old farmhouse upstairs, my bedroom mother was sweeping the floor, and she was telling me the simple story of Jesus.

I can't describe what that story meant to me.

She told the story from the time that he was a little babe in Bethlehem, with the stars that twinkled over that city.

On through his early life, on into his ministry, and then his final trials, his famous march to Calvary, amid insult and mockery.

And then I saw him strung up between heaven and earth and my friends mother's simple description of the love of Jesus Christ broke my heart and the love of Jesus converted me and that is the first the first step a picture of Jesus.

The second step is the response to that picture of Jesus.

And she turned me to 1 John, the first chapter and the ninth verse, and it says, if we confess our sins, let's quote it together, shall we?

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

And I knelt down with mother and I confessed that I was a sinner and I just believed that the Lord had forgiven and cleansed me.

And I reached up in simple childlike faith and accepted his cleansing.

Sometime after this, the next step was taken.

I dreamed that my brother Lester was only 2 years older than I, was out in the ocean waves drowning just near shore.

I was standing on the home shore and I saw his body cupped in 1 of these angry waves and the waves between him and me were very high and furious.

I saw his face looking at me in a most pleading fashion.

And then I realized these angry waves were between him and me.

How in the world could I ever get to him?

And while I was trying to figure some way by which I could get to him and my whole soul was plowed up in agony for him, the tears rolling down my cheeks, I suddenly awakened.

And then a thought voice, the voice of the Holy Spirit, spoke to me and said, son you have brothers and sisters all over the world.

I want you to go out and throw out the lifeline and save them.

You'll be the instrument in my hands to rescue them.

And I remember, I looked up in the face of the Lord and I said, Lord, I've never been able to do anything right.

I was the bullhead of the family, always doing things in the wrong way.

Lord, I've never been able to do things right and around the home, I've tried, but I failed.

How in the world, Lord, could I ever do this?

And the thought voice of my Lord spoke said I'll teach you I'll show you how you can be my instrument and with the tears rolling down my cheeks I said Lord if you will show me I shall be happy too because I was thinking my drowning brother and the agony and the and the Sympathy that I had for him and that same sympathy went out toward all who would be drowning in the waves of sin And he said you will go and I'll be with you Now this was my response to his call.

The call was a third step and my response was the fourth step.

As later on I read of the story of Isaiah I found it was the same.

He said, I saw the Lord And then I responded and I said woe is me for I'm undone There he was confessing his sins to the Lord and then he heard a voice saying whom shall we send?

And he took the fourth step saying here am I Lord send me I found that Jeremiah passed through the same general steps.

All of us sinners must go through those steps.

We must understand his immutable, eternal, gracious love or we have nothing to share.

The fifth step that I took was that of intercession.

As I'd walk down the little dusty roads out there in the country, I would look at the houses on the right hand and on the left, and I would say, I wonder if these people are ready to meet the Lord.

My whole soul went out in eagerness to tell them about Jesus Christ and how he forgives and cleanses.

He's preparing a home for us in glory land.

What can I do and it went on through the Academy on through college and it's never left And I found this my friends that as we intercede the Lord answers The prophet Isaiah said God wondered that there was no intercessor This drowning brother was in the academy with me?

We had a home, our parents had a home just on the border of this academy.

And we could see from where we lived, the academy grounds, the large trees and some of the buildings.

1 day I realized, and in fact I'd realized it for several days, several weeks, that my brother Lester, this drowning brother of years before was now going through a very tumultuous experience.

And it seemed to me as his younger brother that there wasn't very much sympathy extended by the part of on the part of older Christians who should have known better you know and my heart went out to him my drowning brother Now he apparently was drowning in the waves of discouragement.

1 day when father and mother were out of the place out in their business, my brother was out somewhere I don't know where so discouraged, I slept upstairs in our little bedroom and I fell on my knees.

Now a boy in high school, my whole prayer was for my brother Lester.

Dear Lord, he's going to give up unless you send angels to his rescue.

And I fell on my knees and as I prayed, I prayed for 5 minutes.

Then 15, 20, 30, and about the time I had reached 30 minutes, something seemed to speak to my soul, if you will continue your intercession, he may come right into the house.

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