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ABC Prayer Crusade

Getting Through to God

Glenn Coon

01-Oh God, Do You Care?

02-I Have Trouble Everywhere

03-My Drowning Brother Saved

04-Sincere Sinners

05-Hallelujah 6000 Dollars

06-Then Everything Went Wrong

07-The Agony Was Great

08-Satisfying Fellowship

09-Legalism Be Gone

10-Answers Delayed, Why?

11-Jesus Disobeyed Me

12-Converted Against Her Will

13-Stake Your Claim

14-Eternal Life Now?

I'd like to share with you some very personal experiences of our own, mainly 1 outstanding 1.

We make it a practice to claim that promise in our heart, asking, believing, and claiming before every missionary visit, before every sermon, before every study, because we have learned to love the Holy Spirit for what he does.

If any man see his brother sin a sin that's not unto death, he may ask and God will give him life.

The person may have wandered far from the Lord, but we say, Lord, we're asking you to do, because we need and he needs life.

We're believing it, Lord, because this is our way of telling you that we trust you to do it.

You see, when we ask, believe, and claim, it's a philosophy of prayer.

Asking is virtually saying to the Lord we need you to do it.

When we say we believe we're saying Lord we trust you to keep your word.

And when we say we claim or thank you we've received, we're saying, Lord, our eyes are looking like a person at dark as looking is looking out at the horizon for the rising sun.

We're looking, we're expectantly looking for the answer to the prayer.

We believe to such an extent that we know God is doing, we know he is hearing, we know he's answering.

So as we ask, as we believe, we claim this soul to be converted to him.

Now wherever we've traveled in many cases a real problem confronts many of our listeners.

It is a question of Aren't you kind of forcing this backslider not to be lost?

You're asking, you're believing, you're reaching right up and claiming his salvation.

His will plays a very large part for him.

But as I prayed about this many years ago, and I had learned that my teacher, my favorite author, had said, for any promise, any gift that God has promised, I may ask.

And then I'm to thank God that I've received.

I said when I've received such instruction as that from the Bible, for they're all Bible text to prove it, there must be something beyond the objection that's in people's hearts.

And as I prayed and studied I found this.

When you pray for a backslider, that this backslider will be converted anew, You are not praying against the backsliders will You aren't no and the Holy Spirit impressed me with this fact Of the 50 years now that I've 53 years that I've been in the ministry I have yet to see the first backslider come to me and say, Pastor Kuhn, I can hardly wait to get into hellfire.

I long to be on the outside of the city of God.

Backsliders do not choose to be lost, not consciously.

And the devil gets them to look into our countenances, and too many times they don't see too much happiness, too much assurance in the faces of professed Christians.

And they say, well, I don't want to be that kind of a Christian.

And then they tune on to TV and they see these wonderful artists smiling.

They appear to be so happy, so pleasant and they say, my I want to be happy like they are.

They don't know that many of these artists can hardly wait to commit suicide themselves.

And so thus they are lured into the path of sin, not because they want to be lost, but because they want to be happy.

What a tragedy then, for me to come along and say these people choose to be lost far from it they choose to be happy when they do take that route and begin to sin the devil comes in with his accusings and the devil says there's no hope for you you are a hypocrite there's no hope whatsoever give up and they they don't hear the Christians say there is hope.

All they hear mainly is the voice of Satan saying no hope, no hope, no hope.

Oh, that Christians could come, claiming the promise of the Holy Spirit and saying to them, there's hope, though your sins be as scallop, they shall be as white as snow.

1 of the most outstanding statements from my favorite author, and it's in 1 of the most unlikely books you'd ever expect to find such a statement.

It's in a book in my library that to be perfectly frank I've read very little from.

You wouldn't expect to find something on the ABCs of prayer in a book entitled medical ministry.

You'd expect that would be dealing with the with a physical being of man and all of that.

And on page 244 someone pointed out to me the statement.

It said that even for people who appear to be completely frivolous, who appear to have no desire whatsoever to do right, no interest in Christianity whatsoever, It says that we can come to the Lord, and this is what it says.

We can say to our Lord, you have said, ask and you will receive.

Dear Lord, I must have this soul converted to you.

So the Lord is not pressuring, the Lord is not forcing this person's will.

The Lord knows that this person was merely discouraged, first seeking happiness, then learning that they took the wrong route.

The devil accuses them and tells them there's no hope, and then unfortunately too many of us Christians enter the picture and we start lecturing them.

Oh, how important it is for you and me to know the part of the Holy Spirit, right?

Then I found this statement, and for years, I've been studying this statement concerning the Holy Spirit.

John chapter 16 verse 8 in our King James Version it says when he the Holy Spirit has come he will reprove the world of sin of righteousness and of judgment And the more I have studied through the years into the working of the Holy Spirit and his beautiful way of winning, I thought well there's a much deeper concept to that than most people understand.

And the real meaning of what Jesus was saying is something like this.

When the Holy Spirit comes, he will convince, convince the world of sin.

He will demonstrate to them that sin is sin.

Then he'll demonstrate to them that they can live the Christian life by the power of the Holy Spirit.

He will demonstrate to them that they can stand before the judge of all the universe at the last great day Clothed in the righteous garments of Jesus Christ though their sins were scarlet.

They were made as white as snow That's why I love the Holy Spirit That is his work So with that we place Zechariah 4, 6.

Not by might, meaning human might, not by human might, not by human power, but by my spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.

When we understand the beautiful working of the Holy Spirit, that he not merely convinces of sin, but he is out there revealing to the poor sinner, so discouraged, you can make it by the power of Jesus.

It is God that works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.

If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed.

I will free your will to whatever extent it is captive to the devil.

I will give you the power to rise above the past and all the accusings of the devil.

And then we will say, oh, I don't have to do the work of the Holy Spirit.

For in John 15 26 it says, when he is come, he will testify of Jesus.

So when the Holy Spirit is in your life and mine, instead of our testifying to the meanness of the sinner, Instead of our telling him about all the terrible things that are going to happen to him, we're out reflecting the beauty of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the winsomeness of Jesus.

So the sinner says, oh I could have been happier had I remained a Christian.

And the devil is saying, but you can't make it.

We're to talk more loudly than the devil, beloved, what do you say?

Groups of us should be praying together and then visiting these individuals who are having a rough time and say and saying to them Jesus forgives the man whose sins are as scarlet.

You don't have to live over the past at all.

If any man be in Christ he's a new creature.

It is the devil that keeps pointing you across the line where you've confessed your sins.

It is a devil that digs up the past sins and presents them to you.

Jesus says cease to dwell on things gone by.

Don't do it, don't dig up the past and don't listen to the devil who is the digger up of the past.

Let me give you a concrete illustration and my friends 1 or 2 of these illustrations that we're gonna share this morning could be repeated again and again and again.

So you see, before I share this with you, you can see, friends, that Jesus wants us to have a completely new concept of that soul that maybe is absenting himself from church.

A complete new concept of the boy who is on drugs.

He is actually searching for happiness And if we could get this concept through the power of the Holy Spirit, we would see that these so-called backsliders are actually reaching out, hoping to find peace, hoping to find happiness, Hoping to find some kind of assurance in life So it is with a drunkard so it is with a man who has run off with another man's wife He's taken captive by the devil at the devil's will but all how he still longs for a better life.

If we can gain this concept, then we'll approach him from a completely different angle.

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Series

Getting Through to God

12-Converted Against Her Will

Transcript

Parent Series

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