God Defeats Armies

God defeats armies. The True God acts on behalf of his True Servants. God's true servants can not be defeated because God can not be defeated.

Elijah Calls Fire from Heaven (Woodcut, Nuremberg, 1702).

  

God's true servants can not be defeated because God cannot be defeated. The Scriptures contain many instances where even enemy armies of overwhelming size and strength are defeated by God's power.

“The battle is not mine, but the Lord's.”

First, we must admit the servants God so blesses are marked with lives dedicated to God through obedience. Yes, they sometimes feel reluctance facing confrontation, but they chose obedience when God directs them. Frequently, they consult God before battle.

“Fear not, for those who are with us

are more than those with them.”

One of my favorite stories is when King Ahaziah fell through the upper lattice of his palace in Samaria and injured himself. He sent palace messengers to the town of Ekron to consult the idol, Baal-Zebub, (Sound familiar?) regarding the King's health. God told the Prophet Elijah because the King consulted the idol, the King would not recover, but die.

Even today, servants forget to consult the True God of the Universe. Undoubtedly, many do not really believe in Him, except as a last resort.

The King asked the royal messenger who had spoken to them. They described Elijah the Tishbite as a man wearing a hair garment and a leather belt, very prophet-like. King Ahaziah sent a company of fifty soldiers to bring Elijah to the King. Bad mistake.

“Man of God” ordered the curt commander, “Come down!”

“If I am a man of God,” answered Elijah, “may fire come down from heaven and consume you and your fifty men.” And it did. In fact, the King sent another fifty men and the same result occurred again. They were burnt toast.

When the King sent a third company, this unit's commander was a little wiser and a little more humble. He fell on his knees. (Another lesson for today.)

“Man of God,” he said. “Please respect my life and the lives of my men.”

God told Elijah to go with him. In the outcome, Elijah again told the King that because he consulted the idol, he would most certainly die. And the King died. Even today, men make idols, substitute concepts in their hearts, or use idols that are not the True God. And they wonder why their prayers are not answered.

You can read about miraculous battles as a matter of scriptural record, Moses, Joshua, Gideon, Hezekiah, Deborah and Barak, Jonathan, David, and many more. And there are many reports from modern wars.

The True God acts on behalf of his True Servants.

“He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world” (1 John 4:4 NKJV).

(Story Ref. 2 Kings 1 NKJV)

– Bill Hunt

World in Christ/Messiah

Can You Pray at a Distance?

Do you believe God is limited by time, space, or matter? Think of what that means.

Jesus Heeds the Woman

(Artist Unknown, ChristiansUnite.com)

 

People wonder how well prayer works at a distance. They want to pray by phone, on the Internet, or even around the World. Perhaps, they forget they are dealing with the God of the Universe who knows no limitations. Not time, not matter, not space.

I was delighted to find a woman across the country healed of two serious conditions recently, one short term and the other chronic, after prayer over the Internet. This, even by chat typing on Facebook.

Jesus shows us in scripture. 

A Syro-Phoenician woman in the Region of Tyre and Sidon, not normally accepted by the Jews, begged Jesus to heal her possessed daughter who remained back at her own house.

But Jesus said to her, "Let the children be filled first, for it is not good to take the children's bread and throw it to the little dogs."

28 And she answered and said to Him, "Yes, Lord, yet even the little dogs under the table eat from the children's crumbs."

29 Then He said to her, "For this saying go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter."

30 And when she had come to her house, she found the demon gone out, and her daughter lying on the bed (Mark 7:27-30 NKJV).

Jesus healed the paralyzed servant of a pagan Roman Centurion who would also not cause Jesus to return to his house.

Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him,

6 saying, "Lord, my servant is lying at home paralyzed, dreadfully tormented."

7 And Jesus said to him, "I will come and heal him."

8 The centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed.

9 "For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and to another, 'Come,' and he comes; and to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

10 When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, "Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!” (Matt 8:5-10 NKJV).

A nobleman came from Capernaum to Cana and begged Jesus to heal his son dying at home.

The nobleman said to Him, "Sir, come down before my child dies!"

50 Jesus said to him, "Go your way; your son lives." So the man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him, and he went his way.

51 And as he was now going down, his servants met him and told him, saying, "Your son lives!"

52 Then he inquired of them the hour when he got better. And they said to him, "Yesterday at the seventh hour the fever left him."

53 So the father knew that it was at the same hour in which Jesus said to him, "Your son lives." And he himself believed, and his whole household (John 4:49-53 NKJV).

Yes. You can pray at a distance, by phone, by radio, by mail, by computer, by Internet, or indeed, spiritually, across your neighborhood, across the country, or even around the World. Do you have Faith? God knows no limitations, other than your heart before him.

The World needs your prayer.

– Bill Hunt

World in Christ

Jesus Works Each Person's Miracle by Bill Hunt

Jesus will Answer Your Personal Needs.

 

Paralytic Lowered Through Roof

(Art by James Tissot, 1886-96)

Following Jesus, watching him work miracles was a fabulous experience. First, we walked the dusty roads to Capernaum. On the Sabbath, Jesus went right to the synagogue and rose to teach.

“What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth?” a man screamed out. Such a screaming demon will alarm you, and we all gasped.

“Be still. Come out of him.”

Jesus looked at him and ordered silence. The man fell to the floor shaking. When he quieted down, Jesus raised him to his feet, the man now sound of mind and body.

At the home of Simon and Andrew, Simon's mother-in-law lay sick. Jesus stepped to her bed, took her hand and raised her up. That's all he did. I didn't hear a word. Everyone in the house watched him.

Later, on the road, as we walked from village to village, a poor pitiful man with leprosy begged him on his knees. The man looked awful and smelled worse. He begged more.

“If you are willing, you can make me whole.” Needless to say, no one seemed interested in him, except Jesus.

“I am willing, be clean,” said Jesus.

The man instantly looked clean as if someone had bathed him. There was no smell, just a sweet fragrance in the air.

Now the next event I found amazing. The roof of this house in Capernaum seemed to cave in. Men tore it off. Pieces fell to the floor. People inside backed against the walls. Four men lowered a paralytic through the roof down into the house.

“Son, your sins are forgiven,” Jesus said.

The Rabbis grew huffy. Jesus turned to them, “Which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven', or 'Take up your mat and walk'?”

“Get up, take up your mat, and go home!” he told the paralytic. The paralytic stood up and walked out with his friends! Everyone saw it.

In the town square, Jesus invited the local tax collector to follow him. Later, eating at the home of this new follower, Levi, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have come to call not the good, but the sinners.”

In these first few days, one thing grew apparent to me. Jesus related to each person in a personal way. He always did. You'd find the same thing. Jesus is the answer to your needs. It's like he knows every one. Turn to him. You'll see.

"Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28, NKJV).

(Scriptures and story adapted from Mark, Chapters 1 & 2.)

– Bill Hunt

Prayer Request:

A young mother, Shamim Bibi, (2-28-12 Pakistan) has been ripped from her baby and imprisoned under penalty of death for her Christian Faith. Also, Asia Bibi (6-19-09 Pakistan) mother of five children; Pastor Yousef Nadarkhani, (10-2009 Iran) father of two sons. Nations guilty of violations against most basic human rights. "Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is Freedom." Actively Pray for these and the Persecuted World-Wide.

Read the Story at www.compassdirect.org

Battle Tornadoes With the Angels

Through prayer, God protects our lives, even during the double trouble of twin tornadoes.

Joanna drove the street between the twin tornadoes! (NOAA Photo)

The neighborhood sirens sounded with gruesome wails. Tornadoes hit with sudden terror in the nation's Midwest. I certainly didn't expect to face a double-header. One pouring, rainy day, twin tornadoes dropped from the dark storm clouds easterly into the Tulsa streets.

“The LORD is slow to anger and great in power;

the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished.

His way is in the whirlwind and the storm,

the clouds are the dust of his feet” (Nahum 1:3 NIV).

My wife Mary, daughter Meg, and I scampered invited to our neighbors' underground shelter. Down through the gray metal hatch, we descended into the black hole, all soaked wet in the pouring rain. Finally underground, we felt safe.

Twin tornadoes split along 

parallel streets.

We missed our teenage daughter, Joanna, and our little son, Daniel, out shopping. The three of us earnestly prayed for them. Tulsa is a city designed on a uniform street grid. The twin tornadoes split up along parallel routes. One headed east on 51st Street and the other headed east on 71st Street.

Driving in blinding rain, Joanna also prayed and listened to the radio announcements. By God's wonderful grace, she decided to drive home west on 61st Street. Ultimately, she passed between the oncoming twin tornadoes, one on each side of her.

There was a knock on our dripping metal hatch, and we opened it to find Joanna and Daniel quickly climbing down the wet ladder. When they found our house dark and empty, Daniel remembered the location of the neighbors' tornado shelter. Joanna found relief from the stress of her adventurous ride, broke down, and cried. The rest of us praised God for our children's safe deliverance from the twin threat.

This tornado formed around 

our neighborhood!

It happened again! This time, the tornado formed right around our new neighborhood in West Tulsa. We found ourselves in the center of its rotation. Meg, Dan, and I formed a shelter under a mattress in the hallway where we could look out through the nearby bedroom windows and the sliding glass door.

We watched amazed as the thick rain flew horizontally in a circular motion past us, not toward the ground. The tall backyard trees actually bent double and touched their tops to the ground in the twister's high winds. The water mains broke in the street intersection at the front corner of the house. Flooding rose almost to the foundation along our small ground rise.

Daughter Meg and son Dan, and I prayed earnestly in the name of Jesus and commanded the tornado to leave. God gave us the grace of faith and confidence in his care. I was amazed the glass windows and especially the glass in the sliding door did not break. It was as if the Lord cupped his hand in protection over us.

"There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear...” (1 John 4:18 NIV).

Some fifty minutes later, the tornado soared from the ground passing over the river and Central Tulsa, touching down on the east side of the city. More than 50,000 homes lost power and phone lines for up to three days.

I was most concerned for Mary who worked across town at the time. As it turned out, she did not directly encounter the tornado, other than the severe rainstorms. We were very glad when she arrived home safely a few hours later.

Angels battle this tornado!

One devastating F5 tornado hit the western region of Jefferson County and the suburbs of Birmingham, Alabama, on the evening of April 8, 1998. It traveled 30 miles on the ground and 32 people died. It badly damaged or destroyed 14 churches but spared all lives attending Wednesday evening services.

In this case, I listened to the national radio and television news broadcasts tell about two young girls huddled in the hallway at Open Door Church in Alabama. The girls claimed to have seen and heard angels shouting above the sound of the striking tornado.

The angels held the wall from collapsing on a class of children sheltered in the hallway as the giant tornado struck. Although most of the building was destroyed, the retaining wall saved the lives of the children, bearing out the girls' story.

"It was a God thing!" said reporting journalist, James Spann. The story flashed around the country.

A tape recorder caught the 

frantic conversations.

A tape recorder run by an adult in the hallway as the tornado hit caught the frantic conversations of the two adolescent girls. They described the angels shouts to each other over the noise of the twister during their defensive efforts to hold the shaking wall.

Yes, the armies of the Hosts of the Lord save us even from the attack of the whirlwind. From our experiences with these tornadoes, I couldn't agree more.

Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, “Teacher, don't you care if we drown?” He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, “Quiet! Be still!” Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, “Why are you so afraid. Do you still have no faith?” (Mark 4: 38-40 NIV).
The truth is, Jesus showed us how to calm the storm.

--Bill Hunt

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Miracle Lightning Strike!

God's ways are wondrous: witness to a foreign visitor, protected in a lightning strike, and a new baby prophesied.

God Protects even from a Lightning Strike!

(Photo by Mark Coldren, PDPics) 

Can you witness to someone who speaks another language? Dark haired and dark eyed, this striking uniformed woman entered the crowded gift shop in Central Florida. The Hebrew on her uniform told me she was a traveling Israeli Army officer. An elderly American couple accompanied her. When I greeted the strangers by the impulse of the Holy Spirit, the elderly Christian woman explained she personally never took the opportunity to witness Christ to her Hebrew friend. They met her in Israel.

I saw this as a divine appointment from the Lord. Since, the officer did not speak English, I witnessed to her in the only words of Hebrew I knew. "Baruch a shem Adonoi. Yeshua ha Meshiah." "Blessed be the name of the Lord God. Jesus the Messiah."

I showed her a gold Star of David 

I wore around my neck. 

At this, the pretty officer beamed a big smile and gave me a nice hug. Her Christian lady friend now pulled a Hebrew New Testament out of her purse and handed it to me. The officer, not a Christian, autographed the book in Hebrew. "Next year in Jerusalem!" she wrote. It is the Israeli war cry.

My family and I had moved to Central Florida to Marion County. I found work in public relations, which helped me to familiarize with the area and the people. As a family, we also worked together to deliver newspapers by car, taking turns. Monica rode with her mother to throw newspapers, or Brian rode with his dad. It was actually good family time.

Early one morning in the dark, a horrible rainstorm with strong crashes of thunder and flashes of lightning poured down on us. To deliver newspapers at a large apartment complex on our route, I pulled the station wagon in to a parking place under a big, spreading oak tree.

Immediately, the Spirit impressed me 

strongly in my heart to move the car!

The warning came a second time. I remembered how I had come to suffer two weeks of poison oak all over my face once in the past when I did not heed such a spiritual warning. So, I obeyed. I backed the car out and parked in another space up the line. Flashes of lightning illuminated the scene.

I delivered newspapers on foot around the twenty-one apartments and then returned to the parking lot. There, in the parking space I vacated now lay half of the huge spreading oak tree. A lightning strike split the big tree and knocked it down! If I had remained parked there, my car would have been crushed and Brian injured. For the rest of the newspaper run, my son and I praised God together for the saving miracle.

The pregnancy of our last baby took Mary quite by surprise, or maybe I should say more, by shock. "We just weren't established!" said Mary. "I had to work, and it seemed like it must be the wrong time for a baby. We were still new to Florida. A baby was the furthest thing from my mind. I really felt sick during my early pregnancy.”

“I was five or six months along by the time we moved to Ocala. We wanted trees and grass, something that was more familiar to us,” said Mary. We moved to Silver Springs Woods in the very green Ocala National Forest. Mary had not yet seen a doctor.

"The baby you are carrying is a boy, 
and his name is Daniel,"

In our new church there was a young couple who invited us for dinner. During prayer, this young woman suddenly prophesied a sign from God, that what was happening to us was truly his hand. "The baby you are carrying is a boy, and his name is Daniel," she said. “The name Daniel means God has judged."

Later, the weather was very hot and Mary was very uncomfortable wondering what day the baby would come. Three weeks before the birth, Dad prophesied the baby would be born on October 20^th. This gave Mary comfort. It turned out to be a Saturday morning at Monroe Regional Hospital. Daniel was born soon after noontime following just an hour and a half of labor. He's been a servant of the Lord, ever since. God has his hands on the daily lives of men.

– Bill Hunt

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God's Miracle Trailer Move

God provides in the way he points! To answer a call to ministry, God supplies the trailer to move and a shiny silver cross.

"Follow Me" by Bobby Mikul (pdp)


 At the onset of an August evening, I walked alone down the red wooden plank stairway to the lake in Maine and sat down near the water to pray. I needed a word from the Lord on direction for our lives. I heard a strange sound. Looking up, I saw high in the sky against the light of the setting sun a huge flight of geese in "V" formation, headed south.

My attention was also drawn toward a flashing red beacon tower on the horizon toward the south end of the lake. God spoke in my heart. "I'm taking you south!" he said.

"South? South to where?" I dared to ask. "South to Massachusetts or south back to New York? Where south?"

"South to Florida," he said.

"South to Florida! Why Florida?" I ventured to ask.

"Because I am gathering my people together," he said. My task was to obey. Mary and I hustled to pack our home and prepare to leave. We were ready for a change, but the work of packing and the lack of funds wore at my wife.

I phoned through the morning hours and located a rental trailer for the low, low price of $25 to haul to Florida. What a deal! The catch was I had to drive north for an hour to pick it up. I invited my young son, Brian, along for the ride.

When I arrived at the distribution center deep in the forest area, a lovely country lady with freckles nicely hooked up the hitch for me, safety chains, red tail lights, and all. Brian and I started our drive home. Almost a half hour out along the country roads, a safety chain broke off the trailer and clanged violently as it beat the pavement. Not good!

I turned the rig around in the road very carefully and drove at moderate speeds to return to the distribution center. The young woman came out, picked the one remaining trailer and hooked it to my station wagon.

After I pulled the trailer late into the garage, I entered the kitchen door and found my wife crying tears at the kitchen stove. She cried from the frustration of trying to reduce a household of five children to fit the space of a five by eight foot trailer.

During the day, she carefully measured everything, the dressers, the table, the boxes. She cut the ladder-back dining room chairs down so they would stack.  She drew on paper and measured off the baby's crib mattress, planning just the things she could fit into the trailer. She gave away our washer and dryer, then our Boston Rocker to an elderly woman in the church. My wife planned to take just the very bare necessities.

"How do we really know this 
is God's will?" she cried.

Trying to remind her of the geese didn't seem the right thing to do at the time. I gave Brian the broom and asked him to sweep out the trailer. He headed out the kitchen door. In a moment, he came rushing back.

"Mommy!  Mommy!" he shouted with glee. "Look what I found!" He was holding high in his hand a shiny silver cross. Inside the front left corner of the trailer, he found lying in the dust a little homemade, silver, stainless steel cross.

Mary rejoiced!

Later, I finished packing the trailer and our family prepared to leave the house. I knew I was deep into a moment of faith. We were prepared to leave Maine for Florida on a two thousand mile trip, and I counted only thirty-two dollars in my pocket! We would drive out of the driveway and leave the trip to God.

“This trip is yours, God!” I said 
to my Heavenly Father.

Just then, a car drove in carrying a few church people. Kindly, they presented us a money tree from the congregation. It amounted to $350! Mary and I praised God as we drove out that evening. But the miracle wasn't over.

As we traveled south, we visited friends along the way in Boston, in New York on the Hudson, in Virginia Beach, in Jacksonville, and Ocala. Friends and relatives along the way not only fed us a grand supper to eat and beds to spend the night in, but each couple unexpectedly gave us a sacrificial gift! We arrived in South Florida with $1400 to start our new assignment for God.

"And he determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live” (Acts 17:26 NIV).
– Bill Hunt

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True Exodus Red Sea Crossing

For 3500 years the desert has held the secret of the true Exodus Crossing and the true Mount Sinai where God gave Moses the ten commandments, and where Elijah encountered God from the cave.

"Passage of the Red Sea" by Francis Danby, Irish, 1825.

 

Imagine following the true route of the Exodus, crossing the Red Sea, and seeing the real Mount Sinai. This mountain is also known in scripture as Mount Horeb where God visited Moses at the burning bush in Median, where he brought the Hebrew nation out from Egypt, where God gave the Ten Commandments, and the cave where Elijah saw God pass by. For 3500 years, man has not known the true mountain, but now in modern times, the route and the mountain have been rediscovered with overwhelming evidence, following the exact descriptions of the words of the Bible.

Traveling the Wilderness Journey.

Spending 430 years in Goshen, the Israelites were reduced to slavery as brick makers on the muddy Nile Delta. God sent Moses from the burning bush in Median to Pharaoh in Egypt using amazing supernatural curses to force the obstinate tyrant to allow the Hebrews to leave Egypt (Ex 12:40-42). Upon leaving, Moses led the Hebrews from Goshen down the eastern side of the modern Red Sea through the wilderness. Obeying God, he journeyed toward Mount Horeb to worship with the Hebrews. He had already spent forty years in Median before God returned him to Egypt.

Yes, Moses knew the desert road from Egypt. Rather than traveling south to the tip of the Sinai, the road turns east between the wilderness mountains midway down the Peninsula and crosses the desert to the northern end of the Gulf of Aqaba into Median. Moses, otherwise, would not have stayed on the Sinai Peninsula, as it was Egyptian territory (Ex 13:18).

Moses headed easterly for Median across the Gulf of Aqaba to what is now Saudi Arabia. The Council of Seventy Elders translating the Hebrew Scriptures knew in 250 BC that Mount Sinai or Horeb was in Midyan. So did Philo Judaeus, (1st Cent.) philosopher of Alexandria. So did Paul, in Galatians 4:25. So did Josephus, about 90 AD, note it was the highest mountain in Median near the ancient city of now El Bad. So did Ptolemy, (2nd Cent.) astronomer of Alexandria.

Backed to the Sea by Pharaoh's Army.

The Gulf of Aqaba was known as the Red Sea, Yam-Suph, by the ancients. Solomon harbored his fleet there. Amazingly, the Gulf is some fifty miles long and a mile deep grand canyon except in two places. There is a long shallow coral reef at its southern mouth where some explorers mistakenly thought the Hebrews would have walked with great difficulty. But other explorers found a high, flat, undersea ridge of firm sand, wide like a highway, crossing the Gulf midway from a beach called Nuweiba.

How do you hide over a million people? From the easterly desert road to Median, Moses turned south to escape the news of Pharaoh's oncoming army of 600 war chariots. But God had another plan. Down a dry, desert river bed, Moses led his people through a deep eighteen mile long gorge, sheltered by cliffs, to a beach, midway on the Gulf, called Nuweiba at the “Mouth of the Gorges,” so meaning the name in scripture, Pi Hahiroth (Ex 14:9).

God's Great Miracle of Deliverance.

But Pharaoh was on to them. Down the eighteen mile gorge he came to Pi Hahiroth, trapping the Israelites on Nuweiba Beach. Miraculously, all night, God blew a great wind and drove back the waters of the Red Sea, exposing a sandy highway on which the people crossed the wide expanse of the Gulf (Ex 14: 21-22). At dawn, as Pharaoh's army of 600 war chariots crossed to destroy the Hebrews, the charioteers drowned as the walls of water came down upon them (Ex 14:27-28). The modern explorers found six-spoked chariot wheels and hubs and four-spoked wheels only used together in Pharaoh's army about the 18th dynasty or 1445 BC. Solomon began to build his temple in 965 BC and the Exodus occurred 480 years earlier (Ex 14:30).

As the bodies of Pharaoh's warrior washed ashore on the ten miles beach along the eastern coast, the Israelites collected the Egyptian armor which they would use to battle the Amalekites at Rephidim, just a few weeks later. The Israelites journeyed toward Mount Sinai or Horeb in an easterly direction. All this you can see in the filmed evidence of the DVD “The Exodus Revealed” purchased at Amazon.

The Wilderness Journey, Faith for Us.

There are times in our lives, like this, when we seem to be caught in the east with our backs to the Red Sea, Yam-Suph, on a beach called Nuweiba. And Pharaoh’s army of 600 war chariots is attacking from the west down the eighteen mile gorge with 1500 foot cliffs. Indeed, the enemy has arrived at the Mouth of the Gorge, Pi Hahiroth, facing us. And our whole situation seems incredibly hopeless! There is only one thing to do. Surrender the situation to God and see his wilderness journey plan for us unfold.

– Bill Hunt

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A Little Boy's Exciting Miracle

Watch, as God answers the faith of a little seven-year-old boy!

"All Ages Enjoy the Excitement of Bicycling!"

 Photo by Petr Kratochvil, PDP.

For weeks, God the Father listened to the earnest, relentless prayers of seven-year-old Brian. I heard him pray for six to eight weeks every breakfast, every lunch, and every dinner, and of course, every evening prayers in the living room with his sisters.

“And God, I want a bicycle. Please, God, give me a bicycle.”

“Daddy, I'm going to win that bicycle!” my son repeated over and over again at home. He seemed to have persistent faith. I was the one who wasn't so sure.

As I drove the family station wagon into town one day, Brian spoke to me with heart touching trust.

“Daddy, will God give me the bicycle

I keep praying for?”

I choked.

“Brian, I know this. God hears your prayer, and he knows exactly what you want. He knows how to answer your prayer. You can trust him.”

“Well then,” said little Brian, “I'm going to keep praying for that bicycle 'cause I really want it!”

When the day of the fair came, my wife, Mary, made sure I'd take Brian and his older sister, Monica. We climbed half way up the steep grandstand steps to select our rather hard seats to perch on. What daddies do for their kids!

The time came. The master of ceremonies in tall stove-pipe top hat conducted the raffle drawing for the “Silver Streak” bicycle. Sitting next to Brian, I watched my son's face and his continued exuberant expressions.

The MC called the first number, 187,

but no child was present to win.

He called the second number, 324, but still no answer came from the audience. The third number, 753, brought the same results.

The announcer took off his tall hat and wiped his forehead. He changed tactics and started calling the ticket numbers in groups over the blaring loud speakers. 17, 648, 429! 518, 921, 36!

As the numbers came, little Brian could not contain his emotions, nor his faith. He stood to his feet and began praying in a rather loud voice.

“Father God, that's my bicycle!

Thank you, Jesus, for my bicycle!”

With determination he prayed louder as the MC called out the numbers. Some 500 people around us must have heard Brian's voice. They grew very quiet, listening to this little boy in T-shirt and torn blue jeans.

He jumped up and down in excited prayer. Something arrested me from stopping or containing his enthusiasm. More numbers were called: 66, 743, 317, 29, 436, 822!

“God, that bicycle is mine,” Brian persisted. “I believe it, that bicycle is mine.”

I could feel the crowd around me holding its breath for Brian. It was better than church! He continued to pray aloud as the numbers were called off. 785, 325, 239, 84, 526, 028!

How can a little boy jump up and down and

pray out loud at the same time?

I felt people around him join in supportive prayer. Tears came to my eyes. I joined in the quiet prayer and could not believe God would not act in his behalf.

(“O ye of little faith.”)

Some seventy-five numbers had been called with no other child present to win. The MC was visibly discouraged. Then it came! 77!

Little Brian tore down those steep bleacher steps like he was flying! I gasped and grabbed at him for his safety, but he was gone!

“He's already down there!” noted Monica.

Brian jumped on the bike and peddled it rapidly in figure eight formations in front of the whole grandstand. He actually took over the show!

The crowd, all five thousand, laughed and let out

a long cheer and a loud applause.

“I wonder what the numerical odds are of this little boy winning this bicycle after so many names were called?” asked the MC over the loud speaker.

As a Daddy, I could hardly breathe! My eyes flowed with tears. I watched God specifically answer a little boy's faith!

“I tell you the truth, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 18:3 NIV).

– Bill Hunt

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Miracle of the Black Oil Truck, one icy Sunday

A Christian miracle story with a question: Would you believe a heating oil delivery would be made in the depths of winter snow on a Sunday, when all oil companies were closed, and no one could be called for help?

Frosty, white, and frozen:  photo by Bill Hunt.

   Sudden winter weather returned in April with below freezing temperatures. Fresh snow fell in heavy silent white flakes covering everything. The windows frosted thick with “finger painted” crystallized ice designs.

Mary and I unexpectedly found ourselves in deep winter in her home, Lowville, in rural Upstate New York. Newly arrived, we rented an old Victorian house for our four little children under five, including our tiny baby. We lived very simply on very little money. God took care of us as we eagerly waited to hear his next directions to ministry.

Early that Sunday morning before church, I checked our furnace oil tank gauge. My heart jumped. The needle sat on zero. We were about to run out of heat in the house at any moment. Outdoors, everything appeared frosty, white, and frozen. 

 

My wife, Mary, with serious eyes, reminded me

the oil companies were closed on Sundays.

In the battle between good and evil, we can find ourselves tempted in hard places, difficult situations, which could ultimately reveal the hidden purposes of God.

Being new in town, I phoned repeatedly every oil company in the county, hoping to find a responding emergency number, but no answer came. Not even the telephone operator could make a suggestion. Not a single area oil company could be contacted.

Secretly, so Mary wouldn't see my fear, I stopped and prayed for God's help at the icy window panes at the side dining room window. The thought of my wife and four children, with the baby, sitting in a cold freezing house severely gripped my heart. I breathed scared.

“Father, help us....”

Less than one hour after my trembling prayer, a black oil tank truck with no external markings drove up the plowed road and parked adjacent to that dining room window!

In amazement, I quickly scratched a peek-hole in the icy frost with my fingernails and watched. An elderly driver dressed in worn workman's overhauls and a tattered, charcoal coat with a plaid lining got out, dragged his black truck hose to our pipe, and refueled the house tank. I couldn't believe my eyes.

Was he an angel? Where did that oil truck come from? There were no markings.

How did he know we were out of oil? Who told him? On a Sunday!

When he finished, the driver got back into his truck, closed the door, and drove away.

He left before I could get my own coat on and rush out the front door to question him.

He left no tank invoice statement, anywhere!

We never received a bill for that delivery. We never knew how the strange oil delivery came to pass.

– Bill Hunt

Q. Have you ever received an unexplained miracle? Tell us in the Comment Box....

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