Man on Fire [Part 1]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. And this is a story about the power of God on display to prove that He's God. But I want to show you today beautifully that like all of Scripture, in the end, it points us to the Gospel, for it's also a story about the nature and power of the Gospel.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today in the series, Miracle Man, as presented at Rinaldo Church in North Carolina. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I'd like to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's message, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org or call 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But now let's get started with today's teaching.

Here's Alan Wright. Are you ready for some good news? There's one true living God and he does not hesitate to prove it. God never intended to leave us guessing as to who the true God is. In fact, when you become a Christian, the very first work of the Holy Spirit is to start whispering to you, spirit to spirit. You're a child of God. A miracle has taken place. God's a supernatural God.

He does miraculous things. And when you move from having mental assent to Christian truth to having the experience of God's grace, so many things change. And today we're going to continue our series about this miracle man Elijah whose life in so many ways points us to the true miracle man Jesus and see one of the great miracle stories of the Bible that is displaying God's power but also displaying the gospel. One of my favorite stories, 1 Kings chapter 18. And I want to just start by reading a few verses in the heart of the story but then throughout the sermon we're going to go back and we're going to look at the whole story. Well, let's just start with this at 1 Kings chapter 18 verse 21. Elijah came near to all the people and said, How long will you go limping between two different opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him, but if Baal, then follow him.

And the people did not answer him a word. Then Elijah said to the people, I even I only am left a prophet of the Lord, but Baal's prophets are 450 men. Let two bulls be given to us and let them choose one bull for themselves and cut it in pieces and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. And I'll prepare the other bull and lay it on the wood and put no fire to it. You call upon the name of your God and I will call upon the name of the Lord and the God who answers by fire, he is God.

And the people answered it is well spoken. Well, it's been a good week for college basketball. Anybody watching any college basketball this week?

Been a good week for basketball. Some of you thought I was talking about Carolina beating Duke. Some of you thought I was talking about Carolina beating State. Maybe you thought I was talking about my Baylor Bears beat Kansas. They'd lost 11 times straight to Kansas and finally this week they beat Kansas.

Beat them handily. Maybe you thought I was talking about, no I wasn't talking about that. I was talking about different basketball contests this week. Pastor Chris and I, we're at the Y, own some business. And you know Pastor Chris he played basketball his whole life, scholarship to college for basketball, blah, blah, blah. And we're walking through the gym, you know, in our street clothes and pull out a basketball and I'm like, you know, how about a little game of pig? And he's like, yeah sure. So anyway, if you're not familiar with it, pig is a shooting game.

It pretty much is just a game to figure out who the best basketball player is. And so anyway, I made some shots. He's trying all these three pointers coming up short. He was coming up a little short. And it got to be P.I.

to P.I. And he's like, this is going to be it right here. He takes the three pointer and bricks it off the front of the rim. I made my next shot. He missed it. And I beat Pastor Chris at basketball.

I don't know where he is ducking his tail right now somewhere in this building. But this showdown, this contest at Mount Carmel, it really wasn't a contest at all, was it? This was no Duke Carolina game where Duke is just throwing the ball into Marvin Bagley and he makes a two-footer every time until finally we start trying. This is not a back and forth who's going to win this game. This is a no contest contest. If this was a basketball game, it's going to be 100 to nothing.

If it's a tennis match, it's going to be 6060. This is a story about something that looks like it's setting itself up as a competition, but in the end you realize there was no real contest that was there. It's really a story about identifying who the real God is. And I'm just going to assert this.

God is not hesitant to identify himself as the one true God. It reminds me a little bit more instead of a basketball game, it reminds me of some of you are old enough to remember the hit game show of the 70s called To Tell the Truth. Three people would come in all purporting to be the same person. Hi, my name is Sam Smith. Hi, my name is Sam Smith. Hi, my name is Sam Smith. And then a group of panelists would ask them questions and they would try to figure out which one was the real Sam Smith based on their answers and who were the imposters and they would make their guess and then at the end of the show the MC would famously ask would the real Sam Smith please stand up. And then all this drama would stand up.

This is what this reminds me of. This is will the real God please stand up. Will you show yourself to be God? And this is a story about the power of God on display to prove that he's God. But I want to show you today beautifully that like all of scripture in the end it points us to the gospel for it's also a story about the nature and power of the gospel. Pete Gregg is a pastor in Britain. He started years ago a movement that he didn't know he was starting a movement. His church just started praying around the clock and out of this emerged something called 24-7 a movement of prayer that now I think over a million people around the world have been in some way connected to this vision of just having the people of God pray more and what happened was at his church in Britain they started praying around the clock and things started happening. God started doing some wonderful things in their midst. Most notably and dramatically sometime early on in this new prayer movement a little boy was healed miraculously of leukemia. And it was a very dramatic thing in the life of the church and the pastor was so elated that Pastor Gregg came to his church leaders and he said you know what this means?

And they were like what? He said this means Christianity is true. The pastor you're the minister you're supposed to already believe that it's true but you know what he was saying was you know I believe these things but now I'm just like whoa I just believe these things because I see God is at work here. For journaling and a daily prayer of faith this beautiful spiral bound book is the perfect tool to get you into the word and to build your faith day by day. When you make a gift this month we'll send you Alan Wright's new devotional journal Everyday Miracles as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Also free digital access to all the Elijah messages currently airing. So please make your gift today and start looking for miracles all around you. The gospel is shared when you give to Alan Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website pastoralan.org.

Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. Albert Einstein who would tell of an agnostic uncle that he had who nonetheless went to synagogue. And somebody had come to this, the only guy in Einstein's family that went to synagogue and they came to this uncle and said but you're an agnostic you don't believe in God. Why do you go to synagogue?

And he said ah but you never know. It just seems like a lot of Christians that I've known over the years they're kind of like that. I feel like almost like you know I don't know if I really believe all this stuff but you never know I better go to church. But what happens in your life when you see God's grace up close when you experience the miraculous changes everything.

Changes everything. You know some people in our western intellectual culture you know so rational everything's logical everything's scientific. We can get this sort of arrogance about us like we just know better than everybody else and we've got so much more education than everybody else so we know these you know miracles they don't really you know exist.

That's for the less intelligent sophisticated less sophisticated people. Philosopher and wit brilliant man G.K. Chesterton wrote in his classic orthodoxy addressing this saying my belief that miracles have happened in human history is not a mystical belief at all. I believe in them upon human evidences as I do in the discovery of America.

Upon this point there's a simple logical fact that only requires to be stated and cleared up. Somehow or other he writes an extraordinary idea has arisen that the disbelievers in miracles consider them coldly and fairly while believers in miracles accept them only in connection with some dogma. You see he's saying somehow we got this idea that the people that don't believe in miracles are the ones that are quite scientific about everything and they're very logical but the other people are not but he continues he says the fact is quite the other way. The believers in miracles accept them rightly or wrongly because they have evidence for them. The disbelievers in miracles deny them rightly or wrongly because they have a doctrine against them. He says the open obvious democratic thing is to believe an old apple woman when she bears testimony to a miracle just as you believe an old apple woman when she bears testimony to a murderer.

What's he saying? He's saying find the least educated least sophisticated person and it's amazing how our world might believe what this person had to say about something like oh I witnessed a crime or what but then not believe if she said she saw a miracle. He sums all this up in a funny way by saying pointing out the circular reasoning we can get into and he says Iceland is impossible because only stupid sailors have seen it and the sailors are only stupid because they say they've seen Iceland. We must forever dismiss the idea that the intelligent people you know these are the ones that are agnostic and atheist and don't believe in miracles and it's the you know intelligent people the rationalist these are the ones that that don't believe it but the unintelligent they're the ones that are gullible and they believe all that.

That's just bad reasoning doesn't doesn't add up. But it's funny when an intellectual you know really educated person who doesn't believe and encounters God in a miraculous way you know change everything. I was always drawn to the testimony of a man named Jack Deere. It's part of the way that I got to know him and he became you know visited our church and taught here a number of times and Jack's a friend and a mentor. But in his well-known book Surprised by the Power of the Spirit he tells his testimony of how he came to believe in miracles. He was a PhD professor at a seminary in Texas and he didn't believe in miracles believe the gifts of the Spirit had ceased and he taught that to his students. He also was pastoring a Bible church and he wanted to invite a Christian hero of his Dr. John White a brilliant psychiatrist and author to come and speak and do some lectures at Jack Deere's church and he was so excited John White had agreed to come. And so Jack was talking to John he said well what are you going to teach about? He was going to do four lectures and John said well Dr. White said I am currently writing a book on the subject so I'd like to teach about the kingdom of God. And Jack said well that's great we'd love to learn about the kingdom of God. And he said well what Dr. White is going to be your content of your lectures and Dr. White said well the first lecture I'd like to give is on Christ's authority over temptation.

And Jack said that's important that's good that sounds great. And secondly he said the second lecture I'd like to be about Christ's authority over sin. Jack said that's excellent because you know we need to get more victory over sin. He said what's the third one about? And Dr. White said the third one would be about Christ's authority over demons.

And Jack said well okay okay I mean we do believe you know heaven and hell and spiritual reality so okay that's good what's the fourth one about? And then Dr. White said the fourth I want to talk about Christ's healing power over disease his authority over disease. And Jack said oh did you say disease? And Dr. White said yeah he said this is the way Jack said you're not talking about healing are you? He said yeah very much talking about healing. And Jack Deere said healing healing well we know that that died out in the first century and we've got the Bible now but we don't have all that you know kind of miracles and he started arguing with Dr. White about this. He said for example he said in the Bible Jack Deere said is that all the miracles of healing they happen instantaneously and everybody who ever received prayer got instantly healed and said that's not what we see today and so how do you and calmly John White said well do you think that every single person that was prayed for it's recorded in the Bible?

And Jack said no he realized he was making an argument from silence a classic mistake in interpreting scriptures and they started having this little debate and everything that Jack had to say he started realizing he didn't have much basis for it. And so finally he did you know here's this intellectual Ph.D. finally this is what it boils down to he just looked at Dr. White he said well have you ever seen anyone healed? And Dr. White said yes I have and Jack said okay well what's your most recent spectacular healing that you've seen?

And Dr. White said well not long ago he said my wife and I were in Malaysia and doing some teaching and there was a boy there and he had eczema from the really top his head down the soles of his feet and it was so bad that he hadn't slept in 36 hours and his skin was itching and oozing and his parents hadn't slept in 36 hours and my wife and I went and laid hands on him and we prayed for him and he instantly fell asleep and then 20 minutes later the sores stopped oozing and the next morning his skin was just as good as new. He said I don't know if you'd call that spectacular or not but he said I know it was God. Jack just finally said you know whether the theology is right or not you know just come to our church and so he came and they began to experience God doing miracles and saw things happen that it was amazing how with all of his intellect that he had convinced himself of one thing he had a dogma against miracles Jack did but then when he experienced the grace of God in that very real way it changed everything.

It'll change so much in your life when you get a revelation that this God that we talk about and preach about and share with one another is not an idea but a person who is active in history in our lives. I watched again and wept again this week to see on the YouTube of Delia Knox walking Delia Knox walking. I'm aware of this because it was a friend of mine a pastor Mark Wyatt who took the video of the miracle. If you ever wanted to see a video of a miracle then look at what Mark posted on YouTube. A half million people seen it but 10 million should see it because Delia Knox in Christmas day of 1987 was hit by a drunk driver and her car flipped several times and caused spinal damage and she became a paraplegic and she was in a wheelchair for 23 years until August of 2010 at a revival meeting in Alabama that my pastor friend Mark was helping to plan. Delia had been prayed for obviously she was a Christian in fact she had a Christian ministry from her wheelchair.

She sang beautifully she taught and she was married to a minister and they had a ministry together. She'd been prayed for so much that they almost just grew weary of anybody praying for them. You know you can imagine that if somebody had been in a wheelchair for 23 years and on this night as you could see on the video they started praying for her and just all of a sudden she started weeping because she had for the first time in 23 years some feeling in her legs. She said feeling in her legs you imagine that and the whole thing went on about two hours and Mark's posted it in like a 15 minute video but after they continued to pray for her and she's just weeping and praising the Lord wondering what's happening it's just this dramatic moment where she thrust herself up out of the chair and put weight onto her legs and then she went back down the chair and the whole place is just exploding in praise and worship and prayer and faith and then before you know it she's back up on her feet and with people holding her arms up she's moving and it's so cute because she's like a little child learning to walk and she just at first all she could just move her legs kind of real stiff like and but then over time she starts learning again how to bend her knees and she starts bending like a soldier marching or something trying to just bend her legs and watching the look on her face and within two hours she was able to walk unassisted.

You might also want to look at the video that the local news team in her mother's hometown ran because she went home a week later to see her mother because her mother had obviously heard of the miracle but hadn't seen her yet and at her hometown I can't remember if it was New Jersey or New York just to show off a little bit Delia put on high heels and walked up the steep steps of her mother's house and hugged her mother. I just wonder if you're an unbeliever what are you going to do with that? Allen Wright A good question if we place a bookmark right here in this teaching called Man on Fire. It's in the greater series right now on the radio called Miracle Man. Allen is back in a moment with additional insight on this for your life and our final word today. It's a great idea to start each day with a dose of good news and we'd like to help. You'll love Pastor Alan's devotional journal Everyday Miracles. It's a one month journey through the stories of Elijah and his successor Elisha that include daily devotionals from Pastor Alan, questions for reflection, space for journaling and a daily prayer of faith. This beautiful spiral bound book is the perfect tool to get you into the word and to build your faith day by day. When you make a gift this month we'll send you Allen Wright's new devotional journal Everyday Miracles as our way of saying thanks for your partnership. Also free digital access to all the Elijah messages currently airing. So please make your gift today and start looking for miracles all around you. The gospel is shared when you give to Allen Wright Ministries. This broadcast is only possible because of listener financial support.

When you give today we will send you today's special offer. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Allen Wright Ministries. Call us at 877-544-4860.

That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website pastorallen.org. Allen, that's a good conclusion there to that story as we put a bookmark here and more teaching to come.

But in this moment, there's hope there. You know, I was talking, Daniel, not too long ago to a young woman. She was a teenager who had declared herself to be agnostic, I think was the word she used. But she was willing to, she'd grown up in a family of faith and she was willing to talk some. It was so interesting, by the end of the talk, you know, and I thought, you know, I could have just run circles around her theologically and pinned her in a corner, but what good is all that going to do? And I finally just said to her, I said, well, you know, what do you think would need to happen for you to really have your faith come to life, you know, in Christ?

And she just kind of thought, she said, well, I think if I saw a miracle. And so I said, well, why don't we, instead of talking theology, let's talk about miracles. Would you be interested in hearing some of the ones I've seen with my own eyes? Well, it's part of the reason all throughout the Elijah series, we're telling some miracle stories.

I'm certainly telling one today about Delia Knox, but many, many more. And I think that in the end, part of what this says is, you know, it is a powerful thing when a believer or unbeliever gets up close next to the miraculous working of God. And so what a fitting and beautiful thing it is to look at these miracles in Elijah and Elijah's life and think about God's miracles on our own. Let's open our eyes and let's see miracles that are around us because it will build your faith. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.