The Rain Man [Part 2]

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. This man has heard the sound of the rushing of rain.

People who persevere in prayer do so because they have heard the sound of the rushing of rain and they're praying until the miracle is born. 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. The woman who is travailing in labor does not do so because she wishes that she would have a baby. The reason she travails in labor is because there is a baby. It just hadn't been born yet. There is no such thing as a woman who travails in labor and after the sixth hour says, well, there just must not be a baby. I give up.

I'm going home. That's not what happens when you're in the sixth hour and there is no sign of a head crowning. There is no baby yet. You just keep laboring because the baby is coming. And prayer is like that, beloved. God has ordained it that you, as His people, would be used by Him in prayer in the same way that a woman's labor is used in bringing about the miracle of birth. The labor doesn't bring the miracle. The miracle's already taken place, but the miracle's already taken place. The labor doesn't bring the miracle. The miracle's already taken place, but the labor is participating in the miracle. And you are the people of God and He has ordained it that your prayers are going to be powerful and effective because there's the sound of the rushing of rain. We got to pray. I've known people who have a gift of prayer, who have a gift of intercession. I've known people who pray like that and to listen to them sometimes, you might go, oh, is everything okay? Because they sound a little bit like a woman in labor. Oh, God!

But if you're one of those people, I'll tell you, maybe this is you and you don't know it. And you wonder, why do I wake up in the middle of the night and I got like a knot in my stomach about something and I don't know what to do about it because somebody's on my heart. There's only one thing you can do, pray until that baby's born. You release it to God and then go back to bed. It's a gift, but it's one that all Christians are called to pray. Six times the servant goes, nothing. Six times.

No good report yet. No visible evidence of the answer to prayer. Could I just say to you parenthetically here, this time between you hearing the sound of the rushing of rain and the rain actually starting, that period of time is where the devil would love to tempt you most. It's the moment between when Jesus was tired and hungry from 40 days in a dry wilderness is when he was most tempted. And the demons mocked him through the voices of those that gathered at the cross. Look, he saved others, he can't save himself.

But the resurrection was coming and there was no shortcut to glory. The rain is coming and if it doesn't come tomorrow or the next day or the next or the next or the next, it is no cause for ceasing to pray. I hear the sound of the rushing of rain. May your ears be blessed to hear it. Whatever it is that you need to hear from God.

I'm here, we're here to bless your ears to hear it. And on the seventh time, please don't forget this, six times nothing, seventh time something. Way more times where there was nothing than there was something. That's what life's been like with me with God. Six times of like, is the fulfillment here yet?

No. You live more of your life in anticipation of the fulfillment than you do the fulfillment. But the life of anticipation of the fulfillment is wonderful. That's what faith is. And on the seventh time, he comes back, he said, I see something and it's real small. It looks about like the size of a man's hand, a small cloud rising up in the distance. So three and a half years, no rain. And then one little tiny cloud is rising up from the sea and he comes back and he tells Elijah, I see one little cloud and Elijah is like, that's it.

All right. That's it. He gets, I think that's it. He's like, he's been praying. Oh God, let it rain. I told him it's going to rain God. When is it going to rain? When is it going to rain?

Small cloud. Okay, good. All right.

Here it is. This is like babies born and you're like, I forget. Good thing.

Good thing. Somehow the women forget, or there wouldn't have been one baby ever born in the history of the world and the heavens verse 45 first at verse 44. He said to Ahab, prepare your chariot and go down. Let's the rain stop you. The mercy of God comes up to the evil King that he's been confronting. And he says, I'm just going to go ahead and give you a warning. It's starting to rain now and you better hurry up because it's going to be a flood. One little cloud in the sky. And this time Ahab obeys.

He's become convinced after three and a half years of drought. And verse 46 or verse 45, a little while the heavens grew black with clouds and wind and there was a great rain. Ahab rode and went to Jezreel and verse 46 the hand of the Lord was on Elijah and he gathered up his garment and ran before Ahab to the entrance of Jezreel. What happened was Elijah had the spiritual Lord come upon him and he hiked up his robe and he ran faster than the chariots. I was just telling you that's what happened. I feel a little like I can jump a little higher sometimes in the middle of worship or something.

I'm just like, whoo, you know, and, uh, but he outran the chariots and that's the, that's the story. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. 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. Hey, can I tell you a miracle story? I just, while we're talking about Elijah this month, I want to just tell you some stories about the rain that I've seen. I love hearing stories off in the distance. I love hearing stories. I like hearing from Michael Hayes, who's in India sending a report every month and hear miracles.

I love hearing all of them. But I just want to share some of the ones I've seen with my own eyes. I mean with my own eyes. And this really was a story that began with some people that wanted to see it rain, but not in a literal sense. Mickey and Treva Thigpen, sometime before this millennium, sometime around 98, 99, they started walking their neighborhood and praying. That's a good thing.

You get some exercise. As you walk by the house, you pray for whoever lives there. Lord, bless that household. Bless the people that live there. If they don't know you, help them to come to know you. And would you open up the opportunity, Lord, that we might be able to share something of the good news of the gospel with them? Mickey and Treva started doing this.

Treva heads up our intercessory ministry here at the Village Campus. Mickey's been our long time executive director, but at that time, they were just new here. And they would walk by particularly this one household where they'd only seen the woman very occasionally. She'd like dart out to her mailbox, dart back in the house.

Didn't come out of the house. Didn't know what was going on, but they prayed for her. Her name was Grace McCracken. And what they didn't know is that Grace had grown up in a home of brokenness and alcoholism. It had become so severe that her mother at one point had said to the kids, I don't even know if I can keep you guys together. She worried about losing her mother. And later in her life when her mother had grown sick, Grace had made an ungodly vow. She said, I'm never going to let my mother cry. I'm never going to let her get sick. I'm never going to let her die.

Things that are ungodly vows because you can't control those things. And what happened was it worked a terror into her heart that would cause anxiety attacks that were crippling and an ongoing anxiety that would keep her from even leaving the house. She got to the point she couldn't drive a car and she was depressed and she tried everything that she knew. Every form of therapy and every anti-depressive, all of it was not touching it. She wasn't being healed. She was getting no better. Such that by her testimony by the spring of 2000, Grace had seriously thought about taking her own life. Mickey and Treva were just walking by and saying, Lord bless that household.

Maybe they just heard in their spirits the pitter-pat of a little bit of rain. Because it was a miracle. Grace would say she has no idea how it was that she responded, I think we sent a piece of mail that came to our house invited to come to, of course we were hosting Alpha. And she came and I met her the night that Alpha opened up with a dinner that night.

I remember it because I shook her hand and she couldn't look me in the eye and she was trembling like a leaf. And in my heart I just prayed for her. She came to church. She came to church. She says she doesn't know by what power she was able to come to church.

She hadn't driven a car in years. And she got up and she drove herself to church. This is God.

And she wept during the worship and went back to Alpha on Wednesday night. And Nikki Gumbel, the video teacher, said Christianity, the gospel, is a message of something that God has done for you and it's free. It's utterly free. The gift of salvation is free.

Jesus died for you. And you can accept this, it's free. He said, but it's like someone's written you a check and you need to take it, endorse it, and deposit it. And all Grace said was afterwards she walked up to the leader Bruce and she said, I want that check. I want that check.

I want that check. And she accepted Christ. And she came to church on Sunday.

A brand new baby Christian and yet still teeming with all of this anxiety and all of this depression and all of this in her life. And she just said, I don't know how. She said it was literally God moving my legs.

I had no idea how I had strength or courage to come up and let a prayer team pray for me. But she came and for two hours she said the Holy Spirit just came upon her and she was bathed in the love of God and broken and wounded places in the depth of her soul were just healed. So much so I saw her the next Sunday and I remember shaking hands like this is the same woman I saw on that Wednesday night and she was confident, she was beaming, she was excited, she was sure she was looking me in the eyes, her hands her side. Everything in her life had changed. Her husband Denny later said they went to the beach not long after that said for the first time in years she noticed the seashells. She saw the color of the sky. It was a miracle.

That's all that happened right over there. I think she was gonna die but instead she's been very much alive over the last 18 years blessing all our lives in so many capacities. Well Grace said she wanted to be baptized and so that neighborhood where Mickey and Treva had been walking and praying for the houses. There's a family there Doris and Jerry Hall who are in our church now. Doris is what I was telling you about earlier back there at the Welcome Center and Doris said well we can have the baptism back here at our pool because by this time Doris and Jerry had started coming here and they've been praying for other people. Doris had let a friend of hers Kim Kale hear the testimony of Grace and Kim accepted Christ and she wanted to be baptized and they'd been praying for another neighbor who was Jerry's brother Bobby and he wanted to recommit his life and be baptized and there was another lady that came to faith and she wanted to be baptized and we're just gonna have a pool party and so I remember standing out there that day because at the center of this we wanted one other miracle and that was we wanted Denny her husband to really come to know the Lord because he wasn't walking with the Lord and and when we talked to him and we and he had seen what had happened in Grace and and I remember on that day I'm standing down there at Doris's in front of the pool down waiting you could see walking down the road and here comes Grace walking down she's got her towel on and you know and I look and there next to her is Denny and I look and he's got he's got a swimsuit on he's got a towel over his shoulder and I was like oh Jesus thank you Jesus and I went I was at Denny I said you you want to profess your faith and be baptized and he said yes I do and I said well what happened he said well God gave me my wife back God sends rain into every form of drought I know there's a drought in the land I read the same newspapers you do I see a land that is so arid and parched scorched that it is broken and fragmented I see it broken with every form of division and racism and judgment and hate it's a drought but listen listen I hear the sound of the rushing of rain I hear the sound of a kind of mercy that is found only in the gospel that proclaims that in Christ there's neither Jew nor Greek male nor female black or white I see the sound of the rushing of rain as the only answer for such a fragmented world the drought is bad it is hot it feels lifeless but remember Elijah and listen God is not about to leave forever people in drought I hear the same sad reports I read the same newspapers I know that men have abused women and parents have abused children and institutions have in abused morality and leaders have abused their position it is a drought but listen listen in the spirit and you will hear the sound of the rushing of rain it may start as a small cloud that rises from the sea of God's grace but it is coming whatever it might be that leaves your soul feeling parched the only answer is the reign of the mercies of God his grace is true and sure and rich and abundant and abundant so people of God Elijah was just as human as you are and God changed the whole atmosphere through his prayers please don't stop praying because there is the sound though it be in the distance and it may seem faint there is a sound of the rushing of rain and that's a gospel alan wright today's teaching the rain man it's in the series called miracle man and i've got alan here in the studio with us back with additional insight on this for your life and today's final word unlock the power of blessing your life discover god's grace-filled vision for your life by signing up for alan wright's free daily blessing if you want to fill your heart with grace and encouragement get alan wright's daily blessing it's free and just a click away at pastorallen.org it's a great idea to start each day with a dose of good news and we'd like to help in james 5 we're given these jaw-dropping words elijah was as human as we are and yet when he prayed earnestly that no rain would fall none fell for three and a half years elijah the man whose prayer called down fire on a water-drenched altar defeating 450 wicked prophets and whose intercession revived a widow's deceased son was just like us an ordinary man who was used by god for the extraordinary god's word is clear if the lord could use elijah miraculously he can also do wonders in and through you if you yearn to see more of god's power in your life you'll love pastor alan's devotional journal everyday miracles it's a one-month journey through the stories of elijah and his successor elijah 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 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 pastor alan.org alan you said don't stop praying i think that's a good reminder for us all don't give up hope and god god is still on the throne and it still cares well there's a beautiful picture here isn't there of a servant that elijah sends to go and look to see if he sees the rain coming and he sees nothing and he goes seven times you know that biblical picture of completion and like seven days of a week and it's sort of like the week's not over until it's day seven and the story's not over until it's over and so if you've been praying about something for even a long time i think god says keep praying he's he's hearing you and then one day you look and you see it might look as small as a size of a man's hand but the cloud rising and soon the sound of the rushing of rain today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries