{"id":45,"date":"2018-11-06T16:22:49","date_gmt":"2018-11-07T00:22:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/migrate.bettersermons.org\/?p=45"},"modified":"2020-06-01T11:41:33","modified_gmt":"2020-06-01T18:41:33","slug":"listen-to-the-cloud","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/listen-to-the-cloud\/","title":{"rendered":"Listen to the Cloud"},"content":{"rendered":"
Listen to the Cloud<\/span><\/div>\n

\".\"<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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Key Passage:<\/strong>\u00a0Matthew 8<\/p>\n

Key Thought:\u00a0<\/strong>Even when our prayer receives an unfathomable \u201cno,\u201d we can be encouraged by the reality that God has worked many miracles and said yes to millions of others. The saints through the centuries are a \u201ccloud of witnesses,\u201d testifying that God is always good.<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

Illustration:<\/strong>\u00a0There was a gritty, hard-to-read story in\u00a0Reader\u2019s Digest<\/em>\u00a0in December 1997. A young mother named Barbara received two diagnoses virtually at once. Doctor #1 said she had a very serious case of leukemia. And her midwife told her that she was pregnant\u2014with twins. Her dilemma was that if she got on a bone-marrow transplant program immediately for the leukemia, it would require aborting the two little babies already growing inside of her. There was simply no time to lose, doctors told her.<\/p>\n

After much discussion, prayer, and soul-searching, she and her husband Jeff decided to carry both babies to term, and to postpone the medical treatment for seven months until after the births. In the meantime, they could fight the killer white-blood-cell count of 200,000 with a centrifuge procedure called leukapheresis and also oral chemotherapy, but the bone marrow transplant operation was put off for the sake of those two fetuses. This was a wrenching and very personal choice, and certainly we wouldn\u2019t have argued much with a couple that made another decision.<\/p>\n

Obviously many prayers went up during those seven months of waiting\u2014knowing all the time that the leukemia was still lurking in her system, that her chances were growing dimmer by the week. Sure enough: six months after the twins were born\u2014Hunter and McKenzie\u2014Mom passed away. The father was left with a four-year-old son, Taylor, and those two little babies.<\/p>\n

Human Reaction:<\/strong>\u00a0We sit in insulated comfort reading such an article, and we toss down the\u00a0Reader\u2019s Digest<\/em>\u00a0in frustration. Where is God? Why didn\u2019t He work a miracle? This is the thanks a family gets for valuing life, for sacrificing self? Why doesn\u2019t the silent God show Himself? If not now, when? If not for Barbara Barton, then for who? Many wonderful books\u00a0 chronicle answers to prayer. And we thank God for those stories. But there aren\u2019t many books where good, deserving people, lifetime Christians, have a legitimate prayer need, life-and-death . . . and heaven gives them absolutely no response.<\/p>\n

Why do such people encounter the \u201csilent God\u201d? God doesn\u2019t even seem to say no; He just plain doesn\u2019t answer at all. And the silence there in the ER or the morgue is nearly deafening.<\/p>\n

A Million Miracles:<\/strong>\u00a0One thing that makes this issue of God\u2019s silence even more difficult is the stark contrast we see with the miracle-packed pages of Scripture. People were healed right and left! Matthew 8:16:\u00a0\u201cWhen evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Him [Jesus], and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed ALL the sick.\u201d
\n<\/em>
\nEvery sick person who came to Him was made well. Jesus offered a 100% cure rate. When Jesus went through a town, there wasn\u2019t a single sick person left when He was through.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The hospitals were empty
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Funeral parlors went out of business
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Every crutch was turned into kindling wood.<\/p>\n

Peter\u2019s Mother-in Law:<\/strong>\u00a0Still in Matthew 8, the context to this healing marathon is that Jesus came into Peter\u2019s house, and found that his mother-in-law was in bed sick.<\/p>\n

There was none of this:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201csilent God\u201d
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cno answer\u201d
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cNobody home\u201d
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cOne chance in twenty thousand of getting your prayer answered\u201d<\/p>\n

No! \u201cJesus touched her hand and the fever left her.\u201d This was Peter\u2019s wife\u2019s mom\u2014a friend! Of course Jesus would heal her; why would there even be any discussion? And in this 21st century, we wonder why the odds are so much worse. The people of God, faithful Christians seem to almost have better luck playing the lottery than getting God to work a miracle.
\n
\nBest Soldiers (review):<\/strong>\u00a0Sometimes today God does allow His best soldiers to suffer on the hardest battlefields, without much apparent help from heaven\u2019s artilleries. The best Christians get the fewest answers, and we see God off in some other arena working miracles for the thieves and the hustlers. It\u2019s hard to realize that heaven is trying to win those people, and counting on God\u2019s best soldiers to trust in Him even during difficult and lonely battles.
\n
\nReclaiming Intimacy in Your Marriage\u00a0<\/em>by Robert & Debra Bruce:<\/strong>\u00a0A second principle comes from this pastoral writing team\u2014and they make the point that they\u00a0are<\/em>\u00a0a team. \u201cWe\u2019re the \u2018Bruce team.\u2019\u201d The talents or abilities missing in one of them, the other partner often has. When one struggles emotionally, the other one can pick him or her up. When they go through a hard time, they remember how God had blessed them as a team in the past; this gives them courage to keep on going.<\/p>\n

Chapter:\u00a0Face Life\u2019s Interruptions Together<\/em>:<\/strong>\u00a0They write about tragedies: deaths, financial downturns, lingering sicknesses, pain. Some people get mad and blow up, while others face sorrow and pain in stoic silence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is a third and better way. Notice that we call this a \u2018way\u2019 and not an \u2018explanation.\u2019 Arguments and explanations fall silent when we are in darkness\u201d\u2014that\u2019s part of the \u2018silent God\u2019 syndrome<\/em>\u2014\u201cwhen life\u2019s interruptions hit, but we have experienced that there is always a light, a way, if you will. When we join hands together in an intimate marriage and look at this light, we realize that\u00a0we are not alone.<\/em>\u00a0This light is what we call the \u2018communion of saints.\u2019 We know that in the midst of tragedy or crisis, we are surrounded by men and women, a \u2018cloud of witnesses,\u2019 who went through suffering, trusting boldly in God. They aren\u2019t here to offer us explanations, but they have given us the testimony of their lives to point us to a Savior who can see us through to victory.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hebrews 12:1:<\/strong>\u00a0Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out before us.\u00a0<\/em>We are indeed on a tough course. It\u2019s a race, a difficult, arduous track, with rain and mud and tears and splinters. \u201cBut we\u2019re surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. So run with perseverance the race marked out for us.<\/p>\n

Maybe you pray and God seems silent. You feel like you\u2019re getting no answer, that heaven is saying no in a very cold and impersonal way. But the bottom-line truth:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 God has answered many, many prayers!
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 All through the ages He has answered prayers.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did He heal your relative?\u00a0 Maybe not\u2014but God is a healing God.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 He HAS healed millions.
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In a world racked with sin, no, He doesn\u2019t heal everyone. Not yet anyway. But He has a healing heart, a loving heart.<\/p>\n

We are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses who call out to us:
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHe healed my daughter.\u201d
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHe healed my dad.\u201d
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \u201cHe healed ME!\u201d
\n\u2022\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Other witnesses tell how God rescued, how He intervened, how He sent angels, how He even brought loved ones back to life.<\/p>\n

The Body of Christ:<\/strong>\u00a0If you\u2019re a Christian, part of this 2000-year-old living, dynamic organism that spans the globe and the past 20 centuries, then you are surrounded by many uncountable cases, millions of them, where God answered prayers of people who are part of your team! He said \u201cyes\u201d as often as He dared, as often as His loving, all-knowing, divine plan would permit.<\/p>\n

Six Words:<\/strong>\u00a0We should repeat these when we feel the silence of God, when it appears that heaven is giving us the cold shoulder, the impersonal, uncaring \u201cno\u201d of an unanswered prayer. As we read our Bibles and know that someone else\u2019s mother\u00a0was<\/em>\u00a0healed, that someone else\u2019s child was raised from the dead, that another person\u2019s wife or husband was restored to spiritual wellness, we can hear the testimony of that cloud of witnesses and say these six words:\u00a0God is THERE.\u00a0<\/em>And\u00a0God is GOOD.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

Conclusion:<\/strong>\u00a0Were you one of the chosen ones who got a miracle this time?\u00a0 Maybe not. Maybe God chose you to be a strong soldier, to carry on in a hard battle while He ministers to others more needy. And it hurts. You\u2019d like the tenderness and the miracles to come your way. The silence hurts. But\u00a0God is there<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0God is good<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The cloud of witnesses may speak in a quiet voice. Miracles sound like thunder, while the cloud\u2019s testimony is more of a whisper. But in your darkest hour, be listening.\u00a0God is there and God is good.\u00a0<\/em>
\n______________________________<\/p>\n

Submitted by David B. Smith. Better Sermons \u00a9 2005-2009. Click here for\u00a0<\/span>usage guidelines<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Listen to the Cloud Key Passage:\u00a0Matthew 8 Key Thought:\u00a0Even when our prayer receives an unfathomable \u201cno,\u201d we can be encouraged by the reality that God has worked many miracles and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45\/revisions\/46"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bettersermons.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}