P U S H
INTRODUCTION
When Edmund Gravely died at the controls of his small plane while on the way to Statesboro, Georgia, from the Rocky Mount-Wilson Airport in North Carolina, his wife, Janice, kept the plane aloft for two hours. As the plane crossed the South Carolina/North Carolina border, she radioed for help: “Help, help, won’t someone help me? My pilot is unconscious.” Authorities who picked up her distress signal were not able to reach her by radio during the flight because she kept changing channels. Eventually Mrs. Gravely made a rough landing and had to crawl for forty-five minutes to a farmhouse for help.
How often God’s people cry out to him for help but switch channels before his message comes through! They turn to other sources for help, looking for human guidance. When you cry out to God for his intervention, don’t switch channels!
CONTEXT OF THE TEXT
SERMONIC CLAIM
PRAY INTELLIGENTLY
The story is told of a long-ago couple who said farewell to their home church as they were about to leave for an African mission field known as “The White Man’s Grave.” The husband said, “My wife and I have a strange dread in going. We feel much as if we were going down into a pit. We are willing to take the risk and go if you, our home church, will promise to hold the ropes.” One and all promised to do so.
Less than two years had passed when the wife and the little one God had given the couple succumbed to the dreaded fever. Soon the husband realized his days were also numbered. Not waiting to send word of his coming, he started back home at once and arrived at the time of the Wednesday prayer meeting. He slipped in unnoticed, taking a back seat. At the close of the meeting, he went forward. An awe came over the people, for death was written on his face.
He said, “I am your missionary. My wife and child are buried in Africa and I have come home to die. This evening I listened anxiously as you prayed for some mention of your missionary to see if you were keeping your promise, but in vain! You prayed for everything connected with yourselves and your home circle, but you forgot your missionary. I see now why I am a failure as a missionary. It is because you have failed to hold the ropes.”1041
PRAY PERSISTENTLY
A woman left her diamond brooch in a hotel. When she got home she remembered her brooch and called the hotel. She told the manager what happened and he went to look for it. He found it, put it in the safe, and returned to the phone to tell her the good news, but she had hung up.
So many of us are like this. We aren’t willing to wait on the Lord.