Chapter – 28 ‘Back at the Sargent’s farm’
The next week; the week that Valentine returned home from Brooklyn the temperature dropped several degrees. He was about to put a jacket on and go to the barn, when the phone rang. It was his grandpa, “I’ll be over to pick you up in twenty minutes for breakfast.” It was a Tuesday morning and it had slipped his mind.
It was good to see all of the fellas for breakfast. The youth pastor was on time and was eating Pancakes with lots of strawberry jam over its top. He told the fellas that his grandma had served them like that when she was out of syrup.
His message for the morning was titled ‘Does the Lord hear the prayer of the Heathen?’ He mentioned that a couple of the intellectually intelligent kids in his youth group had asked the question so he did some homework to see if he could give them an answer. “First, I pulled the dictionary off the shelf and checked out ‘heathen’ to be sure I wasn’t going down a rabbit trail. It means a pagan; someone who does not acknowledge the Jewish, Christian, or Islamic God. Someone who is non-religious. Wow, what a starting point, right?”
He commented, “I’m a Christian youth pastor and of the three religions, we are the only ones who believe that Jesus is God, so from that point I started looking at my study bible.” It was like looking for a needle in the haystack so I got my commentary off of the shelf. “Guess what, the word ‘heathen’ was referenced over a hundred times.” He told them he looked up the word ‘answered’ to see if there might be a correlation. “It wasn’t good, there were close to three-hundred verses listed.” He told them he looked up several words but finally while looking up the word ‘sinners’ he found John 9:31. “My Study Bible gave me a couple other references as well, so let me read it.” He told them that the Holy Spirit gives the inspired WORD to the Apostle John and he wrote, ‘We know that God does not hear sinners; but if anyone is God-fearing and does HIS will, HE hears him.’ He told them that he used a cross reference in the OT for the next reference, it was Proverbs 15:29. It read, ‘The Lord is far from the wicked, but HE hears the prayer of the righteous.’
The youth pastor asked, “What do you think? Is this pretty much how I should respond to these two girls?” All the men laughed and one of them spoke out, “Leave it to a young girl to come up with a hard question for you pastor.” They laughed again at the comment.
As Valentine and his grandpa were driving away from breakfast Valentine commented, “What do you think, all of us are sinners; so will our prayers ever be answered?” Grandpa responded, “The one prayer the Lord hears, from every lip of a lost soul, is that of repentance. Since God the Son, Jesus, paid the price for our atonement, we have to fully trust him as our Lord and Savior, then accept the gift HE offers.” He told Valentine that the gift, was the gift of eternal life; but a gift is not a gift unless a person accepts it.
They drove in silence for a few minutes as Valentines grandpa was silently thinking. He finally spoke, “Do you remember a few weeks ago when your dad gave the sermon on the provisions for salvation?” He started reciting some of the words of Pastor Valentine’s previous message. ‘Christ died in my place’-substitution, ‘Christ made me right-with-God’-justification, ‘Christ made me a part of Gods family’-adoption, ‘Christ purchased my salvation with his blood’-redemption and then to top it off we have forgiveness. “I think he mentioned a few more but I don’t recall them at the moment.” Valentine told his grandpa that Christ covers all provisions that we need; all we have to do is fully put our trust in HIM.
They rode a few more minutes before gramps spoke again. He asked, “When is that beautiful wife coming home? You really ‘married-up’ when you got her, didn’t you?” Valentine thought for a moment and laughed, “Most men do if you think about it. All of the good wives I have ever known seem to be the glue that holds families together.” Grandpa smacked his steering wheel and then commented, “I’ll have to agree, son.”
***
What Where it is found
Substitution, Romans 5:8
Justification, Romans 5:1
Adoption, Ephesians 1:5 – Romans 8:21-23
Redemption, Galatians 3:13 – Ephesians 1:7
Forgiveness, Ephesians 1:7 – Colossians 1:14
Prayers not Answered, John 9:31 – Proverbs 15:29
DG