Biblical Moments with Frank King

At times, we face problems that are too big for us. Nothing in the Bible assures us that that will never be the case. That’s why our faith in God is so important. Let’s face it; had He created us to be self-sufficient so we could solve all of our own problems, we wouldn’t need to have faith in God. But the truth is that we all have limitations, and when life takes us beyond those limits, we must look to God. In this episode, Frank shares a message of encouragement, reminding us that nothing is too hard for the Lord.
In this episode, Frank uses the experience of Abraham and Sarah as an example. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when God blessed them with a child God had promised to them 25 years earlier. Furthermore, Sarah was born barren. Based upon their reality, what Abraham and Sarah wanted at this point was humanly impossible. But it was not impossible with God. The angel of the Lord said according to the time of life, I shall return and Sarah your wife will have a son.
We often talk about God in terms of natural reasoning. It’s as if we think God can only get something done while natural circumstances are favorable to the situation. We think that if God waits too long, even He can’t do anything about our situation. But natural circumstances don’t have to be favorable for God to work on your behalf. God can still work on your behalf even when natural circumstances are not in your favor.
Sarah laughed at the angel’s promise. Then the angel asked the question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14, KJV).
The Importance of Faith
What should be abundantly clear here is the importance of our faith in God. So, in Psalm 27:13, the psalmist writes, “I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). He is saying that the thing that kept him from giving up, the only thing that kept him from going under, was that he believed he was going to see the goodness of the Lord.
When you are faced with difficult situations, when you are faced with a problem for which there seems to be no answer, what’s going to keep you moving, what’s going to keep you from giving up, what’s going to keep you from despairing is that you believe you are going to see the goodness of the Lord. So, the answer to the question posed by the title of this episode is no, there is nothing too hard for the Lord.

Think about your relationship with Christ a year ago. And think about your relationship with Him today. From year to year, your relationship with Him should be moving in a positive direction. The truth is, however, that is not what’s happening in every Christian’s life. In this episode, Frank King teaches on the importance of becoming a mature Christian.
In the book of Hebrews, the writer addresses a problem that exists with many believers. He writes, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12, NASB).
One important reason God wants us to mature as Christians is so that He can use us to serve Him. We come to church to worship God, but we also come to be equipped to serve God more effectively. There is a dying world out there depending on Christians reaching out to it with the life-changing gospel of our Lord.
But the verse highlights a serious problem. The writer talks about people who had been Christians and who had been coming to church so long that by now they should be able to teach others. But he says, instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic stuff about being a Christian. In other words, because they were not growing, they were actually going backward.
This is a serious problem with Christians failing to grow.  That is, if you are not growing as a Christian, you are not getting to the place where God can use you like He wants to use you.
Salvation is Just the Beginning
When students assemble to graduate from high school or college, we refer to those assemblies as commencement exercises. Now the word commencement refers to a beginning and not an end. But even though the graduates are ending their high school or college experience, the graduation is called a commencement exercise.
It is called a commencement exercise because when you graduate, you have not arrived, but you have only just begun. Your education gives you some tools, a skillset for embarking upon life. What your life becomes, however, depends upon what you do with the skillset you have.
The same is true when you accept Christ. It’s not a graduation; it is but a commencement. You have not arrived; you have only just begun. Upon salvation, God gives you everything you need to become a mature and productive Christian. What your life becomes, however, is dependent upon what you do with what God has imparted to you. That’s why it’s important for you to become a mature Christian.

It’s easy to be confident about something you can see and over which you have total control. But neither is true when we pray to God. Prayer is an act of faith. We can’t see God. And we have no control over how the outcome of our prayer will unfold. So the question is, what must we do or what can we do to move into the realm of being confident toward God when we pray? That is what Frank King addresses in today’s episode.
In chapter  3 of John’s first epistle, he reveals that to have confidence toward God we must show love toward others. He writes, “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18, NASB).
God requires us to do more than talk love. Some people are good at that. They are always talking about how much they love you, but they never come through for you when you need them to. That’s just talk. And as they say, talk is cheap.
We must not love in tongue and words but in deeds. But not only in deeds but also in truth. That means God wants us to show genuine love toward others. Not some pretentious display of love but true love. Sometimes, people do impressive acts of love, but their motivation is wrong. That is still not genuine love.
Prayer and Love
According to John, genuine love is the means by which we know we are of the truth (verse 19). if you are not walking in genuine love, you are not walking in the truth. No matter how much you talk love, if you don’t show it, you are not of the truth. Everything in the Scriptures hinges on love. Moreover, genuine love is the means by which we “assure our heart before Him” (verse 19b). That means it instills confidence before Him.
When our life is characterized by genuine love, our heart does not condemn us before the Lord. John writes, “If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (verse 21). This is how love promotes confidence toward God when we pray.
Prayer was never meant to be a guessing game. It was never meant to be something that leaves us wondering if God hears us or whether He will do something about what we have prayed about. What assures our heart before Him when we pray is genuine love as opposed to love in tongue and words only.

Jesus taught a lot about prayer when He was with His disciples. That’s a good thing because prayer is the means God has given us for making our requests to Him and for receiving from Him. The more we learn about how to pray effectively, the more effectively we can pray. In this episode, Frank teaches on the importance of praying with the right attitude.
Jesus taught a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray. This parable was directed at those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt” (Luke 18:9, NASB).
In the parable, Jesus talked about a Pharisee and a publican. These were two extremes in the Jewish community. The Pharisees were an elite group, or they considered themselves to be an elite group of religious leaders in the Jewish community. They despised Jesus because His message and teachings were considered a serious threat to their prominence.
The publicans, on the other hand, were tax collectors, or collectors of public revenue. They were usually Jews, but the taxes they collected went to the Roman government. Needless to say, publicans weren’t the most popular people in town.
The Pharisee was self-righteous. He boasted to God that he was not like other men. “I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get,” he boasted (verse 12). By contrast, the publican acknowledged he was a sinner and threw himself upon the mercy of God.
Jesus' Verdict on the Two Men
To emphasize the importance of praying with the right attitude, Jesus said regarding the publican, “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other” (verse 14, KJV). “For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” He continued.
Think about it; the Pharisee journeyed from his house to God’s house just to pat himself on the back. In the end, he returned home just like he came. And based upon what the Scriptures reveal about the Pharisees, you know this man had some flaws he needed to pray about. The publican simply submitted himself to the mercy of God.
Accordingly, if we want to have an effective prayer life, and we all should, we must pray with the right attitude toward others and about ourselves. That does not mean we cannot pray with confidence and boldness and faith. We should pray that way. But we must learn to pray that way void of pride, condescension and self-righteousness.

In Christianity, we regard the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit as three distinct persons that together make up the Godhead. We serve one God, but He manifests himself in three distinct persons.
By distinct persons, we mean you can distinguish one from the other. For instance, God the Father resides in heaven. Then God sent Jesus as His Son on earth to be the Savior of the world. And while Jesus was on earth, He prayed to the Father in heaven. Then on the day of Pentecost, God sent the Holy Spirit to indwell us. In this episode, Frank King focuses on the person of the Holy Spirit.
The reason the Holy Spirit is so important to us is because He is the one who helps us to accomplish the work of the church and to live a victorious Christian life. We can’t do either of those without the help of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit
Before Jesus left His disciples, He promised to send the Holy Spirit to abide with them. “I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you forever,” Jesus promised (John 14:16, KJV).
Two notable things Jesus reveals about the person of the Holy Spirit here. One, He will be another Comforter. Not all versions of the Bible use the word Comforter in the verse. The NASB renders Helper. The NIV uses the word Counselor. Some other versions of the Bible may use a different word.
A key word in the verse above is the word “another.” In the Greek language, two words for another exist. One means another of the same kind. The other word means another of a different kind. In this verse, Jesus uses the word αλλος  (AL-loss), meaning another of the same kind.
In other words, the Father would send them another Comforter (or Helper, Counselor, Friend, or whatever word your Bible uses); and He would be just like Jesus. Secondly, Jesus said in the verse, the Holy Spirit would abide or remain with them forever. He would not leave them like Jesus was about to do, but He would stay with them until the end.
The disciples were saddened by the news of Jesus leaving them. But what they could not even imagine was how radically changed their lives would become through the person of the Holy Spirit. That miraculous change is clearly seen in the book of the Acts of the Apostles.

No matter who you are, it’s harder to pray when you are bearing a heavy load in your life. We tend to go through the routine of prayer when all is well. But when we pray under a load, it causes us to pour out our heart and emotions to God. The heavier the load, the more you tend to pour out your inside to God.
Prayer is vital because it is the means through which we communicate with God. Prayer is how we petition God. In this episode, Frank focuses upon the importance of praying through the difficult times in our life.
No one has ever gone through a trial as difficult as Jesus did when He faced the cross at Calvary. He even prayed to God that “if it were possible, the hour might pass from him” (Mark 14:35, KJV).
Moreover, Jesus told His disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Mark 14:34, NIV). This was the human side of Jesus manifesting itself. Even He found it more challenging to pray because of the load that was upon Him. It is important to remember that He didn’t minister as God but as a human being while on earth. He was no exception; like us, He found it more burdensome to pray because of the heavy load that God had allowed to be placed upon Him.
But in the end, Jesus chose to obey the will of His Father in spite of how He felt. “Not what I will, but what thou wilt,” He prayed (Mark 14:36, KJV).
Jesus is our perfect example for how to pray through a trial. Facing the cross, bearing the weight of the world on His shoulder, sorrowful in spirit, abandoned by His closest friends on earth, He prayed through and pressed His way. Thank God that He did! Our eternal fate rested upon His obedience to the cross.
When you are praying through a trial, you do well to remember the words of Jesus to His disciples in the garden. “The spirit truly is ready but the flesh is weak” (verse 38). The point is that when you are in Christ, the Spirit of Christ indwells you. So, even though you may be weak in the flesh, remember that the Spirit of Christ within you is always ready to go with God.

According to the book of Hebrews, chapter 10, we should exhort one another. Moreover, we should do that even more as we approach the day of the Lord. So, by default, all of us have been given the ministry of exhortation. To exhort means to encourage.
The local church is uniquely equipped for the ministry of exhortation. That’s because fellow believers understand each other in terms of their desire to learn of Christ and to follow Him. We understand the unique challenges of being in this world but not being of it. In this episode, Evangelist Frank King focuses on the need to encourage yourself.
In the days of King David, he and his army came from war to find that the Amalekites had destroyed their city and taken their wives and children captive. David and his men were devastated. Furthermore, “And David was greatly distressed; for the people spoke of stoning him, because the soul of the people was grieved…(1 Samuel 30:6a, KJV).
Why did the men of David’s army want to stone him? They were looking for somebody to blame and to direct their anger toward. David was the king, so they all blamed him. If he hadn’t taken them out to war, the Amalekites would not have been able to carry out their ambush. But of course, David was just as hurt as the rest of them. He had two wives. And both were gone. But the people were hurt so they directed their anger toward their leader.
So, how did David respond to the wrath of his army? “David encouraged himself in the Lord his God” (verse 6b).
The Choice is Yours
It’s those times like the one David found himself in that reveal what we are made of. If you want to persist in feeling sorry for yourself, there is little anyone can do to help you move forward. If you want to wallow in pity, no one can make you feel encouraged.
You can attend church every week and have people calling and pouring into you, and you can still stay in the dumps--if you want to. But if you choose to respond that way, it says something negative about your relationship with God. Why should you abide in despair when you serve the living God?
It’s good that we can come to church and be encouraged by the Word of God and the people of God. But when nothing else will do, you must know how to encourage yourself—in the Lord.

In this episode, Evangelist Frank King encourages believers to stay with the truth found in God’s word. How often do we encourage other believers to do that?
First, we must know what the truth is before we can stay with it. One thing we know is that not every faith is of the truth. If they were, everyone’s faith would agree with everybody else’s. And we know that’s not the case. But Jesus said to God, “Your word is truth” (John 17:17, NASB).
In Paul’s letter to the church at Galatia, he rebukes the believers there for their abandonment of the truth for another gospel. He writes, “I am amazed that you are so quickly deserting Him who called you by the grace of Christ, for a different gospel (Galatians 1:6, NASB).
One takeaway from these words of Paul is that just because a person has been presented with the truth does not safeguard that person from ending up in error. To prevent the latter from happening, it is incumbent upon the individual to stay with the truth. The Galatians had been presented with the gospel of Christ. But they chose to turn away from the truth to embrace another gospel.
A Warning for These Last Days
This episode is entitled, “Staying with the truth. That’s what we are talking about. That’s what Paul was challenging the church at Galatia to do. Also, in his first epistle to Timothy, Paul issued a related warning concerning the last days.
“The Spirit explicitly says that in later times some will fall away from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and doctrines of demons,” Paul wrote (1 Timothy 4:1, NASB). Note how those believers whom he refers to will end up departing from the faith. They will give heed to demonic spirits and teachings.
We do well to heed Paul’s abovementioned words to the Galatians and to Timothy. Again, just because a person has been presented with the truth does not safeguard that person from ending up in error. To safeguard oneself from that undesirable fate, it is incumbent upon the individual to stay with the truth.