In this sermon transcript, the speaker shares a personal experience of encountering demonic opposition while working on a commentary. They also recount a story of a young black man who came to the Lord after stealing carrots from a missionary's garden. The missionary not only forgave him but also gave him scripture cards to memorize. The speaker then shares a story about a waiter who found a checkbook belonging to a man named Billy Bray and went to the specific teller that Bray always went to, ultimately saving him money. The sermon emphasizes God's care and guidance for His people all over the world.

And I'd like to ask you to pray with me for one of the sisters attending the conference, Dawn and Krista Robertson, and Dawn and Krista have been expecting a little one, but they didn't really think that the little one would come during the conference, and that's why they came, and they're living over in housekeeping, and I just like to ask that you pray with me just now for Krista at this time. Father, we thank you that we can come to you and commend our dear sister to you, and we know that you love her and care for her, and we pray for a very special sense of your nearness, your presence, and your power with them at this time. We know that you will work all things together for good, and so we just commend Krista and Dawn lovingly to you in Jesus' worthy name. Amen. Isn't it wonderful to be able to take our petitions to the Lord and know that they're heard and answered? We've been thinking about the subject, what is heaven going to be like, and we've spent quite a bit of time on it, and about the the wonders of God in creation, and our souls are really enraptured when we think of the glories of heaven and the one whom we're going to meet there, the Lord Jesus Christ. I believe that one of the other features of heaven will be a wonderful display of the providence of God during this life. We will see how God was moving the chessmen on the board. Marvelous ways in which all over the world at any one particular time, he was hearing and answering prayer, guiding his people, protecting and guarding his people, and working in the most fantastic way. And what I'd like to do with tonight is to share with you some incidents of the providence of God. But first let's turn to Psalm 103. We've been reading a psalm at almost every session, so I think it'll be good to turn to Psalm 103 just now. Well, you hear that David's saying, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. Verse 11, For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy towards them who fear him. Far as the east is removed from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. To the Father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. Wonderful, the intimate concern that our Father takes in each one of us. In 1971, Billy Graham was down in Zero Beach, Florida. His son Franklin was there. Franklin at the time was attending college and becoming a pilot and his instructor was Calvin Booth. They were going to leave. Franklin and Calvin were going to leave to take Franklin back to college, I believe in Texas. They were going to fly and so before they left, Billy commended them to the Lord, which is always a good thing to do. They got the weather report and the direct route that they would ordinarily take was hazardous because of violent thunderstorms, so they decided to fly north to Jackson and then west from there. If they had taken the direct route, they would have passed over a lot of sparsely populated land, whereas by going north to Jackson they passed over some very well lighted cities and were in contact with airports. But as they travel along, their generator went out. They lost radio. They lost light. They lost navigation. They were really cut off, but they were able to find the Jackson Airport and Calvin started to descend for the airport. As he descended, the runway lights went on to full intensity. Remember, no radio, no way to contact the tower, but as they descended, the runway lights went on to full intensity. The strobe light started to flash and a green light appeared okay to land. So they landed at Jackson and thought nothing very much of it. Four years later, they found out what had happened. The man in charge of the control tower had two visitors and he was showing them what was happening. For instance, he said, now these are the lights we turn on for the runway, and he turned them on to full intensity. He told his visitors, now these are the strobe lights, and he started the strobe lights flashing. He had a tricolored gun. It had red lights, yellow lights, and green lights. And right there in the control tower, he showed them the red lights and he showed them the yellow lights, but for some reason he himself didn't know. He held the gun outside the window and flashed the green light. Now, what made him do that? One of his co-workers in the control tower said, a plane is landing, and he replied, there's no plane within 50 miles of Jackson. And then Calvin and Franklin landed there at the airport. They found out about that four years later. The providence of God. How God really takes care of his people in answer to prayer. It's marvelous, isn't it? I think we're going to learn about this in heaven. Things that have happened in our own lives, and we little realize how God was weaving the pattern, and yet it was there all the time. Now, I'm going to tell you isolated incidents, but just remember these could all be happening at the same time, because they are happening throughout the world at the same time. There was a young fellow by the name of Steve Saint, and Steve Saint was having spiritual problems. He was having spiritual doubts, as a matter of fact, and questions in his mind, and he was traveling through Africa. He was wondering about his Christian faith. He was wondering why his father, Nate Smith, had to die at the hands of Stone Age Indians in Ecuador. He was in a country called Mali, and he was looking at a map, and he saw the word Timbuktu. He thought Timbuktu was just a mythical place, you know, that you read about in books. But, the urge came upon him to go to Timbuktu, and so he was able to get a flight on a UNESCO plane, but they told him, look, you won't be able to come back on this plane, because there are two doctors already booked to come back on the plane. We can get you there, but we can't get you back. It was a six-seater. So, he flew into Timbuktu, and then what to do? You know, how to get back? So, he thought, well, maybe I could hire a truck to take me across the desert, and they said, don't do it. They said, if that truck breaks down on the desert, that's the end of you. And all this time, he was thinking, why did my father have to die? What good came out of that death? You know, is God really in charge of things, after all? And interestingly, he tried to get the truck. They said, no, no. So, he went to the telecommunication system, and they said, we can transmit, but we can't receive. It's something the matter of the reception system. They could send out messages, but they couldn't receive messages. So, he was really in a bind, wasn't he? And then he thought, that when he was in Mali, somebody said there was a Christian church in Timbuktu, and so, he thought he'd look for that. Well, there was a language difficulty, but with some of the children, he was finally able to make known what he wanted, and these children took him to a church building, and right next door to it, there was a house, and there was a poster on the house, and it showed a picture of a cross, and it said in French, by whose stripes we are healed. Just then, a young fellow, a good-looking young black fellow, came along with a long robe on, and Steve wanted to talk to him, but there was a language problem. So, the young fellow went and got a missionary. He got a missionary to serve as a translator for them, and when they had that all set up, Steve said to this fellow, whose name was Noor, he said, How did you come to the Lord? Well, he said, I stole some carrots from the garden of a missionary. And he said, my parents told me to stay away from missionaries. If you went to them, they'd kill you and eat you. But he said, he didn't. He said, he gave me the carrots, and he also gave me some cards with verses of Scripture on them, and he told me that if I would memorize those verses of Scripture, he'd give me a big pen. So, he memorized the verses of Scripture, and in time, he came to a saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. His family was furious. His mother put poison in his food. He ate the food. It didn't affect him. His brother ate a morsel of the food, and is paralyzed to this day, his unsaved brother. So, Steve Saint said to him, It must have been difficult for you to meet this opposition from your family. You become a Christian, you trust the Lord, and you meet this kind of opposition. Well, he said, I'll tell you something that helped me. He said, Mr. Marshall, the missionary, gave me a book, and that book told about five men that went down to Ecuador, and laid down their lives, he said, in order to bring the gospel to a tribe of Indians. He said, that's the thing that sustained me, and the missionary who was translating interrupted. He said, incidentally, he said, one of those missionaries had the last name, the same last name that you have, said to Steve. And Steve said, yes, that was my father. And Neuer said, that was your father? He said, then the story is true, he said. And God brought them together like that, and Steve's faith was revitalized, and Neuer was triumphant in the Lord, to see the Lord moving the chessmen on the board in that way. And in the morning, Steve went out to the airport, and found that those two doctors had to cancel. They weren't able to go back on the plane, and he had his feet on the plane. Wonderful, isn't it? And God is doing this all the time. God is influencing the intellect, and the emotion, and the will of people, and accomplishing his wonderful purposes. I've been asked to tell this other story, talk about poison in food. I may have told it to some of you before. A few years ago, I was down in Bolivia, and talking to two of our missionaries, Ned Mehard from Australia, and Frank Hagerke from Scotland. And they told me how, in the early days, they were out doing pioneer work in the jungles of Bolivia. And it was tough going, but God used them to raise up testimonies of believers, all through that area, that are going on brightly today. One evening, they came to a town, and they were tired. And they pitched camp outside the town, and then they decided to go in, and see if they could get something to eat. There was a hotel there, and there was a restaurant in the hotel. So they went into the restaurant, and they said to the lady, could we have something to eat? She knew they were evangelicals, and she said, I have nothing. So they went to the police station, and they said, could you please tell us where we could get something to eat? And he said, yeah, back at the restaurant at the hotel. They said, we were just there, and she said she didn't have anything. He said, come with me. They went back to the restaurant, and he said, get these men something to eat. She said, come back in 45 minutes. So they did. They went back in 45 minutes, and she had taken potatoes, and cut them in chunks, and then deep-fried them. And then she served up a supply of lungs. Ned was very, very hungry. They were both very, very hungry, but when Frank tasted the meat, he said, yeah, I don't like this. So Ned said to him, well, he said, you you take my potatoes, and I'll take the meat. And Ned Maharaj started to eat that meat, and his stomach began to burn, burn, burn, burn, and he began to drink water, and he couldn't get enough water. She had put poison in the meat. He became sicker and sicker, and so finally they had to leave the hotel and go back to the campsite, and he started to lose consciousness. And Ned said to Frank, just send my Bible back to my father in Australia. And then he lost consciousness. Just as he lost consciousness, a tall man appeared on the scene. So this man said, your friend is sick. And Frank said, my friend is dying. Well, he said, I'll be right back. And he went away, and in a little while he came back with a large earthenware vessel filled with goat's milk. He said, get your friend to drink this. Frank said, my friend is unconscious. He said, force it down his throat. So Frank started to do that. He started to force it down his throat. After a while, Ned opened his eyes, and Frank said, here Ned, drink this. And he began to drink it. And pretty soon he said, the burning is gone. Well, he recovered in the goodness of God, and they went on their gospel journey. And quite a while later, they were back in that area. Oh, I should tell you, they left that earthenware vessel, and they put some money under it to show their gratitude to this man that brought the goat's milk. Sometime later, they were back in that area, and they decided to look up that man and thank him for what had happened. I mean, he had saved their lives. And so they began to ask the nationals there about this man. They described this tall man that came to them at the campsite, and national said, there are no tall men here. Well, they said, he came to us with an earthenware vessel full of goat's milk, but they said there were no goats here. At that time, there was a missionary from New Zealand serving in Bolivia. His name was Dr. Brown. And when Ned and Frank told this story to Dr. Brown, he said, she put, and then he named the poison, she put that in the meat. And he said, the best known antidote for that poison is goat's milk. Now, that's pretty marvelous, isn't it? God taking care of his servants down there in a remote area of Bolivia without any hospitals, or doctors, or nurses, or anything of the sort. But you know, I think there's a lesson for us in this. Those men were really cast upon the Lord. They, they had only the Lord, and he took care of them. I sometimes think that we have so much in the way of support, and pillows, and clutches, and security systems, we don't need the Lord. And we don't see the Lord working in these marvelous ways that these men saw him working. Many here know our dear brother, David Johnson, a dentist who's serving the Lord in church planting out in the Philippines. Not so long ago, David became very, very ill out there in the Philippines, and the medical facilities there were not sufficient to take care of his case. And, so he had to come back to the States, and he went to Stanford Medical Center, and they diagnosed his illness as Writer's Syndrome. Not writers writing with a pen, but R-E-I-T-E-R-S, Writer's Syndrome. And David had rather a prolonged recuperation period here, and he was getting very restless because his heart, his body was in San Jose, but his heart was in the Philippines. Eventually, he recovered sufficiently that he was able to go back, and on his flight back, he had to stay overnight in Honolulu. And you know, an interesting thing happened. When he was in Honolulu at the airport there, he saw a Filipina whom he recognized. And he went up to her, and he said his name was David Johnson, and he was a missionary there in the Philippines, and he gave her a gospel booklet. I think it was Ultimate Questions, which we've been giving away here. She was Inelda Marcos, the widow of the late president of the Philippines. If David hadn't contracted Writer's Syndrome, he never would have had that opportunity to share the gospel with Inelda Marcos. You might think it was a mistake. Here's a fellow out there actively serving the Lord, doing a good work for the Lord, and all of a sudden this happens to him, and he has to come home. No mistake at all. God is behind the scenes, keeping watch above his own, and accomplishing his purposes. And I really believe in heaven. We're going to see how God was working it all out, and we'll praise his wonderful name. Perhaps with this helicopter, he's working out some purposes, too. Some years ago, I was in Bangkok, Thailand, and I was with a young fellow named Billy Bray. Billy Bray was there serving the Lord, but he was also working for two American news magazines. He was a reporter for two American news magazines, and whenever he'd write a story for them, of course, he'd get a good check back from the magazine. When Billy signed a check, he always signed it, Billy Bray, Hill 121. And he always went to the same teller in the bank. And one day, he was there in the bank, and the teller said to him, Why do you always sign your name, Billy Bray, Hill 121? Oh, he said, that's my life's risk, Philippians 121. For me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. One night, Billy Bray went into the Oriental Hotel there and had supper. One night, Billy Bray went into the hotel, Oriental Hotel, had supper, and he had to leave in a hurry, and he forgot his attaché case. Well, the waiter didn't forget it. The waiter opened it and found a checkbook with a good deposit in it had just come from one of the news magazines. So, the waiter took that checkbook and filled out a check and signed, and he went down to the bank. You know, of all the tellers in the bank, which one do you think he went to? He went to the teller that Billy Bray always went to. The teller looked at the check, looked good. Billy Bray. But Phil 121 was missing, and Phil 121 saved Billy Bray a couple of thousand dollars. Is God interested in things like it? Sure, he's interested. There's a man out serving him there in Bangkok, Thailand, and God taking care of all his people throughout all the world, is interested enough to direct that waiter to the right teller. And why had that teller asked just previous to that, why do you put Phil 121 after your name? It's really wonderful. What a wonderful God we have. And this is happening all the time, all over the world, and we don't know about it, but we will know about it when we reach the heavenly shore. On January 6, 1989, I was working on this commentary that we have up here. You forgot to advertise it, so I thought I'd just work this in. And we were doing a final page correction, and we were encountering opposition that you wouldn't believe. Ed Harlow was working with us on it, and he said that in all his years, as a missionary in Africa, he had never encountered such demonic opposition. It really confirmed my theory that all computers, cameras, projectors, and videos are demon-possessed. Every time we had to change from one form of software to another, new mistakes would appear, and he had to read the whole, over a thousand pages, had to read them all over again. And I want to tell you, it was pretty discouraging. I got so I didn't want to read it again. You know, that morning on January 6, when I felt so low, I received a letter, a form letter from OM, and in it they had inserted a calligraphy. Somebody had, you know, worked this out in their fancy penmanship, and you know what it said? It said, don't be frightened by the size of the task. Be strong and courageous and get to work. For the Lord my God is with you. He will not forsake you. He will see to it that everything is finished correctly. Now that happens to be from the Living Bible, which is not my favorite version, but I better be careful what I say, because God used it that day. Let me read that again to you. Isn't that marvelous? We were trying to correct the page proof. It says, don't be frightened by the size of the task. Be strong and courageous and get to work. For the Lord my God is with you. He will not forsake you. He will see to it that everything is finished correctly. In case you're interested, that's 1 Chronicles 28 20. And I tell you, the clouds drifted away when I read that. I knew that was a message directly from the Lord. Why should he care? Why should he be that interested in me? I'll tell you, it passes knowledge when you stop to think of it. Some time ago, years ago, four Christians were traveling in the Middle East, and they were scouting out places for Jewish evangelism. However, one of them, Dr. Black, had a bad fall from a camel. And it was decided that another man, Dr. Keith, would return with him to Britain. A camel fall takes them on the way back to Britain. When they reached Austria, Dr. Keith developed cholera. That stopped them from going any further to Britain. The Archduchess Dorothea Marie heard about it. She heard about this serious illness, and the reason for the travels, and she promised the protection of the Archduke to any missionaries that might be led to settle there. And as a result of a camel fall, and a case of cholera, a Jewish work was begun there in Austria, and a man named Edersheim was saved, to whom the Christian Church is deeply indebted, and another one, Alfred Edersheim, and another one, Dr. Adolph Thacker. These men became illustrious servants of God, because God moved in such a marvelous way, in what seemed to be sad accidents, sad occurrences, but God was behind the scene. What a wonderful God he is, huh? That he should be so interested in us, that he would go to such extent to care for us, and at the same time to work out his marvelous purposes. During a violent North African persecution, a man named Frederick Nolan was fleeing from his enemies. He was hounded by his pursuers over Hilland Valley, with no place to hide. And finally, he came to a wayside cave, and he went in, searing the end, he went in and just threw himself in the cave, and waited for his pursuers to come and catch up with him. And while he was waiting there in the cave, a spider started spinning a web across the mouth of the cave. A spider. Can God control a spider? Well, he controlled that one. And pretty soon, there was a beautiful web across the mouth of the cave, and the pursuers came, and they came to the cave. And they looked, and they saw a spider's web, and they said, well, he couldn't be in there. You couldn't get in that cave without disturbing that spider's web. And they went on, and Frederick Nolan escaped. And when he escaped from his hiding place, he said, where God is, a spider's web is like a wall. Where God is not, a wall is like a spider's web. And it's true. You think of God using something as inconsequential as that, to spare the life of one of his servants. The marvelous timing and sequence of moves. Why did the spider just begin at that particular time? You and I know why. Some of you here know Jim Havemeyer, who's serving the Lord down in Honduras. He wrote to me, he said, Bill, I know you're collecting marvelous stories of God's providence. He said, I want to share one with you. One day down there in Honduras, he was having a downer. Jim had never known that kind of discouragement before, and frankly, there was no good reason for it. As he examined his life, and the lives of his family, he could not think of any reason why he should be discouraged. And yet he was tremendously depressed. And he admitted it was crazy. He admitted it wasn't natural. It's the only time he had ever experienced depression, and he shared it with his wife. And after he shared it with his wife, he decided to write to a brother in Lubbock, Texas. That's where Jim is from, Lubbock, Texas. There's a man there in Lubbock whom he knows, who's in touch with God. He thought, I'm going to write to him and tell him about my depression and ask him to pray. So he wrote the letter, and he and his wife went down to the post office to mail the letter. But before they mailed the letter, they found a letter from that man to them. It was the first they had received from him in 15 months. And I'm going to read you what the letter said. This is to let you know we think of you often. My writing is a miracle in itself. I haven't even written to my own parents. But this evening, I truly feel a burden to let you know that we appreciate you and care about you. I know by the Holy Spirit that you find yourself down. Imagine. I know by the Holy Spirit that you find yourself down. But take courage, for our Father will fulfill his purpose in you. Sometimes the hardest part of our walk is just resting in him. May our Father richly bless you and your family. Answering your request even before they're spoken. Get that? Answering your request even before they're spoken. Jim looked at the envelope. That letter had been mailed 16 days previously. Before Jim had ever experienced the depression, before he had ever experienced the discouragement, before he had ever experienced that downer, God's timing was perfect. Before they call, I will answer. What a wonderful God we have. You know, in 1989, a Thanksgiving weekend, three of us were over here in Lone Pine on the other side of the Sierras. We had spent the night there in a motel, and we were going to leave in the morning. And when we got up, we committed the day to the Lord, asked the Lord to take over, guide us. The plan was to drive from Lone Pine North three hours to Mono Lake, Levining, and then come across the Tioga Pass Road to Yosemite, and then on home. We went into the sportsman's cafe there for breakfast. And when we were eating breakfast, a car went by with a ski rack and skis on the top, and we all laughed. California was an adult. There was no snow. And so we thought, poor guy, where does he think he's going to ski? We finished our breakfast, and I was at the cash register, and I just happened, get it? I just happened to say to the girl, I suppose you folks are hoping for snow so that business will pick up here with the skiers. She said, it's funny that you should say that. I just heard over the radio that it's snowing at the Tioga Pass, and the road has been closed for the season. I said to the two fellas, did you hear that? They said, let's go and check at the ranger station. So we went to the ranger station, and they said, not only the Tioga Pass, they said all the passes to the north are closed for the season with snow. That chance, chance remark by that waitress in the restaurant saved us three hours north, three hours back again to where we started. So we just went down toward Bakersfield and back home without any difficulty. You know, is God really interested? I think it's wonderful when you can start the day off and commit the day to the Lord and walk with an ungrieved spirit through the day and know that God is leading in a wonderful way. Somebody said, faith leads you to heights that makes reason dizzy. That's true, isn't it? Faith leads you to heights that makes reason dizzy. Years ago, many of you know W.E. Vine. He wrote the Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words, plus commentaries on Isaiah, 1 Corinthians, John, and many other books of the Bible. He and his brother were teaching in a school there in England, and the brethren at the missionary service organization known as Echoes of Service approached him and said, you know, would you consider coming to work with us at Echoes of Service? It would mean leaving the school. Well, it cast him and it cast his brother very much on the Lord. They made it a matter of deep prayer, of earnest prayer. And one morning when W.E. Vine was having his daily consecutive reading, he came to Deuteronomy 31 7. It said, you must go with this people. You know, you and I could have read that this morning. It wouldn't have said a thing to us. You see, he was waiting on the Lord for guidance from the Lord. The Lord led him to that. That was in the next day's reading. You must go with this people. Well, you know, his brother was off in another city at the same time, and he was holding a series of meetings. He was a guest in a town, and after praying in the morning, he rose from his knees and he looked at a most strange text on the wall. Actually, it was two texts on the wall. That is, one framed text, but two verses of Scripture. The first was from Isaiah 49 21. It says, I was left, and the second was Ephesians 6 7, with goodwill doing service as unto the Lord. Strange, isn't it? I was left with goodwill doing service as unto the Lord. And those two brothers got together and they compared notes. You must go with this people. I was left with goodwill doing service to the Lord. It's amazing. But it's wonderful, I'll tell you, when verses of Scripture light up, when you're seeking the guidance of God, and you go to the Word of God and you see something like that. Well, they talked about it, and they said, well really, he couldn't leave unless the Lord raised up an assistant to the staff. That seemed proper to them. They were willing to do the will of God. They wanted the will of God, but they didn't feel that W.E. Vine could leave the school unless God raised up an assistant. That very morning, W.E. Vine was walking downtown, and he met a fellow who had been a former student at the school. And W.E. Vine said to him, what are you doing? Well, he said, I'm an accountant, he said. I'm working in an accountant's office, but I don't want to continue that occupation. And I've been thinking of applying for a post as assistant master. You don't have one, do you? You haven't got a post vacant for me, have you? That was just the guidance that settled the matter. Imagine, a text from the Bible, in one case, a text, two verses on the wall, another, and a young man saying, I'm the man you're looking for. And he was. And on the basis of that, W.E. Vine went and served at that school. Marvelous, the way God works. I'm going to just close with this. I don't know if you've read the book by Olive Fleming-Liefeld, but they went back, she and Walter went back 30 years after the martyrdom of her first husband, Peter Fleming. They went back to the Wurani Indians there. They used to be called the Oukas. And one day, Walter and Olive were there with Rachel Saint, and Rachel was talking to some of the Indians, to two of the Indians. One of them had been on the beach when the men were killed, and one of them had been in the forest. And they told Rachel Saint that they, something that they, that the Christians had never known before. They said, when those fellows were killed, they heard singing, and they looked up over the trees, and there were, there was a multitude with flashlights. Well, flashlights was the only word they had, in their language, to describe light. And in this case, it was flickering light. I'll read it to you. Both Indians said they had heard singing. As they looked up over the tops of the trees, they saw a multitude of people surrounded by a hundred bright lights. The lights were very bright and flashing, but then they disappeared. And the, the verse of that hymn flashed through Walter's mind when passing through the gates of pearly splendor. We know that when many Christians go home to be with the Lord, they have visions of glory before. And I want to tell you, if you see the face of Jesus, a few Oukas fears don't make too much difference. What a comfort to the loved ones of those men. I realized God was there on the beach of the Keurorai River that day. God was there working out his purpose. In a recent issue of Uplook magazine, I don't know if you get it, it's a good magazine, put out by Mr. Nicholson's son, Jabe. An interesting story by Mr. Nicholson himself. Two o'clock at Entebbe. And I've asked Mr. Nicholson to come up, and he graciously agreed to come up. Another marvelous instance of the providence of God caring for his people. And if I may say so, with just a trace of a sense of humor in it. God has a sense of humor. And then, perhaps at the close, Brother Nicholson will just leave us with a verse of the gospel.