In This Issue:
When We Can’t, He Can!
Benjamin Franklin’s Observation
A Child’s Answered Prayer
Volume: 1058 July 27, 2026
Theme: Answered Prayer
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When We Can’t, He Can!
Bill Brinkworth
“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14
Nowhere in the Word of God is tolerance of sin found. Godly living people are to be the “salt” (Mat. 5:13) and the “light” (Mat. 5:14-15) that convict and expose what God does not want in anyone’s life — sin! We are to speak out against sin whenever possible.
Sometimes, however, it is not possible to address a sinner directly. In those cases, a Christian still has a weapon in his arsenal to defeat and stifle ongoing sin.
In those instances, he uses his unwavering faith and pleads with a Holy God to intervene and halt the ongoing sin, and to change the heart and mind of the one committing iniquity. The believer uses the mighty tool of prayer to get his righteousness-loving God to change the situation when he cannot.
This intercessory prayer has done much to change countless sinful situations in man’s history. So many times God has answered the pleas of praying men, women, and children to change what they could not. I remember several situations in my life in which the faithful prayers of God’s people stopped seemingly rampant sin.
A teenager was burdened by a bar that was serving liquor to its patrons and possibly ruining the lives of the drunkards and their families. Every time the ministry van drove him past that den of iniquity, he would pray that it would be closed and that the consequences of alcohol would ruin no more lives. His own private devotions often included a prayer to close down the “beer joint.” His conviction and concern against the bar was well known.
Within a month, as we drove past that bar, the occupants of the van saw the answer to the teen’s faithful prayers. The place where alcohol had been served had been burnt to the ground! All eyes and comments quickly turned to the young prayer warrior. God had done what the young man could never have done.
The van load of teens was encouraged by the power and value of prayer. After hearing, in a Sunday school lesson, about the wickedness of witchcraft and many of the ungodly outreaches of occult practices, the young people on the van became burdened about the sin committed by a local palm and astrological reader. As they passed her place of business, they were even more burdened to halt the occult practices in their town, especially when they saw a huge 30-foot billboard advertising her “business.”
Many prayed. In classroom devotions, the removal of the woman’s business and her sign were often requests that they turned to God to grant. Again, and in a relatively short time, the van passed where the sign had once stood. Apparently, a car had careened into the sign and knocked it down. It was never rebuilt! Again, God did what caring, concerned, and praying people could not physically do.
Another of God’s memorable interventions in response to the concerns of multitudes of Christians occurred in Haines City, Florida. Moral citizens were concerned about the removal of an adult pornography business.
Christians wrote letters to their political leaders. Many boycotted the store that peddled the smut and had letters published in local papers. Most importantly, local Christians and churches prayed for God’s help in removing the business. After a lengthy battle, local laws were changed and new laws added, and the business was closed due to the new law’s restrictions.
Not long after the pornographic business closed, a new business moved in. It was a business that took local organic refuse and turned it into commercially processed potting soil. It appeared God had a sense of humor in this situation. A place of pornographic filth was replaced by another business that also made and sold dirt. Again, God did what man could not do.
Another important example of God’s intervention is what God did for our country! For decades, laws had been passed, but many had nothing to do with the desires of most moral Americans. The majority did not want homosexuality or transsexualism to be encouraged, nor same-sex marriages, abortions, open borders, enforcement of political correctness, many exercised Christian beliefs to be labeled as “hate crimes,” the removal of Nativity scenes from public displays, the removal of the name of Jesus from public prayer, the promotion of the dangerous Islamic cult, not fully supporting our military, not supporting many of our allies including Israel, and many other changes to America. Most of these changes were forced down citizens’ throats without their consent.
Years of increasing immorality and less control by the people drove much of the nation to their knees in prayer. Their letters to the officials were often ignored. A deceptive media also hid their complaints. However, there was one way to reverse the country’s moral decline that no person could stop. That was by praying.
Individual Christians prayed and fasted. Whole churches consistently went to the Lord in prayer, and God heard their cries! The throne room of Heaven was flooded with requests for God to change America to the way He wanted it.
November 2016 and again in 2024 brought results from an election that many did not expect. A man who had promised to return the country to many of its former characteristics, morals, and ways of life had been voted in. It appeared that there was a president who thought along the lines of most Americans. God again answered His people’s prayers and did what man could not do himself.
We are to do all we can to halt sin and to speak out against sin when we can. We are not to tolerate changes that are contrary to the Word of God.
It is a Christian’s responsibility to tell the world how God wants us to live and what is right. However, there are times that we do not have the opportunity to have His will expressed, but we can still pray and let His will be done! There is power in prayer from a prayer-answering God!
“When we pray, we do nothing but ask. God does all the work!”
Benjamin Franklin’s Observation
Benjamin Browns in Illustrations for Preaching
Benjamin Franklin called upon the Continental Congress to invoke the power of divine guidance. At the Constitutional Convention, where our nation was taking governmental form, he addressed the Philadelphia gathering in 1787 as follows: “I have lived, sir, a long time; and the longer I live the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without his notice, it is probable that an empire cannot rise without His aid.”
“Lord, keep us close to your heart, so that we see everything in and around us from your perspective.” — Corrie Ten Boom
A Child’s Answered Prayer
D. L. Moody
I remember a child who lived with her parents in a small village. One day the news came that her father had joined the army (it was at the beginning of the Civil War), and a few days after, the landlord came to demand the rent.
The mother told him she didn’t have the payment and that her husband had gone into the army. He was a hard-hearted man, and he stormed off shouting that they must leave the house. The landlord “wasn’t going to have people who couldn’t pay the rent.” After he was gone, the mother threw herself into the armchair and wept bitterly.
Her little girl, whom she had taught to pray in faith (it is more difficult to practice than to preach), came up to her and said, “What makes you cry, mamma? I will pray to God to give us a little house, and won’t He?”
What could the mother say, so the little child went into the next room and began to pray. The door was open, and the mother could hear every word. “O God, you have come and taken away father, and mamma has got no money, and the landlord will turn us out because we can’t pay, and we will have to sit on the doorstep, and mamma will catch a cold. Give us a little home.” Then she waited, as if for an answer, and then added, “Won’t you, please, God?”
She came out of that room quite happy, expecting a house to be given to them. The mother felt reproved. I can tell you, however, she has never paid any rent since, for God heard the prayer of that little one, and touched the heart of the cruel landlord. God give us the faith of that little child, that we may likewise expect an answer, “nothing wavering.”
“Pray to our Almighty God, as if the devil had you by the throat, and who will help you out of your despair.” — Charles Kingsley