Figs, Faith And Forgiveness Series

CONCLUSION

In the next message, we’ll talk about powerful praying and forgiveness. But first let me tell you about how I’ve seen God move mountains. Some of you were with me when we were in Moscow in 1995 boarding an Aeroflot flight to the Crimea, where we were taking supplies, medicine, and a sound system to the churches we were working with there. Corruption was rampant in Russia and one of the airport officials in Moscow boarded our group and luggage but detained our translator and me. Through our translator, Olga, she said told me, “You have excess luggage, so you pay me $1,000 American cash, or the flight doesn’t leave.”

I said, “I’m sorry I can’t do that because this is God’s money.” Olga had to ask me twice, but I told her to tell her what I said. We stood there for 45 minutes going back and forth. I was speaking to a mountain who was a Russian Aeroflot official. I kept saying, “This is God’s money and you can’t have it.”

Finally she picked up the phone and said something and hung up. The she told me, “You can board and the flight can leave. But when you land in Simferopol, you must now pay the official $2,000 or we will claim all your luggage and supplies.”

I boarded the plane and told our group what had happened and we prayed all the way on that flight and Aeroflot flights are so bad you pray the whole flight anyway.

So we landed in the Crimea and the jet taxied up on the tarmac. There was no jet way; we exited down stairs onto the pavement of the airport. There were Russians soldiers standing at the single exit that led through the small Aeroflot terminal. Just behind the jet, through the chainlink fence, we could see our Russian pastors and their vans in the parking lot ready to meet our group and transport our luggage. Olga and I walked to the fence and explained our predicament to the lead pastor, Benjamin. We told him that unless we paid $2,000 they would confiscate all our luggage. He conferred with a couple of the pastors and came back and said, “Nyet problema.”

It turned out that two of the workmen responsible for unloading the luggage were members of their churches. The next thing we knew, a gate in the fence was unlocked and the vans came rolling right out to the plane and we pitched in loaded up all the luggage and supplies off the baggage carts into the vans, and they drove out the gate to the parking lot. Then our group filed past the soldiers and walked through the Aeroflot terminal. There was an official there who looked confused when he saw a group with no luggage. I just smiled and him and said, “Do svidaniya.” We thanked the Lord that we serve a God who can move mountains!

How’s your faith in God today? A boy in Sunday School made a craft to show his mother. The theme of the lesson that day was, “Have Faith in God.” So the little boy took construction paper and a glue stick. With great care and concentration he took the glue stick and wrote the word “Have” then he sprinkled glitter on it and blew away the excess glitter. Then he wrote the next three words, sprinkling glitter on them. When he was finished he proudly looked at his masterpiece. It said, “Have faith in God” in glitter letters. This teacher complimented him on his good job. He couldn’t wait to show it to his mother.