If People Pray Miracles Can Happen!

Chartridge Mission Church
Chartridge Mission Church
  • 2 days ago
Alan Crooks returns to the pulpit with a sermon filled with World War I and II miracles you may not have heard of before. Why did not wearing a gas mask save thousands of children's lives? Why did a phone call from Ireland about the weather change D-Day and save untold numbers of lives? Bonus content at the end contains close-ups of an original 1939 child's gas mask and packaging. Alan also shares miracles from his Christian journey.

Scriptures used: Genesis 2:1-7, James 5:16, 1 Timothy 2:5, John 3:16, 1 Peter 2:24, & Romans 5:12, 17.

Chartridge Mission Church began in 1844 and is still found in the village of Chartridge, just outside of Chesham in the beautiful Chiltern Hills of Buckinghamshire, England, UK.

Filmed on Sunday, 6th October 2024.

Join us for our Sunday service at 18:00.

www.Chartridge.UK
Transcript
00:00Well good evening and welcome to our service this evening, few in number but scripture
00:13reminds us that where two or three are gathered together in your name then we're in the midst
00:17of them and we thank you for that and a special welcome to those who may be watching or listening
00:23online it's good to have you with us and we trust that as we want a blessing for us here
00:29wherever you are whatever your situation you will know God's blessing this evening as we
00:34share this time together. On Friday evening I was looking through my notes for the service
00:42this evening and I read an account in the scriptures about the wars that go on in the
00:51world and I thought the Bible's got a lot to say about that the Old Testament if you look into it
01:01was full of people who were always warring and fighting and killing and being killed so what
01:09I've done I've brought together the three versions of what the scriptures say about wars and rumors
01:17of wars and try to apply it to our lives and our world today the scripture says there will be wars
01:27and rumors of wars these things take place but it's not the end nation will rise against nation
01:36kingdom against kingdom and in various places there will be famines and earthquakes and pestilences
01:46and who can argue that that isn't a picture of the world today many people believe that we're
01:53living in the end what they call the end times when the Lord Jesus Christ is coming back to
01:58earth it's impossible to know when the Lord Jesus Christ is coming because the Lord Jesus himself
02:07said it's not up to you as to when God comes it's not even up to me the son it's in my father's time
02:15and I just pray that people might not take the words out of context one of the problems I found
02:24with anticipating the end times is that you can read the scriptures and depending on your point
02:33of view you can come to one conclusion but for another point of view you can come to another
02:40conclusion sometimes the scriptures aren't very clear with it I'll give you two instances there's
02:48a time coming according to some people called the rapture and their belief is that the Lord
02:54Jesus will instantaneously take all the Christians all his servants around the world up in the air
02:59to be with him you can find that in one Thessalonians chapter 4 verses 13 to 18 but if
03:08we look into the Old Testament Hezekiah chapter 14 it says this the Lord Jesus will return and
03:15stand on the Mount of Olives when where how the Lord returns can I suggest that how and when isn't
03:24important the important message that comes from the scriptures is that when whenever the Lord
03:30Jesus comes he comes suddenly the Lord Jesus said about the ten virgins and who had their oil for
03:40their lamps and they came and the bridegroom took them in and the other ten hadn't got oil so they
03:48had to go and buy some and they came to go into the wedding feast and the bridegroom said I'm
03:55sorry I don't even know you so my question is really not so much how when and why but are we
04:08ready I'll be ready for this second coming of the Lord Jesus in whatever way he comes and I
04:16trust that perhaps after this evening you might share with me one or two thoughts about that
04:22I'm in contact with a church in the Philippines and they're doing an amazing work when they go
04:33to take people for baptism they have to hire a coach there's so many of them and one of the
04:39words they use almost every time I read their newsletters is the word Maranatha and they very
04:49much live in that because Maranatha means our Lord comes or our Lord is coming and I trust that as
04:58we think about these things tonight we too might be aware that now is the accepted time and knows
05:05that they have salvation scripture says so may we as those who trust and love the Lord Jesus make
05:13sure that we are ready whenever he comes another little story that was told is a wise man who knows
05:23is going to be a burglar coming he doesn't wait for the burglar to come in he just waits and to
05:29stop him from coming and I think that it's so important this whole question of not when and
05:36how the Lord Jesus is coming back whether it's to the Mount of Olives or whether it's in the air
05:43or whatever else is the important thing for you and me this evening with you watching online or
05:49in here the important thing to remember is that the Lord Jesus Christ will come back and that's
05:57a promise he made and the Lord Jesus never made a promise they didn't keep may we be waiting and
06:04watching for him before they read these few verses the background is that Elijah had challenged the
06:16prophets of Baal to a competition to decide who was the greater God was it Baal or was it the
06:24God of Elijah of course they called on the God their gods and cut themselves and danced around
06:35which was their practice but of course the altar they built with the offering on it just stayed as
06:43it was and Elijah begins taunting them perhaps your God's asleep or perhaps he's gone away and
06:53they did even more dancing and cutting themselves but obviously nothing happened and so Elijah said
07:01right I'm going to build an altar and he took 12 stones one for each of the children of Israel he
07:08put the sacrifice on it and he then asked them to pour water over it and then to dig a ditch round
07:17about and fill that with water as well and when that was all done and everything was soaking wet
07:24Elijah looked up to God and said please Lord effectively show these people who the real God
07:31is and fire came down from heaven it didn't only just take up the sacrifice it took up the stones
07:38and all the water as well and that was one of the things that made me think about my subject
07:45prayer when a person prays can bring miracles and that was one the only few or only many of miracles
07:55in the Old Testament I didn't realize until I started looking just how many miracles there
08:00are in the Old Testament a lot of them of course to deal with the children of Israel in God and so
08:08the second reading we're going to jump a bit is right over to Genesis chapter 2 the first seven
08:16verses and I've chosen this one because I'm going to try later on in the evening to suggest where a
08:25certain situation comes from we'll have different ideas about it but I've got some idea of what I
08:32think might be the answer to the question so Genesis chapter 2 we're going to read down from
08:39verse 1 then the heavens and the earth were completed all their vast array by the seventh
08:48day God had finished the work he'd been doing so on the seventh day he rested and from all his work
08:55and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of
09:01creating that that which he had done this is the account of the heavens and the earth when they
09:09were created the Lord made the earth and the heavens no shrub on the field had yet appeared
09:15on the earth no plant of the fields yet sprang up for the Lord God had not sent rain on the earth
09:22and there was no man to work the land the streams came up from the earth and watered the whole
09:28surface of the earth and ground the Lord formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed
09:36into his nostrils and he became a living person and I'll just like to consider that a little bit
09:45later on I said that if I had a title for my talk this evening it would be if people pray
09:52miracles can happen let me define first of all what does the dictionary say about a miracle
10:03what is it and I rehear an extraordinary event that goes against nature cannot be explained by
10:12science and that Christians believe is caused by God as far as the Bible miracle concerns I suggest
10:23that these were lessons demonstrating just how power how much power the Lord Jesus had this
10:31showed authority over nature demons disease and death and many many other illnesses Jesus was
10:39supreme and he did all of these things as I started again thinking about the message and
10:49this came to my mind last week and our preacher here mentioned the same verse it was James chapter
10:575 verse 16 you don't need to read it the effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much now
11:09when I was reading this I thought does God hear the prayer of unrighteous people and that's the
11:18question I'd like to share with you at the beginning of my talk tonight last week I took
11:25you back to when I was 17 years old and gave you my testimony tonight I'm going to take you back
11:34even further to 1939 when I was five years old I can't remember much about that time but certain
11:45things do come to mind and one of the things I thought about and I found out was that during
11:53World War two the King King George the sixth of England on seven different occasions prayed that
12:02the whole nation would come together to ask God for help because the nation was in a terrible
12:08situation they hadn't yet decided where the hit was going to attack or what he's going to do and
12:15there's a lot of worrying and concern so King George is sick and he's the only person who could
12:22do this called the whole nation to pray to prayer the first prayer the first prayer that was offered
12:31was because they needed a miracle on the beaches of Dunkirk you probably know the story and on
12:40three of these miracles the Lord Jesus God used the weather as the means of bringing about the
12:49miracle as far as the rescue in the British Army from France was concerned on the day that they
12:58were there waiting to be captured 338,000 or so the Germans had cut them off they had nothing in
13:05front of them but the English Channel and the nation by their millions came and prayed for
13:12safety they filled every church they could find even small churches would have been overflowing
13:19and the big cathedrals millions of people came for one purpose to pray that God would give a
13:28miracle over the beaches of Dunkirk and the miracle happened over the French coast at the
13:37time there was a terrible storm and a lot of the German aircraft were grounded because they
13:43couldn't fly and also over the beaches of Dunkirk there was a lot of cloud and smoke because of the
13:51war and the burning buildings and tanks and stuff and the problem was that the German
13:58Luftwaffe bombers couldn't find out where they were couldn't find out where they'd been recurring up
14:04and they were queuing up three four deep up to their waists in water just patiently waiting to
14:09be lifted off but the English Channel at the time irrespective of the storm was absolutely calm
14:19and Churchill who was a prime minister called for help and he asked that everybody who had a boat
14:29that could get as far as Dunkirk would take it out and help rescue these soldiers and they were
14:35able to do so even though the storm was raging over Dunkirk and somewhere around 338,000
14:44men and French French and Englishmen were brought home safely to England
14:52and that was the first answer to prayer of the first time the prayer was made
15:00the second one was when the Battle of Britain came prayer was made I'm not going through all
15:10seven it would take too long prayer was made that the German Air Force wouldn't break through
15:17and the miracle happened over a period of about five or six weeks the Royal Air Force
15:23was able to stop the German bombers and prevented them from doing even more damage
15:30and that was again the result of a prayer a miracle the last prayer the last day of prayer
15:38came in 1944 the prayer this time was for the safe landing of the troops on the Normandy beaches
15:50and again millions turned out to pray for that
15:54and again the Lord used nature to bring about a miracle that saved so many lives
16:02if I have time at the end I'll just share the actual story with you but one phone call from one
16:09person changed the lives or deaths of thousands of troops all waiting 380,000 or so all the
16:20battleships were all ready to go and launch into the D-Day landings but then this one phone call
16:29changed all of that
16:34but I'll tell you that story I think a little later provided I have time
16:43I believe and I lived through this so I know this but I believe that God personally performed
16:50another miracle in 1939 without people praying it was just one of those things that God did
17:01and it concerns what I've got in a box
17:13I brought this along because I think it's a good idea to remind some of us
17:18just how old we are but this is an original gas mask from 1939 and it's identical to the one
17:27that I would have had when I was five years old so this is 1939 children's gas mask
17:38if you look closely you'd see that there's a lot of tape around it
17:43in front and at the back and inside the reason for that is that they didn't realise at the time
17:51that this canister which was the filter media was in fact filled with blue asbestos
18:00and those of you know the problems with blue asbestos will appreciate that if children
18:06had to wear these for any length of time then they would be breathing in blue asbestos
18:13but it didn't happen the Germans didn't drop the what they used to call the mustard gas in the
18:19trenches in the first world war it was in fact chlorine gas which was low-laying and because
18:26it was low-laying it was very effective in the trenches in the war killed a lot of people
18:32blinded a lot of soldiers but that was chlorine gas and they call it mustard gas because chlorine
18:40will burn burn your skin so I think that the world war one people there were hundreds of people
18:49later on in life had breathing problems and they couldn't couldn't find out what it was and then
18:56they found out that all the gas masks issued to the troops in the first world war in the trenches
19:03had the same filter media blue asbestos and so I believe personally that
19:12people who experienced lung problems and all sorts of other illnesses in fact it wasn't the mustard
19:20gas it was breathing in the small particles of blue asbestos and I remember my father who comes
19:29from a coal mining country he had a lot of problems with breathing and always seemed to be coughing
19:37and he wasn't in the war he was in a reserved occupation but he came from a coal
19:42mining country and I believe what happened he had the same thing happen to him as chlorine did as
19:52asbestos did and they call it the black death because the mining particles of the coal when
19:59the miners were down there mining the coal got into the miners' throats and when it touched the
20:07inside of their their lungs it changed into a chemical and that possibly could be up to 50
20:17years later so a lot of people in the first world war in the trenches with people like coal
20:25coal dust poisoning as well a lot of those people died just because the wrong things were used
20:34and I remember my father he died when he was 60 but I never found out what he died from
20:42but I wonder perhaps if as the next coal miner
20:45he might have in fact died from this black death breathing the coal mines
20:55I hope you don't mind me bringing that but I think it's a good thing to remember
21:00looking back and remembering perhaps how blessed we were and that how
21:04but it was a blessing that god didn't perform the miracle after prayer he performed it before
21:13because he knew the problems that were going to be there if the children had these gas masks
21:20and so that's why was um I brought it along this evening because some of you may never have seen
21:25one before I don't know if you're born after 1945 you probably haven't but I thought it
21:33might be of interest and there's also a message
21:43the gas mask works by when you breathe in it takes the air from your lungs fills your lungs
21:52and then you breathe out and this part of the filter is in fact the area where the blue asbestos
22:01was the bible teaches that we've got a protection we've got a god who knows and cares and
22:17I think the picture of that is that um irrespective of what mass did or didn't do
22:25god enabled people to live as a result of it can I just quote a little verse coming from
22:35one timothy chapter 2 verse 5 we have a protection between the evil in the world
22:44represented by the gas and we have protection from the lord jesus christ and the scripture
22:52in one timothy says this for there is one god and mediator between god and men the man christ
23:02jesus and that's what we've got stopping all the evil coming into our lives all the time the
23:09speaker last week said that society and especially against the church is chipping chipping away
23:16at our foundation for our faith which is the lord jesus christ
23:22but the chat the bible says this again if he's in chapter six
23:29talks about putting on the whole armor of god i'm not going to go through the individual items but
23:36things that are mentioned there for our lives the armor of god that will defeat satan
23:41are these truth
23:47righteousness the gospel of peace
23:53faith salvation and the holy spirit and all of those things are covered by that particular
24:03verses in that chapter we have a protector we have a god between us and satan
24:11and it's brought about i know i don't have to repeat this it's brought about by the fact that
24:18lord jesus christ was sent by god into the world as it says in john 3 17 not to condemn the world
24:27but that the world to him might be saved and that's the sort of saving we have today
24:36can i ask you a question
24:40have you ever wondered why people call out to god whether in danger
24:47especially if it might end in death there was a lot of fear in 1939 to 1945
24:56and people called out to god and he heard them but why is it people call out to god when their
25:03lives are in danger well i'll tell you what i believe and i must admit this is my own personal
25:10opinion i read the first chapter second chapter of genesis because it says god breathed into adam
25:19and he became a living being and i personally believe that there is in each every individual
25:27each one of us a tiny part of god they call it various things but um it's generally known as a
25:37soul now you can't see you can't feel it you can't operate on it the medical science can't
25:45understand it it's just impossible to try and appreciate something that is given by god that
25:51we can't see here feel or touch but it's there and i think that when people are in need in danger
25:59that little bit of god that was put into them comes to the sort comes to the front
26:05and enables them to know what they want to do it's it's only my opinion but
26:16have you heard of the term clinically dead
26:21that little piece of life gives life to the whole body but when a person dies and becomes
26:30and becomes clinically dead that's the time that that little something called the soul or whatever
26:36you like to call it goes from the body and returns back to god who gave it in the first place
26:45and that's just one possible explanation why people call out to god and why so many people
26:55call out because they're afraid people pray because they're afraid there was a lot of fear
27:02and fear of the unknown in 1940 1945 and 39 because nobody knew what was happening
27:12from the statistical point of view england didn't have a chance of stopping hitler in his plans to
27:19invade england but through prayer and through god answering prayer
27:27those seven times seven miracles came to being
27:35i wonder i'll tell you about that little story shall i i'll have to read it because i've got it
27:40written down here
27:44it's possibly something you've never heard before
27:50one of the things of being old is you've got a lot of memories of what's gone on in the past
27:57it was reported that an irish post mistress and her husband-to-be
28:04joined the whole of world war ii they lived in northern ireland off on the
28:11edge of the western coast of ireland and every day for the whole of the war they repeated
28:20the weather forecast that they seen they were in a good position to do that because they were
28:26nothing between them except the atlantic ocean and america and so the information they give about
28:32the weather in around and around the coast at that time would give the allies a good idea
28:41for example would it be good would it be rough so submarines couldn't come would it be calm so the
28:48convoys could get through so this news every day either this woman or this man made was absolutely
28:59important and for the whole of the world they made these sorry a whole of the time
29:05they made these phone calls they never knew what they were for
29:11they were secret because theoretically anyway the republic of ireland was a neutral country
29:19and so they carried on sending these message but around about the 3rd of june 1944
29:27this lady whose name was maureen sweeney and his wife she happened to be in contact with london and
29:38she gave the latest weather forecast from this irish location right at the edge of the atlantic
29:46ocean but she was most surprised because she got a letter back a phone call back
29:54back never happened before because everything was done in secret
30:02and so she gave the usual weather forecast on about the 3rd of june
30:071944 as usual she didn't know anything about it or who was going to get it
30:13but for the first time in those five years she got a worried phone call from the government in london
30:20because her forecast said that there was a deep depression and a period of bad weather
30:27coming into the english channel on round about the 5th of june
30:37because she was so faithful and her husband as she came to be his wife because they were so faithful
30:45because they were so faithful in their broadcasting and their warnings and their
30:50weather pattern etc. somebody in the meteorological office
31:00in london was very concerned because the 5th of june when this bad weather was going to come
31:10was the same day as the planned invasion would have begun
31:18because of the faithfulness of these two people and in this case just one woman and one phone call
31:24the meteorological office in london decided to try and get general eisenhower to change
31:31the date of the d-day landings and so it was changed by 24 hours
31:40on the 6th of june the invasion of europe took place and that was all the result of one person
31:49being faithful and not knowing what she was doing not she knew what she was doing but she didn't
31:56know where it was going but how it was going to be used and in fact that one called phone call
32:01delayed the normandy invasion by 24 hours and 24 hours later the channel was calm again
32:10and that again is the last recorded miracle that king george that's it
32:17this hit called the people to pray about the thought that went through my mind
32:25was there was one man
32:29who changed the course of the world in the same way as that one phone call changed the
32:34uh history of europe and ultimately was instrumental in the allies winning the war
32:44i was reminded that there was one person not a phone call but his name was jesus christ
32:54he didn't just save one person he didn't just save thousands because if the landing craft had
33:01taken over the channel in the rough weather they were probably sunk
33:05because they were flat bottomed they would have turned over and thousands of lives would have
33:09been lost and so that one phone call saved thousands of troops from being drowned or
33:16killed in other ways and that reminded me that there was one god and i mentioned this before
33:22one mediator between god and man the man christ jesus
33:28god sent his son into the world as i mentioned earlier not to condemn the world but the world
33:34through him might be saved the gospel message basically is of course in his son the lord jesus
33:41christ not just to take us in a way but to bear our sin in his own body and i've got some verses
33:51here and i'm just taking these down it's a little summary of what it says in the scriptures
33:57i've already mentioned 1 timothy chapter 2 verse 5 there's one god immediate one mediator between
34:04god and the man man christ jesus one peter chapter 2 verse 24 and he himself bore our sins in his
34:16body on the cross that we might die to sin and live for righteousness by his wounds we are healed
34:26this is the lord jesus we're talking about i'm going right back to genesis therefore just as one
34:33man sin entered in the world this is romans chapter 5 verse 12 and death through sin and death spread
34:41and death through sin and death spread to all men because all have sinned the scripture said
34:47all have sinned and consulted the glory of god romans chapter 5 it says in verse 17 for if by
34:57the transgression of one death reigns the one much more those who receive the abundance of grace and
35:05righteousness will reign in life through one jesus christ adam sinned and the lord jesus
35:13when he died he took the sin of the world upon him
35:20so what what what can we gain from what i've said
35:24firstly i think that nothing is impossible with god if we believe when we pray about it
35:33one of the essential things about answer prayer is that we've got to believe that god
35:41answers prayer in the first place and one of the things about when i was five years old
35:48was the fact that in those days england was a christian country god was honored they believed
35:56that uh in the lord jesus the church of england with height of power and those millions turned
36:03out because they knew that god answered prayer and they were rewarded weren't they
36:11for you and me when we accept the lord jesus christ as our savior
36:18then we too have that salvation that mediator and we have it because he was a mediator
36:25between god and us the lord jesus christ
36:29when i was 17 years old i accepted the lord jesus christ as my savior and for me a miracle happened
36:42i asked the lord jesus to cleanse me from my sin to confess my sin and asked him to come and clean
36:51and asked him to come and clean my life out and change me so that i might be through the
36:57blood of the lord jesus christ who took my sin become a believer in him and try to live my life
37:04for him and that was when i was 17 years old and if there's people out there watching and
37:13listening to me tonight can i remind you of another scripture the scripture says behold now
37:21is the accepted time now is the day of salvation and i have here a prayer i can find it
37:33that i probably uh said uh when i was a question when i became a christian
37:41it's from the scriptures and it was said if we confess with our lives the lord with our mouths
37:47the lord jesus and believe in our hearts that god raised him from the dead we will be saved
37:52and that's what i did and can i challenge all of you here and all of those who are listening and
37:59watching online please consider your relationship with the lord jesus christ he gave his life took
38:08your sin and took it all away by god's providence and he took your sin as he took my sin away
38:17and the scripture reminds us that there is a time when it will be too late to make that decision
38:26scripture says now is the accepted time today is a day of salvation
38:33i trust that all of those watching and listening might indeed experience that
38:40joy that something that miracle that happened to me changed my life completely
38:47and um that miracle happened because i prayed that prayer if you feel you need the lord jesus
38:54to come and clean your heart and mind and accept the fact that god sent him to clean your heart
39:00and mind it's by his death on the cross but he didn't just stay dead he rose again on the third
39:07day and is now back in heaven i trust that little bit of something of god that i believe gives you
39:16life and which when it goes away as you return to god i believe that little bit something may be
39:22saying to you what's your relationship with lord jesus do i really need him and that sort of
39:31question can i say unapprovably that yes if you confess with your mouth the lord jesus it says so
39:39in the scriptures and believe in your heart that god raised him from the dead you will be saved
39:45no no no no not yet perhaps another time there's no strings attached like there's so
39:53so many things attached to string today i was just reading recently that the latest thing that
40:00they've found about our supermarkets is that they're charging the same price for the food
40:06they've also always done but they're only partly filling the bags
40:13which is of course illegal so we're faced with so many temptations so many things around us but
40:19let's always remember the gas mask we have a filter between us and the sin of the world
40:26through the person of the lord jesus christ and i trust that might be your experience as it was
40:33for mine all those many years ago may god bless you and help you to make that decision
40:40in favor of him amen the bottom part of the gas mask is the canister in which the media that
40:50filtered out the gas was supposed to stop the top part was the mask that went over the child's head
41:02and we had to carry these 24 hours a day wherever we went
41:10i do think that's a miracle that we never had to use them
41:14incidentally this is the original box and the original piece of string from 1939
41:32you