<TITLE>20. Par 48-51</TITLE>L-48 The darkest hour that I ever seen, when a doctor told me I had three more minutes to live. Then Jesus come along. Yes. Darkest hour, maybe, you ever seen. Then Jesus comes along. This may be your darkest hour, setting here in these wheelchairs, the ending of the meeting. The hopes that you had of being healed, after seeing these other cripples and things walk away. Maybe you think, "I wonder if there's any hope for me." Darkest hour, but don't worry, He will be here. Just keep--just keep faith in Him. He will be along. He never fails. He comes right along.
Somebody come and said, "Jesus is coming to the city."
My, I can't imagine those critics saying, "Now, where'd that holy-roller go?" See when His friend got sick, why, away He goes. So He isn't here no more now. But when they said, "Here He comes slipping back into the city now, after the boy is done dead, and buried, here He comes back into the city."
But little Martha had been kind of dilatory about many things, but she had a faith that wouldn't move. So when she seen Jesus, knowed that He was coming, she run right out, down through the critics, and went right on down to where He was.
Now, looked like she had a right up upbraid Him, because that--that she had... She scold Him, say, "Why didn't You come to my brother? We left our church. We give up our religion. We done everything for You."

L-49 If she'd have met Him in that--that condition that miracle would've never took place. It's your... It's the way you approach a gift of God, that determines what you're going to have out of it. See? The way you approach it.
But Martha, when she come to Him, she fell down at His feet. She said, "Lord," that's exactly what He was. She give Him His right title. Now, watch faith go to work.
I believe Mary--Martha had read the story about the Shunammite woman, how that when her baby died, and she knowed that God was in Elijah.

L-50 Elijah was God's man of the hour for the nation. And she knew that God was in Elijah. So she had that servant to saddle a mule and drive forward till she got to Elijah to find out why her baby was dead. And you know the story, how Elijah come and raised the baby up for her, to life.
Well, Martha, perhaps, thought, "Well, if God was in Elijah the prophet, surely He's in His Son." Amen. "Well," she said, "now, if I can only get to Him, I can find the reason." So she went to Him with reverence. No matter what He done, what a mistake it looked like, she went to Him with reverence and fell down before Him, and said, "Lord..." that's what He claimed to be, the Lord. Said, "Lord, if Thou would have been here, my brother would not have died."
She hadn't lost confidence. "If You had been here my brother would not have died. But even now though he's dead, the skin worms is eating him up, but even now, whatever You ask God, God will give it to Thee." I like that.

L-51 Maybe you seined through every hospital in the city. Maybe every doctor has turned you down. "But even now, Lord, whatever You ask God, God will give it to Thee."
Maybe, they say, "You'll never rise from that wheelchair." But "Even now, Lord," not in the morning, not after while, "but even now, whatever You ask God, God will give it." He's setting at the right hand of the Majesty on high, making intercessions upon our confession. He said, "When you pray, believe that you get what you ask for, and it shall be given unto you."
"Even now, Lord, whatever you ask God, God will give it Thee."
My, That stirred His heart. He looked up at her, He said, "Thy brother shall rise again." Amen.
She said, "Yes, Lord. I believe that He will rise again. He was a good boy." They believed in the general resurrection, those Jews. "I know he will raise again in the resurrection of the last days." Listen at Him. He wasn't very much to look up to; He was a little old scrawny-looking fellow, no beauty that we should desire Him.


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