Biblical Moments with Frank King

Doing More Than the Norm to Win (Episode 157)

According to the Bible, the devil is our adversary, and as a roaring lion he goes about seeking whom he may destroy (1 Peter 5:8). That one verse is the reason for a lot of the things happening in our world today. Not all the things you and I face in this life stem from normal occurrences. Some of them are the result of spiritual opposition. In this episode, Evangelist Frank King explains why sometimes, we must do more than the norm to receive from the Lord.
In Matthew’s record of the gospel, he tells of a man who brought his epileptic son to the disciples, and they could not heal him. When the man told Jesus about this, He was disappointed with the disciples. That’s because at this point, Jesus had given the disciples the power to heal the sick and to cast out demons (Matthew 10:1). So, they had power to do what needed to be done, but when they did what they had done in the past, it didn’t get the job done.
Subsequently, Jesus healed the man’s son. If it was not the will of God for the young man to be healed, Jesus would not have been able to heal him either. And remember, Jesus had given the disciples the power to heal the sick and cast our devils. This power was the very thing this epileptic young man needed to be healed.
The disciples came to Jesus and wanted to know why He could heal the young man and they could not. Jesus replied, “Because of your unbelief” (Matthew 17:20, KJV). “Howbeit this kind goeth not out but by prayer AND fasting,” Jesus added (verse 21).
In effect, Jesus was saying that this one is not business as usual. In this case, the disciples needed to do more than the usual to minister healing. Yes, they needed to pray, they needed to have faith, but in this case, they needed to fast as well. The point is that sometimes, it’s not true that it’s not the will of God to do what we ask of Him. But sometimes, we need to go deeper, fight a little harder in the spiritual realm to get what we need from the Lord.

Faith in God (Episode 156)

Our faith is only as good as the person or thing we choose to place our faith in. In this episode, Frank King addresses Jesus’ commandment for us to have faith in God.
At times we all struggle with exercising our faith in God. In Hebrews 11:6, we find two important requirements for exercising faith in God. One, the verse says we must believe that God exists. All genuine believers get an A-plus on that one. Secondly, this verse says we must believe God rewards those who diligently seek Him. That last part is the challenge. Faith requires us to hang in there with God. And too many people today are too spiritually impotent to endure that.
One day, as Jesus was headed to the temple in Jerusalem, He was hungry, and He saw this fig tree. He came to the tree hoping to find some figs. Because the tree was barren, Jesus cursed the tree. The next day, He and His disciples passed that same tree and it was dead. Peter remembered that Jesus had cursed the tree the day before.  So, he says, Master, the fig tree you cursed is withered away. Jesus replied, “Have faith in God” (Matthew 11:22, KJV). He said those words to reveal the means by which He had cursed the tree. He did it by faith in God.
Faith in God revolutionizes our outlook on life. We no longer live in bondage of the fear of dying. Even if the economy were to tank so that everybody’s worried about it, we believe that God is able to sustain us even then. That’s what having faith in God will do for us.
We are so blessed to be able to go to the house of God each week and hear the good news of the gospel. We are blessed to have Christian TV and programming we can watch and listen to deepen our faith.
It is our faith in God that determines the quality of Christian life we can have. Not how often we go to the house of God. Nor the kind of church we attend. But it’s our faith that determines that. The healthier your faith in God is, the more vibrant and victorious your Christian life will be.

The Relationship Between Your Heart and God's Word (Episode 155)

What is the relationship between your heart and God’s Word? In the parable found in Matthew, chapter 13; the takeaway is that we can know a lot about the heart of a person solely by how that person interacts with the Word of God. In this parable, Jesus addresses four types of hearers. Each of us should be able to see ourselves in one of these four types of hearers.
The message of this parable is cut and dry. It says, in effect, either you have a solid relationship with the Lord, or you don't, and that is reflected in your interaction with the Word of God. In other words, there is a dynamic chemistry that exists between God’s Word and the heart that God has changed.
In this parable, the seed fell upon four different kinds of ground. Some fell by the wayside, some in stony places, some among the thorns, and some into good ground. And it was the type of soil that determined what became of the seed.
If you plant good seed in good soil, you will get a good yield. If you plant good seed in bad soil, however, you won’t get a good yield. This is not to minimize the importance of a preacher’s ability to minister the Word of God effectively. But it does not matter how good his communication skills are, when he sows seed in the heart of a person whose heart is bad soil, the yield will be little if any.
In the parable, the Sower represents the preacher, the seed represents the Word of God, and the soil represents the heart of the listener. Of course, if you want to please the Lord, your heart must become like good soil so God's Word can be fruitful in you.

A Prophet Like Moses (Episode 154)

Moses was one of the most phenomenal people we read and learn about in the OT. At one point, God spoke with Moses face to face as a man does with a friend (Ex. 33:11). Moses had a special relationship with God because it was through the mouth of Moses that God spoke to His people. That brings us to the subject of the office of the prophet. They were the messengers of God for speaking to His people.
In this episode, Frank King focuses on the prophetic role that Moses played in the life of God’s people during His day. Frank says this was a foreshadow of the role Christ would play in the life of God’s people when He came.
Moses told the Israelites that one day God was going to send them a special prophet. “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your countrymen, you shall listen to him,” Moses said (Deuteronomy 18:15, NASB). A key point here is that Moses said this person is going to be a prophet like himself. Moses was in effect the mouth of God to the people of God. Similarly, when Jesus came on earth, He was the mouth of God to the people of God.
Moses said three noteworthy things to the people about the words of this prophet (verses 18-19):
“I will put My words in His mouth”
“He shall speak to them all that I command him”
“Whoever will not listen to My words which he shall speak in My name, I Myself will require it of him”
Jesus Is That Prophet
Heretofore, we have assumed that the prophet Moses talked about was Jesus himself. But how can we validate that? Consider these words of Peter: “Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you’” (Acts 3:23).
 Peter said these words as he challenged the Jews to repent regarding their rejection of Christ to let them know that He was prophet promised them by God. Jesus plays that same prophetic role to us today. God is speaking to us in these last days by His Son (Heb 1:2). Let us hear Him.

Is Anything Too Hard for the Lord? (Episode 153)

At times, we face problems that are too big for us. Nothing in the Bible assures us that that will never be the case. That’s why our faith in God is so important. Let’s face it; had He created us to be self-sufficient so we could solve all of our own problems, we wouldn’t need to have faith in God. But the truth is that we all have limitations, and when life takes us beyond those limits, we must look to God. In this episode, Frank shares a message of encouragement, reminding us that nothing is too hard for the Lord.
In this episode, Frank uses the experience of Abraham and Sarah as an example. Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when God blessed them with a child God had promised to them 25 years earlier. Furthermore, Sarah was born barren. Based upon their reality, what Abraham and Sarah wanted at this point was humanly impossible. But it was not impossible with God. The angel of the Lord said according to the time of life, I shall return and Sarah your wife will have a son.
We often talk about God in terms of natural reasoning. It’s as if we think God can only get something done while natural circumstances are favorable to the situation. We think that if God waits too long, even He can’t do anything about our situation. But natural circumstances don’t have to be favorable for God to work on your behalf. God can still work on your behalf even when natural circumstances are not in your favor.
Sarah laughed at the angel’s promise. Then the angel asked the question, “Is anything too hard for the Lord?” (Genesis 18:14, KJV).
The Importance of Faith
What should be abundantly clear here is the importance of our faith in God. So, in Psalm 27:13, the psalmist writes, “I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13). He is saying that the thing that kept him from giving up, the only thing that kept him from going under, was that he believed he was going to see the goodness of the Lord.
When you are faced with difficult situations, when you are faced with a problem for which there seems to be no answer, what’s going to keep you moving, what’s going to keep you from giving up, what’s going to keep you from despairing is that you believe you are going to see the goodness of the Lord. So, the answer to the question posed by the title of this episode is no, there is nothing too hard for the Lord.

Becoming a Mature Christian (Episode 152)

Think about your relationship with Christ a year ago. And think about your relationship with Him today. From year to year, your relationship with Him should be moving in a positive direction. The truth is, however, that is not what’s happening in every Christian’s life. In this episode, Frank King teaches on the importance of becoming a mature Christian.
In the book of Hebrews, the writer addresses a problem that exists with many believers. He writes, “For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food” (Hebrews 5:12, NASB).
One important reason God wants us to mature as Christians is so that He can use us to serve Him. We come to church to worship God, but we also come to be equipped to serve God more effectively. There is a dying world out there depending on Christians reaching out to it with the life-changing gospel of our Lord.
But the verse highlights a serious problem. The writer talks about people who had been Christians and who had been coming to church so long that by now they should be able to teach others. But he says, instead, you need someone to teach you again the basic stuff about being a Christian. In other words, because they were not growing, they were actually going backward.
This is a serious problem with Christians failing to grow.  That is, if you are not growing as a Christian, you are not getting to the place where God can use you like He wants to use you.
Salvation is Just the Beginning
When students assemble to graduate from high school or college, we refer to those assemblies as commencement exercises. Now the word commencement refers to a beginning and not an end. But even though the graduates are ending their high school or college experience, the graduation is called a commencement exercise.
It is called a commencement exercise because when you graduate, you have not arrived, but you have only just begun. Your education gives you some tools, a skillset for embarking upon life. What your life becomes, however, depends upon what you do with the skillset you have.
The same is true when you accept Christ. It’s not a graduation; it is but a commencement. You have not arrived; you have only just begun. Upon salvation, God gives you everything you need to become a mature and productive Christian. What your life becomes, however, is dependent upon what you do with what God has imparted to you. That’s why it’s important for you to become a mature Christian.

How Love Promotes Confidence Toward God (Episode 151)

It’s easy to be confident about something you can see and over which you have total control. But neither is true when we pray to God. Prayer is an act of faith. We can’t see God. And we have no control over how the outcome of our prayer will unfold. So the question is, what must we do or what can we do to move into the realm of being confident toward God when we pray? That is what Frank King addresses in today’s episode.
In chapter  3 of John’s first epistle, he reveals that to have confidence toward God we must show love toward others. He writes, “Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (1 John 3:18, NASB).
God requires us to do more than talk love. Some people are good at that. They are always talking about how much they love you, but they never come through for you when you need them to. That’s just talk. And as they say, talk is cheap.
We must not love in tongue and words but in deeds. But not only in deeds but also in truth. That means God wants us to show genuine love toward others. Not some pretentious display of love but true love. Sometimes, people do impressive acts of love, but their motivation is wrong. That is still not genuine love.
Prayer and Love
According to John, genuine love is the means by which we know we are of the truth (verse 19). if you are not walking in genuine love, you are not walking in the truth. No matter how much you talk love, if you don’t show it, you are not of the truth. Everything in the Scriptures hinges on love. Moreover, genuine love is the means by which we “assure our heart before Him” (verse 19b). That means it instills confidence before Him.
When our life is characterized by genuine love, our heart does not condemn us before the Lord. John writes, “If our heart does not condemn us, we have confidence before God” (verse 21). This is how love promotes confidence toward God when we pray.
Prayer was never meant to be a guessing game. It was never meant to be something that leaves us wondering if God hears us or whether He will do something about what we have prayed about. What assures our heart before Him when we pray is genuine love as opposed to love in tongue and words only.

Praying with the Right Attitude (Episode 150)

Jesus taught a lot about prayer when He was with His disciples. That’s a good thing because prayer is the means God has given us for making our requests to Him and for receiving from Him. The more we learn about how to pray effectively, the more effectively we can pray. In this episode, Frank teaches on the importance of praying with the right attitude.
Jesus taught a parable about two men who went to the temple to pray. This parable was directed at those “who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and viewed others with contempt” (Luke 18:9, NASB).
In the parable, Jesus talked about a Pharisee and a publican. These were two extremes in the Jewish community. The Pharisees were an elite group, or they considered themselves to be an elite group of religious leaders in the Jewish community. They despised Jesus because His message and teachings were considered a serious threat to their prominence.
The publicans, on the other hand, were tax collectors, or collectors of public revenue. They were usually Jews, but the taxes they collected went to the Roman government. Needless to say, publicans weren’t the most popular people in town.
The Pharisee was self-righteous. He boasted to God that he was not like other men. “I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get,” he boasted (verse 12). By contrast, the publican acknowledged he was a sinner and threw himself upon the mercy of God.
Jesus' Verdict on the Two Men
To emphasize the importance of praying with the right attitude, Jesus said regarding the publican, “This man went down to his house justified rather than the other” (verse 14, KJV). “For everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted,” He continued.
Think about it; the Pharisee journeyed from his house to God’s house just to pat himself on the back. In the end, he returned home just like he came. And based upon what the Scriptures reveal about the Pharisees, you know this man had some flaws he needed to pray about. The publican simply submitted himself to the mercy of God.
Accordingly, if we want to have an effective prayer life, and we all should, we must pray with the right attitude toward others and about ourselves. That does not mean we cannot pray with confidence and boldness and faith. We should pray that way. But we must learn to pray that way void of pride, condescension and self-righteousness.