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[silence] The following is a sermon by Dr. Bruce Wheeler Theilman entitled "The Iron Gate." Dr. Theilman had prepared this sermon for delivery at the First Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, however, due to an illness, he was unable to deliver the sermon at the time scheduled.

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Because the sermon is one of a series, he recorded the sermon in his studio after he had returned to work. What you are about to hear, therefore, is not a live preaching situation, as in all of Dr. Theilman's other tapes, but this tape was made in his studio. You will notice a difference in acoustics, and you will also notice that there are no sounds of the audience response.

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We hope that you will be blessed by this message entitled "The Iron Gate." The scripture reading of the morning is from the book of the Acts of the Apostles, the twelfth chapter. I begin at the verse numbered one. "About that time Herod the king laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church.

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He killed James the brother of John with the sword, and when he saw that it pleased the Jews, he proceeded to arrest Peter also. This was during the days of unleavened bread. And when he had seized him, he put him in prison,

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and delivered him to four squads of soldiers to guard him, intending after the Passover to bring him out to the people. So Peter was kept in prison, but earnest prayer for him was made to God by the church. The very night when Herod was about to bring him out,

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Peter was sleeping between two soldiers bound with two chains, and sentries before the door were guarding the prison. And behold, an angel of the Lord appeared, and a light shone in the cell. And he struck Peter on the side, and woke him, saying, Get up quickly.

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And the chains fell off his hands. And the angel said to him, Dress yourself, and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him, Wrap your mantle around you, and follow me.

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And he went out and followed him. He did not know that what was done by the angel was real, but thought he was seeing a vision. When they had passed the first and the second guard,

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they came to the iron gate leading into the city. It opened to them of its own accord. And they went out and passed on through one street. And immediately the angel left him.

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And Peter came to himself and said, Now I am sure that the Lord has sent his angel, and rescued me from the hand of Herod, and from all that the Jewish people were expecting.

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And may God bless to us and to our understanding this reading from his word. Pray with me. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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Have you ever felt imprisoned, locked up, bound, or jailed by your circumstances? Maybe it is an illness you are unable to shake. Maybe it is a relationship you are unable to improve or perhaps end. Maybe it is your job or your neighborhood, some financial problems, or your loneliness.

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Maybe it's the power of a particular sin in your life or your family difficulties. But have you ever felt chained, handcuffed, tied tight by a situation or a number of situations? I confess to you that I feel that way right now with regard to my health problems. I seem unable to be free of them.

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And I suppose that this is what led me to read and think and pray about Peter's imprisonment. Permit me to share with you what I've learned, because it might be of help to you even as it has been a help to me. Herod Agrippa was a puppet king, a tool of Rome.

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We know little about him, and all that we do know is bad. To gain favor with Rome and with some powerful Jews of his time, he persecuted the early church. It was Herod Agrippa who had the disciple James beheaded.

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James, the brother of John, was the one called "a son of thunder" by Jesus. He must have been thundering the truth of God to the people, and it cost him his life. Herod's next target was Peter. He had the disciple arrested at Passover time.

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It was against the law to execute people during this feast time, so Peter was jailed for seven days, and on the eighth day he was to die. The night before his execution, Peter, who was guarded by four teams of four soldiers each, was sleeping in the prison.

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He was handcuffed to two of the guards, and two more stood at the door to his cell. While the carefully guarded disciple slept, the Christians were meeting in the house of Mary in Jerusalem, praying that Peter might be freed.

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Suddenly an angel stood by Peter and ordered him to stand. Peter did so, and as he did, the handcuffs fastening him to the sleeping guards fell open. "Put on your sandals and cloak," the angel commanded, and Peter did so. Peter followed the angel past the two guards at the door.

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He was not challenged by them. The guards may have been asleep out of overconfidence, or Peter might have been wrapped in his cloak so that they did not recognize him, or maybe the angel used some special power that we do not understand.

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In any case, Peter made it past the guards, and at last, Peter and the angel came to the last gateway between the disciple and freedom. It was an iron gate, and it was locked tight. But as the two approached the gate, the gate opened by itself,

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or it might better be said, God opened it, and Peter ran out into the street and to freedom. Now this is a very remarkable story, this escape from imprisonment, but there's much in it that we might find for our good.

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Now I draw attention to only a few details from the narrative, but these details have much to say to those of us who feel jailed or locked in or tied tight by our circumstances. First of all, notice this.

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On the night before his scheduled execution, Peter slept. Now I find that worthy of note. The church was in an agony of prayer for him. The city was caught up in the last night of the special week of celebration.

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Herod Agrippa was probably looking forward to the next day's execution and the applause he'd receive for it. Perhaps the hedgeman was already sharpening his blade. All of the town was engaged in activity except for Peter.

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On the night before his scheduled demise, he was sleeping. This is grand testimony to his trust in God. Some of you no doubt have money on deposit or invested in a trust company. The business dealings you have with this trust company are called fiduciary affairs.

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Now the word fiduciary was first popularized, interestingly enough, by Martin Luther. Fides is the Latin for faith. Fiducia is the Latin for personal trust. Luther built his theology on Scripture's affirmation

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that the Christian life is a fiduciary relationship with God, a relationship of faith, of personal trust. You cannot have a fiduciary affair with a bank or a trust company unless you have some funds invested there.

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And just so, a fiduciary relationship with God means you have invested yourself in Him. You are banking on Him. You truly trust Him. And this is what we see in Peter.

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He sleeps because he has invested, he has deposited his life in God. He sleeps, he is at peace because he trusts. Often at our receptions here at the church following worship, I see moms or dads caring their babies about.

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All around is talking and laughter and debate, and through it all the babies sleep. Now how can they do this? Well, they do it because they're being held by the ones they trust, that they depend upon.

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If I'm in mommy's arms, I need not be afraid. And so the child sleeps. Peter, on the night before his death, rested in the arms of God. Now I recognize, of course, that there are physical conditions that cause insomnia.

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For such conditions, a doctor's help should be sought out and followed. But even in such instances, the medicine will work better if the patient trusts God, leans ultimately upon the loving relationship she has with God. The psalmist sings, "He gives to his beloved sleep."

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This word first, then, to those who are imprisoned. You have deposited your life into God's hands, so relax. You have made the best of all possible investments. Get some rest and keep on trusting.

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Now the second thing to notice in this story is that the church was praying for Peter. Peter had the prayer power of others going for him. I will confess to you that I'm astonished when I learn of members of the church who had been through one serious difficulty or another

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and never let us know during the time of struggle, only afterwards, about their needs. They completely ignored the prayer power available to them through other Christians. Now I can readily grasp why some don't want to be disturbed by others. Sometimes when one is sick or in trouble or wrestling with one's struggle or another,

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one does not want outside conversations, visitors, and telephone calls. I understand this because, quite frankly, I am much this way myself. But it is quite another thing, not even to enlist the prayer power of others, to go it all together alone.

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Yes, I'm like Greta Garbo. When I'm imprisoned by this or that, I want to be alone. But I tell others of my needs and ask for their prayers. I don't want to be that alone.

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And many do not do this. They avoid the prayer request box in our narthex. They don't alert the deacon's prayer chain. They never call upon the clergy.

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Scripture invites us to bear one another's burdens. But how can we do that if we do not know of the needs that some people have? It isn't necessary to detail the nature of what has you jailed, though it may help you to do that.

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Just ask folks to pray for you, as I have sought the prayers of this church in my present need. You know, like Andy Rooney, I think that builders put electric plugs in all the wrong places. Every time I want to plug something in, it seems to me I have to buy an extension cord or an adapter. I have dozens of them.

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Sometimes I have to climb under the bed or move the living room couch. I've never seen a kitchen or a bathroom yet that had enough plugs. And then there are those three-pronged plugs that all you have to do is try to get into a two-hole outlet, which is, of course, quite impossible.

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And how about those plugs where one of the prongs is larger than the other? You're hanging over the back of a chair in some dark corner trying to get the right prong in the right hole, and sometimes you don't have outlets that have one large-sized hole. I personally feel that they shouldn't allow any more electric appliances to be invented

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until someone figures out a better way to plug them in. But, my friends, it's not hard at all to plug into the prayer power of a congregation. No one has to go without this power. All they need to do is ask.

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Peter had the prayer power of the church going for him, and I'm sure this had much to do with an angel and sleeping soldiers and an opening iron gate. Prayer is a stepping stone to God. Let the church help you in using that stepping stone.

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Again, I notice in this story that we must obey the angels. Now, angels, as they appear in Scripture, always seem to be going somewhere or telling others to do this or do that. The angel who comes to Peter is typical of the hosts of heavenly messengers.

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"Get up," he says. "Put on your sandals. Bring your cloak with you. Follow me." Peter instantly obeys, and this fact is absolutely crucial to his release. The lesson here is obvious. Basic to progress over imprisonment and all other dimensions of the Christian life

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is cooperation with the agents for good that God sends into our experience. Think of the examples of this from our Lord's ministry. Jesus made water into wine, but he sent others to fetch the water. Jesus feeds thousands on the hillside, but he waited for the disciples to find the loaves and the fishes.

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Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, but he called upon others to move the stone and then to remove the grave clothes. God acts in response to our needs, but he expects us to act also, to cooperate with his grace. He does what we cannot, but he expects us to do what we can.

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I heard about a woman who was caught in a flood. The water was up to the level of her porch. She was sitting on the porch, and a boat came by, and the people said, "Come with us, we'll save you."

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And the woman replied, "Oh no, the Lord will take care of me." About two hours later, the water had risen, and now it was up to the level of the roof, and the woman was sitting on her roof. And another boat came by, and they said, "Come, get in the boat, we'll save you."

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And the woman replied, "Oh no, the Lord will take care of me." Well, by this time, the water had moved the woman all the way up to the very crown, or the peak, of the roof. And at that point, a helicopter came by, and they said to her, through a public address system, "Grab on to this ladder, and we will save you."

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"No," she called up, "I will wait upon the Lord to take care of me." And she drowned. And according to the story, at Heaven's Gate, she complained to the angel who waited to greet her there. "I thought God was going to take care of me," she said.

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And the angel replied, "Madam, he did send you two boats and an airplane." Now, I don't know what your angelology is. Maybe it's very biblical. Maybe it's very much John Milton.

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Maybe you think angels are of a different age and no longer necessary to God's plans and activities in the middle of our lives. Speaking for myself, I believe in them just as Scripture describes them. And I believe that they are active in the here and now. And if God permits, someday I'd like to share the evidence that I've gathered about this with you.

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But regardless of your angelology, you must acknowledge that God does provide us with emissaries of his grace. The friend, for example, who stands by and holds your hand. The teacher who helped to set your feet on the right path, the path which has blessed you and others. The preacher whose Spirit-anointed words led you to your Christian commitment.

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The retarded child who taught you what total loving really is. I live in a condominium just four blocks from the church. And often I hear the noise of the city, and part of that noise is the paramedic vehicles roaring by the condominium with their lights flashing and their sirens blowing. I never mind the noise that these vehicles make.

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Because to me, these are angels with sirens. Twice, within the last six weeks, I've been taken to the emergency room at Mercy Hospital here in Pittsburgh. And the nurses, orderlies, the clerks, the doctors, even some of the students who were in training were absolutely marvelous with me. I felt their touch like the touch of angels.

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It seemed to me the times that I could almost hear the sound of heavenly wings. I'm reminded of a doctor that I had many years ago. I thanked him for helping to make me well, and he replied, "It's God who heals. I just help a little." To me, that was the testimony of an angel.

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The point I'm trying to make, of course, is that Peter needed the angel, but the angel also needed Peter. Just so, God does things for us that are utterly beyond us. But he expects us to call the doctor or to obey his emissaries that he sends into our lives, or to see a counselor, or to labor to heal the estrangement we feel, or to go the second mile, whatever the matter is which distresses us.

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We are to put every ounce of our effort and ingenuity into dealing with that, even as we at the same time rely upon the angels of God. I heard about a man who wanted to win the lottery, and he prayed about it. He asked to be given a winning number.

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He needed this to get rid of some terrible financial bondage which was his. Well, the Tuesday of the drawing came, and he didn't win. And so he prayed again, "Lord, help me win the lottery. Give me a winning number." And on Wednesday, the lottery was held, and the number was drawn, and again he didn't win.

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And he was quite indignant, and so he prayed, "God, I've gotten no answer from you to this point. If you don't answer me now, I'm going to reject the faith. Give me a winning number." And on Thursday, the lottery was held, and once again he didn't win. And the man, turning toward heaven, screamed toward the skies, "All right, God, everything is over between you and me."

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And a voice was heard from heaven which said, "My son, it would have been helpful if you would have at least bought a ticket." Release means that you trust God, that you get others praying for you, and that you do all that you can do. That is, that you obey the angels, whether they be God's agents of blessing to us from the world about us or from heaven itself, whether they're angels with sirens or not.

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But let's notice this also. Even if we leave the iron gates to God, we have to remember both Peter and James in this story. When I was at Westminster College years ago, I was a history major. Now, in those days, you had to take comprehensive examinations in your major field in order to be graduated. And these examinations would cover every course taught in the department of your major.

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Now, it wasn't possible for any student to take all of the courses offered in his major field, but he was expected to have read widely. After all, we were in training to be historians, and so even though we had not taken the courses, we were expected to be able to pass comprehensive examinations on the history of any part of the world, simply because this was to be our major interest in life.

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Well, at that time, my particular interest was ancient history. So the only courses which I took in American history, and the only reading which I did in American history, was that which was required. And the last comprehensive examination was to be on the subject of American history. And I was very worried about it. I felt imprisoned by my ignorance.

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I could see no way out, no way to pass this test. I studied all that I had to study, and I got my colleagues to pray for me, and I asked one of my friends, Harry Fisher, whom I see as an angel, a fellow who was majoring in American history, "Is there any particular thing that I can study that would help me to be ready for this comprehensive?"

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And Harry replied, "Well, here's a list of the 21 applications of the Monroe Doctrine. If you'll take a few minutes and familiarize yourself with this list, then you'll know the major events in our history across the years, and it'll at least give you a framework on which you can hang other dates and ideas."

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Well, I thought this sounded like a good idea, so I did what Harry counseled. I got a good night's sleep before the test, and was there bright and early the next morning, ready for the examination. The professor stepped to the board and said, "I will ask only one question, and you will have two hours to write on it." And the question he wrote on the board was this,

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"List the 21 applications of the Monroe Doctrine and the significance of each." The iron gate swung open. I was free, I got an A, and I even got a note of commendation from the professor. Now, such things often happen to Christians.

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My files are full of astonishing deliverances, escapes provided by God, iron gates swinging open. In a survey conducted just three years ago, 70% of the Christians polled said that they had had such an experience at least once in their lives. This is one of the reasons that I believe in angels. The fact is that often the seemingly insurmountable confronts us, a gate of iron.

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Oftentimes we discover, when we get up to the gate, that it is an imagined fear and nothing more. Sometimes we discover that the gate is not as formidable as we thought. Mountains always look steeper from a distance than they do when you're climbing them. Sometimes we discover that by virtue of our own efforts we can force our way through the iron gates.

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And sometimes God's miraculous grace is displayed, and the gates open by themselves, under the power of God. We get extraordinary help from the angels for extraordinary difficulties. I've seen all of these things happen, and so have you. But we must remember James.

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Recall that he was beheaded some days before Peter. The iron gates opened for Peter, but they did not open for James. And this draws me, as a last thought, to a very solemn truth. God sometimes doesn't open the gates for us.

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He sometimes leaves us in our imprisonment and stays with us there. Jesus prayed, "Let this cup pass from me." And God said, "No." And Jesus died on the cross.

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There was no miraculous escape for him, as there was none for James. But God did stay and hold his Son's hands through it all. You remember Jesus said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." And sometimes it is just so for us.

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We trust and pray and we get others to pray and we cooperate with the angels of earth and heaven, and the iron gate does not yield. Our family still fractures, or our job fails, or temptation defeats us, or death comes. There is no release.

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God has chosen a different course for us than we would choose for ourselves. Now, I do not pretend to understand all there is in this, but it is indisputably true. There are days when the heavens seem as brass, when every effort of ours is met with some kind of rebuff,

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when we take a last chance and it fails as the others before it failed, when we can't find a heart to pity us or another soul who understands us. There are days when no answer comes and no angels crowd around us. What we must remember is that at such moments, God is specially close to us,

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even though the evidences of His grace may not be seen or felt. This is our Christian faith, and we must cling to it. That when the gates remain closed, He has other plans for us, here or hereafter. And these plans will be for our own good.

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And sometime in the future, we will come to see and understand this. Just the other day, one of Pittsburgh's finest engineers, a great teacher, and a strong disciple of Christ stopped in to see me. He was sensitive to my needs, and so he stayed for only five minutes.

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And we talked about the iron gate of ill health that I am presently confronting. He prayed for me, and then he said this, "Bruce, no matter what happens, God has been wonderfully good to you across the years, and you will someday know how much He has used you in the lives of other people.

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Whatever He has planned for you now, it will in the end be for your own good and for the kingdom's advance. Remember that." And then he was gone.

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But in those short, simple sentences was exactly what I needed to hear. The gates don't always open, but that is only because God has something greater prepared for us than an opening gate. My soul was blessed when I was reminded of this,

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and I was led to think of a verse from Psalm 22 that is a favorite of mine. "From the horns of the wild oxen thou hast delivered me." Iron gates are tough, but God is tougher. We must never forget, no matter what, that He stands with us,

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and we never face any iron gates alone. Pray with me. "O God, we lift before Thee now all those who stand before iron gates. We pray that they might be resting in Thee.

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We pray that they might be uplifted in the prayers of others, uplifted to Thee. We pray, O Lord, that these people might know the ministry of angels, the angels of heaven or the angels of earth. And we pray also that if in Thy providence the iron gate they confront is not to open here,

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that it will obviously and gloriously open hereafter." Grant me, O Lord, that all those who confront iron gates might understand that in the end, even though the worst that they imagine can occur, they do not confront it alone.

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They confront it with Thee. And with Thee and in Thee we are all more than conquerors. We pray our prayer in Jesus' name. Amen.

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[silence]