Ep 179: Prayer That Moves Chains And Opens Doors

"Prayer changes everything, but do we believe it when God answers? We explore Acts 12, Genesis 24, and powerful stories of answered prayer. How can praying God's Word strengthen your faith when answers seem delayed?"

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We come in hot from a day packed with prayer and let it drive a deep Bible dive into how God answers while we’re still asking. We walk through Peter’s rescue, Rebekah’s perfectly timed arrival, and Abraham’s intercession to help you stay steady when prayer feels delayed or misunderstood.

• A day of prayer and why intercession fuels courage
• Acts 12 and Peter’s chains falling off while believers pray
• Rhoda at the door and what it reveals about expecting answers
• Genesis 24 and God answering before the servant finishes speaking
• The Holy Spirit and the theme of gathering a bride
• Isaac waiting twenty years and refusing to quit praying
• Praying Scripture back to God with Psalms as a guide
• Abraham pleading for Sodom and God rescuing Lot in an unexpected way
• Praying according to God’s will and praying for real people by name

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Transcript

Cold Open With Paris And Roy

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Okay, I'm here with my buddies Paris and Roy. Roy, uh what what do you like to listen to? I like to listen. What podcast? Do you like it? Yeah! Lord, you know. You will now listen to the best. Let me break this down for you. The spirit. Yeah. Gathering the bride, the bride of Christ. Us who are in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

We will be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air. Yeah, he comes to meet us. Not on the ground, he comes to meet us in the air. We meet him and then we go in with him. Oh, hallelujah. We go in for the marriage supper of the Lamb.

Welcome To Plays On Word Radio

SPEAKER_01 1:18

Yeah, where we discussed, analyzed work, and play on the Word of God. Amen. Thank you for joining us on this excursion today. Let's join Pastor Teddy's many, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Diving in, y'all. Amen. Amen. Well, welcome to all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio. Amen. Thank you very much, Katie Kenny and Josh Taylor, for that spectacular introduction. Oh, and I guess I should thank Dan Acida, Aunt Bev, Isaac Wabamba, Tana over there, Sophia McLaren over there in Vlora. And of course, a newest addition to our intro, Paris Jr. Yeah. And Roy, my boys, my buddies. What's up, guys? Yeah. They're four years old and seven years old, going on 45. Yeah, they're they're old souls. Anyway, welcome to all of you listening to Plays On where A, our audience is is vast. I mean, we go from man. I think we had, I don't want to say an infant one at a play one time, but there was a month with a baby in a carriage at one of our plays. And and we had, I believe, oh, definitely, yeah, when we did the nursing home, there were some folks in their 90s, and both had diapers on. Yeah, anyway, that's a whole nother story altogether. I wanted to, I wanted to, yeah, we're off the rails already.

A Day Marked By Prayer

SPEAKER_00 3:01

We had, man, we had a spectacular day of prayer today. Spectacular. It's been a day of prayer. Have you ever had a day of prayer? Like, I drove out to my brother's out in Chapel Hill, North Carolina for a pastor's lunch where we got together and had a chance to. I met this brother from Ukraine. Yeah, man, he's a pastor in Ukraine. He was telling me how it's going down over there. And yeah, we had an opportunity to pray with him, get to know him a little bit. Who knows? Maybe we'll go to Ukraine and do a play. I ain't afraid of no bombs. No, sir. I got the Holy Ghost. They need to be afraid of me because I'm filled with the Spirit. They need to be afraid of who's within me. That's a whole nother sermon. But yeah, we had a chance to pray. So we we had a time of prayer lunch and then more prayer and just sharing. It was fantastic, absolutely fantastic. And then I had to hurry back. I was three hours away, so I had to hurry back to our Southern command operations back in Southport, North Carolina, Brunswick County. And we had to get back because we have our midweek prayer at 6 p.m. And we got back just in time. We got back at like 5 something, 5 38, somewhere around there. So we were able to have prayer and man, we went right back into prayer. I've been in the Lord's presence all day. I'm on cloud 10 right now. And many of you listening right now have been prayed for. Yeah. Amen to that. Intercessory prayer. So it reminded me of an episode of the podcast that we did.

Peter’s Rescue And A Praying Church

SPEAKER_00 4:59

And I don't remember which one, don't ask me. Go back and listen to them all. But what I just went on like a rant about prayer, and I talked about how Peter, when he was rescued in the book of Acts, he was sitting there lying in bed, minding his own business, and all of a sudden an angel shows up. And it's in Acts chapter 12. And you know, an angel of the Lord stood next to him in verse 7. It says, And a load sh light shone in the cell, and he struck Peter on the side. And the get this the chains, the chains fell off his wrists. And the angel said to him, Dress yourself and put on your sandals. And he did so. And he said to him, Wrap your cloak around you and follow me. And so he went out. Verse 9, he went out and followed him. And he didn't know what was being done by the angel. He thought he was seeing a vision. He was like, Man, I must have ate something funny and something's going on. This is real. Nah. And verse 10, when he had passed by the first and the second guard, they came to the iron gate leading to the city, and it opened for them of its own accord. And they went out along the street, and immediately the angel left and disappeared. Gone. And it says, verse 11 says, Peter, when Peter came to himself, he said, Now I'm sure the Lord has sent his angel and rescued me from the hand of Herod and from all that the Jewish people were expecting. Because they were expecting him to be killed. Yeah. Because the chapter starts out with James, you know, in the Gospels, it's Peter, James, and John. James and John are brothers, sons of Zebedee, uh, Peter's partner, fishing partner. And these young kids are Peter's, you know, partners. And James, yeah. Herod had him killed, run through with the sword. And that pleased the the Jewish rulers. They were all happy about that. Good, good. You killed one of those guys. Killed one of the uh one of the way, the followers of that trouble, that troublemaker, the carpenter from Nazareth. And he had him run through. So they were expecting Peter was next. He was locked up, cuffed and stuffed. Yeah, man. And this is the crazy thing. So, verse 12, when he realized he went to the house of Mary, the mother of John, whose other name was Mark, which is really important because we have a gospel that we call the Gospel of Mark. And we get some information about this guy, John slash Mark, John Mark. Yeah. And it says, comma, where many were gathered together, and this is the key, and were praying. So as this stuff was going down with Peter, the angel, he thought he, he thought, man, somebody ate something funny. Something wasn't right. He was like, Man, this isn't real. Is this real? Is this really real? While it was happening, Peter was going through this, like he's being released from jail and then following the angel, and the chains fall off, the door opens itself. While this is happening, there's a group of people. And they were praying. They were together praying. Verse 13. And when he knocked on the door of the gateway, the servant girl named Rhoda came to answer. Verse 14, recognizing Peter's voice, in her joy, she didn't open the gate. But she ran and reported that Peter was standing at the so basically she heard his voice. She was so excited, she didn't even let him in. She just ran to say, Peter's at this. And look at verse 15. They were like, they said to her, You're out of your mind. They didn't even believe her. But she kept insisting that it was so. And they kept saying, they kept saying to her, I ain't Peter. That's his, that's it, it's his angel. Talk about praying. Talk about praying. And like not being ready for the for the answer. Verse 16, but Peter continued knocking, and when they opened the door, they saw him and they were amazed. Verse 17, but motioning to them with his hand to be silent, he described to them how the Lord had brought him out of the prison. And he said, Tell these things to James. And that's Jesus' brother, James, the leader in Jerusalem, not the one that was run through by the sword. Tell these things to James and the brothers. And then he departed, went to another place. So I just in the other episode, I pointed out it was amazing that God answered this prayer while they were praying. They weren't ready for the answer. He was God was moving while the prayer, while this was happening. And

Rebekah Arrives Before Prayer Ends

SPEAKER_00 10:14

it were I've often, when I share that story, I will share a story from the book of Genesis in chapter 24, when Abraham sends a servant to go get a wife for his son Isaac. We're actually coming up on that on our Sunday morning studies at Calvary Chapel, Southport. We're coming up on chapter 24. We should be there in a few weeks. But he sends his servant, and he says, Go get a wife for my my son. And the servant's like, oh man, what and and the servant prays. And the servant Abraham gave him specific instructions. You know, don't take my son back there. Get a son from my get a wife from from my family, not from the uh ser, you know, the the other peoples. And he charged him and with specific, you know, specific instructions. And so the servant went and he went and he he pulled up to this well. And just for you theologians, let me just sidetrack here. Uh the servant is a picture and type of the Holy Spirit gathering the bride for the son. But anyway, I don't digress, but I I just wanted to give you that little side note there. The father sent that servant to gather the bride, to get the bride for his son. That's where we are right now. Anyway, so and in in Genesis, the servant prays, Oh Lord, oh Yahweh, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham. Behold, I'm standing by the spring of water, and the daughters of the men of the city are coming to draw water. Let the young woman to whom I say, please let down your jar, that I may drink. And who shall say, Drink, and I will water your camels? Let her be the one whom you have appointed for your servant Isaac. By this I shall know that you have shown steadfast love to my master. Verse 15 is the key, the key. Verse 15, it says, Before he had finished speaking. You can't make this up. Before he finished speaking, behold, Rebecca, who was born to Bethuel, the son of Milka, the wife of Nahor, Abraham's brother, she came out with her water jar on her shoulder. Verse 16, the young woman was very attractive in appearance. A maiden whom no man had known. She went down to the spring and filled her jar and came up. Verse 17, then the servant ran to meet her and said, Please give me a little water to drink from your jar. Verse 18, she said, Drink, my lord. And she quickly let down her jar upon her hand and gave it to him to drink. When she had finished giving him a drink, she said, I will draw water for your camels also, until they have finished drinking. Verse 20. So she quickly emptied her jar into the trough and ran again to the well to draw water. This was a big operation she was doing. It wasn't like she just handed him a bottle of Dasani or something. No, she had that was working for and back to the verse. And she drew for all his camels. Verse 21. The man gazed at her in silence to learn whether the Lord had prospered his journey or not. Verse 22. When the camels had finished drinking, the man took a gold ring weighing half a shekel, and two bracelets for her arms, weighing 10 gold shekels, and said, Please tell me whose daughter you are. Is there room in your father's house for us to spend the night? Verse 24. She said to him, I'm the daughter of Bethuel, the son of Milka, whom she bore to Nahor. Verse 25. She added, We have plenty, both straw and fodder, and room to spend the night. Verse 26, the man bowed his head and worshipped the Lord, and said, Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken his steadfast love and his faithfulness toward my master. As for me, the Lord has led me in the way to the house of my master's kinsmen. Verse 28. Then the young woman ran and told her mother's household about these things. So why do I say this? Tell, please tell me, somebody, please tell me you're feeling that the way I'm feeling it. Can you believe that, man? This is amazing. The guy he's praying, and as he prays, she's already on her way out to meet him. And it just showed the faithfulness of God. And sometimes we we pray, we listen, we go through the motions and pray. And sometimes it's a long time in prayer, and we don't always get the yes, but sometimes we do, and we sometimes we don't even expect it. But here it shows the Lord behind the scenes, man. Yeah, and this is this is the bride that that he would bring back to Isaac. Yeah. And it's interesting because he brings the bride back, and he's bringing the bride to her. I mean, he's bringing the bride to him, to Isaac. And Isaac comes out of the tent and meets her. She covers herself with a veil, and then they go back, they go into the tent, and he marries her. Let me break this down for you. The spirit. Yeah. Gathering the bride, the bride of Christ, us who are in Christ.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

We will be caught up to meet the Lord Jesus in the air. Yeah. He comes to meet us. Not on the ground. He comes to meet us in the air. We meet him, and then we go in with him. Oh, hallelujah. We go in for the marriage supper of the lamb.

Isaac’s Long Wait And Steady Prayer

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Revelation 19. Come on now. Interesting thing though. Isaac would marry her. Yeah, he married Rebecca, and he would pray for her to have a son, or you know, because his father Abraham had these promises. And then finally, God gave him a son in his old age at the age of a hundred. He had a son and he named him Laughter, which is translated Isaac. Yeah, the name Isaac means laughter. And it's hilarious because Abraham laughed, Sarah laughed, and I'm sure the Lord laughed too. This dude's a hundred. The mom is 90 years old, she's nursing a kid. Can you believe it? Everybody's laughing. Telling you everybody laughed. Well, he had these promises. And these promises went to Isaac. And so Isaac was like, okay, he married this girl, and he's thinking, okay, I'm gonna have kids. And year one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven. No kids. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years. Sixteen years they're married. No, no kids. Seventeen. He's praying. Lord, what what are you gonna are am I gonna have a am I gonna are the promises gonna stop with me? Lord? I'm praying for my wife. You're eighteen. You're nineteen. He's still praying. Twenty years he he waited. He got married when he was forty. He didn't have Esau and Jacob until he was sixty years old. Don't get discouraged in prayer. Do not do not get discouraged in prayer. Our timeline is not like God's timeline. Be steadfast, immovable in prayer. Pray according to God's will and pray his will and continue. If he puts something on your heart, you pray it. And you when you don't know what to pray, pray the scripture back to him. Read Psalm 139 back to him. Pray to him. The Psalms are loaded with what you can pray when you don't know what to pray. Oh Lord, search me and know me. Yeah. You can do Psalm 139, you can do Psalm 119. It'll take your 15 minutes. You'll be in you will be in prayer for 15 minutes if you pray Psalm 119. There. Or Psalm 139 will be quicker, but it's all

Abraham Intercedes For Sodom

SPEAKER_00 20:44

good. There's an there's another thing I want to share with you as well. You guys remember the story. Let me back up even farther, back to Abraham. And you remember the story. We just covered this at Calvary Chapel, Southport, where Abraham, well, God came to visit Abraham with two other angels, and he basically said, I'm gonna, man, I'm wiping Sodom and Gomorrah off the map. And Abraham started interceding with God. And he asked God, over, Lord, if if there's 45 people, would you are you gonna destroy the place? And the Lord is like, nope, I won't destroy it for 45 righteous. How about 40? For 40 people, I righteous people, I will not destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. And he goes, he keeps going. How about 35? No, no, I wouldn't, I won't destroy it for 35. If I can find 35. Oh Lord, please don't be angry. How about if there's 30 righteous people? Will you destroy it? Nope, I won't destroy it if I if I can find 30 righteous people. And he goes, keeps going all the way down to 10. And Abraham's interceding for Sodom and Gore, because he knows his nephew Lot lives there with his wife and his daughters. And so he's interceding for. For them and anybody else that's righteous in this city. Well, he goes, you know, he goes all the way down to ten people, and then it says, uh, Abraham went his way and the Lord went his way. And the next day, as the sun broke, you know, let me just back up. I recently heard Erwin Luther talking about this. This was this was great. He probably went back to Sarah and said, I just talked to the Lord. I just talked to the Lord. And I spent a lot of time with him. And he was gonna destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, but I just talked to him and I got him down to 10 righteous people. I don't think he's gonna destroy it. Yeah, I think Lot's gonna be good now. Oh man, I was worried because you know the Lord is serious. And he probably was all happy and told Sarah. He gets up the next morning, and it says in verse 23 of chapter 19. The sun had risen on the earth when Lot came to Zoar. Then the Lord reigned on Sodom and Gomorrah, sulphur and fire from the Lord out of heaven, and he overthrew the cities, all the valley, and the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. Yo, it was he wiped it off the map, man. And then verse 27. This is this is the key. This is what Erwin was talking about. He said, and Abraham went early in the morning to the place where he stood before the Lord, where he interceded, where he prayed, where he prayed, and he looked down towards Sodom and Gomorrah and all the land of the valley. And he looked, and behold, the smoke of the land went up like a smoke of a furnace. And I'm sure he probably thought, oh no. I can't believe it. Oh no, my he didn't hear my he didn't Why would he let this happen? No, I thought I prayed enough. I thought I prayed hard enough and long enough. What what what's become of Lot? Verse 29 though, it says, So it was that when God destroyed the cities of the valley, God remembered Abraham and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow when he overthrew the cities in which Lot had lived.

Pray God’s Will For Real People

SPEAKER_00 24:48

So sometimes the Lord many times the Lord will answer our prayers in a totally different way than we would expect, and sometimes it doesn't even look like he answered them. But yet God remembered Abraham and He did rescue Lot and his family. He rescued him because Abra because of Abraham. I tell you this to encourage you, and I know I do podcasts like this often, but I'm doing it again, encouraging you in prayer. Let us be people of prayer that are not discouraged in prayer, but steadfast and immovable, praying the Lord's will, praying according to him, in the name of Christ Jesus, as if Christ Jesus himself is making the appeal. We sign, we have a stamp that says Christ Jesus with his signature on our prayer. And if it is according to his will, that is a yes and amen. We will have what we ask for. That's why it's so important to pray according to his will. And it's his will that men would be saved and men would and men and women would come to him and repent. So pray for your neighbor, man. Pray. Pray for your neighbor, pray for your coworker, pray for your spouse, pray for your brother, your sister, your mom, your dad. If they're not walking with the Lord, you pray for them. They might not listen to you, but that doesn't mean the work has to stop. You can drop bombs of prayer over them, around them. Bring it to the Lord in prayer. Amen. Alright, well, hey, that's all the time we have today. And uh the the Lord bless you. I want to just say this Lord bless you and keep you, make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

Blessing Supporters And Kid Outro

SPEAKER_01 27:20

This program was made possible by the Playson Word family of supporters. To find out more, check out our website at plazonword.org.

SPEAKER_00 27:27

What is this what did you say? Is this a real podcast? I don't know. Do you like the podcast? Yeah. Do you like the podcast? Yeah. What what's your name? What's your name? Paris. Alright, you guys, can you say you're listening to Pastor Teddy's podcast? We are listening to Pastor Teddy's podcast. We are listening to Pastor Teddy's podcast. Yeah.