In today’s podcast we will hear once more from Evangelist Morris Gleiser; this time a story of what God did when 4 teenage girls claimed God’s will in their prayer. God wants every member of the Thee Generation to be involved in a miracle this year. Listen and allow God to give you a vision for yours.
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Morris Gleiser: Young man who’s a preacher boy that came through our youth ministry a few years back became a pastor. Planted a church in a matter of a few months, starting from scratch. Within nine months he had 60 people, real soul winner, and go getter. Called me, Brother Morris, just want you to know we just celebrated nine months and we got 60 people. I said, Mike, that is incredible. That is phenomenal. God bless you, son. It’s great.
He said, but I’ve called to ask you to pray with me about something. I said, what’s that? He said, I got, he said, you know, we’re small. I said, that’s wonderful. I said, you’re gonna keep growing. He said, we got four girls. That’s our entire youth ministry. We don’t even have any guys. We just got four girls. I said, man, that’s wonderful. He said, they all go to the local public school. And he said, Brother Morris, they love God with all their heart.
And he said, they put a lot of us adults to shame for their devotion to God. He said, I’m just trying to invest in them as much as I am in everybody else. He said, they believe that God answers prayer. I said, well, you know he does. He said, oh, of course I know. He said they came up to me the other night and they said, pastor, we’re burdened about our school. We wanna start a Bible club in our school. And when we do,
Would you be willing to come and teach it as often as we’re able to have it? He said, Brother Morris, I told them that there’s no way the school in our public system is gonna give them the opportunity to have a Bible club in today’s public school. He said, so I tried to discourage them, but I told them it’s not gonna happen. In this community, it’s not gonna happen. He said, those four girls looked at me and said, Pastor, don’t you think God answers prayer? He said, well, what am I gonna say? I’m their pastor, yes, God answers prayer. They said, we don’t know when. But when God allows us to have this Bible study, this Bible club, will you come do it? He said, of course.
He said they went to their school principal. He was unavailable. They went to the vice principal and they asked him to have a Bible club. And they said, look, now sir, we’re not trying to cause problems, but we got people around here who’ve got clubs for everything. We got guys that think they’re athletes, they’ve got a club. We got girls that are homemakers, they got a club. We got people that sneeze every other month. They have a club. We got clubs for everybody. We want a Bible club, please. And the vice principal didn’t know how to say no. He said, well, I’ll get back with you.
He went to the principal and he said to him, he goes, you know these four girls? Now this was not a large community, small school, but a high school of some size. And he said, sure, I know those four girls, fine girls. He said, well, they just asked me if they could have a Bible club and I know we can’t let them have it. He said, I didn’t know how to say no, so I’m asking you. And the principal said, well, thanks a lot. You’re gonna make me the bad guy.
He said, I’ll call the school superintendent. He called the school superintendent, hey Joe, hey, I got these four girls, they wanna start a Bible club, and I don’t know how to say no. The school superintendent was a deacon at a local Baptist church. He said, well, I’m not gonna say no to that. There’s another Baptist church. He said, let me put it up before the board. I’ll let the school board discuss it, the next board meeting. So he put it on the agenda. There were five members of the school board. They discussed it, had to have a majority to let them have it. Two of the board members said, wouldn’t do it. Three of them said, let them have it. It passed back down. They told those four girls, okay, you can have it every other week. I think it was a Tuesday.
But the only time we can squeeze it in is at 12 noon when the student body for the most part is having lunch. So don’t, they said don’t be pushing it too highly and hard because they need to be at lunch. Those four girls went running up to my preacher brother friend who was talking to me on the phone. He said, Brother Morris, he said they came running up saying, we’re gonna have it, we’re gonna have it. We need you there Tuesday, room 117, 12 noon. And he said, what? You’re gonna have the Bible club. You need to be there Tuesday, 12 noon. He said, so I went. He said, I figured I got my four girls, they’ll invite a few of their friends, maybe we’ll have 12 kids. He said, I arranged 12 chairs in that room. And he said, I sat there and waited for 12 noon when the bell rang, the door opened and 50 teenagers walked in the door. He said, I changed my message. He said, all of a sudden I gave him the gospel. I thought I’ll never get this opportunity again. I gave him the clear gospel message. He said, when I got through, I led them in the sinner’s prayer. He said 16 teenagers were carefully led to Christ that day.
He said, I figured that’d be the last. He said, two weeks later I went back. He said, but we didn’t have 50. He said, we had over 70. He said, Brother Morris, the third time we went, he said, we were growing in increments of 20, we had over 90. He said, this last week we had 105 teenagers in this little classroom.
He said, I went to go see the principal to say, I need a bigger room because this thing is growing. He had teachers stopping him in the hallway saying, Reverend, we don’t know what you’re doing down there at this Bible club. In fact, don’t even tell us, we don’t wanna know. But whatever it is you’re doing, don’t stop. Something’s happening in our school. Keep it up.
He said, I was going to find the principal to ask for a bigger room. The principal was coming to find me and he said, hey pastor, looks like I better give you a bigger room. He said, yes sir, that’s what I was about to ask. He said, well next week, he said, I’m gonna give you the biggest room on campus. He said, what room is that? The gymnasium.
He said, principal, please don’t do that to me. He said, the kids will sit up in the bleachers, they’ll spread out, I won’t be able to keep their attention. He said, no, pastor. He said, only once will you get the gymnasium. He said, what you don’t understand is this. The next time you meet, I’m requiring the entire school to hear what you’ve got to say, and the faculty, and most of the staff.
He was telling me on the phone, he said, I took my Bible and I said, principal, this is what I’m speaking on. He said, you’re gonna make them all come. He goes, yeah. He said, you may get into trouble. He said, what kind of a pastor am I? I’m trying to discourage a principal from making the kids come and hear the Bible. And the principal said, yeah, I know. He said, I may get in trouble, so it better be good.
My brother Mike was calling me on the phone. Brother Morris, he said, tomorrow I will do it. Pray for me. Next time I spoke to Mike, he said, I got there early. He said, I walked into that gymnasium before anybody arrived. He said, I pictured an image in my mind, those kids walking in the door. He said, when the bell rang, they all filled up. He said, I saw some teachers are very disgusted with having to be there.
He said, I looked at that crowd of kids sitting up there in the bleachers and he said, I told them, I said, you know young people, I used to live for gymnasiums. This was my world. I live for this. And he said, Morris, he said, before I knew it, he said, I didn’t plan on it. He said, I jumped off the platform because I saw a basketball. He said, I went running toward that basketball. And he says, while I was running toward it, I was thinking, what am I doing? Because I just wasn’t thinking. And I thought, well. You did that a lot as a teenager. You hadn’t changed a lot. And he said, I went over and he said, I snatched up that basketball. I went running to the first basket, the first backboard I could find. He said, I went running as hard as, he says. As I was running, I was thinking, Lord, please don’t let me be embarrassed. And he said, I jumped up and threw a two-handed slam dunk. He got a standing ovation, the student of body, woo! The Reverend can dunk, you know, this is all right.
He said, I got back up there on the platform and I said, you see young people, that’s what I used to live for. But he said, it didn’t fill the void in my life. He said, I found everything I was looking for in Jesus Christ. He gave him a clear gospel message and led them in the sinner’s prayer. I was pacing the floor as he was telling me this story. And I said, Mike, tell me what happened, how many? He said, I have no idea how many.
Hands all over that gymnasium were raised. He said, just pray that I’ll be able to follow up with them and keep leading them in the walk of a disciple.
How did that happen?
Four teenage girls said, we just believe God’s gonna answer, Brian.
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