Discerning Between Closed Doors and Contended Doors | Acts 12 Inspirational Christian Sermon | John Giftah

0:01 Speaker 1: Do you ever look around and think, Wow, the world

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0:08 Speaker 1: crazier and crazier. Ease your mind and take a break.

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0:40 Speaker 1: International Welcome to Fuel for the Soul with John Gifta.

0:49 Speaker 2: One of the questions a lot of people ask is John,

0:52 Speaker 2: how do I know this is a door that is

0:54 Speaker 2: closed and I need to learn to move on from it?

0:57 Speaker 2: Or is this a door that's a contented door? It

1:00 Speaker 2: is closed right now, but I need to fight for it.

1:03 Speaker 2: I need to pray about it, and I need to

1:05 Speaker 2: stay in faith and God will honor it by opening

1:08 Speaker 2: that door. See, I want you to understand. In the

1:11 Speaker 2: Book of Acts, chapter twelve, there's a moment when the

1:14 Speaker 2: King Herod has killed Apostle James and he is now

1:19 Speaker 2: in a place where he has taken apostle Peter, and

1:22 Speaker 2: he wants to do the same. So the Bible says

1:25 Speaker 2: in verse five that while Peter was in prison, the

1:29 Speaker 2: church prayed for him earnestly. See, I wanted to understand

1:32 Speaker 2: something here that, you know, the church has just freshly

1:37 Speaker 2: seen that there's par in prayer, there's you know, there

1:41 Speaker 2: are miracles happening. Jesus raised people from the dead. But

1:44 Speaker 2: here's the thing, none of them actually thought about praying

1:48 Speaker 2: for the resurrection of James. You think about this, They

1:52 Speaker 2: did not pray for James's resurrection, but they prayed for

1:55 Speaker 2: Peter's release. Even if you've see in the later chapters

1:58 Speaker 2: of Acts, there's a moment when they oppositively raises a

2:00 Speaker 2: dead man back to life, which means that resurrection and

2:03 Speaker 2: those powerful miracles were still happening those times. So I

2:07 Speaker 2: wanted to think about this. What made them realize that

2:11 Speaker 2: James was a closed door, but Peter was going to

2:14 Speaker 2: be a contented door. So when you think about this,

2:17 Speaker 2: when we see about James he dies, Jesus had already

2:22 Speaker 2: prophesied about the kind of death, and the thought sure

2:26 Speaker 2: that the James and John actually the sons of Gebety

2:29 Speaker 2: will actually have. So they kind of knew that, okay,

2:32 Speaker 2: things are going to be bad. And you see that

2:35 Speaker 2: the church did not pray for his resurrection. The church

2:38 Speaker 2: knew this was a closed door, and they started moving forward.

2:41 Speaker 2: Whereas when you look at John chapter twenty one and

2:46 Speaker 2: in verse eighteen, Jesus speaks to Peter, and Jesus says

2:49 Speaker 2: something where in a phrase he says, but when you

2:53 Speaker 2: are old, you will stretch out your hands and someone

2:56 Speaker 2: else will dress you and lead you to where you

2:59 Speaker 2: don't want to go. And verse nineteen says Jesus indicated

3:03 Speaker 2: the kind of death that Peter would have which will

3:06 Speaker 2: glorify God in a sense. What I wanted to understand

3:08 Speaker 2: is there was the word called old, which means that

3:12 Speaker 2: there was a word that God had prophesied or spoken

3:15 Speaker 2: or a promised over his life, saying that Peter will

3:18 Speaker 2: die as an old man. So because of that word

3:22 Speaker 2: from Jesus, they knew that this was not the end

3:25 Speaker 2: of the story. They knew this was not the closed door.

3:29 Speaker 2: That's why they started praying earnestly till that door which

3:32 Speaker 2: was closed, opened up and Peter was miraculously released. So

3:37 Speaker 2: this is the way I want you to discern between

3:39 Speaker 2: a closed door and a contented door. A close door

3:42 Speaker 2: is something that you know that God has spoken and

3:45 Speaker 2: God has positive in your spirit, knowing that this is

3:47 Speaker 2: not going to happen anymore, just move on. Whereas when

3:50 Speaker 2: you look at a contented door, you know God has

3:54 Speaker 2: promised and shown you visions and you know you need

3:56 Speaker 2: to fight against it and you will eventually see that

3:59 Speaker 2: that close is going to open up at the right

4:02 Speaker 2: appointed time. In Jesus name.

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5:00 Speaker 1: A Soul with John Gifta. God bless you, M