He could have saved the radiator. You can't celebrate the grace of all those providences and not realize that. Here's another story.
I was confirming this in the car on the way down yesterday because it happened a long time ago and it happened to Noel and Barnabas and Abraham and and Talitha, little baby Tala. This is 26 years ago. And uh they were driving without me.
I'm at a conference going to meet them in South Carolina. They're driving through Indiana, just south of Indianapolis. and the the radiator goes out in the middle of nowhere on a Saturday.
A mom, a baby, two teenagers. They're sitting there on the side of the road thinking, "Oh man, it's Saturday. " A farmer drives up and stops.
Gets out and sees the problem. Noel says, "I don't know what to do. I we'll probably need a motel and maybe we could find help on Monday morning to get the car fixed and get be on our way.
" And he said, "Well, why don't you stay with us now? you're a mom and he's a stranger and she says, "I I don't want to put you out. " And and he says, "Well, you know, the Lord says that you're serving him when you help others.
" H is that enough? And and and he calls his wife. I said to her in the car, "This was pre- cell phone.
How'd you do that? " And and she said, "I don't know how he did. He had he had some kind of device in his car.
" And his wife gives him the thumbs up. He says, "Why don't you go to church with us tomorrow if you can take a Baptist church? " Good.
Okay. So, they go and they stay with the farmer's family. He's an aviation mechanic, retired.
He gets up on Monday morning. He drives into Indianapolis. He purchases a radiator.
He comes back. He puts it in. No charge.
And they're on their way by midm morning on Monday. Meanwhile, Barnabas got his fishing rod out of the car, threw it in a pond on their property, and caught a 19in catfish to make the vacation. Okay.
So if God can ordain that there be a farmer, that he have the grace to stop, that he be an aviation mechanic, that he have a wife who's full of hospitality, that he has money enough to purchase, that he's a kind man, that he puts it in and that they're on their way and they're not charged anything. And in the meantime, Barnabas catches a 19-in catfish. He could have saved the radiator.
This is a no-brainer, folks. You hardly need the Bible to know that's the way life works. Not grace to borrow what is not bliss, nor flight from all distress, but this, the grace that orders our trouble and pain, and then in the darkness is there to sustain.
