Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire–he is God.’ Then all the people said, ‘What you say is good. 1 Kings 18:24

When Lim Cheong bought a three-bedroom house with two bathrooms and moved into it, it represented far more than the mere pleasure of owning his own home. For him, it represented a kind of spiritual victory as well. You see, Lim Cheong’s father, a silversmith, earned his living by making silver gods and selling them to the people who came to the local temple in Cambodia. As he grew up, undoubtedly, Lim Cheong thought a great deal about the gods that his father made, but he also began thinking about what they could do, or could not do. He knew that people prayed to them, but what this young man wanted to know was, “Were those prayers answered?”

At the age of 12 Lim Cheong went to his uncle, a Buddhist priest, and asked him if he knew of a prayer that had ever been answered. The uncle had to admit that he was uncertain of any definite answers. Not satisfied, Lim Cheong went to a missionary and asked him the same question. Without hesitation, the missionary related numerous incidents when God very definitely answered prayer, and that day the missionary told Lim Cheong about God’s love in Christ Jesus. That day Lim Cheong decided that he would serve the God who is alive and answers prayer.

When he came home that evening, he told his father what he had done; and in anger the father shouted to his twelve‑year‑old son, “Get out of my house. Go sleep with your Jesus!” It was then that Lim Cheong had to put his newly found God to the test. Would God take care of him? What does a twelve‑year‑old boy do who has been thrown out of his own home?

God did take care of him. After graduating from Prince Sihanouk High School, Lim Cheong received a full university scholarship but turned it down, feeling that God was calling him into Christian service. After he completed his education at a Bible College, Lim Cheong married and became a pastor to his people in Cambodia.

Then in 1964, foreign missionaries were asked to leave the country. Fearlessly, Lim Cheong still carried on God’s work. He was imprisoned in a test case that eventually resulted in his release. And what happened to his family? First, his little mother became a follower of Jesus Christ, and then one by one his brothers and sisters followed. Undoubtedly, his father thought much about God and the silver images that he designed and made, but finally his father came to realize that God is bigger than the silver images he had spent his life making. Then his aged uncle also embraced Jesus Christ as his personal Lord and Savior. When Lim Cheong moved into his own home, he remembered the words of his father, who once said, “Let your God take care of you!”

Does the God that you serve really answer prayer? Or would you have to admit, as did Lim Cheong’s uncle, that in spite of your religious activities, you cannot be sure that you have ever heard directly from heaven? “My God,” promises the Bible, “shall supply all your needs according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:19). Going through the motions of religious experience is not enough, but learning that there is a God in heaven who will hear and answer prayer can change your life as you become His son. And you can make that same discovery. Don’t be guilty of believing certain things are theoretically true, yet you don’t believe them to the point that you are willing to put your future on the line and say, “I will trust God; I believe the promises of His Word are true.”

Resource reading: 1 Kings 18.