Some weeks ago, a man who is a relatively new Christian that I’ve tried to counsel into a life of doing the right things told me about his car catching fire. This is an older, low income man who has lived in bad and criminal ways that are common in inner city urban communities, so after spending a lifetime with bad lifestyles he’s had much difficulty in changing his ways.

Many in the church would label this man, someone’s who’s been a believer for only a few years and is not visibly “converted” into a righteous life, as someone who is not a true believer; unsaved and destined for hell. After all, swear words are still common in his speech despite my reminders to use better language. However, don’t prejudge this, as I have seen many longtime, professing Christians continue to cuss after many reminders it is not how we should speak (James 3:4-12).

Some habits are hard to break, and some sins are more serious to address than others, some of which actively ferment in seemingly converted believers without their knowing. That is a reason why God hates “Stay away from me!... I am holier than you” attitudes (Isaiah 65:5). That is not how God treats even soiled, “unconverted” believers, like this Christian who told me about his car.

God sees this man as an immature believer, yes, but still one of His own – saved and sanctified in Christ so as to have heaven despite whatever sins he did or continues to live in. The church who would argue against that does not understand how great and wonderful a gift of grace the New Covenant is. But God does see this man as someone who needs more discipline and guidance, and when he told me about his car, I knew God was trying to get him to pay more attention to changing for the better and that my prayers for him did have effect.

He acknowledged this in his words, “Because I know you, God was helping me. Maybe I will become more like you.” What happened to show this man that God and Christ are real and that my prayers to help him were also effective?

I had met him before his car caught on fire when he was trying to fix it in the parking lot of his apartment complex. It was leaking oil and running horribly, using twice as much fuel as it should. It was so bad he could hardly afford to drive across town. After I met him, I asked the Lord to help him fix his car, but a day or two afterwards, he called me to say his car caught fire and he needed a new one, so I prayed for God to help him get a new car.

Now this sounds like a sore deal. I asked God to help this man fix his car and it catches fire and it is destroyed. But at the time, he didn’t tell me the whole story. It was some weeks later when he got a new used car, he told me more of what happened.

Sometime after I left him in the parking lot, his car caught fire while he was working on it. The fire sprung up so fast and hot he had to run away from it, but after some moments he felt he was forgetting something important. Then he remembered valuables in the glovebox and panicked. He quickly wrapped a jacket around him to help shield him from the heat and quickly grabbed what he could. It was so hot, though, he could not get more than what was in the glovebox and stood far away.

The fire department came quickly to put out the fire and when he talked to them, a fireman said he was surprised the car didn’t blow up. Fires like his usually explode quickly. Also the cars parked next to his were undamaged, which was also unusual for this kind of fire. He would have been responsible for liability damages to any other cars damaged by his fire. It could have cost him thousands.

I could already see God helping him at this point. He prevented too much damage from happening too quickly. So much so that the tow truck driver who took his totaled car, bought it from him for $250. Most people have to pay the tow company, which was pretty amusing. Are you keeping track of things? We have four blessings in this incident so far – valuables were saved, the car was relatively undamaged, he got $250 for his car, and the cars next to his were undamaged.

But many people would simply dismiss these things. “So what?” they’ll say. He got stuff out before it was too bad, the fire department put out the fire fast enough so that it didn’t explode, and the tow driver bought a junked car. My friend would likely have reasoned the same way and not give any credit to God, and that would be it - No more faith being built. No divine help being seen. No appreciation for God. No further movement towards living a righteous life. And no affirmation that my prayers for help did any good. After all, his car got destroyed after I prayed for help fixing it.

Well, God knows how people think, so what do you think He did to prove His point? Only a day or so after his fire, another car in the parking lot caught fire with no one near it and in the middle of the day at around 11 am with people all around the apartment entrance to see. He saw the fire himself from his apartment window. It was a very new and expensive car. What was the difference?

The fire department didn’t respond as quickly as they did for his car and the new car was completely destroyed and unsalvageable. This made him think and because he knew I prayed for him before, he started thinking something more was happening. Then he told me how he got his new car. The seller was asking for about $1700, but he was able to buy it for only $700. It wasn’t a pretty car. It’s air conditioning didn’t work, but it ran great. Instead of 20 miles on a tank of gas, he could go 300.

After all these details, I could see God was giving him many strong signs that he was getting divine help, so I told him that plainly, “I asked the Lord to help you, and that’s what He did. Your old car wasn’t worth keeping so He got rid of it, and He helped you get a new car cheap. And He had the other car catch fire to show you He was acting in these things. Thank God for all that and keep working on leaving sin and doing the right things.”

So now you can see the difference with not getting help from God and not having anyone pray for you? The new car owner obviously had sin that got his car completely destroyed, while this “unconverted” believer who still had faith in Christ and is working on his good fight with doing the right things was given divine help because I asked the Lord to help him and his walk of faith.

Count the blessings:

Now try to tell me that the New Testament is wrong when it said the church should get their elders to pray for them, and that their prayers - those of a righteous person, faithful in Christ - can accomplish much (James 5:13-16).

The person that God blessed with help talked to me again and told me about the front tire on his car. It had a slow leak in the valve stem for some time, but then he found it flat one day. He talked to a tire shop and they said they would fix it for free, so he took the car there without any way to pay.

The shop told him they could not fix the tire because it just disintegrated when they took it off. He was really lucky it didn’t fall apart while driving, especially being on the front, which could be catastrophic at speed.

Again this man told me, that his relationship with me and that my prayers for him had God helping him out again. Not only because the tire held together until the shop got to it, but because they gave him a completely new tire for free even though they wanted him to pay for a replacement.

How did that happen? They said they would get a free used replacement from their throw-aways, but when they couldn’t find one of the right size, they gave him a new tire for free. Again, God was helping this man, who needed further reminders to pursue what is right since he got into some trouble lately, which I’m sure would not have happened if he was better at removing sin from his life.

All this happened two or three weeks ago, but I had forgotten to report it because it seemed to be of low priority and I was busy with High Holiday preparations. But then God had me remember when I saw on nightly news a few days ago, a deadly bus crash caused by a blown front tire^{[1.1, 1.2]}. Two people died and many children were injured in that crash.

It’s a sobering reminder that even little miracles, like an old tire holding together until it is taken off and all the help God gave this man I talked about before, should not simply be dismissed, especially when God is trying to tell you that you need to keep getting rid of the sin in your life.

It’s a good thing I remembered to talk about this now as Yom Kippur has just begun and the services are tomorrow, which very much focuses on asking God for help and forgiveness, so that we can take care of the bad temporal effects of sin – its bad effects in this life. So when you go through Yom Kippur be diligent afterwards to continue in a life of repentance farther and farther from sin.

Prayer is powerful. Group prayer can be even more so (Matthew 18:19-20; Acts 12:5-11), and the prayers of righteous elders even more (James 5:13-16). The church knows these things and believers in all sects know that going to an elder or anointed priest to pray for you will give your prayers a better chance to be granted by God. America even has a National Day of Prayer to remind people of its importance, and in this thread I talked about how praying for someone who was not in great standing with God truly helped him.

However, I do not give much heed to the National Day of Prayer and do nothing special for the day. I consider it superfluous for people of God whom should be praying everyday anyways and should know when and how to pray for most things (see Balancing the Truth and Prayer for more about prayer). Praying is one of the most basic parts of a believer’s life, but on another note, prayer can also be overemphasized and even overused.

Overzealous and constant praying is used by the ultrareligious and dark spirits. It can be totally useless, because repeatedly asking God for something generally does not change how God has determined to grant your petitions, if they are granted at all. God is not like the unrighteous judge that got weary from being pestered and so granted a petition so that He would have peace (Luke 18:2-5). But instead, Christ told His disciples that unlike the unrighteous judge, “Won’t God bring justice for His chosen who cry out to Him day and night? And will He delay long for them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly” (Luke 18:7).

No, we don’t have to constantly ask God for the same thing (see Balancing the Truth and Prayer for more) and in the same vein, a million people or even a highly regarded elders asking the same won’t be able to change God’s mind if He has determined to reject the petitions or already decided how and when to act. Petitions may be granted in completely unexpected ways and many years longer than we wish for. Remember the lessons God gave Abraham and Jacob. They both yearned for something greatly – a son to inherit his estate and legacy in Abraham’s case, and to marry Rachel in Jacob’s. In both cases, God made them wait many years for their prayers to be answered. It took 13 years for God’s promise of an heir for Abraham (see 13 in The Meaning of Numbers for more about God’s promise) and 7 plus 7 years servitude for Jacob to marry Rachel (Genesis/Bereishit 29:15-28).

Patience or longsuffering are fruits of the Holy Spirit we should cultivate (Galatians 5:22), while impatience, jumping to conclusions, and stubbornness oppose virtuous spiritual fruits and are kin to arrogance, which is something God hates (Proverbs/Mishlei 16:5). Those vices can hurt us and everyone around us. Our prayers should reflect virtuous fruits because doing so also work in fulfilling the Greatest Commandments to love God and each other.

But furthermore, repetitive prayer, in addition to being useless (Matthew 6:7-8), can be very harmful spiritually when they involve false teachings. Doctrines of excessive prayer that urge people to constantly pray at all times and hours come from dark spirits that twist what Christ said; to pray at all times and not to become discouraged (Luke 18:1; see Light Within for more about religious spirits and excessive praying). If you were paying attention to my scripture references, Luke 18 talked about the unrighteous judge and gave correct teaching about how to pray for something we want urgently, like the widow who kept pestering the judge in Luke 18.

It actually was not about praying constantly (pray at all times) and stubbornly everyday (do not become discouraged). Superficial reading of the Bible generates those false teachings that urge people to constantly pray, never being discouraged if nothing happens, and just keep praying anyways. Christ told His disciples what is more important than that kind of prayer (see Balancing the Truth and Prayer for details), but here, I want to continue talking about what makes prayer ineffective and why God remove blessings even if we get more righteous people to pray for us.

The man I talked about in this thread got a lot of help from God because I prayed for him. He even acknowledged God helped him and understood my help played a big role. However, he was also very complacent about changing further in being a more righteous person. He found it very difficult to change, as I said, because he lived a long life in many sins and bad habits. Still, I told him he could change if he tried. He had to set his mind on it, but his answer to me was, “No, I can’t be like you.”

It was a discouraging answer because it is also self-defeating. If you think you cannot be better, then you have set your mind on failure. You’ve set your will to not change, so of course, you won’t. You have to set your mind in making change to bring it about. I told him this and gave warnings of what God might do if he was complacent in getting rid of more sin from his life, especially controlling his anger.

What did I warn him God would do? If you don’t try harder to be better and just stubbornly keep doing the same bad things, God will abandon you to your ways and stop helping you. This is what God does to those who refuse change (Psalm 81:11-12/Tehillim 81:12-13; Proverbs/Mishlei 1:23-33), and unfortunately, the man I urged to do better, learned the hard way that I spoke the truth.

It was about six months later that I found he was in serious trouble. He was out of communication for months and when I spoke to him again, he said he was in jail for a long time and lost everything he had, even his car that the Lord blessed him with after the car fire incident. Now he had nothing and was homeless after being released from prison. He ended up in prison, exactly because of the anger I told him to keep under control. In a bad outburst with someone, he made threats and got the police called on him, had his car impounded, and got kicked out of his apartment

So despite my prayers for him to improve and for further help in his spiritual walk, he still ended up abandoned by God because he was complacent and did not take my warnings seriously. In the end, we can try helping and pray all we can for someone, but if they do not put in the effort to make necessary changes themselves, then their destiny is in their own hands and God may refuse to help any further if they continue to do bad things. God will abandon people and remove blessings, and He does teach us to do the same if people keep on sinning and refuse to change (Titus 3:9-11; 2 Thessalonians 3:14-15; Psalm 81:11-12/Tehillim 81:12-13; Proverbs/Mishlei 1:23-33). Being Christian means having patience and loving others despite their sins, but it doesn’t mean we have to always give help or persist in trying to fix what needs fixing but cannot be fixed, because of any number of reasons.

Learning God’s discipline the hard way usually makes those lessons stick so that you eventually change for the better. No one soon forgets painful lessons, especially when they understand afflictions were God’s judgments for their sins. But wouldn’t you be better off making the changes you should before you have blessings and help from God removed? After all, God is most gracious towards those who repent, acknowledge what’s wrong, and try their hardest to fix it. If God helped and blessed when you’re imperfect, like He did the man I talked about here, He will surely help and bless more if you keep walking the right path.

After the last update warning to not be complacent about improving your righteousness and removing more sin from your life, I was soon struck by another affirmation from God that proved the points I brought up, much like the fatal bus crash I mentioned before proved the point that God's divine help, even if just a minor miracle, was still an important blessing. This time, it was only a couple hours after I posted about being complacent and stubborn so that God would abandon you, that I sat down and saw nightly news during dinner. The story that caught my attention and reminded me of the dangers I talked about was the severe flooding in Kerr County, Texas. They said it was the Texas Hill Country, which made me remember a motorcycle tour I did in that area many years ago.

It was a time in my life I did too much motorcycling, but unlike the man who lost everything and others that did not heed counsel to change, I did my best to try and change every part of my life to become more righteous and remove sin from me and my family. I even stopped motorcycling, a pastime that was very much a part of my identity and way of life. And because I did a lot to repent and change, God has blessed me much through the years. Such blessings are often spoken of in the church, especially by new believers that changed their ways and so they often share how God gave them much help and blessing as they learned to live a more righteous life.

However, it is not nearly as often you hear about how things have gone horribly wrong for people of God. The church and other congregations are not so fond of discussing it, but I have spoken much about these things because addressing the severe problems among God's people is a main reason why the Lord anointed me to speak and teach. And so, the Lord gave another strong reminder today when I saw there were many deaths from the flooding in Texas and that more than 20 girls were missing from an all girls Christian summer camp^{[2.1, 2.2]}. Obviously, these are believers from believing families whom most in the church would think are all working on a righteous path with God. They should be blessed with protection and help, not abandoned as I talked about.

May they all be spared by God's grace. At least 13 people have already died in these floods and they are still searching for survivors with more rain in the forecast tonight. Things do not look good, especially when I know this tragedy is God's judgment on people, even His very own. I've known for many years events like this have been God's judgment on the peoples, but because many of you do not heed God's words of warning, still thinking, no, God never does such bad things despite proof after proof given by God that I speak the truth, I also noticed the Lord gave something about the flooding that pointed directly at Him - a newscaster said the flood waters rose 26 feet in 45 minutes^[2.2].

If you've seen my other testimonies about God guiding with numbers, you probably recognize that 26 refers directly to God (see The Meaning of Numbers and Gems That Prove Destiny, True Love, and Christ Are Real for more), so the flood rising 26 feet in so little time is a more direct sign from God that this severe event is His judgment for the people's sins. This is not the first time God gave signs like this to back up what I say (for more, see God's Alarm and the update to Mountains of proof - No wonder so many believe the lunar landings were faked), so may you heed the warnings and teachings I give; Don't be complacent or stubborn to think you are sufficiently righteous, because it risks the safety of your loved ones too.

This is something else I've spoken much about - your sins can affect your whole family, your loved ones, and even your communities. The missing girls at the flooded summer camp likely did nothing to get such severe judgment, but it is most often the case that the sins of parents and community leaders are responsible for the suffering of children. God gave more concrete proof of this in Practical Sex Matters. But sexual immorality is only one area of sin that the people of God often fail in. I will not repeat myself here. Just be reminded that God does not forget the sins of His people and He will certainly judge His own. Don't confuse those things with Grace in Christ and eternal atonement of sins. For more about these things, see God's Alarm and The True Gospel.

[2.1] Rob Wile, Phil Helsel. "At least 20 girls are missing from a summer camp in Texas after catastrophic floods". NBC News. 2025 Jul. 4. Retrieved 2025 Jul. 4.
<https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-flooding-summer-camp-children-missing-rcna216986>

[2.2] "Floods kill at least 13 in Texas, over 20 children missing from summer camp". CBS News. 2025 Jul. 4. Retrieved 2025 Jul. 4.
<https://www.cbsnews.com/video/floods-kill-at-least-13-in-texas-over-20-children-missing-from-summer-camp>