Gospel—Steve Hallowell
DISCLAIMER: The following has been auto-transcribed. We hope it will help you to find the section of this audio file you are looking for.
Welcome to the Gospel meeting and thank you for giving me some of your time. And maybe we can start by singing #17 in our hymn sheets. If somebody could start that for me.
Have you any room for cheese?
In your life, all of us will.
I've seen our senses admission.
What pleasure of.
Business.
Long before Christine.
My not a place that we can.
Turn.
In the heart for which you live.
Lord gorgeous US Lord of Lords.
Sway the heart, soar widely hold and.
When you enter while you may.
Hear when it's unforgettable.
Sway barks are widely old and.
Light can enter while you may.
Well, I'd like to.
Start, perhaps, with an unusual passage. It's in First Corinthians. We can turn there. First Corinthians, chapter one.
One Corinthians chapter one and verse 18.
For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness, but unto us which are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?
For after that, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God.
It pleased God by the foolishness of preaching, or the preaching, in other words, what's preached to save them that believe.
For the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks seek after wisdom.
But we preach Christ crucified under the Jews, a stumbling block.
And under the Greeks foolishness. But unto them which are called both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God, and the wisdom of God.
And I'd like to turn over to one other verse in Acts chapter 20.
00:05:08
Acts Chapter 20 and.
Verse 21 And this is the apostle Paul speaking. He's talking about what he preached, says, testifying both to the Jews and also to the Greeks, repentance toward God and faith.
Toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
And you might say, well, why did you read those passages To start a gospel meeting?
Well, you know, we live in a society that is.
Generally speaking, there are.
We're encouraged to believe that we know so much now that we don't need to learn anything from the past.
And there's just not much point listening to your parents anymore because.
They didn't know much.
But I want to tell you that these Greeks that we read about.
Actually, 2500 years ago they did most of the thinking. That's the basis of our society today.
They are the ones that started us down the road, the higher mathematics that worked into computer science and various things. They're the ones who are the great philosophers. They're the ones who developed the democratic political system. They were ones that were always looking for some new thing, just like we are today.
And they were the ones who thought that they were very.
Wise and all, they'd kind of tolerate a message like we might have tonight. But.
It was just like what they said to the Apostle Paul. What will this babbler say? You know, I think there's probably some people that come to these gospel meetings and that's what they think.
And that's fine by me because, you know, I don't have a great deal of knowledge or ability to to set people straight. I just have Jesus.
And.
You know the purpose of my talk today is.
Admittedly.
It sounds foolish.
And.
I'm going to ask you.
To bow to a man and entrust him with your life who lived 2000 years ago.
In a little country far away.
For justice, 33 years.
His own people rejected him. They nailed him to a cross which.
In our day, that would be perhaps compared to being sent to the electric chair.
And.
And as far as this world is concerned, that was the end of them.
And I'm asking you to bow to him.
And to follow him.
To entrust your whole life to Him, your eternal future to Him.
Not only that.
But as I read my Bible, I find that following him.
It involves a lot of things. That also sounds foolish.
That I am promised that I am going to have tribulation.
I'm promised that I'm going to have persecution.
I promised that.
I'm going to have divisions in my family.
I promise that I'm not going to escape sickness.
Her other poverty, nakedness, whatever.
All the problems of everyday life, if you're going to follow Jesus in order to get away from those things, I'm going to tell you something. It's not going to work.
00:10:03
Not only that.
We're told that God our Father is a husbandman and He's going to do pruning in our lives. Just when we think we've grown so well, he's going to cut us off.
So we can produce more fruit and he's going to chasten us.
He's going to there's going to be judgment in the House of God.
There's going to be rebuke, there's going to be correction. You're going to have to learn, be instructed.
None of those things sound like much fun, do they?
And yet it's all.
What I'm up here to ask you to do.
Now doesn't that sound foolish?
You know.
The very strange thing about it is that there's many people in this room and there's millions of people all over the world that have done just that.
Isn't that a?
Isn't that a strange thing?
That I want to.
I want to mention a man in the Bible.
The Apostle Paul.
We're not going to turn to a bunch of verses, right? Because I'm just going to mention them because I don't want to take a lot of time and.
But you know, he was a he was a great scholar. It says I profited in the Jews religion above many my equals.
And he was a Hebrew of the Hebrews. He had everything going for him. He could have been a really impressive guy.
He said. I counted all lost.
Rama no Christ.
Wait a minute. So he must have had it pretty good, right?
No, he didn't.
I could read you the list. He, it's not even a complete list because he wrote it a long time before. I know he went through another shipwreck and whatnot, but he suffered everywhere. He went three times with he got 40 stripes, saved one. You know, he was in prison, he was in danger, he was in trouble.
For following Jesus.
He says.
Well, I can read you the last letter he wrote. Want to read you some of his own language?
Second Timothy, chapter one and verse 12. And I'll just read it on for the witch, 'cause I also suffer these things. Nevertheless I'm not ashamed, but I know whom I believed, and I'm persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day.
Another verse.
Chapter 4 and verse seven I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness.
Which the Lord the righteous Judge shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but unto all them.
Also that love is appearing. Here was a man on the verge of death. He lived his whole life.
He thought it was worth it.
Why?
I'd like to look at another man, the Apostle Peter.
In John chapter 6 I believe.
Verse 667 Then said Jesus unto the 12 Will ye also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou is the words of eternal life.
And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ.
The Son of the living God.
Perhaps there's a little secret there.
00:15:02
Why so many people follow Jesus?
Because he has the words of.
The words of eternal life and we believe in our sure.
That he's the Christ, the Son of the living God.
If you're following him so that everything is going to go good in your life.
You may as well stop.
Because he promises it's not going to, but I want to tell you something.
That doesn't make it not worth it.
In fact.
He promises a lot of things that are wonderful things. I want to give you some of his own words. John 316.
For God this is. Jesus spoke this. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
You know.
We would never know God if Jesus hadn't come.
The God who made us. I know they try and reason it away from you, but.
I want you to just look around.
Sometimes they make everybody stay indoors so they can't see what God made.
But it's pretty wonderful and, you know.
That God.
He loves you. He not only loves you.
He loves you enough to give his son.
How did he give his son?
He sent him here to bear the judgment for your sins.
He went to the cross.
And at the very time when people just like us were taking him.
They were laughing at him. They were slapping him on the face. They were taking a whip and turning his back into just a bleeding look, like furrows. They pulled out the hair on his cheeks, they say.
Covered his face and slugged them and they said prophecy who did it?
They took him and they nailed him to a cross.
And they made fun of him while he was up there.
And at that time.
He died not just for their sins, but for our sins.
Tonight.
There was three hours in our time.
That he took those sins, somebody said to me.
Anybody can take anything for three hours.
But you know God says.
Today is with the Lord is 1000 years.
And 1000 years is one day.
We often say, well the Lord is coming quickly and it's just 1000 years.
Like one day.
But what about the other part? A day? This is 1000 years.
We have no idea how much passed between.
God and his Son that day.
We have no way to measure. Time is nothing to God. For us it was three hours.
For him, we don't know.
We don't know how much he suffered, we think.
We think of being in hell for eternity. We think of the billions of people being in hell for eternity, and it never takes away one sin.
00:20:05
What did Jesus bear for you?
To take away your sin.
I'm not here to tell you I don't know.
But you know God gave his Son so that whosoever.
We have that word this morning.
Whosoever.
Believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
He has the words of eternal life.
Do you want them?
Or does that just not matter to you?
But you know.
There's much more to it.
It says in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. And you know, you sort of lump all those sort of things together. But you know, it's one thing to to escape Hellfire. It's another thing to be forgiven.
Furthermore.
We're justified by his blood that that means that God looks at you and anyone who trusts in Jesus, and he doesn't see anything wrong with you.
And he never will, because he sees you in Jesus.
And you know, there's, there's so much more.
That Jesus is she.
He wants to be your companion. He wants to be, he says. I'll never leave you or forsake you.
He wants to be sympathized with you and your troubles.
In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us why we glory and trouble also tribulation also.
Why not? Because we like trouble.
But because we get to know his love in the middle of it.
You know he understands that tells us he remembers that we're but dust.
You know there is nothing like having a person who loves you, who understands you, who cares about your problems, who never ever will give up on you.
Maybe that's why.
Paul thought it was worth it. Maybe that's why Peter thought it was worth it.
I'll go a little more modern.
There was a man by the name of Eric Little.
Back though it was a little while ago, it was almost 100 years ago now. He was a famous runner, he.
He refused to run a race on Sunday because he felt it was the Lord's Day and in the Olympics it was his own time and distance and.
So he ran a much longer race that he never trained for.
A couple of days later.
I don't know what the Lord did, but he won that race.
And he was. They made over him. They were, they were.
Excited about it. It was a great victory for England.
But you know what? They don't so much talk about what happened next. He turned his back on his great sports career and he went and he served in the poorest part of China.
Reaching out to souls with the Gospel.
He ended up in a Japanese prison camp in World War 2.
And he gave his life helping others in that prison camp.
What do you think?
It was worth it.
I want to ask you, do you think it's worth it to follow Jesus?
00:25:03
Everyone of us is going to be tested on that, but I especially wanted to ask those who have never accepted him as savior because.
You know you cannot have a relationship with Jesus except it's coming to him as a Sinner.
That's the only way that you can start even following Jesus. And you said, but I don't know, I'm not that much of A Sinner. I'm better than the kids at school. I don't do such and such.
You know, I go to the jail and I talk to the guys there. I often ask them.
Jesus was asked one time.
What's the greatest commandment?
And I said, what do you think? He said. What do you think is the greatest commandment?
More often than not.
They tell me, Well, probably thou shalt not.
Shouldn't murder thou shalt not kill?
That's a nice comfortable one when we haven't done it yet.
And we would think that's a very logical 1 to my mind too.
But that's not what the Lord Jesus said.
You know.
I'm a.
I'm a janitorial contractor and I get.
I go into businesses and ioffer to clean their buildings and if they hire me, there's usually one or two things that.
Are really, really important and if I don't keep up on those things, I'm going to be out of there.
Now, there might be other things that I can get by with if I don't do them just right, but here's the the one or two things at the top you'd better take care of.
You know.
What are the two most important things?
To God.
Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart.
I'm not sure if I get it quite right, but they all thy strength, mind.
I'm not getting that quite right, maybe somebody could help me?
At any rate, it's close.
And then the seconds like it.
You shall love your neighbors yourself.
If these are the, these aren't just some commandments, these are the number one and #2.
They're more important than thou shalt not kill. They're more important than thou shalt not commit adultery. They're more important than all the others.
How have you done? You know, I was talking to a young man on the plane on the way here.
I asked him.
You ever read this?
He said no, I haven't.
I said well, well, what's your philosophy of life?
He said.
Well, I guess just live a good life.
Do do good things.
And I said.
Well, how have you done with that?
He said. Well, I guess I think I've done pretty well.
Then he asked me about something out the window.
As far as he wanted to go with that one.
You know, that's the way we often are.
God brings something to our attention.
And we want to change the subject.
Let's not change the subject here. Let's think about that commandment, that first commandment.
You say, but I love God.
00:30:02
I want to tell you I love God.
But if I stand up next to that commandment.
I'm down here.
And it's way up here.
I have never a day in my life.
Kept that commandment.
Never.
Maybe somebody here has. I cannot stand next to that commandment and tell you.
That I'm not a Sinner.
Here it is. It is the most important thing that one that God cares about the most. How do you fare when you stand next to it?
Look at the next one. Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
I live on a dead end, fire engine turns down my street and I'm coming home from work, sirens blaring.
Do I say?
Hope that's not my neighbor's house.
You know, that might be funny, except that it's important.
If that's what God made me to be, that's not what I am.
I need a savior.
Maybe you could come to that conclusion tonight, too.
You know I'll never be justified that way. I will never be justified by the law.
I only have Jesus.
Do you have Jesus?
Do you want to follow Jesus?
You know.
He gave his life for you and if you well, I'm going to turn to you to another verse you all know.
So you don't probably have to turn to it. It's Romans 10/9 that if thou shalt confess with thy mouth, the Lord Jesus or Jesus is Lord.
You know that's not as easy as it sounds.
That means saying he has the right to tell me.
What to do?
If thou shalt confess with thy mouth, Jesus is Lord, and shall believe in thy heart that God hath raised him from the dead.
Thou shalt be saved.
You know when God raised him from the dead?
That just proved that God actually accepted what he paid. It's just like when you get a receipt when you go to buy something at the store that proves that it's paid for.
Do you believe God accepted what Jesus did?
God's given you proof and God says if you do this.
You're going to be saved.
It's not because you managed to keep the first commandment to the second one.
It's because you bowed to Jesus Christ and you put your trust in what he did.
I hope you will.
You know though, there is a verse that's one of the last verses that the Lord Jesus ever spoke before the Upper Room ministry.
The last, you might say, he had one more opportunity to speak to the multitude.
It's in John chapter 12.
John chapter 12 and verse.
47.
You know, I skipped some things, now I'm going to go back because I want you to hear them. I want you to hear what Jesus says before I tell you. Read you this verse.
It's a.
There's some wonderful things Jesus said, and I'm not going to explain them because I'm only learning them myself.
00:35:06
I just want you to hear them.
From John chapter 4.
He's talking to the woman at the well.
In verse 13, Jesus answered and said unto her.
Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.
But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him, shall never thirst but the water that I shall give him.
Shall be in him a well of water springing up in everlasting life.
Chapter 5.
Verse 39.
Search the scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life, and there are they which testify of me, and you will not come to me that you might have life.
By implication, if you would come to him, you would have life.
John, Chapter 6.
Verse 35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life, He that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.
Matthew, Chapter 11.
Come unto me, verse 28 all ye that labor, nor heavy laden.
And I will give you rest.
I could read some more, I'm going to stop there.
Does that sound like something you need?
Something I need?
But look, now we'll read that verse again in John chapter 12 and verse 47.
If any man hear my words.
And believe not, I judge him not, for I came not to judge the world.
But to save the world.
He that rejecteth me and receiveth not my words, hath one that judgeth him.
The word that I have spoken the same shall judge him in the last day.
You know, supposing you're here. Supposing you say that's just not for me.
That's just not important enough to me. I've got some money to make. I've got some stuff to do. I really don't want Jesus telling me what to do.
You know what he says.
I'm not judging you.
I'm here to save you.
But I want to warn you.
That this word that I'm speaking, it is going to judge you in the last day.
Jesus has no interest in judging you.
But it's still going to happen sometime.
If you reject them.
You know, you say, oh, well that was 2000 years ago and he has never come all this time they I've heard people talking about.
His coming and he is just not coming. Everything is continuing the same way it ever was.
You know, it talks about people saying things like that in the last days.
And I think it's probably gone through a few hearts.
But you know what he's waiting for.
It tells us what he's waiting for. He's long-suffering. He's not willing that any should perish. You know, I used to be a little bit impatient with the Lord Jesus.
I thought he ought to hurry up and get here. I thought he ought to. I wanted to go home to heaven. I wanted Jesus to come.
00:40:06
Still do.
He's allowed a few circumstances in my life.
For I know I wait.
I've got four boys. They sat in meetings like this.
I thought they were all saved. I don't know if any of them are.
And I'm thankful that the Lord's waiting, but maybe he's waiting for you.
You know.
Pardon me.
I want to.
I want to use the rest of the time.
To look at a family in the Bible.
The family that had a lot of privileges.
That God worked with, perhaps more intensely than.
Any family in the Bible. He spends 15 chapters of his word talking about this family.
And he did more miracles for them. He gave them more deliverance as he gave them warnings. He gave them. He gave them everything, just like he's doing for you. That's why you're hearing a gospel meeting tonight, because he is reaching for your soul. And, and I would say that most of the people here have been in lots of these meetings.
And if you don't know Jesus, if you're one of these people.
That reject him and receive not his words.
I want you to take notice of what happened with this family.
Since Second Kings, excuse me, First Kings starts there, it goes into Second Kings.
None.
This family was actually.
In the bloodline of Joseph, the Lord Jesus Father.
What a what a privilege that would be, right? And yet, when, when Joseph's genealogy is mentioned, this family is blotted out of the book.
There's 3 kings of Judah that are eliminated from the genealogy.
Because they're the closest descendants to this family.
I'll second, excuse me, First Kings.
And.
Chapter 16 and verse 28.
So Omri slept with his fathers and was buried in Samaria, and Ahab, his son, reigned in his stead.
And that's who I'm talking about.
In the 30 and 8th year of ASA, king of Judah, began Ahab, the son of Omri, to reign over Israel.
Then they have the son of Omri reigned over Israel in Samaria 20 and two years.
And Ahab, the son of Omri, did evil in the sight of the Lord above all that were before him.
Does that mean God stopped caring about him?
No it didn't.
You know you may die unsaved, but you won't die unloved.
That's what happened with these people.
You know.
I'm not going to go into all the details here. We don't begin to have time. I just want you to notice a few things that God records about this person and about his family.
00:45:03
If we turn over to.
I hope sometime you'll read it for yourself.
He had just his wife had just gotten rid of a man in order to steal his inheritance.
And he was met when he went to claim it by Elijah the prophet, and he was speaking the word of the Lord.
And he says in chapter 21 and verse.
21 Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will make thine house like the House of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the House of Baasha the son of Ahijah. For the provocation wherewith us provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin. And of Jezebel also spake the Lord, saying, The dog shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel him that.
They have in the city the dog shall eat, and him that dieth in the fields of the fowls of the air eat.
Well, you say that's pretty awful, though. That's quite a judgment.
You know what God says about you. The wages of sin is death.
Don't think that you're in a different ballpark than Ahab.
You know it tells us in Hebrews chapter 2 and verse three it says how shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?
And you know, there's this family, they all tried different ways of getting around what God said about them because they didn't believe it.
Just like you.
If you don't know Jesus.
Ahab, I'm not like I said, we don't have time. But when he heard this, he well, maybe I could read verse 27. It came to pass when Ahab heard those words that he rent his clothes and put sackcloth upon his flesh and fasted and lay in sackcloth and went softly. And the word of the Lord came to Elijah the Tishbite saying, See us thou how Ahab humboth himself before me, because he humbled himself before me. I will not bring the evil.
Days, but it is his son's days. Will I bring the evil upon his house?
You know, that was nice. It's a good thing when you feel bad about your sin. But God, like that verse we read earlier. It says repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ.
Tells us another place that the word didn't profit because it wasn't mixed with faith. And then heard them heard it. He he did feel bad, he was scared and that's a good thing. And God, God honored it.
But it wasn't good enough, because he didn't turn and really believe what God had said, and turned to God himself.
And we find the proof of that in the very next chapter.
You know, God had given him some tremendous victories. God had helped him in so many ways. He'd done so many miracles in front of this man.
But here he comes to the.
Last few days of his life he's gotten together with Jehoshaphat and they're going to go up and they're going to fight the Syrians and he gets a word from the Lord.
He.
I suppose I didn't read one part of his what Elijah said to him. He said in the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth. Shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine?
That was the guy he got killed so he could take his inheritance.
So.
He was going to go up to battle, and all these false prophets came and encouraged him to go. And finally Joshua said, whoa, isn't there a prophet of the Lord here? And so he said, yeah, but I don't like him. He always says bad stuff about me.
But they called them in.
00:50:02
And.
He warned him, he said.
Let's see.
He said, I saw all this real scattered upon the hills of sheep that have not a shepherd, and the Lord said these have no master.
Let them return every man to his house in peace.
And the king of Israel said unto Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell thee that he had prophesied no good concerning me, but evil?
You know.
Sometimes we don't like what the Bible has to say to us.
And so we think about the Bible and we say.
Well, you know what, like Ahab could have said, well, you know what? They can't wash, they can't lick my blood and Jezreel if I'm going to die up and Ramoth Gilead. I mean, there's there's some contradictions here. I can't believe this stuff. There's a lot of people that do that. They say, oh, there's some so many contradictions in the Bible and they don't.
You can't trust any of that stuff.
You know what happened? He did die. Even though he disguised himself, he did die up at Rammeth Gilead and they brought his chariot home and they washed it out right there were named.
And the dogs licked his blood. And if I could read the passage where it says that.
Verse I want you to notice this in particular. One washed the chariot in the pool of Samaria, and the dogs licked up this blood, and they washed his armor according to the word of the Lord, which he spake, you know.
He tried to get around it. He had his reasons, he had his arguments. He even thought he could fool people by who he was. Maybe. Maybe like you.
And it didn't work. What the Lord said happened.
And I want to tell you.
This book.
Isn't lies. Take it seriously.
The next one is his son. He got to be the next king.
And, you know, he didn't rain very long before he fell out of a window and he got hurt really bad.
So he was.
I thought, well, I'm not going to mistake, make the mistake of asking the prophet of the Lord. He never says anything good. I am going to go ask.
What is it? Bale Zebub, the God of Akron.
So off he goes.
You know what? I found that there's a lot of people who think if I could just get out from under my dad and mom's thumb and I could get out of the meeting room, I wouldn't have to answer to God.
It's not true. Look at the end of his life.
Verse 17 So he died according to the word of the Lord and she lied, she had spoken. You know, you can walk out of here, you can get it, move away from home, you can do what you think is right. You're not going to get away from God.
It doesn't change a thing.
God is still God no matter how far you run.
So don't try.
The next one.
He saw his dad. He saw his brother.
Name was Johorum.
And in verse chapter 3, Now Johor the son of Ahab, began to reign over Israel and Samaria the 18th year of Jehoshaphat, and reign 12 years.
And he wrought evil in the sight of the Lord, but not like his father and like his mother, for he put away the image of Baal that his father had made.
Still sin, but he got rid of some of the bad stuff. He turned over a new leaf. He was going to straighten out his act and live a better life.
You know, as soon as things got real rough, though, he was just about cut off the prophet's head. He would have cut off God's head, but he couldn't do that. So he had to cut the profits, try and cut the prophet's head off.
00:55:01
You know.
And you come to the end of his life.
It's.
It's over in chapter nine of Second Kings and verse 24 says in Jihad, who drew a bow with his full strength and smote Durham between his arms and the arrow went out of his heart at his heart, and he sunk down in his chariot. And if I could go down to verse 26 in the end, he Jihu quotes this he says.
I've seen yesterday the blood of Naboth and the blood of his son, saith the Lord. And I will require thee in this plat, saith the Lord.
Now therefore take and cast him into the Platt of ground, according to the word of the Lord.
You know what? That didn't help him either.
And then there was Jezebel, same chapter and.
She's faced with the judgment and she just paints her face and she makes a mock of it.
There's a lot of people that do that too. There's all kinds of people. I've heard so many people make jokes about hell.
They aren't going to joke when they get there.
You know, I could go further there. There's AB seventy sons and you might say you'd think, well, perhaps they thought there was safety in numbers.
They were going to hide in the crowd, but not one of them escaped.
According to the word of the Lord, it goes on, but I, I just want to tell you.
I've set before you life and death.
Therefore, choose life.
It may seem foolish. It may seem stupid to people who are raised in a culture like we're raised in.
With the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
Let's.
Sing a song.
#19.
Umm.
Just the 1St 2 verses were short on time.
Somebody to start that?
Christ and.
Joy, I saw.
The blessed now I know.
No one but Christ.
There's love and life and lasting joy.
Lord Jesus.
Found in me.