Gospel—Steve Hallowell
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Well, welcome to the Gospel meeting and thank you for giving me a little your time.
Maybe we could start by singing number six on our hymn sheets.
And I'll get somebody to start that for me. I'm not too good in that department.
Well, maybe we could ask for God's help.
Our God and Father.
You don't know the hearts of each person here.
And.
You know, the weakness of the one trying to tell them of Jesus.
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We pray for help, we pray for blessing, and we give thanks that we have such a wonderful thing to speak about, even if we can't do it very well.
Blessedly for it in Jesus name, Amen.
Well, I'll look around on this room.
And I think how?
Well, I'm not going to be too good. I'm not a preacher, I'm a janitor. And.
Yet I know Jesus.
And I'd like to tell you about him.
I can't tell you something different than you've already heard.
I I look at the faces of people who have probably sat.
In.
Perhaps even thousands of gospel meetings.
But I know.
From painful experience.
But not everybody who comes to these conferences and sits in these meetings puts their trust in Jesus.
I can't go back 20 years, but I can talk to you, so I'm going to do that tonight.
You'll have to pardon me, I'm a bit of a scatterbrain and I've had three weeks to think about things and and.
I've got some notes and they're all scribbled all over the place and and they're kind of.
So if I fumble around.
Forgive me, I don't know, I'm not used to doing this anymore. New are.
So you know what I'm going to talk about tonight, though, is this. There's a verse in Don's pistol. He says we know that the Son of God has come.
If I could say that's the second most important historical event.
It's ever happened in this world.
I'll get to the most important one afterwards, but I want to say that.
That there's a We live in a world.
That was created by God every day we breathe His air.
Every day we feel his sunshine.
There's not one of us here that chose to be born.
There's not one of us here that doesn't experience God's hand in 1000 ways every day.
Yeah, there's people in this world and maybe it's you that says.
Well, I think all this just happened.
There's people that say if there's a God, why doesn't he show up?
Well, I want to tell you. That's why I want to talk tonight about we know the Son of God has come.
He has showed up. How could you ask for more and I would like to.
Trace a little bit of what we're told. You know, in this book we have 3 eyewitness accounts of the Lord Jesus life and then we have another account. It's the book of Luke. It's the work of a historian who went and interviewed people who knew.
People who had seen the Lord Jesus Christ.
And wrote down with a certainty.
What he'd found out.
And.
What he found out what these people tell us.
It's wonderful. It may have been 2000 years ago and you say why isn't Jesus here now? Well, I'll tell you why he isn't here because we crucified him.
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But, you know, I want to trace a little bit of, well, the gospel story in the life of Jesus, but.
First, I'd like to start out with turning to Romans chapter one.
You know, usually when I share the gospel, I well, I often go to the jail and I don't like to talk to people about the gospel without the.
Without talking to them, letting trying to find out what they think a little bit and what they've been through.
I'd like to know where they're coming from and I can't do that with you tonight.
I'm up here and you're done. You're sitting in those seats and I just can't go to everybody and sit down. But you know what? I can still share the story because the gospel really isn't about you and me. It's about him.
And so I'd like to read just the 1St 4 verses of this Romans chapter one Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, separated under the Gospel of God.
Which he had promised before by his prophets in the Holy Scriptures concerning. And these are the verses that I'm thinking of. Pardon me.
Concerning his Son Jesus Christ our Lord, which was made of the seed of David according to flesh, and declared to be the Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead.
You know.
We were speaking about this being God's world.
And, you know, Eric was speaking earlier today about the stars and.
How many light years across the Milky Way was?
And you know, maybe some here have bigger minds than I have. I think about a light year. The nearest star is 4 light years from here.
And if we were to get in a rocket ship and we were going about 20,000 miles an hour, which is what they generally do, some of them might have got a little faster than that now, but.
Have you ever thought about how long it would take to get to the nearest star?
Well, I'll tell you it'll take about 137,000 years.
That's just the nearest start here, except for the sun. And here we're talking about a God who created.
Billions. And not just billions of stars, but billions of galaxies.
There's a picture and you probably many of you have probably seen it. It's called the blue dot.
The spaceship Voyager was was.
Going out, it was getting to the edge of the solar system and and they had it turn around this camera around and look back at the Earth and take a picture.
Is a. If you haven't seen it, I recommend you do. You'll you'll realize a little bit about how little we really are.
It's just a little speck. It's in a big band of sunlight.
And you think that's this great big world is that?
So how big are 7 billion people, after all?
You know, and then I'm just one and you're just one.
You know, that is incredible.
To me but.
That spaceship is not very far out there.
Um.
We have a God who not only made all that, but He knows. He knows every atom that exists in that universe. He knows every *, and he calls each one by its name.
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He has all power.
He has infinite wisdom.
He dwells in a outside of time.
Do I understand anything I'm telling you?
Don't look at me.
I don't how are we going to know a God like that.
He came here. God was manifest in flesh.
What a.
You know, that's why when I I thought about even this subject.
I just want to tell you if I stumble and bumble around, it's way too big for me.
But you know, we find.
And I I know that it just spent everybody here could probably preach better gospel meeting than I can, but.
Think of the Lord Jesus the first time we find anything about them.
Is the eternal God come in flesh and he's 12 years old.
Is subject to his parents.
Ah.
Just an amazing thing, an amazing start, but I would like to just think about as he goes through his life, you know, it says here.
It says he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh. In other words, he was the answer to prophecies.
He wasn't. He didn't just show up and say I'm the Son of God.
All through the Old Testament there was many, many prophecies, in fact.
Those who have looked into it say there there are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that were fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ when he was here that first time. And just by so you understand how amazing.
That is.
If one person fulfilled just 8 prophecies made out of them made about them.
There would be one chance in.
100 quintillion of that happening, which is a one with 17 zeros behind it.
Don't ask me the figure for 300 because I don't know it.
You know, so the Lord Jesus, it says he came.
John 10. I'm not quite sure I remember the wording.
He says.
He that entereth in by the doors, the shepherd of the sheep, you know the Lord Jesus came by the door. It was by the way that God had said he was going to come.
And so, you know, it would be anybody could show up. I could say, you know, I'm the Son of God, but I have nothing to back it up. Nothing.
But Jesus, it says he was made of the seed of David according to the flesh.
First of all, he was really a man, and yet he was the answer to all the prophecies.
When we could turn to Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 and we could find out how he was going to die, we could turn to Micah 52 and we could find out where he was going to be born. We could turn to Isaiah and we could find out that he was going to heal the lame and the blind.
You know, there's many things that we could look at.
If you want to substantiate what I'm saying.
I'm not going to go into it because there's not near enough time.
But the next thing it says he was declared to be the Son of God with power.
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You know, when at the conference in Walla Walla a bit ago, we, we had the privilege of having Michael Bryan.
There, and you see him.
In a wheelchair there and you can't really move anything.
You know, supposing somebody could come up to Mike O'Brien and they said take up your wheelchair and walk. And he got up and he walked and he carried his wheelchair.
Wouldn't you say, Bob?
That is impressive.
That would be impressive.
Supposing that you were out in a on a Big Lake and a big storm and the wind was blowing and the and the waves were just coming over the side of your boat.
And there was somebody in that boat that stood up and said peace be still. And the wind stopped and the water stopped.
And.
Whoa.
Who's that guy?
You know, supposing that you we had a crowd that was over 10 times the size of the people here.
And they all had nothing to eat.
And a boy came along and he had a lunch.
Two rolls and five sardines.
He hands it to Jesus.
And he feeds everybody, and there's more leftover than what he started with.
Said, well, that is not the average man, is it?
No, it's not. That's the Son of God.
He was declared to be the Son of God with power.
You say?
The next thing it says is according to the spirit of holiness and.
Who want you to think with me about the character of the Lord Jesus Christ?
We talked mentioned as a 12 year old boy. He was obedient to his parents though he was the Son of God.
Though he had the ability to talk with the smartest and wisest men of his time, and they marveled at him.
But it wasn't a show off.
He.
We look at.
Incidents in his life.
Where they tried to trip him up and the wisdom that he spoke with. We look at the temptations in the wilderness. 40 days, nothing to eat, nobody around.
Tempted the whole time by the cleverest being in the universe except for God himself.
And you know.
There is not one sin, you know, it says of him.
Those who knew him.
Peter says he did know sin.
Paul says he knew no sin.
Says in him was no sin.
You know, we we pat ourselves on the back sometimes when we face temptation and we want so badly to do something that we know is wrong and we say no.
Jesus faced everything we do, but there was never something inside of him that said, oh I wish I could do that. Nothing to put down.
He was that holy thing that shall be born of thee.
Nobody else I know has ever been like that.
Think of it in the garden.
Asked by God.
To take the penalty for what we have done, what everybody else had done and he'd never done it.
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Don't think it didn't cost them. I want to talk more about that later.
It he didn't did it.
You know how much I like getting accused something for that. I didn't do that, somebody else did.
I don't know anybody like that.
Nobody but one.
The one I found in my Bible.
The Son of God. He was declared to be the Son of God according to the spirit of holiness.
By the resurrection from the dead.
Every writer of the gospels mentions somebody who he raised from the dead. 4 witnesses says in the mouth of two or three witnesses, let every word be established. God's given you for.
Will you accept them?
Think of it I I've know a lot of people who I have been to conferences with and I have heard them at other times. I love them. I knew them, and they aren't here now.
Some of them were.
Excellent speakers. Some of them were brilliant men, some of them were big and strong.
And everyone lost the battle to death.
And yet here is a a man that.
Could raise the dead, and more than that, he himself.
Rose from the dead.
You know, there's no I remember my nephew was killed in a motorcycle accident.
About 22 years ago.
I haven't seen them since.
He.
There's I could say that about so many people.
Death has won. And 1:00 and 1:00. But here's somebody.
That's bigger than death.
This is the Son of God.
You want to know he claimed to be the Son of God, He said before Abraham was. I am.
Now doesn't that does that mean anything to you that the Son of God has come? We live in a world without hope.
We live in a world without meaning, without purpose, because we've abandoned the thought of God.
That's why there's so many people committing suicide, because there's no purpose in living.
But here we have.
Something to give us hope. The Son of God, the creator of this entire universe, has come to this little pale blue dot.
Why did he come?
Well, if we turn to.
I want to turn to two verses for why he came. First Timothy 1:15.
And you can read it for yourself and you open your Bibles, soak it in.
Just the last part. Well, it's No, it's not. I'll read the whole verse. This is a faithful saying and worthy of all acceptation that for everybody to accept it that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. If I have intellectually convinced you that Jesus Christ was the Son of God, that's not a bad thing.
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But I want to tell you, you will never know him except you come as a Sinner.
Nobody ever knew Jesus who wasn't willing.
To be honest about what they were.
You know, I'm afraid that there's many people who have grown up in Christian homes who would sit in a gospel meeting like this and say, yeah, yeah, I I agree.
And then somebody cleverer than them came along, and then they didn't agree because they had never known Jesus.
As a Sinner needing Savior.
I want to warn you about that.
Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.
Another verse. We read it today in Romans chapter 5.
And verse 8.
God commendeth his love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners.
Christ died for us.
You know, so we have two things, that Christ came here to save sinners, and that God loved you enough to send him.
I I want to.
I haven't said enough about one thing, and that is his. Like it says here, Christ died for us.
You know it as well as I do.
You've heard a lot of times about the death of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You know they took him.
They slapped him, they spat on him, they punched him in the face. They whipped him.
They made fun of him. They nailed him to a cross.
And yet none of that puts your sins away.
Why did that happen?
Well, I'll tell you one reason it happened.
God wanted you to know.
That no matter how bad you are and you'll never be able to be as bad as those people because God hasn't given you the opportunity.
Jesus still loves you.
It was right at that time that he bore the sins many.
Mine and those people there, you know, when Jesus rose from the dead, he said, you go preach the gospel everywhere, but you start right here where they crucified me.
Wow.
He still loved them after all that.
Yes, he did.
And don't think that if you reject Jesus that he didn't love you.
You know, there was a young man that came to Jesus and he, he wanted to know what he could do to have eternal life. He'd done a lot of things, but he didn't do enough.
And when Jesus talked to him, instead of bowing and admitting his sin, he walked away. Very sad, but it says about him. Jesus, beholding him, loved him. You find the Lord Jesus weeping over Jerusalem and saying, oh, if you only know, missed your day.
Don't think if you go to hell it's because Jesus didn't love you.
God loves you too. God so loved the world that he gave His only begotten Son.
That whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
But I want to focus in what time we have.
On two things about the death of the Lord Jesus like to turn to the Gospel of Matthew.
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Matthews Gospel.
The garden scene in Chapter 26.
Matthew 26 and verse.
36.
Then cometh Jesus with them unto a place called Gethsemane, saith unto the disciples, Sit ye here will I go and pray Yonder. And he took with him Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, and began to be sorrowful, and very heavier, very depressed.
Then saith the Unto him them my soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death. Tarry here, and watch with me. Then he went a little further, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, Oh my father, if it be possible.
Let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.
And he cometh to the disciples, and findeth them asleep, and saith unto Peter, What could he not watch with me one hour?
Now I want to look back at verse 39.
Pardon me.
He went a little further and fell on his face and prayed, saying, Oh my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
Nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt. Does that take an hour to pray?
I want you to think with me. I may be using my imagination, I don't know, but it does say, couldn't you watch with me one hour.
What if it took an hour between Oh my father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.
What if it took an hour to say? Nevertheless, not as I will, but as I will, What would that mean to you?
What would it mean to you?
If it took him an hour.
To get out those words you don't realize. We don't realize how vital this scene was if Jesus had not been willing.
It would have been totally wrong for God to put your sins on Him, says He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, but if he hadn't been willing.
Could God have done that? That question was in the balance here, and Jesus faced it.
But it was number light matter.
If it took an hour and you know the next.
Prayer tells us in Luke it says he went away as it gets second time and he prayed even more earnestly.
And his sweat was it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. Why? Because this time he didn't pray.
If it be possible that this cup pass from me, he prayed, Oh my father, if this cup may not pass away from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.
Do I know? Do I know what I'm talking about when I read that? No, I don't have any idea whatsoever.
I only see what you see.
What does it mean to you?
It wasn't a small matter.
I'd like to turn to one more scene.
Matthew.
Chapter 27.
Then verse 45.
Now from the 6th hour there was darkness over all the land unto the 9th hour and about the 9th hour Jesus cried with a loud voice saying Eli Eli Lamisa back then I that is to say, my God, my God.
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Why hast thou forsaken me?
This was the time when he bore our sins in his own body on the tree.
Thank God he bore mine. But.
You know, I remember talking to a man and he told me, oh, you, anybody can do anything for three hours.
You know, there's a verse in Peter and says the day is with the Lord's 1000 years and 1000 years is one day. And we often read that verse and we talk about the Lord's coming perhaps in two days. What about the other half?
1000 years is one day really. It means time is nothing to God.
So we don't have any way of measuring what went on in those three hours. It was 3 hours to us.
What was it to him?
We don't know. We don't have a yardstick.
But I'll tell you what, if every person in this world went to hell for an eternity and bore all the judgment that we're capable of bearing, it would never finish. Hang for our sins.
Jesus got done and he said it is finished.
So we don't even have a yardstick.
To measure what Jesus went through.
We just don't know.
But we do have.
Sometimes, you know, they have little angle signs greater than and less than and you can put Jesus sufferings here and you can put some people say, well how could a God of love send anybody to hell?
The God of love sent his Son, and that was greater than the whole rest.
And that's the reason.
That I am going to be saved and that a lot of other people are going to be saved is because Jesus died for us. We own them as Lord and put our trust in Him. What are you going to do with what He did?
You know, there was people when he was crucified that slapped him in the face. And you might say, well, I'll never do that.
What are you doing?
When somebody, perhaps you've tried to give somebody a present, you've gone to so much work and effort and you give it to them and they treat it like it was nothing.
How do you feel?
You don't think Jesus has feelings?
What are you going to do with Jesus? You know he's coming back.
And each and every person is going to have to face.
Him at explain what they did.
I hope.
I hope for your sake, and I hope for his sake because he loves you.
That you can.
Bow to him now. Accept them as your Lord, your Savior. Instead of singing a hymn, I want to read a hymn that I heard lately, and then we'll close.
Goes like this. Speaking of Mary, the wonder of wonders as she looked on his face that this little boy spoke. The worlds in their place, the stars and the moon shining brightly on them, the earth and the sun were created.
By him the wonder of wonders, as she heard his small cry, that this voice had thundered on Mount Sinai.
The hand that she held so tenderly had made a dry path through the mighty Red Sea.
The wonder of wonders as she looked down and smiled that he was her Maker as well as her child. He created the womb that had given him birth. He was God Incarnate, come down to the earth.
The wonder of wonders as a father looked on an eternity past. This was his Son had sent him to die on Calvary's tree. And that is the wonder of wonders to me. And then the chorus, the wonder of wonders of How could it be that God became flesh and was given for me? The Almighty came down and walked among men.
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The wonder of wonders, He died for my sin.
A second.
Lord Jesus.
We would just like to give thanks for your coming here and for that ultimate wonder.
That you died for our sin.
We pray, Lord Jesus, that no one here.
Would turn their back on what was done for them.
We ask for a blessing for each one. My precious name. Amen.