The Silenced Invitation Isaiah 19:1-4

I'm going to jump right in. I think most of us

have had the opportunity by now, as I look around

the room, to have experienced evil to some extent.

It's possible that the kids have not. I pray

that that is the case. But evil doesn't always

look like the big bad things that you see on

TV or in movies like murder, rape, or drug dealing,

that kind of thing. Thank God. Through the Southside

Life Station, we've seen quite a bit of that

over the years, but not necessarily firsthand.

We've seen four drug dealers that got saved and

walked away from dealing drugs, and all four

of them were disowned by their families because

previous, while they were dealing drugs, they

were paying everybody's bills, and then as soon

as they started to no longer do that, they couldn't

do that anymore. But I never saw that. I've never

seen anybody, the whole time I've been serving,

I've never seen anybody actually sell drugs to

another person. We've seen untold criminals come

to Christ. I do know that there's at least one

murderer. He spent 20 years in jail. He was convicted,

and he openly admits what he did. But I wasn't

there when he did that, so I've never seen that

firsthand, thank God. I did do the funeral of

a young woman who was dating a gang member, and

she used to beat on him, and he'd beat on her.

One time he beat her too bad, put her in a hospital

for 10 days. The day that she was released from

the hospital, she was sitting on the bed waiting

for her friend to go get the car. and she got

up and fell over dead. And they said that she

had a brain bleed, and they said it was miraculously

unrelated to the beating. So we did her funeral.

We waited to see if the gang members would show

up and cause trouble. They did not. It was a

tense day. That's about as close as I've come

to seeing that kind of evil firsthand. The call

center ladies that work at the life station,

they get a lot of stories. We had a woman call

the life station. She said that her son that

day had been shot in the head with a firearm.

Some kid thought it would be a good idea to shoot

him to a crowd. And she called and asked us to

pray for her. And we circulated through the prayer

group. An hour and a half later, another woman

called. She said that her grandson, whom she'd

been raising, who was a little bit developmentally

delayed, some of the boys in his class had talked

him into firing a handgun into a crowd. He shot

a kid in the head. Now he was in jail and was

looking at possibly spending the rest of his

life in jail. And she asked for prayer for him.

So they hear a lot more than I do, the first

-hand stories, but I do get a chance to kind

of experience some of that at some of the worst

times when people are on drugs and they're literally

addicted or they're off their medications and

so their schizophrenia is going kind of wild

or whatever it might be. But evil is not always

loud or dramatic. The fact is that sometimes

evil looks like empty cupboards, silent homes,

isolated hearts, crushed hope. I'll tell you

the story of three guys named Ron. It's interesting

because in the life station, I've been there

for 15 years, and names reoccur. And I go like,

oh, that's the third guy. And actually, I have

a fourth guy right now that I'm working with

named Ron. But I'm not going to tell you his

story today because he's still greatly in process.

He just gave his life back over to the Lord last

week. And in seven days, he's lost 20 pounds

by changing his diet. So we'll see where that

one is. But he might be fourth Ron. These three

guys, the first guy is 99 years old. I ministered

to him this last week. He had, to my knowledge,

he had heard the gospel young, became a Christian

young. But at about 50 years old or so, he and

his wife became fairly successful, and he sort

of walked away from the Lord. At 99 years old,

he had not a friend in the world. His wife had

passed away. His mother -in -law, they had a

mother -in -law apartment on the back of her

house. She passed away. Everybody he knew. He

was 99 years old. Everybody he knew had passed

away. Everybody he went to school with, everybody.

And his sons had moved out of state and not talked

to him in over 15 years. His grandson had come

over to live with him for about two months. Then

he moved back with his dad and didn't talk to

him from that point on. That was about 15 years

ago. The only person that Ron knew who cared

about him at all was a Southern Baptist deacon

who lived next to him in the house next door.

He would come over and make visits and stuff.

All the time he ministered to him over about

20 years, he never shared the gospel. Never talked

to him about Jesus. I don't know for sure that

Ron was saved. But when he slipped into a coma,

they called me and I went and prayed over his

bed and I shared the gospel. He had not responded

in the least for about 36 hours. He didn't say

a word, hadn't made a move. His jaw was down

and slack to the left. His breathing was eight

times a minute. He was breathing eight times

a minute. And when I shared the gospel, his facial

expression changed and his jaw shut for a second.

And it looked like he was saying something. We

never did figure out what it was he was saying.

So I don't know for sure if Ron went to heaven

or not, but I say to you that being 99 years

old, not having a friend in the world, not a

family member around you, nobody at all. He didn't

go to church. He talked to his doctor every so

often. He would talk to the mailman when he came

around. Other than that, there was nobody. That

kind of isolation and loneliness, that is an

evil. That is an evil. Second Ron, he was in

his late 50s, and he spent most of his life on

drugs and alcohol, and he was dying. The doctor

had already told him that because of cirrhosis

of the liver, he was not doing well. And he reached

out to the Life Station and said, I've been receiving

your encouragement call. I've gotten food from

you multiple times over the last several years.

And I want to tell you that as far as I can tell,

the staff and the volunteers at the Life Station

and you personally, because I had talked to him

personally a couple of times, gone to his house.

He said you personally and the staff and volunteers

may be the only people in the world that love

me. And I want to know, will you give me a Life

Station shirt with a logo on it so I can be buried?

I've already paid for an open casket funeral.

I don't think anybody's going to come. That wasn't

true. One of his friends did come. So he was

buried in a Life Station shirt, a Life Station

logo, at like 59 years old after dying from his

addictions. The last one, Ron, he was a very

active businessman, very successful. He had a

nice pickup truck that he bought, and it was

full of tools, and he was running his own business.

And he was working all under the table, making

all the money without paying taxes, and he was

making pretty good money, $6 ,000 or $8 ,000

a month doing that with no taxes paid. He was

living in a house in East Toledo. One night,

he and his buddies were getting together drinking.

They were always doing that about five, six nights

a week. He was a little hopped up on whatever

he was into that particular night. And he hit

a patch of water or ice in the expressway, totaled

his truck. It was impounded. That meant all of

his tools. And overnight, he couldn't make any

money. And overnight, he lost all of his friends.

They kept on drinking, but they did it at somebody

else's house. So Ron called the life station,

started getting groceries. Eventually, I wound

up on his driveway, shared the gospel. He got

saved. He began to live for the Lord, started

going to church. About two years later, he passed

away from cirrhosis of the liver as well. These

are all men who saw evil firsthand that most

of us have never seen. The kind of isolation,

the kind of loneliness and sorrow that they faced.

The third Ron I told you about, he had no food

in the house for two weeks other than a five

-pound bag of rice and a few cans of green beans.

He had no food in the house for two weeks before

the first time we delivered him emergency food.

That is evil. In the urban America, there's a

lot of good things that happen down the road.

I don't want to paint a really dark picture and

make you think that America is a horrible country,

because America is the greatest country on the

face of the earth. And you can disagree with

that. I'm not preaching that. I'm just telling

you that's how I feel. That being said, in Toledo,

there are free food deserts where a person has

to walk over a mile to get to a grocery store

that sells groceries at a normal price. I wonder

why people with food stamps don't have enough

money. The in -town urban grocery stores that

are not Grover's or Walmart are like that. They

sell grocery stores at over 200 % of what you

and I would pay going to Walmart or Grover's

or whatever. So their food stamps run out by

the third week, and the government, if they give

more food stamps, the prices in those grocery

stores just go up all the more. So it doesn't

actually work. And they can't really walk the

mile to buy groceries, so they go to the carryout.

So that results in a thing called malnourishment.

Malnourishment is when you're taking in food,

so you're not actually hungry, but the food that

you're taking in isn't any good for you. And

so the children and a lot of people living in

urban America are living off of Doritos and Gatorade

that they can buy at the convenience store. There

was a young lady who started attending New Heights,

which is my Southern Baptist Church in East Toledo

there. And she started attending when she was

six. At that time, she was babysitting her three

younger siblings, doing all the diaper changing.

She was the responsible person in her house 50

hours a week. Her mom got involved with a boyfriend

who was an addict, and then she started babysitting

him. his two kids. So now she's got five kids,

three of which are in diapers, and she's babysitting

them starting at six years old. She would walk

to the convenience store with her food stamp

card, buy them all a bag of Doritos and a bottle

of Gatorade to have for lunch and dinner every

day. She did that from the time that she was

six to the time that she was 10. We got involved

somewhere in the middle there, started delivering

emergency food to the house, but we cannot provide

all the food for one family. So there were many

days a week where that was still going on. When

she would have graduated high school, she was

17 years old. She was just over 4 foot tall and

75 pounds. Because she had not developed when

she was young, she never became a full -fledged

adult in size. And I said would have graduated

high school because she became pregnant at 17

and a half and is now living in a similar situation

and has a child that she's raising in a similar

way. The reality is these are evils. They don't

come with a gun in hand. They don't come with

blood, usually. Sometimes maybe, but not usually.

Evil is not always loud or dramatic. Sometimes

evil looks like empty cupboards, silent homes,

isolated hearts, crushed hope. But I think these

subtle evils are the ones that get me the most.

I despise criminal behavior. It vexes me deeply

when I see people do things wrong against our

laws. But at the same time, I can't stand the

evils that are not illegal, for which there are

no court sentences. CSB was involved multiple

times in the life of that same lady. That's children's

services involved multiple times in the life

of that same lady who had her six -year -old

daughter changing their diapers every day, all

day. And they never took the kids out of the

home. They never determined that the kids were

actually unsafe by federal standards. And so

they didn't. Even though all they were ever eating

was mostly, you know, their mom would get them

one meal a day plus Doritos and Gatorade. That's

what they ate. It was terrible. I made a house

visit. There were literally a thousand Dorito

bags sitting everywhere. And when they didn't

have something, they would just go and find one,

stale maybe, but they'd just go and find one

and eat out of it. And that was not considered

criminal behavior. And they stayed in the household.

I can't stand that. It drives me nuts. I often

think these very things are the reason for so

much of the other things that go on. You and

I know that God is not mocked. God is present.

God is real in the world. God is active. God

hates these things that I'm talking about today.

And he does not fail to act in the face of evil.

So let's take a look for a moment at a short

passage of scripture that speaks about a time

through the prophet Isaiah, which God would intervene.

He would act to deal with those evils. And let's

see how that goes. So grab your Bibles, if you

would. Give me a little amen, maybe, as we go

to Isaiah chapter 19. Thank you very much. That

Isaiah 19 · chapter mention

was kind of weak compared to New Heights, which

are now. They hoot. One guy says Yahtzee when

I say the Bible verse. I don't know. He's kind

of goofy, but I love him. Okay. So Isaiah 19,

we're just going to read verses 1 to 4. We're

going to really focus in on verse 3. It goes

something like this. Isaiah wrote a lot of oracles

to different countries. And you know Israel's

history with Egypt probably a little bit, how

all the false gods of Egypt have already been

deposed, including Pharaoh himself. God did that

in a miraculous way. Versus destroyed the country

to extricate his people from Egypt. The oracle

concerning Egypt, Isaiah says. Behold, the Lord

is riding on a swift cloud and is about to come

to Egypt. The idols of Egypt will tremble at

his presence and the heart of the Egyptians will

melt within them. God was going to come and you

can believe that when people are involved in

evil, that means God's wrath. God's wrath does

not mean God's anger. It means God's opposition.

So God was going to come in his opposition and

deal with the false gods of Egypt, show their

worthlessness. Verse 2 says, so I will incite

Egyptians against Egyptians. And they will each

fight against his brother and each against his

neighbor. City against city and kingdom against

kingdom. Do we not kind of see this today? Like

people against people. Everybody thinks everyone

else is the reason there's a problem. Everybody

thinks that somebody else is the problem. And

there is a lot of... striving, fighting, pushing,

especially in large urban environments to try

to find. And I'm not saying everybody's involved

in criminal behavior, but everybody's trying

to find their way, work their strategy to get

ahead. And a lot of times it's to get up over

on top of somebody else in order to do well.

And God said, that's what's going to happen.

God would incite the Egyptians against Egyptians.

Verse three then says, then the spirit of the

Egyptians will be demoralized within them. Their

spirit be crushed, broken up like the internal

strength of the Egyptians just giving out. He

says, and I will confound their strategy. That

means nothing that they would try to do to solve

the problem is going to work. It's going to bring

them to the point of going like, what is going

to do this? What's going to work? There is nothing.

There seems to be nothing that can actually solve

these problems. So that they will resort to idols

and ghosts of the dead and to mediums and spiritists.

Now, gosh, I mean, did that catch you like it

catches me? Like, is that what you expect? God's

wrath comes in and they realize that the idols

are worthless. All the false gods of Egypt are

worthless. All the priests and magicians, they

can't do anything, right? They really have no

solutions whatsoever. And instead of them going,

oh, you know, we need to turn to God. We need

to repent and turn to God. Instead of that happening,

they resort to what? To the idols and the ghosts

of the dead and mediums and spiritists. And the

King James is neat there. It calls it wizards.

Right. And the idea is people who seem to have

an otherworldly connection. So there are people

that live in urban environments that are authority

in their community. And a lot of times they're

drug dealers or gang people or there or whatever.

They they seem to have it together in some way.

And people are turning to them rather than turning

to God at that moment when everything that they've

been trying to do is confounded. Just like the

Egyptians are being shown that Isaiah said that

they would do. They'll turn to anybody, to anything.

Verse four says, moreover, I will deliver the

Egyptians into the hand of a cruel master. Now,

you and I know who that cruel master is, right?

For the people who don't know the Lord. And a

mighty king will rule over them, declares the

Lord God of hosts. So just a real quick summary.

God's presence and accordingly his wrath will

be visited on the Egyptians who already have

a proven past that their idolatry is worthless,

right? The Egyptians would fall apart in that

moment. The Egyptians would then turn to their

false gods and idols all the more, and they would

turn to people who seemed to have otherworldly

attachments. The idols have nothing, are nothing,

and yet they have become the center of modern

Egyptian society again. And now they're going

to get even more prominence as God tries to redirect,

God does enact his justice, and the people instead

turn again to the idols. Because their false

gods could do nothing, God would then turn them

against each other. They begin to think it's

everyone else's fault. And God will make their

plans, ideas, and strategies come to nothing.

Ultimately, God will give them over to a cruel

ruler. This kind of makes God seem kind of harsh,

right? The key verse of the life station then

is Romans 12 .21, which says, Be not overcome

by evil, but overcome evil with good. The context

of that verse is talking about your enemies.

So it's basically saying when your enemies are

coming against you, do good to them, right? Like

we might want to do bad, but we actually should

do good because you can't overcome evil with

evil. And when you do bad to people, that's evil,

right? So you can't overcome evil with evil.

You have to overcome it with good. So Paul is

calling them out in the book of Romans. He's

writing to Rome saying, do good. Do good to them.

And he even goes so far as to keep coals on their

heads because they're going to realize how stupid

they're being because you're doing good to them

when they're trying to do evil to you, right?

So that's the kind of God that we serve. The

life station verse then leads us to a strategy

where we desire to war on behalf of God to do

good in the areas of hunger, poverty, loneliness,

and hopelessness. God says these in his word.

These are paraphrases a little bit. You might

want to look up the verses if you want to get

the exact wording, but I'm just going to kind

of go through them real quick. Isaiah 55, 6 -7,

it says, Seek the Lord while he may be found.

Call on him while he is near. Let the wicked

forsake their ways. Let them turn to the Lord,

and he will have mercy on them. Acts 3, 19 says,

Repent, therefore, and turn back, that your sins

may be blotted out. Joel 2, 13, Rend your heart

and not your garments. Return to the Lord your

God, for he is gracious and compassionate. 2

Chronicles 7 .14 says, If my people, which are

called by my name, shall humble themselves and

pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked

ways, then will I hear from heaven. And he goes

on, of course. James 4 .8, Draw near to God,

and he will draw near to you. Malachi 3 .7, Return

to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord

of hosts. The process... as described, goes exactly

this way for many people who are in the world

and even believers who are not putting God first.

God sees the idolatry, shows up to confound,

to demonstrate their weakness and their worthlessness.

They run all the more to worthless idols and

turn to those who claim to have some power or

connection. I thought, why? What's our role here?

And then I realized people need an option. People

need a herald to know that they can turn back.

Where's Ivan? Right? That they can turn back.

You see, it happens this way. In that moment,

there's kind of like three major ways. The first

one is that they are ignorant. See, I was 25

years old. I'm going to tell you, I was ignorant

of the gospel. I believed that there was a God

generally. I didn't know anything about Jesus.

I'd never heard the truth. I was given a Bible

when I was young, but my mom, who was not a Christian,

thought everybody in the church was looking at

us when we came in, and so she wouldn't let us

go anymore. And so occasionally I would poke

at the pages of the Bible. I didn't really know

anything about Jesus. I didn't know anything.

And I got to the point where I owned a house

where really the bank owned it, and I could barely

afford the mortgage. I had two cars, both with

loans. I could barely afford that. And I started

thinking, What I'm doing kind of isn't working.

I still feel empty. I don't feel alive. I don't

know what. I was confounded. And one day I was

riding back from BG after buying a ride in Longmore,

which was like the last thing on earth. I had

a motorcycle, two cars, a house, a kid, a wife,

beautiful wife, a child on the way, a job, a

career. I had literally all the trappings of

life, but none of them were of any value internally

to me. I just felt empty. And I thought, I got

to know. Well, there was one, exactly one person.

grandmother who had ever said anything about

god or jesus in my life she was the only one

and i and i probably fortunately did not know

a drug dealer i didn't have the opportunity to

join a gang right i there was no way i could

steal large sums of money at work and get ahead

right so i didn't have those opportunities but

i had a person who told me something about god

so i started going to church and then i was ignorant

and eventually after six months i became less

ignorant And then God called me, and I ignorantly,

foolishly said no two weeks in a row after I

was sure. And then the third week, I thought,

well, God might not call again. And I finally

gave in and surrendered my life. It happens that

when people are confounded and in that moment,

sometimes they're just ignorant. They just don't

know. Some people actually are programmed. Programmed

by culture, parents, school, media, social media,

popular culture, icons, everywhere you look.

There is programming to tell you that you don't

need God. God is not real. God did not create

everything. That the story of evolution makes

more sense, etc., etc., etc. All of which is

lies. I get that. But I was programmed. By my

parents, who never went to church when we were

kids, never read the Bible, never prayed. My

dad was a backslidden Christian. We never did

any of that. I was programmed to think that God

was just some fairy tale that other people believed

in. And there are people who are in that place.

And then thirdly, there are people who arrive

in that place where they see what they have been

trying is not working. And it happens that no

one is there to offer them a chance to turn to

God. And they then turn to whatever seems to

be working for somebody else, whatever seems

to hold promise. So this is our role. We show

up at that particular juncture, at that moment

where they are thinking they need to do something

differently, and we offer them a biblical solution,

which is nothing less than turning to God. This

is our role. Now, what does it look like, actually?

Well, first of all, you realize that people in

that situation, they're confounded, they're hungry.

Right. So it's got to look like food. If people

come to you and they're literally starving. Guy

told me we've only had a bag of rice in the house

for the last four days. We don't know what we're

going to eat. We had refugees from another country

living in Toledo. And the woman's breast milk

dried up because she and her husband had not

eaten in three days. They gave all the food they

had to their nine year old son. So her breast

milk dried up. So their seven month old baby

would not stop crying. City of Toledo, just north

of Maumee. So we delivered food within 45 minutes.

And they barely spoke English. We got them connected

with somebody locally that that spoke both languages

so that he could begin to find employment and

get back on his feet. If you don't offer food.

Why not? Right. And so we offer food. When I

started working, the first month I worked there

15 years ago, we did six, six houses of emergency

food. The next month it went to 60 because the

rumors that we were going to be closed died down.

Now it's. 1 ,700 families a month, 50 % of which

is delivery. If you look on the page that I handed

out, there's a thing that looks all blue. So

that's the city of Toledo. The Maumee River runs

through it from the lower middle to the upper

right. And every one of those pins represents

a household that the life station has provided

emergency food for. We have now reached a place

where we have provided emergency food. Wait for

it. on every city block in the city of Toledo.

Either they came to us to get it or we delivered

it to them. So we deliver because when people

are isolated, they are disabled, they're mentally

health problems, keep them from going to pantries

or whatever, they still need the food. So our

driver goes there and while he's there, he can

share the gospel and he gives the material and

they get signed up for our encouragement calls

and everything like that. I don't want to get

ahead of myself. I'm trying to summarize. So

food and clothing. And then we talked about malnutrition.

We started food and nutrition training, three

lessons where they can learn what foods are actually

good to eat and how to put together a meal and

how to cook a basic dish with very basic supplies

that you can literally do stir fry on a couple

bucks for a family of four. And you don't have

to eat Doritos, even though the rice costs 200

times or 200 percent as much as it does anywhere

else. Those classes are available for people

to do from their homes for free. We pray with

people on their porches at the life station.

We share the gospel, ask people, are they professional

Christians? Do they have a church home? Every

client who ever signs up at the life station

is asked, do they know Christ and do they have

a church home? And if they don't and they're

willing, we share. And we help them find a home.

On our church hunting page, we point them to

Southern Baptist churches and other churches

of like faith. We describe what a good church

is. We provide Right Now Media, which has over

10 ,000 Bible studies taught by pastors all over

the country. So they can literally watch hours

and hours and hours of Bible taught in their

homes. We have the I Can Pray group, which any

of you can sign up, where you actually get the

names of your neighbors so you can pray for them

specifically. The people near you get their names

based on... Recent census material. So they recently

moved. It's not the right name. We've got now

112 households who have agreed to pray for their

neighbors across the city. We anticipate that

it will take probably 4 ,000 households to get

every name in the city prayed for. Got a long

way to go. We've got the call center where they

can call every day for prayer, to order their

emergency food because someone just can't use

a computer. Then we started a publishing arm

where we published books. that go out over the

entire world. And the gospel is presented in

this book four times. A person can get saved

four different ways, basically, in this story,

which is what happens to be about the first of

the last 12 Christians who will get saved before

Christ comes again. We started a website called

ameldan .com, which sells fun and light products

like Lammy here. And when people buy this, all

the profit goes to the life station. We don't

make a lot of money doing that. In fact, Google

blacklisted us because, wait for it, Our website

is too Christian. So you can Google, you can

find it, but it will never be advertised on Google

because our website is too faith -based. We started

a cell phone app in which all of the products

and all of the services of the Life Station are

laid out in there. And we ask people, wherever

they are, when they get food from us, to think

about how they can overcome evil with good where

they live. I told you about the... The encouragement

call, just briefly, the encouragement call goes

out now to 1 ,900 households, 1 ,900 different

phones. They receive a call two to three times

a week. All it is is 90 seconds on Bible. It's

one or two verses, 90 seconds about one or two

verses, and it goes out as an automated call.

Since that began now, 362 ,000, you see the big

red number, 362 ,108 times somebody has received

a message from the encouragement call just talking

about a verse or two of the Bible. It's crazy.

But that's not even as crazy as God wanted to

make it. It baffles me that that's even possible.

But if you look at the bottom down here, you

see this little ring? So as I stand here today,

I pulled this up a day before yesterday, so it

probably has grown a little bit. That encouragement

call has been listened to in 106 cities across

the globe. So that podcast, we take that encouragement

call, then we repeat it on the podcast, and then

people can listen to it. It's called Life for

Toledo. You can get it on. Google, Siri, Alexa,

on your phone, wherever, it's all free. And then

now it plays ads on there that are just, we've

blackmailed or blacked out all the bad kinds

of ads. You shouldn't hear any ad that's not

godly, right? But it plays ads and we get pennies

when people listen to it. I would encourage you,

if you need encouragement or you know somebody

does, share that with them. When they listen,

we'll get two or three cents. I'll actually get

two or three cents every time somebody listens

to a 90 -second encouragement message. But not

only has it been in 106 cities to represent 50

countries. That's world missions arising out

of God's desire to reach people when they are

confounded, when they are stuck, when their hearts

are melting within them and they're trying to

figure out what to do to make sure that somebody

is available to tell them about Jesus and to

say to turn. But listen, that message, this message,

everything I'm talking about is too bold. Because

just as the... just the same as these people

who are in that situation need to hear and respond.

There is another situation that people sometimes

find themselves in that they also need to hear.

Generosity, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and

when necessary, self -control, right? The Bible

says about generosity, Proverbs 19, 17, whoever

is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and he

will reward them for what they have done. And

1 John 3, 17 questions how God's love can abide

in someone who has worldly goods but closes their

heart to a brother in need. In Matthew 19, 21,

Jesus tells the rich young ruler to sell his

possessions and give to the poor. That's not

a principle, by the way. You don't have to go

sell everything you own and give it to the poor.

But what is a principle is if your money, if

your generosity is lacking and your money is

standing in the way of you doing what God wants

you to do, then you do need to get rid of it

so you can get right with God. And so Jesus was

saying, let's get ourselves right with God through

him. And then that man could not do that. He

couldn't give up his money. Leviticus 19, 9 -10

and 23 -22 instructs farmers not to harvest the

corners of their field, but leaving a portion

of what they sow for the poor and the sojourner.

Proverbs 31, 8 -9 commands leaders and the fortunate

to speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves

and to defend the rights of the destitute. Proverbs

28 .27 warns of neglect when it says that those

who give to the poor will lack nothing, but those

who close their eyes to them receive many curses.

Generosity is not a check with a big number and

a dollar sign. It's a state of being. Poor men

who have little often give as much as they can

and never miss it, while wealthy men often count

the dollars and cents and fail to give what they

could. It's happened many times that we've ministered

to people on their way down. What do I mean by

that? I mean, I'm talking about people who had

a nice house, cars, family, and they fell for

a scam or they were beset by a huge medical bill.

They were robbed or got addicted to painkillers

after a surgery, which can happen to anybody.

Now they've lost all that prosperity that they

had. See, God has to get his glory, and in order

for God to keep being God, people will endure

hardship on this earth. We are called to consider

it great joy when we face tribulation because

of the fruits that it presents in us. This is

especially true of people that think they have

it all together, people that think that they're

doing well, those who think it's okay to let

someone else handle the day -to -day kingdom

work and kingdom cost. which you've heard about

today, I could not have orchestrated. In my wildest

dreams, I couldn't have done it. I couldn't even

have stood in front of you. I missed 38 days

in my junior year of high school to avoid every

time I was supposed to stand in front of the

class and give a report. My mother didn't mind

if I lied about not going to school, and so I

was sick or hurting. We had to go out of town.

Everything you can imagine to miss every report

in front of class. And they still got me for

one, but I was so badly trembling that the teacher

let me sit in my desk. to give the report. When

God said, you're going to preach the gospel,

I said, no way. A man in my church said, I want

you to preach at the Toledo Gospel Rescue Mission

coming up. I believe God's calling you to do

that. I said, oh, no. He said, you won't even

pray about it. I said, no, I will not. I will

not. I was a young Christian, a year, year and

a half. I said, I will not. There's no way. I

know who I am. I know who God made me to be.

That's definitely not me. I'm not going to do

it. 48 hours, I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat.

I felt sick. I didn't have a fever, but I felt

so terrible. And at the end of 48 hours, I asked

the Lord, I said, is this about that pray thing?

About that preaching thing? And he said, why,

yes, it is. And I said, do you want me to call

him right now? And he said, why, yes, I do. And

I said, and you want me to tell him that I'll

preach? And he said, yes, you will. So I made

the phone call, told him I would preach. I had

no idea what that would look like. When the day

came, I stood up in front of the Toledo Gospel

Rescue Mission with my sermon written out exactly

as I would say every single word on 23 note cards

front and back. And I stood there and I read

them until about the 11th note card. And there

was a guy sitting in the aisle about where you're

sitting and he was falling asleep. And if they

fell asleep, they weren't allowed to eat. And

they had warned me of that. I tried raising my

voice and he didn't respond. And so I took the

last 12 note cards front and back and I went

down and I stood on the aisle in front of him.

about three feet in front of him, and I read

the note cards directly to him so he could stay

awake so he could eat. Now, I've been preaching

for a few years now, almost 20. So that's an

old story. But the bottom line is, what I brought

to this whole program, it wouldn't fill a bucket

of dirt. And if it did, it would be God's dirt,

not mine. If we will take all that we are and

put it into God's hands, he will make of it something

amazing, like a podcast that plays preaching

the gospel. The New Heights podcast, just a little

side note, by the way, the New Heights podcast

is very similar. It also plays in many countries.

In fact, the number one country, Vietnam. More

people listen to my service in Vietnam than come

to my church in a week. I don't get it, except

I do get it. Somebody has to be standing at the

moment in time at which people are confounded,

their hearts are melting in them, and they're

reaching out for money. Somebody who's not a

demon worshiper, somebody who's not a drug dealer

or a gang member will jump them in. Somebody

will not belittle them and tell them how worthless

they are, but somebody who will offer them an

opportunity to turn to God. God chooses to use

us as ministers of reconciliation. Reconciliation

chooses to use us at the moment in time when

men lost in evil would turn to evil for supposed

solution. God would like to use us to present

an alternative. If you're here and you've never

turned to the Lord yourself, even if people thought

you did or whatever, you've never taken, when

I got saved, my wife asked me, the second day

that I refused God after he called me, she said,

I said to her, I think I'm going to accept Jesus

Christ. And she said, well, what does that mean?

I said, to tell you the truth, I really don't

know. I said, but I do know just exactly one

thing. It'll change everything. I said, it's

going to change everything. It'll change who

I am as a man, and if after that you don't want

me, I'm terribly sorry, but I'm going to have

to do it. I'm going to have to live for Jesus.

And in her lost person way, not knowing Jesus

herself, but believing God was some person in

the sky, she said, well, you do what you got

to do, and I'll do what I got to do. And I'm

like... Well, okay, that's what I was going to

do. So we'll see what happens. Praise the Lord.

Two weeks later, she gave her life to the Lord

under the same principle, which was that whatever

God wants to make out of this mess that we are,

that's what it's going to be. Now my wife, praise

the Lord, we give to the ministry and serve in

the ministry and donate in all kinds of crazy

ways that we never expected. But she has a job

which a person cannot have without a master's

degree. This is unheard of. And she's never had

a day of college in her life. So that's how we

survive. I'm not a good fundraiser. So if you're

here today and you feel like the Lord is asking

you, you know, like, hey, give to the life station

or give to some cause that you know of that's

here in your church or give in your community

or step out and work and serve and sweat a little

more and things like that, then definitely do

that, right? Overcome evil with good. I just

keep thinking God's going to provide. And so

far, he always has. I drove here today in a van

that's got 283 ,000 miles on it. And it runs

great. That van was given to me 12 years ago

by a church in Mississippi because my wife needed

a car to get to work. And we didn't have one.

And it's still running, 283 ,000 miles. Since

then, we bought a new, to us, it's a used car,

which she's driving, and now it's reaching 250

,000 miles, and it still runs great. God just,

I believe he's going to take care of it. But

it is our great blessing to realize that he might

choose to make us the person that stands at that

junction. You could later today, you could be

talking to a waitress. I've had it happen. I

went to Tony Paco's, this is my closing story.

I went to Tony Paco's with a couple of guys who

wanted to bring a youth group to Toyota. Met

a waitress there. Her name was Kendra. She's

one of four. In 25 years, she's one of four Kendras

that I can tell you about. I'll just tell you

hers. And she come up to the table and I basically

started talking to her, shared with her about

fear. I'm not a good evangelist either. I just,

like, people, if they start giving me the idea

they want to talk about Jesus, I just kind of,

like, spew all over them. It's not neat. It's

not professional. It's nothing like that. And

I just started sharing the gospel. And she started

crying at the table. And she was bartending and

also waiting on our table. Like, the one section,

they do that. And she had to go and come back

and go and come back. And finally, she stood

at the table at one o 'clock in the afternoon.

These two teenage kids who came with their youth

pastor to find out where they're going to bring

the mission team up. And both of them, and I

didn't know this, but both of the kids were only

Christians for like two months. And she stood

at the table bawling like a baby and gave her

life to Christ. And everybody in the restaurant

looking at her like she's some kind of freak.

I don't know, maybe they were looking at me.

Anyway, the point is, you could be the one. Who

shows up at the moment when they're confounded

and you just need to, whatever you can do, however

you can get it out. Jesus is everything to me.

Just turn to God. Like, how do I turn to God?

Through Jesus. What does that look like? I don't

know, but it'll change everything. You just did

everything you need to do. If you run into somebody

who's stuck in a Catholic religion, for example,

or in another faith where the gospel is... kind

of muddied by a lot of things, then just say,

you need to be born again. You need to have a

fresh start. Did you ever have a fresh start?

Oh, I've been a Christian my whole life. Listen,

if you've been a Christian your whole life, you

ain't saved. Because the Bible says, Jesus said

to Nicodemus, you will be saved when you're born

again. When you have a fresh start. So if you're

here today and you never had a fresh start, get

one here today right now while you're here. And

if you're here today and you did have a fresh

start, I want you to think about how you too

can be involved in overcoming evil with good.

And if that doesn't involve the Southside Life

Station, that's okay. But if it does, we need

all the help we can get. We're moving tens of

thousands of pounds of groceries. That was never

in my plan. I hurt my back a couple years ago.

Now, whenever I lift a can, it doesn't matter

if it's four ounces, I wear a back brace. Like,

I'll pick up one can, I'll put it in my back

brace first, right? Because I learned. And there

is work to be done. And there are people being

reached, and some of them are in Afghanistan.

Which is crazy. You have the details. You can

look at the paper. Thank you very much for having

me today. Let us work together to overcome evil.

Let us work together to overcome evil with good.

Thank you.