Gospel Proclamation at the Everett Train Station

This morning, God gave us the opportunity to enjoy about an hour and a half of beautiful, sunny weather at the Everett Train Station.    I'm surprised that I haven't spent more 'fishing' time there, because as I recall now, the Everett Train Station has been a consistently favorable place to share the Gospel with people.

Three of us (Dennis, Thomas and myself) met at 6:00am in front of the Everett Station, and spent some time in prayer and the Lord was very good to us.   After that we spent a little time in watchfulness to figure out a good location to 'lift up our voices', as it says in Isaiah 58.

We walked out to the island where buses drop off and pick up commuters.   While people wait for their buses, they queue up, in quite an orderly fashion.   We waited for the line to accumulate eight or ten commuters, and we prayerfully stepped up on the box and 'broke the sound barrier'.

Each turn we had on the box, we really only had enough time for one Gospel message to be spoken, before the next bus arrived and the commuters boarded.   It was kind of humorous, that I was interrupted a couple of times by the sound of train bells and buses arriving.   I was blessed though by how gracious the commuters were and how intently they listened.   There were no hecklers, but there was one man who threw down the Gospel tract he was given and grunted loudly as the Gospel was being proclaimed.

It turned out to be an ideal morning and as well as open air preach, we got to talk one-to-one with several people.   I was blessed by a commuter giving me the thumbs up as I explained what it meant to be 'born again', and at another time by a commuter filming me and then giving me the thumbs up as he boarded the bus.   Here's what I had planned to say this morning.   It was tough to say it all because as I got to the Good News portion of my message the bus had arrived and the people were boarding the bus...

As I'm sure, many of you know, on Saturday, May 12th, Everett City Council Member Drew Nielsen died in a rafting accident on the Green River. This past Sunday hundreds of people gathered right here at the Everett Station to honor his life.   I would just pray for comfort and healing for the family and loved ones left behind by his tragic, untimely passing.

This ought to serve to remind us all of our own mortality and that we need to make sure we're ready to meet our Maker at any time.   We all have an appointment with death and after that, comes the judgement.    The Bible says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God”, and it says “the wages of sin is death.”  That’s probably offensive to you and I understand that, so let me rephrase it and put it another way and see what you think.   God created you in His image.  You are a special and valuable creation of God.  As such, since He created you in His image, in some small way you represent Him.   And if you’ve ever lied, you misrepresent Him as a liar.    If you’ve ever stolen anything, you misrepresent Him as a thief.   But it goes even deeper than that, If you’ve used God’s name in vain, you would be a blasphemer, because when you say OMG or GD or use Jesus name to express disgust, you’ve made the name of God who gave you your life and everything that’s good, worthless by dragging His name through the mud... .  Finally, Jesus said you’ve heard it said of old that you shall not commit adultery.  We know adultery is when you cheat on your spouse, and as bad as that is, Jesus said, if you even look at another person, to lust after them, that you have committed adultery already with that person in your heart.   You probably picked up on it, but these were four of the Ten Commandments, and if you admitted to breaking any of them, when you stand before the Judge of the Universe, you’d be guilty, just like the rest of us.  And because you’d be guilty of crimes against a holy and righteous, eternal God, the punishment is an awful and horrible, eternal punishment.   And that’s called Hell and I don’t want that for you, and God certainly doesn’t want that for anyone.

That was the “Bad News”, now I want to sum up the the Gospel, or the Good News of what God did for us guilty sinners, so we wouldn’t have to suffer the punishment for our sins.

1 Corinthians 15:3-4: Jesus Christ died for our sins fulfilling what had been written about Him in the Scriptures.   He was buried in a tomb, but he was raised from the dead on the third day fulfilling what had been written beforehand.

Romans 6:23b  "...But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord."

Romans 5:8,  "God demonstrated His love for us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us!"

Romans 10:13  "Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved!"

Romans 10:9,10  "...If you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your heart that God raised Jesus from the dead, you shall be saved; for with the heart one believes, unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

John 3:16: For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever would believe (trust, rely upon) on Him, will not perish, but have everlasting life.


God bless...