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You Will Want To Hear These Stories · Bible Tract Echoes Podcast

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hey friend, I'm Mike McCurray, this is Bible-tracked Echoes.
• 0:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for listening.
• 0:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: We've had a wonderful time all this week on the program.
• 0:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have Pastor Dennis Leatherman joining us and he has shared some excellent tips and things about obstacles that hinder our Christian walk and witness.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: And today, he's going to conclude that, and if we have time, maybe share a couple of track stories.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you missed any of the previous episodes this week, make sure you go back and find them on YouTube, and you can see our smiling faces, or you can go find them in the podcast archive as well.
• 0:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: Just search for a Bible track echoes on your favorite podcast player, or the leatherman taken away.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: Tell us about a few more obstacles to witnessing.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: OK, and I just want to take one moment briefly.
• 0:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you, Brother McCurray, for the opportunity with you.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: I thank God for your ministry and your leadership thoroughly enjoyed the time down in New Zealand, Australia, and I really learned to appreciate you a lot, and we've always loved Bible tracks incorporated.
• 1:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, as far as obstacles to soul wedding, let me give you two more real quick.
• 1:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: And this one is a little sober, but again, I think it's a very real, I put it this way.
• 1:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: We lose the reality of hell, and, you know, we just forget what the Bible teaches about this subject of hell.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know it's not very popular in Christianity today, and, you know, a lot of our churches want to try and avoid.
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: some of these disturbing doctrines, but nevertheless it's there, you know, Jesus spoke more about hell than he did about heaven.
• 1:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Statistically, he gave some disturbing details about it, and I'll be very honest with you, Brother McCurray.
• 1:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the one teaching and scripture that bothers me, me the most.
• 1:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, I dislike the concept of a person dying going to hell for all eternity without escape.
• 1:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's very disturbing, but nevertheless, it's a biblical truth, it's reality.
• 2:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think sometimes we just lose that fact.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everybody we meet, everybody in the world is going to spend eternity somewhere.
• 2:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: The Lord Jesus Christ is a determining factor, whether it's heaven or hell.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: William Booth, founder of a Salvation Army, somebody to ask him what the best training for his workers is as far as winning souls, and he made something a statement to this long, along these lines, this is a direct quote.
• 2:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: But he says that he would, he would like for them to spend five minutes in hell.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said that would make all of us avid soul winners.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he elaborated a little bit there, more than a Bible education, more than conferences.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, more than all these things we try to do to start people go soul winning.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Five minutes in hell would make every one of us an avid soul winner.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know there in Luke.
• 2:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: Jesus described the rich man in hell and one of his first requests was of course he asked for drop a water but then he said send someone tell my brothers send a soul winner by and he saw the reality of it and it burdened him for others and you know of course for him was too late but what's not too late for us so that reality can stir us and
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And challenge us to overcome the fear, you know, of a house's burning and somebody's trapped in there.
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm scared of that to go in, but the value of that person inside there and their life helps me overcome that fear, get in there and get them out.
• 3:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Same thing with witnessing.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So to lose the reality of hell is sometimes as an obstacle, we got to keep that fresh.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now we don't want to be morbid about it and dwell on it.
• 3:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, it's not something we rejoice in, certainly.
• 3:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It breaks our hearts, but nevertheless, it can, if we forget about that reality, then we'll lose our passion for winning the loss.
• 3:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then let me give you one more, again, following us a little ration, but a lack of love for the Lord.
• 3:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, I don't mean to be
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Rebuke anybody or anything, we all deal with this, but in John chapter 14, Jesus made a series of statements that ought to challenge us to evaluate, do I really love the Lord and have so how much?
• 4:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: How does it affect my love for the Lord?
• 4:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: How does it affect my life and my obedience?
• 4:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: In verse number 15, He says, if you love me, keep my commandments.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, down then he comes down verse 21 of John 14 he says he that half my commandments and keep with them.
• 4:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: He it is that love with me.
• 4:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, verse 23, if a man love me, he will keep my words verse 24, he that love with me not keep it not my sayings.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: and then verse 31 he says this but that the world may know that I love the father as the father has as the father gave me commandments even so I do.
• 4:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the Lord say and listen if you love me you we're saying oh how I love Jesus we sing these songs we express our love for the Lord you know we ask folks how many people here love the Lord our hands go up and that's good
• 5:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: But that love, if that's genuine, then that's going to prompt us to do what the Lord instructs us to do.
• 5:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Man, I'm telling you, the heart of God is the salvation of the lost.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: We just build a new activity center here at our church, and we're very grateful for it.
• 5:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's been a blessing.
• 5:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're using it, trying to use it for God's glory.
• 5:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you know, God's more concerned about souls being saved than buildings being put up.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if we love him, we share his heart.
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love my wife, and things that are important to her become important to me.
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Things that she is concerned about become concerns of mine.
• 5:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I love my Lord.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love my Savior, and because I love him, then what concerns him concerns me.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what is a burden of his, and it becomes a burden of mine.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: A desire of his becomes a desire of mine.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so, falling back in love with the Lord, we need revival.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Our church is praying for revival in our churches.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're so concerned for our country, our world.
• 6:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I believe the answer is revival in our churches.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: More so than our capitals and our state houses is getting falling back in love with the Lord in our churches.
• 6:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that'll prompt us to give that track down.
• 6:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love the Lord.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to give that track down.
• 6:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to talk to this person about the Lord.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to share my testimony.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: you know, so a lack of love for the Lord.
• 6:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: I believe if we love the Lord and we have a genuine burden and desire to see souls say we're going to figure out a way to get the gospel to him.
• 6:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: A genuine burden will produce creativity.
• 6:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: A number of years ago, I was asked, I was with an organization that worked with people who were on their deathbeds, really, they were
• 6:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they asked me one time they called and said, well, you go visit Mr. Soinso.
• 6:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, sure, they said he doesn't have a church.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: He doesn't have a pastor, but the families concerned for his spiritual well-being.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Would you go see him?
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, sure, I'd be glad to.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I actually knew some of the family from our bus ministry, and they knew me.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I went down and knocked on door.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: and son came and I knew the son he knew me his kids wrote our bus I said I said he's hey pastor Leatherman I said hey I've here to see your daddy I was asked to visit me because hold on let me go back and check if it's okay so you went to the back room came back out he says daddy said you don't want to see no preacher you want no preachers coming around he's a he's a rough you know
• 7:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said, all right, man, I got burdened for this guy.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I knew the family, I knew he was laws, drank heavily, just rough.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I went home, I was praying, there's so went by.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: I told my wife, I said, would you make a couple dozen cookies?
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: chocolate chip cookies make them for me she's okay she made them up so she put them in a bag and I headed down to visit this fellow and I left the house with two dozen cookies I arrived with one dozen at his house some happened in between there I don't know but anyway not gonna door his son comes the door I said he's oh pass over
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, listen, don't tell your daddy the preachers here.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just tell him one of the volunteers is here and he's got chocolate chip cookies.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said, he said, all right, so I'm back, came back out.
• 8:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Daddy said, come on in.
• 8:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I went in there and sat down beside had the bed was there.
• 8:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: If I remember right, there was a whiskey bottle, sat in the bottle of the bed, beside the wall.
• 8:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we're talking about bed, we're eating cookies.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And finally I said, I said, I got to be honest with you.
• 8:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm actually the preacher that came by the other day.
• 8:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, ah, you know, he starts letting me know what he thought.
• 8:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: make a long story short, I'd be friend of them, and he let me have prayer with them.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I started this process of going down, finally he got where he let me share the gospel with him.
• 9:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I told him how to be safe, very thoroughly, from scripture.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he would not trust Christ, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah.
• 9:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: One day I get a call, he's in the hospital.
• 9:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Dr. Sett, he's not going to live through the 90s unconscious.
• 9:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: The boy called me, he said, can you come up here?
• 9:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Just anything you can do.
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: That he needs to be saved.
• 9:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's it, okay.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I pray the whole way up to the hospital.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I say, Lord, wake him up.
• 9:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: God, please, just wake him up for five minutes that I can one more time.
• 9:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I get up there at hospital.
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: The room was full of family.
• 9:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: They made a path I got in there by the bed.
• 9:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Lo and behold, the guy's sitting up.
• 9:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Why do I sit and up in the bed?
• 9:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And finally, I said his name, and I said, listen, it's time.
• 9:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: We can't play around with this anymore.
• 9:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to be saved or it's too late.
• 9:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: I said, well, you let me show you one more time, because yeah, I went, got my Bible out, went through the plan of salvation.
• 9:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I said his name, and I said, it's now or never.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You don't get saved now.
• 9:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's not going to happen.
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the old boy bowed his head and trusted Christ, the Savior right there.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: He ended up living two, three, and four months.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, there was a change in life.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The whiskey body was gone, whiskey bottle was gone.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: He'd take God's name and me and he'd get talking and take God's name and he'd mock me and he'd catch himself and say, oh, I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he'd say, God, please forgive me.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I shouldn't have said that.
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And you know, he wasn't what we picture an ideal Christian after that, but I'm telling you, he was a new man.
• 10:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: His life was changed.
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: power of the gospel and just saying I'm not going to let this guy get away without sharing the gospel with them.
• 10:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: One other real quick, I think we have a couple minutes, there's a fell in our church and got stirred up about sharing his faith and winning others.
• 10:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: He drove it delivery truck and I don't know how it is where you're at but we have a lot of construction around here.
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: and he came up to a job construction site and there's a fellow holding that little sign there stops low until he stopped and he's the first in line and he had gotten this brilliant idea as hot summer day and he got a bunch of Coca-Cola soda pops and he kept him in the cooler and he put a rubber band around him with a gospel track on him.
• 11:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so he pulled up and that guy's there and he waved him over to the truck and he said here, here's a little something for you kind of cool you off.
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So he gave him a cold soda pop and had a gospel track on it and he said that little track there, I'll tell you how you know you go to heaven when you die and not go to hell.
• 11:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: In thing much of it, two three months went by, it's later and the summary comes up to another construction site.
• 11:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Loan behold, he's the first guy.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Loan behold, it's the same signholder standing there.
• 11:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: And the guy says something to the effect.
• 11:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ask him, can I leave a little gospel track with you?
• 11:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: The signholder said to the guy in my church.
• 11:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: He goes, yeah, he says, you're the one I gave it to a few months ago.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: He goes, yeah, I took that thing home, I got saved.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I wrote to the place on the back of the track.
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: They sent me a whole bunch.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now I'm giving them out.
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wow.
• 12:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm telling you, you just step out, you know, and just use your creativity a little bit and God will use anybody.
• 12:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: That'll just say, here I am, Lord, use me, show me and step out and faith and determine to win others.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Brother Leatherman, thank you so very much for joining us.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: If you enjoy Brother Leatherman contact us, let us know.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'd love to send a couple of notes to you, Brother Leatherman, and let you know how much people appreciate it.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: But if you're listening right now, do not let these obstacles keep you from being a witness.
• 12:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Make sure you tune in next week to the Bible-checked Echo's radio program.
• 12:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you so much for being a listener today and this week.
• 12:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: My prayer is always is that you have a great day for his glory.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: We'll talk to you very soon.
• 12:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: God bless.
• 13:13
  [UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
• 13:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for tuning in to Bible Tract Echoes, the radio ministry of Bible Tracts Incorporated.
• 13:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Want to see our gospel tracks and other resources?
• 13:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Visit us online at BibleTracksInk.org that's BibleTracksInk.org or follow us on social media to learn how you can partner with this ministry.
• 13:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thanks again for listening.
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: May the Lord richly bless you as you live for Him.