God's Purpose For The Church

...who exists in unapproachable light. Lord, precious God on high, guardian of our souls, captain, host, we bless you, Lord, and we give to you, my God, this final session. Grateful that you're both an Omega, how does it go, an Alpha and an Omega. So you've been a wonderful Alpha, and we look to you for your Omega conclusion. You know what needs to be touched, what needs to be asserted, what needs to be understood. So we look to you, my God, for the redemption of this time. That you're able both to provoke our questions and to give your answers. Give us a precious and full time, my God, we pray, orchestrated and ordained of you, and your so great and impeccable wisdom and love. Thank you, Lord. So we stand at the brink of something, a threshold of not knowing, and we are confident, confident, Lord, our faith has grown day by day as we have seen you unfold your great heart and mind. And that you're consistent and can't be other than what you are in yourself. Utterly faithful. So come, my God, and win a last admiration from your saints, and that we break through like water brought to a boil that has been cooking and heating, and this final last administration will bring us to the boil of adoration. So we thank you, my God. Bless your name, receive our gratitude, have your way. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. I did compose just a paragraph or two when I got back to my room last night just to tidy up from that last message that I think to share with you that may be helpful to bring clarity. And this is that statement, the Church has broken through finally, here's Psalm 102, in her own preoccupation with herself as a false center. How's that for an opening statement? Her preoccupation with herself as a false center. It's remarkable how we can move from carnality to spirituality, but it still pertains to us. Our feeling, our blessing, our enjoyment is just as deadly an egocentrism as what we had practiced when we were in the world. Then it was our pleasure, our amusement, our lust. Now it's our spirituality, our enjoyment of the faith, even the Word or the worship. So to break out from that deadly egocentrism that is not in of itself necessarily met through salvation or coming into the Church, we can bring it in to our Christian life. And it's all the more dangerous because it parades as spirituality. Spirituality, in my opinion, is the last hiding place of self. If it will not find any other place and you've been disabused of pornography or whatever it was that caught you up in the world, if it has no other place, it will hide in spirituality and encourage you in that, so long as you are the center of your spiritual preoccupation. I hope you're understanding that. It takes the crisis of Israel, see how God's all-wise provision to necessarily break us out from that last stronghold of self, of egocentrism. The Church has broken through finally in her own preoccupation with herself as a false center in and by its final ability to identify with a fallen Israel in her judgment. That having mercy on her stones and compassion on her dust is the evidence of that breakthrough, of the final coming through into full identity with the Lord. But nothing would have provoked it but the crisis of Israel. To identify with a fallen Israel in her judgment. Not when she's at her best, when she's at her worst. Until the same love by which God loved us while we were yet enemies, while, sorry, identifying with a fallen Israel in her judgment, with the same love by which God loved us while we were yet enemies. We're doing to Israel what he has done for us. He loved us while we were unattractive, he loved us when we were in judgment, when we were in sin, while we were yet enemies, he loved us. His love did not wait till we graduated, his love met us in that condition. And when we will relate to Israel in exactly that way, while they are still enemies, we will be replicating and expressing the very nature of God which is his love. When he has that, he has a people. When he has a people like that, he has a bride. Replicating God not through imitation but through union. You can't play at this. This can't be the plate that you hit and it registers a thud. This is the plate that is authentic because it's in union with him. It's his sound that reverberates. His purpose for the church now being fulfilled, which is obtaining a bride for the bridegroom, he can now turn his full attention to deliver Israel before the face of all nations. Now he can come out from Zion to be Israel's deliverer. And that deliverance is so profound, so utterly supernatural. Israel is in such a condition of captivity and literally in dungeons and in chains that the cries of the despairing rise up, that his answer cannot be other than utterly supernatural. It is the demonstration of himself. And as Israel is proliferated throughout the nations in that condition of bondage and final captivity for which there's no human hope. See, Israel has got to be brought to the place where there's no human hope. That's where I was brought 41 years ago. There was no human hope. I had been a humanist, Marxist, existentialist, and none of those things could answer for the predicament in which I found myself. And then the Lord came forth as Lord. The critical point was aboard the deck of a tramp steamer on my way from Italy to Greece reading a New Testament for the first time and in the Gospel of John, the woman taken in the act of adultery. And I was afraid to read on. Jesus was caught, trapped. What can he say? He had said he had come to fulfill the law. The law was death by stoning for an adulterer. I knew that it was legally and technically correct, but my heart was yearning for some deeper answer because I myself was an adulterer. I was caught in the act by identifying with this woman and her predicament. And so here I'm reading a New Testament for the first time. I'm a Jewish atheist. This Jesus, remarkable figure, not at all what had been commended to me secondhand. To go directly to the source, which I used to commend to my students as a history teacher, I myself had never done. Now I'm at the source. Jesus is caught. He made this remarkable statement. Now they caught the woman. Now he's finished. What is he going to say? I'm going to lose another Jewish hero. One more Karl Marx down the tube. One more Jung, not Jung, Freud. These Jewish culture heroes, one by one, have toppled. So here's another one. What can he say? I put my finger in the book. I thought, well, Katz, you're clever. What answer? Think of an answer. I racked my brain from one end to the other, and finally I came to this conclusion, to which I had to come. There was no human answer for the predicament in which Jesus is. And so kind of expecting the worst, which means my death by stoning of judgment, and my heart beating, palpitating, my hand was sweating. There was no little academic thing for me. I was caught in the very predicament of that woman. And I'm reading on, Jesus bent over the dirt, poking his finger in the earth, and these men circled around about him with their eyes blazing, waiting for the kill. This is it, to finish him off, this disturber of their peace and their system. I know it was not because they were Jewish. It was because they were religious, and what he represented was the most profound threat. And so then I'm reading, and he speaks, Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. When that line came up into my eye's brain and down into my heart, I was like a sword. The word was like the sword I was cut into. I was a trembling thing, and I knew that I knew in that moment there's a living God. I'm reading his word. This is beyond human answer, and it came out of the mouth of Jesus. It must be who he is. But I didn't shout Hallelujah for that revelation. I received it as the power of revelation because my first thought was, What will your mother say about this? And she did. We Jews, who are emblematic of the entire world, we Jews are man personified. We are the summation of the human condition, and that's why every great issue has to pass through us because it's being performed for the benefit of all mankind. You need to understand that. So our sins are as devious and as terrible as all of mankind's. So we have got to be brought to a place where there's no human answer. For if there's a human answer, we will find it. We've got the whatchamacallits, and we'll strain. Look at Israel now. That the same guy who had seen to the establishment of these settlements is now the one who is dismembering them. He's being turned inside out. Why? The nature of the time and the events have made him to reverse himself. So the cleverness that prevailed at one occasion is now being totally undone in a paradox of contradiction to which men come when they're trying to live and solve and establish themselves independent of God. We need to appreciate the paradox of Israel and its struggle as being the last death gasp of man and that there's no shortcut. They have got to live it out to the full until they themselves come to the place, inveterate humanists to the end, believing in man to the end, that man is the measure of all things, to come to the place where they can say, we are at an end. And that's what we read in Ezekiel 37 where they themselves say, we are cut off, we are without hope, we are as dry bones. Anyone who knows anything about Jewish history knows this. That national statement has not yet been made in the whole tragic history of the Jewish people. Even the Nazi Holocaust did not elicit and evoke, we are cut off, we are without hope, we are as dry bones. What came out of the Nazi Holocaust? Never again. Still, as much as they were reduced, still a belief that they by their own shoe, what do they call it, straps, can lift themselves up and out and come out of the camps with the concentration camp numbers on their arms and within a decade they have their homes and garages and kids going to private schools and they take a malarial swampland that has been abandoned, except for some scurvy few for centuries and make it the state that it is today. Only Jews. So for them to bite the dust, to acknowledge that they are at the end of themselves as man and that they must come to an end when they seek to establish themselves without God, especially as a people called to be the witness to God, how far must God go to reduce them? And that's what we're seeing now. So, we're going to be the set time that has come when we ourselves as the church have come to the end of our humanisms. Maybe the last humanism is, as I mentioned, sentimentality, false spirituality, imitation. Pseudo-saints who look like but are not have the appearance of but are not the real thing and when the thud of the requirements of the last days come, it will be an embarrassing dull thud and not the resonance of God. What is the real thing? There's only one real thing that's authentic, it's very God himself. And what God has always wanted, was always his intention, not that we should copy or imitate him, the imitation of Jesus, but to be in him and be in union with him through and through so that we say with the great apostle, for us to live is Christ. But you know how hard it is to give up the ghost. We want somehow to persist and to continue if there's any figment of hope and succeed on our own basis. After all, we've done so admirably up till now. But here's the final requirement for which your admirable self-sufficiency will not prevail. In that crisis of Israel, you'll find it collapsed. You'll not be able to be to them what you ought. You may show some measure of human sympathy but even that will be beggared by the demand that Israel will represent in her last days' conduct and being. But to have mercy upon her stones, compassion on her dust, is the ultimate statement that you have come to the place in God where his very heart for them is your heart. Because the last things have been brought to death that have stood between you and total union with himself. If there's so much as one strand of our humanity still operative, the union is prevented. It waits for a total death for total life. So his purpose for the church now being fulfilled, he can turn his full attention to deliver Israel before the face of all nations. That's how remarkable a deliverance it will be, causing the nations to fear the name of the Lord and to bow before his majesty which now is visible and appears in his glory in the building up of Zion. Zion is taken out from veritable death and made to be extolled before all nations. Let this be recorded for all generations, the text told us, for there will not be another time. This is the end of history. And that which has got to prevail millennially and eternally has got to be effected now in this last and final act in history which is the restoration of Israel through the church coming of age and the demonstration of God's grace and power visible to the nations so that they themselves come under his dominion and their kingdoms are submitted to him and that all the earth rejoices and celebrates and praises the one God. That's the end of history. So what an end it is that all future generations yet unborn will have grounds to praise the Lord just rehearsing the drama of the ages and its conclusion. It is that mighty. He has risen up through his servant people to have compassion on Zion who are joined in him and in his risen life whose essential nature is mercy and unconditional love. The union of the church with him, with himself is the issue of Israel's redemption. That constitutes the set time that has come and therefore the blessing to all nations and the procurement of a bride for the bridegroom unto dominion over all creation for he must have a co-regent or he cannot have dominion. It was given to them. The pattern is Adam and Eve in the garden at the beginning of human history and the end is the greater Adam with his bride over the Eden, the creation that will blossom in this final consummation. So that what was lost in the garden which was dominion is now eternally obtained by the bride fitted for the bridegroom, adorned for the bridegroom having the glory of God which is to say having his very nature. Brought to bridal exaltation by the reiteration of the bridegroom's own priestly self-sacrifice for Israel. That attitude toward Israel in her abject fallen condition where her cities are reduced to stubble, ruin and dust that evokes not happy malicious glee but compassionate identification is the statement of God as God and all the world will recognize it. Okay. I just had to go on record to clinch the difficulty of that text last night because it is a great eschatological song remarkably so far in advance of events that are yet future, that the Holy Spirit can inspire a psalmist to set before us a statement of that kind that describes his first abject condition in concentration camps where their daily mocked and taunted and their skin sticks to their bones and they feel isolated and all the rest is so graphic that it took the Nazi Holocaust even to give us conditions by which we can understand what is being described. And if we are essentially right that this trouble that is ahead will exceed all previous trouble, which means that the fatalities will be greater than the Nazi time and that the ratio of survival in Jerusalem will be the ratio of survival in the world, two-thirds perishing one-third passing through the fire we're talking about the decimation of ten million Jews in a three and a half year period and there's no way that that can take place without concentration camps, without systematic annihilation, without factories of death of the kind that Auschwitz and Birkenau was by the Germans. So this description of Jews in a camp crying out as we read is very apt, but in the camp and in other conditions the Jews themselves are coming to a new acknowledgement my God the inmate cries out, my God and you will endure, I'm dust, I will evaporate, I'm a vapor, but you will endure forever and your name will be exalted, show me a Jew today whoever even begins to think in those terms it's as far removed from Norman Polowitz's consideration as anything it will take the adversity of this ultimate kind to compel and break out of our humanist bonds into the first crying out and recognition of a God whose name is above every other consideration and that he will endure while we vaporize that's the beginning of Jews being Jews so at the same time that Jews are coming to this new consciousness, it's the same time that the church is coming into its final consummation of being an identity with the Lord in his essential nature isn't that remarkable, the tandem two things coming together at the same time, which I suggested for the first time that revival in New Zealand will be sparked by the Israel passing through in judgment that the one will trigger the other, so it's not past the Lord to do simultaneous things of an opposite kind by the playing of one factor against another there's a word for that it's dialectical this is dialectical the playing of one thing against another to produce a new thing it's the dialectic of history okay now we're ready I think, questions I've been told that some people have already been murmuring and expressing something about the rapture what about the rapture well I'll make a little statement, I'm no authority on this subject, nor on any of the questions that you're likely to raise, but my own attitude if you have curiosity is I am a post-rapturist there's a rapture, there is a rising from the earth at the Lord's appearing, but for me it's not a secret appearing that I don't see in Scripture it's the one appearing when He comes to set His feet on the Mount of Olives and to deal with those nations that are destroying Israel and to be revealed to Israel as its Messiah when we shall see Him whom we have pierced, that when He comes those that are asleep in Christ rise first and those that what's the next part, those that remain, those that remain implying that they are barely themselves surviving, they're alive, but they remain but they themselves have been subject to a persecution, and they follow those who are asleep in Christ those who have not been in Christ do not rise, till a thousand years later, in my opinion for the general resurrection of all the dead, then the books are open to see if one's name is in the Book of Life, but to be in Christ and rise in His appearing is to rule and reign with Him for a thousand years it doesn't end with a thousand years but we're given the privilege of the initiation of His everlasting Kingdom in that first thousand year period to honor those who have been in Christ, that is to say have remained faithful, are identified, and are in union with Him even up to their death they rise first it's interesting that the whole rapture theory if I can put it that way, is not part of the classic doctrine of the Church the early Church never subscribed to such a view it's only about 150 years old it began with a prophecy by a woman in Scotland that was taken up by I forgot the fellow's name and then later found its way into the Schofield edition of the Bible and became almost like an indisputable article of faith, that if you take issue with it, you're somehow debating the foundations of the fundamental doctrines it took place at a time when there was not the revelation of Israel that you have been hearing from me in these days that means it took place in a kind of abstract environment that left out the most cogent factor that distinguishes the Church in the last days its relationship with Israel so if Israel is going to go through a time of tribulation, and be uprooted, and sifted through the nations, who shall receive them if the Church is absent from the earth, because it says in Revelation that the woman, Israel will be given wings and will fly into a wilderness where a place has been prepared for her, and where she will be fed so it raises logistical questions, how can 15 million Jews uprooted throughout the world sifted through nations be accommodated and met, unless there are these places prepared in the wilderness where they are fed and fed not only food, but fed also spiritually, give an explanation because a woman said to me, Art why should this flight and this expulsion be different than any other, because expulsion has always been the consequence of Israel's sin expulsion and flight, so what makes this one different, and if they return will there not be a future expulsion, why is this the final one, good question and my answer in part was because this time unlike any previous time they will be received while in flight by a prophetic people who can give them explanation and understanding for the cause of their dispersal and that will be a factor in returning to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads, because now it is made understandable they see their plight in the context of God's theocratic coming and rule and his last days dealing with his own people and so that has never before been a provision that Israel has known in flight so here for me is another reason why the church must be present there's no way to accommodate those millions except that there's a place prepared in the wilderness and then I'm suspicious of a desire to flee, to escape I don't want to escape I want to be where the action is I want to participate in God's last days purposes because my whole history till now is preparation for that it's for that purpose that we have come to be absent at the golden hour when the church reveals itself so brilliantly in the character of God that the nations themselves are persuaded of the truth of the God of Israel I don't want to be absent for that so as a last thing I would say I'm suspicious of a whole theory predicated on a carnal desire to flee, to escape to avoid the difficulties the tensions, the demands of the last days, so putting that all together I would say are the reasons why I do not subscribe to a pre-tribulation rapture because the tribulation is our purification it's not a judgment for us it's a fire of cleansing and of purging of the last carnalities and subtleties of soul that have kept us from this union. You see how the multi-purposes of God are served by a time of tribulation so I hope that's in some way helpful okay, what questions do you have? I think what it means that scripture is blessed as he that is part of the first resurrection at the end of that period I'm just trying to see how that scripture relates to it, that's all it says it says blessed as he takes part in the first resurrection why? why is he blessed? because he rises with the Lord's appearing to take place in the government of creation the high honor and privilege of having a place in the economy of God in the kingdom that has now come, in which we will rule and reign with him as overcoming sons, those that did not overcome, who chose a lesser place, who played it safe who are unwilling for the risks of faith and identification with the Lord and his purposes will sleep. There will be a general resurrection of all the dead a thousand years later they sleep through the formation of the kingdom and have missed the privilege and the honor of being formative in its establishment and it's a moot question that even if their name is found in the book of life a thousand years later will they have a place in that kingdom? in terms of its government yes, they'll be submitted to it they'll be in the kingdom, so to speak as citizens, but will they have the role, the place of honor in the administration of the kingdom and we need to change our brain boxes kingdom and theocracy is not human government this is not bureaucracy this is not stuffing your pockets or handling papers or routine to govern and rule with God is to administer his wisdom his kindness, his understanding to mankind that they might come to the place of sanity and health and righteousness that God intends for all his creatures see what I mean? so even the word government needs to be made virginal it needs to be washed from its tainted association with the way in which men have governed, full of ambition, self-aggrandizement the government of God is holy, holy, holy and it is unspeakable privilege to have part in its formation and then Paul says some will rule over five cities, some over ten what is he saying? we will not all occupy the same role what will differentiate us? the issue of our character our history and how we have been obedient in this life will have fitted us for the degree to which we will be allowed to rule some over five cities, some over ten remember in Corinthians where two believers were going to the court of law to resolve a difference between them and Paul was staggered what are you guys doing? you're going to the world's court to resolve a difference between you as believers you would be better to be defrauded allow yourself to be defrauded but don't bring an issue between yourselves as believers to the world don't you know he said you're going to rule over nations and over powers what are you doing now going to the world's court when you yourself are being groomed to be judges Paul's mentality is precious he knew and so he's grooming the church for that eternal role and Paul himself is eternally minded and he sees this life as preparation for that which we have not yet come we have been too much stuck in this world and in time and we've lost the true and essential focus that would distinguish us as God's people who already have a look of eternity in their eyes who already are preparing and look at this life not as the thing in itself but the preparation for that which is to come see so let's shift gears and come into that and be insistent that we will be part of that first resurrection and not miss it because we are in Christ okay, good question, good thought next yeah can I ask to have a heart for the fleeing Jews and that great persecution I don't know any Jews I probably won't but to prepare is it fair to think that that God's preparation of my heart to be ready to receive them is about how we care for the unlovely and the destitute now even though they may not be Jews is that how God is that's good, a wonderful clue for that is in Matthew 25 when Jesus is now seated as king the end has come and he's exercising his first judgment in sifting the nations the Gentiles and separating the sheep from the goats over one question what did you do for the least of my brethren and both who say lord the wicked who did nothing call him lord, when did we see you naked thirsty as you did not do it for at least you did not do it for me depart into the lake of fire prepared for the devil for his angels it's a harsh eternal judgment but for those that do extend mercy they say the same thing when did we see you naked thirsty we did not realize that when we were extending mercy to this bedraggled people that it was unto you so the issue was not even the recognition of the significance of Jews but he says okay you righteous receive now the reward prepared for you enter the kingdom so the issue is not necessarily the recognition of Jews as Jews or our attitude because we have a special sympathy for Jews the issue is more properly our righteousness in other words our righteousness will not allow us to do anything other or be other to a people in ultimate distress than to extend mercy whether they're Jews or you see what I mean righteousness demands alleviating suffering even at the cost of some peril to ourselves we cannot bear to see someone thirsty and naked and destitute and beaten and not extend mercy righteousness that is our union with the lord compels us to that line of conduct whatever the cost I often give as illustration before I was even yet saved here's a little glimpse coming back to America from Germany where I'd been for almost two years in the army on a troop train to Bremerhaven where we were then put on ships to come back to the states and every soldier was drunken, carousing and noisy we were in those compartments and I'm sitting I'm having a love affair with a woman I'm going soon to marry which is my first tragedy in fact it's the tragedy that precipitated me into the kingdom marrying a schizophrenic German woman who had been part of the Hitler Youth and that in the frenzy of her own broken personality she lashed out an anti-semitism under my own roof because I didn't know those things but I'm brooding I know that I've met a woman there's something fated that will take place I can't stand this noise these men are carrying on raucously nonsensically idiotically and at a certain point I reached a point where a condition of existence is intolerable that whatever the cost it must be contended against and not be allowed to continue and so I got up I went to the guy who had the bottle didn't look to see what his size was because I knew it was going to end in fisticuffs but I could not tolerate that this thing should go on this maddening noise I went to this guy grabbed the bottle opened the window threw it out on the tracks shut the window and turned to face him whether he's 250 pounds or the heavyweight champion of the United States Army it didn't matter if my nose was mashed it didn't matter if I was killed righteousness required an act and that's what it will be for us that was my conduct as an unbeliever the remarkable thing was that those men were so stunned by my conduct that though the guy got up to face me and I stood and I faced him without a word he backed off he sat down and they were quiet all the rest of the trip righteousness prevailed righteousness exalts a nation and I often quote that to unbelieving people I quoted it to the head of the Supreme Court of Tanzania in one of my early trips to Africa where I spoke on an open field where they made a rickety platform I was sure it was going to collapse and you can hear the noise from the discotheques of the other end of the field and I'm speaking about the Ethiopian eunuch the first African to be baptized to receive the word and I came down from that rickety platform my man says in the crowd I would love for you to speak to my employer I said gladly who's your employer she's the chief justice of the Supreme Court the next day I'm walking into the home of the chief justice of the Supreme Court and I as I come under the archway the Lord reads that scripture righteousness exalts a nation and sin is a shame for any people and so when we sat down I expounded that verse to her and I said to her your drought and corruption and bribery and violence under your own rule because the colonial British rule has been expelled is the statement of your lack of righteousness the fact that you have confiscated the properties owned by white people through your government does not make it righteous it is still robbery even though it's been sanctioned through law and therefore you're suffering drought I said the answer for Tanzania as for all African nations righteousness exalts a nation the word exalt means prosper so you don't even have to be a believer God so loves righteousness he will prosper it and he prospered it in that train compartment and he will prosper it when our righteousness compels us to be to the Jews what we ought even though we don't at that moment recognize that they are the least of these as brethren see what I mean it will not be the shabby sentimentality that we think that they're cute the kind of thing that now characterizes the charismatic attitude toward Israel and the Jew which will suffer terrible disappointment and I'm expecting that those who now are at that level of superficiality will be betrayed and reveal the very opposite of what they're now expressing they will be the ones most vicious in their disappointment with an Israel that has failed to fulfill their romantic expectation sometimes we get that within the church toward ministers if we don't fulfill their romantic expectation of what they think a prophet is or a pastor is and then we react with anger in our disappointment that's why I prayed this morning may the Lord disabuse us of our sentimental if not our romantic notions that we might be realistic in our expectations and know that even his choicest saints have clay feet they're also flesh and blood like us we and we need they need prayer more than others because they are assailed by the powers of darkness you can imagine if the powers of darkness can bring me down through moral failure, collapse, what that would mean for the church and those who have been encouraged by my ministry and that would be a feather in the enemy's cap how will it be prevented? Not by my virtue but by your prayers to keep them and preserve them watch over him because he's mocked the enemy would love to do him in and silence that voice and silence that perspective ok I'd like to ask you something personal I'd like to ask you something personal and as a Jewish person I cannot get out of it without bringing something personal in here without getting something personal I need to take something in my pocket before I get out of here you see I'm a Jew I I'm a new believer but all my life I've had a very deep desire for a spiritual lifestyle when I've met Yeshua through an old person on a very spontaneous occasion it happened 8 months ago and I was very stunned to hear about the power of Yeshua and when I came here I thought I heard about you from this gentleman in here, from Alistair and when I met you please let me tell you I'm being nice for a second I find you a very very handsome man and I find you, I'm very proud of you and what really attracts me about you is that you are a Jew in my journey in New Zealand being a Messianic I didn't meet much Jews but I've met a lot in the Messianic congregation who would like to be a Jew and I never said it before but when I've met you I've put to you a point personally and told you that I think that I'm cursed and I told you what was the height of the matter during the 3 nights in here I've told others that I've got a problem but I did not tell them specifically what the problem is I don't understand the idea of deeming and the idea of this evil that might seek and live into my heart which I don't want, please believe me I don't want that, I want to go to the path of the kingdom because I believe that I have a potential to might do something for myself, my people and the ones around me I I'd like to ask you without being specific to give me some time to push out that problem that I have and I understand that I need to be baptized you have told me that I have to admit I don't quite understand the concept very well as being from Israel, for me still it's still a symbol, I love the Lord and I believe that people do empower the Holy Spirit and I can tell that you are please can you do something for me? I think it might be helpful for you, sit down especially as a Jewish believer to see the prototype of baptism in the experience of Israel coming out of Egypt, in which Paul speaking to Corinthians who are Greek Gentiles said our fathers he's saying to Gentiles that Moses and that generation are your kin now that you've come into the family of God, but our fathers he said were baptized unto Moses both in the sea and in the cloud that is to say that the coming out of Egypt had to be accompanied by a separation that could only be affected by passing through water their passing through the sea that was opened and made dry was a cutting off from Egypt because you can take the Jew out of Egypt but can you take the Egypt out of the Jew we see that even after that there was a hankering to return when the going was tough and they yearned for the leeks and the garlics so a passing through the sea, a baptism unto Moses in the cloud the spirit and in the sea was a prerequisite and essential requirement of God from the beginning in establishing a people intended for Zion the same thing is true now, so when they pass through the sea, the Egyptians who are following after like the demons who don't want to let us go, the Egyptians are a picture of the demonic host because we have been in their Egypt long and they want to retain us and not allow us to enter another land and another kingdom but it says that when the sea closed up on them because they could not pass through it, only Israel can that they looked back and they saw the Egyptians dead and unable to follow after this is the picture of God's liberation both from Egypt and the demonic host that would otherwise harass us and follow us through the wilderness and into the land of promise is the issue of the radical provision of God in separation through baptism in water and the accompanying part is the baptism in the cloud which is the Holy Spirit, the baptism in the spirit and the two things are the required enablement to pass through wilderness and to enter into Zion so it's a joyous thing to baptize people and see them come up out of the water speaking in tongues that they receive both the water and the cloud at the same time, that was not my experience the cloud came for me later after much struggle spiritually but nevertheless these are the two requisite things, if you're going to be what you must, what you're called to be as a Jewish servant of the most high God, you must pass through the water and the cloud and in that day you'll see the Egyptians dead and unable to pursue you the only way again after that, that demonic harassment can ever take place is by opening a door to them by misconduct but if you continue in consistent righteousness you're free and you'll know it and you'll exhibit it and you'll be a witness to your own people of the reality of God and his so great provision through water and cloud okay have you been reviewing Romans chapter 6 which I commended to my brother? because you're not going to come into this union with the Lord except through the appropriation of what Paul speaks there that the baptism means for you a burial because God doesn't bury those that are still kicking he only buries those that have given up the ghost who recognize that in themselves and in their natural man, however impressive that natural man it is less than and other than the glory of God and we're willing to bring it into death and it's not that we're going to be nailed and crucified, what they say you may be able to nail the one hand but how do you nail the other? so how do you come to this joining with him in death that we might be raised with him to do this of life by the provision he himself has made he's made us provision which we're going to enjoy at the end of our session this morning in the sacrament of his body and blood, validated by his own death and poured out life but he's made a provision in the water isn't that remarkable that if we enter the waters of baptism not to get dunked or as religious obligation because you need to get wet but as an entering into death and burial when we go down we go into death and burial, Paul says don't you know as many of you as were baptized into Jesus Christ were entered into his death that you're buried with him in death that you might be raised with him unto newness of life there's no resurrection that is not first preceded by death and that's why Paul says I die daily this thing must be reiterated and more than you can know if you have received some measure of blessing in these days and I know that you have remarkable blessing more than the word will you understand by blessing these were historic days only to the degree that it was a resurrection phenomenon, even this morning hearing me, I'm hearing myself the authority, the incisiveness of what is being spoken comes out of his life and to the degree that I've experienced death what was my death? being up from 1am to 3 or 4 or there's a death that I cannot even describe there's always a dread of having to stand and speak and there's always a tension there's always something that Paul says, I die daily he says death that works in me but life in you this is the central principle of God as demonstrated in his own surrender unto death and resurrection and ascension that the Lord himself was not exempt from his own principle he had to experience it and that because he lives having passed through it we live also we are called to be the sons and daughters of the resurrection not merely ascribed to and agreed to the truth of it as doctrine but to live eminently and consistently out of its power out of the resurrection and ascended life so when we take that cup we're commemorating what was poured out from the throne of heaven what Jesus poured out from the throne is his ascended life the genius of resurrection reality as far as the throne so that we're catching something not only the resurrection the power but also the enthronement the glory that enhances that cup poured out from heaven on the day of Pentecost where the disciples who had betrayed him not just Peter though his was most conspicuous and sad with oaths and with cursings why? because he was the most insistent though all the world deny you yet will we deny you never oh yeah Jesus said before the cock cross returns you'll betray me shamefully because you think that you're going to serve me on the basis of your chutzpah your Jewish self confidence and what you are in your impressive manhood that will fail shamefully just being present at my trial let alone any serving of me apostolically thereafter and when Jesus came out from his flagellation and being brutalized and being moved from Pilate to Herod and he looked at at Peter with a look that only we can only imagine what that look conveyed and Peter broke and wept I'll tell you what he never stopped weeping for 10 days why were they 10 days in the upper room? to twiddle their thumbs? they were there to be emptied they were there to reflect we were hot shots we thought that we could pull this off though all the world deny you we will never and now we had every one of us fled one with oaths and cursings and John whose head lay on the bosom of Jesus fled nakedly fear in the night of terror when Jesus was apprehended revealed that mankind in and of himself is unequal and unable to be what we ought to follow after the Lord we had to see that it was the mercy of God that the Lord allowed Peter to see his betrayal and so and they all and 10 days, they had 10 days to reflect upon it, 10 is the number of judgment, the 10 commandments it's the number of righteous requirement and they began in 10 days you can believe that they were reviewing my God did we ever fail with all of our hot shot resolution that we thought with all integrity and all sincerity that we would never betray him we have betrayed him shamefully and so they saw the complete paucity the inadequacy of our unaided humanity however well meaning its intention that's what you must see and when they came to a full emptying out the day of Pentecost fully came it waited for that emptying to be filled and filled with what the spirit poured out from the throne of heaven that reflects not only the resurrection of Jesus but his enthronement and they were changed they were like another people Peter becomes eloquent and speaks on the day of Pentecost and tells these Jews who were not even present at the crucifixion but your wicked hands have taken us and slain the holy one of Israel and they were so cut to the quick men and brethren what must we do to be saved thousands turned to the Lord and one speaking by a fisherman but what a message it was anointed it was full of resurrection power and glory and on the way to the temple beautiful there was a guy who was born lame and was looking fixing his eyes on Peter and John seeing something in the corporateness of this relationship which never was before the day of Pentecost remember the last thing Peter said what about this man what about this guy still rivalry still competition still natural man but with Pentecost following the emptying they went to gate beautiful together and the lame man fixed his eyes on them and saw another kind of reality reflected in their union that had been established in resurrection power and life and then Peter saw that his attention silver and gold having on that which we do have we give them you take up your bed and walk boom so had there been no resurrection there would have not anything be poured out from the throne in order to pour out the spirit of the life of God which contains his wisdom and his nature as well as his energy Jesus had to pass through death in order to be resurrected in order to ascend in order to pour out and so if the son of God had to pass through the death to his humanity which so much eclipses our humanity and could not have sufficed as his identity as a son and as king how shall we serve and live at the level of our humanity however religious however well meaning however sincere it cannot succeed we have got to follow the pattern son both in death and resurrection and ascension he's made a way and how do we enter it? the waters of baptism we can't go back 2000 years and be in union with him on the cross but now in any water remember the Ethiopian eunuch and Philip was joined to him to explain what Isaiah 53 meant and whom and then at a point the eunuch says here's a little pond of water what hinders me from being baptized and Philip said nothing if you believe he stopped the chariot that's what you guys need to do stopped the chariot and got out and went down and in and under and came up rejoicing and that man when he returns to Ethiopia he not only has a message to tell he is a message because he came up in newness of life and then Philip disappears so I'm art the baptist I baptize people in bathtubs I baptize people with water poured out of a Coca Cola can I baptize them in frozen lakes and rivers I've broken the ice and gone down and in with them that's how keen I am on the issue of baptism no baptism no death no burial no death no burial no resurrection no ascension that's the long and the short of it and I know that I know and you know we will not succeed in the purposes of God which are ultimate with regard to a distasteful bruised and broken Israel in guilt and shame except in that life that is the love of God which is unconditional and will pass every test okay so well I didn't know that when I got baptized does my baptism count as someone said to me last night wanting to be baptized again your baptism counts what you need to do is bring to it now the greater understanding of what is represented in it and by faith make it to count for what you have already experienced you don't have to go into the water the second time but you need to bring to that previous experience for which you were only shallowly inducted now the greater understanding and you'll have its full value because you choose to reckon yourself as indeed dead unto yourself but alive unto God because of it see what I mean you reckon verse 11 of chapter 6 of Romans therefore indeed reckon yourself as dead on what basis you've passed through the water not your subjectivity because you feel very much alive you're still the same man how many of us will not be mocked by the powers of darkness who know us and can even imitate our voice and say you're not dead look you're still thinking the same thought you still had a lustful thought look at this and look at that you're no more dead that was just water but the scripture says reckon yourself dead turn a deaf ear to the evil one even when he speaks to you in your own voice and count yourself as dead and therefore alive unto God the only difference between you and me is I have a much longer history in that reckoning than you I have to have how can I go through 12 countries as I have in 2 months or now 7 countries in the same length of time and in every country and in every place the requirement is different and I don't know it till I get there I didn't know it till I got here how then can I give answer how can I minister appropriately because this is once and for all it's not going to be given again time and eternity hangs on this time together and what will be spoken and performed in Africa and who knows what's ahead for that people in the terrible conditions of their life who is sufficient for these things Paul says only one resurrection is not an option dear saints it is the normative and definitive intention of God for every saint and not the least of the blessings which have come to you in these days is the actual visible demonstration through me before you if you ascribe anything of these days to me you're in error if you think oh art you're so eloquent no if you received any benefit any blessing it's the Lord because I'm dead in terms of what I'm required to do and perform how can I I'm a dead man it says Abraham looking upon his body now as good as dead believed and so in terms of our calling we're as good as dead and the reckoning ourselves dead his life becomes pronounced and available and will take it's own form and it's own expression don't think it's going to sound like Jesus out of an echo chamber the story of the Lord it'll sound like a guy with a Brooklyn accent he'll use the accent that is natural but the life is his, the energy is his the wisdom, the content is his it's a remarkable phenomenon we live yet not we, but he and yet it's not some abstract those say of the Lord, it's personal and intimate and uniquely of us through him in union you've seen that he's demonstrated, he's said it before you as an example to encourage you to that reality also because if the charge of the last days that was set before you is ultimate and took resurrection power and ability to convey by what means shall you fulfill it but by the same means by which it came to you because these were not just mere messages, they were event they were the appointed word known by the Lord as works to walk in before the foundations of the earth were laid but not known to me now looking back I can see installment by installment but it unfolded by the life of God it's a remarkable thing I will be astonished to the day in which he takes me but that's how I live and move and have my being that's how Paul did, and that's how the church must If I'm hearing right in regards to baptism I believe in baptism and baptising what have you, but there is quite a consensus through the mainstream churches that christening as a baby substitutes baptism and infant baptism and from what I've heard it is quite acceptable if that's what you believe, that's okay but what I'm hearing is that it's our duty or by standing on the word of God one would have to try and encourage them or point out specifically to them that is not enough except they have an exceptional faith and I'll tell you in a minute with the one people who I found but when you compare sprinkling with immersion it's graphic we need more than a sprinkle we need to come into him in totality, when I was baptized I said to the pastor keep me under I don't want a quickie dip I've been carrying a Jewish brain mind for 35 years it's full of its own thoughts and that must go down into death, and you keep me down I want to experience that water coming up over me and over the center of my rebellion my human mind and will so how can sprinkling even begin to touch that necessity but when I came to Germany and visited the Marie and Schwest and the sisters of Mary who are a Lutheran movement and under the authority of the Lutheran church and yet her books and the quality of their life is the most ethereal and holy thing I have ever experienced in the face of the earth they say David Wilkerson when he visited Darmstadt threw himself down on the compost heap I had a similar reaction the sense of God's holiness and presence was so great that I just threw myself down and yet none of them experienced a baptism by immersion they may have desired it but had they done so they would have put themselves in collision with the Lutheran church under whose oversight they exist because Germany and German Christendom is very submitted authority minded it would have destroyed their existence had they insisted on this and yet clearly I'm seeing the evidence of resurrection so I would say that under this unusual condition and the quality of their faith they made their infant sprinkling to count for a full immersion but where we are not under that kind of limitation I encourage a believer who had an infant sprinkling to have a full adult baptism in conviction you know the history of the Anabaptists who suffered terrible persecution I took a group of Swiss Christians on tour in Zurich to the places of martyrdom where they were burned at the stake where teenage kids were bound back to back and tossed into the river Limmat to drown in order to quench this uprising against the clerical established church and its clergy alone by which infant sprinkling was performed, communion was given here were these people finding their way back to apostolic reality and the priesthood of all believers performing those things that had only been thought the right of professional clergy so the whole shaking of a challenging of the status quo for which they paid. I took them to places in the woods where they had their secret meetings and a cleft in the rock that of the bounty hunters came because there's a price on their heads. That's how the state church funded its seminaries and built its buildings on the monies procured by confiscating the property of Anabaptists who were diligent carpenters and workers and everything they did flourished. They had to flee when the bounty hunters came and send their kids through the cleft of the rocks to hide in the woods while they themselves were apprehended. You know the stories of the man who's running for his life being pursued by a bounty hunter and the bounty hunter falls through the ice and the man sees that, turns back and helps him out and suffers a life confinement as a result. I have been in cells in Switzerland where they were incarcerated for 20-25 years where I could stretch out my hands and touch both walls at the same time and could not stand fully erect and they had like a leaning thing in which they slept with a hole so they could defecate right through the place where they slept and a little chink in the wood that you can look out on the idyllic Swiss countryside and everything in you yearns to be there and free and they suffered confinement because they would not forsake their faith. There are those who have preceded us who died and suffered for what now we hardly respect and take so much for granted. Water baptism, communion, the baptism of believers, believers baptism predicated on conviction and not an automatic thing to be fulfilled as infants through sprinkling. So, Karl Barth, my favorite theologian has written an entire book I think it was his last volume of church dogmatics 14 volumes which I possess that he the whole book is directed against the issue of baptism and he says that infant sprinkling is the undoing of the church. It's the most fundamental compromise of apostolic faith and needs to be recognized and forsaken. Courageous. I can't imagine today any man of public eminence coming out with a statement of that kind because it strikes at the heart of the institutional and conventional church. So we need to covet and to appreciate our freedom to go in and under in union with Christ in death and be raised up to newness of life. Okay. What would your advice be to a pastor who has a concern for unity and has within his congregation a group who are zealous for God and wanting to press on offending another group who are happy with the status quo and see church as a nice little addendum to the weak and nothing more. Why rock the boat is their philosophy. How can one move with the former group by distancing oneself from the second group? You need the wisdom of Solomon for that. I would just off the top of my head exhort the more radical wing to relinquish their badgering and their insistence and to quietly and unobtrusively pray for the entire congregation to come into the reality which they purport to have and not compel it because the friction and tension of their insistence and their righteousness is the undoing of the body. So for the body's sake to relinquish that insistence and to trust God through prayer to bring them himself sovereignly the reality that they're commending and for the other half, the status quo, to charge them to be open for change and welcome the presence in the midst of those whose spirits are more fervent and not to be offended by them. But love covers a multitude of sins. So those who have sinned by their insistence, those who have sinned by their cowardice, can both be covered and the issue is the continuance of that body and that it will come into the fullness of God's intention. Something like that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. I somehow struggle to hold in me the matter of Israel and the church and our histories, our destinies are linked by that. But I struggle to hold that in me. I struggle to hold that inside me while I'm doing the things that God calls me to do every day. So can I say that to hold that in myself, to attend to that matter, is to attend to my own soul and to the work that the Lord is doing in my life. I understand you. Okay. Here's what I would say. This issue of the mystery of Israel and the church is not a category. It is implicit in the apostolic faith and the prophetic faith that every true believer ought to be both eschatologically and apocalypticly minded. That we have an understanding of the mystery and of the things that pertain to the end while at the same time we're going about our everyday and mundane affairs and business. And God doesn't intend that the one should intrude upon the other. So that this foundational eschatological expectancy is intrinsic to the reality and the air that we breathe. And it doesn't hinder us from attending to the things that are at hand. It's not an either or. It's a reality. And I forgot which saint it was that I was saying yesterday that you need to see your whole situation. In fact, she was telling me. I'm seeing now my whole situation centered now in a much larger reality than I previously comprehended. And it affects every element of the reality with which I have to do. It's a remarkable mystery that though there may not be a direct application, something comes into our souls by way of maturity just apprehending this remarkable mystery and its consummation which we hold, we live and move and have our being, that we breathe it. And far from distracting us from the things at hand, it enhances the things that are at hand. So that, for example, Paul says, I have my citizenship in heaven. I see the things that are invisible and eternal, the eternal weight of glory that makes my present suffering both momentary and light. This man who had his citizenship in heaven, and Jesus who said to Nicodemus, no man descends, no man ascends to heaven who has not first descended from heaven, and who is now in heaven. Speaking of himself, he's standing in Jerusalem talking to Nicodemus, and he says, who is in heaven? How can that be? Because his essential identity, his essential reality is from above, but it doesn't disqualify him before Nicodemus. In fact, because of his essential union with the things that are eternal and heavenly, his answer to Nicodemus is not at all conventional. You must be born again. You must be born of the Spirit. The man is mystified and stupefied and leaves bewildered. But he does not give him a conventional answer. He gives him an answer mediated from above, which is a true answer. So Jesus was not disqualified. He's made of the more effectual on earth because his essential citizenship is in heaven, and that is true also for Paul, because when we read the New Testament and the Epistles, the Acts, who is it who is giving to the Church more detailed information on how to conduct itself in a household of God? How to take communion? How to wait for your brother? What to do if one is sinning? How to bring correction? He's full of the most practical nuts and bolts information for the Church, and yet he's the man who has his citizenship in heaven. Same for us. You're not going to be disqualified in your practical affairs and activity and will not in any way suffer loss because this dimension of an eschatological and apocalyptic kind of mystery of Israel and the Church, which was God's from the beginning and will be to the end, is the underlay of your entire apostolic and prophetic life. Great question, but a good answer. It's a paradox. It's a tension of contradictions. So when I go home, what do I hear from Inger? Did you take the garbage out? I've just come down from being immersed in Kaalbat, and I'm in the ethereal heights. Did you take the garbage out? What about this? The screen door doesn't close. She's almost a test to keep me from being so heavenly-minded. I'm no earthly good. But unless we're heavenly-minded, we will not be earthly good. So we live in that tension, and what's the definition of a saint? A saint is one who knows it and is willing to submit to the tension that is peculiar only to us and would not be our situation if we were not the children of God, imbued with His Spirit, and given such last day's call. And yet we're faced with the mundane and the everyday. The mundane and the everyday has got to be invested with glory. Some dimension of eternity needs to come into time. That's our task, to bring something of that reality into this desolate world that looks for entertainment and distraction. So this is the remarkable tension of what it means to be a saint. In fact, it is the very essence of sainthood. He gives every grace, even with anger. That's a great question. I enjoyed it. I appreciated it. OK, sis. How do I deal with the after being here before so many things in my life kept and torn down and go back there in the same situation? Lo, I am with you always. I will never leave you nor forsake you. Your faith is the confidence in that word. Irrespective of whether you feel His presence, He will be with you. It's not unlike those that were with Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration and saw His glory. And right after that, not by accident, but by the design of God, were required to come down into a valley. And a valley at its lowest point, where demonic power was ravaging Israel, the child. And to be able to bring that reality into that abyss is our challenge. They failed because this kind cometh not out by fasting and prayer. So this is your challenge also. To bring something of the Transfiguration, the Illumination, Light and Understanding, which we have enjoyed in these days, down into place where you're called to live. Jesus had to go down into Nazareth with parents who did not understand His calling. But in submitting to that condition, that requirement, He grew in grace and in stature, both with God and men. We'll pray for you and with you, and remind me to pronounce blessing on the entire congregation to bring down into the valley the Illumination, Light and Encouragement they've received in this mountain height. God does not intend for us to stay here. Peter said, let us build three booths. Let's nail this down. Let's memorialize this. No. He missed it. He has to go down and bring this reality, which is ultimate, into the grim place in the earth to which we have been called. And God will be with you in that. You're going to see a difference, and others who are with you are going to see a difference because you have received the Word of the Lord, and something will be expressed and transmitted, transmuted that was not there before. This is an event. This is not just God giving us information. We have received something more than we know, and we will see it's outworking and to the blessedness of many. Even Ingrid is beginning to believe, after 41 years, that her husband is not bad after all. He's not too good with screen doors, but ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... ... That's a precious picture. I forgot to add that. ... ... I knew that we were being pushed out of the nest, but I forgot that he's there with his pinions as we flutter and fail to catch us, and then to let us go again, and catch us, and let us go again. When it says, I will be with you, this is what it means. I'm not just there morally. I'm there effectually. And I'll be there with grace, with wisdom, with a word in season, with courage, with patience, forbearance, a measure that you've not known before. But get out of the nest. And your place is intended by me. This is not happenstance. This is ordination. This is sovereignty. You're in the exact place of my intention, and they need your presence. They need my presence through you in that place, in that darkness, in that discouragement. And we'll be praying for you and with you for that. Yeah. That's great. That was precious. There was a hand back there somewhere. Yeah, brother? Coming up through the Christian ranks, so to speak, you hear that the church, the teaching that the church is the spiritual Israel, is that, to your way of thinking, is that the reality? Or all the blessings, in what I'm understanding you're saying, all the blessings that speak of Israel are still Israel. This is called the replacement, where the church, in its arrogance, has taken the place of Israel, implying that God is finished with Israel, and the church is now the successor. But they've missed Romans chapter 11, and the whole of 9 through 11, where Paul articulates in great detail, they have not fallen. They've only temporarily stumbled. But through their fall, salvation has come to the Gentiles, so as to move them to jealousy. But there's yet a destiny for them that remains to be fulfilled, for the gifts and callings of God are irrevocable without repentance. So the church cannot presume to replace Israel. In fact, the whole purpose for the church is to facilitate Israel's restoration, moving them to jealousy that they might come into that which they have forfeited, and their ignorance of opposing themselves. So the church needs to be corrected if it still subscribes to an ideology of that kind. And I was sharing with men out on the porch yesterday, in my own history and activity, nowhere have I encountered greater opposition than those who purport to be apostolic, and talk about a restoration movement. And it would take me the rest of our morning to tell you how rudely I have been treated. That you would never imagine that Christians could condescend to be that rude to a minister and a servant of God, walking out of his meeting without concluding it in prayer, as if he had somehow dropped turd in the midst of them, when all I did was express Romans chapter 11. And it was so distasteful to them, so contrary to what they think is their apostolic understanding of replacing Israel, they left the room and didn't even end the meeting. There was no thank you, no thank you, no what. It was the rudest thing I've ever seen. Because they call themselves the restoration movement. But what are they restoring? They're restoring the church, as if God's finished with Israel, and the church now is the modus vivendi of God. They've missed the mystery. And in the end, they will be eternally embarrassed. So yes, in a certain sense, still it's true. The church is the Israel of God. You who are far off and without hope in the world and without God have been brought nigh by the blood of their Messiah, and into their covenants and hopes and promises, into the commonwealth of Israel. So there's a certain sense in which you have been joined with them as the Israel of God, but not as their displacement, but as their supplement and as their encouragement that they themselves return. For God is able to graft back those branches which he broke off by which you have been placed in as wild branches. And you will continue to be fruitless, even though you're grafted in, unless you appreciate that you're grafted into their tree. Why? Because God knows your Gentile hearts. They're proud. And you don't want to have to say that you're joined to this Israel and that it's an essential joining for your own reality. You want it independent, because you have looked down your nose and you feel superior and don't want that. But unless you're in their tree and receiving the sap that only flows from its root in God, you'll be fruitless even though you're grafted in. You've got to be conscious of the privilege of being grafted into their tree as being part of the Israel of God, but not to a pride by which you disown them, but by a humility by which you are in union with them. They're your brethren, the least of your brethren, but they're your brethren and his. So this whole attitude is terribly wrong. Yes, just a comment that, for me, it's been amazing to see the Pharisees never saw that the beliefs they held so strongly were actually sourced in pride. They were, it was in pride, and that this sort of teaching is actually founded in pride. That's good. We can be blind to that. Because what is the church if its essential character is not like that of the lamb? If it becomes arrogant, opinionated, conceited, it has lost its true identity and its true effectiveness. What then is given by God to temper us and keep us in a place of humility? It's our relationship with Israel. It's the privilege of being grafted into their tree. That if God did not hesitate to break off their branches, will he hesitate to break off ours if we do not remain in kindness and in faith? It's a tempering factor that we need to be related to Inger. It's a tempering factor for me to be related to Inger. See what I mean? We're joined with exactly that that brings a quotient of appropriate humility into our life that cannot be imagined, but is real in the mystery of Israel and the church. We must never think of ourselves of being independent and apart from that people. We're joined and linked with them in the mystery of God. That's the great mystery, the Gentile and the Jew. And who knows it better than me? I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews. I'm married to a Gentile of the Gentiles. Nobody has to persuade me that there's a difference. Her mentality, her mindset, her values, her attitude make me crawl the wall and the ceiling. And I'm equally a mystery for her. Terribly impractical. And how do I hold the man down at the earth? He's up there with some... I see the tension and the beauty and the wisdom of God in making the two one. So I'm living in my own microscopic, minuscule, marital situation, the greater mystery. But you need to be conscious of it as mystery and that you are called to the fulfillment of mystery, not just its consideration. And that mystery is your making. And I would say that the modern church lacks a disposition toward mystery. And the Gentile mind has very scant patience for mystery. It likes things clear-cut, then this is the way you do it... Mystery is the ultimate intentions of God that he would, in his wisdom, create Gentiles and Jews and see to the unique differences between them that by every reckoning there's no basis for reconciliation except in him. And what does he give as the holiest article of furniture in the tabernacle of God? The ark of God with the angels, what do they call them? The cherubim, hammered out of the same gold, out of one piece. And each at either end with their wings touching and that their faces are pointed toward each other. They're required to look into each other's faces and at the same time, paradoxically, look down and through the mercy seat to the tablet of the law, the righteous requirement of God. He says, there I'll meet with you, above and between the mercy seat and the cherubim, because that's the place where I am. I'm in the paradox of the point of uttermost tension in opposites, in those things from which you would flee because they're hard to bear, the difference between men and women, male and female, the difference between generations, the younger and the older, the difference even between prophet and teacher. Talk about tension. Talk about differences, how scant patience the teacher has for the flightiness of the prophetic man and the way in which he views things. Where does it say that? And the impatience of the prophet to the teacher. He's so nailed to the scripture, he doesn't see the larger thing, yet we're in the same body together. So, the mystery of God is caught up in the holy seat and we must have a stomach for it and not turn away. Though the temptation is to escape and to flee, because to look on face to face is to be opened for the tensions, the contradictions, the difficulties. But he says, there I'll meet with you. So if he'll be there and meet with us, he'll give us the reconciliation of those differences, by which alone he is glorified. Got the picture? Oh, thank you, Lord, for contradiction, for paradox, for tension, for grace, for male and female, for Jew and Gentile, for prophet and teacher. Thank you, my God. Remarkable, remarkable. What you have elected in your so great wisdom and will and seen to it that the tabernacle would be made according to the vision given at the mount. Make this according to, how does it say? The pattern given at the mount. Don't miss a detail, because it's charged with ultimate significance. Ever and lasting for the church of every generation. Black and white, going to Africa. Talk about contradiction. God is going to resolve and reconcile. Not smooth it over, but bring out the ultimate beauty and unspeakable riches and depths of those contradictions when they are reconciled in him. Thank you, Lord. Including Israel and the church. Amen. There God has commanded the blessing, life forevermore. God's appointed time and his holy places and time. She's asking about God's holy days for Israel. Is that right? I'll come closer. I'm asking you about the place of God's plans. Yeah. Of his. Of his moving, his appointed times. Yeah. And his holy days. And where and how do they apply? Good. Good question. No. They are our inheritance. It's not just the requirement of Jews. It's for the people of God. The Shabbat, the Passover, the Feast of Tabernacles. And remembering it. And what? Remembering it as his holy Shabbat. Yes. Yes. But that doesn't mean that we fulfill it according to Jewish rabbinical or Judaic practice. But we cease from our own labors, from our own thoughts and from our own doings, as is spoken in Isaiah. So that means that no two Shabbats may be alike. We cease from seeking our own pleasure, but we seek his. But what's his pleasure for this particular Shabbat? What if it's a picnic, which would offend Jews, if we're keeping the Shabbat according to his pleasure, we would have the picnic. Next week, a picnic might not be appropriate. And what I'm saying is this. The keeping of the Shabbat is the issue of the truth of relationship and not something reduced to mechanics and the prescriptions of men on how to observe. It's the deepest statement of separation of the God that we give him a whole day and cease from ourselves and our own thoughts and our own pleasure and our own deeds. Trust him to fill it in his own way according to his pleasure. And once you get the taste of this, you're not satisfied with one day. Our every day should be in the rest of God. That's how come I look so good at the age of nearly 77. What do you think it is, vitamins? I'm in the rest. How can I go through seven countries in seven weeks in 17 flights and come out more refreshed at the end than when I began? Only one way. I'm in the rest of God. Art, what will you be speaking in Australia? How would I know? Did I know what I would be speaking here? Did I know what I would speak upon arrival in Auckland, fresh off the plane? Do I know what I'll be speaking? I don't know. I don't have to know. He knows. And he reveals in his themes these days and occasions more than I, and he'll not allow them to slip. I trust him. I yield to him. And how does he say that this is the theme, and say this and do this? Does he talk to you a lot like that? No. He has, you know. But as I go on, there's less and less audible impartation, less and less do this, do that, speak this. More and more an intimation that something is in my spirit that I can't consider anything other than that, because that's where his life is, and I obey that, and I yield to that. And he vindicates and shows that, yes, that was him. So here's again the issue of relationship, trust, the inward sense of God. You know why? Because I don't have any thought for myself. I'm not thinking, what do I speak by which my reputation will be enhanced, and the affection of the audience will be obtained. I have no will. I have no interest in and for myself. Therefore, I'm totally yielded to his, and therefore naively believe that the faintest presentiment in my heart and thought, in the absence of anything other, is his will. Like this session today. I was up early, gave the Lord every opportunity for yet another message, and none was given, because a message was not in his heart. This was the message. This interaction, these questions, this dotting of the i's, this crossing of the t's, this reiterating the significance of baptism, the paradox of differences caught up in the mysteries of God that are reconciled only, that was his intention. Thank you for this. Thank Lord. Thank Lord for this. Yeah. Amen. So, that's what Paul means when he says, I live nevertheless not I. You guys have seen the demonstration before you. Shabbat starts on a Friday night. Saturday night, doesn't it? Friday night and ends Saturday with dusk. Well, I was going to Gentile Messianic Church. I had been going to a Gentile Messianic Church. Yeah. And because I'm a shift worker, Yeah. my job is da-da-da-da-da. Uh-huh. And they put a bit of pressure on me to say that I would have to have those 24 hours off. Well, that's not, in the work that I do, that's not practical for me. No. But the pressure came on, so I sort of... So, what do you do? You're asking me, what should you do? Yeah. Quit. One of my experiences in Italy was with a group of Italian Sabbatarians. And they told me that they went to the employers. Some worked for Alitalia, the Italian airline, and they were required to work on the Shabbat, and told their employer, we cannot. And the remarkable thing was, they received a special accommodation. It was one of the most joyous Christian groups that I had ever encountered, because they took the Shabbat seriously, and because they did, God made an accommodation for them. So, try, try your employer. Tell them, this is important for me. This is essential to my life, part of my worship, my relationship with God. Is there some other way in which I can be freed for that time, and make it up at some other... See what he'll do. And if not, then the Lord understands that even your labor is out of the rest. Huh? When we're laboring out of the rest, we have come to the heart of Sabbath. Because I'll tell you, dear saints, the labors of the last days will be more extensive and more intensive than any we have ever known. And the greater works that we are called to do than he has done, we will do out of the rest of God in the last days. So, do we still carry on going to church on a Sunday? Yeah. But that's not your Shabbat. That's your celebration. See, the church has misconstrued and made Sunday a Sabbath. Even Spurgeon uses that language. And chambers. And I wouldn't... You know, it's not a thus sayeth the Lord. That's the way you see it? Okay. But there's a way in which you can observe a seventh day Sabbath and then see Sunday as church celebration. See what I mean? It's another function, another coming together for the saints, so that one is not substituted for the other. That's one way to see it. At Ben Israel, we cease from conspicuous labor on the Shabbat. We turn it to a day of fellowship, study, prayer, rest. Sunday we might be found working. Something like that. But we will have a Sunday service. Sunday morning service. So, you work it out before the Lord. Don't come into any legalism or any bondage. How important would you say community is? And when I say community, I mean a community like Ben Israel. Yeah. To the end times and to receiving the Jews when they come. Absolutely essential. The exact words that the Lord spoke to me 31 years ago when I set foot on the property that we are now occupying, for the first time there was a chain. I was speaking in the area and they said, No, why not? I never thought to live in Minnesota. We were living in a 17 room house in New Jersey that Inga loved. And why could not God do everything for Matt? So sure, I said, let's go for a ride. Got out of the car. There was a chain across the property. No trespassing. Got out of the car. Stepped over the chain. When my foot came down on the property, these were the words of the Lord. Dominion, end time teaching center, community, refuge. And so I know that I know there is no refuge without community. How shall we bear the impact of Jews coming in their distraught condition, utterly stripped and undone, out of our single virtuosity as believers? We need the corporate collective tested strength of a people that it can only be established in community. Community is our first experience with one another that fits us for their coming because we have to meet there the disagreeableness of believers that would never be revealed only on Sundays. It's the Monday and the days that follow and the intensity of life together that tests us and requires us to come to a place in character and life by which we will be able to bear the weight when Jews come upon us suddenly. As I said to a brother in the dining room last night, I think it was last night, that we need to start in preparation now both spiritually and physically because when the day of their crisis comes it will come suddenly. There will be no time then to scamper and find preparation. God is speaking now to set in motion the preparation for then. Not only physically, places of refuge, routes of flight but also spiritually and in character to be tempered together to provide a strength by which we can absorb the impact of these Jews in that distraught condition. Only community can provide it. Mere Sundays will never do it. So the task of pastors, leaders is how to move from our present individualistic lifestyle, our solitariness and privatistic living into the corporate reality that was always definitive for the church as community. Community is not an alternative to church. Community is church. True church begins when the Sunday sermon ends and you have to remain with the same people who have heard the same word and walk it out together before them and with them. And I knew when I left that 17-room house in New Jersey to come to that place in Minnesota that I was finished. That there's no way I could maintain the persona of a charismatic speaker flitting from meeting to meeting. Now I have to face the music of people seeing and hearing the truth of my life. And it wasn't long before they heard Inger shout and the door slammed behind me, Go tell them what a great saint you are. Having had a little spat in the kitchen and Inger's got a voice that will register to the ends of the earth. And so then you go to the prayer meeting which you have every day. The day begins in prayer and you're the leader, you're the founder of the community and your face is sticking out, they've heard that. And you've got to relate with saints in that humiliation. And if they are not true saints, they'll say ha ha, so you thought you were ha ha, well now we know the truth. No, you know what they do then? We're praying for you Art. You're under a severe trial and your flaws and your needs are being made apparent for which we pray. We're in something together with you. That's community. See what I mean? We need to move from privatistic lifestyle to community. And so it's going to take sacrifice. I gave you the example of these Hasidic Jews. They left their homes in Long Island and their estates and their mansions and their condominiums to move into a black ghetto. Why? Because there they could buy up and rent the cheap apartments that couldn't begin to touch the luxury that they had known. But now they have the ability of walking to the synagogue on Shabbat. Now they can go to the mikvah. At 5 p.m. when dusk descends and you're in that neighborhood, you've never seen a sight like this of men and women streaming, coming out of their apartments and buildings and moving toward the mikvah or toward the synagogue wearing their black clothes with their children, with their beards, with their talas, their prayer shawl, or even actually wearing it, moving to the place of worship. Where do we see that in the church? The church is a religion of convenience to which we drive and if we don't like that one, we drive to that one. We're not committed into that place where we need to remain when the going gets tough, when the issues are generated and see them through together and grow up into something that can bear the impact of Jews in that time. So consciously move toward that end. Find it. And be willing for its inconvenience and its sacrifice because it doesn't come cheaply. Read the book True Fellowship and know what it means, what we have slogged through for over 30 years and the insults and the what reproaches and all the kinds of things that go with it and yet it still remains and it will be a place of refuge. We will bear that impact as they come streaming to us, not just in one time only, but there will be a day-by-day succession of souls finding their way in that have to be met afresh and anew and succored and loved and helped and who will be full of abuse and mean-spirited and ugly. How can we face that on a continual basis unless in character of the Lord? That's a great question. It's not an option. It's God's definitive intention for all saints. That we have a religion that is a Sunday matter that allows a privatistic lifestyle to which we only come out for meetings and then return again to its privacy is abnormal and contrary to his intention. Almost perverse. And the enemy loves to have it so. You start moving toward community and you'll find a new harassment, a new opposition because the enemy wants to prevent this reality. We can't come to the sainthood that has been commended to you in these days except in that context. We need each other. We need each other's prayer. I have been corrected from deception. Remarkable figure that I am in the purpose of God with the history that I have and by whom have I been corrected from my own deceptions? The youngest and weakest members in the community. I've heard the voice of God out of a cracked, high-pitched nervous word from one of the youngest believers. Well, you know, brother Art, that the Lord said that life, that ministry comes out of the life and the life out of the relationships and if you forsake the relationships then how can you have ministry? The word of the Lord. It corrected me from spiritual deception of which I thought I was immune because look at my history. Following the Lord in knife-edge precision in life and death situations all over the world that I could miss it in a deception of this kind and that I could only find correction from within the body because each of us have blind spots we cannot see for ourselves and that's why God says speak the truth in love that you might grow up unto him in the fullness and stature of a perfect man. Where do we hear that speaking the truth? Who'll have the courage to speak it? It's got to be spoken in love and who'll receive it as correction and be grateful for it except in the environment that community is. How do you do that? How do we learn the skills for learning in community? How do we find out the things that we need? You learn by doing. You begin by beginning. We didn't know and Dietrich Bonhoeffer in that classroom book Life Together, you know that book? You must get it. It's got to be on everybody's library. Life Together what is it? It's the insight that this giant who was hung a week before the end of World War II by the Nazis in his opposition to Hitler who went back to Germany he could have remained in New York suffered his death but he was compelled to go underground they had a secret seminary which the Nazis could not detect that required them to live in remarkable intensity and confinement one with another that brings forth the real issues of life. For what is community? Community is the intensification of all life. Not just a Sunday matter. You live more in one year community than 10 years in the conventional Sunday service mentality. One day one event, one crisis in prayer time is life changing. I've seen God confront where you hold your breath you think you'll never come out alive the issues are insoluble the tension is unbearable but you go you've got to go, you can't run away where shall we go? He has the words of eternal life. You go in and you stop breathing you know there's no answer three hours later because you have gone in because there has been interaction because people have ventilated their souls in truth, you come out not walking out, you come out floating your feet don't even touch the ground, you've been brought to a transcendent place of glory because you have suffered the tension of community we've gone through many such experiences like that where I despaired that we would come out alive in the issues that were brought to intense pain only through community like for example having a dog well, I had a dog living in New Jersey, German Shepherd beautiful animal, what a head it had a more royal bloodline than me and I go back to Aaron and so it nipped at the postman's buttocks those things happen it's your dog but when you come into community what was your dog is now the community's threat there's more than just the postman the children are at risk and so you try to keep it down and under the carpet but community exposes everything everything now is community conditioned, not just your own life your own family and we were in prayer meeting one day and someone said, Art look, come out your dog is leading a pack of dogs and are circling a calf and nipping at it in blood I my heart sank, I knew this was the end, I said to Rob, please get on the phone, see if somebody will take my dog they couldn't find anyone in the end we took all the dogs out to the woods with our .22 rifles and our shovels and dug their graves you want to see a grown man cry? you should have seen me that day I was a mask of tears they were just like a cascade nothing in the body of Christ had ever evoked tears in the way that the prospect of having to kill my dog did my soul was tied up with that animal it looked at me with such adoring attention as if I was faultless others could find the fault my dog could not and I had to kill it and I dug the grave while all the other dogs had to be towed by ropes my dog followed me in perfect obedience and was sitting there as I'm digging its grave and I'm weeping and some guy with whom I had difficulty and tension volunteered to do the shooting what a sport he was going to do my dog in because I couldn't pull the trigger myself and he did it and the remarkable thing is when they shoveled the dirt on that quivering beautiful thing today I don't even know where in the woods we buried them and we walked back blood stained, dirt stained, sweat stained, I had my armor on this brother's neck, he had his armor on my neck, something had happened in that death that released us to a new quality of relationship because something in the soul life had died with that dog it would never have happened in New Jersey so long as we had lived privately, community brought the issue and the requirement I was just thinking this will hasten the preparation of the bride the preparation of the bride this is it this is what it's going to require a community is the environment for that working about you taking that dog out as a metaphor for your father just you weeping just like the father weeps when he knows graves are getting dug for Jews and Christians you felt the father out of God and I had that with a pony, I know exactly what I had the same thing with a pony that's I'm not going to say it but my soul was dying with the death of the dog what of the father as he saw his son being brought into death so it was not some abstract thing for him he suffered with his son in that death that was needful that's love so what shall we complain what requirement shall be made of us that can begin to approach that requirement which he bore and that saves us from self pity and being maudlin in our sentimentality and performing what is needful even for the liberation of our own souls and then of course I have the sneaky suspicion that there is a doggy heaven and that same animal will come bouncing up to me with its tag wagging, tail wagging and we will go on eternally together remember what it says in Hebrews chapter 10 when Paul says to these saints you have taken your stripping with joy knowing in yourself that you had a greater recompense in heaven, I've been stripped more than once in fact I've been stripped of everything I took in a brother in that three years that we were out of the community and finally when the Lord allowed me first to return I took some character who was in the neighborhood I was warned about him he's psychotic, he's dangerous he's divorced he was living in a shack with a dog and a pig I took this guy in to help with the property and give him something to eat some money and we began to build up the place, before long we had seven horses and we had the leather harnesses and materials, because we anticipated a day in which there would be no diesel fuel, that we would have to use animals, so we were building up and had acquired equipment and tools and then the Lord allowed me to be one of the first occasions of ministry in three years in death because part of the death was I was not to be allowed to speak publicly there was a sabbatical silence I was required to obey, and one of the first times I'm in Chicago and this guy is calling me that he's ready to leave we've had some difficulty and so I'm with a brother of an apostolic kind and the man says over the phone what shall I take? I said take? man I've supplied everything and your labor hasn't been paid, and so this man says, I thought well let him take half, take half of what we have accumulated, the brother said let him take what he thinks is right, I said take what you think is right, I came back to Ben Israel, all seven horses were gone, every tool, every piece of hardware everything that had been accumulated, stripped to the bone, he even took the oak boards, the piss stained boards upon which the horses stood everything I was stripped and my first impulse was indignation after succoring this guy, giving him a break I'm stripped to the bone and the Lord said you're not entitled to the luxury of indignation take your stripping with joy knowing that in heaven you have a greater recompense when the powers of darkness see our joy in our stripping where they think that we should be expressing self pity and complaint which is in keeping with their wisdom when they see another wisdom of a joy in our loss because we know in ourselves there's a recompense in heaven because we're eternally minded they're devastated, they're done in they lose their power, the air goes out from them they cannot intimidate and threaten, they're defeated our joy has defeated them but to come to that and know in ourselves that we have a greater recompense is no small accomplishment spiritually isn't the faith remarkable? the call? how can we do it alone? we need each other, we need the prayers we need the counsel look what we're enjoying today because we're acting, we're interacting and asking and answering and God is opening up a realm of riches that would not have come if I just spoke a message this is rich it's a taste already of community we're in a little mini community even in these days may it so spoil us that as our sister said, when I go back to the place where I'm coming I'll feel desolate I've enjoyed something and now I've got to be in another realm may the Lord give you allies of like mind and heart that even so much as two or three together is already the nucleus of a community that you might receive the encouragement and blessedness from it do you see it important to maintain a network a known network of people like a religious group so just to maintain the contact just to maintain the network of people but I mean we're pretty much from one end of the North Island to the other end of it do you see it important to maintain that? Sure, yeah I would encourage you in fact to take names take addresses, take phones, be in email be in connection have occasion to see each other again and review what has the Lord been doing since we've been together last how has he worked it out for you and be encouraged by one another one of the blessings of Ben Israel and our summer prophetical school is people meeting one another from different parts of the world and so Brian Barry, they know men from Africa they have invitations from other parts of the world they know a fellow from France and his wife who's Dutch they're meeting the world at Ben Israel and those relationships continue and abide, they're fruitful and it's not the least of the benefit of coming together in a context like this so see to it How would it sit in your heart How would it sit in your heart to get an invitation in four years to a community in New Zealand that was founded on these principles After he has said this is your list there's only one who's entitled to contradict himself and to repent of his former decisions and that's the Lord if he gives me leave I'll come with joy but it's important for us to believe that this is our last visit and to retain its value as if this is a once and for all that will not be given again that's what I think he's after and I've been speaking as if I believe that to give the best that I know and to be used and rung out that you get every drop because I'm not anticipating there'll be another such occasion if he gives it, praise God but we must esteem the present moment not only now because but that this disposition to esteem the present moment is the distinctive of the church otherwise one moment is like another one day is like another one Sunday is like another we have got to be schooled into an appreciation of the moment as given by God even when it's ordinary when it is not attended by special speaking that gives us an enhancement for life and its value that is lost to the world which is true living we've got to get off the spot and esteem and appreciate the moment not just because it's something spectacular or unusual but because it's given of God every moment is appointed of God and it needs to be regarded with great esteem and appreciation the world doesn't know how to live like that but that is living, that's why it's born how can we be born if our every moment is appointed of God and what is just chance this conversation is charged with the prospect of heavenly counsel and inspiration instruction, comfort and all of the rest of the things that we receive from each other so he's teaching us how to be spoiled and stay spoiled esteem the moment as being once and for all though it will be followed by other moments it's another mentality it's another disposition, it's another wisdom it's true living it's apostolic in regards to the Shabbat the Sabbath day you would sort of recommend that one would take that on board as a principle as a command from God where he says that the seventh day the Sabbath day I command you today to do for all time and because of that command even though he's speaking to Israel but because we are grafted into Israel we should take heed of that and do it as a Jewish ritual but take that particular time as a command from God as a way of honoring and it wouldn't hurt it would actually bless but it's not some obligatory thing that we perform by gritting our teeth it's a joyous thing and in every obedience is the enablement but even if it was not a command he gave his own example by resting on the seventh day so just to follow him in his example leads us to the same obedience in fact more precious are they who follow the way of the Lord without having to be commanded when we were young we were commanded I told you that my tears are very infrequent takes the death of a dog or some very special thing of course I'm hard but I remember a time when I actually fell out of my chair collapsed on the floor and found my way under the table at a full gospel breakfast meeting because the speaker I was a young believer I had just come to Kansas City as a missionary to the Jews he said when I was young I was careful to heed every commandment of the Lord I said amen brother that's right he said but as I have gone on I no longer wait for commandments I heed the faintest intimation of his spirit I sense the disposition of his heart I do it I don't need commandment when I heard that something broke a fountain of tears I didn't know that such a walk was possible I only thought commandment to be obedient in commandment but here is something that transcended commandment the faintest intimation of his heart the disposition of his spirit wow I went down and I've never recovered so may we not need to wait for commandment but to intimate and go ahead before him and sense even his disposition is what he's after because that is the character of a son setting up a community in the setting up of a community we really need to know the sovereign will of God on that don't we we desire to get a community together on this basis we thought it was God and it was the thing we needed to do um we put notes out through our christian friends that we called a meeting to start a community we got I guess about 18 or 21 people came along the outcome of that meeting was there was three of us that got together for a a a weekly meeting night meeting as soon as we felt or as soon as something we said at the meeting we felt that the idea of the community was so that we might be able to know the mind of the Lord and to be serious about our walk with the Lord and it needed that we appear to allow each other to speak into each other's lives as God would lead us out of love the first time that something was said the group of three went and we're no more I'm not surprised this is not going to be a cream puff this is not icing on the cake this is going to be struggle, sacrifice painful disappointment excruciating disappointment betrayal so we have to steal ourselves and anticipate these realities it's not magic it's not a social experiment and I never did finish what Bonhoeffer said in the book Life Together he said if any man comes with the vision for community that is to say how it ought to be he brings the seeds of destruction with him you have simply to come but do not come with what you think it ought to be because no two expressions of it will be alike the Lord will mediate the reality of community in the context of your New Zealand life and situation and history so it will contain the essential configuration elements of the intimacy and intensity of life but its form and character will be peculiar to you and we mustn't copy it from each other and it's got to be worked out existentially the dialectic of God day by day prayer meeting by prayer meeting encounter by encounter disappointment by disappointment it's an organic thing not an organization and these Jews that will be suckered and taken in to communities that by their nature are also places of refuge will recognize that no man could have conceived these communities these are not organized by men and their relatedness one to another is not organized by men there is no taint or stink of man this is the work of the spirit this is organic each community shows the creator in its configuration and what it is in its corporate personality and they'll go from one to another and they'll know that no man could have performed the design or organized this and that they are all somehow in some kind of symmetry and relatedness that they know of each other face to face and there's trust and this has not been structured by men will be a revelation to Jews of God in a way that they had never in millennia been treated that's what's at stake here in the whole apparatus of the places in the wilderness in which the woman is to be fed. It cannot bear the taint of man. It cannot be structured by men. It cannot be organized organization is convenient and dear Ingrid God bless her, I keep bringing her up why don't you do this? Why don't you take care of the garbage? Why don't you organize? Yes it would save us from the garbage not being attended. It would be much more efficient but we would have robbed men of the opportunity for growth in character and life through the voluntary work and things that could easily have been commanded and required of them but they would have lost the prospect for manhood and growth in sonship. Of course Ingrid doesn't understand that. She's Danish so organization what's the word that they use it's the same in German order ordnung she wants ordnung but ordnung imposed by men robs the community of the elements of growth so I've had to fight the tension with her understanding her Danish heart. She wants to see order. It destroys her because Denmark is greater than New Zealand in its orderliness as is Singapore and so she's got to suffer through dirt and garbage and unkempt life that could easily be rectified in a moment by men imposing structure organization, man but we dare not touch the ark of God so you have to contend with a wife who is bristling and boiling over while at the same time having a prophetic understanding of what God is wanting, that must not be touched that's the tension over 30 years of it to fellowship? yes of course, yeah, that is the principle that's why I prayed so early this morning to be patient with one another we're all in different places when you come together in community you're in different places of maturity, naivety and expectancy and you've got to bear this out and the man who is the father has to bear the impact of men who have come whose own relationships with their own fathers have been lacking they have a distorted view, they have an animus against fathers, against authority and you're the visible and authoritative father figure, and upon you comes all of the things which they have suffered in the natural and are ventilated against you because you're the father figure and you have to bear it so there's a cross inexplicable real sufferings I have suffered more in community not because men are evil intentioned but because they are what they are in their naivety, in their ignorance in their immaturity, in their histories than ever I have suffered from opposition of my own people to my message that's kid stuff the real suffering is in the church and to bear it is at the heart of community and fellowship but there's a fellowship of his sufferings yeah you mentioned the threat to Israel by Islam what about the threat to the rest of the world that they may be forced into conversion community first the Saturday people then the Sunday people and then all infidels their intention is not our conversion but our destruction but it will start with the Jew then with the church then with all infidels it's the most vicious vile thing that has ever issued out of the depths of hell and yet we Jews have warranted it and to the church also as judgment why? because it is a perverse expression of monotheism in the dome of the rock at the temple site encircling it in Arabic I understand that God has no son something like that they are viciously monotheistic they've missed the glory of God in his Triune Godhead because in the 7th century when Islam was born through Mohammed the condition of Israel in rejecting the revelation of the cross and of the Triune God had been reduced to a form of monotheism which he adopted and the church also though it's subscribed to the articles of faith as being Triune was monotheistic in its practice and in its mentality so there's a certain sense in which Islam was born out of a defunct Judaism and a lacking church and now has become to a place where it has haunted both and threatened both it's a judgment and maybe the judgment will not be released until we acknowledge that both as the church and as Jews we have been defunct in acknowledging and honoring the mystery of the Godhead as being Triune and this judgment has been visited upon us for that reason I'm not saying let's save the Lord just a little prophetic hunch that I have but where is it that any adversity is not in fact a judgment so that it behooves us to look for its root in order to be relieved of it it's not going to be relieved by counter terrorism and by starting wars in Iraq although I supported that war because I think its purpose was God's judgment on its ruler the tyrant and the rapes and open victimization of a people at his ruthless command it wasn't the looking for the weapons of mass destruction, it was to meet him in judgment but as an answer against the threat of Islam it will not be met by the flesh the arm of the flesh but something in the heavenly, something in the spiritual realm has got to be met by a repentant church and perhaps even an acknowledging Judaism that in missing the cross, they have missed the triune God for Father, Son and Holy Spirit were there most clearly and profoundly revealed as nowhere else and to miss that and then still to celebrate a monotheism that does God injustice and it falls short of his glory and as if you are really defending the faith when in fact you're disfiguring it has got to open the door to judgment which has come in the form of Islam and is now the very threat to the life of Israel itself and Jews everywhere which is to say it will not be remedied except by the repentance that comes with the acknowledgement of the triune God revealed at the cross and in Jesus, it will require the conversion of Jews to be rid of the threat of that judgment we need to instruct them in their error instead of applauding them in it as if they have God when Jesus said if you reject me you reject the Father also the word is clear we dare not allow them to go on in their delusion though I have to say, strangely I don't know, that when I attend their synagogue services or the Yom Kippur or Rosh Hashanah at the community in Brooklyn, the Lubavitchers that come out at 5pm in their black clothing, I sense some presence of God that there is something there that even in their exile, there's some measure of God, because I look into their faces, I can tell phonies I know what religious posturing is I see it so often in the church but I see it as earnestness in these guys because somewhere in Isaiah I will be with you as a kind of miniature presence in your exile so even in their error there's some measure of God that enables them to go on, strangely so as to oppose the greater truth that we have to offer and that's the tension in which I am with the Jewish community and which you need to be also they have a measure but they're falling short of the greater glory of the revelation which we're privileged to know I need to communicate well this gospel is the power of God unto salvation to the Jew first and also to the Greek so go into all the world, all the authorities that he has given me both in heaven and earth and preach this gospel to every creature beginning at Jerusalem and unto Judea then to the uttermost corners of the world we've gone to the uttermost corners but we've not gone to Judea and Jerusalem even in our own midst we've circumvented, we're polite we don't want to offend we don't want to raise an unhappy issue we want to placate and make nice but what is nice? what is sentiment? love is risking offense and rejection so for that we need every enablement and every grace and not the least of it is what is before us this morning in conclusion the table of the Lord we need to come to it with such a fresh appreciation that we're not just quaffing down a little wine and we're fulfilling a ritual obligation but that covenant this is the covenantal meal is being renewed and validated by this eating and drinking all the more when we're taking it together with each other because we also are in communion we're not just a bunch of strays that have come together for the purpose of a mini school or conference we're in something together and that validates on earth what has been validated already by the death and sacrifice of the Lord and it imputes to us more than wine and bread the substance and the spirit of the life of God his character his essential nature as well as the strength to bear what we must until the end that's why we, as often as you do this that's why my everyday begins with communion and concludes with the table so thank you Lord precious God, this has been a most precious time, who could have orchestrated this, organized it this was in your heart to touch the questions that were lingering my God with your saints which we needed because a saint a daughter cried out this morning Lord, it's not yet complete there's something more we need to hear that needs to be expressed and we're looking to you for it this morning thank you for the answer to that cry and that you've spoken between the lines and even the things that have not been expressly articulated have been touched and hinted at just in passing so we thank you Lord, oh you're a great God you've not left us orphans you've not left us without enablement, you've not called us to such utterly large things as you have said before us in these days to actually consummate the age by coming into such a character with yourself as constitutes a bride for the bridegroom that we're not to go from our privatistic lifestyle into authentic apostolic prophetic community by ourselves but your life, the strength of it its power, its enablement its grace Lord because when we came to community we were sick with that once a month plastic cup and taking it now when we were not in communion it was impersonal it provided nothing we were glad to be rid of it but once we came into community and saw what was required that being nice guys could only last at best maybe a week and after that we were destitute we were impatient we were ugly, we were short tempered we were condemning and critical and the community would have gone up like a puff except something was received in the eating and drinking of your body and your blood that imparted your life to be patient to be gracious, to be sweet natured to be condescending to be able to be to each other what we ought that this remarkable experiment that is heavenly in character might be transacted and established in the earth so bless my God this bread and this wine afresh for those who are consecrating themselves all the more because of the conclusion that has come to us today and are saying in their deepest heart yes Lord, I'm called or I would not be here I'm here because you ordained it to hear this, because the hearing of this is mandate and call and as self sufficient as I have been through the years impressively, I recognize that in this call it's beyond any capacity in myself however well meaning to fulfill I need you and I need your life in full and I'm willing even in the drinking of this cup and blood to be brought to death in those subtleties of soul that yet linger which I want to enjoy lingering and will bring to an end that you might be all in all. So may we eat and drink with that sense today in the vision that the Lord once gave me, whether a dream I don't remember I was serving communion I was in a vast theater and there were two tables one was the popular one and it was fancy and people were coming to it in a flood and eating and coughing down the cup as if it was a burp coke of refreshment and I was in the corner of the room poorly illuminated with a folding card table and that my bread was the bread of affliction and my cup was the cup of sorrows and few that came to my table may they come this morning Lord with a heart of dedication and consecration where you'll meet them and seal that consecration and enable them to fulfill it by the continual eating and drinking of your body and blood in communion together with the saints of like mind and heart and will in Jesus name so when the bread comes this time and you break it you know that that is connoting what you're saying to the world that you yourself are going to be a broken bread broken at your best and giving up forfeiting relinquishing that human thing that you might receive the divine thank you Lord impute my God your life to this cracker thank you Lord precious God on high consecrate yourself in that eating and drinking seal something once and for all if this was a once and for all speaking and a once and for all event make it a once and for all consecration that need not be repeated again it is finished as fully as he spoke those words in his own death so I am speaking in yours it is finished the issue is over it's not again to be an issue it's once and for all I'm yours my possessions my future, my hopes what I am, hope to be my marriage, my family I'm dead I'm your man if there's no resurrection I must be dead but I believe that because you live I shall live also thank you Lord thank you my God precious God conclude our time in this rich significance of a sacrament my God that has lost it's cogency water baptism has lost it's meaning your table has lost it's meaning your sacraments have got to be revived for we ourselves are called to be sacramental personalities and we ourselves should be a sacrament for New Zealand and New Zealand should be a sacrament for the world the church in the world should be a sacrament for Israel a broken bread and a poor heart thank you my God holy one am I let the dear rejoicing in heaven my God as those around the throne look down and see us now at the conclusion of this time what a time thank you my God something being sealed once and for all that there's a rejoicing in heaven for the truth and the reality of it thank you my God that your mystery will be fulfilled will be consummated there will be a restored nation the nations will surrender their kingdoms to you Israel will be your people thank you my God and you'll have a bride for the banquet of which this little four spice is only a hint at the banquet that awaits us thank you my God thank you Lord holy one and those of you students at the retirement remember I've got your fingers on the palm of my hand I just give you thanks like food what is it called thank you Lord cause of death thank you my God thank you Lord Oswald Chambers calls that kind of prayer a white funeral it's an effectual death registered in heaven that dream is one of those dreams thank you my God that we go to our own funeral and actually perform it thank you holy one so we bless our dear brother my God and pray such a release of a resurrection life that people who have known him and have admired him will have to turn their heads and note something new here there's a dimension that was not before there's a reality that exceeds what we have appreciated in him there's nothing more or less or other than very God thank you Lord his courage his directness his sternness his counsel his brotherliness wisdom is from on high thank you Lord where's the council ok it needs to be Phil what did you show me thank you Lord I have accepted that I am a chosen of you I am especially with my friend here this old woman and her name is you may hear that I have accepted the call to be chosen by Jesus thank you Lord we have eaten of the bread of affliction and we are drinking from the cup of sorrows we're not content that you should bear it alone because you're the man of sorrows still you're experiencing grief still as you look down upon the world that you have created and the condition of men in it even the church let alone Israel is a source of grief for you and we would not that you should bear it alone we're coming into communion with you my God the wife needs to bear with her husband his travail thank you Lord we're letting you know we're open to be affected by the things that are the cause of your own present sorrow and grief and it's not going to hurt us it will do us good it will keep us from levity and shallowness and whiteness it will bring a dimension of weight which is the Hebrew word for glory by sharing your sorrows and your griefs thank you my God thank you my God has everyone had their cup? raise your hand if it's not yet come to you thank you Lord just pray under your heart pray do something with the Lord make clear your concentration he's hearing you it's being registered about his prayer make your own turn this whole time into an event by your own final response to it what you say and do now will be registered for time and for eternity and you're free to choose or to reject the precious call that has been articulated now we turn every truth into an event by our own final decision as an act thank you Lord Father it is thank you that it's taken a great number of years from 97 till now to reveal the fullness of a dream that you gave me Father I can now stand on that dream of proclaiming a truth in it because it has understanding for me Lord your word says that something of yours will prophesy young men will have visions old men will have dreams Father has to be for a purpose so thank you Lord that as you have spoken to me through dreams and visions that I can now in confidence stand on them and say this is instruction and understanding for your purposes of your church and of your body thank you Lord I don't fully understand you but before you preach this word I give up entirely on to be this human thing I consider myself to be a good one I give you my I give you full control and I leave you now on your own depending how you feel how you deal with this but Lord it's spoken to a place of treason go behind and I leave you now in my life, in my home, and we are so open to the reality of everyday life. I want you to remember this first story in my heart, and help me to walk without fear. I just thank you for your grace. I rejoice in your grace. I rejoice, Lord, that you love us so much, and that you are what we are. Lord Jesus, I will love what you love. I will love you as you love me. Lord, I choose to love you. I choose to love you. And I pray that you will move me to be part of your purposes for the whole of the world. God has told you, forbidden, that I should follow you. Dear God, I am in a place to take refuge, but Lord, there is no way I can go. I love you, and I want to cling to you. I just pray that you will forgive me. And I think she came from you, and you've done it, and you didn't come from God. So I pray your mercy, and your grace, and your loving. Lord, as we go back to our homes and into what used to be the reality of how we used to live, Lord, I pray that it becomes just a memory, Lord. Lord, that we begin to move to a different centrality here. Lord God, that as we go back, we go back as the dead. Lord, who live, but unto you, Lord. And Lord, through our families, Lord, that we respond as dead, but unto you, Lord. Lord God, it's in business that we are dead, but unto you we are alive. But not us, but you and us, Lord Jesus. Let this become the reality and the centrality of our entire being and family, Lord. Let this, what has been spoken this week, become our reality and the former of fading memories. Lord, that these things might grow strangely dim, as your word says. Lord, that our eyes be fixed on you, Lord, and that you take hold in our lives, Lord, and you become centrality and the breath of our life, Lord. That our soul moves in you and not without you, Lord. That our minds are conformed to your will and to your will, Lord. Lord, that our material goods be moved to where you want them to be, so that we can move where you want us to be, Lord. Father God, that our values, Father God, and our mindsets, Father, be molded in depth, Father God, to your will and your life. Father God, change us from this day, Father God. Let us not go back to the old. Let us not look back to Sodom and Gomorrah, Lord, that we be turned to a pillar of salt, Lord. But let us look forward to that promised land, Lord. That the land of the Spirit, Lord God, might see your face in the Spirit and truth, and not be deceived by men and flesh-seekers. Let us not look back to the old, Father God, anymore. Lord, your will be done and your kingdom come. Your kingdom come. Not ours or any other man's, but your kingdom be established. We pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, Lord. Guide us all as we go to be, Lord, into the places you want us to really be, Lord. Forgive us for being in places that are not quite there, Lord. And take us all into the places you want us to be, the things you want us to be doing. In the mighty name of Jesus, we pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen. Father, you have revealed yourself to me in a fresh way that I never even imagined. Lord, as we leave this place, as I leave this place, my life will never be the same, because you have come into it in a way that was indescribable before. Father, I pray and ask that you would keep on revealing yourself through the years, through all the things that have happened in the past, that I would understand more of you. And in the future, Father, when you leave, when I leave here, that I would come to know you more, that my desire for you would be even stronger than it is. But Lord, we are not the pointy face. We will say, well done, faithful servant. Show us how we long for those words. How we long to see you. I would accept your affirmation. Increase us more to be what it is, what it means to be. I would like to help you more. I'm sorry I'm so disappointed with grace and all this. Father, Lord, I want you to tell us what we can do. I want you to cross my heart. And I just pray that you would open it for me. Father, I'm just reminded that Jesus went to the cross and embraced it because of the joy that it brought. And I don't know about that. Lord, I just ask you to keep your grace into my heart that you would open my eyes to see the heavenly kingdom and what it is that you are fulfilling. And Lord, that you would help me to know that every day when I attempt to settle for an immediate job instead of what you want me to do. Lord, I ask forgiveness for all the disobedience that I've been doing and I pray, Lord. And I just pray right now, Father God, that you should forgive me, Lord, that I'll turn towards you in the fullness of your grace and mercy, Lord. Lord, when I first arrived here, I wanted to run away. So I had no understanding why I was coming here. But, Lord, you put a stop to that one night, Lord, when a plank of wood fell on my foot and I was unable to move. And so, Lord, you have ways of doing things. And that brought new times to me, Lord. And, Lord, now I've seen a bigger picture. I no longer want to run away. I want to run into you, Lord. I want to run into you more deeper, Father God. And, Lord, I just thank you for this time being here, Lord. I want to give you all the praise, Lord. And, Lord, I just pray that I will be able to obey what you're saying now, Lord God, and be able to be that person that you've chosen for me to be, Lord, in you, Father God, the glory of your name, Father. So thank you, Lord. Thank you for bringing me here. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for everything you have given. Thank you for bringing me here as well, Father. Thank you, thank you, your shore, for coming into my life and letting me know about your existence. Thank you, Father. Thank you, Father, for giving me the opportunity to understand the concept of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit and fill my heart with it. And, Father, even when I was not a believer, I know that you have been with me. I know that you have saved me, and I know that you have looked after me, Father. And, Lord, now I've got the opportunity to stand like the one who understands that I can only run my life by giving it to you, Lord, by giving it to you fully, Lord. And I need not be afraid, Lord, anymore for anything but only leaning on you, Lord, only being afraid of you, Lord. Make sure, Lord, that I do not sin against you, Lord. I love you, Lord. Do not let the devil take a ride over me, Lord. Sometimes the devil just loves me too much. I think I've got a sweet blood, Lord. Make it bitter to him, Lord, because I want to be yours, Lord. I truly, fully want to be yours, Lord. 40 years in my life, I only just ran around like playing a record, Lord. Oh, Lord, how much I'm curious, how much I'm willing, I'd like to be under your hand, Lord. Let me feel you, Lord. I love the feel of the Lord, Lord. I love you, Lord. I love you, Yoshua. And please, Lord, teach me to be with you. Teach me to listen to you. Teach me to use you, Lord. Teach me to trust you, Lord. I need to learn to trust you, Lord. I have nothing to trust myself for, Lord. Let me trust you. Let me love you, Lord. And use me, Lord, as you use the other to fulfill the purpose. I want only to fulfill the purpose of you, Lord, Yoshua. Oh, Lord, one million thank you. I thank you fully, Lord. In your name, I'm proud to say, Lord, I'm not ashamed anymore to use your name, Yoshua, Hamashiach. Jesus Christ, what a beautiful name. Oh, hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Father, for your love and for your faithfulness and for your graciousness to us. For these days you have brought us in sight of the city, which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. Lord, we set our hearts on that place. That is now our home. And by your grace, Lord, we sever ourselves forever from this world and the love of it. And give ourselves, Lord, as a freewill offering into your service, into your life, to do with as pleases you. Bless you, Lord. Our only response is gratitude.