In this sermon, the speaker addresses the question of why the establishment came crashing down upon the people of God. He emphasizes the importance of witnessing and expressing the salvation of God to others, even if they are already considered the people of God. The speaker encourages the audience to pray for Israel and the Jewish people, as well as to dedicate time to learning about them. He also highlights the suffering of the apostles and the need for believers to be witnesses. The sermon references Isaiah 43 and emphasizes the spiritual meaning behind God bringing his redeemed people together.

If we could turn to Romans and chapter 11 once more, I would like to read some of those verses. Romans chapter 11 from verse 11. I say then, did they stumble, that is the Jewish people, that they might fall? God forbid. But by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles to provoke them to jealousy. Now if their fall is the riches of the world and their loss is the riches of the Gentiles, how much more their fullness. But I speak to you that are Gentiles, in as much then as I am an apostle of Gentiles, I glorify my ministry. If by any means I may provoke to jealousy them that are my flesh and may save some of them. For if the casting away of them is the reconciling of the world, what shall the receiving of them be but life from the dead? And if the first fruit is holy, so is the lump. And if the root is holy, so are the branches. But if some of the branches were broken off, and thou being a wild olive was grafted in among them and didst become partaker with them of the root of the fatness of the olive tree, glory not over the branches, but if thou gloriest, it is not thou that barest the root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then branches were broken off that I might be grafted in. Well, by their unbelief they were broken off, and thou standest by thy faith. Be not high-minded, but fear. For if God spared not the natural branches, neither will he spare thee. Behold then the goodness and severity of God. Toward them that fell, severity, but toward thee, God's goodness. If thou continue in his goodness, otherwise thou also shalt be cut off. And they also, if they continue not in their unbelief, shall be grafted in. For God is able to graft them in again. For if thou was cut out of that which is by nature a wild olive tree, and was grafted contrary to nature into a good olive tree, how much more shall these which are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree. For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery, lest ye be wise in your own conceits, that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. And so all Israel shall be saved, even as it is written, there shall come out of Zion the deliverer, he shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob, and this is my covenant unto them, when I shall take away their sins. As touching the gospel, they are enemies for your sake, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake. For the gifts and the calling of God are without repentance. For as ye in time past were disobedient to God, but now have obtained mercy by their disobedience, even so have these also now been disobedient, that by the mercy shown to you they also may now obtain mercy. For God hath shut up all unto disobedience, that he might have mercy upon all. Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and his ways past tracing out! For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counsellor? Or who has first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and unto him, are all things. To him be the glory forever. Amen. Shall we just bow in prayer? Dear Lord, although we've already committed this time to thee, we cannot just, Lord, speak without recognizing our absolute dependence upon thee, both speaker and hearer. We confess it, Lord, that if there's going to be value in this afternoon, then, Lord, it will be because thou art here, and because, Lord, thou art the enabling power of speaker and hearer alike. We stand into that anointing now, Lord, and we trust thee to meet with us through thy word, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. This afternoon I'm going to speak on this subject of the responsibility of the church, or of the people of God, of the Christian nation, toward the Jewish people, toward Israel and the Jewish people. I believe that the church, the believer, has a very heavy and solemn responsibility for Israel and for the Jew. And the first thing I want to do this afternoon, this isn't a very good sermon I'm preaching, in that sense it'll be a mess, but from my heart, the first thing I want to do is to ask myself, why does the church have a responsibility toward the Jew? Why? Because I believe that until we see why we have a responsibility, no one will take up or shoulder that responsibility. Why have we, as the people of God, as the church of God, as the body of Christ, as born-again Christians, believers, why do we have a responsibility toward the Jew? I will answer firstly, because by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles. Every single person in this room who is of Gentile stock is here because of the Jewish people. There would be no gospel but for the Jewish people. Humanly speaking there would have been no Messiah but for the Jewish people. And the fall of the Jewish people has become the glorious means by which God has fulfilled that age-old Jewish dream that all the nations of the earth shall come into blessing through them. It has happened from every tongue and kindred and people and nation. A people have been joined to God through the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Himself. They have come from every corner of the earth. They have been joined to the people of God. They have become members of the commonwealth of Israel. If we look at Romans 11 and verse 11, it says, but by their fall salvation is come unto the Gentiles. And verse 12, if their fall is the riches of the world and their loss the riches of the Gentiles. Don't you think that we, as the people of God, have got a tremendous responsibility towards Israel and towards the Jewish people, perhaps a supreme responsibility towards this people because by their fall we have been lifted up. Because they have been scattered to the ends of the earth we have been joined to God, reconciled to God, made one with God in the Messiah, in Christ. How can any believer be anti-Jewish? How can any true born again Christian take up an anti-Jewish stand? Surely it is impossible. We read in Romans chapter 9, verse 4 and 5, and the Apostle Paul speaking about this is, who are Israelites, whose is the adoption and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the law and the service of God and the promises, whose are the fathers and of whom is the Messiah concerning, as concerning the flesh, who is over all God, blessed forever. Amen. What a list! The fact of the matter is that all that we have has come through this people. Humanly speaking, and if anyone belongs to that ilk who feel that somehow or other the Old Testament is some somewhat useless appendage, and that the New Testament is all that matters, may I remind you that as far as we know there is only one writer in the New Testament who is Gentile, and of that we have much dispute. The only one that we understand as a Gentile is Dr. Luke, and as I say, that is under dispute. Question. All the others, the gospel writers, the writers of the letters, every single document, humanly speaking, has come through Jewish hands, by Jewish lips. The gospel was taken to the whole world by Jewish bodies and Jewish lips, and there would not be here a single born-again believer but for the original Jewish apostles, evangelists, pastors, teachers, who laid down their lives because they saw something that we are in danger of losing. What did they see? They saw that this gospel was the fulfillment of Jewish history. They saw it as the consummation of all that God had given to the fathers and the prophets. They saw it as the fulfillment of this age-long aspiration that Israel might become, as it were, a vessel by which the light and salvation of God would come to the ends of the earth. Why do people relegate all this to the millennium, as if only in the millennium it's going to happen? My dear friends, the fact of the matter is, the early church was totally Jewish. Its origins, its thinking, its background, everything was Hebrew. They saw their responsibility to bring in the uncircumcision. They saw as their responsibility to take the gospel to the Gentile, and it brought them into terrible controversy, not only outside antagonism toward them from the Jewish establishment, but within their fold, Judaizers, those who did not see as clearly as they, that the thing was fulfilled. Why did the Apostle Paul suffer? Why did the other apostles suffer? There was no need for them to become the offscouring of the world and the derision of so many. If they had only followed a more compromised way, but they saw that this gospel which had been given to them was the culmination of Jewish history. They saw it as the fulfillment of all that God had done in the people, and they saw themselves, they saw themselves, now get this clear, they saw themselves as the true Israel of God. Those who were writing for the true Israel of God had never been the outward Israel of God. Don't forget that in the messianic line you've got Gentiles, you've got Bathsheba. She was not exactly a very moral lady at one point, and she was a Gentile. You've got Ruth, a Moabitess, and you've got a few others too that we will not go into, but they're all there. Job was not Jewish, and yet these people had been added to God. They came to God. Do you see what I'm trying to get at? What I'm saying is that the real Israel of God was always within the outward Israel of God, and the apostles, the early apostles, they saw themselves as, as it were, the fulfillment of what God had been doing. Here was the real Israel of God, and they saw a solemn responsibility to take that gospel to the Gentiles, even though it caused tremendous controversy and upset and disturbance everywhere. Wouldn't it have been much easier if they could have had nice little Gentile communities all on their own, and Hebrew believing communities on their own? It would have made things so much easier, but no. They saw something that was tremendous. They saw the middle wall of petition had gone, but the shoe was on the other foot. They didn't think of people becoming, um, sort of Jews becoming Gentiles in order to become Christians. They saw Gentiles becoming Jews. That's what, that's the whole emphasis. They saw it as something, as an adding into something which God had been doing. My dear friend, if you will only get your thinking reorientated on this, the whole Bible talks about it. All the letters talk about it. I could now spend hours just reading portions from it, and suddenly you would wake up to see it. Listen to this, um, in Ephesians chapter 2. Let me just get this for you. Ephesians chapter 2, verse 11. I'm reading from the older version. Listen to this. Wherefore remember that once ye, the Gentiles in the flesh, who are called uncircumcision by that which is called circumcision in the flesh, made by hands, that ye were at that time separate from the Messiah, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenant of the promise, having no hope and without God in this world. But now, in the Messiah Jesus, ye that once were far off, are made nigh in the blood of the Messiah. For he is our peace, who made both one, and break down the middle wall of petition, having abolished in his flesh the enmity of the law of commandments, contained in ordinances, that he might create in himself of two one new man, so making peace. Now I could go on reading and reading and reading, portion after portion, but what I will prove to you is this, that the early apostles, they saw as their responsibility that they had to take this gospel to the Gentiles, and they were saying to the Gentiles, you are now included. You people who are far off, to whom the fathers do not belong, to whom the prophets don't belong, to whom the covenant, with whom the covenants were not made, you are now included. You are members of the commonwealth of Israel. You're no longer separated, divorced, far off, distanced. You've been made nigh. For we who are Jews, we have been fulfilled, and you who are Gentiles have now become Jews, if you want to put it that way. Of course, all that's been lost. This whole sense of it, and now comes back. People say the Bible is more contemporary than a newspaper. Of course it is. Listen how contemporary this is. Be not high-minded, but fear. Don't think that you of Gentile stock, that you are now everything, just because there happen to be millions and millions and millions and millions and millions of you. Just you remember that all the branches are still born by the root. Don't be high-minded. Remember that to you belong the fathers, to you belong the prophets, to you belong all those saints, the true Israel of God. When we begin to see it like that, what a difference it makes. It clears up a whole number of our problems on this matter. The root bears us all. The root bears us all. The root, of course, is the Messiah himself. He is the root and stock of Jesse. And he said, before Abraham was, I am. He is the root, but then we have all the others. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses. Oh, people say, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. They belong to the Hebrew community. Well, just wait before you go any further on this point. I've got an argument with you. Listen to this. Our Lord, in Matthew chapter 8 and verse 10, and when Jesus heard it, he marveled and said to them, this is the Gentile centurion, and said to them that followed, verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many shall come from the east and the west and shall sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into outer darkness. Or again, just so that you are absolutely clear on this point, Luke 13, and listen to these words, verse 20, there shall be the weeping and gnashing of teeth when ye shall see Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God and yourselves cast forth. Now, don't you see these, not only our Lord Jesus, the words of our Lord, but the early apostles, they saw something. They saw something. They felt they had a solemn responsibility, and their responsibility was this, they had been so favored, so blessed, they were of the natural stock, and they had found the Messiah, and in finding the Messiah, they felt we have a solemn responsibility now to see that this gospel goes to all the Gentiles, that this age-old aspiration of the Jewish people be fulfilled, and that out of every tribe and kindred and nation and people shall come a people for the Lord. Of course, there must be problems, and there are problems as to physical things, material things, the nation in the future, and all that, but spiritually, let's get at least at the spiritual heart of this matter. We have a solemn responsibility towards the Jewish people because not one single person of Gentile stock would be in the Messiah but for them. Not only the faithful ones who brought the gospel to us, but the majority who fell, for by their fall salvation has come to the Gentiles. You know, I've often thought we would never have any problem on this matter if, and this is all speculation by the way, I'd really like the tape recorder turned off at this point, but this is all just speculation, but I often think, now, this is the way it would help us to understand. Just supposing that the Jewish people had accepted the Messiah. Just supposing the Jewish establishment, for that was the crux of the matter, had accepted and received Jesus as Lord and Messiah. He would have still died. Only this time the Gentiles would have crucified him as Messiah and King of the Jews. And then the whole Jewish people would have risen up with patriotism in their veins and been saved. Don't you see it? Now, this is all speculation. And then what would have happened? They would have started going everywhere, taking the gospel. There wouldn't have been such a thing as Christianity. Now, think about that. There wouldn't have been such a thing as what we call Christianity. There would have been the community of the saved. There would have been the redeemed. Only this time, from all over the earth they would have been gathered in. It didn't happen. But the Jewish establishment and the Gentile establishment crucified the Lord of glory. By their fall, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Don't you think we have a solemn responsibility? I say, if there was nothing else to say on this matter, we have the most solemn responsibility. If they lay down their lives to win us, we ought also to lay down our lives to win them. If the majority fell, that salvation might come to the ends of the earth, to the Gentiles, then the Gentiles who are saved by the grace of God have a solemn and supreme responsibility towards this persecuted and hated people. That is the first thing where I have to watch the time, as always. The second thing as to why we have a responsibility is this. It's very simple. Well, I don't know whether we need to spend so long on it, although I would almost like to. And it's here again in Romans chapter 11, and it's verse 28, but as touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake. How on earth anyone cannot love the Jewish people when it says clearly in the word of God that God loves them? I don't understand. It says as touching the election, they are loved. Of course, God loves the whole world, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. But He especially loves the Jewish people because of their past, because of the fathers, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, and so we could go on, because of the fathers. He loves them. They are beloved of God for the Father's sake. Oh, the sad failure of the church in this matter of love. People are more interested in this swale as a little prophetic object lesson. You get people fascinated with things and, oh, I wish they'd take all their systems and burn them sometimes, all these prophetic systems, this system and that system and the other system. You know, when you study them, you feel like putting a block of ice on your head and going back to the Bible for relief. But people get so fascinated with these things and they write volumes on it which only confuses them more. But I don't find that the Bible gives us systems of prophecy. I find that all prophecy has a very practical objective to awaken us, to prepare us, to warn us, to train us, and to equip us. It is a very sad fact that when people are interested in Israel, they are only interested in Israel as a kind of illustration of God's faithfulness to His Word. I think I told you before how in the Yom Kippur War, a friend of mine in Germany, who has been for many, many years a servant of the Lord in Israel, was appalled in a large company of real believers to find that ten minutes was given for prayer for Israel. And when they prayed, they all prayed for German tourists caught in the war. People were interested in Israel as the fulfillment of prophecy, but they had no love for the people, no love for the Jewish people. It seems to me that if God loves this people for the Father's sake, so ought I. How can the love of God be shed aboard in my heart and it exclude the Jew? How can the love of God be shed aboard in my heart and it even mean that there's an area of indifference to the Jew? If they are beloved for the Father's sake, then if my heart is filled with the love of God, I shall feel something of His own heartbeat for this nation and for this people. I will say no more about this matter. Election, except this, election is not a mechanical thing. Oh, how some people have made this whole matter of predestination and election a matter of mechanics. So that God is some horrid bit of machinery, but the election of God comes out of the love of God. Jacob have I loved, and Esau have I hated. And it is that and that alone which lies at the root of election. As touching the election, they are beloved for the Father's sake. A third thing I believe we have a responsibility, and why we have a responsibility, is because Israel is the fulfillment of the word of God. Now these dear people who say that there is no hope at all for the Jewish people, and that there is absolutely no future, they of course had a number of rather difficult things to swallow in the last generation. It was all very well to talk like that before 1948, but 1948 saw the creation of the state of Israel, and that was an extremely difficult camel for them to swallow. But they have done their best, and have somehow or other managed to swallow the camel. Following that in 1967 was the fulfillment of that word in Luke 21 and 24, that Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And for the first time, bar a few months in 135 A.D., Jerusalem came back under Jewish administration and government, and has remained so ever since, and in my estimation will remain so. That was an elephant that they tried to swallow, and even now some of them have managed to get the elephant down. It is quite remarkable to me how people understand some scriptures, and if only we had hours to spare, I would like to have gone to different scriptures and talked about them. For instance, we know that there is a spiritual meaning in Isaiah 43, when our Lord says in those wonderful words, verse 5 of Isaiah 43, Fear not, for I am with thee, and I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west. I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, keep not back. Bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth. Now of course we understand that spiritually. We know that God is doing something with his own redeemed people. He is bringing us all back together. He is causing us to find one another. He is joining us together. He's breaking down the old traditional walls that have separated us. For this we thank God. It's got to happen before the end. But, it has a literal meaning. Now liberals tell me that all this was fulfilled when they returned from Babylon. That I find extremely interesting, because they may have come from the north, and they may have come from the east, but they never came from the west, or the south. But some would say that doesn't really matter. They turn to another scripture which says in Isaiah 61, they shall build the old waste, they shall raise up the former desolations, they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations, strangers shall stand and feed, your flocks and foreigners shall be your plowmen and your vine dressers. Now will you notice it says they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. Liberals tell me this was all fulfilled when they came back from Babylon. Many generations. God's a great exaggerator then. He said they shall build the waste cities, the desolations of many generations. I say that those two scriptures have only been fulfilled in this century. Where are these waste cities? Where are these desolations of many generations? One after another they pour out. All biblical places built on the desolations of many generations. Or I think of another one here in Amos, if you can find it. Amos and chapter 9 and it says in verse 14, and I will bring back the captivity of my people Israel and they shall build the waste cities and inhabit them. They shall plant vineyards and drink the wine thereof. They shall also make gardens and eat the fruit of them and I will plant them upon their land and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land which I have given them saith the Lord their God. I'm told by some that this was all fulfilled in the return from Babylon. Then God is a liar. For he says here, and they shall no more be plucked up out of their land that I have given them saith the Lord their God. But the dispersion of 70 AD was a far more terrible and colossal and long lasting dispersion and judgment than ever the Babylonian one was. So what does God mean? I say it has only been exhaustively fulfilled in our generation. Or listen again to Zephaniah and chapter 2 and verse 4, for Gaza shall be forsaken and Ashkelon a desolation. They shall drive out Ashdod at noonday and Ikron shall be rooted up. Woe unto the inhabitants of the sea coast, the nation of the Cherubites. The word of the Lord is against you, O Canaan, the land of the Philistines. I will destroy thee that there shall be no more inhabitant. And the sea coast shall be pastures with cottages for shepherds and folds for flocks. And the coast shall be for the remnant of the house of Judah. They shall feed their flocks thereupon in the houses of Ashkelon. Shall they lie down in the evening for the Lord their God will visit them and bring back their captivity. I am very interested when some people tell me that all this was fulfilled in the return from Babylon. They are talking nonsense. Why? Because when they returned from Babylon they never, never drove out the Gentiles from the low land. They left them in Ashkelon and Ashdod and Gath and Ikron. And it became a place where for a while many of the more observant people of God would not go. That's why Herod the Great was so disliked because he was born in Ashkelon and he beautified it. And the columns of his sort of supermarket are still there to this day. When were the Philistines driven out? When did the remnant of the house of Judah come to possess Ashkelon and Ashdod? Not in 1948 but in 1957 after the Suez War of 56. South African Jewry gave them money and Ashkelon was built. And there isn't a single Arab in Ashkelon bar one. And he is the chemist. And he's leaving. Thank you Gideon. And that's not because we want him to leave, because he's a very nice man indeed. And he said how happy he was to be there. But my point is this. Do you begin to understand how modern and contemporary the word of God is? The land of the Philistines, in Hebrew, Philistine is Falashtim. That's the word for Palestinian. And the house of Judah, the remnant of the house of Judah, that's where we get the word Jew from, from Judah. And here it all is in the prophecy of Zephaniah. Is it any wonder then that in the town center of Ashkelon this prophecy of Zephaniah is there engraved in stone? They shall lie down in the houses of Ashkelon? At least those who've returned to Israel in unbelief have got more regard for the word of God than some so-called theologians who are supposed to be believers. The fact of the matter is that Israel is the fulfillment of the word of God. And therefore all these dear Christian people who have in themselves a civil war and feel that somehow or other they hear so much about the wrongs of the Palestinian cause and all the rest of it, they find themselves engineered by the enemy into a position where they are enemies of God. Now I can say that because I love the Arab people and because in the work in Jerusalem we have a number of those who are amongst our closest friends who are Arab believers. What a joy it was recently to hear one Arab boy stand up and say how all the hatred in his heart had been taken out and he saw that he was joined to the commonwealth of Israel. That will happen more and more and more. After all, Arabs and Jews can live together. They're cousins. There's no reason why they should be. It's all these superpower politics and outside pressures that are doing all the damage. But the fact of the matter is this. If I say that Israel has no right to its existence, I find myself as an enemy of God. Because the whole of God's word says that Israel will become a fact. It said so, has said so for thousands of years. Let those people pour their scorn upon it. Let them tell us that there is no future for the Jewish people. How do they explain the creation of the state of Israel? How do they explain the 1967 retaking of Jerusalem? How do they explain these prophecies? In what way are they explained? You must have a spiritual eye disease to read these prophecies and wangle out of them. The fact of the matter is this. Of course the Palestinians have a case. Of course there are injustices. We have to say it. Always in all war there are injustices. I know because I remember the first shock I ever had when I started to travel in Germany and Austria, ministering amongst believers. And I had to hear from dear old believing ladies some of the things that happened to their families when the Allies took Germany. And then I understood as I had always been brought up to answer, we were all righteous and they were all wicked, that it isn't really true. But that does not lead me to say for one single moment that Adolf Hitler and his henchmen were on the side of right. They were demon possessed. But in all things to do with war and strife there are injustices on both sides. The fact of the matter is this, that in the end we have to ask ourselves, is Israel the fulfillment of God's word? Is it the fulfillment of the purpose of God? And if it is we must stand up and be counted. It's no good compromising that the rest of them are. And just simply going the way of this world because of oil and money and a living standard. Who would think that a nation could sell its soul for a living standard? But they will do so. And they will have it as good as they want it. And they will find they have lost their soul. What shall it gain a man or a nation if it gain the world and lose its own soul? There is another reason why I think we should, we have a responsibility towards the Jewish people and that is that the purpose of God is to graft them in again. Now I'm very interested in this because I like the biblical phrases. Sometimes when I read some of the things written on the matter they confuse me. But when I come back to the Bible I don't find the Bible so confusing. What does it say in Romans 11? This is what it says, it says, now you who are Gentiles were like wild olives, you were wild olive branches, you've been grafted in and they have been cut out. And then it says you Gentile believers will remain in as long as you continue in faith. And they also can be grafted in again. Now that's a very interesting phrase, grafted in again. Oh listen to this, lest you're still in an argumentative mood. Romans 11 and verse 24, how much more shall these which are the natural branches be grafted into their own olive tree? Now I believe that that little phrase to me clears up a thousand and one problems that we all have, some more than others. People have got so many problems about this whole matter of the Jewish future and the Jewish identity and what happens when you, Jewish persons get saved and oh dear, dear, dear, if only they would lead those who are Jews who get saved to the Lord. But they have to get them into this or get them into that. Sometimes they make them more Jewish than ever and sometimes they make them totally Gentile. May God preserve us from the hands of some of these dear Christians. But the fact of the matter is this, what does it mean able to graft them into their own olive tree? Now my dear friends, think for a single moment, their own olive tree? Does that mean that although they're out of their own olive tree, you are in their own olive tree? It does. That's precisely what it means. All of you dear people of Gentile stock, you are in their own olive tree. Think of it. By their fall, salvation has come to the Gentiles. Their loss is the riches of the Gentiles. Their fall, the riches of the world. You are in their own olive tree. Now what does it say? It says, is he not able to graft back the natural into their own olive tree? So what do I look for? I, I, some of these ideas, look I've listed a few of them down here just to confuse you all. Um, the third confusion amongst Christians, there is this idea that the whole Jewish people are going to be saved in a day. Because it says somewhere, there are people shall be born in a day. So they've taken it that a whole nation automatically is going to be born again in a day. Where in the whole of the word of God, Old Testament as well as new, has there ever been such a mechanical conversion of people? Do you mean to tell me that Caiaphas is in the kingdom of God because he was a Jew? Do you mean to tell me that Amos is in the kingdom of God because he was circumcised? Of course not. You know that very well. You know that the real Israel of God was within the outward Israel of God. And here you've got the same thing, this idea they're all going to be saved in a day. Now the result of this teaching is that we don't do any evangelism. We don't pray for them, we don't care for them, we just watch them like an object lesson. And we say one day it's all going to happen in a minute, in a minute. And I'm told that this conversion, this being born again is going to be when the Lord actually appears. I find it hard to understand how this people is going to be converted in a single day when they see the Lord and the rest of the Gentiles will not be saved at all when they see the Lord because that's the end. Too late. It doesn't say that. It says they shall, they shall weep and wail. And it says in another place they shall cry for the rocks to fall upon them and all the rest. No, what does it say? It says the Lord will pour upon them the spirit of supplication and grace and they shall look unto him whom they pierced and they shall mourn them and the mourning shall be greater than in the day of mourning in Hadadrimon. That was the King Josiah's when the whole nation mourned for a day. Why that means that something's going to dawn upon the Jewish people in such a way that there's going to be a mourning before the Messiah appears and these people will not suddenly be converted and then the next birthday blessed be he that cometh in the name of the Lord but they'll be so wonderfully saved that they'll be prepared along with all of you to say blessed be he that comes in the name of the Lord. There are these confused ideas. This one has us saved in a day mechanically. Another one is that we speak of the chosen people, the people of God, and then we get into a great mix-up because we don't know whether the church is the people of God or not the people of God so we speak of them as the new people of God and the ancient people of God and then we speak of the chosen people meaning the elect people that's the church if you're a Calvinist and then somehow or other you think well now what about Jews? I know that they are the ancient elect people of God. How can you ever be an ancient elect people of God? You're either elect or you ain't elect. I mean you are either elect or you are not elect. The fact of the matter is this that there is only one elect people and that people goes back to our father Abraham and he is the father of all who believe and every Gentile who has ever believed has found himself in the Messiah. By the positioning of God he is in the Messiah and every Jew who has discovered the Messiah as Jesus and the salvation of God is found in the same Messiah. There are problems of course in this whole thing but I say I'm keeping myself to this point that why have we got a responsibility? Because God's purpose is to graft them in again and dear friend it's not as if we were living in the time of the reformation or in the time of the first evangelical awakening or the second evangelical awakening. We are living in the times when the veil is to be taken away from the Jewish heart. Therefore if we have not always had a responsibility which we have we this generation of believers has a more solemn responsibility towards Israel and to the Jewish people than any other generation because we are living in the generation when the hardening that has befallen in part Israel is to be done away. There is one other point give me just a few more minutes and that is life from the dead and I want to appeal to your selfish instincts now which are in all of us even though we don't like to admit it. Why have we a responsibility towards Israel and Jewish people? Because what will the receiving of them be but life from the dead? I hear everywhere I go people asking the Lord to revive Christians to revive churches. I suspect that in some places all they want is to see the pews filled and more in the collection plate and a few more people to take responsibility in these dying so-called testimonies. I don't think God will ever revive any of them. God has never revived machines or organizations or institutions he's always revived his own. But the fact of the matter is this if you believe that we need revival amongst us believers and an awakening amongst the unsaved well dear friends your great responsibility is towards Israel and the Jewish people for when that veil is taken away to be like life from the dead. What does it mean life from the dead? Is it just an exaggerated phrase? I don't think so. What is life from the dead? Think what the resurrection of Jesus did from the dead. It turned the world upside down. It brought into being the house of God. It sent out flaming apostles to the ends of the earth. It enabled people to lay down their lives for him so that others might come to him. That's life from the dead. What is Pentecost? Pentecost is nothing less than the risen life of our Lord Jesus Christ distributed by the Holy Spirit. Isn't it? What does the Holy Spirit do when he comes into you? He brings life. The old dead bones start to do a jig. Flesh comes on to the dryness sinew they start to move. What happens when the Holy Spirit comes upon you? More life. Life more abundant. Equipment. Clothing. Don't we need it for these last days? We don't know just when our Lord will come but we know he's coming. I suspect that we have yet some very dark days to go through before our Lord comes to take us. We need life from the dead and therefore why have we got a responsibility just on this one line that is going to be the dynamic that will carry the church of God, the body of Christ, the people of God, the true Israel of God. It's going to take them right through because in my estimation the people of God, the redeemed people of God and Israel as a nation are going to be forced together into an identification with one another. It would never, never surprise me and I shouldn't say this I suppose after this referendum but it would never, never surprise me if Israel is one of the few spot in the world where there will still be democracy and freedom almost to the coming of the Lord. It would never surprise me. Our country has sold its birthright for a mess of pottage. Well I don't want to bring any divisions in on that matter but still. The fact of the matter is we shall find it as time goes on more and more. Well now then I've said enough I think. I've said why have we got a responsibility towards Israel and the Jew? I'd like just to say this I will promise you I won't be more than a minute. What is that responsibility? First it is love and if we only had our hearts baptized afresh with the love of God it would do more for bringing Jewish people into the house of God and into the body of Christ than any other thing. I don't know a Jew that has ever been saved but by being shown love by some Christian. What is our responsibility? To know a baptism of love not only as individuals but as companies of God's people. Our dear brother David Pawson is going to speak about provoking them to jealousy. Oh I wish we could provoke them to jealousy. I think most Jews when they come into some of our meetings must surely pity us. We're so hoity-toity, so formalized, so cool, so distant. I can't imagine them ever being provoked to jealousy. But in the early church oh my but that's not my subject. The fact is the love of God, the love of God in us. And secondly, prayer. Oh for God to raise up an army of intercessors. I think it's a shame that anyone is here coming into this time today who's not a member of Prayer for Israel. You should be ashamed of yourselves. And he didn't ask me to say it. But you should be. You should be ashamed of yourselves. You should be praying for us. How could you pray for Israel unless you have information? Can't you give ten minutes a week? Couldn't you put it up to half an hour? Just half an hour for Israel and for the Jewish people per week. Not much is it to ask. That's your responsibility. I hope you'll one day hear, well done good and faithful servant. Thirdly, I believe we need to witness. Now I have deliberately not used the word evangelize because of some of it undertones and overtones. But the witness. Oh if only we would witness. But some people have got the idea that they're the people of God anyway. And you don't need to witness to them. Well what did the apostles suffer for may I ask? Why were they put out of these synagogues? Why did the whole establishment come crushing down upon them? If these people are the people of God anyway and we don't need to witness to them, no need to draw them in, no need to express the salvation of God to them, communicate the gospel. I don't mean in that sort of rabid type of cornering people and sort of giving them three, four steps into the kingdom. But I mean to be able in your life, by life and by lip, to express the reality of the salvation of God. Well I think as I've said, that's enough.