This sermon emphasizes the miraculous work of the Lord in Times Square Church, highlighting the transformation and impact of the Word of God and the power of God in caring for the poor in New York and around the world. It speaks of the incredible testimonies of changed lives, reconciliation between Jews and Arabs, and the movement of the Holy Spirit in the midst of darkness and challenges in the Middle East. The sermon encourages surrendering to God, walking on the highway of holiness, and experiencing everlasting joy and victory through faith in Jesus Christ.

It's wonderful what the Lord has done in Times Square Church, what He is doing and what He's going to do. The explosion, the expansion of the Word of God and the power of God and the caring for the poor all over New York and other parts of the world, truly wonderful. And we all should be privileged that we have some little part of it. We've been through three wars, our rehabilitation center is still standing, 22 years of changed lives of Jews and Arabs living in the same building coming off of drugs. We have a worship center up on the top of Mount Carmel and some of you came out and helped us build that place, took three years to do it. Next to it we have a women's shelter for African refugees from Sudan and Eritrea, little African kids with no mothers and fathers, women who've lost their husbands, seen them shot before their very eyes. And they're coming to the Lord and we baptize them in the Jordan River, hallelujah. When we left, we had been so filled with the Word of God here and I praise God for these men that preach the pure, unadulterated Word of God. Believe me, we travel a lot and this is rare and you should treasure being part of what's happening here. The Lord spoke to us about the marriage between the Word and worship, that Karen and I were to flow as the wonderment of Jew and Gentile in the Word and worship and so I want my wife to lead us in worship now. Lord, we just thank you, oh God, that there's a place in you, oh God, Lord, even in the midst of the storm, in the midst of the battle, hallelujah. We're just here to testify that the Lord is our sustainer, hallelujah, and he takes us from strength to strength and from glory to glory, hallelujah. And Lord, we thank you, Lord, that the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that will be revealed in us, hallelujah. Lord, we thank you for giving us a taste of our inheritance, hallelujah, and that you have gone before us and you have prepared a place for us, God. Lord, for each one of us, you have prepared a place, hallelujah. Hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah, hallelujah. Where would we go without your spirit? Because it's not by might, it's not by power, but by your spirit, says the Lord of Hosts. I thank you, Holy Spirit, that you are here. I thank you that you live in this house. I thank you for the river of life that keeps growing and growing and growing, the life-giving word that is coming forth, the power of praise and worship, the power of prayer. We thank you that in the midst of all the darkness of New York, you have a place. You have a place where you manifest yourself. We thank you for your miracle-working power, and we bless you. In the name of Jesus, amen. Amen. I'd like to read from Isaiah chapter 19. I want to talk to you about the highway in the desert. The highway in the desert. You know, we live on the edge of the desert on Mount Carmel. Israel's a little place. It's very surprising the first time you come. It's smaller than New Jersey. And we're surrounded by very large nations that would prefer that we weren't there. But there is a highway in the desert. The highway of our Lord. Hallelujah. Praise God. Isaiah chapter 19, verse 20. Egypt is in convulsions. Egypt is in civil war. Egypt is being shaken. Egypt, Muslims are slaughtering Christians. Muslims are slaughtering Muslims. The Muslim Brotherhood came to power, the oldest terrorist organization in the world, modern world. And in the last couple of months, in one week, they destroyed 60 churches. Both the buildings of the Bible Society of Egypt. My pastor friends in Cairo tell me this is the worst persecution since the Islamic invasion in the 7th century. We need to pray for our brothers in Egypt. But look what it says here about Egypt in the Bible. Verse 20. This is Isaiah 19, 20. I'll just read the second half. The Lord, because of the oppressors, he will send them a savior, a mighty one, and he will deliver them. This is about Egypt. So you can pray for a great move of God in Egypt. It's already begun. My pastor friends there tell me about 100 Muslims come to the Lord every week. Hallelujah. Verse 21. The Lord will be known in Egypt. Verse 22. The Lord will strike Egypt and he will strike and heal it. They will return to the Lord and he will be entreated by them and heal them. It's wonderful when you see in the news all the horrors that are going on in Egypt. We have the sure word of God that he's going to send a mighty move of the Holy Spirit to the Egyptian people. Hallelujah. Let's go on. Verse 22, 23. In that day there will be a highway. This is what I want to talk to you about this morning. The highway in the desert. A highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrian will come into Egypt. The Egyptian into Assyria. The Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians. Verse 24. In that day Israel will be one of the three with Egypt and Assyria a blessing in the midst of the earth. This is Muslims. This is Egyptians. This is Syrians. This is Iranians. This is Iraqis and Jews coming to the Lord and we will be a blessing in the midst of the earth. Hallelujah. Praise God. It's already begun. Verse 25. Whom the Lord of hosts shall bless saying blessed is Egypt my people. People of Egypt are God's people. And he says blessed be Egypt my people. Blessed is Egypt my people and Assyria the work of my hands and Israel my inheritance. There is a move of the Holy Spirit going on along this highway. This highway, if we can show that map and maybe it will help you. Do you all see that? I'm not sure I can use this but I'll try it. My wife is going to be scared that I'm going to fall off the stage. I don't think I can do it. Honey, you go out there and you do it. Okay, I'm looking at through the magic of television I'm looking at a monitor here. Okay, if you look at that map, I hope you can read Egypt and Saudi Arabia and Iran and Iraq and Turkey and Syria, Jordan. Can you find Israel? Well you really need a telescope to find it. It's that little pink place right there next to Lebanon. All the problems in the Middle East and some people would say in the world are because of that little place. That's what Europe thinks. If only we weren't there everybody would have peace which of course is nonsense. But the highway runs from Egypt through Israel up to Lebanon to Syria through southern Turkey down to Iraq and Iran. That's the highway. That was the Assyrian Empire. Today in our terms we have a prophetic promise that God is going to move all along the highway. Now we in Israel at least those of us that believe the word of God is prophetic we know this is going to happen. Twenty-two years ago we got on a bus and went to Egypt. We went across the desert. We met with Egyptian pastors, Bible school presidents and so on. We sat in a big circle in the basement of an old hotel and we just testified and there were Jews and Egyptians and Arabs from Israel talking about this highway. We bonded together. We took the Lord's Supper and we said we will pray for you. I know Egyptian pastors, Iraqi pastors. I know pastors from all over the Middle East and we've been doing this for twenty-two years and we have seen God move in all our countries and all our nations. It's been wonderful. Now that some of us are a little older we send the Joshua generation our youth pastor and others go. They come back, some of our young people come back our Jewish youth pastor who's an ex-drug addict. He comes back and said this Iraqi bowed at my feet and threw his arms around me and said I love you. I'm sorry what Babylon did to your people. And the Jews are hugging that. It's wonderful. I mean I used to tell them about it. Now they come back living it. So there is a highway in the midst of the Middle East where God is going to move all along this highway. Now there's going to be a blessing, a spiritual awakening it's written. The problem is the devil knows this. So the eruptions of the Middle East in Syria our northern neighbor. Can we put that map up again? This one's better. That yellow place is Syria. See that? And you see that at our northern border Syria touches the northern border at the Golan Heights. You can stand on the Golan Heights in a clear day you can see Damascus. That's how close. We're all close. I mean this is like New Jersey and New York. Israel one place is nine miles wide. You can drive across it in ten minutes. It's little. So all these nations round about we've had wars with them and so on. What's happening in Syria now. The convulsions in Syria. The civil war in Syria. A hundred and ten Muslims have killed other Muslims. A hundred and ten thousand. Rather a hundred and ten thousand Muslims have died. In two years. Just slaughtering one another. They've wiped out Christian towns. So there's civil war and convulsion going all along this highway. But God said he's going to move all along this highway and we're going to be a blessing in the midst of the earth. Let's go back to the. Let me show you Iran. Iran is that big green place. It's big. Iran was Persia. Iranians are not Arabs. They don't like the Arabs as a matter of fact. The Arabs came in there and overran the place in the Muslim invasion you know twelve, thirteen hundred years ago. But the Iranians are led by when the Ayatollahs took over these fanatical Muslims. That's not necessarily what the people feel at all. It's the leadership that's the problem. And Iran of course has threatened to wipe Israel off the map. They are hurtling toward getting a nuclear weapon. Informed sources say they're months away. They have intercontinental ballistic missiles. It's dangerous. We are in a very, really season of danger. Along the highway. And the enemy's trying to stop what God's going to do. You see when the Jews turn to Jesus, which they're going to do, he's coming back. Whether you believe it or not, that's what the word says. So Satan is doing everything he can to wipe out the Jews so Jesus won't come back. When Jesus comes back, Satan's finished. Hallelujah. So pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Amen? More Jews have come to the Lord in Israel in the last twenty-five years than any time since the book of Acts. They're beginning to turn to the Lord now. Thousands of Russian Jews came to the Lord in the 1990s when the Soviet Union collapsed in Russia. There's congregations all across Russia now and the Ukraine and in Germany and Canada and other places. God is starting to save his Jewish people now. And more Arabs have come to the Lord in the last twenty-five years in Israel than any time since the book of Acts. There's a move of God among the Muslims in Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation. We go there. We're in fellowship with some leaders there. Twenty-five percent of Indonesia is now Christian. I'm telling you, it is massive. We go to churches that have 30,000 people and they're all ex-Muslims and they love Israel. Hallelujah. We go to Indonesia. These young ex-Muslims worship the Lord. They love to worship. All the pastors worship. Everybody worships just like your church. They just worship and worship and worship and weep and Muslims come in and experience the presence of God. And this is what they want. This is what they need. Then Karen sings Kadosh and it's like the roof blows off the place. They love the Jews. And they're ex-Muslims. The Iranians, believers, they know that Israel has always had a wonderful relationship with Persia. Cyrus gave all the money to the Jews to go back and build the second temple. Daniel was there. They know where his tomb is. This book of Esther happened. They know all of this. Now let me show you what's going on in Iran in the scriptures. Let's go to Jeremiah chapter 49. Jeremiah 49. Elam is an ancient word for Persia. When you see Elam in the scriptures you can know that it means Persia. Elamites were at Pentecost, the first Pentecost. Persian Jews got filled with the Holy Spirit and went back to Persia when the church was born. There's a long history tradition of believers in Persia. It says here about Elam, verse 35 Thus says the Lord of Hosts. The Lord of Hosts in Hebrew is the Lord of Armies. The Lord of Angelic Armies. When you see the Lord of Hosts that means God with all his angelic armies in the heavenlies. So the Lord of Hosts says Behold I will break the bow of Elam. It says here that God is going to break the power of Persia or Iran. This is what the scripture says. Against Elam I will bring four winds from the four quarters of the earth and scatter them toward all those winds. When the Ayatollahs came to power in the late 1970s, six million Iranians were scattered all over the world. We meet them in Scandinavia. We meet them in Sweden. We meet them in Germany. We meet them in England. We meet them in Canada. We meet them in America. They're coming to the Lord by the dozens, maybe the hundreds. There's a revival in Stockholm of Iranian believers. There's one in California of Iranian believers. God, these scriptures are being fulfilled right now. He's scattering Iranians. They're meeting the Lord out in the nations and I'm believing that the scriptures say it. They're going to go back and there's going to be such a move of God that's happening there. And we can pray for a great move of the Holy Spirit in Iran. Now look what the rest of the verses say here. He says, I will scatter them. Verse 37, I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies. I will bring disaster on them. I will send a sword. Verse 38, I will set my throne in Elam. This is God talking. He's going to set up his throne. There's going to be a place, there's going to be a season of ascending station out of Iran of believers. He's going to do it right in the midst of all these things that are happening. That's what it says. The throne is where his power is. This is the throne room of God, you might say. Ascending place where people get filled and go. So he's going to set up his throne in Elam and he will destroy from there the kings and the leaders It's the leaders of Iran the Ayatollahs, the fanatical Muslim sect that controls Iran. It's not the people and he's going to remove them. He already removed one of them that was threatening to wipe us off the map and denying the Holocaust and all the rest of it. But even as the West is trying to negotiate with the Iranian Ayatollahs, the supreme leader, the head Ayatollah, he calls the shots. And this you might call it a cult that he heads this Iranian stream. What they believe their ideology is genocide for the Jews. That the Jews need to be wiped out and the land they occupy needs to be part of Iran. It's a genocidal apocalyptic ideology that they believe. Ideology they believe that their Messiah called the Mahdi is going to appear. They call him the 12th Imam He will appear in Iraq. There will be an apocalyptic war that they hope to start and when he appears he will bring peace and we'll have an Islamic world. Now that probably sounds crazy to you but listen to me. They believe it. These fanatics believe it. They want to start a war. They want an apocalyptic war. They want the Mahdi to show up. They want him to bring peace. They want the world to turn, especially the Middle East to turn to Islam. So this is what they want. This isn't what we want. That's not what the church wants. We want to see all these people getting saved. But we are in the midst of this and as the West tries to negotiate with these people, they are coming closer and closer and closer to a nuclear warhead. They have intercontinental ballistic missiles now. One nuclear bomb One. They want an arsenal of them. We're probably only months away. That's what everybody knows I think. One is 20 times more powerful than every bomb that was dropped in World War II. 20 times more powerful than all the destruction of World War II. The Iranians if they fire a nuclear weapon at us will get to us in about 6 minutes 5 minutes. It took Iraq's Saddam Hussein's 4 minutes. We had time to run to the bomb shelter and get our gas masks on. In 6 minutes they could destroy the nation of Israel with one bomb. Israel knows this. We know this. Maybe the West doesn't know but we know it. And we know who we're dealing with. One bomb in 6 minutes. As many Jews who died in World War II. It took Hitler 6 years to wipe out 6 million Jews. What I'm trying to say to you we are in a very, very dangerous moment of prophetic history. It's dangerous. You may not feel it's so dangerous for you over here. But first it's the little Satan they say and then the big Satan. That's you. Look, you can Google it and read what they say. You don't have to believe me. They say it. And so we have just read that God is going to do something awesome in Iran. Israel, everyone in Israel have come from the grandchildren of somebody who died in the Holocaust. And even the left wing and the right wing may not agree but one thing we do agree on, never again. We will never allow someone to gas our people again. And so we are in this, in the natural it looks horrific. All these civil wars, Muslims slaughtering people, Christians getting killed, churches burning. And in the midst of it God says I have a highway in the desert. I have a way. I have a highway in the desert. Hallelujah. Praise God. Let's look at the highway on verse chapter 35 of the book of Isaiah. This highway that's going to run through all these Islamic nations and Israel. My wife and I, we live right in the center of it. Right on Mount Carmel. We're on the highway. Now, it's not a highway. I don't think it means we're going to have a super highway in a couple years we'll be able to drive to Tehran and have a falafel. It would be nice if we did but I don't know if they eat falafel over there. They're Persians. What it is, it's a highway of the heart. A highway of the heart the heart of Jesus into the Egyptians, into the Jews into the Arabs, into the Lebanese. We have a Lebanese friend who stepped on a mine when he was fighting Arafat and the terrorists that had Lebanon in control it blew off his leg. He got saved screaming when he came down. He said save me Jesus, save me. He has a prosthetic leg. He led 12 Hezbollah who were the terrorists who he was fighting. Led them to the Lord. Had to leave Lebanon. He came and spoke at our prophetic conference last spring. Nobody knows that he can't tell. He got a new leg in Israel. Now, he's Lebanese so I call him the one new man. He has a Jewish leg and a Lebanese heart. And he has a heart that his people will pray for Israel and this highway will go up through Lebanon. And it's already starting, praise the Lord. Now, when we get together and we pray about the highway it's amazing things that happen. One time we do it in covert places, different places where the governments of Syria and places like that won't know what we're doing. We were in this one place. Happened to be on Cyprus. And we're sitting in a circle. Arab and Jewish pastors, leaders from the Middle East, Jews, Arabs, Egyptians Egyptians are not Arabs, they're Egyptians. Lebanese are not Arabs, they're Phoenicians. Persians are not Arabs, they're Persians Iranians. But we're all sitting together in the Middle East in this secret place reading the highway. And a pastor from Egypt gets up and he said, I want to share something. And he said, during the six-day war, I was caught up into the army, the Egyptian army. We were in a huge battle in the desert. Tanks, people were getting killed. All my unit was wiped out. Israelis were dying. People were screaming for God and their mothers. There was blood all over the desert. It was just bathed in blood. And I survived and at night I started trying to walk back to the Nile back to Egypt. And he said, one night as I was walking I saw this light in the desert. And I thought it was a campfire. So I started walking and the light started coming to me and I fell on my knees and I met Jesus in the desert. Hallelujah. He supernaturally met Jesus in the desert. Then he was called up into the Yom Kippur War six years later when Israel was almost annihilated over run on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in Judaism. And he was called up again. The same thing happened again. He got back to Cairo. He went to a Bible school. He became a pastor. And he became the president of the largest Bible school in the Middle East. The Assemblies of God Bible School in Alexandria and Cairo. And he teaches the highway to his students to love Israel. Because Israel is in the middle of it with Egypt and all the rest of them that were all in this together. And he saw that God supernaturally gave him a love for Israel. He was in Israel once and he was asked to speak to members of our Knesset, which is our parliament. He gave his whole testimony how he met Jesus in the desert. He was on the front page of the Jerusalem Post. And then one of the Knesset members said well, pastor, will we have peace? He said, how can you have peace with an ideology that wants to destroy you? This is the issue. It's the ideology of people that want to destroy the Jews. You know, they say first the Saturday people, that's us. And then the Sunday people, that's you. But look, we have the sure word of God. We have a highway in the desert. Praise the Lord. Now this highway comes up through Mount Carmel. I'll show it to you in the scripture. We live on it. Isaiah 35 talks about the desert blooming like a rose. This has been fulfilled. In the 19th century, Galilee was a swamp. Nobody was living there. Now it's all been redeemed, all been restored. There are kibbutzim all over the place where flowers are growing. Israel has developed irrigation techniques all over the desert. And all these flowers and all these vegetables and fruit, we're exporting them. Israel is now in demand in Africa and the Eastern European countries to come and teach people how to grow things. This has happened. It says it right here. Verse 1, the desert shall rejoice and bloom like a rose. Now if you look at verse 2, the excellence of Carmel, that's where we live, and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, the glory of our God. My Bible says that where I live on Mount Carmel, we're going to see the glory of God. Hallelujah. It's right here. We stand on Mount Carmel. We do outdoor prayer and praise meetings. We stand on a promenade overlooking the port of Haifa on Mount Carmel. And we just proclaim this. We preach it. We pray it. People come by. We tell them what we're doing. The prophetic word of God tells us what is going on. I hope you have good military intelligence. I hope Israel does. But the real military intelligence is here. We know what's going on. The Lord is telling us what is happening and what is going to happen. So he says the desert is going to bloom like a rose. First the natural and then the spiritual. God's into ecology. We ought to take care of the planet. But he's much more into souls. He wants to restore the planet so people can live there and get saved. So it says the glory of Carmel. The glory of Carmel, Hadar HaCarmel in Hebrew. Hadar HaCarmel is an area of Haifa that was named after this verse. The glory of Carmel. It's downtown Haifa. We have a clothing distribution center there. Food distribution center there. And it says the glory of Carmel. And we believe God is fulfilling this. We have home groups down there. Bible studies. Fifty Russian Jews came to the Lord. We had a new believers class for them. People are getting saved down there. And we're right on the highway. We're right in the center. This is our part of the highway. What's happening in Iraq is something else. We have a friend in Iraq who has a church of 3,000 people in Baghdad. Now he has to drive around in a bulletproof car with guards and all of that. God is moving in the midst of the civil war that started up in Iraq. But where we are, we're on Mount Carmel. The Lord is doing these things. Now he told us to go there and start a drug rehab for Arabs and Jews. When we got there in 1989, people said, who are you going to work with, Arabs or Jews? I said, both. They said, you don't know what you're getting into. This has been going on since Ishmael and Isaac. They don't like each other. They're both the sons. The Arabs and Jews are both the sons of Abraham. But there's been enmity for century after century after century. It was prophesied that that's what would happen. So I said, well, I don't believe so much in the wisdom of men anymore. I believe in the power of God. My Bible says he broke down the wall of division between Jews and Gentiles to create in himself one new man. I said, I believe it. I'm going to embrace it. I'm going to walk in it. And he'll do it because he's already done it. Now here it is 22 years later. Hundreds of Arabs and Jews have come off of drugs and alcohol in House of Victory, we call it. And the Lord has been moving among them. Some of them are leaders in other congregations. Some of them are our own leaders. But this is our part of the highway. The glory is starting to be restored right in the midst of all the gloom and all the convulsions and what you see about what's happening in the Middle East. There is a highway of believers who love the Lord with all their hearts. And they're in all these nations. Praise God. He goes on and he says, verse 3. Strengthen the weak hands and make firm the feeble. This is our job. This is what we do. Verse 5. The eyes of the blind shall be opened. This could be physical miracles, but it's the blind Muslims and Jews, their eyes are being opened. At House of Victory right now, we have a young man living there and when he came to us his name was Jihad. Do you know what Jihad means? Well go home and Google it. Jihad means they don't like you. Let's put it that way. Jihad comes in and gets radically saved and changes his name to John. I said, you need to write a book from Jihad to John. Or how about Jihad to Jesus? He loves the Lord. He lives with Jews. He loves the Jews. He's a servant. He's on our staff. He'll do anything for anybody. He's a wonderful young man of God. So who's his roommate? The son of a rabbi. You know what a rabbi is? If you don't know what Jihad is, Google rabbi. Sons of rabbis usually aren't in some believer's drug rehab. Listen. The two of them hang out together all the time. The son of the rabbi and the ex-jihad. Listen. God can reconcile Jews and Arabs. He can reconcile anybody. This highway. This highway of the heart. This highway of holiness. This highway of hope. Going through the Middle East. It's the highway of reconciliation. First you get reconciled to the Father through Jesus. Then you get reconciled to each other. That's why we have all these Syrian friends. That's why we have all these Egyptian friends. That's why we, I know, Iranians. We have two friends who are Iranian evangelists. They each have their own satellite television channel. 24-7 they are preaching the gospel into Iran. Now, it's illegal to have a satellite dish in Iran. That's why everybody has one. And the government can't jam all the signals and they can't keep up with it. So the gospel is just coming in and coming in. Hallelujah. We met this Iranian evangelist in Canada. We were doing a conference in Canada. He has this amazing story. He was one of the followers of the Ayatollahs. Kill the great Satan. Destroy the little Satan in the streets screaming and carrying on inciting violence and all that. Finally he got tired of it and he said, you know, I think I need some education. So he went to America. He has a Ph.D. Stanford or UCLA or somewhere. He planted an Iranian church. We were right in his neighborhood two weeks ago in San Francisco. I think it's the largest Iranian church on the west coast. But he was so successful as an evangelist leading Iranians to the Lord. And he loves the Jews. He loves Israel. His board said you need a television station and we'll raise the money for it and we want you to beam your evangelistic messages back to Iran. So he has a television station. It's in Dallas. And if you want to look at it, it's called Iran Alive Ministries. You can go to the website and see what's happening. So he invites me and Karen to come and speak live to the people of Iran from Dallas, Texas. That's God. So my wife's a Jew. And I said to him, he said, I want you to tell my people to love the Jews. You guys love Jews and Arabs. And I want her to minister to the women of Iran. Now 24-7 these messages are going in there. He goes live every night at 8 o'clock in Iran. I think it's 1 o'clock in the afternoon or something in Dallas. So we're doing a live television show. A Jew and a Gentile who live in Israel to a nation that has threatened to wipe us off the map. And this Iranian, they call him the Billy Graham of Iran. He is the sweetest man. When he shares the gospel, you sit there and say, how could anybody turn that down? He's so precious, this man. And so he speaks in Parsi. He speaks in Persian language. We have this thing in our ear and somebody's translating to us so we know what he's saying. So it looks like we know what he's saying, but we don't. But we hear it. We hear what he's saying through this woman. And he's sharing the gospel. So he asks us to share. So we just testify. And he says to me, tell them. Talk to the camera. That's the people of Iran. He's a huge, I don't know how many millions viewing audience he has. Over 1 million of these young Iranians have come to the Lord. Hallelujah. The government of Iran says it's 2 million. They're really worried. What I'm saying, there's a move of God on the highway. This man is walking on the highway. The highway of the heart, the highway of holiness, the highway of hope in the desert of despair. And so then he asked me to do a separate show. When we did the first show live, people start contacting him by Skype. And we're talking to people, leading them to the Lord in real time in Iran from Dallas, Texas by Skype. Hallelujah. I never thought I'd be an evangelist to Iran. Or that my Jewish wife would be either. So Karen starts, he asks her to do a special show and asks me to do a special show because there's a drug epidemic all over Iran. The government controls it and so on. They make money out of it. So he asked Karen to do a show that they taped and then sent to Iran on talk to the women of Iran. These poor women, it's one of the highest suicide rates in the world. It's devastating what they go through. So Karen starts talking about Jesus, the Messiah, the bridegroom, and starts quoting the song of Solomon. Oh my dove, in the secret place, you are all beautiful. In the cleft of the rock, I have dove's eyes. With one look of your eyes, you ravish my heart. That you can have this kind of love affair with the bridegroom, what other men are doing to you in Iran. Hormoz is the man's name. The evangelist. He's crying like a baby. The beauty, I'm in the control room crying. Here's my Jewish wife telling Iranian Muslims that they can love the Jewish Messiah and have a new life. It was so moving. It was so touching. God is moving all through this highway. You won't hear about it on CNN or whatever you watch, but you can read it in the Bible. This is what he's doing in Iran. Hallelujah. Praise God. Let's go back to the highway that we're on in Isaiah 35. The eyes of the blind, verse 5, will be opened. The ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. The lame shall leap like a deer, the tongue of the dumb. There shall be waters burst in the wilderness. There will be streams in the desert. Streams of God's grace. Streams of God's mercy. Streams of the Holy Spirit all over the desert. He goes on and he says, verse 8, a highway shall be there and a road, and it shall be called the highway of the holiness and the unclean shall not pass over it. The highway in the desert that we're talking about. This word highway in Hebrew, it means a raised up road. Something that has built up and is higher than everything else. And it was built up for conquering armies and conquering generals and people with chariots that they would ride above all the common people and all the degradation down in the desert. So the highway that we're talking about, the highway in the desert is this highway that takes us up higher and we look down in the degradation and the death and the disease in the desert, but we're on the highway of hope and holiness and the highway, of course, is the way of Jesus. The highway in the desert, there is a way. There is a highway all through the desert. People are walking on it. When you walk on it, when you get up out of the desert, if you're in a desert today, a desert place, you gotta get out of the desert. He'll bring you out of the desert. Moses came out of the desert. Elijah came out of the desert. John the Baptist came out of the desert. Jesus came out of the desert. Paul came out of the desert. And when they came out, it was victory. Hallelujah. He wants to bring us out of the desert and up onto the highway where you're seated with him in the heavenly places. It's the highway of holiness and the unclean won't be there. It's only for those that really want to walk in a close, personal relationship with Jesus and it's available in the Middle East and it's available in New York City. It's available because of the cross of Jesus Christ. The desert represents disease, death, but the highway, the highway is a place of healing, of wholeness, of getting real and getting right with God. The highway is the highway to home. Father's house. We're on the way. We're all on that highway if you want to be. Father says, come on, son. Get out of the desert. You can't make it on your own. You're slipping Here's my hand. If you talk to the Lord and say, you are my shepherd. The Lord is my shepherd. God, not just a shepherd. He's God. I shall not want. He'll pick you up. He'll put you on his shoulders. You'll be on the highway. The highway in the desert. Hallelujah. The highway out of despair. From despair to hope. Hallelujah. This highway. Let me end with one last thing here. Where's Nia? No lion shall be there. In the desert, there's snakes. You don't want to be. I don't like. I slept in a desert one. I don't like it. There's scorpions out there. My sons were in the army. I had too many stories of scorpions climbing in their sleeping bag. Those things are poisonous. There's snakes out there. There's jackals. There's vultures. The Lord wants to take us out of all that stuff. You know, we have the privilege of staying in a little place that they have here for visiting speakers to those doors over there. The ancillary building they call it. And last night, I was walking down 52nd Street and I had noticed in the afternoon, all these people were sitting on the ground. They had sleeping bags. They had food. They had blankets. And they were all lined up behind police barriers and went all the way up around and up Broadway past the David Letterman show. And I thought, what are all these people doing? There was some group at Roseland that they were lined up all day long to get in there and hear this garbage. And I thought, they're in the desert and they don't even know it. So I go up to the upper room where I'm staying. That's what Karen and I call it. And I'm on the highway, man. I'm seated with him in heavenly places. I'm not down there in that stuff. Now listen, many years ago, I used to be in that stuff. But the Lord took me out of the desert because I wanted to get out and he just said, come on. The ransom of the Lord will be there. It's a highway of the ransom that now we've been paid for. He purchased us. He redeemed us. The redeemed of the Lord are walking on the highway. If it's all through the Middle East, it can be all through New York City and New Jersey and this whole area here. Look how this ends in Isaiah 35. No lion shall be there. The redeemed shall walk there. The ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with singing with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness. Sorrow and sighing shall fade away. Everlasting joy. Say everlasting. Now how long does that last? It lasts forever. It's forever. It's not just being happy for a few minutes somewhere. Everlasting joy will be on heads for those that are walking on the highway of the holiness, have come out of the desert that they've been trapped in, and they know that they are redeemed and they shall return to Zion. Hallelujah. Now this is literal for us because they are returning to Zion but you're on a way to the New Jerusalem. Amen? Praise the Lord. Years ago we had a drug addict in House of Victory. He was a drug dealer and he had a whole criminal record and so on, an Arab from East Jerusalem. I had a friend that was trying to help people down there and he called me and he said, there's this guy everybody's terrified of him, everybody in the old city of Jerusalem knows about him but I felt the Lord said that he was to come up to your place and walk on the highway of holiness and he would return to Zion with everlasting joy upon his head. I said, that sounds like God. Let's get him. So we brought him up to Haifa to House of Victory. The first night we're having a meeting and this guy is sitting there crying like a baby. Now this is a tough guy that everybody's afraid of. He stole his milk money from his kids and sold his furniture to get drugs and all that. People walked on the other side of the road when they saw him coming. He's crying so I said, what's wrong? I said, are you afraid of going through withdrawal? The Holy Spirit can set you free. These guys came off drugs some of them didn't feel anything. He said, no. He said, I'm terrified about spending a night in a house with Jews. I said, oh, okay, now I understand. I said, well let me introduce you to your roommate. This is Daniel from Tel Aviv. Daniel's Jewish of course. Well he was a big time criminal too, stealing television sets and all that. So I said, Daniel, will you pray for, I can tell you what this guy's name is, his name is Rajah. Can you pray for Rajah? Daniel said, sure. So he starts to pray. Rajah's walking across the room like this. A Jew's going to touch me. He hits the wall. We have bars over the windows. Later he told me, if you didn't have bars over those windows, I would have jumped out the window and gone back to Jerusalem. They became roommates. They became best of friends. He came off of drugs with no pain. A video was made of them. It was shown all over Holland. And now, 18 years later, he's come to us and he wants to start a drug rehab in Jericho. Now Jericho is a Muslim stronghold that Israel gave back to the Palestinians a long time ago. Muslims don't rehabilitate drug addicts. They shoot them or torture them. But he wants to start a drug rehab for Muslims. So he's training with us now and we're going to help him as he goes down to Jericho. And when you guys come out to visit us, maybe we'll take you to Jericho and you can see what's happening there. It's all along the highway. It's people that have met the Lord and want to walk with him on the highway. Hallelujah. Listen to me. When you walk on the highway, you might be following some footprints. And you notice there's some bloodstains. Jesus walks the highway. We need to walk with him. He takes us to the cross. We get new life. We come out on the other side of the cross. New covenant believers in newness of life. Walking on the highway, the redeemed of the Lord. On our way. On our way home. We're just passing through. This is an eye blink. We're on the highway so that one day we'll be walking on the street of gold. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. I always say when you want to walk on the highway of holiness, you need to take off your shoes. It's holy ground because the Lord is walking with us and went before it. Now listen to me. Whatever you're going through, whatever desert situation you might be in, it looks hopeless. When you reach out to the Lord, he's on the highway. He's seated in heavenly place and saying, come on. Come on. I'll walk with you. I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you. Your burdens are heavy, but listen, minor light, just come on. You start to walk with him and you're on the highway of victory. It's the victory highway. Hallelujah. How many of you here today How many of you here today have been going through a desert experience and really need a touch from the Lord, really want to rededicate yourself to walking in holiness and walking in a deeper intimate relationship with the Lord? Raise your hand. Okay, let's all stand. If you raise your hand, come on down here and we're going to pray for you. Hallelujah. Lord, we will all want to be on the highway. There's a highway in the Middle East. There's a highway through America. There's a highway. And Lord, you are on it. You are the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We want to walk in victory. We want to come up higher. He says, come up here. Come up here with me. Get out of that stuff. I'll help you. If you just reach out to me, I'll pick you up and take you out of all the stuff in the desert, the brambles and the stuff that's been entangling you. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise God. This is truly amazing that God would take a Broadway theater, who knows what stuff went on here, we know some of it, and turn it into his house. Hallelujah. I was on the Broadway to destruction and I met him and he has brought me to the highway. The narrow way. His way. Walking one-on-one, hand-in-hand with Jesus. Oh, he loves us so much. What manner of love is this? The Father has poured out that he would call us children of God. Eye has not seen, ear has not heard, heart has not conceived. What God has prepared for those who love him. He's prepared a table in the wilderness. In the desert of New York or Brooklyn or New Jersey. There's a banquet prepared. The Word of God. Knowing the Lord. Fellowshiping with the Lord. My wife prepares good meals, but this meal is prepared by God. Because he loves us so much. Hallelujah. Father, I lift up all these people to you. They've taken a step. We've heard this morning, take the next step. Lord, they've taken a step. And all you want is someone to say, I want more of you. And you reach out and you bring us up onto the highway and we walk in the power and the anointing and the grace and all the benefits of the new covenant that you've paid for. Thank him for the cross. Just thank him. Just tell him, thank you for dying on that cross. Thank you for choosing to die for me. I receive your perfect gift of love. Lord, I need your help. I'm lifting up my hand to you. And I'm saying, please, help me out of this desert situation. I want to get out of this swamp. I want to get away from those scorpions. I want to come up there where I can walk in victory. Thank you, Lord. He always causes us to triumph in Christ Jesus. Hallelujah. The God we serve is triumphant over all the horrors of the Middle East. He's triumphant in the midst of it. Lift your hands to the Lord. Just tell him, I surrender. Here's my life. I leave my sin here at the altar. I leave my unbelief and doubts. I want to leave them here. Lord, I want to walk with you hand in hand. Hand in hand to the promised land. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord. Thank you that what you're doing in my life, I receive your love and I ask you to fill me with your Holy Spirit. Praise the Lord. Lord, I ask you to seal anything here that's happened that is the Holy Spirit. And it will go deep into the heart of each one. The Lord is saying he loves you with an unending love, sister. He's telling you, trust in the love of God for you. Just you. Isn't that wonderful? Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Praise the Lord. Now praise him. Let's praise him. Listen to me. Jeremiah 50 says God has opened up his armory. They may have missiles. There may be snakes. But God has opened up his armory and he's handing out his weapons. His weapons are praise. His weapons are prayer. His weapons are proclaiming the word of God. When you walk on the highway of holiness and you praise his name, the devil can't come near that. The devil's an unclean spirit. He won't go near anything holy. He can't. You walk on the highway of holiness and you're walking in victory. Hallelujah. Let's praise him now. Hallelujah. This is a weapon from God's armory against the missiles of the enemy. Amen? Praise his holy name. He inhabits the praises of his people. Pastor David and Karen, I hope your heart is as stirred as mine is because in this church if you have been listening for the last several weeks, the Lord is calling his people to step out of this fallen society and step out of the ways of this fallen world and begin to walk with him. As you heard this morning, take the next step. He promises I'll be your strength. I'll be your guide. I'll show you the way. And you and I will have the opportunity of being a wonderful testimony of the living Christ before he comes and takes his church to himself. Then the eyes of God are going to fall on Israel. And the apostle Paul said the falling away of Israel became life to the Gentile world, but the receiving of Israel will be a blessing that's beyond anything we can even imagine. I thank God for what we're about to witness in our time. This whole world is turning dark at an unprecedented rate, but I thank God I'm not going with it and I hope neither are you. We're going in the opposite direction. We're going to trust God for the strength. All over the world, the church of Jesus Christ is coming alive. Believers, thank God for the stories we hear today because you're right, we don't hear anything on our godless news media in this country. We don't hear anything about what the Lord Jesus Christ is doing. But I thank God my heart is gladdened. I praise God for that with everything in me. We have brothers and sisters in Iran, in Iraq, all over the Middle East. There are brothers and sisters in Christ. And we must remember to pray for them and uphold them before the Lord as they pray for us and uphold us before God. And I'm convinced and dedicated in my heart to seeing Christ honored in the place where we live. Till the day he comes, we're not going alone. Thank God we're going to take a multitude with us out of this fallen world and into the kingdom of God. Lord, we thank you for the encouragement today. We thank you God for this good report of what you are doing in these difficult areas of the world. Oh Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you God that you will protect your people Israel. Lord, you've already put your hands around Israel and I ask you Father in Jesus name, Lord you give that country, that little wee country, a final understanding that she is not alone. You are with her. God, you will protect her. God, you will keep her and you will gather her as you long to do to gather her to your bosom as a hen gathers her chickens unto herself. Father, thank you for the great love you have for the Jewish people. I pray God we may have the privilege of sharing a great measure of that, oh God. Here in New York City, Father, thank you so much. Protect Pastor David and Karen, Lord, as they go back to Israel. Protect them in the work you've given them to do, oh God, until the day that you look down and say, well done faithful servants, come home. Come home, it's time. It's time to sit at the master's table. Father, we thank you for this and we bless you for it. Keep us alive in you, Jesus. Keep us alive. Keep our songs alive. Keep our testimony burning brightly, Lord, in this generation. Give us courage to stand in the dark in time. Help us, oh God, to find that way of holiness and to walk in it by the strength of our Christ within us. Father, we thank you for this with everything in our hearts. In Jesus' mighty name. Hallelujah to the Lamb of God. God bless you.