In this sermon, the speaker reflects on a personal experience with a woman who initially rejected him but later expressed hope for her salvation. The speaker emphasizes that slogans and superficial displays of faith are not enough to save the world. He shares a powerful moment of crisis where a Jewish man challenges God to save him, and the speaker responds with humility and a recognition of his own imperfections. The sermon concludes with a reminder that true salvation requires a deep commitment to serving God and a willingness to sacrifice for the sake of others.

The phrase that I've always loved is man of God. To be called man of God says everything. And I just want to share with you something that God is burning in my heart without ceasing about a man of God that I think is going to become increasingly as we press deeper into the end times an image and a type of what the man of God shall be for our own generation. A prophetic man. A man standing alone. A man besieged by heavy opposition. A man who is not going to receive the applause from the world or even from his brethren necessarily for his obedience to God. But he shall be told, are thou he who troubleth Israel? A man who can command the elements and invoke fire from heaven routing out the false prophets of Baal. Elijah the prophet. Let's bow our heads this morning that God might write something in our hearts that we might be reminded in a ceremony like this ordaining men for ministry and for service in the end time what God's picture of the end time man of God is. Precious holy God. Lord, you've ordered this day and all the days that have preceded it and all the days that shall follow. Almighty God. We don't have words to express our gratitude, precious God. For the great process at your hand. The shaping and the making and the breaking and the molding. To prepare for yourself instruments for use in the end time. Speak to us out of your own heart this morning, Lord God. Of what it means to be a minister of God. A servant. A man of God for the end times. By your spirit and out of your word and bless this people. Bless us also. Put something in our hearts that shall not cease from burning. That we might be flaming ministers of God for our own generation. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. First King 17. I think it ought to be a great encouragement to us to recognize a certain pattern of God. Of the great ministries that God brings out of complete obscurity and onto the stage at the moment of his pleasing. You wonder where such great men were. That such a magnitude and such a power can be kept in obscurity until that moment. But it pleases God not to say a word of all that went into the formation of his Christ. His anointed one. Until that 30th year when Jesus was brought up out of a wilderness and came in the power of the spirit to the familiar synagogue that had never before given him any regard and all eyes were upon him as he spoke. The same thing is true of the prophet Elijah. There's not a word that proceeds this chapter 17 about such a man as this until this moment. Where was he? And why hasn't God chosen to tell us what went into his making? There's a very discreet silence on God's part and I think that it's fitting. Nobody can know the breakings and the poundings and the circumstances and trials and temptations and all the things which the Lord allows to come into the life of that one that's being prepared for ministry. If we understand but this how much better prepared we are to receive such things from the hand of God to know that when we have submitted to the process in that 10th year symbolically speaking at the completion of those days God will bring us up for his use for a Shekinah 74 or for whatever it is that pleases him. But I'll tell you, is there ever so glorious a verse in all the scriptures to introduce a man of God? As the Lord my God liveth before whom I stand there shall not be dew nor rain these years but according to my word. What a fantastic statement. As the Lord my God liveth spoken in an age of such filthy apostasy very much a picture of what the end time shall be of which the scriptures speak when the Lord comes shall he find faith upon the earth great backslidden masses calling themselves by the name of Christ and being guilty for what we Jews have experienced in Elijah's time continuing to play with outward forms of religion inconvenient forms of Judaism but halting between two opinions and only a few shall be able to make such a statement as this as the Lord my God liveth before whom I stand such a statement is not born in a moment it's the testimony of an entire life lived before God and the thing that concludes that statement proves it it shall not rain nor dew but according to my word we Jews have a word in Yiddish for such statements as that it's called chutzpah brass, arrogance how does any man dare presume to speak like that and think piece of flesh that he is and mortal clay that he can command the elements and yet it did not rain nor dew for three and a half years according to the word of Elijah I tell you it was not an act of presumption it was not a statement of arrogance quite the contrary it's only the statement that can come out of a life so thoroughly broken that has not a vestige of arrogance or self-love or conceit left a life that is no longer its own it was not Elijah speaking but one who had the whole possession of him I can tell you people that such a thing is a process I came to God ten years ago because in a bookstore in Jerusalem at the end of a weary fourteen months of hitchhiking as a disillusioned Marxist and atheist and a lost modern man I found myself on a bus going nowhere in a place I did not know and walked in and asked for instructions in that bookstore to find that they sold Bibles and New Testaments and Christian commentaries and looked into that woman's Jewish face and said what is this place? and she said why we're a congregation of Jewish believers in the Messiah Jesus and this is our bookstore adjoining our chapel something immediately clicked in my heart and I heard a still small voice I would have said if any man hears such a voice or claims to hear such a voice there are places for such men but in the first hearing myself I knew instinctively and immediately this is the voice of him with whom I have to do I've heard that voice many times since and I don't have the time to tell you of the painful acts of obedience to which I have been called in these ten years by the hearing of such a voice Inger said to me last night or this morning she said I don't understand this you mean you're going to come up on the platform and just say a few words and you're going to be ordained when other men have to go to school for four years before they can become ministers what are you trying to post you were hinting a quickie what kind of slipshod practice is this but I'll tell you people that you'll just have to read between the lines and understand that God has sent me to another kind of school acts of obedience so humiliating that to say that you're called from faith to faith or obedience to obedience doesn't even begin to describe what it means to follow after the still small voice it's acts of faith unto death unto utter humiliation and utter mortification not only before the world but sometimes even before your own brethren and sometimes even before your own wife when she's not in a position to understand and I'll tell you that God is speaking these things this morning not that we should commemorate an individual in history by the name of Elijah but that we should remember and prepare ourselves to be part of that Elijah band that corporate Elijah coming in that same fullness and same power by the Spirit to make the way straight before another corporate entity that's coming in the fullness of God in the power and the authority and maturity of Jesus Christ that he might come into the familiar synagogue and say the Spirit of God is upon me the Lord has anointed me for end time ministry this is not a mere historic reminder this is a pattern of what it means to be the man of God in the end times individually and corporately I can't speak the kinds of things that God has called us by the hearing of a still small voice but I'll tell you that the pattern is always consistent his speaking is always brief like us he's not given to undo an unnecessary expression he says only what needs to be said it comes without explanation it's always in the form of a command it's always direct it's always personal and it calls you by name and never once in all of these speakings has it ever called me to an act of convenience always quite the contrary again and again to the way of the cross and if I'm standing here by any virtue this morning it's not because of expertise or knowledge or sophistication or having had the advantage of biblical or theological training but by the simple practice of being this Jewish that when I hear the still small voice of God I endeavor with all my heart to obey it and such acts of obedience always bring blessing the first time God spoke to me he called me by name in Jerusalem ought he said you are not to leave no ifs ands but whys hows no explanations but I had a choice in that moment to reject that voice as indigestion or exhaustion or some other kind of natural phenomenon or choose to believe that it was the same voice heard by my father Abram who was also called away from convenience and familiarity to follow him to the land that he would show him and I chose to believe and to obey and four days later after being exposed to a very intensive bible course by Jewish believers who still bore on their arms the tattooed numbers from concentration camps but did not hesitate to stretch those arms before God in praise and worship and prayed for me and with me and told me of God's plan of salvation I'd never heard of anything more icky and foolish and unintellectual and went to sleep that last night whacked out of my skull and unable by my intellect to be saved that God in my sleep had to bring the pieces into place that that next morning I woke with peace and calm in my heart for the first time in my entire adult life and said to the Jewish woman with whom I'm still in contact Rina, I believe I understand to find her fall out of her seat on her face before God praising and worshiping him because her prayer that night was Lord, we've done everything for this stubborn man you make him to understand as the Lord my God liveth before whom I stand it shall not rain nor dew but according to my word how God has led me by that still small voice I guess maybe he had to how else shall an adult like me know what to speak in the places and the occasions to which God has brought me except that I hear by his voice and I used to receive invitations and the day that I received the invitation I would hear from God what it was that was required to be spoken and then that practice ceased and then as it came closer to the engagement I would hear from the voice of God what it is that needed to be spoken and then that practice ceased and then the very day of the meeting I would hear from God and then that practice ceased until I came sitting on the platform and trembling knowing that the issue is life and death as it always is when we open our mouths in God's name before God's people and before the world we're not called to entertainments but eternal things are being transacted and life and death is always hanging in the balance and we can't go by Jewish intellect or presumption or self-confidence or any such thing Lord, ever and always what would you have for me to do and God keeps us suspended and every man behind me knows the process in fearful tremblings and rumblings of bowels and knocking of knees wondering to the last moment what it is that we shall speak and he used to give it to me on the platform and then that ceased and then I came right to this spot knees banging furiously although to every outward appearance a picture of perfect, what can I say composure and then God would speak but I'll tell you precious people I'm not hearing so much the still small voice oh brother cat shall we pray for you are you getting carnal no, I think if I could say it I'm getting more spiritual and that God, what can I say is weaning me away even from that necessity for a reliance on that outward still small voice and I have more and more to believe as we heard from the balcony this morning that he is in me to will and to do his good pleasure and that my thought is his thought and my word is his word and my hunch is his hunch until the day that shall come in that moment when it shall please God to bring us out of a total obscurity and we shall stand before the Ahab's of this world and a word shall come out of our mouths as the Lord my God liveth before my stand it shall not reign but according to my word and that word is his word oh precious people that's a far different walk from thinking that somehow God is outside us and needs always to prompt us and to give us instructions and to encourage us and give us a little shocker from the back that we might get with it Christ in us the hope of glory and there's a God working to bring his people to such a place that he might have such utter possession of us that we might stand before the Ahab's of this world without trembling and open a mouth out of which God speaks even to command the elements whew staggering staggering and the one question that is immediately raised by this understanding is what does it take to be brought to such a place as that there's a process people and it's not necessarily a pleasant process such an emptying out that God might have such possession of us to stand before King Ahab who's not just an ordinary king of Israel but a despised despot filthy wicked apostate backslidden raising up false altars an abomination in God's sight and the husband of Jezebel who is single handedly seen to the execution of all of God's prophets a wicked marriage between politics and power and a kind of religion that has at its heart fornication and vile erotic sexual practices in the name of religion what a picture of what the end time world system is going to be and God is going to ask us to stand before that power fearful at enmity with God having slain all of God's prophets and yet without trembling to say as the Lord my God liveth before whom I stand we had best begin now to hear that still small voice that calls us ever and always to acts of inconvenience and obedience from faith to faith from death to death that when that moment comes that we can stand and I'll tell you precious people we shall not just stand as an individual but as a corporate Elijah band my Jewish people practicing their religious ceremonies their Passover year after year after year the very last aspect of which is when the youngest son goes to the front door and everyone stands with Elijah's cup in hand because there had been a place set for him at the Passover table a setting and a cup hoping that this Passover, this Pesach despite the failure in every previous Pesach that when the door is opened the prophet Elijah is going to be there the one who has to come before the soon coming king the Messiah, the anointed one and that door has opened year after year and they've waited with their breath suspended and there's no one been standing in the door but I believe that when the door is going to open in the end times they're going to see a corporate Elijah and they're going to be stunned and surprised every bit as much as those Jews were in the synagogue of Nazareth who had seen Jesus many times before but never seen him like that and they shall say of this Elijah as they said of him is not this Joseph's son see aren't those the people who went to evangelistic center, aren't these those harmless Christians who had that innocuous Sunday pastime who never bothered us they were just a trifle no more than a fly buzzing about our noses how stunned they shall be to see a corporate band made up of people who were everywhere about them the true believers walking in the power of the spirit of God in obedience to him to make the way straight for the soon coming king and the word of the Lord came unto him saying get thee hence and turn thee eastward and hide thyself by the brook that is before Jordan it shall be that I shall drink of the brook I've commanded the ravens to feed thee there there's Satan see what his strategy is get that prophet off into the wilderness and there's not going to be any stream there's not going to be any ravens and he's going to die from starvation and we'll have removed God's instrument for the end times but we read so he arose and went and raises a tremendous question how did he know that that was God speaking it sounds so much like subterfuge it sounds like the kind of thing that Satan might say but there wasn't an iota of doubt or apprehension or delay in the response of an Elijah I'll tell you people there are great questions raised here how did he know that that was the voice of God he knew because he was familiar with the accents of his Lord and God and such familiarity is not born in a day God is going to bring us up out of obscurity for a day for one significant ministry in the end times and such a moment is that we dare not miss the leading of God by that still small voice if we start then to be amateurs and to play and to trial and error methods we shall not make it now is the hour of preparation he knew the familiar voice of God I remember I was speaking at a university meeting in the open air and my theme was hearing the voice of God and when it was over the radicals came up and they were irritated and vexed and wanted to know how do you know whether it's God's voice or Satan's voice I'll tell you that the world is asking better questions than God's people and I rubbed my chin I had no clever answer as I didn't have a little book in my jacket this morning about appropriate messages for ordination ceremonies I didn't have an answer then and I've never had clever answers only that one who's made unto us wisdom and while I was rubbing my chin looking out into the crowd there's a big shaggy mutt wending its way through the crowd I said you see that dog in all of this crowd and all of this noise and all of this tumult and all this many voices he has heard his master's voice and is going a lowly mutt can you pick out the voice of your Lord and your God and all of the tumult the voices that shall shout upon us in the end times fanatic what's the matter conventional religion wasn't good enough for you that's no way to treat your family such neglect you call that obedience to God God would never require this etc etc to hear the still small voice of God Elijah was not only familiar with the voice he was familiar with his way because God said I have commanded the ravens to feed thee there he didn't say but Lord ravens why that's a garbage can bird that's a scavenger that's one that eats carrion and rotting things that's the last instrumentality to be trusted to feed God's prophet so he arose and went because he knew not only the voice of God but the way of a God who always chooses the foolish things do you know that God I'll tell you precious people to know him is not going to be a luxury but an end time necessity of the greatest magnitude to know him in his way that we do not miss him when lives and a whole Israel shall be hanging in the balance who are halting between two opinions he arose and he went according to the word of the Lord and we know that the stream dried up are you familiar with that aspect of God too oh how we trembled seven years ago when God called us out of the teaching profession my wife was pregnant for the third time high school drop out had made good my mother was boasting in Brooklyn to her Jewish friends, my son the professor I had tenure and could not be fired I had a masters degree, I had annual wage increments, we had retirement benefits, health insurance a four cylinder Chevy two car an $11,000 home with one closet we had a white picket fence and in the Assemblies of God church, who could ask for anything more but God said arise and follow me and we trembled to leave that security and I'll tell you that even my own pastor and many whose voices I respect said Art don't do this, you'll just become another professional and who will hear you then, there's lots of missionaries but how many fine Christian teachers do we have who can challenge their students as you've been doing it and witness to their colleagues that was my first great decision and life and death was hanging on the line a pregnant wife, two children on the day that we left Oakland, California to come to New York to enter this work we were born up by angels and I can feel the breath of God upon my neck, the joy was so great we left our little home and our little security and moved into a home twice as good, gave up our little four cylinder Chevy car and they supplied us in time with an air conditioned station wagon when we came out to Kansas City to begin our work here and Roy Kahn took us to his house and said do you think that this will suit you that split level fantastic house centrally air conditioned in Johnson County, we weren't looking for such things people but there's a God who has been leading us from streams from ravens and when the streams have dried up and he said now come, I've commanded a raven a widow woman to feed you we have obeyed and God has not yet failed we came back from Israel almost two years ago, kicked out from the Ulpan, the center for immigration where we had gone to establish the principle that though we were believers in Jesus, yet were we Jewish and untoward things happened which we had not expected people were getting saved and baptized in the Jordan and healed at that Ulpan and the word got around and finally cost us our place there and we had to leave we came back to America, two Jewish families three children apiece nothing, not knowing what, where, how and two years later 17 room house two cars, our income last year was $100,000 no organization no connections no salary, where has it come from, where did God provide that television program of over 30 half hour, bend Israel color telecast, the first Hebrew Christian program of its kind how did all those conferences get established for the Jewish believers where did the subsistence the sustenance come from where did God give words and wisdom and utterance in the places to which he brought me well over my head I've commanded the widow woman to feed thee, what a precious God, and I came to Kansas City after so many years of absence just a few months ago and didn't even know that I would be remembered we had been wet behind the ears here, green, didn't know which end was up and finding our way before God and so many things, in marriage and in ministry, and when we came those few months ago, God showed us the friends that we have here, the people who still remember us, the people in fact who somehow were miraculously ministered to by us though we were young in the faith and who have since risen to places of importance and significance in the body of Christ in this city and within a few minutes God said, establish your ministry here bend Israel ministries foundation is now a fact I never wanted to be incorporated we're now incorporated in Kansas City with an executive board of which Roy Kahn is one, and another dear brother here is another and several others whose names I can't immediately speak from this city God is doing something fantastic and now this morning this ordination also in Kansas City arise I have commanded the widow woman to feed thee so he arose and did according to the word of the Lord and I'll tell you precious people, many times it will have nothing to do with our choices and our preferences I never wanted to have an organization I never wanted to be an ordained minister, I like to be a kind of a loner, I like to be just God's man doing his thing but God is not allowing me such a luxury he's tying my life to other lives he's laying a sure foundation he's establishing a work it has not to do with my preference it has only to do with my obedience but I'll tell you that if you shall have anything to do with my burial and such a thing is not so absurd a question in the age to which we're moving, I just ask you to inscribe one thing on my tombstone so he arose and did according to the word of the Lord hallelujah precious people, let my Jewish people pull their hair and pound their chests and debate and contemplate what does it mean to be Jewish, we've been vexed by this question for centuries but I think that the answer lies here to be Jewish is to hear the still small voice of God who calls us to foolishness to absurdity, to embarrassment to mortification, to obedience to death and to do it and every time that we shall be obedient not only shall we be blessed but life shall go forth to others and it went forth that day to that woman remember the condition in which Elijah found her she was just looking to find some sticks to make one last meal and she was going to cook it for her son and they were going to die I'll tell you that that's a picture of more than a woman who's hungry, that's a picture of a woman who's shattered, a woman disillusioned and dejected and despondent it's a picture of a world that has had affluence and comfort and luxury and every kind of thing that the modern world can heap to find that all of a sudden the rug has been pulled out from under and the entire world has collapsed and the services have failed and there's not only no gas there's no oil, there's no power there's no food, there's no services there's no government, there's no order, there's nothing and that's the kind of world to which we're quickly being drawn God is arising to terribly shake the earth and we've got a preview of things to come with the recent gas crisis, the gas shortage men fighting each other over the pumps, hitting gas station attendants over their head with wrenches because they couldn't continue in their private practice of Sunday leisure driving what then shall we do when we shall have to fight for crusts of bread when every service shall fail and we shall see the fulfillment of the visions which some are already receiving of affluent middle class people in the backyards of their homes trembling as the husband blows on coals trying to make a fire to brew a pot of soup from the herbs and greens that he's plucked out of his own garden can you believe that we should be reduced to such a thing as that I believe it's coming in the whole modern world that Jacob world is going to be shaken to its foundations and it's to this world in the last days that God is going to bring us utterly disillusioned, utterly dejected just wanting to die that's where God brought Elijah and he said that your meal shall not be wasted nor your oil fail till God bring rain upon the earth and the word of the Lord was true in his mouth but it wasn't sufficient to win this woman's conversion have you ever come home from speaking to a friend as I've come home from speaking to my own kinsmen and fling myself down in a chair exhausted and spent and utterly disgusted and say to myself what does it take, what does it take ten years old in God and my mother is not yet a believer, the same woman who applauded me as a Marxist and an Atheist for whom I was some kind of an idol and an intellectual hero was also the same woman ten years ago to slam the door in my face and call me mad and then subsequently to say this too shall pass it's not yet passed but she's not yet saved and the summer is almost past, the harvest is almost past and how many times have I cried out what does it take, what does it take what does it take I'll tell you it's going to take something more than groovy little stickers on the back of our bumpers it's going to take more than than snazzy little t-shirts with a finger sticking up and junk jewelry around our necks and happy little slogans, even the slogan that Christ is the answer is not going to save the world no slogan ever yet save the world and as a former Marxist and left-winger radical I know the value of slogans, we need something more than slogans, even Christian slogans this widow woman this dejected, broken, despairing world is going to have to see power and a miracle of great magnitude and that's indeed what she saw because we read in the 17th verse it came to pass after these things that the son of the woman the mistress of the house fell sick and his sickness was so sore that there was no breath left in him and she said to Elijah what have I to do with the other man of God, art thou coming to me to call my sin to remembrance and to slay my son? An untutored woman who knows nothing about spiritual things a Zidonian who came from the same country from which Jezebel herself came and yet in the moment of extremity and crisis she knew that what had befallen her son had to do with her spiritual condition. I know my Jewish mothers and I suppose that they're not unlike other mothers in the world for their own sake they'll perish and therefore God has got to put his finger on that thing more precious even than their own lives and I'll tell you my God is arising to shake terribly the earth not because he's a mindless God who seeks a vendetta and a vengeance on a world that has burnt him but because he recognizes far better than we that there's going to be an eternal shriek and a wailing and a gnashing of teeth of those who are living in a groovy civilization and who will not hear and will not turn and therefore whatever it shall require to pluck as it were a branch from the fire he shall do it God will not spare putting his finger upon that thing which is most dear if that alone is the last thing that shall bring a person to the knowledge of him what then shall he do for his own children for his own people? I've just come back from Europe and my heart is torn divisions, enmity, strife confusion historic divisions, you can't believe how the body of Christ is separated and even in a little country like Holland one of the great issues separating the body of Christ is the issue of Israel spiritual Israel versus national Israel and here are Christians looking at each other like enemies while an entire generation is going to its doom God is not going to tolerate such conditions and he's going to put upon his finger upon those things which are most dear to bring us to a place of understanding and repentance, both ourselves and the world have you come to call my sins to remembrance he said? poor Elijah, can you imagine his embarrassment? God had been speaking to him by his still small voice, go here, do this but he hadn't spoken to him about this no word in advance, no preparation, no understanding, something hidden by surprise, and this is where the real character of a man is revealed precious people, what we are today in this room is one thing but what we shall reveal when we're caught between floors in an elevator when the power shall fail and we shall be plunged into a black darkness that is the revelation of our true spiritual condition it's one thing to shout amen and hallelujah now and sing the happy choruses when we're well fed and warm and in the company of the saints, but what shall we do when we're faced with extreme pressures undue circumstances unanticipated events crises of great magnitude great shakings, unparalleled things, that shall be the revelation of our true condition and I'll tell you something about the nature of the end times, it is eminently an age of revelation crisis reveals and absolute crisis shall reveal absolutely that veil shall be lifted off the world which has played that hokey game of three great religions and exchanging pulpits on Mother's Day and Thanksgiving and we shall see the deep-seated hatred of a world that despises God and God's people we shall see fangs bared and men gnashing their teeth upon us as has not been seen since the days of the apostles there shall be a revelation of the true condition of the world toward God, but there shall also be a revelation of the true condition of God's people many of us shall be found with our faces sticking out with hollow amens and hallelujahs able to sing and to go through motions of religion and even seeming worship under happy circumstances but I'll tell you that worship is true, which came out of the mouths of Paul and Silas when they were bound in fetters and cast into an inner dungeon and their backs hung in strips in extreme and cruel pain, smelling the stink of urine and the scurrying of rats and filth and vermin but at midnight Paul and Silas prayed and sang praises unto God and the prisoners heard them hallelujah, God is teaching us the fundamentals of praise now not that our churches should be more exciting, but that when that moment comes of utter humiliation that we shall have to face for Christ's sake, that we shall like Paul and Silas also in the moment of extremity and suffering be able to sing praises unto God, what God is going to reveal to us about Elijah in this moment is the true Elijah what shall he do, taken by surprise without advanced information shall he grunt and groan and murmur under his breath did Paul and Silas do that, oh God we were obedient to the heavenly vision and how is it that this has happened nothing like that, Elijah said, give me thy son and he took him up out of a bosom and carried him up into a loft where he abode and laid him upon his own bed there's the picture people of end time evangelism, no little convenient literature distribution or the dollar in the collection plate and let somebody else do it, no silent prayer requests that we can have our needs met without even a modicum of embarrassment but we're going to have to take the corpse of a dead world up to where our abode is and stretch it out upon our own beds, oh we haven't minded being Christians and coming out for a Sunday for an hour, even a potluck supper, but God is going to invade our privacy there's not going to be any inner sanctum in which we can hide the world is going to have to come right up to the place where our abode is and right even upon our satin smooth sheets a stiff, ugly, cold cadaver is what it's going to take, right up into the heart of our own privacy and life, nothing less than this shall save the world, and even that was not enough for Elijah how to stretch himself out over that stiff fingertip to fingertip, eyeball to eyeball and he cried unto God three times, and said I pray thee let this child's soul come unto him again, precious people can you read what that means it's the same thing that Moses cried out, oh God blot me out of the book of life, but don't forsake this people, it's the same thing that Paul cried out, I would wish myself a curse for my brethren's sake but it's the thing which God has not yet heard from us, oh God take this breath of life which is in me and impart it to this dying dead world we've not yet come to that we've wanted all this and heaven too all of the advantages and joys of believing without the willingness to exchange the life that's in us for the life that has gone out of the world are we willing to lay down our life is what God shall ask of us are we willing to stretch out over the dead world it's much more than handing out a few tracts oh I've seen them come to Israel and take little tracts and shove them into the pockets of Jews or leave them at a bus station as if somehow they're fulfilling God's requirement it's going to take a little bit more than that eyeball to eyeball fingertip to fingertip willing to exchange the life that's in us for the life that has gone out unto the world crying unto God three times crying out of the depths, out of the gut, out of brokenness, the place where few of us have ever yet spoken to God how little we realize what products we are of the most superficial civilization in the history of mankind we don't know what a deep agonizing cry is but I'll tell you precious people if I'm standing here today and if God has used or worked anything out of me to bring blessing in these ten years it's because ten years ago I had a student in my class who went home from school and wept over my condition when God brought me back from Jerusalem staggered and stunned that a God against whom I had blasphemed and against whom I had been an enemy and like a paw would have gone out of my way to persecute the believers saved me, I couldn't understand it I was not even looking for him I was looking for philosophy but the living God found me and some months later in California when I resumed teaching God led me little step by step to begin the ministry of giving a testimony I didn't even know I had one or what the word even meant and when I was first services in a small church in that community a woman came up to me ordinary roly poly gentile woman and said brother Katz you don't know me but you had my daughter in the school who knew you were an atheist and a radical and came home from school weeping over you and since that day she said both my daughter and I have been praying for you it's the factual fervent prayer of righteous men and women that availeth much oh I'll tell you you can stay up with us May 26th but if it's going to be a dry eyed prayer meeting it's not going to avail very much God is looking for people who will supplicate and groan stretch themselves out over a dead world oh these Jews don't know they're dead they've got their plaques, their awards, their B'nai B'rith certificates their diplomas and all of the things of the world which seem to speak of life but they're dead bones and God is waiting for people who will stretch themselves over them and cry out three times at a recent meeting before I went overseas it was a joint meeting in a non-Pentecostal church that was unscheduled but the pastor had been to the full gospel breakfast the morning before and God zapped him and he was willing to open his doors that night and without any announcements anything printed by word of mouth the people came streaming into that church of every denomination in the community I sat on the platform and wept as I saw what God was doing and God gave a word that night that was powerful for the body and I concluded by telling them about Shekinah 74 and this pastor who was on his face on the platform came up mopping his face and said yes he said we must pray for this we must pray for Israel he said but let's not pray as missionary alliance separately or Baptist or Lutherans or Pentecostals he says let's come all together and have a union prayer meeting he said as the body of Christ of this community when he said that I leaped right out of my chair and grabbed the microphone and something just tore right out of my mouth I said yes when you'll do that when you'll pray as the body of Christ for Israel not only shall the fire of God fall over New York City it shall fall also over you supplicating and groaning stretching yourself out over a dead body and I can tell you from my experience that is where the action is the first university meetings not far from here in Urbana Illinois eight days of meetings I got the phone call in Kansas City Art do you think you can handle this? they're willing to have you at the Jewish fraternity house if you'll debate the professor of comparative religion who is a renowned atheist and subtitles his course laughing your way through the world's religions you think you can handle that? of course not I can't handle that but I can't handle anything else either either that same God will bail me out at the other meetings or bail me out at that and that last meeting came the Jewish kids were hanging off the rafters the place was jammed it was like a coliseum they'd come for sport they wanted to see the freak get his comeuppance but they made the mistake and they allowed me to speak first the unction of God was so fantastic there was such a holy hush in that place every mouth was stopped and God poured forth such a volume of things that that man sat with a stricken face he looked like a sheep he didn't know what to say and the kids began to probe him and punch him with their elbows a half hour later and say aren't you going to answer this man? and he made one or two lame intellectual statements and he left like a car with his tail between his legs no contest and we went on to a six hour marathon students got out of their seats in disgust and anger and bitterness and left slamming the door and came back two minutes later they couldn't stay away they hated what they heard but they loved it also they were too Jewish to run from it about ten o'clock a kid came out trembling like a leaf with his fist knotted I could see his white knuckles he was ready to bash me in the face I was such an irritation such an aggravation why did I have to come and spoil things they were just applauding themselves they were going to be humane and altruistic and have their careers and do something good for Israel also and here was this terrible challenge which was nothing less than death okay he said if your God can do the things that you say and he can save me I defy him right now to do it and every breath stopped waiting on that spot to see what God's answer would be everything had come to the peak to the crisis moment what do you say in such a moment by what wisdom shall we act by which of the four spiritual laws by which handbook on evangelism and what other clever methodology or technique in a moment of ultimate crisis when a Jewish life is hanging in the balance trembling in conflict between rage and love and shaken to the very foundations you know what came out of my mouth I said brother your spirit stinks as if someone had taken a towel and sloshed it in water and given it to him right in the teeth he sat down with his eyes blinking like a stunned lamb but he was the first one to be saved that night and fourteen others followed him into the kingdom in weeping and trembling like nothing you have seen or that has taken place I believe since Paul went into the synagogues and contended with his people at midnight we picked up twenty Christian kids a mile away on the campus in another building who had been on their faces for six hours Presbyterians, Methodists Pentecostals the whole variety of God's people separated by discord, divisions issues, theology, doctrines but they put all that aside there was a war on and their faces were beaming with joy brother cats didn't something wonderful happen from about ten o'clock on I said what do you mean they said from six to ten we know there was a war on but from ten to twelve glorious things were happening I said how did you know we just knew it in our spirits as we prayed precious people they were where the action is this battle is in the heavenlies against principalities and powers of darkness in high places and it's fought by the spirit in prayer by those who will prostrate themselves out over a dead world and cry out to God three times breath came back to that child and Elijah took that child to the mother and said see thy son liveth oh she said now by this I know that thou art a man of God and the word of God in your mouth is truth oh foolish people that we are to think because we said the right words and intoned the right formulas and subscribed to the right doctrines that somehow we were going to get the right results who has deceived us by this I know that the word of God in your mouth is truth it's a word that penetrates and it's a word that brings life even back from the dead and you know what the reward was for that meritorious service for that obedience to that still voice that brought him to the widow's house when Elijah met Ahab again he said art thou he who troubleth Israel that's the reward you're going to get no more plaques no more certificates from the B'nai B'rith no more man of the year award no more that hunky stuff that goes on in the religious world reproach, persecution taunts, jeers, recriminations call yourself Christian you call that Christian love say isn't it enough what these Jewish people have suffered in the Holocaust and six million of them went up in smoke and isn't it enough what they're suffering in Russia trying to retain their Jewish identity are you too trying to make a Christian out of them and steer from them the last measure of Jewish identity call that Christian love anti-Semite just give me a minute more will you I was sitting on a plane not long ago and I we stopped at Chicago to continue and a black girl got up on that plane just before it took off she just made it she was out of breath and she sat down alongside of me took off her clothes and something just immediately clicked in my heart I'm not one of these compulsive witnesses that witnesses to everybody except God opened my mouth and before we even got up off the ground I was already talking to her she was a graduate student in psychology and something was going forth from me that was very strange I was goading her I was teasing her and well what virtue do you think psychology has to save the world and do you really think it's an answer and what do you think of the Bible oh she said it's the white man's book Christianity is the white man's religion I said I didn't ask you about that I'm talking about the way of God and she was getting increasingly irritated with me and I kept probing and getting under her skin I had a sense that once upon a time as a young girl perhaps this girl knew what the way of God is and she got sucked up in a very different orbit violence, black power all of that filth that's going to increase in the world she called herself a humanist and she was a graduate of an advanced student in the humanities but I'll tell you if I had been sucked out of that plane and fallen to my doom she wouldn't so much as bat at an eyelash she was without natural affection and I kept talking to her and she said if you don't stop she said I'm going to call the stewardess and have your seat changed and all of a sudden I began to blush to the roots of my hair because I realized how would it look if all of a sudden these people on a plane are going to see this man get up and have a seat changed you know immediately what they're going to think she was a very attractive girl and all of a sudden I realized to be obedient to God is going to bring us to places of real foolishness to real embarrassment even to persecution, to reproach and there'll be no way to explain to anyone we're going to be misunderstood are thou he who troubleth Israel and in that moment there was a blonde woman who was sitting on the other side of her but what a picture she was her lipstick was over the lip line mascara cigarette dangling from her mouth she was a tough mama, a babe if ever I saw one she didn't have that much compassion for a world or for this black girl and she turned around and she looked over the girl to me and she said yes she said why don't you leave her alone and I thought boy this is really it this is the ultimate statement this is what obedience to the end times to God is going to mean misunderstanding embarrassment, mortification suffering and death and a world that's going to sneer at you and say call that Christian are you he who troubles Israel that's what we're going to hear people but there's going to be a body that shall be able to call down fire from heaven there's going to be a people that shall fall on their faces and cry out the Lord he is God and then I just want to end with this many of us have experienced this great moments in God great victories, great triumphs God breaking through but it's strange how often following those things comes a strange exhaustion a strange sense of what emptiness like what is it all strange sense of even defeat and worthlessness and utter foolishness and what was accomplished and was it accomplished and who are you and what are you and what are you doing and the whole thing breaks upon your soul you can say like Elijah said who had just brought fire from heaven it's too much for me he said it's enough now oh Lord take away my life I'm not better than my fathers this is what it's going to mean to serve God people great moments but also great breakings great humiliations great emptying outs great feelings like nothing and he fell asleep and an angel of the Lord touched him and said unto him arise and eat first a brook and ravens and then a widow woman but then this last meal there was a cake baked on the coals and a cruise of water in his head and he ate and he drank and he laid down again in the 19th chapter in the 7th verse the angel of the Lord came again the second time and touched him and said arise and eat because the journey is too great for thee and he arose and did eat and drank and went in the strength of that meat forty days and forty nights unto Horeb the mount of God oh precious people I've taken too much time already but just this concluding moment it starts with a stream and with ravens and then it takes us to the strange widow's house but that last meal shall be the meal alone that shall sustain us in our dejection in our utter humiliation in our feelings of worthlessness in our seeming defeats in a moment when we shall say it is too much for me it is too much for us the journey is too great for us but that same angel of the Lord has prepared us a meal and a drink and on the strength of that meat we shall go forty days that time of trial until we shall reach the mount no longer mount Horeb but the mount of God his holy Zion the building of his final end time temple the Shekinah glory of God filling it and the light of God going out over the earth he had to eat and drink of that bread and of that water and on that meat he went forty days God spoke to us already at the beginning of this service I am your sufficiency I am your all in all eat of me, drink of me on the strength of that meat he went forty days it is too much for us people the journey is too great for us who are we that we should stand before the Ahabs and contend against false prophets and invoke fire from heaven and lay out sacrifices and pour out water and tremble and cry and bring a people on their faces it is too much for us indeed but come eat and drink and on the strength of that meat you shall go forty days until we reach the mount of God let's bow our heads now and let's drink a drink and let's eat of that meat hallelujah oh precious God, hallelujah precious Jesus we are frail nothings pieces of clay we are like that wilderness prophet we are just girded about by a piece of leather we are uncomely people we are not anything to look at we are ordinary we have no great gifts nor abilities we are a wilderness people, we are despised we are not those that sit at Jezebel's table and eat lush things you send us to remote places to live on hornets honey or to eat with a widow oh precious God who are we that we shall challenge a backslidden people how long do you hold between two opinions who are we that we should command the elements who are we that we should invoke fire from heaven it is too much for us but thank you precious God thank you angel of the Lord great holy and eternal messenger who has made of himself that drink and that meat that on the strength of it we shall finish the journey that is set before us that last forty days of trial the demand that shall come upon us until we reach the holy mount of God precious God give us such meat today such drink today and in these days in this conference that we shall be reminded in every moment of exhaustion and defeat and discouragement as the ministers of God as the called ones of God as the servants of God as the men and women of God of our generation who say our God liveth before whom we stand that we shall have Lord God strength to run the race thank you Lord for that bread and for that drink in Jesus name may we hear your voice and follow you Lord from speaking to speaking from faith to faith from obedience to obedience from death to death that an apostate people might see the fire of God that a dead widow's son might be brought back from death Lord oh precious God save in these end days through this people Lord help us to be the men and women of God for our generation ordained of God fed by God empowered by God is our cry, our prayer in Yeshua's great name