In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the power and significance of one verse in the Bible. He highlights that this verse, spoken by Paul, encapsulates the entire purpose of creation, which is for the church. The speaker acknowledges that answering this call to fulfill the apostolic vision will require sacrifice and opposition from worldly powers. However, he encourages the audience to embrace this calling and face any adversity with grace and praise, trusting in God's guidance.

That the Gentiles, the Hebrew word is goyim, the same word for nations. Anything outside of Israel are the nations. The Gentiles, the goyim, should be fellow heirs and of the same body and partakers of his promise in Christ by the gospel. Now how can you hear that and read that and not tumble out of your seat? How do you remain fixed in your pew having heard that one statement? That the goyim, who used to drink beer out of skulls and fornicate like jackrabbits and murder at whim, are now to be made fellow heirs with the people of God. For salvation is of the Jews and the exclusive people that God raised up to be a priestly nation are now to have joined with them as fellow heirs Gentiles and be brought into the same body and be partakers of the same promises in Christ by the gospel. I think the Italians have a word for this, mamma mia. This is remarkable and it's not even our subject, but how do we dare read this and pass it by without writing in your heart the remarkable thing that should be a continual source of astonishment and amazement that you who are far off and without God in the world, without hope, have been brought nigh, as Paul will tell us, by the blood of Messiah into the hopes, promises of the covenant of the holy people of God and even into the holy nation itself. That's remarkable. That's the good news. That's the astonishment that poor Peter required a trance to see because he would not have deigned ever to walk into the house of a Gentile because, after all, he's a Jew, the wholly separated people reserved for God who are not to be defiled by even so much as contact with the goyim, but he received a vision on the top of the roof where I have been in Jaffa and where we're going again March 26th through April 7th if you want to join us in the tour, and he received a vision of a sheep coming down with unclean animals and right away his orthodox heart reacted against it because he had been schooled in it all his life long, and the Lord said, Simon, take and eat, but Lord, I have never eaten, touched anything unclean. What I have made clean call thou not unclean. Think of this, dear saints. It took a trance. It took powerful revelation to persuade an orthodox Jew that something has happened both in the heavenlies and in the earth by which he can now safely go into the house of a Gentile for the Gentiles are to receive the same and be heirs with the people of Israel according to the gospel. You know that the church needs to reconsider this. The church needs to be astonished afresh at the grace that has come to it, that was once reserved exclusively for Jews and has now come to you, not for your enjoyment only, although it's delight unspeakable, full of glory, but that you having now received this grace should now be to the Jewish people the very salvific agency by which they are returned to their own faith. Wow. Talk about tactician. Talk about stratagem. Talk about sublime and divine wisdom that will take eternity of eternities to celebrate, that God will take a people whom the Jews have held in the least regard. You need to have heard my mother speak the word goyim. She didn't speak it. She spit it, the goyim, because they're the ones who have ravaged our lives and pursued us and called us Christ killers and have wreaked such havoc upon our lives historically, the goyim. When my mother had to go out for the checkout in the supermarket in West Palm Beach and see a freckle-faced, nub-nosed, fair-haired girl at the register who already is bristling at this old Jewish woman because she's so slow in opening her purse and taking out her coins, each one as if they're pure gold, that she could feel the ancient ages old antagonism between Gentile and Jew, that God should make of them the agents of our salvation, that he should even put it into their hearts, that they should be willing members of his body and servants to bring that salvation because it will not be at their convenience. It will be at their cost. And when you're willing to be that for another whom the world now increasingly despises, you are fulfilling more than you know the ultimate wisdom of God in the ultimate mystery of God by that very act, as I hope to show you tonight. So Paul moves on, however great that statement is, whereof I was made a minister according to the gift of the grace of God, given unto me by the effectual working of his power, unto me who am less than the least of all saints. How do you equate that with a man who's a holy apostle that is also the least of all saints? Well this must be some selfie-facing modesty. This is a little salesman's bravura, a little touch. He doesn't really mean that he's the least of all saints, for he's the great Apostle Paul, whom Jews consider to have done more damage to Judaism than Jesus Christ himself. And he says he's the least of all saints? Yes. How do you reconcile this anomaly of a man who is celebrated and called as a chief apostle and is holy and is at the same time the least of all saints? If you cannot fathom that, if you cannot reconcile that, if you cannot understand that, if you cannot desire that, if you cannot be that, you are outside the faith. It's a mystery to bring together the things that are majestic and humble in the same vessel. That's a salvation to the uttermost. Why is a world stricken with people who are seeking psychiatrists and pills and drugs and every kind of thing to find some way to keep their little wretched lives together. God calls us to the majesty of this humanity, this personhood in God, that by which we are both the least and the greatest in and of the same moment and same time. You shall be witnesses unto me. And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world has been hidden God, who created all things by Jesus Christ, to the intent that now, and I'm going to stop right there, as I always do, because I'm not going to rush into this, because what Paul is about to tell us is the very reason for creation itself, as only an apostle can communicate it, because it is given to him in the stewardship of mystery. He's going to tell us why it pleased God to create all things, who had no obligation to create anything. God was sufficient unto himself. He had no need to create a world. He had no need to people it with mankind. He had no need to create seasons and and what is it, sunlight on the green leaves, what do they call that process by which all life photosynthesis. He didn't have to do any of that. He chose to do it. Creation is an act of love. It is the expression of a God, who will not just enjoy himself and in and of himself, but calls others to share with him and be co-heirs with him in the things that pertain to his glory. And for that, a creation was needed. So, Paul is called to make all the saints see who's less than the least of saints, the unsearchable riches, and to see what is the fellowship of the mystery, which from the beginning world has been hid by God, who created all things by Jesus Christ to the intent or in order that now, unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places, might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God. Well, we ought to be hanging on the ropes. That's a beautiful figure, hanging on the ropes. This is knockout stuff. This is not just one-two. This is power-packed, cataclysmic punches of truth of a devastating kind, summed up in one verse that is so potent, so all-inclusive, so categorical, so at the heart of all faith and believing and purpose, that we could have read it by as if it were only a verse, as if we were reading, I don't know what, Gone with the Wind? So listen, dear saints, this compels us to read the Scripture anew and to dwell upon every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. For Paul, in one statement, given apostolic license and ability, sums up the whole purpose of creation, and he says that it's for the church. Well, if they had ambulances and straitjackets in those days, that would have been the moment when they should have sent for one to cart this man off to an insane asylum. This is beyond absurdity that the whole purpose of creation is for the purpose of the church. Well, we thought that that was just a kind of institution to which we would come on Sunday mornings and Eastern Christmas, and maybe a midweek Bible study. What is this Paul getting carried away to see that the church is so singular in God's sight, so precious in God's sight, that he created everything in order that the church. There had to be a platform. There had to be a world. There had to be seasons. There had to be economy. There had to be societies. There had to be institutions and civilizations. There had to be terra firma in which the church could have its purpose and being played out. So let's get it right, saints. We're not a little bump on the log. We're not an afterthought. We're not an asterisk. We're not a Sunday supplement. We're the purpose for creation. So get rid of that nasty inferiority complex by which the world will be only so happy if we would agree with it to relegate the church to being only an institution if it keeps its nose clean, deserving tax-deductible benefit. It's a holy entity that required creation, and God did not think it too extravagant to provide it. But for what purpose for the church? To the intent that now, unto the principalities and powers, dum-da-dum-dum, who's that? What's that? Where's that? If Paul had not spoken it, we might not have known that there is such a reality. Now listen, you dear saints. Not only is there such a reality, it is an ultimate reality that pulls the strings that affects every nation and every race of men on the face of the earth. They are the invisible spectral realm of angiology of angelic fallen spirits who were once invested and given the privilege of participating in the oversight of creation in a governmental way that they should encourage mankind in its acknowledgment of its creator to come to the place of service and worship. But since the rebellion of Lucifer, who took a third of them with him, they are employing their governmental places not to bring men to the place of the worship of God, but to themselves. They are the prince of this world. That's why Nazi Germany was the celebration of the state, the worship of a man, Hitler, and the state, because the principalities and the powers are rooted in governmental structures, to turn men from God to themselves through the worship of the state, through the worship of a rock star, through the worship of an athlete, through the worship of the New York Yankees, or the Giants, or any kind of entity that will draw the hearts and loyalty, affection, and attention of men away from God and toward the powers of this world. And don't think it's not a power. It was a power sufficient to crucify the Lord of Glory. For Paul says in 1 Corinthians chapter 3, if they had known, they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory. He's not speaking about Pontius Pilate, but the rulers of this present age. In chapter 6, he describes them again. We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual witness in high places. You want to know something about the darkness of this world, if you didn't know it? It parades as light. It presents itself as something not only acceptable, but desirable, even ethical, even moral, even cultural, even intellectual, even to be the patriotic. Its darkness is presented as light, and by such a means they seduce and captivate and manipulate entire nations and races of men. Paul says we wrestle against the church, for which God did not think it too elaborate to bring creation, so that this antagonism with these dark powers who seek through their leader to rise above the most high and to be exalted above God and to be the effectual rulers of this universe have brought a cataclysmic conflict, a cosmic clash that has woven in and out throughout the generations and throughout the ages and has spilled the blood of martyrs and fomented wars and catastrophes and acts of genocide. You think you can understand Rwanda and men hacking a million people to pieces with machetes because of some tribal difference outside of the influence of the principalities and powers who are the masters of death and love chaos and devastation and ruin? Can you understand World Wars I and World War II? Over 40 million lost in World War II, I don't know the number in World War I. If you go to France and visit no man's land, I forgot the name of the place and see the Ossiery, the building that they put up to collect the bones of the victims of five or six acres of land between the Germans and the French going back and forth, killing out an entire generation that might have produced its Beethovens and Brahms, its Fichters and its Hegels, its philosophers, its composers, its great scientists, men who would have contributed to the advance of mankind were brought to ruin in devastating war inflamed in conflicting nationalities, pride of nations fomented by the powers of the air above. So that when the wars begin, what do the churches do? They send their troops with blessing as if they're serving the purposes of Christ. The Germans sanctify the German army and the British sanctify the British army, the end of which is bloodbath. Oh you dear saints, not to factor in and to understand that the underlying principle of all reality, though invisible, are the principalities and powers, is to avoid yourself of any possibility of being considered apostolic saint, for this is foundational to the whole mindset and way of perceiving reality itself. So what is Paul saying here? That God wanting to end this cosmic conflict and assert and establish the primacy of himself who is creator over his own creation is going to bring a final defeat which he initiated himself in his own suffering and death at the cross. How do you know that Art? Because the scriptures tell us that he made of them an open spectacle and disarmed them in his death. He defeated death by death. These are the spirits of death, the agents of death, and he bore that death but in bearing it without complaint, without reviling, without reacting in kind to the way that the powers of the air were trying to bring him onto their own turf in agreement with their own wisdom, he refused. He did not revile back. He was tested and tempted. He went as a lamb to the slaughter silently. He was displaying in his suffering another kind of wisdom that when the powers of the air saw it they experienced a defeat from which they are still recoiling but they still remain in sufficient power and force to constitute for us a threat and an object of our final intention to conclude what the Lord had begun. You'll have to hear the tape. We are on divine course. There's an apostolic mystery for which God has created all things and given to the church a mandate that it might make known the manifold wisdom of God to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. But Lord, whatever that means, it has nothing to do with earth. There's nothing to do with improving mankind or fighting for social causes or seeing to the election of so-and-so or opposing this or that or abortion or all of those good causes that deserve our attention. You mean to say that the ultimate purpose of the church has nothing to do with what has in its first glimpse to be seen as having purpose in the earth but it has to do with an invisible spectral realm of powers of the air? And the answer is yes. And only the church can deal with that realm. Only the church can recognize that realm. Only the church that is the church can wrestle against that realm because Paul says, as I've quoted, we wrestle. Do we? We never will until we become we. And we're not we merely because we are seated alongside each other in pews. We are we when, like the early church, we are one mind and one heart and one soul and can wrestle and don't give a rap about the appearances of whether it's polite or not or how does it look when our tie comes off. And it's the we that is black and white, male and female, this generation and the older, the whole panoply of God's people in their multi-ethnic national racial composition is the we. And when it becomes a we made up of those elements, that itself is the wisdom of God that defeats the powers. Because the powers celebrate difference and racial enmity and suspicion and jealousy and hostility. The goyim, the blacks, the this, the that, that's their game. So when there's a people who can transcend these prejudices and these fears, not in some superficial way by swallowing it down and being polite in the foyer of the church, hi brother, hi sister, but in an authentic way where we are flesh of each other's flesh and bone of each other's bone. And there's a trust and a mutuality and joining in a linkage that is indisputable that even the powers have to recognize. Then we have become the we. The only catch is to go from where we presently ought to become that we requires suffering. Yes, accusations and misunderstandings and things that will not dissipate without being confronted, without being expressed, without having to be heard, which is humiliating and painful to struggle through those things. But you got me all wrong brother, you don't understand. When I said that, I didn't mean this, I meant that. Oh, I took it in the context of the way in which I have all along understood white people to speak. Well, I needed to hear that. And so the church is going to have to turn the pews around. We have to look at each other face to face and hear from each other and work out those things by which a we will be constituted or there's no wrestling at all. This is more than Sunday services. And it's a privilege. It's a privilege. Thank you Lord. And in itself, that kind of unity, I'm not talking about ecumenical, I'm not talking about nicey-nice, I'm talking about one as he is one. When we have come to that demonstration that he exhibits in the eternal Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, deferring one to another, that the Father even gives to the Son a name above every name. Willing, so to speak, to take a back seat that his Son might be exalted, while the whole purpose for the Son is to exalt the Father. And the Holy Spirit has no purpose unto himself but to glorify the Lord. And they're serving one another in a remarkable unity of a corporate and a composite kind that is called the mystery of the Godhead. And we have to persuade our Jewish kinsmen who have a narrow monotheistic view that God is one, and don't even read through the Hebrew of Elohim as being plural to persuade them. Yes, he's one, but he's a composite one, and that we are called to the same unity that he himself exhibits from eternity. But it's going to take something. Are we willing for the cost of it? Mere Sunday attendance will not do it. There needs to be a frequency of relationship from house to house, daily breaking bread. And all of the things that that kind of familiarity and frequency brings. Embarrassment. And our feet are up on the coffee table, and our hair is in curlers, and the guy is guzzling a can of beer and watching the ball game. But they're saints in whatsoever condition they presently are. And a can of beer isn't all that sinful. And it will reveal our pharisaical hearts if something rises up in us in condemnation. And God will go that far to sift and purify and refine the church that it might be a we. That it might demonstrate the manifold wisdom of God. As only a church can. No single virtuoso saint, even our cats himself, cannot exhibit the wisdom of God that will defeat the powers of the air when they see it and see it expressed. Because it cannot be a solitary thing unto an individual other by himself. The wisdom of God requires a corporate expression to find its realization. But what are we presently? We're a congregation of individualities. And some of the individualities that were here last night were probably so offended that they're not here presently. So whatever that wisdom is, which I can tell you now just for a shortcut, the wisdom of God is the nature of God. The wisdom of God is the character of God. The wisdom of God, for example, includes humility, deference, the embrace of necessary suffering. The wisdom of God shuns the use of violence, not only physically but in speech. It shuns intimidation. It will not use threat. It will not implore. A woman who understands the mystery of the calling of the church will not use her feminine wiles to bring her husband to a place of compliance by suggestion, innuendo, or what's the word, intimidation. Got the idea? Sex will not be an article of winning your end of the bargain by either withholding or the giving of it, as it is so much in the world. It will be a freely given loving expression of the greatest mystery that God has given to men and women, which is that sublime and a picture of the ultimate worship that will be ours as the bride of Christ with our bridegroom. To use sex, to use language, to use physical force, to intimidate, to threat, to manipulate, is the wisdom of this present world. And it will only be defeated by a church who exhibit another kind of wisdom in the daily conduct of their life together. It's not a wisdom that we will verbally proclaim. It's a wisdom, Paul says, that the church will demonstrate to the principalities and powers of the air. And certainly shall we fulfill this as only a secondary consideration, as one of the many purposes for which we're called? No, never. It will only be fulfilled when the church will recognize this, as Paul did, as the first and foremost purpose for its being. Our first purpose for being is to serve the purpose of God that is obtained by the defeat of the powers that have been his inimical opponents since time immemorial and have continued in a cosmic clash over the issue of the dominion over creation till this hour. That's our first and foremost purpose. And if we will not embrace that, what else shall we do that could substitute or fill or in any way compensate for this foremost purpose of our calling? This puts a whole new way of seeing and of perceiving that what we do privately behind drawn shades and closed doors that we think is only a private matter affects the whole knit and fabric of the corporate life. And the powers of the air know it because they can say, Paul we know, Jesus we know, but the Trinity Tabernacle of Gravesend, who? They know whom to fear and they're not impressed with glass cathedrals or remarkable ministries of a popular kind that are taking cities for Christ to worship and all of the other jazz that is presently going on that is unquestionably flaky. One thing about the powers of the air, just like Jews, they have an instinctive awareness of what is real and what is real, dear saints, is what is apostolic. What is apostolic is authentic. It's not a title for a denomination, it's a description of a certain character of life and relationship that can only be known and expressed in the church that is the church. You know what the remarkable thing is? When you say yes to this call, knowing that it's going to require sacrifice to go from where we presently are to come to this kind of apostolic fulfillment, that we will be opposed bitterly, that the powers of the air who have up till now yawned in our faces and have been only faintly amused by our loudest and bravest intentions will now fear us and tremble and oppose us. We will be mocked and who wants that when we can live inconspicuously and well as acceptable Christians who keep their noses clean and come faithfully to services, put a dollar in a collection plate, say hallelujah and amen and go home and watch the ball game or stay away and watch the ball game. They know whom to fear. They recognized in Paul the same unquestionable integrity of faith and intention as was found in the Son of God and needs to be found in us. So you know it and you're rolling up your sleeves and you're saying yes Lord we're called for this and we want to acknowledge and recognize this calling and affirm it that you might hear it in the heavens but that the powers of the air will also hear and recognize and acknowledge this church is getting serious. Before I was able to ignore them, now they constitute a threat. We don't want to yield an inch to the kind of prerogative and power that we now enjoy in every place and especially in Jewish life because if you touch those Jews and set them in motion for God then we are really finished. For when the kingdom of God comes that is the kingdom of David on the throne of David on the holy mount of Zion that's the end of all false government and rule. So your task is to bring them to the acknowledgment of their theocratic call. No small matter and even Paul himself had to say who is sufficient for these things. Dear saints when you can play church and perform it in your sufficiency you're out of the faith until you've cried out and cried out frequently as we do daily and hourly even to speak tonight who is sufficient for these things to the God who has not even allowed us to open the chapter before we stand before you that we might get ourselves groomed and revved up and ready to go but simply to trust him with the word as it stands before you as if this were a night of all nights as if this is not just a meeting as if all eternity is holding its breath waiting in abeyance for what will be transacted tonight significant beyond all speaking for time and eternity now come on art we need to call the ambulance and the white jacket for you you're getting carried away like like your brother Paul are you saying that this night is eternally significant and it's more than just a little add-on meeting absolutely and you know what I feel the same thing about tomorrow Sunday morning and you know what next Sunday as well and the Sunday following in the midweek Bible study in fact I would say every single time that the Saints congregate is of eternal moment and significance and needs to be recognized as that or your faith cannot exceed your expectancy and you have trivialized God by reducing the holy apostolic faith to routine that is predictable because we're unwilling to trust unwilling to believe that the Lord will not leave us with our faces sticking out if we've not prepared ourselves all the day long that we should shine at night and our reputations can be preserved the heck with our reputation what reputation shredded long before because to desire reputation and the acknowledgement of men and the rewards and their promotions is to live by another wisdom the wisdom of this present world and in those phase of human life have the powers of the air greater access and in road and power and manipulation and play then in the realm of religion that's why they burn men at stakes who dare raise up an alternative vision to what they think is the definition of the faith by which their self-interest would be threatened that's why Jesus was crucified it's necessary for one man to die that the nation be preserved what he was really saying that our priestly political and religious place be preserved I had a precious young brother from Chicago he said art you're the most formative influence in my believing life I've lived from your messages I said how is it then that you've not contacted me in the last seven years well he said I'm an assemblies of God pastor and I want to make a name for myself so I'm avoiding any visible relationship with you for your notorious in being somehow anti-establishment in those who don't understand what you're about and I want to make a name for myself that's why they built the Tower of Babel so his wisdom is no name for ourselves no recognition from them it doesn't matter whether we're applauded or we're denigrated we we live and serve unto him alone our reward will come not in this life but in the life to come whatever little reward comes now that's a little bit of icing on the cake the real reward comes after for these all died the great saints of faith and in Hebrews 11 not having received the promise what kind of a God is that to allow Abraham and Moses and all of the great saints of old to labor and serve and not receive in their own lifetime the reward of their sacrifice couldn't at least one of them have received the promise but all these died without receiving knowing that they have in heaven a greater compensation greater reward you see how strange we are saints we're pilgrims and strangers in the earth we're not living for anything in the world or in the religious world by which men are seduced and compromised for fear of what the others will say what you had a beautiful church like this in a prime location and things were going well had you played your cards right you might have even increased your attendance and budget blah blah blah blah blah and you went in this direction because of the Jews they'll that's minor that kind of reproach is only a beginning what it will become in the end is they will kill us and claim they are doing God a service I can tell you that the powers of the air principalities and powers indicate geographic and fixed locations they're over New York they're Chicago Moscow they're all over you know they're the rulers of this world's darkness and they're over Brooklyn and they're over this locality I want to tell you they're holding their breath right now they're trembling right now less this word that has come and is coming will affect something that threatens their vested interests that if there should be so much as an invitation at the end of this hour in which you are called to stand for God in the church that will reveal the manifold wisdom of God whatever the cost as black and white and male and female and young and all that every generation that you're standing for that want to be fitted for that and asking God and giving him release to form you for that the powers of the air will be paralyzed with fear it will be a defeat of such a kind that has not set them back so much as since the crucifixion of Jesus where they have had untrammeled sway over New York City the graveyard of evangelists this is their Babylon they don't want to see a foothold of the kingdom of God come by people whose lives are not their own who don't give a rap for their reputation or how men will see them and understand them or respect them or reward them their reward is with God not even in this life but the life to come they don't need a present reward as an incentive for obedience the world gives it to this excuse my language I was almost going to say jerk but then I remembered the former head of the stock market who received what 180 million dollars in compensations and rewards five million dollars that he never publicly acknowledged came to him because he saw that the stock market would begin on time after September 11th when I tell you what the world knows how to reward those that are theirs but when he took that last 48 million it got out to the press and it was so egregious so blazing brazenly corrupt that even the stock market itself and people in high finance had to recoil from it the world knows how to give its rewards but is your tongue hanging out for that hey listen don't you have a break coming you you precious black young brothers your people have been denied long enough so isn't this an hour for you now to come into the into your own and have a place of professionalism and career and reward that you also can have a three-piece suit and drive a nice flashy Acura or whatever it is that the yuppies why not be a black yuppie and I'll tell you what there's more opportunity for you now because of the emphasis on equality and what do they call it that has ever existed you are in such a place to be seduced and drawn into the world for the want of a name and fame reputation and comfort and convenience and ability to drive a high-powered car that would turn the eyes of women and that these rap stars and athletes are putting that model before you continually and for you to forsake and turn your back to that who have been so long historically deprived there's nothing less than the cross and when you'll do it in your heart and determined for it the powers of the air are assaulted there's much that has to do with you much I'm here I'm so glad you're here and the Lord has brought you in the Philippines I gave an invitation to 300 ministers little brown men all of whom were out of poverty living from hand to mouth you don't know poverty till you've been to Asia I've seen people living in Manila but on the railroad tracks and cardboard cartons and slapdash tin huts that the that the church makes known the manifold wisdom of God to the principles and powers of the air that is now is according in verse 11 to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord I want to say to you dear saints who may regret you having come for you will be held accountable for tonight's word to say no to God in this call to be the church that is the church multiracial multi-ethnic multinational but not in some little cutesy a way of a little smile but in the deep integrated thing that reflects the Godhead himself that will come at necessary cost that this is the eternal purpose of God and I want to ask the Church of Jesus Christ at Gravesend Neck Road what is your first and primary purpose for your being if it is not the eternal purpose of God what indeed is it but eternity brother I don't you know that's that's ephemeral ephemeral that's that's specious that's questionable that's that's like poetry that you don't mean you know eternity is something that happens after you die well you non-apostolic saints you've got it all wrong eternity is now eternal purpose is ultimate purpose it registers throughout the eternity but it is consummated one in a pain in time by those who take God's eternal purpose as being their first purpose and until we do that we have no message for the Jew and we have no witness to them for instinctively they themselves know we are not the real thing the powers know it and they will know it for they know that which is authentic and is grounded in the eternal purpose of God but brother to embrace the eternal purpose doesn't have any practical consequence it doesn't increase the budget it doesn't do this it doesn't do that exactly to embrace the eternal purpose is to turn your back on those things that would serve your immediate purpose because you're putting his purpose before your own and the remarkable thing is the budget will not suffer it's an hour that has come dear saints to which we have been called and can no longer delay it's here we've got to say yes it's got to be an acknowledgement and don't think that this issue tonight over this church is some idle consideration in the air over us there's a battle going on over us to see it to which to what we will choose because this has got to be freely chosen for if it's not freely chosen if it itself is an act of manipulation if I have obtained your commitment by playing upon your fear or your ambition or any of the hokey ways that modern day speakers do we have obtained nothing this has got to be obtained in the wisdom of God itself by the unaided God who does not need our Jewish charisma or cutesiness but only his word and spirit to obtain his own ends and by that you will freely respond as those ministers did in the Philippines and everything was changed from that moment at forward when we say yes to this eternal purpose and the wisdom of it will find out that the issue of the Jew is no tangent is no secondary consideration it's at the heart of this very fulfillment because only the church and I'm going to finish with this that can take as its first purpose God's eternal purpose can take as its purpose the issue of the Jew over its own self-consideration do you get that why should you extend yourself for the Jew what did they ever do for you but cheat you out of your wages or charge you for your rent excessively or in some other way have been a source of irritation and resentment rather than any reason that you should have to accommodate them at sacrifice but I want to tell you dear Saints that I know that I know that the hour is not distant when black believers in Brooklyn New York particularly in the Crown Heights section where someone or some numbers have slashed the tires of Orthodox Jews in their Yom Kippur service will stand before these outraged blacks who have had a near riot three years ago against the Hasidim because one of them had accidentally hit and struck a black kid with a car in the street and triggered three days of rioting that required the mayor as well as the police and every authority to come to quell but the tension is under the surface unregenerate men who are black and had can be manipulated by the powers of the air who will play upon their fears their ambitions their lusts and to aggravate and to make the Jew an object of hatred will fan those flames and the only thing that will save any of them is that there'll be black believers who are willing to stand in front of a Jew at the expense of their own life to stop the rage that would otherwise take them victim and count that a privilege when you'll do that you're fulfilling the eternal purpose of God and showing forth the wisdom of God to the powers of the air that will break and loose those Jews who are captive to their bondage to hear understand receive the gospel it'll take sacrifice let's bow before Paul's God and transact with him who is speaking as if this were a once-and-for-all occasion an eternal now a moment that has come in the ordination of God that will not come again that somehow he said enough to put us in a place of put up or shut up if we'll not say yes now there'll be another occasion when we will be more conducive more amenable does he have to say more to suggest that this is not going to come this great fulfillment without cost without sacrifice without the prospect even of death that somehow we are not to fear that because we have already been brought back from dead death and from the grave and live in the resurrection and what shall we say grave what is thy terror and death where is thy staying and therefore we can confound the powers of the air fearlessly as I told the church in Sicily in Catania in the day of my departure praying to the Lord what's the final word Lord for the elders waiting for me downstairs and I grabbed a piece of paper and my pen and the Lord gave me seven things to say to the elders downstairs about the church in Catania Sicily and number one was oppose the mafia because if you don't who will for this mafia has reduced a great nation to a second third class power through its corruption its fierce manipulation its violence its threat and fear of death where there's no one who will stand in front of them who are not afraid except those who do not cover and hold their lives unto themselves and can free an entire nation from this false ruling tribal class of men who take advantage through the inspiration of the power to bring in bondage an entire nation of Michelangelo and Leonardo da Vinci and Verdi and Puccini the great writers and composers and artists the genius of a whole nation is produced by a small band that is bilking and manipulating in fear of death an entire nation until they will be opposed by the church so what do you say who will stand for God with God for his eternal purpose and to demonstrate in character and in life in the realities of what we are about every day another wisdom that will require humiliation sacrifice loss and you'll bear it not just begrudgingly I guess I had to but joyously when you can joyously bear it the powers are defeated and Paul speaks of those people in Romans in Hebrews 10 who took their sacrifice their loss with joy knowing that they had a greater recompense in heaven when there's the people like that in the earth the powers that are holding entire neighborhoods cities and nations in bondage will be broken and loot and delivered so who will stand for this calling praise God our pastor was first and his wife second and the elders and responsible people of the church third and those roundabout from the churches roundabout and my precious kinsmen over there who have joined the holy nation thank you Lord precious God if I've spoken your word faithfully if this is that moment that our ordained that call for which everything till now has been preparation look at these children who have stood and seal them in their standing let them not wonder tomorrow what is a flat tire or the air has gone out or this is wrong or that's wrong or a cold or sniffle or a loss of job or some new kind of adverse thing that they would not have had to bear if they had not stood and when it comes they will receive it not only with grace and with equanimity but with praise Lord will I bless these children seal them everyone and show us where we go from here lead us my God into the fulfillment of this precious apostolic vision here in this Brooklyn in this city of New York in this 21st century thank you for the preciousness of the call completed my God fulfill it we pray for the everlasting praise of your glory we thank you and give you praise for the jealous love that would not let us go there would not let us be satisfied with being nice Saints who are more or less respectable but you've called us with an ultimate call which is apostolic and glorious and shall have a reward that no man can perceive or consider that I have not seen an ear has not heard for which we now labor faithfully in anticipation and we would have labor even without the reward because our reward is your glory our reward is the fulfillment of your desire what this is important to you to defeat those powers by demonstration that's all we need to know whatever is important to you is first for us in everything hear that new powers recoil back loose the captives roundabout but people have stood for God and for this ultimate call and you're on the road to extinction in Jesus name we pray amen