In this sermon, the preacher emphasizes the need for Jews to see the glory of God, even in creation. He mentions how the supernatural nature of God can sometimes offend our rational minds. The preacher also talks about a specific group of people who are addressed in the Bible and are told to be strong and not fear, as God will come to them. He shares a personal story of being called by God to prepare a place of refuge for Jews in the wilderness and how they have faced testing and challenges in their journey. The sermon concludes with a reference to Isaiah 35 and the significance of rivers breaking forth out of dry ground.

Jeremiah chapter 31. Well, it's somewhere in chapter 30 or 31. In verse 2 of chapter 31, is another reference to the same thing. It says, the people which were left of the sword found grace in the wilderness. Israel, when I went to cause him to rest. I don't know that there's a time when we're more required to be serious students of the scripture than now. To read very carefully these prophetic statements. So that we might rightly understand whether God is describing something in Israel's past or something of her future. My own impression is that the people who will find grace in the wilderness were those who survived the sword in the land. So that I expect a violence that will cast again people in Israel out of the land and into the nations. And that what God has allowed to be established in the land as present Israel is to precipitate the violence that requires their expulsion. Perhaps not all, but some. If not many. Because we read such words as those that are taken captive. The outcasts of Israel. The dispersed of Judah. In the book of Joel in chapter 3. God speaks of in those days referring to the last days and the final time. I shall bring again the captivity of Judah and Jerusalem. It talks in verse 2 about my heritage Israel whom they have scattered among the nations and parted my land. In verse 3 that they have cast lots for my people. In verse 5 you have carried into your temples my goodly and pleasant things. In verse 6 the children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have you sold unto the Greeks. That you might remove them far from their borders. But I will raise them out of the place where you have sold them and return a recompense upon your head. In verse 19 of that chapter there's a reference to Egypt and to Edom. That clearly is not a statement of their past but their future. Egypt shall be a desolation. Edom which is present-day Jordan shall be a desolate wilderness. Why? It's God's retribution and judgment upon them for the violence against the children of Judah because they have shed innocent blood in their land. But Judah shall dwell forever and Jerusalem from generation to generation. This is the pattern in many of the prophets. A last day's violence within the land and then a casting out and a return of a surviving remnant brought about by the direct supernatural intervention of God Himself. So much so that the survivors know that it is the Lord who has restored them. And then there's the references that they shall dwell after that in peace. They shall dwell forever in Jerusalem from generation to generation. We need really a much longer time to develop this. I'm just saying enough to stir your own searching of the Scriptures that there is indeed a final exodus and return from all the nations where God will have scattered us and that we are sifted in the process of that dispersal and return as the final chapter of the book of Amos describes. Chapter 9 from verse 8 that the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom I will destroy it from off the face of the earth except I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob for I will command and I will sift the house of Israel among all nations just as corn is sifted in a sieve yet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth all the sinners of my people shall die by the sword which say the evil shall not overtake nor confront us How do I know that this description is something of Israel's future rather than Israel's past? Because the context of these verses says so Verse 11 indicates that in that day or at that time in that period of God's dealing will I raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen raise up its ruins and build it as in the days of old that has not yet happened the tabernacle of David is not a form of Davidic worship this has been an arbitrary and charismatic definition it's not that I don't enjoy Davidic type of worship Davidic sorry it's a lovely innovation it's an improvement in our charismatic practices but we must not miss God's point the tabernacle of David is a statement of God's government and rule upon the throne of David to order it and to establish it as it says in Isaiah 9.7 henceforth and forever the government shall be upon his shoulder the tabernacle is the restoration of God's authority on the throne of David and not a form of worship how do you know that brother? because verse 12 says so that they may possess the remnant of Eden and of all the heathen which are called by my name this is not possess in the sense of dominating but in the sense of ruling over in keeping with many other prophetic scriptures perhaps the most important of which is Isaiah chapter 2 also repeated in Micah chapter 4 that the law of the Lord shall go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem it shall come to pass in the last days it says in verse 2 of Isaiah that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established in the town of Jerusalem on the top of the mountains it shall be exalted above the hills and all nations shall flow into it the reference to possessing Eden in chapter 9 of Amos is a symbol of all Gentile nations so in verse 4 of Isaiah 2 he shall judge among the nations that they shall not study war anymore nor lift up sword against nation this is the context of Israel's restoration much more than just a place of safety for Jews in the world the location of God's divine rule over the nations resisted by all the powers of darkness who are the false rulers of this present age the principalities and the powers of darkness who influence the conduct of all nations and in some instances possess entire nations as was true in Nazi Germany and possessing the organ of government and state it set in motion the annihilation of European Jewry what will be the power that drives Jews out of their places of safety and affluence and prosperity in the nations and puts them again in the place of exile and flight it is the bitterness and anger of the powers of darkness against that people who knows that their restoration to their God and to their land in covenant is the end of the false rule of the principalities and powers of the evil who do not want the law of God to go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem nowhere is this more clearly expressed than in Psalm 2 that begins with the question why do the heathen rage the people, the goyim, the gentiles, imagine a vain thing the kings of the earth set themselves and the rulers take counsel together against the Lord against His anointed let us break their bands of sundry and cast away their courts from us but the Lord shall laugh and He shall hold them in derision He shall speak unto them in His anger I have set my king upon the holy hill of Zion this is what they are raging and foaming against they don't want God's king on the holy hill of Zion for it marks the end of their false usurping rule they want to break the cords asunder but God holds them in derision I have set my king on the holy hill of Zion when Zion shall again become a holy hill with a holy nation restored of God when He shall take away their sins and their transgressions according to the covenant that He has made with them when the fullness of the gentiles be come in my heart goes out to you, dear saints I don't want to confuse you I don't want to bewilder you but you must understand the dimensions of the issue of Israel in the last days you will not be able to understand the bitterness with which they shall be hated in all nations because if the redeemed of the Lord return to Zion with everlasting joy upon their heads and David their king now is ruler over them then the law goes forth out of Zion and all nations must come up to Jerusalem to honor and acknowledge the nation whom God has restored to honor and acknowledge the nation whom God has restored and in whose midst He has established His sanctuary the place of His dwelling and of His rule and of His government be prepared to receive them in flight in your nation not because of your proximity to Russia though it makes reasonable sense to expect the greatest outflow from there but because God has said, I will sift them through all nations not only to sift them, but to sift us how will the true church be identified by those who will extend themselves and mercy to the Jews who will be driven in and through their nations the greatest drama of all time of God in the sifting of Israel will not be in Israel, but in the nations it will conclude in Israel when they shall see Him whom they have pierced but the two thirds of the Jews who are already in the nations but the two thirds of the Jews who are already in the nations who are already out of the land and then one third who have returned to the land, but again leave the land in that situation their God's reality will be revealed to them when it says, I will meet with you in the wilderness of the nations face to face let's look at that in Ezekiel chapter 20 where God says, as I live, saith the Lord God verse 33 with mighty hand, with a stretched out arm, and with fury poured out will I rule over you the same people who said, we will not have this man to rule over us but if he will not rule over Israel neither shall he rule over any where does the final breaking of Israel's stubborn pride and resistance take place in the wilderness of the nations that may actually mean remote and out of the way places where Jews may never have thought to have found themselves or it may be a term of a spiritual suggestion what is wilderness what a place of ultimate stripping from all of the amenities of civilization the comforts of modern life which give us a false sense of reality but there is something about being stripped being in the places of grim survival that brings a remarkable simplicity to what life is about in the issue between God and man time and eternity that living in our comfortable places in our cities does not reveal how many saints are listening to me now who have themselves passed through wilderness experience even in Helsinki in the midst of the amenities of modern life God knows how to strip His saints and bring them into a fundamental and absolute confrontation with Himself the Christian that does not have and know wilderness experience does not know their God as they ought nor can He make them known to Him to Him whom we must reveal Him Jacob in the time of his trouble in flight in the nations with fury poured out I will rule over you why fury? because that's what we Jews require He has got to deal with us in a severe way to divest us of our categories and our confidences our humanistic presumptions of Talmudic Judaism with fury poured out I will bring you into the wilderness of the nations and there will I plead with you face to face just as I pleaded with your fathers in the wilderness in the land of Egypt so will I plead with you a final and ultimate confrontation between God and His people that you might pass under the rod and be entered into the bond of My covenant I will purge out from among you the rebels and them that transgress against Me which may well constitute the majority of Jews in the world a remnant shall return the redeemed of the Lord the surviving remnant who have survived the process of sifting and have received the revelation of the Lord in the midst of their wilderness flight face to face you wonder how God could be in so many places at the same time for we ourselves are living in the midst of North America in a wilderness you think it's cold in Finland come visit us in the winter where the temperatures are lower than that in Alaska eight miles from the closest town call supernaturally to that place 23 years ago to prepare a place of refuge for Jews in the wilderness and the Lord has been testing us already not long ago a Jewish hobo, a drifter was picked up off the side of the road not far from us and he was brought to us because we're called Ben Israel I was away at the time but a Jewish brother received him in gave him a place to stay and brought him some food and he was just about to walk away when this Jewish bum, this drifter began to complain it wasn't good enough for him he didn't like the accommodation don't you have better is this the best food you have you know what this Jewish brother said to me when this man expressed his ingratitude something rose up from my depths that completely astonished me of which I did not know I was capable it's called murder that's one Jew reacting to another how will you react after extending yourself to Jews in their final extremity when it's not convenient at an anti-Christ time that sweeps the whole world worse than the Nazi time when to extend yourself to a Jew is to put yourself in the peril of their danger taking them into your home and being discovered is an end for yourself and your own family I preached this somewhere in America and a Dutch brother came up to me and he said, Art do you know what happened in many cases in Jewish flight in Holland these middle class Jews could not stand the confinement the small space in the attic was too claustrophobic for them as we just saw two days ago in Corrie ten Boom's hideaway we saw the place where six or seven Jews were in a closet built within the wall after the Gestapo had taken away Corrie ten Boom and her family out of the house they were lifting up the floorboards and looking at for Jews and hiding for two and a half days and these six or seven Jews were in the walls with a metal pot with a lid on it for their waste, their excretion and their urine without the dignity of being able to relieve yourself privately hearing the Nazis lifting the floorboards and one scream, one cry one exasperation you would have been detected they survived because they were able to contain themselves until their persecutors left then they escaped the house and were sent to other places of refuge who can stand that confinement the terror of that claustrophobic darkness and suffocating lack of air this brother said some Jews could not take it and they fled and they were discovered and under cruel interrogation and torture they revealed who it was who had taken them in and the Gestapo rounded up all those Dutch people and they ended their lives in the concentration camp who wants to take that risk and why should we for them what did they ever do for you this is the mystery of God that defeats the principalities and the powers of darkness whose wisdom says every man lives for his own self interest take care of number one nobody else will to extend yourself for another at the risk of your own life for a despised Jew is the demonstration of another wisdom which man is not capable in the natural this is not an issue of principles or altruism or human kindness it's the same spirit by which Jesus gave himself at the cross without spot unto God it is the self-sacrificing nature of God expressed through Gentiles for Jews is the final demonstration of God by which Jews who have long resisted the Gospel and have been the enemies of the Gospel will at last meet their God face to face through you your face your dirty and ugly face that's why I'm saved you could not have found a greater enemy of Christ and of the Church than myself until my crisis came thirty-two years ago and I was expelled out of my nation and was sifted through the nations being picked up by this one and that one off the side of the road standing in the rain waiting for a lift by people who extended themselves and in whose Gentile faces I saw the glory of the people of Israel and the light that lightens the Gentiles there's no more awesome demonstration of Israel's God than that it's the mystery of Israel and the Church but not a church of casual charismatic saints who have a sympathetic affinity for Israel but those who will exchange their life for them and count it all privilege to obtain such a crown of eternal reward are you prepared for that don't answer the better question is are you willing to allow God so to prepare you twenty-three years ago God called us to the place where we now live in the wilderness of northern Minnesota by just a few words end time teaching center community refuge here's what I want to say saints you who enjoy your charismatic anonymity who love to be hidden in the pews and to leave the meetings and go back again to your own privacy and your privatistic lifestyle God says that will never do you have not the resources in yourself in your private mode of life to reveal my face to my people in the midst of their affliction it will take a community to reveal that not a conglomerate of isolated individualities or a church that is externally ecumenical but the corporate people of God that's the cross try it sometime you say brother what's the difference between your community and our congregation only this when the service is over you go home when our service is over we are home and have to meet the same saints tomorrow not with our Sunday face with our Monday face not in our momentary spiritual condition but in the truth of what we in fact are will you take my word for something church is a suffering before it's a glory and if my people are going to see the face of their God in you they'll see it corporately or not at all they'll see it collectively and before they will test the truth of our spirituality we will first test it among ourselves when I spoke once from Romans 11 that by your mercy they may obtain mercy a woman cried out spontaneously from a congregation she said but brother we don't even have mercy for each other how shall we have it for Jews exactly time is short saints we need to be open to God radicalizing our life moving us from where we charismatically are to where we need to be apostolically or we will have missed the historic moment when God passes them through our nation and we show only the face of religious responsibility where I guess I have to the sense of religious obligation that is so easily irritated and shows it they will test us we will be provoked they will show ingratitude and something will rise up out of your gentile gut why should I and who are they unless God has sanctified you wholly there is a wilderness for us before there is a wilderness for them by which we are fitted for this final testimony it's the mystery of God and his final glory one more text Isaiah 35 many references to passing through the wilderness many references to rivers breaking forth out of dry ground this is not poetry this is going to be truth I have already been in some of these wilderness places they are so frightening in their emptiness you wonder how anyone could survive why must they pass through that can't they fly out of Helsinki or Copenhagen or where they are not if your name is Katz and you have a Jewish face you'll be dead unless God brings you through a wilderness way where such places are presently under preparation in the earth that's why it says in Isaiah 35 the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose because nature knows better than us when they see this Jacob passing through their midst we have come to the end of the age it's time for the manifestation of the sons of God for which even creation prevails until now so it shall blossom abundantly in verse 2 and rejoice with joy and singing the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it the excellency of Carmel and Sharon they shall see the glory of the Lord the excellency of our God how we Jews need to see the excellency of our God even in creation when the trees shall clap their hands and the hills skip as lambs because we are unbelieving because we're secular because we're skeptical because there's something about God as supernatural that offends our rational mind we've got to see the glory of God in very nature itself when the springs shall break forth out of dry ground but in verse 4 someone else is being addressed it is not Israel itself it's someone unidentified and God is commanding that someone to say to them that are of a fearful heart be strong and fear not behold your God will come He has not come yet you think He has abandoned you you have never been in such miserable circumstances in your life you've had abruptly to leave everything that you have ever owned you have no security but a shirt on your back you're a fugitive in flight and in exile but your God will come and you need to hear that you need to have a faith created by the hearing of that though you have never been a people of faith a word has got to come to us when we are weak and our knees are feeble when our hearts are fearful we need to hear a word or we will never make it to the land of promise be strong your God will come He will come and save you when they hear that word prophetically spoken as more than a hopeful wish spoken with absolute faith by a people who are just about to throw in the towel and expire as they died in the concentration camps and in the cattle cars not because their bodies failed but because their hope failed there needs to come a word of hope and of encouragement when there's no visible evidence that there's any hope for you in that situation for when they hear that word the eyes of the blind shall be opened the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped the lame man shall leap as a hawk and the tongue of the dumb shall sing for in the wilderness shall waters break out and screams in the desert for in the wilderness shall waters break out and the cattle in the desert I would like to suggest a prophetic interpretation who speaks these words from which comes the words of life to the people who without hope would perish someone who is in the wilderness with them to say to them be of hope and of strong heart your God will come we are that people but what kind of a word a word in the hearing of which the eyes of the blind are opened and the lame leap the issue of Israel's restoration is the issue of the church not in its sentimental sympathy for Israel but in its corporate apostolic character in its prophetic credibility whose corporate word brings hope whose corporate word brings life Israel will not be able to save itself something must come to them from outside of themselves by which they see the face of God and hear His own words before He comes that's the question that's the mystery that's the call so I want to pray for the church of God in Finland of an apostolic and prophetic kind who does not hold its life as dear unto itself nor for itself who can reveal the face of God to the unbelieving and to the despairing who can prepare a highway in the wilderness the way of holiness for the redeemed shall walk there and the ransomed of the Lord shall return come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall attain joy and gladness sorrow and sighing shall flee away Lord, mercy again we pray to be for them what we are the face of God the voice of God prophetic speaking with prophetic credibility to a prepared people who have moved through the wilderness of their own experience to know God as they must who can say to others your God will come and there's no visible sign of His coming in the midst of their despair because He has come to them in the midst of their despair and they know that their God lives bring us to that place whatever it takes from where we presently are with our shallow understandings of God our equally shallow identification with Israel shape us and form us we open ourselves to your dealing to be the church that is really the church whose word can save those who depend on it whose words can bring life to the hopeless is this your prayer, dear Lord? do you want to turn a sermon into an event? it takes one thing only to transact with God to release Him to be for you what He must before you can be to them what you must it's not for everyone it's for a remnant within the church for the remnant of Israel that shall be restored who will say yes to the Lord? whatever it takes, Lord I'm fearful I'm timid I'm selfish I'm private I cannot be what has been described but I invite you to come into my own life with such dealings and wilderness trials as will fit me to be for them what I must who will pray that? who will say yes to that? who will raise their hands to that? do it now the issue of Israel Israel's restoration the coming of their king his blessing to the nations is the church the church of an ultimate kind hold your hand up to the Lord let Him know I welcome whatever is required I hope that He welcomes me I paid what I paid Lord, for this you have made me and I don't want to be ashamed that I have fallen short of your glory I have chosen that which is safe set me and form me to reveal your face and to express your voice to a people who would otherwise perish in the wilderness of our nation except that they both see you and hear you through me Lord, seal this you know these children by name seal this and perform what you must in your wonderful mercy and we thank you for the privilege of being participants with you in that which concludes the age and reveals your glory forever in Jesus' name just sit quietly let that consecration settle in our spirits this is the end of playing games of shallow altar calls so many decisions that leave us the same this is divine transaction for which we and they will be eternally grateful let it settle in your spirit out of the depths of your being say to the Lord Amen