In this sermon, the preacher criticizes the declining civilization and the lack of communication skills in today's generation. He emphasizes the importance of trusting in God and stepping out in faith, leaving behind worldly attachments. The preacher also highlights the value of silence and revering it, as it allows for a deeper understanding and respect for communication and words. He expresses his desire to go beyond using words as a conveyance and instead proclaim God's faithfulness in a symphonic and impactful way.

Perform that. Emphasize what you will, give us a concluding note and tone that is in your own heart and spirit to perform. Let the entire thing, my God, from the first word to the last, be a work to walk in that was established even before the foundation of the earth was laid. I don't know how to proceed, but we look to you and thank you that you know. Come, my God, and may we again have the privilege of hearing your heart, the voice of the Most High, the intimation of your spirit, and receive our gratitude for the privilege which has been ours till now. In Yeshua's holy name, amen. Well, my only thought is to play with that question of what is Jewish and what is Hebraic. I have never really sat down to think that out because the question has only arisen in these immediate days. But I like the question and I think that it's extraordinarily important. So I just happened to be carrying a book with me on this trip and noted that one of the authors of a series of articles speaks about the distinctiveness of Israel, is the culture of Israel, the civilization of Israel, is altogether the issue of God in Israel. Salvation is of the Jews because of all nations they have had the unique experience of the one and only God showing Himself, revealing Himself, declaring, establishing, working with, requiring, giving the law, covenants, promise. Only Israel has had this distinctive and unique experience. So what is Hebraic in sum? It's the totality of all of the living God's investment in a particular people and the way in which He has allowed it to be expressed in their thought, in their psalms, in their prophets. The prophet himself is a Hebraic phenomenon. Oh, I'm sure that pagan civilizations had oracles and men of magic and caught, what do you call it, wise men who counseled kings, but the prophet is a unique phenomenon of God. The fact of the matter is that what is prophetic is God for we're told that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Imagine the Lord allowing Himself to be so identified with what is prophetic that it is the very statement of Himself. That is so distinctive, a phenomenon, and God brings that into the world through the history of Israel's prophets and allows the continuation in some form of that reality which He has given. So how jealous ought we to be to God, what has come originally from God. I mean, I don't... Is this registering? Do we realize God has entered history? God has entered time and place. God, in His own infinite wisdom, the creator of the heaven and earth, chose a moment and a place and a people by which to insert Himself. He needed to be revealed to the nations and the way in which He has chosen to do it is by the statement of Himself first to a nation called a witness nation so that their conduct, the reality of what they reflect in their practices, their institutions, their love of justice and righteousness, mercy, which are all the attributes of God, would reveal Him to nations who would not otherwise know Him. Righteousness is of God. Truth is God. Mercy, we can have a semblance of something that is human, that resembles, but this is distinctively God. What shall we say of meekness, of humility? How would we know it? How do we know what God likes? How do we know what He desires? How do we know what He hates, what He abhors? Except by the testimony that has come to us through an Israel that has had relationship with Him and has recorded their experience through His acts of what mercy is, what judgment is, what righteousness is. What is Hebraic? Hebraic is apprehending by an examination of Israel, her prophets and her testimony, her law, her history, the revelation of the God who has divinely inserted Himself in that people. Got the picture? So you who are far off, very far off, without God and without hope in the world, pagans, have been brought nigh by the blood of their Messiah. Even the concept of blood, the issue of atonement, the revelation of sin itself is a divine revelation coming through the experience of Israel. The requirement of sacrifice, how should they know it? A priesthood to perform it. All of this is the heavenly pattern that God has communicated to Moses and has become internalized in the practice and the history of a particular nation which God has chosen. If that were not so, how would we know God as God except that He's a God who chooses? How would we know I am that I am and I will be who I will be except that we know also that He's a God who will elect what He will elect and have mercy upon whom He will have mercy. We have no knowledge of God at all. We would be lost in our paganistic idolatries and our gods would be the projection of the image of ourselves and our own gratification and lust and celebration of power were it not for the revelation of the God that is God through Israel. And how does her king come to her? Lonely and meek, riding upon the back of an ass, the coat, the foal of an ass upon which never man sat. You dear saints, have you been to Israel? Have you been to the Mount of Olives upon which Jesus came down on the back of that ass in His triumphal entry as king into His holy city? No present potentate would ever allow himself to be so humiliated as to come down that precipitous slope on foot, let alone on the back of an ass upon which never man sat because it was too young. The whole prophetic credibility of Jesus rested in a last moment in the reliability that they would find a colt and its foal tied up in a neighboring village and go and get it. And if anybody asks, what are you doing? Tell them, the Lord has need of them. Why? Because a prophecy had to be fulfilled that would identify Israel's king given in Zechariah chapter 9 in the prophets. Your king will come to you lowly and meek riding upon an ass, the colt, the foal of an ass. Here we have the genius of Israel, the genius of propheticness, the genius of God that confirms Him, authenticates Him by the fulfillment of the word that He inspired by His Spirit to be prophesied centuries, seven or eight centuries in advance of the fulfillment by Himself as an act. What a remarkable, astonishing phenomenon is the faith of Israel resting upon the credibility of that which is spoken by the inspiration of the Spirit through a flesh and blood man called a prophet fulfilled centuries later to confirm that the one who is coming who has no credential, born in a stable, no place to lay his head is indeed Israel's king. And that they can shout Hosanna at the sight of Him coming down in the absurdity of a weak animal tottering under the weight of a fully grown man having never born any man before that time. Do you like that king? Is that your taste? I have to say it's not present Israel's taste. Present Israel would love and prefer a motorcycle cavalcade with penance and banners flying and armed goons all around the celebrated figure. That ostentatious display of power and authority is more appropriate in present Israel's sight because what is present Israel but man writ large? Man's desire of what a king ought to be who deserves the respect and veneration of a nation. But in the employment of an ass we have the revelation of God as God. You must be a peculiar people if this kind of God appeals to you. For unless His people come down upon the back of an ass unless they themselves are also an object of humiliation and foolishness how shall the kingdom come? How shall the nation of the world shall possess except that the kingdom comes in the same mode by which the king himself came in lowliness and in meekness. That's Hebraic. You have to cultivate a taste for that because it is antithetical to the spirit of the world and certainly the spirit of Singapore and New York and present Jerusalem. You have to contend for a faith like this which is much more than the sum of its doctrines. This word faith is not a subscription to correct doctrine. Faith is a mode of being that is altogether in every point in particular at a disjuncture with the world and its wisdom. And the remarkable thing is you don't have to be Jewish to subscribe and to become Hebraic. As I told you in the last session I was more Greek than Hebrew for the first 35 years of my life because I celebrated that which celebrates man. Therefore it takes a conversion of so radical a kind that is hardly less or other than moving from death unto life in order to come in to a reality, a mode of being that is totally at odds with the world and that requires a continual humility and waiting and trust. What is faith but the suspension of a confidence in your own ability and a trusting in God to honor your obedience by the operation of His Spirit that cannot be commandeered for our convenience. Do you like that? That's Hebraic. It's available to you. You don't have to be Jewish to enjoy it or to exhibit it. And the ironic fact is that the modern Jew today everywhere in the world is as removed from this Hebraic spirit and temper and mode of being as the Gentile world itself. That the whole issue of its success that one day will Hebraicize the entire world is something called the Church that will sufficiently display it to call men to its salvation and Israel itself. Is that the picture? Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. Faith and the just shall live by it is explicated and demonstrated by very God Himself. It's the mode that He Himself employs in His trust that His purposes are going to be fulfilled through a Church of Gentiles. Oh, what confidence, what trust, what hope. Putting all of His eggs into one basket and what is this Church? The sum and the composite of beggars taken off of a dung heap and made to sit with the princes of His people. The rejects of the world God employs sucklings and babes that out of their mouths praise might be perfected to stop the mouth of the adversary. I don't know that we sufficiently understand what salvation is. It's a deliverance out of a whole earthly carnal mode of being that emphasizes power, self-assertion, self-aggrandizement, pride, hubris, which presently characterizes the state of Israel and the Jewish condition and the human condition worldwide. The state of Israel ought much more properly to be called Jacob than Israel. And Israel is not a term of an ethnic designation or a racial, but more properly and ultimately a statement of a certain spiritual condition. The Israel of God. Princes having power and authority with God and with men. Why? Because they have been blessed by being crippled in their hip socket. They limp and they are halt and lean before they can bear this precious name. For so long as they swagger in their own vigor and hoist up their pants and put their six shooters and their cell phones on their hips, they are Jacob and not yet Israel. Their hip has not yet been dislocated. What a strange blessing. You want to know what God is? He's a God who blesses by crippling. He's a God who heals by cutting. He's a God who resurrects by slaying. Do you like that God? I love that God. I love my king. Oh, I love his character. I love what he is in himself. What is an apostle and a prophet? Not some one with clever expertise who's going to wow you with his ability to bring quotations and applications to church problems. It's one who communicates the sense of God himself as God, in fact, is. That's the foundation of the church. Not its cleverness, but the reality of God as he, in fact, is and not as we have thought him to be. An apostle or a prophet are those who trail clouds of glory. They come out of his presence and exude this reality. Paul at Mars Hill as rag picker demonstrated the regard. Unselfconsciously. For to be self-consciously spiritual is to lose any prospect of communicating God as God. It communicates you. Do you like the idea? Blood, sacrifice, atonement. If it were not for the severity of God's required sacrifice, which is judgment, performed by Jesus at the cross, how should we know sin? Because sin by its nature disguises itself as sin. Remember what I told you about the adulterer that I was? But it was love, it was romance, it was art, it was poetry. It was never sin. You don't know what sin is until you are confronted with God's requirement to expiate it. To a sacrifice of an ultimate crime in blood. You are not terrified by sin until you see the terror of the cross. So there I was in Osaka, Japan on my last visit and it was a holiday and we were taking a walk to stretch our legs having been in the airplane the night before for many hours and there were people flying their kites. And so I'm walking by and I'm looking and I see a man flying a kite. Do you ever get this feeling when you see a certain person you covet them for the kingdom? Something about their beauty. Something that you desire that should not be lost to God or to God's people eternally. I saw this man with his kids. My heart went out to him. I said, oh, if only he would speak English but alack and alas. And I walked on, I'd hardly taken two steps when I hear the man shout, hey mister, he said, do you know how to fly a kite? Wow. This is an answer from heaven. And I came rushing back and we had conversation. I don't know anything about kites but of course one word would lead to another. What are you doing in Osaka? Well, I'm a preacher. I speak from the Bible. I'm an author of a few books. The most recent of which is The Spirit of Truth. You know what truth is, don't you? And the man went completely blank. He lost it. No, he doesn't know what truth is. He knows what precision is. He knows what accuracy is. He knows what measurement is. But truth as a moral dimension is entirely lost to him and must be because it's a Hebraic concept from a God who is truth. And until there's that revelation, how shall you know it, let alone desire it or love it? He blanked out. And I found out, I believe that this is true, there is no word for sin in the Japanese vocabulary. Well, that's why they could rape Nanking. This Hebraic sense of righteousness. Oh, do you love that word, saints? And how shall you love it if you're not reading the Psalms daily? How shall you understand how dear it is and how opposed it is unless you see the tension expressed by the psalmist of the wicked who hate the righteous and plot their destruction. David cries out, they are after my life because they despise the character of what is David, beloved of God, and want to extinguish it, the wicked, by their plots, by their chicanery, by their free use of violence, as if there's no God who sees, observes, and will judge. That's what makes them wicked. I praise God for God. His salvation is the reality that there's an alternative to the world's wisdom and way that is very life itself. And that his life, which is truth, is mercy, is love, is available to men. That God has not called us to religion, some self-conscious code that we will accomplish and perform by our fastidious attention to its detail, which is bondage, but that we, this is the love of God toward us, that he has given us as only begotten son, that we might live through him. I think it says in 1 John, As I have lived through the Father, so also shall you live through me. Remarkable. And what kind of wife was that? Hebraic. Davidic. His kingdom is not some kind of impersonal governance. It's a government of a Davidic kind that David describes as his own kingship at the end, one of his final statements, as a mist coming down over the ground. Let the human contrivers of systems of submission and discipleship take heed. God's government is a mist, a soft vapor that comes down upon the ground. And the law shall go forth out of Zion. It is more than a code, but a mode of living. It's a way to live in righteousness that will save the world from death, from insanity, from incest, from violence, from striving, from vexation, from spitting its guts out, from finding itself in mental institutions or living from pills or drugs or alcohol. It's the way of shalom. Isn't it interesting that when Jesus appears in his resurrection glorified form, his first word is shalom aleichem, peace be unto you. And what a peace that is, saints. What a peace. It's more than the absence of conflict or violence. It's an impartation. It's living in righteousness. Taste and see that the Lord is good. It's the peace that passes all understanding. The shalom of God, a Hebrew word for a Hebraic condition. Would to God that Jews would find it and know it, who are the most perplexed, strained, and straining people on the face of the earth, continually and frantically involved in their own self-perpetuation and survival. There's a rest that God has prepared for the people of God. And we fail to enter that rest by unbelief. That rest is a glimpse of an eternal, what's the word, an eschatological and endless relationship with God that is an abiding rest and a joy. What we can taste now on the Shabbat is a foreshadowing of an eschatological glory. Even the expectation that there's not only a future, but a millennial and an eternal future is a distinctive Hebraic concept. Where did they get it? From God. Hidden within the attitude of submission to the sovereign Lord God is a fundamental conviction of biblical Judaism. God himself is present at the heart of authentic Israelite culture. In fact, I would say, God himself is authenticity. What God is, is what truth is. What God is, is what authentic is. What a prophet is, is a jealous guardian of that which is authentic. Brooding jealously over those two great words, apostolic and prophetic, for if they lose their meaning and become some kind of cheap imitation or some humanly contrived pseudo-substitute, we have lost the game. There's no foundation. Oh, to be jealous over the great words of God. To be jealous over words. To rejoice that we are made in his image and that we communicate with words. No accident that this declining civilization is ending with a grunt. A generation of teenagers, how do you like it? Well, what do you think for your future? Eighty percent of graduating students entering American universities have to take remedial English classes. They don't know how to communicate. Their culture is nothing but an elaborate grunt. And yet they can hang on the phone for two hours, tying up everything, speaking to one another about nothing. If they were Hebrews, they would revere silence. They would abhor noise. They would look forward to that time when their silence in heaven was a space of a half hour. For if you do not revere and respect silence, how then shall you respect and understand sound communication words? I'm waiting for the day when the Lord is going to graduate me as a preacher into something beyond using words merely as a conveyance for idea and thought, but that my proclamation, you ready for this, would be symphonic. It would be a concert. It would be Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. Da-da-da-da. And you make a statement of a hairy kind of the impending judgments that must come. Da-da-da-da. Unavoidable, you can't pray them away. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da. And then the theme moves through in a crescendo through, what do they call it? And then comes to a great climax at the end. It is an experience of a transcendent kind. That's a break. Oh, thanks. It's heaven presently. It's coming into our full humanity in the image of God with minds that think clearly and mouths that pronounce accurately that reveal words and their meanings and will not misspend it for trite things, let alone gossip. They see speech as a sacrament and agree with Oswald Chambers that there's no such thing as an ordinary Christian. By definition, a believer is extraordinary. He calls a Christian a sacramental personality. That's Hebraic. That's the faith. That's our privilege. That's salvation. You like that? For Hebraic Orientals, mamma mia. Wow. Has the world ever seen Hebraic Orientals? Ooh. That must be ultimate that they have transcended their own culture impressive though it is and ancient though it is and their mode of being to come into a dimension of reality that is transcendent and above all culture and all nationality and is the statement of God's intention for all men everywhere. Oh, I love that. So my dear wife almost had to call an ambulance when we were at Eilat on the Red Sea in Israel and went down that descending staircase to see the flora and fauna the variety of tropical fish in the waters of the Red Sea and I went stark raving mad. Didn't know what happened to me. I was beside myself because I saw fish with polka dots zigzags, chartreuse shocking pink electric colors that not only do not conceal the fish and accommodate them to their environment but make them to stand out conspicuously that their coloration and their forms have nothing to do with some evolutionary thought of an adaptation to environment but is the clear and forthright statement of a God who's a creator and will do what He will do in every color and shape and thing that He delights to express and He's going to do that here in this church. God forbid that we should become predictable uniforms. My last message in Singapore 20 years ago that's why I've never been invited back was a statement of outrage when I saw the worship and listened to every present American charismatic melody put to the Chinese language and I said, where is your indigenous worship? Where is your own expression rising out of the uniqueness of what you are as God's people in this place? Why are you imitating and emulating this successful form in America that is alien to yourself? Because it's convenient convenience is not Hebraic I'm trying to identify something Hebraic, what a word but so susceptible to being misunderstood and thinking that it only refers to some narrow ethnic national group called Jews the fact of the matter is that the word Hebrew did not exist until Abraham crossed the Euphrates Hebrew means one who crosses over from their native culture and the thing that is familiar and dear to the thing to which God calls you when Abraham crossed over into the land of promise he who was a Gentile by origin or Chaldean became the first Hebrew to follow the Lord in a land that I will show you that requires first the most fearful and radical separation from nation, kindred, and father's house to follow the Lord without a guarantee in a relationship that requires an intimacy and a union to follow Him in a land that I will show you that's a complete contravention of Chaldean logic and dependency on things that you must know and have an assurance before you act the Hebraic way is to act without knowing not to know the particular but to know the God who calls and separates separate unto me Paul and Barnabas for the work unto which I have called them and does not even identify what that work is and so they're sent by the Holy Ghost laying on of hands and they find themselves in a synagogue the pattern unfolds in the act of following that is the Hebraic mode of life insecure for worldlings who have been taught in college and university to make wise decisions and know what's ahead and weigh it up and don't take any chances and make sure there's going to be a return have you come out from nation, kindred, and father's house? from nation you're not yet Hebraic you've not yet crossed over Hebraic is trusting a God who wills you like tonight, like this afternoon I didn't know what to say I thought to read some things trusting God for his Omega conclusion and speaking foolishly you call this a message? not really it's a concert it's a symphonic afternoon that's playing on the flute and the harpsichord and seeking on the spot spontaneously for a rhythm and a coherence in all that's going forth that it should end majestically and if it doesn't you trust it to the Lord it doesn't have to end in something climactic even a little note from the flute that's the way the Lord will end with a boop rather than with a blast because it's not the issue of our delight but his pleasure that's Hebraic what pleases him and when the great apostle who was the persecutor of the church was apprehended by his own Lord who is this Lord who speaks? I'm Jesus whom you persecute Lord Adonai and the full resonance of what that means to a Jew who has his head screwed on right and knows that the word Lord is not a little glib and unctuous epithet but a title of profound recognition and respect by one alone who has the right to command Lord what would you have for me to do? go and learn what suffering you have to bear for my name's sake before kings and before gentiles and before the people of Israel the great apostolic question that Paul perhaps asked only once but lived the rest of his apostolic life in the view of that question is Hebraic have you ever asked it? or did you go to college and select your own program? as I can tell from all of the Orientals that come to our local college from Malaysia invariably business administration or computer technology as I told my brother I'm still waiting to find the first Oriental who's a liberal arts major who loves literature philosophy ideas no practical make a living education training did God tell you that? did you ask Him? oh, you assumed that of course He knows that you have to make a living and that you made a practical choice of course He'll come behind to condone that and to sanction that oh really? how then is He Lord? your Lord you're calling the shots you're choosing you've never even submitted the question because you were afraid of the answer it may not have been business administration it might have been liberal arts and then how can you make a living from that? because the issue is making a living obtaining a lifestyle keeping up with the Joneses or the Changs or whatever the equivalent is you see what I mean saints? come on the glory of God is the revelation of what is Hebraic and Davidic in Chinese believers and the Jews themselves who are more Greek than they are Jewish when you move them to envy and jealousy when they'll see in you the reality of God this Hebraic and Davidic mode of being and of thinking and expressing they will be moved to jealousy because it is beyond religion it is transcendent I'll even go further it's heavenly heaven give me heaven more heaven is what Singapore needs not more commerce heaven is what came down to Israel and we would not have known of it except that they left us a record that we have the scriptures that we have the testimony that we have the law that we have the prophets that we have the Psalms are you reading them? of course there's reading and reading there's those who are guilt stricken who read a chapter a day I've done my duty what are you taking, a vitamin pill? you can't read a chapter a day you luxuriate in a chapter you get dissolved and brought in to the vortex of another reality that is not to be found in any other place in the holy book but the book of Psalms God is my fortress my refuge my strength my life there's an adoration there's a love there's a knowledge of God and though the psalmist is suffering distress and persecution and oppression for that very reason if he was only an ordinary saint he could have avoided it but the intensity and truth and depth of his authentic relationship with the God of Israel marks him and makes him a candidate for opposition and persecution and the Lord allows it that we read often in the Psalms the psalmist crying out how long Lord? how long do I have to bear this? I'm your righteous servant I've been jealous for your word for your law I have been careful that my feet do not leave your path I have shunned the way of the wicked I've made myself an object of their derision their name that I'm continually assaulted how long Lord before your relief will come? for the issue of the psalmist is not his personal relief but the Lord who comes and vindicates his own name and his own honor for the psalmist the Davidic sweet singer of Israel is not talking about the alleviation of his personal distress but the justification of God whose name and honor is all come Lord and stop their mouths not to relieve me from their oppression but to show them that you indeed are God of all the earth and of all nations that all to the ends of the earth might praise you that's my jealous concern that's Hebraic well brother how are we to know that? how are we to become like that? by sweeping yourself like a tea bag in the book of Psalms daily and especially early while it's yet dark you're a time of communion with the Lord that is not your obligatory reading the chapter for the day and you've done your duty it's luxuriating in God it's coming into another realm of reality it's dismissing that stubborn reality that wants to make its claim on you and say get away from that make-believe this is what's real dollars and cents merchandise shopping the stock market this world that's the real and you're saying no that's a vapor that will pass that has no substance no transcendent value communion with God Himself and from that was granted and He was imbued with as we are with the sense of God with authority with power not an authority that is going to be misused because the very communion with God breaks you in the deeps it does not allow you to be commandeering and throw your weight around you have authority in proportion to your meekness and you cannot learn meekness and be the first in your neighborhood to have it it can only be obtained in communion with the God who is meek come and learn of me that's Hebraic like that? are you doing that? daily early I'm enjoying this I'm being instructed out of my own mouth I love this question what is Hebraic and what is Jewish? Jewish roots? well to the degree that they're biblical but much better Hebraic roots because Jewish itself implies judgment Judaism synagogue is a Greek word it's a diasporic alternative to the destruction and loss both of the temple and the priesthood some expedient requirement came to maintain a continuity of Jewish life devised by rabbis out of their skulls day of atonement? without the shedding of blood there's no atonement for sin? well how about good deeds? how about a day of fasting? and a day in the synagogue? that will be the equivalent we have to be very wary saints about touching that which is Judaic Jewish in that cultural religious historic sense that is the statement not of our pride but of our shame the synagogue is a diasporic phenomenon and to be diasporic means to be cast out of the nation in judgment for sin little did I know that as a kid growing up in Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn, New York was more familiar to me than Palestine but no rabbi ever told me why we were there I only found out later it's a statement to our shame to be out of the land is the statement of broken covenant and its consequence and we will only be returned on the basis of restored covenant and not some self-willed usurpation of our own the land is an inheritance it's a gift I will give you God is against grasping he's for planting I will plant you in the land what a beatific and beautiful picture of something performed in the very character of God himself now listen to this so I've just come back from Russia and my interpreter was a Jewish brother from Siberia and I made a remark about the means need to be compatible with the ends and he blanked out on me he said, huh? he said, what do you mean? I've never heard that before I said, what? you've never heard that the means need to be compatible with the ends? that you cannot seek an end that has to do with God's kingdom and employ any means to obtain it the means themselves must be in the same character as the end that is desired if it's a kingdom of peace you're not going to obtain it by fraud and by violence and by devices he said, I've never heard of means and ends you know why? he grew up in a soviet system that never ever talked about means and ends because in its ruthless and human system it would use any means to obtain their ends even wholesale slaughter the jealousy and sensitivity over the means that is compatible with an end is a totally Hebraic notion it has come down from God it has to do with righteousness do you love that word? try and define it what is righteousness? it's someone who lives consistently rightly before God because moment by moment we're encountering exigencies unpredictable things that we cannot answer by our past experience necessarily but we have to sense and intuit that which is pleasing to Him who is righteous and who gives us the gift of conscience and of the check of the spirit that if we're veering off we lost our peace I'm not doing it until my peace is restored I don't understand it but I cannot go through with this transaction I cannot speak this, I can't do this I lost my peace and I will not move until that peace is restored Lord why have I lost that sense? and then the Lord will say because you're veering off because you're acting out of expedience because you're cutting corners because it's more important for you to accomplish this and you're not as careful as the means to obtain it because this is not God honoring the Son of God loved righteousness and hated iniquity and therefore God gave to Him an anointing of gladness above His fellows do you love what God loves? and hate what He hates? how would you know what He loves and what He hates? except that you're reading the Psalms except that you're dwelling upon the Scriptures except that you have a history in God in which you have walked and have been tested so that you'll overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony which is the sum of your history of God's faithfulness in a life of faith have you got a history? are you compiling a history? it will be your provision to overcome in the last days okay God Himself dwells in the midst of Israel and it is His presence that makes Israel a holy nation how would we know holiness except that the word is given to us through them it's totally out of this world be ye holy as I am holy what an ultimate requirement and we have to almost intuit what that word means and we catch some sense of it by seeing what God has ordered and required in His wisdom to establish it an altar a holy of holies priests that are not scurrying around but once in the year one man, the high priest coming in with the blood of sacrifice sprinkling it on a mercy seat holy, holy, holy it's totally a Hebraic concept but God forbid that it should be reduced to a concept is that the idea? it's not an idea it's the sublime reality of an ultimate kind that describes God as He is and would have us to be like Him whew, my don't you feel like getting saved all over again? or are you indeed saved? to the uttermost so I'll try to conclude the living presence of God in the heart of authentic Israelite culture that is in Israel's laws ordinances explains why the psalmist so loved the law and ordinances of God they were sweet to him a joy to keep and a light to one's path because the Lord God of Israel was present in them God's presence gave to them their sweetness, their joy, their light to keep the law was to enter into the presence of the living God Himself the life that one lived by keeping the law was the life of the Lord God Himself and the character of that life was the character of the Lord this guy is in bed and he's not even Jewish because Jewish does not confer anything it's the spirit that confers the meaning of God and the meaning of Hebraicness to anyone who will seek it and find it and choose it above their own natural identification because they have come out from formation kindred and father's house biblical theology is not produced but received from the God of Abraham Himself it's authentic it is of a particular character it is a description of the particular Lord God who stands at the heart of biblical worship who has brought Israel into being and given to Israel His distinctive character and identity oh may we pray for the restoration of Israel to this much more than the success of a state it's a condition that will bless all the families of the earth it is the very nature of God that can only be given by those who have been brought to a death to that which is less than other and are raised unto the newness of life which is His it's not just a power, it's a character of life it's a spirit of life it's the Hebraicness, so to speak, of God Himself to which one is united and it's the meaning of all creation established in the nation of Israel as a particular people with a particular identity and a particular character you know why God is going to sift Jews through all nations? and He's not going to choose the most convenient, shortest distance between two points it's not the issue of expediency how to get them from here to Zion it's the issue of submitting them to a process of discovery in the many nations through which they shall pass in their three and a half year period of time and to find that whether it's the Philippines or Singapore or northern Minnesota or Mexico or where so ever else He will sift them, as He says, through all nations they will find the same uniform testimony and revelation in each place nothing less nor other than the mercy of God and the unconditional love of God that makes no requirement and cannot be offended against for they're going to be mean and ornery and out of sorts and upset and they'll take it out on you and if they can find a vulnerability where they can score and you flinch and you express exasperation and then why should I bother if that's their attitude there's no gratitude you need gratitude? you need to be applauded? you need to be accepted? or else you cannot extend yourself? how is that Hebraic? our God pours Himself out that while we're yet sinners He dies for us when there are other people like that on the earth the end will have come not only will Israel find herself restored through that witness but the church will have become the bride of Christ adorned for the bridegroom for it will be like Him unconditional in their love and even willing to be abused misunderstood and yet not recoil for love cannot be offended against if it's the love of God and not mere human sentiment Israel is going to be sifted that we might be sifted in all nations to identify who in fact the people of God are and in that revelation they will see Him face to face and come into the bond of His covenant and under the rod of authority so that the redeemed of the Lord shall return to Zion mourning and sighing, fleeing away for the everlasting joy that is now upon their heads all the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God that made the issue of Israel's redemption in the last days the issue of the church's transfiguration and in one stroke He has a redeemed nation and a glorified church adorned for the bride as a wife well, let me pray Lord, what shall we say? Heaven, more heaven Hebraic, more Hebraic gladly do we divest ourselves of that with which we are familiar traditional, ethnic in which we have prided ourselves there's a subtlety of pride and superiority in our ethnic distinction which needs to be broken brought to death that we might receive something greater than any ethnic distinction even Jewishness itself the character of God alone Lord, I bless this people Hebraicize this church not some kind of external program through which they are passed and they learn cutely how to adopt certain Jewish practices in synagogue and other appurtenances that is only an overlay but a deep and internal expression of yourself that you are their life you are their righteousness you are their truth you are their mercy you are their love of the word surely my God the redemption of your people Israel waits upon this in the church so may we seek you early so may we experience the foolishness of wasted time finding a place on a cold dark floor to kneel before the Most High without the sense of His presence because He's God because He deserves our daily acknowledgement at the commencement before we set our foot out into the world we have first sought Him only you have a people who have learned of you and of your meekness because they have sought you early and well I bless them Lord and look for a distinctive church to bear your name in this great city and nation it will glorify you and save your people Israel for surely they're coming surely you'll not exclude Singapore from your consideration that when you say all nations you mean all nations and you'll have a people prepared in that day so do I bless this church so do I leave my peace behind in its house thank you for the privilege of being the bearer of your words to them in these days precious imperishable words counsel and speakings of a kind rare in my own experience to be heard and spoken what lavish love my God you have displayed upon us what speakings what are the address as if you're speaking to sons and daughters what jealous love that doesn't let us get by with mere appearance or performance but calls us to actuality to authenticity and meets us when we come we bless you Lord surely my God this investment is not in vain surely you're jealous over it you'll watch over every word that has issued from the throne and out of your great heart of love and compassion for this people that it will not fall to the ground surely you'll bring it to a recall surely the spirit of God will check them even tomorrow at work if they begin to take one step that veers out of the way of Hebraicness they'll say I can't do that a pox on expediency love of righteousness that is expensive waiting upon God that is priestly a Shabbat of ceasing from ourselves that the world considers a waste of time and madness it's your way oh we love it Lord we thank you for the privilege of it this is so great salvation thank you my God oh may we come every day more deeply into the utterness of this reality that you have made available to men and love that nation through whom the revelation and the understanding have come who are now lost to you but will one day be restored for in your great wisdom you have brought into being a church that will move them to jealousy by the very thing that they should themselves have known so receive our gratitude Lord watch over your so great investment every syllable of it and perform it we pray you have not called us to that which is beyond our ability to obtain but you're full of grace you came full of grace and truth for your truth is so requiring that without your grace we cannot obtain it so we love you my God both for the call and for the provision truly it is finished and you've made every provision for godliness in life so bless this people the church the called out ones, the elect the pilgrims and strangers and sojourners of this earth the aliens in this world who are unlike it and march by another beat and look to another call thank you Lord we bless your name holy, holy, holy is the Lord holy, holy, holy thank you my God thank you my God for what you are in yourself and call us to be like you thank you Lord just thank the Lord where you are in your seat even aloud let him hear your gratitude the preciousness of how he has addressed us what you have received personally what perception of the faith that is altogether unique and yet aged revered what it was at the first and needs again to be let him hear from you thank the most high for the so great and high calling in Christ Jesus thank you Lord oh we praise your great name thank you my God to you be all praise and glory and honor both now and forever thank you my God you saved us out of death and continue to save your jealous love will not let us go thank you my God for the love that chastens for the love that disciplines for the love that judges for surely that is not your last it's only a means to a much greater end the great redemption of the most high when Israel itself one day weeping having suffered the severe and final chastisement of God will lay its head upon the shoulder of the Father and weep with gratitude for the love that did not spare it and something will be bonded in that moment by a repentant and contrite son chastised at the hand of the Father and the Father who is also weeping for in all of her afflictions he is afflicted yet he did not withhold so we thank you my God for that great day that is future thank you my God it will bless all the earth thank you God