In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of total commitment to God. He urges the audience to not conform to the ways of the world, but to be transformed by the Word of God. The speaker also highlights the media as a source of falsehood and encourages the audience to rely on the Word of God for truth and edification. Additionally, the speaker addresses the question of whether God has rejected his people, emphasizing God's faithfulness and his plan for the Jewish nation. The sermon concludes with an exhortation to pray for the Jewish nation and to present ourselves as holy sacrifices to God.

Bogartov, which is Hebrew. I'm not sure I'm a Hebraist, but good morning everyone. That's Hebrew for good morning. It's a real blessing to be here and also just a blessing to hear this country prayed for from the pulpit because one of the things burning in my heart is that we relegate praying for Britain to some evening prayer meeting or home prayer group and I'm so concerned for Britain. It's been my home for most of my life and I believe that when the church is assembled we should be praying for the nation and I've been just beginning to mention this to find it happen here, let alone the place as well to pray for Israel. Twice in this service, once in one of the hymns and twice in the Lord's prayer there's reference to the Lord's kingdom, thy kingdom come and we say that, you and I say that blithely, but the Lord's kingdom, my friends, will not come until Israel is saved. I say that simply and specifically and clearly and until we realize that we're not going to be in tune with God's end-time purposes, we're not going to know how to pray, we think we're going to Christianize the world, but God said to the nation of Israel, you will not see me again until you say blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. He will not return till then and they're going to be saved as a nation. Word makes it quite clear in my view before his feet touch on the Mount of Olives. We're saved by faith not by sight and while I'm here to put pins into you, as it were, to remind you of an indebtedness to the Jewish nation, the martyrs and all that they have rendered by the grace of God in the gospel to the world, I want to be quick to add that I owe my salvation to Gentile people like yourselves. I found the Lord through a lovely Irish lady that I married and all anything I am in the Lord I owe to non-Jewish people. So in other words, we're interdependent, we're inter-indebted as it were and I want to make that clear. Nonetheless, this matter of Israel today, it's a burning issue on God's heart. We're at crisis point and we need to do more than just agree God's got a good future for Israel. You and I need to get under it in prayer and we can only do that with God's Spirit. You can have the theology as I have but the actual means of interceding with the aid of the Holy Spirit has to come from him and that's costly. And if you've got all on the altar for God or you want to put all on the altar for God, he'll draw you and he'll change you and he'll give you something of his Spirit. In that chapter where God's hand is poised to destroy the nation, I think it's Ezekiel 20 or 22, the last verse or two, where you've got the prophets, the priests, the princes, the lot, all doing their own thing. God says, I looked for a man to stand in the gap that I should not destroy the land. He didn't look for someone wonderful, he looked for a man who was willing to be exposed to stand in the gap. And you folk who are older here, mostly older, God's given you more time, more experience than others. God didn't particularly use you but it's a call to anyone to stand and it takes endurance, it takes courage, especially in the spiritual climate that's developing across the globe and the anti-Semitic trends that we have. So that's a challenge and I want to add too that when God first spoke to me about praying for my own people, I just did not want to know. I come from a Jewish background and in the middle of the Six Day War, an Operation Mobilization team leader came to me and said, Ken, why don't you pray for your own people? And my answer was, why? I didn't know, I'd been a believer eight and a half years. So if I was ignorant then it's quite understandable if you don't fully have the vision. And I said to the Lord, Lord, I'm too busy, I've got plenty on my plate, I don't want to get involved but I want to do you will. I'm not willing but I'm willing to be made willing. It may be with you you don't have the full vision and burden but if you want God's heart, be sincere about that and use the Word of God day by day and pray that he'll open your heart and understand it. It took him a year and a half to do that with me. He even used some Japanese Christian friends that came to Britain that I was saddled with in a way to lead their meeting, convene their meeting. And this group of Japanese, a wonderful group, all about this high, I had a wonderful choir with them and the leader had a vision, a revelation of the Lord himself in 1938. He'd been commanded to pray three times a day for Israel in 1938. This was 1968 when I met them and when he preached, this man, he'd come to Bromley in Kent where I live, it was just like fire to me. And my wife and I in the church, we just felt unclean. There was such a sense of God's holiness and it was a real step on the way to challenging me and I said to a guy I was praying with, we need to get a lot more serious about this Israel business. And a year later he gave me the burden, the vision and the time to go to Israel for the first time February 69. And I went to meet Christian leaders there. I had some desire to find out what God was doing and I went on a one-off visit, met Christian leaders. I came back with a single-page report which I circulated to people who prayed for the gospel outreach that I was conducting for my restaurant. I had a restaurant, people used to pray for that. And I sent this one-page report out, how to pray for Israel. It was called Prayer for Israel. As far as I was concerned, that was the end of it. But it wasn't the end of it because it was beginning as far as God was concerned. And we began to get inquiries and quite apprehensively I began to answer them. And in short, God verses this work against my own will. It's called Prayer for Israel. The very specific focus is to pray for the indigenous messianic fellowships and the Arab ones, too, that God is raising in the nation. When we began, there was one in Haifa, one in Tel Aviv, and one in Haifa, that's right, there were two. Today there's about 80 Hebrew-speaking messianic fellowships. There are scores of Russian ones and Romanian and Spanish and so on. And God is really working. There's probably something like 20,000 Jewish believers in the land today. Very small number. But that's what's happened. And I believe if we are praying for Israel, we need specifically to pray for the believers. Growing antagonism from the Orthodox, needless to say, but they are God's spiritual army. They're the ones that God is looking to be royal priests in the nation to intercede on behalf of Israel. Now if you look at Israel, as you saw on that one map, if you look at it today, the next, this map, it's 8,000 square miles, no bigger than Wales. Could you put the next one on? Yeah. And this is a cross-sectional view. You have a cross-sectional view across North Africa, showing you what is called the Arab League, all shaded in. And that's entirely Muslim. And if you look at it carefully, you'll see what is virtually the outline of a lion, with the head on the right, the brains being Iran, top right, the Persian Gulf being the mouth through which all the arms went for the Gulf War. That's what seemed to be shown to us at some conference we had a few years back. It's interesting that on the neck of that lion there's a little collar, and it's called Israel. See where the little red arrow is? And Israel there is fighting to retain its life. Now the battle is not really over a little bit of territory, although it appears to be that. It's not really just between Arab and Jew. It's Mohammed versus Jesus, who is God. It's, will the Muslims have that territory, or will Jesus return to the Mount of Olives? It's a spiritual battle. And while Satan hates the Jewish nation, God still loves us, in spite of all the godlessness and things that go on there at this moment in time. And God is covenanted to save his people. Whether, I could say whether he likes it or not, both by covenant and by oath, he's committed to Israel. And that same faithfulness of which you've been singing is what keeps you and me. You and I wake up aware of our misdeeds, our shortcomings, our weaknesses, and so on. But God is faithful, and he chooses the foolish things, the worthless things of the world, to confound the strong and the mighty, and so on. The next little acetate just shows you some of the fellowships. These are some of the names from Dan to Be'er Sheva that we pray for. And if God gives you a burden to pray for the nation of Israel, we have prayer letters from many different places across the nation. Some of them are on the table out there. And God is doing wonderful things. Just down in Be'er Sheva, down near the bottom there, there are three or four satellite fellowships around Be'er Sheva, Arad, Dimona, and Mitzpe Ramon. And one of the most miserable-looking evangelists you could imagine from Russia, his name is Dov Vikas. Just amazing what God does with him. It's wonderful. And he's working amongst the Russians. Just two or three weeks ago, 22 of them were baptized in the Red Sea. God is working very, very much. Behind the smoke screen and all the misreporting that you get on the media, God is at work. It's particularly hard for the Arab believers, and harder even than for the Jewish ones. And you must pray for them, if you pray for nothing else. They get slung into prison. A lot of them are left country because of the difficulties with the PLO and so on. So I encourage you to pray for them. There is a good developing unity between Arab and Jewish believers. That's a question that always crops up. Particularly in the Galilee, it's not cross-national. But behind the scenes, God is really working. And that's all we need there at the moment. It's helpful to learn to pray for one specific fellowship, of which we can give you details, so that you hit a target and you get answers to prayer and you can rejoice, instead of just praying in a general way. We can help you on that if the Lord leads you. The title, that was all by way of introduction, so we'll have sandwiches about half past two. What I wanted to share with you is entitled, I'm Speaking to You Gentiles. It's a quote from Romans chapter 11. A quote from Saul, or Paul rather, the apostle. And in the midst of the New Testament epistle, book of Romans, on New Testament doctrine, the leading one is Romans. And in the middle of it, you've got three chapters, 9, 10 and 11, 25% of the book, all about Israel. Why? How much of it is heard in the average church, or the Bible college? Little or nothing. And just as the Jewish people themselves were hardly prepared for the coming of the Messiah, they didn't recognize Him. So the Gentile believers today are not prepared for what the Bible calls His firstborn son, Israel. They're not recognizing that God has a place still for Israel, His people. It's important to recognize that Jesus was the only man that was ever born with the purpose of dying. He came. For this cause came I to this hour, He says in John 12. And the crucifixion for which we blame Israel and the Jewish people was God's foreordained plan. As a rabbi once said years ago, if we hadn't crucified Him, you'd have no Messiah, would you? What an observation. But let's remember that He was wounded for your transgressions and mine, and that Israel, the main scapegoat for God's judgment, is being punished to this day. This letter, He goes on to tell us in Romans 11 that they, that's the Jewish nation, are enemies of the gospel for your sake. In other words, punishment, judgment for crucifying the Son of God has fallen on Israel, not the Western nation. That's a very, very important trend. It means all that's fallen on them is in a sense as a scapegoat in place of the Gentiles. And for that reason alone, there's a tremendous indebtedness. And Paul in this epistle goes on to say, but they are still beloved for the sake of the patriarchs, for Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Well now, in Romans 11, he says, verse 13, I'm speaking to you, present tense, to our Gentiles. God is speaking today, or seeking to speak to you. And the Bible, the whole Bible, has a lot to say to non-Jewish people. When you read the word nations, and sometimes the word heathen, and sometimes the word Gentile, Gentiles, it's all the same word, go you, go you. When you read somewhere, nations shall come to thy light, it's Gentiles shall come to thy light, Isaiah 60. And therefore, when you see that, take it personally and say, well, what's God trying to say to me? And he's trying to speak to us, the church today, in a new way. In Romans, we have this Apostle Paul, who was, remember, Jewish. Brethren, my heart's desire, and prayer to God for Israel, is that they might be saved. Now, it's not just Paul's words, remember, all Scripture is inspired by God, and is profitable for teaching, training, and correction, and so on. These are words of the Holy Spirit, through Paul. And they say to us, my heart's desire, and my prayer to God. Now, what is your heart's desire? I dare say, it's a bit cool towards Israel, certainly mine was for a long time, and it still needs warming up, I can tell you. But it wasn't merely a heart's desire, it was also prayer. And this is the work of the Spirit that God wants to implant in us. My prayer to God is for their salvation. And he goes on to tell us, in Romans chapter 11, to remind us, verse 1, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. So, obviously, it was necessary, even then, to say that. And how much more today, when you get all the stuff that's poured through the media, you must think, well, God can't have anything to do with this nation. I'll talk to you about the media in a minute. He says then, or asks the question, God has not rejected his people, has he? He goes on to say, God forbid, it's impossible, because of his faithfulness, because of the character of God. Not because of the lovely Jewish people, I might add, but because of the faithfulness of God. That is very important. And he says, verse 2, God has not rejected his people whom he foreknew. A very simple, clear, specific statement. And then, if he's not rejected his people, then you and I need to ask ourselves, well, if he hasn't, what difference does it make? What's his plan for them? What's it all about, if he hasn't rejected them? And the chapter goes on to tell us, firstly, in verse 11, that by their transgression, by the fact they made a hash of things, by the fact they were blinded, by the fact that the leaders, at least, did not see who Jesus was, he turned from them, and we are told, salvation has come to the Gentiles. In theory, hypothetically, had Israel accepted Jesus at that time, there would have been no sacrificial lamb, and I can't see how he would have turned away from the nation. But that's just theory. Here we're told that because they sinned, and because God judged them, God turned away from that full blessing he had purposed at that point for Israel to the Gentiles. And we're told that because of that, it's come to you, and the purpose is to make them jealous. Salvation has come to the Gentiles to make them jealous. Well, you know properly as I do, church history has done anything but make them jealous. On the whole, it's a history of persecution. You'll find on the tables outside there a list of the persecution of the Jewish nation down through the centuries. There's only a few of them, but that is the history. That's not the whole picture, because thank God I'm just one example of having been attracted to the Lord by a Christian life. And I wasn't attracted by words or doctrine. I was attracted by the fragrance of Jesus, and I married the lady. And the ladies were the Lord at the moment. But the purpose, the purpose that God yet has for the Jewish nation is that they might be saved. That wasn't an impossible prayer that we read of in Romans 10.1. And where Jesus says, I am the Alpha, the beginning and the end, in the same sense that has an application to Israel. Because at the end, Israel is going to come back into the fullness of God and will praise Him and serve Him. In fact, be the land from which the Lord seeks to reign across this globe. We read in verse 15, if their rejection, that's their rejection of the Lord, we could take it that way, be the reconciliation of the world. In other words, in spite of the fact that the servant nation was blinded, was obstinate, um, crucified the Lord, in spite of the fact they missed their calling, nonetheless, the gospel was reached to the four corners of the globe. This goes on to say, what will their acceptance be? It's a statement and a proclamation. What will their acceptance be but life from the dead? Saying, just think what will happen when they receive Jesus, when the servanthood for which they have been chosen, a role they have yet to fulfill, just think what will happen, and we are told it will be like life from the dead. That means for the world, not just for Israel. In Greek, it's resurrection life, it's anastasis. Isn't that what the world is needing? It doesn't mean it's going to be all cooey and dovey, it'll be a time of great persecution, I believe. You read, um, let's turn to Revelation chapter seven here. This is the story of the 12,000 of each of the 12 tribes, um, for whom the winds were held back until they'd been sealed in their foreheads. And, um, the tribes are named, the 12 tribes are named. You cannot apply this to the church, you can't spiritualize this, I don't believe. There's a lot of other parts of scripture that people try to spiritualize and say, well this doesn't really mean Israel, it means the church. Every mention, the 77 mentions of Israel in the New Testament, means literal Israel, every single one of them. And here, Revelation seven, you read of the 12, 140 or 1,000, sealed in their foreheads a work of the Holy Spirit, whatever that, uh, means. And after that, verse nine, I looked and behold a great multitude which no one could count from every nation and tribe and people and tongue, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palm branches were in their hands. After the sealing of the 12,000, what does it mean? Go over to verse 13. We read, one of the elders answered saying to me, these who are clothed in the white robes, who are they? And from where have they come? And I said to him, my Lord, you know. And he said to me, these are the ones who have come out of the great tribulation. Now I can't give you all the detail at all. I'm not going to try and it probably wouldn't help. But it seems to me that in some way, in a time of great, great trouble, and it may be a different time than most of us think, not only is Israel going to be under great affliction, but there's going to be a worldwide team of evangelists come out from that nation that are going to be responsible for this huge, innumerable multitude. And I believe that's linked with what we read in Romans 11, 15. What will their acceptance mean but life from the dead? Probably martyrdom. They're standing before the throne. It may be that they've been martyred. But obviously God has a future then for this 144,000. I take it to be a symbolic number. It could be literal, but I think it's symbolic. Because if you go back to Romans 11, we go on to read in verse 25, still speaking to Gentiles, he says, I don't want you brethren. Notice he addresses you folk as brothers, as one in the Lord with him, not in any way superior. I don't want you brethren to be uninformed or ignorant of this mystery. Israel is a mystery which only the Holy Spirit can unravel to us. Just because you're a believer doesn't mean you understand all mysteries. The Holy Spirit has to show us. I don't want you to be uninformed in case you get conceited, lest you be wise in your own estimation that a partial hardening has happened to Israel. That is, they're not blinded totally to the existence of God, but they cannot see that it's a Trinity. They cannot see in particular the second person of the Trinity. It's a hardening, but a partial hardening. That's important to realize. And then it's temporary because he goes on to say it's happened to Israel until a point in time, the fullness of the Gentiles be come in. Now, I interpret that to be a certain spiritual zenith. I can't pinpoint it in time, but it's not far away, and it says that at a particular point in time, that blind, that temporary blindness is going to end. And it's specified in Zechariah chapter 12 when the revelation of the crucified one is given to the whole nation. The place in the Word of God tells us when that happens. And the whole nation is in tears. The whole nation mourns, and it happens in a 24-hour period. So there is a point in time then when Israel will come to faith. And we go on to read verse 26 here. And thus, or in this way, all Israel, that means Israel, it doesn't mean the church, all Israel will be saved. And just as it is written, the Deliverer will come from Zion, and he will remove ungodliness from Jacob. I've read that passage scores of times, but it's just beginning to dawn on me what a wonderful promise that is if you knew the ungodliness that exists in Israel at this moment in time. And you know that in the grace of God, he's going to wash that away through the blood of Jesus. It's a miracle that transcends grasping or explanation. And he says, this is my covenant with them, promise to do it. You know, let's go to Genesis chapter 28, where you have ungodly Jacob pleading for his life after all his scheming and getting the blessing through lying to his father Isaac, and then cheating to get the birth right, as it were, pleading for his life. You and I would have thought, well, at this point, God would have washed his hands and said, that's it. I've had enough of you. Just go your own way. But we read here, this is the very place he laid down to sleep, put his head on a stone for a pillow. And that's when the Jacob's ladder appears. The top of the ladder is the Lord. And the words are not words of rebuke. And the words are not words of rebuke. The Lord stands 28 to 13, and he says, I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham, and the God of Isaac, the land on which you lie. I will give it to you and to your descendants. And his descendants are back in the land today. Your descendants shall also be like the dust of the earth. And you know what we do with dust, don't we? We tread on it and so on. And you shall spread out to the west. Here is a picture of the coming scattering, long before it happened. Your descendants shall be like the dust of the earth, spread out to the west and to the east, to the north and to the south. And in you and in your descendants shall all the families of the earth be blessed. That was partly fulfilled when Jesus came. It's got a greater fulfillment yet when he uses that nation more fully in the days ahead. And he says, behold, I am with you, that name Immanuel, which crops up again and again in the Hebrew scriptures. I am with you and will keep you wherever you go and will bring you back to this land, for I will not leave you until I have done what I have promised you. Rhys Howells, who founded the Bible College of Wales, said the biggest miracle in this, for the last century since Pentecost, was the restoration of the state of Israel. And he was the one with his students at the college that prayed through the motion of, I think it was the League of Nations then, in November 1947, voting to give a homeland back to the Jewish nation. And God says, I'm still with you and I won't leave you until I've finished what I've promised you. And that is the salvation of the people. So that promise is still operative, I believe. And when we read in the New Testament, this is my covenant when I take away their sin. I'm reminded at least of Jacob. Now this chapter, Romans 11, tells us that the gift, verse 29, the gift and the calling of God are irrevocable. That he called the Jewish nation as a servant nation, and they still are a servant nation, even though we've wandered off from doing our own thing. God will not revoke them. He's given the land to them. The land has always been there, and always been theirs. It's still theirs, but possession of it hinges on obedience. Ownership is not in question, it's occupation. And God has brought them back to the land, which he says elsewhere in the scripture, the land I gave to your fathers. So the gift and the calling of God are still, are still standing. And then there's the reminder here, particularly just as you, next verse, the Gentiles, were disobedient to God at one time, but now you have been shown mercy because of their disobedience, because God turned away from them to you. There's a call here for your concern for them. So these also now, as the Jewish nation, have been disobedient in order that because of the mercy shown to you, or through the mercy shown to you, they also may now receive mercy. God is saying this, that you're the channels by which those people are going to come to know God. You're the channels that he wants to pray through. And it's a privilege, but it's a responsibility. And it can be costly. And if you want to pray, if you decide to pray, it's so much easier to pray in groups, twos and threes or more, even as a church. Here there's a clear call. Paul is saying, we've brought the gospel to you, it's up to you now to pray us back into God's bosom. Now, blessing of the Jewish nation is actually a command in the Word of God, you may be surprised to learn. Ends up this way, in verse 23, speak to Aaron, Aaron is just a name for the priests, and all of us are kings and priests, we've all got a priestly calling, calling to be used in prayer, speak to Aaron and his sons, and saying, thus you shall bless the sons of Israel. Doesn't say, you know, think about it, it's imperative. You shall say to them, the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance on you and give you peace. It's a command. And I believe we need to do more than just mumble it, we need to vocalize it. And God goes on to say here, so they shall invoke my name on the sons of Israel, and I then will bless them. Just after I came to the Lord in 1959, I didn't know which denomination to join, the Lord seemed to guide me to the Presbyterian Church of England, and that had a Welsh minister, congregation were almost entirely Scottish, and I joined as a Jew, Presbyterian Church of England, Welsh minister, Scottish congregation. I joined with an Irish wife. But one day shortly after I began going there, he left the restaurant and he said to me, the Lord bless you. Now I'd never heard that in all my life, and I was electrified, if that's the right term, not electrocuted. It really did bless me, and I'm sure he didn't know, but those actual words need to be used in a non-casual way to those that we want to bless in our daily route. And so Paul goes on, we're back in Romans now, he goes on in this wonderful doxology at the end of Romans 11, and he could say, he says words for this effect, who could imagine that God would take the two, the sinful Jew and the sinful Gentile and just bring them together and make the one, who can fathom the depth of the wisdom of God, he's totally solvent, that's what he's saying in this wonderful doxology. But then he goes on, as a result of what he said to this exhortation, next chapter, I urge you therefore, now what is the therefore, therefore is because of what he said, and he has ended up in that preceding chapter, challenging you, challenging us to pray for the Jewish nation. I urge you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God to present your bodies a holy and living sacrifice. God wants all of us, not just you and I on Sunday mornings, but 24 hours a day, seven days a week. My family, when I came to the Lord, my family couldn't bear it. Everything, it happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, so out of the blue, everything went out the window. I had no wisdom or anything. But the point is that God does want a total commitment, and that's the way of peace and blessing and effectiveness. And Paul is urging us here, which is a reasonable, this is the only thing you can expect, reasonable worship. And don't be conformed of course to this world, but be transformed by what the Word of God can do to you and me. I just want to go on to just give a few figures, that in the Middle East at the moment, you have in Israel something like six million Jews, surrounded by 125 million Muslims, on a piece of land no bigger than Wales, surrounded by territory that's Islamically dominated, 660,000 square miles. And you might say, well, why all this fuss over a tiny piece of land? And I've given you the answer, it's a spiritual battle. I want to add that as I read Scripture, I can give you the chapter as well, when Israel comes to the Lord, there's going to be a tremendous work in the nations east of her, in the Muslim nations. You read about it in Isaiah chapter 60. So world blessing, in my estimation, hinges on Israel coming back into where God wants her to be. And so that's not just love for Israel, but world blessing that's involved. There's one Jewish state in this world, there are at least 40 Islamic states. Why all the fuss, if it isn't a battle between light and dark? Let me turn you to Revelation chapter 12. And if you read the newspapers, listen to the radio, watch TV, you'll get all the condemnation that you ever expect, ever could possibly get against Israel. And you may find it hard to believe, but I tell you that 99% of it, something like that, is distorted. Remember that Satan is the prince of the power of the air, he controls the media. And much as we think, you know, in Britain we've got honesty and truth and so on in the main, it's not the case. Now in Revelation 12, 15, I think this is the verse that tells us where we are. The woman in this chapter is Israel. She is pursued into the wilderness, verse 14, in the time ahead. And we find here a verse that's puzzled me for a month. Verse 15, Satan, the serpent rather, poured water out like a river from his mouth after the woman so that he might cause her to be swept away with the flood. The media today, not just on Israel but many, many other things, is a flood of filth and untruth and distortion coming out of the mouth of Satan. That's my estimate of the media. The media we need to listen to is the Word of God, which brings us light and truth and edification. If you want to know where you are in God's end-time purposes, you need the Word of God. We're told in the epistle of Peter that the Word of the Prophet is the light shining in a dark place. So be careful of watching TV and believing the media and taking it in. You may need a little of it, but I tell you, you'll need cleansing after you've listened. Mud seems to stick, and I believe that it's going to happen. We'll possibly see Britain and the church openly against Israel, and the few of us who've got some insight, we need to batten down the hatches and seek God's protection, but also to pray. That's where I believe we are there. And let me just turn you to that passage in Peter. It's 2 Peter 1, where we want light in the darkness. In verse 19, here Peter is just alluding back to the time of the Mount of Transfiguration, when the Lord was revealed to him in all that heavenly glory, and so many prophecies were fulfilled in that one time. That did so much for him. He says in verse 19, as a result of that, the prophetic Word was made more certain, more reliable. It became more real to him. And he says to us today, this is what you do well to pay attention to, because it is as a lamp shining in a dark place. Not just the news of the Gospel, but the prophetic aspect of Scripture today, will guide us as to where we're going, what God wants from you and from the church. To which you do well to pay attention, as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star arises in your heart. Amen. So I am saying that God has a job for the Gentile church to do. God is not looking necessarily for numbers. He's looking for faithful ones. This message is not going to be acceptable to much of the church, probably 5%, if that of the church in Britain will understand it. And the main calling God is putting on you and me is that of understanding, getting his burden, and praying through. The second part of Isaiah, which is chapter 40, begins with the words that you'll know, comfort ye my people, say unto your God. Comfort ye, he's referring to the believers, my people, the Jewish people. God uses that possessive term, my. Three people there, comfort ye my people, say unto your God. Isaiah was the only scroll that was discovered in its entirety in 1947. The same year as Israel was voted for in the United Nations, the same year the prophet Isaiah's scroll was rediscovered, as many of you will know, down by the Dead Sea. And Isaiah was found in its entirety, the whole scroll, the only one found in its entirety. Second Isaiah begins with chapter 40, comfort ye my people. That chapter, or copy of that chapter, was placed in front of every member of the Knesset, the first Israeli parliament, in May 1948. And I remember an evangelist, Roger Forster, how many of you have heard of Roger Forster? I'll make this. He was speaking to a mixed group of believers and Jews, a synagogue in Catford, southeast London, or some 20, 30 years ago. And he said, is God speaking again to his people, Israel? Is he speaking again to the church? And I believe he is. And comfort doesn't mean just a pat on the back, it means strengthening. And notice in that chapter God says, my people, his people. He's not ashamed to call us his own. And Jesus himself was a Jew. As we speak of the kingdom of God, as we say, thy kingdom come. When he comes, he comes to reign, but he's going to fulfill the role that he never fulfilled when he was on earth. He was born king of the Jews and he died king of the Jews. He's never actually reigned on earth, but he will come and his throne will be based in Jerusalem. And his people will say, hallelujah. They will say Baruch Haba B'Shem, Adonai, blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. And I just want to say that there's a host of literature out there. Please don't be dismayed, but I didn't know what not to bring. I'd like to bring your attention to the fact that Lance Lambert and a pastor, an ex-Orthodox Jew, by the way, as a pastor now, will be speaking at Westminster Chapel on the third Saturday in June. And it's a burning topic, Israel, the burning bush of the world. I'd like to invite you along. It's an all-day affair and it'll, I believe, be worthwhile. So that's the leaflet about it. If you'd like to learn to pray a bit more specifically for Israel and you'd like our introductory pack, that's the bulletin and that's the package, what it looks like on the table. Just please take one, put your name down on the form. There are one or two other leaflets inside. And we don't expect you to pray the bulletin right through. Just ask the Lord to quicken to you the one or two places that he might have you pray about. These are free on the table, a little booklet about Jerusalem and Jesus and the power of weakness. Remember, Jacob struggled all night. It wasn't until he lost his strength that he became Israel. Shades of what God's trying to do to the nation today, really. So they're available. And nearly all the large books on the table are all bargain book prices, below cost. That one in particular, the Holy Spirit in Israel, I want to recommend. This is the Can't Put It Down book. One of Dave Wilkerson's prodigies runs a fellowship on Mount Carmel. And this is the story of how that came to be founded, the Valley of Trouble and Mountain of Hope. Another lovely booklet, The Miracle of Israel. Derek Prince put his thoughts together in this booklet, Our Debt to Israel. I want to really recommend that to you. It's just a small booklet, but it's very full. Is the Church the New Israel? That's the booklet that one of our representatives has written, and that's available on the table. You can take one, or you can pay for it, 40 pence if you wish. Lastly, an Australian housewife married to a Japanese tour guide living in Israel. That's a good mixture. Sent back a report of how her son was doing in the Israeli army. And the tape's available outside on the table. It's called Israel, What You Don't Get on the News. And it really is an eye-opener and a heartbreaker. So I want to recommend that to yourself. We also have these pictures. This picture is one that was found in the Israeli embassy in Ethiopia. God is bringing these Jewish people out of Ethiopia at the rate of several hundred a month. It's quite a miracle. I sent it to some of my Jewish friends and relatives, saying how is it you don't believe that the same God who brought us out of Egypt is still available today? It's amazing. Still celebrating Passover. But anyway, that's quite a faith builder and copies of that are available. I wonder if I might just, can I just share a song? You probably know the little chorus, Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. And we could just sing that perhaps in closing. And do any of you know it in Hebrew? Well, follow me anyway. Blessed is he. Blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. Blessed. Hallelu. Hallelu. Abba. Hallelu. Baruch. We're looking at this Thursday night, and I think it would be good for us to do this as we finish. We're going to pray a blessing on each other. Now let's all stand as we finish our time of worship this morning. As you pray this, remember you are praying a blessing on each other. And it's a blessing that God wants us to pray for each other. And it's good for us to have our spirits blessed. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, be with us all evermore. Amen. God bless you and we'll see you all tonight. There's tea and coffee through in the old church. If you'd like prayer this morning, please come and sit in the front rows and somebody will come and pray with you. God bless you all. Thank you Ken.