This sermon delves into the prophetic insight regarding the restoration and salvation of Israel, emphasizing the need for a prepared people to speak prophetic and divine words of hope and strength to the despairing Jews in the wilderness. It highlights the necessity for a tested and authentic prophetic ministry that can bring forth events through spoken words, leading to the ultimate return and joy of the ransomed of the Lord.

I had a word in my spirit this morning, I asked my brother to remind me when I began, and the word is universal, that the event of the cross, though it took place in time and history in a particular locality, cannot be confined to that. The nature of the event is so great that it is intended for universal reality, universal expression, universal benefit. But of necessity, it can't take place universally in every place and at one time. It takes place historically in the moment of God in the place chosen, the least of places, outside of Jerusalem and out the dung heap, outside the camp, in a despised nation. But its intention is universal. And I don't believe that that universality has yet been established. I don't believe that that event has had its widest amplification over the breadth of this globe. Somehow, ironically, it has been contracted and only upheld by a small, relatively small, audience. So there's a greater and larger world that has not yet been affected by, and probably does not even know or understand, this event that has taken place. And yet it's incumbent upon all men everywhere to know of it, to receive its benefit or to refuse it. So if that's true, if it gives to God a problem of how before the age concludes in judgment, can all the world have opportunity to consider the event of Christ crucified? Can he have his son pass through a second time and give a reenactment of the first crucifixion, who is already now enthroned in heaven? And so I believe, and I'm rare in this, that Israel, called to be the witness nation, is intended as the vehicle to provide that reenactment in essence of the suffering through which its own Messiah and Lord has passed. So that the universality of its message can be broadcast not by speaking, but by demonstration. And at the same time, they themselves will be healed and saved by the very thing through which they're passing. It's like something of multi-levels taking place all at one time. And as I hinted last night, the judgment of Israel, and that's what the cross is, is a judgment. The wrath of God fell on Jesus. That was intended for us. It was devastating, as we know. And what he had to bear physically and in the agony of his soul. If you'll remind me, there's a remarkable selection this morning from Spurgeon on the one statement, my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? As being the epicenter of the Lord's suffering at the cross. This was the midnight of his moral anguish, is the awareness that the Father had to turn his face from him. And isn't it remarkable that this is in measure what Israel itself will experience. They will feel God forsaken. That's why in some place in Isaiah, in that selection of chapters, it says you're inscribed in my hands. And don't feel like an abandoned daughter, but you have always been foremost in my consciousness. But Zion is going to say God has forsaken us. So there's a necessity for Israel in some measure to experience the deep pangs, the moral anguish, as well as the physical suffering for which the Lord himself has previously passed. And as I hope to show you this morning from the great text of Isaiah 53, that in the experience, if you'll excuse my language, and the mutuality of their sufferings, they will recognize his. There's something about the nature of suffering that reveals. Have you noticed? That somehow if we're all hale and hearty and everything is just coming up roses, we are somehow kept from reality. And we are only too eager to clutch those flesh comforting things. But when we're sick, when we're despairing, when we're broken, when circumstances of a kind have done us in, it opens a portal to the reality that is reality, that is otherwise disguised by the blandishments and the amenities that the world is very happy to provide, so long as it keeps you in a false reality. The true reality is hidden. And there's a remarkable way in which suffering reveals it. So, if Israel is to fulfill its destiny, and this has got to be foremost in the consideration of the church, that God has given a call that you ought to be a nation of priests and a light unto the world. And Paul says in Romans, the gift and callings of God are irrevocable. Once God has made them, he's obliged to fulfill them, or how is he God? If Israel does not come into her destiny, God is nullified as God. He has put all his eggs in one basket. The fulfillment of his word, where it would be least expected, by a nation who doesn't give a rap for that fulfillment in their present apostasy and unbelief and hardness against God, and yet God must fulfill it. It's as if he has stacked all the cards against him, so that he will be all the more glorified eternally when there shall be this fulfillment, because he has spoken. And what is the church, among other things? It's that strange amalgam of people who are not bearing the world's credentials and are scorned by it, but who are jealous for the honor and the glory of their God, and recognize that if his word is not fulfilled, and he is compromised and contradicted by his own failure, the issue would be unspeakably tragic for all of the eternal future, all the future, if God is not God. He has got to come through, whether people who don't even know their calling, let alone have even the slightest disposition to fulfill it. Because if we took a survey today of present-day Israel, their deepest ambition is to be the Hong Kong of the Middle East, to be a financial success, to establish their own little civilization without God. They want to flourish, they want to succeed, but they have no God-consciousness, except for that small orthodox minority, and even there, their intention and thoughts are gobbled and perverse in many ways. So we have to understand the magnitude of what yet must be completed that concludes this age. Israel's redemption, the fulfillment of its calling, a nation of priests and a light unto the world. And so I often say, increasingly in these days, standing before different audiences in different parts of the world, in Africa, where I will soon again be, that if you see me, you have a foretaste of God's millennial glory. Here's a piece of Israel, redeemed and restored, and serving in the capacity for which we were intended, as a light. And you know that you're receiving a light of a very special kind. It's not that we're boasting in ourselves, but it's our calling, we have come into our own. And God has given a certain capacity to express his mysteries by that priestly people, when in fact they become priestly. And to be able to communicate the mysteries of God, the nature of God, in those places in the earth that have been antagonistic against him, and where Israel itself has suffered at their hands. So can you imagine messengers going forth out of the redeemed nation into Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Pakistan, those centers of terrorist activity that now delight in Jewish blood, and will succeed in taking it? And that to go back into those same nations and speak to them the counsel of God and the wisdom of the Most High, but not in some berating way, which I, in my earliest service, occasionally indulged. That I had a little secret delight in zapping the Goyim, the Gentiles. Yes, I was speaking the truth, but I gave it a little extra twist, because there was something yet resident in my Jewish soul that was historic in its origin, in which I'm paying you back for what we have received over the millennia. But the Lord has dealt with me, sanctified the vessel, met and revealed this lingering thing to purge, because a priest has got to be free of any taint and of any use of his priesthood in order to redound unto himself a benefit in any way. His service has got to be the most impersonal. That's not to say detached and antiseptic and indifferent, but there must not be any quotient of return unto himself, or it's no longer priestly. Imagine a nation like that? How shall I say it? Without sounding so vain as a nation of art cats is? And I'm not the perfect statement, but it's better than no statement. It's a little foretaste, a sign of God's intention for an entire people. Interesting that my name Cats actually means priest. One of those happenstance things from both father and mother. Because cats is a contraction of two Hebrew words. Though the word cats in German means cat, but in Hebrew it's Kohan Tzadik. The K-A is from Kohan, which means priest. If you know a Jew by the name of Cohen or Kahn, that's the derivative for the Hebrew word priest. And Tzadik is righteous, priest of righteousness. So I know there's a great Melchizedek priesthood that even eclipses the Aaronic. So from both ends, I seem to be fortunate to have inherited such a name, a title, a calling, and I believe functioning in it by the grace of God. And not the least of the reason is to whet the appetite of the church, that they should appreciate the mystery and know that what they're receiving in only a small measure is an index of the greater blessedness that God intends for all mankind through that one people whom he has chosen. Because as we shared this morning in the prayer time, I will choose whom I will choose, I will elect whom I will elect, I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy. And how is that chosenness of God more revealed than when he will choose not the most conspicuous, the most gifted, the most promising, who seem to have the credentials, but the least, the most rebellious, the most apostate, the most difficult, the most horrible in their historic apostasies and idolatries, that's the people he's chosen. And to redeem them and bring them into the gifts and callings of God that are without repentance, that are irrevocable, is an ultimate statement of God himself, both in the uniqueness of his choosing, because he'll always choose what is least, that he might be most distinguished in the success through it. And so we have the revelation both of his wisdom, his nature, and also his power to succeed in such an undertaking as this, that will be the basis for the everlasting tribute, acknowledgement and praise of God from shore to shore, from one end of the earth to the other throughout all generations. So great is the accomplishment of God's redemptive purpose in the earth. And what's his instrument? How I have despaired. The church. The church is the chosen agency. Gentiles are going to be the instrument of Israel's restoration, many of whom have no stomach for it, and left to themselves would just assume that the dry bones remain dry, because so long as they are dry, then they as the church, remain and obtain the singular blessedness of God. They are the people of God. And why share the glory with a bunch of dumb-dumbs who have had their chance and lost it? That's why the older brother of the prodigal son could not enter the feast. He couldn't understand why the father was so rapturous for the return of a profligate son who had expended all of his substance on whores and eaten the husks with the pigs, that the father should run to meet him and kiss him and give him a garment and a ring and make a feast for him. And there's the older son outside moping. You never made a feast for me and I've always been faithful. You're that dutiful Christian. He said, your brother who is lost has been found, he who is dead is alive. You should rejoice. But there's something of a rivalry, competition. The older son wants to bask uniquely alone in the father's favor and does not want to share it with someone who patently does not deserve it. You've got to dwell on that story, because it's the issue of the church. Will the church, who has been faithful in a dutiful way, all through these generations actually be willing to see the return of the prodigal and then have the glory in which it alone basks shared when it wants to be the foremost consideration of the father? We'd be fools not to consider what lurks in our deeps. Because when you shall be called upon prophetically, corporately, to address the dry bones that they might live, you'll be faced with this issue. If you don't prophesy, they remain dead. But your prophecy has got to be more than just a mechanical gesture. It's got to be a desire to see those bones alive, to share the glory, to be magnanimous and rejoice for the return of the prodigal. And to know that you know there's enough glory to go around for both. Right? And you desire, and that your faith is more than just a mechanical factor. It's a live faith that desires to see their restoration, or else your word will fall to the ground. Merely to prophesy dutifully is to fail. Merely to meet the Jews in the wilderness of the nation and give them an overt, what's the word? Minimal accommodation is to fail. God says, I will meet with you, speaking to them, in the wilderness of the nations, face to face. They have got to see more than just Christian obligation. They've got to see the face of God, which ran to meet the son and to kiss him before he even arrived. And that from Gentiles? Lord, my faith staggers. Can you perform that? That's as much a miracle as Israel's restoration itself. It requires as much resurrection power to bring Gentiles from their present mentality and disposition to that kind of prophetic reality so akin to God that God says it's my very face from where they presently are. And what's the medium by which all of this is to be accomplished and upon which it rests? The word of God, spoken. So someone has rightly said, every true preaching is a bringing of the hearers to death and a raising of them again. And I've seen God succeed in this under hopeless situations. Talk about motley assemblages where as you scan the faces, you despair. There doesn't seem to be any evidence that there's any possibility of fulfillment. But before those days are over, the faces have changed. Or is it I who am perceiving them? We've changed together. And I see the resurrection through the word actually taking place. People being raised up out of their graves of religious convention and into a new place of prophetic and apostolic understanding and commitment. It's a great drama, saints, a great saga. And so I berated an African congregation in Kenya on my last visit arriving in Short Pants. I thought that the meeting was that evening. But no, it was that afternoon. In fact, the church was already assembled expecting us to come in. And there I'm in my short pants. You don't dare appear a minister in short pants. So I had one of the other brothers share and I sat in the back of the room. But I could hear and see it was not the Lord's fulfillment. I had to get up, stand in front of them and say, do you believe that God can anoint a man in short pants? See what God was testing and challenging was their religious, what's the word, their false propriety of what is appropriate. Well, the Lord anointed the man in short pants. And the reason I remember this comes up now over the word great. I'm appealing to you to understand the greatness of our call and the conclusion of the age and this drama, this redemptive drama of God, which God knew from the beginning, even before it commenced, it was already known of him and determined by him to make his son a lamb slain from before the foundations of the world and that it would have this consequence and be the polar event that concludes the age and returns Israel through a church that has itself appropriated the cross and its power. It's great. And so I sensed in these Africans a lackluster attitude. They had no vision. They were content for Christianity being a succession of services because outside the building, what is there to hope for in a poverty stricken Africa? And so I said to them, someone was sent to tell Saul who had seen the vision of the resurrected Christ and was blinded and lay like a dead man for three days neither eating nor drinking, tell him what great things he must suffer for my name's sake. And I said to the church, we are called to great things. God wants to lift you out of a cesspool of despondency and limitation. We're called to greatness, to great things. And so that's what is being put before us in these days. In Isaiah 40 something or other, in the 40s, maybe someone can help me, it says, my salvation shall be known, something like that, throughout all the world. My arm, if somebody can look through their concordance to the word arm. Yeah, it's there, but there's a reference in the 40s, somewhere in Isaiah 40 something, where the arm of the Lord shall be revealed. It is in 52, but there's another place. I'm sorry? 40 verse 5. Yes, that's it. Mark that verse. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. If that is the word of God, we need to ask as careful students, exegeting the scripture, when has that been fulfilled? Has it yet been fulfilled? Must it yet be fulfilled if God has spoken it? All flesh shall see it together. It is very much in keeping with Isaiah 52, that was introduced last evening, but needs again now to be considered, in the 15th verse, so shall he sprinkle many nations, the king shall shut their mouths at him, for that which had not been told them shall they see, and that which they had not heard shall they consider. I'm saying, and I'm not saying, thus sayeth the Lord, my perspective is the absolute dictum, that this is the word of God, this is the way in which this must be seen and understood, but I am saying, this is the way that I see it, and I understand it, and I'm offering it to you for your consideration, as more than an opinion, that to whatever degree, I have a prophetic call, which no man can take for himself, except it be given, and I'm seeing through the eyes, appropriate to that calling, I see these scriptures as not yet fulfilled, but future. All flesh must see it together. That which men had heard, and had not seen, has yet to come to them. They've yet to be sprinkled. The blood has been shed, but the appropriation of the blood, waits for their faith to be kindled, to understand and to appropriate, and the recognition now of their being sinners, of the provision made 2,000 years ago, and now made demonstrable, visible before them, through the suffering of the nation, on its own road to Calvary. That's my prophetic view of the future, that seems to tie in, with all that I understand, and all that has been given to me, about the wilderness of the nations, about Amos chapter nine, I will shift you through all nations. All of the prophetic texts, indicate a last days, apocalyptic devastation for the nation, an uprooting, a passing, and Jesus himself, great prophet, said in Matthew 24 and Luke 21, in answer to the questions of his disciples, tell us, what are the signs of the end, and of your coming? And in his reply, you can look it up yourself at your leisure, he gives a number of statements, of what will characterize the end, upheavals in nature, devastations, of a kind that we're now seeing, with greater and greater frequency, and social unrest, and upheavals in society, wars and rumors of war, why this 21st, 20th century, is an age of unparalleled bloodshed, and persecution of the church, and he says of the nation, there's coming a time of trouble, such as never before has been, nor again ever will be, and if that time were not cut short, no flesh shall survive, no Jewish flesh, because it's the trouble of Israel, but for the elect's sake, that surviving remnant, if I can add to it, who will return to Zion, with everlasting joy upon their heads, for their sake that time will be cut short, well that computes, that figures, there's a time of trouble, greater than what the nation has previously known, I mean including the Nazi Holocaust, I mean it'll be greater than that, which took six million Jewish lives, yeah, how much greater? Well, when the Lord himself comes, and his feet stand on the Mount of Olives, when all nations have come against Israel, to destroy it, and Jerusalem has already been ravaged, and its women raped, wholesale, he finds that two-thirds have already perished, and the one-third is brought through the fire, so if that's any kind of ratio, for the devastation that falls on Jews everywhere, because it is the time of Jacob's trouble, wherever Jacob is, present Israel is Jacob, but Jacob is the name universally, of a people who have not yet been made Israel, they don't yet worship at the altar of God, so two-thirds, let's say roughly speaking, 15 million Jews in the world, 10 million will perish, in three and a half years time, I can't even imagine the logistics of this, it took the Nazis, the Germans, bless them, who have the scientific and mechanical ability, to work out a program of annihilation, who else could have done it with such efficiency, as to cremate six million, in a short period of time, and right to the very last days of the war, that the military historians to this day, cannot understand, how material and manpower, would be moved toward the concentration camps, and the death camps, and away from the defense of Germany itself, as if that were the greater priority, which in Satan's sight it was, and why the allies never bombed, the tracks going into Birkenau, Auschwitz, why? Because when God says, I will hide my face from you, it means he will hide his face from you, he'll not allow his judgments, to be shortened, they will have the full measure, when the time has come, why did the nations not receive Jews, in flight from Europe, the famous ship to St. Louis, that had about close to a thousand Jews, men, women and children, going from port to port, from New York to Havana, to Latin America, not one would take them in, and again they had to return, to Frankfurt, and ended up in the gas chambers, God's judgments, are remarkable, and need to be seen as judgment, if we are to receive the redemptive benefit, because they are not punitive, but redemptive, God's provision for repentance, for an understanding, of the question that should have been raised, and is yet to be raised, what could have been, if this is judgment, we Jews, what could have been the magnitude of our sin, that justified, such devastation in such proportion, because we think we're nice guys, hey listen we've, discovered in the scientific discoveries, and polio, and I don't know what else we've done, so many advantages to civilization, how could we have deserved that judgment, of what sin were we capable, and have performed, that God had sought its recognition, and repentance over the ages, and we have not seen nor considered, that required this, and if we'll not recognize this as judgment, and there's yet a repentance that must come, if we are to be restored to him, in repentance, then what occasion is yet future, that would succeed, where the Nazi Holocaust did not, and that's what I believe is yet before us, the time of Jacob's trouble, and what will make it greater, in the fulfillment of the word of Jesus, that this is the greater trouble, that exceeds anything, that the nation has previously known, or will again know, is its magnitude, it will not be confined to Poland, or to Germany, to Europe, it will be global, he will allow us to be pursued, harassed, and hunted down, in all nations, why will we be found, in the wilderness of the nations, because there'll be no safety whatever, in any urban center, where the amenities of civilization, are to be enjoyed, there we will be discovered, we have got to flee, and find the most remote places, and you know what will astonish us, God has already prepared a passage, and it's called a highway of holiness, and the wilderness will be glad for us, and the trees will clap their hands, and nature will rejoice, when they see, our bedraggled kinsmen coming through, because it knows better than the church, that this is the sign, of the consummation, the last trial, the last suffering, the last sifting of Israel, in order to be fitted, for its millennial, and eternal destiny, and glory, am I saying too much, can you can you absorb this, the fact that I'm saying it, I'm marveling, yes, in the concentration camp, this would not include the ones, who did this, in that number, and so there are actually very many more, than those six million, who took their own lives, and I was just thinking that, perhaps the same thing could happen again, yeah yeah I'm going to do it now, no I told you you're not, I told you yesterday, don't distract us, no, even by being informational, that with Jewish people fleeing, and seeking a safe haven, that there is more to it for us, than just providing a shelter, there has to be, a security for them, that would stop them, from doing this same thing, it's interesting that the whole, section of scripture, that we're considering, in which this great, concluding saga is spoken, begins with Isaiah 40, the first words of which are, comfort ye, comfort ye my people, the church has got to have a capacity, to speak to its Jewish kinsmen, and those who will pass through, in a comforting way, that does not mean making nice, they may be hard words, they're true words, but it will bring a solace, because my Jewish people, are without any kind of, biblical understanding, for them all they can see is, here comes another onslaught, another devastation, another anti-semitism, that has its origin in the New Testament, where Jews are spoken of, in so negative a way, that it has spread the virus of anti-semitism, throughout the Christian world, they will look upon this holocaust, as another statement, of the failure of Christendom, and they're coming to you, who are Christians, when I talk about the Lord, in the most implausible circumstances, and so they're going to come bated, they're angry, they're frustrated, they've been stripped of everything, their fortunes, just as the Jews were in Germany, they were expelled from their professions, from their apartments, it came suddenly, they could hear the thump of the boots, of the Nazi henchmen, coming up their stairs, they knew their doom was sealed, I've written something, in an apartment in Germany, in Berlin, at the computer, sitting in an apartment, that I knew that I knew, was once occupied by Jews, it was the former Jewish neighborhood, and that's where I was in those days, and I'm writing, and I'm very rarely creative, and literary in this way, I'm writing as the Jew, who's hearing the sound of the thump, of heavy booted steps coming up, and his mind is racing, what do I do now, my doom is sealed, I've got a few moments, what do I take, the memorabilia, my wife's photograph, the things that are dear, and in the end he can take nothing, who will go to her grave site, who will put a stone on her grave, you know how Jews do, the sign of their visit, they leave a stone on top of the tombstone, who will visit her if I'm absent, if I'm taken, his mind is racing, the doors burst open, and there are these men with their swastikas, and escorting him, and taking him on his way to his own death, that's what we're going to see, horror, brutality, suddenness, and men not having time to understand, it'll come upon them suddenly, and that same Jewish man, for whom I paid a thousand dollars to attend his banquet, oh, don't let me drift off into all of these little anecdotal stories, though they're rich, imagine me giving a thousand dollar contribution to a secular cause, in order to be invited to the banquet, given only to donors, for the magazine commentary, the most dignified and significant Jewish publication in the world, which I cherish, because my heart is out for its founder, Norman Podhoretz, who is exactly my age, exactly from Brooklyn, exactly in the army when I was in the army, exactly in Germany when I was in Germany, only his life has gone this way, my life has gone that way, I covet his soul, he's written a book on the prophets, he's a man who has a PhD in literature, English literature, he won a scholar's award to go to Cambridge, and on top of that has attended the Jewish Theological Seminary, the guy's a brilliant conservative mind, but totally outside of redemption, so I paid, I debated, should I, shouldn't I, I've never made a contribution to a secular cause, $1,000 is an ultimate measure, I did it, got the invitation, someone sent me a check for $135 and I bought, I already had purchased, and now this was the compensation, my Norman Podhoretz suit, I've only worn it once, at the banquet, but you should see me in it. Mamma mia, distinguished pinstripe, beautiful cravat, and so I took Eileen Smith, my spinster lady friend from Staten Island, and we made quite a couple, and he greeted the guests at the door at this posh New York club, where this banquet was being given, and when I gave him my name, he remembered that I had already sent him a little booklet on the prophetic call, the spirit of prophecy, forgetting that the very first page I'm quoting from Revelation, that the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Someone said, Art, you need to write exclusively for Jews. And so he saw me at Katz, oh he said, I'm too old to be evangelized. I said, all the more reason. Pray for him. Why did I bring that up? Because that dear man, brilliant as he is, he has just won a national award for distinguished service as a civilian, given him by President Bush, who reads his magazine and articles devoutly, because the man is so brilliant and the magazine is so remarkably rich. And yet for all that, he doesn't have a fig of a notion of the time of Jacob's trouble. Can you imagine my frustration in New York? I should be shouting from the rooftops and warning a people of the devastation that is to come. I'm breaking my head to think how are those Lubavitcher Hasidim, these ultra-orthodox Jews who celebrate Rabbi Menachem, what's his last name, Schneerson, who has died in 1991, whose resurrection they're awaiting, how will they be saved, out from New York City, from Brooklyn, when they are in the midst of a black ghetto? Why are they there? Because that was the cheapest place to find housing, that they could move into a neighborhood with a synagogue and walk to shul on Shabbat because you're not allowed to drive. How many of us are willing for such sacrifice? To give up our places in the country, our little dream houses, our privacy, to come into a black ghetto in order to have access to the center of our faith, the church, and be able to walk from our households to it on every Shabbat. I love them. I'm already marked. I've already been kicked out of a Bible study. I've already been spurned by a family who had originally taken me in and told me how much they loved me and what a blessing it was, until the authorities of their movement told them don't extend hospitality to this man. He's a seducer. And he's persuaded that that magician, Jesus, is the Messiah, who learned his secrets from us in order to turn Jews away from the law and to himself. I'm in an impossible situation, except for the grace of God. And it's more than just the ability to share with them the faith that they might be saved, but also to work out for them a route of flight and escape from that ghetto when the trap closes and those black people around them who have never enjoyed their presence, and there has already been race riot when one of them hit a black kid with his car and killed him. There were three days of rioting that only the mayor of New York City could quell, who at that time was a black man himself. So there's something right under the surface percolating, waiting to erupt, of anti-Jewish hatred by these black people. How will they be saved out of it? What route will lead them out of Brooklyn and out of New York City and up through the northern outermost regions and into New England and into Vermont and Maine and all those places, through the wilderness of the Appalachian Mountains and into Canada, and then through Canada, down through the porous border that you can walk across or swim even a boat across and come into where we are in Minnesota and the haven that God has been preparing there for 31 years. And then moved on from us to the places further south until they reach Mexico, which is the central staging area, where when I went to Monterrey, Mexico, people came up to me and said, long before you ever came out, the Lord had already told us that we ought to be a place where Jews will be assembled. And I was out in the wilderness outside of Monterrey, sleeping out and woke up in the morning and I looked out, it was Sinai. I had never seen such a desert area. In fact, to get there our vehicle sank into the lake bed and we couldn't go on, we had to be extricated and find another route to come to this place where this Mexican brother believed Jews will be assembled, and it's a vast place. It's... I don't think I've ever shared this publicly. How do you guys rate? I'm just... I think the Lord wants you to know how real this is. This is not a figment of my imagination. That we have been for 31 years in the Arctic zone of North America in poverty, struggle to establish a place of refuge for Jews in flight. Not only coming out from Canada, but maybe going into Canada. It may be a two way street, because I have so often said the issue is not the shortest distance between two points. The issue is the maximum exposure to the highway of holiness where Jews will meet Christians of every shape, size, and description and race and nationality from the most urbane and sophisticated to the most elementary and primitive. Indians in the Sierra Madre mountains will expect them. The black Africans in Kenya where I was that last time that when we finally got to them I thought, oh Nairobi, praise God. I've been in the bush long enough. Now real church, real city, capital city, and I'll really be able to unburden my soul and use the King's English. No. We went outside and up into the slum districts outside and we could hardly get there with a car. I never saw such potholed streets where the car can fall all the way through and never be seen again. And finally we came into the little parking area and there was the building. It was a cargo container or hardly more metal with rude benches, no electric, and the saints were appropriate to that setting. I don't think they ever got through elementary school, and I'm going to speak to them the last day's eschatological and apocalyptic vision of God for Jews to Africans in that condition. How can it succeed? Gloriously. They were transformed by the word. They rose to the occasion so that at the end I would say, I think I've shared this already, whether it's five years, seven, ten, twelve, I can't tell you how long, there will be a time, be assured that the same route by which I came to you, they will be coming to you. But when they come to you, they'll be astonished that they were expected and that you've prepared for them and that you welcomed them and showered them with love and received them because five, ten, twelve years before God had sent the Jewish messenger to prepare you. That's the drama that's taking place in these days. So comfort ye, comfort ye my people. Not with blandishment, not with telling them what nice guys they are and this will pass shortly but this is something through which you must pass. There's a redemptive drama here more than you can presently understand but as painful as it is the end will be joy unspeakable and full of glory. Be brave. God is with you. As it says in Isaiah 35, the wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them. Isn't that an embarrassment to us? That dumb and inanimate nature will be glad for them but we ourselves are not too glad? Why? Because if we are ever caught helping them, we're finished. What will be our fate if we are caught helping them? Jew lovers, not true New Zealanders, are not true Americans, you're not patriotic, you're joining the enemy. It's their fault that the world is in this condition. Their world conspiracy to take over finances and what has before them is appropriate and you're helping them? Where's your loyalty to your country? Call that Christians? Nature will be glad for them but for us to be glad for them, knowing that it will be our peril, will require a remarkable stature, heroism, understanding and heart that can only be the work of God's Spirit through His Word. In a word, we are really going to have to become saints. Sorry about that. They compel us to sainthood. Isn't that remarkable? Even in their unbelief and in their apostasy and in their ruined and broken condition is the provocation for us to rise to ultimate sainthood and sonship. For only on that basis can we be to them what we must. Isn't that a provision from God? And haven't they always played that role? Haven't they always tested the church? Haven't they always been the index of the truth of the church and shown us to be phony? That the greatest men of the church have in the end proven to be anti-Semitic? Luther himself. The church Germany that was modern Jewry's graveyard is the land of Luther. The test of the church has always been the Jew. Not when they're at their best when they're at their worst. But nature is glad for them. We need to be also. Because when we see them in this condition we know that the conservation of the ages is at hand. And even if we have to pay with imprisonment, peril or even our own execution we obtain a modest crown. That we bear this not grimly like why me Lord? How come? But thank you Lord for the privilege of having anything to do with the passage of your people by which they enter Zion. For their coming is your coming. Once they enter their king will come and rule from Zion. The only appointed place. I'm grateful to have this actual privilege even if it requires my life to facilitate this conclusion of the age for mine will be an eternal crown of glory. And so I'll bear this not grimly but joyously. And when the Jews see us rejoicing for the prospect and not just bearing and gritting our teeth waiting for the moment to pass so that our safety will not be threatened they'll say what in heaven's name is this? I've seen religion. I've seen men who are ethical, moral and philosophical but I have never seen this. There's no way to explain Gentiles like this except God. This is God. What they're exhibiting is God. And I didn't know that there was a God until I see it through them. I'm seeing in them the light that lightens the Gentiles who is also the glory of the people of Israel. And that's exactly how I got saved 41 years ago. They'll see what I saw. Where we least expect to find it in the faces of the glam. There we expect to see solid looks critical, angry prejudiced but to see smiles and expanse of love and acceptance as if we are kin. As if we're members of the same family. And we're rejoicing that we're aiding them to their destiny and their salvation and their call. That's why Jesus said what you do for the least of these my brethren you do unto me but if they are the least as his brethren what are they to us? Strangers? This is deeper than flesh and blood that you should see in these Jews and in that condition your brethren. If they're his brethren they're your brethren. And you need to treat them as such. This is more than can be expected of of our native man. Only the grace of God can bring us to such a condition because it can't be acted. We can't play at this. The Jews will see right through that as they always have. They have seen through the televangelist the phoniness more quickly than we. We're still supporting these creeps. And they one flick of the TV they see these men phony. They see right through. We are seduced. They know. They know what's true. Leave it to Jews. I know them. Especially New York Jews. Have an unfailing instinct for what is real and what is phony. We'll not be able to play at this. It'll have to be an authentic demonstration of very God. She said the young Israelis are just as persecuted who come to her tent. Let's hope. Okay. The wilderness, Isaiah 35 and the solitary place. So it's not going to be in the midst of the amenities of civilization. It'll be solitary. It'll be wild. Shall be glad for them. The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Imagine that nature itself experiences even a resurrection effulgence just at the passing through of Jews in this condition. Where does it say that at? It's prophetic insight. It's interpretation. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it. The excellency of Carmel and Sharon. Doesn't mean that this is where it is. It could be in the wilderness of New Zealand. Africa. It could be one of the remotest places in the world and indeed it will be. They'll pass through the most remote places that they would never have chosen in a lifetime. But it will be their salvation. It will keep them from the place of terror. They will have to flee to such places. But to those places as remote as they are God will ascribe and impart the beauty of Sharon and Carmel. Nature will flourish just by their passing through. Because they've got to see even in nature the supernatural power of God to take a barren and threatening wilderness and to give it an aura of almost like a Garden of Eden evidence or else they would die before they're saved. These are people despairing. Sensing utter hopelessness. Have you ever been lost in wilderness? I don't care what university degrees you have or knowledge. When you don't know which way is north or south or east or west and whether you'll ever be found and the prospect for survival is grim it's terrifying. That's what they're going to experience. But they shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. If this is what it takes to see it it's worth everything. And in fact this is what it takes to see it. The excellency in the place where it's least expected. Where if you don't see it you're robbed of any hope of survival. Because those who perished in the holocaust were not necessarily the physically weakest. Some of the physically weakest survived where those that were physically stronger perished for the want of hope. Hope is the ingredient for survival. But if they're bereft of hope, lost in a wilderness, not knowing which way is out, and are hungering and thirsting for me they see right through. We are seduced. They know. They know what's true. Leave it to Jews. I know them. Especially New York Jews. Have an unfailing instinct for what is real and what is phony. Will not be able to play at this. It'll have to be an authentic demonstration of the very God. The wilderness Isaiah 35 and the solitary place. So it's not going to be in the midst of the amenities of civilization. It'll be solitary. It'll be wild. Shall be glad for them. The desert shall rejoice and blossom as the rose. Imagine that nature itself experiences even a resurrection effulgence just at the passing through of Jews in this condition. Where does it say that? It's prophetic insight. It's interpretation. It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with joy in singing. The glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it. The excellency of Carmel and Sharon. Doesn't mean that this is where it is. It could be in the wilderness of New Zealand. Africa. It could be one of the remotest places of the world and indeed it will be. They'll pass through the most remote places that they would never have chosen in a lifetime. But it will be their salvation. It will keep them from the place of terror. They will have to flee to such places. But to those places as remote as they are God will ascribe and impart the beauty of Sharon and Carmel. Nature will flourish just by their passing through. Because they've got to see even in nature the supernatural power of God to take a barren and threatening wilderness and to give it an aura of almost like a Garden of Eden evidence or else they would die before they're saved. These are people despairing. Sensing utter hopelessness. Have you ever been lost in the wilderness? I don't care what university degrees you have or knowledge. When you don't know which way is north or south or east or west and whether you'll ever be found and what the prospect for survival is grim it's terrifying. That's what they're going to experience. But they shall see the glory of the Lord and the excellency of our God. If this is what it takes to see it it's worth everything. And in fact this is what it takes to see it. The excellency in the place where it's least expected. Where if you don't see it you're robbed of any hope of survival. Because those who perished in the holocaust were not necessarily the physically weakest. Some of the physically weakest survived where those that were physically stronger perished for the want of hope. Hope is the ingredient for survival. But if they're bereft of hope, lost in a wilderness, not knowing which way is out and are hungering and thirsting and feeling the heat as I have as I have been treated to segments of the journey on the route of escape in Mexico taken in with a four wheel vehicle where I saw a cactus twenty, twenty five feet high in blistering sun there's not a drop of water I despaired that we would come out in a four wheel vehicle. How will they come out on foot who are out of shape to begin with, sitting in their offices and their penthouse apartments are now out in a rugged wilderness having to trudge in the heat of day without protection already banged up and bruised and wounded in a hopeless environment in which they can't find their way out. They'll perish for the want of hope except there'll be somebody there with them who can speak a word of comfort of encouragement that is more than just a mealy mouthed human pat on the back and that's what we see here God now is speaking in verse three not to Israel but to someone with them in the remote wilderness place and saying strengthen ye the weak hands and confirm the feeble knees can you see that? You guys are sufficiently exegetical to see someone is being addressed who is not himself weak that they should say something to those who are and that their saying will establish strength, will establish hope because the word that God wants them to speak is not some human well wishing sentiment that will fall to the ground but is a prophetic word because the prophetic word is itself an event the prophetic word causes to be the thing that it speaks but where are such a people to be found who have this prophetic ability corporately and will be in that remote wilderness place God had better start recruiting and getting such a people ready say to them that are of a fearful heart be strong you know when you say prophetically to a fearful heart be strong, you know what happens? they become strong when Jesus says be not afraid, he's not just giving a suggestion he's giving a command and when you receive that in his authority fear dissipates be not afraid I'm commanding, I'm giving you a statement that cancels out every reason for fear, my word is greater than the circumstance wouldn't it be wonderful if he were there to speak it? well he will be if Christ is in you and that you're speaking is his but how do you get from where you presently are speaking only sentimental human things to the place where you speak prophetic and divine things in that authority compassion and love that constitutes an event for those who hear it something has got to happen between now and then that will not be a moment's magic when we need it it will be the result of the investment of God in his preparation in us to bring us to that place not only individually but corporately for if we are not there in that reality, in that strength in that speaking, they will perish in hopelessness and despair before the Lord's appearing say to them be strong, fear not behold your God will come with vengeance, he'll come with a vengeance even God with a recompense he will come and save you well two people can say exactly the same thing and in the one the word falls flat and in the other the person rises with hope the word has become a vent they know that God will come, though they don't know God but they'll believe such a prophetic word for that word is redolent with faith and with true conviction it's a tested word through a tested vessel how shall we speak like that only if God has come to us in our wilderness the prophet must speak out of his experience that's the difference between a prophet and a teacher the teacher can just speak from the text and exposit and we receive benefit and blessing but the prophetic word to be an event has got to be tested and made real in the prophet's own experience, he has got to marry a whore he's got to know what infidelity and rejection means as God's own experience with Israel he has got to live in the wilderness, he has got to be rejected so that when his word comes it's a tested word for the prophet is the thing in himself, he's the word made flesh, his word is not just an articulation, it's an event but what it cost to form such a man is itself the cross so isn't it interesting that then Israel in northern Minnesota after 10 years of struggle in 30 below zero Fahrenheit winters week after week where we plugged the car in so that it would be heated so that this pregnant woman if she needed medical attention when she gave birth we could get her to a hospital only to find out in the emergency of her birth where she was hemorrhaging that the engine started but the transmission was frozen stiff and could not be shifted that's what we lived in and after 10 years of struggle, just being with God's people my God, day after day all of the crisis and all the rebellion and all the hooting and hollering and indictment and shame and your wife who never did believe it was God's call because he didn't tell her she never got the vision and had to give up her beautiful 17 room house in New Jersey with 9 bedrooms and 5 baths, the gothic masterpiece to live out in the boondocks, this fair-haired Scandinavian where every mosquito was sure to find her every tick and every bug and someone will borrow her pots and pans and not bring them back or bring them back dented or traffic mud into the house and I'm quite vocal to let everyone know that she's totally opposed to the entire enterprise so on top of struggling it out with the saints you've got your own wife not in sympathetic encouragement but in clear and vocal opposition shouting from the rooftops against you and against the whole enterprise for 10 years only now after 30 years is she beginning to make peace with it it took that length of time but we had to suffer all of that indignity, all of that humiliation all of that opposition and just when we began to see daylight after 10 years, guess what God did he brought it to a close shut it down vacate the property leave it to the to the to the to the elements and those who will despoil it without any thought of return or when they'll be returned or if they'll be returned and all that without explanation wouldn't explanation have been helpful? no if you don't leave he said to one of the elders I'll kill you he was earnest about this and this one elder did not believe my prophetic interpretation that God wanted the whole property and the community ministry brought into death that we had to be expelled we had to experience expulsion and flight you know he wanted to stay he always wanted a rustic location and so he was living in my house so I left and we had one final meeting though we had several meetings before in which I pleaded I said God wants this whole place shut down, we must vacate no he said I don't see that and this was a man who said he was there for my prophetic ministry it's wonderful how people will receive your prophetic ministry until it gores them and so I despaired, I said ok we went to bed that night, the next morning was departure and this man came to the breakfast table white as a sheet I said what happened to you oh he said I prayed before going to bed, Lord if I'm wrong, of course he didn't expect to be, he's a man of principle you show me and the Lord said if you'll not leave, I'll kill you he left God was serious, there's something that we had to experience or we will not have a valid word for our kinsmen or for the church we've got to know expulsion and now we're coming to know return judgment and restoration or else our word will not be a true word, it has got to issue from some measure of experience appropriate to the thought of God, how shall you say to the Jews in the wilderness, in the deeps of their despair, your God will come he will recompense you unless you know that God in exactly that way that means you've got to open your New Zealand life to the danger of real faith and propheticness you have to let go the God that you have been so long cultivating to keep you in safety and open yourself for distress for trial, where if God does not come, you're finished he's got to come to you in recompense, in seeming hopelessness that when you later say to them your word will be more than just well-meaning intention, it will be a living word, a prophetic word that when they hear that, you know what it says in the text, the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped what a word, my God I wish I had that capacity now then shall the lame man leap as the heart and the tongue of the dumb sing for in the wilderness shall waters break out and streams in the desert and the parched ground shall become a pool and the thirsty land springs of water and the habitation of dragons where each lay shall be grass with weeds and rushes and a highway shall be there and a way and it shall be called the way of holiness the unclean shall not pass over it but it shall be for those the wayfaring men though fools shall not err therein what a text a prophetic text millennia in advance of the actuality that is yet future and must be fulfilled and the key is not the Jew the Jew is nigh unto death, he's despairing Norman Port Horace, for all of his brilliance is at the end of his wit and his 77 year old Lex can hardly sustain him he's ready to cash in in despair except he hears a word your God will come he will recompense you and when he hears that word his historically blind eyes are opened his mouth is able to speak, his legs become strong, what a word that even nature hears it and the water breaks forth out of dry ground for they had not drink yes this is poetic, the prophets always are, yes it's symbolic but it's also actual, it's also literal but the key is not the Jew the key is that someone to whom God says say to them you say to them because if you don't say to them they'll die in despair and hopelessness, what they need now is a word, before the appearing of God to believe for that appearing when there's no hope for it visibly or physically you say to them may our whole Christian life and all of its experience be the preparation for that speaking, what an enterprise, what a remarkable thing that in the last analysis the issue of God's success with his people for how does the chapter end the ransomed of the Lord shall return, no ifs, ands or buts, they're going to make it through a surviving remnant who will constitute a restored nation and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads they shall obtain joy not manufacture or produce it and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away not only the sorrow of what they have lost their nation, the state their possessions and yet a joy and gladness shall be upon their heads in an everlasting way not only because they shall not again have to experience this kind of distress but they shall be extolled and be made very high and given a place in the nations above all nations