In this sermon, the speaker emphasizes the importance of paying attention to the things that are at hand rather than being distracted by distant and exciting things. He shares a personal experience of being convicted by God to go and share his faith with someone in Denmark. The speaker also discusses the significance of marriage, stating that it is not an accident but a divine plan from God. He encourages the audience to be prepared for the end times and to support ministers through prayer and fasting.

Let's see what the Lord will make of this. We'll begin by asking his blessing, okay? I mentioned somewhere along the line today, I forgot at which meeting, that at a meeting before I came here in Nebraska, a young fellow got up in the church and he said at lunchtime today, while we prayed over the food, I included a three-second prayer for the ministers who are ministering at this conference of which I was one. And he said, the Lord sort of jabbed me in my heart that a three-second aside is not enough and that we ought to assume more of the burden of the ministries that God brings into our midst. I don't know if you realize all that's involved. There's a great deal of trembling and rumbling bowels and other things that can't be now enumerated. It's too much to ask single men to bear that alone. There's fatigue, both physical and spiritual. They're seeking God for his word, for this hour, for this people. It's an enormous responsibility of being an agent of life or death for many. That's too much for single men to bear. And so, I hope that you'll be weaned from the practice of three-second afterthoughts for the ministers that come to your community. And that you'll give yourself more fully to supplication and prayer and fasting for the ministers and feel that they're not virtuosos who have some kind of special talent and that somehow, unlike you, they don't tremble before lights and before cameras and before people. And that you're in it with them and not just called to be a passive spectator and that somehow, your responsibility is to undergird them, not just financially, but in your prayer and in the support by the Spirit. I'm just going to ask you to participate in that now. Maybe it will only take three seconds, but let it be an intense three seconds that we're all in this together and we want to hear from God. We don't want a virtuoso performance. We want to hear from God. So, precious holy God, Lord, speak to us out of your heart. Mighty God, give us to understand the things that please you for this hour. Open your word to us, might it be a living, pulsating thing. And mighty God, may we hear also the silences between the words. May the things that have been left out, that have not been articulated or punctuated, that pertain to our lives personally, where we are, where no man knows us, but you alone. May we hear your voice speaking to that. Lord, deal with us in the nitty-gritty of our lives. Shape us, mold us by what you're going to speak tonight. May it be nothing whatever to do with ceremony or Christian entertainment, but vital things that pertain to life. And we'll thank you and praise you, because you're hearing us now, and that you're going to do it and receive all the glory for it, in the wonderful name of Jesus. Amen. Praise God. Well, chapter 3 of Joshua. And Joshua rose early in the morning, and they removed from Shittim and came to Jordan, he and all the children of Israel, and lodged there before they passed over. And it came to pass, after three days, that the officers went through the host, and they commanded the people, saying, When you see the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God, and the priests, the Levites, bearing it, then you shall remove from your place and go after it. Yet there shall be a space between you and it, about two thousand cubits by measure. Come not near unto it, that you may know the way by which you must go, for you have not passed this way heretofore. I believe with all my heart, that the body of Christ, in this moment, is encamped along the banks of the Jordan. And we've been there long enough, and there's a spirit that's speaking to us, commanding us that when we see the ark of God being lifted, by the priests and the Levites, that we should remove from our places and go after it. I know that everything that's instinctive in our nature shrinks from moving. Poor Inga has just one woeful lament of moving, time after time, in her sojourn with her husband. From Denmark to California, from California to New York, from New York to Kansas City, from Kansas City back to New York, from New York to Denmark, from Denmark to Israel, from Israel back to New Jersey, and we're afraid that it's not over yet. It's not an easy thing to move. And I know, especially for women, there's just a wonderful, natural thing that desires to be settled. But this is an unusual hour. I'll tell you that at the end of one of my speaking trips, in the kind of condition of exhaustion, both physically and spiritually, that I mentioned before, to which you're brought, I came to a meeting just before my return to Denmark. I'd been three months in the States. And my spirit was really exercised. And some of you know me, that I'm the kind of guy made of God to come on hard. But you can believe that there's been a lot of tempering process since you've seen me last. And many times I'm given to pause and wonder, is it me or is it God? My face is so flinty and my word is so sharp and uncompromising. And I was sitting in that kind of tired dejection in body and spirit at this last meeting before I returned to my home in Denmark. And I was so tired I couldn't even participate in the service. Praise God I wasn't the speaker. I was sitting in the back of the room. And when it was over, the man and wife in whose home that took place came over to me and laid hands on me and prayed for me. And God spoke a prophecy out of the mouth of this woman. And it said something like this. Don't you think that I know how to speak more softly through you when I want? And I went, whew, thank you Lord that it was not me after all, that it was you. And then he went on to say, I'm going to speak even more fierce words than these in your mouth in these end times. And I'm going to beckon men through you to loose their stakes and pull up their stakes and their tents and to follow on after me. And many there shall be who shall refuse. By the eye of the Spirit, God is asking us tonight to see that there are priests and Levites who have lifted the ark of God and it's about to be moved. But I'll tell you that we've been so long on this side of the Jordan that it's become a very familiar and groovy place. It has many advantages. In fact, it was so much so that for two and a half of the tribes of Israel they never could quite get it all together and cross over to the other side. They were lost forever to the purposes of God and to the people Israel, Gad, Manasseh, and Reuben and stayed on the wrong side of the Jordan. Maybe there's a clue in this in that I understand that there were great men with cattle and that side of the Jordan had such lush verbiage and growth and they were so well situated for grazing that they just couldn't quite bring themselves to cross over. Maybe there's something about the crossing over of rivers that speaks especially to me, a Jew, because the whole history of my people has been nothing but a history of beckonings to cross over. I understand that the very word Hebrew, the root word Ever, has got to do with the meaning of crossing over and except that Abraham crossed over that river Euphrates and left that Mesopotamian religious civilization and followed God from a wilderness to a land of promise, there would not be a Jew today. There's always a radical invitation to the people of God to cross a river along which they've camped perhaps far too long and have become too comfortable and too well settled. There shall be a space between you and it about 2,000 cubits by measure and some wise commentator on the scriptures suggests that that might even mean 2,000 years since the advent of the Lord. You have not passed this way heretofore. This is uncharted territory. This is something scary, something frightening, and if I should just survey my almost 10 years in the Lord, it's been nothing but crossing after crossing after crossing in ways that I've not been heretofore. And how the Lord has led me with great patience and kindness from the security of the teaching profession to the lesser security of a missionary organization to the lesser security of being removed from that organization but still on salary to the lesser security of being removed altogether from any connection and being entirely thrust upon Him and God's people, which is my condition in this day, to places where we've not been heretofore. Joshua said to the people, Sanctify yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you. I want to suggest what it is that lies before us on the other side of the Jordan where we've not been heretofore. There are so many things that can be spoken, but the thing which the Lord has moved me to put down on this paper this morning has to do with new patterns of living. I've always been a man of very intense perception. I've always seen things through a kind of peculiar view. I've always been rather simplistic in the way that I see things, and so many moderating things are eclipsed, and I see things starkly in black and white. And I'll tell you that I have a very intense view of the way that we've been living up till this time. And the way I see it is this, that our living pattern has been absolutely bizarre, grotesquely distorted, and we've not even suspected it. We've succumbed and submitted ourselves so well without flinching to the pattern of this world that we thought that this was altogether normal. But I'll tell you that our natures have recoiled against this pattern of private enterprise existence, of little separate domiciles with little families strangling in their separation and living only unto their own selfishness, glued before TV sets, poring over Sears Roebuck catalogs and just living wholly unto themselves, broken only by an hour or two on a Sunday morning or a midweek service with that occasional travesty called a potluck supper and other such forms of fellowship. This is not the pattern of God. God has called us to community, and I've never been so conscious of it as I am in this hour. And I speak as a man who temperamentally is constituted to be a loner. And I flinch and shrink by everything in me which is natural to coming into real relationships with other people. I like to be the kind of guy that comes in like the knight on shining armor into a community and does his thing and rides out again. But the Lord is not allowing me such luxury. And I'll tell you people, I'm in a very Shakespearean mood, conscience doth make cowards of us all. And if we have to face the root reason why we've shrunk from true community, the answer is simple and not far to be found. We're chicken. I'm afraid that if you saw me, and anything more than my posture behind the pulpit, and saw odd cats, so to speak, in his underwear with his knobbly knees sticking out or his mask dislodged or barking at his kids or irritated with his wife, you would be deeply disillusioned. And indeed, that's exactly what's required. A brilliant man by the spirit, by the name of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in a book that's now occupying me called Living Together. Isn't that a beautiful title? Written in the 1930s, well in advance of his time, but written for us now. He says in this book that we must pass through a necessary crisis of disillusionment. Oh, people, how we shrink from that. We don't want to be seen. We don't want our masks jostled. We want to continue our kind of religious posture, and somehow we can get by for an hour with a back slap and a bare hug and all of the other accoutrements of so-called full gospel fellowship. But I'll tell you that something radically changes when we're under each other's roof in nitty-gritty living situations. I wondered why it was that the Lord gave us a 17-room house when we came back from Israel broke. There's hardly a time that that house has been empty. And I don't mean the men who came to supper, staying just for a day or two. I mean we've had one guest, a Danish minister, with us now almost four to five months. And that man has seen me in every aspect of my life, bar none. Couldn't be helped. Talk about being given to hospitality. There's a continual flow of hospitality at our home. We had a conference on messianic discipleship at our own local congregation, and the Jewish kids that came from different parts of the country were taken into the families of the congregation, and it was one of the greatest blessings of the entire conference, face-to-face with Gentile people. Beautiful, the things that the Lord transacted through those days under those roofs. We ourselves had over 30 people sleeping in our house, and Inger made dinner on Sunday for over 60 people. And the conference began Friday night at this little congregation with a matzah ball and traditional Shabbat meal made by Inger and some of the church ladies for over 150 people. We're being compelled, even against our own reluctance, to be given to hospitality. And I tell you that I have a sneaky suspicion that if we'll not come to this free-willingly, there's a God who is going to use acute shortages to prompt it. I think that we've been living in a criminal way, in our misuse of resources, living, as we have, with affluence and comfort that would have boggled the mind of the richest potentate in times past, heated to such degrees that you are stuffy and uncomfortable in winter months, and cooled to such degrees that you froze and chilled in the summer. We're spoiled, we're soft, we've grown fat, and I praise God for the crippling shortages and the severity of the times that shall soon be upon us. And unlike those clever theologians who feel that somehow, when it really is going to get tough, that somehow we're going to be pertly lifted out, I reject it as nonsense. And everything in my heart and my spirit and the conduct to which God has brought me in establishing conferences on discipleship for believers who are going to be on the front lines and facing guff and opposition contradicts that happy theory that somehow we're going to be lifted out and be spared any real trial and affliction. I believe with all my heart, I don't know to what degree and to what length, but we shall face a great time of severity and trial, and it's going to do wonders for us. People, we need each other. And I'll tell you that among the things that are going to be poured out upon this earth, when men shall be beside themselves with frenzy, when their, what can I say, when their painful necessity to preserve their own lives, when their naked self-interest is touched as it has not been touched in comfortable America since, in our memory, we're going to see masks turned away and teeth bared and ugliness and a kind of conduct that we would not believe possible in the streets of our cities. Men's hearts shall fail them for fear. And we're not only going to see human conduct prompted by want of that kind, but we're going to see satanic and demonic spirits attending the frenzy of men. There's already a pouring out that you cannot believe because God has done such a superb work in this city to shield you and insulate you from some of the fiercer things that are taking place elsewhere. But I tell you that degrees of temptation, so uncanny, so fiendish, are going to be poured out on the civilized world and even penetrate the people of God where their defenses are down, as you will not believe. There simply is not going to be any way that we can stand and survive in our own aloneness except that we cleave to each other. We're going to pass through a necessary crisis of disillusionment and face our lives as they really are, however threadbare, and begin from there before God in honesty and in truth. We're going to learn what it means to confess our sins, our faults one to another, that we might pray one for another, that we might be healed. And I've always been a kind of a naive character. And from the first time that I ever opened the Scriptures, I believed. And I remember that I came across those Scriptures in James, confess your fault one to another, that you might pray one for another, that you might be healed. And I never saw an occasion in my young life as a believer where that was practiced in a church. And maybe some of you have heard me give an account of this, but it's worth repeating. And some of you know the history of my relationship with my son David. I've got three kids. He's the firstborn, and he's the most vexing. I'll tell you what it is about him that bugs me. He's just too much like the old man. The spitting image of art cats before he was saved. Arrogant, hot shot, little egotist, always got to be in the middle of everything and show off his little cleverness. And it just makes me gnash my teeth in irritation. And he just has the most wonderful way to know how to spill the beans at the worst possible moment and make me mad just before I'm going to a service and going to present myself as God's minister. Well, I remember one such occasion. It was time to go to the midweek service, and David pulled one of his boo-boos. I mean, it was a monster. And I just flipped my lid, and I let that kid have it, and I cracked him one. And then I had it out with Inger, who is very defensive about her son. See, I'm the disciplined man, and she's the one who believes in going easy. And this is a source of continual friction and contention. And these are the kinds of things that are going to have to be resolved before God because these are very real issues. Oh, we love to discuss esoteric things. Say, is the temple going to be rebuilt in Jerusalem? I hear the stones are already cut and marked. How we thrill to such rumors as that, speaking about rumors. But when it comes to reconciling our differences with our wives, we're not quite as anxious to tackle that. I've had a studied disinterest in prophecy, and I've been a disappointment to many. What? You're a Jew, and you have no interest in prophecy? Exactly. Because it's a cop-out for far too many of God's people who love to occupy themselves with very distant things, full of excitement, and won't pay attention to the things which are at hand. Well, anyhow, there I went to the service that night, and the last thing I heard from Inge, as the door slammed behind me with a loud thud, go tell them what a great man of God you are. I'll tell you that the eye of God rove to and forth over the face of this earth, and he wasn't satisfied till he found Inge in that little town in Denmark, and said, that's the one for him. Oh, you thought your marriage was an accident not made in heaven? You couldn't be more wrong. You thought something was amiss because it's full of abrasive conditions and temperamental difficulties? Exactly. Isn't the Lord perfect in his wisdom? She is so suited. I may make others cower, and others may give me grand introductions and acknowledgments, but to Inge, who's seen me in my underwear, ah! So I remember driving to that service that night, and my heart was like lead. I was so sick, sick, sick of these repeated episodes over David, how I couldn't control my temper over this kid, how he bugged me. He was my Achilles' heel, and it always eventuated and resulted in an argument with Inge, and I was just driving like a dead man to that church, and I came in late, and the service was already in progress, and they were taking testimonies. You know the way we do? Yes, Sister Jones. Well, I just want to praise the Lord this week. He's such a wonderful Savior to me, and, you know, I don't mean to disparage testimonies, but you know what I'm talking about. There's so much in our life that's anxious, ceremonial, nonsensical. Far better we had stopped our mouths and had a service in complete silence before God than we should go through such motions as that. As a matter of fact, we had a minister come from Argentina to whom God gave a revelation of what the church of God ought to be. He was a very successful pastor, and here's how he acted on his revelation. He called a moratorium on all services for three months. That is that the congregation still continued to meet, but they stopped singing hymns, they stopped going through their unctuous prayers, they stopped hearing pretty sermons, and they waited on the Lord. And I'll tell you, there's nothing more excruciating than silence. He wouldn't allow his congregation to use the word Lord, because every time a speaker came to town and they had to shop around for a place to put them up, people kind of wrinkled up their noses, and they complained that Aunt Susie was in town at the same time, or their kid had a cough, or the plumbing wasn't working, or something like that. They called Jesus Lord, but the fact of the matter was that they were the Lord over their own homes, their own substance, their own cars, their own leisure, their own privacy, their own lives. He forbade them to use the word Lord until Jesus became Lord indeed. There's been an explosion in that church since. There's been a revolution. There are people who will die for each other, who veritably will lay down their lives. There's no such thing as a man believing that his home is his own, or the things which he has are his own. They hold all things in common, and there's such a manifestation of the power of God upon this people, and God is adding to their number daily, such as should be saved. Our life pattern is a bizarre distortion of God's original intention. I can't tell you as a visiting man going from town to town at how many homes I've stayed, and can't even find a place to hang up my suit in the closet. It's so jammed full of goodies in plastic bags. People, there's a new pattern. You've not been this way before, and it's going to require expanded families. It's going to require liberal hospitality. It's going to require not looking upon the things which we have as being our own, and be willing to give men the coats off our back and the money out of our savings account. I'll tell you there's been such a flow of money through me in this past year, I can't believe it, but it's not stopped there. It's just flowed. And a young couple of my acquaintance, a Jewish wife and an Irish husband, spiritual believers, wanted to buy a house. Poor kid struggling, didn't have the money for the closing cost, a thousand dollars. Like nothing. Odd catch, writing out a check for a thousand dollars. Can you believe? Depression baby, who used to pinch pennies and watch carefully to see that not too much toilet paper is taken. I'll tell you that's kid stuff. It's only the beginning of things. And except that there's a flow of substance from God, from whom every good and perfect gift comes through us, we're going to be a source of grief to him and impede the working of God in the end times. I think we're going to see our living patterns radically altered. We're going to be thrust upon each other in ways we could never have anticipated. Many of us may be losing our homes when the economy is going to suffer a great contraction. Maybe there'll be a loss of employment. Maybe we'll have to take whole families into our homes. Maybe we'll have to share with them and feed them and share our clothing and present what we have. I'll tell you that at a recent conference, at the conclusion, we wanted to have a Lord's Supper in my hotel room. It was a hot summer's day and the air conditioning had gone out. And to my, what's the word, consternation, more than the people who were invited came and they came with their little snotty kids. And I was irritated and the air conditioning was out and they were sitting on my bed, on the floor, by the doorway, in the bathroom and it was rather uncomfortably crowded and I thought, well, let's get over with this. But I'll tell you, the Spirit of God began to move and we went on and on in singing the hymns of the church and praying to our God and blessing one another and speaking out of the word and breaking bread and passing the cup that we didn't want the hour to end. And when it was over, you know what I thought to myself? I was irritated at first because of the crowd. It wasn't something that I would have designed. But once it happened, I came not only to enjoy it, but to love it and I was reluctant when it ended. God is going to radically change our living patterns and we've not been that way here too far. So I came to the church and I was sitting in the church taking these testimonies and in my heart I heard a still small voice saying, confess your faults one to another, confess your faults one to another. And I was trying to put that voice down, you know. And finally I found my hand going up and I was getting hot spells and cold spells and my knees were knocking and the pastor saw me. Oh, Brother Katz, the Jewish believer. Oh, he's going to bless us. Yes, Brother Katz. I got up. I went purple, green, red. I said, since I came to the service tonight, I've been hearing one voice over and over repeating, confess your fault one to another, confess your faults one to another. I have to admit that I'm a simple believer and I've never seen this done in any congregation and I don't know when the propitious time is for such obedience. But I just feel that I have to confess a fault right now. Phew! You could have cut the silence with a knife. That poor pastor was dumbstruck and then I went on to tell him the unhappy incident with David and I was really truthful. I told him it wasn't an isolated event. It was a repeated occurrence and it was bugging me to death and I was unable to do anything about it. I said it was conduct unbecoming a father and beyond that it was conduct unbecoming a child of God and beyond that it was conduct unbecoming a servant of God. Would they pray for me? And I sat down. I would have hoped that the floor would have opened and swallowed me. There was such a silence. It's the first time I ever saw the pastor not knowing what to say. And in that silence finally a woman got up on the other side of the congregation and she confessed the fault. And I don't exactly remember what happened after that. We were all kind of borne up by the Spirit but we all found ourselves on our feet praying one for another and it was pure undistilled glory. Oh precious people let's not be speakers of the word only but doers. And there's a God who's calling us in this hour to the nitty gritty application of the word to our lives just where we live it. We've not been that way heretofore and we're going to be loath to pull up the stakes and follow after. But I tell you that the ark of God is being lifted by the priests and by the Levites. Are you seeing it by the eye of the Spirit? And will you be willing to lengthen your cords and follow after? Please don't be among the two and a half tribes who just quite couldn't make it and were lost forever to the purposes of God. And you know what kind of a God we have? When does he tell us to cross? We're supposed to cross at flood stage. In the 15th verse he's reading as they bear the ark they that bear the ark were come unto Jordan and the feet of the priests that bear the ark were dipped in the brim of the water for the Jordan overfloweth with all his banks all the time of the harvest. Say, what is it with this God? Can't he invite us to cross when it's just that little muddy stream which it is just about almost every month out of the year but harvest time? Those of you who have been to Israel have seen the Jordan have been profoundly disappointed. It really is a muddy stream and most times of the year you just roll up your cuffs and you tippy-toe your way through. But there's something about God if you understand his way that always requires the crossing of rivers of separation not when it can be done tippy-toe but when it's a foreboding torrent and we're incapable of crossing in our own strength and will. Therefore, he's got to go before and part the waters and make what is a river of death a pathway unto life if we will follow after. And I believe that the Jordan to which God shall call us in this hour is going to be a river of seeming death in extremity and vexation and wrath that is going to be increasingly build up in a world which is at enmity with God in a period when the mask is going to be off in this age of radical extremity and we're going to see unveiled the ages old enmity of a world that hates God. It's been concealed far too long in this hanky-panky game of the so-called three great faiths but we're going to see men vicious against the children of God because they're no longer just a mild thing of indifference to contemplate who go for potluck suppers and attend services on a Sunday but they stand as what they shall construe to be as obstacles in the path of civilization in an hour when it's struggling for its very existence. Are you understanding what I'm saying? We're coming into an age of extremity and crisis not only for the want of energy but basic commodities for civilization for order that there's going to be turmoil and breakdowns at every hand economic, political, social confusion and strife and every kind of vexation and paradoxically it's going to come at the very time when we need leadership the most and it's not to be found. When our leaders themselves are suspect and there's been a decline a declension in authority to whom then shall we turn? And here are these foolish little people that are going to stand in the midst of this roaring torrent and say Christ is the answer. I'll tell you men shall mash upon us with their teeth and the attitude which now prevails in the Soviet Union shall prevail here. We're going to be looked upon as dangerous enemies of society given to superstition and fanaticism men whose reason has deserted them and who don't realize that this age requires solemn solutions that have to do with economics and politics and IBM computers and talk about calling upon the Lord and seeking His face. It's a river a very fearful river that God is going to ask us to cross. It's the river that was referred to when He said that we shall be hated of all nations for His namesake. And I'll tell you that as a Jew I have a suspicion that a lot of the terror that has to do with this river of death will be brought about by issues pertaining to the Jewish people. In a recent trip I came to a town and a woman told me after meeting Archie said I want to share something with you. I had a nightmare not long ago. I said what was it? She said I dreamt that there was a furious pounding on my door at something like four in the morning. A furious insistent pounding and the sound which she said terrified me. And she said we hurriedly the whole family came down in their nightclothes to see what this disturbance was and we opened the door and men just brushed past us and knocked that door open and they were masked hooded men and they demanded that we get dressed and we leave immediately with them. We couldn't take a single possession and they bundled us and tied us up and threw us in the back of the car and we drove off in the midst of the night. And she said I was paralyzed with fear and I cried out to these men why are you doing this? She cried and the answer was you are among those who love the Jewish people. I believe that one of the phenomena of the end times is going to be a furious spate of anti-Semitism. And we can see the delineations already. The thing is beginning to form crippling energy crisis. Many countries already forbidding people the use of their cars on Sundays. Imagine should it come to River City where we've long habituated ourselves to taking our car out any cotton picking time we want to. This is a free country. And all of a sudden to be told you cannot it's against the law. And having mumbling under our breath and being very churlish and what are we going to say damned Arabs? No. We're going to hear damned Jews. Israel is going to become a bone in the throat of the nations of the world. And I believe that this is going to be one among several factors of irritation in the world emanating from this difficulty in the Middle East. And other factors when there's economic crisis how do people's minds begin to gravitate? How should they look on prosperous Jewish merchants? And there's going to be a Satan who is going to work this to death for all its potential. Where shall you stand in that day who are kindly affectioned toward Israel now? I'll tell you to stand with the Jewish people then is to mock you as a hated person as much as they. And a lot of you are going to cop out. It's okay now to palpitate in a schmaltzy way toward Israel but how will you do it when it's going to cost you? I'll tell you in the Nazi time children betrayed their own parents out of fear for the authorities and didn't so much as bat an eyelash when brown-shirted Hitler youth came and pulled the beards of elderly Jews and broke store windows and painted swastikas on apartment houses and beat up Jewish kids they pulled their shade and looked the other way. Self-preservation. There's a river that God is going to ask us to cross a fearful foreboding river and it's going to be at flood stage because it's harvest time. And if we had time to follow out the scriptures you would find in Jeremiah 12.5 and 49.19 that there's a reference that at the time of the overflowing of the Jordan that the lions are out roaring. There they were in the thickets but when the waters begin to overspill the banks and these lions become restive and they begin to roar it's a fearful thing and many shall be intimidated and turn back from the crossing of this Jordan. Oh, there are so many things that I could speak about what the Jew is going to mean in this end time. We've seen it already with Key 73 and the great outcries from rabbinical sources and not rabbinical sources only but liberal church men upbraiding us who call ourselves Christians and saying do you call this Christian love? Trying to persuade a Jew to become a Christian and forsake his Jewishness. Say haven't they suffered enough in the Holocaust and aren't they struggling to retain their Jewish identity in Russia? Are you too going to deny them their right to be Jews and make Christians out of them? Anti-Semite? Boy, I can see the Adam's apples bobbling all over Christendom as the crescendo of fury and anger rises on the issue of bringing the Gospel to the Jews in the last times. There's a fearful river of crossing to which God is bringing us but I'll tell you that if we'll follow after our Joshua our Yeshua we shall go over as on dry ground. It's interesting the last verse of this third chapter and the priest I bear the ark of the covenant of the Lord stood firm on dry ground in the midst of the Jordan and all the Israelites passed over on dry ground until all the people were passed clean over Jordan. How you doing there priests? Say aren't you just salivating and waiting for your moment when the Lord's going to bring you into ministry? I want to tell you something about being a priest of God. You're the first one into the Jordan and you're the last one out. Oh you think it's an idle thing to stand there with two banks of water threatening at any moment to inundate you and crush the life out of you? Oh it's one thing to read it in the scriptures it's another thing to stand there in the midst and watch these pulsating banks of water threatening any moment to let go and you're waiting while Israel crosses over two and a half million. It's a long wait. You're the first one in and you're the last one out. And there are men sitting in this audience tonight who are among those in Kansas City who were the first ones in. It was a frightening prospect to contemplate a baptism in the Holy Spirit and you suffered all kinds of ridicule and reproach from those of your denomination. Some of you may even have suffered being cast out of your denominations and losing your privilege and your place. You were the first ones in and I'll tell you something else you'll be the last ones out. Just a little afterthought before we leave that third chapter. Lest you should like me one day pray Oh God, I cried out make me as Paul and before the words were out of my mouth I was clutching desperately to shove them back in and swallow hot because the words were no sooner out of my mouth than I remembered what kind of a life Paul lived. How many times was he beaten? Stoned? Shipwrecked? Left for dead? Fasting off? Bearing the burden of the whole church? Shame? Persecution? Reproach? Martyrdom? Oh, I loved the glory of his ministry but I wasn't quite prepared for the price of it. You want to be a priest of God? You'll be the first one in and the last one out. And I'll tell you when we cross the Jordan people I know a lot of us have been waiting to cross the Jordan. Hallelujah! We've been in this wilderness long enough. Praise God! Milk and honey! We've arrived! Yoo-hoo! But say have you heard tell about the enemies that are in the land? The Canaanites? The Hittites? The Perites? The Gegershites? The Amorites and the Jebusites? Ancestral enemies of the people of God? Fierce contenders against things which are holy? Taunters and jeers? Seducers? Tempters? Oh, we thought the struggle was over but I tell you when we'll cross the other side of Jordan it'll be a struggle against those fleshly enemies in such ferocity and intensity as we've never known it. And the first thing that stands in the way is this imposing city Jericho. Why, man, the ramparts are thirty-five feet thick and these galutes stand they look to be like twelve feet tall with armor and breastplate and helmets and what are we but a skinny bunch of runts weaned in the wilderness and we're going to take that city walking seven times around with a shout? Talk about absolute foolishness and absurdity but I tell you that there's something that awaits us before we take the cities that stand in the way in the possessing of the land for God and it's called circumcision and praise God you've got an authority before you because it says in the fifth chapter of Joshua at the second verse at that time the Lord said unto Joshua make these sharp knives and circumcise again the children of Israel the second time and Joshua made him sharp knives and circumcised the children of Israel at the hill of the Forskins and then he goes on to explain why that they were never circumcised in the wilderness and in the seventh verse they were uncircumcised because they had not circumcised them by the way and it came to pass that when they had done circumcising all the people that they abode in their places in the camp till they were whole and the Lord said unto Joshua this day have I rolled away the reproach of Egypt from off you I want to say a little word about circumcision maybe some of you have heard me speak on this subject before but I'll tell you that as a Jewish man I never gave two thoughts about it why it's so customary an aspect of our life that you don't have to contemplate it isn't that characteristic also of so much that pertains to our spiritual life we don't have to contemplate it it becomes almost habitual we can recite it standing sideways we can go through services and give assent to catechisms and doctrines without batting an eyelash but I tell you this is a season when God is calling us to examine the root the foundations of our faith and to look again at the things which have been customary and glib well God gave me such an occasion with circumcision because David was born in Denmark and however progressive a country that is they don't practice circumcision isn't that strange the whole world has adopted it as a universal hygienic practice and here's this progressive country and they don't do it so I had to make a special request to have my son circumcised and I did it and I went and I told Ingrid I said sweetie I've seen a doctor and David's going to be circumcised tomorrow and she said what's that? you know there's something about Gentiles that just constitutionally doesn't quite dig on circumcision you remember Moses' wife Zipporah who flung the foreskins at his feet and said oh thou bloody husband she was offended in her Gentile soul because there's something about the nature of cutting and the shedding of blood which is offensive to the carnal nature and Ingrid said what's that? and I said oh it's nothing sweetie they just go you know just a little cut and and that's it she said cut? I said you know the foreskin and I tried to explain and I watched Ingrid's face change talk about a stricken woman she went absolutely pale and her eyes became wider sources and she looked at me as if she had married a Dracula had she known the scripture she would have cried oh thou bloody husband you want to know something? David has never been circumcised because the tears rolled down her cheeks and bounced off the floor and I simply didn't have the heart to do it but I'll tell you as a result of that episode I began to wonder why it is that she reacted so severely what is it that moved to the tears like that and smote her soul well the strange thing was that we finally came to America and my mother had the great pleasure the nachis the satisfaction of seeing her grandson she never thought anything good could come out of me and so I remember one day my mother was changing David's diaper the first time when she opened the diaper and she looked down oh and I saw the same stricken face the same eyes as large as a saucer the same horrified expression but for exactly the opposite reason for her it was absolutely natural and necessary unthinking for a child not to be circumcised and I began to look at the reactions of the two women and pondered the question of circumcision in my soul and I recognized instinctively flesh shrinks against cutting and yet God has ordained it a lot of you are wondering say Art what happened to you after you left Kansas City we saw you off and you were born up on angels wings and we heard some reports from New York and then all of a sudden we found out that you left New York and you left this organization and you went to Denmark and what were you doing there and then after some months there you went to Israel and what happened there I'll tell you what happened people I was having my flesh cut away and I just have to impose a discreet silence and I can't tell you the painful ways that God made a sharp knife and cut away at my flesh this morning I shared with the fellows that one of the last messages I had given at a full gospel convention had such a fantastic response that there were two lines of people waiting to greet me when I got off the platform one waiting to throw the arms around my neck that they had passed from death to the life and hearing and responding to it and the others ready to string me up and flay their flesh from my bones foreshowing confusion in the body of Christ what a torment and the accusations and I was such an innocent I didn't realize that my words were that well attended and the special delivery letters that I got with the accusations and the photostatted scriptures to show me my error and the harassing long distant phone calls by a Jewish brother on Jewish holy days to show me how I had sinned against God and God was absolutely silent cutting cutting cutting always a great thing to be a young Jewish believer and give my testimony and bring blessing but the Lord made me to understand I had passed a certain line and it was not just the blessing of testimony but the word of God being proclaimed and there was a heavy responsibility to be his messenger it costs and many other things can I tell you of what it means to live in a country like Denmark where you can't speak the language and have the mortifying experience sitting like a lump of lead like a dummy and hearing the conversation flow over you and there's no way for you to participate in your wife's family who are all unsaved or having to speak to a translator and not being able to really express your burden through him the frustration of the word being choked up and impeded in your heart and in your spirit many such mortifications and what shall I say about what God did in my marriage and in my relationships with my wife and with my kids the cuttings the painful surgery the things that were excruciating but needful I gotta give it to you straight if you're going to loose your stakes and follow after the priest to abandon the ark the first thing that shall await you when you shall cross through that river of death which itself is a fearful proposition is the cutting away of flesh with a sharp knife that you might be made whole and find your place in the camp there's not a soul in this room that is not marked for God for a concrete and specific place in his body that you'll never come to it until you first submit yourself to a separation from the wilderness and to a necessary cutting of flesh that you might be made whole and find your place in the camp and march with the army of God to take the Jerichos that stand in our path I'll tell you what happened just a month or two ago at a meeting like this when it was over a man came to me heaving a sigh of relief he said Artie said this morning I cried out to God he said Lord how long I said what are you saying brother he said you can't believe my torment I've been suffering for two years I said how so he said I'm an engineer and in the area of my own competence I don't understand what's happening I've become like an idiot like an encompassment I can't perform the most simple and elementary tasks I've been demoted and cruelly humiliated before my colleagues and doing the kind of work that a high school dropout could do I said how long have you been suffering this he said it's been about two years now ever since I got up at that full gospel convention at your message and rose to your invitation and the moment he said that the spirit of God came upon me and the Lord said tell the man tell the brother I saw him when he rose and all that he's been experiencing these two years has been a response to his commitment the poor man thought that the Lord had forsaken him he didn't realize that this was the most exquisite expression of God's love in paring away the flesh that he might be brought to a place that he should have no confidence in the flesh and trust only in him I could have told him out of my own experience wasn't I a hot shot high school teacher didn't I have the kids eating out of my hand as an atheist wasn't I one of the most popular men on faculty what a mouthpiece I had and what a winsome personality until I got saved then I came back from Jerusalem and resumed my teaching profession and it was the strangest thing in the areas of my greatest strength and competence I was tongue tied where before I used to be articulate all of a sudden I was gasping and choking and sputtering I couldn't put two words together I used to have a winsome personality before now I turn the kids off like nobody's business I was icky in the areas where I used to shine all of a sudden I'd grown dull and it was nothing but torment and God wasn't quick to alleviate my pain but some months later he brought a servant who understands the way of God and I just poured my heart I said I don't know what's the matter I received the Lord and he's forsaken me he said what's the matter and I told him just like this engineer he said ah don't you understand that in the area of your own competence and self-assurance God has had to strip you people if you're impressed in any way with what you're hearing tonight and attribute it to me or any talent or skill that I have you could not be more wrong I tell you that at any given moment should God lift this anointing I'll be the most tongue-tied fool that you ever heard you'll writhe in your seat with discomfort and irritation and look at your watch waiting to get out of this mess for me to live is Christ I am crucified with Christ Christ cut in the areas of my own competence and self-assurance painfully cut nevertheless I live yet not I but Christ liveth in me know what a man said to me the other day eating dinner at his home the general manager of a Christian television network he said Art when you talk about the end times and all of these severe things that are going to come upon us he says how shall we survive I always said now I know what you're going to tell me spiritually but practically speaking Art how are we going to survive I said brother thank you for that question thank you for confirming what I've all along suspected you are so representative of the whole body of Christ we have hypothetical spiritual solutions and we're quick to quote watchman me and talk about the cross and about submission but it's all theoretical it's all verbal and phraseological but not actual and when it comes to the actual solution the spiritual substance of our lives we're not one width different from those in the world but I'll tell you here's what I said to the brother and I say to you God is bringing us to such an age of extremity that except the spiritual solution be our real solution we shall perish it's not going to be enough to cluck our tongues wistfully in the reading of the accounts of Elijah of how he was fed by ravens we ourselves shall be so led by such a spirit and be fed supernaturally or we shall perish and the learning to walk by the spirit and to discern the voice of God begins not in crisis it begins now just in the same way that I had to come up tonight believing that what I jotted on this page at six o'clock this morning needs to be spoken and ready to suffer embarrassment and mortification and death of disappointment to many in this room who are kind toward me and love me and respect me and think that I'm some kind of spokesman ready to that they might if need be suffer a crisis of disillusionment I took my frail life in my hands and believed God and am speaking it so too shall you someone said something tonight about introducing a layman introducing the clergy well this is not clergy speaking people this is layman speaking this is just old art this is just the high school dropout the Brooklyn boy made good this is just the guy who's been following after the same God you're following after and try to complain Lord I'm not qualified and I've not been to a school of theology or a Bible school and I don't know how I can stand and talk to my Jewish people and to rabbis and to contend against them but God said come and so says he unto you there's an ark being lifted by the priests of God and you've not been that way heretofore and when you follow the first thing shall await you when you cross over on the other side is a fearful cutting away of the flesh I believe that the cutting away of the flesh people in a word is going to mean intense personal dealings of God and I've already alluded to some of these dealings that pertain to our marriages and I want to tell you this take a deep breath because if your marriage is built upon the rock of happy accidental temperamental compatibility you've had it sorry the Lord is not going to allow that house to stand neither can it stand in an age of great distress and extremity oh you've been getting a little groovy up till now but what have you had to suffer? start suffering some crippling things and that sweet little docile wife that you thought was so submitted is going to snarl like a tiger when her security is jeopardized and you never suspected what you had on your hands she was so sweet so long as she had full sway to buy this and to go there and her lifestyle was not one width impeded and what shall we say of you fellows who could put your feet up on the hassic and watch the football game on Sunday in color and have all this in heaven too when you're going to start getting pinched I tell you that's going to be a revelation there are great winds that are going to blow with increasing ferocity and God is not going to allow us to survive because of happy accidents there's only one rock upon which the house of our marriages and our life can be founded and that rock is Christ Jesus I went to God that this were not on film and I pray that no one's going to call Inger right here about the personal confessions that I'm making but a lot of you remember Inger to every outward what a sweet girl how quiet and meek and submitted to her kind of uproarious husband and when you read the book Ben Israel you know just willing to follow me to the ends of the earth etc. etc. where did you read the sequel? I'll tell you something has happened in the course of recent years and we're beginning to recognize that that wasn't really the true Inger and there's a lot of things that were in me that were not the true art either there's a God who's pulling back the veil and a lot of what can I say ugly may be too strong a word a lot of real but unhappy things are being evidenced but there's a God who's dealing with them and every dealing is painful I wrote to God that the process could be avoided I wrote to God that we could wave a magic wand over our marriage and live happily ever after and somehow all of these deep differences and things going back to childhood and all these complex strands that make up our psyche and emotions in life somehow could be glossed over but they can't there's a God who's bringing us to an hour of intense personal dealings and I want you to know that that's one way to interpret the circumcision which we shall have to face and I'll tell you another maybe I'm a frontiersman and I tell you this with a certain sense of embarrassment and shame there's a God who's calling us to holiness isn't it interesting that as the world shall grow more dark our lights shall be required to shine all the more brightly where is it in Isaiah where it says a thick gloom and a darkness shall cover the earth but arise and let your light shine and I'll tell you there's been already great penetration of the spirit of the world in the body of Christ great areas of compromise of concession of deceit and it shows in our appearance in our styles in our speech I remember at a recent meeting like this I came to a point in my message where we had needed to cry out to God for revival and just when I came to the word revival my eye inadvertently fell on a young girl sitting in the front row whose legs were crossed she wasn't just wearing a mini skirt it was a micro skirt right up to the crotch and somehow my words just kind of gagged right in my throat and I just felt like closing my Bible and walking off the platform talking to God and crying out for revival with our dresses up to our crotch and I'll tell you that's only a symbolic expression of conditions that apply to both sexes in the body of Christ there's a God who's going to call us to a high standard of personal holiness in the end times and those things to which we've become habituated that have to do with concession compromise deceit personal gratification areas that are private intimate that we've sort of glossed over and thought that the sanction of marriage covered God is going to put his finger upon and cut away do I have to become more explicit? I'll tell you something that if wherever we're vulnerable and susceptible to lust wherever we palpitate for the gratification of our own flesh we're going to experience such intense pressures from the enemy as you will not believe I'll tell you I think basically speaking I'm as healthy and as masculine as just about any man who walks but God has given me occasion to see in recent weeks and months that except for the grace of God I could be almost instantly plunged into such a character of sin of the most low kind so uncanny and intense are the satanic pressures that are coming against the priests of God who are the first ones in and the last ones out I speak to you as a frontiersman to those who are being beckoned tonight to pull up your stakes and follow after if you're vulnerable and your flesh is exposed Satan is going to mercilessly attack it and therefore God has got to cut away all flesh there's going to be a personal holiness in small things because the reproach of Egypt has got to be rolled away off of God's people well it's interesting as we come to the conclusion and there's so much and I'm just trusting that the Lord knows what he's doing and speaking those things that he wants and leaving other things out we've talked about faith a great deal and I tell you we've made cheap goods out of it in the same way that we've demeaned and deprecated other aspects of the walk with God we hardly know what it means anymore like a titillation we think it's got to do with a sensation or a feeling faith, faith, faith we talk liberally and nonsensically but I tell you in the end times and the taking of the land faith is going to be a very real thing it's going to be so real a thing as walking every day around the Jerichos that stand in our path in burning sun in heat in thirst trudging wearily around this Jericho and then only to repeat it the next day and every day what do we treat it to? men jeering at us from the ramparts you think you're going to take this city by faith foolish man who ever heard of walls falling by walking and then you know they go on like that you're going to get disillusioned you're going to get sick in your spirit in your soul you're going to get exhausted and tired you're going to be tempted to throw the whole thing over but God is calling us to that perfect number seven times around and seven times on that last day and the priests of God when they blow that trump there's going to be one shout and I'll tell you it had better be a shout or instead of the walls falling down those fierce monsters are going to come down and crush the very life out of us we had better be in one spirit and one accord in that day and whatever there is that divides us now which we've glossed over which we've tolerate and which we avoid God is not going to allow we're going to find ourselves bedfellows with those who roll in sawdust and we never could have had fellowship with them before they're extremists and emotional or those of us who look down our noses as Pentecostals as those that come out of the denominations and they're too staid and circumspect or whatever our objection was or we didn't care for Jewish believers they seemed to be too arrogant and heady and high-minded or we couldn't quite make it with black people and we thought it may be a good idea if they had their congregations we have ours in that day people the shout that shall go up in the body of Christ has got to be one shout seven times around and when the trumpet blows there's going to be a shout and the wall shall come down and it's interesting that it says in that sixth chapter the twentieth verse so the people shouted when the priest blew with the trumpets and it came to pass when the people heard the sound of the trumpet and the people shouted with a great shout that the wall fell down flat so that the people went up into the city every man straight before him and they took the city every man straight before him you know I have a sneaky suspicion and intuition that when that wall of spiritual difficulty falls in that last day in that great shout and every man goes in straight before him he's going to take the city in that place that was the sorest vexation of his spiritual life difficulty in your marriage a difficulty in your relationship a habit a problem whatever it is when the wall falls will go straight into that area that has long stood in the way and will take the city and I'll tell you when we'll take it God's judgment is merciless and they utterly destroyed all that was in the city both men and women young and old and ox and sheep and ass with the edge of the sword all you say oh it's a typographical error our God cannot be that cruel I tell you that God's judgment is upon all flesh and they that live in the flesh cannot please God the judgment is complete and the Jericho's must be destroyed in the way and then we go on to the next and the next until we've taken the land you say ah man you've exhausted me tonight I came encouraged and looking for blessing and man I'm just worn out contemplating what lies ahead and therefore I want you to turn with me in conclusion to that precious book keep your hand in Joshua go back for a moment but Hebrews the twelfth chapter isn't that the chapter that precedes it is so glorious all the great heroes of faith who sweated who bled who sacrificed who died in the building of the kingdom of God choosing to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the pleasure of sin for a season esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt for they had respect unto the recompense of the reward by faith Moses and those like him forsook Egypt and all that Egypt connotes not fearing the wrath of the king just like Elijah who stood without trembling before Ahab for they endured as seeing him who is invisible twelfth chapter of Hebrews wherefore seeing we also are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses do you realize it? this very night invisible to our sight this sanctuary is compassed about by a great cloud of witnesses Abraham Isaac Jacob Paul Peter John every unnamed saint of God who has sweated bled suffered died to build the kingdom of God are looking upon us that generation that shall complete the race that was set before us that generation that at long last is called to leave the wilderness of denominational nonsense and Christian play acting and full gospel entertainment and all the rest of that jazz and take the land for Christ's sake and before there's the enjoyment of the milk and honey there are going to be some fierce battles fought in the possessing of the land and the whole object was not as we thought to gratify us but that in the taking of the land there's a certain mount called Zion and on that mount God is going to build a temple and this temple the stones are already cut high stones you're being chipped and shaped even now and when the land is possessed and Mount Zion is available the Lord is going to put it all together a sanctuary in which the Shekinah glory shall dwell made up of Jews and Gentiles and black and white and fat and skinny and people of every nation and tongue and clime and the law shall go forth again out of Zion praise God an end at last to anarchy and chaos and filth and nation against nation and greed and poverty and disease and every kind of crippling contamination that has rendered this earth full of blood the law shall go forth out of Zion a light the Shekinah glory of God shall break forth from the holy of holies when the land is possessed we're circled about tonight with a great cloud of witnesses so let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience the race that is set before us looking unto Jesus the author and finisher of our faith who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God for consider him and I just want to say in conclusion tonight as I ask you to turn to the to Joshua the fifth chapter consider him people I don't know whether it's because I'm an Aaronite or a Levite or I'm a Katz a Cohen-Sodik a righteous priest is what that means in Hebrew but I've had a regard from the moment that I was saved for the sanctuary of God for the holiness of God I always grimaced and winced at the easy kind of language that Christians use about Jesus as if they're talking about their buddy he's the holy one of Israel and I think one of the greatest priorities for us as believers in this end time that will enable us to endure is to see him who is invisible and I'm sick to the teeth of that spate of portraits of what they call the masculine Christ or the effeminate Christ or the Christ with wispy blonde hair much imitated now in our generation long strands very appealing and all the other kinds of affectations that have to do with a visible Christ that misses the mark by a million miles worn on T-shirts jewelry calendars I want to see him who is invisible that I might endure and run with patience and with joy the race that is set before me some of us envy those who have unusual spiritual experiences with God unusual visitations and revelation but don't envy the person who is so blessed of God because to whom much is given much is required I think it's quite interesting and not at all coincidental and I say this in conclusion finally in the 13th verse of the 5th chapter of Joshua that it came to pass when Joshua was by Jericho just beginning this arduous difficult demanding grueling course that he lifted up his eyes and looked that's our priority tonight and behold there stood a man over against him with his sword drawn in his hand and Joshua went unto him and said art thou for us or for our adversaries and he said nay but as captain of the host of the Lord am I now come and Joshua fell on his face to the earth and did worship and said unto him what sayeth my Lord unto his servant and the captain of the Lord's host said unto Joshua loose thy shoe from off thy foot for the place whereon thou standest is holy and Joshua did so he saw the captain of the host with his sword drawn he was able to endure seeing him who is invisible may God tonight purge our minds our hearts and our imagination from every counterfeit and lesser image of our great Joshua our Yeshua may we see him in his beauty in his purity in his holiness who is invisible with his sword drawn not that Caspar Milk Toast Jesus but that one who's coming not as the Lamb of God but the Lion of Judah with a sharp two-edged sword of his mouth to bring a soon coming judgment may we see him with his sword drawn and follow after our Yeshua our Joshua through the river of death and separation through circumcision and the cutting of the sharp knives through the taking of Jericho and the taking of the land that God's temple might be established on his holy hill and the Shekinah glory of God might dwell with men again precious children of God you are not called here tonight to hear an entertainment I tremble in this hour to give invitations I've always thought much on this but all the more now when I see men coming to me who have been trembling for two years who have received sharp personal beelings at the hand of God because they rose to my invitation I'm going to give you an invitation tonight and you might regret that I ever came to Kansas City because I assure you with all that's in my heart that if you shall stand as a token and symbolic expression to God that you want to be among that number pulling up their stakes and lengthening their cords because you've seen the ark of God lifted and you want to follow after prepared to suffer what cutting you must what arduous struggles you must that there's a God who shall hear you and receive you into the army of Israel there may be those who have no stomach for such a course the tribes of Gad Manasseh and Reuben who so concerned with the grazing of their livestock concerned with flesh do not have a disposition to cross over will you bow your heads with me now precious holy Jesus captain of the host great Joshua and Yeshua Lord tonight I believe that by the eye of the spirit we've seen the ark of God being raised by the Levites and the priests and we've seen even something more we've seen our own Yeshua in a new posture we wondered who he was at first because he comes to us unfamiliarly with a sword drawn prepared for the taking of the land and mighty God in the name of Jesus I invite your people in your hearing and by your spirit to as many as will commit themselves to be part of the army in the end times that shall suffer reproach persecution calamity stress trials tribulations called to run a course able to endure only if they shall see you who is invisible to stand in commitment right now before you to be enrolled in that army don't stand idly take a thought I assure you the knife shall come upon flesh there shall be cuttings there shall be intense personal dealings of God it's going to be a trembling proposition to loose those stakes in an area that's already grown far too groovy and too familiar and you're going to hear jaunts and tears and jeers not just from the Canaanites but those that call themselves also by his name shrieks and cries of fanatic and mad men what's the matter wasn't being a Christian enough for you you're going to cross through a Jordan of separation a baptism of death and in the Holy Spirit and before you've long recovered from that trial there's a knife that shall cruelly cut away that necessary flesh but praise God you shall be enrolled in that army made one in one voice that shall take the Jericho's of opposition by faith with a shout not those synthetic loving amens and hallelujahs that are prompted from us but the shout of men and women redeemed in mind body soul and spirit holy and truly by a living God because they were willing to take off the mask they were willing to extend hospitality they were willing not to count the things which they had as being their own but as common with all men they were willing to follow Joshua our great Yeshua in suffering and reproach that his Shekinah glory again shall visit a very sick earth precious God in the name of Jesus I ask you most solemnly to seal every Israelite who has stood to his feet this night to seal in heaven for time and for eternity these brave soldiers and Lord I know that I don't have to ask you to go easy I don't have to ask you to be careful in the wielding of that knife for I know Lord that you do not cut cruelly nor capriciously but only where it's necessary to roll off from us