These days, I'm very fond of calling upon
him as the Alpha and the Omega.
He gave us the beginning of these days,
and he'll give us the conclusion.
And unless he shows me otherwise right now,
I think that he'll be happy for me
to give another text to bring a fuller
clarity to what was brought last night and
to show you that this theme is not
suspended on some frail one or two references
in the prophetic word, but that there is,
if you'll excuse the language, a plethora, a
plentitude of prophetic scriptures that support the view
of Israel's last days dealings through the nations,
employing the Church as God's agent of deliverance
and salvation in the mystery of God.
And the purpose, as I said last night,
is not only Israel's sifting, but our own.
It's not only Israel's restoration, but the Church's
transfiguration, for these are the last historical episodes
in time that fit us for our millennial
and eternal destiny, which has been absent from
our consciousness.
We have not thought in these terms.
We have not seen our faith in the
context of a millennial or eternal conclusion, and
therefore we have not seen.
The Church is substandard.
It is living beneath the intention of God
and his glory.
And I think that if we had the
ability to see as God sees, we would
see how much of what we have lost
has been lost to us because of the
exclusion or the omission of the centrality of
Israel itself.
There has been a strain or a component
in the history of the Church that itself
has been anti-Semitic, that has rejected this
kind of emphasis because it is calculated by
God to flush out our ethnic and racial
pride.
We don't begin to understand the depths of
what is in the human heart and even
in the heart of the Church until we
have to wrestle with and come to peace
with what God has chosen.
It is called, a phrase that I employ,
the scandal of specificity or the scandal of
particularity that God has chosen what he has
chosen.
It's not what men would have chosen.
Men would not have chosen a hill in
Jerusalem to be the locus of God's theocratic
rule over his entire creation.
They would have sought something far more prestigious.
Geneva, New York City, something of that kind,
appropriate to the dignity of the kingdom.
But they have not understood the nature of
the kingdom or the nature of the king
who comes lowly and meek in his triumphal
entry as prefiguring himself as king in that
city on the back of an ass, not
even a mature ass, but the cult of
an ass, the baby, young and unformed upon
which never man sat.
That the king's triumphal entry is a picture
of weakness and foolishness because it is the
wisdom of God that confounds the wisdom of
the powers of the air.
That's why the king had to come as
an infant, in a stable, in complete dependency
upon those to whom that infant was entrusted.
Talk about faith.
So, let me pray and let's look at
Isaiah chapter 35, composed 700 years before the
advent of Christ and yet pointing to a
conclusive or concluding event almost 3,000 years
from the time of its composing.
There's something even about the issue of Israel
that brings a coherence to all scripture.
I can't tell you what happened to me.
That when the Lord began to open my
understanding and lift the veil of my understanding
about the mystery of Israel and the church,
it was not only for me a revelation
about Israel, it was a revelation about everything.
It brought the entire faith into a focus
that I had not enjoyed before.
I had independent and separate components, the church,
the spirit, the word, various very precious things
that God had given, but when God inserted
the hermeneutical key, the key of interpretation, click,
click, click, click, everything began to fall into
place into a comprehension of the faith in
its total, organic, apostolic, and prophetic unity.
Then the baptism of the Holy Spirit and
the gifts of the Spirit were not some
kind of adjunct, a little kind of something
tacked on in a charismatic Pentecostal way to
our evangelical faith which we could take or
leave.
It was central to the whole fulfillment of
this mystery because it cannot be fulfilled from
mere evangelical well-meaning intention, the subject of
the resurrection in which I had always delighted,
and the Christ life now made an immense
sense that unless the church itself was a
resurrection phenomenon and were the sons and daughters
of the resurrection, there's no fulfillment for Israel.
Israel is not going to be delivered out
of its last day's extremity by evangelical well
-meaning intentions, but only by the life of
God himself expressed through a church for whom
his life is their life, and they do
not know any other.
That means that that church must bring to
death any other dependency upon which it has
trusted till now, namely its own cleverness, its
own ability, its own religious expertise, and all
of these kinds of things for which no
one has faulted us because we have done
it so impressively, and it works, and by
that we can conduct services and bless people
and continue to function in church and missions
and all these things, but the issue is
not success.
The issue is not efficacy or getting things
done or blessing saints.
What would you say the issue is after
all of these days of speaking?
Unto him be glory in the church, not
success.
Unto him be glory.
This isn't some esoteric word, some phantasmal thing
that has no distinct meaning.
It's not just a little evocative phrase that
we don't know what it means.
It's like a wisp that goes through our
fingers.
The glory of God is a very substantial
thing.
When men saw it in Old Testament times,
they went down on their faces when it
filled the house of God, and the priests
came out, for they could not minister, for
the glory of God had filled the house
of the Lord.
And Israel, looking upon this sight, this visible
glory of God, cried out, the Lord, he
is God.
They went down on their faces.
Unto him be glory in the church, for
if he will not have it in the
church, he will not have it.
Only the church.
So, Lord, bring a word now, as it
pleases you, to fill out our understanding, this
dotting of the I's and the crossing of
the T's, that explanation, that further thing that
brings us through, where we don't just nod
our head in begrudging acknowledgement, yes, I suppose
this is true and we have to live
with it, but that something is raised up
out of our deepest being that says, yea
and amen.
Hosanna to the King.
We rejoice for your way.
We rejoice for your wisdom.
It's painful in its fulfillment, but glorious in
its conclusion.
We agree with you, Lord, and we give
ourselves to your way, and we thank you
for the privilege of our participation.
So, Lord, bless us in that way, and
bring that concluding word that is in your
heart, not as some makeshift last moments thought
on your part, but what you had always
desired to conclude these days, seeing that we
are walking out works that were established before
the foundation of the earth was laid.
And spoil these saints.
Give them such a taste of these realities,
my God, that they will be ruined for
anything less or anything other than the continuation
of this kind of apostolic and prophetic verity.
That this is the faith, they've tasted of
it, and they will never again be satisfied
with any kind of religious, human hype and
play on personality or the kinds of things
that have constituted our religious life till now.
We're ruined.
We've tasted real stuff, and it's normative, and
you intend that we should live by such
words.
And we ask and desire that we might
continue to hear them and contemplate them and
grow by them and become the people of
God of the last days who shall stand.
Bless the ministers in this room, my God,
and spoil them.
That they should not look up in some
admiration as if these are the men of
faith and power, and I'm just your ordinary
saint and minister.
That there's nothing that they've seen or heard
expressed by us that is not available to
them.
We who ourselves are the least of all
saints, but that this is the life of
God waiting for entry and for expression to
those who will yield.
We thank you, Lord, for the preciousness of
such a faith and such a call and
the grace to fulfill it in the life
of him who is raised from the dead.
In Jesus' name, amen.
Isaiah 35, the wilderness.
King James Version, the first words, the wilderness.
And before I read any further, what is
there about wilderness that is so esteemed in
God's sight?
I will meet with you in the wilderness
of the nations.
I will sift you through the wilderness of
the nations.
What is there about the nature of wilderness?
Think on that.
Wilderness is God's creation stripped of any kind
of accretion or development or product of man.
No buildings, nothing that speaks of man's prestige
or ability.
It's raw, nature itself in its most primal
form.
And when a man is thrust into that,
he himself is stripped and has to face
the ultimate questions of his own existence.
On the ship coming here, Jim and I
have both been seamen.
I was a high school dropout and wanted
to see the world and have adventure and
learn what this world is about.
And when I was on the high seas
as a 16-year-old kid stretched out
on the bow plate of this little freighter
bobbing like a cork in these tumultuous seas
with the stars overhead, I had a view
of life and reality for the first time
that I never had in Brooklyn, New York.
New York cluttered the landscape with buildings and
skyscrapers and signs that blink on and off
that stand between man and God who is
the creator.
But when you are out in the breadth
of his creation with nothing to relieve it
that man has made and it's you and
creation and the God who made it, you
see things and begin to understand things and
ask things that would never have occurred to
you in the world that is filled with
its distractions.
I'm saying something I have never before said
anywhere in 60, almost 7 years.
I have never raised the question of wilderness
because wilderness is significant, especially for Jews because
what are Jews but the architects and the
purveyors of modernity?
We are the modern world.
We have made it.
You take away three significant Jews of the
20th century and you will not be able
to recognize modern times.
Can you name them?
Karl Marx, who?
Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud.
You take those three German-speaking Jews out
of existence and you would not recognize the
world today for what it is.
And to that we can add Sigmund Freud
that has affected multitudes in their view of
man and how to raise children and complexes
and sex and all these kinds of things.
And the whole field of psychoanalysis, psychology, I
mean take that out from the consideration of
modern man and you don't have modern man.
You don't have films, you don't have novels,
you don't have literature.
You don't have the kinds of things that
have shaped the thinking and perspective and actual
substantial life of the majority of mankind.
That's why we Jews need to be stripped.
We are the purveyors of illusion.
We are the Steven Spielbergs.
We gave you E.T. I don't know
if you've seen that.
I haven't seen it and I won't see
it.
But I have a sense of what that
junk is.
We own Disney Studios.
We make all of this myth, this fanciful
life, this phantasmal life of entertainment.
Mickey Mouse and all of the other things
and dinosaurs have come out of our imagination.
Metron Goldwyn Mayer was a Jewish company.
Warner Brothers, all of these studios, Time Warner
Corporation has as its CEO a man by
the name of Levin, I believe.
We are in the most prominent places of
the amusement and entertainment industries that have more
effect on the minds and imaginations of millions
than the church.
And God is fitting us for our eternal
destiny as a nation of priests and a
light unto the world.
What is it going to take?
It's going to take this.
Uprooting a loss of everything to which we
have given our lives, our possessions, our wealth,
our fame, our prestige.
We'll have nothing on our backs but the
shirt on them.
That's why we will be hungry, thirsty, naked,
and in the wilderness stripped before God who
made us.
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be
glad for them.
And the desert shall rejoice and blossom as
the rose.
It shall blossom abundantly and rejoice even with
joy and singing.
Isn't that remarkable?
Nature, dumb, inanimate nature is going to rejoice
for them when they are thrust into that
solitary place because they know that something is
now coming to its conclusion through Israel's restoration
for which even the trees will clap their
hands and the hills will skip as lambs.
Because even creation now groans and travails waiting
for the manifestation of the sons of God.
What an indictment against the church that dumb
and inanimate nature is more responsive and more
expectant for the eschatological conclusion of the age
through Israel's restoration than the church.
It rejoices for them when they shall be
thrust into the solitary and desert place.
The wilderness and the solitary place shall be
glad for them.
But how shall they survive in it except
there be a supernatural provision where the water
breaks forth out of the dry ground and
pools of water flood the ground because we
secular and rational Jews have no understanding or
sympathy for the supernatural.
Oh, I'm telling you guys things, wow.
I had a debate.
Tell me if I go on too long.
I had a debate when I was a
missionary to the Jews in New York City
with a teacher at a Jewish high school.
The kids wanted to meet one of these
Jews for Jesus freaks.
And so they called up and I went
down and I shared with these kids my
faith and then I got into an open
debate with their teacher and he was the
prototypical Jew right out of central casting from
Hollywood.
Van Dyck beard, a yarmulke on his head,
orthodox.
He was the epitome.
I'll tell you if there was no God
this is the model of what mankind should
aspire to attain.
But if there is a God however impressive
he is externally this is grotesque.
And so we got into a debate and
the bell rang, the class left and we
were still out in the hallway talking and
all of a sudden my eyes began to
squint at him and I began to realize
however orthodox this man is in his practices
he is not orthodox in his belief.
And I said, excuse me, I said do
you believe that God parted the Red Sea
that Israel could go over as on dry
ground?
Silence.
Well, what he finally choked out was that
what he really believed was it was a
confluence of the tides.
You know what I realized?
That there's something about the supernatural that is
terribly offensive to man.
Not only unbelieving man but even believing man.
Isn't that true?
That for the church there's always some dimension
in God that we're fearful of or suspicious
of or afraid of that is a further
bringing of us in to the supernaturalness of
God.
How much more the secular, rational Jew?
When we talk about Jews here's what we
need to understand we are not just speaking
about an ethnic people we are speaking about
man quintessential man as man is in his
mind in his hostility and separation from God.
That's why God's dealings with Israel is so
severe because Israel stands for man and stands
for the whole of mankind that God's dealing
with them is God's statement for all men
everywhere.
They are the epitome they sum up all
that is in man that is rebellious and
opposed to man and their God who is
supernatural so that even when they are orthodox
they are orthodox in their practice you try
and get them to so much as move
an iota away from how their table should
be set and how their cup of wine
and their practices and their holidays and celebrations
but when it comes to orthodoxy in conviction
in belief it's another question.
So the wilderness and the solitary place shall
be glad for them the desert shall rejoice
and blossom as the rose it shall blossom
abundantly and rejoice even with joy and singing
the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto
it the excellency of Carmel and Sharon now
it doesn't mean that this is Lebanon or
that this is Carmel but the excellency of
those places will be given to it whether
it's in Mexico or northern Minnesota or the
Philippines God will give the excellency of that
to those places and they shall see the
glory of the Lord and the excellency of
our God God is going to reveal himself
to his ancient modern people supernaturally or they
will perish now we come to a very
interesting part in this text there's a shift
in the text and all of a sudden
it's not Israel that is being spoken about
or spoken to but another people who are
not designated or revealed and here is God
speaking to them almost as a command of
instruction and saying to them strengthen ye the
weak hands and confirm the feeble knees say
to them that are of a fearful heart
be strong, fear not behold your God will
come with vengeance even God with a recompense
he will come and save you you see
how we're required to be real Bible students
real exegetes really searching, probing and examining the
text what is God saying?
who is he addressing?
telling them that you shall say to them
who is the one who says and who
is the them who hears?
well my own prophetic interpretation is this we
are the ones being addressed you say to
them who are weak and whose hands are
limp and whose knees are sagging whose hope
is fading who have been crunched by the
sudden uprooting and being thrust to the wilderness
of nations who have lost everything they've lost
their orientation they are despondent their life is
fading from them something to hang on to
something that if you don't have it you
die you crumple you give up you sink
into oblivion now this is critically important because
this indicates our role in their deliverance you
strengthen their weak knees and confirm their weak
hands and confirm the feeble knees and you
say to them that are of a fearful
heart you don't have a fearful heart you're
a believer they have a fearful heart they
do not yet know God and they are
overwhelmed by the catastrophe that has come upon
them with great suddenness and what do you
say to them of a fearful heart be
strong fear not behold your God will come
with vengeance even God with a recompense He
will come and save you now it's remarkable
to read what the effect of those words
are upon those who hear them it's not
just that their morale is lifted they are
affected as if the word itself is not
just instruction but an event for it says
then the eyes of the blind shall be
opened and the ears of the deaf shall
be unstopped then shall the lame man leap
as a heart as a deer 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 reeds and rushes
and a highway shall be there and a
way and it shall be called the way
of holiness and the unclean shall not pass
over it but it shall be for those
the wayfaring men the fool shall not err
therein no lion shall be there nor any
ravenous beast shall go up thereon it shall
not be found there but the redeemed shall
walk there and the ransomed of the Lord
shall return and come to Zion with singing
and everlasting joy upon their heads and they
shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and
sighing shall flee away what a remarkable text
that telescopes and brings together all of the
elements that were being shared last night Israel
in its extremity Israel being thrust not only
through the nations but the wilderness of the
nations that God might reveal himself to them
supernaturally by the provision that must come or
they will perish but not the least of
the provision is not just water breaking forth
out of dry ground but the word of
the Lord that comes to them when they
are just about down and out God has
not yet come they have not yet received
their vindication they have not yet seen the
Lord but a word comes that if it
did not come it would be a question
of whether they would have held on long
enough to receive the full redemptive work of
God something has got to come to them
in the midst of their wilderness experience that
is a word that is more than just
a word of encouragement it's a prophetic word
or a word of event but who speaks
it the church who meets them in the
wilderness but the church of what kind the
church that can say don't be afraid your
God will come and he will come with
a recompense and he will save you and
he will deliver you now listen saints what's
the difference between a little pep talk and
a little encouragement which will fade away under
the difficulty of their conditions and a word
that comes that constitutes event the difference is
the quality the character and the stature of
the faith of those who speak it it's
one thing to say don't be afraid but
if you yourself are still subject to fears
of any kind all that you're saying is
hardly anything better than well-meaning advice and
which could be given by a rotarian, an
elk or a fraternal order you need to
listen very carefully to what I'm saying now
because this is going to be the issue
right now of life or death for these
people before their full redemption comes they must
hear a word of a certain kind in
the midst of their weakness where they're just
about to give in and to expire for
the want of hope who do not know
God they need to encounter a people who
can speak with such confidence with such faith
a word that in the hearing of it
it's not just an encouragement but the eyes
of the blind are opened that lame leap
the word has transfigured them because it is
a prophetic word spoken in prophetic fullness and
prophetic authority by a prophetic people who themselves
know that God will come you know how
they know it?
out of their own tested experience out of
their own wilderness experience because in their being
stretched out to breaking when it seemed like
there was no answer or hope God did
come I want to be so careful with
what I'm saying now you
know I told you or you may not
have heard but in our own community after
ten years of existence not at a point
where we were sagging and collapsing but at
the point where we were breaking through to
finally having it together the Lord disbanded the
entire community and stripped it down to the
bone required everyone off the property and brought
it into a complete death there was one
brother who was one of the fellow elders
who said I don't think that God is
asking for this and he's the man who
said I'm here Art for your prophetic ministry
and I said listen I'm telling you on
whatever authority I have in the office that
I have God is wanting everyone off this
property He wants everything brought into death He
wants the whole community that's ministry even my
marriage myself and you into death there's a
death that God is calling for well I
don't think that He means that I think
that we can still stand I tried to
persuade and plead with this brother and finally
after weeks and months we had one last
final elders and wives meetings and again I
tried to persuade him what I thought God
was wanting no he wouldn't hear God hadn't
told him that and so I just let
him go and we went to bed and
we would have a final cup of coffee
in the morning and then go out different
ways and when he walked into the house
that final morning the moment I saw his
face I said to him what happened to
you?
his face showed something had happened between the
time I saw him last and this morning
oh he said before I went to bed
I prayed Lord he said if I'm mistaken
about this you know please you know correct
me and he said the Lord said to
me if you will not leave I will
kill you he left we lost our insurance
no insurance company would cover us an abandoned
property open to the vandals open to the
severe elements and I had to come once
or twice over the course of those three
years to do something or get something I
can't tell you what it means to taste
death to come to a place abandoned that
was once filled with the life of God
and all you hear is this terrible eerie
silence just broken by a door back and
forth and it went I had my dog
with me we went the property was covered
with snow I went in as far as
I could 20 feet I couldn't go further
the dog went out of the car he
went a few feet and came back with
his tail between his legs because he felt
the death that was there now why were
we required to experience that the people that
were in the faith prosperity message were not
experiencing it only us and here's the reason
a prophet is required to experience his message
a teacher is not required a teacher can
discuss and develop and show forth principles of
the faith and illustrate it out of scripture
that's his calling but there are not many
prophets and when you'll hear me today you'll
understand that there are not many who will
want to be it's none of this romantic
stuff it's death of saints and a prophet
has got to live his message he has
got to experience the essence of what he
will later be required to proclaim we have
experienced the desolation of God I remember I
left the house I was living in it
I painted it yellow it was so drab
that just to alleviate the drabness I painted
the house a terrible yellow and I remember
that when the Lord I was on a
14 month sabbatical silence the Lord forbade me
to preach he didn't tell me why I
was just not allowed to speak a message
to anyone and the first time that the
Lord lifted that was to speak the message
on the mystery of Israel and the church
in the last days so I left my
empty house my wife was gone and vowed
never to return my children were gone, the
community was gone and I was like a
dog living in my own empty house and
I left that day I had my suitcase
in one hand and my attache case with
the papers that I had developed over the
mystery of Israel and I left the house
and I turned the corner and I stood
by the barn and I looked back and
the sun was just going down over the
property it was the most melancholy gut wrenching
sight that you could imagine silent, lonely death,
a man by himself and the Lord quickened
that verse they that go forth bearing precious
seed, weeping shall doubtless return bearing what's the
word, bearing sheaves of eternal fruit when the
Lord gave me my first computer when every
time I turned it on that verse came
on the screen we had to experience and
to taste death and desolation at the hand
of God our community did not collapse because
of any intrinsic defect God himself brought it
down that we would experience and taste desolation
and death and now we're back again on
the same property I was telling the dear
wards they know the Mexican family who were
the first ones back with me because we
were alone for a year and a half
in that house, for one function only, to
intercede before God and to travail and to
cry out of our spirits every morning at
5 o'clock for the restoration of that
community, that my wife would come back, that
my children would come back that the Lord
would restore life there are many mornings that
I was up at 3 o'clock 4
o'clock and I heard them upstairs moving
about and we came down we started to
pray at that time we did nothing but
intercede for a year and a half and
now the community is back not the same
different in quality, different in character because it
goes into the ground as a seed but
the resurrection form is of another kind so
we are experiencing death and desolation and now
restoration so that when we speak to our
own Jewish people that your God will come
and your God will restore we're not just
giving a hopeful suggestion, we're speaking out of
the depths of what we have experienced ourselves
in the God who makes desolate and the
God who restores and that word, and that
word alone will bring life and no other
now you're called to that exact ministry, it's
you in the wilderness place that needs to
say to them, don't be afraid that's why
between now and then, God has got to
work on you and strip you from your
fears, and everything else that would keep you
from a place of authentic prophetic faith listen
dear saints, it's not enough merely to be
credally correct we think that if we can
pronounce the creeds of the faith or recite
them, or subscribe to the correctness of doctrines
that we believe believing is an existential reality
of a dimension of living that is altogether
other and contrary than what is known on
the earth it is a heavenly posture, a
mind, an attitude, an awareness of God, a
knowledge of God as he in fact is,
and not as we thought him to be
a God who can make pools to break
forth out of dry and arid places a
God whose word makes the blind to see
and the lame to leap we've got to
move from our places of mere doctrinal correctness
into the place of prophetic and existential appropriation
of the faith, that the word of God
out of our mouth is true, that we
can take the widow's son who is dead
and stretch him out on our beds where
we live right into the midst of our
privacy and prostrate ourselves over that dead child,
eyeball to eyeball and fingertip to fingertip and
cry out to God three times and its
life returns again and we take it to
its mother who had despair and said, see
your son lives and she'll say to us
now I know that the word of God
in your mouth is truth the issue of
Israel's restoration is not Israel the issue is
the church and this dear sister is why
God has got to reduce Israel to total
hopelessness in itself and for itself, because we
Jews are the most supremely self-sufficient people
we can come out of the holocaust and
be stripped and come out with just a
number on our arms with nothing and within
ten years we're in business, we're successful, our
children are going to private schools and we're
utterly confident and we can say never again
that kind of arrogant conceit and self-assurance
cannot bless all the families of the earth
Israel is a witness to God and not
of itself and it has got to be
brought to a place where it is so
stripped so inert so incapable of doing for
itself that if it survives at all if
it is restored at all it is because
something comes to it from outside of itself
the church which modern Jews today despise and
look down upon with disdain and contempt is
God's calculated agency for their deliverance and their
restoration in the last days oh the depths
both of the wisdom and the knowledge of
God who has been his counselor and that's
why Paul says in Romans 11 I would
not have you to be ignorant of this
mystery brethren lest you become wise in your
own conceits because this mystery is calculated for
the church it calls the church to prophetic
maturity to be entrusted with God's own words
that are creative events when the church speaks
them with one voice and one agreement and
one mind that brings life to a people
who would otherwise expire in their terrible disaster
and catastrophe and confusion and hopelessness a word
comes to them in the wilderness do not
be afraid it's not a suggestion it's not
an option it is an event that those
who hear it become unafraid those who hear
it see those who hear it leap it
is the creative event of God but not
spoken directly by God but someone in the
wilderness prepared to bring forth that word because
they themselves know of a God who will
come so you dear lovers of Israel how
far are you willing to go how far
are you willing to allow God to bring
you before that time in your own experience
to wilderness situations that you have never before
experienced to strippings to dealings to trials where
if God be not God you perish that
you come to a quality of transcendent actual
existential faith that the word of God out
of your mouth will be true our conventional
Christian church experience however much it may have
blessed us has not prepared us for this
role and it may well be that it's
not for everyone who calls themselves Christian but
as many as will I think everyone whom
God has called to be a prophet has
said who me and has said Lord I'm
only a child I think what Jeremiah was
trying to do was get out of it
can't I just be a pastor it's a
suffering but it's a glory and I think
that we would be robbing you if we
didn't lay before you an explicit invitation to
say yes to the Lord I'm willing to
be brought to whatever wilderness condition of stripping
and of dealing that will bring me into
a dimension of the knowledge of you that
I can communicate to a dying people that
when they will hear my word they will
leap to life I want to be an
instrument in this last days drama for Israel's
redemption for I know that Israel's redemption is
the issue of your coming and your kingdom
and I know it will be a suffering
for me but I want to share in
the eternal glory so I just want to
end my little portion this morning with an
invitation and I know you've heard many invitations
and I don't think we have given one
till now maybe it's waited till the very
end where the faint hearted and others who
have heard a little bit and have not
come back are not required to consider this
question but those of you who are here
are and those who will hear on the
tape this is voluntary and it's free God
is not compelling anyone to be an actor
and participant in his last days purposes toward
Israel you're not required to do this and
you can still be a fine believer and
bless the church and in many other ways
live a satisfactory Christian life but these are
the ultimate things that pertain to the completion
of his last days purposes and the issue
of his glory forever Israel's restoration is the
issue of God's glory forever it's of him
I didn't make this up saints and it
has got to be through him in order
to be to him as glory forever that's
why it can't be on the basis of
your ability it can't be on the basis
of your religious expertise but only on the
basis of his own life it's of him
and it's through him that it might be
to him as glory forever what Israel needs
to meet in the wilderness are the sons
and daughters of the resurrection whose word is
the resurrection word that brings life to those
who hear it for it makes their eyes
to see and their legs to leap and
the waters to break forth out of a
dry place so Lord I thank you precious
God I have tried to be simple and
clear we're not looking for esoteric text that
can inflame our imagination some giddy kind of
thing for the end times Lord this is
nuts and bolts this is practical this is
down to earth this is the reality that
the scriptures make clear again and again we
have virtually to be willfully blind not to
see it and it makes an ultimate requirement
of the church as nothing else has required
it but the crisis of Israel and I'm
asking you to look upon us my God
there are sons and daughters in this room
who have been carefully nurtured by you called
by you brought through their experiences brought from
faith to faith and now you're putting before
them a final and ultimate proposition of what
they themselves must taste and experience in a
God who makes desolate and a God who
restores that they can say to Israel your
God lives your God comes he will save
you for he has saved me again and
again out of extremities of such a kind
that if God were not God I would
have perished and I made myself a candidate
for those extremities by saying yes Lord fit
me to be those who meet Israel in
the wilderness and can speak the word of
life to them can anyone say yes to
this can anyone stand to this raise a
hand to this bow before God for this
some statement of your body your life that
you say yes Lord whatever it takes I
can't imagine what it's going to take I
don't know what the equivalent will be of
shutting down a community in Minnesota but I
know that it will be as radical you
know where I am you know what I
need you know the secret fears of my
life you know the places where I'm not
victorious and overcoming you know how concerned I
am for how I'm seen and how men
appreciate me and prestige and success and all
the things in the religious system in which
I've been brought up but I'm willing to
be stripped to the bone bring me into
your wilderness even behind the drawn curtains and
the shades of my own home you know
how to fit me and prepare me for
this ultimate and prophetic use that will be
the issue of life or death for Israel
and I am willing I am standing now
at this brother's invitation as a statement to
you and the powers of darkness overhead who
are trembling at the very sight of this
that I am willing I must know you
in this way the word out of my
mouth has got to be more than just
well meaning intention form me my God in
full prophetic maturity and stature together with a
whole people that will corporately express this to
the remnant of Israel in the last days
that the redeemed of the Lord shall return
to Zion and mourning and sighing flee away
and everlasting joy be upon their heads in
Jesus name seal these children Lord you know
them by name let it be recorded in
heaven and may you be released now from
this mourning from this moment to bring into
their life those dealings trials and things calculated
in your wisdom and love to bring them
to that ultimate maturity and use for which
they will eternally rejoice and receive the gratitude
of a restored nation seal it perform it
and I bless them Lord whatever my own
prayer means I bless them I bless them
Lord I bless them with all heavenly blessing
in Christ Jesus give them grace upon grace
upon grace and all that they shall be
required to bear and we thank you for
the high calling in Christ Jesus which we
have chosen freely to receive this morning counting
it all privilege and joy thank you my
God for this historic moment now being registered
in heaven let the powers of darkness recoil
let them break out of their orbits at
this demonstration this morning for they are finished
their time is up their number is up
their end is imminent when they see this
consecration thank you my God not only for
the blessing that will come to the Israel
that shall pass through this nation but the
blessing that shall come to the nation itself
for the presence of a people of this
kind in the midst of them who can
bless not only Israel but their own nation
and other nations where it shall please you