The Burning Bush of World History #2

[00:00:00] Speaker A: Turn with me again to exodus in chapter three two. And the angel of the Lord appeared unto Moses in a flame of fire out of the midst of a bush, and he looked and behold, the bush burned with fire. Tyre and the bush was not consumed. And then again in deuteronomy in chapter 33, verse 16, just the one little phrase in the middle of this verse, the goodwill of him that dwelt in the bush. And then in the prophecy of Isaiah in chapter 62 from verse one, the words of the Messiah. For zions sake will I not hold my peace, and for jerusalems sake I will not rest until her righteousness go forth forth as brightness and her salvation as a lamp that burneth and the nations shall see thy righteousness and all kings thy glory. Just a further word of prayer. Beloved Lord, we want just to confess in your presence that without you we can do nothing. We can speak many words, outline many truths, but in the end nothing of eternal value will come out of the time unless that anointing is upon both the speaking and the hearing of your word. We praise you that you provided that anointing and we by faith stand into it both for my speaking and our hearing, that this whole time may be a meeting with yourself. Lord, hear us, for we ask it in the name of our messiah, the Lord Jesus. Amen. I was asked to speak to you on the theme the burning bush of world history. And in the earlier time this morning I took two aspects of this servants of God, beginning, of course, with Moses himself, men and women of God. Theyre illustrated by this amazing appointment God made with Moses when he met him in a bush. It's almost funny if it wasn't so holy and so significant that God could in some way reduce himself, himself to a thorn bush and speak to his servant through a thorn bush. And yet the Lord himself said, this is holy ground. And weve thought about servants of God, men and women of God, whoever we are, if were children of God. We want sometimes to be so full of life, so full of power, so consciously full of power, when in fact God's way is to reduce us to a dead, dry thorn bush. And when the fire gets into the bush, God's purpose is fulfilled. God reveals himself through a bush, a dry, dead thorn bush. I am that I am. Years ago I knew and irish preacher, evangelist, known probably to one or two of you here. His name was Johnny Coughlin. May he be blessed. I never laughed so much in all my life as when I went around Ireland with him and Arthur Rayner. He preached at Halford that I've never forgotten at the Lord's table. That message that he gave. It was from this. And he said, I've heard all the great preachers, they speak about the I am, that I am the infinity of God. No beginning, no end, uncreated. But he said, somehow it left me cold. It was wonderful to know that God was so great, so powerful, so knowing, so all present, but still it left me, he said in his broad irish accent, it left me cold. Until one day God said to me, Johnny, I'm a blank check. I am whatever you need. Do you need love? I am your love. Do you need patience? I am your patience. Do you need power? I am your power. Do you need wisdom? I am your wisdom. Whatever you need, fill it in, Johnny. I am. That is my name. It's the fire in the bush. The bush is nothing. The fire is everything. And the I am in the bush can be everything that is needed for the fulfillment of the purpose of God, for the revelation of the heart and mind of God, for the manifestation of the power. But few servants of God have ever prepared to become a dead, dry thorn bush. They want to be an olive tree, or, which, of course, speaks of the spirit filled life. Power, conscious power. I remember a lady who always said to me, I always know when the power of God is upon me, because my, my booties click. He had those zip up booties. And when the power came, you would click click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click, click click. The Lord must have many a laugh over us people of God. We want to feel power. But Paul said, when I am weak, then am I strong. And the most broken child of God becomes the most powerful child of God when he learns the lesson of the thorn bush. And it is the same with the church. For God has chosen to save such as you and me. And in ourselves, we are nothing. Few of us have great intellects, few of us have enormous natural wisdom, few of us have enormous ingenuity or creativeness. We are very ordinary for the most part. One wonders why the Lord went to all this trouble to save you and me. We are, from the moment we are saved, a load of trouble. I dont know what joy we give the Lord, but I do know that we give him an awful lot of trouble. We argue with him, we rebel against him, we murmur about his will. We don't want to do this. We don't want to do that. If he asks us to give something up, we don't want to give it up. If we ask, if he asks us to go somewhere. That's the last place we want to go. Always. We are such a trouble to the Lord, yet the church is made up of sinners saved by the grace of God. They are nothing more than thorn bushes. The whole true church of God is a thorn bush. Of course, from another point of view, we could give a whole series of addresses on the olive tree being filled with the Spirit, anointed by the Spirit, indwelt by the Spirit, gifted by the Spirit. We could give a whole series of addresses on the pomegranate fertility, abundant fruitfulness, abundant life, even in desert conditions. We could give a whole series of addresses on the shittim twee as it is so described in the authorized version. So nice to call it the authorized version. In the states, I always have to call it the King James. I mean the shittim tree, the acacia tree that speaks of the house of God, we together becoming the house of God, the temple of God, a home for God in the Spirit. So wonderful. Whole series of addresses on this or upon the palm tree. The holiness of God. Holy, holy, holy. The majesty of God. But nowhere do we read that God dwelt in any one of these trees, biblically significant as they are, full of typology as they are. Nowhere do we read that he ever dwelt in such a tree, but the humble, worthless, two opinion form. He speaks of the will. Moses speaks of the will of him that dwelt in the thorn. Thats where the purpose of God is fulfilled. You can fill your head with theology and not know anything about the purpose of God being fulfilled in your life or in the church, or in the work of God. We can argue till the cows come home about points of theology, about whether the Lord's coming before or after the tribulation or during the tribulation, whether there's a millennium or there isn't a millennium. We can have all these enormously biblical ideas and opinions based upon them. But it is in the thornbuth that God dwell. And when he has the conditions, he fulfills his purpose. It has always been the same and will be till the Lord Jesus returns. But this evening I want to devote myself to another aspect of this significance of the faun. Years ago, more years now than I care to remember. I think it was on my very first trip ever to the United States. I was walking somewhere in New York in Manhattan, when I came to a jewish theological seminary. And there in Bonn's hebrew letters were the words, and the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. If there is one nation in all the world, amongst the nations, one single nation. That is a thorn bush. It is Israel. And if of one single nation, it can be said the bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. It is a sir, 4000 years of history, attempt after attempt by the powers of darkness and evil to liquidate that people. From Abraham onwards, it has never stopped the attempt to liquidate this people. One wonders why. Of course, some will argue, well, it was because through them God was to bring the messiah. Oh, this is so true. Why did God choose them as the vehicle to reveal himself to the world? Why did God choose this purpose, people? To become the instrument by which he would reveal his nature, reveal his heart and mind. Give the covenants, give the promises, give the adoption. That is the placing of sons. Why this people? And if it was to bring the messiah into the world, you would have thought that when they rejected him, God would totally and finally reject them. And you would have thought that the evidence surely of that would be that Satan would favor them. No more attempts to liquidate them. Why? Why should Satan want to liquidate the people who had done his dirty work? Why not favour them? Why not bless them? Why not make them somehow everything. But instead, the whole history of the jewish people has been a history of massacre after massacre and pogrom after pogrom, of inquisition, of hatred till it reached the climax in the last century in the Holocaust in which two thirds of the jewish population of the world died in the most horrific circumstances. One asks the question, why? Why does Satan hate this people so much? Well, we could say maybe it has something to do with the fact that they are a bush that burned with fire and because of the grace of God and the purpose of God and the word of God and the covenants of God and above all, the Messiah God, they were not consumed. Israel has always been a thorn bush, my dear friends, Israel did not begin with a great blaze of glory, with trumpets glowing and everything marvelous. She began in slavery, slaves in Egypt. She began as a broken, afflicted, sorrowful, mourning people. A thorn bush. And when God redeemed her and out of her produced a nation, it was the pillar of cloud and fire that dwelt in the midst of liberated slaves. The thorn soon became apparent. It took only three days before they were all asking about the leeks and onions and garlic of Egypt. I think you all know the story well. Three days. And they were longing for the onions and leeks and garlic of Egypt. Couldn't have been too many English amongst them. Three days and they wanted to go back to Egypt. Wherever we look in the story, we find the same thing. It is a thorn book. When God wanted to deliver them at one time from the Midianite, he took a young man upon whom the spirit of God fell. His name was Gideon. And when 30,000 came, the Lord said, it's too many. And he reduced them, and reduced them, and reduced them, and reduced them till there were only 300. It was a thorn bush. How could 300 win a battle? But ₩300 the battle. When God wanted to deliver them from the Philistines, he took one young, rosy cheeked, blue eyed, or probably more green eyed lad. His name was David, the youngest of the whole number of brothers. You know the story. You know how his father Jesse sent him with cheeses and other things for his brothers who were at the front. And you know how when he came, one of his brothers said, I know what a cheeky brat you are. You are just here to see the battle. And you know how when David heard that giant taunting the Israelis, he said, what will the king give to the man who takes who defeats this giant? You know the story. You know how Saul tried to put his armor on the poor young fellow, and he couldn't hardly move. Many a child of God and a servant of God is in armour that belongs to another servant of God, and they can't move. David said, let me go with my sling and my five smooth pebbles. God. It was the thorn we had read at the very beginning of this convention today, the story of Jehoshaphat. When all these ites of different types came together to lay siege to Jerusalem, you will remember the story, how Jehoshaphat stood before the Lord and said, this great host that has come against us, what can we do? We are nothing. And the Lord said to Jehoshaphat, take your position. Stand still and see the salvation of your God. And when Jehoshaphat and the other elders got together and said, how can we express our faith that we are committed to the Lord in this matter? Someone with some insight of some of our churches said, put the choir in the front, and out went the choir infant, not singing some marvelous song about, the Lord is our victor, the Lord is our mighty conqueror, the Lord. Instead, they sang, the mercy of the Lord endures forever, one side singing to the other, the mercy of the Lord endures forever. And the Lord laid an ambush. And all the different tribes, the alliance, the federation that had come against them, they fell on each other and destroyed one another. It was the thorn bush. It was the fire and the thorn bush together. It wasn't just that Gideon knew he was nothing. The fire was there. The same with the 300. They were nothing. But the fire was there in them. Do you understand, David? It wasn't just that David could do anything. What could a boy do with a giant like Goliath? But a fire was in. It's not enough to be a thorn bush. The fire has to be in the thorn bush dwelling in the thorn bush. Not using the thorn bush, not visiting the thorn bush dwelling in the thorn book. It has always been the story of Israel, wherever you turn. When Zerubbabel and the others went back to Jerusalem in three waves, there were no more than 60,000 out of millions who had comfortable residences and businesses and synagogues and I dont know what else in babylonian exile. And the 60 that went back were called a purim. And you remember Sanballat and Tobias and that gentleman that we know nothing about, Gashmu, of whom it was always said. And Gashmu says it as a kind of authority. We don't even know who Gashmu was. You remember what they said? These poor feeble jews that have come back out of Babylon building the walls of Jerusalem and intending to build the house of the Lord. It was a thorn bush, but the fire was in that remnant. There was a zechariah, there was a haggai, there was a zerubbabel, there was a nehemiah, there was a Daniel on his knees in prayer back in Babylon. The fire was of them. It has always been the same. When Israel was nothing, the flame of God's fire burnt the most powerfully. And when she exalted herself and became something in herself, the fire dim. Consider for a moment what this thorn bush has given the world. Now I am not talking about Einsteins and Freuds and great musicians, composers, scientists. As I see it, that is nothing we can certainly do without voice. I dont know about the others. Think, oh, the Jews have given us this. The Jews have given us that. The Jews have given us the other. The Jews left no pyramids, no great monument. They gave us the word of God. It was the flame of fire in an old thorn bush. Through them came the word of God and the promises of God. Those promises you and I stand upon and look to the spirit of God for their fulfillment. The very revelation of the purpose of God, the eternal purpose of God, that understanding of what God is after in creating a universe, in creating mankind. It has all come to us through this people, through this thornbush. It was the flame of fire, the I am in the thorn bush. Through them has come to us the covenant, including the New Covenant, into which everyone who's saved in this building tonight has come into the family circle of God. That new covenant was made with our people initially to begin with, and in the end, it will become the foundation of Israels life. Covenants. I could go on. I don't want to bore you. It's been a long day and I've no doubt you're tired. And those pews are the biggest means of torture that man has ever devised. I've often wondered, I shouldn't say this, this is quite out of order, but I often wonder why they ever created these pews. People must have had very different behinds and backs in the old days. That's all I can imagine. I can't think why. They're so narrow and so straight. You can't sit properly. Suddenly you get a quick in your back or something else in your back. I know you always found it most amazing in christian churches, thank God, in the old synagogues. They never had these things until they copied them from the Christians. Well, thats only an aside. Nothing to do with the thorn bush or the fire. Israel has given us the messiah of God. Beloved friend, there was no greater divine gift than a thorn that could ever come through a thorn bush, than the birth and coming of the messiah, Jesus. Jesus himself said, salvation is of the jews. What an amazing story this is. Israel. The bush that burned with fire. Fire. And the bush was not consumed. The fire has never gone out. It's been dimmed at times, but it has never gone out. Today, in the year 2012, Israel is still very present and the scene, the stage of the world. Let me say something about our present Israel. I am not at all sure that the church at large has ever understood that Israel, blind in sin, having rejected the messiah, is still holy ground. Any nation that has touched this thorn bush and sought to remove it or destroy it has itself been destroyed or harmed so colossally that it has never again reached the peak of world power. This thorn bush is a divine witness, a divine testimony, a divine sign, a banner that God has set up amongst the nations. Meddle with her, you meddle with God. Even in her unbelief, in her sins. Meddle with her, you meddle with God. God has never finally and totally forsaken this people. Consider for a moment Jeremiah, the prophecy of Jeremiah, as you find that wonderful word in Jeremiah 31 31 and verse three. I have loved you with an everlasting love. Therefore with the cords of loving kindness is my version. Steadfast love is some of the modern versions. Mercy is found in the old authorized version. It is the word in Hebrew, chesed. It is in our modern Hebrew, New Testament, the word used for grace. With the cords of grace with the cords of steadfast love and mercy have I adorn you. Is Jeremiah speaking of Israel or is he speaking of himself? Was the Lord saying, Jeremiah, I love you. You have served me, you have been faithful to me. I've loved you with an everlasting, never failing love? No. It is very clear from the context. It is this gainsaying, contradicting sinful people, backsliding people who had idols on every street corner, household gods in their homes, who aped the fashions of Egypt and Babylon. It was this people that the Lord was saying, I've loved you with an everlasting love. You're going to be judged. You're going to be, as it were, put into a crucible. But I will draw you with the cords of grace, of steadfast loving mercy, I will draw you again. Again shall you be built, o virgin. Virgin, daughter of Israel. Virgin, virgin, daughter of Israel. She's a prostitute, lord. See what she has done. She's gone to the babylonian gods, the egyptian gods, the canaanite gods. Everything that's offered away to her, she's gone. You call her a virgin? Yes. The lord says again, shall you be built, o virgin, daughter of Israel? Because in some way the lord sees her as the finished product saved by his grace, born of his spirit, indwelt by his spirit, empowered by his spirit. And if you go on, you find it even more remarkable. It talks about vineyards being planted on the hills of Samaria. That has never happened at any point in the last 2000 years until the last, well, 1950 years, until the last few decades. And now all these demonized settlers that we hear about all the time, they have planted vineyards on the mountains of Samaria. It's all here in Jeremiah. So that the Lord says, hear this. Declare it. He says, in verse ten, let me just find it for you in chapter 31 verse. Hear the word of the Lord, o ye nations, declare it. In the isles that are afar off he that scattered Israel will gather him and keep him as a shepherd does his flock. Around my little cottage in a greek island I am surrounded by sheep and goats. I hear them all night and all day. If someone leaves the gate open, they come in and within half an hour the whole garden has gone. And I see the shepherd very often playing his greek version of bagpipes, which is far worse than the scottish version or the Irish. He knows all his sheep. He knows them all. He keeps them. He rounds them all up. I saw on one occasion one small goat left outside until he came back and opened the door and let it in. I think he was teaching it to lesson. What does it mean? And keep him as a shepherd does his flock? Unless it means that this people scattered to the ends of the earth because of sin, exiled to the ends of the earth would be brought back by the power of God and the grace of God and God himself would be their shepherd and guard them. He would keep them as a shepherd does his plan. When you look at this same chapter 31 of Jeremiah in verse ten, verse 16, you read, thus, saith the Lord with vain thy voice from weeping and thine eyes from tears. For thy work shall be rewarded, saith the Lord. And they shall come again from the land of the enemy. And there is hope for thy latter end, saith the Lord. And thy children shall come again to their own border. The bush burned with fire and the bush was not consumed. Do you know that when God exiled our peoples to the end our people to the ends of the earth the land itself became a palm bush. There was hardly any vegetation in it. Desert, swampland, eroded hills. It was nothing. And then the prophet Ezekiel prophesied some 2500 years ago, he said, when he was told to prophesy to the mountains and hills and waddis and watercourses and springs of the land, a strange thing to prophesy. Hear the word of the Lord, o you mountains of Israel, you shall shoot forth your branches for my people, Israel, who are about to come. For I will turn to you, and you shall be tilled and sown, and I will multiply upon you both man and beast. It is an incredible thing that has happened, happened in Israel. When the fire got into the thorn bush the very earlier it began in 1880, they were nothing. No great scientists, no great wealthy men or women. They were the dregs of society in Russia. So poor, so deprived, so discriminated against, most of them atheists, of agnostics. They came back to the land. If you had asked them, do you believe God is leading you? They would have looked blankly at you. Yet there was some force behind them. According to the word of the prophet Isaiah, I will lead the blind by a way that they know not in paths that they have not known will I lead them. I will make darkness light before them and crooked places straight. These things will I do. And I will not forsake them. Of whom does the prophet speak? A few verses earlier, he speaks of gentiles and the Lord coming as a light to lighten the gentiles, to give sight to blindness, and to bring them out of the prison house. Then who are these who remain blind? So that the Lord himself has to say, I will lead. These ones who remain blind, who are they? It is perfectly true that many in the church are blind. Nobody has to tell me that. And sometimes there are blind leaders of the blind as well. Nobody has to tell me that either. But the church is meant to have eyes. The church is meant to have eyes of the heart, open to see if there is one community in the world that is meant to be envisioned, that sees the Lord, that understands the word the Lord, that, as it were, works together with the Lord, stands for the purpose of God. It is to be the church. Then who are these people that are so blind that the Lord has to say, I will not forsake them, he says with emphasis, and I will not forsaken. As if answering the many statements we hear from church leaders that God has forsaken the jewish people. They are no longer his people. Those early settlers were truly afraid. Thornbush. In some strange way, the fire of God was there. They cleared the swamplands. They reafforested eroded areas they built. Against all odds, the bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed. I think of those who came back from the Holocaust in which at least 6 million jews died. When that terrible period in history ended, there were 2 million survivors. Most of them went back to their homes in eastern Europe only to discover violent hatred expressed towards them. You must remember that Yitzhak Shamir, our former prime minister, lost his father and his brother when he and they were liberated from Sobibor and went back to Kilche in 1946, there was a pogrom. Did you know that as late as 1946, in which his father and his brother were murdered? That's what decided these people. No hope. And they upped and by foot, they went across the mountains of central Europe and down to the Mediterranean to take any single thing that floated that would get them to the promised land. It was the thorn bush. Those doctors who survived, those scientists that survived, were broken in mind and body and certainly in heart. They were an afflicted, reduced people. But the flame of fire was there. That's why in the end, against all the might of the british empire, they went. And finally the British gave up. There are many other aspects of this story that I could talk about. I mean, the war of independence. Independence was 800,000 jewish residents of Palestine, as it was called then, 80,000 of whom could carry arms. And in 1947, five arab states declared war upon that Yeshuv, as we call it, 2 million young men in five armies. It was the thorn book, but the fire was there by the grace of God. It wasn't jewish ingenuity or jewish courage. It was God or. I think of the 67 war. We all think of the 67 war as an incredible miracle, of course, because it was so short and so remarkable and so much came to Israel there. We all together forget that two nations, Egypt and Syria, threatened to turn the blue Mediterranean red with jewish blood and said that they would fight and wipe out the whole jewish state. Everyone forgets that today because they say today, oh, but the Israelis were very strong, you see. I mean, within a few hours, they had bombed every airfield in the nations around them and destroyed the air force. I remember an impresario who lived in the vineyard above Halford house. He came down and banged on the door in his dressing gown and slippers. He came down Halford Road, banged on the door. When we opened it, he stood there in a terrible state of disarray, hair all over the place. And he said, oh, he said, what are we going to do? By the way, he was originally going to be a priest, a roman catholic priest, and then he became an atheist. And he stood there with his hair disheveled and everything. And he said to me, what are we going to do? What are we going to do? I said, I thought something terrible had happened in his home. So I said, what's wrong? How can we help you? He said, oh, Daniel Barenboyne, Daniel Barenboin, Jacqueline to crow. And then he went to a whole list of others that apparently he put on concerts for in London and elsewhere. He said, these are the most brilliant musicians in the world. They're all going to be destroyed. So I said, well, what can we do? So he said, well, tell me. Tell me. He said, isn't that something that can be done? And I said to him, mister Soans, I can't even remember his name. I know it was an irish name. I said to him, mister so and so, it won't happen. They will not be defeated. And he looked at me and he said, how can you be so crazy? And I said, because I read my Bible. Is it in the Bible? He said. I said, it most certainly is. I said, they may suffer, but they wont be destroyed. So he said, I hope youre right I havent slept for two nights, he said. And he went back off home when on that famous occasion when all the earth forces of the nations around Egypt, Syria and Lebanon were destroyed in a few hours. And when it was clear that the israeli army was moving out, he was back on the doorstep, this time in proper clothing. And he banged the door and when he opened he said, you are as the archangel Gabriel. I've never forgotten it. And I said, and I said to him, no, I am not the archangel Gabriel. I am just a believer in the Bible. It was the thorn bush. A flame of fire was in the bush. Or I think of the Yom Kippur war when everything went wrong. And when in a single moment of time Israel, who by then was quite proud of herself, within a few hours 3000 young men were dead. And when, if the egyptian army had only decided to go for it, it would have been in Jerusalem by tea time. But thank God they'd been trained by the Soviets. And the Soviets had had this thing where you came and then you come, they monolithic kind of idea, where you regrouped and sort of. And that gave Israel a breathing space. It was the Thornburgh. Israel ended up 16 miles from Damascus, 50 miles from Karu. And both of them were saved by our good jewish friend Kissinger. Now, dear friends, don't you think this is amazing? That the prophet Ezekiel could have said that the whole of Israel would become covered with trees and orchards and fields and gardens and that men would be multiplied upon her? Exactly what has happened? The thorn bush, suddenly the fire got into it. Or I think of Ezekiel 37 where he spoke of being in a great valley, a wadi, and all he could see were bones, bones everywhere, bones this way, bones that way, bones up this side, bones up that side. And the Lord said to him, can these dead bones live? And dear Ezekiel was a little more honest than some of us and said, I have no idea, lord. He didn't say of course, lord. Of course. He said, I'm not at all sure, you know, lord. And the Lord said to his eagle, preach prophesy to these dead dry bones, the word of the Lord. And when Ezekiel spoke the word of the Lord over the dry bones, there was a great earthquake and a great noise. And suddenly all the bones came together and stood up as a great army. It's a picture of the nation. Something incredible has happened. The jewish nation has risen from the ashes. She was nothing for almost 2000 years. And suddenly she arose, as it were, from the dead. It's the Thornburgh and the fire. But I have to be careful of the time. Beloved friends, I would want to say something else because you are prayer warriors, many of you. Beware of the thorn bush. If you pray for your country, beware of the thorn. Any government that meddles with the destiny of Jerusalem will drink a cup into which God himself has put a poison. Zechariah said it 2400 years ago ago. Any nation that takes the stone that is Jerusalem and says it shouldn't be here, it should be there. It should not be under jewish sovereignty. It must be under palestinian authority or divided authority or international authority. There are many clever solutions that are being offered to the whole problem of Jerusalem. But anyone who meddles with the destiny of Jerusalem will find that they've meddled with God. It is the fire in the fall. Let me just read you a few scriptures. In Isaiah, in chapter 54 and verse 15. Behold, they may gather together but not by me. Whosoever shall gather together against thee shall fall because of thee. Isnt that a word? Isnt that a word? Of course its true about the church but it's also true about this other thorn bush. Those who gather against her, they will fall because of her. Or again, listen to this. Chapter 60 and verse twelve. For that nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish. Yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted. Thats a very heavy and a very severe word. Beloved friends, any nation that will not serve the purpose of God concerning Israel will itself perish and be utterly wasted. I don't have to say anything and I don't want to cause problems with you dear folks, but you know as well as I do that the british government has not exactly served the purpose of God concerning Israel. You know as well as I that as they have taken step against step against step against Israel, against the purpose of God, for Israel there has been mad cow disease and foot and mouth disease and flood upon flood upon flood. And only now the beginning of the troubles. It is judgment upon judgment upon judgment. It is the same with the United States. Recently the greatest fire in history was in Florida. Some hundreds of some millions sorry of square acres of forests burnt in the drought. Now the greatest flood in Houston's history. You cannot meddle with the thorn bush. Touch the thorn bush. Despise the thorn bush. Devalue the thorn bush. Try to get rid of the thorn bush and you find you have touched God. Let me put it another way. The prophecy of Joel in chapter three and verse two puts it this way. I will gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat, which means the Lord judges and I will execute judgment upon them there for my people and for my heritage, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations and they have divided my land. Is that not the policy of the European Union and the policy of the United Kingdom and unfortunately, even the policy of the United States? Do they not see the solution to all the present problem that we have in the Middle east, that they've got to divide the land? There might have been something to say for it if we would have got real peace. But as Bibi Netanyahu said a little while ago on CNN, they don't just want the West bank and Gaza. They want Tel Aviv and Netanyahu. And that is absolutely true. Arafat has made. Arafat made over 20 signed ceasefire agreements with King Hussein of Jordan and broke every one of them. He made 16 ceasefire agreements with the lebanese government and broke every one of them. I don't understand why some of the things that we know in Israel are not publicized widely in your papers. I mean, Mossad, for instance, has discovered a letter that Arafat wrote to the new young president of Syria, the son of Hafas al Assad, Bashar Assad, in which he said, please forgive us for the ceasefire. Remember, Syria is the leader of a rejectionist. Please forgive us for the ceasefire because he said we were forced to agree to it. But in a few months we will resume the intapata. Well, do you see what God is doing? He's using this thorn bush to bring out the worst in the nation. He's using the thorn bush as the dividing point, as it were, for the nation. Judgment after judgment. I don't want to depress you. Why should I depress you? If you love the Lord, then it means the coming of the Lord is that much nearer. The European Union is no friend of Israel. You now have a government that is bent on going more and more into the European Union and I can see nothing but judgment coming more and more. Steel yourself for it, for it will become the opportunity for you all to be a witness and a testimony to unsaved friends and relatives all around and to somehow through it, that through you may come light to them. There are many good people in Burkitt, as there are in Holland and in the scandinavian nations and in Germany and in France. They are also very, very. They have a funny feeling. It's a gut feeling. Something's wrong. Something's wrong. God is using little Israel to bring this whole out into the open. Is it not amazing? Well, I have to be careful now, because ive got to finish. I understand you have trains to catch and everything else. So I must try to finish. Touch the thorn bush and you touch the presence of God. But I dont want to finish there. That old thorn bush will one day catch fire in a way that it has never caught fire before. And it will be a blaze of glory from end to end of this earth coming. God is bringing all the despair and disillusionment and all the depression in Israel because so many thought that the peace process was genuine, that Arafat was a genuine peace partner that somehow or other, at last this whole cycle of war and suffering was about to end. Instead, now the whole nation has woken up with the election of Sharon to the simple fact that there is no partner for peace. That they don't mean to just kill people in the West bank and Gaza, in Samaria and Judah. They mean to kill people in Tel Aviv, in Netanyahu and everywhere else. God is reducing Israel. Yes, she has nuclear power. Yes, she has a marvelous airfoil. Yes, she has a marvelous and courageous army and navy, small as it is. But the fact is that she's a thorn bush and God is reducing her to the thorn bush little by little. Israel knows. She has two huge fears. One, that she will be alienated from the United States. Two, that the European Union will put sanctions on her for the biggest trading partner is the European Union for Israel. It will not surprise me even with President Bush, who I believe is a good man and it truly knows the Lord. But it would not surprise me if America is not, in the end alienated and divorced from Israel. It is all part of the divine plan. When Israel is most, most reduced, most broken, most afflicted, when she has no friend, when she doesnt know where to turn, she will fall into the arms of God. Then the thorn bush will catch fire in a way that it has never caught fire before. There will be a revelation of God. And not just God, but of the messiah, Jesus. So don't prayer. Pray sentimental prayer. Pray so prayer. Israel may have to suffer. Pray for her deliverance. Pray for her morale. Pray for her courage. Pray for her stamina. Pray for the power of endurance. I have. I must finish. I have always had a deep suspicion about jewishness. I can put it very simply. We have survived 4000 years almost. And I think now I, scientists will tell me I'm wrong. But I have a hunch that something has entered the genetic lifestream of the jewish people. They are survivors. They are survivors because of the grace of God and the election of God. For those who tell me that God has finished with Israel, then I want to know if God can also finish with the church. If he can give up Israel, surely the time has come for him to give up the church. When you see some of the things that are going on in the church, church. But election is election, and grace is grace. I had this suspicion that within the jewish people, God has placed this stamina, this ability to endure, pray for it. The other thing is, the observant jew has always been disciplined. He cant keep Sabbath when he wants. Its a set time every week, and it differs every week. And it ends at a set time, and it differs every week. He cant keep festivals. When he wants to keep festivals, they're set times. Kashrut law is Kashrut law. You can't sort of pray over bacon and make it kosher. Kashrut law is Kashrut law. And somehow into the genetic lifestream of the jewish people has come a perfectionism. That's why jews go to the top. In music, in science, in medicine, in social affairs, in everything. It's also why they get to the top as swindlers. They're always the best. They get to the top because within the lifestream of the jewish people is this sense of standards that you cannot just play with them. You can't just be laid back. Do you understand? You have to be exact. You have to be precise. One day, in the not too distant future, God will take the veil away of the jewish heart and mind, and the jewish people will come to God. In that day, both the church and Israel will become one. And the light will shine in the whole earth as the last solid evidence that Jesus is the messiah, the son of the living God. Then at some point after that, the messiah will come in the clouds with great power and glory. And with him will come that everlasting kingdom of God. Pray as you've never prayed before. Pray not sentimental, soft prayers. Pray. So. Prayer. That's what we need at the present time. Thank you. Only I will be I. [01:22:10] Speaker B: Shall we just read this last verse before we sing it together? Just read it. Thank you. [01:23:00] Speaker A: Hash. We are. [01:23:09] Speaker B: Father. Our hearts are filled with the wonder of how you wait for us sinners. And for the sinful nation, the nation whom we love. The thorn bush of thorn bushes. Lord, we thank you. Your waiting in the shadows for that cry from the very heart of the nation. We link with them, Lord, and we link with you to cry for your mercy at this time, Lord, strip away that veil. Hasten the day of the revelation. Just whom Yeshua is. Father, we look to you and we thank you that your mercy is everlasting. Lord. That's not just words in a book. History proves it. Lord, thank you that the dry bones are together assembled, Lord, in Israel at this time. We're looking, Lord, for your victory lord, for your vanquishing of their foes, for the revelation, o God, of just whom you are in love and power and life giving redemption. Father, we now just commit one another to your grace and and blessing. As we travel watch over our homes and our loved ones. Especially commend lance and Claude, all involved in ministry here. Lord, to your keeping power. Be thou Lord, the great shepherd of the sheep. And we give you thanks Lord for the blessings and the challenge of this day. In Jesus name. Amen. Amen. Amen. [01:24:45] Speaker A: Glory to God. [01:24:46] Speaker B: Thank you. God bless.