Our Response to God’s Purpose

God has a predetermined purpose revealed in prophecy to regather His scattered people, Israel, from all the corners of the earth to bring them back into what He calls their own land to restore them spiritually and to restore the city of Jerusalem as the center of worship and government for the whole earth. It’s very important that we all remember as Christians, no matter what our racial background whether we’re African or Arab or Russian or American or Indian or British, that we owe our entire spiritual inheritance to one nation—that nation Israel. This is not a matter of speculation. It’s a matter of simple fact. If there had never been a nation of Israel we would have no patriarchs, no prophets, no apostles, no Bible, and no Savior. No wonder Jesus said, ‘Salvation is from the Jews.’ We all owe our entire spiritual inheritance to one people—that is Israel. We are debtors and God is now requiring that we Christians recognize our indebtedness, acknowledge our failure to discharge our indebtedness, and in fact acknowledge that for many centuries by prejudice, by hatred toward Israel, by persecution, by injustice, by cruelty, by indifference, we have compounded out debt to them many, many times over. It’s my personal conviction that the Lord will not take the church from the earth until the church has seen this fact, acknowledged, repented and done something specific to repay its debt. Therefore, what I’m saying is, none of us can say this is not my business, I’m not concerned, I’m not involved.

Let me suggest something else to you right now too. I believe as Christians we’re all in some sense answerable for what the church has done through the centuries, both good and bad. I’m from an Anglican background. For many years I’ve been associated with Pentecostals and Charismatics. I’ve never been actively anti-Semitic, I’ve never been involved in Hitler’s gas chambers or even the Spanish Inquisition, but for some years now God has been dealing with me that I cannot simply select those little areas of church history which suit me and say, ‘I’m an inheritor of that and the rest is not my responsibility.’ I’m reminded of the people to whom Jesus spoke with the Pharisees, He said, ‘You people say that if we’d been in the day of the prophets we wouldn’t have stoned them.’

You know what Jesus said? He said, ‘You bear witness against yourselves that you are the descendants of those that stoned the prophets.’ And I do not believe that we as Christians can stand off from the total history of the Christian church over nineteen centuries and say, ‘We would never have done those things.’ If we want to inherit Christianity we have to inherit the whole of it—the good and the bad. I believe we are collectively responsible for the way the Christian church has treated the Jewish people.

You may not be familiar with Jewish history. I am no expert, but I would simply say that over many centuries the main propagators of anti-Semitism were the Christians. It’s hard for many Christians to realize that when Jews meet Christians, inwardly they are saying to themselves, ‘These people have been our worst enemies.’

My wife, Ruth, is from a somewhat unusual background. She’s born of Gentile parents in the United States, converted to Judaism when she was just over twenty years old, and lived for twenty years as a very definite, practicing Jewess in the United States. Her first husband was Jewish. Her mother-in-law, when instructing her about becoming a Jewess said this to her, ‘Never trust the Christians. They’ll tell you that they love you; they’ll say that you are friends. When the time comes, they’ll send you to the concentration camps.’

Now you might say that’s unjust and unfair, but it is a reality. And that Jewish attitude is based on countless historical facts which the Jews know much better than most Christians. That was just introduction.

Now I’m coming to my message. I said that God has a purpose to restore Israel and tonight I want to speak about how you and I can align ourselves with God’s purpose—not only can, but should—that God requires us to align ourselves with His purpose. God gives insight into prophecy not in order that we should be spectators on the sidelines of history, not that we should go around and tell people in spiritual language that we know what’s going to happen next. My experience is when you meet Christians that tell you they know what’s going to happen next, it usually doesn’t happen, because prophetic revelation is not given to make you wiser than other people. Prophetic revelation, when it’s genuine, is given to you to enable you to get involved with what God is doing. It’s not given to make you a super-spiritual spectator.

It’s given that you may know what God is doing and how you can align yourself with what He is doing. And so that’s what I’m going to be dealing with tonight—how we can align ourselves with what God is doing.

Let me give you two Scriptures by way of introduction, general principles. Psalm 33, beginning at verse 8:

“Let all the earth fear the LORD;
Let all the people of the world revere him.
For he spoke, and it came to be;
He commanded, and it stood firm.”

There is one specific reason why we should all reverence the Lord, because when God says a thing, it happens. When He gives a commandment, it takes place. His word is supreme. Then it says:

“The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
He thwarts the purposes of the peoples.”

And when you hear of various decisions made in the United Nations and elsewhere, it’s good to bear in mind that if those decisions are not in line with the purpose of God, He will foil them and He will thwart them.

“The LORD foils the plans of the nations;
He thwarts the purposes of the peoples
But the plans of the LORD stand firm forever,
the purposes of his heart through all generations.
Now don’t detach that from the next verse because it’s important.
Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,
the people He chose for His inheritance,”

Why blessed? Because they’re the object of God’s plans and purposes which stand fast forever. In that 12th verse we have actually, I believe, two different possibilities. The nation whose God is the Lord, the people He chose for His inheritance. I believe that Israel are the people that God chose. It wasn’t their choice. It was God’s choice. As a matter of fact, many, many Jewish people, I think, wish that God had never made that choice, because a lot of problems go with being chosen by God. But it also says, Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. The word ‘nation’ there in Hebrew is goy, which gives us the word goyim which is the Jewish word for ‘Gentile.’ A nation other than Israel has a choice. That nation may choose to make their God the Lord or they may refuse. If they choose aright they will be blessed; if they choose awrong they will suffer for it.

About a hundred and twenty years ago President Abraham Lincoln issued a declaration to the people of United States in his presidency, and in that declaration he said amongst other things, ‘That nation only is blessed whose God is the Lord.’ And he was referring to the United States. The United States, a Gentile nation as is Britain, has the opportunity to make the true God, the Lord, their God. Israel hasn’t a choice. Israel has been chosen by God.

“Moving on to 1st John chapter 2 and verse 17, just the one verse but it’s very important:
The world and its desires [or lusts] pass away, but the man who does the will of God abides forever.”

That’s a remarkable statement, isn’t it? The man who does the will of God abides forever. So when we align ourselves with God’s will and purpose as revealed in His Word, we’re unsinkable. Nothing can overthrow us. We’re undefeatable, we’re as strong and as irresistible as the will of God itself. That’s our privilege to make the will of God our will, to choose to align ourselves with God’s purposes.

Now I want to apply that particularly to how we may align ourselves with God’s purposes at this time for Israel. And I want to suggest to you three simple things that we can do. They’re simple to talk about. They’re not necessarily simple to do. I will give you the three and then speak briefly about each of them. First of all, we can proclaim; second, we can comfort; and third, we can pray. Let me say those three once more. We can proclaim, we can comfort, and we can pray.

First proclaim—I’m going back to a passage in Jeremiah chapter 31 verse 7, 8 and 10. I will omit verse 9 simply for the sake of time. Jeremiah 31:7:

“This is what the LORD says:
‘Sing with joy for Jacob;
shout among the chiefs of the nations.
Make your praises heard, and say,
‘O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’
See, I will bring them from the land of the north
and gather them from the ends of the earth.”

Many passages which predict this end-time regathering of Israel, there’s a special emphasis on the land of the north. I pointed out to you that means essentially countries such as Germany, Poland and Russia. And there has been, of course, something special about the regathering of Israel in association with those countries.

“See, I will bring them from the land of the north
and gather them from the ends of the earth.
Among them will be the blind and the lame,
expectant mothers and women in labor;
a great throng will return.”

Those words were absolutely exactly fulfilled over and over again in the period from about 1948 to 1958—what they call in Hebrew ___________________ (in Hebrew) the mass immigration, when thousands and thousands of Jews rejected by other countries came by sheer compulsion—pregnant, sick, blind, lame—just exactly as it’s described here. Now moving on to verse 10:

“‘Hear the word of the LORD, O nations; [bear in mind that means Gentile nations.] proclaim it in distant coastlands [or islands, you’ll find both translations used.]
‘He who scattered Israel will gather them
and will keep his flock like a shepherd.’”

I want to tell you, humbly, but very positively, that Scripture is being fulfilled here this afternoon. I believe I’m God’s representative to you, and I’m making that proclamation. It says, Cry out and shout among the chiefs of the nations. I suppose, in virtue of her history and her standing in the world, Great Britain could be called one of the chiefs of the nations, and I am making that proclamation to you here this evening in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. The proclamation is this: He who scattered Israel will gather them. It’s happened. It’s happening.

You remember I said this afternoon in the first message, when the Lord regathers Israel, He’s lifting up a banner to the nations. This is the message. The one who scattered Israel is regathering it. One of the beauties of the Hebrew language is that you can say such tremendous things in so few words. That statement in biblical Hebrew is three words—misari, Ysrael, yakazenu (phonetically). The one who scatters—Israel—will regather him. Interestingly, the Hebrew verb, likabetz (phonetically) from which that word is formed is exactly the same verb and the same form from which we get the word kibbutz. How many of you know what a kibbutz is? A kibbutz is a collective settlement, one of the unique features of regathered Israel. You might almost translate that, the one who scattered Israel will gather him back in kibbutzim. So marvelously accurate is the Word of God when we see its application. God, I believe, has given me this responsibility as a representative of the Christian church, a minister of the Word of God to proclaim among the nations this fact. And I have done it in many islands. I’ve done it in Jamaica; I’ve done it in New Zealand; I’ve done it in Australia; I’ve done it in South Africa and I believe I’m here by divine appointment this afternoon to do it here—to declare to you British people, you British Christians, this sovereign act of God. He who scattered Israel will regather him, is regathering him right now. He’s lifting up a banner to the nations. He’s declaring that His Word stands. Not the counsels and plans of the nations, but the counsel and purpose of Almighty God revealed in the Scriptures of the prophets; revealed in the Bible.

“In that context it says that we are to do several things. Go back to verse 7 for a moment: ‘Sing with joy for Jacob’”

How many of you do that? Some of you do. You see, the fact that God is keeping His covenant promises to Israel is good news for Christians. My personal feeling is this, if God did not fulfill the countless promises given to Israel in the Bible to restore them and regather them, I couldn’t have any confidence that God would fulfill the promises given to the church. It’s the same God, the same book, the same language. I believe the regathering of Israel today is the greatest single objective worldwide confirmation that the Bible is the Word of God. If you believe in the Bible, every time you think of what God is doing for Israel, you should sing for joy—if you can sing. If you’re like me and you can’t sing, then shout. It says, Sing for joy, shout… My wife sings, I shout. Make your praises heard… That’s the appropriate response. To do less than that is to miss out on what God is saying and doing. It’s to be passive and indifferent in a time of divine activity.

I was just recently with a precious fellow minister from New Zealand. And he was sharing some experiences with me how after he came into the baptism of the Holy Spirit about twenty years ago, one day the Lord gave him a vision and he saw the heavenly hosts, many, many angels leaning forward with tremendous expectancy, obviously tremendously eager to be involved in something that was going on, on earth. But there was a kind of cord that restrained them and held them back.

And then some years later in a vision he saw the same spectacle again, but this time the cord was removed while he was watching and this great company of angels was released to some activity on earth. For a while he wasn’t quite sure what the activity would be. He expected to see some dramatic development in his own ministry or in the church in his area, but nothing came. So he determined to look back through the pages of recent history and find out if anything significant had happened in world history at the time that he got this vision of the angels being released. And when he did he said, ‘I had no problem in determining what it was. It was the first day of the Six Day War.’

I don’t believe we fully understand the extent of heaven’s involvement in what’s going on, on earth. And I believe God is grieved if angels are eager and the church is indifferent. I believe that grieves the heart of God.

All right, the second way we can involve ourselves in God’s purposes is to comfort God’s people. I want to turn to the 40th chapter of Isaiah and read the first 8 verses:

“Comfort, comfort My people, says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her
that her hard service has been completed,
that she has received from the LORD’S hand double for all her sins.
A voice of one calling:
‘In the desert prepare the way for the LORD;
make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be raised up,
Every mountain and hill made low;
The rough ground shall become level,
The rugged places a plain.
And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
And all mankind together will see it. For the mouth of the LORD has spoken.’”

Notice that theme. How do we know it’s going to happen? Because the Lord said it would happen. Continuing verse 6:

“A voice says, ‘Cry out.’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
‘All men [or all flesh] are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them.
Surely the people are grass.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
but the word of our God stands forever.’”

I would like to offer some comments on that passage. The opening verse says, Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. The word comfort is in the plural. It’s not addressed to one person, but to a group. Comfort, comfort my people, says your God—in the context of Isaiah chapter 40, whom does God describe as My people? To me it’s clear—He’s speaking of Israel. Immediately it’s tied in with Jerusalem. Actually, if you know the Jewish people they can never be comforted unless God undertakes for Jerusalem, because their heart and their destiny are eternally bound up with the city of Jerusalem. It is impossible for a devout, believing Jew to be totally happy unless the state of Jerusalem is good.

When Ruth and I got married two years ago, almost two years ago — Ruth is my second wife, my first wife the Lord called home — because Ruth has a background in Judaism our marriage was a little unusual. It was a combination of Jewish and Christian which was quite exciting. We originally decided we’d have a very quiet marriage on Tuesday morning and only invite the closest members. And we decided on Tuesday morning because nobody would be offended if they don’t get invited on Tuesday morning. Well, the thing got out of our control and more and more people indicated they’d be offended if they didn’t come, so we ended up by having it on Tuesday night and there were about eight hundred people there of whom two or three hundred were visitors from other places. As a matter of fact, the wedding party was more than forty people let alone the wedding. And part of the ceremony was Christian and part was based on Jewish.

And as the bridegroom—one part of the ceremony was that I had to offer Ruth to drink a glass of wine with me. We shared it together twice. Then I said those words from Psalm 137:

“If I forget you, O Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill,
May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you,
If I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.”

I said those words and I was very conscious when I was saying them that the Lord was holding me to account for what I was saying, that it was not an empty ceremony. And then after I’d said those words, I put the glass down, crushed it. There was such a spirit in that ceremony that the whole congregation burst out in spontaneous applause when I did that. It was something sovereign that God did. Do you know why a Jewish bridegroom does that? You know the significance of that act? Because even in their moments of greatest happiness the Jewish people never forget that Jerusalem and the temple are desolate. And so that’s a vivid way of remembering the desolation of Jerusalem and the temple. And in nineteen centuries of dispersion and exile the prayer of the Jewish people has always been for the restoration of Jerusalem.

And so it would be impossible to comfort Jewish people if the comfort did not include the city of Jerusalem. Going back then to Isaiah 40:

“Comfort, comfort My people,”

I believe that’s Israel. I’m sure most of you would agree with me. I think most commentators would from whatever background. Now I have a little question for you. It’s not a catch. If My people are Israel, to whom are those words addressed, Comfort My people? It says your God. They’re people whose God is the Lord. They’re not Israel. Who are they? There really only is one logical possibility—the church. I believe that’s our message to the Jewish people.

For a good many centuries the church has been reminding the Jewish people that they crucified Jesus. Believe me, dear friends, if you want them to listen to you don’t bother to tell them that, because the

moment you say that you close the ears of any Jew—true or not true.

Ruth and I have a very good Jewish friend who’s a guide in Israel. Every time we take a tour there she’s one of our guides. She’s very, very smart, very well educated, very intelligent. And the guides in Israel today are extremely well instructed in the New Testament. They know it very well. As a matter of fact, they know it better than some Christian preachers, and they talk about it with more respect and faith. They never tell you that this is where it is reported that Jesus walked on the water, they say, ‘This is where Jesus walked on the water.’ They say, ‘This is where Jesus fed five thousand.’ It doesn’t occur to them to treat that as a myth. Anyhow, I say this just by way of a warning and an example—and it’s in no sense directed against Roman Catholics. But she was guiding a tour, a busload of Roman Catholics from Europe, and in due course they said the inevitable. ‘You Jews crucified Christ.’ She said, ‘Well, I didn’t understand it that way. I thought it was the Romans who crucified Christ.’ Who was right? However, the whole human race is in some way responsible for the death of Jesus Christ.

But that’s not our message. Our message is a message of comfort, not condemnation. Your long, long night of agony is over. You’ve received double for all the wrong you’ve done. Now God is for you. He’s restoring you, He’s bringing you back, He’s lifting up His countenance upon you. He’s ready to bless you. That, I believe, is the message to the Christian church at this time. The next verse says:

“…prepare the way of the LORD…”

You know what I believe? I believe that that is preparing the way of the Lord. I am inclined to think that there’s more to Israel than saying Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord, than Jesus appearing in the cloud. I believe there’s got to be a work of preparation. I believe centuries of prejudice and alienation and misunderstanding have got to be broken down. I believe they’ve got to be melted by the warmth of real Christian love. I believe that’s our assignment just at this time.

The next verse speaks about tremendous changes—valleys being raised up, mountains low and so on. I believe that will happen the way it’s written. I believe there’ll be tremendous geological changes but I believe that’s not all. I believe there are other changes that have to take place. I believe that some nations that are very high will be abased. Some nations that are humble will be exalted. Great changes will take place and they will depend on how we relate to God’s purposes for Israel. And the purpose is stated in verse 5,

“And the glory of the LORD will be revealed,
That’s the ultimate purpose of God. All mankind together will see it.
A voice says, ‘Cry out.’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
What’s the message. What are we to tell the Jewish people? The message is rather a strange one.
‘All men are like grass,
and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.
The grass withers and the flowers fall,
because the breath of the LORD blows on them.”

What comfort is there in that? Could you call that a message of comfort? No, that’s the preparation. What is the message?

“The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands forever.”

That’s the message of comfort. All the forces of history, all your agony, all your shame, all the evil that’s been raised up against you cannot stand against the Word of God. All that will be swept away. It’s grass. When the Spirit of the Lord blows upon it, it will wither. There’s only one enduring reality in history—it’s the Word of the Lord. The Word of the Lord declares that He will restore you, that He will regather you, that He will pardon. I believe the Jewish people need to hear that.

In my own experience over the last two years I have been absolutely amazed at the response of Jewish people to that message. I couldn’t have believed the response that I’ve seen. Have you ever tried simply loving Jewish people? Not just preaching to them or handing them tracts. I will tell you, and you can find this out in your experience, for ninety percent of Jewish people it is actually almost unbelievable

that there are Christians that really love them. There is a Jewish believer here today. He was born and brought up in the city of London. I know him. He said to me this afternoon, ‘This is the first time I’ve ever been in a church in this city where I’ve heard anybody say anything good about Israel.’

In the particular church or fellowship that I’m associated with where I live in Florida, in Fort Lauderdale, about two or three years ago the pastor decided we’d have an Israel Night. Well, it didn’t exactly start that way. Let me tell you how it started. One night just at the end of a year, spontaneously we took up an offering for people in need. We hadn’t planned it. We just did it. And out of a group of about two hundred people we got about twenty-five hundred dollars. Well then the questions was, What do we do with this twenty-five hundred dollars? So the pastor was a young man, came to me and I said, ‘Why don’t we bless Israel with some of it?’ And he was very much impressed with that. So we decided we’d give five hundred dollars to Israel.

Then he said, ‘How do we do it.’ I said, ‘Listen, make it specific. Make it personal. Find out the address of a rabbi in the city, phone him, tell him you’re a Christian minister, you’ve taken up a collection in your church, and you want to give five hundred dollars to Israel to help poor immigrants.’ Well he did, and when the rabbi heard who he was and what he wanted to do, he couldn’t believe it! He said, ‘I’ve got to meet you. I’ve never met a person like this.’ So he went and he met the rabbi and two leaders of the Jewish community and it’s the fastest growing Jewish community in the United States.

It’s very interesting. The other two men were not theologians, they were businessmen, with a rather typical Jewish outlook and sense of humor. The first thing one of the businessmen said to him was, ‘Listen, I didn’t crucify Jesus. Honest I didn’t. I have an alibi. I was in Philadelphia.’ It took them quite a while to get adjusted to the fact that there was a Christian minister who wanted to give financial help to Israel. So they said, ‘We’ve got to get to know more about you.’

So then we held a meeting in our church to honor Israel. We invited the rabbi and his wife and the leaders of the Jewish community. About six of them turned up. We are a lively church. I mean, we don’t believe in just singing. We sing, we clap hands, we dance, we embrace one another and we do it with our whole heart. And we were really having a good time. And these—I was standing right next to one of the Jewish men. His eyes opened wider and wider and wider. He couldn’t believe what he was seeing. We didn’t hide the fact that we believed in Jesus. It was because of Jesus that we were doing all this, and the more they saw it the more they liked it.

Well, then we had a little interval in which Ruth had prepared some Jewish style refreshments for everybody, and then we went back and a brother in the church, who’s got a very beautiful slide presentation of Israel, showed the slides. And they were tremendously impressed. They’d never seen anything like that. So—I didn’t intend to tell you all this—but once I’ve started it’s going to take me awhile. Maybe the Lord wants to put some ideas in your mind.

After that, a little while later, the Red Star of David, that’s like the Red Cross, in the city or in the county, were collecting money for an ambulance for Israel. They were selling tickets for a meeting to be held in a big theater at four dollars each. So they came to our pastor and they said, ‘We’ve got some tickets to raise money for this ambulance for Israel. Would you like to buy some?’ We said, ‘How many have you got?’ They said, ‘Four hundred.’ He said, ‘We’ll take them all.’ Well they almost fell over!

In the end we sold eight hundred and four tickets to people in our related congregations. Then they invited us and the pastor and his wife and Ruth and I were the guests of honor. They made us stand up, and then they said, ‘All the people that have come with these two ministers stand up,’ and eight hundred people stood up out of about two thousand. And there was a kind of awed murmur amongst the crowd. And everybody that was near one of our people, every Jewish person, ‘What kind of people are you? I’ve never see people like you before.’

Before the performance ended the national representative of the Red Star of David in the United States presented our pastor with the highest award that the Red Star of David ever has to offer, never before offered to a Gentile. I can’t really tell you. The atmosphere was awe. It was incredulity that Christians do anything like that. We didn’t—honestly again and again they said, ‘We never knew there were Christians like you.’

So the next time we had an Honor Israel Night, we held it in a high school auditorium, not at all in the Jewish section of town. And we had about, I suppose five hundred people. We put on a really good Christian show—singing, Jewish style dancing and so on. We had approximately two hundred Jewish people come to this. Our pastor, quite early in the meeting, was up on this big stage and he got happy in the Lord so he began to dance. And the rabbi, wearing his kippa, climbed up the steps on the platform and started dancing with him, and I really don’t think he knew what he was doing. He was gripped by something.

So at the end they asked me to give—oh, then our brother gave his slide presentation and he quoted prophecies of Isaiah several times. And you could hear the Jewish people say to one another, ‘I didn’t know that was in our Bible.’ At the end I gave a talk of about ten minutes on why we love Israel, and when I came down there were quite elderly Jewish people, men and women, I tell you without exaggeration they simply wanted to touch me. I absolutely was overwhelmed. My eyes were filled with tears. I couldn’t believe that it would mean so much to those people.

What’s the message? ‘Comfort My people.’ Let them know you love them. Let them know God loves them. Let them know that God is ready to forgive. God says it’s all over if you could just believe. Well then, I have to tell you the second part of this story. It’s really—I would not have believed a few years ago these things could happen. I’m talking about God taking away the heart of stone and restoring a heart of flesh. It’s a reality. Well, Ruth and I started this year, 1980, in South Africa in a big Charismatic conference with about six thousand five hundred people—inter-racial, inter-denominational held in the biggest city, Johannesburg. I was chosen to be the closing speaker on the last night. And they’d been at it for six days, those people. The last service began, I think, at seven thirty and they had a communion for six thousand five hundred people, which takes quite a while. It was a beautiful sight to see blacks, Asians, colored, white, Afrikaans, British, all sharing the communion together, especially of course in South Africa.

Then I was to speak. I didn’t get on until nine-thirty. They said to me the allotted time is forty-five minutes, but you can have an hour. So I’m very particular, I hope including tonight, and I said Ruth, ‘Now you sit right in front of the pulpit and when I’ve had forty-five minutes, put your hand up.’ Well we never have really resolved what happened. Usually I’m a pretty controlled speaker, but that night something happened to me. If you’re a preacher you may understand, the Lord took me out of myself. I said things I didn’t even know I knew and I couldn’t think where I was getting them from. My theme was exactly what I’m talking about, ‘How to Face the Future: the Answer, Align Yourself with God’s Purposes.’ And one major purpose of God I dealt with was the restoration of the State of Israel. When I’d finished I’d learned with embarrassment that I’d spoken for an hour and forty-five minutes. But I have to say the people were more alive at the end than at the beginning.

Then the man who was leading the conference stepped forward and said, ‘Now we’ve got to act on what we’ve heard, we can’t just listen. How many of you will identify yourself with the State of Israel? Well, about six thousand people stood to their feet instantly. So this man said, ‘Listen, you don’t understand. It’s not that easy to be identified with Israel. It costs something. Sit down and think it over.’ So they sat down and he really warned them of all the problems and the opposition and said, ‘Now if you’ve really made up your mind, stand up.’ And about four thousand people stood up the second time. Well, this got into the newspapers. Some of the ministers there took it to the cabinet of the South African government, and said, ‘We’ve got to take this into account in determining the policy of South Africa.’ It also got into the Jewish press which is pretty strong and influential in South Africa. Well, after a while Jewish reporters wanted to interview me, so I had two interviews and really it was always the same question. ‘We never knew there were Christians like that.’ These were sophisticated, educated, intelligent Jewish people.

Ruth and I were there nineteen days and we didn’t have one day off until the last day. Then they said, ‘You can have a day off.’ That day we were in Cape Town and we received an invitation from the leaders in the Zionist Community in Cape Town, the Jewish leaders, to speak to them. So Ruth and I talked it over and we said, ‘Well, in the light of that, we’ll have to give up our one rest day.’

So she and I met with about fifteen leaders of the Jewish community in Cape Town and a few Christians. I had no idea what to say. I made up my mind I wouldn’t premeditate because whatever I think of it’s bound to be wrong. In the end I really gave them my personal testimony, told them how I’d come to believe the Bible, why I believed in the destiny and state of Israel, and I happened to say without premeditation, I am not spiritual politician. But I said, ‘As a matter of fact, I think if you would turn me loose I could get you more immigrants for Israel than all your immigration offices all over the world.’ That is something Jewish people listen to. When I finished I had about eight copies of my books in front of me, I said, ‘I’m leaving these books here. If any of you care to read them, you can just help yourself.’ The people ran forward to grab the books. So the Jewish man leading the meeting said, ‘Hey, wait a minute. You can’t do that. We all want to read them. We’ll put them in the Zionist Library and you can borrow them by turns.’ I could never have believed that my books that are here today would ever end up in the Zionist Library.

A man came up to me in the end, told me he was a rabbi. I knew from his accent he was an Israeli, he said, ‘I’m the Shelia (phonetically), the representative to the Jewish community in Cape Town.’ He said, ‘If you ever come back to Cape Town give me warning in advance. I’d like you to speak to the whole Jewish community.’ So I wasn’t quite sure if that would really work out. But I was featured in the Jewish Press in South Africa for four weeks running after that. Would you believe that?

Now we’re going back, God willing, and I believe He is, next month October for almost a month. We’ll be speaking in every one of the major cities of South Africa. At the present moment we have twenty meetings lined up—eight are with Christians, seven are with Jewish groups, and five are with combined Jewish and Christian groups. And really they want to know what makes people like me love Israel. If anybody had predicted that to me five years ago I honestly could not have believed it. But we’re in a new period, we’re in a different period, something has happened.

I was very closely involved with the Catholic Charismatic Movement when it broke out in the United States about 1966. Most of us non-Catholics were amazed that the Holy Spirit would ever move with liberty and power in the Catholic Church. Weren’t we? Now be honest. Yes. I want to tell you something. The Catholics were amazed that it would ever move outside the Catholic Church. And even then I said, ‘It’s my prediction that the next major outbreak of the Holy Spirit in the world will be in the Jewish people, and when that happens you can know we’re very near the end of the age.

Now this is not a prophecy. It’s a personal prediction. I believe we’re right on the threshold of that event, and God knows what’s going to happen next, because the Bible says if the casting away of Israel is the reconciling of Gentiles, what will be the receiving of them but life from the dead? I think there’s going to be something like a spiritual resurrection when the Holy Spirit touches Israel. That’s my belief, and I believe we have a responsibility. What is it? Lay down our prejudices, our preconceptions, our negative attitudes and tell them, ‘God loves you! God’s bringing you back.’ It’s all in the Bible. Ninety percent of Jewish people don’t know the prophecies of the Bible that I’ve quoted to you here today. They’re amazed when they hear them. That brother of ours who has that slide presentation, he has more commitments to show it to Jewish groups in Florida than he has time to do. They just want to know. It wouldn’t have been so ten years ago, but it is today. You’ve heard the statement I’m sure many times: the Jews are the minute hand on God’s clock. And that minute hand is getting very close to midnight. Some of us need to wake up.

All right—the third response to pray. We’re go back to Jeremiah 31 again, verse 7:

“This is what the LORD says:
‘Sing with joy for Jacob; shout among the chiefs of the nations.
Make your praises heard, and say,
‘O LORD, save your people, the remnant of Israel.’”

God tells us to sing, to shout, to praise, to proclaim and to pray. He says when you see this happening, don’t stand on the sidelines of history with folded hands. Begin to pray. What are we to pray—‘Lord, save Your people. Save the remnant of Israel.’ I think there’s a certain pathos in that phrase the remnant of Israel. In the generation to which I belong we’ve seen six million blotted out. It’s only a remnant. Who knows the size of the remnant that will be saved, but the Bible says a remnant will be saved. It’s our responsibility to pray. I hardly need to tell most of you I’m sure what it says in Psalm 122 verse 6. How many of you know that?

“Pray for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper that love thee.”

I like the Authorized Version better than the modern ones. You want to know how that sounds in Hebrew? It’s beautiful. It’s alliterative. ________________________. Can you hear all the "sh" sounds? They are only five words in Hebrew.

“Ask for the peace of Jerusalem:
They shall prosper who love thee.”

The word that’s translated that they shall prosper, as I understand it, doesn’t mean primarily financial prosperity, though that’s included. But it means a sense of rest, of being at peace. It’s a word that’s used when Israel dwell at peace in their own land. I believe that in the midst of a world in turmoil it’s possible to be at peace. How? When you’re aligned with God’s purposes. You’re irresistible. Let me say that again. You’re unsinkable, you’re indestructible, you abide forever. You can open the papers every day without wondering what bad news will hit you next, because you’ve got another source of news that’s basically good news.

I believe that’s the will of God for us—that we pray for the peace of Jerusalem. And again I want to say that in the peace of Jerusalem is bound up the peace and the hope of all nations. I don’t exactly want to recommend the book although it is a good book, but if you want to read my first wife’s book Appointment in Jerusalem it describes in it how the Lord gave her a revelation of how and why to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. I believe, in a sense, it has to come by a revelation to most of us. See, I don’t believe the earth will know peace. There’ll be no peoples on the earth that will know enduring peace in any continent until God has restored Jerusalem. The peace of all nations depends on that. That’s why all nations are to pray for the peace of Jerusalem. It’s not a totally disinterested prayer. It’s a prayer that’s going to bring benefits to us who pray.

“Look in Isaiah 62 verses 6 and 7:
I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem;
they will never be silent day or night.
You who call on the LORD, give yourselves no rest,
and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem
and makes her the praise of the earth.”

Watchmen are people who stay awake when others sleep. The Lord is speaking here about people posted on the walls of Jerusalem to serve as His remembrances. It became very vivid to me a few years ago that the spiritual battle that rages around Jerusalem is so intense that merely praying in the daytime won’t do it. We’ve got to cry out to the Lord day and night. There’s another passage in Luke 18 where Jesus said:

“Shall not God avenge His own elect who cry out to Him day and night?”

There are some things that will not get prayed through until Christians learn to pray day and night. I’m proud to be associated with a number of Christian communities in the United States who have systematic prayer chains, and they have people praying every hour of every day and every day of every week. And each person is like a soldier, a sentry posted on duty. In the fellowship that I belong to we don’t ask for volunteers, because a lot of people would volunteer who don’t have the character, the faith. It’s considered to be on our prayer watch, and it’s militarily organized. There’s a captain over every day, who’s responsible to see that each person prays in the specific time. There are specific prayer objectives allotted to the entire prayer watch. In fact, I’ll tell you one thing: some of them are praying for me right now because they have my itinerary and they know where I’ll be and when I’ll be speaking.

I believe in taking God’s Word seriously. I don’t believe in just nice spiritual generalizations. I believe in acting on what it says. We need sentries, we need watchmen posted that will obey orders— God’s orders.

I spent five and a half years in the British military—reluctantly, I didn’t choose it. I come from a military background. Every member of my family has been an officer in the British Army. I tell you one thing, any sentry who sleeps on duty is headed for a court-martial. It’s a responsible position. That’s what God is talking about. He’s not talking about Sunday evening Christianity. He’s talking about military discipline, total commitment to the purposes of God.

The word that’s translated in my version you who call on the Lord in one of your translations it’s you who are the Lord’s remembrances. Is that right? All right. That’s a very, very interesting Hebrew word. The Hebrew word is maschia (phonetically) which means somebody who reminds somebody. And in modern Hebrew it’s the word for a secretary. Why? You need to know the boss’s calendar. Isn’t that right, if you’re a personal secretary? It’s your job to remind the boss of when he has an appointment. ‘Don’t forget, Tuesday morning, ten o’clock you’re going to see the dentist. Thursday afternoon at 2:30 the factory manager is coming to see you.’ All right. That’s a secretary’s responsibility. That’s what God’s talking about. God has a prophetic calendar, did you know that? And He’s got some things on His calendar that He wants us to remind Him of. That’s our job. Turn to Psalm 102:

“But You, O LORD, sit enthroned forever; [that’s verse 12]
your renown endures through all generations.
You will arise and have compassion on Zion,
for it is time to show favor to her;
the appointed time has come.”

Notice, in God’s prophetic calendar there is an appointed time when He will show mercy on Zion, show her favor. The word favor corresponds to the New Testament word grace. Grace is something we cannot earn and we never deserve. It’s something that God freely gives. The Jewish people haven’t earned it, the Christians haven’t earned it, but there’s a time in God’s calendar when He’s going to show mercy and grace to Zion. Verse 14:

“For her stones are dear to your servants;
her very dust moves them to pity.”

I wonder if that’s true of us. It’s one of the marks of God’s servant that we grieve over the desolation of Zion. Then it says:

“The nations will fear the name of the LORD,
all the kings of the earth will revere Your glory,”

It’s always the same objective. The revelation of the glory of God to all nations. And then I prefer the Authorized Version:

“For when the LORD will build up Zion He will appear in His glory.”

The fact that the Lord is building up Zion is one great evidence that He’s getting ready to appear in His glory.

Now as God’s remembrances, as His secretaries, we’ve got to be acquainted with the boss’s calendar. And it’s our responsibility to say to Him, ‘Lord, in Psalm 102 You’ve said there’s an appointed time when You’ll show favor to Zion. Lord, this is the time. Fulfill Your promises. You’re a covenant-keeping God. We hold You to Your covenant. We will not give You any rest until You fulfill that promise to Zion.’ That’s the kind of prayer God is talking about.

Now I want to say something which I trust will not be controversial, even if it is I’ll say it. Prayer includes spiritual warfare—it’s not just making sweet phrases. How many of you realize that? There is no warfare more intense than the spiritual warfare that is part of prayer. And I believe that part of our praying for the restoration of Israel includes making spiritual warfare on the forces that oppose that restoration. Now the Bible says we do not wrestle against flesh and blood. Bear that in mind. We’re not fighting human individuals of any race. We are fighting principalities, powers, the rulers of the darkness of this world. I hope that’s understood. But I just want to make it clear. I am not talking about an attitude of enmity or hatred against any race. I’m talking about dealing with unseen spiritual forces that are behind all the problems of the human race.

Now it’s a disgrace not to hate those. It’s no sin to hate the devil. Do you know that? In fact, it’s a sin not to hate the devil. Ye that love the LORD, the Scripture says, hate evil. If you love the Lord you cannot be neutral about evil. Now there is one spiritual power, which in my opinion, is the greatest single obstacle both to the restoration of Israel and to the evangelization of the world by the church. And I say this on the basis of many years of experience. I’ve lived a number of years in the Middle East. I’ve lived in the Sudan. I’ve lived in Egypt and I’ve lived in Israel. And I want to say that I think the greatest spiritual power that today opposes God’s purposes and God’s people—Jew and Christian—without any doubt, is the power of Islam, the power behind the Mohammedan religion. I trust that won’t hurt your feelings.

It’s not my intent to give teaching on that, but I want to tell you that Islam has all the marks of the spirit of anti-Christ. Every one of them has been given in the first epistle of John—denies the Father and the Son, denies that Jesus is the Messiah, denies that the Messiah has come and went out from us—started out of the Judeo-Christian heritage. In 1 John chapter 2 and chapter 4, there are four marks of the spirit of anti-Christ and Islam has all four of them. I am not speaking out of emotion. I am speaking out of deep conviction of the truth of Scripture and personal experience. And I do not believe that God would have us neutral or indifferent about the threat of Islam. It seems to me that not merely is that a force to be reckoned with in the Middle East. My impression is that it’s a real danger in this country. I think it’s somewhat questionable that Moslems can set up their mosques and carry out their religious enterprises with the support and protection of the British authorities, but let any British missionary go to any Moslem country and try to do the same in the name of Christianity, they would be put to death. There is a law on the books of most Moslem countries in which it’s punishable by death to preach the gospel to a Moslem, and emphatically a crime punishable by death for any Moslem to convert to Christianity. And if you look at a map and study the percentages of Christians in different countries, you’ll find basically the smallest percentage of Christians is to be found in Moslem countries. This force is not arrayed only against Israel, it’s arrayed against everything that the Bible and the God of the Bible stand for.

Personally I have the deepest compassion for the nations of the Middle East, because I think in some measure I can understand the appalling bondage they have been held in for thirteen centuries. It is not prejudice against the Arab people, it’s concern for the souls of men and the purposes of God that we are obligated to make this type of spiritual war.

Now I believe the great basis of spiritual warfare is taking the revealed truths of Scripture and praying them into effect, saying to God, ‘You said, now do it. This is what Your Word says.’ And I want to give you three specific passages of Scripture that you can use in this type of warfare. But let me warn you— don’t go into battle until you’ve learned to put on your protective armor. You want to know the protective armor? It’s found in Ephesians 6 verses 13 through 17.

“Psalm 125 verse 3, and I’m only going to read the first half of the verse:
The scepter of the wicked will not remain
over the land allotted to the righteous,
That’s the New International Version. The New American Standard says:
The scepter of wickedness will not remain
over the land allotted to the righteous,”

Do you realize that wickedness has a scepter? Do you realize that wickedness rules? The scepter is the mark of the ruler. Many Christians gravely underestimate both the reality and the power of Satan’s kingdom. In Colossians 1:12 and 13 it says We have been delivered from the power of darkness, the Greek word is authority, carried over into the kingdom of the Son of God’s love. There has to be a deliverance from the power or the authority of darkness, and in my prayers together with Ruth, we regularly stretch out the scepter of authority which has the name of Jesus on it, and we claim those territories which are allotted by God to His people. We affirm the scepter of wickedness will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous. And I’ll tell you one thing, God supernaturally directed us to start praying like this last summer. And since then we’ve known one thing for sure, we have disturbed Satan.

We hadn’t prayed that way for more than a few weeks before the whole problem in Iran broke up. Now we have the problem between Iraq and Iran. Let me tell you, those are not accidents. Those are manifestations of God moving to change situations. Christians should be able to shape history, not just watch it. Psalm 129 verse 5, I prefer the Authorized Version, I’ll give you that:

“Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion.”

Now I’ll have to say the very essence of Islam teaching today is distilled hatred for Zion. Regrettably, and I have to say this, regrettably that message is preached also in most Arab Christian churches in the Middle East today. But the Bible says Let them all be confounded and turned back that hate Zion. That’s what’s going to happen but we have to identify ourselves with the Word of God in our prayers.

And then one final Scripture which I have learned by experience is tremendously powerful—Psalm 55 verse 9, only the first part of the verse:

“Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongues,
for I have seen violence and strife in the city.”

In the early 1950s when I was pastoring here in London, the Lord showed me to pray that prayer about communist Russia and communist China. And if you can carry your mind back, at that time they were firm allies. And I prayed almost every day for probably two years, Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongue. And you know what happened? God did it. Today Russia and China fear and mistrust one another more than any other power. That wasn’t always so.

God showed me that almost any coalition of evil can be greatly weakened if we pray this prayer. Destroy, O LORD, and divide their tongues. Turn their tongues one against another. The great weapon of most evil spiritual forces is the tongue. If they turn their weapons one against another, the situation will be dramatically changed. Frankly, I pray that about the nations in the Middle East that oppose Israel. Destroy, O LORD, divide their tongues. I don’t rejoice over war or evil, but sometimes that’s God’s way of doing it. Frankly, I believe the present situation in the Middle East is one of God’s ways in answering that prayer. In fact, I’ll tell you this, I do not believe the so-called Arab nations will ever be able to unite effectively against Israel. I say ‘so-called Arab nations’ because Egypt is not an Arab nation. If you read the Bible the Egyptians are not Semites, they’re Hamites. They’re descendants of Ham. The thing that unites them is not race, it’s religion, and it’s interesting that that has been broken down right at this point, that Egypt is being separated from the other ‘Arab nations.’ Libya is not an Arab nation, Sudan is not an Arab nation.

“The word of God is quick and powerful, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the dividing asunder of soul and the spirit.”

It lays bare the real inner realities of a situation of a nation and a people, and if you thrust with that sword it will break down everything that opposes the purposes of God.

Now, I close with just a final warning, and this is the warning. God judges the nations by their attitude to Israel. I’ll give you three passages of Scripture. Isaiah 60 and verse 12, I have to come to an

end rapidly now. Isaiah 60:12. Isaiah 60 is a promise of restoration to Zion, but in the 12th verse the Lord says:

“For the nation or kingdom that will not serve you will perish;
those nations shall be utterly wasted.”

Any nation that opposes the restoration of Israel is ultimately doomed to perish—if you believe the Bible and I do. Let me say this. The prophecies concerning Israel in the Bible have been at least seventy five percent absolutely, accurately fulfilled in every detail. To me it would be illogical not to be open to the supposition that the rest will be fulfilled with equal accuracy. Any other attitude in my opinion would be illogical. Jeremiah 30:16 and 17, this is addressed to Israel:

“‘‘But all who devour you will be devoured;
all your enemies will go into exile.
Those who plunder you will be plundered;
all who make spoil of you I [that’s God] will despoil.
But I will restore you to health and heal your wounds,’ declares the LORD,
‘because you are called an outcast,
Zion for whom no one cares.’”

Notice, it’s addressed to Zion. God says, ‘Everybody that resists and opposes and attacks you, I will deal with.’ And then, finally, in Matthew 25 the last of the parables of Jesus as I understand it and I will not read it in detail. It’s the parable of the sheep and the goat nations. As I understand it, it describes a scene at the close of the present age where the kingdom of God is being set up on earth, and it says,

“The King [that’s Jesus] will sit on the throne of His glory,
All nations will be gathered before Him,”

Notice this is a judgment of nations, and they will be divided into two categories. No third category. Sheep on the right hand, goats on the left, the sheep are received and admitted to the kingdom of God. The goats are totally rejected. Jesus said to them:

“Depart from me, you who are accursed, into the everlasting fire prepared to the devil and his angels.”

Some of the strongest words of rejection in all Scripture. What’s the basis of acceptance or rejection? Let me read to you now the words of Jesus, verse 34,

“‘Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world.
For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in.
I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’
‘Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?
When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’
‘The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.’
‘Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.
For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink,
I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’
‘They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’
‘He will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’”

See, that’s a judgment of nations, and we need to remember that in His human nature Jesus is a member of a nation. I don’t know how your theology is, but my understanding and I believe the understanding of all orthodox Christian theology, is that when Jesus became a man in the incarnation, He became a man forever. He never ceased to be God, but from then on He never ceased to be man. And one of the marvels of redemption is that there’s a man at the right hand. A man in the glory, the head of a new race, the God-Man race, the Emmanuel race, begotten again from the dead, the head of the body which is the church. And in Revelation that man on the throne is called the Lion of the Tribe of Judah. Bear in mind that’s long after His resurrection and ascension. That’s in eternity. He never lost His identity with Judah. He is the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and Judah is the word from which we take the word Jew.

In His human nature, Jesus is specifically identified with one nation—the Jewish people. Whether we like it or not is not of primary importance. You see, God never comes to us the way we like it. God doesn’t come, as a rule, walking into the room and saying, ‘I’m Almighty God, do what I tell you,’ because there wouldn’t be much disobedience. But God comes in disguise. Why does God come in disguise? Because He wants to find the real motives of our heart.

Got has got various disguises. Of course the greatest disguise of all was what? Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son. Who would think that God would come into the stage of humanity as the carpenter’s son? Years ago in Britain I knew a brother—this is just by the way—God put in his heart a prayer to the Lord Jesus: ‘Show me Your hands; show me Your hands.’ And one day while he was praying God answered the prayer and he saw the hands of Jesus. He expected to see the hands with nail prints. But you know what he saw? The hands of a working man, a carpenter, and that made it so real to him, the humanity of Jesus. That’s one of Jesus’ disguises.

There’s another disguise that many don’t recognize—how many times Jesus comes in the form of a child and people don’t even recognize Him. I don’t want to be boastful, but I believe in practicing what I preach. Between Ruth and me, and this is just the way God worked in our lives, we have twelve adopted children—nine are Jewish, one is Arab (she’s here tonight), one is English and one is a little black African. I particularly remember when the Lord put that little sick African baby in our living room in East Africa. A couple brought her and said, ‘There’s no one to take this little girl. We’ve looked for three days for any family—African, Asian, or European. No one will take her, but we heard that you take children.’ And we smiled and said, ‘Oh, yes, that was many years ago in Israel, but we’re not doing that work now. It would interfere with the work we’re doing. Besides, we’re too old to take children now.’

And they said, ‘Well, we’re so tired. Will you just let us sit down and rest for half an hou?’ They sat there and the woman was holding this little sick black baby girl wrapped in nothing but a dirty towel. As they got up to go, and I’m really not a very sentimental or emotional person, this little baby just stretched out one hand to me as if to say, ‘What are you going to do with me?’ And I looked at my first wife—that was not Ruth—and I said, ‘Maybe we’ll change our mind.’ And my first wife who was then well over sixty said, ‘Give me a week to get a crib and some baby clothes, and bring her back.’ We came so near to turning Jesus away. He came in the disguise of a little sick black baby.

And Jesus has another disguise. It’s a disguise in which He comes to nations to people that’s been despised, rejected, persecuted, spoken against, their backs bent down for centuries. But one day He’s going to say to those nations, ‘If you did good to them, you did it to Me.’ But He’s also going to say, ‘If you didn’t do good to them, you didn’t do it to Me.’ How shocked and surprised many of them will be to penetrate the Lord’s disguise, but many of them will penetrate it too late.

I was in the land of Israel from 1946 till August 1948. I witnessed the closing years and months of the British Mandate. I witnessed it firsthand as a Britisher, and without going into many details I want to say to you that the official representatives of the British government in the land at that time did everything they could, short of open warfare with injustice, to frustrate the birth of the State of Israel. I am not afraid to make that statement anywhere. I’m not theorizing. I’m not giving a second-hand report. I saw it with my own eyes.

Announcer: Due to a technical problem, the conclusion of this message was recorded separately following the actual meeting.

As I bring this message of mine to a close, I want to suggest that each of us individually and all of us collectively face up to our responsibilities. First of all, as members of the Christian church and second, as Britishers, our responsibility for the wrongs and the injustices committed against the Jewish people by those with whom we are identified. I want you to consider your own position in this matter for a moment and then I’m inviting you to join with me in a public act of confession and repentance in which first of all, we acknowledge the sins committed over many centuries by the Christian church against the Jewish people, and secondly, if we are British we go on to acknowledge the guilt of our own British government and therefore the British people toward the State of Israel in those critical days when it was about to come into being and when our own official representatives did everything in their power to prevent that happening.

Take a moment to think over these solemn and important issues, and then if your heart has been touched and you feel that the Spirit of God has been speaking to you in what I’ve been saying, I invite you to join with me in this public act of confession and repentance, collectively on behalf of the groups to which we belong, the Christian church and the British nation individually each on our own behalf.

Now if you wish to do this then I’m inviting you now to follow me sentence by sentence in this confession which I am going to make just now. If you wish to join with me, then say these words after me, bearing in mind that you are not speaking to me, but you’re speaking to Almighty God. These are the words I’d like you to say:

“‘Almighty God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, I come to you now on behalf of the Christian church, of which I’m a member, and on my own behalf. And I acknowledge with shame and grief the many sins committed through the many centuries by Christians against Your Jewish people. I acknowledge the prejudice, the contempt, the hatred, the false accusations, the persecutions, the murders, the brutality—I acknowledge all these sins on behalf of Your church and on behalf of myself.
‘Also, O God, as a Britisher, a member of the people of Britain, I acknowledge the evils done by our government representing those whom we elected to power against the State of Israel in the years 1947 and 1948, when those representatives of ours with deception, with injustice, deliberately sought to prevent the birth of the State of Israel.
‘O God, on behalf of your Christian church and behalf of my British people, I now acknowledge these sins before You and coming to You through the Lord Jesus Christ I ask for Your forgiveness, not because we merit it but because of Your promise that if we confess our sins You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
‘And so now, O God, in simple faith I thank You for forgiveness and for cleansing, for wiping out the evil record, and I ask, O God, that in a new measure Your grace and favor may rest upon all of us on whose behalf this confession has been made. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, our Savior. Amen.’”