Gentiles: A Light to the Jews - David Pawson

Paul is talking to Gentile believers about the Jewish people as you all know so let me read from verse 28 as far as the gospel is concerned they the Jews are enemies on your account but as far as election is concerned they are loved on account of the patriarchs for God's gifts and his call are irrevocable just as you who word one-time disobedient to God have now received mercy as a result of their disobedience so they too have now become disobedient in order that they too may now receive mercy as a result of God's mercy to you for God has bound all men over to disobedience so that he may have mercy on them all oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of God how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor who has ever given to God that God should repay him for from him and through him and to him are all things to him be the glory forever amen other any of you who know the chorus based on that last verse would you put your hand up if you know the core nobody I'll have to teach you I will conduct in my paint method of conducting when my hand goes up the music goes up when my hand goes down it goes down alright and the chorus is like this by the way I'm only singing because my wife is not here she never likes me singing but the chorus goes like this for from him and through him and to him are all things to God be the glory forever amen for from him and through him and to him are all things to God be the glory for ever amen right now you know the chorus no I'll slap you when you're singing properly okay off we go for from him and through him and to him are all things to God be the glory for ever amen for from him and through him and to him are all things to God be the glory for ever amen [Music] [Applause] why did I read that last bit of that chapter Romans 11 is the chapter of Christian Zionists we know it we love it but I cannot recall any preacher ever expounding the last few verses of this chapter we get as far as the verse for God's gifts and his calling are irrevocable and that seems to be where many preachers stop but the most amazing part of the chapter follows in which God reveals his unique plan for the redemption of mankind and it's this now we need to remember that in God's sight there are only two sorts of people there are Jews and Gentiles that's God's classification and there are Jews in this audience this morning and there are Gentiles there's the only two sorts of people and it's God's plan to redeem them all and create one new man one new humanity I call it homo Novis you've always heard of homo sapiens God is creating a new man homo Novis and it will be Jews and Gentiles together but here is the amazing revelation in these next two verses he's going to bring salvation to the Gentiles through the Jews and he's going to bring salvation the Jews through the Gentiles and that's the amazing revelation in the last part of chapter 11 he will bring both groups to himself through the other and it is because the Jews rejected the gospel that the Gentiles have received God's mercy but it will be through the reception of his mercy by the Gentiles that he will bring salvation to the Jew that is God's amazing plan and purpose and many of you got saved without realizing that God was saving you through the Jews and he will save the Jews through the Gentiles just as their calling is to be a light to the Gentiles our calling is to be a light to the Jews and that's my subject for this morning Jesus was the light of the world he gave that title to us and then he gave us our marching orders and the mandate we have from Jesus is to go into all the world and make disciples of all nations or literally translated all ethnic groups and we are to do that by baptizing them and teaching them to live Jesus way that's our task not just to get decisions but to make disciples and we do that by baptizing them and teaching them how to live that's what Jesus told us to do now I ask you why do we leave the Jews out they are a nation and he said go to all nations and that includes Israel and therefore we have a mandate from the Lord Jesus to bring salvation to Israel just as their mandate was to bring salvation to us by rejecting the gospel we are to bring it to them by accepting it and that's my subject this morning so the mandate includes Jews but somehow mentally if we're not careful we think Jews don't need to be saved or we just quietly leave them on one side and leave them out of our evangelism but that's not the mandate Jesus gave us in other words his general mandate to make disciples of all nations includes the Jewish nation but I will go further than that it means especially the Jewish nation they are the priority in evangelism and that's why Paul says at the beginning of this letter to the Romans he's a debtor to bring that good news of salvation to everybody but to the Jew first and then to the Gentile the remarkable thing is that though Paul's calling was to be an apostle to the Gentiles he always went to the Jews first any new any new town that had a synagogue that's where Paul the Apostle to the Gentiles began his ministry when they rejected his preaching then he turned to the Gentiles three times in the book of Acts we are told how they Jews rejected him and so then he said I turned to the Gentiles and at the end of the book of Acts right at the end the same thing happens and Paul says I will now go to the Gentiles because they will listen and that's what happened to him again and again so we're not only called to evangelize all nations including Israel we are also called to give them priority in our mission to the Jew first somehow this comes out again and again in our New Testament to the Jew first we owe it to them and we are also told in the scripture how to do it and in a word Paul says the way to win the Jewish people is to make them what jealous not envious that's one of the mistakes Bible translation is made are I use the New International Version it's sometimes called the NIV the nearly infallible version but nevertheless it's only nearly infallible and it's made some bad mistakes and one of them is in Romans 11 where Paul says I ministering to the Gentiles to make the Jews envious but that's not the word it's a totally different Greek word what a difference there is between jealous jealousy and envy God is a jealous God he's not an envious God he doesn't need anything from anybody he's got it already anyway one of the verses in the Psalms I love to preach on is where God says if I was hungry I wouldn't tell you that's a lovely text to preach from God says if I was hungry I wouldn't tell you why not because the next verse says the cattle on a Thousand Hills are mine all the silver and the gold is mine every share in the Stockman's stock markets of the world belongs to God so he's not envious there's nothing you have that he envies you for but he's jealous now let me try and explain the difference as clearly as I can if I meet somebody else's wife that I like better than my own which hasn't happened yet but it could I would be envious Envy is your emotion when you see something that belongs to someone else that you wish you had you got the meaning but if someone ran off with my wife I'd be jealous you got the difference jealousy is what you feel when something that already belongs to you is being taken away from you envy is what you feel when somebody else has something that you would like now we're not here to make the Jews envious we're here to make them jealous in other words we're here because of what they have that's what we want them to know we want to say to the Jewish people it's your scriptures not ours that we love and even the New Testaments written by Jews anyway it's your God were worshipping at the feast of tabernacles not as yours we have inherited your scriptures your God and we've found your Messiah I once went into her shop and noticed the man behind the counter had a somewhat Jewish complexion and I was right and I just said to my best friend is the Jew and his face lit up a bit and he said oh who's that so I told me but before I told him I said he actually saved my life and I shall always be in debt to him and I went on talking about something that belonged to him we have found their king we loved their Messiah that's the emphasis to make not we've got something that you haven't that provokes envy but to provoke jealousy we've found something that belongs to you and it's that I think humility of mind when we realized what we owe to them and what is theirs has become ours in in Christ that's to make them jealous and the other thing that Paul tells us is to be willing to adopt their culture now there is a mood among many Christian Zionists to be very Jewish and to have Sabbath meals and candles and the worship God on a Saturday in the rest of it the only motive that is adequate to do that is because you're doing it to win Jews for Christ you're adopting their culture not because you like it because you think it's different or because it's it's the thing but because you want to win them and that's Paul he said to those within the law I became as one within the lawn to those without the law I became one without the law and so for Gentiles Paul behaved like a Gentile and for Jews he behaved like a Jew where we can we should adopt the culture of those were wanting to win for Christ one of the sayings of my own father who won twelve thousand people for the Lord in his spare time he wasn't a full-time evangelist but he didn't it through friendship and he wrote the names of those who led to the Lord in a book so he can pray for them and I've got that book now and there are twelve thousand names in it makes me embarrassed in shame but do you want to know his secret he used to say to me David never try to board a human soul without pulling alongside first never try to board a human soul without pulling alongside first too much evangelism is done without friendship throwing the gospel of people over a gulf make friends first and that was my father's evangelistic method make a friend get us close soon as you can yes change your ways not falling into sinful ways no but in cultural ways get as near as possible get alongside and then jump on board and they worked for him and that included Jews whom he led to Christ made a friend and then shared as a friend came alongside first so Paul did that as well well now here we're facing our calling as Gentiles which used to be a light to the Jews just as we benefited from their rejection of Christ their to benefit from our acceptance of Christ that's Paul's argument and so I'm going to ask the same three questions that are asked in the earlier talk have we fulfilled our calling in the past are we fulfilling it in the present and will we fulfill it in the future bringing the light of salvation to Israel it's a big question I'm not talking about serving Israel or supporting Israel I'm talking about saving Israel well now let's consider the past I'm sorry to say that the past of the Christian Church is a sad and sordid story it's nearly two millennia of anti-semitism and I think Christians today are beginning to realize with embarrassment and even shame that our record in being a light of the Jews is so bad mind you let's be honest the Jews began it and in the days of the New Testament the fiercest enemies of the gospel were the Jews Paul was a Jew but his greatest enemies of his work were what we call the Judaizers who followed after him and said you must be circumcised you must keep Moses law and Paul fought for the liberty of his Gentile converts and you are here today and you're not bound by the law of Moses precisely because Paul fought for your liberty precisely because he said if you get said circumcised you don't have to keep the whole law 613 of them you'll have to use the Sabbath lifts in the hotel you'll have to eat kosher food you'll have to do all this but he said you are free in Christ in Christ you've died to the law as he died to the law and one of the be setting temptations of the Christian Church has been to apply the Jewish law to Christians we are free from that were under the law of Christ we're not under the law of Moses Christ has redeemed us from them but if you're keeping it to win Jews hallelujah but you're keeping a culture not unnecessary part of salvation having said that the Jews began it the Christians have been taking their revenge ever since and the sad history of anti-semitism in the church is one of the things that we should rightly be ashamed of I'm just sorry that the museum of the Diaspora is in Tel Aviv University campus and not here in Jerusalem which means that most Christians come to Israel and never visit the Museum of the Diaspora it is an education it is entirely based on what has happened to the Jewish people in the last 2,000 years and you will then find what a tragic story Jewish Christian relationships have been you need to go and it's the most amazing modern presentation so that you are involved as you go through the door you can't go any further without stepping on Jewish faces they are projected onto the floor from projectors in the ceiling and you have to walk on Jewish faces to get into the museum and immediately you feel is the no other way into the museum I shouldn't be walking on the Jews and it involves you right the way through and you find what the church has done to the Jewish people in the name of Jesus during the first three hundred years when Christians were persecuted themselves they didn't do it they couldn't they didn't have the power of the opportunity so what did they resort to verbal abuse and when you read what the Church Fathers said about the Jews in their sermons it was a terrible verbal attack even the golden mouth Saint Chrysostom whose stature you can see in Bethlehem today that great greatest preacher of the early church fellas read his sermons about the Jews and you will be appalled and then as soon as Christians got power and the Emperor was converted and Christianity became an established religion the situation got no better it got much worse the real test of Christians is what how they behave when they get power we're used to being a minority but the real test of us is what would we be like if we were the government if we had the power I dread to think God must sanctify us before he gives us the government of the world because we can't even run the church properly now and we're going to be running the world we're going to share with him the throne over the nations boy he's got a lot to do with us before then and so Christianity became the established religion and now military and political power was available to the Christians I jump over the next three centuries but out of those times came the ghetto shutting Christians up into one part of the town as in a prison began in Venice where the ghetto was the name for the armaments factory and they shut the Jews up in the armament factory and that was the origin of the word ghetto out of that period came the Crusades which killed as many Jews as Muslims though it was only intended to free this land for pilgrims from the Muslims out of that period came the Inquisition when Jews were faced with a choice be baptized and become Christians or die and some of them became Christians outwardly but inwardly remained Jews we call them the morano's but for fear of their lives they had to keep their faith secret you'd think that when the Reformation came and people got back to the Bible that the situation would change but it didn't Luther certainly cleared the Roman Church of many of its abuses it's prayer to the Saints its relics which were venerated it's pilgrimages to Rome and climbing the steps on your knees and all that Martin Luther swept away and his father superior said to him Martin if you do away with prayers to the Saints with relics and with all the other things what will you put in their place and Luther said Christ man only needs Jesus Christ and you'd have thought that would have been a breakthrough and Martin Luther thought it was because he knew that Jews regarded the Roman churches idolatrous and he thought if I take all that away they will listen to me and they'll accept the gospel of Jesus and so in his early years he preached to Jews but they didn't accept and because they refuse it he became resentful frustrated and even angry and changed his attitude to the Jewish people wrote a book concerning the Jews and their lies and the last sermon he ever preached was a plea to Germany to get rid of the Jews to burn the synagogues and prayer books and that was the beginning of the Holocaust hundreds of years earlier in fact Hitler said he was fulfilling Martin Luther's wish in what he began to do to the Jewish people in fact the crystal necked when the Jewish shops were smashed in Germany and the glass was everywhere in the streets that happened on an anniversary of Martin Luther and so we Protestants have to hang our heads as well however the one thing the Reformation did it gave people the Bible in their own language and they could read the Word of God for themselves and the Puritans began to think about the Jews in another way they read Romans 11 and they began to believe that God had a future for the Jewish people that he hadn't written them off and that one day there would be a great spiritual revival among them they didn't get as far as to realize that God would give them their land back that was a bit of a blind spot but one or two of the Puritans began to see that God had promised the land forever and they began to pray that the Jews would come back to their land and I'm proud to say that it was England that led the way and English politicians like William Wilberforce and Anthony Ashley Cooper Lord Shaftesbury they began to pray and to preach that the Jews would come back to the land and come back to the Lord it was the beginning of Christian Zionism long before there was the Jewish Zionism you need to know this and preachers like Charles Simeon in Cambridge and Bishop rile of Liverpool and Charles Haddon Spurgeon of the Baptist's were preaching that God will keep his word and bring the Jews back to the land and to the Lord and even said in that order and it was out of that that there came missionary societies to the Jewish people many of them led by converted rabbis particularly in London there was an outbreak of missionary societies to the Jewish people prominent among them was the organization that we now know as cmj Christian Bishop ministry to the Jews it was then called something different it was then interdenominational it's now Anglican but that pioneered and they came to Jerusalem this city in the middle of the nineteenth century long before the first Aliyah there was a remnant of Jews still here and they came to minister to those Jews and they managed to build the only Protestant Church in the Middle East at that time and they built it as the private chapel to the British consul and you can go and see Christ Church today and we're talking about the 1850s now long before the Jews thought of coming back Christians here in the name of Jesus were preparing for them coming back and encouraging it in fact whenever the early Christians injury opened a school the remaining Jews here open a school when the Christians opened a hospital they opened a hospital next door had there was a kind of competition going on but it was stimulated by Christians from England you must read the story it's in a book called for the love of Zion how many of you read that book for the love of Zion I thought some of you would have done but all of you must it's Christian Zionism before Jewish Zionist and even Herzl who was a secular Jew who was an atheist or maybe an agnostic and he envisaged a Jewish state without synagogues and without rabbis nevertheless he was encouraged to believe the Jews would come back by the Anglican chaplain of the British Embassy in Vienna give me his name William Herschel right read his story too because there was a Christian man who on the basis of the Bible believed in the return of Jews to the land and to the Lord who stood behind Theodor Herzl who in 1897 announced that at the very latest in 50 years time there was a Jewish state and he was only a few months wrong in his prophecy for in 1948 here it is well notice that the support for the Jews to get back to the land came alongside a desire to bring salvation to them there was a twin purpose supporting and saving Israel and it went together through the 19th century let me come now to the 20th century what's happened to the church in the first talk I mentioned that amazing decade of the 1940s with the Holocaust followed by the establishment of the State of Israel that has had a profound effect on the Christian Church when the details came out of the Holocaust and we realized what had happened to the Jewish people a sense of shame hit the worldwide Christian Church because the church had been largely silent about what Hitler was doing not entirely I want to pay tribute to the Christians who opposed the Holocaust among them was a great man called Martin niemoller I had the privilege years ago of having a meal with him Martin niemoller was a u-boat commander in World War one but in World War two he realized there was something demonic happening and he opposed Hitler I've stood and preached in the very pulpit of Martin niemoller in Berlin where he courageously preached and Hitler made him his personal prisoner and sent him to Dachau concentration camp into solitary isolation by himself but that lovely German Christian Martin niemöller noticed there was a ventilator in the outside wall of his cell and he heard the other prisoners being given exercise marched around the courtyard and so he would stand on his little bed and shout through the ventilator as each prisoner passed he would give them a message of the gospel he had a very slender diet but with bread and water he would remember the death of Christ he was one of the few survivors and came out but he was one of those who courageously a German opposed Hitler and his regime in other words poor Schneider another hero of mine and poor Schneider in a Berlin suburb preached against Hitler and the members of the church said please stop doing this we'll lose you the elders of the church had please don't speak against Hitler or we'll have to close the church but he went on and one early morning at 3 in the morning which was when the arrests were usually made the Gestapo came and took him away in a truck and as he went he was smiling and I've got his letters from Dachau concentration camp where he was starved to death and the one word that comes in those letters again and again is joy joy and I was happy in Berlin to meet his widow there were some Christians but the church as a whole kept silent and the churches of the West did the same they knew what was going on but we kept quiet now when it all was over and the churches of Europe particularly realized what had happened there was a sea change in their attitude to Jews there was some likely sister basileis flink in Darmstadt in germany started the Darmstadt sisterhood and they confessed their sins and repented and they have done so much for Israel ever since they've got a home on the Mount of Olives here where they pray for Israel and then pope john xxiii i'm not embarrassed to mention him i was talking to his secretary who told me that that man prayed for two things every day of his life he prayed Lord a new Pentecost and lord save Israel and those were his two concerns do you remember john xxiii the old man who was thought to be a a caretaker for a few years just holding the fort while he was situated he prepared a low statement for vatican ii about israel and unfortunately the Second Vatican Council cut that right down to a brief statement absolving the Jews of crucifying Jesus how patronizing but that Pope prayed every day for this nation there was something happening in the churches in 1948 not only was the State of Israel set up but the World Council of Churches was started to bring together the different denominations I'm sad to tell you that the World Council of Churches and is now an enemy of Israel but it began to bring Christians together and in the same year 1948 in Britain a Council of Christians and Jews began and it was set up that Christian and Jews might meet and talk and learn to respect each other and dialogue but that's as far as it get and still that council in Britain is working to bring Jews and Christians together but alas not for the salvation of the Jewish people but for the respect and the survival of the Jewish people but not to be a light to bring them a salvation well no that's what's been happening in the present and in my country at any rate there is very little desire to see the Jews saved there is an increasing respect an increasing dialogue but not a declaration of what they really need someone said to me recently how can you love enough Israel enough to support her unless you desire to see her saved the greatest need of the Jewish people is salvation it's their right it's their inheritance we have found it let's share it that's my message to you who else is going to share it with them but those who discovered for themselves that their scriptures are true their Messiah is able their future and our future tied up together my destiny is the same destiny as theirs we look forward to a future in which Jew and Gentile are one new man in Christ and of course we need to remember that the city will be living in his a Jewish City as we've heard already with a Jewish name and with Jewish gates and Jewish foundations but it will be the new man the homo Novis who will inherit that well now what I've got to ask is this did the Holocaust and the founding of the State of Israel lead to a greater desire among Christians to see them saved and I think the honest answer has to be not yet do you want to see them saying let me put it another way Christians are very concerned about what Jews are suffering in this world what they have suffered in the past what they are suffering now surrounded by enemies in a constant state of war with missiles coming on their schools we are very much aware of their suffering in this world and we need to stand with them and suffer with them if we can but what about their suffering in the next world I'm afraid it is true of Christians generally that we have become existential rather than eschatological sorry to confuse you with words but what I mean is we Christians are living too much for this world not enough for the next and therefore we preach an existential gospel that gives blessing now but listen God's will for us is that we be holy here and happy hereafter not happy here and holy Hereafter it was Augustine who prayed Lord make me holy but not just yet that was an honest prayer people want a gospel of happiness here and maybe holiness later but who cares anyway that's so far in the future I'm exaggerating I'm caricaturing but this is crept into Christian Zionism as well and we are more concerned about what Jews go through in this world and what they will go through in the next until they find their Savior thousands of Jews are dying now without Christ do you really believe that Christ is the only name under heaven given among men whereby remembers saved for the Jew as well as the Gentile do you really believe that or do you think somehow the Jews have a back door to heaven that's the biggest question Christian Zionists have to face do you love them enough to want to save them from future suffering in the next world well I hope your heart says I do and of course then we must ask how can that be possible how can we be a light to them this is where I want to share with you I'm sharing with you very frankly and honestly now and I do so very conscious that I'm answerable to the Lord for what I say one day but it's from my heart where does the embassy fit in all this I was present at the very first meeting of the Feast of Tabernacles 31 years ago and that's why I'm wearing this suit I guess you may have noticed I changed my clothes well I didn't do it because I wanted to be a quick-change artist or anything but this was the suit I wore at the first Feast of Tabernacles 31 years ago [Applause] I don't know why your clowing before except that I I can still get into it and it's a wee bit tight around the equator but that's because it's been washed many times and it shrunk and I had forgotten that I wore this until I saw last year the photographs of the first feast and there I was preaching in this suit so I thought I'm gonna put it on I've wondered if this was gonna be my last and after I've said what I'm going to say it could well be but never mind so I thought I'd wear it this morning for you as a visual aid that first feast was terribly amateur there was a kind of painted back cloth in the courtyard of San Paul's school up the Jaffa Road which looked as if it had been done by the children in the school Mervin mela watson were the musicians i was one of the speakers that shows how amateur it was and it really was a very amateur thing and it was during that first feast that i was in a room with a few other men when the embassy was born the vision for it came to a dutchman whose father had been the secretary to the queen of the Netherlands man called yun willem vanderhoeven who is still living in this city and he shared it with the rest and he witnessed with our spirits and the Embassy was born and the reason for it was that so many political embassies had been withdrawn from the city and moved down to Tel Aviv ever since the government had proclaimed Jerusalem as the eternal and undivided capital and the vision was well it's comfort Israel by telling them that we want our embassy to stay in Jerusalem that's how it was more and a house was rented and the whole thing got underway and I was as thrilled as anybody with that vision the second feast of tabernacles was in this all ten times the size of the courtyard and do you know who the dancers were on the second night yawn vilom vanderhoven and david paulson and the two of us danced on this platform and i've got two left feet and they're both flat but young villa man died down astride round this platform that second time that shows you what simple beginnings it all had and it's got more and more professional in fact I believe that the feast has reached a plateau it's a very high plateau the standard of the music the dancing everything sky high I don't see how it could be improved can be changed a bit different speakers different dances but I don't think it could be improved to you it's you probably done when I think of the amateur begin here God has done a mighty thing in drawing people here with such gifting such speakers such dances I just am amazed at the development but I believe it's reached a plateau and I believe God has new things for the embassy for this feast and for Israel and I went to God in prayer and said Lord where do we go from here what next and then I remembered that we shine our light in three different ways they did in the New Testament and the three ways were word deed and sign now the embassy has been second to none in the deeds the welfare the care for people the programs that you've seen on this screen second to none I don't believe the embassy should now go straight into word because there's a price for being an embassy and that is that we must not be seen as a missionary society Israel welcomes Christians who will support Israel who will serve Israel it doesn't welcome people who want to save Israel that's the truth now remember speaking at the 40th anniversary of the State of Israel in the casino in Basel in Switzerland in those days there was an understanding in the embassy not to talk much about Jesus when Israelis were present I'm afraid I had the last address not talk far too much about Jesus that was the end of me with the embassy for some year and I probably said far too much I told them among other things that recent legislation in the Knesset meant that neither Abraham nor Moses nor Elijah would be given permission to live in Israel that was a bit of a shock but that was the truth they had just passed a law that would have prevented because all of them knew Jesus and they wouldn't have passed for citizenship and though some Christians were bit angry with me for saying that a cabinet minister from the Knesset came up to me afterwards and said mr. Paulson thank you for telling us the truth but I don't I don't claim to be the most tactful person around I just praise God the tact isn't one of the fruits of the Holy Spirit I don't neither is tolerance the Bible is about truth so I said Lord where could we go from here and I felt the Lord was saying it's time for the embassy to look at sign-sign the miraculous and I believe we've already heard the word of the Lord in this conference in this celebration from the potato farmer he gave us just two words prayer power that's the secret of his amazing ministry but he was only telling us because he believed that could be the secret of us too I really believe that prayer power he gave us one session on prayer and one session on power and I think the Holy Spirit was saying go and do thou likewise and my imagination began to run away with me and I thought what would happen if a Feast of Tabernacles had a day of prayer and fasting without all the food the hotel is providing and spend the whole day not listening to speakers or watching dances or listening to music but in prayer and fasting for the sake of raising Ariel Sharon from his coma my that would that would be a sign to Israel that jesus is alive or what would happen if instead of 2,500 marching through the streets of Jerusalem if God sent us all out if Jesus sent us all out to buy - to go and heal the sick because our dinner [Applause] I know we'd come back in the next day to say even the demons are subject to us and the Lord will say don't get excited about that rejoice that your names are written in heaven that was imagination I was just it was running away with me but I felt that Angus Duncan's word to us was a call and I want you to pray for Jurgen bulla we had a little chat two days ago and I said you know I've been driven to read acts four again when the lovely story knacks read it if you'll forgive the English pun I apologize to the translators for this because it won't translate but it's my favorite story because it's the man who begged for arms and got legs I love this story and the words of Peter to that man just came out in golden letters to me silver and gold have I none but what I have I'll give you in the name of Jesus silver and gold have we none it's been absolutely right and the Lord has blessed it that the embassy should bring silver and gold from many countries and use it for the welfare of people who've survived the Holocaust and and the poor and many others but I just was struck by the fact that Peter didn't say to the beggar we'll start a program for you we'll raise money in America for you we're buying some clothes and get you a decent meal he didn't say that he said we don't have money but what we have will give you now listen we have what Peter had we've got the name of Jesus and that's where the power is [Applause] to my astonishment and delight Jurgen told me that he had been brought to acts 4 as he considered his task for the future and I want you to pray for that man that God will show him the right and the wisest way to give Israel a sign a sign of power the big change I've noticed over the years is that this celebrations become more and more Pentecostal that's not a bad thing but more of the speakers are Pentecostal more and more of the people coming a Pentecostal or charismatic and therefore we are a representative group of people who believe in signs and wonders don't we surely we do then God I believe will show some way of giving Israel's signs and wonders that will be proof that our jesus is alive today you see one difference between this embassy and all the political ones it replaced is that all the other embassies have one ambassador and only one British Embassy is packed with them they those embassies packed with ambassadors for Christ and here are we thousands of ambassadors for Christ what is the job of an ambassador for Christ it's there in Paul's writing in Corinthians we are ambassadors for Christ pleading with you be reconciled to God that's our job but we need to earn the right to speak and that's why I felt that sign must come before word and as a nightfall will give us the right to say we didn't do this we not only have no money we don't have the power but this is Jesus and he's still around and he's selective oh how this nation needs Jesus they don't want him yet but we are here enough to meet what they want but to meet what they need and find the way to let our light shine before Israel in such a way that they have to decide is this Jesus or is it not and then we can talk to them I've shared all that from the bottom of my heart I don't want to tell anyone what they should be doing but do pray for you again he's not the sort of man to be swayed by a human imagination or ideas salary for that but he's the sort of man who if God says something he will do it and that's all we need to ask let's pray Oh God the heart we have for Israel is just a tiny reflection of your heart you must grieve over your people still and yet you have plans for them and plans which will cause your heart to rejoice and all our hearts but Lord we we're here now and we're here to be your servants and I want to pray for you and particularly as he takes up this onerous responsibility for the embassy and Lord I do pray that he will be so sensitive to your spirit that he will know the way in which he should go and take us and we shall be very careful to give you the glory because you're a jealous God and you won't share your glory with anyone else or with any organization or with any embassy we want to bring glory to your name and to the name of Jesus that powerful name that you've given us so Lord take my words if I've said anything that's not of your spirit please blotted out from our memory before it does any damage but if anything has been of your spirit Lord keep it in our memories so that we cannot forget it until we are obedient to your word and know the blessing that comes to obedient people I ask it in the name of Jesus and for his sake amen [Applause] [Music] you [Applause]

Channel: David Pawson - Official

Views: 9,937

Rating: 4.8612719 out of 5

Keywords: David Pawson, Gentiles: A Light to the Jews

Id: ULN66OA1ABU

Length: 63min 33sec (3813 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 30 2018