Christian Witness to Israel

Good morning everyone.

I'd like to thank you all for taking your Sunday school time to be with us today.

We are very, very blessed this morning to have Steven Atkinson, a person who just recently became friends with me.

We met just a few months ago and he was introduced to us.

Was it Chris Ornson introduced? You guys remember Chris from Iron Sharpens Iron Radio.

He's been here to our church and he's he has interviewed me a few times.

Well, Steven and him have been friends for a long time and Steven has a ministry of outreach to Jewish people and this is a very important ministry and when we went to lunch together he was just sharing with me the heart that he has for the Jewish people and also the the the the way that they desire to bring not a social message but the gospel to the Jewish people and I think that's a huge important distinction that is that is something that we should consider when we're listening to what he has to say is we're seeking that Jews come to Christ as Paul did he prayed for his brethren according to the flesh that they would know the same Lord that he knew and that's what we want to see Jews come to Christ as well so again brother thank you for being here and come share well thank you for the invitation and you can see a couple of strangers in the back as well as my family are visiting they don't usually travel with me but this time they were enticed by a visit to Florida in December when last night our home temperature in Northwest Arkansas was four degrees so yeah we're even the cloud it's fine we're good it's it's just nice and also enticed by a visit to see Mickey Mouse tomorrow so we're taking a few extra hours on the road to enjoy a little Christmas break so we're so delighted and and I did you know I met Keith just very very recently but we knew immediately that our hearts were knit and we had a super visit together and I wanted to get back as quickly as possible and I'm delighted that he was able and willing to open his pulpit to me and just give me this opportunity to be with you my family are tired of me using this kind of joke and one-liner but my accent is not from here as you can tell it's from Northwest Arkansas yes it's North Northwest Arkansas originally from Northern Ireland we moved over here four years ago I've been in regular pastoral ministry for about 18 years of my ministry life but for the past 12 years I've been doing the work of Christian witness to Israel in Ireland for eight years and latterly here in the US for the past four years our burden as I'll share is quite simply what your pastor has already said to bring the gospel to the Jewish people and there are biblical reasons for that and there are practical ways to do that and part of our ministry is to do that frontline we have frontline missionaries but also to assist churches in doing that because I've already heard this heard this morning of Jewish people that you know and that you can pray for and that you can witness to so part of my work is to nudge you to stimulate you to challenge you to equip you so that you yourselves the church will be engaged in the work of mission so we are a para church mission but we get alongside churches and we help churches and we also engage in that frontline work as well which I shall share and time is limited and as a preacher I usually go down a dozen rabbit trails so I'm going to try and be as disciplined as possible and get through the slides that we have in front of you purpose statement of Christian witness to Israel it's one of those kind of legal statements for our charity and for our 501c3 status but nonetheless even in that it sums up what we want to do we want to advance the Christian faith by acting as an interdenominational evangelistic agency to proclaim the good news of Jesus the Messiah to the Jewish people throughout the world and to challenge and assist the church to fulfill this task and particularly our work in North America is to focus on the US and neighboring countries so that's really what we're about what is the context in which we bring this ministry and this message I come to the US and I find myself so welcomed I find the ministry of CWI so welcomed because this is indeed the most pro-israel country on the planet also we are surrounded by almost half of the world's Jewish population 42% of the world's Jewish population live in the United States 45% live in Israel when I speak about Israel people's minds very often think about the land now that's not unimportant but as the quote there says on the slide Israel is not primarily a land to be adored but a people to be one for Christ you can't save a piece of dirt people are saved and people need to hear about Christ and it seems to me that I come to this most pro-israel country on the planet but we love Israel and we want to bless Israel and we're pro-israel in a ton of different directions and a lot of distractions that lead us away from the one thing that is needful now I'm not going to enter into the eschatological issues the end times issues but I have concerns that when our end time views take us away from the gospel our our fascination with Israel takes us away from the gospel in other words and you know I may be called out on this but if our interest is in blood moons more than a Messiah or a bloodied Messiah if you want to play on the words if our interest is in blood moons more than a bloodied Messiah if our interest is in a rapture more than a Redeemer something is wrong so our emphasis is to get us and to as I I preach in a ton of different kinds of churches I'm a Presbyterian I'm in the PCA I'm an ordained PCA pastor and I preached in a lot of different Presbyterian churches my two boys go to Southern Baptist Theological Seminary so we have interesting after-dinner conversations I preach in Baptist churches Reformed Baptist churches I preach in non-denominational churches but my concern is let us think about Israel in terms of a people who need the Lord who need the gospel and so I don't come in to solve all your eschatological problems I'll leave that with your pastor but I do want you to get a burden and maybe even a Scottish burden why do I say that because really the beginnings of modern Jewish mission arose out of Scotland in the 1820s 30s 40s and it's the burden of our forefathers our Scottish forefathers that I want to see brought back to here we love some of these guys and and we have leaflets available to you these are freebies Horatius Bonner Robert Murray McShane and CH Spurgeon the great London Baptist preacher these were all involved in our ministry in the 1800s why were they involved because they had a theological burden for the Jewish people it seems to me we have a theological interest in Israel today but not the theological burden that they had for Jewish people to be saved if you're interested in the history Scottish missions to the Jews 1838 to 1852 I'm trying to lay that kind of burden in the churches that I visit some years ago I was preaching in Scotland preaching in Inverness and after the service a gentleman came over to me by the name of Donald McCush good Scottish name and he showed me a treasure that he had and it was it was this it was the Bible of Robert Murray McShane dated 1843 and in the Bible and we're not allowed to have Protestant relics but this was like a relic and I handled it very carefully flicked over some of the pages saw little notes but I flicked over to Romans 11 and it's a bit distant the slides a bit distant to you but you might be able to make it out he underscored God is able to graft them in again so in the 1830s or 1843 as this Bible was dated Robert Murray McShane had a burden had a prayerful interest in God grafting in again the natural branches in other words the Jewish people according to Romans 11 the unnatural branches we Gentiles have been stuck on to this olive tree but the natural branches have been broken off but God's not done with them God is able to graft in again the Jewish people to himself and it was that burden that these guys had which really birthed our mission in 1842 and really there was this growing aspiration in the 1800s for mission generally we think about the Great Awakening we think about the great missionary movements involved in all of that was a great burden for Jewish mission go back a you know a couple of hundred years prior to that to the Westminster Assembly of Divines in the 1600s out of which our Presbyterian documents came and indeed out of which the Baptist Confession ultimately came I would say as well and in those documents you will see prayers for Jewish people to be saved you they will see prayers for Israel to be restored to the Lord so in the 1600s these worthies believed that God was not finished with Israel the people and that we must bring the gospel to the Jewish people and so that burden was growing and growing and growing and the aspirations and the hope the Puritan hope that the and Murray wrote several decades ago that was a growing hope that God would yet do something among the ancient people I'm tempted to test your pastor and say does he know these guys and if he doesn't he ought to and if you don't you ought to Samuel Rutherford Matthew Henry Jonathan Edwards Spurgeon Bonner John Murray Martin Lloyd-Jones in the realms in which we walk I trust that those names are somewhat familiar and all these guys had that theological burden and really what I'm trying to say is when we read in the scriptures when we grow in our understanding of God's Word we must have this burden for the ancient people it's not enough for us to say well you know you gave us the Bible thank you very much and then we go off and we do our own thing this this book is Jewish it's written by Jews about a Jew and it was given to us by first century Jewish missionaries this is being gifted to us by the Jewish people and if someone gives you a gift you want to do something back you want to bring it back to them if they've forgotten it which they have it's not time for us to bring it back to them but this is what I was saying earlier as you see from this slide we're presenting love in all the wrong directions we want to bless Israel we want to stand with Israel we want to visit Israel we want to look at the sites we want to see the stones can I get you interested in the living stones more than the dead stones of the land of Israel as I said not that the land is unimportant but the people in the land God has done something amazing that after 1,900 years he has brought back his ancient people to his ancient land that is significant what is he doing there well let me tell you he's bringing them back to himself in greater numbers than ever before in New Testament history in 1948 there were 12 Jewish believers in Jesus 12 in 1968 the 12 became 50 in 1998 the 50 became 5,000 and today they reckon the number of Jewish Israeli believers in Jesus are 20,000 in the land of Israel your brothers and sisters in mind who are ethnic Jews who love Jesus and are saved by his sacrificial blood yes get interested in the land get interested in the people of the land because 45% of the world's Jewish population lived there we need to bring them the gospel and they need to bring it's like the first century all over again Jewish believers surrounded by 6 million non-believers so the 20,000 Jewish Israeli believers are like that remnant that we read in the scriptures of the Jews are just the disciples the writers who believed in Jesus but their fellow countrymen and their fellow ethnic Jewish people did not believe in Jesus same today 21st century first century no different but here we are in the US and we want to bless Israel and we love Israel and sometimes we say leave the Jewish people alone why if we love someone we can't leave them alone if we love someone are we content for them to go to a lost eternity are we content for them to go to hell do we believe in it anymore if we really love the Jewish people we will want to bring the gospel sensitively wisely carefully but unavoidably we will want to bring the gospel to the Jewish people there are tele evangelists and others that say there's a backdoor into heaven for all the Jews no no no read your Bible there is no other name given among men Paul went to every sin he was the apostle to the Gentiles Paul would you get on with your job of going to the gender well I just caught a call into this synagogue here Paul you're the apostle to the Gentile I'm going first to the synagogue everywhere he went as was his custom the scripture said he went first to the synagogue because he wanted to tell Jewish people about Jesus no we can't leave him alone and we must not get distracted by all kinds of other things instead we must bring them the gospel the text is too small we don't necessarily need to read it all simply to say that we were in the land of Israel before the land of Israel came into being in the modern world we were there in the 20s in Haifa with a medical mission in fact our field director dr.

James Churcher was so highly respected but by the people of Haifa that he was given the keys of the city his Christian testimony was so evident and so vibrant and the things that he was doing in loving in mercy ministry but ultimately in gospel ministry that Haifa valued him and gave him the keys of the city well we were there in the 20s from where there today my colleague David said doc who is a Jewish believer who was actually in the Israeli army and I see him once a year we have a lunch or a dinner together and he usually meets me over this side of the pond and we gather together but David is there in Rishon LeZion just outside Tel Aviv south of Tel Aviv and he is the pastor of Grace and Truth that Reformed Baptist Church in Israel and as I said David is a Jewish believer he's an Israeli we had a Holocaust survivors Passover meal in the spring just last spring and there those people who had survived the Holocaust heard the gospel and they were given gospel tracts and they were given Bibles and they were loved on in a wonderful way and so we're still doing what we were doing in the 20s and now in the 21st century we're still doing the same we've got a new evangelist on the streets of Israel he's a gal vendor a gal spent half of his life in a Jewish prison for drug addiction and crimes associated now he's saved and now he's going to the streets and he's telling his Jewish Israeli friends about Jesus he's going to the underpasses where they're shooting up and he's telling them about Jesus this is our desire this must be our biblical desire people my hearts desire and prayer for them is that they may be saved yes they are special but not special in that God gives them a pass to heaven as far as election is concerned they are loved on account of the patriarchs but as far as the gospel is concerned they are enemies says the scripture so they need to be brought to be friends they need to hear about the Lord Jesus Christ we're engaged in other street outreach in various other places we had a street outreach in Budapest a very specific outreach where all our London missionaries and our Europe missionaries gathered together and for about 12 days we were doing street evangelism and street preaching and if I can share that this lady a Holocaust survivor in her 90s came to faith even through that street outreach God is yet saving Jewish people and indeed it's a very interesting thing but a lot of elderly Jewish people are coming to faith they're coming to the end of their days and they have no hope the rabbi doesn't give them anything rabbinic rules and regulations doesn't cut it when you're breathing your last you don't have any hope in this works religion of Judaism and many Jewish people are coming to the end of their days and our workers are working with them and sharing the love of Christ in a very caring and sensitive way and we're seeing elderly folks just coming even at the 11th hour to faith in Jesus in London we also have a specific New Age outreach there is a big festival in London once a year that's a New Age festival a lot of Jewish people are interested in they're not interested in the plain truth they're interested in mystical things Kabbalah Jewish mysticism New Age things they turn away from the simple truth of God's Word and turn it into myths doesn't scripture say that and they turn to all of these crazy things there's a guy at this New Age festival who stands beside this huge gong and if you pay your dollar and you stand behind the gong he will bang it and it kind of gets rid of all the demons but sure he would they do that this is the madness of humanity's search when they won't take the truth of God's Word and so we're there in the midst of that madness and our folks are there with tables do you want to hear something that you maybe haven't heard before let me tell you about about Jesus so our outreach is there a couple more missionaries just to introduce you to some of the things that we do Andrea is a dear friend she came into the ministry through even my own work in Ireland that the Lord brought our paths into contact and she's a Jewish believer her father is Jewish lives in England he's not a believer pray for him but Andrea is a Jewish believer from Romania and she tells us carefully that it's actually Transylvania and if she says if you look at my teeth you can see that I'm from transit she's specifically from Romania Transylvania but she she actually will head up some of that New Age outreach Richard and Rita super friends Rita is a Jewish believer from Uzbekistan from Eastern Europe and Richard met her in Israel I think while he was working on a kibbutz way way back and he had to learn her language to speak to her and so he can speak Russian he can speak Hebrew he can speak English even though he's a Yorkshireman he can speak various other language and Hebrew obviously as well and he's got a super ministry in Leeds in the north of England his home is is Jew friendly he goes to the shopping malls in Leeds in England and just as here a lot of the Israelis will come and they'll sell their Dead Sea products in the shopping mall and so he will go and he'll know that they're Israeli and he'll go over to me tap them on the shoulder and he'd start to speak to them in their language because he knows it and they immediately turn around and how do you know my language I'm in England how do you know my Israeli language and he will tell the story of his wife being a Jewish believer and he will invite them to his home and so the friendships just blossom me it's just a wonderful way of developing that friendship evangelism and it's been very effective over the years and we obviously have other missionary staff in the UK and France Holland Bulgaria Hungary Hong Kong Australia New Zealand but here's where you hear my heart my heart is for here obviously my heart is for here where 42% of the world's Jewish population live and I'm really desiring that we would get to the next stage and have another frontline missionary or have a frontline missionary here in the United States truth be told we did have one missionary here and we had him for about two years the support dried up and we had to end that relationship but my desire is within the next six to twelve months we will have a frontline missionary here in the United States we're currently actually looking at several there is a I'll ask for your prayers there is a Taiwanese couple who are considering moving over here to be our missionaries there is a youth pastor that's showing some interest in us and there are former Jews for Jesus missionaries that are showing some interest in us so I'm really hopeful that within the next 12 to 18 months or 6 to 12 months rather we would have a new missionary here in the United States just a summary of some of our emphases we come out of Scots Presbyterianism we come out of that Reformed Baptist heritage as well CH Spurgeon preached for us on four occasions did our annual sermon in England in London on four occasions so we're coming from good pedigree and really we're coming out of a theology and I believe very strongly that theology drives missiology in other words if you get it wrong on what this book says you'll get it wrong on how you live that's that's true about Christian life isn't it if you get it wrong we believe in substantial Christianity we believe that God has given us a book to understand him his ways and his gospel and we believe strongly in that substance and the feeding of the flock of God and then personally we believe that that drives the mission to Jacksonville to the ends of the earth and so also with regard to the Jewish people if we get our theology wrong on Israel if we get obsessed with blood moons or if we get obsessed even with end time plans if we get so obsessed with that we forget about that Jewish guy down the street that doesn't know Jesus something wrong we're imbalanced so the theology must drive our mission and then I make that point that the land is not enough they can have the land and be lost now wonderful things are happening in the land and pray for that more and more but it's not enough that they've got the land it's not over yet they can still be lost so pray for them in the land and in the freedoms in fact many many Jewish people have new fine freedoms it is the land of the free to them 1 million Russian-speaking Jews have returned to the land in the past 20 years so of the 6 million 6 or 7 million Jews in the land of Israel 1 million are Russian-speaking and we're translating literature into Russian as well as into Hebrew for that very purpose and I'm told by my colleagues in Israel that the Russian-speaking Jews are much more open they've suffered under communism they've had their minds closed under communism they come down to the land they've got new fine freedoms in their new Israeli life freedoms to read freedoms to read a book freedoms to read a gospel tract freedoms to read a Bible the land is not enough but there are opportunities in the land and then ultimately the absolute necessity of placing Jesus in front of the Jewish people I'll say a little bit more of this in the sermon this morning but we cannot avoid this and for too long we have perhaps the church has run in all these other directions let's let's narrow the the arrowhead so that we're bringing Jesus to the Jewish people around us to that end I want to ask for your prayers that we would recruit and equip the right equip us with the right people the likes of Dr.