Pol-01 Kościół Iżydów (The Church & the Jew) — Art Katz

Prophecy as the Testimony of Jesus

Spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. Who can understand that? I don't myself. But I have enough understanding to realize that there's a significant conjunction between prophecy and Jesus. He doesn't lend his name to anything.

But that he calls prophecy his testimony is something that deserves our deepest attention. I'm saying all that in order to say this. What you're going to hear is not a sermon. I'm not a sermon bringer.

I'm a man of a prophetic call. And that has a special requirement. A special burden, a special urgency. That kind of word is often a warning rather than a sermon. Or it is to alert God's people of things that are shortly to come to pass.

I wouldn't have to say these things if this was not unusual for you. I'm saying it that you will give special attention to the word. It's a word beyond sermon. It needs to be heard. It needs to go down into the foundations of your faith.

It's not likely that you'll hear another word like it. So with that introduction, what would you say if I took my jacket off?

Hallelujah! I've been a believer 35 years.

But I can never understand that they give to the singers and musicians the freedom of a short-sleeved shirt and an open neck. But we who have to labor in the word,.

We are strangulated with something that Isaiah and Jeremiah.

And the prophets never had to suffer.

So I appreciate the freedom that you've given me.

Because this word is going to be a labor. And I have little faith that you can receive it. It may bewilder you. But I'm comforted by the word of God. Be assured that your labors are not in vain. So I didn't come with a prepared program.

The Judgment of the Nations in Matthew 25

But seeking the Lord for this morning, He has impressed me with Matthew, chapter 25, the first judgment of Jesus as King. So I'll ask Richard to read from verse 31 until the end of the chapter.

And he will gather all the nations before him and separate one from the other, as a shepherd separates sheep from goats, and he will place the sheep on his right, and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to them on his right, Go, blessed are you of my Father, and divide the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.

I wept, and you gave me food. I yearned, and you gave me drink. I was a passerby, and you received me. I was naked, and you dressed me. I was sick, and you visited me. I was in prison, and you came to me.

Then the righteous will answer him with the following words, Lord, when did we see you weeping, and we fed you? And when did we see you a passerby, and we took you, or naked, and we dressed you? And when did we see you sick, or in prison, and we came to you?

And the King, answering, will say to them, I tell you the truth, whatever you did to one of my youngest brothers, you did to me. Then he will say to them on the left, go away from me, curse me, eternal fire, cooked by the devil and his angels.

I wept, and you gave me food. I yearned, and you gave me drink. I was a passerby, and you received me. I was naked, and you dressed me. I was sick, and in prison, and you visited me. Then they will answer him, saying, Lord, when did we see you weeping, or desiring, or a passerby, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and we did not serve you?

Then he will say to them, I tell you the truth, whatever you did to one of my youngest brothers, you did to me. And they will go to eternal punishment, justly to eternal life.

This does not sound to me like a parable. It sounds like a quite literal description of a judgment. A really astonishing judgment that ought to mystify us. That ought to mystify us. Because it's predicated on one thing only.

Because it's predicated on one thing only.

What Gentiles have done at the end of the age with regard to one people. And on the basis of that, there's a judgment or reward that's eternal. It's irrevocable, it cannot be changed. Something is sealed for all eternity.

An ultimate reward for the righteous, and an unspeakable catastrophe for the wicked.

And an unspeakable catastrophe for the wicked.

And only one thing distinguishes the one group from the other. Their response to the least of these, his brethren. So here's what I want to tell you. With whatever measure of authority I have in Christ, the least of these, his brethren, are Jews.

Israel, the Tribulation, and Restoration

And they will be suffering a final judgment in the earth. A final tribulation and sifting through all nations. Most of them will not survive this trial. But the remnant of them will survive and return to Zion as the redeemed of the Lord.

And everlasting joy shall be upon their heads. And mourning and sighing shall pass away. Now listen to me, dear children.

This is very real and it's very soon. The factors that are given by God to work this great tribulation are already in place.

And this text is confirmed in many places in the prophets. I'm not a man who has to scrounge to find one text that will substantiate my position. I'm overwhelmed with the volume of prophetic testimony that speaks of the last day's sufferings of the Jewish people.

Why must they go through this? And why must they go through it again? There's no way to understand historic Jewish suffering or that which is yet to come which will be global except in the light of Israel's millennial calling.

It's something with which you should be acquainted. That's why everlasting joy will be upon their heads. They will be restored to the land of which the present Zionist Israel is not the fulfillment.

Of this promise. Only the preliminary for the judgments to come.

That will again disperse this people into all nations and bring about a ruin of Israel and the loss of their political state in order for one thing that they might return as the redeemed of the Lord. This is not God dealing with an ethnic people.

This is God dealing with a chosen people a people who have not yet fulfilled their destiny, their gift and their calling. The evidence of that is to be seen in all nations that are sinking into a profane vulgar and obscene lifestyle.

I've never seen so many half-naked women as I've seen them in Poland where one doesn't even turn around. The mini-skirt is normative and so is every other aspect of our contemporary culture a direct offense against God which no one seems to notice.

And aspects of it even come into the church like the music and the beat. Why?

The Loss of a Priestly Nation

Because there's not a nation that is priestly to call the nations to righteousness. The priest shall teach the people the difference between the sacred and the profane. But what if there are no priests?

And what if there was a nation called to be a nation of priests and a light unto the world?

They've given to the world Jascha Heifetz a great violinist.

And Karl Marx and other aspects of Jewish genius. But they've not given to the world the light of God.

For they themselves do not have it even in their orthodoxy.

But Romans 11 says that the gifts and callings of God are without repentance. That means that something must be fulfilled independent even of their own willingness.

If God gives a calling to a nation of priests and a light to the world that you will bless.

All the families of the earth. That word has got to be fulfilled that covenant has got to be honored that calling has got to be realized. Or God is not God. And His word and His promise is vain. The issue of Israel.

Is the issue of God and it's an issue that is not finished yet.

The fact that it does not occupy you as an issue the issue and the supreme issue by which the age is concluded and with which the Lord comes is the statement of the unhappy condition of the church today.

From which being Pentecostal or charismatic does not save us. I'm crying out for you people.

To wake you from your sleep and from your religious culture.

The Church's Response to the Jewish People

To understand the drama of the last days for which the church is not merely an observer but the most critical participant your response to these Jews will determine their salvation will determine their redemption but it will also determine your eternal destiny.

Notice that both groups say to the Lord Lord, when did we see you hungry? When did we see you thirsty? These are not just mere Gentiles who are being judged they are evidently Gentile Christians. Who else would say, Lord, Lord when did we see you, Lord?

This is not the language of the world this is the language of Christians but Christians of totally radically different kind. They both were faced with the same challenge but only one was able to respond and that one is called righteous.

And the reward is inherit the kingdom prepared for you.

Was their righteousness established in that moment? No, it was revealed in that moment. It's a crisis of faith and the Jews have always done that to us. Their relationship to us has always been a challenge and which we have never successfully met historically.

But here is a last days event. Do you use that phrase? The last days? Is that part of your consciousness? Do you know that we are at the end of the age? We're moving toward a climax an apocalyptic end of history and the restoration of His people and the establishment of His kingdom.

If you knew that really knew that it would change everything it would affect everything. But we don't know as we ought to know. Even when we say, Lord, Lord.

Of course, who's to blame those who will turn away?

The Least of These and the Suffering Servant

He calls these the least of these, my brethren.

And that's exactly what they will be.

Some of the biggest Jewish hotshots in the world today.

Those who are very great among Jews now in the world.

Great filmmakers, bankers or industrialists will become the least. They will become despised and rejected of all men. You who have an affinity for Israel and you think that they're cute at that time they will have no beauty that you should desire them.

They will be more marred than any man. Brother, your words sound familiar.

Your words sound familiar. You sound like you're quoting from Isaiah 53 the description of the suffering servant Jesus to be descriptive of what will come upon Jews at the end of the age. And my answer is yes exactly they must walk the road to Calvary.

Do you know why? Because they are also called to be servant sons. And how shall they be that to you? And to the Ukrainians who volunteered to man the concentration camp at Treblinka and enjoyed Jewish suffering Jews are going to be priestly to them and patient with them and forbearing with them as Paul himself was with Gentiles.

And he said, I'm a man born out of time. What you see in me as an apostle to the Gentiles for whom I have been their father and their mother in the faith and did not withhold to them anything of the counsel of God but gave it to them with tears day and night.

He says, this is a picture of the nation Israel when it shall come into its own apostolate and be to the Gentile nations what Paul was to the Gentile church it will be nothing less than life from the dead.

Mercy, Persecution, and the Cost of Righteousness

But it will not happen independent of you. It will happen because of you. That's why Paul says in Romans 11 by your mercy they may obtain mercy. And I tell you children they are going to need it and if they don't receive it they'll perish.

And they're going to need it in Warsaw and in Poland because the prophet Amos says I will sift you through all nations.

And you will not be exempt. And what will you do in that day.

When so much as to acknowledge them or to identify with them might be your own death. If they are so hated that they have to flee through all nations when all of human society and government is opposed to them what will your fate be as a Jew lover if you extend to them food or water or clothing and get caught doing it.

Jesus calls them the righteous. Righteousness is not cheap it's not convenient. It wasn't convenient for God and it will not be convenient for you. True righteousness requires sacrifice.

True righteousness requires sacrifice.

That's what the cross demonstrated that while we were yet sinners he died for us. And do you know what he's saying to the church at the end of the age. While they are yet sinners will you die for them as he died for you.

But they don't deserve it. Paul says they are the enemies of the gospel. But what is mercy. If it has to be deserved. Mercy is only mercy without qualification. I hope you will not think I am boasting when I share with you an episode out of my atheistic life.

A Testimony of Sacrificial Justice

An American soldier leaving Germany returning to the States. Do you know what it means to be a Jew in Germany. No small thing. Do you know what it means to be a Jew who falls in love with a German woman and will soon enter into a tragic marriage with her.

These were my thoughts in the military train on the way to the seaport. I wanted to reflect on my experience. Why was I sent to Germany and not to Korea. Why was I so affected. Why was Germany more home to me than Brooklyn, New York.

But I couldn't think those thoughts. The train compartment was too noisy. The other soldiers were drinking and shouting and carrying on their noise was intolerable. It was a condition that could not be tolerated.

Because it contradicted humanity. It contradicted human values. It contradicted decency. So I got up out of my seat and I went to the man with a bottle of whiskey in his hand passing it around to all the other soldiers.

I took it out of his hand to his astonishment.

And I walked to the window and I opened it and I threw it out closed the window and turned around. And there we were, face to face as we Jews say, nose to nose.

And I was ready to have my nose smashed I was ready to have my face smashed I was ready to be killed. If that's what it took because there are certain things that are more important than life itself and if we will not die for those things then what is our living merely to preserve our protoplasmic life a life without value without humanity.

I knew that as an atheist how much more as a believer that man never laid a finger on me and he was big enough to do so but the issue was not who's bigger or stronger.

Justice required a response. Whatever the cost that's what it will be for you.

You will not learn righteousness in that moment it will rather reveal what all your moments have been till that moment. It will be the statement of the sum of all your moments. If your righteousness is only a principle it will fail because the fear for your own self-preservation will become the most important factor.

But you know what it means to be righteous in the righteousness which is of God. Death is not so terribly to be feared. The righteous will have their reward.

And righteousness requires suffering or it's not righteousness at all.

You righteous inherit the kingdom prepared for you. The issue of the Jew in the last days will reveal our righteousness. And how are you feeling right now toward them?

Unconditional Love for Unbelieving Jews

Oh brother I have to confess I'm not Jewish like you.

I don't have this feeling for them. Frankly I'm even a little irritated by them. They seem so bold and arrogant as if Auschwitz is their exclusive territory. Didn't Poles die there also? And Jews are forbidding even the sight of a cross?

This rubs me the wrong way as well it should humanly speaking. But from the point of view of a saint of the righteous saints of God they're not irritated. Their love is unconditional they understand what the cross means to an unbelieving Jew a symbol of persecution of which their graves are all around us.

What will you be to them in that day? when they are the least of all men.

The righteous will not be able to withhold themselves. I can't be a sinner. Imagine that people should be thirsty or hungry or naked and pass by and I should not do something? No matter what the cost is to myself for a Jew.

What did they ever do for you? But the same spirituality that is authentic that same righteousness which is godly.

Sees in this yet unbelieving people still in their sins.

The brethren of the Lord and he says whatever you've done for them you have done for me. When did we see you thirsty you hungry, you naked. What you've done for the least of these you've done for me. Such is his identification with his own brethren that he says it's me.

What is your identification? This is a spiritual matter beyond culture, beyond history, beyond nationality. And this last day's episode will find it out. It's not a heroism that we're going to find in the last moment.

We will have to be living consistently in the righteousness of God. Or we will not find it in that moment. And the issue is eternity. Where are you going to spend it? Will it be a place of reward and rejoicing or of shame and of disappointment that you fell short of the glory of God and lived a predictable Christian life totally undistinguished and non-sacrificial where you were the object of your own concern and could only respond to those who are like you.

And even there your response was often lacking.

The Church's Apostolic Purpose

Well, I know you're anxious to go home.

So I won't talk to you about Ephesians 3, verse 10 of which I suspect you have no more familiarity and understanding than you do with the issue of Israel because the two subjects are profoundly apostolic.

So very briefly Paul tells us in Ephesians 3, verse 10 God's reason for the creation of the Church God has created all things in order that through the Church that the Church is so important in God's sight that He did not think it extravagant to frame an entire world that would support it.

That He did not think it extravagant to frame an entire world that would support the Church. Is this God's eternal purpose in Christ Jesus?

Or are you occupied with God's eternal purpose? or only your own purpose? or your own agenda? or your own program?

That's only religious. To be apostolic and priestly and righteous is to be occupied with God's purpose His eternal purpose which has been your first purpose. And if that is your first purpose then it will change everything.

And what is that purpose? I will say it, but you may not understand it.

To demonstrate to the principalities and the powers of the air the manifold wisdom of God. What a mouthful to say that who can understand that? Who can fulfill that? And it's only given to the Church to make that demonstration to show to God before the invisible powers of the air.

A demonstration that can only be made by the whole Church. What wisdom? The wisdom that will lay its life down for another. The wisdom that thinks that righteousness is more important than physical preservation.

The wisdom that sees in the least of these Jews the brethren of God who while yet in their sin are called to be a nation of priests and a light unto the world through the mercy that you will extend that they might obtain mercy.

This is the mystery of God. And what is that Church that is not occupied with it? That has not taken it into its deepest consciousness.

Is not seeking God as to how to fulfill it such a Church might be a candidate.

For the judgment of God for it has forsaken its eternal purpose.

As it has forsaken its ancient people and God is speaking now to save us from that eternal loss.

A Prophetic Appeal and Call to Repentance

This is what you call a prophetic message. It's not a sermon. It's an appeal. It's a warning. It's a call. And something is required of you who hear it. Something more than an amen. Did you like the message, brother?

This kind of message requires a certain kind of response. Ultimate response. Yes, Lord I heard your word. And if this Christ I'm so short of your righteousness but impute it to me in proportion to my brokenness to the degree that I'm aware of my need.

For which mere religion is not enough even with our intense Pentecostal praying Lord, change me Lord, fit me Lord, prepare me. Give me an understanding. He'll hear that prayer. Let's bow before him so precious God I know what these people don't know that when the prophetic word comes our response is critical.

It's expensive to hear and not to hear. It will not allow us to go on as we were before. We will not remain what we were. We will be worse. For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus. And if we discount that word we're discounting the Lord and inviting his judgment.

So I appeal to you, Lord. Speak to their hearts. Break through their categories. Fix religious understanding. Touch them in the deeps of their being. Give them a sense of the last days and of the requirement of it.

So beyond any ability in ourselves to fulfill to hear our cry be merciful to us.

In our great need.

Prayer for Mercy, Formation, and Witness

So that we can have a mercy that we can extend for we have not needed it till now. Till now we were quite able to continue by ourselves quite able to conduct our own services. But this requirement this crisis to this people is beyond any ability in ourselves.

You must be all in all. And when they will see that through us they will believe. For this will be the undeniable evidence that the God of Jacob lives and is full of mercy even through his Gentile people especially in Poland.

Who will stand for this. Who will welcome the Lord's dealings. Who will welcome the Lord's disciplines. To fit us and form us as the sons and daughters of God. To remove what is false and establish what is authentic the righteousness of God himself.

Who will stand for that.

And welcome those dealings that you will not be ashamed on that day I invite you to stand and make a statement to God.

Don't stand because you are tired of sitting or that you would be embarrassed to be found seated.

God is righteous God is present.

And he will not be mocked. Better to remain seated in your uncertainty than to stand mindlessly. But for those who are standing in truth for what authority that I have in Christ I bless you. I seal you for this precious call of God and I ask the Lord to put a seal on it and to call for it on that day.

And that Jews will be saved out of death and called to redemption because of what is being transacted right now.

In the Spirit, in Jesus' name Amen and Amen.