Arab-01 Where's Your Identity — Art Katz

I'm always telling the Lord what a privileged man I am, and I'm feeling especially privileged.

This morning as a Jewish believer, to address my Arab cousins as brothers.

It's the wonderful grace that has come to us in the Messiah Jesus,.

And the only grace that will save us all.

The Prophetic Message and the Calling of the Arab Church

I came to a conclusion in this present visit about preaching in Jerusalem, that we have come to such an hour and such a time historically, that the only kind of message that really is appropriate is a prophetic message.

I intend to bring you one this morning, the same one that I brought two years ago, seven times in this land, three times in Jerusalem, that I have to say I think has been essentially rejected. But it's still my burden this morning, and it's my first opportunity to preach to an Arab congregation, and to trust the Lord to bring out the particular implications for Arab believers, that may be the more ultimate and radical requirement than for any other.

It's a requirement of such a kind that requires the Arab church to be the church indeed. No longer sufficient to lurk in the shadows and to be a kind of cultural or generational religious entity, but an authentic apostolic presence.

And it's the issue of Israel that requires this.

God gets such a maximum benefit from the nation even in its unbelief. All the more in its unbelief of the challenger as the church. And we will be increasingly tested and challenged by Israel in such testing conditions.

It's a condition I'm not expecting to improve.

It's one that I expect will worsen and worsen unto death.

The condition of the world or the condition of the nation will worsen and worsen to the end and to death. In order to glorify God and the Son of God.

Nothing less than resurrection issues in Jordan. That's true for the church and it's true for the nation. The difficulty for us is the death that proceeds in that direction. And I want to suggest a perspective by which we can view the present calamity or perplexity of Israel.

The intifada of the Palestinian uprising. The tortuous peace process that does not seem to bring any proper solution. Have you ever seen a nation in a more intractable position? That whichever way it turns it is in such a state of perplexity that even you cannot find a solution.

And I want to submit that God is the marker of every perplexity.

And I want to tell you that God puts this country in every perplexity. I want to tell you that God causes all these things and not by chance but by a precise judgment.

And we ourselves who are sympathetic and lovers of Israel stand the risk of being offended by God in how far he will go to offend us. The problem is with us and not with God. We have not understood the issue of his glory.

We have not understood his glory. And how far he will go to attain it. Here we are talking about his eternal glory.

Although the effecting of it takes place in the last days of time. There is something in God's intention much more than a successful Israeli state.

There is something much greater than a successful Israeli state. God does not have such a goal and God has a greater goal than that. But God establishes a country so that it can bless other countries spiritually.

So that it can be a spiritual country.

And even here I am struggling for words. Because the word blessed itself has become so cheapened in our own generation. I am not talking about some condescending Israeli who is going to make nice to his Arab brethren.

I am not talking about a transfigured nation that will be to the nations where Paul was to the Gentiles. I want this country to return to God and to change. So that according to the idea of Paul the Apostle. This country became a glory to God and to others.

That the same Arab people today who fear us and despise us. Will one day hang on our necks and weep bitterly if they think that they will see our face no more.

It is as if our Arab brethren are weeping over us. Because they do not look to us anymore to pray for our repentance.

Ezekiel's Valley of Dry Bones and Israel's Future

This is a transfiguring glory. And requires something ultimately from the church. And the text that God has quickened for me that encompasses all this is Ezekiel 37. The valley of dry bones. I won't take the time to read the entire text.

It is familiar to most of us. The only question for us really is it a picture of Israel's past or Israel's future. Some suggest that it is a statement of Israel's past in the time of the Holocaust. At a time when we were literally reduced to bones.

But there are some indications in the text that is read carefully that suggests to me it speaks of a future time. A time toward which we are now tending.

A time for which the nation itself is being prepared for the Holocaust.

If we don't understand that we will join the chorus of the nations against Israel for their failure to be the nation that they hoped to be. But it is not a nation that they can be independent of God. It is not Jewish expertise and ability and prowess that will bless the nations.

It is the very character and spirit of God himself that becomes the character of the nation when it is resurrected out of its own death.

That is why I am not expecting a resolution of Israel's present difficulties.

I believe that they are calculated by God to bring the nation down.

I believe that they are calculated by God to bring the nation down.

That God might raise it up.

To the fulfillment of his own Abrahamic calling. And of his own millennial destiny. Don't tell me that this is a nation like any other nation.

And it has no special consideration in God's sight. Unless this nation says blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord, the Lord does not come. For when he comes he comes as king. And the only place where that rule can be established.

Upon the throne of David on the hill of Zion in the city of Jerusalem. In a land and in a nation that has been restored to him by the work of his own hand. In that day you will know that I am the Lord who has both spoken and performed this.

Nothing in Israel's present history till this moment has brought that awareness. We are in a new and final historical moment. The issue of God is no longer a Sunday or Saturday matter. Amen.

The issue of God and the importance of God is no longer a Sunday or Saturday matter.

There is more important than that. We need to anticipate the divine intervention of very God. The establishment of a theocratic rule over the nation. According to God's own choosing. That the law of the Lord shall go forth out of Zion and the word of the Lord out of Jerusalem.

Then the nations will study one another.

Then they will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into proofs. Then, but what precedes that then, the final cataclysmic clash of the powers of darkness and light. Amen. Hallelujah. Of which we the church are the principal actors and agents.

The restored Israel is God's subject. But it is not the agent of its own restoration. It could never be that. Knowing Jews as we do. We can never be the architects of our own salvation. It must be something that comes to us from outside.

Something external to us.

And a source that we would never have suspected. For whom we have had historic disdain and contempt. Gentiles. The church. Arabs. Christians. I wish we had a three day seminar for this. But time requires me to get right to the heart of the matter.

Israel's Hopelessness and God's Exclusive Deliverance

Israel is hopeless and inert according to this chapter. Verse 11. These bones are the whole house of Israel. Behold they say our bones are dried, our hope is lost, we are cut off for our parts. Tell me when you have heard that statement.

Recently or historically coming from the Jewish nation. I am going to stretch my brother's Arabic to the point of breaking. There is something about us Jews that is indomitable. That will not say uncle.

We will not give up. There is something about us that we pull ourselves up from our own bootstraps.

There is something about us Jews that is indomitable. That we will not give up. We never admit that we have no hope. We are bones. We are dead. We always want to move with our strength. But we can't. But if we miss this point.

That we admit that we are cut off for our parts. And our bones are dry. We lose everything. All hope.

We invoke this national cry of absolute helplessness and abject dejection. What will.

It will happen. By whatever means God will require it.

It will shred us who will be here to observe it. To bring that nation to such a place of absolute hopelessness. We are without hope. What is the national anthem of Israel? Particular the hope. But the hope in what?

Any hope that is not hope in God is false hope.

Any hope that is not hope in God is false hope. They put their hope in their strength. I want to tell you what has stopped us. And we tried to encourage and help our country in this or our country in this.

God changes. God changes from his heart. That we put our hope in human strength or physical strength and not our hope in God. God changes. God is sad. I boldly predict that this prophecy or this realization will come soon.

And all of Israel's present distresses are moving her to that place. What has been our national dream when we were in the diaspora in exile? If ever we would have a Jewish nation we would show the world what a distinctive nation that kind of nation would be.

For we fancy ourselves as having a distinctive as Jews namely of an ethical and a moral kind. It's easy to imagine that for ourselves while we are in the exile, in the ghetto, in diaspora. But what has the reality of our recent national life revealed?

That power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

We have no distinctive different from other nations.

We know what we need to do. In order to preserve our national existence. Even if such conduct contradicts what we thought our state to be. That revelation must come.

Or else we will not cry out we are without hope. Our God is waiting to hear it.

And the moment that he does he turns to one who is called the son of man. Amen.

And the moment that a person returns or the country returns or the people return. Allah comes to hear those who ask for revelation. The book says, O son of man, to the prophet Hasquial, prophesy to them this revelation.

Say this revelation. I will open your graves and cause you to come up out of your graves and bring you into the land of Israel. You may have brought yourself previously. But my bringing you will be exclusively my work and supernaturally in power.

Then you will know that I am the Lord who has spoken of you. There cannot be any question for the Israel of the millennium. That God alone is her exclusive deliverer. And the deliverance that has come exclusively in his power.

Uniquely expressed through his word. But not spoken by himself. But through a son of man. Whom he employs to speak the word of God. To a nation dead in its grave.

In their hands hopeless.

Waiting for whatever mercy can come to it outside of itself. And this is where my precious Arab brethren come in. If you were the son of man, would you prophesy?

Say to me, son of man. Do you prophesy about this land of life to return to the Lord? And this is a great opportunity for the Jewish people of Israel and the people of the whole country to be in the grave.

Imagine that your word is, O you who know Christ and believe in Christ, you can save them from their punishment. But it may be foolish if you say it. Have you not suffered enough at her hands?

In violence and injury and insult and humiliation? Everything that is human in. You will say, serve the right, let her remain that.

Everything that is human in you will say, serve the right, let her remain that. Let her die. She has wronged us. She has created us. She has killed us. Hallelujah. The Lord does not only contemplate the salvation of the people who are there, but also the glory of the church and its greatness.

What you desire to do in that moment, what you are able to do in that moment, is the whole issue of Israel's restoration. Helpless and waiting on your word. And what a word it must be. An ultimate word.

A prophetic word in all authority. And a faith that works alone by it. All the depths of the riches, both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God.

All the depths of the wisdom and the knowledge of God are found in His word. In us. We are the believers. The greatness of God. What is the greatest? Who is his counselor?

Who is his counselor? Listen, son of Adam. Do you desire that they should live? Do you desire that they should live? Isn't everything that is human in you remembering every insult and humiliation? Isn't there something in the Arab temperament that wants retaliation and vengeance and justice?

Can you be the agent of mercy?

Can you be the agent of mercy? The representative of mercy. The son of man. So that the poor people do not sympathize. Hallelujah. This is something that is being designed in the last moment or in this time.

Hallelujah. But this is the thing that is required of us now.

As every justification for resentment rises. And you face it daily. Jewish contempt. Israeli contempt. High-handed policies. Arrogance. The use of force or insult. Everything calculated to produce anger, bitterness, resentment.

Son of man, can these bones live? And do you desire that they would?

The Arab Church's Test of Authentic Christian Identity

It's an ultimate challenge to the Arab church.

This is the ultimate challenge to the Arab church and to the believers everywhere.

And I praise God that the historical hour has come. For the condition of the Arab church is well known in Christendom. Christians by circumstance of birth. You're Christians because your parents were.

It's a social and cultural condition. It's rare to find authentic Arab believers. The issue of Israel is for you, the issue of authenticity. What can you expect if you begin to exhibit a mercy toward that nation?

You'll be called traitor. Your neck will get chopped with embarrassment. Everything that is powerful and national and traditional and natural will tug at you. What is your first identity? Arab or believer?

What is your deepest identification? With the people of God in their apostasy and hateful condition? Your tormentor and oppressor? Or the people of your own nationality and ethnic group and race? This is an issue that we as Jews have had to face in coming to Christ.

And we're all going to be required to face it. To stand with Israel is to suffer her reproach. It's to raise the question of what is our first identification? Natural, earthly or spiritual? Do we join the angry chorus of the haters of Israel and of the Jews?

Or recognize in them and in their extremity the chosen people of God called to a millennial destiny? This is the question that is before us now. It will compel us either to be Christians of an apostolic kind.

Or to stand with God's purposes for Israel as an Arab is to invite oppression, persecution and martyrdom.

And we'll not be far behind you and that will be our issue also.

In the age of antichrist martyrdom will be the condition of the church. Are we Christianized Arabs or Arabs who are Christians? What is the reality and the truth in our deepest and the short term? What will rise and reveal itself in the moment of extremity and challenge?

Crisis will reveal the truth of where and what we are. To identify ourselves with this nation and the last days purposes of God is to invite retaliation. By a people who cannot be expected to understand our identification.

You will not be able to explain yourself.

You simply have to suffer their wrath.

This is my experience with my own people as a Jewish believer. In university confrontations and other times of clash, with radical Jews.

You are worse than Hitler they say. Hitler only sought to destroy our bodies. You are trying to destroy our souls. You are trying to remove our Jewishness.

You make the Christians out of us. You are some paid flunker, you are a missionary. What do you answer them on? What do you answer them? You can't answer. In the heat of that moment no answer is possible.

You have only to absorb their fury, absorb their anger.

Absorb their prejudice, their misunderstanding. Let them spend themselves on you. Then when they have ventilated their fury you might get a word in. We have just come back from Egypt. And spoke from Isaiah 19 to the believers there.

Amen. Yes there is an altar that shall be raised up in the middle of the land, in the midst of the land, in the name of the Lord. It will be a key to the turning of the entire nation. But it is an altar of sacrifice.

From the blood of martyrs. Who may suffer that because of their identification with the nation that is hated because of the historical conflict between the two. God is calling us beyond nationality.

God is calling us beyond our nationality. God is calling us to believe in Christ. By the way the position of the church from the people around us, is the position of the church everywhere. A true church.

The Apostolic and prophetic church that believes in Christ.

A radical presence in its community. And the word that comes from it constitutes event. Because it is spoken with one heart, one mind and one will.

Because the word that comes out of the church comes from one thought, one conscience, one opinion and one design. Not that I do not like it, but I have to do it. I am not forced. But when the word says so, I am forced.

But I have a religious obligation. I do not like it, but I am committed. Can you imagine that the Lord Jesus was speaking to Lazarus in this way? I am not able to do anything to you. But the word that came out of the mouth of Jesus was a living creation.

Because the person in the grave, the one who died, was his beloved friend.

Resurrection Faith and Love for Enemies

Brother Mark, you do not understand. You are not living in Israel. You are not living in Jerusalem. You are not in Iraq. You do not know what we have suffered. What you are suggesting is beyond us. I mean, it is enough just to even be polite to these people.

I should believe for their resurrection? And desire it? And speak it with an absoluteness of faith? A faith that works by love? That is more than just condescension and acknowledgement? This is beyond me.

Exactly. It is not only Israel's restoration over which God is jealous. But your transfiguration. A church indeed. In all apostolic fullness. Because it loves what God loves and it chooses what He chooses.

It will not limit the Holy One of Israel. Because of its personal experience of what it has suffered at the hands of the other. Ultimate church. Fitted for its own eternal destiny. By the final prophetic maturity to which Israel requires it.

Hallelujah. Brother, speak English, brother. Oh my goodness. Hallelujah. It will not only require death then, it will require death now. For only a people who know the reality of resurrection can be the voice of resurrection for that nation.

This is beyond religion. Even of a charismatic kind. And we ourselves must be the people of the resurrection. And not merely approve its doctrine. For if we have not experienced the power of God that raises us up from our death.

Because we have not experienced the resurrection of God and the power of God that raises us up from our death. How can we believe for the sake of others?

This is more than planting a tree in Israel.

We want to see where the true love is. The depth of love. And no matter how much you present the emotional manifestations. This is not enough. There is something greater than Israel and the Israeli state.

And greater than the church. And all of these are only means to a great end. Glory of the Lord Jesus Christ. Greater than everything. Glory. Faith. I will sanctify through you in the eyes of the whole world.

Not for your sake do I do this.

But for my glory and my request. And for my sake says the Lord. If this is not the true motivation for our change. And it is the glory of God. And the name of God. Then there is no need to pass to the resurrection of God.

This jealousy for the glory of God will cost us a lot. But this is the time. It is not enough to be a believer only. Fifty or more than fifty countries. But to be like Christ. In his faith. From mercy and compassion.

His compassion. For these people are your enemies. And this is the true state of love. Which has no conditions. Which is above the capabilities of man.

The faith that believes for dry bones to live. Is beyond any faith that can ever live. We have come to the place where we say. For us to live as Christ. And what keeps us from that identification.

We are Arab Christians. We are Jewish Christians.

There is always something hyphenated and joined together. God calls us to himself. Have you noticed how this text ends? You shall know that I am the Lord in verse thirteen. When I have opened your graves O my people.

And brought you out of your graves. I shall put my spirit in you and you shall live.

I shall place you in your graves. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.

That I the Lord have spoken it and performed it. Sayeth the Lord. This is either careless biblical terminology. I have spoken and performed it. Or it is the heart of the mystery itself. How can a God of truth say.

I have spoken and performed it. When the son of man spoke it. How can a God of truth say. I have spoken and performed it. When the son of man spoke it. The son of man spoke it.

How can a God of truth say. I have spoken and performed it. Because he has brought a people to a place beyond itself. Their speaking is his speaking. His love is their love. His faith is their faith. His obedience is their obedience.

True church. Can alone be Israel's deliverer. Against every national and natural factor to the contrary.

Against every national, political or national fact in the world. We want the people to be delivered. Because this is the hope of God and our faith. I want to tell you. We have the subject of the salvation of the country here.

This subject is very important to us and important to God. For salvation.

It is the issue of the church. That will be unto him as glory forever. And not a quaint and cute curio for visitors in Israel.

Not for glory or greatness of some people who visit the world. Or people who are present. But glory is returned to the Lord Jesus Christ. And a specific prophetic identity for the church of Christ. As it was in the first church.

And our country and the whole world. And there is no hope for it. It will remain in the grave forever. And all the countries of the world will remain without blessing. Because they did not save the people who perished in their sins.

The Arab officials in the country. To revive the souls with a vision for their hope. They await the resurrection of this dead people.

With the same purity and power as Paul. Who was born before his time. A figure of the restored nation in its apostolate. Blessing all the families of the earth. To the eternal praise of his glory. We are caught together in this mystery.

Dying to National Resentment and Living for God's Glory

And the hour is now. So I am going to give you an invitation. To die.

To your national feelings. To your justifiable resentment.

To the bitternesses that you want to nurture. And still be Christian. All the depths of the wisdom of the knowledge of God. God is calling you by name.

To be his. A son of man. To prophesy in that day. Let's pray.

Hallelujah. Yes. Gracious God, we ask that history be worked this morning. In keeping with all the holy apostolic and prophetic things that have preceded us.

In keeping with all the holy apostolic and prophetic things that have preceded us. Hallelujah. Just as we are in this place surrounded by witnesses.

Who are not yet complete without us. Hallelujah. By at the hand of our own outraged people. Opposing themselves in their own ignorance. We have so persecuted the early church. So that we make ourselves candidates for persecution.

To stand with God and his purposes for Israel. In an hour when hatred is rising against them everywhere. We will be called traitor. And we will not be able to explain.

And we will not be able to explain our position. But we are the result of our sins. I pray to you God, pray to you God.

Whether or not it is required.

We are not talking about death as a final point. But how you will live in every moment of your life.

Until you leave this room and get jostled by an Israeli soldier on your way to the Damascus Gate.

Or they spit or curse at you or give you a dirty look.

And want to give you every reason to leave the land. But you have a purpose here beyond your knowing. And it has not to do with your rights. What rights do any of us have? Who have been brought back from the dead.

No longer to live unto ourselves but to believe. You are here for God's glory.

And not to claim your ancestral land.

And not to claim your place. Let this settle in your heart.

Are you an Arab who happens to be a Christian? Or a Christian who happens to be an Arab? God's glory alone. Whatever it takes to obtain it. Is our determination. Who will say yes to God for this? Allow Him to deal with your heart.

Bring you into deaths of humiliation. You didn't know that there were such deaths of pride in you. Or the fear of man. But God will flesh it out. And bring it to the cross.

That you might be His. And His voice and His speaking in your life.

Our people will be eternally grateful for you.

This world and those around you will be eternally grateful for your love. Your faith will raise us from our graves. It will take eternity to express our gratitude.

And to celebrate the God whose wisdom has called for us. Who will stand for martyrdom today? That was always the true identity of the church. In every generation. And must especially be in the last. Whether you're from New Zealand or Canada.

Or you're an Arab, an Israeli, Palestinian born. Our call is one thing.

Have you answered that call? I invite you to stand if you will. Once and for all. In the name of the Lord. Amen. Unto death. Hallelujah. Amen. Hallelujah.

Hallelujah. Amen. Hallelujah. Precious. Yes. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah. And not reluctantly with sadness. Not with that self pity cry. Why me? Couldn't I have been a nice Arab Christian without this?

He's not called you to what is nice. He's called you to what is glorious. Hallelujah. Lord see us this morning. Thank you for sending this word. Let the cassette of it go far and wide through the Arab speaking world.

Where there are bewildered believers who don't understand what their call is. Who have been drawn into the sea of hatred and bitterness and resentment.

Who have been drawn into the sea of hatred and resentment. Grant them my God the veil to be removed.

To see the beauty and the holiness of their calling. That eventuates in your glory forever. See us in our standing. Bring the process of death into our life where it's at.

Find us out in the subtlety of our life.

We might be a men and women of the resurrection. Whose word is event. Even life from the death. For the blessing of all nations. In Jesus name we pray.