Transcription
Tom, brother, will you come up here and share a word this morning? Tom Doyle, everyone. Thank you. Well, there's so many thank yous this morning, and I just want to make sure that we do this. What a, what a conference this has been. A wow weekend. I think this has really been a wow weekend. And first of all, I want to thank Christopher for just guiding it through, keeping us on schedule, being a great announcer. Thank you. Yeah, thank you so much. We are so blessed last night with Jillian being here and and doing the interviews. And didn't she do a great job? Wonderful. Thank you. And then being with Joel Richardson, just hearing him. I mean, usually we get to hear like one message or something at the conference. And just being with Joel, man, I just learned so much and can't wait to work with you. Let's go to the Middle East, man. We could do some damage there together, don't you think? Let's go. Okay. Thank you, David Icke, pastor. Wow, what a, what a pastor. And you know, I just like listening to him. I like how he explains things. Love his shepherding. I, I just, I'd love him to be my pastor. You guys are fortunate. You know, we, we were launching a new ministry in Chard. We'd love to have your prayer support, more than anything. Prayer support. We send out emails each month to talk about progress and what's happening. Don't worry, we don't ask for money. We just tell you the stories and what God is doing in the Middle East and around the world. So go by the table, we'd love to have you check that out. Give us your email if you would. I guess we ran out of dreams and visions, but if you go to Green Acres, we'll have some tomorrow. So we'd love to have you take a copy of that. And then let's just thank the Green Acres audiovisual team and the staff here for all their work. Thank you. Cameras, everything. All the volunteers. It's amazing. And Becky and Rob, where are you? Becky and Rob, are you guys, can anybody see them? Are they here? They're probably running around doing so. Is Becky here? Can someone shout out? Yeah, she's here. Where is she? Can she, Becky, can you and Rob just come in and just wave at us wherever you are? Do we see them? There they are. Let's thank them. My gosh. Wow, what a conference, you guys. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you. Hey, I say we do this in Dallas next week. They need to be shaken up, you know? And then after that, we'll go somewhere else, Houston or something. And and and all of the team that's worked with Rob and Becky, could you're here? Could you just stand up? Anybody that worked, was involved on this team? Yes. Thank you so much. Well, and thank you for coming. You gave up a weekend, and you know, you could have been doing a lot of things. Home, watching the tube, stressing out over the news, whatever. But you're here, and and it's just a joy to have you with us. You know, in Christianity now, even though Jesus said we're one, make them one, Father, he kept saying, make them one, make them one. He must have known in that prayer that we would know how to divide pretty good, and and how to fight, right? The latest thing that I heard is that there are 43,000 denominations in Christianity. So Jesus said we're one, but really we're 43,000. But you know what brings us together more than anything is to think about the day of the Lord and His return, doesn't it? Don't we all look forward to that? And also, we look forward to seeing the Great Commission accomplished. And we also look toward the persecuted church, and we want them to know that we care for them and we pray for them. But we have to keep our focus, right? Because if we're watching the news 24/7, it's going to be stressful. I mean, if I say this so often, if we didn't have the Lord, you know what life would be like? If we didn't know how this ends, I mean, this would be enduring and kind of just grit our teeth and go forward. We had this couple in our church when I was pastoring in Colorado. They came to Christ in their 80s, Dick and Betty Johnson. And they were from the East Coast, I think originally. Betty was from New York, so pretty point-blank in her comments, you know, that she would say. And so we had a small church, we were just starting out, and there was an elder on the team, and his wife did the puppet ministry. Okay? And so the puppet ministry, which is great for kids and all of that, but it ended up that the puppet ministry got involved in worship services. Like, I don't know, every couple of weeks, there'd be the puppets up there. And I love puppets. And if you work with puppets, that's awesome. It may not fly every month on Sunday morning, you know? But somehow we're getting puppets, we're like, seemed like every other week. I think it was once a month. And and it was just kind of something. Did okay, that's nice. Thank you. And and and so anyway, we have two services one day, and man, from the beginning, I could just tell it was not going anywhere. It's just flat. I don't know, Pastor David has had one of those. But it's like, okay, they'll have my resignation tomorrow morning on the desk. And and I knew it was not going to end. That guy was late for the announcements, the prayer, the person wasn't there, and the worship. It was just flat, and they forgot things. And then all of a sudden, the puppets are up there doing their thing. Oh, man, are you kidding? You know? And then, then there was this pastor on staff that convinced me that he wanted to do a sermon on depression. And he said, a lot of people are depressed, and I think I can address this. And so I want to do that. And he got up there, and very soon I realized it was a big mistake because I realized that he was depressed. And so he got off, and he started, here's his opening line, "Blue, blue, blue. Sometimes days are just blue, and they're terrible, and you feel like horrible." And it is God that, oh my gosh, and it was, it was his telling his journey. And I thought, how did I not know this? That, I mean, it was flat, it was just going downhill fast. And it's just like one of these services. Oh Lord, we've just got to get past it. So I'm standing at the door, the way out, April, people are saying goodbye. And Jake and Betty Johnson came up. I knew I'd get it straight from them. And I said, "Well, guys, how you doing today?" "Oh, okay." And I said, "Betty, how was the service?" And she goes, "Well, if it hadn't been for the puppets, I think I'd have gone out and shot myself." So that was a new low for us, right? You know, it's the puppets carried the service, right? Wow. Okay. Well, you know, in 1974, I came to Jesus. And someone invited me to Young Life. And they had been doing that for months. But Stan Whittaker, bless his heart, said to me, "Man, I love going to Young Life." And I said, "Why?" He goes, "All the cute girls in school go there." And I said, "So what night is that on?" You know, I mean, how bad is that? I went to check out the chicks, and there were really cute girls there. But a guy stood up, he was in jeans, like 21 years old, here's his high schoolers. And he opened the Bible to John 14:6. "I am the way, the truth, and the life." And I remember being riveted on him. I had been involved in a fairly traditional church, some some new Jesus movement, were on the work system. I definitely was trying to please God with works, and it wasn't going anywhere. And I was hooked. And soon I came to faith in Christ. And man, our life accelerated. I know Joanna was about the same time she came to faith in Christ. A little Irish Catholic, a little Italian Catholic, you know. And it was, you know, remember my dad was with the FBI, fought the Mafia. And Joanna's Italian. So it's like we had the best wedding because, you know, my dad was FBI, hers was in the Mafia. So it's like they already knew each other. And so this is the marriage made in heaven. But before then, I was at, I went to Biola College. And that's where we met. When so privileged that I was able to study there. But it was my first month at school. And there was a missionary young girl named Jill from Africa. And I just remember she was in her 20s, little blond-haired, blue-eyed girl. And she's off in Africa working in a village by herself with the team. And since I had a car, they asked me to take her and some of the mission folks to a church one night and speak. And so she's going to speak when they can hear her. And just hearing about her life and what God was doing was amazing. When I picked her up, she said, "You know, I'm sorry you have to drive, Tom, but I have this rental car, and I accidentally locked my keys in the car. And so I left a note for Biola security, please do the coat hanger thing, remember? We used to do that. And pull the keys out because my flight leaves LAX tomorrow at 6:00 AM." So anyway, we went, she spoke, it's powerful. On the way back, we were everybody in the car, praising, just praising the Lord. It was so, it was so great. And we got back, pulled up in front of her car was dark. And she jumped out. I was the last one to get out. And there was a note from Biola security, "You have a metal security strip here, so we couldn't get in without breaking the window." You know, we didn't want to do that. And so I'm getting out, I didn't hear this at all, but she just laid her hands on the car and said, "God, you got to open the door." And so I was the last one to walk up. I didn't hear anything. And she goes, "We can't get in. God's got to do a miracle." I had my keys from my Chevelle Super Sport, and she had a Nissan, I think they were called Datsuns back then. And I walked up, I had two keys on my chain. I said, "Well, maybe this key will work." And I stuck it in, and the door opened. And she said, "Hang on a minute." She reached and got her keys. I'm looking at my key, and she locked it, shut the door, and said, "Try again." It didn't work. It didn't work. And she said, "You know, that's God for you. That's how it is in Africa. She said, we don't have AAA there. We just have God. And if he doesn't come through, we're sunk." And so I remember thinking at that point, Lord, I want to see you move in power. Can we see miracles like in the book of Acts? And folks, I believe these days are here. I believe these days are here. God is shaking the nation. God is shaking the nation. He is. I don't want to get super technical, but years ago, there were over 10,000 unengaged, unreached people groups in the world. That means nobody works with them, no Bibles, nothing, nothing in their language, no presence of Christ. Over 10,000 groups in the world. Now that's less than 3,000. And it is moving fast. People are being called. God's placing a love on people's hearts for unreached people groups, and things are happening. So God has shaken the nations. At the same time, he is working with the spirit of unbelief around the world, and atheism, and all the isms around the world. And 2 Corinthians 4 says, the the God of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. So we hear this on TV all the time, global warming, global warming, global warming. You know what I'm concerned about? Global blinding. People are blind. And and we have to shake them up, and we have to pray to the Spirit of God shakes them up, just like he did us, just like he did us. And brothers, to faith. Well, Thomas Friedman said this, "We live in a day of accelerated global change. Things are happening at a fast pace, faster than ever before. The chessboard in the Middle East in the last couple of years has changed in decades. For decades, it was the same." And so today, we're going to be looking at God's time clock, our mandate. God's time clock, our mandate. You know, I think, do you ever just see news stories that just make you want to punch your fist through the TV and you go, "Oh my gosh, you've got to be kidding me." This happened, I don't know, ten years ago. But there was a woman named Irina, her name was Irena Sendler. And then World War II, she got permission to work in the Warsaw Ghetto as a plumber and a sewage specialist. But she had an ulterior motive. She knew what the Nazi plans were for the Jews. Being German, she started to smuggle infants out in the bottom of her toolbox that she carried in the back of her truck. And she would take these children to Christian families to watch them for the Jewish parents that no doubt were not going to make it. She also had a dog that she trained to bark when he would see anyone in uniform. So when she was going to be inspected, she had this little baby in this, this kit, you know, like work kit. She would, the dog would start barking when the Nazis would come to talk to her, and they would just shoo her away. She's just a lady, what could she be doing? And she would have a baby in the bottom of that toolbox. And she did this for a couple of years. And would go to the parents, and she couldn't show any emotion. She just had to say, "You need to make a decision because you may not be here tomorrow. We have someone that will raise your child." Can you imagine the mothers saying goodbye for the last time? And she would take them. And finally, she was caught by the Nazis. They broke both of her legs, beat her severely, all of that. But the amazing thing is this, she saved over 2,500 Jewish children. 2,500. And she kept a record of their names and she hid them in a glass jar and buried it by a tree in a backyard. And after the war, she tried to locate the parents and reunite them with the children. And a few of them were still around. But most of them had long since lost their lives in crematoriums. Most of them had been gassed. And she helped, every one of those children placed in foster homes. And years ago, before she died, she was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize. If you can imagine. The next year she died, but she lost to Al Gore for his slideshow on global warming. And when I saw that story, I just wanted to yell, "No! You've got to be kidding me! How can that be?" She saved over 2,500 children. But that's the world. That's the enemy. That's how he blinds. And so we know this. We said it yesterday, things are not falling apart, they're falling into place. Jesus is coming back. That's why you're here at a prophecy conference. And I look at three things in Scripture to help keep me on track. Three things. Three gauges on our dashboard. Or you can look at three hands on the clock. It's another way to look at it. And there are three hands: our hand, the minute hand, and the hand that beats the seconds. And they're all moving simultaneously. And but they end up at the same place at the same time. And of course, the hour hand, the one that goes a little bit slower, I believe for the nation of Israel. Let's look at Jeremiah 31, and we'll pick it up in verses 35 to 30. Many of these verses are familiar to you, so I'll do what my old prophet, Dallas Seminary, Howard Hendricks used to say, "Close your eyes and listen to these words as if you've heard them for the first time." So I'm going to read the scripture today, but when we read it, just close your eyes, tune out everything else, don't think, "Oh yeah, I learned this in third grade, whatever." Close your eyes and just listen to the words. "This is what the Lord says: He who gives the sun to shine by day, who decrees the moon and stars to shine by night, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar—the Lord Almighty is his name: Only if those decrees vanish from my sight," declares the Lord, "will Israel ever cease being a nation before me." This is what the Lord says. He goes on, "Only if the heavens above can be measured and the foundations of the earth below be searched out will I reject all the descendants of Israel because of all they have done," declares the Lord. He ends with that little caveat, "because of all that they've done." Okay, you can open your eyes. I don't want to lose you. Okay, you can open up your eyes. Okay, add your coffee. So for those that believe that Israel has been replaced, and there's no longer anything special for them, and and they will base it on maybe Israel's performance, or their secular, or there's so many things happening there. You know what? God is quite aware of that. But it never was based on their ability to obey God's promises to Israel are based on his character. Remember when they went off into captivity, he said, "You are doing things that the pagan nations we drove out haven't even done. They haven't even thought about those things. It's so evil." So today, if we can go to the first slide after the clock here, that would be great. Anti-Semitism. The clock is turning back. It's just unbelievable when you see what's happening around Europe. I met a young Jewish man in Israel, and he was from France. And he had two Star of David necklaces on. And like the many necklaces, so cool, it's beautiful. And it's good to be in Israel where I can wear this. And I said, "Well, where are you from?" And he said, "I lived in France. I wouldn't dare wear this in Paris. Are you kidding? I might get killed." And that's what's happening around the world. A majority of the Muslim world, it's hard to see that chart. Around Israel, has negative views of Israel. Listen, the first time we were in Syria, I would had the television on with our leaders, and they couldn't even admit that Israel exists. There was a map, and there was Syria, there was Lebanon, there was Jordan, and below Lebanon, the map was blank. There's nothing there. There is no Israel. We're going to ignore that they're even there. Okay, next, next one, if you would. Wow. This is in the Gaza Strip. This is like a pretty cool restaurant in Gaza. And I walked in and thought, "Oh my gosh, someone made this out of crocheting or something." And it's Yasser Arafat on the right, perhaps the greatest terrorist of all time. Hamas, PA, George Habash, Popular Front for the People's Liberation of Palestine, a communist terrorist group. Ramadan, Salam, Islamic Jihad. And then Sheikh Yassin, that was the spiritual leader of Hamas. I don't even know what that means, spiritual leader of Hamas. And I walked in and took that picture. And what are you kidding me? These are the heroes. This is like a terrorist Mount Rushmore. In God's eyes, it's hard to believe. Okay, next one. If you were, where is this, guys? Where is this? Yeah, actually, no, it's in southern Lebanon. This is what Iran has built in southern Lebanon. We were there and saw this. If you look past, and it's kind of foggy, you'll see on the horizon some mountain. That's Israel. And the Hezbollah soldiers in southern Lebanon, like Tyre and south of that. Iran wants them to think about this as they gaze into Israel. The goal is not northern Israel. The goal is not, you know, the Galilee area. The goal is Jerusalem. Hence the Iranian flag on top of this exact replica, the Dome of the Rock, in southern. Okay, next one, if you would. Oh, yeah. So we are blessed to work with a ministry that has videos called "I Am Second." Have you ever seen any of them? Only we could hold that a second. There you go. Think that comes on automatically. I should have warned you. "I Am Second." And they do all these short videos, seven-minute testimonies, something like that. To remember Bethany, the little girl that got her arm bit off by the shark, and and different people that share about the low point of their life and how God rescued them. Well, chosen people, and one for Israel called and said, "You know, we want to do some videos that will just shake up Israelis, Jews in Israel, because they, we need to go where they are." And the days of standing on the corner and handing out tracts is probably not super effective. Many times they'll be nice, they'll take them, thank you, in the trash. But listen to this. Israel is first in the world in the amount of computers per person, 122 computers per hundred people in the world. Everyone is on high-speed internet connection. An average Israeli spends 60% more online time than the average person in the U.S. They're second in the world after Taiwan in the amount of smartphones per person. 70% of the time they spend on the smartphone is to surf the Internet. They're first in the world in the amount of time on YouTube, first on Facebook. And so probably it's not going to be a good thing to just hand out flyers. They're not looking at flyers, they're on the net. And so a time bar called us, and we have some good one for Israel people. And they called and said, "Could we come to 'I Am Second' and see how they do the videos? They're so well done. And they said, 'We don't feel like ours are cutting it. They're too long. People aren't watching.'" And I thought our team would be too busy. And because they were getting ready to do the Duck Dynasty guys and all of that. And and they said, "Yeah, come on." And they were there about 10 days and went back and did a video. And this is the video. Let's watch it. "Okay, here's what you need to do. You've got to first shave your head. You dress all in black. You've got to wear a white robe. Eat only kosher foods. You've got to become a vegetarian. You face Jerusalem. It's got to face India when you pray. You pray only in Hebrew. And you grow a nice good beard. And if you do all of those outward cultural things, you'll discover the God of the universe." I'm thinking, "This is crazy. That someone thinks that they can force their culture on God, and that God is going to be impressed by what you wear, what direction you face when you pray, what you eat, all these sorts of things." It seemed to me that if there was a God out there who could be known, he should be able to be recognized no matter where I faced alone, how I'm dressed, because he's God. Growing up, we always understood that we had our Bible, and the Gentiles had their Bible, the New Testament. And that they had two completely separate books. We called the only people I knew who were believers in Jesus were all people in our public school, or Italian Catholic. I imagined that Jesus was Italian. And so the understanding that he's actually Jewish was was a shock. And then to hear that the New Testament was written by Jews, I couldn't believe it. My expectation was of the New Testament was like my grandparents had built it. It was a book on how to persecute the Jews, and something you should stay away from. Of course, when you're told you should stay away from something, curiosity gets the best of you, and you've got to see it. When I opened the New Testament, I was expecting to find a handbook on how to persecute the Jews. My grandparents had warned me that it was written by people who killed the Jews. That's what I was expecting to see. And then when I'm opening it, I'm reading a story written by Jews about Jewish people. The New Testament was fascinating. And so as I open this book in the library, I kind of lift or found, made sure that none of my friends had seen me taking the Christian Bible off the shelf. And I open it. Here's the first sentence. It says, "This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham." So three people are mentioned, and they're all Jewish. I was very shocked. And as I continued to read, I'm making the story of the Jewish man who is born in a Jewish village in a Jewish country, and one day walks into a synagogue and announces that he is. The more I read the words of Jesus, the more I became attracted. It was as beautiful as anything I've ever read in any other part of the life. As I came to faith, that you're sure that Jesus was from the side. It was clear that that was the most Jewish thing I could do. This is not the person is a renegade to our people. This is the one who was promised in our Bible, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. It is astonishing if you would just read that chapter, just without the Bible being around, that you would say, "Oh, this is some Christian Bible." This is Jesus. When you realize though, that it's in the middle of our Bible, our Jewish Bible. When I first came to faith, I dared not tell my father because this is a time period in the 1970s when there were lots of gurus and cults, and he was very concerned about being getting involved in some crazy sect and going off someplace. So I waited for months. And when I finally told him, he was very skeptical. On his own, he started to read about Jesus as well. About a year and a half later, I told him that the fellow who wrote one of the books, have you ever read that, "The Soul"? Was giving a lecture in the city of New York. And he agreed to come out to hear that person. And the most amazing moments of my life was the speaker said, "Would everyone here who is a Jewish believer in Jesus, would you raise your hand?" And I raised my hand. My father also raised his hand. And I said, "I looked over." I said, "Pop, he didn't say what all the Jews raised their faith into, with all the Jewish believers in Jesus raised their hand." My father looked over and said, "Yes, I agree." When he said, "The decision to come to faith in Jesus as the Messiah was not something that was a momentary lark. It wasn't something that was a passing fad." And I could see changes in myself, but I knew were not from within myself. I had kind of tapped into a truth for our Jewish people that was very tired. [Music] And that often, yeah, God used it. How's the video doing? Over 10 million views. Over 10 million. Then they launched another one, "I Found Shalom." That's over 10 million. And amazingly, it's just growing and growing, to growing. It's become an important ministry in Israel. I was visiting with Joel Rosenberg in Jerusalem. We were having dinner, and two things happened that I'll always remember. Well, first of all, he named my new book, "Standing in the Fire." I was searching for a title, I couldn't think of it. He said, "Oh, it should be 'Standing in the Fire,' like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. They're alive. There's only God that does it." So, like, "Oh, that is it." So that became the title. I think I paid for dinner. But after that, we're talking, and he said, "You realize that they've translated 'I Am Second' into Hebrew?" And he said, "If I've done my research right, 8.5 million Hebrew, Hebrew speakers as the first language are around the globe. And approximately 20% of them have seen this video." Can you imagine that? So God is doing that. He is loving Jewish people to Christ. That is the hour hand. To me, when I look at a clock, later, the hour hand, and I think of the nation of Israel. The nations are surrounding. Look at what the UN is doing, saying Hebron is not for the Jews to roost. Some schnapps for the Jews. Should they be handed only more important things like figuring out the war in Syria rather than passing judgments on Israel's mind-boggling to me. And we know what's going to happen. The nations are going to surround Israel at one point. And boy, read Joel's books, man. He just opened my mind to a lot of new things. There's a second hand on the clock. It's the minute hand. And when I think of the minute hand, I think of the church and the Great Commission. And the minute hand, you know, goes faster. It beats faster. And we are going into hyperspace as far as the gospel getting around the world now with radio, television, teams on the ground, reaching out to people that nobody in their village has ever heard of Jesus. But that's what we're to do. So we'll go to our second verse. Close your eyes if you would. Okay. This is who we are. We're the church. We're set here for a reason, is to complete the Great Commission. Close your eyes as I read this. These familiar verses. "But you are a Chosen People, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may, excuse me, declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy." Okay, you can open your eyes. That's who we are. A chosen priest, a royal nation. We've been called. Unless we kind of puff ourselves up and feel a little bit inflated, listen, we were in the darkness. And I love Paul saying in Ephesians 5:8, "We're not only were in the darkness, we were the darkness." Everything about us was dark and evil and sin-infested. Jesus set us free. Well, you know, we work in the Middle East. And when we launched, we had six children. And we haven't added any more, have we? Jew, any up. We had six children. But I can't say that any of them at that point were hot for Jesus. I think there was some damage control going on after being pastor's kids in an area where everybody knew him. And they did, you know, they would say they loved Jesus, but they definitely had one foot in the world and trying to have one foot with Jesus. But for all of you that have tried that, that doesn't work real good. And and then we're to go to the nations. And I mean, we had some lows. You know, we had some terrible things happen within our family. Satan knew he couldn't get our marriage. We've had such a wonderful 37-year marriage. He couldn't get our marriage, so we went after her kids. And then they started falling left and right. And God's calling us to the mission field. And I'm saying to Joanne, "This doesn't make sense. He's calling us to the Middle East. It's not even working in our house." Well, what are we doing? But God showed us that it was going to be the people that we served in the nations that would pray. And then our children would come back to the Lord. So every place we went, on Afghanistan, Egypt, wherever we were, they'd say, "How can we have it? Pray for our children." And one by one, they started to come back. And I just think the prayers of the nations together is a little glimpse of heaven around the throne. And so they all came back. Praise God, they did. So Tommy and Josh, and Tommy had the longest struggle, but they're actually missionaries, work with us now. And they go work with unengaged people groups. They go into like the Negev Desert, work with the Bedouins. And it's so cool. Some of the things that have happened. But talk about confirmation. I mean, the first time they went to this, and it's not the Bedouins that sell you the little time in the tent and that, and and the tourist thing. It's like three to four hours into the Negev backpacking. And to get there, and their meeting with this Bedouin tribe, and this woman who is welcoming, welcoming them, her name is Mazdalene. And Bedouins are 100% Muslim. Okay, represent Muslim. But as soon as they arrived, Tommy and Josh, she looks at them and goes through interpreter, "Why are you here?" And they said, "Well, we're coming, we're supposed to stay with the Bedouin tribe here, and we were invited." "No, but why are you here?" And they said, "Well, we don't know what you mean." And she said, "The reason I'm asking is both of you were in my dream last night, and you had on those same clothes, and you came to me and through an interpreter, you said, 'I have good news for you. I have good news that you've never heard, and I want to tell you this good news.'" "What is the good? Do you have any good news? What is it?" And they said, "You know, off the top of our heads, not thinking of anything." "Oh, no, no." And then of course, they shared the gospel with her. And now she has the Bible, chooses, and come to faith. But there's an opening in this tribe. There's an opening with this Bedouin group. Hey, you know what? Their missionaries, right? I mean, that is like the easiest question in the world. If they can't answer that one, I should fire them, don't you think? I mean, that's it. Doesn't get any better than that. The God is waking up the church. Here's the church that we go to in Florida, and it is a heavy-duty exegetical church. I mean, they go deep. It is like, really deep. And they were asking me about all my views before I came to preach and things like that. And I kind of got nervous about going there. But but it's like a Bible study church, really in-depth. Love it. But I kind of wondered, I hope that that transfers from their Bible study to actually doing something, you know? So many times you go real deep, and then that's cool. Let's go home. You know, and it doesn't change. And so I said to Joann, "Do I go there and do that, and in the Greek and all of that? I mean, I did that for years, all of that, and just lay it out and do this intense Bible study? Or do I just drop a bomb on the church and shake them up and just tell them what God's doing and they need to get off the couch and get with it? Do I, do I do this or do I drop the bomb?" And Joann looked at me and said, "Open the hatches." So we went in, and I said, "This will be a one and done. I'm sure they'll never ask me back." You know, but they did. And the next time we came back, at the end of the service, there was a man that stood up and waved off the music minister. And his name is Richard. And he said, "You know, people say I had the gift of evangelism. And I shared Jesus with everybody. I'm giving Bibles out. I'm talking to people." And he said, "But I'm ashamed to say," and it was very emotional, "that I did something a couple of months ago that I'm just so ashamed of. There is a Muslim country. The couple that moved in our block, and I didn't think about calling, telling them about Jesus. That never even dawned on me. And I don't know why. But here's what I did. I called the police because they must be terrorists, right? They're from Iraq." So I called the police. And the police, "We can't just come out because they're from this religion." And yet, they must be terrorists. And he said, "What happened to me? What made me think that they were not worthy of hearing the gospel?" He said, "I'm ashamed of myself, and I'm going to do something about it." This man was crying as he said this. And then we came back the next time. They've had dinner with them. They're reaching out to them. They're telling them about who Jesus is. But why is it so easy to do that for us? Why is it so easy? Oh, God is moving among the church. Let's look at that next couple of slides. There's some unengaged people groups we worked with in the last couple of years. There were zero believers, no witness. All of them, praise God, have churches except one group. Hundreds of believers. The gospel is spreading. One that is so exciting to us is the Jews of Azerbaijan. As we met them, they say their lineage goes all the way back to the Babylonian Empire when Azerbaijan was a part of that. God's moving. Okay, next one, if you would. God's time clock. Keep going. That's the minute hand. Persecution harvest. We told you about that. They are identical twins. Go together. Wherever there is a harvest, there is a persecution. Those are the hot zones. Keep going. If you would. Let's miss skip that one. And this is when we are in Syria. And the guy in the brown jacket is the secret police. And we always say in Syria, if you think you're being followed by someone, you are. And so two of our leaders are being questioned. Joanne shot that up the back of a van. And that is just normal for those guys, daily, to be questioned by secret police. Next one, if you would. 838 is our prayer initiative on Facebook. Okay, next one, if you would. Have been Spanish now. Next one, if you would. Thank you. We all know about the persecution of the church in Mosul and what happened in ancient Nineveh. Joe was talking about that. He's been there. Next slide, if you will. They were given four options: convert to Islam, pay the jizya tax. These are the Christians in Mosul, and their witness goes back to about the first century, I think that's right, isn't it, Jose? The first or second century Christians were there. Leave or die. And as we met Mosul Christians, they said, "When the Islamic State came in and they painted the Arabic 'N' letter on our homes, we were given 24 hours." And here are our four choices. Now, if they told us that we could convert to Islam or die, there was no question. We would die. But one of the options was to leave. So God, maybe that's your plan. So they left with nothing. Islamic State, baby diapers, wedding rings, every, you can imagine. Okay, next one. This is what was spray-painted on their homes. Next one, if you would. And I thought it was so cool when they were displaced into the Kurdish area, and the UN and came and put some tents up for them. Then they made caravans, kind of a portable thing. They went out and got spray-paint cans and put the Arabic 'N' letter, "Yes, we're still of the Nazarene. We're still of Jesus. You didn't take that out of us." Next one, if you would. So think about this. In 2,000 years, we've had two symbols: the cross and the fish. The cross is who we are. We are people of the cross. Jesus said, "Take up your cross and follow me." And the fish is what we do, right? We are fishers of men and women. The Arabic 'N' letter there, it's not a smiley face. It's an 'N' letter from Arabic. Is what we should expect. We should expect persecution. And that brings us to the third hand on the clock. That our hand is Israel. The minute hand is the church in the Great Commission. And the third hand is the persecution of the Saints. And again, close your eyes. Listen to these verses out of John 13. Close your eyes if you would. Let's see the 13:08. Pizitz 15:16, sorry. "All this I have told you so that you will not fall away. They will put you out of the synagogue; in fact, a time is coming when anyone who kills you will think that he is offering a service to God. They will do these things because they have not known me or the Father." And so he says, "She's Mabel." And you can open your eyes now. "They will put you out of the synagogue." That's first-century Christianity. But that didn't last real long. Actually, it changed rather quickly, and the church became agitating toward the Jews of Israel. That's the first part of the verse. But then it goes on and says, "In fact, a time is coming, a later time, when anyone who kills you would think they are offering a service to God." So today, in families that take the Quran literally in Islam, if someone comes to faith in Christ, they would see it as something that they have to do. This would be pleasing to God to hurt this person or even kill this person. The persecution of the Saints is growing around the world, and it doesn't show any signs of stopping. Let's go to the next slide, if you would. So here's some of the sweet Mosul children that we're living there. And I don't know if you got to see any of the videos, but they were interviewing these children from Mosul. Lost everything, their homes, their families, lost their cars, barely had anything, living on handouts. And they were singing praises to God. They were worshiping Jesus. Some of these young children were asked, "Well, if you had two choices, to convert to Islam or die, what would you do?" And I remember this little girl, that was less than ten years old, said, "Well, I would die, of course. It's not something I would ever entertain whatsoever." Next one, if you would. We all know this story. Joanne, can you run up here real quick? We all know this story about the 21 men that were on the beach in Libya. And the Islamic State came and killed them. Actually, 24 were from Egypt, one was from Ghana. We had a chance to go visit these martyr wives in Egypt. And it was amazing. They live in villages, they're very poor, they don't have much. But they filled us in with the rest of the story. And we did a national letter-writing campaign and brought them over 2,000 letters of Bible verses and love and "We're praying for you." We wanted to go honor them. And it was an amazing story to see this happen. And I remember that I saw on ABC News, and they said, "Something's happened in Libya." And my first thought was this, "Oh no, this is terrible. This is horrible." And you know what? It is for their family. It definitely is. But then after I heard this story, and then after we went and visited the widows, I thought, "Wait a minute. I've been thinking wrong." Revelation 12 says, "They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They did not love life more than death." So when you see this picture, it's a hard tragedy, but this was not a loss. This was a victory. They didn't bend, they didn't break, they didn't convert to Islam. Over a hundred did convert. But these 21 were amazing, and they stood for Jesus. Twenty of them were from Egypt, one was from Ghana. The man from Ghana was in prison with them, working in the oil fields too. And they were coming back to Egypt to see their families. But hearing their worship and their singing and spending time with them, he came privately to know Jesus as his Savior. And when they came the first time to take these men, he said to the Islamic State, "If you're going to take them to die for Jesus, you'd better take me because I love him now too." Those men are heroes. And we got a chance to meet their wives. And Joanne will tell you a little bit about that. She'll ever find yourself in a situation and you say, "Lord, how did I end up here?" That is exactly how we felt when we met these precious women. First of all, before we talk about the women that we met, and did you notice that when they came out on the beach, they seemed the men seemed so docile? They didn't seem to fight. They didn't seem panicked. And I remember that that kind of puzzled me. Had I, did anybody else notice that? And the reason is, as we met with their precious families, we found out a little bit more information. What ISIS did is that for 45 days, they tortured these men. And one of the things that they would do is they would march them out on that beach, they would get him in that death stance.
They would tell them they were going to kill them. They would put the knife up to their throats, all of them at the same time. And then they would say, "No, not today." And they take them back. That continued to torture them.
The next day, they bring them back on the beach. They did that for 45 days in a row. And then, sadly, finally, on that 45th day is when they took their lives. And so, you know, what a horrible form of torture that is right there. Can you imagine that anxiety?
But through that time, no doubt, Jesus became more and more real to these men. And as we met with their families, it was so interesting to hear some of their perspective. First of all, you have to think about this: there were not just 21 men. Some of them were brothers, many of them were cousins. So families sometimes lost two children at one time, or cousins. This affected whole villages. And they weren't all from the same village; they were from several villages. And they were poor, poor, poor people, which is why the men were going to Libya to work in these oil fields to make money to provide food for their family.
But as we went into the homes and we met their wives, we met them about nine months after the tragedy had taken place. And it was so sad to see the difference between the moms and the wives. You can imagine as a mother, your mother's heart watching your son being killed in such a barbaric way. So the moms were just grieving, just raw grief again nine months after the event. So they are still utterly heartbroken. And the wives were too, of course. But somehow God had given them some of his grace and mercy, and that they had a strength about them that really surprised us.
And two of the women we met, I think the next picture shows one of them. All this sweet woman, she's. They have four children. And we went in their home. And you can see standing behind her is the wall with the paint peeling, dirt floors, tiny, tiny little home, no running water, no bathroom. Just poor, poor. But she said for their four children that her and her husband's desire and dream was that their children, number one, would love Jesus above all else. And then, number two, that they would be educated, that they would learn to read, because most of the women that we met were illiterate. And they wanted their children to have an education.
And so when they saw the video, their husbands being killed, she said, "You know, I never want my children to see that." I think she said her oldest kids were about 13 and man down. And then she had twins that were five years old. And she said, "I never wanted them to see that barbaric thing." Then she said, "The more I thought about it, the more I prayed." She said, "No, I want my kids to see what their dad went through. I want their, I want our children to know that their father was as brave and as bold as a lion, that he loved Jesus so much that he did not bend his knee to Islam. He stood strong and he went out as bold as a lion. I want them to know how bold and brave their father was." And so she had them, she had her four children watch that video.
Now, think about this. She was so cool. I mean, look at that. You can see she's grieving when you look at her eyes. But look at the tranquility on her face and the peace that doesn't come from the flesh. That she can't muster that up in ourselves. Only the Holy Spirit can give you that joy and that peace in the midst of tragedy. Is Tom said in that verse you read yesterday from Thessalonians, the joy of the Holy Spirit in the midst of persecution.
So the next picture is T'keyah. Look at Yukia, 20 years old. Don't you see just a refinement, a dignity about her? And she was pregnant with little Miriam. And when her husband was taken into captivity and when he was killed, and so he never met his daughter. Decide of heaven. And holding and Miriam's hand are the some of the letters that we brought to them. Tom mentioned all the letters. Who were rolled in a scroll? It was so sweet, y'all. We had some kindergarten classes that drew pictures. And so we left those on the outside because, you know, even though we translated them into Arabic, so many of these women can't read. Prayerfully, they'll get someone that can read those letters to them.
But T'keyah and her husband led worship in their church. And he was also leading worship with these men as the video was, you know, playing online. She said, "I could see that he was singing, and the others were singing with him." And then toward the end, she said that, you know, we could kind of read their lips a little bit. And they were saying things like, "Jesus, I love you. Jesus, forgive them. Jesus, Jesus." These men, men went out victorious for the cross. But T'keyah said, "Who am I? I'm 20 years old. I live in a village that no one has ever heard of, and no one will probably ever visit. I can't even read that. Who am I that I was so privileged that my husband had the honor of dying for Christ?" That was her perspective. We truly sat at their feet and learned from them.
And then the next picture, that is her husband, Lucas, or Luke. And as I said, he was the one that led worship. And what they, all of them were picking up their cell phones and they were showing us the picture of their loved one, their son, their cousin, or their husband. And as the computer screen was on, they were taking their cell phones and zeroing in and taking a picture of their loved one. So that is exactly what she did.
And you all, think about this for a minute. All those men, we see them in their, their orange jumpsuits. But now they are clothed in a white robe in heaven, worshipping Jesus around the throne. Yeah. Amen. Right? Amen. And they are our brothers in Christ. They have paid the ultimate price. You know, I did a study in Revelation, I guess it was two years ago with VSS. And it was, it was amazing to go through that book. We all loved that book of Revelation. But one of the things that I learned, and I can't remember what verse it is now, I didn't look it up recently, but it talks about how we are to be witnesses. Do you know the word for witness is martyr? So God has called every single one of us to be a martyr, witnesses for Jesus. A witness willing to die is what that actually means. Now, we've kind of translated that word a little differently in our modern language, where we consider a martyr someone that dies for Christ. Really, we are all to be martyrs, willing to die. We may not all be called to pay the ultimate price, but every single one of us need to be willing to pay that price. These men did. They're our brothers in Christ. And one day we're going to go to heaven, and we are going to meet them, and we're going to hear their story, and we're going to worship the Lamb of God because they are brothers paid the price and they did not bow down to Islam. I mean, isn't that glorious?
But think about this. They have wives and children and mothers and fathers that are home still living without them. They're rejoicing that they're with Jesus, but their hearts are still heavy because they miss those that they love so much. And those families are trying to get on without their dad or their husbands in their midst. So next time you see that picture, it still pops up on the news every now and again of them in their orange jumpsuits, number one, remember they were victorious. And number two, pray for their families. They need our prayer. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, sweetie. I mean, thank you, Joanne. Oh, sorry. Wow.
So how do we close this? We've looked at the gauges. We've looked at the hands on the clock. That our hand is Israel. If you're watching what's happening with Israel, things are happening rapidly. There's a buildup in southern Syria of strong Iranian presence. The vise grip is starting. Look at the public favor of Israel going down. I don't know if you saw the video of a guy that was at, I think it was Stanford, or Joel would probably know this. And he, he was waving an Israeli flag. And and just the things that happened to him at that college, people cussing, people throwing things, you know, all the bad things you can imagine. There was almost a riot there. Later that afternoon, he flew the Islamic State flag. He received no blowback because of that. We can see what's happening here. And the enemy is inspiring this hatred.
When our Palestinian, our Palestinians that we work with, come to faith in Christ, the God just takes that Jewish hatred out of their heart. In fact, some of the guys that we work with in the West Bank, in some of the most dangerous cities, are former Muslims, Palestinian Muslims. But when they came to Jesus, they confessed their hatred. In fact, and standing in the fire, Sammy says this, "When I came to Jesus, I decided that I wanted to be a full disciple, not a partial disciple." So are you a full disciple or a partial disciple? And I said, "What do you mean by that?" And he said, "Well, what I mean by that is we follow everything that Jesus says, not the things that were comfortable with." And he said, "Jesus never gives us the option to hate our enemies." And living in the Gaza Strip, Israel was the enemy. So I confessed that to God, and he took away that. He didn't just give me a tolerance for the Jewish people and the State of Israel. He gave me a love. And so, you know what Sami is doing now? He's learning Hebrew. And he's in the West Bank. He shares with Jewish people that he loves them. And they, "I set him free from that hate. I used to hate your guts. I was in the Intifada. I was throwing rocks. I was launching things. And I just wanted to kill Jews. But then I met the Jewish Messiah, Jesus, and he set me free from that. And I love you. Can I give you a hug, man?" They're not used to hearing that message, right? They are not. Some of our leaders we work with in the West Bank, Palestinians, former Muslims, have the Jewish, the Hebrew, Chama tattooed on their arm. Can you imagine that? Do you imagine how dangerous Israel's confession of faith on their arm? We told them, "Don't wear a muscle shirt in Ramallah, okay? That's for sure."
This is what's happening in Israel. That's the hour hand. The minute hand is this: the church and the Great Commission. And guys, we hope that this weekend is a launching. Take what you've learned. We're to launch as a church. And we've got people here lost in Tyler and East Texas that need to be reached. And maybe God is speaking to some of you, saying, "I want to send you to the other nations." That could be happening too. We're the church. We're called to fulfill the Great Commission. But along the way, we know there's going to be great suffering because Jesus promised it. They're going to put you out of the synagogues. In fact, there's going to be a time when people kill you, they'll think that they're offering a service for God.
You know, I close with this. We have a friend, and his name is Kareem. And I write about him in "Standing in the Fire." Kareem had a call from God in Damascus, Syria, to go live with an unreached people group called the Druze. If anybody's been to Israel on the Golan Heights mountains, the Druze with the baggy pants, you know, like MC Hammer. And if any of you remember that. Yeah, she was where I was and where they were, right, Jill? They didn't know him. So anyway, so in baggy pants is to split off religion from Islam, and it's just unreached in Syria. They couldn't point to one believer that had ever come out of the Druze religion, not one. And so Kareem felt like he was supposed to go and reach out to them. And he lived on the Druze mountain, and he was the only we believer there. And he was reaching out. And after almost two years, nothing happens, zero. He's on his face every day. He's praying through villages. He's worshipping through villages. Nothing. He felt like a failure. And he said to his wife, "We need to go back to Damascus. I guess I heard the call wrong." And they were weeping for the Lord. "Lord, they don't even know they need you. They don't even know they need a savior. How are we going to reach this group?"
And so the next morning, there was a knock on the door. And there was a Druze man. And he said this: "My daughter, Jamila, is sick. She's 12 years old, and she has cancer. And the doctor said there's nothing that they can do for her. And I know that sometimes I've heard the Christian God answers prayers. I've heard that sometimes Jesus touches people. But I don't know your Christian. Would you know about that?" And Kareem thought, "Okay, I know Jesus can do that. I've read the New Testament. I've heard he does it today. I've never seen it in my life. And I've prayed for people, and nothing has happened." And he said, "Yes, Jesus can do that." He said, "Come pray with my daughter." So they went to the house. He laid hands on little Jamila. And she was weak and so tired. He was praying with all of his might. And he finishes and says, "Jamila, how do you feel?" And she said, "I don't really feel anything." He just saw hard. "You're kidding." And family had him there for a while. And and Druze even believed in reincarnation. They were giving up and say, "Well, maybe she'll come back in a better body and all that." He was then, "Lord, this can't end this way."
And so we went back to his house, dejected. About a week later, she went in for her quarterly checkup. Drove all the way to Damascus with her parents. And the doctors were looking at Jamila. And they started seeing some signs. They couldn't believe. And they ran tests and they kept her for a couple of days. And the family looked out and there were doctors conferring in front of her room. And they thought, "They're going to tell us that the last stages. They're good. They're going to tell us it's bad." And the doctor came in and said, "I don't know what happened. We had the test here, but your daughter doesn't have cancer." [Applause] "There's nothing. And there's no sign of it, which is strange. And we don't know what to tell you."
And so they went back to the village. They didn't even tell Kareem what had happened. But the next day, there's a knock on the door. And he opens the door. And there are 50 Druze people standing there waiting for prayer. And he started praying. And God started moving. And it ended up that he started writing the miracles down on a spiral notebook to keep track of them. God was moving so rapidly. He wants the lost to come to him so deeply. And he started recording. The last time I looked at his notebook with the gates and the names and everything, you can go see him, the addresses. He had seen over 90 miracles. And he's the most humble man. If you ask him about that, he will put his head down and not even look at you. It's an amazing story that we write about. And anyway, God started moving. And these are big things. Cancer, you know, like someone to stroke, someone that you know, kidney disease, not like post-nasal drip and stuff like that. The big stuff. The big stuff. And he recorded him. And God started moving. And people started getting saved. And you know what's happened? There are over 2,000 Druze now that love Jesus. And they have churches. And they are being discipled. This is on the mountains of Syria. Pray for them. And they've also sent missionaries to South America and Saudi Arabia. When God moves, there's no stopping him. And he's moving today. And the signs are on the clock. It's as easy to see as looking at your clock. God's moving in Israel. They're being surrounded. We know how that's going to end. King Jesus is going to come and liberate them, set them free from their enemies. The church will complete the Great Commission. Jesus is doing it. We get to go along for the ride. We will be beaten up. That's the second hand that beats quicker and faster. We're going to be beaten up, persecuted. We're going to be misunderstood. We're not in this world. We're not of it. But we're living here temporarily. And all three of those hands would move simultaneously. But in the end, they all end up in the same place at the same time, 12 o'clock, and King Jesus comes back.
Let's pray. Father, thank you that we live in, I think, the greatest generation outside of the first century. I mean, we could never, never compare to the time Jesus when you were walking on the earth and the disciples were spreading the gospel, taking it to the nations, dying. This is the second greatest generation. You're moving in power. We're seeing miracles. We're seeing conversions. We are also seeing the evil rise. But help us to hang on, to not fear. You call us not to live in fear. We know how this ends. Help us to love boldly, to reach out to those that do not know Christ. And Father, I pray that you would just take down walls between us and Muslims. I pray that you would open our hearts and that we would be able to see them through your eyes. Jesus, they need you. They are open like no time before. We don't want to miss out on your movie, God. You're doing. We're to hear about Muslims around the world coming to faith in Christ. Wherever we go, it's like you're running a special on them or something. There's seeing it all over. So we don't want to miss out. Make us faithful. Keep us bold. Keep us on our faces, plenty of face time on our faces, so we will be desperate for the lost people of the world. Use us for your glory. We pray in Jesus name. Amen. May God bless you. Thank you. [Applause]