God's Time Clock (with transcript)

You’re listening to podcast by Lance Lambert Ministries. For more information on this ministry, visit www.lancelambert.org or follow us on social media to receive all of our updates. In this episode, Lance returns to Halford House from Israel and teaches some of the history of Israel and Israel’s current events at that time. He shows how Israel is the fig tree, the marker that shows where we are in God’s perspective of world history. Let’s listen to God’s Time Clock. [Singing — Lord of Glory] אָדוֹן הַכָּבוֹד Adon hakavod מֶלֶך הַמְּלָכִים melech hamlachim שֶׁמֶשׁ צְדָקָה shemesh tsdaka וּמַרְפֵּא בִּכְנָפֶיהָ u’marpeh bichnafeha [Brother] It's a lovely one of course to sing to the Lord, we have to learn it a little bit better. To think that he is the Lord of glory. The great thing, of course, for Jewish believers, he is the King of the Jews. But for us in the nations we know he's the King of all kings, all the kings, all the rulers in the nations, the Lord Jesus is the King of all kings. And what a marvellous thing that is. You are the Sun of righteousness with healing in your wings. Let's sing it to the Lord. We'll sing it in English and then we'll sing it in Hebrew and then we'll sing it in English. But the main thing is just to really sing it as a praise to the Lord and let's just, may we sing it to him. I think it'd be good if we stood and sang it and sing it to the Lord Jesus. This is who he is to us, to the Father, to all in the nations, those heavenly beings. English first. [Singing] You are the Lord of glory You are the King of kings You are the Sun of Righteousness With healing in Your wings. אָדוֹן הַכָּבוֹד Adon hakavod מֶלֶך הַמְּלָכִים melech hamlachim שֶׁמֶשׁ צְדָקָה shemesh tsdaka וּמַרְפֵּא בִּכְנָפֶיהָ u’marpeh bichnafeha You are the Lord of glory You are the King of kings You are the Sun of Righteousness With healing in Your wings. [Lance Lambert] I would just like to say to everybody thank you very much, all those of you who have prayed for me. And of course also, I'm sure I speak on behalf of Achim and Teresa and Sophia for your prayers and also the practical fellowship that you have from time to time extended to us. Thank you very, very much. I'm sorry that the last time we ditched you and didn't get here, but I'm glad this time we've made it. I'd like to read to you in the Gospel of Luke and chapter 21. I will read from verse 20, But when ye see Jerusalem compassed with armies then know that her desolation is at hand. Then let them that are in Judea flee unto the mountains and let them that are in the midst of her depart out. And let not them that are in the country enter therein. For these are days of vengeance, that all things which are written may be fulfilled. Woe unto them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days. For there shall be great distress upon the land and wrath unto this people. They shall fall by the edge of the sword and shall be led captive into all the nations. And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. And there shall be signs in sun and moon and stars and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity for the roaring of the sea and the billows, men fainting for fear and for expectation of the things which are coming on the world. For the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads because your redemption draweth nigh. And he spake to them a parable. Behold the fig tree and all the trees. When they now shoot forth, ye see it and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh. Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass, know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh. Verily I say unto to you, this generation shall not pass away till all things be accomplished. Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away. But take heed to yourselves, lest haply your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of this life and that day come on you suddenly as a snare. For so shall it come upon all them that dwell in the face of all the earth. But watch ye at every season making supplication that ye may prevail to escape all these things that shall come to pass and to stand before the Son of Man. Now, I was asked if this evening I would say something about Israel and particularly perhaps something in a way elementary and fundamental to the whole matter. I don't think I need to say to any of you this evening here that this whole question of Israel is a violently controversial subject amongst Christians. There are those Christians who wholly and vehemently, dogmatically state that the recreation of the Jewish state of Israel has nothing whatsoever to do with the work of God, nothing whatsoever to do with the program of God. They have gone so far as to call it a political accident in the sense that any emerging nation is under the sovereignty of God, Israel is under the sovereignty of God, and her emergence is under the sovereignty of God. But God has had no specific part in bringing it about and has no specific future or destiny for that nation and that people. But in my estimation, Israel is the time clock of history. There is no other way of telling what time it is in the program of God than by what is happening to the Jewish people. And it is really that that I want to set out by the grace of God this evening to prove to you. People often charge those of us who believe that Israel is the fulfilment of God's prophetic word and program. They charge us with basing everything on Old Testament scriptures. They say that the New Testament says virtually, if actually nothing at all about a Jewish future, but that the whole concept is erroneously based on Old Testament prophecies. And their argument runs along these lines we can't be sure that these prophecies have not already been fulfilled in the return from Babylon, and it is a very dangerous thing to base upon such Old Testament scriptures, such a large and important matter. Now, I personally am not afraid of the Old Testament. I noticed that a lot of Christians only ever carry around with them a New Testament, which means they have precisely less than half the word of God. The fact of the matter is, God never meant the New Testament to be divided from the Old Testament or the Old Testament to be divided from the New Testament. And I personally am not afraid of the Old Testament. I point out wherever I go that the early church only had an Old Testament. It comes as quite a sickening shock to some Christians to discover that the early church had no New Testament. The New Testament actually only really came into being by the end of the first century and even then was only in a very loose collection. Where did they find all those marvellous evangelical doctrines with which they turned the whole Roman world upside down? They found them all in the Old Testament. They found the most extraordinary things in the Old Testament. They even found baptism in Isaiah 53. And as I said to the Baptist college in New Zealand in Auckland a month or two ago, even you gentlemen might have some problem in finding baptism in Isaiah 53, but the early church didn't have Romans six and other such scriptures. So they found, by the Spirit of God, baptism in Isaiah 53, and it led the Ethiopian eunuch right through to baptism. And when he went back to Ethiopia, by the grace of God, he did a tremendous work which has lasted through to this very day. The fact of the matter is the early church had nothing else but the Old Testament. It was the Old Testament that the risen Christ, the risen Messiah, opened their understanding to. They saw him in every page. They saw Him in all three main sections of the Old Testament. And it is, I think, a very exciting thing to recognise that, to recognise the Jewishness of the early church. For the first 20 years, that is, almost two decades of church history, there wasn't a single Gentile in membership in the church. Every single one was Jewish. All the apostles were Jewish. Not half Jewish. Fully Jewish. Not one of them had a Gentile mother or even a Gentile father. They were all Jewish, even those with Greek sounding names like Stephen and Apollos and Stephen and Philip. They were all Jews. They were Greek speaking Jews. It comes, I say, to great shock to people to discover how very Jewish the early church was. And that the New Testament, of its 27 writings, 25 of them were written humanly speaking by Jews. We had two, Luke and Acts, written by the same hand that might have been written by a Gentile or might have been written by a Gentile converted to Judaism. We are not sure, but that is a small fraction of the whole. And as I love to point out to the shock of the congregations that I go to over the world, most of the great cathedrals are named after Jews, St. Paul's or St. Peter's or St. Mark's or St. Matthew's or St. Stephen's, they're all Jews. They thought they'd caught me out in New Zealand, in Christchurch. They said, Ah, but our cathedral in Christchurch, they said, is St. Mary’s. And so I said to them, so? Who was Mary? She was also a Jewess. So it comes as a very great shock to some people to discover how very Jewish the early Church was and how very Jewish the Gospel is, and to discover the simplicity but the profound truth contained in the words of the Lord Jesus, salvation is from the Jews. Now, of course, is it true that the New Testament says nothing about the coming, about a Jewish future or about the regathering of the Jewish people? I say that it says a lot. The fact is, the New Testament was never written to be read separately. It came, if you like, it flowered on the stem of the Old Testament and it is always with the understanding that everything in the Old Testament is absolutely valid truth. But even so, we have tremendous foundational statements in the New Testament. I haven't got time this evening because I want to take only one of those statements. Otherwise, we could have spent the whole evening going through Romans eleven verse by verse. And I think I can prove to you from Romans eleven that in that one marvellous and inspired statement, in one of the greatest setting forths of truths in the whole Bible, you have both the territorial recovery of the Jewish people and the political recovery of the Jewish people, and the spiritual recovery of the Jewish people. But the word I want this evening to talk about is the little word with which Jesus summed up the major discourse which he gave on his second advent. It is so important, this matter, this discourse, that it is recorded in all three synoptic Gospels in Matthew 23, in Mark 13 and in Luke 21. In this vitally significant discourse of our Lord Jesus, he ended up with the words, having explained to them how things would begin at the last phase of world history, that there would be nation against nation and kingdom against kingdom and rumours of wars and wars and earthquakes and famines, that is, shortages and plague diseases and persecution, and then went on to saying, this is only the beginning of the sorrows. This is only the first birth pangs of the birth of the new age. Then he said, there will come the abomination of desolation, standing where it ought not to stand, that ushers in the final phase of world history. And then you shall see the Son of man coming with power and great glory, and every eye shall see Him. And then, turning to those disciples, he said, From the fig tree, learn its lesson, or learn its parable. Now, what did our Lord Jesus mean by this? Because it is obviously important. All three Synoptic gospels record it. What did Jesus mean when he said, From the fig tree, learn its parable, or learn its lesson? Did he have in mind the Jewish people? Or was he merely using an illustration from nature that when you see the leaves coming out on the fig tree, you know that summer is coming. Now, there are those who contend that that's all Jesus did mean. They say Luke, who was never afraid of paraphrasing things in order to make it abundantly clear to those who were reading, he says, Learn the parable of the fig tree when her, let me just quote it exactly. Behold the fig tree and all the trees when they now shoot forth, her branches shoot forth and she puts forth leaves, you know that summer is coming. Now, they say, you see, Luke was trying to tell us, don't have the Jewish people in mind. That's finished with, God’s finished with them. The real meaning is, it's just like all the trees. When he spoke of the fig tree, he was speaking of all the trees. It's something that happens to all trees. In other words, it is an illustration of coming summer. Now, the interesting thing is, if it is only a picture of coming summer, the fig tree is not the harbinger of spring in Israel. The real harbinger of spring, which means that we have about six weeks, six to eight weeks before the hot, dry summer season begins, when we won't have another drop of rain for anything up to eight months, and certainly not less than five or six. The whole of the mountain areas of Jerusalem and elsewhere depend on dew every night. That's how everything, how the grapes ripen, how the figs ripen, how the pomegranates ripen. They receive absolutely no rain. They just get it out of the dew. Well, now, the interesting thing is that the real harbinger of spring, followed by summer, is the almond tree. That is the very first tree to put forth leaves. Actually, it blossoms before it puts forth its leaves. And that happens in the third and fourth week of January. Then we know that we have the marvellous short period of all the flowers and of rain before come, there comes the dry summer season. The fig tree is quite different. The fig tree is the last of all the fruit trees to put forth its leaves in Israel, rather like the mulberry tree here in Britain. When the fig tree puts forth its leaves, we know that the summer season is literally upon us. We have anything up to two weeks, not much more. In other words, if Jesus was talking about the fig tree in that way, he was not talking about some great long period through which we would pass and over which we could take our time and which we could sort of wait for a while before we got things put right and settled issues in our lives. But in actual fact, he was saying, when these things begin to come to pass, you have very little time left. And in fact, that's exactly what it says in Mark. Know ye when you see these things beginning to come to pass, know ye that he is nigh even at the doors. He's not at Richmond Station. He's not at the quadrant. He's not even at the foot of Halford Road. He is actually on the doormat. He is at the door. Now, when we begin to realise that interpretation of the fig tree, it comes as a shock to us. Of course, we have to speak relatively. I mean, we've had some 1800 years at least through which we've passed, and we have to think of a period of time relative to that longer period. But even so, what it means is this you haven't got a lot of time. But is that all Jesus meant? In actual fact, it is very interesting how Luke puts it. The whole early church owed a debt to Luke. Instead of putting, when you see the Abomination of Desolation standing where it ought not to stand, let him that is on the rooftop not come down, but let him go out and let him that is in the field not come into the house, but flee into the mountains of Judea. I mean, the whole early Church had a real, were in real debt to Luke because he substituted the word abomination of desolation by the words when you see the armies laying siege to Jerusalem. Now, if they had waited for the Abomination of Desolation to be actually set up where it ought not to stand. The actual Abomination of Desolation was a statue of Jupiter or Zeus that was put up on the brazen altar in the temple, and a pig was sacrificed to it every day, and the blood of the pig was sprinkled in the holy place. That was the Abomination of Desolation. Now, if the early church had waited till that happened, they would have waited till 70 A.D and not a single one of them would have survived. They would have all died with the whole city of Jerusalem in the final stages of the siege. But they remembered the words of Luke when you see armies laying siege to Jerusalem. And when in 66 A.D, four years before the destruction of Jerusalem, they saw the siege works going up all around the city, with the Roman army hard at work, the whole early church fled en masse, in body, the whole body of them, went down into the Jordan Valley, crossed the River Jordan and went to a place called Pella, which is now in the Hashemite kingdom of Jordan on the other side and survived. Now, this is interesting because in other words, Luke was not afraid by the Spirit of God to give what we would call in Jewish circles a kind of Talmudic commentary. In other words, he was not afraid by the Spirit of God to add something for our understanding. And this is what he said when you see the fig trees and all the trees. In other words, if he had meant no, all this is, is a picture of coming summer, what he would have said was, when you see all the trees, behold all the trees, when they shoot forth and put forth leaves, you know that summer is coming. Then we could have said Luke was ruling out any significance or symbolism connected to a particular nation, but he didn't do that. What he said was this behold the fig tree and all the trees. In other words, it was as if Luke was saying to us, there is a twofold significance in the words of the Lord Jesus. First of all, it is something to do with a particular tree. And secondly, it is something which happens not only to that tree, but to all trees. In other words, he was saying, let's put it the other way around, when you see all these things coming to pass, you know that summer is nigh. So when you see these things, when you see these leaves coming forth in the trees, you know that summer is nigh. When you see all these things beginning to come to pass, you will know that the kingdom of God is near at hand. But he was also saying, you must keep your eye on a particular nation, a particular people. And when you have a conjunction of the signs, that is, all these other things happen, and at the same time, something happens to the Jewish people, long dormant as a nation and as a state, then you will know the last phase of world history has begun. Now, have we any other proof for this? Have we any other evidence for this? Yes, we have. We have, in fact, a colossal amount of evidence. For instance, when we go back into the Old Testament, we find a little phrase. I believe we even sing it nowadays, Every man shall sit under his own vine and fig tree. And I suppose most Christians think of it as a very poetic and rather romantic kind of little phrase. It's a lovely hot evening like this evening, and you get the feeling of someone fanning themselves or sitting in the breeze in the cool under their fig tree and vine. Actually, it's an interesting thing that whenever you see the fig tree in the more natural parts of Israel, you will also see the vine. The vine will grow up into the fig tree, and you very generally, nearly always find them together. But that's not what the Lord was saying. Some pretty little picture of sort of sunsets and twittering birds and sort of zephyr like breezes, you know, much as we would love them even this evening. The fact of the matter is, what the Lord Jesus was really saying was this every one of the children of Israel will have an allotment of the Promised Land for himself large enough to grow a fig tree on and grow a vine into the fig tree and sit under the shade of it. In other words, here is the interesting thing. It's quite exciting. The first symbolism of the fig tree is not the nation, but the territory. It is to do with the Promised Land first and foremost. And then later on, you remember how Jeremiah speaks of a great basket of figs that he saw in a vision, speaking of the fruitfulness of the people. And you find the Lord speaking about Israel as a fruitful fig tree and a vine. You find it again and again in the Old Testament. But even more conclusive are the words of the Lord Jesus. In this very Gospel of Luke, in, I think, chapter six, and, I’m sorry, in chapter 13 and verse six, we read this parable of the Lord Jesus. And Jesus spake this parable. A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit thereon and found none. And he said unto the vine dresser, behold these three years I come seeking fruit on this fig tree and find none. Cut it down. Why doth it also cumber the ground? And he answering saith unto him, Lord, let it alone this year also, till I shall dig about it and dung it. And if it bear fruit, thenceforth well, but if not, thou shalt cut it down. Now, isn't it interesting that Jesus spoke this parable? Those who heard him, the Pharisees, knew exactly what he was meaning. If nobody else does, they knew he was getting at them. Three years of the public ministry of the Messiah. Israel was the fig tree in the vineyard. He had come three years seeking fruit on that tree and found none. Then he said, Cut it down. But the tenant farmer, the Holy Spirit, we would say, said, don’t, don't do it. Just let us fertilise the ground and aerate the soil. And if then it doesn't bear any fruit, then cut it down. In fact, the Jewish people had a whole generation of 40 years. And in that 40 years, the ground was certainly spiritually aerated and certainly spiritually fertilised. It was the period of Pentecost and all the great signs and wonders and miracles of the early church when the whole of that area of the world was turned upside down, but still they would not believe. And at the end of that generation, the tree was rooted up and cut down. But we have even further evidence, even more interestingly, if you take Mark's Gospel, where I think it's very clear indeed. In Mark 13 and verse 28, we have the words, now from the fig tree, learn the lesson. Now in Mark's gospel, those of you who will remember our studies on Mark, you will remember that this little gospel of these 16 chapters covers the three years of the ministry of our Lord Jesus. It doesn't go back to his birth but begins with his baptism at Jordan and ends with his ascension. But the interesting thing about Mark is this that from Mark chapter eleven right through to Mark 15 the end of Mark 15 is only seven days in the life of the Lord Jesus. That is one third of this whole gospel is to do with one week of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus. And we come then to an amazing discovery. We find that when Jesus the very afternoon or evening of the day that Jesus said to those disciples from the fig tree learn its parable or lesson, the day before something had dramatically taken place with a fig tree. And that very morning those same disciples had drawn the master's attention to that fig tree. You will know it, it's in Mark eleven. And you will remember the story how Jesus was going up from Bethany. Jesus always liked to stay in Bethany because the air was probably much better in those days in Bethany than within the old walled city. And he used to always spend his nights in Bethany and then used to come every day into the city and go back in the evening to Bethany. And on his way in with the disciples as they came over the brow of the Mount of Olives he saw a fig tree and he went over to it and it says he hungered. In other words he showed sort of some kind of hunger and he looked for fruit and he found none and then he cursed the fig tree. Now of course this is one of those marvellous occasions when you hear the most abject twaddle talked. I have got everywhere, dear old ladies come up to me and say you know there's one thing that bothers me terribly about Jesus, when he cursed that fig tree. What a dreadful thing to do. And then of course you know we believers are marvellously adept at defending the Bible and when we defend the Bible we actually make it more stupid than ever if you know what I mean. At least we make it appear more stupid than ever. You know the story about the person who said about the crossing of the Red Sea, you know when it was supposed to be ankle deep. Of course it wasn't over the Red Sea, it was over the Bardawil lagoon. Now I've been in the Bardawil lagoon two or three times and waded right across to the little spit of sand on the edge. It was no miracle. I suppose you know the old lady who sort of said Hallelujah, pastor, now I see it's a bigger miracle than ever because God drowned the pharaoh's hosts and chariots in six inches of water! And I remember myself at a moral leadership course in Ismailia many many years ago, the theologian telling us that of course Jesus didn't walk on the lake of Galilee. As we all know, he said, he was walking on one of the shallow shelves that are just a few inches below the sea. But the amazing thing was Peter sank in that narrow shelf. It is amazing. The same man said about Elijah, you know that, of course, he said, we all know that on Mount Carmel, a thing that the Israeli government hasn't yet discovered, that there are great sources of benzene. And he said that water that they poured into the trenches, of course, that clear looked like water, wasn't water at all. It was benzene. And so, of course, that's why the scripture says the fire licked up the water. He said to us, You've never seen fire licking up water, have you? But you've seen it licking up benzene. I couldn't wait for the question period. And when we got it, I said to him it's very interesting, your explanation of Elijah, but where did the fire come from? And he looked terribly startled. And so I said, well, of course it had to be from Elijah's cigarette. I mean, really, when it comes to it, you see you make the word of God more stupid by the, you know, it's like these marvellous ideas about the first chapter of Genesis. Personally, I believe the Lord could have done the whole thing in six days myself. Don't have any problem about it at all. He might not have even required six days. I sometimes think he could have all done it in one big bang, as some of them say today. But what I find extraordinary is when people tell me that it was 6000 years. Because if you had 500 years of day followed by 500 years of night everything that lived in the day would die in the night. But nobody thinks of these kind of things and these wonderful theories. We try to adjust ourselves to scientific theory to make the Bible more explicable and more helpful to the modern mind but end up, in actual fact, making it rather stupid. Anyway, coming back to this matter, I am told by many that Jesus was only a man. And I am told that as a man, he, like everybody else, hungered. And they tell me that when you're hungry you get irritable. And so when he went looking for fruit on the fig tree and couldn't find any in a fit of irritation, he cursed it and of course it died. Well, that's not the Lord I know. I would have long ago been shot up with a lightning bolt if the Lord had these fits of irritation. Now, you noted I'm only talking about myself. I haven't said anything about you. I mean, the fact of the matter is that that's not the Lord I know. I don't think it's the Lord, you know. And furthermore, the writer of the record was not so dumb either. He actually puts there in black and white by the inspiration of the Spirit of God and it was not the season for fruit. In other words, the Lord Jesus must have not only been irritable, may he forgive me, he must have been dumb because it wasn't even the season for fruit. But he went over to a fig tree, a one who was always talking about the flowers and the birds and farming practices. He evidently didn't realise that it was spring, and you don't get figs in spring. Of course, I don't accept it. I believe Jesus was acting out a parable. He knew very well that there was, Now, of course, some of these very wonderful people tell us, well, you know, the fig tree is exceptional. The fig tree, you can tell long before the fruit comes whether it's going to be fruitful, because where the leaves come out, there are little fruit brackets. And if they're present, you know it's going to bear fruit. And if they're not, you know it's going to be barren. Now, this is absolutely wonderful and would explain everything but for the simple fact that it is the Spanish fig tree which was only imported into Israel at the beginning of this century. Our own native Palestinian fig tree or Israeli fig tree, there is no way of telling whether it's going to have fruit or not until it actually appears a little later. Now, that makes it quite clear to me that Jesus deliberately went over at a time when there was no fruit and no way of telling whether the think would be fruitful, although he would know. And he went to the charade of looking for fruit in the tree and evidently loudly saying, I'm hungry, finding none, and then pronouncing a word over the tree. Now, they didn't realise it at the time. Only afterwards, when the Holy Spirit had come upon them, as always, when the Holy Spirit comes upon us, he began to educate and began to enlighten and began to make everything fall into place. And when they came to write the record, they put it like this and they went down into the temple and Jesus made a whip of cords and he drove out all those that had made the temple a place of merchandise, saying, my Father's house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations. But you've made it a den of robbers and thieves. In other words, they connected it with the fig tree. That afternoon evening they went back to Bethany. And the next morning, the very morning in which Jesus said learn the parable of the fig tree, they were going again over the brow when Peter, always Peter, when Peter suddenly saw the fig tree and he said, Master, look at that fig tree! And then we have our second amazing little set of interpretations I've heard people talking about, Jesus said, yes, do you see it? Have faith in God, for I tell you, whatsoever you shall believe when you ask the Father, you believe, that you have. If you have faith, you don't doubt in your heart, you shall have it. As if the Lord Jesus was saying, if you want to kill fig trees, all you need is faith. Now, again, I don't want to be facetious, but the easiest way to kill a fig tree you don't need to go through all that palava. You just need to cut the thing down. I mean, it's very, very simple. I mean, it wasn't as if Jesus was giving us some technique for removing fig trees or killing fig trees. The point was, what he was saying was this, when he said, have faith in God, because when you really trust in the Lord, then there's fruit. And when you don't trust in the Lord, but trust in yourself and your own opinions and concepts, you get barren. Always it's the same thing. It is the same line, same pedigree. Living faith always leads to growth, which always leads to fruitfulness. And unbelief or disbelief always leads to death and barrenness. Then the gospel writers tell us Jesus had, at least Matthew tells us, he had his great confrontation with the temple authorities. They went down into the city, and then they all came to him. First the royal party, the Herodians with their trick questions, then the Sadducees with their trick questions, then the Pharisees with their trick questions, and then that lawyer who came and said, Master, what is the greatest commandment of all? And Jesus replied in a totally Jewish way, the first and great commandment is Hear, O Israel, The Lord thy God is One. Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy soul, with all thy strength, and with all thy might. And then he added the second. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. Then he uttered the most terrible denunciation found anywhere in the Bible, the one that begins, woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, and ended up with almost the sob in his voice, o Jerusalem, Jerusalem, that stoneth the prophets and killeth those that are sent to her. How often would I have gathered you as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings? But ye would not. Your house is left unto you, he never called the temple your house, he'd always called my Father's house. Your house is left unto you desolate. You shall no more see me henceforth till you shall say, blessed be he that comes in the name of the Lord. Then he went out of the temple with his disciples, and as they were going out, one of them said, Master, look at these magnificent stones. This magnificence, it's been 43 years in building. He said, do you see it? In the day of its visitation, not one stone will remain on another, which is absolutely true. What stones you see today are the retaining wall of the platform. The whole temple, there's not a single stone left of either the walls that were above the retaining platform or the actual buildings on the temple. And going out through the gate Beautiful, he descended into the Kidron Valley and crossing the little stream as it then was now underground, he went over onto the lower slopes of the Mount of Olives and left eight of those disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane. And taking the four, the inner circle, Andrew, Peter, James and John, he went up on the Mount of Olives somewhere where the whole city lay like with a panoramic view below him. And sitting down, they said to him, Master, when shall these things be? In other words, when will this temple be destroyed and this city judged? And what will be the sign of your coming and the end of the age? For them, it all seemed to be one thing. We know it's two. And then Jesus began, you shall hear of wars and rumours of wars. Nation shall rise against nation, kingdom against kingdom. There shall be earthquakes in many places and famines and plague diseases, and they shall persecute you all over the place and think that they do God a service. And then there will come the abomination of desolation. And then he said, summing everything up, Learn the parable of the fig tree. Are you going to tell me that those four men, and especially Peter didn't immediately have a certain fig tree conjured up in their mind? That fig tree that something had happened the day before, and to which Peter, one of the four, had that very morning drawn the Lord's attention to? Now, from the fig tree learn its parable. It was as if Jesus was saying, now listen, you are all going to live to see the destruction of this nation and of this city, but don't come to false conclusions. Don't think that because this city will be destroyed and this house, this temple will be levelled and because this nation will fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all nations, that that is the end of the Jewish people. Don't think that because the fig tree is fruitless, has been judged, has withered from the roots and has finally been cut down and rooted up, that that's the end. At the end of the age, that same fig tree will be back in its same ground, not dead, not withered, but with sap rising up from its roots through its trunk into its branches, putting forth leaves. Now, I don't know whether you need any more evidence, but I can give you a bit more. It will shock you, but I can give you a little more evidence if you want it. But it makes us all look so stupid. You know, we are all very arrogant. Every generation of Christians has been arrogant. And we, of course, myself, we're none of us excluded, we are all very arrogant. Sometime or another, we look down our nose at those preceding generations. We sort of say, oh, when we hear about the anabaptists in the time of Martin Luther thinking the Lord was returning. This is ridiculous. And then we think about some of the Methodists, how excited they got about the coming of the Lord, and we oh, dear dear dear, and then we think about some of the Irvingites. Oh, well they were a cult, weren't they? And then we think about some of the other no, we all the way through history, there were people who thought the Lord was coming back. Of course, the liberals tell us that the Apostle Paul thought the Lord was coming back. They love to tell it with glee. They say, you know, even the Apostle Paul was mistaken and thought that Jesus was coming back in his sort of lifetime, changed his opinion toward the end of his letters and said he thought it would be a little longer than he first thought. But the fact is, it never did them any harm, did it? It's never done anybody any harm, thinking the Lord's coming. It's a blessed hope, that purifies. Of course, if you go up on the top of mountains and fix dates, which is entirely wrong, of course, it can do you a lot of harm. But when you live in the light of the possibility that the Lord may return, it does you no harm. But, my dear friends, I must tell you, it's come to me as a great shock. How could we dare be so arrogant? Listen, if other generations did not understand or only sort of faintly understood that something had to happen to the Jewish people before the Lord returned, of course, they could be misled. For instance, may I just take some of these signs that the Lord Jesus gave and take a somewhat, I hope, constructively, critical look at them? Wars and rumours of wars, and nation rising against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. Can you tell me at any time in the last 1800 years when that has not been true? Of course we have television. It makes a great difference. Radio and television makes a great way. We know as soon as there's an uprising in China, we know it instantly. As soon as something happens in Sudan, we know it immediately. Chad, we know it instantly. Indonesia, we know it instantly. South America instantly. Even the Falklands. I mean, we know everything instantly. I mean, it's here. We watch it all on the television, on the box. In the old days, it took them a year or more before they even heard about these things. But can you tell me any time when there hasn't been war and rumours of war? So what kind of sign is that? Oh, but you say, you mustn't say a thing like that. We didn't come here to Halford house, to listen to our faith in God's word being sort of undermined. I mean, Jesus said that the sign was wars and rumours of wars. He meant it. And so you say to me, he meant universal war. So? So he meant universal war. Then how did any particular generation know that the wars they were experiencing weren't the worst. Put yourself in their shoes. Take the Hundred Years War. Now even the first and second World War didn't last 100 years. Thank God. But the Hundred Year those of you who know anything about history, you will know the Hundred Years War laid the whole of Europe. It ravaged it. It lay at waste. It was the most terrible disaster that fell upon European civilisation. What about the 30 Years War? What about all the other wars? What about Napoleon? Do you know that the Second Advent and Testimony, as it was called, Preparation Movement began really as a result of dear old Nap? They felt that there was such a quickening everywhere that they thought that this could be the Antichrist, his idea to have an empire that was like the Holy Roman Empire stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals and from the Mediterranean to the North Sea. They thought, this has to be the Antichrist. Well, I don't blame them, frankly. But you say, Ah, but now just wait. You're not being fair. What about earthquakes? So? What about earthquakes? Can you tell me any time in the last 1800 years when there haven't been major earthquakes? I can tell you earthquakes there have been in China, which have wiped out half a million people. Enormous earthquakes there have been in these 1800 years. So what is there special about an earthquake? And so you say, well, famines. Well, I don't think we've had famines, not in this generation anything like some of the famines which have swept India and have swept Africa and have swept China in particular, in which people actually ate all the bark on trees and thereby killed the trees, ate all the seeds so that there was nothing to plant. So that in the long term it was a catastrophe. And what about plague diseases? Oh, you say, well, now, well, we had the great flu epidemic, you know, in sort of thing. We've had Asian flu more recently and things like that. But what about the Black Death? Now, I'm only trying, I'm not trying to destroy your faith in God's word. I'm trying to get at something. What I'm saying is this when almost 85% to 87% of the whole population of Britain, Scandinavia and Europe died in the Black Death, can you blame those believers for thinking the Lord must be coming? Nothing has ever happened like this before because with the Black Death came famine. Nobody was there to sow the fields. All the guilds and the professions were finished. There were valleys in Norway where every single inhabitant died. Whole family lines came to an end. You know, again, those of you know anything about history, you know, some of their great techniques for dyeing cloth, for stained glass and other things died out with the Black Death because they never wrote it down. They passed it from father to son. They died so suddenly, there was no way of passing it on. It was a disaster. Now, just let me get you again on another point. What about the persecution of believers? Oh, you say? Well now, that is 20th century, isn't it? Really? I can understand the believers in the Inquisition, can't you? Maybe they thought the Lord was coming. They did. There have been other periods of enormous persecution one way or another. Now, what I'm trying to say is this, Jesus was not as stupid as that. He didn't just take a whole lot of things that he knew very well were common to the whole of this 1800 years. He, of course, meant when you come to a period of time when there will be wars and rumours of wars on a universal scale, when nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom all over the world at the same time, when there will be earthquakes at the same time, and famines, and plague diseases, and persecution and something happens to the Jewish people, then you will know. You passed into the last phase of world history. In other words, the Jewish people, the recreation of the Jewish state, the revival and renewal of Jewish national consciousness is the validating sign of all the other signs. If it is absent, you know the time has not come, but the moment it happens you know. And that's why Luke said behold the fig tree and all the trees. In other words, he was saying get, first of all, something has to happen to a particular fig tree and then take the general in all then you'll know it's happening. You get it? Now, my dear friends, I think that's exciting about you. But I find it exciting because there's one thing we can say, that in the last 1800 years nothing has ever happened to the Jewish people that could ever be called the recreation of statehood. It is true that in the Middle Ages, due to the Inquisition, there was a big drift back to the Holy Land. But I mean, it was certainly not the recreation of statehood. Hebrew was not spoken. I mean, the amazing thing is this, that all of a sudden, literally in this last century, in the 20th century, it's all happened. First there's been a massive going back in wave after wave after wave of what we call aliyah, immigration. Waves of immigration. Then there has come the revival of Hebrew, a unique, a unique phenomenon in world history. Not in any of the chronicles of mankind will you find anywhere a single evidence of a language that has ceased to exist as a spoken living language, being revived after at least 2000 years of deadness to become the virile and volatile communicable language of a contemporary nation and people. It's all happened in this one century. We have passed three milestones in my estimation. And this is how we will spend the rest of our time together this evening. Three prophetic milestones. You know, all our troubles come when we try to work out prophecy ahead of its time, if you understand what I mean. We sort of try to think, now this Gog and Magog war in Ezekiel 38 and 39. Surely, it'll come this way or come that way or come the other. I have to tell you that basically we have to wait for the fulfilment. That doesn't mean we have to be at sea, but it means we can never be dogmatic until major prophecies have been fulfilled. But when they have been fulfilled, they give the light to a whole number of other prophetic details. Now, we have passed three, in my estimation, three major prophetic milestones, all connected with the fig tree. And the first, of course, is the recreation of the Jewish state on the 14th of May 1948. It was, of course, the fulfilment of the words of Isaiah, the prophet. Who hath heard such a thing? Who hath seen such a thing? Shall a land be born in a day? Shall a nation be brought forth at once? For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. Now, I'm told by some learned doctors of theology that these words of Isaiah are all fulfilled in Pentecost. I have no problem in spiritualising the word in one sense, because it is true that the church is called a holy nation, an elect race, a peculiar people, and we who belong to them know just how peculiar they are. But I mean, we have no problem about that. The fact is that it is true. But is it not marvellous that the Holy Spirit has inserted certain phrases in this prophetic word which cannot be spiritualised and applied to the Church? Who hath heard such things? Who hath seen such a thing? Shall a land be born in one day? Now, nowhere in the New Testament is the church described as a land. If we were to put it in colloquial language, we would say, shall a state be born in one day? Or shall a country be born in one day? And the Church is never called a country. It's never called a state as such. It's called a nation, it's called a race, but it's never called a state or country. And then again, but if we believe that on the 14th of May 1948 this word has been fulfilled, then it has been literally fulfilled. For in one single day a miracle happened and the Jewish state was born. Now, the interesting thing is that the whole world said, including all the political and military analysts and experts, they were united in their verdict. There wasn't one dissenting voice. They all said this little Jewish state was going to be liquidated, swallowed up, overcome, snuffed out, within days of its birth. There were over 1 million armed men in five Arab armies fully mobilised to go to war with this little Jewish state on the day of its birth. Three of those five Arab armies were British trained and British equipped. There were 60,000 Jewish settlers in what we call the yishuv. They had pistols, old fashioned rifles and guns, and one Pied Piper cub aircraft with one propeller. And with this, they had to face a million armed men. This little yishuv, numbering some 600,000 men and women, had agreed unanimously, more or less, to the United Nations partition resolution. The United Nations had decided to carve up Israel. Thank God the Lord intervened. But still, the United Nations, in its almighty wisdom, had decided to carve up the Holy Land. And it is amazing. Now, when I look at the map, little enclaves here and enclaves there and little things, and Jerusalem an internationalised city and I don't know what else, this was their plan. Now, the Jewish settlers accepted it. They knew there was no other way. But all the Arab inhabitants of the land and all the Arab neighbours unanimously rejected it and went to war. And the world held its breath, and the 60,000 overcame the 1 million and ended up with far more territory than ever the United Nations would have given. The War of Independence. But there's another phrase in this little prophetic word which is quite remarkable. Listen to this. For as soon as Zion travailed, she brought forth her children. If this is to be fulfilled on the day of Pentecost, what does it mean? I thought the Church was Zion, according to their theology. So how did the Church travail for the Church? I find that rather extraordinary. I mean, I've never heard of a mother conceiving and then travailing for her own birth, have you? It makes a little bit of mockery, it seems to me, of the word of God. And it's as if the Holy Spirit put this oh, someone says terrible spiritual, No, it's Jesus. The travail of Jesus. But where is Jesus called Zion? If I read the prophet Isaiah, I find Jesus himself, the Messiah, saying, for Zion's sake, I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will take no rest, until… In other words, I feel that the Holy Spirit has inserted this word again because he wants us to understand that there has to be an actual fulfilment of these words. And when we look at the Jewish people as Zion, they never did travail. For 1700 years, the Jews were taught passively to accept their faith. They were taught by the rabbis, this is a judgment of God. You must not murmur, you must not rebel, and above all, you must not resist. If they persecute you, accept it. If they hound you from pillar to post, allow them to do so. Do not fight, do not resist. Always passively accept. They went much further. They said that the whole Jewish settlement should wear black, that they should have that kind of haunted look, which was literally something that grew almost so that it became an innate, inherent, pathological quality of Jewry, that kind of sad look in the eye to this day. People will come sometimes to a Jew and say I know you're Jewish by the sadness in your eyes to this day, it is extraordinary. In the liturgy of the synagogue, there's always been a waiver or a quaver, a kind of sob that went, it's gone now, back in the land, because we're back in the land. But before, it was a kind of mournful wail before God. We're not where we should be and it's our fault. I could go on and on telling you things, but it'll take too long. The fact of the matter is, the Jewish people were taught to accept this whole thing and not to resist. And that's one of the great condemnations of the Holocaust. That except for the Warsaw ghetto writing and a few other marvellous exceptions, on the whole, the Jewish people went like lambs to the slaughter in their hundreds of thousands. Indeed, I remember old Mr. Wolfe here from Brewers Lane with his tattooed mark over his arm, saying to me, I saw them going into the gas chambers. That's why he could never believe. He used to look into my face when we first began here and he used to say, if I only had your faith, Lance. If I only, I can see you've got it. But he said, I can't have it. And then it was as if he always forgot me, he used to stand up and he was the strong man in the Hungarian State Circus in those days, and he was still a strong man. His great hand would come down on the kitchen table and it would nearly split. In fact, on one occasion, not when I was there, he did split it. It would come down, the whole place, you know, those sort of 12th century cottages down in Brewers lane, would shake. And then he would say, as if he'd forgotten me, talking into the ceiling, I can't believe in you! If you'd been there, you would have come out. On the day before he was liberated, he only survived because he was set to work digging the pits for all the bodies that could no longer be burnt. So many were being killed in the last days of Auschwitz. And the day before he was liberated, his grandparents, all three of his surviving grandparents, his mother, his uncles, his aunts, his cousins, their children, his wife, his own three children were all liquidated. But he said to me, those people went into those gas chambers singing. They went in with joy. He said, on one occasion, I saw them dance a hora hasid hasid, you know, the ones with the long, they dance because they had been taught, accept it with worship. And he was the one who told that wonderful story of the old grandfather with the white beard and his little son and the little boy weeping because of some intuition of trouble and the old grandfather sweeping him up in his arms and hugging him and saying, Shh, one hour and we shall see God. These people went to their death passively. But it was about only the end of the last century that a change took place. It had already begun early, but I can't tell you all that would take far too long. But it was at the end of the last century with the rise of the birth of a man called Theodore Herzel who became the great sort of symbolic focal point of Jewish aspirations and hope. Born in an assimilated Jewish middle class banking family, he believed that Jews should assimilate. He even said they should be Christened or confirmed in the Roman Catholic or Lutheran Church so they could take their place with their fellow citizens in the Austro Hungarian Empire. It all ended with the trial of Captain Dreyfus when the whole of France, republican France, which had given Jews for the first time equal citizenship and equal rights when they took to the streets crying death to the Jews! Death to the Judases! And Herzel went up and down in the Tuileries Garden and he couldn't understand it. And he had no faith in God. He was an agnostic. But he says himself in his journal as I went up and down, I thought what can we do? What can we do? It's as if all my aspirations and hopes are dead. And suddenly he says it was as if heaven opened and I saw a vision of a recreated Jewish nation. From that moment, Theodore Herzl became like a man obsessed with an ideal. He himself said it was like an Amazon river that swept him along. Whatever he did, when he went to sleep, when he did his journalistic work, whatever he did, he said it took him along. He went everywhere pleading with the leaders of Jewry in Germany, France, in Britain and in Eastern Europe and Russia. His message was the same everywhere, If you do not devote your energies, your wealth and your time and talents to the recreation of a Jewish state, the Gentile majority around us will one day liquidate you. But they laughed him to scorn, the Rothschilds and the Hirschs and the Montefiores and the von Goldschmidts and all the other great Jewish noble families. They laughed him to scorn. He was a Jewish mystic, a kind of Jewish rabble rouser. The ordinary people listened to him. But German Jews said, Germany is our fatherland. French Jews said what they'd said to Napoleon, Paris is our Jerusalem. France is our Zion. These were the people who died in the Holocaust or their children. Herzel called a congress in September of 1897. It was in the Stadtcasino in Basel. It was the first time, only with the wisdom of hindsight did anyone recognise it. It was the first time since the Sanhedrin was disbanded in 70 AD that all Jewish leaders representing every facet of Jewish life had met together and on the day that the Congress opened, Theodore Herzel rose to address the people. And in that opening address he said, We are here to lay the cornerstone of a structure that will house the Jewish nation. They chose a Jewish flag and they chose a Jewish national anthem. And they had no territory, no government and no hopes of one. It was laughable, the whole world roared with laughter. And that night Herzel wrote in his diary, This day I have founded the Jewish state. If I were to say it out loud, he said, the whole world would greet it with howls of derision and laughter. But in five years, perhaps certainly within 50, the whole world will know. It was exactly 50 years, exactly, just a few weeks. It was in the beginning of November 1947 that the United Nations with a two thirds majority vote, including the switch of Russia, from against to for, that the world body of nations recognised the right of the Jewish people to be a sovereign nation amongst other nations. It had happened. The 50 years between 1897 and 1947 were the most traumatic years of of the long, sad Jewish story. Two thirds of Jewry died in the gas ovens of Nazi occupied Europe. But in that 50 years, Zion travailed. And as soon as Zion traveled, she brought forth her children. For when it was all over, there were 2 million survivors from concentration camps, broken in body, broken in heart, broken in mind. 1 million of them under the age of twelve. And they stole out by every means possible from those forced labor camps, those concentration camps which had now been turned into places where there was medical help and proper food and facilities. But for them it was a hell. They couldn't stay. They thought the world would accept them. America took 1,400 of them in. No nation would take those survivors. So they were herded back into the concentration camps, all cleaned up, looked after. But no one knew what to do. Britain wouldn't allow them into Palestine and they stole out until the trickle became a river and the river became an Amazon. And then the whole might of Britain moved against them. That awful man Ernest Bevin. It is not known generally in Britain, for many years, Britain banned the film Exodus, wouldn't allow it here. If you want to check the facts, you'll know it's true. For over ten to 15 years they wouldn't allow it even to be shown here. Most British people do not know the RAF bombed defenceless refugee ships. But that was the story, and God won it. Zion travailed. She brought forth her children. The miracle happened. The fig tree was suddenly back in its own land with its roots in its own soil, drawing up the goodness from the soil, putting forth its leaves. But I must rush on, for there's a second milestone. That milestone tells us we've passed into the last phase. Now we understand wars and rumours of wars, and nation against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and earthquakes, and famines, and plagues, and persecution. Now we begin to see it in a new light. But the second milestone was on the 7th of June 1967. I think most of you know what happened on the 7th of June 1967. In a lightning move on the part of the Israel Defence Forces, they took the Old City of Jerusalem. Now, the interesting thing is, just to put the record straight, Israel had no plans, no plans to take the Old City. In one sense, yes, she had contingency plans if she was attacked. But she had already, twice, unofficially, through other channels, sent messages to King Hussein of Jordan, Keep out of this war and we will not fire a single shot at you. But Hussein thought that the gains would be too great if he were to come in. And so, with Egypt and Syria, he launched that sudden war on Israel. And you remember how Israel preempted it by wiping out the air force of five Arab neighbours in a few hours. Then on the 6th of June, they surrounded the city and the paratroopers coming in through the Lion Gate and the commandos coming in through Zion Gate. They met at the Western Wall. They could hardly believe that it had happened. For 19 years, no Jew had been allowed to pray at what the Christians called the Wailing Wall. It is a derisive term. No Jew had ever prayed at the Western Wall for 19 years. Every single day, every observant Jew, three times a day in amidah prayer, that's the standing prayer it means, turns towards Jerusalem and prays for the restoration of Jerusalem, the building up of Jerusalem and its liberation and its glory. Two of the major festivals, Passover and Yom Kippur end with the words, next year in Jerusalem. But it had never happened. Not in 1800 years. It had never happened. And then suddenly it happened. Yitzhak Rabin, who was then prime minister yes, prime minister at the time, I think I might yes, he took over, I think. But if not, he was general in charge of the Jerusalem area. In his report said that the hardened, battle weary paratroopers leant on those great old historic stones and wept like babies. They could not believe that the miracle had happened. Jesus had already said it would. He'd said, And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Now, there are some Christian theologians who interpret this verse as to mean this. They say that Jesus was saying, and Jerusalem shall be trodden down of unsaved people until the Messiah comes back. Well, no, if Jesus had said that, why didn't he say it? Why didn't he say it? Why didn't he say, And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the heathen or the unsaved until I return? But he didn't. He said, And Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled. Now, here is the interesting thing. And there shall be great wrath to this nation and great distress to this people. Now, everybody understands that to be the Jewish people. The church never took distress or wrath to themselves in these interpretations, only the blessings. So we know it was the Jewish people. And then it says, and they shall fall by the edge of the sword. That also is quite clear. It's the Jewish people. And they shall be led captive into all nations. That's quite clear. It's the Jewish people. So how can you interpret Jerusalem in any other way? And their national capital, their political capital, their commercial capital, their spiritual capital, shall be trodden down of non-Jews until the times of the non-Jews be fulfilled. In other words, Jesus was giving a time limit. He was saying there's a time limit to the non-Jews being over Jerusalem. But there will come a day when Jerusalem shall once again be under Jewish sovereignty. And it happened on the 7th of May, ah 7th of June 1967. Now, my dear friends, the exciting thing about this is also rather wonderful. You know those 50 years, I think most of you know, 50 years in the Bible is Jubilee. Do you know the significance of Jubilee in the Bible? Jubilee is the return of the possessions, whether in land or property, to its rightful owner. So in 1897, claim was laid with a national anthem and a national flag, and 50 years later the land was possessed. But here is another interesting thing. On the 9th of December 1917, something happened in Jerusalem which for everyone who was alive at the time and some of them are still alive today, was a dramatic, sensational event that just influenced the rest of their lives. General Allenby, Edmund Allenby, of the allied forces dismounted from his horse up by Newgate and in the great jubilant crowds of Oriental Jews, Jews being almost two thirds of the city's population at the time, which most people don't know, they think it was a majority of Arabs that had been displaced by the Jews since, it's not true, in the great crowd of jubilant oriental Jews, he took his hat off, took his gloves off and very loudly said as he walked down Jaffa Road through to Jaffa Gate, I will not ride into the city of my God and King hatted and gloved. He went through Jaffa Gate and onto the little platform which you can see to this day opposite Christchurch, for those of you who know Jerusalem. And there were all the Turkish dignitaries of the municipality gathered to sign the declaration of surrender. 400 years of Ottoman Empire rule ended that day. 700 years of Arab Muslim rule ended that day. Do you know why a thrill went right through the whole Jewish population? Because seemingly by coincidence, it happened to be the first day of the Jewish festival of Hanukkah. Now Hanukkah is the Festival of Freedom, or sometimes called the Festival of Light. And in John, the Gospel of John, it's called the Feast of Dedication. And it is the time when we commemorate, even Jesus went up to commemorate it. Remember that. People forget these little things because they have got so Gentilised in their reading. They don't understand just how Jewish it all is. You know, in that Hanukah festival we commemorate the deliverance by God through the Maccabees from the original Antichrist, Antiochus IV, a man who became the archetype of Antichrist in the Bible. Isn't that amazing? So a thrill went right to the whole Jewish population. They wondered has our redemption come? Has something sensational taken place that suddenly Muslim Arab rule ends and a Christian power takes over? Is this the beginning of redemption? 50 years later? Give a few weeks and it happened and Jerusalem was retaken. In other words, the miracle took place and the property returned to its rightful owner 50 years later. Perhaps even more interesting, just a few weeks before, there was the Balfour Declaration. I suppose everybody here has heard of the Balfour Declaration, which was to change history. It all happened 50 years before. 50 years later it took place. A milestone passed. Now, my dear friends, if that's a milestone, it means you should wake up. So should I. Because what it means is this you and I have passed into the last phase of world history. We've not just passed the first bit, we've passed the second stage. We've not only passed the regaining of Jewish statehood and territory, we've now passed the capital being restored. But the third milestone was undoubtedly in my estimation, the Yom Kippur war of the 6th of October. Because if now it has so happened that the times of the Gentiles are over, then it seems to me that suddenly Israel will once again occupy the centre of the world stage. She's only a nation of three and a half, 4 million people, but already we have the fifth strongest air force, army and navy in the world, of course it'll be nothing when we face the Soviets, which we will do before long. But I mean, it is amazing to me that you can't open your newspaper without somewhere or other reading about Israel or Jerusalem or something. It's come to the heart. Now on the 6th of October 1973, on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a war was suddenly launched upon Israel by two of our neighbours. Unexpectedly and suddenly, they should have won it, but by the mercy and grace of God, they not only didn't win it, Israel ended up 50 miles from Cairo and 20 miles from Damascus. I understood from that that we have passed into yet another sub phase, if you like, of the last days. We were in the run up to a very big conflict. My dear friends, it has been the mercy of God that he's held that whole thing back year after year after year in these past years to give the people of God everywhere through the world time to get ready, time for the shock, time to be able to face realities and time to come through with something for God. I've gone everywhere talking about it, of course, naturally, I suppose we've been guilty, as everybody in this kind of thing, of sometimes misinterpreting details of the events and other things, saying, you know, that maybe things would happen quicker than they did, and all the rest of it, we've learned from that. But risking ridicule from all kinds of people over the world, where I have gone everywhere, warning the people of God that the world is in for a terrible shaking. Now, I have to tell you, the pre ’73 war, the pre ’73 world, is a quite different world to the one we're living in today. All the energy crisis, all the terrorism, international lawlessness and terrorism, the enormous growth of immorality of the new kind of society and everything else, it's all taken an enormous leap forward, it seems to me, in the last ten years. I went everywhere telling people, Keep your eye on Persia. I used to be asked more questions about Iran than anything else I ever mentioned. I used to say, if the Gog and Magog war in Ezekiel 38 and 39 is going to be fulfilled, before very long, something has to happen to Iran. People used to say to me in the States and elsewhere, the United States will never allow the Shah to fall. They've equipped him, they've invested billions of dollars worth of equipment and money in the Shah. He is the bastion of the west in the whole of Central Asia. They won't let him fall. But it happened. It didn't just happen that the Shah went and we have a sweet, kind of rather corrupt, but democratic type of sort of regime in Iran. The most violent, the most demonic, the most hellish regime in the world since Adolf Hitler and Stalin has raised its ugly head. It's brought death and bloodshed to tens of thousands of people. It's the Islamic revolution. It is my conviction, as I said to the folks in Westminster Chapel on Saturday, that before very long, the Ayatollah Khomeini will, unofficially, if he hasn't already done so, put out feelers to the Kremlin. He is far too intelligent, far too shrewd and far too demonically inspired to think that he can liquidate Israel without the arms of the Soviet Union. Nobody else is going to supply him with the kind of weapons he needs to do this dirty job. At present, the Islamic Revolution, the Khomeini are not on speaking terms with the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union with them. Why? Because Khomeini has executed all 60 of the Tudor Communist Party's leadership, including their wives and children. But that will not stop them. Khomeini believes that he can exploit the Kremlin and he believes because Allah is in this whole thing and has destined the Islamic revolution to win, because Israel is the last Satanic obstacle to the conquest of Islam, of Islam’s conquest of the world. Don't forget that Islam has within its very theology the concept that the whole world has to submit. Islam means submission. That's why they're building everywhere mosques. I'm not saying that all Muslims are evil, not at all, many are good. But this Islamic revolution, this Shiite form of Islam, is demonic. Khomeini believes that the Shiites, who've been the under denomination of Islam for all these years, are destined by Allah to take over and win and become the dominant factor in Islam in the last phase. He believes that Israel is the satanic creation of the powers of darkness to frustrate Allah's program and purpose for the nations. Therefore, he has said for 50 years, every Muslim must mobilise. First, he said, if there is a Jewish state, we've got to stop it, and if it comes into being, it will be a judgment of God and used as a catalyst by Allah to draw out the fervour and strength and devotion of the Muslim masses. And so it's happened. The Kremlin, I believe, will also put out feelers toward Khomeini. And I'll tell you why. I said on Saturday and was, no in Denmark, and was corrected by one of Europe's leading Marxist experts, that the Soviet Union has 20 million Muslim citizens. In fact, it has 35 million and that's conservative. They believe that it's probably nearer 50 million. And now the Ukrainians, the Russians, the Lithuanians, Estonians and Latvians are only 50 million and they have actually as many Muslim, it is thought, by many. They are growing at the rate of 10,000 a month. It's a demographic time bomb. So, my dear friends, I believe the Soviet Union will try to divert the attention of its Muslim citizens by saying, you should help, let us help the Islamic revolution to liberate Jerusalem and finally solve the Jewish problem. If what I say is true, Iran is gone. Libya has gone. I don't have to say anything about Libya. Not in Britain and not in Greater London, I imagine and do I need to say anything about Turkey? It's possible that something has to happen to Turkey, it’s possible before. It seems to me that our time, as far as the next fulfilment of major prophecy goes, is sort of like quarter to twelve. It may mean that we have years, it may mean we have months. I don't know. I have no doubt at all that we're heading for this kind of trouble. I've said it for years, and I say it again because I am 100% convinced that we need to be prepared psychologically, spiritually and physically for the days that lie ahead. Now, whether this will include all of Europe, I have no idea at all. I only know that the Soviets have moved into Syria. Weapons that have not been seen outside of the boundaries of the Soviet Union. We now have SAM anti-aircraft missiles that can neutralise the whole airspace of Iraq, of Jordan, of Israel, of Lebanon, up to the Cyprus coast. That means that anything that flies within that area could be neutralised if they want to. We have SS 21 missiles which have a range that cover every single major Israeli city except for Eilat. Even the nuclear development centre at Dimona comes within the range of the SS 21. Just recently, the Syrian Defence Minister said that if Israel was so foolish as to start a war with Syria, the Soviet Union had promised to send within 8 hours, two divisions of Soviet shock troops. Now that's 20,000 men within 8 hours. We have no doubt about it that that is what is going to happen. Whether in the next round of fighting the Soviets actually come right in on the front line or whether they only remain in the back, we're not convinced yet. But I am quite sure that even if we have a round of war, a four, five, six day war with Syria in the next few months, and the Soviets are just sort of involved as background supporters, I have no doubt that in the next year or two we're going to see something far, far more serious. The Soviet Union has scores to settle with Israel. She has sunk, after all, a nuclear submarine. She has sunk a warship, she has downed Soviet transport planes, all unofficially. The Soviet Union is not going to let Israel get away, she has a score to settle with her. And in the end, Israel is the only country that's ever taken on the Soviet Union so far. Now that's as you heard on some of your, the thing about Chernenko’s recurring nightmare that the Chinese would learn to fight like the Jews and that the Jews would learn to multiply like the Chinese. The fact of the matter is that I think we are really in a very, very serious and dangerous period. And as far as we're concerned in Israel, as you probably all know, we have been in a state of general mobilisation now for over nine months, we've had little letups, but our actual general mobilisation has remained. And just last weekend, the whole country was put on again an alert. So you see, the thing is, we don't know when this is going to go up. It is very, very interesting that our intelligence service believes that for wholly internal reasons, the Syrians would like a short, sharp war with Israel in which certain gentlemen in the Syrian cabinet would like to take the opportunity of wiping out one or two other gentlemen in the Syrian cabinet and say that the Israelis did it. Now, that may seem absolutely crazy to you, but there is a power struggle going on within the Syrian cabinet between Assad — you know, Assad's a dying man. He has a very serious heart problem, and there's no possibility that he will live. So it's just a question of time. And Rifaat Assad is like Beria of Stalin's day, and he is a hated man. If that man ever took over from Assad, then we have a far more terrible way ahead. So there are people in the cabinet who would very much like to see him out of the way. And the best way would be a short, sharp war in which quite a lot of things could be done. And, of course, it would be Israeli action that did it all. Now, that it may seem terribly odd to all of you, but that's how things happen in our part of the world. What can we say about all of this? Does it depress you? I hope it doesn't. I hope you look on the more glorious and comforting side. These are milestones. So, rather like the Lord said, in the psalm, inspired the psalmist to say, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, first of all, there can be no shadow without light. Secondly, he didn't say, though I stay in the valley of the shadow of death, he said, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, every step takes you through it. These are milestones. We've passed them. We have a way to go. How much further we have to go, we don't know. But it's incumbent upon us as the people of God to be ready, full of the Spirit, anointed by the Spirit, in touch with the Lord, hearing the Lord alive to the things of God, functioning as members of the body of Christ, alive to one another in fellowship with one another, moving together. How we need the Lord in these days and how cleverly the enemy is working all the time, one way or another, to destroy all these qualities amongst the people of God. Dear friends, Jesus said, when you see these things begin to come to pass, look up, lift up your heads, your redemption draweth nigh. It is a wonderful word. The Jewish posture of worship is to stand with head up and worship the Lord. The Christian is, on the whole, a bowed head. And there's nothing wrong with that either, I don't think, as long as it's not that melancholic graveyard type thing. But I mean, the Christian thing has always been to bow one's head with hands folded and down. And the Jewish one is to lift up your hands and stand. When Jesus said, when you see these things begin to come to pass, look up, lift up your head, what he was really saying was this when you see these things begin to come to pass, don't be depressed, don't be panic stricken, don't succumb, worship because I’ve told you all these things because I have an objective. Your redemption is drawing near. And this worship isn't a form of escapism, a kind of Christian jamboree where we can shut out the wicked world around us and just have a lovely time. Forget them all. It is very often a declaration of truth where together we proclaim together in worship that he is King. He is Lord. We belong to him. We are on the winning side. We are those who've been saved out of this world. And not just that, but the Lord has a purpose for this world. You see, there are those who tell me, and I must finish, I'm sure you've been very good to listen for so long. But you see, the thing is that there are those who tell us the Lord's purpose is only the church. I've said it for years, years and years. Some of you know, we've been like a kind of one way sort of thing on this matter. I mean, it's the church. It's the church. It's the church. So when they tell me, oh, you've gone off the rails, you see, so you've gone off the rails, you've left all this. The whole point is this, it's absolutely true that God's purpose is centred in the church, but that doesn't mean that there's not a destiny for the Jewish people. The church is actually Jewish, and all the Gentiles are there. Not as second class citizens, they have been grafted in as full citizens, full partakers of the Commonwealth of Israel. That doesn't make it any less Jewish. Just because there are multitudes and multitudes and multitudes of believers of Gentile extraction, doesn't do anything to the Jewishness in the eyes of the Lord of the Church. And the last phase is to bring in all the natural branches back into their own olive tree. Now, if that is true, my dear friends, there's something even more exciting. I don't know what it is, you know, when I was first saved, we used to believe that all our salvation was for our spirit. Nothing for soul, nothing for body. Bit by bit, the Lord's broadened our outlook to realise that our salvation includes spirit, soul and body. I don't believe in a salvation that only has something to do with my spirit. And every time something happens in my body, I can't do anything about it. What kind of salvation is that? Was better even under the old covenant when the Lord said, I am your healer, I am the Lord that healeth thee, and none of these afflictions that come upon the Egyptians shall come upon you. I mean, if it's so true, we have a wonderful Lord, but I want to say just something else in connection with that, and it's this, God has a purpose for this earth. I don't know what it is about this Greek idea, this Hellenistic idea that somehow got into Christianity, that God is not interested in our body and not interested in the Earth. The body and the Earth are evil. The heavens and the spirit are pure. I want to tell you that Satan has been up in the heavens for some thousands of years and only at the end will he come down on the earth. You see, it's nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. Do you know, I don't believe God made this Earth and saw it was good and then saw man make a mess of it and sin come in and Satan come in and God says, oh, well, it's a mess. Anyway, we’ll get them through it. And when we've saved them, we'll float them away into some kind of heavenly ether and there they will strum harps in sort of transparent nighties forever and ever and ever and ever. It's that kind of idea. It's nonsense. The purpose of God is a new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness. And the old ideal of the prophet was the lamb shall lie down with the lion and the bear. They’ll all eat straw like the ox, and a child will play with the viper. Well, I can't wait for it myself. Absolutely can't wait for it. And the glory of the Lord will fill the Earth as the waters cover the sea. That to me is absolutely marvellous. So I believe that little Israel is the symbol that God intends to redeem the Earth. It's had its baptism of water, it will await its baptism of fire, but it will come out of it a new heaven and a new earth. I don't know when or how, whether it's before the millennium, after the millennium, whether there is even a millennium. I mean, all I know is that somehow or other God's going to do this marvellous work. And Israel is the sign that God is not just trapped within some church that is perfect. He knows all the cities of the world and he has a purpose for the nations. And this fulfilment of his word concerning Israel has something to do with that master plan. May God help you to be ready, help you to be functioning members of the fellowship that you're in, wherever it is, and help you to be real intercessors in the days that lie ahead. May he come upon you by his spirit with that object in mind. Thank you. [Brother] Thank you very much, Lance. I almost wanted to say two things. One was that I will not wear a transparent nighty. And the other, when Lance said he couldn't wait for it, I thought, if he goes on much longer, we'd almost be there. Can I throw in just one practical thing? I find when listening to things like this, I find it is very moving. I don't know. Perhaps I speak for many just as the Lord over the years has begun to show us, because Lance has spoken to the company here quite a number of times about these things. I've always found it very moving to think of all that the Jewish people have gone through and I didn't even know about it. All the things have you ever looked back on your life and thought that was happening then and I didn't even know that was happening? And I find that very moving. And I think God wants us to be moved. But always if we are really moved, it spurs us to action. God forbid that we should be the kind of people that like coming to a meeting to be moved. Real movings and stirrings within us always produce action. At least that's what God's word tells us. And I'm sure there are practical things we can do to be involved in what God is doing with the Jewish people. I just want to say very simply, there are in this area prayer groups. There are little groups called Intercessors for Israel. Paul, do you want to say something at this point? [Paul] Well, there are three groups, I think, would you like to stand up, Janet, just so anybody living in the Twickenham area could see Janet afterwards if they'd like to join in a prayer group for Israel. If anybody lives in the Richmond area, they're welcome to come and see me. I'll tell you where it is. More than happily, and somebody from the Twickenham Witten end, Roy's in the studio. Oh, Roy's there. Thanks, Roy, I didn't know if you were still trapped in those headphones. If you're living in the central Twickenham Witten area and you'd like to join a prayer group, please see Roy there at the back of the room. [Brother] Thank you. So that's just one simple way in which you can seek to be linked up and involved. In a sense, these groups don't belong to any particular fellowship as such. They are cross grouping of folk from different fellowships, those that the Lord has given a real burden for Israel. So that's one way in which we can be more fully involved. Thank you, Lance. I feel it was good that we were focused again, not only on the basis for why God has a future for Israel, but just brought right up to date on some of the big issues that are facing us all now. Let's sing a hymn as we close. I think it'd be good to praise the Lord. It's number two. [Singing] All hail the power of Jesus’ name Let angels prostrate fall Let angels prostrate fall Bring forth the royal diadem And crown him! Crown him! Crown him! Crown him! And crown him Lord of all! Crown him ye martyrs of our God Who from his altar call Who from his altar call Extol the stem of Jesse’s rod And crown him! Crown him! Crown him! Crown him! And crown him Lord of all! Ye chosen seed of Israel’s race A remnant weak and small A remnant weak and small Hail him who saves you by his grace And crown him! Crown him! Crown him! Crown him! And crown him Lord of all! Ye Gentile sinners, ne'er forget
 The wormwood and the gall The wormwood and the gall 
Go, spread your trophies at his feet,
 And crown him! Crown him! Crown him! Crown him! And crown him Lord of all! Let every kindred, every tribe,
 On this terrestrial ball On this terrestrial ball 
To him all majesty ascribe, And crown him! Crown him! Crown him! Crown him! And crown him Lord of all! O that with yonder sacred throng,
 We at his feet may fall We at his feet may fall; 
Join in the everlasting song,
 And crown him! Crown him! Crown him! Crown him! And crown him Lord of all! [Brother] Father, we do want us to thank thee for thy incredible mercy and grace into that olive tree. And we praise you too, Lord, for those that are the basis, are the foundation of that tree. The roots, as it were, the stock of that tree. Lord, we want to thank you for that word, it says then shall all Israel be saved. Lord, what a marvellous day you're bringing in. When the whole family of faith the whole family of God shall be gathered together into one. Lord, we just worship before you. And Lord, as you've stirred our thoughts to think about your people Israel, Lord, we just want to pray for them right now. Lord, you know the tremendous issues that they have to face, you know, all that's happening with Iraq and Iran, so on. Lord, we want to pray that you will do a real work of preparation. Lord, we believe you've got those people in that land that really means something to you in these days. And we want to pray that you go on preparing your people for all the pressure that's yet to come. And Lord, we remember the folk in Russia. Lord, we are standing with you that you will bring them out with a mighty hand. Lord, we trust you. You've already made preparation. Lord, we pray when the moment is right that you will bring them forth, you'll release them. So, Lord, keep us faithful as we think of these things, faithful in prayer and expectation. And, Lord, even here in the area where we live, where there are Jewish folk, when in any way, Lord, we can befriend them or love them or show them Christ, we pray that you'll help us to do it. Commit Lance to you, Lord, as he goes on to the States and all that lies ahead there, think of the family conference and so on. Lord, do be with him and lead him in ways to show forth your glory. In Jesus’ name. Amen. May you be prepared for the redemption which is soon to come. May your eyes be fixed on the one who redeems. May you know the deep deep love of Jesus.