The significance of Abraham's prayer for Ishmael in Genesis 17:17, emphasizing the concept of "living before God." It argues that true life is found only in Christ, contrasting spiritual death by nature with spiritual life through faith. The message highlights God's faithfulness in hearing Abraham's prayer and blessing Ishmael, foreshadowing a future blessing for the people of the Middle East through Christ, as evidenced by scriptural references to Egypt and Ethiopia being part of God's city and the spread of the gospel via radio.
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Egypt or any of the other areas where he is familiar. Well, thank you for this opportunity. As I said before, the people in the Middle East are Arabic-speaking people and they number about one hundred and twenty-five million people. And that is many people. And they live in twenty-two nations in the Arab world and their history. And the background of these people is very, very interesting and exciting too. I want you please to turn to Genesis chapter seventeen. And I'm going to read to you a prayer which was offered by Abraham on behalf of his son Ishmael.
Abraham at that time was almost hundred years old. And Sarah, his wife, was about ninety years old. And God came to Abraham and told him that next year he would have, the following year, he would have a son by his wife Sarah. And Abraham couldn't take it in. And he offered a prayer on behalf of Ishmael. What do you think the prayer was? That Ishmael might live? No. Look at verse seventeen, please. Chapter seventeen and verse seventeen. And then Abraham fell upon his face and laughed and said in his heart, Shall a child be born unto him that is a hundred years old, and shall Sarah that is ninety years old bear?
And Abraham said unto God, O that Ishmael might live before thee. And the words I want to underscore are before thee. Because before God, by nature, You and I and everybody else, everybody in the world is dead in sins and trespasses. We are dead because we are sinful. We are sinners in the sight of God. We are made alive only when we accept Him who is our life. Even Jesus Christ our Lord. In Him was life and the life was the light of man. He that has the Son has life.
And he that has not the Son of God hath not life. This is why Abraham is praying for Ishmael. Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee. The man of faith prayed with the eye of faith that pierced through thousands of years. And he prayed for Ishmael that Ishmael might live before God. Ishmael is made up of two syllables. We say in Arabic, Ishmael. Isma'il. Isma means God will hear, or God will listen. And il is God. Ishmael, or Isma'il, God will hear.
How does God answer the prayer? Look at verse twenty, please. And as for Ishmael, which means God will hear, I have heard thee. I say very reverently, there is a pun here. What is a pun? I play one word. As for God will hear, I have heard thee. What tense in the English grammar is the verb have heard? As the present perfect tense. I have heard thee, it is a fact, an accomplished fact. I have heard thee. As for Ishmael, I have heard thee.
Behold, I have blessed him and will make him fruitful and will multiply him exceedingly. Twelve princes shall he begin and I'll make him a great nation. If you wish to know the names of the twelve princes, they are mentioned in chapter twenty-five verses twelve to sixteen. That's chapter twenty-five verses twelve to sixteen. ever before the twelve tribes of Israel came into existence. All right. I would say, according to God's word, that Ishmael was just as much Abraham's son as Isaac was.
He was not the son of Sarah. He was not the son of the promise. But he was Abraham's son. Half the blood that ran through his veins was Hebrew blood and the other half was Egyptian blood. as scripture. His wife was Hagar, the Egyptian girl. Half the blood that ran through the veins of Manasseh and of Ephraim, the sons of Joseph, was Hebrew blood and the other half was Egyptian blood. Because their mother was Egyptian. Joseph was married to an Egyptian girl. Right.
Well, these people have an exciting, interesting history. And let me ask you, God says, I have blessed him. Can there be any blessing outside of Christ? He, Christ our Lord, is the source and the fountain of every blessing. It follows therefore that if these people are to be blessed and there is no blessing outside of Christ, that these people will be blessed in Christ. And this is brought out in a number of places in the scriptures. Please start with me to Psalm sixty-eight. The sixty-eighth Psalm.
Princes shall come out of Egypt. Princes shall come out of Egypt. And the prince, you know that Jacob's name was changing to Israel, which means prince with God. All right, princes shall come out of Egypt. And I'm going to read to you as Psalms, Psalm eighty-seven. You'll be surprised the meaning of the psalm. Psalm eighty-seven. The paper speaks so much here. You've got to read the Bible more.
Right. He is speaking. That goes for you too. In this Psalm, the eighty-seven Psalm, he speaks about the city of God. And geographically this refers to the city of God in the land of Israel, but he speaks also of the spiritual city of God that is your city and my city where our citizenship is. And then he says in verse three, things are spoken of thee, O city of God, Sila. And he enumerates the names of the citizens of the city of God.
Verse four, I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon to them that know me. In the Arabic version, it would be I will make mention of Rahab and Babylon who know me. who know me, that know me, Rahab and Babylon. Behold, Philistine Ta with Ethiopia. This man was born there. Rahab is not the Rahab of Jericho. It is Rahab in Arabic. It's a poetic name for Egypt. The word Rahab means terror or fear. And it refers to the terror of Egypt. You will look up in the concordance or modern references and you will see the remark that it is true that the reference is to Egypt Egypt is mentioned here among the citizens of the city of God and we have also in Isaiah in that day shall the Lord be known to the Egyptians and the Egyptians shall know the Lord and this is happening today I told you about the work in Egypt and the moving of the Spirit of God, which is being witnessed today in the land of Egypt.
I served the Lord in the assembly in Beirut. We have about two hundred and eighty in fellowship in that assembly. I don't know exactly how many there would be now because some have had to leave the country because of the civil war. But we had about two hundred and eighty in fellowship in that assembly. We have four assemblies in Lebanon. We have about four hundred assemblies in the land of Egypt. In the assembly I serve the Lord in Cairo. We have quite a number of people around the Lord's table every Sunday. And we have a prayer meeting every week. And we have a monthly prayer meeting, if you please, that goes on for twenty-four hours.
It doesn't mean that you are there twenty-four hours. But the meeting goes on for twenty-four hours. And the Lord has worked wonders. in both places, not only in both assemblies, but in both countries, in other countries too. But, let me say something. I believe that the most effective means, that's my own conviction for various reasons, at least four reasons I'm going to tell you. The most effective means to reach the people of the Middle East today is by means of radio, for various reasons. A, in a number of countries, you cannot go in as a missionary. You try to go as a missionary to Saudi Arabia and see if you are allowed a visa and given a visa or not.
But I advise you not to try, because you would be denied a visa. Secondly, in certain places in the Middle East, there are many nomads. People lead a nomadic type of life. They are here today, they are not here tomorrow, and you cannot follow them in person. You may try to go and camel back, but there are no air-conditioned camels. But it is not easy anyway. It's not easy to follow them in person. Right. Three. In some places, the percentage of illiteracy is quite high. I know in certain places, there are very highly educated people. But in certain other places, the illiteracy is quite high.
You can't give them a tract to read or a gospel to read. You have to speak to them in person. Number four. A Muslim would feel quite uneasy to be seeing going into a church or a Christian meeting, a meeting of Christian worship. But he would feel safe enough to listen to the message in the privacy of his own room as he turns on his radio set. For these four reasons, I believe that radio today in the Middle East is the most effective means of reaching the people. And I praise the Lord. that he has opened the door for us to minister to these people through radio, through the facilities of Trans World Radio.
After I was saved, shortly after, I read an article about Saudi Arabia, that no missionary would be allowed to go to Saudi Arabia as such. And I was very exercised for these people because I loved them. And I prayed for Saudi Arabia for no less than twenty-five years. that the Lord would take me there, but he didn't. But I never gave up. In nineteen sixty, we moved from Cairo to Beirut, Lebanon, by invitation. The invitation had come at least four times for me to resign my job in Cairo and go and take up the principalship of a high school in Beirut, Lebanon, because the principal there was past the term in age, and they wanted a Christian principal.
And three times the invitation came, and we thought it was not God's time then, because the pillar of cloud was still in Egypt for us, and we didn't go. But when the invitation came the fourth time in nineteen sixty, my wife and I prayed earnestly, and we felt decidedly led by the Lord to leave Cairo and go to Beirut, Lebanon. And we did. Five days only after we arrived in Beirut, Lebanon, Dr. Paul Freed of Transwar Radio came to visit us. And he asked me, would I be interested to record gospel messages in Arabic, to be broadcast over trans-world radio facilities to the Middle East I asked the question immediately I said and to Saudi Arabia he said sure of course I knew why the Lord took us from Cairo to Beirut Lebanon and ever since I've been doing those tapes and those messages since nineteen sixty not on a full-time basis but now on a full-time basis for in our ministry for the Lord but The most recent addition we broadcast on shortwave and on standard AM band.
The most recent addition is that station in Cyprus with a transmitter of six hundred thousand watts on the standard AM band. Now let me tell you something. The greatest power of any transmitter on the standard AM band allowed by law in the USA is fifty thousand. You cannot go beyond fifty thousand. This is six hundred thousand. It is so powerful, it blankets the whole of the Middle East with a clear, crystal clear signal. It was recorded in Johannesburg, South Africa, and the tape I had on this cassette tape, and it's very, very clear, all the way through Africa.
It covers the whole of the Middle East with a crystal clear signal. And it is really doing a marvelous work for the Lord there. They put out a questionnaire to assess how many approximately listen to each and to every program. And they came out with the astounding figures. About five million people listen to each and every program. You can imagine how I feel when I sit behind a microphone in Chatham, New Jersey to record every message that goes to the Middle East. The Middle East today hears the gospel. over the, especially over this standard AM band, twenty-eight times a week.
I don't record, don't get the false impression that I record twenty-eight messages every week. That would be physically impossible. But we have to repeat certain messages. I record as many as I possibly can. I translate the messages for Dr. McGee, for Van Empey, for Yoder, for Brownson, plus my own programs. But we broadcast them to the Middle East. When we had to leave Beirut, we thought this was tragic. Tragedy. The studio was confiscated. We had to leave Beirut. What's going to happen to the messages? But praise the Lord. He moves in a mysterious way. When we were in Beirut, we did not receive one single letter from any listener in Israel for obvious reasons.
There's no male service between Israel on one side and any of the Arab nation on the other side. The Jews have no dealing with the Samaritans. But when we moved out of Beirut and gave the address to Monte Carlo, you ought to see the letters that are coming from listeners all over Israel, all over the Arab world. The postage of one letter from Egypt to Monte Carlo or to New Jersey is fourteen Egyptian pastors. And the fourteen Egyptian pastors buy twenty-eight loaves of bread. I mean it. It is not big loaves like the ones you are used to here, but like the one I showed you.
But the twenty-eight loaves of bread. And yet about seventy-five percent of the letters we receive come from Egypt. These people mean business. And I know many of them can ill afford to send one letter, but they are. And we praise God for what is happening today. There is a hunger in the hearts of the people. And I praise God that the assembly people, I'm not saying this because I'm an assembly man, but because it is a fact, are the most aggressive evangelistic group in Egypt. And they're doing a fine job. I'll be open to questions. Thank you.
Wonderful. Do you possibly have any questions to direct toward this work that our brother is now doing by radio in the Middle East? I'm going to ask your brother Gustafson to take the question he has. I'd just like to ask you also have it in Hebrew going in from the same station. Yes, from the same station we broadcast in Russian because there are many Russian Jews in Israel, in Hebrew, in Armenian, and in Arabic. And we have a weekly, one weekly program in French. Because in Israel they have religious freedom, but that doesn't mean religious freedom like you and I know.
In Israel, if you are a Baptist, you can practice your faith. If you're Greek Orthodox, you can practice your faith. If you are a Presbyterian, you may practice your faith. But you cannot, you cannot, what they call proselyte. In fact, they have a new rule now that if you do try, it can be as much as four years in prison. And so again, this radio ministry can cross over all of these lines. And this was a thrilling report to me, wasn't it you, that reaching into these people? Because let me just again remind you that since the Lord Jesus died, God has brought Jew down to the level of Gentiles. We're all on the same level today. We all go in the same door. The same God is rich in mercy, but all those who call upon him.
And there's no difference between the Jew and the Gentile. We're all one. So this was a thrilling report to me that he gave. Here's a question. Some Christians claim that the Lord will not return until every tribe has been reached. Is this true? Well, actually, I feel like Sam Jones, that old preacher of another generation, who said if the church is going to bring in the kingdom, they're going to have to back into it because they're headed in the wrong direction now. Christians are becoming an increasing minority in the world. But, you know, every creature under heaven, the Apostle Paul said... heard it in his day in Colossians one if you continue in the faith grounded and settled and be not moved away from the hope of the gospel which he have heard to and which was preached to every creature that is under heaven of which I fall and made a minister the book of Acts you know it's just a little minuscule attempt a minuscule account of what was happening in those days we only know really what Peter was doing and what Paul was doing that's about it but when you start to think what the others were doing as well and the gospel really ran in those first days and I think we've said before and I know that there
are those because well they make an appeal for you to get rid of your money and support their program to help to reach every tribe and we should be doing that of course reach everybody but that aspect of his return that has to do the removing of the church nothing has to be fulfilled for that so I understand the scriptures Nothing has to. Three things. One, we don't know how long the patience of God is. We don't know that. The cup of iniquity must be full before judgment really comes. We do know that the body must complete. And there'll be no vacant chairs in heaven. When you get there, you're not going to be looking around and say, I wonder who was supposed to be sitting in that one.
No, the Father's house is going to be full. Now, don't ask me to explain this, but I believe it. The Father's house will be full. And then when the Lord Jesus does return, it's going to be after Gentile and Jew alike are willing to say, blessed is he that comes in the name of the Lord. The following question reads like this. Why does Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians claim the West Bank as homeland? Well, I'm no politician, but I can tell you what I know. Yasser Arafat and the Palestinians claimed to have been living in the land of Israel before Israel became a state.
And at that time, the leaders of the Arab world promised the Palestinians that the change was not going to be long, that before long they will take back the land. and bring back the Palestinian refugees into their own land. Well, they waited and waited and waited and nothing happened. So they are taking things in their hand these days, or they have been taking things in their hand for some time. And they have been faced with a statement made over and over again that they would push the Jews to the sea. They said, no, we don't want to push the Jews to the sea.
at least the West Bank which belonged to Jordan before should be given back to us and they would establish a sovereign Palestinian state on the West Bank on the land of the West Bank so this is why they are demanding that part of the world according to what I know I wonder brother Gustafson has anything to add here well in forty seven and forty eight at this I've got this in my room who could have brought it to you. In forty-seven, forty-eight, when Israel was declared, you know, Ben-Gurion declared the State of Israel. And then the armies of Lebanon and Syria and Iraq, which has no common border, and the finest of all the Arab armies, was the best trained, of course, of the Arab Legion, trained under Glob Pasha, who had a great love for the Arabs, trained a tremendous army.
and then the Saudi Arabia and Egypt all came against Israel. And that's the time when they were talking about that they would drive them into the sea. Well, I think I mentioned in my first little opening remark that Transjordan was what belonged, what Britain had given to Abdullah, King Hussein's grandfather. He had given it to him. He made him an emir, the emir of Moab, and then he decided he wanted to be a king. But when all this, the state of Israel is declared, They jumped across the Jordan River, and they took this big piece of property. If you'll take a look at the line, you'll see it's a very erratic line. It comes within seven miles of the Mediterranean. This is when the different wars that have happened have threatened the very existence of Israel, because if they cut that from seven, they'd be up in the north and in the south, then they could have really destroyed them.
It was a miracle that they didn't. Now, at the end of forty-seven, forty-eight, then it was the Transjordan... annexed by the West Bank. I believe you'll find this in any encyclopedia or any history book if you search there. And I think I mentioned before there are only two countries, no Arab country, ever recognized that the Hashemite kingdom had any claim on the West Bank. Pakistan did and Britain did. The Arab world was about ready to expel actually Jordan for grabbing that land there. And they did. You know, I go with my friend. We go back to Koha on the back roads.
And we'll see. And I remember the days when the only people that lived out there were living in the big black tents, the Bedouin. And now they have permanent homes. And he'll always mention that he'll say that King Hussein told them that they'd quit the wandering life that he would give them this land where they could live permanently. And I always want to ask the question, was it his authority to give that land? He never owned it, but he did. And so this is part of the problem. Jews have a long, long memory. Some of the land they've purchased, for instance, the Valley of Jezreel, Megiddo, Israelan, which is a Greek word, which is the bread basket of the country. I showed it here last night in the pictures.
It's about a hundred and twelve square miles. It's the bread basket of the country now. Isaiah called it the Fat Valley. That was a gift from the Turkish crowd to a family, a Lebanese family, And it was nothing but a malaria, yellow fever, soaked swamp because of a biblical stream. The outflow is blocked by the sands of the Mediterranean. You remember Cicero and you remember Jail and you remember the four hundred and fifty false prophets of Baal that were brought down to that stream and the heads were made shorter. Well, the Jews, the first pioneers that came in, knew what the Bible had to say about that.
And this is a historical fact. They took a half million pounds sterling of Jewish National Fund money and bought that big valley. They bought it. And they were severely chided for wasting money on that big swamp, that malarial swamp. Those who used to travel through that valley, remember they used to have to roll up the windows because of the mosquitoes. If you'll read Golda Meir's book, and you should read it. You should get it in paperback. My life by Golda Meir. And when she went, she used to put Vaseline on her hands. They had big bonfires at night. They had very little medicine, no doctors and nurses. And she tells about it jokingly. You have long sleeves in the terrible heat to drain that malarial infested swamp.
I go to Mayan Harad, which is where Gideon chose his men. I showed you a picture of that. I remember when I first went there in about nineteen fifty-nine. There too. It was full of malaria and yellow fever. But they drained all of that. So actually they bought this when. actually Jews own land in what is Jordan today they have long memories let me just go off the little bunny path somewhere do you know that there are Jews in Istanbul today who have the keys to their homes in Spain in the Spanish Inquisition passed from one generation to another generation to another because they were driven out by this great Inquisition in Spain if you go to the Prado they second only to the Louvre in Europe as far as an art museum is concerned you'll see there how The Jews were, of course, still have an Inquisition Square.
They have a big cross where the Jews were forced to go down. And if they weren't willing to become Roman Catholics, and many of them did. Roman Catholics by daytime and Jews at night. They were taken down there and they were beheaded. If you go to Toledo, Spain, you'll find the only Roman Catholic synagogue in the world. St. Mary's Synagogue. The Lion of the Tribal of Judah is still in the wall. The Cedars of Lebanon are still in the ceiling. But that West Bank. of course, was grabbed by the Hashemite family. And of course, this is what they're talking about. But if you're going to look at the real historical facts, it never did belong to Transjordan. I think that's quite fair, isn't it?
It's quite fair. But of course, Yasser Arafat, even though he says one thing, he's... It was the one that told the guy's name before him that, oh, he's... Last I heard he was in Lebanon. He made a lot of money from Saudi Arabia. What was his... He had the PLO crowd. He had that. No, there was none. That's George Hadad. But he was Roman Catholic. He's a Marxist. But I mean, before sixty-seven. What was his name? Oh, yes. But he stayed in the hotel in Amman during the sixty-seven war. Right, I know. No. I'm getting old. But again, remember, let's come back to what a brother said. Today, there is one way. And much of what Israel is doing, they're doing in the arm of the flesh.
They are doing in the arm of the flesh. And God's going to settle it in that day. And I look it all over and it's amazing. A hundred million trees have been planted since nineteen forty eight. By international competition, Israel produces, as cows have produced the highest per capita milk production for their cows. Of course, they have a little secret from that. They've taken the whole stands and changed them to gold stands. But they've done that. They've done that. They have various little ways that they do it. They produce cotton, Egyptian type cotton. Incidentally, long staple cotton. They never had that crop before. Avocados. They never had those.
Now it's a big money earner. The cotton is one of the biggest money earners. The diamonds, of course, the best finest diamond cutting and polishing in the world is done in Israel. Who owns the diamond mines in South Africa? You know who owns them down there, don't you? Sure, they own them down there. The De Beers Corporation is owned by Jews, and they own them down there. and they have a way of doing it. Well, I'm just grateful for all they've given me. They've given me my Bible and they've given me my Savior and the rest of it, so I don't care what they get, diamonds or cotton or anything else. But these are problems that are never going to be solved until that man comes from heaven and puts things right. But until then, let's keep doing it. I was absolutely thrilled when I heard of the ministry God's given this man of God to think.
If you and I had started at twenty to learn Arabic, we would never in this lifetime ever get Arabic. He knows how an Arab thinks. He knows what's going to reach the Arabs. Going in there with five hundred and six hundred thousand watts every single day and booming the gospel. And you know, these Bedouin used to travel around with flutes. I showed you pictures of him playing the flute last night, but it's a rare occasion you'll find a shepherd with a flute. He's got a transistor radio now. He doesn't know the flute. He's got the transistor radio. And I can assure you, they'll listen to PWR. This is a related question to what we're discussing here, and probably a ethnic question. Is it not a difficult situation when Christian Arabs in Arab countries are called to fight against Israel?
Would you know how they respond to this? Well, if you are in the army, you are in the army. You have to obey orders. That's right. That's the answer. And they do fight. But... An Arab Christian or a Christian Arab believes the same as you do, because he has the same Savior, same Bible, same word of God, and whether it is in English or in Arabic, it is just the same word, and he believes the same way you do believe. I hope I said enough here. The Israelis, of course, don't have except in rare occasions in fact they don't let an Arab own a gun they do let the Bedouin in the southern and the Negev they let them have guns and but I remember after sixty seven they went around and rounded up all the guns that any Arabs have friend of mine is a hunter he loves to hunt it's a good man I've mentioned before and they took his guns away from him he'll never see them again and some of those shepherds Bedouin shepherds in the hills of Judea need their guns now because of the hyena and because of the wolves and other things.
They need their guns to protect them, but they still don't have them. But the Druze, D-R-U-S-E, they're a break-off from the Arabs and they have their own secret religion. No one knows of except the elders. They're very loyal to most any state in which they live. They do, they're allowed in the Israeli army. That's not the same situation in the Arab countries. If you are in the army, you have to be ordered and you have to fight and... you're given the weapon and you just obey orders. There's some questions concerning countries in the Middle East. Well, not necessarily that.
Here's one that suggests Russia. What is the future role of Russia in the Middle East as you see it? May I just say a word here? According to the Word of God, we read in Ezekiel that there would be a war between the king of the north and the king of the south and the land of Israel would be hemmed in between we don't want to go into details here and we were wondering how this could happen when Egypt was so allied to the Russians in the years gone by until very recently but we have lived to see how Egypt broke away from Russia.
And if I might interpret the feeling of the Egyptians, they don't like the Russians at all. So the role of Russia in the Middle East is set out for us in prophecy, in the Word of God. And we read, as it said in Ezekiel thirty-eight and thirty-nine, that the King of the North, which I believe is Russia, will come down against the land of Israel. the enemy for the land of Israel is not the Arabs. It's really the Russians. And I say this according to the word of God, at least as I understand it. And as I said, the king of the south would be Egypt and other allies, and the land of Israel will be hemmed in between.
And I think you could also say that the enemy really of the Arabs is not Israel as much as it is Russia. when they were in Egypt, they treated the Egyptians like not second-class citizens, but four, fifth, sixth-class citizens. They had nothing to do with them socially. They had nothing, they looked down upon them. And they humiliated them because they, isn't that true? They humiliated them. That's why Sadat, again, used great courage when he kicked them out and told them to leave and get out of there. And in fact, he gave them very inferior equipment. They gave them inferior equipment in military. What is the future role of the United Roman Empire?
I don't know. Is it united yet? Well, that's what this one is supposing, that they will one day or are at the process of united. Well, the dictator that will rise out of the United Roman Empire, we know his role. He will sit in the temple of God, claiming himself to be God, and he will speak great things against God. You know the role of the Antichrist. If this is the question, well, he is not, he may be in the world now, but he is not yet declared. But I won't have to worry about him a bit. I will not be here. I will not be here. So let him do what he likes. I leave him to the Lord.
And I believe that before he is proclaimed, or before he is, and now before he is ushered into the world, the church will have gone to meet the Lord in the air. That's my firm belief. This is possibly a related question to that. What are your thoughts concerning Greece recently entering the European common market? Evidently they're uniting and they're taking... I think they have agreed, they have been accepted as, but whether they have joined officially or not, I don't think they have officially. I haven't heard that, but they were... I have heard that they have been accepted as the ten... member of the Common Market. Norway was in, but Norway pulled out. Norway pulled out.
Norway pulled out. Would we have any questions directing this area right here before we move on? Over there. Your hand, yeah. How many letters? Did you mention how many letters you received on average? It's difficult to say. For instance, one day I received one hundred and five letters in one single day. Sometimes I received ninety letters, sometimes fifteen, sometimes ten. It's difficult to, I haven't really worked out on average, but I do receive quite a number of letters. And my prayer has always been the Lord to send us somebody who really is out and out for the Lord and who has the burden of the Arab world who could help because...
So far it was only my wife and myself doing all this work. All the programs and the mail and the speaking engagement and this and that and the traveling. Really my day started at seven or thirty in the morning and sometimes it goes on till eleven o'clock at night. And I've been doing, I haven't had a week vacation for five, six years. And we have been praying for somebody to come and help us. And I'm very glad to tell you the prayer has been answered about three weeks ago. The Lord sent a family, a man and his wife, who live now in California. He's an assembly man. He is the one whom the Lord had used to start the meetings in Tantan. And he has himself asked if he could help.
And we were very delighted to receive the request. He has been accepted. Praise the Lord. I'd like to just... Our brother was mentioning about the assembly there in Beirut, and he doesn't know. Of course, a lot of people have had to leave. They have had to leave. He and I have a mutual friend by the name of Sammy Dagger. S-A-M-I. I think in Arabic means the high one, doesn't it? The exalted one. And Dagger, D-A-G-H-E-R. I hope that if God brings this boy's name to you, you'll remember him in prayer. A little over ten years ago, he was a male prostitute. Sammy was.
He was the Maitre D in the Phoenicia Hotel, which was, in my judgment, the nicest in the intercontinental chain. I met him in that fellow. I didn't know him. He didn't know me. I didn't know what he believed. I think I just mentioned it in passing. How Mr. and Mrs. Taylor, the Christian Missionary Alliance from Cambodia, came through there and led Sammy and his wife Joy, who was British, led them to Christ. And I mean, their marriage was pretty well gone because Sammy, because of the... You drink Arrak? Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord. Because the British are very strong when Sammy and his wife used to kill a big bottle every night, as well as going to the bars and the clubs and all this. Isn't it amazing that God reaches in families that have no Christian background at all?
No, not the slightest bit, and saves somebody and they become great. And here's somebody in a godly family, and they just don't seem to rise at all. It just is not inherited. I believe in Arabic, they have an expression that your children come through you, but not from you. But anyway, Sammy... How do you know these things? Rick Noon. I'm not going to translate that. Anyway, Sammy used to go to those bars and clubs. And if you knew Beirut before all this trouble, you could go to about half of them every night and you wouldn't reach all of them if you'd different ones every night for a year. So many of them.
It was the Paris of the Middle East. He said, Now I go home and I study in my Bible. until four, five o'clock in the morning. And I know every morning, Franklin Graham was here yesterday morning, Billy's son. And Sammy Dagger had a tremendous influence on Mr. Graham's son. A tremendous influence on him. In fact, the Arab Christians are one who had a tremendous influence on that young man. There have been many that have left.
Many Christian workers have left. I cannot, each one must decide for himself what he's going to do. But Sammy has stayed. He has eleven Bible classes every week. I've been with him and going to the homes. There were fifth, we bought him a Volkswagen camper so he could go into the villages. His brother Phineas knows there are hundreds of villages in Lebanon without a single believer. There is the Orthodox and the Maronites, but I tell you they're great. enemies of the gospel in fact Samuel said one and here they were going to have prayer and this Orthodox priest had his hat on and so Samuel said most respected one he wasn't going to call him father and he said most respected one why don't you remove your hat as the Bible says when we pray and this priest said I am above the Bible well you know who they listen to after that don't you when anyone says I'm above the Bible Well, we had five thousand copies of Peace with God printed up, five thousand copies of How to Be a New Man, all in Arabic, to give to the peacekeeping force.
These soldiers came from the Sudan, these that came from Saudi Arabia, these that came from Syria, and to give out to these, they're all gone now. Well, we bought this camper, Volkswagen camper, and in the last terrible siege, everything around where Sammy lived would have been hit with the exception of Sammy's apartment. Here's the only one. There are about fifty-six pieces of shrapnel that went into that Volkswagen camper. But in the middle, Samuel was down in a basement. I forget how many were down there. Just a little stinking place with women and children and men and trembling with all this fighting. These Syrians are Magnoons. They are. They're crazy. And they were shooting in the crossfire.
And so Samuel had a little camper stove with some fuel. And he also, and he knew this was coming, and his apartment filled the bathtub. He filled every vessel full of water. And he had three Bible classes with them. They were all trembling. These people were unsaved. He had a children's meeting. He had a young people's meeting, and they had an adult meeting. He had the children's meeting because he knew the adults would listen. They ran out of food. He went out in the middle of all of this, and the man refused to open his shop. He said, the only thing I've got is corn. He said, I'll take that. And he brought the corn and brought back, and roasted the corn for the people. The babies were crying. He said, what's wrong with the babies? He said, they're dirty. Sammy went up and heated the water and brought it down and said, I'll have some every day. Now, a little, what am I going to call it?
It's a little church building in the middle of all of this, and you can't imagine, just like an earthquake hit it. I sure. Yeah, that's what happens. Yeah, the whole thing is leveled. But this one building that was standing and they've rented it. They have more than one hundred believers now that have come out of this war that are there. Now, he wasn't able to get there when he was down in that basement. And they were concerned about a plant, like your women are, you know, your plants got to be watered. The plant would be dead. Now, to show you how God takes care of you. You take care of God and things he's going to take care of yours. When they went in, they found out there was a little leak in the roof or something. And a little drop of water would come down, and I saw it in May.
Just a few weeks ago, I saw it. A little drop of water would come down, a few minutes, another drop of water. Another drop of water. And it kept that plant green until they came back and then the thing stopped. They didn't need it anymore. Now that's a fact. And it's absolutely miraculous what has happened. Because God's going to take care of it. And Samuel is there today. He won't leave. We call him four or five o'clock in the morning. And he grabs the phone like that. He says, Samuel, what in the world are you going to say? I'm up with my Bible here and studying his Bible. And what God has taught him, he said, you're going to Israel tomorrow. Oh, I'd love to go with you. Please tell them that I love them, not because they're Jews, but because they're sinners for whom the Savior died.
And Sammy is something else. I tell you, we get a letter from him. We file every letter. He wrote a letter to an Arab boy who was working at the Intercontinental Hotel. He came to faith in the Intercontinental Hotel. He was in the Phoenicia, but then that destroyed. He's down in Saudi Arabia and head of the Intercontinental Hotels. But he wants to come back and serve the Lord. So Sammy wrote him a letter. You know he put it in the letter that he would say to you right now. You say, first of all, find out what the will of God is, realize. Secondly, do it. Thirdly, do it cheerfully. And that would go for any one of us. And find out what the will of God is, do it and do it cheerfully.
He looked at me one day and said, Roy, and here he is. He's almost like my son in the faith. And he looked at me and said, Roy, if the Lord Jesus were alive on earth today and he told you to do something, would you do it? I said, sure. He reached his testimony and said, this is what he says right here. So God has his people everywhere. And also, Brother Phineas doesn't mention Damascus. There are two terrific, at least two tremendous works in Damascus. They were sending their secret police into these meetings. But so many of them were getting converted that they quit sending them. They were going in there with tape recordings. But they don't get into politics. They just don't fool with the politics. They stay like we ought to be doing.
Stay right with the Word of God and God is saving them. And the Lord has his people everywhere. Again, the Father's house is going to be full. Amen. I wonder if you could listen to me for just a few minutes and tell you what happened to us in Beirut, Lebanon one day. Some of you know what happened to us when a rocket exploded in our apartment. This was on Sunday, the twenty-ninth of June, nineteen seventy-five at four thirty in the afternoon. Our shooting had been going on for some time outside in the streets without stops. And my wife, one of my two daughters, who was spending the summer vacation with us in Beirut, My son and I, four of us, were in the living room when all of a sudden a terrific noise, deafening noise, took us some time to come back to ourselves and discover what happened.
A rocket exploded in our apartment. In the room where we were, on the sixth floor, we were living in Ashrafia. And Ashrafia, as Brother Gustafson knows, was really hardly hit. And what happened to us? We looked around us and behind us in the cement wall, these houses were built by bricks, with bricks and cement. We found pieces of shrapnel. We counted them at least one hundred and eighty-four pieces. One hundred and eighty-four pieces. Around us on the floor, behind us in the wall, in the front of the apartment, all of it was gone.
And not one shrapnel hit any of us. How could you explain it that I was sitting here and the shrapnel behind me in the wall, embedded burly in the wall? But not through me. I can't understand it. But I know the angel of the Lord encampers round about them that fear him and delivereth them. He did. But one hour later, I found the eyesight of my right eye was getting dimmer and dimmer and dimmer. By the morning, the Monday morning, it was completely sightless, my right eye, couldn't see anything. The phones were on and off at some times. Water was very scarce, sometimes half an hour and twenty-four hours.
No food for three days, not a column of bread. We had consumed all the bread we had and the macaroni and the potatoes and anything starchy. It was very difficult. We couldn't get to the studio. We couldn't get outside. It was very, very difficult. But I called a doctor on the phone and he said, come to my clinic and I will help you. I'll come to the hospital. I'll help you. But, all right, could you come anyway? Are you kidding me? He couldn't come. Could you fill me in ambulance? I said, are you kidding me? Well, how could I get to him? Snipers were active all the time in the streets. So all of Monday I had no medical attention. On Tuesday morning I decided that something should be done.
And I told my wife that, honey, I'm going to walk to the hospital. She insisted on accompanying me and would not listen to my trying to convince her to get back because of the children and so on. She wouldn't. She walked with me about two hundred yards and I said, listen, if we get killed both of us, the children will be left without anybody to care for them. But if I go, if I'm killed, at least you stay behind and help the children. And that made sense to her. She went back. And to make a long story short, I hugged the wall of the houses on the pavement to avoid the snipers, at least on one side. And I reached the hospital in Ras Beirut.
Brother Gustafin knows how far the distance is from Ashrafia to Ras Beirut. I'm not going to tell you what I saw in the street, but I did arrive at the hospital. And I was examined on the spot, and the diagnosis, acute, instant glaucoma as a result of the pressure and the gases and whatnot. So I was operated upon and stayed nine days in the hospital. I received my sign back, praise the Lord. We depend wholly and entirely on a mail, regular, steady mail service to send out the tapes and receive mail from the listeners, which does not exist these days and beyond.
There is mail. but not steady. We can't trust it. Therefore, we're not able to get back to Beirut now and the studio is gone. So please pray that when this is may improve sufficiently that we may be able to get back and the studio be returned to us. Thank you. As fact, you'd like to also know this because you know Sammy so well. One night, Sammy and his wife have two little children, little Anna who is seven years old and Paul who is eleven years old. And one night, and during that heavy shelling, they were sitting under the stairwell, reading the scriptures, singing, praying. And the Russian shell was this long. And I can take it to show you where it came through the window.
It ricocheted off the wall and went through the top of little Anna's pajamas and out the bottom and never touched her. And, of course, as my brother said, the food was getting scarce, and the bread line was lined up at four o'clock in the morning. And Joy said, Sammy, you better go out and get the bread. So you can get bread. And he stood in the line and God rebuked him. I've never seen the righteous forsaken or received begging bread. So he went back home. About seven or eight o'clock, he thought he'd go back. And the truck was coming down the street. He was the bread truck. And he stopped and said, this bread for sale? He said, sure. Came home with a whole arm full of that Peter bread, the whole arm full like that. And, well, these things are real. These things are all real and God takes care of his own.
He does. Yeah. And it's just thrilling just to be around these. His family with no Christian background at all, but he's loaded. He knows the Scriptures like few men. Eleven Bible classes every single week in the middle of all of this trouble. All right. That's about it. I believe our time is gone for the afternoon. We have five more questions that need to be answered tomorrow. and any more that you may care to include. One or two of them are for latecomers who have once repeated some of the things we covered in the first day. Tomorrow is our last day. And if you have any pertinent question to the area we've been covering, you go ahead and put your question in there and we'll screen them and take out those that we feel are well pertinent to the situation we're discussing.
Let's just look to the Lord and give him thanks for our time and be dismissed. Dr. Bowie to lead us. Transworld Radio throughout the countries of the world, and he has brought with him, they're right down here on the rock wall, some maps of the coverage of Transworld Radio. And on the back it has something mentioned about the transmitters, where they're located, and the countries that they reach.
So they're there for your perusal, and take one and enjoy it right here on the rock wall. Well, where to begin? We know not, so we'll just jump in at a question and wait our way from there. There seem to be two questions that regard the Jewish people, the Jewish movement that is abreast today. One concerns the Zionist movement and the other, the Messianic Jews. The question reads, what is the Zionist movement? How would you define them?
The other, what are Messianic Jews and what do they believe? Since we have no Jewish brethren on board. Why? We got one back here. Do we? Yes. Good. He is a Messianic Jew. Want him to answer it? Well, he may be wonderful to find out. How to come to answer it? Good. Very good. Yeah, sure. We'll make room for it. We'll push this a jitter to the side. It needs to be. He's already said he's going to bury him in the sand. Don't have enough sand to bury me.
Let me just wait. Oh, this is it? Oh, okay. Fine. I don't know. In answer to the question of what is a Messianic Jew, a Messianic Jew is a Jew who has found that Jesus is indeed the Messiah and who has experienced a rebirth. in his own life. I guess most basic answers. It's one who's discovered that Jesus was the promised Messiah of the Old Testament. And it's come to completion. Why don't you give your... What'd like to hear your testimony? We'd like to hear his testimony? Okay. Don't take the whole hour. I can tell you how to get rid of a Jew if you'd like to get rid of him.
The Bible tells how to get rid of a Jew. Thus saith the Lord, who giveth the sun for a light by day, and the ordinances of the moon and of the stars for a light by night, who divided the sea when his waves roar, the Lord of hosts his name. If those ordinances depart from before me, that is, if you can have a night without stars and a day without the sun, like the little boy asked the question, why does the sun shine in the daytime when you don't need it, and it doesn't shine at night when you do need it? But if you can get rid and have a day without a sun and an evening without stars, then you can get rid of the Jews. If these ordinances depart from before me, saith the Lord, then the seed of Israel also shall cease from being a nation before me forever. Thus, saith the Lord, if heaven above can be measured, and it can't, and the foundations of the earth searched out beneath, I will also cast off all the seed of Israel for all that they have done, saith the Lord.
So they're here to say that this brother heard the gospel like the rest of us did, and I haven't heard it with us, but he's here among us, and I'm sure you'd like to hear how he came to faith in the Lord Jesus. I was raised not in the traditional or what might be called the Orthodox Judaism. I was raised in the Reforms. And my early upbringing, I, of course, went to Temple and studied, like many of you studied. I wasn't exposed too much to the Bible, though. And after my Bar Mitzvah, I, of course, just left Judaism. And in my searching, I went through a lot of the religions that a lot of the people of my age usually go through as far as the Eastern religions and the philosophies of this world. And I found them empty, and I came back.
and made a decision in the early part of the spring that if I was going to be a Jew, let me go all the way or let's forget it once and for all. And I went back into the traditional, I guess you call it orthodoxy, you could call it traditional Judaism. And a rabbi, I was in Tucson, Arizona at the time, was living there going to the University of Arizona about to go. And I embarked upon a real study of Judaism. I got back into the traditional Judaism. At the same time, I was dating my wife, who was a churchgoer. She wasn't saved, but she gave me a presentation of the gospel. And we would have a scheme program where I would go to church and she would come to temple with me.
That didn't work too well. But it did start me to read the New Testament. And as I read it, I listed all the contradictions that I thought were in the New Testament, things that I didn't like about it. And as I went back in the traditional Judaism, I discovered a number of things that I was never brought up with. One, I was never brought up with a concept of a personal Messiah. I was brought up with a concept of a messianic age where we would pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps, as my rabbi said. I was never brought up with a concept of hell or, therefore, repentance of sin. I was never brought up with any kind of background in what we consider the basics.
But as I went back into the traditional, I found that the old Jews did believe in hell. They would just argue over who went there, not whether it existed or not. And I found through the Bible that there was a personal Messiah. And I remember in the night and sixty-nine going to the day of atonement services. And I got out and I was just simply miserable because as I looked out and got out of standing and sitting and standing and standing, I got out of the service and I looked up to God and said, well, what? And there was nothing. there was nothing at all and about that time was like God just completely it was like everything was just turned sour in my life through reading the New Testament I knew that purportedly Jesus was the Messiah that he had was the sacrifice I ran into the scriptures in Leviticus Leviticus chapter eleven where it says that without the shedding of blood there's no remission God said I've given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your soul for it's the life by reason of the blood by reason of the life that makes atonement and I knew that I had that young people are no blood atonement and my sin couldn't be covered and at the same time I was reading the New Testament's word Jesus was the Lamb of God that took away the sin of the world and the biggest thing that kept me from coming to the Lord I know the biggest thing
was just I didn't want to see my sin but mentally was the fact that I could not confess Jesus to be God the night I got saved I sat in a minister's home and shared with him why this Jew would never become a Christian I believe in Jesus as a good man. I believe in his work. I knew he was a rabbi. He had a lot of good things to say. Much of what he said was already said elsewhere in Judaism. But yet the one thing I could not ever, ever do was confess that he was God, Jehovah. This to me was the most revolting thing that you think of the most revolting thing in your life, and that's how it was to me. And I remember as I was going back to my dorm room at the University of Arizona that night, When you have a fight, many times you pick over what you said after it's over and you're cooling down.
And that's what I was doing. And it was like the Holy Spirit was really getting me at that time. And I knew that there was no sacrifice in my life. I knew that I was a sinner. I knew about hell. I knew what the Bible had to say. And part of me was like a struggle. And part of me kept saying, the Jesus Christ really is God. And part of me kept saying, hey man, back off. You know, it's not too cool what you're about to do. And I can point the spot out to you on the road in Tucson where it happened, but it was like two trains just collided. And I was going about forty-five miles an hour, so I didn't have time to pull over and pray or anything. But I just cried out to God in my heart just to take my life, take the swim, live or die.
I was his, whatever he wanted. And I cried out to Jesus and found in that moment. What a Messianic Jew really was. I found Jesus as the Messiah. I didn't know any terminology. The only thing I knew when I got back to my dorm last night was I met God. I met him in the person of Jesus. And like I said, everything came after that as far as what had happened. But I knew beyond a shadow of it out that Jesus Christ was God. And when I confessed him to such and gave him my life, all that I had been searching for was just presented to me. God met me in that car that night. in our real way. Amen. Amen. Thank you, Messianic Jewish. Praise the Lord.
Don't any of us ever forget what a Messianic Jew is. You've heard that well. Well, we might further that question then about, while we're only subject of the Jewish people, the Zionist movement. I think you ought to back up a little bit on the Messianic Jews. There are groups, and very zealous, and I'm sure God is using them, and you've read about them, the Jews for Jesus. You've read about these, haven't you? And I'm glad that our brother has taken his place as he has among the Lord's people. I don't believe we ought to have a Jewish church and a Gentile church and an Egyptian church and a Swedish church, do you?
I think that was one of the big things why Peter and John had to go to the Hill of Samaria after Philip's great revival. Because you would have had a Samaritan church and you would have had a Jerusalem church. There's only one church. And as we said two or three times before, the body of Christ, the church is not Jewish in character, it's not Gentile in character. I have some young friends, well, quite young, out in San Francisco. And I had the privilege, I think I told you, of baptizing two of those. One is the... Well, I won't even go into that. It's a very wealthy home. But... They, first of all, the charismatic group got a hold of them. Well, they'll burn you. Then the Seventh-day Adventists got a hold of them. And they'll legalize them. And then the Messengers, then the Jews for Jesus group got them.
Well, these young people had never been in Judaism. Now, as I say, there are a lot of, I'm sure, doing a great work in many instances. But I said, why bring these young people back under Judaism in any shape, form, or whatever it might be? Why bringing them back? Because the When a Jew gets saved, it seems a Swede or an Egyptian or whoever it may be. We take our place with the Lord's people in the church which is the body. Right? Well, of course, the Zionist movement has nothing, and it can have many connotations to it. Theodore Herzl was the one, I suppose, who was the father of the modern Zionist movement, who believed. I asked Ben-Gurion one day, I said, Mr. Ben-Gurion? When did you first have the vision for what we see in Israel today?
And of course he started talking about her, Poland, Whitesland and all those. I said, I know all this. But you are the one that has been you. You've been used to build what we see in the ancient land of Israel today. And his answer was very interesting, especially for those of you who work with children, Woody Murphy and the rest of you, to work with children. He said, when I was a little boy in Poland, my grandfather used to put me on his knees. and he would teach me Hebrew words he teach me nouns before he teach anything else like head and nose and chin and knees and then he started to tell me about a land that belonged to my people a land which the Bible calls the land of Israel and he said he told him to be in such a way he said he made an impression on me that I said this is Ben Gurion said to me he said I said as a little boy I'm going to the land of Israel I'll be its prime minister And when he was finished, what little school he could have in Polish, Poland, because he was a Jew, they wouldn't let him go to university.
His father wanted to send him to Switzerland. But he said, no, I'm going to the land of Israel. And he greatly grieved his father. This was when these Zionists were moving and they were meeting a little group, talking about the land of Israel. And so he went to Israel. He changed his name from David Green, a David Druin, to David Ben-Gurion, which means David, son of a young lion. And one of his jobs was taking care of the sheep. So the old lion was lying down with the lambs. Those are the days, as I told you in our opening remarks, of the Turkish Empire, the Ottoman Empire. So he went to Istanbul and studied Turkish law. Turkish law is still in vogue in many parts of the country there today. There are two or three settler laws. And then he went to what you know as Thessalonica in the Bible, Salonika.
And he studied Aristotle and Plato. And he studied Greek. He constantly studied... until he died at eighty-six. He used to stand on his head every day, too. He studied Eastern religions. But I thought, if someone puts something into the heart of that child, and we see the fruit of it today. So when you hear the children's meetings here, these could be the most important meetings in the whole campground, in the whole conference ground. But the Zionists were started pretty much, pretty largely by Theodor Herzl. Now, I know that there are bad connotations with that word. with the word Zionist. But as I understand the word Zionist is that Israel is a homeland for the Jew. And Ben-Gurion, of course, some rich Jews from New York came and they had twenty-five thousand dollars and they gave them as a gift.
He knew it. And they said, you know, oh, Mr. Ben-Gurion, what could we do for you? He said, send me your son. Oh, we said, we know that, but I would like to do something. What could we do for you? He said, send me your son. He said, what made America great? Money, our people. And that was what he wanted. He wanted the Jews to come. Of course, you and I have seen them coming now. Over three million from one hundred and twenty countries of the world back there. And I believe this is the pure sense of the Zionist movement. Any questions regarding the Jewish people per se, the Zionists, the Messianics, or anything in that respect before we move on to another subject?
Is that what you understand the Zionist movement to be? Yes. But Christian Brother Thompson... I didn't with Ben-Gurion. He would only stay with Isaiah and he was a great one for arguing. He loved to argue. The first thing he wanted to argue with me was Isaiah seven fourteen. That's what he wanted to argue. But he did, because I'm not young, but he did love young people. But Ben-Gurion believed that the prophets were the architects of the modern state of Israel and that modern science will be the fulfillment of it. No.
Well, when I said, I think I said it the other day, and you asked the question, Messianic Jew, we usually said that. We simply use that expression, the language of accommodation. I think I said before, God has no hyphenated children. He doesn't have... And someone said, I'm a Jewish and Christian. He said that to me once, I said, what? I said, there's no such thing. I never tell anybody I'm a Swedish Christian, not that I'm particularly proud of it. But God has no hyphenated children. The best thing he can do is make you his child, and that's it. We may have a Jewish background, or a Gentile background, or a Swedish, an Egyptian, a South African, or a Rhodesian, but we are believers. I think we agree with that, don't we?
Notice every time you say something, he nods his head. Are y'all already? Oh, yeah. Well, we're both from Florida. All right. We have a question here concerning the city of Jerusalem. In your opinion, will Israel ever return the last of Jerusalem to the Arabs? I guess that's what it says. Or part, is that what it says? Parts of Jerusalem to the Arabs then. Well, we heard a number of times from the leaders of Israel that they will not do that.
The Arabs have been demanding it. And the Arabs say that they have a past in Jerusalem because it is a holy city to them. You've seen the pictures that the Paraguay Sultan showed. You've seen the rock and the mosque there. And the mosque is a very sacred shrine to the Muslim world. And therefore they are demanding to have a part of Jerusalem believed to where the mosque is. But this is also a more sacred spot for the Jews. So who's going to win at the end? Please answer this question. I think in all fairness, I believe that Jerusalem right now is better run than it's ever been run.
And I've been going this since nineteen fifty-five. I mean, the so-called Christian section, that's where the mostly Armenians and the Greek Orthodox and Roman Catholics, they have their freedom for their worship there. And I think that I know that the Muslims do in the Arab quarter. They have it on Fridays. There's no way for you to go in the temple area. and the Jews of course have the wall and when the young men broke in and the sixty-seven war went into the sheep gate or St. Stephen's Gate they said we will go in and fight house to house which is the dirtiest kind of fighting but you must swear to us on an oath that you will never return this city to strangers and I believe there will be civil war in the whole country if they ever did but of course I believe that in the tribulation the great Whereas the Arabs, whoever they are, we do know that there is going to be some kind of a temple there, and there will be the image of the man of sin in that.
So at least for a brief period of time in the future, it's going to be in the hands of the powers of the man of sin. Unless the Arabs take it between now and next week, and if it does, I won't be home. This concerns the temple, and the question just says, when, where? I'm sure it's discussing the rebuilding of the temple and when will it be built, where will it be constructed? Well, personally I believe that I will not be here when the temple is going to be built. the temple, if the temple is going to be built, which the Bible says it will, we shall all be up there with the Lord.
I believe that the church will never go through the Great Tribulation. The Lord Jesus Christ is coming for His death and He will go to meet them all in the air. And after that, what will happen will happen. So I don't have to worry about that. Thank you very much. A well-known conservative preacher repeatedly states that prophecy is not presently being fulfilled in the Middle East. Well, I'm sorry if I beg your pardon and I say I see it being fulfilled before my eyes today.
Prophecy is being fulfilled today. And it may not be fully fulfilled, but I would definitely say the state is being set. And what we see with our own eyes, being a man in the Middle East myself, and of the Middle East, I can say with full assurance that God is bringing to pass. The things that he had said would happen, and they'll happen today in the Middle East. I can go into details if you wish, but this is my answer to the question. Could you give us an illustration or two? All right. I told you yesterday of a prophecy, a prayer that was offered thousands of years ago.
Remember where it is? It's in Genesis chapter seventeen and verse eighteen. Abraham prayed for Ishmael. He didn't pray that Ishmael might have a long life. But he prayed that Ishmael might live before God, before God. Before God by nature, you and I are dead in sins and trespasses. But look what the prayer was. And Abraham said unto God, that's verse eighteen, chapter seventeen, verse eighteen. Oh, that Ishmael might live before thee, before thee. And I am seeing Ishmael today living before God because I see thousands of people turning to the Lord. And I have been in meetings and I have seen conversions and I have seen things happen today.
All right. And we turned to Isaiah nineteen the other day. And if you wish, turn to Isaiah nineteen. That's a great chapter. And if I might repeat what I said, verse eighteen came true before our eyes. In that day, Remember those three days, the three words are repeated over and over and over again in that day, in that day. All right, verse eighteen. In that day there are five cities in the land of Egypt, speak the language of Canaan, and swear the Lord of the house, what shall be called, what shall be called the city of destruction or the city of the sun. The city is there today. Don't tell me it was a coincidence to call the city of the sun.
It's called Heliopolis, H-A-L-H-E-L-I-O-P-O-L-I-S. Now this cannot be a coincidence. It's the Spirit of God speaking here. One shall be called the city of the sun and the city of the sun is there. Could you tell me how could verse chapter six, nineteen and verse five come through otherwise? The waters shall fail from the sea in verse six and they shall turn the river far away. When this prophecy was uttered, the river Nile was one of the deities in the land of Egypt. They worship the river Nile, they worship the scarab, they worship the sun, the calf, Pharaoh, the snake, the scarab, etc., etc.
They had so many deeds. And the Nile was one of the deeds. Who could touch the river Nile? And yet Isaiah did say they will turn the river far away in that day. We have lived to see these things happen, literally happen in our days, in the Aswan Haydam, a great project. Alright, how about the fishes? Verse eight, the fishes also shall mourn. And all they that cast anger in the brook shall lament. And they that spread nets upon the work of shall languish. We have seen this happen because of the lack of the sardines. The sardines have disappeared from the Mediterranean Sea. And the fishermen are lamenting and languishing. Thousands of people have been put out of work because of this.
I'm not saying that the project is a curse or a blessing, that's another thing. But this thing happened. How? How can we see these things happen and say prophecy is not being fulfilled before our eyes? Well, this is just a few. Look at chapter nineteen again in verse twenty-one. And the Lord shall be known to Egypt. And the Egyptians shall know the Lord in that day. And shall do sacrifice and oblation. Yea, they shall bow, bow unto the Lord and shall perform it. Well, this happened today. I praise the Lord that this is true. And it has to be through God's word. Look at verse twenty-four. In that day shall Israel be a third with Egypt.
With Egypt. Five years ago this could not have been possible. Today it is possible. We have lived to see that this thing happens. It is with, not against. In that day shall Israel be a third with Egypt. And with Assyria. You will ask me about with Assyria. Well wait a bit. The night is darkest. when the dawn is nearest. With Egypt and with Assyria, even a blessing in the midst of the land from the Lord of hosts shall bless saying, Blessed be Egypt, my people. According to this verse, who is God's people? Well, you answer this question. Blessed be Egypt, my people. In that Syria, the work of my hand and Israel, mine inheritance.
How can we see these things happen and say, Prophet, it's not being fulfilled today? Thank you. Did you care to elaborate? Any further questions? Oh, I think I know who the, and he is a great Bible teacher. And thanks, Brother Fanouz translates his material. And yet, you know, I've heard him make that statement. And then, almost in the same breath, he will, I've heard him say that he would love to sit down with President Carter and discuss... Zechariah chapter twelve and chapter fourteen well if it isn't the age you know because we all believe I think here today that this is primarily the age of mystery this is the age of the church but coming events cast their shadows before and many of you have been to the Middle East you've been there you've been to Israel and how anyone any believer can be there even in the midst of all the unbelief among the Jews you cannot go there without recognizing that God is in the shadows I don't know if you have this little motto or not by Mr.
Darby. I buy them by the hundreds. When I can get them, I get them from Britain. God's ways are behind the scenes, but He moves all the scenes that He is behind. And when you're there, you just recognize that God is behind the scenes. He's moving it. And what we're seeing is the foreshadowing of the real fulfillment. But it certainly is. I'm glad to be living now. I'd rather be living now than any time in history, wouldn't you? Yes. Living right now. Any other questions?
Yes, sir. Just a third, in fact, if someone wanted to sit down with President Carter and try to explain to him about what's taking place in Israel and what's being recognized as a voice, they will make some reference to either some scriptures or make some comments about this is going to happen with all of our Christians, jealous of them, and make some reasons that they know something about it. I heard that personally on TV and radio at the signing of the peace treaty. He made a reference to the prophecy of Isaiah that they will learn war no more. And I will see how he could get that from a newspaper or from a secular book. unless he had read it in the Word of God in the Scriptures. So he realized that what he was doing is a fulfillment of that prophecy.
And I praise the Lord for this. I really almost jumped for joy when he said, Praise the Lord. Well, these next two questions have to do. It seems to be on the matter of salvation. So either of you brethren could be directed to these. Do you believe the Bible teaches that some who have heard the gospel now would have not believed to be saved after the rapture, or their doom be sealed by their rejection, and they'll never have another chance? And the other one is somewhat similar. Do you care to preach the gospel on that?
Well, I have my own ideas about it. I also have my own ideas, but I give the microphone to the older ones. Yeah, very good. Right. We're picking out a spot to build a pyramid for this brother here. No, we don't know who has really heard, do we? We don't know who's really heard. Just because they've gone, like you've gone into a media where the gospel's gone forth in power and crystal clear... And when they've said amen and you walk outside, the person who was there, and he'll start talking about the weather or the ball game or something else. He has been there and he's heard with these ears here. But we don't know who's heard with the ears of the heart. I believe that the Thessalonians and Epistles teach very plainly that when they have refused the gospel, because they love not the truth, God shall send them then strong delusion that they might believe the lie.
and that they might all be damned who had pleasure in unrighteousness. But we don't know all those. I certainly, if I were living today, I sure wouldn't take any chance on a second chance after the ratchets had taken place. However, there will be a hundred and forty-four thousand Jews who will be sealed to pass through the tribulation without even the smell of smoke on their garments. And all hundred and forty-four thousand are there at the end. They'll have a perfect walk, a perfect message, and a perfect protection. And then it speaks about an unnumbered company of Gentiles that shall come up out of the tribulation by way of death. They're going to seal their belief with their own blood. But once a person has really heard and has refused it, he's going to receive the mark of...
This is one reason I don't believe that any other church will be in the tribulation. Because there would be many that would receive the mark of the beast. We think we get people and they get saved and we get them coming along and they're caught and all of a sudden you think they're really rooted and grounded in the faith. And the first thing you know, they're running off after some ismasm of spasm. They're gone somewhere. They are deceived. The elect in this age can be deceived. But the elect in that age will never be deceived. But there will be an unnumbered company of Gentiles. If I were anyone living in this age, I sure wouldn't take a chance and say, well, when the church is gone, I'll have my chance then. because they won't.
But there will be an unnumbered company of Gentiles that will be saved. But I don't believe there's anybody that's ever really heard with the ears of the soul and has knowingly rejected Christ when the rapture takes place. They've sealed their destiny. on the good Egyptian philosophy or not? I think, I really believe that you are a mind reader. Thank you. I read it in Arabic. We'll be having remarks addressing towards each question. Yes, brother. If they have not heard the gospel, then what is their position after the church is raptured?
Well, they that have been Godly law unto themselves, as we read in Romans. And I don't know if there are really people living today who have not heard the gospel, but if there are, Lord knows your situation. And they have a conscience. But this is a dangerous thing. If their conscience... conviction once. Well, they are under condemnation and I cannot see that there is anybody in the world whose conscience has not condemned him or her even once.
So they are really in a difficult situation and this is where your responsibility and mine comes in to preach the gospel to every creature, to all the world. Are you waiting to ask? Well, I think The Apostle Paul said that he was a prematurely born baby, didn't he? He said, I'm one born out of due season. And the way I believe that I've understood the scriptures is that there will be, in the tribulation of the grave, there will be Jewish preachers. There will be those who will be born, nation be born in a day. They will preach the gospel of the kingdom, not the gospel as you and I preach it today. But listen, if the Apostle Paul is any picture...
of a Jew who was really filled with the Spirit and for you what in the world kind of blessing will be when you get a hundred and forty-four thousand just like him roaming the earth. There's never been anyone like Paul. I believe there'll be two groups of Jews in the tribulation of the Great. There'll be the hundred and forty-four thousand who will be sealed and I believe there'll be a group that will be have a place prepared for them for time, time and half a time, three and a half years. I think we have the in Revelation fourteen. In verse six, I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth and to every nation and kindred and tongue and people.
And that's when the gospel will reach every place on the face of the earth in that tribulation period by the witness of these hundred and forty-four thousand. All right. I have one final question and we can spend twenty minutes on it, or we may take others from the audience. And I wrote out beside it a summary because it was quite an open question. What light does Scripture shed on happenings and conditions in the Middle East during these years that have followed the formal recognition of Israel as a state in We just covered many of them there in the book of Ezekiel, Jeremiah.
Isaiah. Yes. And Isaiah two. Isaiah nineteen. Is this your little letter you send out the other afternoon? I guess that's right. Let me just, I'm sure. Sure, it's fine. I'm sure, but you'd probably like to know this. How often do you send it? One every month? Every three months. Every three months. A little report of, and I notice here, letter from Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq, Egypt, Morocco. And I'm sure you have the same problem I do. I don't know how they get my name on so many mailing lists, except for the fact I do know there's a crowd in Fort Valley Forge, Pennsylvania that sells names and addresses for about five or ten cents a piece. That's how they get, they buy these mailing lists.
But, and you, I just file them in my circular file that I have at home, usually a lot of them. But I'm sure now that we know the one, our brother, and you've heard about the work that's done, that I'm sure you'd probably like to have his little report every three months. And so I'm sure you wouldn't mind giving you his address and put it on the mailing list and send you a copy. You'd be willing to do that, wouldn't you? Sure is. Great pleasure. If I might just read one or two. How about that? That's twenty-eight loads of bread. I know Saudi Arabia here. Oh, yes. This is a letter, may I read?
Yes, please. This is a letter from Jordan that says, It gives me great joy to send you this, my first letter, and to tell you how overjoyed I am to know you and to be led to Christ through the Christian faith, the faith that introduced me to the light of the world. Since I received the Lord Jesus as my Savior, I have been having Christian fellowships with the believers here. Your voice through your broadcast is a great encouragement to me, and I always pray the Lord to continue to use you and your glorious ministry. Please send me any Christian literature that you may have for distribution that I may grow in my faith. Thank you. And this is from Saudi Arabia.
Thank you for your letter and for the booklets you sent me. I have read them all. Please explain to me what certain names mean that I'll mention there, such as Matthew and Luke and so on. What do the digits that follow these names mean? References, you know. and so on. We received hundreds, literally hundreds of these letters, and we answer each and every one. Some of them are easy to answer, just routine questions, routine letters, but I remember one letter contained nineteen questions. And if you receive one hundred and five letters with nineteen questions each, or rather you don't have much sleep. What is it, you brethren, care to summarize any of our discussion for the week?
not well here we have a question back here take it for this question All right, what part in the movement toward Israel will the Jews in the United States take? Well, do you think they'll be, you're suggesting that possibly they may be driven out of this country or will they leave and go back freely?
I couldn't give you a chapter in verse on this except the Jeremiah passage that there are two means that God will get them back to the land, that is the hunters and the fishers. I'm going home to St. Petersburg tomorrow in the will of God and I have, we have a family. Very good friend of ours. He's the father of the dentist. And he has trained his children from the time they were little about the going back to the land. David is a university. He went one year at the Hebrew University. He was a graduate at the University of Wisconsin. He studied Hebrew when he was in the University of Wisconsin. And his father said, how are you making, how are you getting along? And the boy said, no problem. He said, most of the other kids were studying it as a foreign language. But I'm not. He was his own language.
Of course, it's a miracle that in our day, Hebrew is a modern language. Now, David's over. He's in the army. His brother Michael, Mike, is over there. He works in the bank. In the summertime, the father and the mother and two girls go back, and they work in the kibbutz with all the affluence that it has. And this is happening. They're going back. And, of course, when engineers were a dime a dozen on the West Coast, but they need engineers in Israel. And many of those engineers were going to Israel. When the oil crunch came a few years ago, the last one, remember the big signs in New York, if you cold this window, blame it onto the Jews. They said, that's the reason they were doing it. Anti-Semitism is always there.
I wish I had brought the, I wish I had it in my room, a statement made by a Jew in the Miami paper, pleading with the people to go back, back to the land, because they've never found any place in the diaspora among the Gentile nations where they're safe and secure. And there is definitely an anti-Semitic movement, very definitely in this country. But just when we do really, if we would take a national position, that would be the end of our country, wouldn't it? Is it true that many of the Jewish young men, are they recruited to go over and serve years and then come right back just for us? Are they recruited? They do go over and serve.
Yes. Is it more or less impressed upon them by their parents or by the... movement. There's something in them that does it. And many of them go over for just their service tour and then come back. Oh, well, I was in Fort Victoria in Rhodesia. And I was going down the street and I saw Sabra restaurant. I said, what in the world? And so I went in and I said, is this owned by a Jew? He said, yes, he's from Haifa. He says, he'd be back. He's out now for a few minutes, so I waited for him. And so he found there would be a much easier life, not today, but it was about two or three years ago, down there and could raise his family and make a good living without high, high taxes.
You don't know anything about taxes. There's been Israel. Boy, they really tax them. And the inflation wasn't many years ago. We used to get three pounds, twenty-fifth of a dollar. Now you get twenty-seven pounds of a dollar. And gasoline's over three dollars a gallon. So if you had a twenty-gallon tank, it's going to cost you between sixty and seventy dollars just to fill your tank. So I asked him. I waited for this dollar to come back. He was near Haifa. And he said, oh yes, but when they have war, he leaves his wife and kids there and flies back to Israel and fights until the six or seven days are over and then goes back again. Well, may I add and remind you of the prophecy of a man who lived thousands of years ago.
His name is Bela. He prophesied and said, here is a people who dwells alone. And among the nations he's not counted. He dwells alone because there is a poor holding him back to his own land, to the land. Here is the people that lived alone and among the nations they're not counted. Yes, sir. How free are the Jews to leave Russia now? I ask that there are fifty thousand that are leaving this year. Yes. Well, I think probably since Russia wants a favored status, favored nation status, that they have been willing to allow them to go.
No, and the believers, remember Christian believers, in the same situation. You read about that family that just came out a week or two ago. I couldn't have that. Well, thank you for the time you've given up here during the afternoon of this week. Hope it's been profitable. I will let you out about ten minutes early, and you've put in some good questions, and I think the session has been very profitable this week, and I thank all of you for coming.
I thank our brethren for being so gracious to accept your challenge of questions. I've tried to get this Messianic Jew back here in this Arab into a fight, but the Messianic Jews said, no, the middle wall of partition has been broken down. Let brotherly love continue. Perhaps Brother Gene Wade would dismiss us now in prayer.