Good morning.
Seems to me that Kenny knows more about my life than I do myself. All these data—I had forgotten about that. I think I’m getting old, I believe.
There are many things you can give thanks to the Lord for. One of the smaller things that I have been thanking the Lord for over the last couple of days is that somebody, sometime back in history, invented air conditioning.
My wife and I were in Indiana last week, and we have always been interested in old things. We always wanted to see the Amish people, because although they came from Germany, we do not have them there. I mean, they modernised in Germany and became like the rest of us.
So we went to northern Indiana to see the Amish people and all the buggies, and we were thinking about whether we might like to join them. We have always been attracted by a simple lifestyle. So I do not know how I ended up having four computers and three telefax machines, but nevertheless, after these last few days, I do not think we are going to join them. They have no air conditioning.
They do not even believe in electricity, can you imagine? But we always get a very sweet and a very hot welcome in Richmond. I agree—we are coming at the wrong time of year. I am referring not to the sweet part, but to the hot part of the welcome.
All right, I would like to read with you. I will ask you to read with me a couple of Scriptures from the New Testament.
One is in Matthew 24, verse 22:
And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved;
but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
I want you to take note of this phrase: “for the elect’s sake.”
Then let us read verse 31 of the same chapter:
And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet,
and they will gather together His elect from the four winds,
from one end of heaven to the other.
Notice again this phrase: “His elect.”
Then go to 2 Timothy 2:10:
Therefore I endure all things for the sake of the elect,
that they also may obtain the salvation which is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
This phrase has been with me for quite a while: “for the sake of the elect.”
I have always wanted to know what really was, as it were, the nucleus that made world history happen and world events run. It is a long time since I understood that certainly this world is not being run by politics, or by mighty men seeking power and money and fame and so on.
I always knew, even when I was very young—and that is a hundred years ago now—that there must be something behind all this, something that is the centre of history, something around which history is revolving.
And I believe I found it. What makes history is God fulfilling His purposes. All history is nothing but a reflection of that one thing: God is fulfilling His purposes.
And in the centre of that is this people which is called the elect, the chosen ones.
I will never forget: until 1980, I did not really think much about Israel and the rebirth of the nation of Israel. I have to say, I was basically against it. I thought God had finished with the Jewish people, and that we who were in the church had taken over everything.
Even with all the prophecies and promises, I had a hard time believing that all this really belonged to the church.
Then, in 1980, I was for the first time confronted with people upon whom the Lord had placed a burden concerning what was happening in the Middle East, Israel’s rebirth as a nation, and all these miraculous survivals of this little people throughout six Middle East wars.
That is where the Lord began to place a burden upon me to pray for Israel. In a more specific way, I was called to pray for the release of the Jewish people, especially in the Soviet Union, so that they could return to Israel.
It was like somebody had discovered what Daniel discovered in his time when he read the prophet Jeremiah: the seventy years of captivity had come to an end, and the Lord wanted to bring the Jews back from Babylon to the land of Judah.
In another way, in these last days the prophets were speaking about how God wanted to return all those He had scattered in the diaspora to the four corners of the earth.
I began to pray into this area. Of course, I was greatly helped by a brother you know very well here, Brother Landrum, whom I have known since 1960. So we have had a long walk together as friends and also in the ministry.
I became so burdened about it that I joined a team of intercessors who went inside the Soviet Union to pray on location at Jewish centres, that God would open a way for His people to return to the land of their forefathers.
We went to Moscow, to Kiev, and to Odessa, which was the major Jewish community centre in Russia in those days in the Soviet Union. We prayed that the Lord would fulfil His Word.
Of course, it was not just because we prayed that something very powerful happened—but also because we prayed, and mainly because many other people prayed. Thousands, millions of Christians had been praying for the breakdown of communism.
I began then to understand that what really governs world events and shapes history is God fulfilling His purposes.
If you ask me—maybe you do not ask me, but I will answer you anyway—what was the major reason why one of the most powerful world empires in history, the Soviet Union, which in the beginning of the 1960s controlled directly or indirectly two-thirds of all the living people on the face of the earth, crumbled almost overnight?
I believe it was because the time had come when God was fulfilling His purposes with His elect.
I understand the elect as a twofold people. I know we are the elect, being the church, but I also believe that the Jewish people are God’s elect.
I never, ever believed that God could elect people and then reject them. To be honest with you, I would not like to serve a God who could do that, would you? Because if He could reject somebody He elected, then He could also reject us as the church, and I would not have a peaceful moment. I would not be able to sleep calmly and securely in my bed.
Of course, when God has elected something or someone, He is also able to have His purposes fulfilled.
They said all kinds of things about why the Soviet Union collapsed—that its finances were broken, and I am sure that was part of the story; or that it had run out of ideas, and those ideas had never worked anyway. But I really believe that this was another Pharaoh who stood in the way of God’s purposes, and that Pharaoh had to be dealt with in God’s time.
I have seen ever since, having been in Israel so many times—several times a year to minister and to pray—that it is just incredible why there is such a fuss over that little land and those few people living there.
If one man hurts his right knee in Israel, it is almost headline news. But if thirty thousand people are being murdered in Syria by their brutal president, nobody knows about it in the world. All this focus upon that little land and the events going on there has to do with one thing: God is fulfilling one of His great purposes. And that makes the devil rage.
That, I believe, is something we need to understand. When we read this phrase, “for the sake of the elect,” it is amazing in Matthew 24, where verse 22 speaks about a tribulation so great such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time—no, nor ever shall be.
I am sure that if the enemy could have his way, he would not stop until he had murdered the last human being and destroyed the last piece of creation that God created in this world. But the Lord Jesus says:
Unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved;
but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.
Can you see what is at the heart of the matter here, governing even such traumatic world events as this great tribulation? It is the elect.
It is for the sake of the elect that God is overruling history. For the sake of the elect, He wants something for Himself out of this whole mess we call the world.
The apostle Paul made this the whole reason for his life and ministry. He said, “I am prepared to endure all things, to suffer all things, for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain salvation with eternal glory.”
That was the only thing—apart from really living for the Lord, but in a way that is the same thing. If you live for the Lord, you live for His body; and if you do not live for His body, you do not actually live for the Lord.
That was his whole motivation for his whole ministry: “I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain salvation with eternal glory.”
If you recall, when the Lord Jesus prayed His last prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, He said, “I do not pray for the world.” That does not mean that the world was not upon His heart, and it does not mean that we should not pray for the world.
In 1 Timothy 2, we are exhorted first of all to pray for all men, for kings, and for those in authority. We should and we must pray for the world. But it is not the first priority.
The Lord Jesus said, “I do not pray for the world, but I pray for those whom You have given Me, Father.” Then He adds a little later in John 17, “And for those who through their testimony will come to believe.”
That was the centre of the Lord’s attention. That was even the centre of His prayer.
I work a lot with prayer, as many of you know, and I am more often asked, “How should we pray? And for what should we pray?” I believe it is very easy for us to get confused today as to which issues are important in prayer.
I also believe that even the enemy is able to sidetrack us, to catch our attention with many things that might even look good, but are not the heart of the matter.
The enemy is compared to a roaring lion going around seeking whom he can devour. He is not only going around downtown Richmond on the streets; he is going around in the church, of course.
I do not know whether he goes around the streets as well. I have enough trouble trying to face what the enemy is doing inside the church.
Many believers do not know that the devil is present also when we meet, trying to confuse us, carry us away, and distract us. He is able to use not only sin as a weapon, but also a lot of good things. Many good things become the enemy of the reason that the Lord wants to accomplish with His people.
One thing that has concerned me greatly is that, since I travel around among many churches—denominational, non-denominational, interdenominational, and all kinds of possible churches—I see and hear quite a lot.
We have noticed that there has been a good move forward in the body of Christ towards reconciling evangelical, non-charismatic evangelical people and charismatic people, for the sake of something else the New Testament speaks about: for the sake of the gospel.
There was some years ago—I cannot remember whether it was 1989—a large Lausanne meeting in Manila. For the first time, there was a determination among churches and bodies of evangelicals that they would work together, whether they were charismatic believers or evangelical believers, whether they believed in the baptism of the Holy Spirit as a separate blessing or experience, or believed that we received it all when we were born again.
They decided that the time had come and that, for the sake of the gospel, they must join hands and learn to love and appreciate one another.
Much of that has now been thrown into ruins by something called the Toronto Blessing. From my own point of view and experience, I have been one of those trying to build bridges between evangelical bodies of believers and more charismatic bodies of believers.
The evangelicals had a very hard time, as you know, even accepting speaking in tongues. But on the other hand, they all acknowledge that speaking in tongues is something that Scripture speaks about. However you interpret it is another matter, but Scripture does speak about speaking in tongues, prophesying, and the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
It is a biblical issue, and we can discuss until we are blue in the face how we want to understand these things. But we all have to agree that it is in the Book.
But now they are being told that the Holy Spirit makes people bark like dogs, crow like roosters or hens, and that you are supposed to have a lot of physical shaking in order to have what the Holy Spirit brings you. That is not in the Book, you see.
This may well be one of the enemy’s sidetracking efforts to confuse the real issues among God’s people in the larger body of Christ.
I speak to you in a broader way, but I think it is good for you to understand some of these issues with which God’s people are battling. We must take our Bibles and try to come to an understanding—but it has to be in the Book. If it is not in the Book, we are in danger of being drawn into deception.
The enemy is trying in many ways, as Daniel 7:25 puts it, to wear out the saints. That means to place so many burdens upon us that we become so tired that, even if we wanted to understand the truth, understand God’s purposes, and understand the real issues, we do not have the energy to do anything about it.
We are loaded with a lot of stuff. That is the meaning of the lion going around seeking whom he might devour. That word can also be understood as seeking whom he might preoccupy.
That is a deliberate strategy of the enemy: to preoccupy us so that we have no capacity for what the Lord is really saying to His people. Some people are preoccupied with their traditions in the church, and so they cannot hear anything new from God.
Others need to make a living and work hard. When they come into the church, they no longer have any capacity to hear from God. They are preoccupied.
Sometimes, when I speak to an audience—not you, of course, but others—I can see as I look around that some people are not with us. They may be here in the flesh, but they are actually ten thousand miles away in their minds.
Particularly when Brother Landrum and I are speaking, many are looking at this little thing all the time. You know what that is? A watch. Habakkuk said that the prophet should stand on his watch. But please, take your watch off and stand on it.
You see, I can sometimes see that people are preoccupied with this little thing up here running, and they are not with us. They are not hearing what the Lord is trying to tell His people.
In a Graham organisation, some years ago, they made a statistical study. They wanted to find out what percentage of what is said people actually hear.
They found out—and this was in Billy Graham meetings, and Billy Graham is a man to whom people normally would listen—that at a maximum, ten percent of what was said was heard. That was the maximum.
Because the enemy is out there to distract us and preoccupy us. If you study 1 Peter 5, where the enemy is described as that roaring lion going around seeking whom he might devour, you see that it has to do with burdens.
That is why the apostle says, “Cast all your burdens upon Him, because He cares for you.” Burdens of anxiety. Burdens of worry.
In many places in the body of Christ, we have not recognised that anxiety is nothing but sin. It is the same as worry. We think we are entitled to be worried, do we not? We think we are entitled to be anxious, entitled to stagger under all these burdens of different concerns. But we are not. That is the enemy.
It is almost his tactic to place so many burdens upon us that we cannot really discern what the Lord wants from His people anymore. We just continue the maintenance business of the church year after year after year, but we do not know what God is about.
That is why we need to have a nuclear focus. In the world in which I move—in intercession and praying for the nations—my goodness, there is so much stuff that you can get lost in the universe. You can think that through prayer and intercession you can save America.
That would be wonderful, would it not? But I do not think we can save America. I am sorry. Are you disappointed, Wendy?
You might just as well anticipate that we can save the whole world through prayer and intercession. But the Word of the Lord says that the world is going in another direction. It is not going to be saved. It is going to disappear. This present world is passing away.
The apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 7:31:
This present world is passing away.
Why would you like to save that which is passing away? Would you like to try to be more powerful than God Himself, or do something in which God is not interested?
The apostle John says:
Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.
For this present world is passing away;
but he that doeth the will of God shall abide for ever.
So why would we like to save the world? The world will never be saved. By “the world,” the Greek word refers to the orderly arrangement—the whole system.
All those Americans over here who believe that democracy is from God are going to be very disappointed. It never was of God in the first place; it is a Greek invention. God’s idea is a kingdom. It always has been a kingdom, and it always will be a kingdom: the King will rule.
It is not democracy of Republicans and Democrats. I am sorry, America, you got that wrong. This is not God’s system. It will pass away. Why try to save it when God says He does not want to preserve it?
It is like Noah. Matthew 24 compares the time of Noah with the time of the coming of the Son of Man. Do you think it would have been a good idea for Noah to intercede before God that He would save the world and that the flood would not come? Of course not. God had made up His mind.
He had plans for a new beginning with Noah and his family. That is also a picture of what God is trying to get today: the ark and the family of Noah, a family of righteous people.
We can lose our energy by taking upon ourselves burdens that are not even upon God’s heart. I even said this to the intercessors for America in Washington, and they received it very well. I said, “I do not believe that you can bring America back as one nation under God, because I simply do not believe it was a nation under God in the first place.”
I do believe there were Christian principles upon which the Constitution was based, but that is something else. That is not one nation under God. There has never been a Christian nation on the earth.
The first one will be little Israel, the day when all Israel shall be saved and one nation shall be born in one day. But that belongs to the next age, called the age of the kingdom of God.
Unless we have a clear focus, even in prayer, intercession, and warfare, we can raise an awful lot of energy and spend a great deal of time taking upon ourselves burdens that are not even upon God’s heart.
Look back at Matthew 24, and this time read verse 14:
And this gospel of the kingdom shall be preached in all the world
for a witness unto all nations;
and then shall the end come.
What is it that the Lord is after? Keep a finger on that verse and go quickly with me to Romans 11:25-26:
For I would not, brethren, have you ignorant of this mystery,
lest ye be wise in your own conceits,
that a hardening in part hath befallen Israel,
until the fulness of the Gentiles be come in;
and so all Israel shall be saved:
even as it is written,
There shall come out of Zion the Deliverer;
He shall turn away ungodliness from Jacob:
and this is My covenant unto them,
when I shall take away their sins.
God has something on His agenda, some purposes that He wants to have fulfilled.
It is expressed in Matthew 24:14: this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.
You can clearly see that God is not into what we call dominion theology, or “kingdom now.” God is not in the business of saving nations—not for this time. He is in the business of taking an elect, chosen people out for Himself, out of all the tribes, tongues, and nations.
This is the purpose of God around which I can see both historical events and politics revolving. I can certainly see the strategy of the enemy in this field.
The Lord Jesus said, “This gospel of the kingdom will be preached.” First of all, notice: it is the gospel of the kingdom, not merely the gospel of salvation. There is a difference.
Jesus always preached the gospel of the kingdom, which is more than we hear in many churches today, where the gospel is preached mainly for salvation: “If you will just accept the Lord Jesus, you will have peace and joy, and you will go to heaven.”
But this gospel is a gospel that requires us all to accept His lordship over our lives. If we would teach new converts that it is the gospel of the kingdom, not merely of salvation, we would understand that it is not a gospel where you receive a whole lot of things that you need and want.
It is a gospel where your life is required—to stand up for God and for His purposes, and to align your life with the will of God. He is your Lord, not just your Saviour.
This gospel will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations. It would have been easier if the Word had said, “as a witness to all the states,” because we have a little more than three hundred states in the world. But we have twelve thousand nations.
The Greek word is ethnos. In Russia alone today, not even considering the other nations belonging to the CIS, they speak six hundred different languages and cannot understand one another.
When you consider that this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world as a witness to all ethnic groups, then we know today by modern statistics that we have at least three thousand nations who have not even heard the name of Jesus mentioned one time.
Ninety-seven percent of these three thousand people groups are living in Muslim nations, in the middle of the earth—the area we call the 10/40 Window.
To me, this is a challenge for us as the church. This must be done, and then the end will come. Do you think it is going to be done automatically?
It is a call for everybody who wants to understand God’s purposes in the world today: this gospel of the kingdom must be preached in all the world, and it must be preached as a witness.
I love all these American people—do not misunderstand me. I am glad to tell you, to encourage you, that eighty percent of all missionaries in the world are Americans, and eighty percent of all mission funds come from this nation.
But there are some funny people among Americans. One evangelist had a plan: he wanted to hire a plane, fill it with tons of Mongolian tracts in the Mongolian language, fly over Mongolia, open the doors, and drop tons of gospel literature.
That was his understanding of completing the Great Commission. It could be a start, yes. It could be a beginning, so that people would get the gospel, or part of the gospel, in their own language. We should not totally close the door to this, but this is not enough.
Others say, “We can complete the Great Commission because we have radio stations now, and we can bring the gospel in different languages.” This is good also. Many people, especially in Muslim nations, have found the Lord because they listened to broadcasts, even in China.
But there must be a witness. A witness is more than preaching. A witness is what I call the church: a living testimony of who Jesus is.
To me, this is a challenge for prayer life, but also for us as a church, to complete the Great Commission. This is one of the issues that must not be confused.
If you look at the church from the whole perspective, is it really fair? Oswald Smith from Toronto, the great missionary, one of the greatest missionaries of the twentieth century, said, “It is not fair that some people have heard the gospel twice when there are still people who have not heard it once.”
Let me magnify this a little bit. It is not fair that we in Germany are running around—we have been preaching the gospel for a thousand years—and we preach it again and again to the same people who do not want to listen anyway.
Meanwhile, there are still three thousand people groups, not far from where I live, who have never, ever heard the gospel once.
Jesus did not say, “First of all, you need to get all of the two hundred and seventy-five million Americans saved, and then you can go and preach the gospel in other nations.” He did not say that.
He did not even say that He had any idea of getting whole nations saved on this side of His coming. He said He wanted a people unto Himself from all tribes, tongues, and ethnic groups.
So I simply believe that we need to change our understanding of world evangelism. When Jesus sent His disciples out, He sent them two by two and said, “Go to the houses. If they receive you, let your peace be there. If they do not receive you, dust your feet and go to another place.”
But what are we doing? We are going to the same houses where they do not want to listen anyway, instead of going to those who are ready.
If I take a suitcase full of gospel tracts and go to the railway station in Frankfurt to hand them out, only very few will take a tract to begin with. Those who take one will throw it away a few yards down the road.
If I take the same suitcase and go to Nepal or India, it takes no less than ten minutes and all the tracts are gone—taken by hungry people and thirsty people.
You wonder why so little revival and awakening is happening in the Western world. I am just telling you a little bit about the issue—what it is that we need to understand.
This is one of the issues: God wants the elect. It is for the sake of the elect that we must have a heart for the elect. He wants a chosen people, but not just from America. He wants them from every tribe and every tongue.
When we stand before His throne to sing His praise, there will be praise from every language.
I do not know whether you would like to be busy here a little bit to help the Lord. Some of you young people, would you like to volunteer to be one of those whom the Lord might use to bring the gospel to ethnic groups of people who have never, in all of history, ever heard the name of Jesus mentioned once?
For the sake of the elect—what did Paul say? Paul did not say that he wanted to endure all things merely for the sake of those who were already in. No, he said, “I endure all things for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain.”
He was speaking not just in the present sense but also in the future sense: that they may obtain—all those who had been chosen, or, if you want to use a Calvinistic term, predestined.
I am that much of a Calvinist, I tell you. I believe God has a number of people from each ethnic group whom He wants to bring in.
Romans 11 speaks about the Gentiles: “the fulness of the Gentiles must come in.” This is interesting, because it is along the lines of what I said—that God has a specific number of people whom He wants to bring into His kingdom.
I used to say that I do not mind Calvinism if we could somehow get rid of Calvin at the same time. He did some things that were not good. He approved of some people who did not agree with him being burned at the stake in the streets of Geneva. So I do not want to be a Calvinist in that way.
But I do believe this is the key to God’s heart. He wants this chosen people, and He speaks about the fulness of the Gentiles that must come in.
The Greek word for “fulness” is pleroma, and it has a twofold meaning. First of all, it means number. So I believe God has a number of people He wants to take out of all nations, tribes, and tongues under the sun.
We do not know that number, and thank God we do not know it. If we did, we would all lean back in our armchairs, light a cigar or whatever, and say, “Okay, this is something that is done. We have finished.”
But you cannot say that, because you do not know how many. Our calling is to preach the gospel to all those who do not know the gospel. It is God’s business to select the number, but it is our business to preach the gospel to all creatures.
Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to the whole creation.
We cannot lean back and say, “God is going to have it anyway.” In a way that is true, but God does not want to bring them into His kingdom automatically. He uses His church.
The way I understand it, you and I have the privilege of being God’s co-workers. But if we do not, He will find somebody else. His will will get the job done, no question. But you and I might be left disqualified in the end.
We will have a place in heaven, yes, but what about the reward? Are we those who want to work with the Lord and be His co-workers, or are we those who leave it all to the sovereignty of God and to God’s choice of other people? I do not know about you, but I want to have a part in this. I consider it a great honour and a great privilege.
The fulness of the Gentiles does not only mean the full number. The word also means maturity.
We are not only dealing with God counting heads: so many. No, we are dealing with fulness—spiritual fulness as well. We must have both.
It means that the harvest must be brought in. God must have this particular people saved from all these tribes. But that is not enough. That does not satisfy His heart. Fulness also means that they must be brought into spiritual maturity.
To make it practical—and there is no other way I can make it, because I was made a practical man in the first place—unity in the body is a high priority on God’s heart. Unity.
God does not only want a number of individuals; He wants a body, right? When God is building His house, He does not want a pile of bricks lying on the field. He wants us to be built together as a real house.
This is not how you build houses here in Richmond, is it? You buy a piece of land, phone the brick factory, and say, “Could you bring me three hundred and fifty thousand wonderful bricks?” They come with trucks and unload three hundred and fifty thousand polished, wonderful bricks. Then you call your neighbours and say, “Look, my house.”
I tell you something: many churches look like that. Many churches are nothing but a pile of bricks.
God wants more than people merely to get saved. He wants the fulness.
One of the great issues that I can find in the Word, and I believe is in God’s heart, is this: the bride has made herself ready.
As surely as we are coming to the day of the Lord’s return, He wants His bride to be ready. All you men, did you not want your bride to be ready when you married her—prepared and beautiful? Sure. Why should the Lord Jesus not be allowed to have the same joy: a bride prepared?
Ephesians 5 says that the Lord is coming for a glorious church. I do not believe the Lord is coming to take a miserable flock—a depressed flock of believers, disarrayed and depressed—who, as soon as they are brought through the pearly gates, wipe the sweat from their brows and say, “Oh, I am so glad we made it.”
Then the Lord would take this miserable lot to His Father and say, “Dear Father, I am afraid this is all we got out of the whole thing.” Do you think that would be worthy of the Lamb, worthy of Him who gave His life? No, of course not. A glorious church.
What should I be working for, then? I should be working for what Paul worked for: a glorious church.
When the rest went home from the Sunday morning meeting, Paul stayed back and interceded for the church and for everything that lacked in its fulness. He said, “I take that upon my flesh, even the sufferings of Christ, for the sake of His church, which is His body—for the sake of the elect.”
So here we are. We must give ourselves in prayer and consecration to work for the unity of the body.
You can see why, for instance, when we speak about Matthew 24:14, ninety-seven percent of all unreached people groups are concentrated in Muslim countries. This is the way the devil is trying to block God’s purposes.
It is as though the devil has realised that he cannot keep the whole world away from the Lord. He cannot prevent the Lord from having His inheritance from all nations. But he has now concentrated his efforts; he has built a fortress.
To evangelise a Muslim country is something out of this world. This is the most difficult thing you would ever encounter. Communism was nothing compared to Islam.
On the contrary, during communism, many people say that in East Germany, the former DDR, there were four times as many believers as in West Germany—four times as many. Communism was not able to keep God from getting Himself a people from the communist segment.
But look at the Muslim world. Look at Saudi Arabia. Oh, man.
There are a few Muslim countries where there has been a breakthrough. Indonesia is one of them; Pakistan is another. But look at all these states from the Middle East eastward—all these Muslim states. There are hardly any believers, and it is almost impossible to preach the gospel.
The devil knows that if he can block God from getting this chosen people for Himself, he can delay the second coming of the Lord. He can block God’s purposes.
That is why we need to understand things like this. The devil knows that if he can keep the body divided, so that we do not come together and become built up as a body, and if we do not begin to love brothers and sisters from churches other than our own, then he can frustrate God’s purposes from being fulfilled.
That is exactly what he is up to—not only through the old type of division caused by theological differences, but also through all these nearly New Age things being offered to the church in order to split apart and destroy unity.
And then there is Israel. The fulness of the Gentiles must come in, and so all Israel will be saved.
The Deliverer will come out of Zion,
and He will turn away ungodliness from Jacob.
That is the same reason why Israel, that little land in the Middle East, has become such a target for satanic operation.
Even those who live in the land—I can feel it whenever I go there—it is as though all the great principalities and powers have concentrated their presence almost in Israel.
This whole so-called peace process is nothing but a more effective way in which the enemy could try to prevent or resist God’s purposes from being fulfilled.
It is one thing for Israel and God’s purposes with Israel to be resisted by a million Arab enemies, but at least that was an enemy from the outside. Now see what has happened on the inside.
The enemy has managed so that even the present Israeli government gives away parts of the promised land that had been given back by God’s sovereignty to Israel through six Middle East wars. They are now so eager that they are almost falling over one another’s feet in their eagerness to give away everything.
What is it? How can the Jews come back? There are still twelve million Jews outside Israel. How can they come back when the land is being divided and areas are being taken away? Where will all these immigrants, these Jewish immigrants, take root?
Do you understand? Can you see the picture? The enemy is raging against God’s purposes.
So here are three purposes that I would like to leave with you.
First, Matthew 24:14 must be fulfilled. We should ask God’s people, in prayer and also elsewhere, whether we are prepared to work with the Lord for the completion of the Great Commission.
Second, we must labour for the unity of the body and the fulness of the church.
Third, we must pray for the restoration of Israel.
To me, these are three clear prophetic purposes and issues that we are facing today in the world. The enemy is trying to diffuse us, to take us away from what is God’s agenda.
I hope he will not succeed with you, or with me, or with us. Let us ask the Lord to give us ourselves so that we can see clearly and discern what is God’s heart—what is of importance.
God bless you. Amen.