[0:00] Good evening everyone, and thank you very much for having us here tonight. It's always a privilege to be able to share the Word of the Lord with people and to talk about the work of the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures and how we give out the Scriptures to the Jewish people.
[0:19] And let me just put all my little Bibles over here somewhere. And I don't want to drop anything over here. So, let's just open with a Scripture reading and then I'll carry on.
[0:35] Nehemiah 1, verse 11. And it ties in with what we've just read earlier on. And I just want to read one verse, Nehemiah 1, verse 11, because in that verse is one passage that brought this whole Isaiah 26 to my mind.
[0:55] Nehemiah 1, verse 11 says, O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name and prosper.
[1:09] I pray thee, thy servant, this day. And grant him mercy in the sight of this man, for I was the king's cupbearer. And the phrase was that phrase saying, Thy servants who desire to fear thy name.
[1:21] And we'll talk about that a little later again. Many of you know about the society. And I'll just give you a very short introduction of the work we do. And I think what I'll do is then I'll have a short report and close with a word.
[1:37] And then afterwards, in the meeting next door, I will give you more reports on distribution and a little testimony and see how it goes there.
[1:47] Because there's actually a lot to say and not that much time. But I would like to start and just introduce myself. I'm Arouan Meir, my wife Anya, and the whole team down there.
[1:59] And I've taken over from Eric Browning, who a lot of you would know him personally. He's been here in the past, him and his wife, Joy Browning. And they've come many years, many years they've come over here.
[2:13] And they're not here this year because he's getting elderly and it's becoming a bit more difficult for him to travel so far. Especially that whole journey up to Olapul.
[2:25] But he did ask me to read this later. So let me start by reading this little later. He says, First of all, let us apologize for being unable to be with you in our usual annual visit to the delightful Western Isles.
[2:47] As you will know, Arouan Meir has taken over from me as General Secretary and now he's fulfilling all my previous duties. In view of our physical inabilities, Joy and I, due to limitations of age, are sorry to miss seeing you.
[2:59] But we are with you in our prayers and also praying for Arouan and Anya and their family. We know the children will love the islands and the very friendly welcome we have always received on every visit in the past.
[3:09] And I must emphasize that that's a very true statement. We have found the people over here to be very friendly, much friendlier than down south. Consequently, we are so sorry this year that it's just impossible for us to make the journey.
[3:22] Bearing in mind our present state of health, we are not ill, just unable to face a long drive to and from Ullapul, which is more than 600 miles each way. However, the work and ministry of the site is going very well indeed, we are pleased to say.
[3:35] And in fact, it's never gone better, at least in our experience. And we praise and thank the Lord for that. We have just had an order for two pallets of scriptures to be sent to California. And these, of course, will be given to Jewish people.
[3:47] Last week, there was an order from Tokyo, Japan, and also one from Cuba and Kazakhstan, which brings to mind the Lord's word in Nehemiah 1 verse 8 and other places. Remember, I beseech thee the word that thou commandest thy servant Moses, saying, If you transgress, I will scatter you abroad among the nations.
[4:05] So he has done, has he not? Being not far from London, Joy still regularly visits areas where Jewish people live in order to offer the society scriptures. And this year has been very encouraging with Jewish people, often in tears, in view of the hatred they have suffered since Israel was attacked last year.
[4:21] In fact, they are being faced with the love of their own Messiah, but do not realize it. Recently, one home, Joy approached, had a warning notice. No hawkers or circulars or religious people. But there was a mezuzah at the entrance.
[4:33] Now, for those who don't know, a mezuzah is that little box that they put on the doorposts. And it's got a little bit of scripture on the inside. And they would sometimes touch it as they go into the door and sometimes maybe kiss the hand or so.
[4:46] And it helps us, really, to be able to see easily where Jewish people live. So it's very helpful that they put these things up. There was a mezuzah at the entrance. Joy rang the bell, and the owner was delighted to be offered the word of God, and especially the New Testament in Hebrew, which he had never seen.
[5:02] So he thanked the Lord that he overrules. And then he closes off and he says, O Israel, trust thou in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. He will bless them that fear the Lord, both small and great.
[5:13] The Lord shall increase you more and more, you and your children. Psalm 115, verse 9, 14, and 15. Yours in him, Eric and Joy Browning. So they are very sorry they are not here today, but we thank the Lord that they are still in good health.
[5:30] Now, to give you a bit of an overview of the work of the Society, we publish scriptures. For those of you who perhaps do not know the Society, please do, at the end, just have a look at the book table there at the back.
[5:40] We've got all these Bibles out there, and most of them, pretty much all of them, is in Hebrew and in another language. This one is Hebrew, and it's got English.
[5:51] And this particular one is a unique one, because this is a complete Bible. We don't normally give them out easily, because the Jewish people don't easily accept the New Testament. But it's got the Old Testament, which we call the Tanakh.
[6:05] And the reason for that is, if you look at the Hebrew words for the books in the Bible, there's a summary of three segments. And the one is Torah, which is the first five books, the law, the Nebuchadnezzar, which is the prophets, and the Ketuvim, which is the writings.
[6:21] And if you take the first letter, it spells the word Tanakh. So that's where the name Tanakh comes from. And this particular one has the New Testament as well, of course. And it's called Hebrit HaGharashah.
[6:34] It means the Testament, the New. And this one is in Hebrew and English. And we did this particular one, because we've had some requests for a complete Bible. So we did only 5,000 of those.
[6:46] But you can open it up, and you see the Old Testament on that side, and the New Testament on this side. You obviously have to go backwards, or the way we would think would be backwards. But it's the right way around if it's in Hebrew.
[6:59] And the other thing about these Bibles is they're in the Jewish order. The books are in the Jewish order. So what does that mean? Well, it's the same Old Testament text as we've got in our Bibles.
[7:10] The difference is that the order of the books differ. If you look at some of the manuscripts of the Jewish Hebrew manuscripts, actually what ends up happening is you actually have less books in the Bible.
[7:22] I think it's something like 22 or something like that. And the reason for it is not because some books are not there. It's because some books are put together as one. You get like one, 1 Kings and 2 Kings would be one.
[7:34] Ezra and Nehemiah would be one book and things like that. So that's just the order of the books are also slightly different, but it's exactly the same text. And it kind of matches what the Lord has said in Luke.
[7:46] I think it's 24 where he speaks about Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Sorry, it slipped my mind there.
[7:57] Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. And the three segments really that are in the text is pretty much what they also have been using all these years. The Jewish people use that order. So the first thing that happens normally when you give a Jewish person a Tanakh is they open it with what we would be the front, but for them it's the back.
[8:16] And he looks for, you know, is there a New Testament there? The exact same thing happened just on Sunday. We were driving up. It was on Monday. We drove up and, actually Sunday, we drove up and we stopped at services.
[8:30] And this one Jewish man was there with his family. And we went in and out. And I said to my wife, I have to try and give him some scriptures. And I just came to the car just as they were sort of going to start pulling their car out.
[8:44] And I stopped him and said, we support Israel and we love Israel. And they said, oh, thank you. And they were very thankful and happy to hear that because they get a lot of negative things these days, of course.
[8:57] And I said, well, I've got this wonderful gift that I would like to give you. We give these to Jewish people. And he looked at it. He was very impressed by it. But the first thing he did is he took it to the back and he looked for the New Testament.
[9:09] And now in that particular one, it wasn't there because it was only the Tanakh. And he was very impressed by the text. But he said he's going to Israel. And it is a very large book. So he didn't want to take it with him.
[9:20] So the only thing I could do is to show him the publishing name, the publisher's name there, the Society for Distributing Hebrew Scriptures. And I said to him, well, look on the Internet and you'll find it and you can request scriptures for free.
[9:31] So my prayer is that he will find it and he will actually order his own set of scriptures. And in that case as well, you'll be able to see that we not only do the Tanakh, but we also do the New Testament.
[9:42] A lot of Jewish people would take the New Testament. Most, of course, would not take it because of the pressure from other people around them. But in fact, we actually started the Society by publishing the New Testament.
[9:58] Many people don't know that. It was started by a man called Joseph Yolzen Tuffin many, many years ago in 1940. And he wanted to give the New Testament to his own people, the Jewish people.
[10:10] And that's why they started. He worked for the Trinitarian Bible Society. And they started doing this text where you've got the Hebrew on the one side and the English on the other side. And after some time, they realized that, well, if you do the Tanakh, the Old Testament, it's just a little bit easier to open the door by giving that to the Jewish people and then try and give the New Testament.
[10:31] And that's the way we've been going on since then, really. Now, we've done other editions as well in different languages. And there's a whole list at the back that shows you all the dates and when these have been published as we produce them.
[10:47] And please do have a look at that. And we also have a nice little magazine, which I believe I had a copy of somewhere. I misplaced it now.
[10:57] But we have a nice little magazine, which you'll find there at the back. Oh, here it is. It's called The Lamp and Light. And I know a lot of you are already subscribed to it. But please do have a look out there and subscribe to it.
[11:11] It's completely free of charge. And it just keeps you updated on the work that we do. And it puts our meetings and things there on the back. And we don't have a lot of pictures in it. But we always get very good feedback on it because it shows how the Bibles have been given out.
[11:25] And you can sign up with this little form there. A little form that you can just fill it and just put it in the little box that's there on the table. And we'll send you the magazine free of charge.
[11:37] There's also a few other things you can do there and sign up for. The one is a little prayer letter. If you're interested in receiving the prayer letter, it just comes out there every second month. This one is every second month and this one is in between.
[11:49] And then we have a little worksheet for children, Sunday school children or your own children or grandchildren. And it's about the Hebrew language and the scripture. And they just bring these things before children as well so they can think about these things.
[12:06] Speaking about young people and the work, most of our support really comes from more mature people, elderly people.
[12:16] But we try and put it in front of the young people as well. And the reason for that is a lot of young people don't have the inclination for these things at this age. But as they grow up and they become more mature, they realize, well, I need to do certain things for the Lord.
[12:31] And by that time, the Lord would have worked through their minds with the scriptures. And we hope that they'll be interested in giving the scriptures to the Jewish people. One such group we've been to that has a lot of young people.
[12:43] There's a winter retreat. And it was in Wales in February. And it's the second time we've gone there. We've been there before the previous year as well. And it's run by a particular church group.
[12:54] And there's about 250, I think, young people, 200, 250 young people there. And we just have a little book table. And as they go by, we speak to them and try and interest them and show them the scriptures.
[13:06] And we hope that in the future they'll have these things in mind and have a heart for Israel. It is very interesting to note that you have so many Christian people out there that have interest in the word of God and everything else and about giving the scriptures to people.
[13:20] But they don't have any interest in giving it to the Jewish people. And that is very shocking, actually. We need to adjust our thinking if that's the case. Because it is still God's chosen people in the scripture.
[13:31] It is still a specific people God has a plan with. Now, we also have day conferences going to many meetings and things throughout the year. We've got day conferences like you would have on a Saturday come in an area in a church.
[13:43] And a lot of people would come. And we talk about the scriptures, do some updates. And we've had one in South Wales in Pontypris, Birmingham, Blackpool day conference as well.
[13:55] And there was also a meeting in Wellingborough. And then if you look at the back of the magazine, you'll see some other meetings that I have not mentioned. These were by Tom Rice and Geraint. And Tom Rice is up in Northern Ireland.
[14:06] And he actually goes over to Scotland as well. At some point later this month, I think, he will be there for about seven meetings. And then Geraint is in southwest England and Wales.
[14:18] And they take the scriptures there and distribute it and show it to people as well. And it's been going very wonderful and blessed this year. The Lord has blessed all the meetings.
[14:29] And then also a little later, we'll have a Yorkshire Day conference in Normanton. And we are also planning an SDHS home conference at the office in Hitchin.
[14:41] Now, in Hitchin and Hertfordshire, if you're there in the office, it says it's a warehouse. It would probably be about twice or a little bit more than twice this length and about this high.
[14:51] And we stack it two-thirds of the way with scriptures. And we've got another warehouse down the road as well. And there's about 170,000 scriptures, I think, in there.
[15:05] And they come and go, you know, on a rate of about, say, 12,800 to 13,600 or so a year. Last year, financially, we sent out 13,600 scriptures.
[15:16] Now, we don't always focus on the figures, but when you do the calculation, you work it out. It's over 50 scriptures each day that goes out from the office.
[15:27] And it's a blessing. It's wonderful to realize that because those are going to Jewish people somewhere around the world. We try and only focus on just giving to Jewish people.
[15:38] Sometimes there are other people that request or, you know, do no donations and we send them scriptures. But we try and focus only on the Jewish people. And then we've just did a reprint for two editions, which we got, I think, in February.
[15:55] And it was this one and this little one over here. This is the New Testament I just told you about. And this is the New Testament just in English, a pocket edition.
[16:08] And we did 10,000 of each. The printer we've used is in Finland. We had one that we used to do in England. But there were some reasons why we thought it might be wise to move over to the other people in Finland.
[16:21] And they did a very good job with these as well. This particular one is the same as this one. It's in New Testament, but it's in Hebrew. Hebrew, and it's only in Hebrew. So if you don't know Hebrew, it's not really of much worth for you.
[16:34] But this particular one would be for anybody that don't know Hebrew. So we give these to the more Orthodox Jewish people. And these we give to those that don't know the Hebrew.
[16:44] And especially even we give them to even Gentiles sometimes. Because when we go out distributing, you don't always have anything to give anything to Gentiles.
[16:54] So you carry a few of these around. And when you get other people that you want to speak to, you can easily just say, Well, here's the New Testament. You're welcome to read it. So it's been very helpful.
[17:05] They look very durable. And they're nice and pretty. And do try. Take some there at the back and try and give it to someone. You'll be surprised how many people don't actually even have a Bible.
[17:15] I'm not sure the state of it right up here in the Western Isles. But down south there, I was really shocked to find out how many people do not have a Bible. Or you'd give one to a man.
[17:27] You can see that he's obviously 60s, 70s years of age. And then he would say, Oh, I haven't had one of these since I was 15. You know, it's shocking how few people have Bibles actually these days.
[17:40] Do have a look at those, please, afterwards. Now, we have had some other things happen during the year as well. A major update to our database as well because Royal Mail changed a few things.
[17:53] And we thank the Lord that went well. Didn't have any major problems after the change. When you do computer program updates, you must always be very weary because sometimes you introduce more problems than you started with.
[18:04] So it's a very, you know, interesting situation when you have to do an update like that. At one of these meetings we went to, we sometimes go to the CRE, the Christian Resources Exhibition.
[18:19] And it's really a bunch of people. It's like an exhibition hall and they've got all these things there. And a lot of ministries, all sorts of things and businesses, some of them sell church pews, sell all sorts of other things.
[18:35] But there's about a handful or so ministries that are really worthwhile over there. And we go there sometimes just to see if we can give out scriptures to people that are Jewish people.
[18:45] And we met some at the one in Birmingham last year. And the one was a lady and she was some sort of chaplain at the prison. And she said, oh yes, I would like some of these scriptures.
[18:57] And then she saw the Russian and she saw the Spanish. And I think she ended up taking three or four sets of the New and the Old Testament. And she took them to the prison because she said there are many Jewish people there as well.
[19:09] And we thank the Lord for that. And then there was a rabbi at that particular CRE. He came and he took some scriptures. I think he ended up taking one of these as well.
[19:22] This is a booklet, The Messiah of Israel it's called. And it's in Hebrew and English. And when you open it up it's just Hebrew and English. And it's all scripture. It's all it is really.
[19:33] And it just gives you the Old Testament text and the New Testament fulfillment of the text of the prophecy. And it's a wonderful book for them to study and look through if they want to know more about the Lord Jesus Christ.
[19:45] And who is this Messiah? And where are the answers about this Messiah that they've been seeking for so long? So the Lord's blessing the work in that sense. We also had some rabbis from Brazil request some scriptures.
[20:00] We sent 22 rabbis there in remote areas. And also there was another rabbi which was kind of a unique situation for us.
[20:10] Because you don't normally get the rabbis request scriptures. You get other people. But there was a rabbi. He was from three jails. He was the chaplain at three different jails in north of England.
[20:21] And he requested some scriptures which we've sent as well. Well, of course, in those cases, I think it was mainly the Tanakh that went out, not the New Testament. But you can give the Tanakh to someone and still know the Lord can work through the scriptures.
[20:34] Because even the Old Testament is full of the Lord Jesus. He's full of the Messiah. If you read verses like Psalm 2, Psalm 22, Isaiah 53, and you read it with an open heart and mind, I mean, there's only one person that fits that picture.
[20:50] And it's the Lord Jesus Christ. And the Jewish people, when they read that, they know that. So the Lord's been very good. We've got these people. I'll tell you a little bit about them later.
[21:00] But Jackie Powell in the USA. Alan Baker. And then, like I said, Tom Rice and Geraint Howells. They give out many scriptures. And then also Eric and Joy. And Joy and her team go into North London.
[21:13] And I'll tell you a little bit about that later, about giving out the scriptures in North London. And also the opportunity that I recently had with Geraint to go. Because sometimes we would go in the place of Joy and her team.
[21:26] And we would go into North London and try and do the actual distribution ourselves. Because otherwise I'd just sit in the office the whole day behind a computer and things like that. But it is actually challenging to go and try and distribute the scriptures yourself.
[21:42] It's quite something else. And then also there's another man and his wife in California. They work very closely with Jackie Powell. And it's Jerry and Nancy Sands.
[21:54] He himself is Jewish and grew up in a Jewish household. And the Lord saved his soul as well. And they've got a very big heart for the Jewish people and trying to give out the scriptures.
[22:06] So the Lord's been very good in the past year. We thank him for that and we praise him for that. And I'll stop there for now. I'll just stop there.
[22:17] And I'll ask you once again to please do have a look at the scriptures at the back. And then we'll turn to the scriptures and we'll just have a quick read through the scriptures.
[22:28] And see what we can learn from the scriptures. This last book I just want to show you over here is another pocket edition. And it's only in Hebrew characters.
[22:40] Now if you go and you read it, you'll see it's different languages. If you can understand the language of German, you will be able to read the one if you can understand Hebrew characters.
[22:51] Because the one is in Yiddish. Yiddish is basically German. A kind of a German Hebrew language. And it's written in Hebrew characters. And this is in Hebrew and in Yiddish.
[23:03] This particular book. Now what is it? It's the book of Hebrews. If you look at the book of Hebrews, many people don't know, you know, if you just say that name, that it's actually a New Testament book. Many people, we've had people in the past say that, oh, you know, it must be an Old Testament book.
[23:18] But it's a New Testament book, of course. And if you look at the book of Hebrews, why the book of Hebrews? Because it speaks in so much Jewish language and Hebraic language. It just speaks about the Lord Jesus Christ being just better.
[23:31] He's better than the angels. Better sacrifice. Better everything in the Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ. And that's why we've done this. It's for the Orthodox Jewish people.
[23:42] And it's very discreet and small. And we are trying to give them out in ways, any way we can find. But it's also very difficult, of course, because the Jewish people, of course, you know, don't easily take the New Testament.
[23:56] Although something is happening. And that's what I want to talk about tonight. And we'll just look at some scriptures. But something is happening with the Jewish people. And we can't really explain it otherwise than that the Lord is doing something with them.
[24:11] And He's opening their eyes little by little. There are many ministries. If you follow on the Internet, there are many ministries online making videos and things about how Jewish people come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Now, the numbers might not be thousands, but there are many, many people that do come to the Lord Jesus Christ from the Jewish people.
[24:31] And something is happening in these days. And I just want to start with these verses again in Nehemiah. And then we'll progress from there. Now, Nehemiah, we were doing a Bible reading in our daily, you know, daily at the office.
[24:44] We try and do a Bible reading. Most days we do. And this day was going through Nehemiah chapter 1. We read through it. And this verse struck my mind there. It says, verse 11, O Lord, I beseech thee, let now thine ear be attentive to the prayer of thy servant, and to the prayer of thy servants who desire to fear thy name.
[25:04] And prosper, I pray thee, thy servant. And it carries on. So, basically that phrase, thy servants who desire to fear thy name. And it struck me that there are certain people that desire, they've got a desire to fear God's name.
[25:20] If you look at the history of the world, basically in many cities, even in the UK, there are cities with big buildings around, they've got verses around.
[25:32] There was a time when the society in general actually was open to this idea that God is the one that's ruling over us. And we want God to be the one ruling over us. Today, of course, that's not popular.
[25:44] And it's mocked and everything else. But that's the truth. God is ruling over us. The same thing is kind of found in Isaiah chapter 26 as well.
[25:55] Where he speaks there. And I'll just read some verses there. But especially verse 8 and 9. Verse 8 and 9 of Isaiah 26. Where he says, Yea, in the way of thy judgments, O Lord, have we waited for thee.
[26:09] The desire of our soul is to thy name. So, it's interesting. He connects the desire to the name of God once again. And the name of God is significant. It gets mentioned so many times in the Bible.
[26:21] And we don't always realize it because when the Bible is translated from the Hebrew into another language, generally the name of God is replaced with a title, God, or a title, Lord.
[26:36] And sometimes when the title, Lord, appears, they would put God's name as God. So, you read something like Lord God. Or sometimes the other way around.
[26:47] So, it's not always so obvious for us when we read that. But if you go to a Hebrew Bible, God's name is everywhere in the Bible. In fact, in this particular chapter, chapter 26, verse 4, it's one of the few places where, in the authorized version, where they actually stuck to translating God's name and using God's name in the text.
[27:05] You don't find it in other translations necessarily, but this particular one does. And there's a reason why they do that. There's only about 12 places, I think, in the Bible where you read God's name. And most of them are because it's a place name.
[27:18] It's part of a place name. But in this particular case, the name of the Lord is translated. And you get it in verse 4. It says, trust ye in the Lord forever. For in the Lord Jehovah.
[27:30] And the reason why it's, both of them in the authorized version is, it's a capital Lord, all caps Lord, which indicates that that's the name of the Lord. And then it writes out God's name again. And the reason for that is, if you go to the Hebrew, it actually mentions God's name twice.
[27:44] There's a shortened form, Yah, and then Jehovah, which is mentioned in the Hebrew. So it's emphasizing who this person is, who this God is. And it's emphasizing his name.
[27:54] And that's why it's wonderful when it's named there. And God's name is wonderful. And it's something which I think the Jewish people will start to use in a respectful way in the future. Now, it says, trust ye in the Lord forever.
[28:08] For in the Lord Jehovah is everlasting strength. And that verse reminded me of something else. Because if you go to Proverbs, Proverbs chapter, and you don't have to go there, but I'll mention the reference to you.
[28:21] Proverbs chapter 18, verse 10. We find that very familiar verse where it says, The name of the Lord is a strong tower. The righteous runneth into it, and is safe.
[28:33] And God's name is a protection around us when we're under God's name, when we carry God's name over us. It's like a banner protecting us. It reminds me a bit about when you look at a family.
[28:46] You've got children in the household, and you've got the parents. And I think we're all at that stage at some point where we want some freedom. You're a child, and you want some freedom.
[28:57] You want to experience the world a little bit, see what's going on, to various extents, of course. But then you get some, like the prodigal son, and he just goes out. He really just wants to see what's out there, and really just get the benefits of being out in the world, and experience for himself all these things that's been kept from him.
[29:15] But then you get someone else, like the other son, who says, No, I want to stay with my father and my parents under this umbrella that they give me. This umbrella of their house, which is protection for me from these things outside, which I don't know, which I don't understand.
[29:31] These things that are in the world. And that's similar to us as well, as people that say we believe on the Lord, is that we need to stay with the Lord under his name, under his protection from these things, and cling to him, and not try and be the one to go out into the world.
[29:49] We know the story about the prodigal son. If you're truly a son of the father, you know, you come back in the end, but you come back humbly, and you come back after you've been with the swine, and the pigs, and the things, and you've hit the rock bottom.
[30:05] So it's better for us to stay with the father than having to go through all of that. Now, there's also something else mentioned about the name of the Lord. In John chapter 17, verse 11, And the Lord Jesus prays, and he prays for his disciples and the people around him in John chapter 17.
[30:22] And then at some point he prays also for those that believe through them, which eventually comes to us. That's why we could say that he also prayed for us. And he says in John chapter 17, verse 11, And now I am no more in the world, but these are in the world.
[30:39] And I come to thee, Holy Father. Keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one as we are. Keep through thine own name.
[30:50] So the Lord keeps us through his own name. And I know it's difficult to understand, but I think it just emphasizes the fact that the name of the Lord is our strong tower, and we need to run into it.
[31:01] We need to cling to the Lord. And I just want to come down further again to verse 8 in Isaiah 26, where we've read there, The desire of our soul is to thy name, and to the remembrance of thee.
[31:15] And then verse 9, With my soul have I desired thee in the night, yea, with my spirit within me will I seek thee early. Is that our desire? Have we searched after the Lord like that, like Isaiah is describing here?
[31:29] For when thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. Going down to verse 13, you come to a point where he says, O Lord our God, other lords beside thee have had dominion over us, but by thee only will we make mention of thy name.
[31:48] By the power of the Lord working through us, will we be able to mention his name and stick to his name. But he mentions something else in verse 13 there in the beginning. He says, O Lord our God. And if you jump to the previous chapter, verse 8, you see the same thing, sorry, verse 9 of chapter 25.
[32:09] He says, And it shall be said in that day, Lo, this is our God. And you see this aspect of the Lord God that is personal. He's not just the creator of the world, some being out there.
[32:22] Many of the idolatrous religions and things have an idea of the creator, but the idea they have is it's very impersonal. And I read something about, and I don't want to mention the names, but one particular faith, that their God is very, very impersonal.
[32:39] And this aspect where God actually loves you is something that's foreign to the teaching of that religion. And that's because it's an idol. It's a false God. It's something that's made up by man. It's not something that's from the word of God.
[32:51] But our God, the true God, is a personal God. And you also get the same word being mentioned, the same things being mentioned in Psalm 48, where it says, verse 14, For this God is our God forever and ever.
[33:05] He will be our guide even unto death. God is our God. He's personal. And it's something to carry with us to think that the Lord is our God and He's personal.
[33:15] Now, I want to say this in closing, really, that the Lord is doing something with Israel, and we are seeing a little part of that.
[33:26] Many people don't really realize that. But if you go to Ezekiel, and we find there in Ezekiel, where the Lord is dealing with Israel in these prophecies, and he's talking about how he's judging Israel, and he's speaking to Ezekiel the prophet, and he's telling him how he's judging Israel because of idolatry.
[33:56] The big sin why God took Israel out of their land all these years were because of idolatry. If you read the scriptures, Jeremiah, Isaiah, all these prophets, it's about idolatry was the big thing, turning away from the one and true God, which is a warning for us.
[34:13] These days, we like to bring all these idolatrous things into our lives and think it's okay. It's not okay. It's not okay. It's not okay when there's not just the true God, but we serve other idols.
[34:23] It's not okay. The thing is, they were bringing these idols in, and God says, well, it's time for you to go out of your land. They went out in about 586 B.C. in the Babylonian captivity.
[34:36] The temple was destroyed, the first temple. About 70 years later, they started coming back, and then drips and drabs, they came back a little bit after that, but a lot of them stayed out.
[34:46] There are even Jewish people out of Israel today that still stem from this exile, which was so many years ago, 2,500 years ago. At the time of Christ, a lot of Jewish people were again back in the land of Israel, but they were never sovereign.
[35:03] They were never sovereign in their own land, never with their own boss. About 70 A.D., in the year of our Lord, about 70, the Romans came, and they destroyed the second temple.
[35:15] And we know that in that time, Herod was an Edomian. He wasn't even a Jewish person. He was the king over Israel, over Judea, actually, the area of Judea. And then the Jewish people, once again, were exiled through that, and we started calling them the Diaspora, and they were all over the world.
[35:32] And then something happened in 1948, and they came back into the land. And it was different than the other bits where they always came back a little bit, but they were sovereign.
[35:43] The first time in 2,500 years, they were sovereign. And I want to mention that because it is significant. There is significance to that. Now, Ezekiel speaks about how God is taking them out of their land and bringing judgment upon them.
[35:56] And then he starts speaking about how he brings judgment upon all these enemies and nations around them. And then something strange happens in chapter 36, where he starts speaking to the land.
[36:11] He's speaking to the physical aspects of the land. He speaks to the mountains. He speaks to the hills, the valleys, the rivers, and so forth.
[36:22] And you must note that these things happening after the chapters 36 onwards, we've never been able to find that in history, that that's been completed. So it is a significant chapter to think about where God speaks to the land being prepared for the people.
[36:39] And there's very close similarities to what's happened in the First World War, where the land was prepared, the Ottoman Empire was removed through the First World War, and the Balfour Declaration, 1917, and so forth.
[36:54] And they all started preparing the actual physical land for a nation of Israel to be formed. And then the Second World War came. Terrible, terrible things had happened there, but it scared the Jewish people so much, it forced them to now try and come back to the land.
[37:09] And you find something similar in chapter 37, when Ezekiel is ordered to speak to this valley full of bones, and all these dry bones, dead bones, are there.
[37:20] And He speaks to them, He prophesies to them, and they start coming together, and they start to get flesh around them, sinews and everything. And they are these bodies, but they're lifeless. And then God says, prophesied to them, and God's Spirit comes upon them.
[37:33] And I think it's significant because at this point in time, Israel is back in the land, they're spiritually dead, but with things like this that we do, giving them the Word of the Lord, they are spiritually becoming alive.
[37:44] And the reason why I mention these chapters is, I've seen at least two or three articles in the Jewish press in the last few months where they've mentioned these chapters.
[37:54] The Jewish people are talking about these chapters because they know it's got some relevance to them today, but they don't put the emphasis on God's Word that the Lord is doing through them.
[38:05] They put the emphasis on how they will restore themselves in a way, but they're mentioning and they're realizing something's happening. Now, let's take that as a fact that, okay, something's happening. So what does that mean to us?
[38:17] Well, if you go to chapter 38 and 39, you start seeing some terrible things, a war where the enemy is coming down to Israel, terrible times, and the Lord saves them miraculously, really.
[38:31] Now, the people involved in chapter 38, if you look at the historic maps, 38, 39, are the same people that are against Israel now, that are very adamant and saying things against Israel, and so forth.
[38:42] And then, you go further on, you come to chapter 40, and now we come to the focus of where we actually want to be. This is the main focus of why the book of Ezekiel was written.
[38:54] It's not to tell you about all the bad things. It's to bring you to the end, to say, this is the conclusion. And the conclusion is where the Lord comes and He sets up His kingdom and He reigns in glory and majesty.
[39:06] And, I don't want to go into it too much. I would encourage you to go and read it for yourself. But, I want to say this, that something is happening in the world today, and even though we can't say exactly where we are in God's timeline, what we can say, though, is that we need to be doing something for the Lord.
[39:26] We need to be doing something, if you have Jewish people around, you have to reach out to Jewish people. If you don't have Jewish people around, there are many Gentiles that need the Lord. And, as a people that say, we fear the name of the Lord, and we believe in the Lord, we must be doing something today.
[39:41] I'll stop there and just have a word of prayer, and then we'll close in the psalm, and then afterwards we'll give some reports there in the other room if you want to come with us. Let's just have a word of prayer.
[39:52] Our Father, we thank Thee and praise Thee for Thy glorious word which we could read. And, we don't always understand all the little bits here and there, Lord, but we do know Thy Spirit is working through Thy word to bring souls to Thee, Jew and Gentile.
[40:07] And, we ask, Lord, that I would use the work of the society, Lord, to reach many Jewish people, that their eyes might be opened to this Messiah who they do not realize is the true Messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.
[40:20] There is no salvation apart from the Lord Jesus Christ. And, we ask for the salvation of these Jewish people in the world, and even, especially the ones in the United Kingdom to whom we give out so many scriptures.
[40:31] And, we thank Thee, Lord, for all these people that support the work of the distribution of the scriptures, especially like this church over here. We ask, Lord, to bring Thy blessing upon them for that as well, for that sake.
[40:43] Lord, and help and guide as well in each day. And, we praise Thee in Jesus' name, Lord and Savior. Amen. Now, let's close in Psalm 63.
[40:56] And, we'll just sing the first four verses. Psalm 63, the first four verses, Psalm 63, the first four verses, Lord be my God, I learn Thee, seek my soul, and I thirst for Thee.
[41:29] My flesh longs in a thrive arch that when no waters be That I thy power may behold and brightness of thy face Thus I have seen thee hither to fall within thy holy place Since betterness I love the life, my lips thee praise shall give
[42:38] I am thy name, well in my heart shall bless thee while I live Let's just close the prayer.
[43:00] Our Father, we thank thee once again for thy word and that we can be involved in giving thy word to other people and especially the Jewish people but also the Gentile people, Lord. We thank thee and we praise thee and we ask, Lord, that thou would go with us all.
[43:14] In Jesus' name, Lord and Savior. Amen.