It's my privilege this morning to welcome to our pulpit the Reverend Stephen Atkinson, who is the head of the Christian Witness to Israel in North America. He's told us quite a lot in Sunday school. Not all of us were here. Let me just say, in 1842, a group of Scots Presbyterians, many of them well-known to us, in fact, we'll be singing a hymn later on, written out of that community, after the Lord's Supper, they were burdened for the Jewish people that were living in the land of Great Britain and around them in Scotland. banded together a hundred and uh... seventy five years ago fifty years before our church was founded to give a witness to the jewish people now in our day it is the united states to which the jewish people have come number he'll give us is forty two percent of the jewish people on the earth live in america if you read your old testament and you say i wonder where they are now those people a good deal of them are here well how we ought to pray for and do all we can for the work in which Stephen's involved, the witness of the gospel to the people according to the flesh who were the people of Israel, that they might yet again enter into the covenant people of God through faith in the Lord Jesus. We look forward to hearing God's word from Reverend Atkinson. Well, again, I do want to say a thank you to the Pastors and Missions Committee for the invitation and for the welcome, and just for the warmth of what I have received already among you in the brief time that I've been here. When I was taking the men's luncheon on Friday, I was giving some advice on how to receive traveling missionaries from 2nd and 3rd John, and it was I took them not only to 2nd and 3rd John, but also to a 2nd century document called the Didache, which was an early kind of book of church order for how to, well, a number of things, but in addition to how to receive traveling missionaries. Because in the early church, there were a lot of traveling apostles and preachers and missionaries, and it grew to settled ministries. And then there were tensions between the settled ministries and the traveling missionaries. And one of the documents said that the Didache made the point that a traveling missionary may stay two days, but if he stays three days, he is a false prophet. So I arrived here Thursday night. I really need to get out of time. But it is a delight to stay four days with you and enjoy that fellowship and friendship in the Lord and in the things of God. I was told that because of a certain sporting event I would be received with smiles, and well, I have been received with smiles for a variety of reasons. Can I just again briefly commend to you our literature? I'll make reference as we proceed through this morning to some of that, but some historic documents from saints of old, but also some up-to-date. frontline evangelistic activity among the Jewish people, what our missionaries are doing, where they're doing it in various parts of the world. So I commend to you our newsletters as well. Please turn with me to God's Word and Luke's Gospel, chapter 24. Luke 24 and verse 44 to 47. Luke 24 and verse 44. Then he said to them, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. Amen. May the Lord bless to us the reading of his word. Well, what a football game it was. What a comeback. I wonder, did you see it? Did you see it happening? thought they had won and it all went right down to the wire. Or they were 3-0 up and they came back to 3-2 at the end of time, but then there was extra time and in the final minute of extra time, it became 3-0. You're looking a bit confused. I'm talking about football with feet. Premiership, English, Arsenal, 3-0 down. Oh, you mean Clemson, okay. What passion, what enthusiasm that brings it right to the wire with one second to go, that takes commitment to the very last. Well, that's what I want to talk about. Commitment to the very last. commitment to the commission that we have been given and the disciples have been given in Luke 24. And I want to talk about that mission under three headings. About whom is the mission? Well, that's answered in verses 44 to 46. Concerning what is answered in verse 47a. and taken to where is answered in 47b. Under three alliterated headings, I want us to talk about the content of mission, the kerygma, or proclamation, the kerygma of mission, and then the context of mission. So first of all, the content of mission. About whom are we to speak? Very simply, it's Jesus, but we read it there in verses 44, the 46, these are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled. Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures and said to them, thus it is written, or it stands written, it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead. The Jewish people have a Bible very similar to ours. It is our Old Testament, though don't call it an Old Testament if you're talking with a Jewish person. Be sensitive. Call it what they call it, and that is the law, the prophets, and the writings. Jesus didn't call it an Old Testament. He called it the law of Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms. Jewish people have a Tanakh. That's what they call their Bible. It's T-N-K. The Torah, or the law, the Nevi'im, the prophets, and the Ketuvim, the writings. So the TNK become the Jewish Bible, the Tanakh. And it's the same as ours. Books are a little bit of a different order, but it is the same as ours. So their book is 2 3rds of our book. The sad reality is that they don't know their book. And if they knew their book, they would know that their book speaks of him. Jesus told the Jewish disciples that everything written about me in the law, the prophets of the writings, must be fulfilled and has not been fulfilled in his suffering and his death and his resurrection. The Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, speaks of him. That's what he said to the Jews, the leaders in John 5, didn't he? He said, search, you search the scriptures, well, search them because they witness to me, he said. And John writing at the end of his gospel in John 20, he says, all of this is written so that you might believe what? That you might believe Jesus is the Christ, is the Messiah, is the son of God. And on Friday evening, we looked at the day of Pentecost, and you remember they were gathered for the festival, the Jewish festival of Pentecost. And what did Peter preach? About whom did Peter preach? What was the content of his preaching? He quoted Joel. He quoted the Psalms. He quoted the law. They were cut to the heart. The law, the prophets, and their writings was the content of that Jewish evangelism on the day of Pentecost. Let us know for certain, he says, let the house of Israel know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucify. The Jewish people need to know the law, the prophets, and the writings. They don't know it. They don't know their own Bibles. Most of them are atheists. Many of them have an interest in reading the scriptures. But we must bring them to the scriptures. I'm going to take a little drink. Five times in three days is taking its toll on the voice. The law, while Jewish life and history is all about blood sacrifice, isn't it? Surely they know that the law demands blood. Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission for sins. They don't see that today. The rabbis have reinterpreted it. We sometimes think of the Jewish people as what we read in the Bible. Don't think of them like that. They're not like that today. They're 2,000 years removed. Sometimes we think, well, if only we can just take them to the Bible and show them this, this, and this. It doesn't work that way. Rabbinic reinterpretations have meant they're even 2,000 years removed from the Pharisees. And church history from 2,000 years means that we have a lot of clutter that gets in the way of our Jewish evangelism as well. But nonetheless, we need to bring them to see the law. They have a day of atonement, a Yom Kippur, but they have no atonement. They are hoping that their name is in the Book of Life. They are hoping that their good deeds outweigh their bad deeds, and their name is in the Book of Life. But we need to bring them to the law, and we need to bring them to the prophets which speak of the Messiah, particularly Isaiah 53, or Jeremiah 31, or Ezekiel, or 36 and 37. Indeed, Spurgeon preaches from Ezekiel 37. In that sermon, he preached for Christian Witness to Israel all those years ago. The Jewish Bible speaks of him. And that's exactly what Jesus is saying here. But the sad reality is they don't know him, they don't know their Bibles. Indeed, when his name is mentioned, the rabbis will spit, and they have shortened the name Yeshua to Yeshu. And Yeshu is actually an acronym for the statement, may his name and memory be erased forever. The rabbis teach their people to erase his name, the name that is above every name. But remember how the first Jewish disciples spoke of him. Remember how the book of Hebrews speaks of him. In the past, God spoke to us at various times in various ways. In the past, God spoke to their forefathers, Jewish people today, they are. the ethnic people, according to the flesh, it is their forefathers that God spoke to directly at various times in various ways. And so he didn't speak to Maestad's Irish forefathers. He spoke to their forefathers. What a privilege. But now he has spoken to us by his son. And what did the writer to the Hebrews and the Jewish disciples think of this rabbi Jesus? He is the heir of all things through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God, the exact imprint of his nature. He upholds the universe by his power. What stunning words spoken about their rabbi, Jesus. we beheld his glory. They did, and they remembered it. Doubting Thomas, I like to call him no longer Doubting Thomas, because he put his hands in Neil Peirce's hands. The content that Jesus gives us to mission, the content of your mission, the content of our mission is Jesus. He is the source, the substance, the summit of everything. Romans 11, 36. From Him, through Him, to Him are all things. Everything we have is from Him. Every breath we have, every moment we have is gifted to us from Him to the last second. from him, through him. He is sustaining our very breath. And therefore it is to him we live, man's chief end, to glorify God and enjoy him forever. This is our breathing purpose. The content of our mission is Jesus. A couple of points of application under this first heading. And I said it on Friday, I repeat it again and make no apology for that, and I said it indeed in the Sunday school class. We need to see in the context of Jewish mission, in the context of any mission, the absolute necessity of speaking of Jesus. He is the about whom of mission. In Jewish mission, as I shared a little at the Sunday school hour, In this most pro-Israel country on the planet, there's a lot of interest in Israel. There's a lot of support for Israel. There's a lot of God bless Israel. But we don't even know what Israel is. Is it a piece of dirt? Is it a people? Well, biblically, it's people. And of course, the land is not unimportant. We, as I said in our Sunday school, are in CWI. We don't take a position in the land, but there is something significant that in our day, God has brought back to a significant land where his feet walked. Now, it's not holy land when you see some of the sin that's going on in the land of Israel today. But there's no other piece of dirt on this planet where Jesus walked. pardon me Mormons, but he didn't walk here. He walked. And so there is a sense in which it is holy land. But we don't save a piece of dirt. We save people. And so we need to bring Jesus to the people Israel. And we seem to be so interested in blood moons and prophecy and the land and Tours and the stones, but not the living stones. Six million Jewish people live in the land of Israel. Five million Jewish people or so live in the United States. 45% in one land, 42% in our land here. But what I want to say is that there is no other piece of dirt in the whole world where Christians and Jews are living together in abundance. In the land of Israel, where there are slightly more Jewish people than here, There are 20,000 believers. How many believers are in the U.S.? Well, it depends how conservative you are, but it's millions, tens of millions maybe. And we have a mission on our doorstep to the Jewish people and we get so sidetracked on rapture instead of the Redeemer. We get so sidetracked on getting the timeline. We get so sidetracked on a kind of Gnosticism that wants to have the secret. We have curious carnal minds that wants to know, what was this little half verse of Ezekiel? Let's throw it in with Isaiah and then we'll mix in a little bit of Jeremiah. And wow, we've got the secret. Enough, enough. Let's get serious about the one thing. Let's get committed to the absolute necessity of Jesus in our mission to Jewish people, to all people. Second point under this first heading is that I want us to see also the absolute necessity of divine rebirth. We read this here in verse 45, don't we? He opened their minds to understand the scriptures. We must speak of Jesus. But we can't win anyone by an argument. In fact, sometimes we may win an argument and lose a soul. We need sensitivity, we need care in the way in which we interact with people. But we can't win them into the kingdom by our argument. We need divine rebirth. So Jesus speaks to Nicodemus, you must be born again. Nicodemus is confused. Born again, what does that mean? Do I have to go back into my mother's womb? That's ridiculous, Jesus. What is this all? No, Nicodemus, you should know this. You are Israel's teacher. You should know the prophets. You should know about that sprinkling from on high. You should know about that rebirth that the scriptures speak of. You should know about Ezekiel 37 and the coming to life. When the word is preached and the wind of God comes, they come together and they come to life. Nicodemus, you should know this. But of course, they didn't know. Many of the disciples didn't know, but he opened their minds to understand the scriptures. That's what's necessary when we're interacting with people. We can take them to the scriptures. We can show them Jesus. We can argue our way through everything. But there is the absolute necessity of rebirth. A little over a year ago, I was preaching in Hudson, Ohio, and my brother, Rhett Dodson, had invited me to come, and just before I arrived there, he called me and he said, Steve, and I just want to give you the heads up, we have a Jewish man that's coming to church regularly, and he seems to like my sermons, and Rhett was preaching, I think, from the Old Testament, and this was all coming alive to this Jewish man, and also, Jewish man's wife, he was married to a Gentile, and this Jewish man's wife was a believer, and she was witnessing to him as well, and she had brought him along to church. And when I was there, I preached on 2 Corinthians 3 and 4, and I spoke on the glory of the Old Covenant, and the surpassing glory of the New Covenant, and I didn't so much stress this verse, but I read this verse, that when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. And so I was talking with the guy afterwards in the foyer with Rhett, and he was concerned that we had just set him up that day. Yeah, this guy's come and talking about Jewish mission. I'm the one Jewish guy in the congregation. You set me up to this, didn't you? No, we didn't set you up. This had been arranged. This had been divinely arranged. But he wanted them to tell us that, you know that verse you read, when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed? The veil is removed. And it takes that for anyone, doesn't it? It takes that for Jewish people. Thank God. This man is now in membership at Rhett's church. This man is being a blessing to the congregation and his wife being a blessing to the congregation there. Preachers, missionaries, we don't remove veils over people's eyes. We can't do it. God brings the rebirth. And so even as Spurgeon would preach on that in Ezekiel 37, preach to the bones and pray for the wind, so I'm asking you to pray for the wind. Pray for the Spirit of God as we are preaching to the bones, as we are telling Jewish people about Jesus, that he would open their minds to understand the Scriptures. The absolute necessity of bringing Jesus before Jewish people, the absolute necessity of rebirth, thirdly, the absolute necessity of a substantial savior. And I put that in, in one sense I'm wondering really should I stress that, but in today's context I think I need to, in today's church context. Jesus makes the point that while I was with you, I spoke to you that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and Psalms must be fulfilled. In other words, there is substance to the gospel, not superficiality, not a kind of Jesus pill, not a quick fix religion. There is substance. And therefore, as I was saying on Friday evening, that we must bring Jesus, but we must bring him with patience. And it may take some time. One of the evangelistic encounters I had with a Jewish lady was we were making progress, coffee house Bible studies. She was a Hebrew scholar and so I was able to take things a little bit more deeply than perhaps with others. And she was happy to go into some of the Hebrew and back and forth I was meeting with her and other ladies were meeting with her and trying to guide her on. And then suddenly she came through and she said, yes, I believe that Jesus is the Messiah. I can see it. Jesus is the Messiah, but he's not God. And so we had a problem. We had to go back to the scriptures and we had to take a little bit more patient teaching because this is a big issue for Jewish people. They have a huge problem in coming to an understanding that Jesus, the man, is God. And they can't understand the three in one, the Trinity. They have a very specific prayer. It's the Shema. Indeed, when Jesus was asked, what's the greatest commandment? As a good Jewish rabbi, he said, Shema. He said, hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one. Jewish people have a little box on their heads. The Shema is in there. They have a little box on their wrists, and it runs up all the line to their heart. The word is in their heads and on their wrists running to their hearts, but it's just external. The Shema is there. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. The Hebrew word is echad. Now, the rabbis will say that one means one, period. But actually, we would say, well, that one actually maybe can include a plurality. And in fact, in the scriptures, when we read of the two became one flesh, the same word is used, echad. The two, my wife and I, one flesh, echad. We're still two. So two persons, one, three persons, a trinity, yes. But we had difficulty with us with this lady, but by the Lord's grace, he opened her mind. He took the veil. And she texted me one morning to say, I've just had my Disney moment. The sun is shining, the birds are singing. I know he is my savior. He has paid my sins. He is God. But most of all, she said, it's interesting because I've now got what every Jew is searching for, shalom, peace. It's that understanding that we want to bring as the Lord brings it. But we also want to bring that substance. Our missions need substance, not decisionism. As you saw at the Sunday School, those of you who were present, we have a variety of different methods and strategies and means of bringing this unavoidable Jesus. and the substance of the gospel to people, whether it's in Glasgow, whether it's in England, whether it's in Europe, or whether it's in Israel. And the bottom line is, Jewish people are like everyone else, only more so, as the saying goes. They get old, they get sick, they're lonely, they need an answer, and their rabbi doesn't cut it. And rabbinic religion doesn't cut it. Our commission, your commission, is to present Jesus in all his fullness, the King in all his beauty, and bring that to a lost, broken world who are going to die. And we've got the answer for the crossing the river. The content of our mission, what are we about? Him. Search the Scriptures. They speak of me. Second point, the kerygma, the proclamation. What is it that we are to proclaim? Verse 47, first part tells us. Repentance and forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name. Three things very, very quickly. In his name, repentance, forgiveness of sins. That's what we are to proclaim. The who is Jesus, the what, what is it that we're to herald? What is it that we are to proclaim in his name? It's repentance and forgiveness. There is no other name given among men whereby we must be saved. Tele-evangelists may tell you otherwise about the Jewish people that there's another way. There isn't. It's heresy. and we need to stop watching the silly stuff and even, and I've had folks in PCA churches giving to some of these organizations. Stop it. It's going to charlatans. Do not welcome them into your home. Make sure what you give to, what you pray for, what you support is gospel mission. Jesus bringing in all his beauty to lost people. Paul, in Romans 10, sums up his desires for the Jewish people. My heart's desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved. That's the mission. It's a no-brainer. It's not that we get them all back to the land and build the temple and find the red heifer and look what a wonderful blood moon that is. No, it's not that stuff. It's that they may be saved. That is what we are proclaiming. forgiveness of sins, repentance, forgiveness in his name. Repentance, best definition that I know, is the catechism, question 87. Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner out of a true sense of his sin, an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth with grief and hatred of his sin turn from it unto God with full purpose of an endeavor after new obedience. That's the substance. That's the scripture. That's what we are to proclaim. I want to stress, then, by way of application, the importance in mission, in missions, in Jewish mission, Gentile missions, the absolute importance of preaching real repentance. Now, of course, our Jewish friends have no comprehension of this. They have no idea of what a sinner really – well, Mrs. So-and-so down the road, she's a sinner. Hitler's a sinner. But, no, we're not sinners. teaching is that every Jew has a part in the life to come. That's Pirkei Avot, the sayings of the fathers. Every Jew has a part in the life to come. But sinners in the hands of an angry God, no, they don't have any comprehension of that kind of reality, but we must bring that reality to the lost. And indeed, surely we can bring it to our Jewish friends. Your book tells you without the shedding of blood. You have no atonement. You may try your good deeds on the Day of Atonement. You can build up to the Day of Atonement, the Yom Kippur, with the ten days of awe. run up to Day of Atonement, they have like a Jewish Lent, when in those 10 days, they're trying to get their good deeds piled up so that on the Day of Atonement, the scales are in the right direction and their name will be in the Book of Life. They're lost. The kerygma, the proclamation of our mission and missions must be repentance and forgiveness. in His name. Repentance. Well, that demands us to recognize grief, hatred of our sin. Can I challenge you this morning? I don't know where you are this morning. I come as a visitor. Do you love your sin? Casual click that brings you to fulfill the love of your sin, whether it's desktop or TV screen, that thought that action. Grief? Yeah, I'll grieve over it. Hatred? Hatred of our sin. Recognize sin as the killer that it is. And then apprehension of the mercy in His name, of the mercy of God in Christ. Bathe ourselves in a bloodied Messiah. This is what we do in remembrance of Him. The apprehension of the mercy, the taking it to myself, all that He is, all in the substance of who Jesus, the Christ, the Word made flesh, what He is for me. Repent and believe the gospel. Absolute importance of bringing real repentance before people. That's what we proclaim, and the absolute importance of proclaiming real forgiveness. And I think, again, this is the stunning bit, is it not? That a thrice holy God would have anything to do with me. And my concern with church and its superficiality is that we go light on the person and work of Jesus, and we'll go light on sin and repentance. And those who fall are reinstated within days. But we go light on Christ, go light on sin and repentance, and we go light on the forgiveness by which I am in a right relationship with God. We need to bring the substance of this gospel into our lives. The suffering servant, the son of God, the radiance of the Shekinah glory, the whole holy of holies, the whole bloody religion of sacrificial Judaism. Bring it into Luke 24. Jesus died, was buried, is risen. is just about to ascend, this is the gospel of forgiveness for you. It's no pick-me-up for a bluesy day. This is man and his maker, reconciled by our God-man. Once speaking at a Baptist church in the north of England, a small informal meeting in a small room. I was about to give a presentation on CWI. A lady came into the gathering, and she was a stranger to everyone, and she had just come in from the street, as it were, and I think she must have seen the sign of what it was, and she, about five minutes before the hour, before we were about to start, she started to ask questions. She said, is this a gathering for reconciliation between religions. This is, you know, I see this as Christian witness to it. Is this a gathering so that we just all get around, be friends, and sing Kumbaya? And the church members were kind of a bit embarrassed by that, that who is this stranger that's coming in and muddying the waters, but then I piped in and I said, no, no, this is not, we're not talking about reconciling religions. This is a meeting to burden people about the lost and about the lost sheep of the house of Israel and that we would tell them about Jesus. Now she obviously didn't like that. She went off on a rant about how for 20 years she had studied comparative religions and how her studies and how her great wisdom has led her to the point that all roads are leading to the one direction ultimately. I stopped her. Sorry. Maybe in a little less gracious manner as well. My dear lady, you have nothing. You have nothing for me. When I'm breathing my last, Mr. Rabbi has nothing for me. Priest has nothing for me. Pastor has nothing for me. But this man is what I want. The content. Jesus. She left, and we hope that perhaps she's had some further contact with the church. But we need to recognize this, don't we? The about whom of mission is Jesus. The what of mission is repentance and forgiveness of sins in his name. Thirdly, finally, briefly, the context of mission, all nations beginning from Jerusalem. And again, just let's pause for a moment over the radical nature of that. And as I said on Friday night, I think it was Psalm 67. If you go home and read it, you'll be reminded that 3,000 years ago, the faithful Jewish believers were praying for you. 3,000 years ago, the faithful Jewish believers were saying in Psalm 67, God bless us, pity us, shine your face upon us, that the earth may know Israel's God and his salvation. They were praying for us. And so here Jesus, 1,000 years after that, is saying to his disciples, this is it. Now go and tell the world. Take this message. to all nations. Israel, you were to be the light to the nations. You failed. Jesus said, I am the light of the world. But there is something of a take-to. Now, my Jewish disciples, take it. Take my message. Take me to the world. And so they did. And we hear our evidence of that. A Jewish book about a Jewish man brought to us by first century Jewish missionaries. The book is Jewish, old and new. It's been preserved for us by the grace of God down through the centuries. And as I have said earlier, our forefathers, my Scots-Irish forefathers were in total darkness, but God was pleased to bless this people with his revelation and his light that they were to take to us. We are graced by that. Some time ago I was on the Isle of Lewis in Scotland and I was preaching there and There, on an afternoon off, we went to see some of the sites nearby, and one of the sites was the standing stones of Calanish, and it was like a stonehenge, ancient, 3,000, 4,000-year-old stone. Several stones were laid out, and we were told that this was kind of a place of worship in 3,000, 4,000 years ago. And being Scots-Irish, I'm starting to think, my ancestors, dancing around stone, the Jewish people that we know, the Jewish people today, their ancestors, worshiping the living and true God. But these disciples took it to us. These disciples brought it to us. This motley group of fishermen and farmers were committed to this mission to the last, to the last second. On their dying breath, they would speak of Jesus. I want to ask you, are you committed to this mission? T.V. Moore, in a little banner of truth commentary, an excellent little commentary, he says this. It's called The Last Days of Jesus. I'm sure some of you have it. He says, had the apostles felt about the heathen of their day as many feel about the heathen of this day, the gospel would never have reached us. gospel has reached us because they were told to the nations. We need to reassess our passion, our enthusiasm, our pocket even, our time, our energy, our dollar to proclaim this gospel of a substantial Savior to the nations, to Peru, to Haiti, to the RUF, to the children, to all the missions that you support. to all nations beginning in Jerusalem." Well, the disciples might have wondered about that and said, Jesus, really, do you mean Jerusalem? They've just killed you. Yes, Jerusalem. I wept over them, but now I take this message back to them. If Jerusalem can be forgiven, none of us need despair. If I forget you, oh, Jerusalem, we need to be concerned about Jerusalem, about the Jewish people. The early church was centered around Jerusalem. The church spread. It spread into Europe. The European church still nonetheless gave money back to the Jerusalem church, 2 Corinthians 8. There was a generosity of the Macedonian churches, even in their poverty, towards the Jerusalem church. Why? Because they realized that the Jerusalem church had been a blessing to Jewish people today have been a blessing to us. Their forefathers have been a blessing to us. How are we blessing in payback? The apostolic pattern, read it in Missionary Journeys of the Apostle. Every place he went to, he went to the synagogue first, as was his custom, says in Acts 17, verse two. As was his custom to go to the synagogue first. So in Romans 1, 16, the gospel, is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile. And McShane makes a very important point that it should be to the Jew first because judgment is to the Jew first, Romans 2. And he writes, he makes an important illustration saying that the doctor will run to the most needy patient first. And we should be running to our Jewish friends, because judgment begins at the house of Israel. I have none of my four parents remaining, none of the four parents of my wife and I. It's a very tough time, and I sympathize. I remember vividly the time when my father-in-law was dying. and we were coming to visit in the hospital, and we came to the hospital door, we got to the elevator, we made our way up, and as soon as the elevator doors opened, some nurse that was standing next to her, she rushed out, and actually she wasn't a nurse, she was a highly qualified doctor, and she ran, where did she run? She ran to my father-in-law's bed, and when we got there, there were a ton of doctors were all around him, and it was going to be too late. She ran to the needy patient first. Our Westminster forefathers believed in the importance of Jewish mission. The Scots forefathers believed in the importance of Jewish mission. The Church of Scotland gave 500 British pounds to the setting up of what is now Christian Witness to Israel. I've Googled it, and I reckon it's about $150,000 worth. So the Scots church invested in Jewish mission, an interdenominational Jewish mission that began in 1842. And we have been working for 175 years, impressing upon churches this important mission, and doing it through churches, frontline missionary laborers, And so it is my privilege to be with you and to stir you, to challenge maybe, to rebuke maybe. Jewish mission must be on our radar. Maybe, maybe we could begin at Jerusalem. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your grace to the nations you would have every right in leaving us in our total darkness. But by your grace and mercy upon the godless, Jew and Gentile, so you have graced them with a message that they took to us. So may we now see the importance of bringing the gospel back to those that brought it to us. Bless us and use us in all our kingdom labors, here, locally, with children, with young people in foreign lands, Peru and Haiti and all other areas that we have specific interest in. May we take this substantial savior and preach, repent and believe this gospel of the forgiveness of our sins in his name. Oh bless and multiply and build your church And we know the gates of hell shall not prevail. In Christ's name.