Hello friends, I'm Wayne Shepherd, inviting you to listen to the following Bible teaching message by Paul Scharf. Paul is a Church Ministries representative for the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry, serving in the Midwest. You'll find all of his ministry resources at sermonaudio.com slash pscharf, where he provides new content on a regular basis, including a weekly column that he writes, along with news and updates. Right now, we encourage you to follow along as we open God's Word for today's presentation. It's our prayer that the Lord God will use this teaching to bring glory to Himself and to work faith in each of our hearts. Here now with the sermon is Paul Scharf. Thank you, Pastor. And thank you, Bible Baptist Church. It's wonderful to be with you today. Great privilege to be back here in your presence and for a full day. We have this prophecy emphasis thinking about two questions during this and the two worship services today, and that is, what's ahead for the church and what's ahead for Israel? I just want to start out by encouraging you to pray for Israel. and her people at this time of terrorism and warfare and unprecedented anti-Semitism across the globe. And pray for the hearts of the people of Israel, the Jewish people, including friends that you may know. As our president, Dr. Jim Showers at the Friends of Israel said recently, that the hearts of many Israelis right now are opening to God and spiritual matters. And we'll think more about that concept at the very end of our series, Lord willing, this evening when we come to the conclusion, thinking about what's ahead for Israel. But I want to thank you for being the friends of Israel. And that is, thank you for standing with the people of Israel. Thank you for your concern, for your interest. in the people, the nation, the land of Israel, and in the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. And the Friends of Israel, for those who don't know, is a worldwide ministry that is totally dedicated to proclaiming what the Bible says about Israel and her Messiah. And we do that in order to bring, ultimately, spiritual comfort to the Jewish people. One of the ways that we arrive at that is by bringing also physical comfort to the people of Israel, in Israel and all around the world. And certainly that's been happening in the last couple of years in dramatic ways as our workers have served heroically and tirelessly in Ukraine. where there was a tremendous Jewish population before the war began there, and now for the last more than seven months, I guess, in Israel itself and all around the world. We want to teach everyone what the Bible says about Israel and the fact that God still has a plan and a future for Israel, that as He has been with His chosen people in their biblical past, so He is with them today, even in their unbelief, in their strategic present and will be with them through the prophetic future that we're going to be considering today. And we want to of course share the gospel of the Messiah that the nation of Israel has physically given the world with everyone. And we're going to be talking about these things today. It's such an honor and privilege to represent the Friends of Israel as a Church Ministries representative in the Midwest. How many think North Carolina is part of the Midwest? Anyone? We're stretching the definition of the Midwest a little bit, but as you know, if you've been with us before, how many have been with me here before at Bible Baptist Church? Okay, I know a number of you have. I see a lot of hands. It's a real privilege and honor to have this relationship with you that developed out of coming down to Shepherds Theological Seminary for the Shepherds 360 Church Leaders Conference to exhibit. And I've had the privilege of speaking there a couple of times in workshops. And out of that grew this connection that just began through a friendly invitation to be with you on a Wednesday evening. And I did that three times. And now to be back with you today and hope that this will greatly strengthen our friendship together. But we were also greatly blessed to learn that you had begun to consider us part of your supported ministry outreach through your church. And we thank you for that, for your regular financial support. And also, certainly not to take for granted your prayer support. I know I send a prayer update to the church here every week and I know that you see that. And so we praise the Lord for you and for your goodness to us and your grace in giving that we can further the ministry that we have, this vital and historic ministry that we have with the Friends of Israel. So it's wonderful to be back with you. Just an honor to have this day together to think about these very important things that we're going to be focusing on. Just wanted to share with you a quick a very brief reintroduction and update about our ministry. I'd be happy to speak at length if you have questions, want to talk to me personally, if I can be of help to you while I'm here today, I'd love to do that. But I'll just be very quick now so we can get into our lesson. But I want to share that one of the things you may remember that I do is to write a weekly column that runs in a number of places. And I especially encourage you to check the current series I've been doing on standing with Israel. And it began with this installment, if you're going to stand now is the time. And then I've had three parts on what does it mean to stand with Israel. And I'll be concluding that. And if that's of interest to you, I'd certainly encourage you to read those. You can find them at sharperiron.org. This might be new also since I was here with you last. My articles also run at raptureready.com. prophecytracker.org and Lord willing I'd like to expand them further if you have an idea of how you might know how to help me with that. You can also find my material in terms of audio and sometimes also my columns at prophecytoday.com. Dr. Jimmy DeYoung Jr. is so good to me. encourages my ministry in that way. You can find all our materials on sermonaudio.com. That's P-S-C-H-A-R-F. You can always connect with me there, find updates, schedule, and all my materials. Please check that. We can be of any help to you and love to have you visit us often at sermonaudio.com. We also have an app through our connection with Sermon Audio. If you'd like to install that on your phone, really keep up to date with us. We'd be glad to have you do that as well. The best way that you can really stay in contact with us in our ministry is through our email. I just had someone just before the service tell me that he receives our weekly emails. And we'd love to have you do that. And let me tell you how you can get the email. Actually, you can get more than just our email if you sign up on the back table for a free subscription to Israel My Glory, our award-winning magazine that goes all around the globe since 1942. You can sign up for a free one-year subscription, either print or digital. If you want it to be digital rather than print, please put the word digital and make sure you supply it. In that case, your email address. Otherwise, it'll be the print copy. But if you supply your email address at all and check the consent box, you'll be on the Friends of Israel email list and on our email list. I know we all get lots of emails. And you can always unsubscribe and change your preferences on those. But we'd really love to add you to our email list if you're interested in staying in contact and seeing our information. We send that out to around a thousand people. We have an expert volunteer who helps us and we'd love to add you to the list. By the way, all the material on our table is free for you to take. All the literature is there for you. Everything on the table is there for you. use, and I can't take it back with me on the plane. So we'd love to have you make use of that, use it, share it, take all the magazines, take everything we have there for you today. And if you don't take anything else, by the way, I neglected to say when I showed the front of our prayer card, and here's the back of our prayer card, neglected to say that once again I'm here alone without my wife Lynette. She's back in Wisconsin. Please pray for her today, and she sends her greetings. Maybe sometime in the future she'll be with me here at Bible Baptist Church, but not this time. But please pray for us, and as I was starting to say, if you don't do anything else, please do pray for us. And again, thank you for the connection we share together. in the ministry and in our love for Israel and the friends of Israel.