Summer in the City

Sydney is home to over 4.5 million people and during the holidays tens of thousands of visitors joined our ranks helping to flood the economy and the public transportation system. The retailers were happy; the restaurants overflowed with customers; it's a flourishing time. We chose this time to spend major resources to notify people about the Good News of Messiah. He is alive and well, and available to Sydneysiders and anyone else who hears our voices.

We called the outreach in December our Summer Witnessing Campaign. Here are some photos in an album.

And now it's end of January and summer continues, although the holidays are over. Australia Day came and went. Women's marches took place in cities and hamlets large and small. And for most folks, it's back to work.

What about you? How did you spend your summer? Are you still hitting the beaches and camping sites? When everyone is driving into the CBD for work, are you grabbing your golf clubs and enjoying 18? Or the 19th?

Life is for living, and some work to be able to afford the (other) pleasures of life. Some work because they cannot figure out what to do in life. Some work because what they do in their job is their life. Summer for most is about not working, and getting to do those things we have missed all (the rest of the) year.

I think even Yeshua took some time off from his ministry efforts. In Matthew 15 we read, "and Jesus went away from there, and withdrew into the district of Tyre and Sidon." (verse 21) Withdrawing. That's it. That's rest. That's holiday. That's what Yeshua tried to do between some busy preaching assignments and healing a child of a Canaanite woman. And if the Son of God needed some time off to withdraw, don't you think you do as well?

Shabbat shalom and have a great (rest of the) summer.

Summation of Judges: What we have learned

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given in Moscow, Russia

12 June 2014

For the last 11 days we have been learning from the book of Judges and today in our final chapel talk, (although I will have some final words tonight as well), we are going to draw some serious conclusions for our lives long after Campaign is over.

The topics all alliterate in English: Pattern, people, provision, persistence,  and prayer. Stay with me.

PATTERN

We saw it too many times to miss it. And we must know that if all Israel lives like we did in the Book of Judges we are in real trouble.

1)   Israel does evil in the sight of the Lord

2)   God gives us over to the enemy

3)   We cry for help (usually)

4)   God sends a deliverer to save us

5)   We fall again into sin

That pattern could be frustrating and make us want to give up, but it should actually inspire you in the exact opposite way. If God is interested enough in saving us, in delivering us from our sins and from our enemies, then we also ought to let Him do so. We will not necessarily be the ones who fail; we may be those who ‘live securely’ in the land God wants to give us.

The reality of the book is that we CAN start over, and no matter how many times we fail, He is cheering us on, to help us get to the finish line.  Remember what the Bible says, “For a righteous man falls seven times, and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of calamity.” (Prov. 24.16)

PEOPLE

The real thing many of us learn on campaign and in reading Judges is that we are not alone, we don’t work alone, although many times on campaign we feel completely alone. We are part of a team. And if we work in a team, in Kharkov or Los Angeles or here in Moscow, we are stronger for it. Each of us brings certain good things to the table, each of us has gifts and talents. And when we bring those to the team itself, the whole team is greater than the parts. The Talmud says, “Two can do three times the work of one.”

The judges who served well, even oddly with daggers in fat men or in sword fights with Midianites or any other enemy, were those who rallied at least some of the tribes and cooperated. In fact the Ephraimites lost 42,000 men because they wanted the benefits of ‘team’ but refused to live it out together with the rest of the tribes of Israel.

One more thing on people, and that’s that God is looking for people. Ordinary people. He doesn’t need the superstar. He’s not keen on celebrities. He’s interested in real people who really love Him and really want everyone to know Him also. Like Gideon, the valiant warrior who was in the wine press or other somewhat reluctant heroes of the faith. Yesterday I met Nadia who was one of Avi Snyder’s first fruits in Odessa. Last week I met Volodia who also was one of Avi’s first fruits there, who is now serving in a ministry among drug addicts. Both got saved 20 years ago. Both are still around. Avi is an ordinary guy, my age, from an ordinary Jewish home in New York, who gave himself to God in 1977 and hasn’t looked back since. Avi taught Nadia. Nadia had a student named Maxim Ammosov and he learned well from her. Ordinary people who are available to God make a difference for God in extra-ordinary ways.

When you leave from Campaign, be available to God in Tashkent or Minsk, in Omaha or Odessa, and God will use you. You may not be on staff with Jews for Jesus, or you might be on staff, but no matter what your career, you can be useful to the Lord in your world, in your way, if you are available to Him.

PROVISION

If I’ve seen anything over my 43 years as a believer that keeps me going and growing in Messiah, it’s that He will always provide for us. He did that with sinful and needy Israel in the book of Judges. He did that for hungry Israel in the wilderness. He did that for Elijah with a raven and for at least 5,000 with a little basket of fish and loaves and the prayer of Yeshua. God provides for us, over and over again. Last Friday we learned the company that was bringing us food went out of business and with some extra work by our leadership, none of us went hungry. God provided others to feed us and we didn’t miss a meal.

We see this provision of the Almighty in the Book of Judges as well. He provided judges, military strategies, heroes, everything we needed, even songs to sing. He wants us to have a full life, and He will provide it for us, if we are near Him, if we trust Him, if we let Him.

What does the Bible say,  “I have been young, and now I am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, or his descendants begging bread.” (Psalm 37.25)

                                          

PERSISTENCE

Each morning your alarm clock went off and woke you. You looked at the others in your room. You looked at the clock. You looked at your own tiredness and made a choice. You got up. And that persistence in carrying on, in keeping going for the Lord during this Campaign is essential to keep with you when you go home. What is persistence? It’s the ability to continue doing something, no matter what is against you. It’s ‘one more sortie’ when you are weary that afternoon, or this afternoon. It’s another lap around the track when you are exhausted. It’s praying when you think you have no more energy to stay awake.

Last Saturday we were in Gorky Park and there was a race that happened there that day. I don’t know how long the race was, but there were people crossing the finish line when we arrived AND when we left after our bicycle visibility sortie. So I’m guessing it was a long race. And if you have even been in a race like a 10 km or a marathon like my wife has run many times, you know that there are ‘walls’ along the way, hindrances to your finishing the race. On an ordinary three-week campaign, we would hit those walls after a week or so, and maybe in the middle of the 2^nd week. Our campaign was a bit short to have experienced those walls, but each of us had to break through barriers of weariness or boredom or hunger or distractions in order to finish this race, which we will finish tonight.

That same thing is true of life. If we persist,   if we endure to the end, we will be all right.

Rachmiel Frydland was from Poland, a Holocaust survivor, and lived in the US until he died in 1984. I was privileged to work with him at Jews for Jesus in New York City for many years. He well knew the difficulty of surviving. He escaped Hitler and camps and found eternity in salvation in Jesus. He was a dynamic evangelist and Bible teacher. One of his favorite expressions was that quote of Yeshua, “He that endures to the end will be saved.”  (Matthew 24.13) He did just that. And we can do that as well.

PRAYER

Every day people around the world have been praying for us. And I saw that many times on our Campaign that all of a sudden we had wisdom to say something, or to leave somewhere, or to turn in a new direction. What prompted that? It was God answering the prayers of His people in England or in South Africa, in Poland and Berlin, in Australia and the US. When God’s people pray, God listens and God answers. So your encounters with people were more often a result of the prayers of the saints worldwide than it was your cleverness or strategy. I’ve been on campaigns since 1980 in Argentina and in New York in Sydney and Melbourne and have this experience to be sure. God organizes our lives.

That’s what we learned in Judges. God rules in history! He gives us leaders and He gives us judgment and all kinds of things to make us His people. He gives strength to Samson to kill 1,000 Philistines with the jawbone of a donkey. He gives 300 Gideonites strength to chase and kill 135,000 Midianites. He is the ruler of history. He also gives us free will to choose to follow Him, and that’s shocking if you understand sovereignty. But it’s true. And without that freedom to choose, we cannot really love Him. Without that freedom to choose, we cannot understand evil in the world. Without that freedom to choose, we would not be born again ourselves.

What made our events good? What made the singing and the dancing and the art show explanation good? Sometimes people talk about ‘feeling the Spirit.’ I get that, although everyone might have different meanings associated with that expression. What’s clear is that when someone is praying, from anywhere, for an event or for our wisdom, for our spirits to be united with His Spirit, for love to be manifest in our hearts… God listens and answers.

No wonder we encountered people on park benches and in subways like Marina did yesterday on our way to the Kremlin armory.  No wonder Paula kept encountering English-speakers. No wonder Scheffee got to lead a man from Nigeria to the Lord. We were moved to stand, to be, to smile, to participate, because God was answering someone’s prayers.  How awesome is that!

Final reminder

Finally, let me end with this. Live a life of faith; trusting, leaning on God. Proverbs 3.5-6 says,

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your paths straight.

All your heart. Tonight I’m going to show you a Bible verse about joy and whole heartedness, which you may not know, but you need to know. For now, when we say trust in God with all your heart, we then ponder our own failings and think, wait, I didn’t trust Him last week. Or last year on that weekend. Look, the Bible is saying, trust in God completely and don’t even lean a little bit to figuring it all out. Don’t even make the slightest bit of a lean towards personal intellectualism OVER AGAINST the Lord and the Scripture.

God’s Word is Truth. God is Truth. Yeshua is the Way, the Truth and the Life. He is all we need. No wonder we can say we trust Him. No wonder we can put full confidence on Him.

In the subway cars, you see people who hold on to the railings when the train is crowded. And then there are times you cannot find a rail to hold. When the train comes to a stop, you see people leaning one way and then the other. Tossed by the velocity of the train, they are not stable. God says, if you want to make a difference in the world, don’t lean on what you know. Don’t lean on human wisdom. Don’t lean on the way it ‘has always been.’ Trust completely in the Lord, in your marriage, in your workplace, in your office, in your neighborhood, in your church, in your relationships, with your children and your parents. Don’t lean on your own life. Trust Him completely.

Let’s go out today, our last scheduled sorties, crossing the 200,000 mark on broadsides, getting another 20 or 50 UJs to join the 430 so far, and let’s persist and endure to the end. In the power of God, who knows and oversees all things, and who is answering the prayers of the many, even our prayers, amen?!

Holy Communion/ Ordinary things

Opening Ceremony: (Holy Communion)

Message One

By Bob Mendelsohn

Given at Moscow, Russia

1 June 2014

Shalom, and thank you, to each of you who has come to join together to make a difference for God in Moscow, in Russia, in Europe, in the world God made. I hope for each of you something from heaven during this campaign. In the Bible when a Jewish boy became 20 years old, he was responsible for being a man and for serving in the army. Later in Jewish history, that age dropped to 13 years old, and like so many of us, after his Bar Mitzvah, he became responsible for being a good Jewish man. In the US where I grew up, when a boy became 21 he became an adult and could drink vodka and could marry without his parents’ permission. So now, this summer, 2014, it is the 21^st summer campaign in Moscow and no matter whether we speak from Bible or from Jewish life or from the US, Moscow is now an adult mission station, and leads the way in the Former Soviet Union, and dare I say, in the world, as Jews for Jesus and the work God has called us to perform.

Now that Jews for Jesus is an adult ministry, I take my responsibility as your chaplain very seriously. I know some of you personally, and have been your cheerleader in celebrating what you have done in service for our Messiah.  In so many ways Jews for Jesus would be much less, and would have made less impact in the world, if you were not here.  Therefore I say thank you for your two decades of service.

Others of you are new, either to Russia or to Jews for Jesus itself. All this talk of the stellar behavior of the Russian-speaking Jews for Jesus staff may be intimidating to you.  You are, after all, not one of those pillars. You are not one of those mighty men. Perhaps you think of yourself as less than everyone else.

Over the next two weeks, we will meet together in chapel and in prayer and in street evangelism, bringing God’s good news to multitudes of our Jewish people, and multitudes of non-Jews as well. And during our chapel times I will be speaking to you from the Bible book known as Judges. And if you learn anything from that book, you will learn that God calls us to be available to him, and He is unimpressed with what else we might bring to his service. He wants you, not your gifts and talents. He doesn’t need your cleverness or your brilliance. What he needs and longs for is you. Ordinary you. Plain and simple-- you. If you bring you to him each day, and live in ordinary service to God, you will find His using you to be extra-ordinary. He wants you.

Maybe that’s why I’m excited to be with you during this campaign. I don’t bring much to offer you. I love the Lord and have been saved for 43 years. The life I bring is one that God is working on and will keep working on until I join him in heaven one day. The most important gift I bring to him, and I bring to you, is my availability. I’m here. Let’s see what God will do with us together.

In a moment we will take communion together. These two elements are fairly stock standard. They are not gold or silver. They are not electronic. They were not created by a genius. They are a sip of fruit of the vine and a bite of a piece of bread. I’d say they are fairly ordinary elements of a Jewish man’s table. No meat. No fruit. No potatoes. No luscious dessert. These are nothing so special. Just what was there on Passover on that night when Yeshua met with his friends before he was killed. He took ordinary things, bread without yeast and wine and turned them into extra-ordinary remembrances. And he told us whenever we do this we should remember him.

What should we remember? That God came to earth and lived like Superman or Ironman and wielded great superpowers? No. Should we remember the healings or the walking on water? That He fed 5,000 and made water into wine? No. He tells us that every time we take the communion of the Lord we proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes back. (1 Cor. 11.26) What? After all the great things God did, we are to consider only one aspect of his earthly ministry continually memorable? Yes, that’s what I’m saying. When it all comes down to the ending, the ending is what matters the most. He was born to die. He was killed and rose from the dead for our life, today and eternally.

He will come again to receive us to himself, and to judge the world. He came the first time for removing sin from individuals by his dying on the cross; he will come again the 2^nd time to remove sin from the planet. We have a duty in between those two comings, those two appearances, about which we will speak over the next couple weeks. For now

And these two elements of bread and wine are ordinary elements.

You and I are also ordinary elements in service to the King.

And when we are available to God, he transforms ordinary things into extra-ordinary servants. That’s today’s message and it will be our take-away each day after two weeks of exhaustive service. God wants to use us, as the Apostle Paul taught in his letter to the Corinthians:

For consider your calling, brethren, that there were not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble; but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are, so that no man may boast before God. (1 Cor. 1.26-29)

Jeremiah the prophet sounded that same warning/ consideration:

Thus says the LORD, “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, and let not the mighty man boast of his might, let not a rich man boast of his riches; but let him who boasts boast of this, that he understands and knows Me, that I am the LORD who exercises lovingkindness, justice and righteousness on earth; for I delight in these things,” declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 9.23-24)

So I ask the people who are distributing the bread and wine to come forward. Let’s hold those two items and consider what God might do with us, yielded and available to him tonight and the next 12 days.  Then we will eat and drink together in a few minutes.

Take communion.

Music plays.

Eat together. 

What if Mr. Putin invades another former Soviet republic? Are you frightened of military intervention? What if they shut down the metro stations? What if some of the Jewish leadership in the city threatens us with governmental actions that prevent our ability to hand out tracts or to telephone contacts? What if they arrest Ilya, Igor, Maxim or all of us? We really don’t know what might happen these next two weeks. What we do know is that God wants us to be available to him. That’s it.

I remember a story a woman told me some years ago about a dream she had. It was a doctor’s surgery and the operating room was the scene. A man was lying on the table, ready for the operation. The camera of her dream zoomed in and the doctor began calling for the instruments. But instead of scalpel and sponge, instead of the other items that a doctor would use for performing surgery, he was calling for people. “Alex Johnson. Boris Cohen. ”  The doctor was God and he was looking for people to accomplish his purposes. All they had to do was to be nearby. He was looking for available ones. Is that you? I think so. That’s why we are all here. And others will join us over these days. And we are looking for others to join us in the life of faith with God, and in service to Him as well.

We take the Lord’s Supper; we take Bible history; we take ourselves to the Messiah and leave ourselves there, available to him for his purposes tonight and tomorrow. Amen?