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. Good morning. It's great to be back with you here at Faith Baptist Church. I am, of course, Paul Scharf, my wife Lynette, you've heard from in music this morning. And it's a joy to be with you on this Memorial Day weekend. This is the third time, I believe, we've been with you on a Sunday before Memorial Day. So it's officially a tradition for us to do that now. And we're so glad to be with you on this beautiful day that the Lord has given to us. And it's such a joy to see all of you again. And I'd like to start with just a really brief introduction and update and share some things about our ministry. First of all, asking you to pray for Israel. Israel will be our subject today. Appropriate that we think about the nation of Israel and God's working among the nations, I think, today as we approach Memorial Day. But please do pray for Israel, of course, at this time. And I know all of you are aware and following the news and seeing amazing things that are taking place in our world. And amazing things that God is doing among the people of Israel. I'm not claiming that there's a mass turning to the Lord, to the true God through Jesus Christ, his son, among the Israeli people. But there certainly has been some change and some movement since the events of October 7th, and our President and Friends of Israel, Dr. Jim Schauer, said this recently, that right now the hearts of many Israelis are opening to God in spiritual matters. And this is especially true, of course, in Israel, where they're facing war and the threat of terrorism and all the crises that are going along with that. And we want to pray for the people of Israel and for our Jewish friends all around the world, and especially at this opportune time that God has given us to minister to the Jewish people. Thank you for being a friend of Israel. You can do that in many ways. And we know that that is true of you here as a congregation. And we want to say thank you for being our friends and the friends of the friends of Israel, and in that way, being a friend of Israel. For those who don't know, let me just rehearse quickly that the friends of Israel reaches all around the world to jewish people and gentiles alike with a special focus on the fact that god still has a future for israel that the messiah has indeed come and is reaching out to all and wants to share his grace and his love with the whole world though he came only originally for the lost sheep of the house of israel his grace is so abundant that it touches everyone, and it's available to all, and of course it's still especially available to the Jewish people. And we reach out in many ways around the world, and you can read about those on our literature that's on our table in the back. It's all there for you to take, especially Israel, My Glory, our award-winning magazine that goes all around the world since 1942. We have a couple of editions of it there for you, and you can sign up to receive a free subscription for a year. That'll come to you at your address if you provide that, or if you provide your email and the word digital, it'll come to you digitally if you prefer that. Please do pray for us, and thank you so much for doing that. I know on a weekly basis, in the midweek service, And on a regular basis, like you've seen a featured missionary this morning, I know that you feature our ministry from time to time, and we thank you for that. And we thank you for your financial support, which allows us to carry on this vital ministry with this historic organization, the Friends of Israel Gospel Ministry. I have a current series of articles I've been writing. You can find them in several places but I'll point you here to sharperiron.org on what it means to stand with Israel. And so there's currently counting the introduction four of those articles, and there will be at least one more. I invite you to see that for more on this subject as well. And I'd love for you to stay connected to us by making use of all the resources we provide. You can find my articles also at raptureready.com, as well as Sharper Iron and at prophecytracker.org. And that's something that's come about since I was with you last. I'm grateful for them sharing my columns each week. And you can find all my materials on sermonaudio.com. It's sermonaudio.com slash P-S-C-H-A-R-F. You can always contact, connect with me there, see our schedule, news and updates, and all our resources. The Lord has opened many doors of opportunity for us. One of those comes through sermon audio itself. I speak regularly on the daily prayer meeting that they hold globally on Zoom. And I'll be doing that next on another day before a patriotic holiday, that's July 3rd. And you're invited to join us there or view later or anytime the devotions that I've brought there. We also have an app through our connection with Sermon Audio. I invite you to check that if you're interested. Love for you to follow us that way. A couple of opportunities that I thought I would mention just to share a little bit of what we're doing and ask you to pray for us in this regard and also give you a little bit of insight into things that are coming up. At the end of next month, I'll be making another sort of major trip for about 10 days that will center around going to the IFCA International Annual Convention, which will be held outside of Fayetteville, Arkansas. I actually have a speaking role in a workshop there this year, so I invite you to pray for me during that week, the last week of June, and I'll be traveling both Sundays around that convention to speak in churches, one in Oklahoma and one in Texas. And so you might pray for safety and God's blessing and fruitful trip through all of that. Another one that I'll mention, and this particular item you might see is already passed, Prophecy Up Close. And I know some of you were there last November when we had one of these events at Wausau Bible Church. And so we thank you for participating in that. This is now a new year of Prophecy Up Close events that we hold with the same theme in the spring and the fall. This is one I was privileged to speak at last month in Michigan. But I show it to also say, please pray for me in September. I'll be traveling to teach at a Prophecy Up Close, one event in Boise, Idaho, and one in San Diego. at Shadow Mountain Community Church campus. And so we're looking forward to that and those tremendous opportunities. But also pray, I say this to say this, that we could come back, it won't be this year, but hopefully and prayerfully in 2025. I'd love to see another Prophecy Up Close, at least one event here in Wisconsin. and hopefully one here again somewhere in central Wisconsin. So you can pray about that and also stay watching for that and hopefully becoming involved as that time draws nearer sometime either in the spring or the fall of, Lord willing, 2025, if the Lord hasn't returned before then, okay? So just a few items to bring you up to date. And the best way to stay connected with us on an ongoing basis, and I'm just humbled by several who have already mentioned that you receive our weekly emails. And of course, it's good enough that you receive them, but some of you actually read them. So I mean, that's incredible. So please feel free, as I said, to sign up on the back table to receive a free one-year subscription to Israel My Glory. And if you do provide your email, you'll also be on our email list. And we'd really love for you to do that. We send this now to almost 1,000 people and love to add you to that and share those just brief emails normally on every week and sharing what we're doing, where we're going. And we'd love to have you to be involved in that way. If you don't do any of these other things, I'll ask you to do this one more time to pray for us. Take our prayer card or one of our cards and please pray for our ministry with the Friends of Israel for God's guidance and help and direction and strength and provision in these wonderful days in which God has placed us here at such a time as this to serve him. Perhaps shortly before his return, we'll be thinking about that this morning. We do want to say a blessed Memorial Day to you. It's been a wonderful, amazing service and celebration this morning. Several different themes woven together and certainly one of them is regarding Memorial Day and honoring those who have given and sacrificed so that we can be free and be together to even serve the Lord today without fear or fret or worry of intimidation. The Lord has sustained us to this point. We certainly know that we can't take for granted that that will last forever and we are so grateful for those who gave even their very lives to sacrifice for our freedom. And it is wonderful to be back with you again on a Memorial Day weekend. And I just want to say this, concurring with Pastor Mark here and asking me to announce, we're going to be here until tomorrow morning in the area. And we would love to connect with you if you are interested And we have two opportunities to do that outside of the service this morning. After we're done here today, and by the way, don't be concerned. Pastor Mark told me I cannot preach a minute past noon, okay? So we're going to be out of here in time for lunch. And we're going to have lunch at Pizza Ranch for anyone who'd like to meet there. And we just invite you to join and meet up with us there. And we'd love to talk with you about our ministry, any questions you have, anything about this morning's message, Israel, or prophecy, or the friends of Israel. So please plan to meet us for lunch. Or another time is tomorrow morning at 8.30, Lord willing, at the Friendship House for breakfast. Hopefully someone will show up for each of those times, and if you're interested, that can be you. We'd love to meet you there. And that's today when we're done and after we leave here for lunch at Pizza Ranch. Tomorrow morning, 8.30, I think that covers time before some of the local festivities start and the remembrance events begin on Memorial Day. So 8.30 breakfast at the Friendship House.