When The Preacher Got Knifed And Jonathan Was Asked To Take Over | Jonathan Cahn Sermon

When The Preacher Got Knifed And Jonathan Was Asked To Take Over

What does God’s word say about circumcision or about the law? Is it Messiah’s, or your works that fulfill the law? In this message Jonathan Cahn reveals this and more.

That’s why it’s so crucial that we’re always led by the Spirit. You’re always moved by the Spirit and you’re always seeing God. What’s your will? Because you may not understand his will, but it’s his will.

And as long as you’re seeking and moving as he leads, then you’re going to be okay. There, you know, there are those today, the issue of the law. It comes up today in messianic circles and beyond that.

Among many non-Jewish people that, listen, you have to, you have to be under the law. You got to keep the law. Well, well, listen, there’s two extremes here.

One is, if you tell people they have to be under the law, that’s an extreme and that’s not of God. If you tell, on the other hand, if you tell people that they can’t do things like observe the Sabbath, that’s fine. Or do anything that is in, that is in, does not go against the new covenant that is in the Spirit, that’s fine.

We are, we have this thing called freedom. You’re free to do and you’re free not to do. But whatever you do, as Paul said, do it to the Lord.

You want to keep one day above the rest? Do it to the Lord. You want to keep no day, any, any holiday? You do it to the Lord. Don’t judge each other over these things.

God’s not looking at the day of the Lord. He’s looking at your heart with the Lord. Don’t judge believers.

Don’t say you have to or you can’t. God has called us to freedom. The amazing thing here, I find this amazing, in this whole passage, I love this whole moment, how God entrusts His Gospel to these people.

When you think about it, God entrusted the entire plan of salvation. He could, I mean, He could have used angels. He could have just done things, but He, it would have been a lot cleaner, a lot less messy.

But He uses people. He gives it to these people 2,000 years ago. That’s a big risk.

You know, right, you know, right now here, I mean, here it is 20 years later and they have not gotten this one, this, this one basic thing even. They haven’t gotten it together yet. So here it is and yet God does it.

You know, why did God give it to them? It’s kind of like when you’re a parent and you give your child something to do and you know that you could have done it a hundred times better. But the son’s probably, or the daughter’s going to mess up. But the joy is in fact that they’re doing it.

When you’re a child you cook something, you might cook something for your parents that tastes terrible, but they, they smiled because you did it. Well the kingdom is filled with imperfect people and God has chosen to use those imperfect people like all of us. And that’s why there’s always going to be issues.

That’s why in … there’s going to be no congregation that’s perfect. No person that’s perfect. No ministry.

There’s always going to be issues. Get used to it. That’s all part of it.

That’s why we’ve got grace. That’s why we have forgiveness. That’s why we forgive each other.

That’s why it is so important. It’s amazing how God, how did God, how did it keep going? I mean they could have gone off in everything. They could have messed this whole plan up.

But God has a way of getting it done. That’s the hand of God. That’s the power of the Spirit.

That’s why it’s so crucial that we’re always led by the Spirit. You’re always moved by the Spirit and you’re always seeing God. What’s your will? Because you may not understand His will, but it’s His will.

And as long as you’re seeking and moving as He leads then you’re going to be okay. They almost blew it here. They had a whole council to decide whether you had to be circumcised to become a Christian.

What if it went the other way? What if they said you do? Let me tell you a story that happened early in the ministry. There was one time when the, I wasn’t, I was one of the leaders but I wasn’t, I wasn’t the pastor. And there was one time that the pastor went away and they asked, they didn’t ask me to share that one time.

Normally they did. And they had a nice guy who came in from the Nazarene Church to come and speak before the people. He was kind of, he was kind of an assistant in pastoring and kind of training.

And he never spoke to Beth Israel before and, and he wasn’t Jewish. And not that he had to be, but he wasn’t. And the Nazarene Church thought it’d be good to give this experience to his, to one of their training ministers.

He was very nervous and Gary, those of you remember Gary Selman, gets up, gives him a big introduction, welcomes him. And then as he comes up, the guy’s name was Jim, gives him a big bear hug. And then Gary sits down.

Guy gets up to the pulpit and stands there like this. He says, excuse me, I have to go. Leaves.

Leaves. Everybody’s just standing there. Imagine if I just did that.

Everybody’s just sitting there and they’re looking at each other. What just happened? What just happened? Everybody’s staring at an empty, it was one of the most awkward things. I mean you know it’s quite a rejection for a congregation when the guest speaker just walks out on them.

Gary runs after him. He’s in the bathroom. A minute later, Gary comes out and says, we have a problem.

And we go, what’s going on? What happened? The guy wasn’t yet full-time and he did artwork as a profession and for some reason he left an exacto knife in his pocket. And when Gary hugged him, it went into his chest. Basically, Gary knifed the guest speaker.

The guy had to go to the hospital. Meanwhile, everybody’s just sitting there trying to figure out what’s going on. And they said, what’s going on? What’s going on? Gary, I heard Gary knifed the guy.

His wife is in horror. Say, this is the last time we’re ministering with the Jews. She didn’t quite say that.

Gary turns to me, says, do you have a sermon? I said, I don’t carry a sermon around. Said, why not? He said, because I don’t usually expect our guest speaker to get knifed. He said, you’ve got two minutes to come up with a sermon.

So two minutes, I get up and I preach. Afterward, Gary calls up the guy to find out how he’s doing. He’s in the hospital.

Didn’t get it. He got a machine. But in view of that, Gary knew that he should be sensitive in ministering to him.

And he leaves a message to encourage him. The guy comes home from the hospital, turns on his answering machine. It’s Gary Selman singing, there’s power in the blood.

Meanwhile, the word gets out in the Nazarene denomination. You know, most of, they didn’t even know what to make of Beth Israel. But now they sent their person in and he comes out knifed.

Said, did you hear what happened? I don’t know. They knifed him. I don’t know what happened.

You know. Well I don’t think they knifed him. I don’t know.

Apparently they don’t like Gentiles. I don’t know what that is. You know.

I heard they weren’t trying to knife him. They were trying to circumcise him. I don’t know.

They heard he wasn’t uncircumcised. Gary took matters in his own hands. Now that’s exactly, that’s what happened.

That’s what happened. So now it’s sad. Now it’s, now we look back and we laugh about it.

You know. But the fact that he’s a pastor. He didn’t leave the ministry.

That was good. You know. But the fact is, if this council had not come to the conclusion they came, think about this, there’d be more nights like that.

Because the reality is, if they didn’t come to that conclusion, then it would mean a change in our altar call. It’d be like, hey there’s a price to follow the Lord. It can hurt.

Well, you get saved. There’s the prayer room. See the guy with the surgical mask and the scalpel? Yeah.

Go with him. That’s exactly what would happen. There’d be a lot of noise in that counseling room.

Where’s my friend? Well he’s in the recovery room. Just give him a little time. You know.

It’s funny but that’s exactly, that’s what, that’s how radical this is. If they did not, the services would have been painful. When we talk about putting away the flesh, we would really mean putting away the flesh.

But that’s, that’s what it was. They all had to be circumcised up to that point. We’re gonna have to throw you out in a moment if you keep that up.

But see the whole Great Commission is hanging on this. How could God, you know, and how you think like, why did God let them figure this out? I mean imagine if they said the other thing and God said, oh my, what, what are you doing? You know. That would have affected everything.

You probably wouldn’t be saved today. So how did they come to the right decision? And how does God even risk it with us? First of all God did reveal that the Gospel had to go to the Gentiles. Messiah said had to go to all peoples.

And he didn’t say anything about circumcision. He said go make disciples of all nations. So they went to, went to Jerusalem.

Then Samaria, the Samarit, Judea, Samaritans. Then Antioch. Then the world.

So sometimes he even leads by what he doesn’t say. And that tells you something there. See God never said anything about the circumcision.

I mean, I mean nothing about saying you have to be in the New Testament, in the New Covenant. He actually says you don’t. Have to.

See, see here’s a, here’s an issue. If God doesn’t dwell on something and he doesn’t dwell on something in the New Testament, New Covenant Scriptures, then you don’t dwell on it either. Very simple.

Even if you got points, even if you’re right about something, if God’s not dwelling on it in our salvation, you don’t dwell on it. This is Jonathan Cahn. Thanks for watching.

And the Josiah Manifesto, the Ancient Mystery and Guide for the End Times is available everywhere on Amazon, wherever books are sold. God bless you. Shalom.