P. Schaller

As many of you know, we have a special week this week with P. Ben from Israel with us. Praise God! He shared this morning and through the week tomorrow night and Tues. night and Thursday night and flies back on Friday. We are gearing up for Bible college.

I want to put the map of Finland up for a minute and honor the Finns for a second. Maybe we can have the Fins from that era, 1970’s just run up here and stand up here. Come on! Chop, chop! Think about it. I was in the office in Helsinki one night and I said let’s jump in the car and drive to some town and pointed to the map, [?] and went there. Went to a café and met this guy. Then there was a young girl in a high school in a small town called Loyma [spelling]. She was 16 years old. She would go on the speaker phone and give a devotional to the whole school in the morning. That’s this girl right here (Lena). 800 students and she’s right at it. Every week for two years she did that. Young believer. Every one of these people have a story and we were 20 or so or 16 or 18 or 22 years old. This country up here on the screen – wow! Holy Spirit. David Wilkerson in his book said a revival would go to Russia from Finland. Isn’t that cool. 1976 and 1977 great things happened. I want to calm down for a second and in a heart of faith with the Body, this doesn’t glorify anybody, Finland, or me or these people, its Jesus is real and saves souls. Jesus is with us when we live by faith. Jesus Christ led us in 1979 to say to the church we are going to go to China. Mao is dead, the door is open and we flew to China and brought Bibles. Many other great things happened in small degree and great degree. So when P. Ben comes from Israel, he’s not just bringing his portion. He is saying I’m a friend and I love God and I love you. This is my family, my church. These are my people in God. We appreciate it so much. Amen.

P. Ben Turkia

It’s great to be in the house of God. It’s great to be full and empty at the same time. Did you ever find yourself in that place? That is where God loves to keep us. Tonight our hearts are so thankful. We can think of the past, those maps and we have a starting point. We are somewhere and we are going somewhere. In 1980s there was a society called Highway Missionary Society. I don’t know if you heard about it. They were highway missionaries. I often thought about that word, Highway Missionary Society. God has a highway for us. There are many ways but God has a way and a highway. I’d like to take a few verses from the Bible.

One of them is in Judges 5:6. Don’t worry. These names are not names you’d give to your children but they are true names. Very interesting.

vs. 7. Sometimes God calls out fathers and sometimes God calls out mothers. Why were the highways unoccupied? In the ancient world especially the Middle East and countries where shepherds are, you have wells and fountains. There is one water fountain here and there and the highways connect these. The highways connect the waterway. When the enemy came, the enemy wanted to occupy the places of the waters. The shepherd with their sheep always battle for the water. Today the battle is the same, for the water. Water is the most important commodity. I’m talking about the water of life. There used to be highways. There used to be things clear to people. There were many things that were “of course things.” This is the way life is, the way nations work. This is good and not good for people. But the highway ceased and people walked in byways. This is a very difficult situation nationally but especially in the Body of the Lord. If the highway ceases, there are all kinds of things good, beautiful things, and beautiful principles but the people’s hearts are hungry. Then they hear that voice. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I saw something very beautiful a couple of days ago. P. Norton was pulling his truck up there and opening the back and having some good books and calling people. We have something for you or a word of prayer. We love you. He was calling people to the highway.

Let me read a few more Scriptures. In Josh 5:10, the white donkeys were important those days. They were like the Mercedes Benz or Lexus. The rulers rode on the white donkeys and those were the people that knew where the highway is. Where is the way of life? In Hebrew language, the word life is plural. You don’t say life you say LIVES. Because human life in itself is so empty. Human life is created and made to be filled with the other life. Life is plural. Lives. Our life is yearning for that other life. Our lives is yearning for that highway. God’s highway.

Is. 11:16, that highway was an amazing highway. There was the pillar of fire and pillar of smoke going before the people and leading them. God’s plan was to take them about 11 days journey to take them to the Promised Land. It took a lot longer than 11 days.

When they came to Kadesh Barnea around Nu 13, they decided not to go in the highway. God’s way was to go straight in and listen to the voice of the two witnesses, not the ten. The two witnesses knew the highway. They knew the voice of him that said I’m the way, the truth and the life. They knew God could connect the people so quickly to the Promised Land if they would have just gone in, it would have been a different want to deal with the enemy. Oh that we would go to God’s highway. The Lord would fight our battles. The highway is so simple. It’s only the cross. The just who died for the unjust. There is not complications there. I am the way, the truth and the life and his blood is perfect blood. His highway is also by his resurrection he gave us the living Spirit. His highway is to connect my spirit, my human spirit, my dwelling place and your dwelling place of the Almighty Lord to connect these two spirits. When that connection happens by the word and the blood, then we can see the highway. It becomes clear. God wants to say to this generation, this whole generation in every land, you don’t have to be in confusion, in these byways. I have a highway for you.

Ezek 43 he said to the backslidden Israelites. They were so backslidden in connection where Ezekiel was. They couldn’t be ashamed of their sinfulness or bad ways. We can’t face our own misery. God said show the people the house, my temple, the beautiful temple and when they see the beautiful temple, then they will be ashamed of their ways. He wasn’t telling them one more time what they had done wrong. He wasn’t reminding them of the Ten Commandments they broke or the miseries and mistakes and sins. But to show them the beautiful temple. God says what I have for them and I’m bringing that temple to them. I’m showing them my house. When do I find God’s highway? When I see what Andrew Murray said. He said take time and meditate quietly before the Lord about this factor that Almighty God in all his beauty and glory and grace is living in your heart. Your heart is his eternal dwelling place. Take time and sit and consider what grace that is. Show them the house. Then they will see the reality. Show them the beauty of the church life, the Body life. Show them the beauty when Israel will be glorified, when God’s light will come in Israel. For thousand years different light will cover the earth, a light that comes from the Son of God. Righteousness will shine as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. That light is right now in side of us. If we could see it by sight I’d need very strong sun glasses to look. It is there. It is there. But now in a hidden way. There is a highway. There is a beautiful, beautiful highway. Then the highway is the word. The highway is in the blood. The highway is in the living Spirit. The highway is the totality of the word. Oh to get baptized into this word again where the Spirit teaches us where the hunger is renewed like when we got saved. To get that word again and again. The highway of the house of God. The highway of the Body of his Son.

How do we know we are in the Lord’s highway? How do we know we are in it? God said in Jeremiah I will give to them, chapter 32 or 33, I will give them one way and one heart. I will give them one way and one heart. I believe that’s what we want. I want to be one with everyone that has the Son of God in their hearts. I want to be one with everyone. I want to be one with people who haven’t yet found him but one in their search. I want to be there when they are on those byways and say come over here. The highway is right here. Come with me. The people are everywhere. We pray and we pray people will find the highway.

How do I know I’m in the highway? When I can say I’m not about myself. I’m about him. The Apostle Paul was not about the Apostle Paul. He was about him. Moses was an amazing man. He wasn’t about Moses. He was about him. Just being in him. A church is not about the church. The Body is not about the Body. The Body is about the head. The church is about the head of the church.

I want to close with this: Paul the Apostle put the highway in his prayers. When you read through the epistles, his prayers you see first he prayed and out of that prayer came the epistle he wrote but the highway was in his prayers.

When we talk about those old days in Finland! I couldn’t get up even 6:30 in the morning because we came home at 1. 4:30 P. Schaller was on the highway. I heard on the top of the stairs, praise you, Lord and thank you God. He was breathing out prayers as a 26- year old pastor praying at 4:30. I know why he was doing it. He saw the highway. He saw there were sheep out there. If we get this moment, we’ll get harvest for his name that we can shepherd. He was about the highway.

I’m not saying I’m perfectly on the highway all the time. I learned that highway those early days. My heart is not satisfied with byways. We love all the people that have ten millions of [?] but the one that said I am the way, the truth the reality of God and the life, I connect your human life to my life and then you won’t know what burnout means.

Thank you, Lord. Amen.

P. Schaller

I can’t but help and say a few words about that message. It goes like this. Couple words only. In Israel, there are the highways from Baltimore to NY City. What’s the highway? 95. But there is an enemy in Israel and they are Mideonites and what are the names of the enemies? Hittites, Canaanites, – you know what they say to the Jews. Off the highway. Is that Mike Colby? How long are you here for? Tuesday. Good to have you. From Budapest. Get off the highway. Here comes a chariot of Midianites. Jews, get off the highway. We will kill you if you are on the highway. This is our highway. So they scamper off into the roads in NJ and PA. And they are like little people hiding or walking and we have no right to go on the highway. We can’t go on 95. They don’t allow us. What happens to these people? In these dead ends, little villages, towns and no power. No rights. They have to get off the highway. The enemy does that. It’s happening in America. Get off the highway. No Ten Commandants, no Bible, no God, and no rights to say anything at the university. Be quiet in the politics. Back off. Get off the radio. Get out of the churches. Get off the highway. It’s our highway. And these dear people get off and guess what happens. Deborah. Deborah. Give her a kiss right now. Deborah. Why Deborah? She’s a woman. But a woman like some guts like Joan of Arc or Abigail or Queen Esther. She’s a woman with guts that has something going on in her heart. The highway is ours she says to the Jewish people.

He said, we know this so well because we worked together for years. He could translate for me right now. You want to translate a few sentences? We did this for years. We traveled together. And trains and busses. We prayed together. We went to Russia, Sweden, Norway, everywhere. This is how we lived. The same. Except he translated into Finnish, not Hebrew.

The enemy roars like a lion but he can’t bite you. He roars like a lion. In Poland, one time there was a German shepherd behind a chain link fence and barking and jumping up like an animal! Someone told me go over to him and stand there and do this. Don’t look at the dog. No eye contact but just go. So I did that. The dog stopped. He’s looking at me like?

We are in a world where all you have to do is the simplest thing, stand and believe. And the enemy will run. You get off the highway. You say to the enemy, this is our road. This is the road of faith and the Spirit and the road of love. It’s ours. This is our school, our church, our community, our privilege, our work and service. Our calling and what we stand in. Amen.