An overnight stay at Helmsley in the North York Moors has added fresh impetus to my ongoing calling to the Jewish people.
My wife and I were giving my New Zealand sister, Penny, a taste of the beauty in our midst, but I too was once again blown away by God’s creative genius – the “fairytale” market town, as Penny described it, surrounded by lush rolling hills, plus magnificent birds of prey (eagles and owls) gracefully flying at speed at their handler’s command in nearby Duncombe Park.
All of which caused me to wonder afresh at the majesty of our Creator, who came to tabernacle among us as Yeshua, the Messiah. Truly, the heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19), effectively preaching the Gospel without words, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Romans – “that God’s invisible qualities can be understood from what has been made” — Romans 1:20.
It was in admiring the glorious view of the valley below me (on the edge of the Peak District national park, where we lived at the time) back in 1981 that the Holy Spirit reminded me of the words of Isaiah: “How beautiful on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news…” — Isaiah 52:7.
And it proved the confirmation I needed to launch an evangelistic newspaper called New Life, which still circulates widely today. Clearly, the Lord was saying: “Yes, what you see is beautiful, but so too are your feet (though not a pretty sight through years of marathon running) if engaged in spreading the good news”.
But it was also a prophetic word about a future calling in that it described (in its fullest context) the more specific calling of my later years to be a “helper of Israel”.
Yet I didn’t fully appreciate that until, on visiting the Holy Land for the first time more than 10 years ago, I finally grasped the literal context of that verse from Isaiah, which actually reads: “How beautiful upon the mountains (of Zion) are the feet of him who brings good news…who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’”
That was why I was in Jerusalem… to bring the good news that their God reigns! And as I waited for a lift in Prophets Street, surrounded by magnificent white-stone buildings, the revelation suddenly hit me with stupendous force. It was a moment of high emotion, and I was soon sharing the Gospel (at Mike’s Place off the Jaffa Road) with a young Jewish man called Moshe, explaining how daubing lamb’s blood on the doorposts of Jewish homes in ancient Egypt was perfectly fulfilled by Messiah Yeshua, whose redeeming blood we need to place on the doors of our hearts.
Just the other day, as if to reaffirm that we point to the Creator whenever we proclaim Jesus, the Lord drew my attention to an account of the great Pentecostal healing evangelist Stephen Jeffreys in the latest edition of Heroes of the Faith magazine1 – a product of the New Life publishing stable, as it happens.
Back in 1928, at the peak of his extraordinary ministry, he climbed a mountain near his home in Wales to spend time alone in prayer. After admiring the stunning views across the valley and hills beyond, he lay down on a grassy slope looking up at the clouds swirling overhead. Powerfully moved by the grandeur around him, he was freshly convinced that nothing was impossible with God.
At a subsequent meeting at Chesterfield, Derbyshire, he prayed for a blind young boy who had absolutely no eyes in his empty sockets. It had been his condition since birth, his mother explained.
“His own eyes brimming with tears, Stephen put his thumb into one empty socket and his first finger in the other, and then looked up and prayed to his Father in heaven for whom nothing is impossible,” wrote missionary Walter Hawkins, who witnessed the scene when he was just ten years old, about the same age as the sightless boy.
“Instantly the miracle happened,” Hawkins recounted. “As Jeffreys removed his hand from the boy’s face, the lad had two beautiful blue eyes, and I saw it first-hand and close up! His mother couldn’t stop weeping for joy…”
It was an amazing creative miracle. That’s because nothing is impossible for God, whose Son our eyes will perhaps one day see at his coming. Certainly, Jewish eyes will witness that great event. (Zechariah 12:10, Romans 11:26, Revelation 1:7)
For “when the Lord returns to Zion, they will see it with their own eyes.” –Isaiah 52:8
1Heroes of the Faith October-December 2024, available from New Life Publishing at www.newlifepublishing.co.uk
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