Be Bold and Courageous is not a suggestion. It's a command

Discover why being bold and courageous is a divine command. Drawing from Psalm 27 and the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast, this message encourages unwavering faith, teaching us to stand firm in God’s presence as a home of prayer for all nations.

Transcript

[music] [music] >> Thank you Randy and everybody and thank you all for coming. Are you having a good time? Is this powerful? Everybody stand up cuz I know you've been sitting for a little bit. Right? Could you just use a stretch? Let's do this. Ready? You put your left foot in, you put your left foot you put your left foot in. Come on. And shake it all about. We'll do the hokey pokey and we'll turn yourself around. That's what it's all about. Okay, sit down. Was that fun? I like fun. I was a youth pastor. Stockwell Day was a youth pastor. So, with when you're a youth pastor and I I think sometimes I still am, there's a little bit of moxie that you carry and and you don't put up with

a lot of guff. Anyway, that's how it is. But um Let me just start today with reading uh uh a scripture, a psalm from David. The Lord is the light of my salvation, whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life, of whom shall I be afraid? When the wicked advance against me to devour me, it is my enemies and my foes who will stumble and fall. Though an army besieged me, my heart will not fear. Though the war break out against me, even then I will be confident. And this is really important. One thing I ask from the Lord and this only do I seek that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life and gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and

seek him in his holy temple. For in that day of trouble, he will keep me safe in his dwelling and he will hide me in the shelter of his sacred tent and set me on a high rock. I want to share something that Last year when we were in Jerusalem, we went to Israel twice last year. That was incre Our first two first time and we went back twice. How blessed were we? Are you envious? Yes, I can see. It was amazing. And the first time we were there, we got to go to the Jerusalem Prayer Breakfast in Jerusalem and I got to meet Yehuda Glick. Isn't he awesome? Like one of the biggest prayers that I had this year really they There was while we were planning, they said who should we bring from Israel?

AND WE YEHUDA! BRING HIM. SO, ONE OF MY biggest prayers as we're putting this together was Lord, please, please make sure Yehuda gets here because he carries a word from the Lord. I really do. And it transcends just not just only Judaism, but it reaches all of us. Were you blessed by what he was speaking? Yes. Amen. And he shared this. I was talking to him and because we're a house of prayer National House of Prayer, we've got a network a network of about 5,000 people across the nation that prays for Canada. And actually in 2022, the Holy Spirit started to speak to us and said we needed to carry Israel and the Jewish community with the same intensity that we carry Canada.

And so we made a transition. And Yehuda said this I was talking to him about, you know, uh Isaiah 56, my house will be a house of prayer for all nations. Right? You You've heard that often so far in the last couple of days. But you Yehuda said this. He says, "No, no, no, no, no, no, no." It's not my house will be a house of prayer. It's my house will be a home of prayer for all nations. That's good. That's what I said. That's good. Oh my gosh. My house will be a home of prayer for all nations. Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord and he will teach us his ways. I grew up in Toronto and I was very blessed to grow up in a Jewish neighborhood. I was

I had seven friends and six of them were Jewish. I was really blessed. So, when high holidays came, me and three guys went to school. I don't even know why they We would they open the whole school for the three of us. It was awesome. We would watch movies and eat popcorn. So, I had I was blessed to have a love for the Jewish people from the beginning. And it was for such a time as this. I really believe it. These were my friends. Like Stockwell said, he thought most of the world was 45% Jewish. Me, it was more like 85%. So, I just thought that's how it was. And so I loved these people and they were close to my heart. And then why wouldn't I love them because they they're apple they were the

apple of God's eye. This was important to God and I wanted to serve God and serve him with all my heart. And I wanted to love the things that he loved. So, I'm going to tell you a few stories cuz you've been listening to a lot of things and they've been phenomenal. My friend Michael Westcott there, I love what you're sharing Michael. Got to me meet Rick Eckstein just a little while ago. Turns out he went to the same junior high as I did. How is good as that? You know, I actually say to people and I go all over Canada. I have rabbi friends all over the place. And I tell them I was born I lived in Toronto and I lived at Bathurst and Neptune. And so some of you actually

know where that is. And if you're in the Jewish neighborhood, you'll know exactly where that is. And I have so many rabbi friends that say when I say, I I lived at Bathurst and Neptune, they go, "How do you live at Bathurst and Neptune?" And you know what? That has opened up doors for me in the biggest way because they say, "Oh, you were part of the culture. You know who we are." But you know what? Just because you weren't born at Bathurst and Neptune, doesn't mean you don't have to engage. It means you can engage. And it's so important for us to engage. I want to tell you a couple of stories. You know, on October the 9th I was sitting in my office and I heard

this sound. It was a very familiar sound. You know the sound, right? You know that sound? Doom >> [clears throat] >> doom doom doom doom. Heard that, right? I'm sitting there and there's this little parade going by my house. Free free Palestine free free October 9th October 9th October 9th. It was going by my They had signage. They had a sound. They had a police escort. October 10th. Again. Free free Palestine going by my door. Coming from the high school. It was coming from the high school. So, I went to the high school and I went to the office and I said, "Can you explain to me what river and what sea are they talking about?" And the office said, "I don't understand. I don't know what

river and sea." I said, "Let me explain to you. Do you know the word Intifada?" I don't know what that word means. Well, there's this this thing that's going by my house for the past two days and they're talking about rivers and seas and Intifada. Let me help you and explain to you what it means. So, I explained what from the river to the sea meant and I explained to them what Intifada meant. They were calling for the genocide of the Jewish people not just in Israel, but everywhere. And you know what happened? That thing didn't go by my street anymore. Praise the Lord. That was the mercy of God. That was just one guy. Maybe there were others that did that, but I know it was just me that

did this and and there was something happened. I was at uh I was at the UJA Walk in Toronto in 2024. I would have gone last year, but I was in Israel. And I would suggest that if you get the opportunity to go to the UJA Walk in Toronto, you should do this this June. And I was wearing a t-shirt that I got from my friends from Return Ministry. They're an Aliyah Ministry. And in the front in Hebrew, it said Israel Chai. And on the back, it said Christians Stand With Israel. And as I was marching in this throng of 50,000 plus, I was getting lots and lots of hugs. Lots and lots of hugs. People were so happy that we were here. And we came to this bottleneck in the road and

that at Shepherd Bathurst and Shepherd and they kind of made a bottleneck and if you've been in that walk, you know that they do this. I don't know why Well, I have an idea why they do this. And so there was the police and the police were kind of bottlenecked in and the police were standing there facing us and the throng of the pro-Hamas people were in behind screaming and yelling and they weren't they weren't There wasn't a buffer zone. There were police and then them. Right? And it was really loud and they're screaming and yelling. So, the first thing I did is I went to the police officer where there was a whole road and I talked to the first one and I

said, "Excuse me, officer. You're facing the wrong way because the people here, my friends, are not calling for anybody's genocide. They're just marching and walking for Israel. These people behind you are calling for their death. In fact, it's hate speech. Why aren't you doing anything about it?" He didn't say anything, but his eyes were swearing at me. And then the guys in behind the police officers started screaming and yelling at me because I had the appropriate clothes on, right? The the t-shirt. And they're screaming at me and they're calling for all kinds of things. And of course, because I'm getting excited about stuff, so I started to get back in their face cuz

they're in my face. And I got back in their face and I said, "Take your masks off. You don't intimidate me. You don't intimidate my friends. I'm not afraid of you. They're not afraid of you. You should be ashamed of yourself." And so so anyway, I was a little bit animated. And and this Jewish couple comes up to me. And they say "I thought you guys were the uh were the turn the other cheek people." I said, "For me, I'm the turn the other cheek people. For you, I fight." Jesus said this, "No greater love is this except a man lay down his life for a friend. The Jews are our friends, and [clears throat] we need to be holding them like friends. It is not enough for us to say, "We love the Jewish

community." You all do, we know that. You do. But do they know? Do they know? I had somebody share with me just recently, you know, they were experiencing this and said, "This is this thing is great. We love this." But the big thing is, do they know? Do you have Jewish friends? I have been so blessed to have so many more I have Rabbi friends all over the nation. I never thought when I came into the role of a Christian ministry called National House of Prayer that I would be spending maybe 30% of my time building relationships in the Jewish community. They come They come to They heard about us. They come to me. I love hanging around. My friend Evan's going to be

speaking in a few minutes. I love this guy. I love what he has to say. He has Let me just share something. Maybe you might use this today, but I'm going to use it now anyway. I got 6 minutes. The You know, we had to a couple of shootings last week, a couple of weeks ago, right? The synagogues. And then the presser came and and C Jack was there and other Jewish organizations were there and there were really politicians and the police chief and they're all in the behind and in the back in the background doing this, you know, and and so a couple of them said something, you know, where they Yeah, this is not good. It's not acceptable. But you know, they needed a defender. They needed a

defender. They need a champion. They need a champion. So the next time I'm telling you I'm making a com- a commitment. The next time this happens, and it may happen again, I'm going to do a presser. I'm going to invite my friends. I'm going to call ICEJ. I'm going to call EFC. I'm going to call Pentecostal Assemblies of Canada. I'm going to call MNC. I'm going to say, "Come on, guys. We need to stand up and be the champion for them." 4 minutes 40. Got one more story. I was in Red Deer, Alberta this past fall and I did a a a an anti-Semitism roundtable with Stockwell. We've done like four or five of these, eh, Stock? Four or five of these events across the nation. We just

did one in Victoria where we had over 200 out and we're building great relationships in that community. We went to Red Deer. They're saying, "Oh, there's a lot of Jews in Red Deer?" No, I don't think there's one, to tell you the truth, but they were in between Edmonton and Calgary and we did this there because we also recognize that that right-wing anti-Semitism is very well and very alive. And so that's why we did that there. And we had a great turnout and great response from that. But anyway, so we were at this First Nations First Nations um First Nations called Maskwacis and we went to a church there and met with some leaders and this woman named Misty came

up to me and she says, "You know, I didn't even know I wasn't talking about Israel. I wasn't doing any Israel stuff on that. I was just talking about prayer." She says, "You know, I'm First Nations and I really love the Jewish people." I'm thinking like, "Okay, you're on my the same page as me." She says, "You know, we're the the Jewish people are the first people of the land of Israel. So that we really can relate to them." And which is really one And she says, "Let me tell you a story. So I went went to Edmonton for a pro-Hamas rally." And I went, "Okay, tell me more." And so she says, "I went to Edmonton and brought my Israel flag cuz I thought I would voice

my opinion." And I went, "Okay, how'd that go?" "Well, she says, you know, I got beat up. They pulled my hair out. They stomped me. They spit on me. And then they said to me" She said She says to them, "Why are you doing this?" And their their their their response to what to their to her was, "What do you expect?" And she said, "I expected you to act like a Canadian. I expected you to honor freedom of speech and freedom of religion. I expected you to act like a human being." So then she says, "So the next time I go, I'm going to make sure my hair is tucked in and I'm not going to wear my new glasses. I will wear my old glasses and I'll wear jeans that have that are a

little ripped cuz if they knock me down, I'm not going to worry too much." She is bold and courageous. And we are called to be bold and courageous. And I want to say this, Joshua 1:9, you know this. Be bold and courageous for the Lord your God will go with you wherever you go. That is not a suggestion. It's a command. It's a command. So I want to say to you, be bold and courageous. If you don't have Jewish friends, ask Hashem to bless you with Jewish friends. But But in doing that, don't sit there and go, "Lord, send me Jewish friends." Go get them. Go find them. Go love on them. Go be the champion that God has called you to be in this time. For such a time is this. Thank you, everybody.