The autumn (fall) festivals are over and in the northern hemisphere at least - and especially here in Scandinavia - we are settling down for the coming winter. I know those of you living in the southern half of our world are taking up to spring and summer! So welcome to the first sabbath after Sukkot (Tabernacles), the harvest (at least in the north) is over and is gathered in, though I know there are many parts of the world where there have been poor harvests raising the frightening spectacle of starvation next year for millions. We'll be talking more about these things tomorrow at Rosh Chodesh, Yah willing.

There are, in this world, broadly-speaking, two realities in our sphere of existence - the reality within each individual with which he or she judges everything and everyone; and the reality which is the outer world. The reality inside each individual is not uncommonly a pot pourri of conflicting ideas and experiences, and the reality outside each individual - the reality that is the world around us - is likewise a pot pourri of conflicting ideas and experiences, only the reality in the world is far more complicated, being a swirrling mass of all the ideas, philosophies, political doctrines and religious ideas of every conceivable kind. A couple of generations ago these were pretty much separated according to geographical location but since the arrival of the internet, mass media and migration generally, everything has come together into a massive, seathing pot. And even though the local cultural mix will tend to dominate in the experiences and thought patterns of any given individual, they are increasingly becoming more and more mixed.

Some refugees from various conflict zones around the world like Somalia, Iraq, Sudan and other places have suddenly arrived in our local village. It must be a huge cultural shock for them. As I got close to them and observed them I could see by the way they moved, how they spoke and the psychic energy coming from them, that their whole world view was radically different from the people of our own little Swedish community. Assimilating will prove difficult, as is often the case, as they try to hold on to their cultural values and expectations. It won't take them very long, however, to 'pick up' what is going on in the new society which is their new home, not least their state entitlements, something totally unknown and unheard of in the cultures they have left behind where there is no welfare state, no safety net in case they should fall on hard times. And who can blame them for taking advantage of all the entitlements offered them by the system. Someone coming in from the desert, starving and thirsting, is not going to pass up a feast offered to them.

Yesterday I was speaking to a rural pastor in India who has taken it upon himself to raise 21 orphan boys single handedly. There is little or nothing in the form of state welfare in his country and those who go under cannot expect any state agencies to rescue them. They have to rely on themselves and their family, if they have any, in order to survive. If they become ill and are unable to work, often all that is left to them is begging in a land filled to bursting with beggars. A pastor and friend of mine who is currently on an evangelical tour in the tribal regions brought with him the means to give this pastor and his orphans food for a while but it will be running out in 10 days' time. It's hard enough providing for just one person, let alone for a single child. I have heard heart-wrenching stories of believers and unbelievers alike selling their children in order to survive and to secure the survival of their children. Unfortunately, so many of these children are sold into slavery and prostitution of one sort or another, and most of them die young. They do not have the social safety nets that we have here and which we take for granted and which the majority, I suspect, exploit by using it as an excuse not to work.

One of the reasons the welfare state is collapsing in the West is precisely because it is being abused, not because it is necessarily a bad thing. Part of the problem is the 'sense of entitlement' that people acquire and absorb into their inner reality and world view. They think that they are 'owed' something, that it is their 'right'. They believe society has a debt to them. They have this selfish, ego-centric view of the world, which of course - when you stand back and look at it from the outside - is bound inevitably to collapse because then everyone thinks they have entitlements. Why, I have even heard of millionaires in the USA claiming state benefits from the government! A worthy system originally designed to protect the weak and vulnerable, who are unable to help themselves, becomes an ever growing giant trough to which able-bodied men and women who are able to work and generate wealth but refuse to.

In Yahweh's Torah a system exists to take care of those who are unable to take care of themselves. In its essence it is very simple: everyone should work to provide for his family but 10% of his income is to be set-apart or dedicated to Yahweh. It's not his - it belongs to Elohim (God). Out of this 10% he is to give a third to support the ministry, a third is to be used to help out the poor and disadvantaged, and a third is to be used to save up for the annual festivals, and especially the three pilgrimage festivals that may require us to expensively transport our families large distances in order to assemble with other Torah-observant followers of the Messiah. In other words, approximately a third of Yahweh's tenth is to be used to help those who cannot help themselves. Whether the person in question makes individual gifts from Yahweh to specific individuals or families, or pools these with others to help in a bigger cause, such as those ministering on a larger scale in a famine region for flood relief, or whatever, doesn't really matter. The important thing is that this is to be given from our own purse which we have ourselves earned and which we ourselves give without being compelled to by the government. And unless we have been asked to distribute the tithes of others for a particular project, we are not to go forcing people to donate.

The weakness of the state system is that it not only relies on forced taxation but it is also susceptible to corruption. I'll not get into all the various corruptions that exist in society as this will otherwise become a political platform other than to say in such systems it isn't long before officials start scooping off money for themselves or start channelling money into decidedly immoral programs. Of course, we are forced to accept the world system as it is, it is unlikely to change much in spite of the bold and valiant efforts of reformers, and people will continue to be drawn to it not because they thing it is a good system for mankind but because they perceive it as 'good' for their sense of self-entitlement. Their view will, for the most part, be a selfish one. They will view it solely in terms of what they can get for themselves with the minimum amount of effort. And that is why there is such a stream of economic refugees into the West. Most of these people, understandably, view us as suckers whom they are more than willing to exploit. And since the money is given by a faceless government, they never see the people who actually sacrificed to provide it in taxes and so don't feel the same kind of gratitude or humility that comes from a personal connection to ones benefactor.

You'd have though that those at the top would have seen through this system and want to reform it but the problem is they too feed off it. As the trough gets bigger and bigger, so the workforce gets smaller and smaller, and in consquence gets pooer and poorer as there are so many extra people to support. From being a system modeled on Christian principles to take care of society's disadvantaged and genuinely needy, it becomes one of exploitation of the cows and encourages the calves to never grow up and become productive cows.

We are, as human beings, constantly trying to devise political systems that minimise the amount of work we have to do as well as to minimise the risks. The Bible nowhere says that work is bad, however. Rather, it points out that idleness is the mother of mischief. On the other hand, there is to be adequate rest. The secular society has invented the 'weekend'; Yahweh created the Sabbath, the new moons and the annual festivals, all of which obviously imply that rest is to be in Him and not to be apart from Him whether in sacred assembly or in personal recreation.

Those who don't know or love Him are obviously inclined to the weekends and to their annual (usually paid) vaccations of 1-3 weeks (depending what country you are in) unless you are a part of the ruling class in which case you can usually expect to have far more. Indeed, it is by this means that the ruling élites corrupt hard-working people, by creating a bureaucracy that pays more and gives more vaccation time. The way the élite traps people into keeping it going is by offering more and more entitlements to those who agree to work for it. That's why state bureaucracy grows and grows because what the rulers offer is a carnal system of self-gratfication for an ever growing minority at the expense of the masses. I know it's hard to believe because it looks so much like communism, but at one point 75% of the Swedish population worked for the state. The system became so top heavy and expensive that the rulers were forced to parr it down to 50% of the population, which is roughly what it is now, so as not to bankrupt the system. And that is why socialism failed in the communist world with practically every industry in the state sector. So instead of communism, the ruling élite has created a three-tier system that is evolving into feudalism consisting of a tiny minority of the super-wealthy at the top whose sole interest is getting money and power, a swelling privileged bureaucractic class in the middle getting fatter and fatter on the wealth it seizes through ever increasing taxes on the masses. The bureaucrats, in return for giving the élites what they want, get all their perks and entitlements(including lower taxes) provided they ensure that those under them are taken care of on a very basic level. Then there is the slave class which gets bigger and bigger, owning less and less, who continue to believe that the nanny state will take care of their needs indefinitely.

Can you see how radically different this is from Yahweh's system? The élite's system survives only because it feeds on the fear of the people that if they stop supporting the system their trough won't be filled any longer and on the lie that the people are incapable of taking care of themselves. And even when the trough is filled less and less, they continue their religious-type devotion vainly hoping that Big Brother will save them. And whilst Big Brother will every now and then give some small hand-outs to maintain the illusion that he is a caring father of the slave class, in truth he is taking more and more away.

I spoke at the beginning of the different realities in our world. The system, as it exists, can only get stronger if the lies which keep it together are unexposed and the people do nothing about it. The urgency of the élite right now is to implement a system of total slavery as quickly as possible before enough people wake up and then to crush and destroy those who have been awakened once they have the absolute power they crave. That's what's happening in the world today, right now - there is a mad rush to put dictatorships in place in the West, in America and in Europe in particular, where the greatest wealth is to be found. There's already dictatorship in China.

The truth is, and always has been, that the system will not protect you in the way that you want. And provided you walk around with a sense of self-entitlement, expecting the nanny state to take care of everything, instead of viewing yourself as having obligations to Yahweh and to His children, you will end up a complete slave, which was the satanic design in the first place. Even the upper echeolons - those in the hightest seats of power, in spite of owning such fabulous wealth and having the ultimate power of life and death over the masses at their finger-tips (the perverse desire of all despots) - are slaves themselves whom Satan is using because of what he considers to be his entitlement to absolute power.

All Satan does, in the exploitation of man, is to acquire total power for himself by persuading men to cease trusting Elohim (God) and to break the mitzvot (commandments). He wants to be Elohim (God) himself, the Absolute Power of the Universe. And all those who agree with him, because they allow him to play on their fleshy desires, are seeking to be elohim (gods) themselves. It is an utter and total illusion. Satan isn't Elohim (God) and we aren't elohim (gods) even though the vast bulk of mankind has bought into that original lie that the serpent told Eve:

"The woman (Eve) said to the serpent (Satan), 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but Elohim (God) did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.' 'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For Elohim (God) knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like Elohim (God), knowing good and evil'" (Gen.3:2-5, NIV).

This, brethren and sisters, is the Lie of all lies, all lies deriving from it. The evil world system that you see today stems from this single lie. And yet the way Satan puts it makes it seem so very reasonable. What did he have in mind? What was he offering Eve? Power. Authority. Control. Self-entitlement. Knowledge of everything. There is no way we can know everything not even if we invested a trillion years of searching and experimenting. And don't misunderstand me, there is nothing wrong in acquiring knowledge, but it's the kind of knowledge that Satan offered that was the problem - knowledge that would make us self-existent without Elohim (God) because assuming we could ever come to that place, once we knew everything there was to know, the good and the evil, what need would be there of an Elohim (God)?

This was the same lie that Lucifer believed. And once he came to the conclusion that he could acquire a total knowledge of good and evil, he said to himself, as we read in Isaiah:

"I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of Elohim (God); I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like El Elyon (the Most High)" (Isa.14:13-14, NIV).

And this lie is repeated again and again: "If you just believe in yourself, you can do anything - the stars will be yours!" How many careers have been launched that way in the entertainment business, for example? Self belief and self-entitlement is all part and parcel of the satanic system and yet it has wormed its way into Christian teaching through popular psychology and the New Age. Anyone who questions or changes the Davar Elohim (Word of God) is to all practical intents making himself to be 'god'. He is claiming to be divine.

You will recall that Lucifer's desire was to be "above the stars of Elohim (God)" (Is.14:13, NIV). Who are the "stars of Elohim (God)"? They are Yahweh's malakim or angels and His faithful ones (Job 38:7). Although Heylel or Lucifer originally had a throne as Yahweh's "anointed cherub" (Ezek.28:14), he aspired to rule over all of Yahweh's malakim (angels), all of whom had been created to serve Elohim (God) and not themselves or the cherubim (archangels). They were created to become ministers to mortal men and women like ourselves who would become the "heirs of salvation" (Heb.1:14) through Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). In terms of toqef (authority) they are currently a little above us, but in the resurrection they will be a little under us.

But Lucifer desired not only to rule over the heavenly hosts - malakim (angels) and human spirits alike - but he wanted to become like Elohim (God) himself. Of course, he would never have been satisfied to have been an equivalent-like power in the Universe because once you steal something that is not yours, your desire is to ultimately destroy whom you have stolen from too, if you are vain and greedy enough to want to 'have it all'. So Lucifer's ultimate aim was, and still is, to displace Yahweh Himself. Of course, it's absurd, but once you're on a path which doesn't allow you to turn back (because what Satan wanted was the ultimate sin), there's no turning back until you're defeated and put in your place.

But how did Satan rationalise this in his mind? Did he seriously expect to get away with this? You have to remember that Lucifer was, like us and all the malakim (angels), a created not a self-existent being. There would therefore have to have logically been a point in his earliest awareness that he would not have known much or anything about his origin. He would not have been aware of the instant of his creation. Awareness comes only later as we grow and mature. All he had was Yahweh's own testimony that he was created by Yahweh's Davar (Word). He could well have doubted it, assuming. as he would have been forced to, that Yahweh was lying to 'keep him in line' and in his own illusion of inferiority. He would have had to have exercised emunah or faith just as we do when it comes to our origins. Lucifer never knew everything and still doesn't, not by a long shot - his knowledge is puny compared to Yahweh's. There were, and still are, many things requiring emunah (faith) on his part. All created beings, however much they are endowed with power, still have to live by emunah (faith).

Our reactions, when we doubt Yahweh's Davar (Word), are identical to Lucifer's, which is why these doubts are rightly termed 'satanic', not because they are necessary some 'monstrous evil' when we choose to exercise them but because they were originally conceived by the one who became the mosterous evil of the Cosmos. When we doubt, we are allowing Satan to plan his original doubt in us. Our doubt has a common origin. And when we let those doubts take root, we are cultivating satanic nature in us whuch by the by leads us into evil.

So put yourself in Lucifer's position. You don't remember your creation, you have only Yahweh's Davar (Word) that you were created by that same Davar (Word), so what alternative belief is available to you concerning your origin? What's left? There is only one alternative 'explanation', ridiculous though it is when you carefully examine it, but when you are clutching at straws to justify a rebellion against Yahweh's Emet (Truth), it's really the only 'belief option' there is. If you know that Elohim (God) exists, as obviously Lucifer did, since he lived in his presence originally (something we have to come to by emunah/faith ourselves since we have forgotten that we did the same - see Pre-existence), then what is the only 'explanation' that is left? Well, there are really only two ways Satan could have approached this:

• 1. He could have assumed that someone one else - some other more powerful Being - created both Yahweh and Lucifer and all the heavenly hosts; or

• 2. Since his earliest awareness would have been his arising out of the watery cosmos of the primaeval deep (Gen.1:2), just as we emerged out of the darkness of our own mother's watery womb, he may have concluded that both he and Yahweh had somehow 'evolved' out of those same primaeval waters! And since every cosmology of the pagan Sumerians, Egyptians and other ancient nations contain this belief, this, in my option, is not only what Lucifer convinced himself of but has sought to convince all mankind of too. Lucifer was the Cosmos' first evolutionist!

He had to believe in a whopping lie in order to have a purpose for continuing. He had to have hope that this was the emet (truth) otherwise he would have given up from the start. Of course, when he was defeated at Calvary by the deah and resurrection of Yahweh's Son, this must have come as a terrible shock and dose of reality. I don't think he ever believed that there was a being greater than Yahweh and himself who made both - that would have been too much for his vanity and too great a delusion to bear. So he chose to believe that both evolved out of the primaeval waters, which was all he could rememeber of his own creation, and that the emet (truth) was that there was - and always had been - a cosmic struggle between himself and Yahweh. The way events unfolded on earth certainly gave him evidence since Yahweh does not intervene often but when He does it is always dramatic and conclusively in His favour. This lie of the 'cosmic struggle' of two equally matched rivals is the foundation of all pagan religion and explains the great 'contests' for power of the 'gods' whether they be Greek, Sumerian, Hindu or any other. It is a thread that links the 'reality' of the world together, be it expressed in religious or secular Darwinistic terms.

The moment we visualise ourselves in such epic 'struggles' we are falling for the old Luciferic lie, because we're acting out an old drama that's as old as this planet. We're trying to defeat an opponent with whom we believe we are almost equally matched but, given an extra bit of 'effort', 'determination', 'cleverness' and will-power, we will eventually outwit and defeat. Then we can say that 'we did it!' by our own cleverness. And if we are thinking along those lines, we are not thinking the way Yahweh wants us to think. We are thinking Lucifer's way, the way of the world. We are demonstrating our pride and vanity, the evil fruits of the fleshy nature.

I can give you plenty of examples, but let me give you two. Once, when one of my teenage children was rebelling against me, the child told me I was not the child's father! I was very hurt at the time, and angry too, but I can understand the logic. If you deny a true toqef or authority then of course you're going to claim another one (not that that teen would have submitted to the false father either, of course). It was a perfectly rational thing to say even though it was based on a whopping great lie.

I remember a woman I was councelling many years ago who had left her husband. I don't know what the reasons were and they're not important for the purposes of this instruction, but suffice to say that she had concluded in her own mind that her husband had committed the unpardonable sin, was hell-bound, and therefore the marriage contract was an an end and she could do what she liked now in the marriage market. She was looking for an 'out' and, outrageous though the claim was, it was the only one she thought she could make stick and 'free' her to go after another man. I explained to her that only Elohim (God) could only possibly know who had ever committed an 'unpardonable sin' and that she was, in effect, claiming to have that perfect knowledge of good and evil that only Elohim (God) possesses. She was claiming to be like Elohim (God). In order to justify her adultery, she claimed to know better than Yahweh's Davar (Word).

We are, of course, free to believe and do whatever we like, but we are never free of the consequences of wrong choices. If we have believed in lies and made bad choices in consequence thereof, then all that is available to us, if we're serious about getting right with Yahweh and living a life of fulfilment and happiness, is to make teshuvah - to repent. To do that we must release to Him all our false rationalisations, all our tumultous and contrary emotions and wild thoughts, and let Him rebuild our lives in His tavnith (pattern) and under His toqef (authority). We have no choice unless we are determined to experience final defeat at the Cross. Remember also that one of the reasons Satan has persisted for so long is because he has won so many battles over the ages and this makes him feel invincible! He has appeared victorious but evil is always defeated at the last battle and always loses the war. He forgets sometimes that Yahweh not only intervenes when sin ripens in iniquity but He does so in a way that does not interfere with man's agency. That is the testimony of the Besorah (Gospel), it is Yahweh's own Davar (Word) which never returns to Him void or empty. What He says, happens - in the end. The Great Flood is such a reminder.

We have all been programmed in the luciferic way of being by the world system, in its mythologies, fairy tales, entertainment, culture and educational system. Everywhere you look you will find this common theme of the 'grand struggle' between two almost equally matched opponents, one of whom can only win by getting that slight edge on the other. The thing is, it's all a lie. Yahweh never did have any competition, even from His fallen archangel, Heylel or Lucifer who became haSatan the Adversary or Opponent of mankind. Part of Satan knows he's defeated but the other part still believes that he and Yahweh have a common evolutionary origin because that's the only lie that can't be disproved until he is finally defeated and Yahweh shows to him his true beginning. And because it's such an effective lie, it forms the foundation of all thinking today, atheistic as well as religious.

Yesterday evening, as some of you know, I was very ill and in considerable pain that would not abate. I began by praying in desperation and ended up in that old 'cycle of struggle', wondering what sins were responsible for my condition, and what I had to do there and then to get recovery. Of course, the more I did this, the more stressed I got and the more the pain got worse. Only when I decided I would surrender - be still - and start giving everything to Yahweh, did the pain start to slowly subside until the meds I was taking could do the rest. I found shalom (peace) and simply let go to the One who has all Toqef (Authority) and all Power, who is the fullness of Ahavah (Love) and who is in control whether we or Satan care to admit it or not. We know that evolution is foolishness and nothing more than a religious fairytale invented by Satan to explain himself rather than admit Yahweh created him, that atheism is foolishness, that paganism is vain and empty, so why do we act out our lives as though either or all were reality? Whatever 'reality' may be out in the world, whatever 'reality' we think is inside us, the only reality that makes any sense at all or which has any sort of positive consequence for mankind is the Absolute Reality that Yahweh is the Self-Existent, All-Powerful, All-Knowing One who alone determines every final outcome. Our choice is simply to come to Him or to stay away. It's that simple.

When the pain subsides and prosperity returns, it is easy to forget the lessons we learned during times of trouble and slip back into the world's 'great contest' mode of thinking again. We mustn't, because it isn't worth it. So many believers and lapsed believers are fighting futile battles which they cannot possibly win because they're still thinking like the devil in terms of winning heroic contests. The heroic work has already been done by Yah'shua (Jesus) at the Cross and it's from that self same Cross that we gain all our lasting victories. Yes, we have our part, and much (all, actually) is required of us, but we don't win the battles - Yahweh does. And we only win when we surrender to the Winner.

You may be facing a Gethsemane of your own right now and if you are, let go and give it all to Him, unless you want to be pinned up on that cross indefinitely. Let go, and move on in Yahweh's will. I'll not share the other revelations and visions Yhaweh shared with me during my ordeal as they are not germaine to the subject I am talking about to day In Him we cannot be stopped but outside Him there will be continual defeat. Let the Rahab's and Ruth's come home and be grafted in - Jericho and Moab offer only destruction and famine. But we have to do our own footwork - Yah'shua (Jesus) knocks but we have to go to Him, as Rahab vaccated the city for the Camp of Israel and as Ruth left Moab for Boaz. Once in the good land, anything is possible in Yahweh! Amen.