Chag sameach Shavu'ot kol beit Yisra'el and may the 100-fold kindness of our Master Yah'shua (Jesus) be with us this day as we approach Him with fear and simcha (joy).

This is not a small thing we do today - assembling here, as they once did those thousands of years ago. The people of the generation that came out of Egypt were Egyptians from head to toe, not Israelites, even though they were ancestors of Jacob who was renamed Israel. Even the people who succeeded them in the New Covenant, those Benjamites and Judah-Perizzites who assembled and tarried in obedience to Yah'shua's command in Jerusalem, even through they were for the most part from the distant Galilean countryside, were not Israelites in the sense of the fullness that Yahweh intended for them - they were culturally Judeans, Galileans and Samaritans still. And though on both Shavu'ots Yahweh did a marvelous work and a wonder that might, perhaps, cause a certain amount of envy on our part, and though the first New Covenant Shavu'ot (Weeks) was so much 'higher' than that Shavu'ot at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was still not the fullness but both were ordained for the time and for the people in which thosse anointings were given.

I know, and I understand, the fear and uncertainty that lies in every breast on occasions such as this, especially when you have had pep talks (as they may be viewed) from the likes of me, and in consequence have expectations. I know, and I understand, what a fearful thing it is to trust an imperfect mortal such as myself. I want you to know that I would gladly have Yahweh replace me in the calling that I have been given to lead this work and for someone else to shoulder the responsibility of bringing forth devarim (words) and making decisions. It is my desire, like Moses, "that all Yahweh's people were nevi'im (prophets) and that Yahweh would put his Ruach (Spirit) on them!" (Num.11:29, NIV) That did not happen in Moses' day because the people would not trust. That can not not happen today. And for this reason, this Shavu'ot (Weeks), and all Shavu'ots henceforth, can never be the same. Everyone has now to be a navi (prophet) but that does not mean that everyone is. Only Yahweh can send that prophetic anointing - none may aspire to it or claim to it in his or her own chayim (life)-power. Anyone who does will not survive, will not endure, will not come to victory.

There is nothing in this office that I covet. It has, for the most part, only provoked disbelief, scorn and hostility both today and in the past. There is certainly no glory in it as it pertains to approval ratings or to acceptance in the world, let alone amongst fellow believers. I was angrily accused of being a liar and deceiver yesterday by a messianic who would not take responsibility for finding out the emet (truth) for himself about the calendar. He demanded that I devote many hours taking him through the steps to be convinced that his belief system was in error. When I pointed him to the written materials that would answer his every question he was indignant and offended because he wanted me to do his work for him and take responsibility for his choice not to believe. He broke off communication with me when he did not get his way. You see, I knew from the outset that he was not interested in the emet (truth) - he simply wanted an occasion to prove me wrong and to waste my time.

I have been made the custodian of a work that at times even my own family has been hostile to. That, I admit, has been the hardest part of all of this, and yet it could not really be any other way. If Yahweh expects us to test Him, and reason with Him, then those who are called to bring forth a new revelation must likewise expect to be tested, and to reason too. So I do not resent being tested and being called to reason and that is in part why I have spent so many countless hours bringing forth this work in words that may be tested and reasoned over.

As a leader, it is my responsibility to test and retest on a continual basis. There are brethren who lovingly and respectfully correct me when it is needed for whom I am always grateful. We are very much an apostolic team. Those who stand alone neither have this blessing nor privilege, nor for that matter are they walking in divine tavnith (pattern) and are exposing themselves and their families unnecessarily, particularly in these very dangerous times. Some of you know that on Day 4:19 (5 July) I was shown a vision of a burning scroll - a very thick and therefore long scroll - and that on the inside were printed the words, 'WHAT I BELIEVE'. This scroll had no fire on the inside, only the outside, and the flames did not consume the scroll. This is the fire that burns away the dross but which leaves standing that which is of Yahweh (1 Cor.3:15).

There is, however, a point - as must surely be obvious to most of you by now - beyond which we cannot reason with people. There is a point, when the evidence is so overwhelming, that there can be no more testing. Then you have to take a leap of emunah (faith) or otherwise remain in unbelief. None of us escape this, all of us are brought to this point in all the different ways that Yahweh does based on our character and experience. Then it is time for us to be tested, to see if the profession of our mouths equals the deep and often confusing emotional currents of our hearts. For such decisions of emunah (faith) cannot be made apart from the heart for it is in the heart that the thoughts of our mind must be validated and empowered, and our heart in its turn conformed to the precision and order of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit).

In many ways that season of the bringing forth of devarim (words) is over - not completely but certainly to the extent they have been in the past. When we received the endowment or anointing of Aviv 9, was it not beyond words? Did we not sit here in complete amazement and stupefication? There was nothing to be said because Yahweh was doing all the saying - silently and yet immeasurably powerful. If I were to summarise that experience in five words - if I were to translate that Ruach (Spirit) into five words, it would be Yahweh saying, "I AM IN COMPLETE CONTROL". And the corollary to that would be: "You are completely at rest in Me."

And yet, as Yahweh showed me in vision eight days ago, this Messianic Bride is in great travail - she is suffering, she has great pain on account of her birth pangs in her transition from death to chayim (life). You are all carrying heavy burdens - some necessary and some unnecessary - and at times it seems impossible for you to carry more. My own family and your families are in great travail. Great fear is over us all, whether we care to admit it or not, and mingled with our continuing emunah (faith) are the little remains of atheism that Yahweh wants fully out of the way before He can bring this new work into its proper spiritual positioning and endowment. We have convinced ourselves that we have been waiting for Him but the emet (truth) is He has been waiting for us.

The temptation to turn on one another and blame one another has been great but the person next to you is not the problem - the problem is ourselves. Thus Paul admonished:

"The entire Torah (Law) is summed up in a single command: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' If you keep on biting and devouring each other, watch out or you will be destroyed by each other" (Gal.5:14-15, NIV).

And once we have accepted that, Yahweh will do His marvelous work. That is one reason Paul said to the Philippians:

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves" (Phil.2:3, NIV).

We are not, in any case, assembled here today to prove to other believers, let alone the world, that we are right. We are here to be made right - to be completed, to be supernaturally delivered into a new reality, into His Name, into His presence - all of us. And that is not something that we can do in our own power or strength. We know that in our heads but our fleshy hearts like to insist otherwise. If we consider everyone else better than ourselves, we will worry less about their shortcomings and instead focus on our own! For I guarantee that they will not be pressured into conforming with our shortcomings in order to make us feel better. It won't happen. All we can do is come into His presence, as Israel did on the original Shavu'ot (Weeks) and fall on our faces before the Almighty.

Now I guarantee that when that heavenly shofar (ram's horn) was blown and when the earth was shaking under the feet of those Egyptianised Israelites that they were not arguing with one another or complaining about this or that. Their own petty quarrels suddenly lost all dimension and relevance - all shape and size, all meaning - before the awesome power of Yahweh Almighty. Their attention was off themselves and on Him and there was not a man, woman or child among them who had ANY power in them to do otherwise. Yahweh had a captive audience and He got it by shaking them so roughly that their flesh simply fell off the branches of their egotistical self-conceit and self-righteousness and lay stinking on the ground like the exrement that it was. When you are face to face with the living Elohim (God), your ego vapourises and is no more...until the Presence withdraws and you are left to yourselves again. Admittedly they picked up that excrement again afterwards to their great shame.

I must, however, correct myself. Their total ego did not fully vapourise. They were left with a single element of self-will, a single piece of ego, a fragment of their name, and that was the choice to walk forwards into that terrifying scene of other-worldliness and power where there were no self-security handles to hold onto that they could recognise, steeped as they were with the imagined need for fleshy securities like dainty food and creature comforts in general - all of that was GONE. All that was left was a single choice, a single remaining element of free will - do I go into this unknown and terrifying reality or to I turn 180 degrees and say: "I will not accept responsibility for this choice - I will rather go to Moses and let him assume the responsibility of direct communion with this terrifying Being. Then when I mess up, I can blame Moses. After all, that's what leaders are for, aren't they?"

Well, you all know what they chose. They chose, what we would today call in our psychological vocabulary, self-entitelement, self-justification, blame-shifting, cowardice. If anybody wants to be a leader in Messianic Israel, then they must expect to lead such ungrateful and carnal people because everyone who has not received this anointing will treat their leaders that way once they realise those leaders are not 'gods' but mortal human beings. But there's the catch - they can't do without those leaders and yet they loathe them too. Why do they loathe them? Because those leaders continually remind them of the choice they never made to commune with Yahweh face-to-face and get confirmation of what their leaders say - whether it be true or false.

Today's leaders, whether political or religious, are not so impressive. Few have any guts, few are real men, few will stand in the Emet (Truth) no matter the cost. They are too motivated by self-interest, pursuing wealth and comfort at the expense of their sheep. The time has come again, in our day, wherein I am directed to repeat this warning and condemnation in this season of judgment:

"The Davar (Word) of Yahweh came to me: 'Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: 'This is what Yahweh-Elohim says: Woe to the shepherds of Israel who only take care of themselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.

"'Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh: As surely as I live, declares Yahweh-Elohim, because My flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because My shepherds did not search for My flock but cared for themselves rather than for My flock, therefore, O shepherds, hear the Davar (Word) of Yahweh: This is what Yahweh-Elohim says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for My flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them'" (Ezek.34:1-10, NIV).

Those called onto the Ark no longer have that very unsatisfying luxury of using their leaders as a scapegoat. When Yahweh manifested Himself to us on Aviv 9 it was to inform this people that everyone is to come up to Him and remain in Him not in the general, formless sense in which we say that as evangelicals or messianics but specifically in the real, tangible and memorable Aviv 9 Anointing! We're supposed to stay there and walk into our calling as nevi'im (prophets), discerning the will of Elohim (God) together and being echad (one). We will not achieve echad (oneness) by motivational talking, or by assuming a leadership position and leading by example. Our eyes in this Ark are not supposed to be on one another but on Him with the same attentiveness that those early Israelites had when the sound of His presence was deafening their ears and terra firma didn't feel so very 'firm' at all in the midst of the earthquake. So if you're looking for a firm footing and silence with which to hear Yahweh this Shavu'ot (Weeks), and during the extra six days that follow this year, so that you can at length move into Sukkot (Tabernacles) in the autumn/fall, then you're not getting it. Your emunah (faith) must be such that with the ground heaving under your feet you don't dash under the nearest table or run to another country like Job, and such that with the heavenly shofar blasing you don't plug your ears with your fingers or put on headphones with deafeningly loud music because it is in that precise moment that the Commandments - Yahweh's will - are being read out to you!

Whenever you read the Ten Commandments - and I recommend you do it often - I want you to remember the setting - the deafening sound and the quaking ground and not to turn away. THESE ARE THE ONLY DEVERIM (WORDS) THAT YAHWEH HAS EVER WRITTEN WITH HIS OWN FINGER, THEY ARE THE ONLY DEVARIM (WORDS) THAT HE SPOKE WITH HIS OWN VOICE TO THE WHOLE COMMUNITY OF HIS PEOPLE! No other devarim (words) should therefore be more important to you, save Yahweh's declaration of Yah'shua's Sonship (Mt.3:17; 17:5; Mk.9:7; Lk.9:35; 2 Pet.1:17) and Yah'shua's (Jesus') Son's own summary of those mitzvot (commandments) - which do not replace them but rather explain their heart - the Two Great Commandments:

"Thou shalt love the Yahweh thy Elohim (God) with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind; and thy neighbour as thyself" (Luke 10:27, KJV).

You do this - you love Him with all your soul and you love your neighbour as yourself not just because of a warm, gushy feeling you may have in your heart but because you principally believe and accept and live the Ten Commandments which are themselves a summary of all the other mitzvot (commandments). Do you remember those ten areas or concerns that Yahweh had that I shared with you yesterday? - the 10 commandments, living sacrificially, releasing servants at the Sh'mittah (Sabbatical Year), not harming others, keeping property safe, resolving social problems, showing mercy and fairness, observing the sabbaths and feasts and trusting in the covenant of wonders! By taking these to heart and by implementing them you demonstrate your love of Elohim (God) and of man. The warm feelings mean nothing if these things aren't being done. This is what ahavah (love) is.

What are we now going to do? We are going to follow divine tavnith (pattern), as we did last Aviv at the Great Dedication in following the tavnith (pattern) of the Tabernacle, and do what the ancients did:

"Then He said to Moses, 'Come up to Yahweh, you and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy of the elders of Israel. You are to worship at a distance, but Moses alone is to approach Yahweh; the others must not come near. And the people may not come up with him.' When Moses went and told the people all Yahweh's devarim (words) and torot (laws), they responded with one voice, 'Everything Yahweh has said we will do.' Moses then wrote down everything Yahweh had said" (Ex.24:1-4, NIV).

We are not going to separate physically today but remain together this morning and afternoon while the three presiding elders of this work who have obediently come up to this place in the physical or in the spirit and placed themselves under toqef (authority) here, are now going to separate ourselves for prayer in the midst of everyone else's praying. Over the next week we shall also be assembling alone for prayer.

What I must now ask of you is that you enter a covenant of obedience. This will consist of renewing your former Bar/Bat Mitzvah Covenants or of taking them for the first time - there are three of you here who have not done so and will do so now. So the first thing I must do is ask those who have not entered these covenants of obedience if you are now, of your own free will, willing to do so now?

May I remind both those who are renewing their covenants, and those taking them for the first time, what the conditions are? These are summarised in Article 8 of the Constitution and I am here rehearsing the main ones with you today:

8.2.1. He must demonstrate that he has been walking in holiness and purity before Yahweh ... for a minimum of one year from the time he became a regularly active catechumen, and have set a good example as a believer to the world;

8.2.2. He must be able to demonstrate that he has sufficient mastery over his senses and passions in Messiah in that:

8.2.2.a. He has not smoked tobacco for one year;

8.2.2.b. He has not drunk alcohol for one year;

8.2.2.c. He is not addicted to any drug or chemical substance and has been free from them for a minimum of one year;

8.2.2.d. He has been morally clean and chaste and has lived a sexually pure life for a minimum of one year, being true (if married) to his spouse in thought and deed, or being celibate (if single);

8.2.2.e. He is trustworthy, holding peoples' confidences, is not a gossipper, and does not talk indiscriminately to others about sacred matters or about others' private lives;

8.2.2.f. He has been a good steward over his resources, giving generously to Yahweh's treasury and is willing to faithfully live the Law of Tithing ...(see ¶7.3.16);

8.2.2.h. He must be seen not to be contentious and argumentative, but meek and humble in all things;

8.2.2.i. He must accept all the Laws of Messianic Israel, including her strict courtship and marriage laws and practices, which follow a three-fold unfolding called Dedication (equivalent to "engagement"), Betrothal (binding marriage contracts without sexual contact) and Full Marriage;

Would those who wish to enter this covenant of obedience to Yah'shua (Jesus) and to New Covenant Torah for the first time please declare before this assembly that they are whole-heartedly willing to do so?

I would therefore like to invite both the new candidates and also the rest of you who are baptised and confirmed and who wish to renew your covenants to do so by repeating after me the words before Elohim (God), malakim (angels) and this assembly the following words from the Torah:

"Everything Yahweh has said we will do"

Now I realise there are some who are abroad who have not been baptised in water by an MLT cohen (priest) yet and are awaiting for their baptism who are nevertheless reackoned as baptised in spirit which is why they have been accepted into this covenant on the condition that they are baptised at the first opportunity they have from an ordained member of MLT. The brethren abroad cannot likewise be presented with their MLT tzitzit (tassels) but may continue wearing other tzitzit until they receive baptism. Husbands and fathers (spiritual and biological) can, and should, present their wives or daughters with their head coverings as tokens of this covenant, though, since women come under the exclusive headship of their fathers and husbands. So we will now present headcoverings to our wives and daughters:

These tokens are presented in obedience to the mitzvot (commandments) as the outer signs of those under covenant which are recognised and honoured by the malakim (angels) (1 Cor.11:10). They are therefore important, particularly in times of danger. So please remember to have these tokens of the Shavu'ot Covenant on you.

This afternoon we shall assemble again for praise and prayer as we seek the face of Yahweh together. In the meantime, may the Elohim (God) of this Qadosh (Holy, Set-apart) Covenant bless you and be with you. Amen.