"When tempted, no one should say, 'Elohim (God) is tempting me.' For Elohim (God) cannot be tempted by evil, nor does He tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:13-15, NIV).

No matter where you are in your spiritual walk, Satan will try to tempt you into sin from Day #1 to your last breath. Our choice, which is inviolable, is simply to respond with 'yes' or 'no'. The more we say 'no', the more subtle the temptations get. The more we say 'yes', the more brazen and overt the temptations become until they are being thrust raw in your face without any attempt to conceal. I don't recommend you try it to prove or disprove me, even though everybody 'experiments' as a matter of course at some time in their lives. My plain advice is: don't tempt death. You only live once.

The other day I talked to you about the three heavens in the context of dealing with unpleasant realities in our world and I wanted to take that one step further by sharing an experience with you, in fact Satan's latest attempt to tempt me to show you how subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) he can be. Standing between us and the heavenly realm or the 'third heaven' is the demonic or 'second heaven' which constantly invades both our conscious and unconscious states (especially when dreaming) whenever we give him an open door. My open door was a bout of complaining resulting in a negative view of a reality which I did not like or want to recognise.

I had a most intense dream this morning. I was at 'home' only it wasn't home, most everything was changed. Instead of the handful of buildings which we own, there was a huge estate with many more and a well established infrastructure. It was a veritable hive of industry. The top part of the garrage, for instance, had been converted into a carpentry workship which was in constant use. There were new buildings everywhere, including concrete paths and roads. We even had out own little fire station and some incredible technology. When I looked up into the sky I was astonished to see dozens of small planets, about a quarter of the size of our moon, which made the heavens really interesting to observe.

A key for those of you who want to learn how to interpret dreams, and to especially indentify those that are, in reality, satanic theatre performances in the 'second heaven' which he uses both to observe our responses to different situations as well as to try and trap us into making ungodly decisions. The key is this, something I learned when I was young seeking to fathom dreams: when Satan is putting on a show, he is obliged by Yahweh to make something so obviously a deception that mortals like ourselves, who are not supernatural like fallen malakim (angels), can, if we are attentive, spot it immediately or as soon as we have woken up. I didn't notice it in the dream but the 'planets' were half illuminated only the supposedly illuminated sides were also 'shadows' only not quite as dark as the 'dark' sides, an impossibility.

In the dream I was walking down one of these nice concrete paths talking to a member of my family (as I supposed - the whole thing was a con from beginning to end, as it turns out). I asked 'her' where such-and-such a person was (adult members or children of my family) to which she responded she had never heard of them. Some were there but some were not, leaving the distinmct impression that I was in some sort of 'parallel universe', an idea being sported by evolutionists nowadays to 'explain' the impossibility of life arisingly sponaneously on earth, and a concept exploited by science fiction writers [1]. Though in watching the latter I always believed that the idea of 'parallel universes' was false, where in parallel existences we could make different choices with different outcomes, the fantasy-cum-speculation was, how shall I put it, 'intellectually titillating'. Knowing that my interest was piqued by such a thought, Satan exploited it by creating theatre of an alternative universe based on what might have resulted if I had made different choices.

We all of us regret making different choices in our lives and have wished we could go back and undo them. Those who you like SciFi as I do, particularly time travel [2], will know of all the dilemmas of going back in time and changing history. Several movies have been made centred around such scenarios which are all very entertaining but are nevertheless based on lies. You can't go back in time because you would change history, possibly even making your own existence impossible, thus creating an existential contradictrion. Yet the manipulation of time is one of the great quests of the demonic (for obvious reasons) and those human beings foolish enough to engage in the project. There are those who believe CERN is one such attempt.

Like it or not, we have to accept reality the way it is. We cannot change the past - ever - but we can, and should, exercise our free agency and interact with the present positively and creatively by contributing to our future and the future of all humanity, to the extent that Yahweh allows us, of course. There is always the question of being submitted to His will and some things we may dearly desire He will not permit because our selfish gain may be to to someone else's detriment. Only Yahweh knows the full extent of history and the courses that all may or may not choose. Nevertheless we are given sufficient agency so that our characters can be tested and matured, if we so desire.

The dream I had this morning was both fascinating and disturbing. I missed the planetoid deception but it was something else that brought me back to reality before I awoke. Toward the end of the dream I found myself in our family meeting room, the first room we prepared when we bought our home and which we dedicated to Yahweh as a kind of 'temple' or qadosh (holy, set-apart) space (our bit of 'third heaven') where we have all our assemblies when at home. So I was in the meeting room, in Yah's own space, as it were, and I noticed a hole in the brick wall. Some wooden planks and plastic had been hastily put across it but the wind was beating on it (which is odd because it had not been windy 'outside'). One of the windows was rattling violently and I climbed onto the windowsill to try and fix it. And it was at that point I realised something was seriously amiss and I woke up.

Yes, indeed, it had been blowing hard outside (confirmed by visions I shared with you the other day - which in reality is part and parcel of the 'first heaven' or earth) but in the earlier part of the dream, which I had thought was 'outside' in my garden on earth ('first heaven') was, in fact, somewhere completely different, namely, in the 'second heaven'. It was a continuation of the theatre.

It is so easy to trick us when the Enemy knows we want something so badly - something that we don't have that we are willing to believe is real in our unconscious state. And our dreams and fantasies are, in a way, 'real', because they're inside us. But if those dreams are not aligned with Yahweh's will, and we persist in holding onto them when it is clear Yahweh is not going to honour them, then we are giving Satan legal grounds to interfere in our inner world because we choose to be in rebellion against Yahweh. Satan's goal, through influencing our conscious thoughts, feelings, dream state and unconscious desires, is to get us to take our rebellion as concrete projects to the next stage and put them into action in the outside world, thus distancing us even more from Yahweh and so bringing us progressively more and more under his control.

I realise that unbelievers do not view the dream state in these terms at all, especially those who have no awareness of an invisible, supernatural dimension, but this does not alter reality. Sooner or later, if such persons are honest enough, they will be forced to confront that reality and either go into even greater denial (and more demonic control) or adjust their belief system and respond accordingly. Your not 'liking' the fact that supernatural entities exist (good and evil) does not change reality any more than some child, who hates gravity because he would like to fly around like Superman unimpeded by that 'limiting' force (as he perceives it), resents your telling him that if he leaps out of a third storey bedroom he is going to have a nasty fall and either injure or kill himself. The denial of reality is a kind of insanity.

There was, in this dream, yet another layer of deception which I only spotted much later, and that was the fact that the rattling window in the meeting room was very different from the one in reality. Our windows swing open but in the dream the window was one of those that raises and lowers, one part sliding over the other. This was a second disjunctive item (the wrong kind of windows) was a warning that this part of the dream was a deception too, only far more subtle. I supposed, at first, that the room was 'reality' and that I was being 'warned' that there was a large 'hole' in the wall giving the Enemy access through some carelessness or sin of my own, which he knew I was more than ready to admit and confess were it satisfactorily proven in my own minf to be true. And indeed that was one of the first things I set about trying to ascertain through prayer, whether there was some major flaw in my spiritual life, belief system, etc.. reflected by this big hole in the wall. When I prayed about it I got no answer other than the reminder that the window was false - it was not the one in our actual house. Then I realised Satan was trying to get me to believe that there was some serious error in my belief system, to believe this was Yahweh's 'part' of the dream to warn me (though I detect the first decepion, as I did) and change it. Had I believed that lie, I might have been tempted to dismantle something true in order, as I supposed, to make proper teshuvah (repentance).

We must know the emet (truth) and stick to it no matter what others may tell us otherwise. That is not to say we should be unteachable for we all have much to learn from one another on a continual basis. But we must not allow the devil to deceive us into undermining what we know to be true so that he may thereby gain some control over us that might lead to our ruination and the potential ruination of those over whom we have a stewardship as parents, pastors, etc..

It never got to this stage this time round for me though it has in the past. I have often succumbed, in my weakness, to accusing voices and undertaken a long heart-felt search of my own soul and of my belief system. I do not so easily succumb anymore. Indeed, I cannot afford to. I am constantly under pressure by those who would want me to change my theology and practice even though I know Yahweh has progressively led me to where I am in ways that are undeniable. The foundations will not endure too much fooling around with so don't let the Enemy so destabilise you. Establish what you absolutely know to be true, confess it verbally and write it down for future reference, and then get on with life.

There is a mighty, supernatural and very confusing demonic wind blowing 'outside' right now, and by outside I don't just mean outside the metaphorical temple compound but within the courtyard too, which has been invaded and is presently occupied for a while as Yahweh permits the Enemy to shake all believers, to see who will stand and who will not. This is not a time for double-mindedness (Jas.1:8). Double-mindedness is like a weak link in a chain that is your emunah (faith) and so long as it remains that whole chain is liable to snap. It only takes one weak link rendering all the strong links useless. That is another reason the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Chag haMatzah) was given by Yahweh to teach is to conscientiously get all sin out of our lives. We cannot afford the corrupting influence of any on the whole of our soul.

Being as this is the Season of Teshuvah with only six days left before Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonements) and to goodness knows what is going to happen in the unstable outer world, I urge you not to procrastinate your repentance a moment longer and to get fully right with Elohim (God). This is not a drill, financial collapse is not a conspirator's fantasy (with all that will follow) but a deadily reality that is soon to burst forth on the earth, and woe unto those who are not prepared for it! Deal with reality, be done with fantasy, and if you are going to dream and plan make sure it is in Yah's will or you are setting yourself up for a hard and painful fall. Understand, and understand it well, that:

"Yahweh's curse is on the house of the wicked,
but He blesses the home of the righteous.
He mocks proud mockers
but gives grace to the humble.
The wise inherit honour,
but fools He holds up to shame" (Prov.3:33-35, NIV).

Resist the devil's tailor-made 'paradise' which he knows your flesh craves, deal with reality, pursue holiness in Torah and submit to Yahweh's good will. Go in shalom (peace).

Endnotes