Brethren and sisters, when Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) rose from the dead on this Day of Firstfruits or Yom haBikkurim, everything changed everywhere and forever. And when people make a decision for Messiah - to become His talmidim (disciples) - He changes everything in their lives everywhere they go and forever. He takes the raw materials that you surrender to Him and reshapes you into somebody new. He makes you into an image of Himself.

Today is Firstfruits Day - 'Firstfruits-from-the-Dead Day' - 'Resurrection Day'. Paul shows us the connection between Yom haBikkurim and the resurrection of our Messiah:

"Messiah has indeed been raised from the dead, the firstfruits (bikkurim) of those who have fallen asleep (died). For since death came through a man, the resurrection of the dead comes also through a man. For as in Adam all die, so in Messiah all will be made alive. But each in his own turn: Messiah, the firstfruits (bikkurim); then, when He comes, those who belong to Him" (1 Cor.15:20-23, NIV).

And as you can see, there never was any 'Easter', in the Bible, which was later borrowed from paganism. Only one passage in a bad translation, the King James Version (Ac.12:4), uses this name of a demon. It is to be found in no New Testament manuscript whatsoever, Greek, Aramaic or Hebrew, all of which read, respectively, Pasha (Gk.), Paskha (Aram.) or Pesach (Heb.). My French Bible calls it "Pâque" (Louis Segond, 1912), my German Bible calls it "PassaFest" (NeÜ), my Danish Bible calls it "Påsken" (Anna Sophie & Paul Seidelin, 1975), my Bulgarian Bible calles it "Paska" (1982), and so on - all call it Passover.

So I am by no means going to wish you a Happy 'Easter', 'Astarte', 'Ishtar', 'Diana' or 'Queen of Heaven', all of which are the same demoness, but rather:

Chag sameach, Yom haBikkurim, kol beit Yis'ra'el and mishpachah together with the very appropriate Eastern Orthodox Paschal Greeting, "Christ is risen!"

So, brethren and sisters, welcome to the second day of the seven day-long Chag haMatzah or Feast of Unleavened Bread, the third day of this Passover Season and to the Day of Firstfruits. And we could, with some justification, also call this the 'Getting-Sin-Out-of-Your-Life Day'. Yom haBikkurim, or Resurrection Day, is a Day of Transformation and is an offer of new possibilities to every soul that will accept the vehicle of these new possibilities. When Yah'shua (Jesus) died on the cross and rose from the dead, He offered every human being who was willing to unconditionally yield sovereignty of his or her life to Him the guarantee of being raised to new life and becoming like the first ripe fruit of the season.

The apostle James goes even further that Paul, intimating that those surrendered, reborn, regenerated, re-imaged believers are almost a new species of human being:

"Of His own will [Messiah] brought us forth by the Davar Emet (Word of Truth), that we might be a kind of firstfruits (bikkurim) of His creatures" (James 1:18, NKJV).

Three days ago, the day before Pesach (Passover), I was awakened about 6 a.m. after a very, very 'different' kind of dream. But then this has been a very, very different 'New Year' for me too. And I know some of you have felt the same thing. The essence of the dream, which I don't need to share, was what I have said - namely, that everything is about to change, and has actually been in the process now since Aviv 1 and before. Our Elohim (God) is always on the move, even in times like yesterday when we marked the second day that Yah'shua's (Jesus') body was in the tomb, and everything seems still, static and stagnant.

I have to give you all a warning before I go any further this morning, and it's this: Satan will offer you something you 'can't' refuse to get you off-track. Years ago, when I was helping a very gifted but violently abused Swedish woman involved against her will in a satanic coven, such an offer was made to my wife who was, at the time, a very amateur, HTML- or website-programmer - even more amateur than myself, and I am very amateurish. She was, out of the blue, by a complete stranger, offered a job as HTML programmer in a Swedish city which was both very far away (which would have meant leaving home) and which I also knew was a satanic centre in the country. My wife had no qualification, no experience of proper programming, and suddenly she was offered a steady job with a salary, something she had been wanting for a long time. She was immensely flattered and couldn't believe her good fortune, but I could, because she was my 'right hand person' in the very important deliverance ministry we were doing. It was bait right out of hell. It would have meant her leaving our son with me while she went away. It was absolutely absurd but for a while she was hooked and was a little resentful when I pointed out the obvious trick that this was.

Brethren and sisters, Satan is going to start offering you things 'too good to be true' to get you off the Derech (Way) that leads to Eternal Chayim (Life) and which will likely destroy you. I had a warning dream about this. You may be offered something you have desired for a very long time which your service to the Kingdom may have prevented you from having up until now. Years later, after the programming job offer, my wife was offered something else she 'couldn't refuse' - freedom from accountability and freedom from the protective restrictions Torah puts around us, and abandoned me with our son. The Enemy had tempted her numerous times in the interim but in the end she yielded. Now she's an atheist and has steered our son into atheism too. She took the bait and is paying, along with her family, the price for it.

Satan has his counterfeit Yom haBikkurim's and counterfeit Resurrection Day too. It's called 'Easter'. He has a counterfeit of everything. He knows the weakness of the flesh like it was his his own substance and fully understands the craft of temptation and moves expertly in it. He is especially good as making something look as though it's a heaven-sent opportunity. That is why you have to walk ever so closely with Yah'shua (Jeses), conferring with Him every day until you know His voice like your own. The Courtyard is very, very saturated with dark spirits, whispering and screaming into the ears of everyone who will listen. That is why we need to be in the Sanctuary and remain there. Now only does Yom haBikkurim require transformation but it now also requires separation.

Yesterday we talked about the importance of Chag haMatzah and see how, as a part of Yahweh's seal on us, that it is integral with the Gospel lifestyle. There is a divine Tavnith (Pattern) that runs through these festivals that we need to better understand and appreciate. Now I want to get more concrete and apply Chag haMatzah to our own situation, what's going on currently, and what this 30 year-old work of Yahweh needs to do now.

How many of you know what 'shunting' on a railway is? In the USA it's called 'switching' which gives it away if you're not aware of the British term. In railway operations, it is the process of sorting items of rolling stock into complete trains, or the reverse. A locomotive known as a 'shunter' in the UK (and sometimes the staff involved in this operation) are called 'shunters' too. For such personnel it is particularly dangerous because not only is there the risk of being run over, but on some railway systems the shunters have to get between the wagons or carriages in order to complete coupling and uncoupling. Indeed in the old days the railway company would keep an ambulance wagon permanently stationed at the yard to give treatment to injured shunters.

I want you to imagine that we are in such a station yard today, only we are the wagons and carriages, and Yah'shua (Jesus) is the shunting locomotive. We all work in the same railway company - Messianic Israel - and in particular, our local yard is called 'NCAY'. As new tasks are ordered by the railway management, so carriages and wagons have to be rearranged to enable us to carry out our assignments. This is not an easy operation especially if we find ourselves having to serve alongside people we are unfamiliar with and with whom perhaps don't get along so well. Shunting is particularly risky when it's done at night because wagons and carriages can be accidentally shunted off in the wrong direction and hitched to the wrong train. If you have ever seen the track of a shunting yard you'll know how complex it is! Only as daylight appears can we come to realise we have been hitched to the wrong train! Sometimes wagons are left sitting alone unhitched on a railway line, forgotten and apparently abandoned. There are many risks in the Dark. Therefore we need to operate in the Light.

There are a lot of people out there who feel unhitched or unjoined to anything. They have been waiting a long time for the shunting locomotive to come their way and couple them to others. Now is such a time. And those who have been idle for any length of time might at first feel uncomfortable as the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) suddenly couples them to an engine in the dark and they have no idea where they are being shunted to or with whom! They might even prefer to carry on remaining stationary in the familiar kind of life they have been living with weeds growing up around them. It's funny, isn't it, that people complain that nothing seems to be happenening and then, suddenly, the word is sent out from Heaven to start moving them and they start getting agitated and resistant! Brethren and sisters, now is the time - especially now - to not resist, and to surrender to the move of Elohim (God) in your life. And some of the moves may be dramatic, involving major relocations across the planet. Be prepared for anything, just as Abraham was when he was called in Mesopotamia, and just go with the Ruach (Spirit).

The Israelites, even though they were miserable in their bondage, had grown accustomed to their hopeless way of life as slaves. They were none too keen when Yahweh sent a representative locomotive called Moses to shunt them into position for a major move that would disturb their whole way of life. And such disturbances, though entirely positive in the long-term, may have a lot of unpleasant consequences in the short. All change is like that. There is bound to be discomfort. There is bound to be a feeling of being unsettled, nervous, restless, unsure and perhaps even a little frightened. To us, with modern transport, the Sinai journey seems as nothing, but in those days a trip from Egypt to Palestine viâ the Sinai peninsular and Midian, was a major undertaking.

Two nights ago we celebrated the Pesach (Passover) Haggadah so you all know the story line well. We rehearsed that historical event as we have been commanded to do as a people for thousands of years. But now we are ourselves a part of that event, not a recapitulation but an actual journey for the second time round. We are a part of the Last Exodus which has already begun. I don't think that has actually sunk in for most of us but it really has to now, because of what's coming around the corner. The coupling of wagons and carriages is starting. There's a lot of shunting going on or is otherwise about to start. And what I am saying is this: get ready to be moved. Get ready for the journey because your lives are going to radically change.

U.S. Admiral James Stockdale once said that "you must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end - which you can never afford to lose - with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they may be". We have always known what our mission has been but there have been times when all of us - individually and collectively too - have failed to deal with present realities. Today is such a time for us, speaking at any rate for myself and my own family. And you can't expect miracles when Yahweh hasn't necessarily promised any. Sometimes "the most brutal facts" simply mean that it is time to move on and embrace new possibilities.

I know some of you are keenly alert and waiting. Some of you have moved home, some several times, and some have even moved countries, or are about to. A whole new adventure has started for Brother Gabriel in Africa. We - that is, my family - been sitting here in this place in Sweden for twenty years now - a whole generation! Some of you may have been in your places for even longer. This is the longest I have ever lived in any one place in my life and I must say that at times it feels like I have become permantly glued to it. And right now I am slowly defrosting.

This is the third day of fifth year of the Final Exodus. Now unless there has been a radical redefinition of the word, an 'exodus', as I understand it, is not a static thing. You don't stay put. An 'exodus' implies movement, and specifically, a departure from one place to another. In the First Exodus of the children of Israel from Egyptian bondage into the Sinai wilderness, there was relentless movement in the earliest days, pursued as they were initially by a hostile military force headed up by the most powerful ruler of the ancient world. And he happened to possess an exceedingly large army.

That's not to say that the Final Exodus is going to be exactly like the first in its sequence of events, or even the events themselves, because it can't possibly be. The circumstances are entirely different than what they were 3½ thousand years ago. There is a completely different set of logistics. The world has changed beyond recognition. Nevertheless you can be sure that the Enemy has no intention of making it easy. Indeed, he doesn't want to lose his slaves at all. Not one. That should be obvious when you consider the lengths Satan goes to in trying to destroy human beings.

Some of us have already made the decision to leave the cities which is something all of us will have to do sooner rather than later. The cities have already started becoming extremely dangerous places to live in. Look at Paris and Berlin today. Look at parts of Stockholm and Malmö. Brother Herman has been telling us how seedy, filthy and dangerous Oslo has now become. Conditions are going to get a lot worse no matter what the politicians do to try and undo the catastrophic mess they have made. But even for those of us who have left for the countryside, this does not mean that Pharaoh will simply sit back and do nothing. He pursued our forefathers and his latter-day Moses's will experience no different.

Leaving the capital of Egypt for the desert will not deter an angry and humiliated monarch bent on restoring his prestige and economic assets - and the prestige of his gods whose noses were rubbed into the mud by the Author of the Ten Plagues. He will not relent from bringing his 'upstart' slaves back into subjection if he can. Kings don't like being snubbed, especially openly, and Yahweh humiliated Pharaoh and his gods publically! There was no way the Israelites could have crept into the night and vanished into the wilderness expecting to be left alone.

Now I said that some of us have left the cities but the reality is we are still deeply dependent on the system. We depend on it for food, electricity, for services, for transport, for medical assistance, for our salaries and pensions, for banking, and for much else besides. Most of us are still 'on the grid'. That's not leaving Egypt and that's what we have to be trained to do next. And don't assume that the system will just sit back and give us the time we think we need to figure it all out. Pharaoh didn't. Once our ancestors made the break, Pharaoh mounted his chariot and set off in a cloud of dust in full chase followed by his entire army.

It is well said that when tyrants cannot prevail by craft that they burst forth into open rage. So long as the children of Elohim (God) can be tricked, the tyrant is quietened and you might not even think him not there. But once he is rumbled - once his wicked scheme is discovered and exposed - his strategy changes immediately into threats, and finally acts, of violence. All tyrants behave thus because all tyrants are steered by invisible demonic forces whose modus operandi we know only too well. And when tyrants switch gears from craftiness to outright oppression and violence, they are only ever stopped by brute force.

Now, of course, Messianic Evangelicals are not political revolutionaries. We don't believe in violence, in toppling governments by force, or anything like that. But we do absolutely believe in an Elohim (God) of power who does these things by various means, and we do - or ought - to believe in an Elohim (God) who uses such power in times of judgment. Why do you think I have been talking a lot about the Spirit of Elijah recently? Because the Ruach Eliyah must attend a true Exodus in the same way that it must operate in every true theocracy. When it isn't present, human substitutes make their way in. And if we don't believe that, then there is no point in talking about any 'Exodus' or 'Judgment' at all. We might as well stay behind in Egypt and learn to be content as slave labour under feudal lords making bricks seven days a week and eating Egypt's supermarket-prepared 'dainties'.

Now you and I know that none of us can command or will into existence any such kind of Elijah empowerment. We do not believe, as many modern evangelicals do, that we can command Elohim (God) to do our bidding because we are the entitled 'King's Kids'. Such power comes only by the will of Elohim (God). We don't order Him to do anything. But at the same time that does not mean we can sit around in our old thinking patterns and expect a UPS or DHL courier to suddenly turn up on our front door with a parcel containing a 'Pot of Endowment' or a bottle of 'Elijah Pills'. There must always be preparation. And if we aren't prepared properly, then there is always a mandated spell in the wilderness where we can learn to live by actual emunah (faith) in a surrendered state. It is an utter waste of time to just talk about and pretend we have it (when we don't) or that we will get it by some right as believers (like spoiled children). I'm of course thinking of the time Elijah fled to the Brook Cherith where he was fed bread and meat by ravens twice a day (1 Ki.17:3-6) for longer than he would have liked while he got over his phobia against dealing with a fleshy monarch's wife called Jezebel. When the brook that supplied him with water ran dry, then it was time to take the bull by the horns and confront his Adversary.

Are you scared of the state? They'd like you to be, as they tighten their grip on power and remove from citizens more and more of their freedoms. They govern by fear. Jezebel's brief hold over Elijah was because of his fear of her threatenings. And fear is a difficult thing to manage sometimes, is it not? I know some people think I am a fear-monger for talking about such things at all, and they would rather that I spoke only of ahavah (love). Well, yes, our first message is indeed about ahavah (love) - the Ahavah (Love) of Elohim (God). It's what frees us and binds us together and is what we preach by default. It's the Besorah (Gospel) itself. But like Admiral Stockdale said, you have to be realistic too in dealing what's around you, and not ignore it. You have to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality if you want to face and overcome very real dangers.

Like it or not, we have to correctly appraise our situation and understand what the Enemy is doing so that we can live victoriously and at peace. It may not be a pleasant thing to do but to refuse to take Admiral Stockton's advice is not only shere folly but unloving in the extreem, especially if you have others in your care as a husband, parent, minister or boss at work. Moses' counsel was never very popular and neither will the counsel of the leaders of the end-time Remnant be very popular either, and especially not with the folks of my generation or the untutored snowflakes of the next and last one.

Now the first Exoduseers had a lot to be afraid of. They faced an enraged monarch with a whole army, starvation and thirst in the desert, and marauding Amalekites, to name but three. So how did Yahweh minister to their fear? The only thing that eased the fear of the first Exoduseers was Yahweh's demonstration of His supernatural power. Sometimes we need it when we are weak and helpless. And yet even that, as we know, does not built up emunah (faith) for very long. It's just a stop-gap, a short-term act of grace for the yet carnally-minded.

Elijah was fresh from his contest with Ahab, Jezebel and the Prophets of Ba'al on Mount Carmel during which Yahweh demonstrated His power and justified His navi's (prophet's) emunah (faith) with fire from heaven. Yet Elijah's heart grew weak and he ran away from Jezebel the moment she started threatening to kill him. That's human nature and we must confront it. All of us. We are all Elijah in that respect. We may have seen or experienced Yahweh do fantastic things and yet, in spite of the incredible witness we have, sometimes we lose it. Sometimes we panic. And it's no use pretending that we don't. I have seen that panic in every single one of you at least once in my life, and often more times. I do it myself sometimes.

OK. Let's take Admiral Stockdale's advice, by first being honest with ourselves and admitting what we'd rather not admit. Fear is real, and natural, and at times can be more real than that which we fear. Fears leave us unsettled and insecure. They cause us to doubt our self-worth, give us sleep and health problems, make us worry about how tomorrow will treat us or even if there will be a tomorrow. So the issue that we want settled is threefold:

• 1. How do we avoid fear when we can?
• 2. How do we live with it when we must? and
• 3. What can we learn from fear?

If you believe in the resurrection then you have already conquered the greatest fear known to man in every age - the fear of death. Yom haBikkurim has the ability to enable us to conquer mankind's greatest fear once we realise that if Yah'shua (Jesus) rose from the dead, then we shall too. We don't have to worry about becoming extinct. Then in the long term it doesn't really matter too much what we confront. Death has been crushed. Death has been defeated. Then the only fear that remains is the fear of falling into the hands of the living Elohim (God) if we have failed to keep on trusting which in turn leads us to progressively sin more and more (Heb.10:31). But for one who is saved, who believes in the resurrection of the dead, then the only fear left is a healthy fear based on deep respect:

"Serve Yahweh with reverent fear; and rejoice with trembling" (Ps.2:11, NLT).

Healthy fear helps us maintain our perspective by keeping things in proportion. It helps us discover where we need to be in our relationship with Elohim (God). We need that fear, whose foundation and security is the resurrection, so that our hearts do not faint when we are confronted by the 21st century's equivalents of Pharaoh's army. I am sure your imaginations can conjure up some concrete examples without my having to list any now.

So let us be clear. What causes fear? What causes us to panic? A loss of perspective. We panic when we forget just how powerful Yahweh really is. We panic when we stop believing, and when we stop believing, emunah (faith) shrinks. And when our emunah (faith) shrinks, so does Yahweh in our own hearts. But that's just an illusion caused by fear.

The resurrection transformed the talmidim (disciples). Cowering behind a locked door, fearful of arrest, they became emboldened and fearless once they physically encountered the resurrected Messiah for themselves. We cannot, of course, have that witness duplicated for us in exactly the same way but we can absolutely experience Elohim (God). You can't get to know Elohim (God) just from arguments and theology. You can, and must, have what the philosophers call a "properly basic belief" but you also need to have a personal one-to-one meeting and connection.

The resurrected Messiah extends this invitation and makes a promise we must rely on:

"Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with Me" (Rev.3:20, NIV).

The door is the entrance way to your heart. Sharing a meal is a metaphor for intimacy. If you open the door of your heart by rendering yourself open, vulnerable and trusting, He promises to enter in and commune with you with the same kind of impact as those post-resurrection encounters the first talmidim (disciples) had when they met the risen Saviour.

This is what Yom haBikkurim is all about. Your firstfruits is your first encounter with Yah'shua (Jesus), when you swing the door of your heart widely open and invite Him in. And it will always be your most memorable and precious encounter. Millions have done it. Millions more yet will. Have a blessed Resurrection Day!