Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah - welcome to the last Sabbath before Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonements) which is traditionally known as Shabbat Shuvah or the 'Sabbath of Return'. We are almost at an end of the Yammim Nora'im, the Days of Awe, which will conclude this Season of Teshuvah or Repentance. We are but two days away from the Annual Day of Judgment and one day, when Yah'shua (Jesus) returns again for the last time, when the Judgment of the World will take place.

This is also the annual Messianic Evangelical 'Day of Weighing' in which an account is expected of its covenanted members to their mentors, and most particularly those who are ordained Elders, Eldresses, Deacons and Deaconesses [1]. A determination is made as to whether priesthood officers are worthy to continue holding their offices for another year. Only by means of making an accounting is the priesthood maintained in a cleansed condition before Yahweh which it must absolutely do because of the high standards required of it in its communal covenants. Everyone, from apostle to deacon, is called in to a priesthood interview by his or her superior. Baptised and confirmed members who are not ordained are not summonsed but may request special interviews on their own initiative in order to give account before Yahweh, especially those holding any kind of responsibility in NCAY. This is normally taken by the leadership as a sign that they are serious about their discipleship and is regarded as a positive signal that they are worthy for future priesthood calling.

A year ago today I gave an important sermon, Ba'al & Jezebel Rising in the West, in which we clearly identified the main protagonists in this great battle for power and world dominion that is going on all around us. We identified Donald Trump as a latter-day Jehu whose mission it is to destroy Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who are, respectively, latter day Jehoram and Jezebel. I would encourage you to read that sermon again afterwards as it describes prophetic events which are unfolding right before our eyes.

Our latter-day Jehu has not yet accomplished that mission but he has, without a shadow of a doubt, shaken the foundations of the dark world in which our latter-day Jehoram and Jezebel live and operate out of. The war that is raging is fierce with America drawing closer and closer toward Civil War. Every attempt has been made to impeach, oust by coup or kill President Trump. Everyone is now wondering how this is all going to end. Europe too is in dissaray as more and more nations rebell against the Beast power in Brussels.

South Africa is on the brink of civil war too as the ruling communists attempt to set off a race war which, if successful, would completely destroy the country, as happened in Zimbabwe, and end in the genocide of the white minority and lead to a major economic decline throughout Africa. The British Prime Minister, to her eternal shame, has already given her assent.

As ever, Christians and Messianics are hysterically rushing forward to declare that we are on the verge of the Great Tribulation and the Second Coming, saying that it's just months away, or at least within the next seven or eight years. Believers have the unfortunate tendency to overreact and rush ahead because they cannot see beyond the ends of their noses. And the false nevi'im (prophets) have jumped onto the bandwaggon of opportunity and are attracting large followings of frightened, awe-struck people looking for prophet-protectors to conduct business with Heaven on their behalf, just as the ancient Israelites did when they turned to Moses to be their intermediary.

I tell you most soberly these false nevi'im (prophets) will abandon their flocks soon enough rather than have to face the ire of their disillusioned followers when their prophecies have failed to come to pass. I have lived long enough to have heard so many false predictions about the End proclaimed when it was nothing of the sort, and usually by those coming out of the Charismatic Movement, but not exclusively, and usually supporters of Zionism, like Hal Lindsey (who's still alive) who wrote the famous books, Late Great Planet Earth and Countdown to Armageddon in which he claimed the 1980's would see all the end-time prophecies fulfilled. Without exception, those who have based their prophetic calculations and revelations on the establishment of the Israeli Republic in 1948, on blood red moons, or on the rapture doctrine have got things seriously wrong because they're using all the wrong prophetic markers.

Let me say again: this is not the end, however desperate the situation may at times appear to be, however much evil is multiplying in the world. I told you years ago that the globalists would be defeated and that this would set back their program by several decades (see Mishpatim Yahweh). They haven't stopped trying to regain the ground they lost to Trump and they won't until they are destroyed because they have everything to lose if they don't. Wicked rulers, open and secret, have a bunker mentality and only at the last moment do they usually square with reality, even if one or two will desert the sinking ship sooner rather than later, spilling the beans about what they know. The Deep State mafia kings' underdogs usually hold out with them for fear of being executed by their masters. Just think of Hitler in the Führer Bunker holding out to the last, and of his henchmen. We are dealing with a modern version of them in the globalist Deep State.

I also said this would be a bloody battle, and so it is proving to be, yet I have to say that it has barely begun. The élitists have no idea how this is going to all pan out for all their sophisticated predictive computer modelling programs and their use of remote viewing, for these will fail them. But Yahweh our Elohim (God) absolutely does know the outcome and He is never wrong. He is in total control, always has been, and always will be.

Yahweh was the one who upset the Illuminati plans in the last Presidential Election in the USA, and the élites know it, intervening at a time when the Deep State thought it had the presidency 'in the bag' for Hillary, thinking they could pass the crown from Obama to Clinton without any ado. It is Yahweh, Sovereign Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, who will continue upsetting the plans of these satanic minions, until His purposes are accomplished. 'Jehoram' and 'Jezebel' are still around causing mayhem but they will be cut down. Their days are most definitely numbered and if they're not running scared, they ought to be. They do not have the key to immortality and if they don't repent and get saved, they face the dreadful prospect of a long haul in hell until they have paid the "uttermost farthing" (Mt.5:26, KJV), the "last cent" (NASB) of their debt to Yahweh for all their evil deeds.

A lot of people are involved in politics and in alternative social media spreading the word of truth and they are being effective, in spite of the rising censorship. One thing society will never return to being is near the complete ignorance of the masses that prevailed until recently.

But exposing the lies of the élites is not enough. As Christians/Messianics our battle is not primarily in the physical anyway but in the spiritual which is where prayer becomes so important:

"For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph.6:12, NRSV)

Ours is a spiritual fight because we are spiritual beings with spiritual assignments, and our fight is in that dimension first and foremost even though we inhabit physical bodies in this physical world. Whatever success we have in this world of matter is dependent on what we score in the invisible world, and our hope is not on turning the current reality into Paradise but in looking forward to the world that is to come.

The Utopian dreams of men, religious as well as secular, all of which end in bloodshed and oppression when implemented, always come to nothing, and are but parodies of the Messianic Hope. The Utopias of men are, without exception, imposed from without whereas the Kingdom of Elohim (God) must emerge from within rather than being 'received' from elsewhere. And as I have said so many times before, we aren't going to be whisked away while the world travails to then be dumped back onto a ready-made 'Paradise Earth'.

Don't ask me how the whole 'prayer thing' works because I don't know. That's one of those areas of the Besorah (Gospel) I have struggled to explain so many times but without success. We mortals simply don't know enough about the way our Creator works or how He has shaped the invisible. Imagine doctors millennia ago who knew next to nothing about medicine as we do today who usually harmed their patients more than they helped them. Bleeding and the use of leaches spring to mind. Yet they knew, from millennia of practical experience, a lot about herbal remedies, and much of that wisdom is still useful today, as any number of Alternative Healing websites will attest. That's why scientists still go to the Amazon rain forest to talk to tribal practitioners of this craft to try and find out the active biochemical ingredients, extract them, and use them in expensive man-made drugs.

Prayer is one of those great mysteries but it does produce results, as one would expect of the Omnipotent, Omniscient Physician who commands us to do it. As John Bevere has taught so many times, we trust in the Davar Elohim (Word of God), even when it makes no sense to us, because we fear Him, for as Job testified:

"Behold, the fear of Yahweh, that is wisdom" (Job 28:28, NKJV).

There is a lot we do not know, and perhaps can never know, but we can have a godly fear of Yahweh, entrust ourselves to His personal care and we can - and must - trust all of His Davar (Word), no matter how baffled by it we may at times be. I promise you that if you persist in such emunah (faith) you will get answers eventually. What the Ruach (Spirit) has hidden in the Davar (Word) the Ruach (Spirit) can, and will, reveal, but in a way and timing that only Yahweh knows as being best for us.

Ours is not, and never has been, a blind faith, though. In these dangerous end times we do need to think straight. We cannot afford to have in our spiritual foundations any false assumptions. I think one of the lies that is deeply embedded in our culture is the myth of progress. Yes, early Christianity made compromises with a soft version of Platonism which is built upon certain occultic ideas, which has in turn led to a gnostification. I've spoken of this before but it bears repeating because the lie is so deeply entrenched and it is blinding believers to the bigger picture which we must have in order for us to know where we are going and why.

The great lie, so popularised in Christian hymns and songs, is that "this world is not my home, I'm just passing through." This planet is our home and I'm looking forward to coming back when it's been cleaned up under under new, heavenly management! Otherwise, what's the point of the Second Coming? Why don't we just look forward to meeting in Heaven with Yah'shua (Jesus) and leave it at that. But no, as we saw last week, the dead are coming back as resurrected beings, and those alive when Yah'shua (Jesus) returns, are going to rise into the air as resurrected beings to meet that great throng, and return with triumph with Him to this planet.

Now please don't confuse the way scripture uses the word "world". There is the "world", which is this planet, which is good and is to be the permanent home of the Bride of Messiah in all aeons of time. Then there is the "word" which is the world system - the Babylonian World Order, the New World Order, the Globalist Deep State Order, etc. - which we are to shun, hate and expose. Don't confuse the two. When the apostle John says, "do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him" (1 John 2:15, NIV), he's talking about the Babylonian system. When John records that "Yah'shua (Jesus) knew that the time had come for him to leave this world and go to the Father" (John 13:1, NIV), He's obviously talking about the planet; and when Yah'shua (Jesus) says that "the world must learn that I love the Father" (John 14:31, NIV) He's using a third sense, where the 'world' is the people who inhabit the planet.

Our purpose is not to 'get to Heaven' when we die but to 'get to Heaven and then come back to earth' as resurrected beings! Our destiny is not as disembodied spirits, which was the highest ideal of false Gnostic religions, but to get these perfected and immortalised bodies back and to enjoy 'good old earth' for always. I have the same hope as Paul who said:

"I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of Elohim (God) to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of Elohim (God).

"We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the bikkurim (firstfruits) of the Ruach (Spirit), groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently" (Rom.8:18-25, NIV).

I guess I have been spoiled because years ago Yahweh showed me my home during the Millennium in vision. I can't wait for it! I can't wait to share it with my family and I can't wait to be with my brethren, two of whom He showed me in the vision. I am still adjusting to the idea of having a large bushy beard and turban but I guess I will get used to that!

Now I know that Paradise - the spiritual world for the disembodied - will be a wonderful place too. It is to be a non-physical place of rest before the resurrection of the righteous dead, but what I most long for is to get back to a cleansed and glorified world. I long to be able to accomplish here what I have failed to accomplish in mortality, and more. If you want to know more about Planet earth as a resurrection planet, then please read chapters 21 and 22 of the Book of Revelation. Soak it up. Make that your hope in Yah'shua (Jesus).

Yes, truly, "our citizenship is in heaven" (Phil.3:20, NIV) but the whole point of the resurrection is that Heaven and Earth merge into one reality. And Paul doesn't, in any case, just leave it at that, but goes on to say in the next verse:

"And we eagerly await a Deliverer (Saviour) from there (Heaven), the Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Lord Jesus Christ), who, by the power that enables Him to bring everything under His control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body" (Phil.3:20-21, NIV).

Since we are returning to this world, it follows that we must also take care of it. Adam was made a steward over the Garden and then the planet and that stewardship falls upon all the Sons of Elohim (God) too. That's you and me. Yet, sadly and tragically, there are those Christians who are teaching - quite wrongly because their theology is skewed - that since 'God' is going to destroy the present space-time universe, and since He intends to do so quite soon (in the end-time scenario), then it really doesn't matter if we pollute the planet any further, let alone destroy it altogether. After all, Yahweh is going to clean up, isn't He?

No, we are accountable for our stewardship. We are to be Christian and Messianic ecologists too, taking care of our precious environment. We cannot have such a casual attitude toward our planet. And remember, Yah'shua died not just for our own sins as human beings but for the whole fallen planet. His death on the cross - the agony that He suffered on our behalf at Calvary - was just as much for our own wickedness as well as for the irresponsible and careless destruction which we have caused in the physical realm too. We can't do whatever we want in this physical world and expect to get away with it! There's repentance to be done there too! That means having a spiritual attitude toward the planet.

You see, what the Creator has done in Yah'shua (Jesus), and supremely in His resurrection, is what He has done for the entire world - the entire planet and, by extension, the entire cosmos. Not only have we polluted the planet on the ground, in the sea and in the air, but we have polluted space too. Think of all the junk - the dead satellites, booster rockets, and so forth - orbiting our planet. It's a mess up there.

All of this goes hand-in-hand with what the world - and by that I mean the world system - calls 'progress'. As N.T.Wright writes:

"The first Christians did not believe in 'progress'. They did not think the world was getting better and better under its own steam - or even under the steady influence of God. They knew God had to do something fresh to put it to rights. But nor did they believe that the world was getting worse and worse and that their task was to escape it altogether. They were not dualists" [2].

This is the important point I want you to take away today: the first talmidim (disciples) believed that Yahweh was going to do for the whole Cosmos what He had done for Yah'shua (Jesus) at the first Messianic Yom haBikkurim (Day of Firstfruits) when He raised Him from the dead! Yet how many believers - Christian or Messianic - to you hear ever talking about such a belief system? Christianity diverged from this simple yet profound emet (truth). You see, we have to think cosmologically which is why, I guess, I love Astronomy so much, and why I oppose the Flat Earth lie so vehemently because it diminishes the cross and glory of the Creator. Yah'shua (Jesus) didn't died to restore a singular flat earth and a light show on a fixed dome - He died to restore real heavenly bodies. The Restoration of, and by, the Son of Elohim (God) impacts not just earth and our solar system, but our galaxy and all the billions of other galaxies in the universe. This is a very big creation, you understand. Yah willing, I will take this theme further in a later sermon when we have more time, as it is important that we have a clear and accurate vision of reality in time and in eternity.

Let's get back to today and then finish. Tomorrow evening Yom haKippurim - the Day of Atonements - begins. It is Judgment Day. That's good news for the righteous but terrible news for the wicked. I want to encourage you to get right with Yahweh in the 36 or so hours that remain to us so that we can end this season of festivals with a clean slate and enter Sukkot (Tabernacles) with pure hearts filled with simcha (joy) - not artificially contrived 'joy' (because we can all put on a show if we want to) but a spontaneous expression of ahavah (love) for the Heavenly Bridegroom in anticipation of the grand physical Reunion in the resurrection.

You do have to get the junk out of your lives first, though, and that means conscientious, genuine repentance. It means taking Yah'shua's (Jesus') admonition seriously:

"Make every effort ('work hard' - NLT) to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner ('head' - NLT) of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, 'Sir, open the door for us.'

"But He will answer, 'I don't know you or where you come from.'

"Then you will say, 'We ate and drank with You, and You taught in our streets.'

"But he will reply, 'I don't know you or where you come from. Away from Me, all you evildoers!'

"There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the nevi'im (prophets) in the kingdom of Elohim (God), but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the [Sukkot/Tabernacles] feast in the kingdom of Elohim (God). Indeed there are those who are last ('despised' - NLT) who will be first ('greatly honoured' - NLT), and first ('those who are greatly honoured now' - NLT) who will be last ('despised then' - NLT)" (Luke 13:23-30, NIV, NLT).

Honesty and integrity are what our Heavenly Father demands at this Season. Please don't procrastinate the day of your repentance, please don't naïvely and foolishly suppose that you can keep on postponing what you know you need to do right now. The day of grace does end, and Yom haKippurim is the day on which it does. Don't take the garbage of this past biblical year into the next one.

Do you want to know why there is a half year gap between the Autumn (Fall) Festivals and the Spring ones? Yahweh revealed it to me two evenings ago! This is the time we incubate the choices we made before sunset at Yom haKippurim - the refusal to repent means that the unconfessed sin will gestate and be rebirthed as an even more entrenched sin-nature leading inevitably to even greater difficulties in the spring; whereas the confessed sin, repented of and dismissed in the blood of Messiah, makes way for a fresh filling of the Ruach (Spirit), incubates during the winter into a new simcha (joy), shalom (peace) and ahavah (love) which are born.

So let's get serious - we can still make things right and anticipate with refreshed tiqveh (hope) the year to come. I'll see you again at Yom haKippurim! Yahweh bless you. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] See An Introduction to the Chavurat Bekorot and Authority and the Council of Yah's Elohim
[2] Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope (SPCK, London: 2007), p.104

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