I don't think I have ever met anyone who was scheduled for surgery who did not experience some trepidation beforehand. I was no exception. All operations carry immense risks with the possibility of all kinds of unexpected complications and even death. Yet the surgery I required is known to be far more risky and is known to have a 5 per cent fatality rate for the healthiest of patients, with the odds against stacking up the older you get and the more supplimentary complications you have. So I knew that with chronic fibromyalgia and a couple of other issues on top, things were riskier in my case. Certainly my family and close friends were worried even though prophecies had been made that everything would turn out fine.

Being a believer gives you an enormous edge, to be sure. I saw the fear writ large in the faces of the men and women in the cardiac unit I was sharing with them. Most were stoic, putting on a brave face, but you could see the fear in their eyes. Only one man seemed largely indifferent but then had had surgery before and had already gone through so much trauman before, having lost both feet and most of the front of his rib cage. He was having his temporary artificial one replaced. Seeing his predicament and how helpless he was to do anything for himself made me realise that my infirmities were light by compraison. I'm guessing he had been in a terrible car accident. Please drive carefully! One act of carelessness, like texting while driving, can be disasterous. At any rate, he was the sole patient in the thorax department not in for heart surgery. May Yahweh show a super-abundance of grace to such souls.

I eventually came to know one man quite well even though little by way of was exchanged words between us because of the language barrier. There was simply a natural rapport and mutual caring. Though older than me, he was also much healthier, having been a woodsman whose career had mostly been spent in forest work, a common occupation here in densely forested Sweden. After the surgery was over, he was as shattered and disorientated as I was but seemed to be recovering well. He was at any rate far ahead of me in the therapeutic program for recovery. And then, around the third day, something which we had been warned out and feared the most happened to him - fibrosis! I would say he was having an emergency situation at least every half hour to an hour in our last days together. When I was transferred to my local hospital he was required to remain behind. Please keep Inge in your prayers. His aftercare is going to be so much more difficult than mine requiring constant hospitalisation for monitoring.

The 'pragmatist' that I am, I also wanted this hospital visit to serve a double purpose: to not only repair my heart physically but to do some much needed things spiritually and emotionally. I'll not conceal the fact that some of my emotional side has been closed down caused by various traumas over the years, a self-protection device we most of us turn to instead of turning to Yah'shua (Jesus). Interestingly enough, during the interview with my surgeon, I asked what the principle cause of heart valve stenosis was, and she said that though they could not know for certain, researchers repeatedly found in the histories of such persons emotional trauma. It figures. So many of our physical illnesses stem from emotional wounds which play out in the flesh.

Now my hope had been that during the operation I would have some sort of out-of-body or near-death experience, a crazy idea now that I come to look back. Why did I want such an experience? So thyat I might enjoy a face-to-face conversation with Yah'shua (Jesus) or one of His malakim (angels). I knew that was asking a lot, but ask it I did. I had actually read up, or listened to, stories of people who had had spectacular encounters with the other side during heart operations and wished I could be so blessed too. I certainly had a lot of questions and wanted some important issues resolved.

I did not get my wish. I don't remember a thing about the operation itself which lasted four hours. I knew there was going to be trouble when I was lowered on the rock-hard and very lumpy operating table (it felt like a pebbbly river bed) and I expressed my not unfounded fears to the surgical team about what this would do to my fibromyalgia, but they were more occupied with other things. I went 'out' smoothly and the next thing I remember was being in ICU the following afternoon. The rest of that day was a bit of a blur and no small challenge because after heart surgery you have to start moving as soon as possible by sitting up on the edge of your bed. One day in ICU was followed by relocation to an intermediary 'ICU'. All I remember of the place was that it looked a little bit like an operations control centre at NASA. In front of us was a row of giant screens and consoles staffed 24/7 - we were watched like hawks.

Now I said that I had gone into hospital praying that Yahweh would give me a renewed heart spiritually and emotionally as well as getting a valve transplant. I can't precisely remember when it first happened, but whenever I started reading scripture in which the love of Elohim (God) was spoken of, I would start crying like a child. This happened again and again. But not only in scripture. Later on, when I was transferred to the recouperation hospital nearer home, I was one day watching a documentary about some prospective British astronauts who were undergoing gruelling examinations in Frankfurt in Germany to enable them to safely operate in space. One woman, who had a morbid fear of water, was fighting a surfacing panic attack. Another woman, sacrificing her own chances, crossed lanes swam up to her to encourage her until she finished the test. I was blubbering again because this was ahavah, agapésacrificial love again.

Before going into hospital I wanted to memorise some hymns so that I would in an attitude of praise throughout. I'm not very good at that - I never could memorise poetry or the lines in a play unlike my late mother who was good at such things - and indeed I had to improvise with my own words an awful lot. One classic I wanted to take with me was Charles Wesley's, And Should It Be That I Should Gain an Interest in the Saviour's Blood. Every time I sang the chorus inside, "Amazing Love! How can it be be, that Thou my God, shoulds't die for me?", my heart would burst and my eyes swell, as they are right now writing this. Perhaps, for those of you, who have always had this deep emotional bond with the Saviour, this will seem old hat, but this was something I desperately needed. I got what I went to hospital for but not in the way I had hoped or planned. We can never dictate to Yahweh how He should act. In His sovereign will, He knows what's best. And this connection is a million times more important than any great knowledge of theology or any ministerial skill such as that of preaching.

This all ties in with a third ambition I had knowing I would be in hospital for over a week. I wished to read the New Testament right through, not to analyse any part but simply to get the overall 'gist' or 'drift'. Little did I know how exhausted I would be and how I could not even be able to focus to read the first few days. Plus my own post-operation complications meant I was having to focus on physical wellness first of all as my fibromyalgia condition had got a lot worse, as I feared it would, which meant I could barely sleep an hour or two at a time. This aftermath is one of the reasons I am having such a tough recouperation time now.

I took with me a pair of New English Bible (NEB) and New King James Version (NKJV) New Testaments, though it was the NEB I principally used as the typeface was large and easier to read. As it turned out, I only read the Book of Acts, but did so many times, with supplementary material here and there from the Epistles. I wanted to know what it was that the people responded to when the apostles preached to them, and thereafter to discover just what the foundation of messianic community (church) life was and what rôle the complex theology we are accustomed to today played in their spiritual life. The longer events become separated from their source by time, the more meaning man adds. And nearly two thousand years have lapsed since the first fellowships were formed!

I tried to place myself in the various settings of Acts and visualise the people involved based on what I know about the history of the first century Mediterranean cultures. I wanted all 21st century notions gone from my head. As I read the ministry of Philip in Acts 8 I was astounded. He would climb every tower he could find in Samaria and preach, converting thousands. And consistenly, everywhere the apostles ministered, there was always supernatural healing. Always! It was one of the great signs that the Kingdom was present among men. I silently wept as I read Acts 9-10. Why is this almost completely absent from today's cessationist churches and why are those who are absolutely continuationist - the pentecostals and charismatics particularly - likewise producing only sporadic or clearly counterfeit healings? What has waylaid Christinity in two thousand years?

Next, I went in search of subtle discourse in Acts and found none. The Message of the Kingdom was profoundly simple - you didn't need to believe in much in order to be saved back then - no complicated creeds or theologies. And what was it that pleased Yahweh the most in the respondees to the message of salvation? They were "godfearing" and "did what was right":

"Elohim (God) has no favourites, but that in every nation the man that is godfearing and does what is right is acceptable to Him. He send His Davar (Word) to the Israelites and gave the Besorah (Good News, Gospel) of shalom (peace) through Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), who is Lord of all" (Ac.10:34-36, NEB).

Shortly after my reading of Acts 9-10 I had a very interesting dream in one of my many early convalescent rest periods. I was presented with a major temptation. Before I share the dream, let me say, for those who don't already know me, that I have a passion for history, as do at least a couple of my sons, incidentally. It started as a hobby in my teens. In the dream I found myself in what looked like a windowless museum basement where lots of historical documents and items were stored - and when I say 'lots' I mean the room was crammed full of them to the point of bursting. It would have taken years to get through it all.

There was someone 'guiding' me, telling me to go here or there, a man of some considerable learning. Banners from a past age were hanging from the ceiling and next to them great figures from then past, and I was being shown the progression of ideas and movements in European history, and where it was all apparently going. It all seemed to be glorifying the Enlightenment period of history which I admit does hold a certain appeal even though it attempted to be a kind of 'gospel without Christ'. Much of it centred on ancient Bohemia, today's Czechia. All this 'instruction' went on and on - it seemed like I was being offered power through worldly wisdom.

I opened a door, but it was unlit on the other side, but I could feel dense layers of fabric and was starting to feel chlostrophobic. My 'guide' seemed concerned that the next room was unlit. There was a creature in that adjacent room, and it growled menacingly, but I was not afraid of it and dismissed it, and it yielded. Finally, I realised what was going on - I was being offered all this gnosis or knowledge, of the kind that Free Masons, Rosicrucians and others are fascinated by, in place of the simplicity of the Besorah (Gospel) and Yahweh's own uncomplicated, unpretenious world.

Indeed, a high ranking Norwegian Freemason from Oslo had tried to recruit me to the 'Craft' many years ago, and we in our turn tried to recruit him for Messiah. The truth is that he wanted both what we had (which he did not have) and what he already had. He was mesmerised by the occult knowledge of the ancient Egyptians and fancied himself quite spiritually advanced but his spiritual state was awful. Indeed, Yahweh showed me in a vision what was going to happen to him if he did not repent. He loved his esoteric knowledge more than the emet (truth) of Messiah. We similarly sought to convert a Freemason from Bergen, Norway, who was into even darker things, principally kabbalism, and one of the sermons I delivered was for him and for others like him who were prisoners of the New Age.

So, fascinating though a knowledge of the past was to me, I realised I did not need it in such abundance or detail. The past has nothing much to offer other than to illuminate the background of Scripture. So I rejected the 'offer'. I made a decision not to get sidelined. The past is dead, it's the living present that matters and what is to come.

There are many interesting statements in the Book of Acts that are hard to fit into traditionalist Protestant theologies, let alone contemporary Messianic ones. Yah'shua (Jesus) explained that His Kingdom was not of this world, that it was not a polititical entity like that ruled by the Caesars, and for that reason Pontius Pilate saw in this new Christian movement no threat to Imperial Rome (Jn.18:36). Yet to enter this spiritual state or dimension, Paul said, required some considerable sacrifice:

"To enter the Kingdom of Elohim (God) we must pass through many hardships ('persecutions' - NRSV, 'tribulations' - JBP)" (Ac.14:22, NEB).

Though in various places the Scriptures - and Paul no less than the other writers points this out - we are told that the final destination is a renewed or glorified earth, the emphasis - beginning with Messiah - is always in the non-material core of the Kingdom as a state of being. This is not good news for those eager for an earthly theocracy here and now (like Catholics, Jehovah's Witnesses, and Mormons) for whom an ungodly lust for power is usually lurking in the background somewhere in their psyche, but it certainly relieves those of us who are living in the present who don't want the arduous and ultimately futile attempt at building denominational institutions whose borders are defined by all our various incomplete or inaccurate theological quirks. Just look at how Roman Catholicsm and Eastern orthodoxy split...over a single word and see how they have evolved very differently over 1½ millennia into very different ecclesiastic species. Man is constantly tinkering with and trying to improve the machinery of the Kingdom.

Sometimes I think we love our theological differences because it plays on our pride by making us feel important or 'more correct' (better) than other brethren...differences over points of doctrine and practice that to a first century believer would have been meaningless. The unity that was important to those early congregations was based on something else of the intangible yet very real kind. If you didn't have ahavah (love) and heavenly power (as in healing) your theology was in any case just wind. And, yes, it's true there were pagan 'charismatics' back then who were carrying out healings by means of other powers (just as they are today), so the thing that marked the first believers out from all else was the supernatural transformation of lives of which ahavah/agapé (love) was the greatest sign (1 Jn.4:7).

As I mentioned earlier, Yahweh did some radical therapy on my heart while I was in hospital and I began to see and experience everything differently. As I read Paul again, I saw past all his complex theology and into the very centre of what it was that drove the man - an unfettered, all-consuming ahavah- or agapé-love. Indeed, I became overwhelmed by it at times. And not only in Paul but in all the talmidim (disciples). And like I said, the tears just flowed in amazment at how the ahavah (love) of Elohim (God) flowed into those first century believers.

Now as I went over and over Acts I searched for labels. What was this world? Protestant? Charismatic? Calvinist? Messianic? Or something else? What that's around today was it most like? Throughout Acts I found - consistently - a universalist Emunah-Emet or Faith-Truth - and that the rest were but handles or lifelines for weak men struggling with twisted thinking. The centre of what Paul in particular stood for always consisted of five main things:

• 1. Emunah (faith) in Yah'shua (Jesus) the Son of Elohim (God);
• 2. Resurrection;
• 3. Morals;
• 4. Self-control; and
• 5. The Judgment to come.

What I could not obviously find was the kind of Torah-observance for Gentiles that Messianics make much ado about. It was never the main thing. And though we in the messianic community often advance the argument that the instructions issued by the Council of Jerusalem for the new Gentile converts were but a 'starter package' for newbies and that they would thereafter be expected to embrace the rest of Torah (or at least its outward forms) as they matured in the faith, there really isn't very much evidence for this either Scripturally or historically. And by the second generation there is very little trace of any systematic external Torah observance at all, which doesn't mean it wasn't necessarily there, only that it wasn't emphasised in ther way modern messianics 'do Torah'.

Now you can argue (as Messianics do) that this historical loss of Torah was simply the result of apostacy. That is, for sure, a possible explanation, and is certainly one I have used. Moreover, there is disagreement between various New Testament manuscripts as to what the Council's 'minimum requirements' were. All agree that the apostles decreed that the gentiles should:

• 1. Abstain from meat offered to idols (constantly upheld in the apostolic witness - e.g. Rev.2:14.20);
• 2. Abstain from [eating] blood; and
• 3. Abstain from sexual immorality ('fornication').

• 4. Refrain from [eating] what is strangled

• 4'. Refrain from doing to others what you would not like done to yourself

Personally I think this alternative to be a later insertion/mutilation as it is not a Torah requirement but rather a teaching of the Master Himself (Mt.7:12; Lk.6:31). It would not have appeased the circumcision faction which is what led to the Council convening in the first place. On the surface it looks as though what we are seeing is a kind of 'arbitration' between Hebrews and Gentiles, yet we know the Council's move was Ruach/Spirit-directed. Many Messianic Jews accordingly conclude that there are two kinds of believers - those with a Jewish background on whom the whole Torah is still binding, and those with a gentile background on whom only the Council's four-point Torah selection is binding. I find that disjunctive with the New Testament's insistance that there is no longer any distinction between Jew and Greek (Gentile), for they are all now one in Messiah. Nor is such a division consistent with the apostolic injunction that all believers come to a "unity in the faith" (Eph.4:13, NIV). We're all supposed to be living the same faith and life-style.

Like a new marriage, the Hebrew and Gentile converts of the Book of Acts are experiencing a transition phase as they adjust to one another. These things don't happen overnight. It took at least a full generation to accomplish. What I think is often missed in this unstable yet very exciting time of change is that there are 'things' going on here that might not at first seem obvious that say more about Yahweh's priorities than man's. Unity is the watchword throughout Acts and the Epistles even in times of change. There are different priorities. Not every Gospel principle is on the same 'plane of importance'. Like any mixed bag of people, you have to find a common ground of emet (truth) on which to launch a deep fellowship bathed in ahavah (love). How that evolves depends on so many different factors - the personalities involved, geographical location, influences of the surrounding culture, and so on. And as I pointed out in my essay, The Three-in-One: High Octane Christianity for the Remnant, there were at least three 'flavours' of the Besorah (Gospel) being lived out in the first generation centering on various apostles.

It is hard to adequately explain what happened to the world in the first century as a result of the Besorah(Gospel). The impact of the Kingdom on Europe, North Africa and the Middle East was a bit like a giant light bursting and totally upsetting the old order. No amount of persecution - and there was plenty of that - could ever restore the former Graeco-Roman world back to where it was. Western Civilisation was being birthed - painfully, often in much confusion, but relentlessly too. It was forever changed. And thereafter this light spread across the whole planet. Darkness rose up to meet it not only in the form of persecution but also new false religion riding on horseback with a swaying sword in its hand. And explosions of light in any situation where there is both passive and active opposition can have unpredictable outcomes, save to Yahweh Himself, of course.

I want you to picture yourself in the middle of such a spiritual explosion. The Ruach's (Spirit's) work was dramatic, made visible by all the supernatural healing going on and by a new kind of ahavah (love) where previously there had only been a pale reflection. In the midst of this the apostles (like Paul, John, James and Pater) were receiving instructions on how to live the new way, and these instructions were coming in an apparently haphazzard way. No 'manual of instruction' was issued like the Pentateuch. What shines through for me in reading Acts is that the 'main thing' - the core of the Besorah (Gospel) - pushed the details, and those who like manuals, into the sidelines. The first believers were't interested in all the theological nuances or the minutae of Torah (the rabbis had already flogged that horse nigh unto death) - would you be, with all this incredible ahavah (love) and spiritual power all around you? For sure, theological and philosophical discussions were held, but those most interested in such things would have been the Greeks who loved that sort of thing. And after Paul reported back to Jerusalem what was happening in his mission patch, even the Hebrews, traditionally absorbed with the details of Torah, were sucked up into this new light and fire. This was, after all, the 'real thing', and not the pale shadow of what the nevi'im (prophets) had seen and longed for for so long.

I admit I am one of those persons who likes to see the 'big scheme' - I guess it's the scientist/philosopher in me. But the moment you sit down and try to figure out the 'big picture' - the 'cosmic set-up' - as I have done many times, you will lose your spiritual orientation. What do I mean by the 'big picture'? For one thing, I wonder about those millions of souls from the past who never got to hear any gospel and so ask what purpose, then, would life have for them? For instance, in the Amazon basin of eastern Ecuador there was a tribe of savage Indians called the Aucas for whom murder had been a way of life for presumably millennia. Not until the 1950's, when Jim Elliot and a team of five missionaries received a burden from Yahweh to go into the jungle and take the gospel to them was something done about the terrble plight of these people. All five missionaries were slaughtered and many more afterwards before the gospel penetrated the tribe and the evil pratices of multiple generations was brought to an end. You may have heard of Elisabeth Elliot's many books which I highly recommend. I believe she lost three husbands in all to those depraved people, Jim being the first. It's an astonishing story which I spent a week of my recouperation period reading up on.

The 'big picture' includes, for me at any rate, trying to understand why Yahweh would wait until 1949 or thereabouts before getting something done about these tribesmen. Generations - tens if not hundreds of thousands of these tribesmen would, according to some traditional theologies - be roasting in hell because no one was ever sent to them. Why was nothing 'done' for them? A Calvinist might explain that none of those earlier souls were predestined to salvation so their ending up in a place of eternal torture is consistent with their 'high theology'. But if you're a non-Calvinist like myself then the very thought of souls predestined to destruction is revolting and unscriptural. Nevertheless we do not have explanations either, though the ones we do have are, I think better, and more in line with the compassionate heart of our Elohim (God). What of all the tens of millions of babies, both in the womb and outside of it, who have perished because of abortion, war, famine and disease over the milllennia? What was their purpose down here? How does Yahweh's justice operate for them? For however you look at it, planet earth is, and has been, and will remain until Yah'shua (Jesus) returns, a giant slaughterhouse with justice as rare as diamonds in my back garden. And yes, I know some of you reading this have experienced such slaughters for yourself.

I have read all sorts of theories in 'explanation' of how things 'work' cosmically but the truth is we don't know - we don't have explanations beyond the assurance that Yahweh is an Elohim (God) of ahavah (love) and justice, that there is a Plan but it's really too big for us to figure out. What I do know is that the alternative - purposelessness in existence - is just too ghastly to flesh out. We can and must deal with atheistic arguments which are ultimately nihilistic. The best they can offer is, 'have a good time and then die.'

My experience in hospital and after has brought into sharp focus my priorities for the rest of my life. I have been given a sphere of influence, as have you, both in which to work out my salvation (Phil.2:12) and assist others in doing the same. My purpose, and yours, is to reveal the ahavah (love) of Elohim (God) within that sphere by acting as a conduit for the Kingdom of Heaven. To do that, we are required to be in the metaphorical eye - the very middle - of the heavenly whirlwind where Yahweh's chayim (life) and power penetrates into this earth dimension. That is, after all, our 'natural home' in the world to come. Everything outside it is part of the chaos of Satan's fallen domain which you will never make any sense of. Indeed, why would you even want to waste your time doing do? Why try to fathom chaos when you can enjoy the beauty of Elohim's (God's) order?

The Enemy wanted to fascinate me with the complexity of his chaotic world during the 'Gnostic temptation' experience I mentioned to you earlier. If you try to dabble in both worlds you will be torn apart and be forced to choose one or the other. Why drive yourself crazy trying to figure it all out, being led by the nose down dark intellectual alleyways, when you can be in the centre or Chayim or Life itself in your patch of the Vineyard? That is the reality of our situation down here in this dimension. Either you dwell in the shalom (peace) of the eye of Yahweh's glorious Kingdom where all the Besorah (Gospel) action is taking place - and you can only do that by walking close to the Master - or you can try to live outside of it, trying to form a picture of what's going on whilst being tossed about and beaten up. We may not have crawled out of a primordial evolutionary soup over millions of years but we'll certainly find ourselves slopping around in something like it in the world if once we leave Yah's Pillar of Fire behind us.

Which brings me to another question I asked myself in Örebro: how should we handle the Scriptures rightly? How, indeed, did the authors of the various gospels and letters expect their works to be used? As I have mentioned elsewhere - and this is an opinion shared by a lot of Pauline scholars - Paul had absolutely no idea that his thirteen epistles would be dissected under a microscope and grand theologies constructed from them. And though Paul is the very first Christian/Messianic theologian and academic, he never viewed himself as such. And though he could have written some books on systematic theology for the Messiasnic Community (Church), he didn't actually do that, and Yahweh prevented such a project, assuming such ever entered his mind, which I don't think it did. Rather it is modern theologians who have taken his epistles and constructed grand theological schemes out of them, grand cosmic cathedrals of salvation, anatomical atlases of Elohim (God), theology and everything.

Now we can ask ourselves the question, if you'd like, as to why Yahweh never directed Paul to create something like that, but I suspect that if the apostle had, it would have ended up as something very dry and lifeless like some of those boring discourses by Reformed theologians. Paul was not in the business of writing manuals - he was handling chayim (life) itself and to handle chayim (life) it has to be very personal and intimate. I suspect he knew that you cannot dissect the Besorah (Gospel) and still expect it to a living, breathing organism afterwards. And so it is that the Bible - and especially the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament) is a kind of smörgåsbord containing the living, incarnate experiences of those filled with the Ruach (Spirit), power and an incredible ahavah (love) which everty believer has to rediscover for him- or herself. Thus Paul would urge the believers:

"Continue in good heart and in the unity of ahavah (love), and come to the full wealth of conviction which understanding brings, and grasp Elohim's (Gos's) secret. The Secret is Messiah Himself; in Him lie all Elohim's (God's) treasures of wisdom and knowledge" (Col.2:2-3, NEB).

Everything that is necessary and desirable is to be found, as it were, in one human-shaped divine box - Yah'shua (Jesus) - so seeking for it in books and ecclesiastical organisations is futile. Little wonder that religion is futile - religion is simply a powerless, paltry human similation of the Ultimate Reality. Elohim (God) has compressed Himself into a human form and that is where you have to go if you are looking for Him. That was Paul's discovery. So obviously you're not going to find Elohim (God) in the letters of the Torah or in any corner of this vast universe because Messiah is the Living Torah. There is a world of difference between the object being described and any description of that object. It's the difference between a living person and a photograph of that person:

"For it is in Messiah that the complete being of the Elohimhead (Godhead) dwells embodied, and in Him you have been brought to completion. Every power and authority in the universe is subject to Him as Head. In Him also you were circumcised, not in a physical sense, but by being divested of the lower nature... On that cross He discarded the cosmic powers and authorities like a garment; He made a public spectacle of them and led them as captives in His triumphal procession" (Col.2:9-11,15, NEB).

Your choice - my choice, our choice - and this is especially important for messianics to consider - is whether you want to expend your energies pursuing the shadows or the reality which is in Messsiah by going to Source. The divine moedim (appointments) or festivals are props and pointers but they are not the Reality of Messiah who is immediately available to us. They simply give shape to the finite mind of what is infinite. There will always be those who are more preoccupied with these outer aids than with the living realtiy of being in Messiah here and now. Thus Paul warned:

"Allow no one therefore to take you to task about what you eat or drink, or over the observance of a festival, new moon, or sabbath. These are no more than a shadow of what was to come; the solid reality is Messiah's. You are not to be disqualified by the decision of people who go in for self-mortification and angel-worship, and try to enter into some vision of their own. Such people, bursting with the futile conceit of worldly minds, lose hold upon the Head; yet it is from the Head that the whole body, with all its joints and ligaments, receives its supplies, and thus knit together grows according to Elohim's (God's) design.

"Did you not die with Messiah and pass beyond reach of the elemental spirits of the world? Then why behave as though youb were still living the life of the world? Why let people dictate to you: 'Do not handle this, do not taste that, do not touch the other' - all of them things that must perish as soon as they are used? That is to follow merely human injunctions and teaching. True, it has an air of wisdom, with its forced piety, its self-mortification, and its severity to the body; but it is of no use at all in combating sensuality" (Col.2:16-23, NEB).

Protestant and Messianic exegetes take this scripture and interpret it very differently. The Messianics say that that the teachers in question were Talmudic converts to the Besorah (Gospel) with their extra unauthoirsed and burdensome 'Oral Law', rather than the Karaite-like 'Torah-only teachers. Certainly such would fall into this category. The Protestants (and orthodox Christians in general) say that all the dietary laws and festivals have been fully replaced by a living relationship with Messiah so that we do not need to 'do' them anymore. They are former shadows swept aside in the brilliance of the Messianic Light. And yet they themselves ignore almost completely even the minimum requirements of Gentiles made by the Council of Jerusalem and have rather replaced the divine moedim (appointments) with pagan ones, proving that mortal man still needs outward forms and regulations for the conduct of his life.

So what is the truth? The truth is that the outer forms are still necessary in which to cement the life of a spiritual community but they are not the main thing. Indeed, do not various messsianic groups still differ over the divine calendar, the true sabbath day, and so on? These groups are sniping at each other all the time and thereby demonstrating that they are missing the whole point - the lioving reality which is in Messiah. They are so preoccupied with external things that they're missing the 'main show', as it were. And this is the point I must make, and make it emphatically: the 'show' is still going on in spite of the religious snipers and virtue signallers, Yah'shua (Jesus) is manifested, often very powerfully and spectacularly, through Protestants, Messsianics and others alike in spite of the doctrinal jumble. That's not to say we shouldn't seek to fix the doctrinal confusion but it is most emphatically to say that we need to meet fellow believers on the level of ahavah (love) before all else. Those trusting in Yah'shua (Jesus) are, after all, saved. If we are to love our enemies (which is far more than an abstract proposal - Mt.5:44) then we had better start loving fellow believers with divergent beliefs first. And that can only happen if we first of all "die with Messiah". Because until we do, we are still within the reach of the "elemental spirits" which are of the world.

Aside from an appendix which appears at the end of this essay containing some of the more unusual experiences with spiritual beings, that was pretty much my 'hospital experience'. It has taken me a week to write this article since returning home, a little here, and a little there, as I have frankly not felt at all well enough to do much more. The recovery is long and painful and one I shall be glad to have behind me. And things were not made any easier by the whole family (save one) going down with 'flu, of our being snowed in or by the cold temperatures making it one of the harshest winters in some years. I shall be glad when I no longer have to take any more opioid drugs and can return to a semblance of normalcy again.

Which brings me round to some rather esoteric experiences I had whilst in hospital. I was pretty sure I would be looking into invisible side of hospital life while I was there though I was wholly unable to anticipate what I in fact saw. So it came as no surprise for me to see the parallel plane of that hospital. As I mentioned, I was wholly unaware of anything during my operation - that's a complete memory blank - but afterwards, probably because of all the pain-killing drugs that they pumped into me, I was able to see with intense clarity other-worldly beings of divers kinds. Now I realise that drugs can mess up your mind and cause you to hallucinate so I am not going to be dogmatic about anything here. It's always wise to tread with caution when it comes to subjective phenomena which others cannot confirm the reality of. So you can take what I share with you now as you will, and I will not be offended.

On the first day after the operation I was aware of being in, and observing, another dimension. It was very strange indeed. Though I know this won't make any sense to you, it was like a transition dimension between the second and third dimensions. Imagine, if you will, a portrait painting made of a giant slab of stone in a wall that extends along an infinite plane. Only one such 'stone' was ever visible at a time, but I saw a number of them over the next couple of days, emerging out of this white vertical plane. The slabs were alive, and yet not alive at the same time, a bit like giant Polaroid pictures. The stone slab had features and sometimes they appeared to be moving. There was no colour in them - they were all grey. The 'world' represented by these slabs is unlike anything here yet it connects to us somehow.

Then I saw some of the weirdest creatures ever. Though they were made of a stone-like material, they were nevertheless 'alive'. I call them 'rock men'. They live in the corners of rooms where they naturally 'slot in'. They do, and don't, have 'eyes' and 'mouths', if that makies any sense. I found the whole dimension very chlostrophobic. The creatures moved very slowly indeed, on a single plane (as we do), they were neither hostile nor friendly. Sometimes they would come right up against your faca, as though curious. I was not unhappy not to see these creatures again. What were they? I haven't a clue. Drug-induced hallucinogenic phantoms? Quite possibly. Or maybe they were examples of what Paul called "elemental spirits". There was, at any rate, nothing edifying about them that I could discern.

Otherwise the hospital's parallel dimension was swarming with the usual humanoid-like spirits, as expected. A good many were demons, I don't doubt, some may have been deceased souls, again I don't know. Nor do I honestly care very much. The only dimensions that matter to me are the one we live in here and the one which is full of the chayim (life) and ahavah (love) of Yah'shua (Jesus).

One interesting thing I saw is what I am pretty certain was a 'spirit of infirmity' floating around the hospital space. It consisted of a ball of whispy black fibres, like smoke. 'So that's what sickness looks like in the invisible,' I thought to myself.

I never saw the Saviour nor any malakim (angels) while I was in hospital though I did see a couple of beautiful visions of family members. They certainly compensated for all the spiritual darkness that surrounds and penetrates hospital atmospheres. I'm so glad we don't see a fraction of all that's going on in the invisible. And whilst such things used to fascinate me in my younger days, I have concluded that life is too short to be occupied with and absorbed in anything other than the Kingdom of our Elohim (God).