Shalom and welcome to this penultimate or 6th day of Chag haMatzah, the Feast of Unleavened bread. As this is a rather longish sermon, I have divided it into two shorter parts so you will get the second part tomorrow. I hope you will forgive me for not having sermons and assemblies on all the days of Chag haMatazah but my health simply wasn't up to it, a lot of time was devoted to this year's Jericho March, and this year we wanted to have more fellowship with one another informally before we all break off and head to different parts of the world. It could be a while before we are able to meet up again if this year turns out to be what we think it will be! So now you know why there are only four assemblies this Passover Season and not the regular seven!

Two weeks ago, when I first started giving some thought to this sermon, I got to thinking about credibility - our credibility. How believable or unbelievable are we when it comes to being witnesses of this Besorah (Gospel) that we love so much? And why are we credible? Are we worthy of being believed? When we tell, and retell, 'the old, old story', in our own unique way from our own perspective and experience, recognising that every one of us is unique, are we accurate in our retelling? Have we exaggerated? Have we neglected? Are we to the point or do we beat about the bush? Would someone who had arrived on a time machine from 1st century Judea listening to us be able to recognise the emet (truth) about Yah'shua (Jesus) and His message that they knew so intimately or would he need to correct us and retell it? Would he recognise what we told from what he himself had been an actual witness to, as one, in the words of John, who "saw Him with our own eyes and touched Him with our own hands" (1 Jn.1:1, NLT)? Would my testimony - would yours - in his judgment, given to a 21st century audience like this one, be one that enhanced or damaged the credibility of Christ? We weren't there like Peter, James and John, so we totally rely on the written reports of these apostles if we are to recount actual historical events and not slip into fantasy. Would this visitor from the past have accepted, let alone understood, the various creeds that the various churches use as a test of orthodoxy? Would they even be 'orthodox' by by 1st century standards? And what would they make of our worship and practice? Would they be comfortable or appalled?

I grew up loving detective stories, I suppose because my mother loved them. Certainly when we moved to England from the Far East and started viewing British television, we watched most of the shows that were then available there and from America: Hawaii 5-O, Starsky & Hutch, Columbo, Kojak, Sherlock Homes, Father Brown, Z-Cars, and many others most of which the younger of you have probably never heard of. I still watch detective stories like Inspector Morse, Endeavour and Inspector Lewis (mostly because the setting is my old home of Oxford), Poirot, Haimish Macbeth, Foyle's War, Shetland, Inspector Gently, Inspector Lynley, A Touch of Frost, Cadfael, Wallender (Swedish), Derrick (German) and lots of of others though I must admit I like the latest less and less now because they tend to be more violent, more immoral and blatently (like Grantchester) push a very liberal, anti-Christian agenda. Nevertheless, in general, I watch them because I like the challenge of solving complex riddles much as people enjoy doing crossword puzzles, I suppose.

Someone reading the Bible has to be a bit of a detective too, whether they're studying it to test its truth-claims as an investigator, or whether they're studying it because they simply want to know their Heavenly Father better. It is not an easy book to read and the main reason, I would suggest, it because it is not set in our time or our culture and was not written in our mother tongue. Also, there are multiple authors from widely different historical periods of time (there are about 4,000 years between us and Abraham) and there isn't just one book or even two (the so-called 'Old' and 'New Testaments') but, by one reckoning, 66 volumes, depending which 'Bible collection' you use.

As I have pointed out in recent sermons - in part to express my frustration - different people with different levels of expertise, not to mention different discernments and levels of sanctification, which of course we can't really measure other than to check to see if they have the fruit of the Ruach (Spirit) (Gal.5:22-23), have sat down with the Bible and over the centuries arrived at different theologies, even with the supposedly 'basic stuff' like the resurrection, as we discussed last time at Yom haBikkurim! Most of the theologies we end up believing tend to be those we inherited from our parents (if we were born into Christian households) or, if we are converts, the theology of those who converted us. On the surface it looks, therefore, a very chance affair. Most of you older folks in this assembly started off your Christian lives as Lutherans (I see one former Baptist) because that was the faith of your parents and then you moved on to at least one more (like Pentecostalism) before arriving here because you decided to investigate the claims of the system you were born into. That's all perfectly natural particularly if you were never taught any comparitive theology. And as you know we here make a particular effort to make sure you aware of what others believe because we want you to be informed.

In my generation Christianity was more or less taken for granted. Today it isn't. We find ourselves in an anti-Christian culture whose memory of its positive impact on society has all but gone. These days people swallow all the lies and propaganda fed them by the media and humanistic education system so that most people have come to believe that all religion is somehow either bad or inferior. Those who think it is bad (the 'evangelical atheists' as some call them) also think it should be wiped out by force whilst the others think it will simply die out naturally of its own accord as people 'get wise' to it. Though there has been a huge shift towards atheism thanks to school indoctrination (a reason, by the way, the powers-that-be hate homeschooling so much because then they can't control the curriculum).

So when the older of us share our witness we can no longer make the same assumptions we did when we were younger when talking to people except in countries like Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, where one of you is currently serving and is home on leave, because the old Christian traditions have survived better there than in sceptical and heavily indoctrinated Europe and America. Here we have a competitor - several, in fact - but there was originally one primary competitor that birthed all the others, and that was a movement, created mostly by atheistic philosophers, which pitted 'reason' against 'faith', and 'individualism' against 'tradition'.

This 18th century movement was known as the 'Enlightenment' and began, amongst other things, as a critique of orthodox Christianity. It demanded that everything be tested rationally before being accepted. The problem is that it redefined 'reason' to mean finding a way to explain away the supernatural in religion, and declared as its purpose to treat reason as the ultimate authority in everything - reason, morality, politics, science, etc.. They claimed that reason is exclusively the foundation of all certainty in knowledge and that the only working method that may be used in this quest is empiricism. What is empiricism? To be empirical is to base or act out all knowing on observation (using the physical senses) or experiment, not theory. Therefore only sensual data is valid information [1]. All truth, they claim, comes from this kind physical experience alone. In a word, it's a way to explain existence solely on the basis of matter because, unlike spirit, it can be seen and measured. This is a reason that materialists deny the existence of mind, consciousness and love. To them, we are just a network of biochemically firing synapses and love is a survival mechanism to ensure the survival of our DNA.

This methodology works extremely well in science, of course, and it is why we have so much advanced technology now, but once you start applying it to the non-physical, non-observable universe - like 'mind', 'conscience' or 'love' - trouble follows. Imagine if relationships were based solely on experiment and never on trust. Well, that's one reason why this technologically advanced society of ours is so socially decadent and inept. Living together without committment and faith is one reason marriage has collapsed in the West. The idea is to 'experiment' to see if the relationship 'works' before entering into partnership agreements. I don't need to tell you how 'successful' that has been and the damage it has done to children and families.

The false assumption was made by these atheistic rationalists, who stole the word 'rationalism' and claimed it exclusively as their own, that all religion is irrational. Well, a lot of it assuredly is, as is so much of the philosophy of the atheists who also claim exclusive ownership of science. To me, the claim that 'nothing made everything out of nothing', which is the belief system of naturalistic 'Big Bang' evolutionism, requires far more religious faith than Intelligent Design in the universe. I am a Messianic/Christian scientist and the use of reason is one of the most important tools in my life. I have scientifically observed that everyone lives by faith, including atheists! Nobody - and I mean absolutely nobody - lives by reason alone. It just doesn't happen, and never will. And I have similarly concluded that atheistic philosophy is far more irrational than mine ever could be, otherwise I would have stayed the atheist I once was. So, no, I totally deny the atheist claim that reason solely belongs to non-religious people. Christianity is the most reasoned and reasonable faith there is, in my opinion.

So I would say the rise of the Enlightenment was both good and bad, like so many other ideas, like humanism, for example. I am a Christian Humanist even though atheists insist humanism belongs to them alone! I absolutely and totally believe that we should be taught to think and reason independently and value human life - for ourselves. Christianity isn't, in any case, a religion you can 'inherit' from your parents, even if your parents can give you a head start in life. Everyone has to come to faith independently of their parents or spiritual mentors. It can't be avoided. Three of my seven children have so-far chosen to be atheists. I regret that deeply, I don't believe their choice is rational or reasonable, but I would never rob them of their free will to investigate and make their own decision as to what they believe.

Without free agency - without choice - there would never be any possibility for love in the universe. For belief to exist in the universe there has to also be the possibility of unbelief; for love to exist, the possibility of hate; for truth, the possibility of lies. That is part of the wonderful and terrible thing called risk and Yahweh frankly took a huge risk in setting up the universe in that way. But if He hadn't - if He had forced us to be robots only capable of being one way, we would have ended up with the kind of world which Satan is right now creating in front of our eyes. The Babylonian system, which means to deprive us of our choice and force us to think in only one way, is forming right in front of our eyes. It's called the Babylonian system, the new World Order, etc..

So, yes, it is good that we learn to think and reason. I want my own children, and the members of this Messianic Evangelical spiritual community, to be thinking people of faith, not blind followers. I want them all to have their own minds even if it means risking them disagreeing with me on some or even many things! Yes, of course, I absolutely wish for total unity one day, and for that I strive hard, but by freedom of choice, not by compulsion. So I will seek to persuade rather than force. I will instruct and let people say 'yea' or 'nay' without stopping to love them if they say 'nay'.

Unfortunately, the philosophies that have taken over from Enlightenment thinking - first, so-called 'modernism', and now 'post-modernism' - insist that we put our feelings ahead of our reason, put our minds to sleep, and follow our feelings instead. The anarchy and lunacy of 'self-identity' politics has been the disasterous result. Only the other day a 40 year-old man declared that he identified as a 7 year-old girl and demanded the right to go into a little girl's changing room. Laws are being made in some American states and some European countries forcing schools and other places to force this. All this is being done, of course, simply as a way to justify pedophilia and the satanist agenda that drives it. And that is why the identity politics of the Left was created in the first place (remember, Karl Marx was no atheist in reality, but a satanist), so that perverts could justify their evil lifestyle and make it socially acceptible.

I have often said that once this last line of iniquity is crossed, along with abortion after birth (the murder of already born children), as it already now permitted in two or three American states, final judgment of the world has to happen because then mankind will be fully ripened in sin and inquity. Then the wicked will be executed by Yahweh Himself. As Yahweh spoke through the navi (prophet) Micah:

"'Woe to those who plan iniquity,
to those who plot evil on their beds!
At morning's light they carry it out
because it is in their power to do it...'
Therefore, Yahweh says:
'I am planning disaster against this people,
from which you cannot save yourselves.
You will no longer walk proudly,
for it will be a time of calamity'" (Micah 2:1,3, NIV)

If we believe, as we should, that the Creator and His creation are rational, this should not scare us even if those who started this Enlightenment philosophy had Christianity in their gun-sights. I consider the Enlightenment, in spite of one of its negative aims, to actually have been a beneficial tool. For one thing, it has forced Christianity to 'stay historical' and not go wandering off into the realms of fantasy, because religion can easily do that. And by 'historical' I do, of course, mean real, genuine history, because a lot of so-called 'history' is in reality the product of men's fantasy. All too often it has been falsified to meet political agendas, a reason why honest historians like David Irving, who doesn't care about political agendas, money, reputation or acceptance in establishment circles (like universities and mainstream publishers) as most people do, is hated and persecuted for upsetting the applecart. But he just goes on anyway, bless him.

I admire that sort of person. I admire peole of courage like Irving and Assange. I like people who don't care what people think because all that matters to them is the truth. As Christians/Messianics we should not be afraid to upset theological applecarts either, and for the most part I don't think we have. Right from the day we started here in Scandinavia in 1988 we've said things that the mainstream have not liked hearing. We've upset a lot of people. After all, aren't we interested in the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? I hope so. We have to be courageous in our witness, and that needs guts, but also conviction and wisdom. We don't just want to stir the pot for stirring's sake. There has to be an overarching purpose, and part of that is the goal to edify those prepared to trust and obey the emet (truth). Yet the medicine sometimes has to be sweetened, like the Mary Poppins song goes: "A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down...in a most delightful way!" In other ways, we have to add huge dollups of love, and patience, and kindness, and long-suffering, to name but a few of the virtues, because we're all children at heart and hate raw medicine!

As Messianic Evangelicals, whose faith rests on key concrete events like the Resurrection that took place in the 1st century, we should welcome accurately-done history. We should never be afraid of history. One thing we should never fear is that if we really find out what happened in the 1st century that our emunah (faith) will collapse. But, as N.T.Wright reminds us, "without historical enquiry there is no check on Christianity's propensity to remake Jesus (Yah'shua), never mind the Christian god, in its own image" [2]. We don't want to make reflections of ourselves, which is what the natural man does. That means that our personal philosophies and theologies have to die if they are found not to be in accord with historical Christianity - and what I mean by 'historical Christianity' is not what evolved centuries or millennia after the event but what actually happened in biblical times and what was actually taught and believed.

Far too many believers are scared of scholarly learning, and because the Enlightenment was an intellectual venture, Christianity has responded with the simplicities of faith. Granted that "learning without love is sterile and dry, [but so] enthusaism without learning can easily become blind arrogance" [3]. Ours is not an irrational faith, brothers and sisters, neither is it built upon myths, but upon concrete, in many cases testable, historical facts. In a post-Christian, neo-Pagan and increasingly atheistic age, where we cannot take belief for granted any longer, we need to remember that, and not be scared to engage the world on perfectly reasonable premises, even if rationalism can only take us so far. There is nothing wrong, as many excellent apologists like Ravi Zacharias and John Lennox have done (and are currently doing) in sometimes reducing a supernaturalist faith to rational categories. That is not the same as dismissing supernaturalism. We believe totally in the supernatural!

Here is the irony, which is why I am smiling a bit, as this is N.T.Wright being witty and brilliant at the same time:

"The sharp distinction between the 'supernatural' and the 'rational' is itself the product of Enlightenment thinking, and to emphasise the 'supernatural' at the expense of the 'rational' or 'natural' is itself to capitulate (give in) to the Enlightenment worldview at a deeper level than if we were merely to endorse, rather than marginalise, a post-Enlightenment rationist programme" [4].

People are, in any case, increasingly no longer rational. From the Enlightenment we have moved on to 'Modernism' and now to 'Post-modernism' where the idea of rationality is completely scorned. People don't even think anymore. The so-called 'professors' of 'Gender Studies', for example, who follow a Marxist political agenda with no scientific backing whatsoever, who deny what their senses tell them about the genetics of gender, are completely irrational. And though they produce lots of what I call 'word salad', with long, complicated words randomly strung together, it is intellectual vomit of zero value to scholarship. Actually, the founders of the Enlightenment would be appalled, as lots of scientists, including atheistic one, are right now. It's amazing with whom you can sometimes make common cause!

For those 'old-timers' of my generation who are still very rationalist-minded, we can happily use rationalist categories to interact with them. For the younger post-modernists, I'm afraid, there is little we can do other than to appeal directly to their hearts and perhaps by with the help of supernatural action through the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) moving in them. I am not saying that one or the other is 'better'. I am simply saying we must use different sets of tools for different people, accepting them where they 'are' and dealing with what lies they currently believe. Ours is a faith of the natural and the supernatural, of matter and spirit, of reason and joyous existential encounter with the Divine. That's why I emphasise the resurrection so much which is that new dimension where the two join together as echad or one.

I look forward to seeing you here again tomorrow at the same time. May Yahweh bless you until then. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] It is this claim that they will only believe what they can see with their eyes that has led flat-earthers to conclude that the earth is not round because they haven't been up into space to see the planet's curvature. Most of them deny outer space and gravity exist even though both can be scientifically demonstrated.
[2] N.T.Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, Part 1 of Christian Origins and the Question of God (SPCK, London: 1992), p.10
[3] Ibid.
[4] Ibid.