There's nothing quite like a haircut to either send you to sleep (because it's so relaxing) or to focus your concentration (for the same reason), so whilst my wife ran her scissors and assorted barber's tools through my hair I got to thinking about the message I would share with you today. I just hope yesterday's didn't frighten too many of you away!

Sukkot (the Feast of Tabernacles) commemorates a future day when not only individuals but the Family of Christ as a whole will be literally...whole. This got me to thinking about all the things in life that split our minds and hearts down the middle, causing inner conflict and civil war. One of the most bizzare splits in the mind that had occurred in recent times is the alliance' between Marxists (and left-wing people) in general, and fundamentalist Islam. Their ideologies are about as different as they could possibly be. Why are they allied? Because they share one, if not two, things in common: they loathe Western democracy and the Christian civilization that created it, and they believe that violence is the quickest and most effective way to power. In order to justify this alliance, followers of the Left are forced to compartmentalise their minds and to create an immense void or no-man's land inbetween the two. To engage in rational conversation with these people is, of course, utterly impossible because there is no way you can justify holding two diametrically-opposed world views without actually having a mental breakdown. We were not designed to do that. So the only way to 'cope' with that is to 'deconstruct' everything, including logic, so that you are left with only raw feelings. If there's any honesty left in them, then they must admit that Marxist ideology, like that of Islam (with all its own internal contradictions, is really only about raw power. Since dishonesty of any kind gradually kills off virtuous feelings in the heart, all you're left with is emptiness or raw anger. Should you, then, be surprised to see the angry, violent, irrational behaviour of increasing numbers of people today when they run amok on the streets tearing or burning down the livelihoods of the honest, hard-working people they claim to represent?

Now I used radical Leftism and Islam as illustrations but really they're just more extreme examples, and yesterday I touched on the internal contradictions caused by a simultaneous belief in Darwinian evolution and Christianity. You can't, on the one hand, believe in millions of years of meaningless struggle for the survival of the fittest and the evolution of man from monkeys and at the same time claim that "'the first man Adam became a living being'" and "the last Adam (Christ) became a life-giving spirit'" (1 Cor.15:45, NKJV). If you believe in evolution then there cannot have been an Adam created in the manner described in the Bible. Either you believe that "Yahweh-Elohim formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being" (Gen.2:7, NKJV) or you believe that this is a fairytale describing the long ascent out of the slime. Or, as I mentioned yesterday, you believe some 'alien' took an evolved ape, modified his DNA, and gave him an 'evolutionary helping hand'. Either way, what does that then make Christ as the "last Adam"? The pinnacle of evolution? The ideal ape-man? The result, both for the Marxist and for the evolutionary-minded Christians, is a kind of mental Schizophrenia - you have two opposed belief systems which you're trying to impose some sort of harmony between. Either you have to accept Yah'shua's (Jesus') testimony and abandon Darwinism or you have to abandon Christianity and become an atheist.

Now I'm not saying that Yahweh scooped up a handful of dirt, added water to make some potter's clay, then fashioned a statue of Adam and then breathed air into it and transformed it into a living being like ourselves. I have frankly no idea what the mechanism was, or indeed how long it took Him to fashion man. It might even have been instantaneous. The only thing I am certain of is that Adam was a de novo creation - he had no antecedants, there were no apish 'pre-Adamites' before him. What about the fact that apes have certain resemblances to us? What about similarities in genetic structure? For some reason that stumps a lot of Christian intellectuals, though I can't for the life of me understand why, because both monkeys are men are made by the same Creator to inhabit the same planet with the same basic need to survive. We eat the same sort of stuff. These two distinct species reflect both the same Creator's mind and personality as well as His economy: if something works, use it again, one of the keys to the success of the Russian aviation industry, incidentally. Why not create an entirely different DNA system for man? For the simple reason man has got to eat and assimilate the same basic biochemical components as monkeys and other species. And since we eat living matter - vegetables and meat - then obviously we have to share the same basic chemical diet containing the same building blocks for our biochemistry. Tinkering with this system, as scientists are now doing with Genetically Modified Organisms (GMOs), is proving to be - and will further prove to be - a biological disaster and is already leading to more incidences of cancer in our species. Yes, we're like each other, we creatures, because we share the same biosphere and eat the same basic kinds of materials. So you'd expect similarities even between men and amoeba, since amoeba live in us and we have a symbiotic relationship with them (except with the ' bad amoeba' which are parasites).

I also accept that the Bible is very symbolic and poetic in many places. However, it doesn't logically follow that the Creation narrative in Genesis therefore means that Scripture is just primitive man's crude way of explaining Darwinism or indeed anything remotely scientific. There are many different intellectual positions you can represent, as semi-conservative/liberal Anglican scholar N.T.Wight does as an evolutionist (which I think is very sad for an otherwise great mind - he doesn't believe Adam and Eve literally existed) or evangelical Baptist scholar Michael Heiser who thinks that biblical cosmology is just simply 'wrong' and Elohim (God) 'used' that as a background on which to fasten spiritual truth (and so he believes the Hebrews were flat-earthers even though he doesn't believe in flat-earthism himself). Such compromise must, inevitably, lead to an intellectual crisis when the wall between the two brain compartments is allowed to slip.

I guess what I am trying to say today is that in order to be whole you have to be intellectually honest. As a scientist, who can plainly see the overwhelming evidence for an Intelligent Designer in the Cosmos everywhere and who believes the evidence for the Resurrection is overwhelming too, I also have to deal with the evidence which does seem to point to randomness and chaos too. For a Christian/Messianic, though, that is not too difficult to resolve when you see the plain biblical teaching that we exist in two worlds simultaneously: a chaotic, random-like post-Fall world which we call 'Old Creation' and a highly ordered, beautiful and wonderful world that reflects not only the pre-Fall creation but also the 'New Creation' spirit which is everywhere to be found where human beings, who have put their trust in the Saviour, have admitted the resurrected Messiah into their hearts and have allowed Him to use them in their interactions with the 'Old Creation' world, thus causing the 'New Creation' world to intersect with the old one. We, as regenerated believers, are the conduits of this new reality until Christ returns.

There are people - which is probably most of humanity - who make intellectual compromises that are a recipe for mental health disaster. I cannot for the life of me, for example, understand how the US Vice President, Mike Pence, can call himself a 'born-again evangelical Catholic' - that's a contradiction in terms, as a 'Calvinistic Wesleyan' would be too, or someone who accepts both Christianity and Buddhism (as I know one very liberal United Church of Christ female pastor does). The problem is, the whole planet is heading in the direction of mass schizophrenia as it tries to be 'politically correct' and accept everyone's personal 'truth' as in some way objective reality so as not to upset the new snowflakiness of lost souls. It's why we have all the current gender confusion and the anti-science and anti-truth mindset. The problem is that what's resulting is a world where fewer and fewer people will be able to authentically interact with one another or form meaningful relationships. In short, we are heading for utter confusion and chaos, as the whole basis for reality - Elohim (God) - is rejected.

Quoting the navi (prophet) Jeremiah, the writer of Hebrews says:

"I will put My torot (laws) in their mind and write them on their hearts; and I will be their Elohim (God), and they shall be My people" (Heb.8:10, NKJV).

This requires a conscious rejection on our part of the chaos of the 'Old Creation' system all around us which hae become severely damaged by sin, and to wholeheartedly embrace the 'New Creation' mindset and heart that surrendering to Christ which is 'downloaded' into us. To use Paul's words:

"Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him" (Col.3:9-10, NKJV).

"Therefore, if anyone is in Messiah (Christ), he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" (2 Cor.5:17, NKJV).

In other words, this picture of excluding the 'Old Creation' and welcoming in the 'New' from ourselves may be described as 're-imaging' - we were, whilst dead in our sins, in a state of having being re-imaged after the Fall and therefore the instigator of the Fall, Satan Himself. Fallen man therefore resembles in nature he who is himself fallen. This has disasterously bent our character out of divine shape, the shape Yahweh always intended us to be in - so badly, in fact, that we no longer even recognise our own Creator and start believing such trash that we created ourselves out of nothing through blind evolution with possibly some help from aliens! Some even believe we evolved on another planet and were transplanted here by more evolved 'aliens' (the doctrine of 'Trans-spermia'). Salvation becomes a re-shaping and re-imaging act and process, a cleansing of mind and heart, a regeneration of our spiritual nature.

As we're constantly being catastrophically re-shaped by false ideas and drawn away from righteousness by ungodly impulses even after salvation, we are required to return to that original deposit "through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit)" (Titus 3:5, NKJV) by repentance from dead works to get restoration and reformation. There are, however, limits - grace (Yahweh's unmerited favour) is not extended indefinitely, and there are certain lines, if crossed, which cannot be crossed in the reverse direction, thus contradicting one of the false doctrines taught by churches that has filled men's minds with lies - the 'Once Saved, Always Saved' heresy. Thus the writer of Hebrews warned:

"It is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted the heavenly gift, and have become partakers of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), and have tasted the good Davar Elohim (Word of God) and the powers of the age to come, if they fall away, to renew them again to repentance, since they crucify again for themselves the Son of Elohim (God), and put Him to an open shame" (Heb.6:4-6, NKJV).

Please note the critical phrase, "have tasted...the powers of the age to come". What does that mean? What are "the powers of the age to come"? What "age" or æon is being spoken of here? In the very broadest sense, this is speaking of the future to come and could either be referring to the Millennium or, more likely in my opinion, to an age or æon beyond that after Satan is forever gone. The sense of "powers" is the 'fullness' of Yahweh's presence because if you are operating in the fullness, you are no longer operating in faith (and may therefore be ignorant about many things still) and are operating in complete knowledge. And if you are operating in complete knowledge, you are no longer without excuse. You can't plead ignorance. That is why the Besorah (Gospel) does not apply to Satan and his fallen malakim (angels), the demons. That is why demons recognised who Yah'shua (Jesus) was the moment He set about delivering those oppressed by them. They knew and therefore they believed and they trembled in that certain knowledge as ones already condemned (Jas.2:19).

So I would say that the fullness of the Sukkot anointing is likewise "the powers of the age to come" so be careful what you pray for while you still have the possibility of falling. That is why the Sukkot anointing is not like the Shavu'ot or 'Pentecost' anointing. The latter has has been adequate for the past two millennia but given what's coming - the return of the nephilim (discussed yesterday), the global increase of evil at every level of society, and the progressive destruction of the nation state leading to a One World Government - which means there will be no more 'free nations' to flee to as a refugee - we will be in need of "powers" we have never experienced before because we have hitherto not needed them.

We'll be back tomorrow, Yah willing, for a talk on the fourth day of Sukkot. If you have some theme that's related in some way to this moed (appointment) which you'd like me to address, please send your suggestions by email or on social media. Yahweh bless!