'Pastor, your sermon this morning was terrible.' 'Pastor, you gave a miserable sermon. It was awful!' 'Pastor, you don't know how to preach. Why don't you quit?' Sunday after Sunday, Saturday after Saturday, or whenever the people congregate to observe the 'Lord's Day' or 'Sabbath' (oh, Shabbat shalom, by the way), the people of the 'First Critical Church' or the 'Complaining Messianic Jewish Synagogue' told their pastor or messianic rabbi how they hated his preaching and his sermons, how they wished he would quit, how they wanted him anywhere else except their church or synagogue.

Suppose you were their pastor. How long would it take for that kind of talk to wear you down, make you want to leave, encourage you to get out of the ministry and go into a completely different career? What about the career you have now? Suppose you are a doctor, a dentist, or a nurse. Every patient you have tells you how incompetent you are. When you write a prescription, people throw it away. When you give advice people don't listen. Or suppose you're a counselor, and every person you counsel laughs at whatever you say and ridicules your advice. Or if you are a teacher, your students pay no attention and think they know better. How would you feel?

Now you know what life was like for the navi (prophet) Jeremiah. He was rejected by family, friends, neighbours, kings, commoners - just about everyone, except his scribe and a few other contemporary nevi'im (prophets) like Zephaniah and Habakkuk, or Daniel and Ezekiel who were among the captives carried off to Babylon. But for 40 years - yes, there's that mystical number of judgment again - he kept on preaching. His book records his sermons. Not many pastors have their sermons preserved for 2,600 years, particularly preachers who are continually rejected! It will be a miracle if mine even survive my death.

In the Book of Jeremiah, the southern kingdom of Judah was on the brink of disaster, threatened by mightly Babylon. Yahweh called Jeremiah to encourage His people to submit to Babylon's domination as Elohim's (God's) discipline for their waywardness. If the nation surrendered to Babylon, Yahweh would protect them from being destroyed or taken captive. Then, eventually, if Judah turned from its sin and back to Yahweh, Elohim (God) would restore the nation to independence again. Jeremiah's message was plain and simple. Return to Yahweh-Elohim, or face His judgment.

We face a very, very similar situation today, only now it's global, the people of Elohim (God) are scattered throughout the nations, and submitting to the secretive, murderous, illegal deep state rulers as so many do in their ignorance or out of blind fear, is tantamount to suicide. The wickedness in our nations grows steadily day by day. In this country, Sweden, an Israelite diaspora nation in northern Europe, once a Christian nation, they are now not only murdering the unborn and striking off doctors and nurses who refuse to assist in this genocide, Social Services are not only kidnapping children from perfectly normal homes and trafficking them, but now, under the cover of a 'pandemic', it is the official policy to murder old people by allowing those with respiratory infections to suffocate to death by refusing to administer oxygen to them. I read yesterday of a 55 year-old man who was allowed to die horribly like that. Who's next? And, no, Sweden is not alone, it's happening throughout the formerly Christian West as a satanic cabal attempt to seize power.

For most of his ministry, the navi (prophet) Jeremiah lived under the tyranny of several evil kings who had no regard for Elohim (God) or moral issues, just like many modern governments. Indeed, in many European countries even the word 'morality' is anathema, because governments want the people to believe the lie that truth is all relative. Though Jeremiah was rejected by his contemporaries, he is recognised today by believers as a towering figure of great courage and faithfulness. Today's nevi'im (prophets) must be of his spiritual breeding - confrontational rather than appeasing like the false prophets of his day. And yes, I come across so many believers today - ministers, laity and so-called 'prophets' - who have already sold their souls to the Beast System that is attempting to rise and seize absolute control, especially now during times of crisis.

What was it Winston Churchill once famously said? 'We must never let a crisis go to waste', especially engineered ones. Well, he's not the only powerful politician to have said that in recent times. It was the crisis of the First World War that led the Bolsheviks to power in Russia and the crisis of a recession in Germany that led the nazis to seize a similar opportunity. Plague and economic depression are therefore 'too good to be true' for the wicked desirous of seizing power.

Whenever you are repeatedly criticised for speaking out against the truths of the Davar Elohim (Word of God), when you feel like a failure because no one listens, when you feel as if no one cares that you are a believer (Christian/Messianic), when people avoid you and speak evil of you behind your back because you remind them that they are not living by Yahweh's mitzvot (commandments) - His Torah - read the Book of Jeremiah. I have personally been in and out of it hundreds of times during my ministry. His persistence came, not from the stroking of his contemporaries, no fromt appeasing them or trying to be liked by them or to engage in cowardly virtue signalling, but from the positive affirmation that he was doing what Elohim (God) wanted him to do.

I know that many of you are in agreement with me that Ravi Zacharias did what Elohim (God) wanted him to do. This incredible man of Elohim (God) died at the age of 74 four days ago. He was probably the greatest Christian philosopher and apologist of our time. He had such a graceful spirit too and was a real gentleman - gentle but uncompromising in the emet (truth) Yahweh gave to him. And probably, like me, you have many of his books and/or have listened to hours and hours of his sermons and talks, and been uplifted by them.

When it was announced that he was dying of an aggressive cancer, I have to say my heart grieved and all sorts of feelings surfaced, including those hard, hard questions about the nature and purpose of pain and suffering. He lived in considerable pain long before he got cancer because of a couple of platinum rods screwed into his backbone to enable him to be physically upright. What's even more amazing, to me at any rate, was not just his extraordinary gift of teaching and understanding of Elohim (God) and of the human spirit, but the way he endured his suffering with such grace. Many a time he would weep because of his pain. He could have been angry and bitter at his circumstances - and who knows what wrestlings of the soul he went through in the quietness of his prayer chamber - but he chose to accept Yahweh's choice for him and remained one of the most inspirational men of the last 40 years. Yes, he, like Jeremiah, ministered for about 40 years before Elohim (God) took him home. (You'll see how that number keeps cropping up at pivotal moments in history).

As I said, the news of his aggressive cancer knocked me for six. I have never met the man but like many of you, I had a great love for him. And when he died last Tuesday, I was accutely aware that something irreplacable had been taken from off the earth. I felt an emptiness, actually. And when a couple of days ago I was listening to an interview recorded some months before his operation, it wasn't the same. I knew he wasn't there. I sensed that the Body of Christ on earth now had a big, big hole in it, and I have never felt that before of any minister. So loved was he that uniquely he was known mostly by his first name - Ravi. Yes, something is missing that can never be replaced.

It was then I understood - I knew - that Ravi's death was a prophetic marker indicating a change in the direction of the Kingdom. I knew that we were beginning the transition to the final gathering of the Remnant. The old 'church order', which has been around now for one-and-a-half thousand years, is gradually exiting at the same time as Yahweh executes His penultimate Judgment. We are about to go through a very, very painful period of history - a partial judgment prior to the Final Judgment - that will see our way of life completely turned on its head.

I'm sure you all know what a centrifuge is but for those of you who don't, it is a machine that rotates at very high speed designed to separate solids from liquids, or liquids from other liquids (like cream from milk, for example), all the solid matter being forced to the bottom of the spinning tube containing it. A centrifuge is a pretty good illustration of what the penultimate judgment is designed to do for believers. Sin is a bit like the solid matter in the mix which is our soul. If we are clinging onto sin still, then when we are metaphorically centrifuged, we will head for the bottom of the tube along with the sin. If we let go of the sin, it will be separated from us by the fierce spinning of challenging events and we will be left purified.

Similarly, we are going to see, by the same process, a very clear preliminary separation of the good from the wicked, something we have been praying for without perhaps realising that all of us have to go through the separating process because the good and the wicked live together. The Saviour taught, you will remember, this:

"Once again, the kingdom of heaven is like a net that was let down into the lake and caught all kinds of fish. When it was full, the fishermen pulled it up on the shore. Then they sat down and collected the good fish in baskets, but threw the bad away. This is how it will be at the end of the age. The malakim (angels) will come and separate the wicked from the righteous and throw them into the fiery furnace, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth" (Matt.13:47-50, NIV).

Now obviously the principal application of this teaching is the Final Judgment when Messiah comes back. However, throughout history, there have been dozens - if not hundreds or even thousands - of mini-judgments of nations and separations of peoples, and this Yahweh does for the sake of the righteous so that they are not completely overwhelmed. May I at this juncture remind you of the prophetic Fishnet dream Brother Herman Rustad had in 1998 concerning this separation, which I believe is very much associated with this penultimate judgment. What Yah'shua (Jesus) spoke of in Matthew 13 will also happen in this penultimate judgment that we are beginning to enter into with some force.

I was riddiculed when quite recently I suggested that 2020 was the year of Covid-19, that 2021 might well be a year of rising hunger, and 2022 of famine. The way economies are now collapsing would suggest strongly the cause, and already we are entering a man-made - and engineered - financial collapse that is far worse than the Great Depression that began in 1929, nearly a hundred years ago. That is why, for nearly a decade, I have been urging everyone to prep and to replenish their stores immediately because this may be our last chance. That includes stocking food, water, fuel, medicines, precious metals, weapons (if they're legal where you live) and all those things we take for granted. If you are a ministry heavily reliant on economic support from abroad, cease being reliant because it will completely dry up and you will be left entirely to your own resources in the end. Forget all the fancy projects you have planned like buildings and prepare for a long drawn out struggle to survive. Buy and cultivate the land with the last of the support you get. Ministers must do regular work alongside their pastoral and evangelistic work. We have all got to adjust our lifestyles and to learn to do with less - much less, just as the vast majority did during the Great Depression.

If you have responded to the warnings of the nevi'im (prophets) and are doing Yahweh's work, Yahweh's way, then you can be confident that your efforts are not in vain even if you cannot see any obvious results yet. Success in the world's eyes has temporary benefits; success in Yahweh's eyes promises an eternal reward. Ravi Zacharias has gone to his and as I have said before, more and more of my generation will be following him quite soon because a start toward the transition to the last generation has to be made in the immediate days ahead. And, no, we're not going to be 'raptured' away into the sky to some heavenly 'Disney World', which is one of the foolish notions that evangelicals have got to get out of their heads quickly because it's preventing them from adequately preparing and spiritually maturing.

Yahweh's instruction through Jeremiah was quite specific and uncompromising:

"Obey Me, and I will be your Elohim (God), and you will be My people. Only do as I say, and all will be well" (Jer.7:23, NLT).

Yahweh warned:

"Cursed are those who put their trust in mere humans and turn their hearts away from Yahweh. They are like stunted shrubs in the desert, with no hope for the future. They will live in the barren wilderness, on the salty flats, where no one lives" (Jer.17:5-6, NLT).

However the good news is this:

"...blessed are those who trust in Yahweh and have made Yahweh their hope and confidence. They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green, and they go right on producing delicious fruit" (vv.7-8, NLT).

It was right after these verses, which are not usually quoted, that the famous passage you've all heard of and know so well, was spoken:

"The human heart is most deceitful and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is? But I know! I, Yahweh, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their rewards, according to what their actions deserve" (vv.9-10, NLT).

Read Jeremiah's book, please, it's full of really great sermons, and tailor-made for our time at that! And remember these words of Ray Comfort if you still have a rapturist self-entitlement attitude toward escaping tribulation: we didn't come to Christ for a smooth flight - we cames for a safe landing. Ravi Zacharias has had a safe landing. He's home, in glory, with Yah'shua (Jesus), with Norman Geisler whose funeral Ravi recently attended last year, and with all those who have put their trust in the living Messiah from generations past. He gave His life and service to He who is "the Derech (Way), the Emet (Truth) and the Chayim (Life)" and the only way back to our Heavenly Father, the Elohim (God) of this Universe (Jn.14:6). For us who remain behind, whether young or old, Yah'shua (Jesus) is our eternal hope. We firmly believe in the resurrection which is the guarantee of what we too shall receive one day. Yes sir, yes ma'am, we'll all be back, and our present separation shall seem but a moment.