Shabbah shalom chaverim, I pray that today's message will be a blessing to you and answer some of the prayers of the many seeking the last great move of Yahweh prior to the return to the earth of His Son. We are continuing on from Shavu'ot (Weeks, 'Pentecost') which we celebrated yesterday and we're going to be doing that today and tomorrow, Yah willing. I get the sense of His wanting Shavu'ot celebrants to 'tarry' or 'hang around' another day or two this year because of the criticalness of the world situation. The close proximity of three moedim makes that possible.

Five nights ago after returning from a disappointing meeting with a health specialist in a nearby city, I was in prayer for myself, my family, the ministry and our various friends, and I was seeking answers to many, many pressing questions which I know most of us have these days, and struggling for answers, when inside I just threw my hands up in the air and cried out, "What do you want of me, Father!". I got an instant reply: "Your will". Put that way, it made me think, because in considering Luke 11:2, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven", we are apt to forget that in praying for His will to be done we have to surrender our own first, and that requires some effort on our part. It requires determination and constancy.

Yesterday we promised Yahweh, 'Everything You say we will do'. That is another way of expressing the thought, 'Thy will be done, and have mine.' The two obviously go hand-in-hand. Relinquishing self-will to Him - which has to be voluntary and never forced - means actively resisting the tide of the culture we find ourselves in. If we're looking for acceptance in the culture, we're really doing the opposite of what we just promised Him.

The other day a new online Swedish friend reminded me that to resist the prevailing culture, you have got to have strong spiritual armour on, for the very obvious reason that the culture is not particularly friendly any more:

"Yahweh saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually" (Gen.6:5, ESV).

That was right before the Flood. Yahweh goes on to say that He regretted He had made man on the earth, grieving Him to His heart (v.6). Given that Yah'shua (Jesus) prophesied that these end times would be exactly like the days of Noah (Lk.18:8), and given what we hear and see on the news every day now, as violent revolution stalks so many lands, I see no reason to doubt that our Heavenly Father feels exactly the same way now.

We primarily get our morals from one of two sources. Firstly, our families. If our families are strong and know (Elohim), and if the children have immersed themselves in the Besorah (Gospel) and have a relationship with Messiah, then we will do far better in putting the second source into proper perspective as well as being able to ensure that what we actually yield to is emet (truth) and righteousness. If family life is not strong in Yahweh, if our homes aren't spiritual fortresses, then the second source of morals will totally overwhelm the first. I am speaking, of course, of the culture we live in.

It is true to say that, in general, we get our morals from our culture. In the West we have an amalgam of Enlightenment (i.e. rationalism) and Christian morality. What do we mean by culture? We mean the ideas, customs, and social behaviours of a particular people that make up a society. Put another way, culture consists of the arts, innovations and other manifestations of human intellectual achievement that is regarded collectively.

Today we are being force-fed the lie that all cultures everywhere are equal. The danger of this irrational claim is that what happens next is a loss of confidence and belief in our own culture. And when that goes, so does morality. In its place something calling itself 'morality' appears that is highly immoral. What we are being offered - more accurately, forced to accept through social and governmental pressure - is Marxism.

We live in a post-modernist culture that has been getting more and more Marxist by the day. Recently we talked about the Western version of communism that Italian Marxist, Francesco Gramsci, created, and very successfully to, I might add. Today's post-modernist Marxists have worked very hard to persuade us that Western culture as a whole is oppressive, the very opposite of the truth in spite of its undoubtedly having many faults. I would say in Sweden, about 80 per cent of the population broadly-speaking goes along with this view now, whether they understand it or not (and most don't), so we should not be overwhelmingly surprised by the insanity that consumes, and the illusion that defines, our society today. And that's true generally throughout the West now. So it is no coincidence that these post-modernist Marxists and their uncritical supporters are the ones who least exemplify the Western Christian virtue of tolerance, the Enlightenment virtue of reason and freedom of speech, and the importance of the individual. For you will know the Postmodernists, and Marxist generally, are wholly opposed to individualism and are promiting the primacy - if not exclusivity - of the collective and it's ant- or bee-like mentality. We all know how that ended in Soviet Russia and Communist East Europe.

Christians and Messianics are presently caught up in, and not infrequently deceived by, this major cultural shift in our society, so we have to address it. We have to know what's going on around us because those born into this world know practically nothing other than the force-fed lies they are bombarded with from cradle to grave. I repeat, we get our morals from our culture unless there is a strong counter-balance in Christian/Messianic family life, which is why the totalitarians are trying to crush Christianity and the autonomy of the family everywhere. Unlike previous cultures wherein we could more-or-less operate freely, the one that is arising, monster-like, before our eyes will not give us that freedom. Therefore we have to learn to think and live differently. The day is not far off when we must learn to live as believers did under Communism, where the absence of freedom was a fact of life and not a right anymore.

Also, if we are to be at the forefront of an end-time Restoration work, we have to know about the disparate elements of the shattered Body of Messiah. We have to know how other believers think and live because we will have to interact, and at times live closely, with them. You see, we have two handicaps - the emerging end-time satanic culture and the incredible disunity of the Body of Christ. There is chaos on both fronts and we must not lose our vision. There has to be clear-thinking, calmness and trust.

Out there in what is now effectively the 'Wild Christian/Messianic West', which is itself in the middle of the chaos of the 'Wild Postmodernist Marxist Cultural West', are all kinds of believers who are exercising genuine faith but who are lost because they have been blinded by their traditions. Satan has done a good job for the short time this chaos and madness will be allowed to continue. No matter what their denominational allegiance or tradition, we have to take a different attitude toward them than we do toward the 'new culture'. Whatever our differences with other Christians and Messianics may be - and there are many - we have to start learning to find more and more common ground. And to do that, they, as well as ourselves, need to be known and understood. It really ought to be common sense but unfortunately it is the fallen fleshy tendency of man to 'shoot first and ask questions later' when it comes to reacting to others we know little about. To some extent we have to engage the cultures we find ourselves in in the same way but as far as fellow believers are concerned, we have a prior obligation. 'Getting on' in spite of differences is a measure of our spiritual maturity in Messiah. And, of course, we can - and should - learn to find common ground with unbelievers too, as indeed we are often forced to do in the workspace. There are many out there who will be our natural allies in the midst of oppresion who have aspects of morality we can, and should, accept. I am speaking of the Modernists (who are fighting for their survival too) and the Rationalists. I was born at the tail end of a Rationalist culture, experienced the rise of Modernism, and now am having to contend with Postmodernism. Tomorrow we will put all this into clear perspective and then outline how we need to learn to live in this rapidly appearing new chaos. But first we need to deal with ourselves.

All individual believers, let alone collectively as denominations, have unique perplexities that are a result of their local situation as well as their mixed-bag of traditions handed down from generation to generation. On and off over the years I have felt the strong urging of the Ruach (Spirit) to get to know more about our Eastern Orthodox brethren who, with some 230 million members, represent about 12 per cent of Christendom, if you include the 62 million or so Oriental Orthodox or Monophistite Churches, like the Egyptian Copts, who broke away from early Christianity half a century before the Eastern Orthodox Church appeared. This compares with Catholics, of whom there are a little over 1.3 billion (about half of Christendom), and Protestants of whom there are about 900 million, or about 37 per cent of Christendom. Western Christians, particularly Protestants, are almost entirely ignorant of who the Eastern Orthodox are, yet they have both things to share with us and we with them. They have already given me a few golden nuggets of truth as I have dug around in their story. Russia is the biggest of the Eastern Orthodox nations. Most in the West don't realise that of the two 'big brothers' of antiquity - Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy - that Eastern Orthodoxy is the elder of the two and closer to the original Messianic Community than the Catholics are. Because nearly all of us here came out of Protestantism, or were born into Messianic Evangelicalism, we tend to assume that the Catholic Church was the 'next-in-the-chain' of spiritual evolution after the original Messianic Community (Church) lost its way because they're our nearest geographical neighbours, as it were. But it's much more complex than that. The Greek Eastern Church is much closer to the ancient Messianic Hebrew Community than the Western Latin Church ever was. They're rooted in the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Tanakh (Old Testament) which was widely used in Yah'shua's (Jesus') and the apostles' day and which in many ways is superior to the Hebrew Masoretic text we use in our modern Bibles.

I mention this only because part of my calling has been to 'journey around the sects' these past 40 or so years which has left me with a sense of there being something substantially 'missing' in our Western perception of things. Yahweh is never silent even in times of apostacy. There are many who have this naïve view of ecclestiastical history that says everything started fine with Messiah and the apostles, stayed fine with the apostles after the Ascension, and then, they believe, everything plunged into darkness when the apostles died, and then we had to wait for whatever denomination we believe Yahweh had brought forth to 'restore' the Gospel.

I have people from lots of so-called 'Restorationist' churches, from the Catholics to the Campbellites, all of whom claim either that Yahweh had restored true 'apostolic authority', correct doctrine and correct practice through themselves. They all have the 'one-and-only-true-church' mentality to varying degrees. But the reality is that apostacy was present from the very beginning, even in New Testament times, with false doctrines and practices arising in nearly every congregation the apostles and evangelists established, with apostles like Paul having to constantly correct and reform them, and with the same cycle of apostacy and reformation going on generation after generation, faction after faction, denomination after denomination, whilst all the while the whole has been drifting progressively farther and farther away from the original Light.

By the 90's AD, we're told (in the Book of Revelation), when John was an old man, there were only seven authentic congregations left each of which had had - and was still having - its own distressing issues. You can read about their stories in chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation. The fact of the matter is this: whether as individuals, congregations or groups of congregations, we are all sheep with a tendency to wander. Why do we? Because of the drive of the flesh to take back sovereignty which we say we have yielded to Elohim (God) - as a rarely realised good intention. We re-assert our own will over His, time and time again. "Thy will be done" so often turns out to be a hope rather than actual action, like the elusive New Year's Resolution.

The Eastern Orthodox Church lays stress on that fact that it is in legitimate apostolic succession (the same claim made by Catholics, Anglicans, some Lutherans, and Mormons, incidentally) but that it alone has been faithful to the true Spirit-directed evolution of the Church. It makes the astonishing claim that it alone has always possessed the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) to guide its supposedly orderly development in the manner intended by Elohim (God).

Key to understanding the Eastern Orthodox mindset is its claim, alone of all the different denominations, to have been true to the seven so-called 'ecumenical councils' in which 'heresy' was condemned and 'true doctrine' affirmed. Most Protestants have never even heard of these though the better informed will probably have heard of a couple of them:

• 1. First Council of Nicea (325)
• 2. First Council of Constantinople (381)
• 3. Council of Ephesus (431)
• 4. Council of Chalcedon (451)
• 5. Second Council of Constantinople (553)
• 6. Third Council of Constantinople (680-681)
• 7. Second Council of Nicea (787)

For Eastern Orthodoxy, there is a certain mystique attached to all of these. The purpose of these allegdly Ruach-inspired meetings was to permanently and authoritatively sort out all the divisions and sectarianism over the first 8 centuries since the apostles and so create externally-imposed uniformity. Protestants rightly react to some of the conclusions of these councils, like the Second Council of Nicea which insisted on the veneration of icons that had previously (and rightly) been condemned, a practice clearly contradicted by Scripture, since it is little different from the statue adoration of the Catholics. Both are idolatrous practices - one just happens to be three-dimensional (statues) and the other two (icons).

The Eastern Orthodox have fallen for the same old error that nearly every believer and group falls for at some time or another: the belief that they possess some sort of magical 'authority' that will prevent them from falling into error. They're 'for the truth'. Indeed, the Jehovah's Witnesses call their organisation 'The Truth' and the Mormons say they alone have the 'One True Church' as do various of their break-offs. The Eastern Church believes that this legalistic authority, which is passed from bishop to bishop, along with an invisible spiritual package which is of course impossible to objectively test, includes purity of doctrine which they believe is guaranteed by the infallible inspiration of the councils I just mentioned. About the only observable thing with all these 'one-and-only-truthers', which is common to them all, is that they possess a cockiness and arrogance, coupled with great self-assuredness that blinds them to all the internal contradictions of their belief system and/or the contradiction of their beliefs with the apostolic New Testament teachings. The Calvinists are the same, believing they alone are predestined to salvation, even though the security they seek constantly eludes them because they can never know until they reach the other side whether they're saved or not. It's a sure sign of cultism. I know. I belonged to one such cult for three years and was told I was hell-bound when I finally left them... or to be more exact, when they threw me out for no longer agreeing with their claims.

The Roman Catholic and Mormon Churches believe in a similar kind of dogma to the Eastern Orthodox, claiming such authority is exercised through their 'Popes' and 'Presidents', respectively. What of the Protestant denominations? They claim that their authority is obtained by virtue of the Sola Scriptura or 'Scripture Alone' doctrine that we discussed two weeks ago. But, as we saw, what then happens there is that everyone ends up being their own private popes or prophets when they start disagreeing with one another, which if you think about it has some point in similarity with the post-modernist belief that everyone has their own truth, though in the case of these secularists, the belief is far more radical because they are totally cocooned in their fantasy world.

What none of these major denominational groupings - Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox - seem prepared to acknowledge as the source of their problems and disagreements is, in fact, the most obvious one: they either only have the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) in part or they don't have it at all, once you've put aside those with mental disabilities or other conditions. There is no other explanation. It's common sense, really, isn't it? Just as all cultures can't possibly be equivalent, so all denominations can't be equivalent either, no matter how much the ecumenicals amongst them they pretend they are. I find that strangely reassuring, actually. It means that we are all defective and that is necessarily, and positively, humbling. It means we can take the next step and at least agree to disagree in a friendly if not loving manner whilst hopefully being agreed on the essentials.

Do you believe in the resurrection? Are you clinging on to Yah'shua (Jesus) in emunah (faith)? Are you trying to do what's right as a respone to your salvation by being obedient to the mitzvot (commandments)? That's an excellent place to be. Yahweh uses such people - always! But we should never be content to stay where we are, to stop going deeper.

You see, when a charismatic claims he or she is 'filled with the Holy Ghost', because they feel elated or excited, or because 'something supernatural is going on', they usually assume that it's 'all Spirit and nothing but Spirit'. Here they can easily confuse emotions with Ruach (Spirit). As far as they are concerned, they are fully in Elohim's (God's) presence because all (or most of) their emotions are employed in a surge of high-octane energy. However, it does not logically follow that intensity of experience equals being in the Throne Room of Yahweh-Elohim experiencing everything that can be experienced in that state. We are finite. What may appear 'full' to us may represent only a fraction of actual reality and truth. A full thimble is not the same quantity-wise as a full tankard. A baby gets full of food far more quickly than a healthy adult does because its stomach is so much tinier. What may seem to be the full picture one day may reveal itself to be defective the next as we acquire more knowledge and experience. Fullness does not mean completeness.

The non-charismatic Protestants and Messianics make exactly the same assumption but based on different criteria. The Catholics assume that when the Popes make official statements that they are 'infallible' - unable to commit error - and Eastern Orthodox Christians assume that their Church is the fullness of the repository of grace and of the Ruach (Spirit) because of a mystical 'apostolic lineage' along which a divine spiritual package continues to be transmitted. So they believe if only Western Christians would come 'home' to them, they would receive the 'fullness' which they believe they lack. So the thinking goes in each faction. Apart from being patently absurd to a keen observer, it is quite condescending, mitigates against humility and strangles wisdom. What results is a kind of self-righteousness based on a mighty big dogmatic assumption or 'rightness' with nothing to absolutely objectify it.

I have recently been listening to former Protestant ministers like Josiah Trenham, who was once a Presbyterian pastor, discuss these things. He is an amazing man, the N.T.Wright (Anglican) of the Eastern Orthodox Church with an extraordinary breadth of historical and theological knowledge. A contemporary Roman Catholic equivalent might be Bishop Robert Barron whom I also follow. And yet the most brilliant men of Christendom stand helpless before the reality of historical apostacy, carefully concealed by pride, false assumption and human self-deception. You see, the best theologians cannot save us even if they can at times give us helpful spiritual tools for our journey, acquired from their deep study and personal experience. But neither Trenham, Barron nor Wright are ever going to convince me to be Orthodox, Catholic or Anglican even if I am open to all possibilities. I will give most people at least one carefully considered hearing, usually many.

To whom, then, shall we turn? Maybe the laymen and women? Are they more likely to have got it right than the super-brains? Not necessarily yet I think that's what most folks do who feel intimidated by the super-brainy scholarly types, particularly those who don't want to sift through lots of, at times heavy and stuffy, theology and history. But a lack of proper training doesn't guarantee the fullness of anything either, let alone rightness. The trouble with the Protestant model is that what you end up with is a barrel-load of mini-popes and -patriarchs, each convinced they're right.

Protestantism remainds me a bit of captitalism. The free market of Protestant ideas is a huge one. To whom shall we go amongst the living? Benny Hinn, Joel Olsteen, Francis Chan, Andy Stanley, Dan Mohler, Albert Mohler, John Hagee, James White, N.T.Wright, Andrew White, Selvraj Singh, John McArthur, to name some of the many living ones? Or to whom shall we go among the dead? The choices is even bigger from Smith Wigglesworth to Charles Spurgeon, Aiden Tozer to Dwight Moody, the Wesley Brothers to John Bunyon, Jonathan Edwards to John Calvin, Martin Luther to John Stott - and so the list could go on and on. None of them fully agree with one another and some of them radically disagree. It's exactly the same in the messianic community - who will you follow: Moshe Koniuchowsky, Gabriel Roth, David Stern, Michael Rood, Eliyahu ben David, Avi ben Mordechai, James Trimm? And so that list goes on and on too. The Catholic and Eastern Orthodox split from one another in 1054 over a single word, filoque, the bishops of Rome and Constantinople excommunicating each other, and then evolved in different directions over a millenium. Additionally, the Eastern Orthodox won't accept the Monophysite Orthodox Copts, Orthodox Armenians and Orthodox Ethiopians because they don't accept all the Councils. As we saw, they split off after the Council of Chalcedon in 451 AD.

And yet...and yet there are commonalities that all of these individuals, groups, denominations and churches share, obviously some more than others. Once persecution comes, and they are forced to climb down from their eagles' nests of lofty thinking, to sit down together and cooperate, as in the dark days of communism in Eastern Europe, for example, they discover all sorts of interesting things. They discover - as Count Zinzendorf and his followers from diverse denominational backgrounds found - that there is a common Spirit (if they've been spiritually regenerated), that there are common beliefs (basic things, like the atonement and resurrection), and that Yah'shua (Jesus) is inside their man-made messes and that He is still - unbelievably perhaps - working. How did they discover this? Through persecution that forced them to pray together.

And I know because I met a lot of Christians from Eastern Europe both before and after communism fell there - I used to work with Friendenstimme, helping underground Baptist churches in the Soviet Union, especially pastors imprisoned by the communists. Zinzendorf's disciples discovered what they shared - the essence of the true Besorah Gospel) - by being flung together into fervent PRAYER. Yes, even the ultra-exclusivist Jehovah's Witnesses, who ordinarily refuse to pray with other Christians unless they're in charge, because they think they're the 'Cat's Whiskers' of Jehovah's Kingdom and Watchtowerland, found themselves ignoring their own man-made teachings and praying with Eastern Orthodox, Protestants, Catholics and even Mormons - four exclusivist churches and a bunch of Protestants, in Stalinist Romania. Yes, even 'heretics' were praying with one another! But it took calamity to get them to do so and to realise they needed each other. And once the calamity was over, you can guess what happened: they went their separate ways again having learned, in many cases, little or nothing, it would seem. That is why, a little over ten years ago, I taught you about the Zinzendorf Anointing which sustained several Shavu'ot-type revivals for over a century, including the Welsh and Methodist revivals.

Having open discussions about doctrine and practice is good. Going at each other like charging bulls is a total waste of time. I used to love debating because I had a moderately belligerent spirit and took, I think, a perverse pleasure from it on occasion, but now I hate it. Zinzendorf, perhaps wisely for his day, stayed out of the doctrinal arena of controversy; and remember that little was known about the Torah back then because anything that resembled Judaism was viewed with hostile suspicion, thanks to Luther's unmitigated hatred of anything that so much as hinted that commandment-keeping was required of us - Brother Gabriel was talking a little about the misunderstandings Protestants have over Torah yesterday afternoon in his broadcast (GL009). It's taken us three centuries just to get the Body of Christ to the place that it is willing to start looking at the Hebrew lifestyle of the first apostles, and I'm going to suggest to you - amazingly, you might thing - that this is largely thanks to the postmodernists (more of that tomorrow). Prejudice, and the political power that often backs it up, takes time to break down.

When I was a young man, anything to do with Torah was regarded as anathema by Western and Eastern Christians. Today, because of the philosophical climate (which isn't all bad, as I have just hinted at), Western Christians and Messianics are now willing to listen to one another. It's called growing up, becoming adult. The fact that we exist - Messianic Evangelicals - is itself testimony to what can be achieved. So, yes, it's OK to verbally scrap a bit when you're young, as children do, to at the very least sharpen your apologetic skills, but as you mature you see the folly of such things. As Paul told that very immature congregation at Corinth:

"When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide emunah (faith), tiqveh (hope), ahavah (love), these three; but the greatest of these is ahavah (love)" (1 Cor.13:11-13, NKJV).

Silly people squabble aggressively over doctrine. Wise people first love and then share the doctrinal stuff when there is good spiritual soil present in the potential recipient's heart. I tell people - look, if you want to know what I believe, I'll happily share it with you, or point you to my website or some other online group. When people have received the Ruach (Spirit), when they are ready to tackle tricky things, they will get an urging from the Ruach (Spirit) to start searching for themselves. It's always the best way. 'A person convinced against his will, remains unconvinced still' remains as true today as ever.

Only the other day a Protestant friend of mine in Holland told me he was now considering living the luni-solar creation calendar. I never debated or had a doctrinal discussion with him. I just left links on social media for those led by the Ruach (Spirit) to find more. I don't know what happened only that he is now seriously considering changing his lifestyle, and as those of you know who have changed to the Creation Calendar, this is not a little thing. I take the same approach with other 'hot potatoe' doctrines that would have been unthinkable, even to discuss, 30 or 40 years ago, again thanks, in part, to the deconstructionism of the postmodernists that have forced us to think things through afresh.

Maybe some people aren't supposed to be exposed to the deep stuff. It is a serious sin to force an unweaned baby to suddenly eat solid adult food (Heb.5:12-14) because you could choke and kill him. Yah'shua (Jesus) revealing that He was Elohim (God) was a huge truth for most to swallow in His day so He introduced it circumspectly and gradually - and when it came to His closest talmidim (disciples), He didn't rush them into it either. He just asked them one day, in a roundabout sort of way, not directly: "Whom do men (people generally) say that I am?" (Mark 8:27, KJV) and after reporting back on what folks were discussing, Peter, led by the Ruach (Spirit), testified that He was "the Messiah (Christ), the Son of the living Elohim (God)" (Matt.6:16, NIV). Martha didn't even need to be probed when He asked her if she believed in the resurrection. Her reply was without hesitation: "I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of Elohim (God), who was to come into the world" (John 11:27, NIV).

We have seen today how theological progress can sometimes, and quite typically, actually, be very slow. Nevertheless, the Ruach (Spirit) is moving everywhere, here a little, there a little, as the Ruach (Spirit) has always done. And we have no idea how it all works and probably never will. Thus Yah'shua (Jesus) told Nicodemus, ironically in their secret meeting so as not to be observed by anyone who might report back to the religious authorities:

"The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Ruach (Spirit)" (John 3:8, NIV).

You cannot force the Ruach (Spirit) and you cannot press men and women against their free will. You have to both witness and deal with persecution "with gentleness and respect" (1 Peter 3:15, NIV). We are therefore to "pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness" (1 Tim.6:11, NIV). We are to "clothe [y]ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience" (Col.3:12, NIV). And finally, we are to "let [y]our gentleness be evident to all" (Phil.4:5, NIV). What is the common denominator in those four passages? Gentleness - that quality born of a a mild and kindly nature. And one of the greatest examples of this gentleness in our own time was undoubtedly Ravi Zecharias who died a few weeks ago. Add gentleness to being "strong, firm and steadfast" (1 Peter 5:10, NIV) in the face of opposition and suffering and you have the perfect spiritual recipe for success as a talmid (talmid) of the master Yah'shua (Jesus). You need that to rebuke gross evil too, to defend the weak and innocent.

So what I want you to take away with you this morning is this truth about change necessarily having to happen in small increments for large numbers of people like the Body of Christ as a whole, as we have seen today in our very brief rundown of Christian history, with all its troubles, even its denominational parts. Yahweh has ordained His own Self-restriction by giving us an inviolable privilege: the absolute right to unfettered FREE CHOICE. And as everyone knows waiting for people to change, especially those who are nearest and dearest, this change can either take time or never happen at all. There is no guarantee because Yahweh is never going to force anyone to believe or change if they don't want to.

Oh, and it might be of interest for you to learn, that Calvinism, which denies free agency, nearly made inroads into the Eastern Orthodox Church but was stopped in its tracks by the Confession of Dositheus (1673), which was a good thing for them, because the East Orthodox Church has an important prophetic rôle in the very end times, what with Russia once again becoming officially Orthodox with the adoption of Vladimir Putin's new Constitution. Otherwise, things tend to move slowly - painfully slowly - like the lumbering motions of a sloth because free will is so important to the multiplication of authentic love and righteousness. That is why Yahweh asked permission to take my will. He didn't demand I just hand it over, He just answered my question - directly. And that is true of all genuine relationships in which the Ruach (Spirit) has free flow. We have to give one another permission. So FREE WILL and PRAYER are key.

I hope this has been helpful. In tomorrow's concluding Rosh Chodesh sermon I want to discuss how we are to minister to a post-modernist generation that accepts few of the things my generation took for granted when we were young believers. We are going to have to witness to one of the most ill-equipped generations ever, and yet things are far from hopeless for them, because I would like to suggest to you that post-modernism had to happen to topple the arrogance of modernism which had to topple the arrogance of the Enlightenment, certain elements in which were openly trying to discredit and eliminate Christianity. Yahweh wishes to rescue tens of thousands of souls from amongst this blinded generation. And as you will learn tomorrow, they aren't entirely wrong - they're actually right about many important things. So until then, have a blessed Sabbath! Amen.

Comments from Readers

[1] "I agree very much" (SW, Germany, 24 July 2020