There is a story that was well known and told often by Christians in the first centuries of the common or Christian era. In 250 AD, when Roman Emperor Decius launched the first full-scale persecution of the Messianic Community (Church), seven young Christians sought to escape arrest by hiding in a cave near the city of Ephesus where the apostle John had once made his headquarters. The city, now in Turkey and a ruin, was the location of one of the seven congregations of Asia Minor mentioned in the Book of Revelation. Indeed the story was so well-known that mention is made of it even in the Quran (18.22), a hodge-podge of Talmudic Jewish and Nestorian and other Christian doctrines. These seven young men (some accounts say there were eight) were cornered and sentenced to a living death. I'll let historian Tom Holland tell you the rest of the story in his own words:

"The entrance to the cave was bricked up. The seven young Ephesians, huddling together in their misery, fell asleep. Their slumbers, despite the wretchedness of their circumstances, proved deep and untroubled. Then, abruptly, the stones blocking off the mouth of the cave began to be moved. A shaft of light pierced the darkness. The seven sleepers awoke. Stumbling to the mouth of the cave, they found that labourers, seemingly oblivious to the wall's original purpose, were shifting the stones. Even more strangely, the stones themselves were covered with bushes and weeds. Deeply puzzled, the seven young Christians decided to send one of their number down into the city to recconoitre the situation.

"As the young man approached the outskirts, his perplexity deepened into utter bewilderment. The city appeared utterly transformed. No sacrificial smoke, no clouds of incense, rose from its walls; in the market place, the temples had vanished, as though into thin air; on public buildings, all mention of Artemis [1] had been systematically chizzled out, while on a statue of Augustus, carved into the emperor's forehead, was a cross. Rubbing his eyes in disbelief, the young man continued to the crossroads right in the centre of town, where a colossal idol of Artemis had always stood, as witness to her guardianship over the city. But even that was gone. In its place there now towered a giant cross, set there, according to an inscription, as 'a sign of truth' which, according to Demeas, the author of the inscription in his own words, had torn down 'the deceitful likeness of the demon Artemis'. Self-evidently, something awesome, something quite beyond comprehension, had taken place.

"Only when the young man tried to buy bread with a coin bearing the head of Decius did he learn the full, astounding truth of what had happened. He and his six companions had been asleep rather longer than the few hours they had initially presumed. A good deal longer, in fact. Two centuries in all the young men had been walled up inside the cave. The Almighty, observing 'the faith of the blessed lambs', had stationed an angel (malak) at the entrance, 'a watcher, to be a guardian of their limbs'. But not even the discovery that they were over two hundred years old could compare for impact with the jaw-dropping scale of the transformation that had overtaken Ephesus, and the world beyond the city's walls.

"Back in the time of Decius, fleeing the agents of persecution, they would all of them, no doubt, have recalled the terrifying vision of Daniel: of how four beasts, which were the four great empires of the world, ruling in succession over mankind, had emerged from a raging sea. And they would have remembered as well that the fourth beast was the deadliest of all: 'terrible and dreadful and exceedingly strong: and it had great iron teeth; it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the residue with its feet' (Dan.7:7).

"Sitting in the darkness of the cave before falling asleep, the seven young Christians would surely have had no doubt as to the identity of this beast; nor that what Daniel had been shown, in the vision of its terrifying depridations, was a prophecy of the persecution of the Church (Messianic Community). After all, they themselves had witnessed the full horror of its savagery: 'its teeth of iron and claws of bronze' (Dan.7:19).

"Yet Daniel had seen as well that the beast would ultimately be destoyed. And so it had proved. An empire once filthy with the pollution of idolatry, and belathered with the blood of saints, had been transformed into something that no Christian back in the time of Decius would ever have imagined it becoming: the very mirror-image of the City of God. In AD 312 - sixty-two years after the emtombment of the seven sleepers and less than a decade after Rome's persecution of the Church (Messianic Community) had attained a veritable peak of savagery - the miracle of miracles had occurred: Constantine, midway through his project of uniting the empire under his sole rule, had been granted a vision of a cross in the sky. A mysterious voice had commanded, 'By this sign, conquer'. Constantine, convinced that it was Christ Himself who had spoken to him, had done as instructed and duly conquered.

"A century and a half later, the promise of victory in Daniel's vision had been spectacularly fulfilled. 'And as I looked, the beast was slain, and its body destroyed and given over to be burned with fire' (Dan.7:11). Proof of this, should the seven sleepers need it, was provided by what had once been the greatest building in the Greek world. Long since abandoned to rising swamps, the temple of Artemis was now nothing but a carcass: its blackened columns had toppled into the mud; its shattered silhouette was barely visible through the marsh fumes and clouds of insects; its body, if not yet destroyed, was certainly decayed beyond redemption. The fires that Daniel had predicted would consume the beast blazed now directly on its steps, as lime-burners fed the temple's shattered marble into their kilns" [2].

Chag Sukkot sameach kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and Shabbat Shalom! I welcome you to this first day of the Feast of Tabernacles which, like the Pesach (Passover) Season, is one of celebration and simcha (joy), even if that joy must be somewhat tempered by the realisation that even though a battle has been won - and is continuing to be won (and remember, these things take time), this is not remotely the Final Victory promised either in Daniel or Revelation, Tom Holland's interpretation notwithstanding. This is not the start of the Millennium with Christ reigning on the earth, which is yet some way off, but yet another foreshadowing. This, like the other annual moedim already celebrated or commemorated earlier this biblical year, is but an onward cycle of foreshadowings until this, and the other autumn (fall) festivals, are finally fulfilled. You have already heard - or rather, seen - this year's Yom haKippurim message and know that big things are happening and with them many changes. We stand at a major crossroads.

The message I have for you this year is therefore a little different from previous ones for the simple reason that the world has shifted - and is shifting - just as it did in the first three centuries of the Messianic Æon or Age that began 2,000 years ago. I have quite a few challenging things to say to you, so bear patiently with me, as I do my best to unpack them for you without taking too much of your time.

I began today with a story, as I am increasingly trying to do now with the bigger Yahweh Story, to acclimatise you into experiencing the Bible as it's supposed to be experienced. It doesn't really matter, at this point, whether this story of the Seven Sleepers is a fable or real history - it could be either and its telling still be equally useful, just as parables are equally valuable as actualy historical events. What matters is the phronema, spirit or essence of an account that is given to enable us to make spiritual connections with our Heavenly Father's heart that will aid our spiritual growth inside. What matters about the Seven Sleepers account is that it depicted both a reality of fulfilled biblical prophecy as well giving us a 'feel' of what it must have been like to be a believer back in the fourth century AD as they looked back, as we do too today, and wondered in amazement at the transformation that had taken place in society because of the impact of the Besorah (Gospel). And that what's our Story is all about, is it not? Spiritual transformation - our spiritual transformation!

Third or fourth century Christianity was far from ideal, just as 21st century Christianity is far from ideal; they gained new truths and lost some important old ones, like the Israelite pattern of living in the Torah. Like us they fumbled around trying to make sense of their world whilst at the same time seeing the very real impact that the resurrected Saviour was making as an agent of change for the better. Lives of former idolatrous sinners were being completely changed into qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) then as they are now. And as has always been the case, the truth seemed to advance two steps at a time, and fall back one...and sometimes the reverse. Today Western society in particular seems to be taking one small step forwards and two giant steps back as we experience the downward move into serious apostacy and self-destruction. We are seeing the Fall of the Roman Empire repeat itself. We are slowly aborting our own Christian civilisation, however imperfect, because we, first, entertained, and then embraced, the deadly ideas of the French Revolution of the late 18th century with its strongly atheistic and occultic roots, and then its ever mutating Marxist spinoff in its current form of postmodernist wokeism. And because of this rejection of Christ, the West is collapsing.

Life is like that. We succeed and we fail because we are sinning beings. The important thing is that we're moving forwards overall, deepening our faith, and improving our life performance as we mature. As the Ephesians of the first three centuries were losing more and more elements of the Torah, for instance, so we in the Body of Christ in the 21st century are slowly - and sometimes painfully - regaining it. Look at the resistance being shown to the creation calendar, the sabbaths, new moons and annual festivals, the food code, patriarchy, plural marriage, the familal nature of the Godhead, independent, self-sufficent agricultural-based living, home education, home industries, and so much more. The slowness of our progress is frustrating, is it not? I wanted to achieve so much for my generation but the human condition has forced me to be more realistic. I wanted to get the Final Gathering underway years ago but failed initially to understand that these things take time because human beings are resistant to change - very, very resistant. And unfortunately, only adversity seems to ever change our thinking and behaviour because we are a stubborn species strongly resistant to change.

When an old truth is restored, the generation in which it is restored rarely embraces it whole-heartedly, and often resists it hard, even to the point of persecuting those who bring back messages of restoration. The Exodus and Exile phenomena seem to be the only ways we learn. The first (the Exodus) was a step forwards, the latter (the Exile) a step backwards. Free agency is fraught with danger and progress is slow, but it is better than rapid progress into sin and apostacy. The time needed to send down deep roots is most important because shallow-rooted trees are easily blown over by storms, something that's very common here in Sweden because the soil in most places is very thin resting as it does on solid rock. Good things need a lot of time for abiding foundations to be laid. Two generations at least are always required. Revivals may be wonderful when they come but they all tend to peter out after a while both because not everything was in place to sustain them over the long haul (like the Torah) - and that because of anti-Torah pressure from the dominant antinomian culture - and because good times tend to produce carelessness, and carelessness leads to increased sinning and apostacy. The Book of Judges reminds us of this truth.

In the case of the Seven Sleepers experience, or the experience of believers in the post-Roman Empire period, and the persecutions they endured, the the result was, overall, good news. The Ephesus of the third century was a huge improvement over the first! As we in our turn look back at what once was, and reflect on how European Christian civilisation has been all but wiped out in the space of little over a century - in my parents' and my own lifetime - we too can survey the cultural carnage and be appalled, whilst still retaining hope in what is yet to come. But that's a lonely place to be when at first you are all alone and isolated. Only those who hold out will be rewarded with success. You see, it is easier to knock down than to build up. My own children know of my world, and the world of my parents, through what we have told them or what they have independently gleaned from from their own research of history and pursuit of knowledge...if they have been been bothered to study history which, as you know, is a discipline I believe is fundamentally important if a Christian civilisation is to survive, let alone grow and prosper in truth.

It's certainly important for Bible study too if we are to do accurate exegesis (interpret it rightly) and is why all serious Bible students should, in my opinion, also be taught Isagogics - the study of the literary and external history of the places and culture in which Scripture is set...its context in its own time. We cannot impose on an ancient text a modern setting like our 21st century one without distorting it - we must first of all understand how the truths within it were first perceived - how they were originally understood. So much traditional Protestant theology is in reality a reflection of the new 16th century reformation culture that birthed it with some of its Catholic roots still intact.

Needless to say, those wishing to eliminate Christian civilisation do not want us doing comparitive history. They do not want us to know and learn from the past other than to focus on those negative things which they themselves use only to justify their own mad, destructive, nihilistic schemes in their bid to presumptuously 'improve' society. What is called 'progressive' is, in truth, very ancient indeed, because there is nothing new in sinning. Employing critical realism as the means to properly 'do' history remains, therefore, very important to Messianic Evangelicals, especially when it comes to Bible interpretation. For it seems to me that modern society is getting more and more divorced from reality and truth with each passing hour. The madness grows worse by the day and only a blind person cannot see that all of this is leading to complete disintegration and anarchy. Countries are going to collapse and fragment.

Believers from the time the seven Sleepers allegedly woke up in were, we have reasonably guessed, able to factor Daniel's prophecies into their own experience, make sense of it, and be satisfied that biblical prophecy was reliable. What looked like an unmovable colossus - the Roman Empire - seemed there to stay forever. But it didn't, as Daniel foresaw. The same is true of the power base of what we euphemistically call 'the Swamp' or the 'Deep State' - it appears to be all-powerful but in reality it is as fragile as the Roman Empire was on whose ruins they have built. We know what's coming, and has already started, in this final year of Penultimate Judgment. We, too, can read Daniel's prophecies fulfilled but now, also, John's prophecies in the Book of Revelation, and we anticipate both worse times to come as well as the promised Messianic Sukkot (Tabernacles) and the much anticipated and desired renewal of all Creation that comes about at the time of universal resurrection. That is what we have principally come together to do on this Sacred Week - to look forward to, and prepare for, and indeed implement individually and in our own families and little spiritual communities, making them beacons of light in the darkness of societal collapse. That's what Yah'shua (Jesus) told us to do:

"You (singly and collectively) are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven" (Mt.5:14-16, NIV).

Last Yom haKippurim (Day of Atonements) a a judgment of 40 days was served on the current, Western-dominated, global empire. It appears to us as an immovable colossus just as the Roman Empire did to the earliest Christians/Messianics and indeed to the various nations they had conquered. It appears big to us but it is only a speck of dust to Yahweh, an irritant that a sudden eye-wash will quickly remove. It may seem an irresistable giant to us but we're told in Scripture that it will fall in a day, just as Babylon did:

"'Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great! She has become a home for demons and a haunt for every evil spirit, a haunt for every unclean and detestable bird. For all the nations have drunk the maddening wine of her adulteries. The kings of the earth committed adultery with her, and the merchants of the earth grew rich from her excessive luxuries.'

"Then I heard another voice from heaven say:

"'Come out of her, my people, so that you will not share in her sins, so that you will not receive any of her plagues; for her sins are piled up to heaven, and Elohim (God) has remembered her crimes. Give back to her as she has given; pay her back double for what she has done. Mix her a double portion from her own cup. Give her as much torture and grief as the glory and luxury she gave herself. In her heart she boasts, 'I sit as queen; I am not a widow, and I will never mourn.' Therefore in one day her plagues will overtake her: death, mourning and famine. She will be consumed by fire, for mighty is Yahweh-Elohim who judges her'" (Rev.18:2-8, NIV).

As I speak, 'Second Coming Fever' is once more seizing evangelical Christians and Messianics by the neck and once again I must caution those gripped by all the emotionalism accompanying such ill-advised fervour. Be sober and vigilent, and be warned too: Yah'shua (Jesus) isn't returning in the next few days, weeks, months or even years. Don't act rashly and don't listen to all the lawless pop 'prophets' out there whose prophecies keep on spectacularly failing, particularly those coming from Pentecostal and Charismatic backgrounds. They never apologise for their failures either, but rather make excuses, meaning that there is no repentance in their hearts, and Yahweh never uses such prideful people to build His Kingdom. Stop listening to these Torahless agents of confusion.

Sukkot is a time for joy in the anticipation of the Second Coming and Millennial Rule, and we should rightly celebrate and look forward to that, but we must always be moderate and self-controlled in our response to what is happening 'outside'. Believers have been waiting for 2,000 years now but tend to lose their self-control for a season when comets, earthquakes, military invasions, pestilence, or when nice round numbers in pagan calendars like 1000 or 2000 roll along, they and are soon disappointed when nothing really happens. I, like many of you, have lived through several such events, and on each of them I have given the same warning to stay calm, be sober and not to allow yourself to ride waves of hysteria.

I can remember Y2K, the first Gulf War, the hundreds of failed Rapture predictions, the Soviet Union (now non-existant) being portrayed by the late Hal Lindsey's of the 1970's as the leading invading army at Armageddon, and the wild false prophecies about Trump having a second term immediately after his first one. Nobody listened to me but I was proved right each and every time. Let's celebrate Sukkot but remain calm and ignore the false prophets once and for all. Get out of false Christian systems or they will transform you into their likeness by slow spiritual diffusion. Be separate. Be holy. Be set-apart. Become a light on a hill. Start separate communities of believers, however small. Interact with unbelievers for witness but don't hang around them so long that you start being negatively transformed by them and so take a step backwards.

More false prophecies are on the way and yet again more presumptuous, lawless believers will be made to eat humble pie and continue to bring shame on, and discredit to, the Name of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Don't be fooled either by emotionalism or fine sounding words or by the gibbering babble of the deceived. Hard times yet remain ahead of us for some considerable time yet. So keep on prepping, spiritually and physically, get out of the system in sensible measures before you're forced to do so in a day, think ahead in the long term, and don't be rash. I am currently in conversation with a Messianic who is so convinced that Yah'shua (Jesus) is arriving any second now that he has taken it upon himself to ordain 'apostles' to proclaim a message heavily influenced by the false teachings of Talmudic Judaism. I have known many Messianic groups do this in recent decades all of whom were forced to eat humble pie. What they predicted did not happen. Many more will do so until they are all finally silenced and are willing to hear true nevi'im (prophets) and preachers. So the mixed message of the Gospel and the world will continue to be sent out for some while and will only stop when Antichrist finally assumes power and silences them with their own blood.

Another word of caution - and here I am echoing the wise words of the late Mike Heiser - stop trying to figure out prophetic chronologies in the Bible! Everybody has been getting them wrong, yes, even your favourite theologians and Bible teachers. All of them. Why? Because we are only just starting to understand how biblical time actually works and it is nothing like the way we either conceive or mark it. The Hebrews didn't reckon time in the way we do. Continuous, linear time was not a concept they employed except in small weekly or monthly segments. Nearly all believers - Christians and Messianics alike - have no idea what the Hebrew and Greek words, olam and æon, mean (and have likely not even heard of them), almost none understand what cyclical time is, and even fewer realise that the numbers typically used in chronologies are not spans of time as we currently understand them but are symbols or types of prophetic time telling us only what kind of time it was. Let me explain.

The Hebrews knew nothing of Horology, or the modern Science of Time, and didn't measure it as we do. Hours were of uneven length depending on the season. All modern 'hours' are of the same the same 60 minutes' length which in our society today we calculate using atomic clocks. Not so the Hebrews. They simply divided up the period between sunrises and sunsets (or vice versa) into 12 segments even though the length of this period varies between winter and summer. So some of their hours were longer than our 12 hour periods and some were shorter. In Hebrew there are five different kinds of 'day', four of which were of quite different length compared to our own own 24-hour periods. One such 'day' can be an entire æon (age) and potentially thousands of years long!

Have you ever wondered why so many of the periods of time in the Tanakh (Old Testament) are always exactly round numbers? Why, for instance, were there always exactly "forty years of peace" between each apostacy (e.g. Judg.5:31; 8:28) or why was Israel, in one instance, handed over to Phillistine oppression for exactly 40 years? (Judg.12:1). Did people get married aged 40 like Isaac and Esau? (Gen.25:20; 26:34) Have you ever wondered why the High Priest Eli led Israel for exactly 40 years (1 Sam.4:18), why Saul was exactly 40 years old when he became king (2 Sam.2:10), why David reigned exatly 40 years (1 Ki.2:11), and why Solomon reigned exactly 40 years? Coincidence? Supernatural design? The latter is possible, of course, but it's not the only, let alone the best, explanation because the biblical chronologies don't always add up the way we expect and want them to. The fact is, all these numbers are symbolic because they depict a kind or quality of time, not an exact length of time.

The number 40 has very specific prophetic meanings in Scripture. It represents new life, new growth, transformation, and a change from one task, reign or situation to another one. It is often associated with judgment too which accompanies these changes. 40 represents great change as often follows the change of a national leader, a flood, a military defeat or whatever. Our own gestation period in the womb is about 40 weeks and represents great change to the unborn child...and to the mother when the child is born! So be warned. When you read numbers in the Bible they sometimes mean literal years as we understand them (like the 40 year-long First Exodus which became the original model for big change [3]) but they also sometimes mean something completely different. In truth we know next to nothing about biblical periods of time as we understand that word today, a reason Mike Heiser urged great caution in using them to figure out chronologies. He strongly advised people not to make biblical chronologies because it's mostly guesswork and almost always inaccurate.

We have no idea how old the earth is in spite of Bishop Usher's brave attempt to calculate it. He simply assumed (i.e. guessed) all the numbers in the chronologies were literal. The ancients just weren't interested in time the same way as we are. Not uncommonly, many of the false prophets who, not possessing the authentic Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) but some charismatic counterfeit, have assumed that some Bible teacher or scholar who has impressed them has got it right and so they try to ride on the backs of their inaccurate conclusions. So please we wise and don't leap to false conclusions. The fact of the matter is that we still don't know how time works in the Bible chronologies anymore than we do how the brain works (as one Oxford Professor recently admitted). One of our many mottos here has always been: teach what you know and be silent about the rest, at least in any official capacity, or otherwise make it very clear that you're speculating on your own authority. You might end up inadvertantly creating a cult as the Seventh Day Adventists did when they invented a new doctrine (the imaginary 'Investigative Judgment') to cover up a failed prophecy on the Second Coming in 1844.

I don't know when Yah'shua (Jesus) is returning and if I did - or claimed I did - you should run a mile. I know in what season He is returning but not the year. Nobody but the Father knows the exact date (Mt.24:36). Sometime in the future, in our autumn (fall) season, at this time of the year, He'll be back! That's all I know, that's all we need to know. I am guessing we have around 30 years more to wait but it's only a guess. He said He would be returning, He never lies, and His Davar (Word) never returns to Him void so what is written is reliable (Is.55:11). That's all we need to know. We ought to have better things to do than go around spouting off dates that are in all likelihood wrong and risk misleading gullible people, damaging their witness, and wasting valuable time. I don't read people's take on Bible chronologies anymore and I feel sorry for those who have dedicated their whole lives to such things because these are futile exercises. By the time anyone figures it out, He'll be here! The only thing Yahweh has told me is when false prophecies are made and to expose them in advance wherever possible. The same goes for identifying the Antichrist ahead of time or for predicting still more rapture fantasies. Woe to those who deceive the impressionable and uninformed.

Which brings me back to where we started - the Seven Sleepers and the way stories and parables work for our benefit. In the story they celebrated Christianity's victory over paganism in Ephesus and throughout the Empire. That is good. We need to habitually celebrate good things. It's good for the soul, it uplifts our spirits, it honours the Creator, it leavens us and makes us more and more like Christ. We need to get into the habit of daily celebrating our spouses, our children, our friends, our brothers and sisters in Christ, good and honourable people, whenever they they do good things or win battles over evil. Celebrating the salvation of souls causes partying by malakim (angels) in Heaven, does it not?

"Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbours together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent.

"Or suppose a woman has ten silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it? And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbours together and says, 'Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.' In the same way, I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the malakim (angels) of Elohim (God) over one sinner who repents" (Luke 15:4-10, NIV).

This is what makes our Heavenly Father happy and He tells us this is so in the parable Yah'shua (Jesus) told of the Prodigal Son (Lk.15:11-32) about which we spoke recently. Recovering the lost, healing damaged relationships, and simply appreciating Yahweh for who He is and what He has given to us is to be the object of constant rejoicing and celebrating. When did you last come upon a Protestant celebrating Father's Torah? Usually they're attacking it because they refuse to live it! That's the opposite of what we're commanded to do:

"I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.
I meditate on your precepts and consider your ways.
I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word" (Ps.119:14-16, NIV).

What do Protestants 'see' when they read this oft-quoted passage? They celebrate the Bible in an abstract sort of way but not necessarily the statutes and precepts - the halachot and the chukkim...the actual content of "the word" that demands a response from us in real time, space and matter - the things we're supposed to do and obey, the lifestyle we're supposed to live and flourish in. These get abstracted and pushed aside so that what gets worshipped is the idea of a Bible instead of the Creator of the Bible and His mitzvot (commandments)! When I celebrate the halachot and the chukkim, it's not the printed text on paper that I rejoice in, but the mitzvot (commandments) lived out because this is what pleases Father, connects me to Him and His Ruach (Spirit) and transforms my life for the better, because they are His heart. This then turns our whole life into a celebration, a mini-Sukkot. Our transformed lives are what are to be on primary display, not the stepping stone toward transformation, the Bible. The Bible is a secondary witness confirming a vital element in the path leading to supernatural change.

When everyone is doing what Yahweh wants - which means trusting Him and obeying Him - then we can connect with Him and each other and be echad or one - which is impossible any other way. It may seem trivial to you, but there are no bacon-eaters in the Kingdom of Heaven, no haters of plural marriage, no sabbath-deniers, no worshippers of the Virgin Mary, no robbers holding back Father's tithes [4], no babblers of gibberish, no worshippers of money, no adulterers, no psychopaths and sociopaths, no murderers, no sexually immoral, no rebels, no haters of anything or anyone except of lies and wicked behaviour, and so forth, save they believe these things in ignorance of what Scripture teaches. How do I know? Because He says so in His Davar (Word), and that's good enough for me. But I also have the 'proof of the pudding' - when I do these things, good things happen and I feel good, knowing that the foundation of that 'feeling' is truth and not fantasy. Without the Davar (Word) we are rudderless, interpreting every fleshy feeling as spiritual even when it contradicts the Father's heart. That's what we have to repent from. That's what what enables us to come up to Sukkot with pure hearts and to celebrate spontaneously. And I hope to make this the special theme of this year's Sukkot. The world may be collapsing but we are thriving...or ought to be!

Well, I didn't think I'd get this far today. I woke up with a fever this morning, acidentally deleted a whole chunk of sermon material just as I was about to grab an hour of sleep to make up what I lost during the night, so I am sorely sleep-deprived, more so than usual! Nevertheless I have come here full of hope, even though for most there seems precious little of that these days. So I invited the Ruach haShibi'i, the seventh of Father's Ruachot (Spirits), to enter the hearts of all of those willing to enter the spirit of this occasion and walk obediently in the Davar (Word). Let us celebrate Yahweh, His Son, and one another. Let us celebrate everytime we see good things happen, every time souls repent and are saved. Let us celebrate when we find what is lost, when shattered minds and hearts and bodies are mended, and ask Heavenly Father to answer our pleas for these things to happen. May He restore us, fill us with ahavah (love), hope (tiqveh) and enable us to exercise yet more emunah (faith) so that we can walk perfectly before Him in holiness. May He show us grace and fill our 'Joy Buckets' this Sukkot in the midst of chaos and adversity, may He stop the mouths of the evil ones cusrsing us at this Halloween season of devilry, and may He send their curses back on their own heads doubled. Bless all our loved ones, our brothers and sisters, friends and colleagues, so that they too may come to know and enjoy the Derech (Way) of the Master and be one or echad with us in Christ. So until tomorrow, have a blessed first day of Sukkot! Amen.

Endnotes

[1] Also known as Diana (Acts 19:17-41) & the 'queen of heaven' in Jeremiah 7:18; 44:19; Hosea 3:1; cp. Ishtar & Easter
[2] Tom Holland, In the Shadow of the Sword: The Battle for Global Empire and the End of the Ancient World (Abacus, London: 2012), pp.191-4
[3] And yet consider that Moses lived among the Midianites in his own exile for '40 years' too - was this literally 40 years or just symbolic time? Could the original literal 40 years concept denoting big change have been modelled on something before the First Exodus, like the flood (Gen.7:4,12; 8:6; cp. Abraham in Gen.18:29)? We don't know.
[4] Or the higher way of living the United Order of all things in common that is the practice of the Remnant living in community