Shabbat shalom mishpachah and may the grace of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) be with you all as we weather the current mental, psychic and chemical batterings that are being heaped on Yahweh's people worldwide. I have to say that it is unlikely to lessen until the current Mishpat Yahweh, which began jurisdictionally on 10 October, finally completes its course on 12 January. We have noticed an increase of UFO activity here, chemical and biological spraying in the atmosphere (it was really bad about 1½ weeks ago and there has been lots of sickness since then), and other forms of pressure. Though speaking specifically of war, what Yah'shua (Jesus) told us in the following Scripture can be applied to any and every oppression of our age:

"When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come" (Mark 13:7, NIV).

I need to begin today with a warning concerning all the prophecies that are circulating on the internet. There's no doubt that this is a time of trial and tribulation, which we've known would be so for a long time, and equally there can be no doubt that it's going to get worse as the the wrath of Yahweh is poured out, first and foremost, on those who have crossed that final line and have no intention ever of repenting of their evil deeds. This is especially so for poliical leaders and those with other kinds of power such as money.

I heard one prophecy out there about a week ago claiming that Putin is a megalomaniac with ambitions like those of Russian Czar Peter the Great (1672-1725) who modernised, Westernised and expanded the borders of Russia, built St.Petersburg and made his country it into a major European power. The implication is that Putin is the main 'evil' out there. And whilst we know Putin is no angel, has his own 'cabal' who brought him into power and presides over a deeply corrupt country [1], to millions he is a liberator and is offering a beacon of hope to Christians being massacred in the Middle East.

As I have said before, he is a latter-day Cyrus whom Yahweh has raised to topple the infinitely more wicked NWO élites. If believers are seeking for a respite from persecution, then they need to recognise that Yahweh has raised this man up today for their deliverance. Does he have ambitions for his country? Of course he does, as any patriot should, which is more than can be said for the crooks who control our own Western governments who seem hell-bent on destroying us. And I know it offends the pride of many as they remember how great their countries once were, but this is the day of Russia. It has done much evil through Bolshevism and now it has its opportunity to make right what its evil Soviet leaders did in the 20th century. We should be thankful for any deliverer Yahweh has sent, and especially for Operation Salvation, the code name for Russia's war on ISIS for the liberation of Syria and Iraq and especially of Christians.

Many years ago, in 1977 to be exact, I visited the Holy Land for the first, and probably last, time. I had just graduated from Oxford University as a Biochemist and decided to take a year off to finish an Historical Atlas I started when I was 17. I got sponsorship to finish it from a South African publisher and decided I would stop by Israel on my way home to England. As I was a somewhat impoverished student I had to find accommodation that I could afford and ended up in a very seedy hôtel in the Arab quarter of East Jerusalem. The room was filthy but it was adequate for my modest needs. There were two old iron beds with metal springs in the very dusty and dirty room, one of which I occupied. It was not to be a restful night.

I was awakened in the middle of the night and got the shock of my life. Lying on the bed opposite me, on his left side supported by one arm, was a man with scaly skin. It looked at though it had been burnt though it was hard to tell in the half-light. He looked at me and said, in a rather sinister voice: "This is the place...this is the place!" Now this was not an ordinary vision because my eyes were wide open. The man then vanished and immediately afterwards another vision opened up to me. I saw a tank moving rapidly towards me churning up a considerable amount of dust behind it on a desert-like road. The scenery was definitely that of the Middle East. As it passed me by I caught sight of a large painted red star on the turret and knew it was Russian.

Now in those days I believe much of the current Hal Lindsey pop theology and supposed this was the invasion of the Holy Land by Gog and Magog. I was an ardent Zionist back then too and believed all the Illuminist propaganda about the special heavenly status of the modern Jews. Some of you may remember Lindsey's best-selling books, The Late Great Planet Earth and The Final Battle which were extremely popular amongst Christians 40 years ago. In those days we all thought the Soviet Union would fulfil the prophecies in Ezekiel and elsewhere in the Bible, having no idea that communism would fall in Eastern Europe and the USSR. Though communism has fallen and we have, as I said, a liberator rather than oppressor in the person of the Russian latter-day Cyrus, Russia has kept many of its former Soviet icons like the red star which still adorns its aeroplanes, army vehicles and ships.

Now that is not to say Russia would return to the kind of totalitarianism it once languished under for over 70 years under the communist nightmare. Yahweh showed me in a vision in 2009 that communism would return [2] right at the end and we already knew - and have known for a long time - that when the communism fell in Russia that it simply relocated to the European Union where a bourgois version of it has progressively evolved into a monstrous bureaucratic behomoth. Back in 1988, before the Soviet Union collapsed, Yahweh told me in a revelation:

"...the giants of the East, even Russia and China and those who hold fellowship with their governments, shall know a period of greater light and shall cease to persecute the children of Elohim (God) to the extent that they have been doing. And as the righteousness of the eastern nations increases, so the righteousness of the western nations shall decrease, until all nations are swallowed up in their (the western nations') iniquities and blasphemies, from one end of the world to the other. And thus the Tribulation shall begin, and the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) shall be gathered out of the world, [even] those who hearken and are obedient. Therefore gather ye, gather ye, for I am working a sifting in all nations, and I am beginning in the West. So no more for now. Amen" (Olive Branch 55:15-18).

There is a specific prophecy received a year after (1989) which speaks of the sudden arising of righteousness and what happens toward the end:

"...I have constrained the Russian leader (Mikail Gorbatchov) to release the Russia and East European people that the wheat might be divided from the tares. For the wicked shall rapidly ripen in inquity and the righteous shall ripen in virtue, until there is a complete separation. There shall be a season of peace and righteousness, and the good that is in these nations shall grow and flourish, yea, as quickly as the evil. And the good shall be in the ascendancy for a while, and be a light, until the beast from the bottomless pit arises and crushes it. Yea, the gentile flame of righteousness shall roar for a while, and lighten everything, but shall be snuffed out as quickly as it rises, as when a fire roars under the blast of the billows and dies down again. Amen" (Olive Branch 158:1-5).

At least as far as Russia is concerned, I believe that time of ascendant righteousness, relatively speaking, is here. Putin has been in power since 1999, ten years following the receiving of this revelation, and his economic achievements are undeniable [3]. He has also openly proclaimed himself the defender of the family and Christianity (admittedly, favouring Russia's traditional Eastern Orthodox brand) and is the only one doing anything about the murderous Islamic and US- and Israel-sponsored ISIS Caliphate in Syria and Iraq which has created an orgy of blood-letting and has caused the greatest refugee crisis in European history since 1945. How he and Russia turn out remains to be seen especially as they are allied to brutal régimes in the form of communist China and extreme Islamist Shi'ite Iran. I have seen a vision of Putin assassinated but whether that is fulfilled or not is conditional upon the choices he makes in the future. History is a very fluid thing. But for now, we have some small occasion to rejoice in the face of a diabolically wicked Western élite that is satanist, anti-family, anti-Christian and pro-Islamist to the core.

I realise that most Evangelical Christians - and certainly most Messianics - have a very different perspective of events to my own. The more radical among them are champing at the bit to nuke Iran and kill millions of innocent people along with the minority Islamists. Their rude awakening is coming and has, to some extent, already started. In the meantime we live in an evil world run by rogue Maffia-like governments and must deal with this reality. There are no man-made utopias on the horizon and never will be. When looking at Putin and Obama, we must use the same eyes as Judah-in-exile did when faced by the alternatives then: Cyrus and Belshazzar. Authentic democracy and freedom are a thing of the past - we must deal with what is before us. And like those believers who lived behind the Iron Curtain in the last century when I was younger, we too must learn to operate within the existing political and social framework that has been bequeathed us by our sinning fathers and the current generation. We have reaped what they and we have sown and so it shall be for the last generation before the actual Anti-Messiah or Antichrist rises up for his brief but terrible reign. We have been given a foretaste of that now. The wise will use this time to sharpen the weapons of their spiritual warfare and learn self-sufficiency and Messiah-dependency.

We must forever forget the way the past used to be because it will not be reclaimed and re-established. It's over and nobody can do anything to rebuild it. You can't easily reform large groups of people, a work than takes at least a generation to do well. If we are to deal with reality, we have got to learn how to hear what we don't want to hear, and do what we don't want to do. Do not place impossible burdens on your families, friends, congregations and employees by demanding that they respond to a set of unrealisable fantastic goals and sacrifice thus themselves for the impossible. Though I know this sounds a bit Darwinian, we have to survive and adapt. You can never wind history back because people are too complicated. Above-ground churches and messianic assemblies have got to be prepared to go below ground and learn to stay there. Don't attempt to recreate the world of your favourite preachers of old. By all means learn from them and adapt their teachings and experiences to your present and emerging situations but don't expect to recreate their revivals and societies. Everything has permanently changed.

Those who do not want to hear these things will not easily survive and might not survive at all, I guarantee it. So if you are hard-headed then you are likely to not only scuttle the ship of your own life but also the capsize and sink those of your families and congregations too. The leaders of the Second Exodus have all got to be Moses-men in spiritual stature. They have to be authentic and proven nevi'im (prophets), seers and revelators. Any other type of leadership will be worse than useless - they will be a danger to those who have been persuaded to follow them. Plenty of latter-day Korah's will arise in rebellion and threaten the well-being of Messianic Israel. They must be allowed to go their own way and meet their own fate. They will want to go back to the Babylonian system they escaped from. Having tried to reason with them, let them go back. Those who do go back will be enslaved in a way that will make the slavery of the first Israelites seem attractive.

We need to be clear that the élite set-back, that will come in the form of the prophesied unfolding judgments, will not generate Paradise where the hills are alive with the sound of music. Nor will will we ever be able to return to the time prior to the trauma of Obama's grate-crash into our lives and turning the world upside down. By the time Obama has served his second term as US President, the United States will hardly resemble what it was 8 years before. That America is dead, as is the Britain I used to love. Though accused of being a needless pessimist, Christian journalist Peter Hitchens (brother of the virulent atheist Christopher Hitchens) was right when he said the old England was dead and buried and all that was left was to write its obituary. We have moved on and simply need to meet Yah'shua (Jesus) where He is in the ever unfolding new reality, however disagreeable that reality may be.

So here we are today and that recurrent question has to be asked: 'What next?' If you watch too much news you will be overwhelmed by the scale of the anarchy and terror everywhere. The other day a Muslim arsonist torched the Tomb of the Patriarch Joseph in Hebron whose bones, you will remember, had been brought up out of Egypt after his death. To my mind, this incident is symbolic of the destruction of the political House of Joseph since it elected enemies of the Cross as its national leaders in Britain (Ephraim), Germany (East Manasseh) and America (West Manasseh). Joseph's bones still lie buried under the ground following the burning and just as the patriarch will one day rise at this site in the resurrection, so the spiritual Remnant House of Joseph is shortly to arise and is beginning to rise.

Much is spoken, is it not, of Jeruslam, both in Scripture and by believers, and we know, of course, of its pivotal prophetic rôle. We await the New Jerusalem which has not been constructed by human hands and which yet remains in Heaven awaiting its relocation to earth at the beginning of the Millennium. And though it will be surrounded and attacked by enemies at the end of the Millennium, it will never be breached and destroyed as the earthly Jerusalem has been. Scripture directs our attention to the Heavenly Jerusalem because it is our future home, not the earthly one which represents Hagar the servant of Sarah and concubine of Abraham:

"Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present city of Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children. But the Jerusalem that is above is free, and she is our mother" (Gal.4:25-26, NIV).

Messianics and Zionistic Christians in particular are very much focussed on the City of Hagar (Jerusalem) and love to quote and admonish us with Psalm 122:6 which tells us to "pray for the shalom (peace of Jerusalem)" so that those who love Yahweh are safe. But that city, now in the Israeli Republic, is not the living, theocratic centre that it was. It is the capital of a vile and corrupt Illuminist state founded by the children of Esau. We are now commanded to have our eyes on the Jerusalem above whence comes true freedom. Why, then, this fascination with the City of Slavery? The problem is with the flesh because the flesh is fascinated by, and yearns after, the slave woman. When the Israeli Republic collapses along with the rest of the West, this will cause consternation, theological hemorraghing and spiritual catharisis as proponents and defenderss of the earthly Rothschild Illuminist Republic in the Middle East realise they have been duped and believed so many lies.

This leads me to raise the question of another city in the Promised Land that is little considered even though prophetically it is as great - if not greater - importance than Jerusalem. I speak of Shiloh. For those of you who don't know, Shiloh was situated on the noth-east side of Bethel (where Joseph saw his vision of the ladder to heaven) on the east side of the highway that goes up from Bethel to Shechem (Judg.21:19). It was destroyed 1050 BC and is a heap of ruins today but at one point it was where the Tabernacle of Yahweh was set up (Josh.18:1) during the time of the Conquest by Joshua and was the principle site of the Sanctuary throughout the long and turbulent period of the judges (Judg.18:31). It was made famous - or perhaps I should say infamous - by the 'Gibeah Incident' when at Sukkot (Tabernacles) the Tribe of Benjamin was saved from extinction when it seized maidens for wives (Judg.21:19 ff.). It is perhaps best remembered as the place where Samuel was raised by the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) Eli. At that time all Israel made its annual pilgrimage there during that festival. By Samuel's time the tent had been replaced by an actual building with a door and doorposts (1 Sam.1:9).

So what happened to Shiloh? Latterly it became symbolic of Yahweh's judgment upon the wickedness of His people which is confirmed by the archaeological evidence. One of the Psalms is fairly representative of the fate of Shiloh and its causes:

"But they put Elohim (God) to the test
and rebelled against the Most High;
they did not keep his statutes.
Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless,
as unreliable as a faulty bow.
They angered Him with their high places;
they aroused His jealousy with their idols.
When Elohim (God) heard them, He was very angry;
he rejected Israel completely.
He abandoned the tabernacle of Shiloh,
the tent He had set up among men.
He sent [the ark of] His might into captivity,
His splendor into the hands of the enemy.
He gave His people over to the sword;
He was very angry with His inheritance.
Fire consumed their young men,
and their maidens had no wedding songs;
their cohenim (priests) were put to the sword,
and their widows could not weep"
(Ps 78:56-64, NIV).

Here the psalmist recalls the time when the Ark of the Covenant was captured in battle by the Philistines. Sometime after this débâcle Shiloh itself must have been destroyed. The reason I bring this place to your attention today was because it was located in the tribal territory of Ephraim, and it is Ephraim - who represents all the Ten Tribes in America, Europe, Australasia, and elsewhere - who is coming under an especially harsh judgment at this time. Shiloh was not only located in the Ephraimite territory, showing its preferential status before being relocated to the ancient Canaanite fortress of Jebus that became the City of David or Jerusalem that was located in the tribal territory of Benjamin close by Judah. Recall that both Benjamin and Joseph-Ephraim were Rachel's sons.

However, according to John Lightfoot [4], it seems that the Temple was in such close proximity to the border of Judah that that the altars and sanctuary were in Benjamin while the outer courts of the temple came to be in Judah. This is of great prophetic significance because the geographical location is also a spiritual type of the relationship between the Leah and Rachel tribes, Benjamin being the younger full brother of Joseph. While about 95 per cent the city, including the outer courts of the temple, belonged to mighty Judah, about 5 per cent of it, with the Temple (Sanctuary and Inner Court), belonged to little Benjamin. Was this an accident of history? Or did Yahweh ordain it this way with a prophetic pointer in mind? Since the Temple pointed to Messiah, "the Lion of the Tribe of Judah" (Rev.5:5) and since "The wall of the city (New Jerusalem) had twelve foundations, and on them were the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (Rev.21:14, NIV) it is important that we discover the tribal identity of these Messianic leaders.

We now come to that interesting and controversial prophecy given by Jacob to his son Judah in his patriarchal blessing:

"The scepter shall not depart from Judah,
Nor a lawgiver from between his feet,
Until Shiloh comes;
And to Him shall be the obedience of the people" (Gen.49:10, NKJV).

If you look at modern translations like the New International Version (NIV) you will notice something very peculiar, namely, that "until Shiloh comes" has been substituted with the phrase, "until he comes to whom it belongs" (NIV). The mystery compounds when you consider other modern versions which subtitutes in "until tribute comes to him" (NRSV). These are very different meanings with huge prophetic implications so we must come to know for a certainty which is right and which is false. The traditional understanding points to Messiah as being Shiloh and the more 'modern' one to an exalted position of the Tribe of Judah that is the basis of the claims of Judaism and Zionism to pre-eminent status. The competition here is between the two Comings of Messiah and the establishment of a Jewish state in 1948 and the belief of ultra-orthodox Judaism and its messianic offshoots that the Jews are destined to rule the earth as a master race. And in the end you will have to choose the one or the other.

The 'problem' that scholars have is with the Hebrew a 'ad kî-yâbô shilôh which can be rendered as

• 1. A messianic title - Shiloh;
• 2. "Until he comes to Shiloh" - with the subject as Judah and the fulfilment of the assembling of Israel to Shiloh in Joshua 18:1 when the tribe of Judah nobly relinquished the pre-eminence it had formerly enjoyed;
• 3. By emending shiloh to shelloh and translating, as the Septuagint (LXX) does, "until that which is his shall come", in other words, "the things reserved for him", a vaguely messianic hope (CJB); or
• 4. "Until he comes whose it is" whatever 'it' may be - some would say it refers to the Kingdom.

And so we find a measure of uncertainty in the various translations - "until he comes to whom [obedience] belongs", "until he comes to whom it belongs" (JB - like the NIV), "so long as tribute is brought to him" (NEB), "until tribute comes to him" (NAB). Most translations do at least agree that the sceptre passes from Judah to a messianic figure and I see no conflict between retaining the title "Shiloh" and literally translating it. The sceptre or emblem of rulership passes from Judah to Shiloh when the Messiah comes to whom the sceptre rightfully belongs and to whom has been reserved that tribute that only belongs to Him.

The obvious relationship between the word shiloh and shalom also suggests that this messianic figure is a peace-giver although there are those who argue that this isn't very natural linguistically. The second interpretation - Judah voluntarily and nobly relinquishing power - scarcely fits in with the history of Judah. The minority position that this passage can be translated "as long as the people come to Judah", that is to say, "for ever", strains the Hebrew even more, so we can strike out the second option, leaving the other three interpretations to be equally and simultaneously valid.

The prophecy made by Jacob-Israel over his son Judah has most certainly been fulfilled. Shiloh the Person has come (Lk.2:1-7; Gal.4:4) who is the seed of Judah (Lk.3:33); He is called Sholoh or the One Sent (Jn.17:3) to whom the obedience of the people is commanded (Jn.10:16). He presented Himself before Judah and was rejected the first time by that tribge so that other prophecy could be fulfilled and He offer Himself as an eternal atonement for the sins of mankind:

"Then the chief cohenim (priests) and the Pharisees called a meeting of the Sanhedrin. 'What are we accomplishing?' they asked. 'Here is this man performing many miraculous signs. If we let him go on like this, everyone will believe in Him, and then the Romans will come and take away both our place and our nation.' Then one of them, named Caiaphas, who was Cohen Gadol (High Priest) that year, spoke up, 'You know nothing at all! You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish.' He did not say this on his own, but as Cohen Gadol (High Priest) that year he prophesied that Yah'shua (Jesus) would die for the Judean nation" (John 11:47-51, NIV).

The power of these leaders was indeed terminated and the nation of Judea was permanently ended after Jerusalem's destruction and the erection of a pagan city, Aelia Capitolina, on its ruins. As I have explained in depth elsewhere, no separate Judean nation is prophesied to ever arise again [5], something that is so important to understand in order not to be deceived by false end-time prophecy.

Judah has yet to bow the knee to Messiah in any substantial numbers. Rather, it has been 'Ephraim' - representing, as their head, the Ten Tribes of Israel - who have been bowing their knees in the millions for the last two thousand years and that is why the Messiah also has the title Shiloh, where the Tabernacle was once housed in the territory of Ephraim. For though the Messiah is Himself of the Tribe of Judah, the firstborn inheritance belongs to Joseph (Israel, Shiloh) once Reuben forfeited it because of adultery (with one of his father's wives) and murder (of the Shechemites), and it is to Joseph that the leadership of the tribes was given.

Remember also - and this is where Benjamin comes with respect to the location of the Temple in Jerusalem - that it is almost certain that all-but-one of the original 12 apostles were Benjamites and not Judahites. Who was the non-Benjamite apostle? Judah (or Judas in Greek). Is that why the outer courtyard was left to Judah as a prophetic sign of its most undistinguished son, the man from K'riot, or Judas Iscariot as we have come to know him, who is himself a representation of Judah as a whole, and of Jerusalem which today represents Hagar, the bondwoman? Was this a prophetic image of Judah's rejection of their Messiah and King the first time?

After Judas died and was replaced, it would seem that all twelve apostles were Benjamites. We'll examine this claim in more detail in a moment. We know Paul the apotle was a Benjamite too which might explain why increasing numbers of messianics infected with the Jewish supremacy idea have rejected him. But first, let's trace the wanderings of the Benjamites.

Where all the Benjamites finally ended up after their deportations (by the Babylonians and Romans) and their several migrations it not possible, with total certainty, to know. The well known Israeli researcher, Yair Davidy, believes they ended up as the ancient Belgians (not to be confused with modern Belgium) and Normans and it is possible that at least some of them migrated to those regions of western Europe. Others, like myself, believe they were scattered amongst what became the Scandinavian tribes (the Normans were Vikings who adopted the French-Reubenite language and culture), and are to be found in their greatest numbers in Norway. Other researchers believe they are primarily in Iceland.

The Benjamin-in-Iceland theory is in part based on a midrash of Deuteronomy 33:12. So let us now carefully scrutinise at that passage first of all to see if there is any substance to the claim:

"Of Benjamin he said: 'The beloved of Yahweh shall dwell in safety by Him, who shelters him all the day long; and he shall dwell between His shoulders'"
(Deut.33:12, NKJV)

The "shoulders", some commentators speculated, were the United States (Manasseh, left shoulder blade) and Great Britain (Ephraim, right shoulder blade) with Iceland (Benjamin) in between. Superficially, there does seem to be a juxtapositional relationship with the USA and the UK...if you bend or arch the line between the two a bit. In reality Iceland is sandwiched between Greenland (that belongs to Denmark) and Norway. And beyond Greenland is not the USA but Canada. A more reasonable interpretation of the dwelling "between the shoulders", if geography has anything at all to do with this, was Benjamin's historical location between Ephraim and Judah in the Promised Land.

George M. Lamsa [6] invites us to look at the Aramaic version of this passage which reads a little differently from ther Hebrew, "and he shall dwell in his bosom" which is, he claims, an idiom meaning, "He (Yahweh) will cuddle him". Sandwiched between two powerful tribal neighbours, Judah (to the south) and Ephraim (to the north), Benjamin's borders were secure from enemies - an appropriate picture of familial protection for the youngest of his brothers.

Yet there is a strong familial connection of Benjamin with Ephraim and Manasseh. Adam Rutherford therefore suggested:

"Again when the Tribes were arranged around the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, Ephraim, Benjamin and Manasseh formed a separate group, on the west side. Then in Psalm 80:2, these tribes are again grouped....with Benjamin in the middle. Ephraim and Manasseh were the two most important and influential tribes of Israel (as distinct from Judah). Britain and the USA are now the two greatest and most influential nations, and Iceland (Benjamin) lies geographically between these two great nations. 'Benjamin' is therefore still between 'Ephraim' and 'Manasseh' - between the two mighty 'shoulders' of modern Israel" [7].

I don't doubt for a minute there are Benjamites in Iceland, Normandy and elsewhere in Europe but I personally think Rutherford is reading too much into Deuteronomy 33:12. Nevertheless there is something about the Tribe of Benjamin that has been neglected, whose name means 'son of the right hand', denoting an exalted position at the seat of power (Gen.35:18). Benjamin was Jacob's last son whom he doted on on account of his mother's premature death. The exalted place of Joseph in the Tribes is well known. He was given the coat of many colours by his father to denote royalty and therefore future headship, such coats normally being very plain, his father having himself received both authority and power after his overcoming of the flesh represented by the struggle he had with the malak (angel) at Jabbok. But what of Benjamin? If, as his name reveals, he was also given power, why do we know so little about him? What are his exploits that we should remember him in such an honoured fashion?

The behaviour of the Tribe of Benjamin in the earliest days of Israel was not particularly good. During an episode of tribal civil war he was almost exterminated. In order to prevent the tribe from being extinguished, the survivors of this war were instructed to obtain new wives from Shiloh...from Ephraim. So there was a major injection of Ephraimite blood at this time and doubtless other tribal blood also as this was a Sukkot celebration.

The most notable Benjamite of that early time was the unstable and eventually apostsate King Saul who displayed a dangerous character combination of courage and disobedience. Following Solomon's death, when the Davidic nation split into north and south, Benjamin remained with Judah politically, thus becoming separated from Ephraim and Manasseh. Together, Judah and Benjamin, suffered the same fate when they were taken into exile in Babylon. That they remained distinct tribes during that terrible time and following the return home is made clear by the fact that Paul had no trouble in proclaiming his Benjamite genealogy (Rom.11:1; Phil.3:5) several generations later.

Because of the tribe's small size, it came to be somewhat overshadowed by its larger companion both in the Southern Kingdom, in Exile and after the Return, in much the same way that Scotland and Wales are often mistakenly called 'England' even though, with Northern Ireland, they are separate nations of the United Kingdom. The southern nation of Judea, named after the dominant Judahite tribe, therefore tended to make Judah visible while Benjamin hid in the shadows. And Benjamin remained 'hidden' during the Maccabean Kingdom too.

All of that would change after the Roman occupation. Greater Maccabean Judea, which extended far beyond its historical borders in the south to virtually occupy all the former territories of the 12 tribes, would again be split under Roman rule, this time with Benjamin having its own territory in a new location but still not with its name. There would be no 'Benjamea' alongside 'Judea'.

When the southern tribes returned to the Promised Land, it was already colonised by half-breeds called Samaritans who were part Israelite and part Assyrian. They had their own territory called 'Samaria' which even today survives in the modern Israeli Republic, sandwiched between Galilee in the north and Judea in the south. Samaria, both ancient and modern, is for the most part the old Ephraimite territory.

After the end of the exile in Babylon, we learn from Nehemiah that most of the Judahites returned to their ancestral homeland in the south around Jerusalem - to Judea - and absorbed the historical Benjamite territory, with Jerusalem (Josh.8:28), wholesale. Most of the Benjamites, instead of returning to their former territory which they had presumably outgrown in numbers over the 70 years they multiplied in Babylon, went instead to the north of the country and to Galilee (Neh.11:31-35).

In Yah'shua's (Jesus') day, as today, we find the Holy Land divided into three main provinces [8]. Today, those calling themselves 'Jews' are spread throughout all three provinces which they share with Palestinian Arabs, Druze and a handfull of surviving Samaritans who, like the late Sadducees, only have regard the first five books of Moses as scripture.

But in Yah'shua's day, the demographics were a little different. The Samaritans were still there in the centre of the territory, in larger numbers than today, and in the south Judeans mingled with Edomite Idumeans (descendants of Esau) whom the Maccabees had forcibly circumcised and assimilated. King Herod was one such Idumean. When Rome dispersed these Judahite-Idumeans, they would eventually mingle, first, with Turkic Khazar converts in what is modern day Ukraine and the broader Russian steppes, who would swamp them in numbers and come to form what is today known as Eastern or Ashkenazi Jewry and who today have very little of any actual Judahite blood left in them [5].

So who lived in, and dominated, the little northern province of Galilee in Yah'shua's (Jesus') day? The original post-exilic Benjamites! They occupied the land which previously had been settled by the small tribes, like itself, of Asher, Naphtali, Zebulun, Issachar and parts of Manasseh west of the Jordan and east in Gilead who had long since been deported by the Assyrians and disappeared into Europe.

And we are told, in the latter days, Benjamin will find a third home, previously colonised by East Manasseh, Gad and Reuben, namely, Gilead (Obadiah 1:19), a mountainous area tradionally viewed as a place of safety!

By now, I hope, something is stirring within you. I pray the Ruach (Spirit) is operating in you so that you can identify who, aside from Paul, was a Benjamite in the days of the mortal Messiah's walk on earth. In His day the bulk of the Benjamites lived in Galilee and were known as Galileans. Traditionally marginalised and little mentioned in the Tanakh (Old Testament) except when the Canaanites and other neigbours like the Ohoenicians and Syrians contested it - and totally depopulated for at least a century when the Assyrians conquered it, the territory acquired new colonists who would make the region famous in the annals of Christianity.

Recent scholarship paints quite a vivid picture of what New Testament Galilee was like. Lower Galilee was likely cosmopolitan and Hellenised to some degree and lacked much of the chlostrophobic and snobbish social conventions of the Pharisees that existed in Judea. There is no doubt that there were strong Phoenician and Syrian cultural influences there too, along with the Judean. So it would have been a much more open-minded society and not at all to the liking of today's ultra-messianics who would have felt more at home in the south. Yet it was Galilee that brought forth much spiritual fruit.

Yah'shua (Jesus) was also a Galilean resident (Mk.6:1; Jn.1:46ff cp. Mk.16:7) much as I, an Englishman, an a resident of Sweden and before that, of Norway, though of course He was not Benjamite but a Judahite in the Royal Lineage of David. Of His reception in the southern Judean territory it is written:

"He came to His own (Judah), and His own (Judah) did not receive Him" (John 1:11, NKJV).

Rejected by the Judeans, His own Judahite people, Yah'shua (Jesus) went north, to Galilee - to the Galileans - to preach, and of them it is written, in the next verse:

"But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of Elohim (God), to those who believe in His name" (John 1:12-13, NKJV).

Though rejected in His own home town of Nazareth He was welcomed enthusisatically practically everywhere else He went in Galilee, Capernaum being the one exception. Though he made this fishing village of about 1,500 souls with a Roman garrison His base of operations, and performed several miracles there, the response generally was poor, even though there were some spectacular instances of emunah (faith) such as that of the Roman centurion (Mt.8:5-15; Lk.7:1-10). He certainly felt 'at home' there.

Yah'shua's (Jesus') reception among the Galileans - the post-exilic Benjamites - was very different to the overall reception He got amongst the Judahites of the south. Indeed, He was not only rejected in the south but also murdered there.

The bulk of Yah'shua's (Jesus') talmidim (disciples) were almost certainly Benjamites from Galilee. The Judeans despised them for various reasons - they were regarded as less cultured simpletons, and part of a tribe now socially separated from them by the Gentile corridor territory of Samaria. There was a kind of apartheid in those days. That Yah'shua's (Jesus') talmidim (disciples) were associated with Galilee rather than with Judea is shown by, amongst other things, the remarks made by Judean witnesses to the talmidim (disciples) after Yah'shua's (Jesus') resurrection and the outpouring of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) at the the first New Covenant Shavu'ot (Weeks, 'Pentecost'):

"Now there were staying in Jerusalem Elohim-(God-)fearing Judahites from every nation under heaven. When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. Utterly amazed, they asked: 'Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans?'" (Acts 2:5-8, NIV).

We are accustomed to being told that all of Yah'shua's (Jesus') apostles - and the bulk of His talmidim (disciples) were 'Jews'. Some were most certainly Judahites, with Yah'shua's (Jesus') own half-brother, James, ascending to a prominent place in the leadership, but by far the vast majority were not - even then, Yah'shua's (Jesus') own Judahite family were Galileans, a part of the Judahite minority in that territory.

Peter, James and John (the sons of Zebedee) were one of a kind along with Paul - they were Benjamites. So closely associated with Galilee were the talmidim (disciples) that their Judahite accusers were quick to point this fact out, as when Peter, though he denied it three times, was identified as a follower of Messiah:

"Surely you are one of them, for you are a Galilean" (Mark 14:70, NIV).

The great theologian Dean Farrar was aware of the Galillee-Benjamite connection and maintained that 11 of the original 12 apostles were all Benjamites:

"The terms Benjamites and Galileans [were] synonymous. But Judas (Judah) Iscariot's place was eventually filled by a Benjamite hence, in the end, all the twelve chosen apostles of Christ were Galileans (Benjamites) as stated in Acts 2:7" [9].

Though a part of the original Kingdom of Judea following the schism, it is clear that a physical separation of Benjamin from Judah occurred during the Roman occupation. Benjamites, who lived in the northern part of the Promised Land in apostolic times, were also known to have spread throughout the lands of Syria and into the very south-eastern provinces of Asia Minor - Cappadocia, Galatia and Cilicia [10], the most famous son of this diaspora being the apostle Paul himself who was from Antioch.

The final and permanent separation of Benjamin from the Judah-Esau mix occurred during the revolt against Rome. Instead of joining the Judean insurgents, the Benjamites, for the most part, instead left the country, taking the advice of both the earlier navi (prophet) Jeremiah and the later one, Yah'shua (Jesus):

"Flee for safety, people of Benjamin! Flee from Jerusalem!" (Jer.6:1, NIV).

Titus allowed a great many of the inhabitants to "go away into the country, whither they pleased" [11]. Like their forefathers in Jeremiah's days, the followers of Messiah, who were largely Benjamite Galileans, obeyed their Master and fled to Pella [12] before eventually migrating to Asia Minor to join their fellow Benjamites already in diaspora for, as historian W.H.M.Milner noted, "the Asiatic Christians (of Asia Minor) of the first two centuries were mainly of the tribe of Benjamin" [14].

It is not my purpose today to trace the wanderings of the Tribe of Benjamin into Europe through Roman Dacia (now Romania) and thence into Scandinavia, fascinating a subject though this is. And without a doubt the Scandinavian Vikings fulfilled the prophecy made about Benjamin:

"Benjamin is a ravenous wolf; in the morning he devours the prey, in the evening he divides the plunder" (Gen.49:27, NIV).

Contemporary chroniclers of the Viking raids described these ferocious warriors as "stringed hornets and ravenous wolves" [13] and you will note the prominence of wolves in Viking mythology. Indeed, Norway, the prominent Benjamite nation of our day, was close to adopting the wolf as its national emblem before finally opting for the lion like the rest of the Scandinavia nations, perhaps hearkening to their earlier connection to the Kingdom of Judah. The Vikings were also, interestingly, famous for being ambidextrous, meaning they were equally at ease using the right as well as their left hands, most especially in combat. You'll find specific references to Benjamin's left-handedness in the Tanakh (Old Testament) (Judg.3:15,22; 1 Chr.12:1-2). William the Conqueror, whose sister is in the genealogy of my own family, was almost certainly a Benjamite.

Along the route of his travels through Europe, Benjamin lost his emunah (faith) and became a feared pagan warrior nation, a very different creature to the banner-bearer of the first Hebrew Christians or Messianics. Scholars have known about Benjamin's identity for a long time so why is the true story of Benjamin rarely told anymore? Because it does violence to the satanic agenda. It is now politically incorrect to discuss such matters and I guarantee that someone will eventually accuse me of being 'anti-semitic' for saying these things, even though, of course, Benjamin was a Semite like all the other tribes, being a descendant of Shem.

Such is the nature of this age of political correctness in which we are being made to swallow a particular version of history of Israel by the predominantly Jewish ruling élites who have established a counterfeit Israel in the Middle East and are using it to fool Christians and Messianics into believing current events fulfil biblical prophecy. Why do they want believers to be fooled? So that they will embrace the Anti-Messiah or Antichrist who will be coming in the wake of all these things. And major Messianic Jewish groups, like the Messianic Jewish Alliance of America (MJAA), which has been around since 1915 and is the largest association of its kind, all push the Illuminist narrative which claims that the modern Jews are all the Twelve Tribes and that therefore they alone, and exclusively, represent the whole of Israel. Indeed, there was a big debate recently in another large Messianic Jewish Association as to whether non-Jews ('Gentiles') should be admitted as Messianic Jews at all. 90 per cent said they shouldn't, thus erecting a new wall of partition.

The emet (truth) is hard to swallow in an age of counterfeits and propaganda but the Messianic Scriptures or New Testament is almost entirely a Benjamite testament. It isn't a Judahite one even if the authors Matthew (Mattityahu) and James were almost certainly Judahite. What of Luke, the writer or a gospel and Acts? Traditionally a 'gentile' he is now regarded by many scholars as "a non-Jewish Semite" [15] which probably means he was a Benjamite too. It makes sense that a fellow Benjamite would accompany and record Paul on so many of his journeys and it also makes sense why the so-called 'Jewish' communities of Asia Minor and Greece were, for the most part, favourably dosposed toward a fellow Benjamite. Can we also not make better sense of the so-called 'Judaising heresy' that threatened the early Messianic Community (Church) and view it as an essentially Pharisee/Judahite - Benjamite controversy? Thus the old tribal rivalries and apartheid continued for a while in the Messianic Community until Paul insisted that it end and shalom (peace) in emet (truth) be properly established. The irony is that Messianic Jews are not only not the descendants of Judah (at least not ~90% of them) but the few who are only represent one of three main suviving houses of Judah, that of Perez-Judah. They are entirely in the dark about the House of Zarah-Judah which settled in Wales, Scotland and Ulster which is destined to play a major rôle in the gathering of that tribe in the end-time. And we still know nothing about the history or whereabouts House of Shelah-Judah (Gen.46:12). Where might those Judahites be?

It is more than likely that Dr.Luke, the writer of Luke and Acts, was not so much a 'non-Jewish gentile' as he was a non-Judahite Benjamite. This is a large and important subject that I can only touch upon today. There are so many Israelite clans that have apparently 'disappeared' but they are surfacing to the dismay of the false claimants being steered by the Illuminati. Even the English have their non-Ashkenazi and non-Sephardi Judahites who came by way of Troy. The blood of Israel is everywhere.

The reason all of this is important is for several reasons. First, the Second Exodus is also a gathering of tribes and the tribes must be identified if they are to travel as separate units. Second, because the Second Exodus is founded upon all emet (truth) which must prevail even if it jars against our tribal sensitivies and prejudices. Ephraim and Judah have to be reconciled but it cannot be on the basis of Judah's former hegemony. There is a new Melchizedek Order in the Kingdom and it is being led by Rachel's sons, Joseph (Ephraim and Manasseh) and Benjamin. Benjamin must have his place! His own birthright cannot be robbed by another tribe, let alone by a nation that has little or no connection to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob or Judah!

Furthermore, it is more than high time that most of the New Testament is recognised as a work of the Tribe of Benjamin. It's not a 'Jewish' book after all but a Benjamite one [16]. When Joseph endowed his little brother Benjamin with seven times as much silver and five times as much clothing as his other Israelite brothers (Gen.45:22), do you suppose this was mere favouritism? Or do you suppose it was prophetic of the bounteous gifts Yahweh would bestow upon this tribe whose glorious legacy was the founding and pioneering of the Messianic Community and the gift, to us, of the B'rit Chadashah Scriptures (New Testament)?

We have been lied to about Judah and Israel and those lies must be exposed if there is to be reconciliation and unification. More importantly, perhaps, in the light of the current judgment, we must not be deceived by false prophetic markers as I have now said so many times. Zionism is not only a great satanic evil, along with its blasphemous six-pointed star, but it is also a carnal snare to the believer in Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). So many have committed idolatry and lost their salvation because of it.

I have lost many friends because of these things and I shall doubtless lose many more. But if we are serious about the end-time restoration and anointing, then we must be serious about all emet (truth) too. We have to correctly identify Israel and Mount Zion in these end-times or we will be cut down by unfolding events. We are in the time of Jacob's Trouble but Christendom and Messianics are looking, for the most part, at the wrong Jacob - they are embracing a counterfeit and with it the destruction of Esau, even as it is written by the navi (prophet) Obadiah:

"But on Mount Zion will be deliverance;
it will be qadosh (holy, set-apart)
and the house of Jacob
will possess its inheritance.
The house of Jacob will be a fire
and the house of Joseph a flame;
the house of Esau will be stubble,
and they will set it on fire and consume it.
There will be no survivors
from the house of Esau.
Yahweh has spoken" (Obad 17-18, NIV)

Brethren and sisters, it is far too important for you not to examine these questions seriously. For those caught up in the Zionist lie it could mean their very lives because "there will be no survivors from the house of Esau" when this is all over. There will be no more of Esau's Judaism of any kind just as there will be no more of Ishmael's Islam just as there will be no more of Rome's harlotries. In the meantime, their murderous hands will be keenly felt by the world until Yah'shua (Jesus) tramples them under His feet when He returns and no survivors of these idolatries remain.

Yes, this is 'only' a dress-rehearsal but it is an enormously important one nonetheless and there will be casualties to error. Yes, Obadiah's prophecy points, in the first instance, to a judgment that has already taken place when Edom plundered Judah after her fall to Babylon. But prophecy has more than one level, as you all by now know, and this one most definitely points to a more comprehensive Divine Judgment - the final one to come when Yahweh will defeat all of Israel's enemies - that is, the authentic Israel's enemies - who will drink the cup of Yahweh's wrath (Is.51:17). Ultimately, the Promised Land will be resettled by the true Israel but it has not yet happened and won't happen at this time either. As before, the land must be cleansed of idolatry, whether it be Judaism, Islam or secularism. You will see a partial cleansing of that happen in the not too distant future before its complete cleansing so that the land can received the returning 12 Tribes.

The tribes will coalesce during the Last Exodus we are now in - the second year thereof, to be exact. There is so much more to be done, so much more to be seen and understood. And all twelve tribes, under the leadership of Joseph (Ephtaim and Manasseh) and Benjamin, are called to learn how to do it. It is a beginning - shakey and unsure, like a newborn gazelle finding its legs - but Yahweh is in it and you will see more and more of Him in it in the days to come. You are invited to come up to the gathering places to learn and get equipped for the ongoing journey. There will be much to unlearn that has been taught the churches and the messianic assemblies and many will attempt to bring in the old heresies as the Judaisers of old did in the New Testament apostolic days when Benjamin was at the peak of his glory. Today, however, is the Day of Ephraim and of new Joshua's. May his standard be filled with honour and emet (truth) in Yah'shua our Messiah (Jesus Christ). Amen.

Endnotes

[1] See, for example, Karen Dawisha, Putin's Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia? (Simon & Schuster, NY: 2014). But don't read such books in isolation because they do serve an NWO agenda - also see, for example, M.S.King, The War Against Putin: What the Government-Media Complex Isn't Telling You About Russia (Amazon: 2014)
[2] The Last Race: Vision of the Communist Resurgence
[3] Figures of 1999 compared to 2013: GDP $195 billion > $2 trillion; GDP per person $1,320 > $14,800; Inflation 36.6% > 6.5%; Foreign exchange reserves of gold $12.6 billion > $511 billion; National debt 78% GDP > 8% GDP; Pension 499 roubles > 10,000 roubles; Income 1,522 roubles > 28,940 roubles
[4] John Lightfoot, The Temple Service and the Prospect of the Temple (J.F.Dove: 1823), Chapter 1
[5] See the very important sermon series, Jacob's Trouble
[6] George W. Lamsa, Old Testament Light: A Commentary Based on the Aramaic (Holman, Nashville, Tennessee: 1964), p.280
[7] Adam Rutherford FRGS, A.M.Inst.T footnote, p.37, as cited in Peter Salemi, The Tribe of Benjamin are the Normans
[8] Excluding the Decapolis, Perea and the Tetrarchy of Philip which, though originally part of the Israelite Conquest, lay almost entirely east of the River Jordan
[9] Dean Farrar, Temple Dictionary of the Bible under 'Galilee', footnote, p.10
[10] Herbert Hannay, European and Other Race Origins
[11] Josephus, Wars of the Jews 5.10.1
[12] Eusebius, History of the Church 3.5.3
[13] W.H.M.Milner, Israel's Wanderings
[14] F.Donald Logan, The Vikings, p.39
[15] David Noel Freedman (ed.), Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: 2000), p.828
[16] Renaming the Book of Hebrews (Ivrim) as 'Messianic Jews' (David Stern, Jewish New Testament and Phil Goble, Orthodox Jewish Bible - to name the two I know of) is just plain dishonest, an act of deliberate propagdanda that other Messianic translations (HRV, RSTNE, ISRV, MRC, AENT, etc.) have not thus far fallen for under the pressure of cultural Judaism

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