Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah, and welcome. Today's sabbath assembly is going to be a little different from what we have done before because I have two sermons, as those assembled here already know, and I have let the congregation choose the one they want to hear this morning. The second, on deliverance ministry, will be braodcast later today, Yahweh willing, which you can read or hear online at your convenience. These are both messages that, unusually, Yahweh has given me during the course of this last week.

There is nothing very logical about human beings, even amongst the most intellectual. In the course of 30+ years of ministry I have been astonished by the irrationality of our species. Here's the problem: the heart has its own 'logic' which works on a completely different basis to that of the brain. The two simply operate by complete different sets of rules. Each has its needs and each pursues its own road in order to meet those needs if allowed to do so unsupervised by Yahweh.

As a scientist as well as a minister, I have sought to better understand this dichotomy. In the Bible, the Hebrews had no concept of a mind separate from the heart. To them they were both lev or 'heart'. They viewed them as echad or one. And, of course, ideally they should be. A balanced, harmonious human being has a mind and heart that operate hand-in-hand as a single entitity. Unlike the Greeks, who in Europe and the Middle East, at any rate, tried to prize them apart and set the mind up as its own primal entity - a tendency that Western science and theology has inherited - the Hebrews trusted in Elohim (God) to ensure the workings of the two centres of consciousness-awareness - mental and emotional - gelled and worked together as they were supposed to. Philosophy, psychology and theology were a single discipline in the Kingdom of the Hebrews. They all merged together. Much simpler, much neater.

Nevertheless, the Hebrews had their 'philosophers' like King Solomon. He was, for sure, a brainiac and gained a reputation for such throughout the known world of his day. So many made long trips to hear him speak, like the Queen of Sheba. In the end, his heart led him astray which in turn corrupted his mind. In his uncontrolled passion, and in order to secure his political kingdom without war, he entered into numerous marital alliances with pagan women. Good real politik but bad spiritual form.

You would have thought that Solomon the genius would have been able to keep his passion and his rational mind separate. A lot of intelligent people believe that myth. But his curiosity got the better of him, he became fascinated by paganism, and in order to keep an artificial 'peace' with his pagan wives whom he should never have married in the first place had he been obedient, his heart persuaded his mind to make a 'dispassionate' investigation. The thing is, the more you dip your body - first your feet, and then your torso - into the pagan dye, the sooner your colour changes overall. And the dye doesn't have to be paganism - atheism will do just as well.

There's a difference between men and women too. Once a wife stops trusting her husband, she starts emotionally drifting, and before long her mind will follow suit. I have tragically seen many marriages break up over the years and almost without exception the wife, who was persuaded to believe a doctrinal position after long years of careful instruction and the confirming witness of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), started drifting back to what she believed in before she was married once her emotional ties to her husband were sufficiently weakened. None of the careful theological education, earnest seeking, and inspirational encounters with the Ruach (Spirit) seemed to matter much any more - she simply went back to what was familiar before. Thus if she was a Lutheran before conversion, or Reformed, or Baptist, or whatever, she would usually dift back to that. In many cases they stayed there, but in others they drifted out of Christianity altogether and into unbelief or some other religion.

It's totally illogical, it makes no rational sense, but to the heart it makes perfect 'sense'. Marriage break-up is a trauma and the soul, seeking safety, will search for a familiar place where once it knew safety before, even if the teachings of that 'place' are contradicted by half a lifetime of experience and communion with Elohim (God). The heart, in order to meet its perceived needs, will progressively turn the rational mind off - and sometimes the reverse will occur too. But more often than not, it is the heart that steers the soul's journey.

In recent years, my experience with the flat-earth community has reinforced my observations in the domestic setting. Flat-earthism is completely irrational and does not do proper science. For one thing, it is largely a religious phenomenon, not a scientific one. Aside from some sincere Christians and Messianics who genuinely believe the Bible teaches that we live on a disc surrounded by an ice wall with a dome above it, the rest - who are more often than not simply disillusioned people who no longer trust scientists, politicians, educationists and others who occupy positions of authority in society - are simply looking for an 'alternative' to the real world. Flat-earthism is a psychological phenomenon above all else, a heart-driven search for meaning in a chaotic world which has lost confidence in authority. And then there's that revolutionary 'thrill' of challenging the status quo and of feeling 'special' along with other comrades-in-arms.

The needs of the heart are only met by authentic, godly relationships, starting with Elohim (God) Himself. The intellect can never substitute for that. Ever. There are those who believe it can and I meet them all the time in the atheist community, most especially those who are debunking flat-earthism. They have a certain smugness and self-righteousness about themselves. They have gained easy points off flat-earthers and various other nut-cases and these they use to adorn their crowns and to proclaim their authority over their irrational beliefs in such things as the non-existence of Elohim (God) and in what I call the 'fairy godmother of evolution'. There is a deep seated cynicism in them and a barely concealed contempt for religious people. I have spoken with them and know. The tragedy is that flat-earthers have simply entrenched these atheist cultists in their own false belief system because of their own cultism. All they do now is bash each other in a never ending cycle of debunking which I find quite tedious. Satan has won that fight and humans have proven themselves, once again, to be stupid. Intellectual prowess will not win that battle.

The same is true in the theological debates that take place between Arminians and Calvinists, Anitmonians and Torah-observers, Creation Calender observers and Roman Calendar observers, Trinitarians and Binitarians, Eternal Torturists and Annihilationists, Universal Salvationists and Limited Salvationists, etc., etc., etc.. These contests will never by won by theological fencing alone. I have seen people jump back and forth between positions, each time convinced they have done their homework thoroughly, only to have doubt unravel it all. Has it never occurred to anyone that the Greek mindset we employ to resolve these difference has not ended the doctrinal divisions after 2,000 years of effort? Why not, do you suppose? Because the heart is such a major factor in all of this, and it will not be ignored! It just won't. It has it's own 'mind', as the mathematician Blaise Pascal recognised, and that 'mind' will be heard. You cannot ignore it.

People have all kinds of reasons for adopting doctrinal positions and they aren't always as honest as they would like to think. If you have ever followed the Hitchens brothers as I have, both brilliant men with the same background and education, you will perhaps understand what I mean. Peter is the Christian and Conservative, Christopher was the atheist and Marxist, at opposite ends of the spectrum of belief, though both had been atheist Trotskyists together in their youth, and were passionately committed believers in the red Revolution. Both were, and are, formidable speakers. What caused the rift? A change in heart - Peter saw that Justice could never come about through atheism and Marxism, that the only ultimate hope for Justice was that of Elohim (God) who in the Bible promises to put everything right in the end. But his conversion was not just rational - staring at a beautiful painting at a Church in France brought everything together into sharp focus and his heart found the peace it was looking for.

Listening to Christopher Hitchens debate before cancer took him out of this world you could tell that he was at war with himself and with the world. His Marxism was not bringing him peace in his heart even though he was convinced he had worked it all out in his mind. He too was looking for justice but without a Creator. He loved fighting for fighting's sake which I suppose was his way of working out the internal frustration he had created by contradictions in his belief system. He would pick controversies with those who had no interest in fighting him...just because he felt the urge to do so. In one of the last interviews he gave, he discussed his impending death, and gave the impression that he was reconciled to the atheistic (as well as annihilationist) belief that he would completely cease to exist. I have to believe that the apparent calm he exhibited was the result of him shutting down a major part of his heart.

I say all of this not merely as an intellectial exercise. In darker moments - and I have had a few of those recently drugged up as I slowly recouperate from my heart operation - I have wanted to slip back into the comfortable, non-demanding lifestyle of Anglicanism. It's one of the most laid-back branches of Christendowm, a reason Peter Hitchens openly admits he has chosen his home there, though he did grow up in it. I am shocked by many of the doctrinal controversies I see today, to tell you the truth, especially as I see people who once had sound theological positions start falling away from them in order to, amongst other things, make the gospel more convenient to their newly chosen lifestyle. I have known vigorous defenders of the Creation Calendar, for instance, abandon that for Saturday or Sunday because it was just too 'inconvenient' job-wise. And it is. I have often been urged to stop defending East African polygamous families' right to live that lifestyle even though it is clearly biblical, and it is true my defence of them has cost me a lot of potential influence and witnessing opportunities. But what is my life worth if I compromise emet (truth) in order to make life more convenient? There was nothing convenient about the cross for Yah'shua (Jesus), was there?

So, yes, my fallen, fleshy heart has often tried to perusade me to seek a more convenient route through life, but that is a recipe for instability of the worst kind. I am determined to walk to the last having agreement between my mind and heart, come what may. Yes, it is a lonely path at times, but if you are patient, others of a like disposition will by the by join you on the Derech (Way). So what if we sometimes have to walk alone? John the Baptist did. Moses did. Jeremiah did. So what if spouses abandon you? Michal abandoned David, descended into adultery, lost her adulterous relationship when her true husband came back for her, and chose to spend the rest of her days in bitterness and isolation. I long ago made the decision to stick with the emet (truth) because it is the emet (truth) alone that will set you free (John 8:32). I could have chosen an easier, compromised path, and theoretically still could, but would my life be worth it? One day I have to give an account.

At the same time, relationships are not to be casually dismissed either. There's accountability there too. We must bear with those who make bad decisions, suffer, and cause others as well as ourselves to suffer. We are not given the option to choose a suffering-free life. It doesn't exist anyway. It is assumed, because it is an axiom of our emunah (faith), that the pursuit of emet (truth) and suffering go hand-in-hand...along with a lot of other things too. We are commanded to love, not in the merely abstract (as in defending emet/truth) but in the actual, emotional business of heart-loving. And ahavah (love) is always followed by suffering! Sorry, no escape! If all you want to do is survive and have pleasure, as most do, you will lose your mind and your heart in the process, dooming them to atrophy and fossilisation.

Here lies life's greatest apparent contradiction. In order to be willing to live the way Christ commanded, and so gain glory in eternity, you must be prepared to 'lose' or sacrifice in this life. Ugo Bassi expressed it in this way:

"Measure your life by loss instead of gain;
Not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth;
For love's strength stands in love's sacrifice,
And whoso suffers most has most to give."

There is purpose in all we go through here so don't get cynical - we are not the prisoners of an irresistable fate, we have real choice. Indeed, it was Artur Schopenauer who rightly observed that "what men commonly call their fate is mostly their own foolishness." You see, wisdom is the ability to understand consequences and courage is the ability to point them out. "Stop believeing in Elohim (God)," C.K.Chesteron once observed, as so many do when trial and tribulation come their way, "and you'll believe in anything" whether it be flat-earthism, Marxism, Calvinism or any of the excuses men invent to avoid making decisions and taking responsibility for them. When you believe in fate you end up with systems like Islam. Nevertheless, understand that "freedom is not the ability to pursue your whim" (Jordan B. Peterson), and if, as Peter Hitchens has said, "you believe in the resurrection, you must pursue justice and mercy".

We all of us want - need - a pattern of life to conform to and we'll always end up inventing one for ourselves. The thing is, what is the pattern Yahweh has chosen you to conform to? Will you, if adversity comes your way, choose to unlearn all He has taught you and go back to what you were doing before, or maybe march out into the wilderness of atheism? Life, like "marriage, is the book in which the first chapter is written in poetry and the remaining chapters in prose" (Beverley Nichols). Nevertheless, it can be well written, beautiful prose or disjointed, ugly prose - that's our choice. And life doesn't end with your death - a whole new account is scheduled to be written after that, one that will go into many thousands, perhaps even millions, of volumes! Nevertheless it's that first volume that will set the tone and contents of all the others. The first determines the nature of our eternity. What you do down here, on earth, counts for more than all of the rest that follow.

Don't be discouraged if you mess up a chapter or two of that first book. There are other chapters yet to be written. Peter's change from fisherman to shepherd of souls came through his facing his own sin and receiving forgiveness, as Yah'shua (Jesus) with His three-times-repeated question - "Do you love Me?" (Jn.21:17-18) - goes back to Peter's triple denial (Jn.13:28) and then offers him forgiveness precisely in the form of a transformed and newly commissioned life. Those who don't want to face that searching question and answer may remain content to help the world with its fishing. Those who find the risen Yah'shua (Jesus) going to the roots of their rebellion, denial and sin, and offering them ahavah (love) ande forgiveness, may well also find themselves sent off to be shepherds instead. What a blessing if you are!

Do you understand what I am saying? We can either go back to being the way we were before - a fisherman in the case of Pater - or we can grapple with our fallen condition and go forwards, being called to be shepherds - as was Peter. Do you want to help the world with its fishing or be a servant of the Most High in shepherding? Imagine if Peter had gone back to what he had been doing before! Imagine the loss. True, he probably wouldn't have made as many mistakes, but equally he would have lost out in the glory of being a bold and valiant talmid (disciple)! Who can but fail to be impressed by the life of the apostle Peter! What believer has not benefitted from the counsel of his two epistles?

Ask yourselves, then, what you want to be, what you are willing to be content with, and what risks you are willing to take for the King and His Kingdom? Would a 'gospel of convenience' really bring you what you most desire? Are you willing to drift or will you paddle against the current? Will you allow the river to wash you into the sea or will you vigorously seek the Source? In the end, Peter settled for a cross, like his Master, and gained "immortality" (Rom.2:7) and "a better resurrection" (Heb.11:35, NIV). What kind of a future are you investing in? Fisherman get a fisherman's reward, shepherds a shepherd's reward.

What you finally choose is between you and Elohim (God) alone, of course. Whatever your life is, it is going to be very different from my own, or from anyone else's for that matter, thank goodness! It will be unique, even as a kind fisherman blessing and helping other fishmen as you go about your trade. For sure, the world needs exemplary Christian fishermen! Yahweh bless you, have a restful sabbath, and enjoy the second sermon! Amen.