Chag sameach Rosh Chodesh kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah - welcome to the first day of the second month and to the first day of our seven-day Annual Jericho March!

Everyone knows the story and miracle of Jericho, an apparently insurmountable pagan obstacle - one of the mightiest fortresses in the Middle East at the time blocking Israel's access to the Promised Land - which Yahweh destroyed without loss of Israelite life by supernatural means. Imagine being a member of Joshua's army. How would you have felt if, on the eve of a military confrontation, your leader announced a bizzare battle plan to not attack the fortified walls but to march around the city blowing horns? Would you have felt like giving up - or at least questioning the leadership - if after six full days nothing had happened? Perseverance is continuing to obey Yahweh even when His instructions don't make sense or seem to be unproductive from our human perspective. How many times do we give up on Elohim (God) because He doesn't do His work according to our plan?

For years I have been issuing prophetic warnings, most often at Rosh Chodesh (because that is one of the functions of the monthly assembly) and last Rosh Chodesh, on the New Year, I said that this year was the year we have been waiting for now for so long.

In the last four weeks we here, in Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon in Sweden, have been experiencing what I suppose could best be described as a 'spiritual stirring'. And it has not been without its external drama either, with lots of unexpected and sometimes even 'shocking' occurences! Amongst other things, on Pesach (20 March), in the wake of a horrid heart operation, I had a nasty fall on my head and chest, sustaining some unwelcome and definitely unneeded injuries, but it wasn't until 9 days afterwards I discovered I had fractured a rib. The shock occasioned by my head injury had masked what was happening elsewhere until other symptoms started turning up. And that's so often the case, isn't it, in our lives, and in particular our relationships - we're just not aware of what's going on because of something else - some other crisis - is distracting our attention from one we can't seem to see.

Indeed, this has been a late winter of apparent disasters that have actually alerted us to other things that need attending to. Terrible leaks and flooding as the winter snows melted revealed major damage to our home needing urgent (and unfortunately expensive) attention which we were wholly unaware of. The leaks and flooding, with all the damage that did to ceilings and floors in six rooms, were just ways of getting our attention to look at more important matters on the roof.

The Jericho Battle is a story, about a real event, that was pivotal historically-speaking. It forever changed the history of a group of hitherto comparitively politically unimportant Israelite bedouin, cemented them in their own land as a nation, and changed the whole world. Had Jericho not happened, neither would Christian civilisation. If the Israelites had been defeated and scattered, who knows what the world would have looked like! Which civilisation and which religion would have prevailed? There would have been no Saviour, no salvation and no future hope. This is my round-about sort of way of saying that big obstacles, and their overcoming, are all part of the divine script to bring to pass Yahweh's final aims.

Events are unfolding in the world, in our nations, in the Body of Messiah, in our local assemblies, and in our families and marriages, and in each of us individually, that are going to forever change everything, for good and evil. Not that such struggles are by any means new, just the particular ones we are going through now. They have a purpose, they're not random, and fighting them is important. Yes, some battles, like the Battle of Ai, which Israel lost in the Conquest of the Holy Land, are lost because of mistakes. We make mistakes, lots of them. But like Ai, we are able to recover from them with the proper repentance and can, and must, continue the advance.

Giving up - surrendering - is not on the cards, save to our Elohim (God). Our forefathers didn't quit and we're not allowed to either. The alternative is to return to Egypt. Even with discouraging and disheartening revearsals - and we have had plenty of those because of the agency of man - we still have our divinely-mandated actions to execute. We still have targets mandated to us by Heaven. And we have only to be prepared to wait (sometimes an unbearably long time) for the right moment to 'strike', as it were, but we also have to be prepared to do the unexpected and unusual too. Some of the things Yahweh calls us to do no human mind would ever have dreamed of, like marching around a city for seven days. These out-of-the-ordinary tasks require much emunah (faith), much fortitude, and much patience to implement. The Enemy isn't going to give up until the walls of his own city fall on him and crush him, and that won't happen until Yahweh does His part as we do ours.

In the Jericho Story there are two Yah'shua's (Jesus'). The first is Joshua himself, an Ephraimite, whose name 'Yehoshua' we have anglicised to 'Joshua' which is an earlier uncontracted version of 'Hoshea', 'Yah'shua', 'Yeshua', or 'Jesus'. The reason Joshua was given this name was because, as Moses' successor, he was the appointed saviour or deliverer of Israel whose task was to successfully bring the young nation into the Promised Land and conquer it, in the same way that the resurrected Yah'shua (Jesus), of whom Joshua was a type, brings all those who trust Him not only into the promised spiritual land of salvation but into every situation in life that is part of a matrix of events that is our calling and mission as individuals, marriages, families, and ministries.

The second 'Yah'shua' in this account was Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself who was present at Jericho, not just in some abstract, symbolic sense, but as the very "commander of Yahweh's army" (Josh.5:14a, NLT), the pre-incarnate Messiah whom Joshua the man worshipped when he "fell with his face to the ground in reverence" (Josh.5:14b, NLT), the giving of worship not being permitted of mortals to regular malakim (angels) but only to Deity. So sacred was this encounter between the Messenger of Yahweh and Joshua, that He said to him, as He had done to Moses before him at the burning bush:

"Take off your sandals, for this is holy ground" (Josh.5:15, NLT).

So this was a major 'Yah'shua (Jesus) event', big time! And there aren't many places in the Tanakh (Old Testament) where the presence of the Son of Elohim (God) is as clearly indicated as on this occasion before the Battle of Jericho. When Yah'shua (Jesus) is in charge of our lives, as our Commander-in-Chief, extraordinary things start happening. There is great movement afoot as I speak to you, and we in this ministry are preparing to 'move out' from our camp. There is the sound of muster in the air here, the roll is being read out, and a herald is being sent out to enroll new troops.

The long wait is coming to an end. Messianic Israel is on the move again! And you are called. How long we will be here I don't know, just don't miss the army before it moves out! Go in shalom (peace) in the Name of our Commander, and the Commander of the Armies of Yahweh, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Amen.

Comments from Readers

[1] "Thank you, this confirms a lot here" (SP, Ireland, 6 April 2019)
[2] "I cannot find the words to tell you how much I enjoyed your video this morning. Beautiful, is all I can say" (SC, USA, 6 April 2019)