Shabbat shalom and welcome to our Late Passover Season gathering. A special greeting to all our visitors here in Sweden and everyone who is joining us online to celebrate with us. It is wonderful to have you here - indeed it's been a while since we organised such an event here in Kadesh-biyqah owing to a number of different factors, not least health and economic, and we are a month later than planned owing to my hospitalisation and subsequent accident. This might also be our last Pesach Season together in Sweden. We have been here in Scandinavia now for 31 years, things are very much up in the air currently, and we have no idea where Yahweh might be taking us. We have had invitations from around the world, I feel very drawn to another of the Israelite tribal territories, and we know that things are changing. So we are waiting on Yahweh.

This will be a very low-key gathering and we shall only be having assemblies on the main moed (appointment) days:

• 1. The Pesach or Passover meal which we partook of yesterday evening;
• 2. The High Sabbath of the First Day of Chag haMatzah (Festival of Unleavened Bread) which we are observing today;
• 3. Yom haBikkurim (Day of Firstfruits) which we will observe tomorrow;
• 4. We will assemble on the 6th and 7th days of Chag haMatzah, on the 25th and 26th, respectively, the last two of which is a High Sabbath and the last day of Chag haMatzah; and finally, for those saying on before traveling further to Africa and elsewhere in Scandinavia,
• 5. The regular Sabbath on the 27th at which we will be concluding our 5-part series, A Call for Unity in Christ.

Traditionally at this time of the year we relate the Exodus story so that our children will understand that in this world of toil and suffering there is an Elohim (God) who cares and who has a plan for their lives if they will but fall into line and accept that plan. Most do not because most have their own plans. Indeed, the Exodus is a story that repeats itself, with regular monotony and without apparently ever being easily learned, in the lives of every single person. We're here on earth, we don't always know why, in circumstances we don't always understand and which usually we wish were better, and we of course want to find happiness. We usually start off full of hope and optimism, reality intrudes and life suddenly veers off in unexpected and sometimes unwelcome directions. We are dreamers but fallen worlds don't apparently like dreamers very much.

I don't know why I did it but a couple of weeks ago I seized a book I hadn't read off my bookcase that I thought would make a 'break' from all the deep theological and pastoral stuff I have been working through in order to prepare sermons and articles which is one of the main occupations of a preacher. I just wanted a biography, the life story, of someone 'ordinary', to see how life treated them and what lessons they had drawn from it. The author was an Irish woman, Kathleen O'Malley, a magistrate in England at the time of authoring it, who grew up with a single mother (for the most part) in the poverty-stricken slums of Dublin in the 1940's and 1950's. Following independence in the 1920's and really right the way up to the 1980's, the Irish government had taken a very isolationist and protectionist direction politically and economically and this had resulted in the country stagnating and sinking into terrible poverty. This had resulted in massive immigration to the USA and UK. It was not as prosperous as it is today! So I thought this would be an interesting read as I have been doing a lot of research into, and thinking about, my own Irish roots in Ulster. More than once I have contemplated making my own home there.

Kathleen O'Malley tells the story of being raised in great deprivation in the Irish capital and though she and her siblings lacked a lot of the things we take for granted, it was a basically happy, secure family. Two things intruded to spoil the little she had: the first was a vile man - a neighbour - who raped her when she was only about 5. The second was the hypocrisy and cruelty of the dominant religion there - she ended up in an isolated orphanage in the countryside near Atherone run by religious psychopaths who treated the girls with extreme cruelty. I knew, from simply reading the jacket cover, that this book was not going to be 'fun' but something pressed me to read it anyway. It made me very, very angry - angry at the injustice (because the system totally failed those children), angry at religious hypocrisy (because of the gross perversion of true Christianity), angry at the apparent meaninglessness of it all. I can tell you it really stirred me up and I now see that that is what Yahweh meant to happen.

Moses got angry when he saw the plight of his countrymen under Egyptian bondage. He was not wrong to feel the way he did but the problem was that initially, like all of us, he was spiritually immature, and his failure to contain his anger led him to murder an Egyptian taskmaster. That forced him into Midianite exile for 40 long years. In many ways, then, it could be argued that the Exodus began with its future leader losing his temper.

Certainly it is perfectly normal to be aroused by injustice - Yahweh gets angry too but His anger is always carefully controlled and measured. As Paul counselled all of us:

"Don't sin by letting anger gain control over you. Don't let the sun go down while you are still angry, for anger gives a mighty foothold to the Devil" (Eph.4:26, NLT).

Being partly Irish I have a rather passionate nature though I usually keep it well hidden - I think it is a legacy of the Tribe of Dan and perhaps Judah too - though you wouldn't think so because of my calm, sober, steady or staid English side. Anger is like a skunk in the house. You mustn't feed it to encourage it to stay and you should try to get rid of it as soon as possible. Or so my American friends who know these animals well tell me. And yet, when it comes to justice, anger does have an important rôle to play. Just don't get too enamoured by it. It's more often than not more trouble than it's worth, because of all the passions it has the power to fuel hatred and smother love.

Yahweh's anger is exclusively directed against sin and unrighteousness. You could say He 'blazes hot' against evil. So anger itself is not wrong or bad - it's what or who you direct it at, and when, that can make it so destructive. Anger that is self-righteous, protects our pride, is self-centered, or demands its own way, is extremely dangerous. It can lead to bitterness or hatred, emotions that can cause violent behaviour and obliterate compassion and forgiveness. Every genocide is a terrible testimony of this passion run amok and we see it looming its head up once again in the world. The anger of some of Jacob's sons against the dark deed of Shechem, when that pagan prince raped their sister Dinah, cost them dearly. They thought they were being just but in their rage ended up slaughtering an entire town (Gen.33-35). Reuben lost his birthright because of it. Justice has to be handed out calmly and fairly even if the passions are inflamed.

I don't know what Moses as a person had to learn in the Midianite wilderness, though I can guess, but whatever it was it had to be burned out of him, for as long as it would subsequently take to burn out the sin of the Israelite generation he was called to lead out of Egyptian captivity. That was 40 years. The first thing we learn from this is that leaders have to be purged themselves before they can ever lead others whom they may be called to discipline. The future leaders of the Second or Last Exodus have to be purged no less. To be a leader in the Kingdom of our Elohim (God) you must possess anger that becomes a consuming fire BUT - and this is a very, very big 'but' - it's focus must be to eradicate sin, not the sinner. There aren't many aspirant leaders who know how to distinguish between the two which is why in real life (never mind the artificial world of the internet with its many fakes) "many are called, but few are chosen" (Mt.20:16; 22:14, NKJV). Someone who has an unruly temper can never lead.

That's one reason why the doctrines of annihilationism and eternal torment, with all that they negatively and destructively imply about the character of Elohim (God), can never have any part in our belief system. Leaders who get imbibed with either of those two spirits not infrequently end up as mini-tyrants who enjoy lording it over others, whereas, as Paul said, we are "not [to] lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your simcha (joy)" (2 Cor.1:24, NIV). Punishment for discipline and redemption, yes; eternal torture, never.

Our anger often consumes others and even ourselves. Yahweh's anger burns against evil and becomes a cleansing fire. The fires of anger may aggravate our sinfulness and self-righteousness, as it did Moses'. Yahweh's anger burns away sinfulness and allows the gold to emerge and make us fit for the Master's use because behind that kind of anger there is always ahavah (love) whereas the other is driven by the dark side of fear:

"There is no fear in ahavah (love). But perfect ahavah (love) drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in ahavah (love)" (1 John 4:18, NIV).

Of course, righteous anger, when it's called for, has to be tempered by a super-abundance of ahavah (love). If the love isn't obviously there, I'd say that anger was suspect at best, and potentially disasterous at worst. Moses loved his people which was why Yahweh could use him to the point he was willing to lay down his life for them. The leaders of the Second Exodus must be no different. You cannot be a true leader unless sin angers you but equally you cannot be a leader if you do not passionately love Yahweh and people. That doesn't mean to say that you have to be constantly on the boil in anger - throwing a tantrum - against sin every minute of the day. Nor does it mean that you must be so bubbling over outwardly with plainly visible signs of love at all times - you know, huge smiles, jumping up and down with enthusaism, and so forth, though that's for sure needed sometimes. There has to be calmness and composure in the mix too. But spiritual maturity usually brings that in its own season. That's why 'elders' tend to be older, more experienced and balanced people.

In short, Moses must have been a very interesting personality indeed. It's hard to catch a vision of the passionate Moses when you consider how supremely humble he really was, even as it is written in the Torah:

"Now the man Moses was very meek, above all the men which were upon the face of the earth" (Num 12:3, KJV).

Only when you have leaders of this callibre, possessing this kind of personality - passionate, humble and restrained - can you get the kind of people whom Yahweh is calling for the final gathering, even as prophesied in the Book of Zephaniah:

"I will leave in your midst
A meek and humble people,
And they shall trust in the name of Yahweh.
The remnant of Israel shall do no unrighteousness
And speak no lies,
Nor shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth;
For they shall feed their flocks and lie down,
And no one shall make them afraid" (Zeph.3:12-13, NKJV).

Did Moses ever mess up even after Midian? Oh yes. Remember how he lost his temper and took credit for a miracle of Yahweh in his old age when he struck a rock in anger to slake the thirst of the people? He was debarred from entering the Promised Land for that hissy fit! Maybe he was old and tired but apparently that kind of excuse isn't allowed of leaders, at least not without serious consequences. Leaders are held to a higher standard than the rest which is why they are given the privileges of authority in the first place. Consider that soberly. But it doesn't mean that Moses' humility made him passive. When he needed to rebuke wickedness, he did so in no uncertain terms, and Yahweh vindicated him before the people, even to swallowing those rebel leaders up into the depths of the earth.

So, like I said, I picked out this O'Malley book which I have been reading, a chapter a night, for some days. From the very moment I opened it and started reading it, I was asking myself why on earth I was reading it especially as I had so much to prepare for this Passover season. There was absolutely nothing new in it to surprise me. I knew all about the religious institution which looms larger than life in that country and of its horrendous abuses both today and historically. I knew how it had brought such curses on the Irish people, on my people on my mother's side. Reading it simply made me realise again and again that most of life for the vast majority of people is full of apparently pointless suffering and cruelty.

A couple of weeks ago almost to the day I was listening to one of my favourite Baptist preachers, Leighton Flowers, such a kind-hearted man, so generous in spirit. He has a tremendous knowledge and understanding of the Word too and as a 'Provisionist' [1] or 'Traditionalist' he sees right through the Calvinist menace about which he is far kinder, I have to say, than I am.

I mention having having listened to him because shortly afterwards, when I retired to bed, I started reading Kathleen O'Malley's book and I just exploded inside. The denial of agency and responsibility, which is a fruit of both Catholicism and extreme Calvinism (though for different reasons), just lit my fuse, and I got to thinking about the things that most anger me in both the religious and secular worlds. In this case it is blasphemy against our Heavenly Father's character. It was against a doctrine that would paint Him as not only condoning child abuse and torture but being directly responsible for having coldly planned it all in the first place. It's the main reason I find Calvinism so disgustingly perverse.

Yes, I absolutely believe Yahweh permits and sovereignly uses Satan's activity in the world but I do not believe that Yahweh intentionally or deliberately is the author evil itself. There is a world of difference between permitting people the freedom to choose and do evil, and autually authoring it. He does not, as it is easy to misread in the King James Version, "create evil" (Is.45:7, KJV), one of the most abused abused passages in the Bible because of what that word means. That's why nearly all modern versions drop it and instead translate that verse as, "I (Yahweh) am the one who sends good times and bad times" (NLT) or something like it.

In other words, He sends darkness and bad times such as He did to the Egyptians for their idolatry and wickedness (Ex.10:21-23) and permits, as with Job, for Satan to test him. (I have spoken and written a lot about this so I won't rehash all that here). It is one thing to permit an evil event to take place which is the fruit of sin, it is quite another to create evilness per se which is how many Calvinists and others unfortunately view this passage.

So this is the huge philosophical difference between Calvinists and Provisionists like ourselves. You see, the same Calvinist god has also chosen who is to be burned in hell in eternity without any responsibility on the part of man in choosing to be good or evil. This is why I refuse to call Calvinism 'Christian'. It attributes to Yahweh a character trait of Satan and we must never confuse the two. To agree to it is to admit a devil into your heart and to begin its corruption by shutting it down to the higher, nobler impulses. Believing in lies such as this is what created all those hellfire-and-damnation preachers who think frightening souls into the Kingdom rather than loving them is the way.

So two weeks ago events combined to light my fuse and give me the opportunity to take a close look inside and do a careful analysis of my heart. I made a mental list of the things that make me really angry: child abuse, adultery, rebellion, disrespect of the elderly and those in legitimate biblical authority, libertinism, attacks on the character of Yahweh, etc., and I was able to boil it all down to essentially two things:

• 1. Blasphemy against the honour, love, integrity and righteosness of my Heavenly Father; and
• 2. Anything that would attack, weaken of destroy the family.

And one thing I know absolutely for sure: I could never love, respect, let alone worship the god of the Catholics or the Calvinists, which I guess might make me a mortal enemy of the people on both sides of the Irish border! For me to do so would be to violate my conscience and to sin, and I am not going to do that.

In the past I have all too easily allowed myself to be guilted by other believers' disapproval of my beliefs, which is not a good place to be. In the past I have taken others' criticism far too seriously to the point of fearing them - whether they approve or not. But I refuse to do that anymore now. I know exactly what I believe in and where the lines are drawn and, like Dan Mohler, I can honestly say that (at least 99 per cent of the time, at any rate) other people's beefs against my belief system no longer bother me because I know in whom I am trusting - He dwells within me, He gives me my shalom (peace), He gives me my doctrine and it is only His approval that I now seek, not men's...or women's.

You see, once you have "tasted the goodness of the Davar Elohim (Word of God) and the powers of the coming æon (age)" (Heb.6:5, NIV), once "you have tasted that the Master (Lord) is tov (good)" (1 Peter 2:3, NIV) then it doesn't matter how much the world or believers with different beliefs to your own rant and rage because you know the emet (truth), you know the goodness, you know power of Elohim (God), you know the spirit of the New Creation, and so much more. And you know these things because you have been partaking of them for so long. You have been drinking of that mayim chayim - that living water - that flows out of the Rock which is Messiah (1 Cor.10:4).

I have been cut up more than once in my life because people whom I love dearly have turned against me and this work, and I have been afraid I have maybe lost my way and they were right. A couple of weeks ago I was torn up inside over such a person, I couldn't sleep, I was in tremendous physical pain, so I went downstairs and asked Yahweh what I should do, as I do much need to hear from Him. He led me to a video [2] I made a while back that covers those controversial subjects which has provoked so much anger in some people - eternal torture, annihilationism and universal salvation. I have not entered this debate lightly, I knew it would cost dearly to stick by my beliefs, but the character of Elohim (God) was at stake and that is my first loyalty. I have no intention of misrepresenting Him in order to appease some believers stuck in mediaeval theology and who are deep down not happy.

As I listened to the video - the first time I had actually watched myself speak (which is a strange experience) - I started settling down and this tremendous shalom (peace) came over me. I agreeed with every word, my heart sang, and I became aware for the first time that it was the Ruach (Spirit) moving me to speak. This was not my spirit at work - this was Yahweh's heart speaking through me. I knew I was being honest, I knew I was being true to the Davar (Word), and in the middle of that, my anxiety just evapourated and I went back to bed and slept soundly for the remaining few hours left to me.

Earlier that night I had been through the usual philosophical stuff as all religiosity was toasted to a crisp. I knew of the impossibility of the universe creating itself [3]. I knew of the overwhelming evidence of the resurrection of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). And I knew of the doctrine of ahavah (love) that is at the heart of Christianity. Whenever I have had crises of faith in the past, these three pillars have always kept me afloat and strong, even when everything else has momentarily been swept away by the tempest of doubt. So deep down in the foundations of my soul, I know there is no alternative, and that anything else is foolishness in the extreme.

I'll be honest, though - I am completely baffled by the set-up down here. I am baffled, as I read O'Malley and her tribulations, and as I consider all that I have been through in my life, and the lives of others I know - I am baffled by the way the odds are apparently so heavily stacked against humanity. I totally get that humanity as a collective or corporate entity is wholly responsible for things getting this way - this does not strain the head of the Greek philosopher in me. It's plain enough to see. What I still don't get, and probably never will while I am caught between the Old Creation and the New Creation, is the relationship between collective and individual responsibility for the mess down here.

I don't 'get' how it is remotely 'fair'. The Prussian in me wants order and discipline unconditionally. I expect loyalty and expect to give it. The Englishman in me wants fairness. But the Scandinavian (Norwegian and Swedish) in me, which I have acquired from being here now for over 30 years, has learned to relax, sit back and not get so stressed out over everything. The Irish in me, of course, wants justice done and wants to draw the sword from its sheath and go into battle...and the Prussian side wants to do it efficiently! And finally, the Asian in me, well, that's a complicated one inherited from the land of my birth and childhood (Singapore and Malaysia) as it contains many of the elements of the other facets of my soul - the love of family, order, discipline, tradition but supremely, I think - at least the Chinese side - the art, the contemplation and understanding of nature, and - yes - the serenity that comes therefrom.

Also, we have to realise, unpleasant though it can sometimes be, is that down here in this world people change. The environment changes. Culture changes. Everything thanges and there isn't a bally thing we can do about it. Only Elohim (God) remains the same - only Him. And if we are to learn constancy in our lives, though others who have learned it can certainly inspire us, it is from Him alone that constancy comes:

"Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) is the same yesterday and today and forever" (Heb.13:8, NIV).

I have discovered that I have expected far too much of people and not gone enough to Him. We go to people preferentially because they are visible, easy to find usually, and sometimes bendable to our will. But not Yahweh, and certainly not His talmidim (disciples) the more they come to resemble His Son. I freely confess that I have not been reasonable because I have occasionally let my idealism blind me to the real world of fallible and contradictory people. Realism has thrust its ugly face into mine time and time again and I have unreasonably, sometimes, demanded it conform. Don't we all? Moses tried to get those Egyptianised Israelites to conform and we all know the result: Joshua and Caleb alone - a threesome amongst the hundreds of thousands.

We long for the better world, especially when this one has exhausted our expectations and hopes. The moment we realise that this world was never able to supply the realisation of those hopes in the first place, a huge load comes off our backs. Yet we persistently delude ourselves into supposing they ever could supply them. This is a wicked, fallen sphere. Are there patches of Paradise in it? Absolutely! But they tend not to last very long, a bit like our gardens which die off in the summer. We have to keep on replanting them with New Creation life brough from Elohim's (God's) future resurrection world through that incredible 'Stargate' called Yah'shua (Jesus)!

Moses the Egyptian aristocrat, given the best education available in his time, lacking in nothing materially, had no idea the future Yahweh had planned for him. I bet he was as surprised by his life as we are by ours. He lost his temper when he saw his people oppressed and he nearly made the mistake that so many Christians have made who have been seduced by Marxism and have turned to the sword or other fleshy devices to establish the Kingdom.

A minister from Africa wrote to me the other day, praising the liberation fighters against colonialism. Yes, he recognised that there was wickedness and corruption in the governments of his own country and neighbouring ones but failed to realise that he and his violent ideology - his doctrine - were part of the problem. It's why South Africa is collapsing into the abyss right now. Yahweh never endorsed the liberation fighters of Barabbas and Judas Iscariot - never! Yah'shua (Jesus) said that "all who take the sword will perish by the sword" (Matt.26:52, NKJV). That goes for machetes and machine guns as well as for weaponised versions of the Besorah (Gospel) that make Yahweh out to be a torturer or an exterminator in eternity. Such teachings have no part in the work of the end-time remnant. They would destroy it at its inception by creating a gross caricature of our Heavenly Father as well as supplying its followers with the very same false spirits that corrupted Christianity and Messianism in the first place. Ours is not a Besorah (Gospel) of anger but of shalom (peace).

The is the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread - Chag haMatzah - which lasts a whole week, its length symbolising our entire life. It's message - the second one represented by the second annual festival - following immediately after Pesach or Passover which represents the salvation of Messiah - is all about the active removal of the leaven of sin out of our lives. It's 'applied gospel' or 'gospel in action'. And that includes, I firmly believe, getting all false doctrine out of our lives too, so that we are not leavened or corrupted by the spirit of the Adversary with all its rage, injustice and exploitation.

Tomorrow we shall assemble again to celebrate Yom haBikkurim (Day of Firstfruits) and the resurrection of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus). Have a blessed day of contemplation and fellowship!

Endnotes

[1] PROVisionism, an acronym for People sin, Responsible, Open Door and Vicarious Atonement, which is a response to Calvinism's 'TULIP' set of doctrines
[2] Are Doctrines About the Fate of the Wicked in the Afterlife a Salvational Issue?
[3] See the Science website