Shabbat shalom, it is the Last Great Day in the Biblical Calendar and the last of the annual season of feasts. Though it's been a bit colder, we've had a lovely sunny day which has really brought out the many splendoured colour of the dying leaves in the trees and bushes. Within a few days most of the leaves will be gone leaving only bare branches for the duration of a long Swedish winter.

I know some of you love autumn because of the pretty colours but what we are actually observing is death and decay. As the days get shorter and the temperatures fall, the leaves stop making food as the green chlorophyll molecules break down leaving only the yellow carotene and orange xanthophyll pigments which are otherwise drowned out by the green. Other biochemical reactions occur resulting in red anthocynanins, especially in colder weather, so in various species all or some of these colours mix to produce purples and browns too. I have to admit I have never liked autumn precisely because it reminds me of dying. Yet not all of nature dies. Some of it overwinters as seeds while the rest just shuts down to a 'just alive' state and will jump back into life in the spring. This is the time when people typically go down with colds and some get 'flu so it's the time most prep themselves up with extra vitamins. To me the beauty of autumn is only apparent - the pretty colours betray not so happy things going on 'behind the scenes'.

For us winter will soon take over. But Yahweh gave us this last day tacked onto Sukkot (Tabernacles) to remind us that the cycle of life and death, which is a condition and feature of mortality, will one day come to an end. Today is the first day of that deathless age-to-come, a reason some call it 'The First Day of the Millennium' and 'The Beginning of the new Æon or Age'. This day lies right at the end of the 'prophetic timeline' because it marks the beginning of the Messiah's absolute rule over the earth for a thousand years. This is the day that all believers long for. This is the day when all demons are removed from the earth for a thousand years to no longer oppress our souls, tempt us into sin, or plague us with sickness. It is the beginning of 'The Æon of the Resurrection' whence everything is made anew. It is the source of the believer's hope and the One who will make it a reality by His atoning death and resurrection.

The winter (in the northern hemisphere at least) lies before us and as I speak all eyes are on the American Presidential election in less than four weeks' time. Censorship in social media is in overdrive in an attempt to limit the availability of accurate information and to influence the people to choose the preferred candidate of the satanic 'deep state' élites. War has erupted in the Caucasus between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and a beligerent Communist China, that has massively swung toward Maosist extremism again, is threatening all her neighbours including her friends. They're even demanding Vladivostok off the Russians! It should be obvious that judgment is coming to China as it did to the Soviet Union in the last failed coup by the anti-glasnost and anti-perestroika communists. Amidst all this frenzy, excited and excitable Christians are being drawn into an ever growing giant prophecy bubble stuffed with 'prophets' wanting a slice of the action because most of them are pushing the Rapture, Great Tribulation, and the Second Coming as imminent events.

I have a strong warning to issue to these people and to those avidly sucking at their breast in search of comfort, assurance or just a 'piece of the action'. Many people contact me regularly on social media wanting me to hear this prophecy or that. They get especially excited when multiple prophecies 'agree' with one another. However, just because multiple believers are prophesying the same thing doesn't necessarily mean those prophecies are from Yahweh. Every time there's a crisis, uncritical and not infrequently uninformed believers examine current events and assume it's the 'big end-time one'. I have witnessed this in my own life. It happened in the First Gulf War (1990-1) and the Second Gulf War (2003). A big Protestant Church in Oslo, where I then lived, was claiming Soviet President Michail Gorbachov was the Antichrist because he had a big purple blob of a birthmark on his forehead. Because big events are happening in historical lands mentioned in the Bible that will play some sort of a rôle in the end-times, doesn't mean that everything that happens in them in modern times that catches the news headlines is the fulfilment of some Bible prophecy or other.

To be sure, one day the 'big prophetic' event (in reality, a series of events) will come to pass, and in the historic lands mentioned in Scripture, but given all the failures over the centuries by well-meaning but deceived, unanointed, excitable Christians with itchy ears claiming to be prophets, I think we need to be highly sceptical of prophecy coming out of the Pentecostal and Charismatic movements especially. Most of the people saying these new things despise - hate - the Torah because they are themselves lawless in so many areas of the Besorah (Gospel) in their lives. Yahweh does not raise nevi'im (prophets) from amongst the lawless when He already has Torah-obedient believers who are sensitive to the Ruach (Spirit) willing to raise a warning voice. That isn't to say that messianics can't be deceived too, because we know they have been in large numbers over many different things. I repeat - and I have said this before - all of Yahweh's end-time nevi'im (prophets) operating in the authentic Ruach Eliyah or Spirit of Elijah will be serious commandment-keepers who tremble at the Davar Elohim (Word of God).

What kind of a message do you think Elohim (God) would be sending out to the Body (and to the world that's watching us) if He used lawless Christians who bring shame and disgrace to the Name of Christ by their doings, and especially their failed prophecies? Imagine a lawless Moses, Elijah, Isaiah or John the Baptist! They were constantly reprimanding and condemning Israel for disobeying the mitzvot (commandments). So did the Apostles James and John many times. If the true believers "sing the song of Moses, the servant of Elohim (God), and the song of the Lamb" as we're told in the Book of Revelation (Rev.15:3, NKJV), do you believe that for one moment Yahweh would call out prophets from amongst those who refuse to sing the Song of Moses (Torah-obedience) but only sing the Song of the Lamb (salvation in Christ)? Seriously? In the New Covenant this is one song in two parts, a duet, like two sides of the same coin.

Now I will readily concede that in the days of our ignorance, Yahweh most definitely uses all kinds of believers from every denomination, including people who may hear some prophetic things from Him, but when the fullness of the emet (truth) is brought back to the earth, and these people reject that emet (truth), He cannot use them for His end-time purposes. He may be able to use them locally to bring souls to the simple saving emunah (faith) of Messiah, as He has done for centuries, but when it comes to the bigger prophetic events around us, such as the Gospel of the Kingdom, He does not - and will not - use such people because He knows that believers and unbelievers alike will be drawn to them seeking for more revelation and emet (truth). In going to these lawless believers, they will simply be taught lawlessness and be turned away from the great end-time work.

It may have escaped the attention of some but the Final Exodus has already begun. We're in it's 7th year which means there are already authentic, Torah-obedient nevi'im (prophets) who are in a position to initiate the first stages of the gathering, however minor at this stage. It takes a full seven years - one Shmitta or Sabbatical cycle - to properly pattern those who have previously walked in lawlessness, before they are ready to assume Melchizedek Priesthood responsibilities. A lot of things have to be learned and unlearned. If, as He declared through Amos, "Yahweh-Elohim does nothing, unless He reveals His secret to His avadim (servants) the nevi'im (prophets)" (Amos 3:7, NKJV), and if those nevi'im (prophets) were, without exception, as is true, obedient Torah-observers, accustomed to walking in the divine tavnith of the moedim, as good and faithful Rechabites whom Yahweh can always count on to be reliable and unswerving in their obedience, who have not consumed the polluted and accursed flesh of pigs or mice (remember what He said in Isaiah 66:17), who have made the sacrifices in this world to walk according to the creation calendar and have not taken the sabbath lightly, and much else besides, how do you imagine an unpatterned, tavnith-desensitised lawless believer is going to be able to clearly hear the Davar Elohim (Word of God) in critically important matters affecting the nations and the whole Messianic Community (Church)?! It doesn't matter how much they pray if they are deliberately lawless and failing to respond to the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) who is calling all the Remnant into the ways of the Father? Is not the prayer of the lawless one an abomination unto Yahweh? Remember what the Scripture said:

"One who turns away his ear from hearing the Torah (Law), even his prayer is an abomination" (Prov.28:9, NKJV).

Now I am not, you understand, talking about your average believer who is likely still ignorant of the truth about Torah, because such are guiltless of the things I am talking about. I am talking about those who claim high office, and is not the office of the navi (prophet) the second highest in the Kingdom after the Apostle (1 Cor.12:28)? How many of these charismatic 'prophets' have prophesied or warned their listeners of the consequences of Torah-disobedience as true nevi'im (prophets) do? None that I know of, though I have known the odd Pentecostal pastor here and there convert to Torah-obedience and become messianic to varying degrees. I repeat - and I repeat it most soberly to all who may be listening to me or reading this afterwards - Yahweh will not speak of the mysteries of the Kingdom to those who spurn or decry the basic laws of that Kingdom, just as an habitual law-breaker in any society can expect to be given a responsible position of trust. How could He? Why would He? And again, I repeat, if the Final Exodus has already begun, then Yahweh has already called out the first of His avadim (servants) therein and all of them will be commandment-keeping, Torah-obedient qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones). All of them. They may be spiritually 'young' and still growing, they may occasionally slip, but they will already be set on the right Path - the true Derech (Way) - and repenting of any wrong-doing.

Now there are, alas, many of the friends of these avadim (servants) who are under relentless pressure to bend the Torah to get them to follow in their lawless ways. We must ever be on the alert for Job's well-meaning but unhelpful and deceived friends who weren't tuned into the Ruach (Spirit). In the end Job had to interceed for them because Yahweh was angry with them for trying to lead His aved (servant) off the path of righteousness and to get him to confess to sins he had not committed. Yes, Job had to be brought down a peg or two, as must all of Yahweh's avadim (servants) as they confront pride and compromise in their lives, but he remained true to his convictions and did not chop and change with every argument his friends brought up trying to implicate him in unfaithfuless. I have suffered the rebuke of arrogant charismatics and others many times who declared what which was qadosh (holy, set-apart) to be ungodly. The Remnant are not men-pleasers, we do not seek the plaudits of the world or the lawless Church. Therefore we are justified even in our imperfections provided we remain humble and repent daily.

Beware of the glittering fools' gold of the charismatic preachers peddling prophecy, or the glass jewelry of the messianics peddling the rabbinic traditions (to give but two examples), however sincere and 'spiritual' these men and women may seem to be, no matter how large their following. Job's friends spoke some very powerful but erroneous words indeed which on the surface sound, oh, so righteous, so correct, so holy! But they were not.

The Millennium, alas, has not begun and immature and disobedient believers continue to wrangle over doctrine and make wild claims about their prophetic abilities in spite of being disobedient toward Yahweh's Law. This winter that lies ahead of us - a winter of global discontent - will start an enormous sifting process in the Body of Messiah, a separation, not of the sheep from the goats (which occurs toward the very end) but of the Remnant from the Whore Church. It will also witness a separation of humanity into two groups too, of those who love the Beast system and those who hate it (which will include those who are not believers). Sit back and enjoy the show, keep preaching emet (truth) and living lives that reflect the goodness of our Heavenly Father.

Those who come in from the lawless Church will need a lot of discipling and loving by the Torah-faithful who love and trust in the Master. Like the first gentile converts, they will need to start somewhere. It may not be quite the same set of rules as those chosen by the Council of Jerusalem but it will include them, rules, by the way, that even the lawless 'prophets' don't fully obey - the 'baby Torah'. Quite honestly, I am tired of sifting through their poisoned brews which is like sifting through the vast Talmud or Zohar in the hope of finding the occasional gem here and there. I consider that to largely be a waste of time. What's more important now is that we get on our knees and get right with Yahweh. I know I have a lot to do.