Shabbat shalom chaverim, I greet you in the Name of our Master (Lord) and Deliverer (Saviour) Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) whose avadim (servants) we aspire to be. The annual festivals are over until next spring and the first frosts have reminded us that winter is not far distant. Tomorrow is Rosh Chodesh and the beginning of the 8th biblical month.

Today and over the next few weeks I want to talk about spiritual equipping and spiritual equipment as it is particularly important at this time of the year when the devil's own go out of their way to curse believers. I speak of Samhain, better known as Halloween, which few realise actually lasts 19 days starting on 13 October. It's at this time you soon discover how effective your spiritual armour is. However, we're not going to talk about these low life forms today other than to remind you they are already defeated by the cross. More importantly, we must learn to be equipped all the time.

In order to emphasise the most important piece of spiritual equipment to you, let me share with you a little about an American Presbyterian musician and composer called Hal H. Hopson who, if he's still alive, must be in his late 80's by now. He wrote a cantata called, God With Us, which was put into a Time Capsule in the Kennedy Space Center during the American Bicentennial of 1976 which will be opened and heard once again in 2076, assuming NASA's still around then, of course. Anyway, he also wrote a song, The Gift of Love, whose lyrics I'd like to share because is the theme of the overarching message I have today and over the next few weeks:

Though I may speak with bravest fire,
And have the gifts to all inspire,
And have not love, my words are vain,
As sounding brass, and hopeless gain.
Though I may give all I possess,
And striving so my love profess,
But not be given by love within,
The profit soon turns strangely thin.
Come, Spirit, come, our hearts control,
Our spirits long tp be made whole.
Let inward love guide every deed;
By this we worship, and are freed.

All Christians and Messianics, whether conservative or liberal, agree that love is the main thing in the Besorah (Gospel). If only it were that simple and we could all agree, get on with one another, and leave it at that. The 'love' that Christ speaks of does, unfortunately, tend to get confused with the three other loves the New Testament speaks of (affection, friendship and eros) which C.S.Lewis masterfully distinguishes between in his famous book, The Four Loves (1960). And whilst all forms of love come from Elohim (God), inasmuch as He is the One who has implanted them into the human soul, to be responded to or ignored, to be used correctly or perversely, the fourth is only obtainable as a supernatural gift. We can't live in this kind of love 'naturally'. Anybody from any religion or no religion can display affection, friendship or eros if he or she chooses, but the fourth kind is not something we are born with to any great degree, though I do believe a small deposit of it is resident within us as a kind of lantern to lead us to choose the fullness.

This kind of love is a gift from above, and can only be obtained from above by those willing to receive it on the conditions that the Creator decrees. I speak, of course, of ahavah, chesed (mercy) or agapé-type love, or as it used to be called, 'charity' in the old KJV, a word which today simply means 'the giving of help, money or food'. It's better known as 'grace' even though I think that word has been abused too. I like to speak of it as 'undeserved loving kindness' or 'unmerited favour'. It's price tag is unconditional surrender to the Giver, our Heavenly Father - everything you've got - and it can only be used sacrificially in ways that can sometimes hurt. But there's a lot more to it than that, which is why I am devoting several sermons to what it contains.

If ahavah/chesed/agapé/charity/grace is the supreme gift, as it unquestionably is, earmarked for all true believers (unlike most of the rest which are variously distributed according to Yahweh's inscrutible will) then what does a 'spiritual gift' actually look like? What does it substantially consist of? More importantly, how can we obtain it?

To do that, let's start at the very beginning of the Master's mortal ministry and see how the story begins as the Son of Elohim (God) emerged from the Judean Desert after his 40 days of fasting and temptation. I'm going to read a passage I recently shared with you again:

"Then Yah'shua (Jesus) returned in the power of the Ruach (Spirit) to Galilee, and news of Him went out through all the surrounding region. And He taught in their synagogues, being glorified (honoured) by all. So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. And He was handed the book (scroll) of the navi (prophet) Yeshayahu (Isaiah). And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 'The Ruach (Spirit) of Yahweh is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach (proclaim) the Besorah (Gospel) to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of Yahweh'" (Luke 4:14-19, NKJV)

Here, concisely laid out, is the heavenly agenda, program and purpose for all those walking in the footsteps of the Master. It is what believers are supposed to do as imitators of Christ. But to do it requires equipping, and the 'equipment', as stated by Isaiah, is "returning in the power of the Ruach (Spirit)". Returning from what? From an ordeal of temptation and deprivation in the desert. Good things - necessary things - cost us the habits, pleasures and ways of the flesh. We have to be tested to see if we are worthy of the Free Heavenly Gift, as the human, mortal part of Messiah was. And if you have ever got yourself good equipment, whatever it may be - sports equipment, computer equipment, etc. - you'll know you have to pay well. That's the first point. You can't earn your salvation but discipleship will cost you everything you've got, as Dietrich Bonhöffer famously said. All spiritual journeys include desert wandering periods which are essential to either purge us or establish our true motives.

The second observation we must make is that this "power" that is spoken of - the "power of the Ruach (Spirit)" - is not something passive, or mean, or insignificant. It's something exceedingly big and awesome. The word 'power' translates, originally - before we got our Greek translation to dunamis from which we get our English word 'dynamic' - the Hebrew, 'gevurat Yahweh' and gevurah means 'miraculous might, power, strength', gevurot meaning 'miraculous mighty acts'. And here's the point: everything Yah'shua (Jesus) said, taught and did was accompanied by, immersed in, a dynamic miraculous power, might and strength. He didn't go around giving dry theology lectures like the Torah Teachers (Scribes) of His day. The seal of His devarim or words was always dynamic, miraculous power which could both change of hearts and characters as well heal diseased bodies; it could refix the sliced-off ear of Malchus, it could raise the dead body of Lazarus to life again. This gevurah is supernatual chayim or life, what the Greeks called Zoë, not the mundane life we all of us live no matter what we believe or practice, and we're mostly all agreed that biological life is miraculous all on its own whether you believe in a Creator or the fairy godmother of evolution. But there is much more. This whole cluster of dynamic activity on the part of the Saviour led to what scripture calls 'salvation' and/or 'deliverance', not an abstract theological concept that you can take or leave without really knowing whether you've received it or not, but something dynamic and life-changing - something that changes your already miraculous life into something even more miraculous.

Last week, on the last day of Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles), we announced that the old way of doing things had ended. At Shemini Atseret a new way began. That sounds somewhat theoretical for the moment. Not only do we have to address that new world, face that new world, but we have to enter into that new world and encounter its dynamic or power. What is that 'new world'? It's a foretaste of the Millennium, as is represented by Shemini Atseret, not just to talk about it but by emunah (faith) to step into it and the very real gevurah-power being offered by Heaven. The ways the churches and messianic assemblies settled for before are over. The old ways of 'doing revival' are over. The Ruach (Spirit) is moving upwards and onwards. We've left that territory, whether we like it or not, and anyone who looks back to it longingly, as Lot's wife did when Lot's family left Sodom...well, you know what I'm saying. The result will be fossilisation. The end will be a stoney religion, a hard, undigestible salty faith capable only of preserving memories but incapable of giving life. If you want a temporal religion, a culturally 'normative' religion, and all the attendant pop-psychology, instead of the miraculous gevurah life, then stay where you are, become a useless pillar of salt good only for cows to lick. It's as the Master said: "No one, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of Elohim (God)" (Luke 9:62, NKJV).

Understand I am not here to scold anyone other than perhaps myself. I'm just saying that the old ship isn't sailing any more. It was decommissioned at sunrise on 9 October 2020 on the Gregorian calendar, on the 199th day of the biblical year, the 22nd day of the 7th month according to the Creation Calendar. It ended as sure as a new Æon (Age) began in that synagogue in Nazareth when Yah'shua (Jesus) read out aloud from the Scroll of Yeshayahu (Isaiah) and proclaimed who He was, what He had come to do, and how He was going to do it - "in the gevurah or miraculous power of the Ruach (Spirit)". Israel had become inward-bent just as today's churches and messianic assemblies have, expecting all sorts of things and getting none of them because they were too concerned about being 'culturally relevent'. Whole denominations have been all but wiped out because of this inward-lookingness. I think of my own alma mater, the Church of England, which has been in spiritual declaine, and in countries like the UK, USA and Canada - aside from a handful of faithful evangelicals cattered around here and there - is to all intents and purposes no longer a Christian institution at all. Most of the Anglican (Episcopalian) churches in Canada are now New Age to the core.

Our calling is to be transformative rather than tolerant or politically correct. The gevurah or power of the Ruach (Spirit) is transformative. When that's absent, all a congregation or denomination can do is be 'conservative' in its most literal sense, and by that I mean trying to conserve the memories of the past rather like keeping a comatised body alive artifically. At the other end of the spectrum is to be 'anarchic', just letting one's hair down and trying to force the Ruach (Spirit) out when all that's there is the flesh - the psyche. The result of this is the production of cheap imitation false gifts and powers that demons are only too happy to fuel, and do. That's why there's so much craziness in the Body of Christ, it's why there are so many fake miracles by charlatans making a fortune off gullible, impatient believers who don't want to pay the price for authentic discipleship and ahavah but want something less costly. Instant gratification is the name of the game. And guess what? This produces brattiness and self-entitlement. Welcome to the postmodernist world and to the very same forces causing not only the decline and ruination of Christianity but of culture and civilisation too.

The way Yahweh acts with His gevurah is never the way we expect. The way Yahweh revealed Himself and His gevurah through His Son Yah'shua (Jesus) isn't what anybody was expecting 2,000 years ago. They were looking to Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes and others to lead them back into the 'good old days' of the glory of Israel of David and Solomon. They were trying to revive a corpse. Today even members of the Remnant are doing exactly the same thing imitating the ways of their former denominations, bringing all their baggage with them instead of discarding it and letting the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) do a new work. They will eventually be brought to the end of themselves and repent.

The Sukkot (Tabernacles) anointing, about which we have spoken much over the past years, is to be nothing like the Shavu'ot or 'Pentecostal' anointing of yesteryear. No two Æons (Ages) ever start in exactly the same way. Nevertheless, in order to understand what's coming, we've got to make sure we understand what that former anointing was and why it is that practically no-one has been walking in it for generations, because although the Sukkot Anointing is radically different from the Shavu'ot Anointing in nature and revealment, there is nevertheless a common tavnith or pattern that we must understand. Why is that important? Because the right mental vessel must be prepared before it can be fulfilled. So if you're still thinking Continuationist (like a Pentecostal or Charismatic), or a Cessationist (like a Baptist, Calvinist, Messianic, Seventh Day Adventist, Presbyterian, or whatever), forget it. That thinking is so corrupt and off the mark that it will simply cause the Sukkot anointing to splash off you and return whence it came.

So let's rethink 'Pentecostal', not Azuza Street, or Toronto, or Pensacola, or any of the counterfeits of the last century-and-a-bit, but authentic Shavu'ot (Festival of Weeks). We'll unpack this over the next few weeks and throughout our one prayer will be: How can I receive the the Sukkot gevurah (power) of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) now. So what I'm going to do is give you three blocks of Pauline scripture to think about over the next days until we meet at Sabbath again. We'll run through them together now, with very little commentary, and though I am using the NKJV as the English ground text, I am going to change some of the words to reflect the original Hebraic sense of the words and I would invite you, if you have multiple versions of the Bible (the more the better), to make comparisons between the wording.

Here, then, are the main blocks of 'gifting' text we shall be examining:

"Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, let us prophesy in proportion to our emunah (faith); or ministry, let us use it in our ministering; he who teaches, in teaching; he who exhorts, in exhortation; he who gives, with liberality; he who leads, with diligence; he who shows mercy, with cheerfulness" (Rom 12:6-8, NKJV).

"There are diversities of gifts, but the same Ruach (Spirit). There are differences of ministries, but the same Master. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same Elohim (God) who works all in all. But the manifestation of the Ruach (Spirit) is given to each one for the profit of all: for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Ruach (Spirit), to another the word of knowledge through the same Ruach (Spirit), to another emunah (faith) by the same Ruach (Spirit), to another gifts of healings by the same Ruach (Spirit), to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of languages (tongues), to another the interpretation of languages (tongues). But one and the same Ruach (Spirit) works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.... And Elohim (God) has appointed these in the Messianic Community (Church): first apostles, second nevi'im (prophets), third teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, administrations, varieties of languages (tongues)" (1 Cor.12:4-11,28 NKJV).

"And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some nevi'im (prophets), some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Messiah, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of Elohim (God), to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph.4:11-13, NKJV).

Depending how you count them, there are 30 different gifts here, not to mention those mentioned in other passages. Each of these is different even if there is a tendency in some translations to group many of these together as if they were equivalent or the same. None of these gifts ever ceased by the will of Elohim (God) and where they have ceased in the churches and messianic communities, or been counterfeited, it is usually because of unbelief and sin. You may, with some justification, wonder just what some of these gifts actually are because our English translations don't always make them clear. That will be part of our task in the weeks ahead and for you to come each sabbath armed with questions and insights. Some of these will be matters of contention because false traditions die reluctantly especially when the counterfeit powers associated with them have provided a kind of 'perverse nourishment' over many years. You all know, for example, how vigorously I have fought against false tongues over the decades which seem to cling like leeches onto millions who now have a narcotic-like dependency on them. This is one reason the gift of discernment is so important. All the gifts have been counterfeited and perverted, unfortunately, because that is what Satan is best at. Nothing he does is creative or original.

A true definition of ahavah-love can only be had once we have cleansed our minds and hearts of the counterfeited gifts and can bring all of the authentic ones together. Some of the counterfeiting goes very deep indeed and is part of the culture various churches find themselves in, perversely nourishing those churches with spiritual 'dark matter' that leads them to all kinds of unseemly behaviour. Just look at the way society defines 'love' and you will see how that came about because of the cumulative effect of the counterfeited gifts which hide not just under religious masks but secular ones too (like the doctrine of 'rights', for example). But I am getting ahead of myself.

In conclusion, our goal - our objective - is the pursuit of the true gifts in gevurah, a Hebrew word, incidentally, which simultaneously contains the sense of judgment, because in every true gift there must be razor-sharp judgment between that which is authentic and that which is false. And this judgment is not just with words but also with supernatural, miraculous power. When the false gifts are exposed and the demons behind them are challenged, you will see a lot of writhing and screaming.

Pray for the restoration of the true gifts, pray for your own giftings to be revealed and magnified, so that you can walk in the power of the Ruach (Spirit) that Yah'shua (Jesus) possessed when He began His ministry. Until next week, then, Yahweh bless. Amen.