Welcome to this assembly for the third day of the annual Jericho March for 2021.

Before the original 7-day Jericho march took place, after the miraculous Jordan crossing and before Israel's first celebration of Pesach (Passover) on Canaanite soil - Yahweh commanded the nation to be circumcised and afterward told the males to rest while they healed (Josh.5:1-8). Once this had been done, Yahweh announced:

"'Today I have rolled away the disgrace (reproach) of Egypt'. And so that place is called Gilgal to this day" (Josh.5:9, NRSV).

You may be wondering why I am bringing this subject up during the Jericho March. There's a reason. I couple of nights ago I was reading through the 5th chapter of Joshua and when I came to this I sensed the presence of the Ruach (Spirit) telling me to stop immediately as this was an urgent message for the marchers in this critical year of the Penultimate Judgment.

As I read and reread Yahweh's statement many times I was struck by the unusual choice of words. So important was the verb 'to roll' that the place where the second generation of Israel was circumcised came to be called 'Gilgal' which comes from the verb, galal meaning 'to roll' which is related to a noun galgal meaning a 'wheel'. So the first question is: why has Yahweh chosen the verb 'to roll', and specifically, 'to roll away'? The second, equally important, question is, what "reproach" or "disgrace of Egypt" is in view?

I ask these questions for a reason. The Remnanteers cannot have victory over their Jericho's, whatever they may be - the satanic obstacles in their life preventing them from arriving at their ordained destination - unless their reproaches or disgraces are removed - 'rolled away', so we need to know exactly what is going on.

Before Joshua was permitted to engage in the final stage of the Exodus - enter into, and conquest of - the Promised Land, however strong the urge to proceed might have been (and let's face it, we all of us champ at the bit sometimes and are all too ready to move off impetuously, before our time, too early) - something that had been forgotten that was important to the project was the reinstitution of the covenant sign of circumcision (Josh.4:2-9). Additionally, the obligatory annual celebration of Pesach (Passover) (Josh.4:10-12) before the invasion would have been a stark reminder to Yahweh's people of their privileged covenant relationship with Him (circumcision) and their redemption out of bondage by Him (Pesach/Passover).

But what do these Old Covenant rites have to do with us as believers in a New Covenant with Messiah? Let's take circumcision first of all. Must we still be circumcised as most messianics insist? Without going into a long discourse on the matter (you can read this subject up in depth on our Circumcision website), or resurrecting old controversies, I will say only that whereas circumcusion was the rite of passage into Israel in the Old Covenant, it is now baptism, which is the 'New Circumcision', as it were, that is the rite of passage into the Messianic Israel of the New Covenant and is the new sign of covenant relationship. And the evidence that we have not simply been baptised or immersed externally but have undergone the supernatural internal transformation that is the substance of what it now means to be in a covenant relationship, is spelled out by the apostle Paul to the Philippians:

"For we are the circumcision who worship by the Ruach (Spirit) and glory in Messiah and put no confidence in the flesh" (Phil.3:3, ESV).

I want you to notice the word "flesh" here. Paul is not, of course, saying that we should have no confidence in, or use for, the physical body because the word 'flesh' here, as elsewhere in numerous passages of the Messianic Scriptures (New Testament), is a metaphor for the flesy nature, the fallen disposition, the carnal, Adamic nature, with all its negative impulses that draw us away from spiritual things and from Messiah and His salvation, and nullify that covenant if succumbed and yielded to for a sufficiently long period without due repentance so as to exhaust all grace (undeserved loving kindness). Circumcision, known as milah in Hebrew, was the painful physical cutting and 'rolling away' of the prepuce of the male organ, a picture of just how painful and costly a proceedure turning away from this fallen nature actually is. So it was a perfect picture of the New Covenant spiritual act too. Paul again explains, this time to the Colossians:

"In Him also you were circumcised with a circumcision made without hands by putting off the body of flesh, by the circumcision of Messiah, having been buried with Him in baptism, in which you were also raised with Him through emunah (faith) in the powerful working of Elohim (God), who raised Him from the dead. And you, who were dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, Elohim (God) made alive together with Him, having forgiven us all our trespasses, by canceling the record of debt that stood against us with legal demands. This He set aside, nailing it to the cross. He dismissed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in Him" (Col.2:11-15, ESV).

To qualify as a Remnant 'Conqueror', or to use biblical jargon, an "overcomer" (because "whatever is born of Elohim/God overcomes the world" - 1 John 5:4, NKJV), to enter into the 'Promised Land' of a full redemption, you need to do what baptism - total, complete immersion - signifies spiritually: a complete death to your old life and an arising into a completely new one, not merely symbolically (as the oridinance of baptism portrays) but for real. The Old Covenant required external compliance only; the New insists that compliance flows naturally from a transformed mind and heart which the 'old' cicumcision could never accomplish, because it was not of the whole being but only the 'tip' - a token amount of the soul, as it were, and of the males only.

The annual feast of Pesach (Passover), though not abolished in the New Covenant, is transformed by the removal of the old animal sacrifices and Levitical administrations and by the addition of the Master's or Lord's Supper, called variously in different traditions, in their evolved forms, the 'Eucharist' or 'Communion'. Again, as with baptism and circumcision, the emphasis is not on the external enactments (though very much part of the telling of the National Story and therefore important in that respect) but on what the Meal signifies internally, remembering - and this needs to be stated again and again - that everything to do with, or deriving from, the New Covenant, begins with inward transformation (the New Birth) and works its way outwards in the Torah-based lifestyle led by Yahweh's Community of the Qodeshim (Saints, Set-Apart Ones). This inward reality is called the "Kingdom" and likewise has an inward origin and works its way outwards into the physical space that each bearer of it inhabits on earth. As Luke records Yah'shua (Jesus) saying, and conveying the full extent of His meaning as I believe the Amplified Version does magnificently:

"For behold, the Kingdom of Elohim (God) is within you (in your hearts) and among you (surrounding you)" (Lk.17:21, Amp.V).

Which brings us back to Joshua 5, "Today I have rolled away the reproach (disgrace) of Egypt away from you" (Josh.5:8a, ESV). What does it mean? The 'rolling' is a picture of male circumcision and the rolling away of the prepuce which is itself a picture of the rolling away of the disgrace caused by sin. Specifically, it is the sin of being mentally, emotionally and spiritually patterned after pagan ways - anciently, that of Egypt - today, that of the modern Babylonian World System, the New World Order, the Beast System or whatever you want to call it. There can be no Remnant, no victory as we confront and seek to remove modern-day Jericho's, no conquest over lives of sinfulness until the attraction to, and/or participation in, the world's way of behaving or being has been completely extirpated and no longer holds any sway or the least attraction for us. Again, to remind you of what the Apostle John taught:

"For whatever is born of Elohim (God) overcomes the world (Egypt/Babylon). And this is the victory that has overcome the world (Egypt/Babylon -- our emunah (faith). Who is he who overcomes the world (Egypt/Babylon), but he who believes that Yah'shua (Jesus) is the Son of Elohim (God)?" (1 John 5:4-5, NKJV)

And, remember once again, "belief" is not passive, but active - it is emunah, the trusting or faith that leads to concrete action - to living the way of life completely separated from the world's way of doing things. Our separation from it (which is what the word 'holy' or qadosh means in Scripture) means a complete severance from it, akin to physically leaving Egypt for good for a completely new life in the Promised Land. To fail to make that complete separation whilst claiming to be a 'Christian', 'Messianic' talmid (disciple) or follower of Yah'shua (Jesus) is to keep on carrying the "reproach of Egypt" on our shoulders and, in so doing, to in effect declare that we have not left Egypt, because our hearts are still there, just as the heart of Lot's wife was still in Sodom, the reason she turned around to go back and was entombed. There is no looking back when you have chosen Messiah. For the Saviour 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).

Once you are fully engaged, fully committed, resolved never to turn back to Egypt or Babylon - or indeed to leave it for real for the first time, perhaps - once you have honestly made that committment, then there is a second sense in which "the reproach of Egypt" will have been taken away from you. For once Yahweh has such a faithful and obedient Bride - and this is the mark of the children of the first resurrection, the 'spiritual firstborn' - then the "reproach" may be seen to be the aspersions the Egyptians would have cast on Israel had Yahweh not succeeded in bringing them into the Promised Land and overcoming mighty (from a human perspective) obstacles such as Jericho (Ex.32:12; Num.14:13-16); Dt.9:28). The first reproach consists of the disobedient generation, which must die, because it is still pagan (Egyptian) at heart; the second reproach is to Yahweh who must have a faithful Remnant through whom He can cause all the promises to come to pass so that the pagans cannot mock the Most High or bring discredit to His Name and people. There must always be a true people whom He can call His own. But first that Remnant must be prepared, and that preparation takes at least a generation.

This is the message that Yahweh has powerfully laid upon me to give to you today. You cannot go further as a lawless Evangelical rejecting huge chunks of the Torah, clinging to false charismata like 'tongues', pagan traditions (like Christmas and Easter), preaching fairytales about Rapture' instead, and declaring that 'God' has two peoples ('Israel' and the 'Church') when He only has one (Messianic Israel); and you cannot go further as a Messianic whilst still hidebound by Talmudic/Rabbinical Tradition that still reproduces the tokens of the finished Old Covenant (like demanding physical circumcision or supporting Zionism and the construction of a 'Third Temple' which is meaningless in the New Covenant, or following false calendars), promoting false Scriptures like the Books of Enoch, Jasher, and the like. I mention only two traditions but there are, of course, many more (see Denominations) who must equally sacrifice that which is holding them back. Everybody coming to the Remnant brings pagan baggage with them they they must finally let go of.

Whoever you are, whatever you currently believe in, all those false traditions have to be cast into the metaphorical pagan citadel or fortress of Jericho around which we are symbolically marching for its destruction in our lives - the clay-and-iron feet of the Beast System, the obstacle in our way right now. If you won't, then your 'march' is going to fail and you will find yourself in the midst of much tribulation as the Penultimate Judgment plays itself out.

Please soberly consider and pray about these things before we assemble here again tomorrow to consider what else Yahweh would have us do and receive. May His light, love and emet (truth) be poured upon you is my prayer in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name. Amen.