Chag sameach Rosh Chodesh kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah - welcome to the sepcial monthly assembly of Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon held at the beginning of each month in which we seek the face of Yahweh for for a fresh prophetic word.

It's been 15 years now since Yahweh shared a defining vision and revelation to me about the work of this ministry. I want to share that with you again before we move on to the next stage of our journey:

"I saw a road heading through a valley towards some distant mountains over which it passed to some unseen final destination. It was a very narrow road, more like a path or country lane. Ahead of me was a small hamlet consisting of only two houses beyond which was a gentle descent into a valley and beyond that the mountains. There was one house on either side of the road and opposite one another so that the road passed directly between them. Where the road was, there was much light (as along its entire length), as there was also in the valley beyond. There was an even brighter light coming from behind the mountains into which the road disappeared. Behind the two houses, and on either side of this little path, was first twilight and then complete darkness. The backs of the two houses jutted out into this darkness. As I looked closer I could see that the backs of both houses were crumbling into ruins so that in reality only about half of each house was habitable. As the vision ended I heard Yahweh speak: 'Walk this road'".

That was in 2007. Those two houses represented 'Evangelical Christianity' and 'Messianic Israelitism'. We have passed between them, absorbing and melding together all that Yahweh wished us to take with us on our ongoing journey.We emerged 7 years later in 2014 with a unified theology and practice and have since been descending into the valley heading toward those mountains for some while. That was when the monumentally important 40 year-long Last Exodus began. The following year, in 2015, we were commanded to dedicate the Remnant of Messianic Israel. Five years after that, in 2020, came the dedication of the Melchizedek Priesthood, and a year after that we find ourselves in 2021 and enormous global upheavel occasioned by the beginning of the Penultimate Judgment with the Covid-19 pandemic.

For 7 years we have been in that valley, but now it is time very, very soon to start emerging from it and commencing the long and hard climb up that mountain. And by 'we' I don't mean the whole Remnant but Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon (MLT), a remnant within the Remnant, an 'advanced scout' group, if you like, sent to survey the spiritual landscape. The rest of the Remnant is still hugging either Evangelical Christianity or Messianism, not yet understanding that both have to be let go of for the new end-time paradigm. A new synthesis has already taken place which we call 'Messianic Evangelicism'. That is a big paradigm shift for most but none who are still making it can move on to the next phase, in the valley of the shadow of death, until they have made it. Many who joined us in that journey between the two houses broke away and headed off in one or other direction again, clinging to old ways. One or two have followed through, at least intellectually, but their hearts are still not fully in this work.

We have to make another paradigm shift now by returning to an old but very contentious topic, the question of Toqef or Authority in the Kingdom of our Elohim (God). The first thing we must do is define terms so that we aren't using the same vocabulary but meaning entirely different things. Authority is commonly understood to mean the power or right to enforce obedience. It is understood to be delegated power in a single person or in a body of persons, natural (human rulers or elohim) or supernatural (Yahweh-Elohim). Flowing from the one or ones with this delegated power comes the notion of influence on others who are subject to this power, especially over opinion. Such authority is therefore regarded as having the power to settle questions (e.g. theological, internal discipline) and may be cited in evidence, or as a declaration, in support of authority statements, whether written, spoken, or both. We all of us exercise some sort of authority when it comes to our own person, as when we sign a document (e.g. a legal contract) or use a secret numerical code (e.g. a bank password) authorising that something be carried out or done in our name. Governments, military heads, fathers, mothers, bosses at work, and so on, all exercise some kind of authority or another over those under their command.

Christians and Messianics have different notions as to what this authority looks like, where it comes from, what its shape and density are, though all of us assume some kind of Ultimate Authority in the form of Elohim (God) Himself. They just disagree as to how it is to be manifested/implemented on earth, through whom, to what degree and in what form. Humans are very contrary in this area. They know some form of authority has to exist to preclude chaos and anarchy but cannot agree who should exercise it. Even when there is no official authority structure, it will spontaneously arise in groups of people. The authority structures we see in the world have evolved in all sorts of ways and each in its turn seeks to legitimise itself, oftentimes by stealth and deception. Mostly we have no idea why those authority structures are even there. On the one hand, they may have been there so long we either don't seek to question them (e.g. blind compliance) or, at the other extreme, we seek to overthrow them by various means (e.g. revolution). (See, The Limits of Obedience to the State).

What, from the Christian point-of-view, is authentic authority in heaven and on earth? Ask any Messianic, Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Mormon, or Jehovah's Witness in the know to explain what they mean by authority and they will all give you different answers - even amongst Protestants there are all sorts of notions. And not just 'authority' in general, but what the authority of Scripture actually consists of, as this is important to Protestants who believe in the doctrine of Sola Scriptura or 'Scripture Alone' as the source of all authority on earth. The problems and differences of opinion arise when the Scriptures are interrogated for anwers. And though they're supposed to be living, in reality, to become living, they first have to be animated by the 'Spirit' (about which most Christians are agreed on).

Then the problems arise as to why so many claiming to have the 'Spirit' cannot come to a unity of belief and purpose. And the reason why they cannot is because what they claim is the 'Spirit' operating in them tends to be, well, let's just say, 'more complicated', because other things intrude and distort. What we describe as the 'Spirit' turns out to be much more complex because of the assumptions that are made about its component parts. Teasing these apart has been the great struggle of the centuries. Needless to say, the way things are done now cannot possibly continue in the Final Exodus. There was no dispute as to where authority lay in the First Exodus, was there? What you need to ask yourself is, how was authority established in Moses' day? And what should that look like in the Final Exodus and, most importantly, the Final Gathering to organise the Twelve Tribes and Messianic Israel as a whole?

Whatever your religious 'tribal' (i.e. denominational) tradition or belief about authority is, I don't doubt your church or assembly feels it pretty much has the matter settled...or otherwise you don't know and don't want to make your brain hurt too much by doing some hard thinking. Usually, people default to their feelings, either because they're lazy or because they believe that's where the Ruach (Spirit) is to be found, and lablel those as 'the Spirit'. The Israelites had this same problem - they were given the opportunity to seek Yahweh's face at Mt.Sinai but they were either too scared to take responsibility, too lazy, or both, and insisted Moses instead that become their sole intermediary with Yahweh. Did that work? History tells us that they refused to obey him when he ordered things contrary to their feelings, and typically rebelled against him, oftentimes openly resulting a very clear display of Yahweh's power so that they were in no doubt where authority lay. Think of Korah's rebellion.

Typically these days, though, authority falls to a charismatic pastor, evangelist, denominational chief or 'board of elders' who determine (often by human fiat) what it right and what should be done and claim it to be 'the Spirit' directing them. Sometimes the people as a whole just vote on a matter...and you all know how democracy can degenerate and become totalitarian in nature. The majority isn't always right because either the mob can be manipulated or common purpose found in the flesh. Even the first apostles resorted to lots, essentially a system of chance, to determine Judas's successor. The matter was finally resolved supernaturally when Yah'shua (Jesus) called Paul who brought forth all the signs of genuine heavenly apostolic authority.

Today I can only give you the briefest of outlines about this subject. As ever, we could spend months discussing it. I am assuming, though, that all or most of you, have as your backdrop all that's been shared and taught over the past decades, because for the sake of time - at least for today - I have to assume that. For those who are new here today, you have our website to understand the background to all I am sharing. At the expense of detail, so that I don't have to dot every ''i' and cross every 't', I want to make sure today you will be able to take away with you a simple, easily understandable overview, so that we all have a general idea as to what the 'shape', 'colour' and 'texture of what scriptural and Kingdom authority looks like.

Meanings have changed in the churches about 'authority' even in my short lifespan. New and very disturbing assumptions have entered the equation. Where there is division, the forum of ideas and beliefs can seem like a swirling mass of randomness and chaos. Do not be surprised to learn that the confusion in politics and society has not been matched by the Christian community too, because it has, because of a kind of natural 'osmosis'. Those who are not keenly tuned to Scripture and the Ruach (Spirit) inevitably get leavened by the secular society they live in because that is was is regarded as 'normal' or the 'default'. The denomination I was brought up in, Anglicanism or its American counterpart, Episcopalianism, has completely lost its bearings, but that Church is by no means alone in spiralling out of control. It's about as Marxist and 'woke' as it gets, a success story as far as communist infiltration is concerned. There is very little constancy, though some denominations seems to be influenced by every wind of new doctrine more so than others.

If you ask believers in the 2020's what 'authority' is, the modern trend is to boil it all down to some sort of experience. Experience, they say, is what brings legitimacy and authority. In theological circles this is known as existentialism. 'I have experienced something therefore that is my truth'. As a result, everyone becomes their own authority. Which is fine if you are truly an island, but none of us is, as I tried to explain last sabbath. We live together in different social arrangements. We have to communicate, so if language breaks down, as is currently happening in our postmodernist society, and we can't even agree on what words mean, then communication breaks down too, and all that remains is the exercise of raw jungle authority - then order can only be imposed by force, and violent force at that. Authority then boils down to naked POWER, leaving us inevitably with totalitarianism and a Darwinian-type 'survival of the fittest' way of living (and dying).

To put this all into perspective, you have to have a sense of history, of the past. The present is meaningless without it and the future is not yet, so we cannot access that for reference points to make sense of the present. If we look at Western history, then we can broadly-speaking discern 5 or 6 philosophical and religious 'streams' of development that have led us to where we are today in our thinking and behaviour:

• 1. Paganism;
• 2. Early pre-schismatic Christianity;
• 3. Mediaeval Christianity (Catholic and Eastern Orthodox);
• 4. Rationalism/Enlightenment;
• 5. Modernism; and
• 6. Postmodernism.

If you go out and ask a broad spectrum of educated and articulate Christians or Messianics who know something about the history of Christianity, philosophy, psychology, and the like, to explain what authority looks to them, and then distill out the various elements that they point out, you will find that the believe the location of authority (aside from Elohim/God Himself) usually boils down to four main areas:

• 1. Scripture;
• 2. Tradition;
• 3. Reason; and
• 4. Experience.

It may surprise you to learn that as a source of authority, 'experience' is a newcomer to the scene. It took off in the early 20th century with the Pentecostal Azuza Street revival in California and then became completely wild with the charismatic revival later on. It didn't start at Azuza, mind you, but has been around in seed form since the 17th century, enabled for the most part by the Protestant Reformation. Prior to Protestantism, there was, and always has been, a mystical tradition but it lacked the complete wildness and lawlessness which we see today. Bear that in mind as we go on.

Prior to the rise of modernism and postmodernism, authority was viewed as being vested in a combination of scripture, tradition, and reason which various human authority figures articulated in various ways. It is argued that John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, was the one who layed heavy emphasis on 'experience' as a source of authority but Wesley never used 'experience' in that sort of way. For him, Scripture remained the primary authority and the 'experience' upon which he (rightly) insisted was the living experience of Elohim's (God's) love and the power of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit), through which what the Bible said was proven true in the life of the believer. Amen? Yes, Amen to be sure! He never saw 'experience' as a separate source of authority to be played off against scripture as modernists and postmodernist - 'liberals' if you will - typically do.

These days, setting experience over the authority of Scripture, by insisting that Scripture be viewed through an evolutionary lens, is what is now the new (apostate) norm. So whilst moderns and postmoderns will agree that 'Scripture says', 'Tradition says', and 'Reason says', they will add this extremely important caveat, 'BUT experience says' and use that to override the other three. Typically they go with experience - i.e. feelings, existentialism - first and then try to find a way to reshape scripture, tradition and reason to make them conform to their 'personal (experiential) truth'. That is pretty much the state of Western Christianity these days, and is why it has largely lost all its authority.

My own alma mater, the Anglican Church, is proof-positive of this loss of authority. They largely talk nonsense and just spew out the latest marxist postmodernist 'woke' garbage. Worse, in some ways, they try to project this postmodernist world view back into the past, looking for non-existent examples of it. And when the past disagrees with them, they simply 'deconstruct' it and then 'cancel' it and 'poof' it has gone...in their own warped minds.

Now lets sort out something else early on so that we do not make common mistake that is all to common today: scripture, tradition and reason are NOT the same kind of thing. Many theologians are fond of using an analogy to explain what authority is by likening these to the three matching legs of a stool.

Some try to improve on that illustration by comparing them to applies, pears and oranges. But N.T.Wright is much more on the mark when he compares them to "apples, elephants and screwdrivers" [1]. What he means by that is essentially what Christians have meant by these things from the earliest time, before the advent of the anti-Christian Englightenment and its spawn, Modernism and Postmodernism:

• 1. 'Tradition' is the legacy of what the church has said reflecting on scripture (whether its conclusions were always right or wrong); and
• 2. 'Reason' is the rule of discourse by which such reflection is saved from random nonsense and integrated insot a holistic view of Elohim (God) and the world.

I'd like to borrow an analogy, again by N.T.Wright, in which he says that "scripture, tradition, and reason are not like three different bookshelves [either], each of which can be ransacked for answers to key questions. Rather:

• 1. Scripture is the bookshelf;
• 2. Tradition is the memory of what people in the house have read and understood (or perhaps misunderstood) from the shelf; and
• 3. Reason is the set of spectacles that people wear in order to make sense of what they read - though, worryingly, the spectacles have varied over time, and there are signs that some readers, using the 'reason' available to them, have severely distorted the texts they were reading.
• 4. Experience is something different again, referring to the effect on readers of what they read, and/or the worldview, the life experience, and political circumstances, and so on, within which that reading takes place" [2]

And, ironically, this can be seen - by our own 'experience' - to be true by the chaos that results when 'experience' is allowed to be the final arbiter. For us, whom I hope are informed, this should by now be common sense, but for most caught up in this delusion, it still hasn't registered, though it's beginning to. But unfortunately, most love their 'experiences' more than they do the truth, because experience seems to be more 'alive' to them, which is why they won't take their blinkers off. Experience is something you can boast of, because it's yours, but not truth, because truth belongs to Elohim (God). There is no 'self' involved in truth. So they prefer the lie. And yet we were warned of this very danger by the apostle Paul almost two millenia ago when he said:

"For the mystery of lawlessness (Torahlessness) is already at work; only He who now restrains will do so until He is taken out of the way. And then the lawless (Torahless) one will be revealed, whom the Master will consume with the breath (ruach) of His mouth and destroy with the brightness of His coming. The coming of the lawless (Torahless) one is according to the working of Satan, with all power, signs, and lying wonders, and with all unrighteous deception among those who perish, because they did not receive the love of the truth (emet), that they might be saved. And for this reason Elohim (God) will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie, that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth (emet) but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thess.2:7-12, NKJV).

What does "lawless" or "lawlessness" mean? 'Torahless' and 'Torahlessness'. Satan is the Torahless', 'lawless' one, is he not, and His followers - in part or in whole - are those who purse 'Torahlessness' or 'lawlessness' and the result in their lives, either slowly - inch by inch - or faster, if they are in a hurry to abadon the emet (truth), is unbelief and pleasure in unrighteousness. You've been warned - believers have been warned for centuries - that there are serious consequences for rejecting Yahweh's Torah, His Davar (Word), His Emet (Truth). What you do with that is up to your own free choosing. Will you finally repent or would you prefer to perish in the unfolding judgments currently underway? It all boils down to what kind of authority you want - or don't want - over you, so clearly we need to understand what authority is before we go any further so that we make the necessary course corrections in our life.

Come on, look at history, look at the news and all the anecdotal evidence: the 'experience' of Christians, Messianics, and of everyone else, for that matter, always and inevitably comes up with several simultaneous and incompatible stories. Their worldview lacks internal consistency! You see, 'experience' is far too slippery for the concept to stand any chance of providing a stable basis sufficient to serve as an 'authority', unless, of course, by it you mean what the Book of Judges means at its conclusion, which is that everybody should do what is "right in their own eyes" (Judg.21:25, NRSV). Is that a safe way to live your life, judging by your own standard, your own private code of morality and ethics, your own subjective perception of truth? Because what that means, is that there is no authority at all. Indeed, the modern stress on 'experience' has contributed in a major way to that form of political pluralism, verging on anarchy, which styles itself as 'progressive' in the Western world. No it's not: its regressive and is taking us all the way back to the primitive, brutal paganism that Christianity originally supplanted.

OK, we're getting closer to what I want to say, but we haven't quite arrived yet. It is "because 'experience' is fluid and puzzling, and because all human beings, including devout Christians, are prey to serious and multilayered self deception, including in their traditions and their reasoning (as Jeremiah lamented, the heart is deceitful above all things [17:9]), that 'authority' is needed in the first place. That, too, is one of the main things we discover by 'experience'!" [3] The older you get, if you're honest and open, the more you realise this.

Postmodernism, and to a slightly lessder extent, Modernism, rejects all authority except the supposed authority of 'experience'. That is why they are changing our language as fast as their reckless, lawless hearts will allow them, and that is why they are dismantling or deconstructing the word 'authority' - they hate it as much as Satan does, because Satan has none and he desperately wants it! They are a rabble, a mob, and you know how much the Enemy loves mob violence, and how he uses it to destablise and overturn governments - I don't just mean bad governments but all government except his own consisting of blind authoritarianism. That's why I say postmodernism leads directly to blatant satanism - it's even overturning its predecessor, 'progressivism' whom the Modernists invented...well, Satan, to be exact, as the penultimate wave of his attack on Christianity and all human beings.

It's best we cut to the chase and now define what Yahweh means by 'authority'. Authority is that through which Yahweh exercises His Kingdom-establishing power on earth as it is in heaven. The dismantling of that power, the muzzling of the challenge of Elohim (God) to the idolatrous world - was one of the main (anti-Christian) aims of the Enlightenment, which is now continued, albeit in a different mode, in postmodernity viâ modernity. Now I am not saying that good things haven't come through the Enlightenment because they absolutely have. Reason itself is never a bad thing, indeed Yahweh commands us to use it:

"Come now, let us reason together, says Yahweh" (Isa 1:18, NIV).

And contrary to what many atheists and others say, Christianity is both a reasoning and a reasonable faith, because by 'faith' or emunah we mean a lot more than what most non-Christians think we mean by it. Messianic Evangelicals believe in intelligent faith, one that applies reason and knowledge. Indeed, as I have said many times, we are humanists and free-thinkers (we think for ourselves), we believe in the pursuit of Science and believe totally in free agency. Of course we also believe in the traditional understanding of 'faith' as trusting but we don't do it blindly.

Yahweh loves us to ask questions but He also expects us to abide by truth, and to trust in Him where our knowledge ends and to trust in Him by default anyway.n (No, we are not Gnostics, as some false accuse us of being - knowledge does not save, only trusting Christ does). Anyone who is willing to give us freedom of choice and a mind to think for ourselves is surely trustworthy, is He not? And as the Omipotent (all-powerful), Omniscient (all-knowing) Creator, He always proves to be right anyway. So we're invited to trust Him from the outset. So we are absolutelty Christian Humanists (as opposed to secular, atheistic ones) which is one of the three sphere of the whole and complete Christian/Messianic life that I have repeatedly taught about over the years as represented by this Venn diagram:

Do you see the devilish plan? If the word 'authority' can be transplanted from Yahweh to 'experience', making that the source of authority, then we have a word that is no longer beyond ourselves. We become 'authority' which is another way of saying that we become 'God', the highest form of idolatry and blasphemy there is, because we absolutely arent't, and it takes a special kind of delusion to believe we ever are or could be. We are finite in every sense of the word.

The postmodernist (satanic) goal then becomes an exchange of the truth about Elohim (God) for a human-made (ultimately, Satan-made) lie by which to lead us by the nose to our destruction if we fall for it. And this is precisely what we have in the modern version of Gnosticism, which claims that the highest religious good is self-discovery and then being 'true' to the self thus discovered. This is the final step away from biblical Christianity and into the One World Religion that undergirds the whole devilish Baylonian political system. None of this is 'accidental'.

Please, having heard me say this, don't get the idea that I am against experience. Of course not. Experience totally has its place. What I am saying is that any appeal to experience we make should be in the Wesleyan sense of the context within which we hear Scripture, one the one hand, and the context of walking in the original Phronema of the ancient faithful ones. And, yes, what we absolutely know to be true in the scientific sphere has its place too, like the earth is round and not flat, but not in in the speculative realm where evidence is deliberately excluded to forcibly conform scientists to only one (materialist) worldview, as in the question of Origins. Unfortunately even great theologians and historians like N.T.Wright have uncritically accepted the religion of the evolutionists and dare not tread in its domain. Since I am an Oxford-trained scientist I have no such fear, nor do other Christians who are scientists like Oxford Mathematics Professor John Lennox.

Scripture and the Messianic Phronema are inextricably linked. Experience is the necessary subjective pole of all knowing, is the place where we stand as we hear Elohim's (God's) word, know His love, and understand His wisdom. And I hope you'll agree, these are critically important to the authentically regenerated believer. It is vital - absolutely vital - that believers 'experience' the power and love of Yahweh-Elohim in their own lives because this is never simply a mechanical application of 'Elohim's (God's) authority, as though human beings were mere ciphers rather than image-bearers. The heart has to be imprinted with the image of Elohim (God) every much as the mind must. Prcisely because of the problem of evil within us (the fallen fleshy, Adamic, carnal nature) and the world (which the Enlightenment sought to belittle, believing everyonme to be intrinsically good), we need to be addressed and challenged within that place too, that subjectivity, not simply be informed by the mind and by dead theology that we are 'right as we are'. We all need, and should want, living encounters. The heart, as I have said so many times, and as the Mathematician Louis Pasteur underscored, has its own kind of necessary intelligence too. All sides to our humanity are important but we mustn't mix different categories together and assume they are alike. That's something philosophers learn early on.

May I present to you one last, final, and - in my opinion - greatly improved analogy of the relationship between Scripture, authority, reason and experience? I like this analogy best of all:

• 1. 'Experience' is what grows by itself in the garden;
• 2. 'Authority' is what happens when the gardener wants to affirm the goodness of genuine flowers and vegetables - the gardener does this affirming by uprooting the weeds in order to let beauty and fruitfulness triumph over chaos, thorns, and thistles.

Experience, then, is a mixed bag and can never itself be truth or authoritative until Final Redemption. So long as we have a fallen nature, and so long as any part of that fallen nature remains uncrucified (and, oh, how we like to deceive ourselves into believing we have dealt it a fatal blow), experience as a whole will never be a reliable barometer of anything other than the contradiction which is fallen man. Only given suffient time, once we have compared our experiences with Scripture (and that includes purported 'revelations'), can we do the kind of sifting required to get everything straightened out. That requires brutal gardening sometimes, removing colourful weeds and keeping dull-looking nutritious vegetables. That is why Yahweh has ordained seasoned and matured Elders with the benefit of hindsight in congregations to guide and advise the less mature in the faith.

Yahweh's affirmation of us as created in His image, with all that this implies, always includes His challenge to us as we distort the that image through idolatry and the bending of divine tavnith (pattern) by, for example, mutilating gender rôles (the latest madness today). It includes above all His promise to forgive and remake us through the New Creation established in Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) which He will complete when He returns, and all this as we make authentic teshuvah (repent) of our lawlessness and sinning. And, because of our propensity to self-deception caused by the elevation of feelings and experience over truth, we constantly need to check against Scripture, whether we are allowing Elohim's (God's) grace in the Besorah (Gospel), and Elohim's (God's) reaffirmation of us made in His image, to validate what is in fact an idolatrous and distorted form of humanness. When, through letting Scripture be the vehicle of Elohim's (God's) judging and healing authority in our communities, congregations and individual lives, we really do 'experience' Yahweh's affirmation, then we will know as we are known:

"But we know that when He (Messiah, Christ) appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as He is pure" (1 John 3:2-3, NIV).

We cannot leave the valley until we are purified, and we cannot assemble at the base of that mountain until we have learned these lessons and have entirely separated oruselves from the world system and its false philosophies that began with the Enlightenemt and which is now coming into full demonic fruition in the postmodernism that will, and already is, by the by translate into open devil-worship. But first there must be a full, restored system of divine authority. It begins within, as I have spoken about today, and then in due course will manifest outwardly with a full apostolic restoration. But more of that another time. Suffice to say there are no authentic apostles on the earth yet so one of the first acts of repentance that must be made is for those claiming leadership rôles, who don't authentically have them, to step down. Yahweh will take care of the rest.

This has been an unusual (for me, at any rate) Rosh Chodesh message but I hope it has addressed some of your needs. The race now is on to Shavu'ot (Weeks) which I believe this year is to be a special one but expect to be challenged again unless you enjoy tarrying in this valley of decision (Joel 3:14), giants (Josh.15:8), and slaughter (Jer.7:32), even the "valley of the shadow of death" (Ps.23:4, KJV). And we will tarry for as long as any of us continues to harbour and exalt false experiences. So remaining is good, if unpleasant, in that sense. The Remnant must pass through thyat valley, there are no short-cuts around it, in order to be purified, but we cannot remain there indefinitely, for the mountain calls us.

And then, as Yahweh promised, at the very end:

"Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
And all mankind will see Elohim's (God's) salvation [4]" (Luke 3:5-6, NIV).

Endnotes

[1] N.T.Wright, Scripture and the Authority of God (Harper One, 2005), p.101
[2] Ibid., p.102
[3] Ibid., p.103
[4] See Universal Salvation

Further Reading

[1] Passover Season 2024 III: Chag haMatzah VII - The Spiritual Pattern Behind the Seven Days

Comments from Readers