Shabbat shalom kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah and welcome to the 294th day and the 29th day of the tenth month of the current biblical year which began at sunrise.

I mention that only to remind everyone that today is not what the world calls New Year's Day which is an invention of the Romans like so many of the markers of time in our global culture. And had this not been a sabbath day we would have ignored it altogether. So you won't have found any Messianic Evangelicals holding a vigil last night until midnight and then singing Aul Lang Syne to honour the pagan god Janus and then having a fireworks display (as they do here in Scandinavia) or a party both because we don't recognise 1 January as a divine marker of time, any more than we did Christmas a week ago, and also because the day begins at sunrise and not at midnight or sunset (in the Rabbinical system). Nor do we recognise today as the day of the 'Circumcision of Christ' or the 'Octave of the Navity' as the Catholic Church does though they have since renamed it the day of the 'Solemnity of Mary the Holy Mother of God'.

Neither are we superstitious as satanists are because the numbers of the New Roman year, 2022, add up to 6 (2+0+2+2) which is the number of man which they 'divinise' into '666', the number of the Antichrist or Anti-Messiah, though I don't think it's an accident either that Yahweh has ordained their [penultimate] judgment in both His year as well as their own, for it is by no means unusual that the Creator uses the Enemy's own calendar markers with which to signal His wrath and punishment. As He brings to judgment every murderous régime in every generation, so too, this time with the announcement of their own markers, do the nevi'im (prophets) pronounce judgment on the murderous élites as He has done on the practitioners of Moloch worship in the past. They have signed their own death warrants. So, using the immortal words of Smith Wigglesworth, 'Oh, it's you!', when he dismissed Satan for waking him up one night and went straight back to sleep, we say on this 'Day of Janus', 'Oh, it's you again!' and dismiss the Enemy in Yah'shua's (Jesus') Name, and get on with worshipping on this Sabbath day.

So let's begin today with a profession of allegiance and of our faith using the words Paul used declaring to the Roman converts of his day (since we are still in the business of converting unbelievers from Romanism in its many guises), what it is we believe in and what our attitude to this fallen world system is:

"This Good News (Besorah, Gospel) was promised long ago by Elohim (God) through His nevi'im (prophets) in the Qadosh (holy, set-apart) Scriptures. It is the Good News about His Son, Yah'shua (Jesus), who came as a man, born into King David's royal family line. And Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) our Master (Lord) was shown to be the Son of Elohim (God) when Elohim (God) powerfully raised Him from the dead by means of the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit). Through Messiah (Christ), Elohim (God) has given us the privilege and authority to tell Gentiles (non-Israelites, unbelievers) everywhere what Elohim (God) has done for them, so that they will believe and obey Him, bringing glory to His Name" (Rom.1:2-5, NLT).

This raising of the crucified Messiah occurred on the 16th day following the true New Year, in the Hebrew month of Aviv, also known as the Month of Blossoms, and is called the Day or Firstfruits, or in the Hebrew, Yom haBikkurim (which this year is on the 17 April in the Roman Calendar - concidentally and not coincidentally, this is also the day the Romanised churches celebrate Easter) because this Roman year of 2022 is designated a day of LIBERATION for many. So this is an advance announcement of the practical as well as spiritual Good News that will hopefully encourage you to continue enduring as overcomers in Christ in what is coming over the next 3 months and is already here. So remember what I said today.

But we don't need to wait until Yom haBikkurim to receive the new life that the resurrection brought us 2,000 years ago. The Good News of this New Life in Christ is available here-and-now and on every day of the year. The partitioning of time for sabbaths and seasonal moedim (appointments) is in part for all of us living in this physical world to create rhythms and harmonies for physical prosperity and in part exists for the benefit of those unable to see past the physical and into the eternal spiritual realm to a different, and ultimately more important, set of realities where time has no meaning. New life is available continuously, if we want it enough, to individuals, husbands and wives, families, congregations, local communities and even whole nations if enough people will repent of sin and embrace the living truth hidden in, and available from, Yah'shua (Jesus). The Good News is both for single, individual people as well as for all kinds of groups of people in complex relationships where different commitments are made because Yah'shua (Jesus) reaches into all of these. The resurrection power which sets us free, made available to us on the Cross of Calvary, can be claimed by anyone and everyone at any time who chooses to believe the Davar Elohim (Word of God).

The 1st January has no significance in the spiritual realm apart from the fact that on this particular year it happens to fall on a sabbath. Other than that, it is just another day. It doesn't mark the beginning of any true heavenly cycle, it doesn't represent spiritual rebirth in Christ as Yom haBikkurim does, it isn't qadosh (holy, set-apart) by the Creator at all. It can, however, if you want it to, represent a choice to repent, as on any other day of the year, and given its pre-eminence on the secular calendar, why not today use it to formally declare before Yahweh and men your rejection of, and independence from, the claims of the spirits of secularism and false religion? Make that your 'new year's resolution' and then be done with the Roman New Year and its unkeepable 'resolutions' altogether.

On a day very much like this, having no general spiritual significance, Abram as he was yet known then, made a decision in response to a mitzvah (commandment) given personally to him by the Creator unexpectedly:

"Leave your country, your people and your father's household and go to the land I will show you.

'I will make you into a great nation
and I will bless you;
I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.'

"So Abram left, as Yahweh had told him" (Gen.12:1-4, NIV).

This is not actually anything particularly extraordinary in the affairs of human beings. A similar mitzvah (commandment) is given to every woman getting married. She changes households and oftentimes geographical location if her new husband lives in a different place to her parents. She also changes clans, becoming part of her husband's, which is why in our Western culture women traditionally take their husband's surnames and forsake the surnames of their own biological fathers. There is a change of identity. It's the same with conversion. We leave one identity behind and assume a new one. We make a fresh start.

Here Abraham is doing the same by performing the female rôle in his relationship to Yahweh, and as all men must do, not meaning that men should abandon their rôle as leaders of their marriages and families but to demonstrate their submission to Yahweh in the same way wives are called to submit to their husbands. Submission isn't just for one of the genders. Indeed it is her husband's willing submission to Yahweh that should inspire a woman to be submissive to her man so that if called to do so, as Abram was, he is willing to leave all he knew behind in order to serve Yahweh and not be pulled in two directions.

Here Abram is also breaking with his own father because of religion. This must have been as hard for him as it is hard for those of us who were raised in non-Christian or non-Messianic households where continuing to live in close proximity to his father's society and culture would have meant night impossible-to-resist pressure on his own family to conform to societal patterns. This is even true of inter-denominational differences. My own mother, who remained an Anglican all her life, used to put pressure on my children to accept her Anglican ways, contrary to my expicit wishes, like accepting Christmas, which is very hard for small children who obviously want to please their kindly grandparents in a season of glitter, good food and present-receiving. It takes character to respect the wishes of ones grown-up sons and daughters when one is in disagreement. We all face that kind of challenge.

For Abram, who had a specific calling, it was necessary for him to break with Chaldea for all sorts of reasons like these. His family undoubtedly belonged to a moon-worshipping pagan cult whose goddess was known as Sín (no relationship to the English word 'sin', tempting though it might be to want to make that word association). It is no accident that generations later, in the days of Moses, Abram's descendants would be required to pass through the Desert or Wilderness of Sín named after the very moon-goddess that Abraham had abandoned both spiritually in leaving Chaldea and physically in leaving her territory behind him. Arguably that wilderness journey in Sínai represented the continuing abandonment of the spiritual influence of the cult of Sín in the descendants of Jacob's people. Further, Yahweh appearing on Mount Sínai, in the pagan mindset, would have been a symbolic displacement of the false goddess from her throne which mountains represent.

Life is a process of dethroning false gods and enthroning the true Elohim (God), Yahweh-Elohim, on the thrones of our own souls and in national consciousness. How long it takes to do that is a function of our willingness to submit or not. Each authenic New Year, ordained by Yahweh to be in the spring, is the time we annually renew that commitment, and specifically, by command, at Shavu'ot, the Feast of Weeks or Ekatost (wrongly called 'Pentecost').

The Roman new year god, Janus, had two faces, one facing backwards in time and the other facing forwards. Time marches ever onwards and we must leave the past in the past where it belongs. What's done is done. That much we can agree on with the Roman symbolism because it's a reality of life. We must live in the present with our hopes securely rooted in the future, remembering only the lessons learned from the past, good and bad, and those important historical events Yahweh commands us to celebrate. Forever looking to recreate the past is a grand illusion that leads only to unhappiness and disillusionment. The past is dead - well and truly - and the wise person accepts that and moves on. It is a measure of maturity. Wives can no more return to their parents' households than immature adults can return to suckle on their mothers' breast. We have to grow up and stay grown-up.

Sadly, as one observer noted, in today's postmodernist culture, there is an entrenched unwillingness to grow-up any longer as people trade their parents for the State instead of standing on their own two feet, an arrangement the State is more than happy to accomodate because it gives them power and control over people. However, the State is not our parents. Our religion is not statism but Christism, much to the chagrin of the State. Caesar is not Lord and we are not his feudal serfs!

If it took so long for Abraham's descendants to quit the spirit of Sín, should we surprised if quitting the spirit of our modern secular cult of statism, not to mention the swarm of other religious cults that the state approves of, is going to take more than one generation? I have been repeatedly frustrated in my nearly 40 years as a minister by the unwillingness of converts to quit suckling at the breast of the cults that raised them. The final generation, the Remnant generation, can only be raised and gathered in the proper spiritual environment, however imperfect, by letting go of the false cult that raised them, and turning away from it forever. And as we know those first Israelites were very imperfect. And indeed, had I not known better (because there isn't the time), looking at the infantile world we live in today, I might have thrown up my hands in despair and cried out that we need more than two generations to raise the Remnant, but that is not a luxury we have been granted.

The changes that have to be made have to be made now and without further procrastinating because today is always the day of repentance, not tomorrow (2 Cor.6:2). The fence of neutrality and indecisiveness is being torn down. As Yah'shua (Jesus) said, you're geither for Him or against Him. Supporting both sides amounts to supporting the wrong side in the same way that robbing people twice a week and generously helping people twice a week still makes you a thief. The good deeds don't cancel the bad as any court of law will quickly remind you of. Only Christ can forgive sin and thereafter you're expected to dedicate every day to doing the good.

The Israelites were not ready to enter the Promised Land of Canaan until all but two of the first generation were dead. Their dependency on their unredeemed parents with their Egyptianised traditions had to be cut so they could stand on their own in Yahweh. Yes, the eastern bank of the Jordan was conquered while several of the first generation were still alive but the actual crossing of the Jordan into the core territory to its west had to await the death of the rest of them with the exception of Joshua and Caleb, who alone of the first generation were true and faithful. That's quite a culling of the original numbers, quite a pruning of the House of Israel.

Not only that but, as if to make a point, Yahweh left His testament - a revelation, if you will - in these two men, one of whom (Joshua), Moses' successor, was an Ephraimite and the other (Caleb) a descendant of Esau adopted into the Tribe of Judah [1]. These two men are types of the leadership of the Last Generation of the Final Gathering too and so we need to pay close attention to the details of their lives if we are glean any clues as to the types of men who will lead the Last Exodus. I draw your attention to four facts:

• 1. Israel was led by a man of Ephraim, not Judah, called Joshua whose name is the same as that of the Saviour (Yehoshua, Yah^ushua or Yah'shua (Jesus) for short;
• 2. Joshua's assistant, Caleb, was an adopted member of the tribe of Judah though his genealogy was of the hated tribe of Esau, just as Rahab, the ancestor of Yah'shua (Jesus), was a redeemed Canaanite likewise adopted into Judah, a picture of the redeemed, grafted-in Gentile under the New Covenant;
• 3. This same adopted Judahite, Caleb, was a polygamist with five wives [2]; and
• 4. Joshua had a family or "house" (Joshua 24:13) but we know nothing of his wife, wives, or children because he is a picture of Yah'shua (Jesus) of the Priesthood of Melchizedek [3], the King of Peace, Sovereign of of Salem (Shalom) in Abraham's day, whose genealogy is purposefully not recorded either because of Who he represents (Heb.7:3).

On the primary level, Joshua and Caleb are a picture of the Saviour and the Saved, the Bridgreem and the Bride, and what they look like. On the secondary level, they represent Messianic Israel led by Joseph-Ephraim, not Judah, because biological Judah has largely gone his own separate way (by adopting anti-Messiah Judaism as his preferred religion). Faithful Judah in the latter days is largely a tribe of adopted children. As the aspirant Bride, we need to look at the figure of Caleb carefully because of one particular characteristic in particular:

"I will give him (Caleb) and his descendants the land (Israel) he set his feet on, because he followed Yahweh wholeheartedly" (Deut 1:36, NIV).

He's wholehearted - singleminded, dedicated, loyal, faithful. His physical genealogy as an Esauite is irrelevant, he's adopted, and he has a large polygamous family that nearly all modern lukewarm anti-Torah Romanised, Christmas- and New Year-celebrating Christians and Talmudised, Zionist-worshipping, Judah-idolising Arab-hating ultra-Messianics would strongly disapprove of! He does not cut a picture of what contemporary carnal believers would expect, even demand, of the Remnant because they themselves are so out of alignment with true divine tavnith or pattern. He doesn't 'conform' to their expectations so he is marginalised and rejected. You might say he was the equivalent of a modern Arab convert from Islam! SWell, sorry, but the Remnant is Caleb and we wholeheatedly follow Yahweh through His Son Yah'shua (Jesus)!

Yahweh and His Messiah do not conform to our Western prejudices and misguided expectations. He doesn't endorse the 'system' or the institutionalised 'church'. Ours is the Elohim (God) of the unexpected and (in the minds of the puritanical) the 'unacceptable'. Caleb is a picture of the latter-day, end-time Remnant, unconventional, strong, and faithful! As Caleb with Joshua (the picture of Messiah) stood up to the 10 scared and disbelieving spies who had been intimdaded by the giants of the land (Num.13:6, 30) and didn't want to invade satan's stronghold, so the Remnant is not put-off, cowered or scared by the 'giants' of our time, the wicked men in power.

Here is how he describes himself and this we need to pay very close attention to:

"Now the men of Judah approached Joshua at Gilgal, and Caleb son of Jephunneh the Kenizzite said to him, 'You know what Yahweh said to Moses the man of Elohim (God) at Kadesh Barnea about you and me. I was forty years old when Moses the servant of Yahweh sent me from Kadesh Barnea to explore the land. And I brought him back a report according to my convictions, but my brothers who went up with me made the hearts of the people melt with fear. I, however, followed Yahweh my Elohim (God) wholeheartedly. So on that day Moses swore to me, 'The land on which your feet have walked will be your inheritance and that of your children forever, because you have followed Yahweh my Elohim (God) wholeheartedly.' Now then, just as Yahweh promised, he has kept me alive for forty-five years since the time he said this to Moses, while Israel moved about in the desert. So here I am today, eighty-five years old! I am still as strong today as the day Moses sent me out; I'm just as vigorous to go out to battle now as I was then'" (Josh.14:6-11, NIV).

The Remnant are the sons of Caleb. We follow Yahweh wholeheartedly. We stand our ground when others shrink with fear. Our outlook is exactly the same as it was when we at first began nearly 40 years ago. We don't give in to fear, we conquer it through faith in the Son of Elohim (God) and we give a good report of what Yahweh is going to do to the Enemy when everyone else is shaking and cowering. We don't follow the ways of the world and its traditions, religious or otherwise - we abhor them - but rather we choose follow in the the old ways of the Most High, El Elyon, even as it is written:

"Thus says Yahweh: "Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls" (Jer.6:16, NKJV).

So which city do you think Caleb was assigned as his inheritance? And what does this tell us about our inheritance if we are true and faithful? He was assigned Hebron, one of the cities of Abraham and the patriarchs, whose tombs I have visited and where I paid my respects to the father of the faithful when I was young (Rom.4:16). Hebron with its Tomb of the Patriarchs with the cave Machpelah still stands today, telling you something about the quality of endurance that comes through constancy. Constancy, reliability, dependability. Since the beginning of this work only two of our people have been like that. In those days Hebrew was called Kiriath-Arba and do you know who lived there? The sons of Anak, the Anakim. And what was special about Anak's sons? They were giants, the very same giants the 10 cowardly spies had been terrified of, describing themselves as grasshoppers by comparison. They were descandants of the nefilim. This nefilim territory Caleb, with its surrounding lands, was assigned by Yahweh to Caleb to conquer and inherit, a part of what would become the territory of Judah, Caleb's adopted tribe and the tribe through which Messiah would come. That's right, the Remnant take the nefilim head on IN CHRIST, not in their own strength, and seize their unlawfully acquired territory. That is the character, substance and quality of the Remnant soul.

Brethren and sisters, the territory we have been assigned to is presently occupied by the giants of our own age who, by means of creating and manipulating fear, makes themselves out to be bigger and mightier than they really are. Yet we cannot be casual or over-confident either. Your lawless, arrogant, and misguided demon-stomping charismatic would be crushed by them. Yet, invitably, it must be said too, there are good-for-nothing descendants of Caleb who think they are of the spirit of Caleb by some sort of family 'right' who do not live up to their ancestor's profession and character. One of those was the despicable Nabal (1 Sam.25:3,17) whom Yahweh destroyed, giving his faithful wife, Abigail, to faithful David to be one of his lawful wives. Ancestry, in the end, means nothing. It is character that counts in case you were thinking I was about to commend the literal, biological descendants of Caleb. No one is 'born' into the Remnant - he or she has to 'fight' their way into the Remnant by trusting in Messiah and overcoming the flesh. No true son of Caleb can rely on the merits of a parent or ancestor.

We are about to go through a tough time but know this: the giants of our age are not nearly as scary as they make themselves out to be and we must overcome whatever fear we may have of them before engaging them. There is no victory in such fear. They have terrorised the world into believing that some plague will overwhelm them if they do not receive their poisonous and largely ineffectual 'therapies'. We stand for truth and freedom, they for lies and slavery. We stand for grace, they for power. We stand for Yahweh, they for Satan. Joshua and Caleb conquered the Promised Land and so shall we. Joshua and Caleb received their inheritances in Ephraim and Judah and so shall we, if we do not lose hope or succumb to the lies of our adversaries. So be strong, choose this day whom you will serve (Josh.24:15), and know the strength of Yahweh of Armies, the LORD of Hosts, Yahweh-Sebaoth.

May the grace of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) be with you always, this day and in all the days ahead of this decisive Roman year of 2022 AD. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] See 'The Astonishing Story of Caleb the Kennizite' in Asenath: Seventh Matriarch of Israel . His non-Israelite ancestry is recorded in Numbers 32:11-13 and Genesis 36:10-12.
[2] Azubah, Jerioth, Ephrath, Ephah and Maachah (1 Chronicles 2:18-19,46,48)
[3] Psalm 110:4; Hebrews 5:6,10; 6:20; 7:11,17

Comments from Readers

[1] "Wow, what an answer to my prayer for HOPE!! Thanks so much foe blessing us bwith His Blessing" (MW, USA, 1 January 2022)