We are assembled here today in obedience to the mitzvah (commandment) to celebrate the sixth and penultimate (last-but-one) annual festival of Yahweh called Yom haKippurim, the Day of Atonements, popularly abbreviated to 'Yom Kippur'. This is the 22nd year we have been doing this, before at least one of you here was even born. Over the years I have preached to you about this sacred moed or appointment and told you that one day in the future, right after Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) has returned to the earth for the second time at the final Tom Teruah or Day of Trumpets/Shouting, that He will judge the world before inaugurating the Millennial Reign. Some of you will be here when that happens and you will see the righteous vindicated and the wicked punished and the earth rid of the scourge of the demonic powers. What a day that will be! And, Yahweh willing, we older ones, if we have been true, will be back again in resurrected bodies to celebrate this day with you at the final Yom Teruah. But that yet lies in the future.

Today, in the Roman year of 2022, is not like the past 22 years, or indeed like the first New Covenant Yom haKippurim inaugurated by Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) 2,000 years ago; nor indeed is it like the time when long ago ago the preparatory Mosaic version with foreshadowing sacrificial system was given to the children of Israel through Moses in the Sinai wilderness for the annual cleansing of their sins as a nation. So much time has passed, so much waiting has been done, so many expectations and hopes have had to be put on hold while other prophetic events first happened. So many generations have come and gone in the long march of time. Yet here we are today, gathered and fasting, wondering what will happen today. Well, without wishing to sound too melodramatic, let me say this: today - Yom haKippurim 2022 - is the dress rehearsal of the Final Yom haKippurim yet to come in not so many years' time when you young ones are approaching, or are actually in, your middle age years. That is something you can look forward to, the envy of Yahweh's nevi'im (prophets) throughout the ages. Today is the day of the full unleashing of the Penultimate Judgment and there's nothing that men or malakim (angels) can do about it. And as my generation decreases, so your [younger] generation shall increase, but we'll be here a little while longer to set you upon your way.

Traditionally today is spent fasting, in prayer, and making confession. But we must do more than that today because today is the day that Yahweh is sounding the call to the princes of the 12 tribes of Messianic Israel to arise and shine and be the rallying points for the Final Gathering! This is the day that Yahweh is calling His Elijah Nevi'im (Prophets) to go arise, forth and call down the fire of heaven in witness of the might and majesty of our Elohim (God) who is returning in glory in not many years hence in the Person of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). And finally, today is the day when the declaration of Yahweh is to be sent out into the world, to Yahweh's Remnant as well as to all the inhabitants of the earth, and to the ruling principalities and powers - the declaration first given through a most unlikely medium, a sorcerer, the navi (prophet)-for-a-moment Balaam who would later do wickedness against Israel and himself fall. This is a warning that no man, be he navi (prophet) or layperson, is immune from the consequences of his choices.

These are the words that are to be sent out again, this time in reference now to Messianic Israel - the Torah-obedient sons and daughters of the Most High, the 100 per cent dedicated avadim (servants) of the glorious Son, Yah'shua the Messiah, who is the Bikkurim (Firstfruits) of the resurrection and our eternal Cohen Gadol or High Priest who presides at this moed (appointment) of Yom haKippurim:

"Elohim (God) is not a man, that He should lie, nor a son of man, that He should change His mind. Does He speak and then not act? Does He promise and not fulfill? I have received a mitzvah (command) to bless; He has blessed, and I cannot change it. No misfortune is seen in Jacob, no misery observed in Israel. Yahweh their Elohim (God) is with them; the shout of the King is among them. Elohim (God) brought them out of Egypt; they have the strength of a wild ox. There is no sorcery [possible] against Jacob, no divination [possible] against Israel. It will now be said of Jacob and of Israel, 'See what Elohim (God) has done!' The people rise like a lioness; they rouse themselves like a lion" (Num.23:19-24, NIV).

Yesterday morning when I awoke I saw a vision of a man who was on fire from head to toe but he was not consumed. He was not in pain because he himself was not literally burning, any more than the burning bush Moses saw was literally burning (Ex.3:1ff.). It was the Qadosh (Holy, Set-Apart) One of Israel who did this, who, as it is written, "makes His messengers (malakim, angels) spirits and His ministers a flame of fire" (Heb.1:7, NKJV; Ps.104:4). And as I looked upon the face of this man who was on fire, it changed into the face of a lion, so I knew that he had the mind, strength and will of his Master, the Son of Elohim (God). The man did not move at all, but I could see the rarpidly flames moving all over him. Then the vision closed.

This, brethren and sisters, is the Spirit of Elijah, of which it is spoken by the navi (prophet) Malachi:

"Behold, I will send you Elijah the navi (prophet)
Before the coming of the great and dreadful day of Yahweh.
And he will turn
The hearts of the fathers to the children,
And the hearts of the children to their fathers,
Lest I come and strike the earth with a curse"
(Mal.4:5-6, NKJV).

This is by no means the first time the Ruach haEliyah or Spirit of Elijah has been sent. Yahweh sends it forth at key moments in history when there is a dire need to challenge religious compromise and complacency (1 Ki.18). Can there be any doubt that this is such a day? It is therefore sent in times of spiritual drout which is often accompanied by physical drout as a sign. Please observe - and observe it well - that the Spirit of Elijah is never sent alone but is accompanied by the Spirit of Moses, the sign that was given on the Mount of Transfiguration when Moses and Elijah appeared to vindicate, and testify to, the authority of the Son of Man, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) (Mk.9:4) who possesses all authority.

And what was that vindication? Not just that He was the expected Messiah of Israel but that He was a navi (prophet) in the Spirit of Elijah but also that He was perfectly Torah-obedient, setting an example for us, and bringing the Torah to its completion (i.e. filling it up, or full-filling it). This same spirit, which Malachi prophesied would be sent in the last days "before the great and dreadful day of Yahweh", could therefore only be sent to a remnant that was Messiah-trusting and Torah-compliant also - the importance of the Torah-component is reiterated in the Book of Revelation so that none may be in any doubt that it has not been 'done away' with. This is described poetically as those who "sing the song of Moses, the servant of Elohim (God), and the song of the Lamb" (Rev.15:3, NKJV).

Therefore there are no believers in the Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) who are called to be nevi'im (prophets) in the last days who are not also fully living the Torah lifestyle. It's that simple. The two must both be present and the song they sing must a duet - and since Moses was also an Elijah-navi (prophet), then in effect it's a trio. By this and other means you will know who the true nevi'im (prophets) are and those who are not. I listen to no-one claiming to be prophetic whose life is not a Torah-obedient or Divine Messiah-trusting one. And neither should you. And I underline the word Divine for he must absolutely and uncompromisingly believe that Yah'shua (Jesus) is Elohim (God).

So we begin today, on this set-apart moed, by rebuking, in the name of Yah'shua (Jesus) our Eternal Cohen Gadol (High Priest), all sorcery, witchcraft and wizzardry everwhere, in every nook and cranny, in every land and clime, and most especially in the Body of Christ, and even more especially in the Remnant and in our own congregations where it may have sneaked in unawares because of the occultisation of modern society. Witchcraft has led the children of the Kingdom into gross iniquity, producing as a sign the many false prophets whose voices ring across the internet and air waves. For it is written:

"For the wrath of Elohim (God) is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the emet (truth) in unrighteousness, because what may be known of Elohim (God) is manifest in them, for Elohim (God) has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Elohimhead (Godhead), so that they are without excuse, because, although they knew Elohim (God), they did not glorify Him as Elohim (God), nor were thankful, but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools" (Rom.1:18-22, NKJV).

And now in our day we see the evil fruit of it, dissolving away our Western societies like a never-ending stream of concentrated acid, infecting even those believers who should know better than to inhabit those environments that I warned against last sabbath. And I am talking principally of social media where this evil is being the most effectively and disasterously propagated and embraced by the last generation.

Today, in addition to making some important proclamations, I want to carefully unpack how the Enemy is destroying the last generation at its very spiritual roots by means of a new and terrifying phenomenon, so that you can effectively minister against it and expose it. What you see as you go online and onto social media today is an avalanche of people claiming victim status and blaming their opponents for making them supposed victims. Satan is the accuser (Rev.12:10) and there is a certain psychic pleasure to be had in the 'naming and blaming' game - an evil pleasure. But the thrill that it brings wears off quickly, because it is not godly and therefore has no permanence to it. It evapourates almost as soon as it has manifested. The kick people get out of blaming soon wears off, leaving them empty again. They are cast back into the void of emptiness which they are so desperate to climb out of without going to Yahweh for help who demands that they cease being lawless and turn to His Son for salvation.

So what do these 'imagined' victims do once they have had their 'blaming thrill' and the high has gone? Like anyone on a drug that they have run out of, they must find a new supply. Those who play the victim game then go to another online social group to find something else they can be outraged about - someone else they can blame. Why do they have the craving to keep on accusing? Because they are rejecting the one - and only - medicine that would cure them of their addiction: forgiveness. For without forgiveness there is only perpetual anger and bitterness fuelled by the lie (in the majority of cases) of victimhood.

We gather together every Yom haKippurim, as they did anciently, to obtain the desperately needed forgiveness of Yahweh for our sins as a corporate entity, as the children of Elohim (God), as Israel. This alone gives as peace of mind and a clear conscience so that we can live honestly and honourably with ourselves and others. Each year on this day the Cohen Gadol or High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies to discover, by direct revelation from Yahweh, whether the nation had truly repented of its trespasses of the last year and whether Yahweh had forgiven them or not. When the Cohen Gadol (High Priest) emerged from the Holy of Holies and told them they had been forgiven and that His covenant with them remained intact, they would breathe an enormous sigh of relief and praise Him in gratitude. Knowing the forgiveness of Elohim (God) is therefore one of the most important components of the faith, based as it is on the promises in the Davar (Word) in both Old and New Covenants. For knowing that we have been forgiven empowers us to daily forgive those who in turn wrong us, as they will, and do, and to seek from them forgiveness for the wrongs we may have done them. When 'being sorry' and receiving forgiveness disappears from a society, that society is rapidly heading into darkness and destruction. For the thing we need the most in life is, in addition to love, forgiveness - freely giving it, and freely receiving it. It is a wellspring of chayim (life).

Those of you who are old enough will remember the beginnings of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950's and 60's with Martin Luther King, Jr. of America and, to a lesser extent and in more recent times, Nelson Mandela and Anglican Bishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. What characterised these movements was the ethics of love, forgiveness and reconciliation. These core pillars have all but disappeared in the United States and South Africa where they began and we see the evil fruits in their rapidly disintegrating societies where the Gospel is not known and lived anymore. Now I am not saying that King, Mandela and Tutu were angels, because they were not (their sexual immorality, communism, and liberalism, respectively, were their chief undoing), but these three guiding stars characterised their work and effected great transition in their respective societies and gave birth to hope in very troubled nations plagued by racism.

Today's civil rights activists, so called, live by a different set of moral and ethical principles where forgiveness is not given any place at all. They have moved away from, and out of, a Christian dynamic and into an essentially Marxist and pagan one where retribution or revenge is the moving force. Indeed, forgiveness is today looked down on as an outdated and outmoded Christian practice that should have no rôle whatsoever to play in what is ironically termed 'social justice'. Why? Because, as one modern activitist claims, forgiveness only 'perpetuates the cycle of abuse'. How have he and others arrived at this conclusion? For if we are to present the Besorah (Gospel, Good News) of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus) we need to be able to honestly answer such accusations because forgiven abusers do, I'm afraid, frequently continue abusing when justice is left out of the equation and the abusers are not required to make ammends. So a twin problem is faced: defending the need for forgiveness and not trying to whitewash true injustice as many Christian groups and churches are, alas, guilty of.

The problem we face in all the modern social aberations is in recognising, first of all, that there is social injustice and in knowing how to deal with it in the only productive and non-destructive way. Post-apartheid started well but then degenerated into something far worse than Mandela had overthrown. Christianity became replaced by Marxism. The emphasis tends now to be exclusively placed on guilt and justice while forgiveness is almost wholly de-emphasised. Desmond Tutu would be appalled.

Those of you who who have heard me preach over the years know that I have always adhered to the biblical line of finding a right balance between Justice and Grace. I have urged my listeners to seek out, understand, and implement the divine tavnith (pattern) in all things. Human interaction is complex because humans are complex with every single human, as well as the cultures they are a part of, being in different places of maturity and spiritual development. If everyone was at the same place inside, our interactions would be simple because we would think alike and have more-or-less identical expectations of one another. But we aren't, which is why the mediating power of first, truth, and second, leadership and authority, become very important. And leadership, as we know only too well, is imperfect at times. Nevertheless, of necessity, we have to find a path through our social dissonances - a path that is clearly outlined in Scripture accompanied by the concrete power to make it effectual. In other words, it isn't just about 'words' or even well-intentioned 'actions' but about a healing power and authority that comes from outside of ourselves. It's the Spirit of Elijah I mentioned earlier which both heals broken souls and burns out the dross of sin else the earth would be smitten with a curse, as Malachi warned.

Let us be clear from the outset: justice is one of Yahweh's greatest and most important attributes. The need for it is built into us by the Creator Himself. That's why we have a Judgment Day called Yom haKippurim. It occupies one-seventh of our spiritual space, and arguably more when you carefully analyse the content of the other festivals too like Chag haMatzah which requires that we daily measure our conduct against the Torah, judge ourselves, repent, and carry on growing. So given the importance of justice to our Heavenly Father, when someone has been offended, oppressed or hurt - when a great injustice has been done - it is right and appropriate that we respond with a concern for justice. So whether the problem is people suffering from racial oppression or economic exploitation, there is something that wells up legitimately from our hearts that says, 'This must stop and we must obtain justice'. And our response to that must be proactive. I've already mentioned King, Mandela and Tutu, who were formed in the Christian tradition (even though Mandela was also a Marxist) and understood very well that the call to justice is basic to what we are all about.

Christians/Messianics do not deny that for this is the legitimate value behind much of what we hear today. But the solution offered - turning one kind of racism (against blacks) into another (against whites) - does not, and can never, work, assuming that all the grievances are legitimate in the first place and properly balanced out against all the known facts. I am thinking here of slavery, for instance, because whites (Europeans and Americans) weren't, and still aren't today, the only slave-drivers - Africans and Arabs were just as, if not more, guilty, in terms of scale. And as we all know, traditional slavery is very much alive in the Moslem world particularly, though not only there. And let's not forget the horrific scale of modern sex-trafficking and all those poor women sold into sexual slavery.

Here's the problem. If justice is all we have, if the only thing we stress is justice, then very rapidly, to borrow the words of Bishop Robert Barron, "society becomes extremely brittle, very cold, and in the end very violent", which is one of the hallmarks of communism. Go back to the Lex taleonis - 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth' - attitude. What we're hearing today is something like: 'I've been offended, so in my call for justice, I need you to pay a price now in return.' That is the fuel of practially all the social unrest going on. If the offence is legitimate then, yes, there is a good cause for a response of some kind at the very minimum - of some kind of consequence. That's, after all, how every nation's justice system basically works. But the very real danger is that if we just stay within that justice-matrix, we have the 'eye-for-an-eye' making the whole world blind, as Ghandi put it so eloquently. That's fighting fire with fire that eventually sets the whole world on fire which is absolutely not the kind of positive fire that we speak of so much. And I can only think of one being who wants to use that kind of destructive fire!

This is where the dimension of forgiveness becomes absolutely necessary. Remember also that forgiveness is not opposed to justice. Forgiveness is a step beyond it, it encircles or embraces it. But if you bracket or remove forgiveness, what results is precisely what you see today - the brittelness, hard-edged coldness and violence that we see in our society everywhere. And here's the thing - when you reject Christianity you're rejecting forgiveness too because that is an essential Christian virtue that every believer is mandated to extend to others as a condition for Yahweh's forgiveness of us. And that in turn means recognising that there truly is something called sin which atheism in particular refuses to admit. As the apostle John incisively pointed out:

"If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the emet (truth) is not in us. If we confess our sins (as we're supposed to do every day, but especially as a community at Yom haKippurim) , He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His davar (word) has no place in our lives" (1 John 1:8-10, NIV).

There is something distinctively Christian about this idea of forgiveness, so when it fades away, something very serious has been lost in our culture. And consider this also: when we forgive we are actually, simultaneously, affirming the justice that requires addressing! True forgiveness does not deny justice! A mistake that so many make is that if I forgive someone who has hurt me, then I in some way am implicity affirming that what he did wasn't that bad. That's not at all true even if some people undoubtedly think that way. I suspect that for these people in particular, their hesitancy to forgive is because they believe that justice is in some way being diminished because I am affirming or endorsing the bad act. I'm not.

Understand this. Yes, forgiveness certainly goes beyond justice but it also includes it. Take David's adultery with Bathsheba and his subsequent murder of her husband, Uriah. Was David forgiven? Yes, after many tears. Was justice side-stepped? Not one bit. He paid for his sin the whole of his life in installments - starting with the death of his son born in adultery. But it didn't end there: the rape of a daughter by a half-brother, the rebellion of Absalom that resulted in the deaths of thousands in a bloody national civil war, and defilement of his wives after he was forced to leave most of them behind in Jerusalem in the hasty exodus, which also resulted finally in the death of Absalom. The list of David's troubles goes on and on. Some often complain that David should have been executed, and I have been one of them in the past, but now I realise that such sentences can be served out in other ways. So, oh yes, justice was served alright but forgiveness was also extended, putting David back into right relationship with Yahweh and restoring - and deepening - their friendship. Justice is served even in forgiveness, even if it is blunted somewhat. It just doesn't always happen in the way we necessarily expect or want. So if you're wondering about some of the troubles blood-bought believers have in their lives after salvation, depending on what they have been forgiven of, this may in part be the reason, through we usually won't know until this life is over when all is revealed.

If we try to prize forgiveness apart from justice then we have a problem to be sure. In fact, disposing of justice altogether isn't real forgiveness. That is just a kind of sentimenalisation of forgiveness. In forgiving, though, we allow Yahweh to take care of the justice side instead of trying to execute it ourselves. Sentimentalised forgiveness is repugnant to justice and makes it problematic. I find that kind of forgiveness problematic! True forgiveness isn't a Polyanna-type 'I'll stoically smile in the face of oppression - I'll get over it and move on.' That's not forgiveness either. That is a sentimentality that is opposed to justice as evidenced that the resentment of injustice still remains. Was that the attitude of the martyrs under the Altar in the Throne Room? (Rev.6:9-11) Certainly not! So as Christians/Messianics we are most definitely against 'sentimental forgiveness'. We have to be or injustice remains unaddressed.

Let's take another look at Martin Luther King. He was a man who came to terms with injustice. He was not in the least bit hesitant in calling out injustice, was he? He called for a more just society. But injustice wasn't the sum total of his social, moral and ethical equation, and it's that which completely separates him out from the modern 'social justice' movement and its promoters. King's call for justice was conditioned and surrounded by the Christian idea of the forgiveness of our enemies, as Yah'shua (Jesus) taught:

"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.' But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven; for He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward have you?" (Matt.5:43-46, NKJV).

Think on this too. If we are to love our enemies, then we've got to have some! Right? Now that isn't a sentimentalisation, is it? We don't stop and think: 'Hmmm, I don't have any enemies. I love everyone. Everyone's wonderful!' That's a delusion! No, if you're called to love your enemies it's because you know you've got some, not that you need to go and get some! In other words, there are people who do real injustice. They really are enemies to you; but now, you are called upon, not just to re-establish justice but to love your enemy, and that's another dimension. When that's lost, something vital for the wellbeing of our whole society is lost too. We are commanded to love our neighbours and our enemies probably because, commonly, they are the same people.

There are, I think, two major reasons why forgiveness has been fading away in the West. This is the first one: Our therapeutic culture which has taken a strongly inward turn. While all other cultures have stressed the importance of community and a need to forge a personal identity that negociates and aligns with the common good, modernity stresses looking inward to forge ones own identity based on our desires and then moving outward to demand that society honour our individual identity and interests. But if all that matters is individual autonomy, then forgiveness and reconciliation, which are designed to foster and maintain community, are of little importance. So the current trend of atomisation, if unchecked, spells the end of community, culture and civilisation altogether. And guess whose goal that is?

What stands out for me, then, is how postmodernism (and the modernism before it) in rejecting forgiveness is, without perhaps always realising it, rejecting community as well, starting with the family. One of the core tennets of Karl Marx in his book, The Communist Manifesto, was the destruction of the traditional family. Having said all that, let me say that there is something in coming to realise one's own sense of freedom, integrity, worth and value. That's important. That's good, which is why Marxism, Fascism and Satanism deny it.

Let me illustrate that with a helpful example. Take a toddler or an early adolescent. Imagine saying to him or her: 'OK, forgive anyone who offends you, give yourself away in love, be a person of radical love.' Well, stop - a child isn't capable of that yet. The child has to come to some sense of appropriation where they know what's their own and who they are. It's absolutely OK that we go through a period of that kind of appropriation. We need an identity because you can't give what you don't have. So only when you have a sense of self - and that's in part what the three spring festivals are all about - your own desires, your own wants, and so on - only then can they can give self away in love. (I'm speaking very generally and approximately here to make a point).

Let's say that someone has grown up in a relentless oppressive context as a slave to a cruel master, for example, or with wicked parents, making for psychological oppression...someone coming of age from that sort of a background with deep dysfunction, physical and/or sexual abuse, and so on. That young child needs to be affirmed - you don't just say to someone who has been continuously oppressed, 'Forget about your own desires, give yourself away in love!' They don't have that integral self, perhaps, to give away. So, yes, there is a value to self-affirmation. But when we hyper-value and affirm that, or if we hyper-value and affirm that in a one-sided way, then something goes wrong.

The end result of taking a young person out of his domestic setting, where his needs were met and his desires were articulated and people took care of him, is appropriate for that stage of life. But when you take the child out of that context and challenge him to consider worlds way beyond his desires and his self and his affirmation, he is forced to deal with a reality that isn't necessarily comfortable. How can I put it? Life is hard! Get used to it. Life is not a safe space and never can be or ever has been. Life is risky. You don't know what, or who, is coming around the next corner, or what they might do to you, because the planet is populated with billions of people all with their own free agency and ideas, and some of these people are...how can I put it?...scary! The way we deal with them and such situations is how we are tempered and matured. It's how we grow and learn. It's part of the reason we are down here! And there is no escaping it, however much you demand this safe space or that.

There should, ideally, be 'safe spaces', if you want to call them that, in our families (Yahweh ordained that to be the main 'safe space' above all other 'safe spaces') and maybe there are some really good friends who can be 'safe spaces' too. But that's about it. Good parents try to keep small children as safe as possible by protecting them because they are very vulnerable - but part of coming of age is to realise that the world is not a safe space at all, and at least in this æon, never can be, because free agents will do what they always do - good and evil - and no amount of legislation can alter that.

So the second problem we face in all the modern social aberations is in recognising that you're going to die. I'm going to die. We're all going to die, and no human attempt to change that is ever going to succeed, no matter how much science fiction propaganda you watch. We are all mortal and death may seize us sooner rather than later. The great benefit of the awareness of the reality of death is that it quickly knocks us out of that false reality we often try to set up which says that 'I am the centre of the universe'. You aren't, and everyone else but you can see that. Your life is going to come to an end. Deal with it.

I'd like to suggest a third problem in facing all our modern social aberations and it's this: you're not actually that important. I'm not that important. That's why we have 'growing up' or initiation rituals in every society. Yahweh's is what the Jews and Messianics call Bar- or Bat-Mitzvah, what orthodox Christians call 'Confirmation'. That's when we transition away from the primacy of what the first three spring annual festivals mean to the summer Shavu'ot festival and thence on to the autumn festivals which makes community our main focus, not self. We are given community responsibilities when we turn 12 (or 13 in the Jewish tradition). The attempt to run away from that is, in effect, a refusal to mature and grow up. And the transition isn't necessarily smooth! Usually it isn't. It can be, and if you've been brought up right, it can be easier. Birds kick chicks out their nests which is a scary experience for them no doubt, but necessary. I went to College and started breaking the ties to home though I returned for the vaccations. Then I got married and even though my parents always kept a room for me to which I could return at any time, I had my own home by then. Childhood and growing up are like the three spring festivals - you move on, and yet they are always there, which is why we repeat the annual cycle of seven festivals every year. Family is eternal but new families arise within that nest, and then newer families still. That's the way it's supposed to be. If Yahweh wanted us to completely cut ties with our nurturing family He would have abolished the need to observe the spring festivals once we had spiritually matured. It's all connected, just like justice and forgiveness. Try to prize them apart and you're in for big trouble.

Which brings me to the grand conclusion and a truth that will upset a lot of maladjusted people who have not been taught the truth or raised to live in it: YOUR LIFE IS NOT ABOUT YOU. Let me repeat that: Your life is not about you! A sense of protection, of safety, of coming to self-possession - all of that is good and appropriate but at a certain stage of life you have to break free of all that and be drawn into a world of objective value that goes well beyond your private little concerns. The tragedy is that we now live in a society filled with people who have never been initiated into adulthood. And part of the rôle of religion has been to so initiate people and so draw them into these higher worlds. And I think this has been deliberate on the part of those who rule us because it is easier to control children than it is adults. We don't need a therapeutic culture that turns us permanently inwards but one that turns us outwards to Elohim (God) and to the reality that is a billion times greater than ourselves that is packed with spiritual adventure and real personal and societal security! After a while, meditating on our navels become less than interesting.

So, again, let me reiterate: the evidence clearly shows that the more we move away from the community, the more forgiveness fades away...and I am specifically speaking of Christian community here though there is certainly a wider application in all kinds of communities. All of this brings us to another terrifying and socially poisoning development (although it's not really all that new) and that's religion without grace (undeserved loving-kindness). As we have seen, our modern 'cancel culture' tends to atrophy forgiveness. We have this shame, honour and victimhood culture which many now regard as a new secular religion because it's accepted on the basis of faith without any serious investigation as to its validity. In this new culture, companies, institutions, and governing agencies are now tasked not with treating all individuals equally but with the moral obligation to proactively defend victims - those who have been oppressed by the powerful - which provides a second 'ring of honour' in the emerging culture (the 'defenders of victims') whilst the highest honour goes to the victims themselves. What then happens is that this honour (so-called) cancel-culture society ends up valuing fragility over strength, creating a society of constant good versus evil conflict over the smallest issues as people compete for status as victims or as defenders of victims. All of that destroys our ability to overlook sleights but most of all it sweeps away the very concept of forgiveness and reconciliation. It leaves its society permanently fractured. So you have this insane situation where forgiveness is seen as radically unjust and impractical as it supposedly short-circuits the ability of victims to gain honour and virtue as others rise to defend them.

Again, let me reiterate, there are real victims out there. History is beyond question a Bluebeard's closet full of skeletons and skulls. Hegel rightly called history a 'terrible slaughter bench'. History is littered with massive injustice. So I am not in the least denying injustice. Far from it, I preach repeatedly against it. Are there real victims? Of course. And we must always acknowledge that. We don't want to brush all that under the carpet. Indeed, Yah'shua (Jesus) positively tells us that all hidden things will be revealed by Elohim (God) at the end, and we need to expose what we can, when we can, so people don't go around in ignorance, and lies don't get more of an upper hand than they already hold. The Saviour said, "there is nothing hidden which will not be revealed, nor has anything been kept secret but that it should come to light" (Mark 4:22, NKJV).

He wants us to know that and be reassured: justice will prevail, in the end, at Yahweh's insistence because Yahweh is an Elohim (God) of justice. We don't want to ever pretend that wickedness never happened. The problem now is the exaggeration and how becoming a victim is what confers honour. No it doesn't. Yet it is required of us in this postmodernist culture that we show that we are victims, and the more I can show that, the more honour I get. And then honour is coupled with shame. That means in order to get honour, someone else has to be shamed! No, no, no, that's back-to-front. It's non-redemptive and destructive.

Yah'shua (Jesus) undermines that sick game throughout the New Testament. What results from this perverse game is 'micro-aggression' and 'cancel culture'. As far as micro-aggressions are concerned, I'll be honest with you: I'm being offended all the time! And I don't mean offended because I am a victim of the holocaust, of chattel slavery or of communist persecution because I haven't experienced any of these, with perhaps the exception of the last to some degree. They're pretty big things. But now what are postmoderns saying? Things like, 'I'm a victim' because of what? Because 'you looked at me in the wrong way', or 'your voice was slightly the wrong tone', or 'you said a little word I choose to be offended by'.

And there you are, saying or doing something you never intended would be noticed, but which the one suffering from victimitis noticed, accusing you of a micro-aggression. This puts the members of our society in a very negative and probematic space. What your postmodernist is then driven by is the need to build up his or her 'treasury of honour', and to do that one must be victimised. The problem is, to accomplish that, someone has to be shamed too. That breeds an antagonistic society. You have a conflict-ridden social theory that in reality is just a tweeking of Marxism and Nazism which thrive on humiliating and destroying a perceived enemy - a scapegoat - whether the bourgoisie or the Jews. It creates an 'us against them' situation - class war, racial war, atheist vs. religious war, or whatever the current 'against' fad is.

You can largely blame Karl Marx for this mindset. Those of you who know your Marxism will remember that Marx claimed that someone becomes rich only at the expense of someone becoming poor. Using this fallacious argument, socialism has justified the 'redistribution of wealth' at gunpoint. Yes, of course, some do become rich at the expense of the poor but not everyone. Those who work hard and create wealth aren't robbing anyone, but Marxism hates them anyway and wants to dispossess them. That's why purely communist countries have always been poor and underdevelopped. Those who work hard and create wealth are making a net contribution to society, not the opposite! They help lift a country out of poverty. If you don't believe me, read the books or watch the videos made by Thomas Sowell, the brilliant Afro-American scholar who began as a Marxist but realised its teachings conflicted with the facts and in any case didn't work. Inevitably, then, the Marxism which has hitherto failed miserably, that has created this new 'honour/shame' situation as a way to undermine and destroy the Christian West, is based on fallacious assertions too. Today I can only get the honour of victimhood by shaming you. If you don't believe me, visit social media any day of the week and you'll see this constantly going on - it is a nightmarish scenario of accumulating, accumulating, and accumulating more and more victimhood status followed by blaming, blaming, and blaming others. What a terrible slime pit to be in!

Do you want to know why people are uneasy and anxious all the time? It's because they are in this horrific war of all against all. It's a Hobbesian space we find ourselves in, a space of unrestrained selfish and uncivilised competition where people are constantly fighting for their own interests but never for a collective good. Like the unacceptable side of capitalism (or 'ultra-captalism' as I call it) it's a dog-eat-dog hell, which in this respect is no different from communism in its narcissistic, destructive drive, only in classical Marxism the goal is 'in the interests of humanity', a fictitious target if ever there was one given the millions of people destroyed to never actually arrive at it. All the neo-marxist language of the 'common good' that postmodernists spout, of a 'shared humanity', of a 'common social purpose', is just bogus word salad designed to seduce those who care, because the philosophy divides, and divides and divides even more.

What brings us together - and can only bring us together - is when we all fall in love with objective values - epistemic, moral and aesthetic values. The postmodernists are starting at the wrong end, holding the wrong end of the philosophical stick and using it as a cudgel instead of as a set of moral ideals. What the postmodernist does is to bracket or relativise such idealism or they use the excuse that 'that's the way powerful people use to maintain themselves in power'. So the neo-marxist modern is forced to supposedly 'dymythologise' and 'deconstruct' any claim to objective value. Yahweh have mercy on us because that's where Western society is now and it's a self-destructive dead-end! It hasn't a hope in hell of creating anything good because it's a suicidal philsophy, a self-destructive secular religion. If you don't believe nme, visit the postmodernist social experiment in Portland, Oregon, and see if you like it.

I am so glad now that I got thrown off Facebook (though at first I was a little upset) because social media is the place where all of this is acted out. I'm not saying I am against social media, only social media like Twitter that directs all this negative energy into a a kind of obliterating big explosion. It wouldn't be a bad thing, actually, if social media got wiped out for two or three years as that would force those trapped in this terrible lie to turn outwardly and deal with the real world and with real people face-to-face. (It would also help if they got away from university campuses as this educational instutution has been completely hijacked by the marxists). This is the huge downside of the Internet, never mind about the destructive influence there of pornography and worse. What social media allows is for people to immerse themselves in this honour-and-shaming nightmare 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. It becomes an addictive drug that produces nothing good and contributes nothing positive to society. It isn't creating anything - not wealth, not goodness, not righteousness - and is especially toxic to the Gospel and a massive stimulus to nihilism, atheism and radical secularisation. It's a self-brainwashing medium that's playing right into the hands of the élites. We used to be told, 'Turn the TV off'. Turning the computer and mobile phone off isn't a bad idea either. Why not self-regulate your use of it for purely constructive purposes?

When you get rid of Elohim (God) and the idea of divine ultimacy, as postmodernism actively seeks to do and is being successful in doing, something else moves in to fill the vacuum. It has to because nature abhors a vacuum. When Elohim (God) is kicked out, something else is inevitably sucked in. The one-sided obsession with justice at the expense of forgiveness, common humanity, love of enemies, and a shared social purpose, can lead only to one thing: in a word, satanism. Why? Because the whole ugly cancel culture is an addiction to vindictiveness.

Ironically, when a society rejects the Christian account of who we are it doesn't become less moralistic but far more so because it retains an inchoate, rudimentary (not fully developed) sense of justice but it has no means of offering and receiving forgiveness. The 'justice' it now believes in isn't real Justice and its online 'courts' resemble the show trials of Stalinist Russia, Nazi Germany, and Maoist China more than anything else. The great moral crisis of our time is not, as many Christians believe, a sexual licentiousness (even though that is truly a huge problem in itself) but rather vindictiveness. As one writer has pointed out, social media serves as 'crack (cocaine) for moralists' - there's no 'high' like the high you get from punching malefactors - the people you hate. But like every addiction, this one suffers from the unrelenting law of diminishing returns. It's a starvation disease like Anorexia that in the end will kill you. The mania for punishment will therefore get worse before it gets better. So ask yourself this: how come these people have to keep on inventing new micro-aggressions? Because they have to keep generating the energy behind victimisation and shaming.

Which brings me to the Torah and how it can be abused as so many messianics do, something Paul was at pains to point out which orthodox Christians have in turn misunderstood as an attack by the apostle on the very Law itself. Not so. What Paul was concerned about was Judahites and others using the Torah to puff up their own egos and to attack others with it self-righteously. This is a human failing, I'm afraid. The more we know about the moral law, the more detail I can summon, the more we can aggrandise ourselves by declaring, 'Hey, look at me! I follow this, and this, and this, but you don't follow this one, and that one, look how much better I am than you!' As much as we love the Torah, and should always love it and live it as David did, there is a dangerous side to it too. Everything has a shadow side, remember, even ordinarily good things, and it's that Satan heads towards at full speed and promotes as the way to go. Does love have a shadow-side? Certainly. Have you never heard of love-bombing? That's one example. Of course, it's not true 'love' remotely but a counterfeit.

In a similar way, understanding that there are real victims (such as the victims of sexual predators like Epstein and his ilk, or the child victims of those who carry out child exploitation in mining dangerous substances in Africa used to supply materials for 'green energy', for example), is important and we need to address their very real grievances. But justice has a shadow-side too. It can be taken too far. When genuine grievances have been exhausted, the danger is to then go and invent micro-aggressions that make a person more and more and more a victim, who can then blame more and more people. It's a vicious spiral. Justice has limits because it cannot exist by itself without grace - without undeserved loving kindness. If this isn't making any sense to you, because it all seems so theoretical, then go and see the movie, Amish Grace made in 2010 and you'll understand exactly why justice cannot survive as something good without grace. It's very powerful movie and based on the true story of a school shooting in which children are killed. It's absolutely worth having in your family DVD collection.

Finding new things to be continuously outraged by and more people to blame leads to mounting frustration because there is no outlet for it. It just builds up and eats you alive. The only outlet is forgiveness for real or imagined injustices. At some point you have to let go of this psychological crack cocaine or you'll end up in the funny farm or doing something terrible to yourself or to someone else you have chosen to represent as a sacrificial offering for your blame. Wokeism, like Trotsky's version of Marxism, is perpetuual war or revolution. It never ends until everyone but one person is dead. That's why I say again, this is satanism but cleverly disguised. The more Christianity is kicked out, the worse it is going to get. The Gospel, then, is the only means of deliverance for this last generation, with the emphasis on forgiveness. Society has got to rediscover forgiveness and you have got to teach it by example.

We will return to this theme another time, for sure, but it is important to talk about it on this critically important day. Those who created, under demonic inspiration, and have promoted the 'social justice' lie - a parody of true and necessary justice - are going to pay dearly unless they rapidly repent and sincely admit culpability and regret in the public arena. Yes, they will in their turn be 'cancelled', as have we for not embracing their insanity. So don't be phased by it. Walk away from it. Instead, start working in the Spirit of Elijah to bring out the turning of hearts back into alignment with Elohim (God) and with family. If you want to study more about this, then I am going to leave a link to Timothy Keller's article which has inspired much of the content of today's talk. I urge you to read it.

We'll stop here for now and return for the closing Neilah prayers this afternoon.

Brethren and sisters, welcome back to the concluding session of this Yom haKippurim service where we present ourselves to Yahweh and ask Him for forgiveness for the sins of the past year so that we may enter Sukkot next week with clean hearts:

O Yahweh, Elohim of our fathers! Let our prayers come before You, through Yah'shua our Deliverer, and do not hide Yourself from our supplication. What shall we say to You who dwell on High? You know all things, both hidden and revealed. You search our hearts and thoughts. Nothing is hidden from Your sight. We are not so arrogant nor hardened to say, 'We are righteous and have not sinned.' For truly we have sinned. We have turned away from the good mitzvot (commandments) You have given us. You are righteous and true in all Your ways, but we have done evil in Your sight. Thank You, our Heavenly Father, and Elohim of our fathers, that You forgive all our sins, pardon all our iniquities, sanctify the altar of our heart, bless and sanctify the quodesh (holy, set-apart) places in our homes and assemblies, sanctify your leaders in Messianic Israel, both the husband-fathers and the cohenim (priests) - the pastors and elders, and grant atonement for all our transgressions through the precious blood of Yah'shua the Messiah.

For it is written: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness". 'Return O Israel to Yahweh-Elohim, for you have stumbled because of your iniquity. Take words with you and return to Yahweh. Say to Him, "Take away all iniquity, and receive us graciously, that we may present the fruit of our lips."'

(Final blowing of the ram's horn)

I hereby declare Yom haKippurim at an end. May Yahweh go with you, fill you with His love and give you shalom (peace) in Yah'shua's Name. Amen!

Acknowledgements

[1] Bishop Robert Barron, The Fading of Forgiveness & Do Not Fear
[2] Timothy Keller, The Fading of Forgiveness: Tacing the Disappearance of the Thing We Need Most

Further Reading

[1] Our Postmodernism website
[2] A Man of Honour: The Meaning of Integrity in a Lawless World
[3] Honour Thy Parents: Honour and Obedience Contrasted
[4] Dishonourable Parents: How Do You Honour Them?
[5] How is a Wife a 'Glory' to Her Husband?
[6] The Mesmerising Spirit: Deliverance from Victimitis Sufferers

Comments from Readers

[1] "Amen. Thank you for delivering this message" (RSB, USA, 5 October 2022)