Chag sameach Rosh Chodesh kol beit Yisra'el and Mishpachah as we commence the 12th and last month of not only the current biblical year but also of a critical period of time right before the End which launches what we have been calling the 'penultimate judgment'. But I don't want to talk about that today - it's happening, almost everybody can see it's happening now, and it must eventually come to an end once it has burned itself out and the guilty have been judged and taken out of the way. Nor am I going to talk about physical things such as the suffering this current winter has brought around the world, or that next winter will be considerably worse as the world runs out of everything that ought to have been produced this year, but wasn't, because of premediated war, fake crises, and the outright satanic, malignant hatred of life and liberty by the controlling few. The tsunami of lies that have been piled high to justify all this anti-God and anti-human hypocrisy is being systematically exposed, and when everything is out in the open, as it will be, the wronged people in their pent-up grief and anger will take their terrible revenge on the psychopathic malcreants who have engineeered their suffering and killed their loved ones. All of that will simply take its course and we can do little more than observe this backlash not only meet out a deserved justice but in the process witness the further erosion and degradation of civilisation. We are well and truly headed for a calamitous end as the Book of Revelation predicts.

What we can and must do, however, is take stock of ourselves. What are we, as believers - apart from surviving these upheavals - going to do about our spiritual life? Because this is the more important question as well as answering the more personally meaningful 'why?' - why has Yahweh allowed all of this to happen to us who seek righteousness? The answer to which is this: we aren't nearly as 'righteous' as we might suppose; and if these calamities have not exposed this self-deception, and not prompted us to look further and to go deeper, then we can at least come to know the truth of the words of the apostle Paul to the Romans who said:

"We know that all things work together for good to those who love Elohim (God), to those who are 'the called' according to His purpose" (Rom.8:28, NKJV).

There is always a purpose for suffering, even 'undeserved' suffering because of the sins of others - though how 'undeserved' that suffering is, is open to debate - because we all make our contribution to suffering in the world one way or another, even if it's a passive contribution ('sins of omission') by not doing something about injustice and evil in the world. The very least we can do is make our voices heard, for dissenting voices against ungodliness have the power to arousw influential men and women conscience to action, and conscience can lead to a cooperative effort on the part of many to get things changed for the better. There is always something we can do, from non-compliance with the demands of evil to actively opposing it in a godly way.

The current economic, social and political crises are by no means over but neither is Yahweh done with us. Many people I speak to want to give up because everything seems so hopeless. It isn't. If it were, there would be no Elohim (God), or else He would be doing nothing to intervene in the ordinary affairs of man as the Deists believe of Him. However you view current world events one thing is absolutely certain, albeit in different ways: these events have permanently changed us. We aren't now the same, for instance, as we were before the Covid affair. In the very crudest sense, that's not a bad thing, because the world has absolutely needed changing. We can never go back to the way things were, and good is that too, because what was, was built on a mountain-high stack of lies. Lies hurt, lies damage, and sometimes they kill too. So exposing them is good for everyone, even (and especially) for those propagating them knowingly or unknowingly. Truth, though bringing short-term pain, brings about long-term good. Though sometimes we fall for old lies again, there is no way we will ever fall for them in quite the same way again. 'You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you can't fool all of the people all of the time', goes the well-known saying. To be more aware of reality is to be empowered to make better decisions in life. We can be thankful for that.

In times of difficulty, we do a lot of soul-searching, don't we? Then the 'philosopher' within every soul is kick-started into action. All of us struggle with sin-issues we would rather not have but don't know how to be rid of - these are what are called 'besetting sins'. I'll not name any because you all know what yours are even if you're not sure what label to apply. Those with sufficient will-power - and that's not many folks though there could be more, I'm sure - can decide to 'quit' and sin no more, giving up an addiction by going 'cold', as it were. You have to be tough to do that. Most of us are too cowardly and take the long route, content (and yet not really content) to be thrown around until our battered hand finally let's go of the very thing that's hurting us. No one likes to be forced by adverse circumstances to let go but it's better than not letting go at all. So we can be thankful for adverse circumstances for that, at least. And hopefully, when conditions get better, we won't return to those sins. The trouble is - and this is a 'biggie' - he who is convinced against his will usually remains convinced still. The story of Israel and the Judges teaches us that, at least when it comes to nations. Fallen human nature is highly illogical, inconsistent, volatile and 'bloody-minded'. It does things simply 'for the hell of it' because it perversely enjoys hell...even though 'hell' is causing massive self-destruction.

The present 'condition' that defines the world isn't going anywhere soon. It'll only go when the Creator one day intervenes (as we're reading about in our Book of Revelation course) and sweeps it all away into the abyss. Sin isn't in any case something we have the power to deal with on our own. It's a cosmic-sized issue and we are but specks in that cosmos. We tend to absorb by osmosis that which we swim in unless we are given a sin-resistant suit that we can call a 'spiritual covering'. We can no more expell sin from this world by our own efforts than we can breathe and stay warm in the icy cold, Absolute-Zero vacuuum of outer space without a space-suit. At least the spiritual covering offered to us by Elohim (God) isn't bulky or uncomfortable to wear and we're usually not even aware of its presence once it's on because of the seamless, comfortable 'fit' that our Creator designed and made for us.

Most of us know, when we are sinning, that sin isn't Yahweh's will for our life. So we fight - we fight sin, we fight Yahweh, we fight others, we fight ourselves. We become defined by 'fighting' and 'warfare' (which is why I guess rôle-playing fighting games are so popular) because that is what we become accustomed to. 'Fighting' becomes second-nature. Christians often assume (too prematurely, I'm going to suggest) that "resisting the devil" (Jas.4:7) means just that: fighting him. But in doing so they forget the clause that comes before 'resisting' Satan. Let me remind you of it because it's critical:

"Submit yourselves, then, to Elohim (God). Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James 4:7, NIV).

Now this may surprise some of you. 'Resisiting' the devil doesn't mean engaging the devil in mortal combat. It doesn't mean actively 'fighting' him as two human combatants ordinarily would in the boxing ring or on the battlefield. It means, first, submitting or surrendering to Yahweh, and then saying 'No!' with determination to temptation and sin by walking away - not picking up a thumping big sword and and charging into Lucifer swinging it wildly, or engaging in 'demon-stomping' as some foolish Christians are wont try to do. People who do that aren't surrendered at all - they're fighting a rear-guard action against the Adversary in an unsurrendered state to Elohim (God). They've got things back-to-front. If we're commanded not to seek revenge but leave that to Elohim (God) in His own time and way, with weapons we can't even dream of possessing, then clearly we not supposed to 'fight' in quite the same way as the world feels compelled to:

"'Vengeance is Mine; I will repay,' says Yahweh" (Heb.10:30, NKJV; cp. Dt.32:35; Rom.12:19).

Resist, yes, absolutely; become self-proclaimed 'warriors' exacting retribution, no. Jacob overcame his tendency to sin - his carnal, Adamic, fallen nature - not by launching a full frontal attack on Satan and his hoardes but by wrestling with the 'Angel of the Lord' - Yahweh's malak of the Presence - the as yet unicarnated, pre-mortal Messiah, Yah'shua (Jesus); and Jacob did so until the desired blessing was obtained. We are to strive with Yahweh until we have metaphorically dislocated our hip and unconditionally surrendered (Gen.32:22-32).

In the end, if we choose the 'way of combat' as the world does, we will grow weary of fighting. You can 'fight' against your sin nature 'until the cows come home' and get nowhere. If you don't believe me, waste half of your life and try to prove me wrong, if you want, but in the end you will get very weary and very tired with your futile quest. You will see how hopeless and pointless it is to be driven by your own anger at sin (or anything else) by going for the throats of others and/or real or imaginary demons, because in the end, as my wife likes to remind me, anger is like a corosive acid that just eats you alive inside.

Sad to say, we all try the 'fighting' route and end up exhausted. It doesn't work because we weren't designed to solve the issue of sin in that way. Rather, we are called to surrender all to Yah'shua (Jesus) and what that means in practical terms is to totally dedicate our lives to Him. Now I'm not going to go into all the false doctrines and philosophies in both Christianity and the world that lead people to try and fight their way out of sinning...or worse, to fight sinners in the hope that their defeat will result in our own liberation from sin. What if you do, say, defeat your enemy? What next? Your sin still remains and soon enough you'll find another person or cause to wage war against because that will make you feel you're doing and chieving something when you're doing nothing of the sort.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not saying we shouldn't war against wrong, just not by the use of carnal weapons. As one astute social worker once noted, remove one slum, and two more arise, hydra-like, because the original causes remain unadressed. Rather, create the conditions for prosperity and encourage people to seize life by the horns and work hard to improve their circumstances. Lying at the root of all human problems is the thorny issue of sin - that impulse, that energy, that prompts people to break Yahweh's Torah or Law. And that 'impulse' always comes, ultimately, from rebellious supernatural entities called devils or demons. They are the enemy behind our human adversaries (Eph.6:12) who have consciously or unconsciously allied themselves to these beings through sinning even if we're not aware that we've actually invoked those forces. Even Christians do this.

The only way to conquer or overcome evil, whether in yourself, in others or in the world as a whole, is to deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow Yah'shua (Jesus). This is how the Saviour put it:

"If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me" (Luke 9:23, NIV; cp. Mt.16:24; Mk.8:34).

Understand this: 'denying yourself' does not mean tweaking your behaviour here and there. That's the futile way of the secular psychotherapist, and the Gospel isn't therapy. Rather, it is saying 'no' to the deepest sense of who you are, for the sake of Christ. That's the bottom line. Anything else is messing around on the surface and achieves nothing that lasts. Do not believe the lie - and it's a huge lie - that the Gospel is 'harder' for some than others because they supposedly have 'bigger' problems to fix. That's absolute drivvel. It's not as though someone with a certain sin issue has 'more to give up' than someone who doesn't. The truth - the whole truth, the absolute truth - is that the Besorah (Gospel) demands everything of all of us - everything - and no one person has a greater quantity of 'everything' than someone else.

I don't care what your background or experience is - I am not comparing circumstances because that's entirely the wrong focus. That's looking at the problem at the wrong end. I'm saying that the solution to every man and woman's sin is total surrender of your whole being - not an ounce less. Everyone genuinely coming to Yah'shua (Jesus) surrenders the same amount - 'everything' - whatever that may, in practice, consist of, and we don't ever need to know what anyone else's 'everything' is made up of in order to do our own surrendering. And by 'everything' I mean absolutely everything - including the badges we wear - our self-made 'identities' like those constructed out of the bad things that may have happened to us. We aren't, in the final analysis, supposed to carry anything - be it injustices done against us or even all the 'good' things we have done that we could potentially boast of. We are to equally surrender all our hurts as well as any self-glory that we think we are owed or have earned. That's what surrendering to Christ means in practice.

What does the world want us to do? "Boast about your flesh". What's the apostle Paul's response to that demand? "May I never boast except in the cross (= instrument of atoning sacrifice) of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (the Lord Jesus Christ), through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world" (Gal.6:13-14, NIV).

That's what a yielded, submitted, surrendered believer looks like. If any one of you thinks that the Besorah (Gospel) has somehow slotted into their life quite easily, without causing any major need for adjustments to their lifestyles of aspirations, think again: if you haven't had to radically change then it is more than likely that you have not really started following Yah'shua (Jesus) at all. You have simply re-invented Him to fit in with your flesh.

This is the point - the whole point: Yah'shua (Jesus) requires everything of everyone, and that requirement is no greater or lesser for one person than for another. That is the cost of true discipleship. Anything less isn't true Christianity. Anything less witnesses of unsalvation - it witnesses to the fact that you are still in your sins. Simply making readjustments to one's lifestyle to apparently fit with the demands of the Besorah (Gospel) isn't the Besorah (Gospel). So many calling themselves 'Christian' or 'Messianic' have simply gone about the business of creating or maintaining some semblance of faith while the rest just reject or abandon that 'faith' altogether when things don't work out the way they expected in an unsurrendered state. Unless they have made a proper surrender, they never had that faith in the first place. It's all or nothing. That's the Besorah (Gospel). And when you surrender all you have, and are, to Christ, you get from Him all that He is, and has, in return...a pretty enormous gain! And if you are able to 'deconstruct' your faith, as postmodernist progressives do, then what they are 'deconstructing' is either the core doctrine of 'total surrender' (which is to abandon Christ and salvation) or the illusion of the Gospel - a false gospel - that required only a little tweaking here or there of their carnal lifestyle (a good deconstruction).

The chances are that most people claming to be Christian or Messianic these days have never heard the true Gospel preached to them. Those who have embraced the 'Prosperity Gospel' certainly haven't and what I am saying may sound completely alien to them. What, then, is of the first importance in understanding what the Besorah (Gospel, Good News) really is? What are the key elements of the Christian faith? And have I truly embraced them? Judge for yourself as we allow Paul to tell us:

"For what I (Paul) received I passed on to you as of first importance: that (1) Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that (2) He was buried, that (3) He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that (4) He appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, He appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep (died). Then he appeared to James (the brother of Yah'shua/Jesus), then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me (Paul) also..." (1 Cor.15:3-8, NIV).

That's the Good News. That's where Christianity starts. That's where you build your foundation, on raw, matter-of-fact, down-to-earth, historical data. If you believe that, you're on your way. If you don't, you haven't even started your journey yet. The facts of the physical resurrection is where we must all begin. And notice that this kind of faith is totally evidence-based as you would expect of science and not, as so many atheistic scientists falsely accuse, a complete leap in the dark. You don't have to understand how at this point, just the basic facts of what happened. So what did the first believers believe? What is it, then, that we too must believe in order to be counted as true believers?

Arising out of the fact of the resurrection event, there are four fundamental things they believed and that is my core message to you today:

• 1. They believed Yah'shua /Jesus) died for their sin. Within two or three years of the Saviour's death, the earliest Christians were affirming the doctrine of the atonement. At the core, they believed that Yah'shua (Jesus) had died to save them from their sins. He wasn't simply killed by an angry mob for speaking truth to power. Since the Atonement is one of the fundamental beliefs of Christianity, we must seriously think about what we mean when we say, 'Yah'shua (Jesus) died for my sins.' To get this question wrong is to get Christianity wrong;

• 2. They believed that Yah'shua (Jesus) was buried and arose from the dead as an immortal physical Being. Without the resurrection of Yah'shua (Jesus), you don't have Christianity. Paul says it plainly when He connects the Resurrection with the Atonement:

  "If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins" (1 Cor.15:17, ESV).

  In other words, if Yah'shua (Jesus) is still in the tomb - then it doesn't matter whether He died for your sins. Christianity is false and you might as well pack it up and call it a day. And since Yah'shua (Jesus) predicted His resurrection, it would make Him a liar if it didn't happen, and not the sinless Messiah Christians have believed in for 2,000 years;

• 3. They believed that Yah'shua's (Jesus') atoning death, burial and resurrection were inseparable from the Scripturs. What do we mean by that? Essential to early Christianity was a belief that the Hebrew Scriptures - the Tanakh or Old Testament - were the Davar Elohim, the very Word of God. The excuse is made in some circles that the first believers didn't have a Bible, but that's simply not true. They had the the Old Covenant part, and their core beliefs were all supported by and affirmed in those writings from Genesis to Malachi. They also had "the apostles' teaching" (Ac.2:42, ESV), which provided the very insights that would eventually be written down in the Messianic Scriptures or New Testament. Interestingly, this creed or article of faith mentions "in accordance with the Scriptures" twice - once in support of Yah'shua's (Jesus') atoning death and once more in support of His resurrection; and

• 4. They believed that their core belief in the Resurrection could be verified by evidence. This was not - I repeat, not, as Alisa Childers puts it - some kind of 'What does Jesus mean to you?' mushy oatmeal faith. It wasn't based on a guru sitting under a tree, receiving some cosmic revelation, and then convincing a bunch of people to buy into it. It centred, as I keep on emphasising to you, on history and the evidence of eyewitnesses to an event - the Resurrection. The creed I quoted mentions 12 of these eyewitnesses, and in the very next verse, Paul refers to hundreds more:

  "Then [Yah'shua/Jesus] appeared to more than 500 brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, through some have fallen asleep (died). Then He appeared to James (the initially sceptical half-brother of Christ), then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, He appeared also to me" (1 Cor.15:6-8, ESV).

  So get this - Paul wrote this when most of those witnesses were still living. They were alive and kicking with the opportunity to say, 'Hey, you're making that up. I saw no such thing.' But they didn't say that. We have no record of any of the 500 witnesses ever challenging that testimony. Finally, Paul added Himself to the list of whose who'd seen the resurrected Yah'shua (Jesus) (Ac.9:3-7).

I don't know how many people I have met and know who say they too have met the resurrected Christ - and I mean not simply in the invisible, spiritual sense as most born-again believers do, but have seen Him with their own two eyes. I was speaking to one two days ago. She saw Yah'shua (Jesus) as we were speaking, as I was praying for her. There are two or three people from this congregation of Mishpachah Lev-Tsiyon who have seen Him with their own physical eyes. I have seen Him several times although it wasn't that 'seeing' that initially converted me. I believed without seeing as most do based on the simple facts or evidence, and then that faith was subsequently vindicated further by various miraculous supernatural manifestations. But you don't need to have supernatural manifestations to have saving faith. Not at all. We have been given all the evidence we need. And if you want to know what adequate evidence is, I can refer you to judges, lawyers, police detectives and journalists who know how to sift and interpret evidence that would be considered more than adequate in a court of law to establish whether something is true or not - you'll find a list of some of them and their book titles at the end of the written version of this talk. But whatever supernatural experience you may subsequently get - and everyone definitely needs to 'meet' Yah'shua (Jesus) supernaturally and be born again, it should - and must - start with physical evidence because Christianity is unique in bearing witness of supernatural events rooted squarely in historical facts. We're not dealing with fables.

If you're as sceptical as I once was as an atheist scientist (and remember, science is based on scepticism), then I can point you to some materials that will help you as they helped me. Why am I so confident in my testimony? Because, if I might borrow the words of C.S.Lewis, "the things I assert the most vigorously are those I resisted long and accepted late". Having been finally confronted by the evidence, such as I have just described, C.S.Lewis, the Oxford don, wrote that "total surrender...[was] demanded" of him [1] once he had got past "a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursey of fears, [and] a hareem of fondled hatreds" [2]. Now, to be sure, each of our journeys is different, with some (like Lewis) being far more resistant than others, but whatever your route, if you're honest and absolutely want to know the truth, you will for sure come to know that Yah'shua (Jesus) truly is the Messiah (Christ), your Deliverer and Saviour.

One final thought I would like to leave with you. Christianity is not merely an 'ideal', it's a fact. Idealism can be talked about and even felt but it cannot be lived, and Christianity exists to be lived, and lived to the full. This, you might suppose, is an unusual way to use Rosh Chodesh which is the day for consulting the nevi'im (prophets) but Christianity, you must understand - and this is taught in the Book of Revelation in at least four places (Rev.1:2,9; 12:17; 19:10) - expects all believers to be nevi'im (prophets) in at least this one respect. The apostle John testified:

"At this I fell at his (the malak's/angel's) feet to worship him. But he said to me, 'Do not do it! I am a fellow servant with you and with your brothers who hold to the testimony of Yah'shua (Jesus). Worship Elohim (God)! For the testimony of Yah'shua (Jesus) is the spirit of prophecy" (Rev.19:10, NIV).

I cannot say how, or when, you will obtain this spirit of prophecy if you haven't already done so, only that you should not wait for it before believing. Rather, you should examine the evidence carefully, be convinced it is reliable, believe in your heart, and then take that leap of faith by putting your all into the hands of He who died and atoned for you at Calvary and who has been raised from the dead and who promises the hope of the resurrection to eternal life:

"If we have been united with Him in death like His, we shall certainly be united with Him in a resurrection like His" (Rom.6:5, RSV).

Endnotes

[1] C.S.Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Fount Paperbacks, Fontana, Glasgow, Scotland: 1978), p.182
[2] Ibid., p.181

Acknowledgements

[1] Alisa Childers, Another Gospel? A Lifelong Christian Seeks Truth in Response to Progressive Christianity (Tyndale Momentum, Carol Stream, Illinois: 2020)

Recommended Reading

[1] Andrew Murray, Absolute Surrender & Other Addresses (Merchant Books, USA: 2012)
[2] J. Warner Wallace, Person of Interest: Why Jesus Matters in a World That Rejects the Bible (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 2021)
[3] Lee Strobel, The Case for Faith: A Journalist Investigates the Toughest Objections to Christianity (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 2000)
[5] Lee Strobel, Case for Faith for Kids (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 2020)
[5] Lee Strobel, The Case for Christ: A Journalist's Personal Investigation of the Evidence for Jesus (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1998)
[5] Lee Strobel & Jane Vogel, The Case for Christ: Youth Edition (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 2001)
[6] Sir Norman Anderson, Jesus Christ: The Witness of History (Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, England: 1985)
[7] Philip Yancey, The Jesus I Never Knew (Zondervan, Grand Rapids, Michigan: 1995)
[8] Nancy Pearcy, Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Crossway, Wheaton, Illinois: 2005)

Comments from Readers

[1] "YHVH bless and keep you and yours, Christopher" (JL, Germany, 22 February 2023)