Welcome to the sixth day of this year's Jericho March which corresponds to the sixth annual festival of Yom haKippurim, the Day of Atonements also called Yom Kippur.

Today I want to have a real heart-to-heart with you all. A brother in Germany asked me yesterday what a Communal Covenant was, and what it was like. I dare say if I asked the same question to most Christians and Messianics they would have no clue what I am talking about other than to speak vaguely of the 'New Covenant'. You see, in our world, we live in perhaps one of the most egocentric generations of all time, for whom the idea of a communal covenant has no meaning whatsoever now. The reason: because there hasn't been a context for such a thing for so long. For years I have been talking to you about the difference between the Spring Festivals and the rest, and I have explained that difference in terms of the former being 1-to-1 or solo-Christian verses the many-to-1 or communal. It sounds nice on paper or as information circulating around the brain cells, but what does that mean in practice?

Yesterday, during Day #5, I asked you to imagine being one of the men on that march around Jericho and to picture doubt creeping in to their thinking as they performed the same ritual day after day. 'What on earth are we really doing here going around this city, blowing trumpets, and then going back to camp every day? This is craziness!' Well, I can tell you right now, on this Day #6 which corresponds to Yom haKippurim or the Day of Judgment, that this is absolutely not how the second generation under Joshua thought or felt. Ours is an atheistic generation for one thing; theirs was not. Nobody even knew what an 'atheist' was back then for they were either few-and-far-between or non-existent. Think on that for a moment. You were either a polytheist like most of the prople of the world were, or a monotheist as the Israeltes were. Those people were not thinking as we do, so our using our imaginations is perhaps not such a good idea after all. We tend to view everything and anything through our own lens of experience and culture.

The contrast we are presented in the Exodus is that between unbelieving monotheists still steeped in polytheism (the first generation) and believing monotheists raised exclusively in Torah and in the One Elohim (God), Yahweh (the second generation). They were worlds apart from each other. With the exception of two men - Joshua and Caleb - all that first generation were still unbelieving polytheists at heart. At some level of consciousness and unconsciousness or other, they were still polytheistic in their mentality and behaviour, viewing Yahweh as but another god. They were double-minded, caught between the old way and the new, like King Saul himself who began well and ended badly because in the end he was still 'unsaved'. Only a few ever seem to make a complete break with the past and leave the old behind and fully embrace the new. And that comes only by dying to the flesh.

There is nothing particularly admirable about my generation as a whole. Most of us are 'atheists', 'agnostics' and 'mixed-up Christians' but in reality may be viewed as polytheists - double-minded folk worshipping, unconsciously for the most part, at many altars, caught between the old and the new, possessing some of the former and some of the latter. Many see, and desire, the things of the Remnant, but still want to cling on to aspects of the old, egocentric, selfish ways of the world, and the traditions of their former religion, whether it be rapture, tongues, an all-male Godhead, monogamy-only, prosperity, rabbinic tradition, or whatever. Indeed, I would venture to suggest that many of you hearing or reading me have no idea what I am talking about and are vigorously shaking your heads. But only a handful of my generation are going to make it. There aren't many Joshua's and Caleb's around, which is why the other day I was yearning for more of them to be raised up by Yahweh. We need at least two such men for each tribe, 24 in number, because at least initially the tribes will be travelling independently of one another. Does the number 24 ring any bells from the Book of Revelation throne rooom scenes? (Rev.4:4, etc.)

The Battle of Jericho was but the first of a series of events leading to the conquest of the Promised Land. I want to mention only two names to you, because you only need to understand the story of these two to understand what I mean when I speak of the difference between a solo-covenant and a communal-covenant. And those two names are Jericho and Ai. Jericho was a victory because every single adult man and woman in the Israelite camp was of one accord - one mind and one heart (Phil.2:2, NKJV) - and did not doubt for a moment. Those marchers believed every word Joshua had told them. They believed that if they followed out Yahweh's instruction through their new leader, who had already proven himself more than capable and reliable, that the walls would come down the way the malak (angel) said. Their faith was no less vibrant on Day #6 as it had been on Day #1. They were anticipating Day #7 with undiminshed hope and expectation.

You see, the miraculous crossing of the River Jordan was still fresh in their minds. These were the young men of Israel, fathers and sons, who believed - passionately. They didn't entertain doubt. Why should they? Raised on Torah all their lives, witnesses to many miracles and to the many doubtings and grumblings of their parents and grandparents, they had plenty of negative contrast by which to see the truth clearly.

Jericho was a victory but the next battle, Ai, was a defeat (at first). And it was a defeat for the whole nation because of the sin of one man - Achan - who had broken the communal covenant. This event had not yet happened on Day #6 of the March but it was about to. You see, Yahweh had commanded that no man help himself to the spoil of Jericho once the city had fallen. It was all dedicated to Yahweh and to Him alone. This was not to be like a worldly conquering army, out for spoil and personal glory. This army was consecrated to giving all the glory and wealth to Yahweh-Elohim, the very opposite of what the modern 'prosperity gospel' teachers proclaim. And they looked up to Joshua as being one after the true image of Elohim (God), a worthy leader.

Israel was defeated because of the sin of one man who broke the communal covenant received at Sinai and stole loot from the conquest of Jericho that was dedicated wholly to Yahweh, and buried it under his tent. He meant to have it for himself and his family. He was found out after the defeat at Ai. You can read about it yourselves in chapter 8 ob the Book of Joshua if you have never read about it or perhaps forgotten it. It is so very, very important to understand this. If you miss this truth - this concept - you won't have a clue what it is we are called to do in this work. It's why, at this level, we have failed repeatedly until now. You see, when Yahweh enters into a communal covenant with a nation it is as though the many were one person. It's why the collective nation of Israel is regarded as a single, allegorical monogamous wife to Yahweh, and why similarly the collective Messianic Community of believers, or Church, is regarded as a single, monogamous allegorical wife of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), even though both Israel was - and now Messianic Israel is - a polygamous entitity consisting of many hundreds of thousands of people. Likewise, each marriage is considered to be a single person in a covenantal setting, and each family is regarded as a single person in a covenantal setting on the next level, each congregation and village is viewed as a single person on yet another level. Are you getting the picture?

This is a wholly alien concept to Catholic, enlightenment, modernist and postmodernist ideas about individuality where everyone is their own master. When Yahweh judges, He judges not just individuals but whole units too and commands the righteous to get out from Babylon in time, as He did Job and his family from Sodom. We are to be separated from wickedness, and separated to, righteousness, as bodies of people because the highest love there is can only be known in community or as one Body. And Yahweh represents, and is, the highest love. Whether you are called to be part of a monogamist family or a polygamist family in this life, you are called to be part of something called Echadness, or oneness, because units of one are units of loneliness and unfulfilment. We weren't designed to be that way. There is no such thing as a solo 'congregation' of only one person. Where two or three are gathered...there Messiah (God) is amongst them (Mt.18:20). Does He meet us one-to-one? Of course. Absolutely. All relationships start-one-to-one. That's where it all begins but that is absolutely not where it ends.

Achan was judged not as an individual but his whole family - his wife and children too. That outrages the Western mind accustomed to thinking in enlightenment ways. When Haman was judged and executed in the story of Esther, his wife and grown children were hung with him by Mordechai. This did not bother the mindset of the ancients because they understood something that we, in the egocentric West, have forgotten, namely, the meaning of a communal covenant. So you women, don't marry anyone whose blessings and divine judgments you don't want to share! Don't bring any children into the world either! Seek out godly, righteous men who love truth, holiness, purity and with a passion matched by those great men and women of the Bible, and then maybe you will begin to understand what I am talking about. You see, when the rebels in the time of Moses were judged, their whole families went with them into the ground when they were swallowed up. And that is because they were under communal covenants. They understood that. They were not offended by it as we are who are supposedly more enlightened. Therefore those who were righteous threw their whole life energy into making sure their wives and children were raised in the admonition of Yahweh because they knew that the sins of one generation pass down the generations sometimes for many centuries, corrupting societies, multiplying evil in the world. They knew the high import and seriousness of their responsibilities. So my message to godly women is, seek out and marry men with a shem tov or good name like the women in Isaiah 4:1!

Those who mockingly judge the righteous ancients as 'primitive' because of their lack of high tech or modern 'democracy' have no idea what they are talking about. Not a clue. Who would not be proud to be part of a band of people united as one in love for Yahweh and each other? That kind of unity or echadness comes only through loving Elohim (God) and personal sacrifice, through the conscious decision to release all attachments to worldly things and to throw in ones all into that which is eternal. Marriages are eternal, godly covenantal communities are eternal, which is why Yahweh bundles them up onto three broad groups at the final Yom haKippurim and sends them off together as family groups and 12-tribed national Isarelite Groups into eternity. The only solo folks at the end of the day are those who reject Christ who alone is able to bind souls together and so experienmce the kind of simcha-joy that exists between the members of the Elohimhead (Godhead). And that is why our monogamy-only culture will never understand these things properly - they may get glimpses and have yearnings but be frustrated because they are unwilling to make the sacrifices required that otherwise keep them bound in a state of loneliness.

Whether the family of Achan at Jericho, or the families of Korah and his co-conspirators in the Sinai wilderness, or the family of the Amalekite Haman in Persia, they all suffered the same fate. Theirs were communal societies, both the Israelite and the pagan. Many modern people pride themselves in being 'pagan' and yet still think like modernist solo folk. Even the pagans of old had some true things their modern inheritors lack today. True, there were terribly wicked things about the pagan past which are largely gone in our day because of the afterglow of Christianity that stil lingers, but they are returning, and with a vengeance, as the formerly Christian world rejects Christ and returns to its earlier pagan roots. We see a symptom of this in the heartless brutality of the modern cancel culture which knows nothing of family intimacy and loyalty - they have been trained to be loyal to lifeless, abstract ideas, institutions and ideologies which they yet remain so terribly alone in because there is no life in them. People are disposable for such as these.

Many modern Christians regard us as heretics for believing in eternal marriage because they have been taught the lie that all family associations will dissolve in heaven and everyone will become single again. That's only one step away from the equally Buddhist notion of Nirvana where everyone is supposedly merged into a single mass consciousness or soup with all individuality eliminated. It's the same reason polygamymake paradise wherever they go. Adam was lonely until Eve was given to him, so lonely that when she sinned and fell, he consciously and deliberately sinned and fell in order to remain with her, because their bond was so tight that even though they were two individuals they were also one individual in echad union. He was afraid to lose that.

The covenant-faithfulness of the second generation of the first Exodus didn't last long, alas. Disobedience and selfishness soon crept in leading to the unmitigated disaster that was the period of the Judges when Israel swung back and forth between apostacy and repentance. And it's been that way ever since. It was never supposed to be like that. The Israelites made treaties with the very people they were supposed to drive out. Even Joshua was tricked by the Gibeonites who, pretending to be non-Canaanites, agreed to be slaves in return for their lives. In the Second Exodus none of these things can or will happen. It can't, and won't, because this is the harvest of the end-time, a harvest descibed in the Book of Isaiah, in the fourth chapter, as glorious beyond all human understanding when Yahweh will be visibly present as in the days of Moses. That chapter is central to what we teach and preach. The ancient ways will be, and are already being, restored but sadly those professing Christ won'æt even consider them until they are brought to a place of desperation and will be prepared to do anything to be delivered. That is one of tghe reasons persecution uis allowed.

Consider this too. Many attempts have been made to create Utopia in the world where one or more ingredients of true Messianic Israel are missing. And men and women keep on trying...and failing. The story of the Battle of Jericho is so important that we choose to make it an annual observance to teach these things. It's not the only story to be sure but it perhaps illusrates best what a communal covenant is. And that covenant is like a marriage vow of commitment and faithfulness even unto death, 'come what may', because that is the core of the very heart of Elohim (God) Himself. No great love can be known or retained until this is understood, agreed to, and unbreakable promises are made. In today's societies, alas, you don't have to any more. Marriage is discouraged and divorce is easy. You can, if you wish, choose a lower road, and there are many kingdoms and rewards in the eternities depending on your choices, each compared in their glory to the brightness of the sun, moon and stars (1 Cor.15:41). You get to choose so that none can complain when later they feel they have been treated unfairly.

Now there are so many differentr aspects to all of all this to which my whole life has been dedicated since I received Christ in 1977. I won't pretend it hasn't been tough because putting the fleshy nature to death is tough but the fruits make it is absolutely worth it. For once you have tasted of Yahweh's goodness in the higher and deeper things, you will want nothing less. And, yes, there is pain involved. Yes, there is suffering and loss involved, but all of this is consecrated to an incomparible gain.

Moreover, it's a package deal. You can't take your selfish, fleshy cart with you through the theological store and decide what you want to put in the cart and what you want to leave out. You have to take and mix all the correct ingredients in the correct way and order, like a Jericho March, because this 'cake-mix' is nothing like what's in the world, churches or messianic synagogues of 2023. You can't leave the butter and eggs out of the cake as once happened on my 21st birthday!

There are many who speak of the 'Remnant', of a 'Gathering', and of a 'Greater' or 'Second Exodus' who have left out all sorts of vital truths and principles from their cart. And any work that does so will ultimately fail, I guarantee it, even if it's 90 per cent right. If the Israelites had only mached 6 times arounf Jericho instead of 7, they would have failed. So that means, practically-speaking, overcoming hesitancy, doubt and fear because those men marching around Jericho had none of these things.

None of them waivered. None of them hesitated between one thing and another. They trusted Joshua inmplicitly, whose name is a variation of the same Name of Our Saviour, Yah'shua (Jesus), and means 'Yah saves'. And He saves - fully and completely - such as His namesake, Joshua. Remember, the malak or angel who appeared to Joshua was the pre-incarnate Yah'shua (Jesus).

This year is a major choosing time and for many the last opportunity to choose because the curtain will come down on the last vestages of freedom by the by; and when that happens, a complete separation of the Remnant from the world becomes a matter of life-and-death for the Remnant. I mentioned yesterday that I felt a sense of elation and that has itself stemmed from an even deeper realisation of all these things - the things I have been teaching and preaching for decades. The desired goal is nearer than ever before. What I am saying today is the culmination of my life's message. I want to invite people to step forward and become covenant members of this community, because the highest love there is, is covenant-love. And I, for one, want the fullness, and nothing but the fullness.

The choice is between Jericho and Ai - between Victory and Defeat - to do things Yahweh's way or the world's way and the way of the churches. We are, to be sure, where we are, and that's OK so long as we are determinhed to go the communal way whether in marriage, in our local congregation or in 12-Tribed Israel. It's called the Patriarchal Way, not the negative connotation that you hear bandied around by so-called 'progressives' but the true, biblical, divine, communal kind, where the model of the relationship between Christ and His Messianic Israelite Bride (Eph.5:22-33) is reflected in marriage itself. And I underline the word 'Israelite', not the modern 'Israeli', but 'Israelite'. And the heart of being Israelite is to love Yahweh the Heavenly Father with all your might, mind and strength (Dt.6:5; Mt.22:37), to go to His Son for salvation from your sins, and to live the Law of His Kingdom, the Torah (Law, Teaching). And that is communal, from Shavu'ot (Weeks) to Sukkot (Tabernacles).

So no more hestitation. It's time to risk letting go of our false ideas and fleshy notions of the way we have been programmed to think by the world about the way to find happiness. You don't go seeking happiness. Happiness finds you when you give your all to Yahweh. It's that simple...and complex...because to seek Yahweh is to seek His Bride too and become a 'polygamous' part of it metaphoricslly-speaking. Today is not, of course, Yom haKippurim but it is a reminder of what is coming this autumn (fall) and to ready ourselves for it because this autumn (fall) is Judgment Day, big time, and I want to urge those still sitting undecided on the fence to make critically important decisions to join the Caravan before it moves on!

Let's pray:

"Father, we are gathered here on the last day of our Jericho March which this year takes on so much added significance, more so than at any time hitherto in our lives. We are doing nothing less than calling people home to You by entering into communal covenants with us - marriage-like commitments that are forever. We ask You to draw together all those who share this vision which You have given us over the years. May we, like Jacob's/Israel's Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah, become the faithful allegorical 'wives' of our Messiah, the True Israel, and learn to live together in ahavah (love) and shalom (peace) in the covenant community of the Redeemed.

"Continue to purify us as we yield ever more to You, enable us to crucify the flesh each day, until we are all Yours. Warn us when we need to be warned, admonish us when we need to be admonished, but keep us close to You through the Ruach (Spirit). Blessed be Your Name and blessed be the Name of Your Son, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ). Amen"

I look forward to seeing you tomorrow on the 7th and last day!