Shabbat shalom, welcome to the first day of Chag haMatzah or Feast of Unleavened Bread and to the second day of the Passover Season. The spring festivals have arrived, yesterday evening we celebrated the Pesach or Passover Meal together and today is the first of seven days of a week in which we both abstain from eating leavened or yeast-containing food products having first removed of all yeast from our homes to symbolise the importance of concretely and actually getting sin out of our lives by actively choosing not to sin any more.

So important is the message concerning sin that Yahweh our Heavenly Father commanded that we spend an entire week focusiing on this one imperative. The only other festival that demands a whole week of observance is Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles, which is a celebration of the Victory of Christ over sin! That being so, it's rather important that we learn why Elohim (God) considers this important as well as the actual remdy for sin, for already we see that man has his part in tackling the problem (Chag haMatzah) and Elohim (God) has His (Sukkot), and why in the last and perhaps the most important revelation in the Bible (the Book of Revelation), as we've recently seen, we find that not only are those who strive and struggle to overcome sin (the 'overcomers') commended but, even more importantly, it is only the Overcomers who are the actual Bride of Christ and who alone partake of the First Resurrection and live through the Millennium. Those who do not strive and struggle to defeat and remove both sin and the disposition to sin in their lives do not qualify for the highest rewards. And that, I think you'll agree, is rather important.

None of this is to suggest, as we are often falsely accused by 'ultra-Evangelicals' (an extremist segment of Protestantism mistakenly believing that anything and everything to do with Father Yahweh's Law or Torah, and obedience to it, is somehow taboo) - to suggest such as being heretical and antichrist as though the Father would send His Son to contradict everything He had ever commanded in the First or Old Covenant. If you detect a note of frustration in my voice this afternoon you would be right because once again I am confronting a very ultra-Protestant vocal group who are out to demonise everything that this Feast of Chag haMatzah stands for, many of whom know better and are pitting one set of Scriptures against the other, the Son against the Father, the New Testament against the Old. In times of apostacy we should expect such extremist groups who are sowing division within the Body turning brother against bother and sister against sister, and once more bringing shame and disrepute upon our witness.

Let me therefore begin today by reiterating what David Pawson, an evangelical pastor once said:

"...Elohim (God) has not changed. He deals with Christians in the same way He did with the children of Israel. That is why so many of the words in Exodus are used again and again in the New Testament - words such as 'law', 'covenant', 'blood', 'lamb', 'passover', 'Exodus' and 'leaven'. They are used in the New Testament but derive their meaning from the book of Exodus...Christians are to seek Christ in the Book of Exodus. Yah'shua (Jesus) said: 'Search the Scriptures, for they bear witness to Me'" [1].

And may I also remind these haters of Yahweh and His Law what the apostle Paul said about this Passover Season and how believers are supposed to observe it in the New Covenant. He is here upbraiding those practicing sexual sin and boasting about it:

"Your boasting is not good. Don't you know that a little yeast (matzah) works through the whole batch of dough? Get rid of the old yeast (matzah) that you may be a new batch without yeast (matzah) - as you really are. For Messiah, our Pesach (Passover) lamb, has been sacrificed. Therefore let us keep the Festival [of Chag haMatzah - the Feast of Unleavened Bread], not with the old yeast (matzah), the yeast (matzah) of malice and wickedness, but with bread without yeast (matzah), the bread of sincerity and emet (truth)" (1 Cor.5:6-8, NIV).

There are those ultra-Evangelicals who would, if they could, completely divorce the New Testament from the Old and discard the latter along with all the mitzvot (commandments). And whilst it's true that the Old Covenant is at an end and has been superceded by a New and Better Covenant (Heb.7:22) - the old being preparatory only, with a temporary Priesthood System (named variously after Moses, the tribe of Levi and Aaron its first Cohen Gadol or High Priest) with its now redundant animal sacrificial system that has in every way been replaced and superceded by our new Cohen Gadol or High Priest, Yah'shua the Messiah who Himself became our final and everlasting sacrifice for sin - this does not change the moral and ethical Law established by Yahweh nor does it supposedly 'free' us from the responsibility not to sin any more. The only difference between the Old and New systems is that animal blood is no longer used to make temporary atonement for sin and has been replaced by the atoning blood of the Elohim/God-Man, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) which alone can blot out sin, cancel the penalties of the Law for the repentant, and blot our sin out permanently, along with the accompanying guilt that results from sinning, provided we do not willfully and habitually return to that sinning again. We have our part - to choose righteousness and reject wickedness and everything that would cause us to break faith with Elohim (God), and Christ has His part accomplished by the substitutory Work of the Cross.

There are those Christians - the ultra-Evangelicals - who suffer from a disease that C.S.Lewis identifies as 'chronological snobbery'. By that he meant that this type of Christian regards himself as in some sense 'superior' to his counterparts who lived in Old Testament times. This is, in fact, an old Gnostic heresy, for as you know the Gnostics (who, like Mormons and Freemasons, believed they were saved by their superior knowledge) viewed themselves as much more 'enlightened', in much the same way atheists commonly regard themselves as superior in knowledge to 'backward, superstitious Christians' and indeed have campaigned for the moniker 'bright' to be applied to them in the same way homosexuals today describe themselves as 'gay', the idea being that Christians and other religionists are 'dim' or 'stupid'.

Ultra-messianics and ultra-evangelicals are both guilty of this, both regard themselves as superior - the ultra-messaianics because they think they know more about the Torah than 'stupid Christians' and the ultra-evangelicals who think that they know more about Grace than the 'stupid Messianics'. They're both Gnostics often without realising it because they're out to belittle each other in a frankly uncharitable and unloving way, accusing each other and therefore Father's children of being 'heretics'. The irony is that neither of them knows what they are talking about otherwise they would be extending grace to everyone and encouraging everyone to a life of discipleship - to discipline and obedience to Christ. And that, inevitably, will lead you back to the Torah because Christ was Torah-obedient, said He hadn't come to do away with it but to bring it to completion - to its fullness (Mt.5:17-20). How can you be 'obedient' without a law anyway? There has to be a standard of obedience else you are guessing what righteousness looks like and have nothing to imitate, no target to set for your way of life.

The contest between these two groups is quite insane if you think about it. It's a bit like someone's right hand waging war against, and trying to chop off, their own left hand, the the left hand doing the same against, and trying to chop off, the right hand. How foolish! The two hands are complimentary, not rivals! Let this foolish and destructive infighting cease! It breaks our Creator's heart for He is the author of both Grace and Law - they are complimentary, not antagonistic, with Grace the dominant right hand and Law the left.

This complimentarity is seen everywhere in the Scriptures. Elohim (God) made man, He also made the Sabbath but the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath (Mk.2:27). When Messiah described Himself as "Lord of the Sabbath" (Mk.2:28) He did not mean that He had come to do away with it but to be in charge of it, setting its standards the way Yahweh wanted them and not the way the Rabbis did with their accursed man-made 'tradition'. The Sabbath is a tool, not an end, just as the Torah (Law) as a whole is a tool and not an end in itself. This does not mean we can do as we want with the Sabbath else Yahweh wouldn't have given us clear instructions for our conduct on that day. The Sabbath is the servant not the master meaning that it can be constructively broken under certain circumstances in order to serve a more important end, like saving someone's life. This is common sense, or ought to be, something that gets abandoned in the Wars of the Ultras.

Were it not for the tragedy of these sectatian wars in the Body of Christ I would laughing heartily at the stupidity and foolishness of it all but I can't because people's faith is being damaged by them, pride and arrogance are being exalted, truth is being lost in a pointless strife of words, and love is being trampled underfoot. That's why I call out the proponents of these destructive movements and remind them, kindly but also strictly, that every believer you meet, whatever denominational or theological label they wear, is both Torah-obedient and Torah-disobedient to one degree or another (because no one is living the commandments perfectly), not because this is an inevitable state of affairs but because everyone is either ignorant to some degree or willfully disobedient to some degree. The very thing the Ultra-Evangelicals despise (the Torah) they sometimes do, and the very thing the Ultra-Messianics claim by their words they disdain (Grace) they frequently show bacause neither group can help themselves. Why? Because their minds and hearts are internally in disagreement! They are at war within themselves because of belief in false doctrine. The truth is, we are all 'messianic' and 'evangelical' in our behaviour even if in our doctrine we rigidly profess faith in only one or the other. Then the contradiction becomes stark.

Every single believer you meet is both generous and stingy in the showing of grace - sometimes he's generous and sometimes he's selfish depending how crucified his fallen fleshy nature actually is (Gal.2:20; 5:24). Contradictory behaviour and theology is simply a sign of an inner civil war, of inner confusion, of double-mindedness and instability (Jas.1:8), of a watery instead of rocky spiritual foundation. Why all this confusion and contention? Because we are all in different places in our spiritual journey, nobody's 'there' yet, we're all works in progress, and it is our job to edify - and by edify I mean lift people up with a combination of undeserved loving kindness (grace) and loving, strict correction (when it's needed), because we can love no man or woman better than when we do these things. Only mature believers can do this, those who have 'worked it out', something that makes them qualified to teach. The unstable cannot - and should not - teach. Unfortunately there is no restraining hand on such unstable people on the 'Wild West' of the Internet in particular where there's no accountability except to élite corporation-sponsored 'fact-checkers' serving the devil's agenda, a situation that would never be allowed in a properly functioning congregation led by a spiritually mature leadership. It's the difference between Artificial Intellgience (AI) and godly men called to rule in truth and justice. This is one of the great weaknesses of the Internet - there is no accountability there. So if you come away with nothing else, understand that this factionalism is a description of the reality of the dysfuntional fallen human condition and it's 'normal', which was the topic of my sermon last week which if you haven't heard or read, I hope that you do so.

Unfortunately, one of the negative traits we have all inherited somewhat from the Fall is the indiscriminate criticising of others and that often because of of spiritual immaturity. Add to that zeal, and you have a big problem on your hands, because a weaponised gospel in the hands of little children hurts people instead of saving them and building them up. It's time that both the ultra-Messianics and ulta-Evangelicals found the middle ground that Christ and the apotles taught. Increasing numbers of godly people have immigrated there because that's where the Messiah is to be found. He isn't to be found in the extremes where love is lost in a firestorm of word-wars - you can't have a relationship with Him there because He isn't there. He's in the middle, helping those struggling to work out their salvation in fear and trembling (Phil.2:12), not with those trying to show their superiority over other factions by waving poorly constructed, splinter-laden theological wooden swords in each others faces and prodding each other when their rivals get tot close to them for carnal comfort. The Saviour says: Lay your weapons down! Surrender! This is not the way My children behave! Come under discipline!

Wherever you are - whether here with us today or in your own congregation somewhere else on this globe or just floating around on the Internet - you will discover that there are no two people in your assembly hall (or anywhere else) who 100 per cent agree on everything. That's just reality and only the immature can't cope with it like two squabbling children arguing whose toy it is (when it belongs to neither of them). But what you do, alas, find is plenty of people who unite againt because then the group becomes the centre of attention and not the individual who can then conveniently hide behind his or her own wall of sins. Unity of doctrine is a hard thing because we don't know all the facts - some do more than others, yes, but how are you going to classify or grade their knowledge? Seriously - how would you even go about that? How would you do it practically?

Even more difficult to 'classify' are those people who have impeccable theological knowledge but whose hearts are icy-cold. I know one or two men who fit this bill perfectly (one is a famous evangelist with a fabulous knowledge and possessing great debating skills) and they are amongst the most repugnant people I know - arrogant, self-conceited and mean-spirited. And what's even more shocking is some of them are almost certainly not born again. They don't know Christ personally. They're not Christian! They're not Messianic! Their hearts aren't regenerated. They only know lots about Him. I have met some of those kinds of theologians at Oxford and they are amongst the most stuffy, boring and narcissitic people I have ever met in my life. They may know a whole ton about the theological definitions of love, sin and whatnot, but in the practical human sphere they are worse than useless. They're spiritual infants with a string of university degrees after their names. I wouldn't go to any of them even for advice about an ingrown toe-nail, but I would go to - and have gone to - brethren who differ with me theologically because they are walking with Christ in their hearts and it tells in the way they live their life - the way they treat other people. And for Christ this was the main thing, not their bundle of head knowledge.

Again, I am absolutely not saying that theology isn't important - you know me better than that - but I am saying it belongs to the left-hand of life where sometimes it is useful and at other times gets in the way of love. Yet we still need both hands, because sometimes the 'love hand' can go rogue and can be steered by unruly, irrational and out-of-control feelings. I repeat, we need both hands, we need Grace and Torah for a balanced life in Christ. Deep down we all know this. That's why every successful home is not only steered by love but has house rules or a 'domestic torah too! The same is true of the House of Elohim (God). And that's why Bible believers are both Evangelical and Messianic! You could say that has always been our prime witness. And by the way we have right and left feet too and we need both to walk straight. Those who war against one or the other foot are left crippled and must hobble through their spiritual life going around in circles. They make a lot of noise and very little sense except to their own misguided, improperly formed selves.

I would number modern, liberal 'progressive Christians' along with these 'conservative' ultra-Messianics and ultra-Evangelicals because in their conceit their ultra-Liberalism has caused them to believe that modern Christians have a more 'mature' view today than, say, Christians of 100 or 200 years ago. But they don't stop there. No. They claim to know more than those who wrote the Bible! So what they do is pit the earliest Bible writers against the so-called more 'enlightened' voices who came later historically. They set themselves the task of showing how the 'simpletons' of the past have had to give way to more sophisticated and 'correct' theologies of the 21st century present, even going to the point of claiming that some images of Elohim (God) in the Old Testament are 'unChristlike'! So many of these people, in their conceit, believe they have a 'higher and wiser' view of Elohim (God) today than anyone has ever had!

They would have looked down at the apostle Peter as a stupid peasant yet not one of them has ever written with anything approaching the authority and sublimity of the maturer Peter - none of them could produce anything as inspired or masterful as his two epistles. Indeed they are so astounded by the way Christ matured him that in their arrogance and conceit they claim someone else must have written them, not that 'uneducated fishermen'. This is the liberalism which conservatives rightly despise. And yet the radical conservatives are no more or less conceited and arrogant than these politically correct moderns, depending on what is is they are trying to 'conserve'. As for me and my house, anything that isn't born of truth and love isn't worth conserving. Period. They're simply making their own cultural assumptions. Whose company would I prefer? The well-educated, sophisticated, ultra-liberal, progressive 105th Archbishop of Canterbury, head of the apostate Anglican Church, or the fiery hot-tempered, illiterate Peter the fisherman of Galillee who loved the Saviour with such a love and passion that he refused to even be crucified the same way up as His Master for fear of bringing Him disrepute because of His own sinfulness? Who would you rather get Gospel instruction from? I guarantee, by the way, that the Archbishop of Canterbury, for all his eruditeness, could never write anything as inspiring or useful as the two letters of Peter who in the former tells about the true Christian life and duties and in the latter how to deal with persecution and false teachers!

Now please don't get me wrong. I am not out to demonise the current Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. And whilst I consider him to be a very dangerous man indeed for the Anglican Communion, a heretic compromised by Marxism, and whatever label you in the end wish to slap on him, and though he needs to be 'called out' as many evangelical Anglicans are now bravely doing, he is not 'all bad'. Very few are. I watched him bravely and wisely on TV once handle a difficult situation when some secular protestors broke into a service in Canterbury Cathedral (I believe) and by his deft handling of the situation prevented a violent scene from happening. He bravely confronted the protestor, at great personal risk, and agreed to let him speak for 5 minutes if he and his fellows would then agree to peacefully leave the cathedral afterwards. The man had his say and true to his word, left. Now you may think this was a minor incident but I beg to differ for there are those like that protestor who seem to derive great satanic pleasure from going around vandalising and desicrating churches by urinating and spreading mentrual blood on altars, smashing up priceless religious artefacts, and sometimes setting things on fire. Catholic Churches in Mexico have received similar treatment from satanists, their priests and parishoners responding admirably as Christians should by linking arms around their places of worship and taking the abuse and violence. You may or may not agree with the Archbishop's liberal positioning but I consider his behaviour in that incident to have been exemplary So I refuse to completely demonise him as some of the 'ultras' might. He deserves some grace - some respect - even if he must be given no quarter for his terrible modernist theology. I would happily invite him into my home for a discussion if per chance I might win him over to the truth and I would treat him as a Christian gentleman should.

The problem with all these people who regard themselves as 'superior' is that, in spite of their claims to being 'biblical' (don't both the ultra-messianics and ultra-evangelicals also make the same claim? Don't we all?), in reality they are informed by their own sense of right and wrong and cultural assumptions. Here we are back to 'culture' which, in case you hadn't noticed, is a word prefixed by 'cult' which in its original sense means 'a system of religious devotion or worship'. A culture is therefore a system of religious devotion whether it acknowleges a god or not. A culture is, in a way, a 'church' and certainly behaves like one, even an atheistic one. And in case you didn't know, there are atheist organisations who openly have atheist churches and meet in them once a week to read aloud the secular writings of their mentors and sing popular songs. Their reason? They want to foster community just as churches do. Many of them meet in abandoned Christian church buildings! Deep down they know they need what Christians have and are not therefore too proud sometimes to imitate them.

So even though there is a supposed 'separation of church and state' in countries like the USA and Sweden, in reality they're still 'churches', just under different management. A completely secular, non-religious society is an utter impossibility. Even Czechia and Estonia, the most atheistic countries in Europe, still have cultures and those cultures are 'churches' even if they're humanist and not Christian. They're religious because the unthinking and dutifully and unconsciously follow. A culture is, after all, how you behave long after you have forgotten why your ancestors orginally behaved in that way at the beginning. I have had a secular state wedding and one of the things you promise is to faithfully serve the local community, i.e. municipality. Today's 'Church of Sweden' is a secular, liberal, humanist, progressive, feminist church and its priesthood are the politicians and other establishment figures.

Every theological position, every interpretation of Scripture, is informed by our cultural assumptions with which we judge what is right and wrong, even the content of the Bible. Admit it. How many of you have judged, or still judge, things in the Bible which run counter to your culture - things like patriarchy (male headship), plural marriage, theocracy, and many, many more? You see, even the most conservative believers are in reality quite liberal, and I know many who call themselves 'liberal' who are really quite conservative. I don't know how many of you have heard of the late Christopher Hitchens, a virulent atheist and left-winger, who refused to let his wife go out to work because he felt it his duty to provide for her? That's pretty conservative! Or that he, a Trotskyite Marxist, supported the neo-conservatives led by President Bush in their aggressive wars in the Middle East? You see, people are full of contradictions.

Another warning, if I might be permitted wax philosophical again to give you one more tip, and leave something important with you to chew over. If everyone makes assumptions, then isn't everyone's opinion of equal value? And how, then, can we know the truth? Does that mean we shouldn't listen to anyone? There are numerous problems with these questions or others like them. Firstly, if you believe in the Elohim (God) of the Bible then you are compelled to believe not only in Truth but in Absolute Truth. Most of the progressives you meet (if not all of them) are evolutionists who do not believe in any sort of absolute truth (only their personal 'truth'). They make enormous assumptions about reality and therefore, in consequence, about religion too. And whilst certain things do indeed change and 'evolve', like language and culture, for example, not all things do. One of the weaknesses of my favourite Pauline scholar, N.T.Wright, is that he's an evolutionist but not a scientist, and knows little about science as he himself would freely admit. It's the reason he's still 'liberal' about some things and I have to be alert to the assumptions he makes when I am reading his works so as not to unconsciously be steered by them. It's important we discover the assumptions upon which the worldview anyone we listen to and give credence too and remain alert. And it takes both effort and skill to do that which few either exercise or possess. Again, this is a reason we need some sort of systematic theology to give our thinking solidity. There must be a proper inregrated belief system, not just random ideas thrown together willy nilly into a chaotic pot of disorganised thinking.

Two of the assumptions that most evangelicals calling themselves 'prophets' make is that Zionism is true and that Rapturism is true. The first leads them to get many present and future historical markers wrong and the third distorts their whole eschatology or belief about the end-times. Are they then prophets? No, how can they be? Biblical prophets are held to a higher standard and you know what I am referring to. They're not allowed to make mistakes. In fact, I believe there are very, very few true prophets on the earth today just as I believe that currently there are no true apostles even though I believe 12 end-time, last generation apostles will be called, and demonstrate all the biblical credentials that they are bona fide. So anyone claiming to be these I keep at arm's length. I do not wish to partake of their punishment for abusing the Name of Yahweh. So I don't listen to them as once I did like Messianic Rabbi Jonathan Cahn and various Pentecostal 'prophets' who are too fond of the showy gifts where fraud finds an easy place of concealment. They have prophesied falsely and never seem to repent. This is not how Yahweh's servants behave. I want nothing to do with them. They are unreliable, often dangerous, guides, who do more harm than good, perpetuating theological errors and leading the gullible off the true Way.

So beware, beware of 'chronological snobbery'. Yes, some things were hidden from the ancients that we now know about but that doesn't make them wrong in what they did know and share. These were men of Elohim (God) who spoke truth to their time with the knowledge Father gave them. They had a living, conversational relationship with Elohim (God) like Abraham and Moses and proved it. Chronological snobbery, C.S.Lewis explained, is "the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited" [2] Every generation has its cultural and theological fads. The Zionist fad, which has so deeply invaded Evangelical Protestantism, will soon expire. The Israeli State itself will expire, as I have been saying for years, and then whole schools of theology and prophecy will collapse overnight, and Scofield Reference Bibles will be thrown onto bonfires in much the same way that Communist Party Membership Books where burned in litter bins all over the Soviet Union when that ideology collapsed. (Sadly it has just mutated into Cultural Marxism, Postmodernism and Wokeism which too will eventually 'go out of date' and collapse when they have fulfilled their usefulness to the satanic élites who created them). The same is true of the 'Pentecostalism' that originated in the Azuza Street Revival in California of the early 20th century in its particular American cultural context - it too, along with its charismatic spawn, is a fad that will pass away, along with its bogus tongue-speaking and its uncritical acceptance of Rapturism and Zionism. Some of you here will witness their demise.

The thing is this: why do such fads 'go out of date'? How did they come to be accepted in the first place? Or did these fads suddenly become unfashionable? And if they did, who refuted them? How? and Why? We have to have the humility and intellectual honesty to admit that the time we now live in, and our own national cultures, is also part of the fallen history and current reality of the world that is passing away. The only culture acknowledged by Yahweh is the Biblical one because that's the one that will be imposed during the Millennium. The world won't suddenly become 'American' or 'British' or 'Swedish' or 'Chinese'. We, like all people in every age, as also the churches, are deeply affected by our cultural paradigms, societal normals, and collective intellectual assumptions and often without realising it. We make the assumption that our 'Americanism' or 'Swedishness' is the lend through which are Christianity is to be seen and loived. That's an illusion because culture isn't static...it keeps on changing. We have to acknowledge this and do something about it. What do we need to do? Change our way of being into Messianic Israelitishness by living the biblical way of life. You'd be surprised by how radically different the two are.

Every contemporary culture has its strengths and weaknesses and no matter what culture we are in, we must adjust our way of living to the biblical one. The formerly Christian, now hedonistic, West is no longer a moral compass for other nations, and we believers here have got to re-learn the strong family values of our fathers and of the traditional Africa, Asia and Orthodox Russia of today, the work ethics and industriousness of the Chinese, Japanese and Koreans, all of which we possessed until recently, as well as re-embrace biblical practices which we mistakenly threw out of our culture as long as 1½ millennia such as communal living, plural marriage, usury-free economics, a prison-free judicial system, capital punishment for premeditated murder, etc.. I could talk for hours about this as we need to confront all of these things and much more.

My point being this; our cultures are not god, we cannot defend them simply because this is what we happen to be doing now and we feel comfortable with what we have, because all culture develops as the result of complex processes, some elements of which are good and some bad. Lots of things have got to go: the genetic manipulation of life, surrogacy, pre-natal killing, transhumanism, transgenderism, the sexualisation of our children, porn, etc.. And the only reason we are in the mess we are in today is because of all the trickling, gradual encroachment of lies upon lies upon lies that liberalism in particular (but not exclusively) has opened the floodgates to since the 1960's.

The only way we are going to be able to strip our cultures bare and examine them closely in the light of truth is by means of Yahweh's Torah, even as it is written:

"For the mitzvah (commandment) is a lamp, and the Torah (Law) a light; reproofs of instruction are the way of life..." (Prov.6:23, NKJV).

And just because something is 'new' doesn't automatically mean it's right either. Truth remains truth and sin remains sin in all generations and in all æons of time. We are never justified in twisting the Bible to justify our wrong beliefs based on false assumptions. You can never add 'new knowledge' to the Gospel of Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) - that is, supposedly 'new' knowledge that contradicts what Yahweh has already revealed to be true. When you do that, you are playing with fire. Abraham and Jacob, two of Yahweh's friends, didn't sudddenly become sinners for having more than one wife because a Byzantine Emperor (Justian) decided they were and banned their way of life in his realm...nor did Elohim (God) make a mistake that a a mere mortal had to later correct. If you believe that the ancients got it wrong, and that you're justified in 'improving' on their discernment by correcting them (along with Yahweh's Torah which protected the family organisation of those like Abraham and Jacob), you are guilty of cultural snobbery again. The West isn't god. No culture or civilisation is.

What has all this got to do with Chag haMatzah, the Feast of Unleavened Bread? Everything. We have got to get all this cultural junk out of our spiritual lives and out of our churches in the same way we are excluding, by divine commandment, all leaven from the food we eat over this coming week to symbolise this. By continuing in the errors of this kind we continue sinning, and sinning is missing the Kingdom mark or target. There can be no Final Gathering of the earthbound remnant Bride without first total submission to Yahweh which means obedience to the mitzvot (commandments). Before that we will not have a proper working relationship with Him - we'll only imagine we have and then make even more false assumptions about our true spiritual condition and status. Before that we will be impacted by counterfeit 'feel good' spirits of demons pretending to be the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) and bringing forth all kinds of false charismata, prophecy, tongues, dreams, revelations and the like.

Remember, remember, what Yah'shua (Jesus) said:

"...narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it" (Mt.7:14, NKJV).

Indeed, did not Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself teach:

"For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah (Law) (Scribes), you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven" (Mt.5:20, NIV)?

"Anyone who breaks one of the least of these mitzvot (commandments) and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever practices and teaches these mitzvot (commands) will be called great in the kingdom of heaven" (Mt.5:19, NIV).

Remember, this isn't the so-called 'Judaising' faction of Rabbinical or Talmudic Jewish converts to Christ who still clung onto the false 'oral law' which was saying this, those who came to later plague the Messianic Community (Church) demanding that Christians obey the "tradition of the Elders" (Mt.15:3,6; Mk.7:5,8-9,13) which Paul once zealously followed (Gal.1:14) whose teachers Paul later rebuked for trying to infiltrate the Gospel (Gal.4:21; 5:2-4; 5:6-15) and which have become codified into Judaism's Talmud: no, this was Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself. Where the Ultra-Evangelicals get confused is in conflating the actual Torah with the man-made Talmudic version of it with all its 'extras' such as ritual washings before meals and not doing this or that on the sabbath. What Paul realised and taught was as follows:

• 1. Any Torah-teaching outside the Pentateuch (Genesis to Deuteronomy) and the rest of the Tanakh (Old Testament) had to be rejected as man-made;
• 2. That the Levitical priestly system with its animal sacrifices and rituals was now over and replaced by the Melchizedek system of which Yah'shua (Jesus) was its eternal Cohen Gadol (High Priest);
• 3. That circumcision, the sign of the First (or Old) Covenant, was replaced by the sign of water baptism by complete immersion in the Second (New and Better) Covenant;
• 4. That salvation was "by [Yahweh's] grace (undeserved loving-kindness)...through faith [in Christ] (emunah = trusting leading to Torah-obedience)" (Eph.2:8, NIV) - the spontaneous desire to be obedient to the all the mitzvot (commandments) of Torah being the immediate fruit of salvation and spiritual rebirth rather than a condition of it which would nevertheless count in terms of rewards in the resurrection (why Yahshua/Jesus said in Matthew 5:19 some would be greater (like the glory of the sun) and others lesser (like the glory of the moon) in the Kingdom of the Saved based on their obedience or lack thereof - 1 Cor.15:41); and
• 5. Grace is the main thing (the right hand) but not the only or 'alone' thing believers must possess, for Yahweh also expects obedience that leads to conformity to His will too (the left hand).

The Ultra-Evangelicals just don't 'get' this because they don't want to. They want to be precocious, spoiled liberal brats (whilst calling themselves 'conservative') having all the benefits and obeying only when they 'feel' their 'spirit' telling them to (if at all). And they justify themselves by twisting Paul (2 Pet.3:16), especially his letter to the Galatians which makes me wonder if we shouldn't make a study of this Epistle sometime. I have spent a good part of my ministry in recent years trying to rescue Ultra-Messianics from their judgmental, loveless extremism (who think no Christian is saved because they don't use the right Hebrew words or obey every commandment) but perhaps it is now the turn or the Ultra-Evangelicals to be rescued from theirs (who think similarly of all messianics as belonging to a 'Hebrew-Roots Cult'). For us this is common, scriptural sense, but once you get seduced by either 'ultra' wing, a religious spirit soon invades bringing with it a strong delusion (2 Thess.2:11).

This year, at Chag haMatzah, we must uniquivocably restate biblical truth and hold out against all the darts thrown at us by ultra-gracers, ultra-Torah'ers, ultra-liberals, and all the other 'ultra's' who distort, add to or subtract from the Gospel. We have completed our 2½ year Bible course on the Book of Revelation, a book which resolves pretty much every doctrinal controversy. We must get the leaven or yeast of sin, sinning and error well and truly out of our systems for good, because if we hold onto anything false, and reject so much as a "jot or tittle" of the Torah (Law) (Mt.5:18, NKJV) - literally a "yod" (the smallest Hebrew letter) or "[pen] stroke" (JNT) - it will turn bad, I guarantee it, and Christians and Messianics are going to go through theological psychoses and either repent, go insane or abandon Yahweh and stop believing because they loved their traditions more than the truth.

This isn't only a literal and spiritual New Year for Messianic Evangelicals but a whole new witness. We have hung out against the storms for decades, we have fulfilled the commission to plant keys of truth here and there in the churches, we have lifted up a prophetic voice of warning, we have born witness of the simple, saving principles of the Gospel that we share in common with most Evangelicals, we have born witness of the Torah that we share with most Messianics, but now we are called to take the next vital step, and that is to not only proclaim but begin the Final Gathering, the Last Exodus (we're entering the 11th year of that this year), and preach boldly what Yahweh has given to us over the last 40 years, for this work was called into existence exactly 40 years ago this summer, just a few days before this year's Shavu'ot festival, known as 'Weeks' or more popularly (but erroneously known) as 'Pentecost' which we will be celebrating then. This biblical year has even been given a special name, the Year of Eden-Astara, which I have already started explaining to you and about which more will be said over the coming months. Get ready for some surprises - pleasant surprises for the humble, horrible surprises for the proud and arrogant. So during the days immediately surrounding, and in the middle of, Shavu'ot this year will be a special assembly, more of which I shall speak of later.

Everybody has a part to play in this work, each according to his or her gifting. We need not suppose we are alike. We all minister differently. Yahweh gave some to be apostles, some to be nevi'im (prophets), some to be pastors and some to be teachers (Eph.4:11), and even within these callings there is a vast swathe of different personal approaches. We must abide by our calling and not be intimidated by another brother's style or popularity, or let his extensive travels disturb those of us who travel little. To each his own as Yahweh has called. Take, for example, Luther's attitude toward his little known contemporary though important fellow Reformer, Melanchthon, as a sound pattern to imitate. This is what Luther said:

"I am rough, boistrous, stormy, and altogether warlike, fighting against innumerable monsters and devils. I am born for the removal of stumps and stones, cutting away thistles and thorns, clearing the wild forests; but master Phillipus (Melanchthon) comes along softly and gently, sowing and watering with joy, accordjng to the gifts which God (Elohim) has abuandantly bestowed upon him."

Each person is uniquely equipped with the gifting for his task. Sometimes a soft, gentle female touch is needed (1 Pet.3:4), sometimes a male fist or foot (1 Pet.2:20), only Yahweh knows because every adversary we confront is different. There is no one single 'type' of preacher or teacher but many. The Bible says:

"A gift opens the way for the giver and ushers him into the presence of the great" (Prov.18:16, NIV),

Be you in Him. Period. It's the personal touch that matters because it's authentic and not contrived. Just make sure you all teach and preach the same truth! Yes, we're all fallible, so don't go and idolatise anyone (for then you will surely be disappointed), yet know that in being fallible that's where many become a blessing, for we make up for one another's deficiencies. It's also good we recognise our limitations and are humble about it (Phil.3:12), because humility is priceless. It is, after all, with imperfect vessels that Elohim (God) works. We don't have to be perfect before we are called, but called we must first be (Heb.5:4). Equally we must never exalt imperfection for we are indeed called to perfection, so self-improvement and striving is an ongoing requirement of the fallible (Mt.5:48; 2 Cor.7:1; 13:9,11). Build one another up and together become a 'perfect man' (Col.1:18) knowing that it is through patient suffering that perfection is finally reached (Heb.2:10). Imitation of another may be the sincerest form of flattery but it can be awfully sterile if it doesn't come naturally to us. Were I to try and imitate Leonard Ravenhill or David Wilkerson, for instance, or anyone else, I would appear like a man hobbling around on a pair of crutches because theirs are not necessarily my character traits, and I am told not to follow in another's tracks but make my own stamped with my own character. I would make an awful Spurgeon for his style was unique! Go and excell in the vessel Father has give you...and that's you. Look into the perfect Torah, as James taught, for that gives us the liberty to be who we are and who we are called to be (Jas.1:25.) Then you will soar gracefully like an eagle (Is.40:31) and interfere with no one else's calling. We will dance to the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) in us and not to the spirits of other men.

We're different and that is to be celebrated, yet not be boastful of. Some are like well-watered gardens like the Garden of Eden with its four rivers and others are like well-built cities like Astara or the New Jerusalem. Some are city preachers, some country preachers, and some are both. They're different flavours and sometimes we are better adapted to one over the other because we know the kind of people that live in them better. Be who you are, flourish in your own calling, but don't try imitate someone else's. My successor will be very different from me in many ways and that's as it should be. He must be himself and let Yahweh use him the way he was made to be. We all get rid of the leaven of sin the same way but we all shine somewhat differently. Use your own minds and hearts, learn from dead men's brains and hearts but don't try to occupy or colonise them as your own. Be blessed by them, learn from them, be edified by them, but present the same divine tavnith and truth in your own way using your own skill-set. Paul was not Peter, John was not James, and whoever your contemporary spiritual heroes may be, you're not them. You're you.

Above all, teach and preach a well-rounded Gospel, don't focus on your favourite subjects or hobbyhorses and neglect the rest. An unbalanced Gospel is an incomplete and potentially destabilising gospel. Take the Puritans for example. They well understood the sinfulness of man but had little comprehension of the victory side of Redemption so they were a dull, colourless crowd. It was Leonard Ravenhill who said that Yah'shua (Jesus) came to free us, not to frighten us! If all you can generate is fear, you have failed. You must be able to impart the hope. Then take the Pentecostals who are the opposite - they're lively, often have great faith even to miracle-working but know little of Father's Torah rules, are disorderly, and tend in consequence to latch themselves onto various passing fads and false doctrines. If all you can talk about is Torah like some messianics do, you will become stuffy and boring, not to mention arrogant and conceited, puffed up in your own knowledge. If all you can talk about is grace, you will become woolley and nebulous, and conceited in another way, not to mention careless. You need the whole counsel of Scripture, the whole Gospel. You need to be well-rounded and balanced. If you want some idea of what that looks like, go and read my short presentation, The Way of Yahweh in which I try to distill the Gospel out in concentrated form, or my Hot Potatoes presentation to make sure none of what is important, yet controversial to modern, compromised ears, is left out either.

Eden needs Astara, and Astara needs Eden, and both need Christ. The city needs the countryside, and the countryside needs the city. Neither can flourish without the other. Grace needs Torah, and Torah needs Grace. Truth needs Love and Mercy, Love and Mercy needs Truth, and we need both! That's why Jacob needed Leah and Rachel, and why Leah needed Rachel, and Rachel needed Leah to be complete. That's how Yahweh made them to be. That's how He made Israel, and the marriage that is Israel is the model we are to emulate. It reveals the divine tavnith (pattern) in creation. What they didn't need (which is what they succumbed to) was selfish rivalry. We are to compliment each other, not be competitors with one another, vying for supremacy or trying to be seen more or loved more. The spirit of rivalry and competition tears families and societies apart, but cooperation builds bridges and makes for echad (oneness, unity). We leaven one another in righteousness when we cooperate, but create dissent, jealousy and warfare when we try to dominate and control with just one character type or way, when Yahweh has not only allowed for more than one but insists that it be so! Israel-Ephraim and Judah are allegorical sisters who must cooperate if United 12-Tribed Israel is ever to be reborn and re-formed, if the regathering is ever to take place, if the Last Exodus is ever to get moving and not get stuck in a rut while its members quarrel with one another. Yahweh did not favour the one (Judah) over the other (Israel-Ephraim) but described Himself allegorically as the husband of both - of Samaria and Jerusalem. And sometimes, exceptionally, He calls Jeremiah's to minister single and alone. The unmarried have a purpose too. That has to be our mind also, a melding of the individual and the communal, for we are both, even inside ourselves.

That's why we have two sets of three annual festivals in the spring (corresponding to the simplicity and immaturity of Eden) and autumn (corresponding to the complexity and maturity of New Jerusalem/Astara) festivals for the Israelite individual and for the community of Israel as a whole, respectively, linked by the critical 'hinge' summer festival of Shavu'ot (Weeks, 'Pentecost') that binds the two together. Zion cannot arise without this duality. Alas different churches and denominations have arisen stressing either individuality (typified by the American model) or communality (typified by the European socialist model). They're both important and yet extremely dangerous both to themselves and to each other when kept separate.

By Shavu'ot (Weeks, 'Ekatost, 'Pentecost') this summer the two halves of the Body of Christ will be officially linked together here. We need our Jacob's, Leah's and Rachel's as much as we do our Isaac's and Rebekah's, and Joseph's and Asenath's. Yahweh's notion of holy matrimony is far greater than our narrow, Catholic-dominated Western one. And that is why Yahweh has built into the true Messianic Community (Church) this kind marital diversity, something rural or 'Edenic' which Africans and Asians understand far better than we exclusively, monogamy-only, cosmopolitanised Westerners do - it isn't just one or just the other. We have got to get used to this kind plural of thinking and being, accept what each family is called into, and start living together and getting used to one another now or you'll see no end-time revival and no end-time gathering - only the continuation of rivalry and endless denominational in-fighting - it's Shavu'ot that binds them together. The communal is here to stay and Western Christianity under the present unauthorised, self-appointed leadership of America must discipline itself into accepting it. The Western churches must learn to give way, modify their articles of faith, or get by-passed by the Last Great Move of Elohim (God).

Do you not see how Yahweh is doing this geopolitically even if you are blind to the spiritual still? The imperialistic unipolar Western-dominated political order is being violently torn apart and becoming multi-polar, forcing mankind to cooperate in new and sometimes uncomfortable ways. This is Father's doing, Heaven has decreed it, make no mistake about that, which is why the Western élites are losing this battle, as I prophesied they would some years ago. They're losing (and have in reality already lost) in Ukraine and they're losing now in Gaza. and they will lose wherever else thy try to cling onto power until it is finally ripped away from them. Don't be stubborn. Surrender to Yahweh's will. Truth told, the Western élites (or the 'Deep State' of you want to call it that) have already lost. They lost long ago but could never see it, or didn't want to see it, even with their attempts to see into the future by means of the dark occultic arts like 'remote viewing'. The West, which they control and manipulate, may hate it but there is little it can do about it. It's hegemony is over. And like a child clutching onto a toy it has stolen, that toy will be prized from its hands by force if necessary.

This doesn't mean that political paradise is coming any time soon. Far from it (things will get worse again), but it is a sign of what must happen in the Body of Christ to enable proper Restoration to take place, what the King James and New King James Versions call the "restoration of all things, which Elohim (God) has spoken by the mouth of all His qadosh nevi'im (holy prophets) since the world began" (Acts 3:21, NKJV), which we too are emphatically reiterating. But Christians and Messianics have got to do this reordering Yahweh's way and not man's or disaster will be writ large on the Belshazzar palace walls of their own lives even as it is being written on the walls of their inflexible, man-made, tradition-based ministries and churches around us. The Kingdom of our Elohim (God) is one of sacred Ordnung - order - not of anarchistic, individualistic, self-centred 'woke' chaos or of totalitarian, statist suffocation. A "New Order" (as the New Internatioinal Version calls it - Heb.9:11) - or 'New Millennial Order' - is being born in both the Messianic Community (Church) - the Holy Order - and Babylon (which it calls the 'New World Order') and these two orders will parallel and oppose one another to the very end of this æon (age). The one is unicultural, patriarchal and matriomonially plural; the other, multicultural, matriarchal and outwardly monogamous but in reality sexually anarchistic (including pedophilia and sex-slavery).

Again, Yahweh has His wise purpose in doing this. This is a HUGE change for planet earth and we are all - both the good and the evil - being nudged painfully but necessarily one step closer to our Father's end goal for humanity as we have read about in the Book of Revelation. (Do you perhaps see now why that course had to be finished by the beginning of this years' new cycle of festivals?) And no matter what your disposition or desire is, you and everyone else will be forced to cooperate with it and go Yahweh's way or the devil's because the devil always imitates the Father - yes, Satan is abandoning some of his old ways too (as he always has done when they have outlived their corrupting usefulness), including his political and social dupes - the marxists and neocons alike who are being pushed out into the cold just as the old-fashioned Bolsheviks were when the Soviet Union was allowed to collapse. Yahweh controls history, not Satan...nor mankind, and we must either cooperate with it or be steam-rollered by it. This is a 'Shavu'ot-type moment' in both the Divine and Babylonian systems. So you can either come along peacefully like a wise one or come kicking and protesting like a stubborn, precocious and rebellious child and make an ass of yourself. Either way, Yahweh wins. At least know that. But if He has to pull you by the ear screaming don't come to me for sympathy. You were forewarned. Just be grateful you were finally rescued, foolish child though you were. Thank Him for His grace, take your chastisement, grow up and take the pain like a man.

We are celebrating Eden's one week-long Festival of Unleavaned Bread starting today where you, the individual, matter absolutely, because we must always start with basics - with individuals. This is 'Eden time', one-to-one time, Adam and Eve time, you-and-Father time. We start here but we cannot finish here. We can never go back to the original Garden of Eden again. Ever. Rather, Eden has to be brought into the perfected Messianic Community which is the New Jerusalem, and into the multi-stellar 'Astaran' Community of Zion, and the two become perfectly merged into Yahweh's Great Garden-City. The fraternal jealousy and rivalry between Israel and Judah, as also between Rachel and Leah, must end and both must be leavened by one another - Grace by Torah, Torah by Grace, the West by the East, and the East by the West, and the North by the South, and the South by the North - the elect of Europe, Africa, America and Asia must become echad and learn from one another. Don't be so proud as to suppose otherwise. I'm a Eurasian by upbringing and indebted to both cultures, and have since been leavened by America and Africa too. I consider myself trans-national now. You'll find Malaysian, British, English, Irish, Norwegian, Swedish, American, African and even Prussian in me. I love them all. I have learned, and an still learning, from all of them, as I seek the good and zionic in each. I 'fit in' fairly easily wherever I go. We are, after all, desenced from one Adamic Tribe and are destined to become one twelvefold Israelite Tribe, are we not? This ministry was specifically created for that, to help Christians and Messianics discover and reorientate in Father's renewed Order. We are here to serve you as Father's emmissaries of the New Order that is being formed.

Tomorrow is the important festival of Yom haBikkurim or the Day of Firstfruits which commemorates many things, the culmination of which is the joyful commemoration of the Resurrection of Yah'shua the Messiah, Jesus Christ, who is the bikkurim or 'firstfruits' of that resurrection which we proclaim on the housetops! Like the Eastern Orthodox, we shall be loudly proclaiming, "HE IS RISEN!" This is Yahweh's 'Resurrection Festival', not the pagan 'Easter' that so many believers will be mistakenly observing in a week's time. So until then, may Yahweh bless as you settle into the phronema and spirit of Chag haMatzah - the Feast of Unleavened Bread - and also preserve you and prepare you for active service in the New Order, for the days of waiting are at an end. Amen.

Endnotes

[1] David Pawson, Unlocking the Bible: A Unique Overview of the whole Bible (Collins, London: 2007), pp.126-7
[2] C.S.Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, New York: 1966), pp.207-8
[3] As of 2024, recognised in 36 countries with a total population of 1.3 billion, 17 per cent of the world's population