Yahweh’s Calendar part-3

Blessed be the name of Yahweh and shabbat shalom to all of you joining us. Glad to have you with us as we embark on another segment of our broadcast study portion. Yes, we are talking about Yahweh’s calendar, part 3. If you have missed part 1 and especially part 2, please go back and watch those segments before you draw any kind of conclusions as to whether or not the calendar I am sharing with you today and my reasonings for dismissing the other calendar systems are valid biblically, scripturally. So, but we are in part 3 and we are putting a lot of emphasis on the reason why we come to different conclusions on the calendar.

I want to start here with a word of prayer.  Father Yahweh, thank You for Your love, thank You for all that You have done in our life, we ask that You would strengthen us,  we ask that You would guide us by Your Spirit, expose any things in our hearts that need to change, reveal to us the pure, complete, unadulterated word from Your throne Father. Let us not be deceived or go to the right or to the left. In name of Your Son Yahushua we pray, amein.

So our premise here in this study is that we are not going to add anything to Yahweh’s word. We are going to have a great deal of respect for the fact that we should never add to Yahweh’s word. So what we are going to do right here, if we have a doctrine it is going to go through this filter of Yahweh’s perfect word and only then can we come to Yahweh’s perfect will.

The danger is when we have a doctrine and we go to Yahweh’s perfect word, but then we get sidetracked and we go to man’s opinions, man’s thoughts, man’s ideas adding to, taking from Yahweh’s word, and then things get really muddled and we can’t really be sure whether we have come to Yahweh’s will.

Biblically speaking, Yahweh says (Proverbs 30:5-6) – Every word of Elohim is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. – He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him. I want to choose to trust Yahweh and His words. Because he says – 5 Do not add to His words, Lest He rebuke you, and you be found a liar. – I do not want to be found a liar. Yahweh open my eyes if I am adding anything to Your already perfect word for it is written (Revelation 22:14-15) – Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city. 15 But outside are dogs and sorcerers and sexually immoral and murderers and idolaters, and whoever loves and practices a lie. – Right? I do not want to practice a lie I want to practice the truth.

Now we do know Yahweh Himself gave us a calendar and He wants us to follow it in order to properly determine His feast days and for that reason I believe the Scriptures already provide us with the information we need to determine the calendar dates.

Deuteronomy 12:32 says – Whatever I command you be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it.

Deuteronomy 4:2 – You shall not add to the word which I command you, nor take from it, that you may keep the commandments of Yahweh your Mighty One which I command you.

Now Yahweh Himself is welcome to add anything He wants to His Own word. And so I am not just going to trust the Torah, first five books of Scripture, I can trust anywhere in Scripture from Genesis to Revelation and know that whatever is there is trustworthy and is right. Now in the Torah, when He was giving His calendar, I believe He gave them all they needed to know; to know when to start a new year, to when to start a new month.

So. If I do not believe He has given us enough information in the holy Scriptures then I am basically saying Yahweh is requiring me to do something He specifically told me not to do, which is, add to His word in order to find out how to keep His feast days. In order to find out when the 7 yearly holidays are, I have to add to Scripture to find them. And I simply do not believe that He would require me to do something He Himself says not to do. I hope that makes sense.

Deuteronomy 16 verse 1, real briefly this is the calendar I believe we should follow – Observe – guard/watch for – the month – or the new moon – of the Aviv – the month in which there is the aviv, the harvestable barley –  and keep the Passover to Yahweh your Mighty One, for in the month of the Aviv Yahweh your Mighty One brought you out of Egypt by night. – So the month of the Aviv, the month in which I find the aviv, that is when I am going to keep the Passover, that is the command right here in Deuteronomy 16 verse 1. And I have not endeavored to add anything to Scripture, I have simply allowed the word itself to teach me His calendar. Yes we have had to dig into Hebrew as we talked about last couple of weeks, but we found it, we found it in the Scriptures, we did not have to go any outside source.

So. Now. The biggest complaints I hear about the calendar that I believe we see here in the Scriptures is, to some people it does not make any sense. So let us look at the objections here. Some people say well this does not make any sense, it does not work. It does not stand the test of time, it does not make any sense. What, how can this be, because hey, there are things that do not line up like how could Noah have known when the barley was ripe in Israel? He was on a boat over by the land of Turkey, mount Ararat somewhere and there was no barley growing in Israel when the land is under water. Other objections I hear are similar to that. Listen, it does not matter to me whether I think it works in my little box, it does not matter to me if it seems silly, or outdated or hard to figure out, it does not matter to me whether everything seems to fall in a perfect little line with precisions in my own reasonings and surmisings. The only thing that matters to me is whether or not the Scriptures teach it. If I have a problem with the Scriptures and their teachings, the problem is with me, it is not with the Bible.

Yahweh has told people to do a lot of things that do not make any sense to them, but demanded unquestioned obedience. “Hey Abraham, that son that I gave you of your old age, the one through whom you are going to be many nations, sacrifice him on the altar to me, please.” See, not everything has to make sense. You just go in obedience and let Yahweh take care of the rest. So, people say well Noah could not have known when the new year was, how did Israel know when the new year was during the time they were in exile, did Abraham go by the barley in Israel to determine the new year? All that sounds silly. Honestly, I do not need to answer those questions. I can think of possible answers, Noah and Abraham seemed to have a pretty direct line to Yahweh, I mean so He easily could have told them here is a new month.

Likewise He can inform us of things by His Holy Spirit. One thing I do know is this: if I stay as close to Scripture as possible and not choose to add my own thoughts, my own surmisings to the Bible, to what Yahweh says, I will come to this understanding of the calendar. There will be some months I will be unable to determine the new moon because of the clouds, it is raining outside. That is okay, Yahweh sent the clouds. There may have been a visible crescent if it was not for the clouds but you know what I cannot see it so try to find other people who may have seen it. And if I cannot find anybody, guess what, it is a 30^th day. Alright. I am okay with that, it does not have to fit in my little, neat little precision box, okay? Same thing would happen in ancient Israel, at sometimes it would rain outside, even though if there was no rain there is a visible crescent out there waiting for them to see it they have got to go to that next day, see every month either has 29 or 30 days. So if you do not see it the 29^th day, you know it is the next day. Alright. So the 29^th day and it is raining outside and you cannot tell whether or not there is a new moon, guess what, even though there may have been a visible crescent, you cannot see it because of the rain. That is okay, Yahweh sent the rain. He want you to start the month the day after, that is okay. It does not have to make sense to you, it does not have to line up with all your way of thinking. Listen, if you do the conjunction new moon you are going to have problems too. What if sundown is at 6:28 and the conjunction is at 6:28. And what if on top of that, the equinox, you cannot see it because it is raining outside, you cannot tell, you cannot put your stick in the ground and see where the shadow goes because it is raining. What if the whole area, the country you are living in, the whole area is under clouds and rain, that stick in the ground is not going to help you. You know, so you are going to have problems no matter what calendar system you follow. You are going to run into trouble. In fact it was I think just a few years ago, the conjunction, you know, fell pretty much on the time the sun went down. Another one, another problem was, you know, well some people go by conjunction in terms of when the new day begins when you are in Jerusalem. And some go by a local sighting, there is so much confusion. And you are going to have problems either way. Not local sighting but local calculation based on your present sundown times where you happen to live. When you live in another area of the world, the sun goes down and it is 1 day, which is the day before, and you might even have to calculate, okay, the sun is going to go down at 5:30 tomorrow and the conjunction is going to happen at 5:30, now what? So, they did not have clocks in the ancient times, much less the formula needed to determine the conjunction.

So, you are going to have problems, no matter what calendar system. I say problems, what I mean is logistical issues. It is not really a problem for Yahweh, it is only a problem trying to wrap this thing in our overly Greco-Roman logical mind. So, you might as well follow the one calendar that does not require you to add anything to Scriptures. To me that makes sense, you know.

I mean, is not that what we are going to be judged by anyway? You will not be judged by whether or not you think it makes sense. You are going to be judged by Yahweh’s word, that is what you are going to be judged by. So, whether it makes sense to you is irrelevant. This is the way He set it up. You see, I think part of our problem is, we are trying to fit Yahweh’s word in our self-made cultural influenced boxes. We want everything to be uniform and fit neatly. I say it does not have to fit into your cultural man-made box.

Trying to make everything fit neatly in boxes is how we got the Roman calendar. You see, they give up trying to fit the moon cycle into a 365 day year, and completely dismissed and divorced the moon from the calendar they were following altogether, which is pretty much, ironically, what the so-called Henoch calendar is doing.

But I say look, quit trying to fit Yahweh’s word into your little box where you think it has to fit into these precise areas, and just adjust your box to match up completely with the words of Yahweh. Without adding to and without taking away. That is the command. You either follow it or you do not, it is your choice. I am going to follow it.

So, adding to, taking away, this is how I feel when someone says we need to go with Jerusalem sighting. People say it makes more sense and brings more unity when we all go by one new moon sighting in Jerusalem. The problem is there is no Scripture telling us to sight the moon only in Jerusalem. Yahweh’s word just simply tells us His new month begins with the renewal of the moon. It does not say with the renewal of the moon only in Jerusalem. We have to add to and we have to take away, or and we have mainly here we are talking about adding to, it says you shall not add to it. (Deuteronomy 4:2) – You shall not add to the word which I command you, …, that you may keep the commandments.

You see, I fear Elohim, I do not want to add anything to Scripture. And so I do not want to say “Well, it has to be in Jerusalem”. Because Scripture does not say that. Now our desire for unity is admirable. But what if we unified under not adding to and not taking away from the word? No matter where you go, someone is going to disagree with you. You might as well go to a place where you just go straight with the word, and that is it. Is not that how we came to understand to keep the Sabbath day on the 7^th day of the week? Is not that how we came to understand the importance of keeping all the commandments? Why are we going to depart from that principle when it comes to making up the calendar here sir? I mean we have got to stay with the word.

And if I look up in the sky and I see the renewed moon in my part of the world, I am not going to pretend like it does not exist, and say “No, it has to go by Jerusalem” because the Scriptures never tell me it has to go by Jerusalem. So I am going to call the new month. Why? Because that is what the Bible tells me to do and so I want to do it. Not adding to and not taking away. I have a doctrine, it is going to go through the filter of Yahweh’s word, it is going to find Yahweh’s perfect will by doing that.

If I go in and I say “No, I want to go to Yahweh’s word and then I go to my thinking is bla bla bla bla bla”, forget it, I do not know if I got Yahweh’s will now. And if it turns out I am wrong, you know what, at least, at least because I was doing this and not because I was doing this. Do you follow me? I would rather be wrong because I misunderstood Yahweh’s word than be wrong because I added to it.

Now someone says “O well Tom, aren’t you kind being a little inconsistent here? Aren’t you adding to Yahweh’s word when you say you have got to go by aviv barley in Jerusalem? Why not just go by aviv barley where you happen to live”. I say I do not think I am adding to Yahweh’s word and I explain to you why. Take a look at Deuteronomy 11 verse 10. It says – For the land which you go to possess is not like the land of Egypt from which you have come, where you sowed your seed and watered it by foot, as a vegetable garden; 11 but the land which you cross over to possess is a land of hills and valleys, which drinks water from the rain of heaven, 12 a land for which Yahweh your Mighty One cares; the eyes of Yahweh your Mighty One are always on it, from the beginning of the year to the very end of the year.

From the beginning of the year His eyes are always on this land. It is not like other lands in the world, it is different. For this reason we can have assurance that the beginning of the new year in Israel is based on Yahweh’s specific attention to this land. He makes no promise about any other land in the world. Again, we can have assurance that we are determining the beginning of a new year based on Yahweh’s unusual attention to this land at the beginning of the year to the very end.

So if I was to base my beginning of the year and end of the year off of any land in the world, I would not have this same assurance. It is also a fact that Israel is one of the very few places in the world that barley actually grows in the wild. Voluntarily, without human intervention, without man-made chemicals, without mechanical irrigation methods. And so I can go by the wild or the volunteer barley which grows naturally in the land that has Yahweh’s eyes on it continually, to determine a new year. I cannot find those same elements in any other place on planet earth.

Now think about this. If you were to drop down into the area of Africa and, you have no growing season. You go around the equator, there is no growing season. The weather, everything is the same all year round. So, how are you going to determine a new year? You can grow, you can plant that barley any time you want to and be clueless as to when the new year starts because it can grow any time of the year. You could plant barley and, you know, there it goes. And if you drop down in the southern hemisphere growing seasons are at opposite ends of the calendar. When it is summer up north in hemisphere it is winter in the southern hemisphere. When it is winter in the southern hemisphere it is summer in the north. So it is just like you… you have got opposite ends, okay. So the way Yahweh constructed the earth there is really only one way to determine a new year, it is going to have to be, number 1, be in the northern hemisphere. That is the way He constructed the earth. So, you know you are a kind of in the same boat, you know, as those who, if you do not have access to Jerusalem, to the knowledge about Jerusalem barley. And this is the big thing people say: How could people figure out when the new year was when there was no access to knowing when barley would grow in Jerusalem? Into modern times.

Really you are a kind of in the same boat no matter what time of the year, I mean, if you live in the southern hemisphere you have got no way of figuring it out down there. Even if you lived during a time when Israel was a nation. Unless you travelled all the way up there and figured out when it was, then came back down. So I mean you are not any further ahead either way so the only section on the planet I know that you can determine a new year to be it would be a fairly small section of the earth, and that is going to be the northern hemisphere. Now and if you go too far north, obviously you are going to have a problem with the growing season being very short, and what we would call middle of summer you are trying to, you know, do the Passover.

So, anyway, it appears to me there is a very good reason why Yahweh specifically said His eyes are on the land of Israel from the beginning of the year. And He was specific about this: from the beginning of the year. So for that reason, no other land has that promise, I am going to go with the barley in the land of Israel.

Now, what if there is drought? Did you know that barley is one the most drought tolerant grasses in the world? In fact scientists is trying to study and trying to figure out secrets, but in the event of drought all you have got to do is to take a relatively small amount of water from Israel’s year-round springs and water your plants. So it was never a problem even in ancient times.

But listen. There are logistical issues no matter what calendar system you follow. But I had rather have logistical issues in implementing a calendar I can find in the Scriptures, than issues with trying to reconcile His calendar with something I have added to Scripture. Or adding to Scriptures to make His calendar fit in my neat little box. I would rather have issues there with trying to reconcile the calendar I see in the Scriptures with my own understanding of how to implement it, than I am with having issues on the day of judgment Yahweh calling me a liar for adding something to the word He never said or wanted.

Now, getting back to local or Jerusalem sighting. Again, there is nothing in Scripture about having to sight the moon in Jerusalem. All people all over the world can see the same moon no matter where they live. The question for me is whether or not I can see it. If I can see it I can see the renewal of the moon, I have no biblical directive tell me “ignore that please, wait, wait till you hear from Jerusalem”.

So I am going to go with the perfect word of Yahweh I am going by that find His perfect will. I do not need to worry about “Oh what about this, what about that, what about this, what about that”, and therefore consult man and say “What do you think, this, this, that, the other” whatever, because then  I run into problems trying to find Yahweh’s will.

Now, some say “What about this Scripture in Isaiah 66:23” – And it shall come to pass That from one New Moon to another, And from one Sabbath to another, All flesh shall come to worship before Me, says Yahweh. And people will point to this and say “Look one day that everyone will keep Jerusalem sighting”. Actually everyone will keep local sighting because everyone will be in Jerusalem for these particular days and it does not really say that it will be in Jerusalem but we presume it will be and therefore everyone will be doing a local sighting there in Jerusalem.

So, if you are coming to the Feast of Tabernacles and you live in Canada or somewhere else and you come to the Feast of Tabernacles you may have saw the new moon a day later, but you are going to keep the new moon according to our local sighting where ever we are hosting a feast here in Missouri, and that’s okay. You are doing what the Scriptures tell you. Here we saw the new moon a day earlier that you did and therefore we are going to go with these days, and so you keep the feast however where ever the days are according to the area of the world you live in. He never demands that you must keep it in Jerusalem, He says “Go to the place where Yahweh puts His name. He puts His name on our foreheads, and where ever two or three are gathered in His name He is there in our midst, Yahushua said, and so I am going with that, where ever two or three are gathered. He said “Neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem shall you worship the Father”, in John chapter 4, “but you worship Him in spirit and truth”. So the issue is not location except that we are the temple of Elohim, and where ever His people are His temple is located.

Alright. Now, in terms of this, how is this going to work? I mean because, I mean is everyone going to be miraculously transported from all over the world to Jerusalem? Flying through the air every week on the Sabbath day? And every month on the new moon days? Oh well maybe, Yahweh is capable of doing that. Maybe at that time we will go by Jerusalem sight, but again maybe not. Maybe we will keep the calendar based on where ever we are in the world. But we will go to Jerusalem by Jerusalem sightings and Jerusalem time. Suppose you live in California during this 1000 year reign. Here you are trying to keep the Sabbath day on the 7^th day of the week and then all of a sudden, right there in the middle of the 6^th day of the week, you are out there in the field working, and you get transported to Jerusalem because the Sabbath already begin over in Jerusalem. It is not even Shabbat for you yet and you are getting whisked away to the land of Israel. Or you sleep in your bed and in the middle of the night and they are having a Sabbath afternoon gathering in Israel and you get rudely awakened in the middle of the night, you have to go back to Jerusalem, to Israel and worship the Father and then, when you are done, you get transported back home and you did not get much rest. How is that going to work? I do not know. I do not know.

I know and then you got this issue, Isaiah 30:26 – Moreover the light of the moon will be as the light of the sun, And the light of the sun will be sevenfold, As the light of seven days, In the day that Yahweh binds up the bruise of His people And heals the stroke of their wound.      So the moonlight is going to be as bright as the sunlight. What is going on how is that going to work? I do not know. And so how the new moon even be determined in that context. I do not know. I mean maybe everyone will populate the earth in an area around Israel and not stray very far. I am not sure. There is a lot of mysteries about the coming age, but I would not want to base my calendar on how I think how it is going to unfold in the future. It might be identical to what we are doing now. Everyone keeps a local sighting where they are located, and if they get transported they move somewhere else, they get a big RV and they go down and they go somewhere else they are going to keep the calendar according to where they are located at that time.

So, we do not know what the future is going to be like, so do not try to take that and bring it into the present, because there is things about futuristic prophesy, you know, you have got 360 days in a year, that is not the case where I am at. So, there a things that are going to be completely different, stars will fall, heavens will shake, they will be completely different, there may be a whole another calendar, Yahweh says “We are going to do it this way” under these new circumstances. And you are trying to bring that into now and that is not where we are.

We can only go by what He told us to do. And that is what we are going to do today. And He never told us “Go by Jerusalem time”. Maybe one day He will but He has not told us that yet so why are we doing it? We have to add to Yahweh’s word in order to do that, and what I want to do, once again, I do not want to add to Yahweh’s perfect word my own thoughts, ideas, opinions, I just want perfection in Yahweh, I do not want anything else.

So while I am waiting for further instructions I am going to go by what He told me to do in Scriptures and that is my new month begins with the renewal of the moon. So. I am safe there. I am not safe adding my own oh it is got to be here, it has got to be there, because Yahweh’s name is not just in Jerusalem right now. It is on our foreheads, Yahushua is dwelling in our hearts, so there we go, alright.

Now what about the modern day Jewish calendar, commonly called the Hillel II calendar. You know in light of all these issues the most egregious, the most in your face “I am going to do the calendar the way I want to do it” can be found in the Hillel II calendar. And what is even more amazing is that this calendar, you see every day, every Sabbath the unbelieving Jewish people gather in synagogues and listen to their quote “rabbi” who gives them some teachings from the Torah but primarily through the lenses and through the understandings of ancient Jewish people that they respected. And the ironic thing is they will, you know, kind of disrespect Christians for having changed the Sabbath day to the first day of the week but then by their own admission they changed the 7 annual holy days to fit their own personal conveniences.

Now the Talmud is not something I recommend reading, but it does provide us with some historical information. I would not want to get my doctrines from the Talmud. But here is the irony, is the Jews they spent all their time studying the Talmud but when it comes to the calendar they do not actually follow it. Now what is the Talmud? The Talmud consists of 2 parts: number 1 the Mishna, and this is the first major publication of the Jewish oral law compiled at 220 AD or so, could have been later, could have been earlier, but they decided to write down what they had as what is called the traditions of the elders, traditions of the fathers. Alright. And then there is the Gemara the rabbinical analysis of this and is a commentary on the Mishna; there is actually another part called Rashi’s Commentary on both of these, okay. So you have got the commentary and then you have got the commentary on the commentary and then you have got the commentary on the commentary’s commentary. All kinds of man’s words. Okay.

But the Mishna would be the original commentary, okay? And that also supplies some historical information. Okay. Pardon me a minute, see if I can find these slide I had this on, okay. It says: “The following are considered to be incompetent to be witnesses: gamblers with dice, usurers, pigeon breeders, those who deal with the produce of the sabbatical year and slaves. This is the rule: All evidence that cannot be received from a woman cannot be received from any of the above. Whenever witnesses must be on the road a day and a night, it will be lawful to violate the Sabbath to travel thereon, to give their evidence as to the appearance of the moon.“ (Babylonian Talmud, Section Moed, Rosh Hashana, Chapter I)

So they, according to the Mishna, actually the Gemara here, they were looking for the appearance of the moon. Now the modern Hillel II Jewish calendar does not rely on an appearance of any moon. It follows the conjunction of the moon as I described in, I believe part 1, okay? So, by their own admission, by their own so called Talmud they do not follow the ancient calendar, they are following their own deal, okay?

It says, then it says: “There was a large court in Jerusalem called Beth Ya’azeq, where all the witnesses met, and where they were examined by the Beth Din. Great feasts were made there for the witnesses in order to induce them to come frequently. How were the witnesses examined? The first pair were examined first. The elder was introduced first, and they said to him: Was it to the north or the south of the sun? What was its elevation on the horizon? Towards what side was its inclination?” So here we are talking about the witnessing the seeing of the moon, okay? And then “What was the width of its disc? If he answered before the sun, his evidence was worthless. After this they introduced the younger witness and he was examined; if their testimony was found to agree, it was accepted as valid; the remaining pairs of witnesses were asked leading questions, not because their testimony was necessary, but only prevent them from departing disappointed.” (Babylonian Talmud, Section Moed, Rosh Hashana, Chapter II)

Alright. So we are talking about a legitimate new moon sighting, is basically what they are trying to figure out here. And this is in their own Talmud something they would do as sighting the moon. Now recently, I believe it was in the last year or so, there is actually a Sanhedrin now formed in the land of Jerusalem, in the land of Israel I should say, and they started looking for the new moon again, and they are like “Here we are in the Land, what are we waiting for? This calendar that we, Hillel developed, we do not have to follow that anymore, we can actually follow the biblical calendar, we are here back in the land of Jerusalem, the land of Israel, so why are we doing this other thing? ”

And so it is true what they said, I mean why are they following it? Because originally the Hillel II was created, this calendar was created to, you know, resolve the problem of disunity among Jews; one person might see the new moon in their location be a different day than another location. And so they decided to create this new calendar, and since they could not check the barley there in the land of Israel, they decided that it is better that we all keep the feast days on the same day all over the world, than it is for us to be all doing different days and the confusion that comes out of that. That was their reasoning. Okay. So they created their own calendar that had no basis in Scripture whatsoever and that is what they follow to this day. Alright.

Now originally, it says according to the Encyclopaedia Judaica: “Originally, the new moon was not fixed by astronomical calculation, but was solemnly proclaimed after witnesses had testified to the reappearance of the crescent moon.” (Encyclopaedia Judaica, Vol. 12, p. 1039) This is the calendar that Yahushua the Messiah was following. The one that was based on the testimony of the reappearance of the crescent moon. And so that is the calendar I want to follow, alright?

Actually a 1^st Jew by the name of Philo said: “at the time of the new moon, the sun begins to illuminate the moon with a light which is visible to the outward senses, and then she displays her own beauty to the beholders” (Philo Judaeus(20 BCE – 50 AD/CE), The Special Laws, II, XI. (41), XXVI. (140) & (141)

So here is a guy talking about a new moon, a first century Jew, visible to the outward senses, okay? So what they are doing in the modern Jewish calendar by their own admission is not the calendar that they used to be followed. I find that very interesting. So the calendar the Jewish people are following is different than what they originally kept, and they felt they had the authority to change it. What does that sound familiar? Because the pope thought he had the authority to change the Sabbath day to the 1^st day of the week. And then the Jews started pointing the finger at the Christians saying “You are changing the Sabbath” when they themselves were doing the same thing. Alright. And I do not want to follow either the pope or so called rabbis because that is following man, I would rather follow the Scriptures.

So the calendar being observed in the 1^st century was clearly indicating a new moon was determined by reappearance, not by calculation.

Now of any calendar system out there today this is, the so called Jewish calendar is what bothers me the most. I mean it is a blatant attempt to willfully, intentionally, purposely add to Yahweh’s word and take away from what He plainly says. And what concerns me even more are the reasons why. Even some Torah observant believers today follow the calendar that the Jews follow, okay?

Here are the reasons: A. We are going to follow, we are going to have solidarity to the Jews, solidarity with the Jews. Okay. Now listen. I am all for showing solidarity with someone if I know that someone is standing for the truth. But if someone is not standing for the truth, I cannot stand in agreement with them and follow their ways, I do not care how much I want to reach them. I mean if I want to show solidarity to the Jews, which Jews? Yahushua is Jewish, I am all for showing solidarity to Him. But not those who hate Him and disrespect Him and do not believe in Him. Why do I want to show solidarity to someone who does not even love Yahushua? And so, much less even follow the Scriptures, I mean I am flabbergasted.

Now you do not have to be like the world to win the world. What you want to do to win the world is to be like Yahushua. So, I do not believe I have to compromise in order to reach the Jewish people, I have to compromise and say “See, we are following Day of Atonement on the day you are following Day of Atonement, see we are keeping the same day as you are”. I do not have to do that. In fact, I can provoke them to jealousy and say “You know, your own Talmud, actually the calendar you are following is not even in your own Talmud. Your own Talmud actually contradicts the calendar you are following, I am going with the one that is in the Bible”.  And I start, if I want to provoke them to jealousy then I hope it is because I am following Scripture and they are not. So that is what I am going to go with.

Now the other reason people will say: “Well, the Jews sit in Moses’ seat and were given the oracles of Yahweh, therefore we should follow their calendar because they have that authority”. I say oh that is that is nice, but listen. What did Yahushua say? He said (Matthew 28:18) – All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. So what calendar was He following, that is what I want to do. He is the Jew sitting in Moshes’ seat that I am to follow; if those who reject Him, are not my authority. And if they were, my loyalty is not to them, it is to Yahweh the Father, rather than man. Again, those who reject Yahushua that is not my authority. He is my authority. And if they were my authority I would have to follow Yahushua because look what happened here in Acts 5:27-29 – And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest asked them, 28 saying, “Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? – The name of Yahushua – And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this Man’s blood on us!” 29 But Peter and the other apostles answered and said: “We ought to obey Elohim rather than men.”

We ought to obey so much for their authority. The authority is Elohim first. Yes you okay fine, you want to submit to somebody but listen, if they are not submitting to Yahweh you do not submit to them. If they are not following Yahweh you do not follow them. See, the high priest at that time did have some authority but we answer to a higher priest called Yahushua the Messiah, the high priest of the heavenly tabernacle made without hands. Okay.

And here is the 3^rd reason and it is maybe the most common: “Oh well, how does this look to our children when we are all arguing around the calendar?” I admit it does not look good, we should not argue we should reason together, we should not argue. “Look we are all meeting in different places and different times. The Bible is obviously not clear and we really cannot prove anything one way or the other. So since you cannot really proof what calendar we are supposed to follow want we just follow Jewish calendar until we figure things out. At least there is peace.” And it sounds kind of nice actually on the surface, I have to admit, it sounds like a humble thing to say you know. You just want peace, you just want your children not to see, you know, all the infighting and the division, and you do not want to lose their souls because of all this negativity.

I have one question for anyone who would hold this position I have one question: “What is it really teaching your children if you stop searching for truth and decide to just go with the flow”. I mean they are possibly the last generation on the earth before the return of Yahushua the Messiah. Yahushua told us there would be a lot of deception on the earth when He returns, before He returns. And so is not it real, real important we teach our children not to go with the flow if the flow is so obviously wrong? With the calendar or any biblical topic I would rather be wrong because I misunderstood Yahweh’s word than wrong because I was blindly following man. Or worse yet, following what I knew to be in error because I wanted to be at peace with other man that I know was in error. Listen this is the end times I really believe we are in the endtimes. And we cannot compromise. If we are teaching our children to compromise for the sake of unity, what else might be compromised for the sake of unity? And they might be the ones rising up against us, putting us to death because we are not in unity.

So, listen. Yahushua said it happen, we need to teach our children never, ever, ever follow error for any reason. And the Jewish calendar is quite clearly error by their own admission their calendar is not the one in the Bible, it is not even the one in the Talmud. The Talmud is a collection of writings and beliefs of Jewish teachers, some of which go back to 1^st century Judaism, these traditions. And what did Yahushua say about these man? He said (Matthew 16:6) – Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the Sadducees. And you are going to follow that? He said to them – Mark 7:9 – All too            well you reject the commandment of Elohim, that you may keep your tradition. And they are still doing it! They know their calendar is not in the Scriptures but they going to keep their tradition.

Now you might be wondering where can I proof their calendar is not the one in the Bible. There is something in the Hillel II calendar called ‘postponements’. Not sure if you have heard of that but here is how it works. If Rosh Hashana, which is Yom Kippur or I am sorry Yom Teruach which is called the Feast of Trumpets, would fall on, pardon me for using the pagan names here, fall on a Sunday, I am quoting them, Wednesday or Friday, then it postponed to the next day. So if it falls on 1 of these 3 days of the week that is going to happen just under half the time, right, on average, then they are going to postpone it to the following day. They do not want it on a Sunday they want it on a Monday. They do not want it on a Wednesday they want it on a Thursday. They do not want it on a Friday they want it on a Sabbath day. And it says: if it already has been postponed to Sunday, Wednesday or Friday by rule 1, it is thus postponed for 2 days. The reason for this rule is that if Rosh Hashana fell on a Wednesday or a Friday then Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, which is on 10^th Tishri, would be on a Friday or Sunday. And since both Yom Kippur and the Sabbath, which occurs every Saturday, are days on which virtually all work is forbidden, it would be very inconvenient, very inconvenient to have them on consecutive days.

In other words they do not want Yom Kippur to follow to fall on a day next to the Sabbath. Why? Because, you know, crocodile tears here, it is very inconvenient. Well do not you think it was inconvenient for ancient Israel? It is not just inconvenient for you. And if Yahweh felt “O I am sorry, 10^th day of the 7^th month unless it falls on a 1^st, 4^th or, you know, 6^th day, if it falls on one of those days, I am sorry I made a mistake, the holy days are going to be on a different altogether because I know how inconvenient that is for you guys, I do not want to inconvenience you or anything. Pardon me for my being a little animated but it is just downright ridiculous.

Then if Rosh Hashana fell on a Sunday, then Hoshana Rabba, which is 21^st Tishri, would be on a Saturday, the Sabbath. It is traditional on that day to walk 7 times around the Synagogue carrying a palm branch; this ritual could not be performed on the Sabbath. I mean this is blatant. They are going to follow tradition and what did Yahushua say? (Mark 7:9) – All too well you reject the commandment of Elohim, that you may keep your tradition. – And the tradition is doing this very thing with this calendar.

And is not it tradition what birthed a, what is called, a Sunday Sabbath? You see, Judaism and Catholicism are really 2 sides of the same coin. They are both violating the basic principle of not adding to or taking away from the word of Yahweh. When you add or you take away from the word of Yahweh, guess what, you are setting yourself up as a lawgiver               . And now people will look to you for Torah, they will look to you for answers, look to the traditions, the elders, they will look to man for how to follow Elohim rather than letting Elohim tell you what to do. They are going to do what man says to do and that is incomprehensible to me. That is the whole problem. That is how we ended up in 2000 years of error in Christianity. Just because error happens to fall under the umbrella of Judaism does not make it any more okay. Just because the error happens to fall under the umbrella of so called rabbis who so think they know the Hebrew better than you do, does not make that or sanitize that tradition to where Yahweh says “Okay, go ahead, forget what I have said, you do what these guys tell you”.

Because it is not man’s words that are going to determine anything. It is Yahweh’s word you are going to be judged by, not man, not calendars, not what man create, it is His holy days and His days matter.  And so we have got to follow His days, not man’s days, right?

What did He say? He said (Leviticus 23:30-21) – And any person who does any work on that same day, – talking about Yom Kippur the Day of Atonement – that person I will destroy from among his people. – This is talking about Day of Atonement. I highly suggest you do not work on that day He says Day of Atonement. You do not get to choose when it is, you do not get to choose when a day is holy, He does. I should not have to convince you of that because you already understood that when it comes to the weekly Sabbath. Somehow we have strayed brothers, do not go down this way. This is not truth. This is not light. This is not right.

(1 John 3:4) – Whoever commits sin transgresses also the law: for sin is transgression of the law. And just because in your mind, in your heritage, in your Greco-Roman mindset, Yom Kippur is not that big of a deal whether you keep it holy or not, does not mean it is not holy. You think it does not matter so much but what does He say? Not even a Sabbath does He say “You work on that day, I am going to destroy you”. Okay?

So, you might ask why has not He destroyed all these people for doing it the wrong day? Well, because yes, in ancient Israel times they knew exactly what they were supposed to do, there was not any question. And yes, we are in a time period where we are trying to find our way back, and there is something called mercy and that.

But you know what? Maybe sometimes the problems we have in our life and the judgment we are facing in our lives is because we are putting man first and not Yahweh.

And here is why people do this, why people add to or take away from the Word.

1. You are not emptying yourself of your own will. You want to be with your buddies on this day and so you are going to follow their calendar. And you are going to keep their holy days and you are going to do it when they do it because you want to be with your friends. I do not care how lonely this walk gets, if I am walking with Yahushua I do not need anybody else. It would be nice to have other people walking with Yahushua alongside me, but I do not need them. I can do just fine following Yahushua. Even if I am the last man on the face of the earth I do Yahweh’s word, that is what I need to be doing.
2. We have got to have that true love for Yahweh, that pure heart, that clear conscience and sincere faith that says Yahweh you first, not anybody else.
3. We have got to believe I do not need some man to tell me His calendar, the Scriptures are plenty, I have got what I need from the Scriptures.
4. We cannot be spiritually lazy and say “You know wat, I do not really feel like studying all that out, looks all confusing, I will just follow man’s calendar”. We cannot do that. We are straying from the fundamental basics of how one searches the truth and follows it.
5. Forget your own personal divine revelation.
6. And do not let fear of divisiveness guide your outcome. Let Yahweh’s word already inspired, already true be your guide. Some people are like “I do not care what truth is I just want to be with people around that I love and people love me”. I cannot do that, I have got to do what Scripture tells me. That is what I am going to be judged by, not anything else.

 

So. Someone brings a doctrine, I am going to say “Alright, what does Yahweh’s word say?” And only by that I am going to find Yahweh’s perfect will. I am not going to do this: have a doctrine and go through    Yahweh’s word and then consult man’s ideas, man’s opinions, let him add to the word of Yahweh and let that be my guide for Yahweh’s will. Just the Scriptures. Because that is all that matters. That is it.

If I have got to drill this in your head I am going to, because the enemy has drilled his doctrines in our heads already; we do not need that we need Yahweh’s ways drilled in our minds. I do not want to be destroyed, I do want to be in the kingdom with Elohim. And so I am not going to work on a day He says a Day of Atonement is. For anybody, not my family, not my mom, not my dad, not my brother, not my sister, not my children, nobody. Yahweh first! It is the lack of Yahweh first that got us in this mess to begin with, right?

Now if we are blind in something we do not know, maybe I am wrong in my understandings, maybe I am. It is not because I have made up my own thing, not because I willfully followed what was error. I would rather be wrong because I misunderstood than to be wrong because I departed from Scripture. And decided to add my own ideas. And I have a promise: if I am blind to something I do not have any sin (John 9:41). Yahushua said to the scribes and the Pharisees (John 15:22) – If I had not come and spoken to them, they would have no sin, but now they have got no excuse.

So if you are not blind but willfully following what you know is wrong, you are responsible for what you are doing. That is the danger of following a Jewish calendar or any other calendar of man. What we need to be teaching our children is not solidarity with people who are in error, but solidarity with Yahushua the Messiah Who is the way, the truth and the life. This means we will seek to know the way we ought to live to the best of our understanding, the truth of Yahweh’s word, the best of our understanding and only then will we be able to say that we have repented of all transgression and expect to inherit eternal life promised to those who turn away from sin to the best of their understanding and put their trust in Yahushua.

With the Jewish calendar more than half the time your feast days are going to be moved to a different day intentionally, purposely; I do not know if a person can come up with a more man-centered calendar, I will be honest with you, I mean as if we had the authority           to move Yahweh’s feast days around to what we want. It is no different than historical Christianity, moving Yahweh’s holy days to where we want them to be. I am not going there.

Scripture says (Jeremiah 17:5) – Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from Yahweh. – I do not want my heart to depart from Yahweh and thereby trusting in man to tell me when His holy days are. I am going to find out myself. I am going to look at the Scriptures and I am going to find out for myself when His holy days are.

Now if you come to a different conclusion than me, I am not standing here judging you, okay, I am not. But please, do not depart from Yahweh. Trust in Him. Make Him your hope. A commandment of Elohim is that we keep His holy days on the days that are actually holy. The Sabbath on the 7^th day of the week which most Christianity ignores in favor of tradition, and the holy days on 7 specific days of the year which Judaism ignores in favor of tradition.

It is high time we put an end to man-centered religion and put Yahweh in His proper place as the King, the King of the Universe and let Him be our lawgiver and not man. I would rather sit in a room with 10 different people who had sincere search of their best possible understanding of Yahweh’s calendar and yet came at 10 different conclusions, than sit in a room with 10 people who had identical understandings of the calendar because they all followed some man.

One is a true unity of the spirit and okay, each to the best of their research, put their best personal effort into finding truth. The other is a fake unity and they are all doing the same thing, it is actually more cultlike because they are all following one man           or some group of man. I do not care how big that cultlike following is. There is only one man that is going to trust to take me to the promised land, that is Yahushua the Messiah. He is the way, the truth and the life, and He is the only perfect man that ever lived. And He is the word that became flesh and dwelt among us. Only He and the perfect word of truth as seen in the Holy Scriptures is worthy of my trust.

Yahushua prayed for us. He said (John 17:17) – Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth. We cannot perfect holiness until we cease from willfully profaning His holy days. You cannot be holy while you willfully follow man who trample on and disregard His holy days and follow their own holy days.

Now I hope I am not offending anybody with my boldness here, but please listen. Some might feel like turning of the video saying “Oh here is another my way or the highway guy”, listen to what I am saying. It is not my way or the highway. It is Yahweh’s way or the broad way that leads to destruction. And there a few bigger pitfalls on the narrow way than men trying to pull us away into their thinking and we think we can follow them instead of the Scriptures. Listen. Yahweh’s word is at center stage here. It was at center stage in the Garden of Eden. It is at center stage today. And you say you do not know for sure when His holy days are, you should already know. You have no business changing His holy days out of convenience.

It reminds me of those who do not use Yahweh’s name because they are not 100% sure how to pronounce it. And so they call Him the Lord. Well you know His name is not the Lord. You should do your very best to follow what you believe is most correct. And then maybe, just maybe Yahweh will be so impressed with your thirst for truth He will give it to you. But if you are doing what you already know is wrong, willfully, intentionally, why would Yahweh be impressed with your thirst for truth? You are already willfully following which you know is not right.

You see, if I have a son and he is not sure what to do in a situation, and so he does his very best to figure out what I want, ends up being wrong. You know, I would be impressed with my son’s effort, you know, I can accept that. But if I have a son he is not sure what to do in a situation, rather than doing his very best, he follows a crowd of people he knows doing what I said not to do. That would be a different story, right? It says (Exodus 23:2) – You shall not follow a crowd to do evil…” – or to do wrong. What is evil? Evil is anything we know is contrary to the word of Yahweh. It is not better to follow a group of people you know are doing wrong than it is to do your very best to do what is right.

Now I have been a Torah observant follower in Yahushua for 30 years. I say that not to boast, it does not make me any better, it only makes me more responsible because I know more. But I understand, people do not want to separate from each other. I can appreciate that, we do not want to separate from each other. And that is one reason why people go with the Jewish calendar, they figure that, you know, they do not want to separate.

We do not have to separate. Feast of Tabernacles 2019, Steelville Missouri. If you keep Jewish calendar, you come to my feast, I will love you like a brother, I will treat you like anybody else. You keep the feast day on a different day than me, I want pay hardly any attention, this is your own personal walk with Yahweh. But when it comes to me behind the microphone, I want to share with you what I see is truth in the word. Okay. But as far as judging your heart, I do not go there. I will let Yahweh judge that part.

I am sharing with you that we this is the principles in the Scriptures that we need to heed to, we need to cleave to. Unity in error is not real unity. Real unity is when 2 people disagree on something and yet they meet together and love each other anyway. That is unity.

Yahweh’s word, I really believe, does provide us with all we need to find His calendar. The problem is not Yahweh’s word lacks information. The problem is man seems to overcomplicate everything. And we do not have to. We do not have to.

So, remember the serpent in the Garden of Eden. I shared this in a previous segment. He wants you to doubt Yahweh’s word, he wants you to add to Yahweh’s word, he wants you to contradict Yahweh’s word,  and appeal to your own personal will. I see all 4 of these elements in some of these other calendar systems. You may not see it, alright, you do not         but I do.

Because I have heard similar things when people talk about the calendar, they do not believe in the sufficiency of Scripture to give us the answers. And so listen. We do not have to doubt what Yahweh’s word tells us. All we need to do is just let it speak to us and not add anything to it and go with it. Let us have that respect for Yahweh’s word, that Yahweh’s word deserves. And let us not go down this road, let us go down this road. And I trust that if you go down this road, Yahweh’s perfect word, will reveal His perfect will, not adding to not taking away, and here is what I see.

Deuteronomy 16:1 – Observe – watch for – the month – the new moon – of the Aviv. – The new moon in which you find aviv barley. That will keep the seasons in their proper place. You will know when a intercalculated month needs to take place. And you know when the new year is and you know you need to watch for it. So as the moon disappears in its orbit around the earth and it reappears, you have a new moon. When you have barley available for that firstfruits offering then you know you have a new year. It is that simple. That is it. Not adding a word to it, just going by what it says. And that is why I follow this calendar system.

Let us pray. O Father Yahweh, thank you for your awesome word. Open my eyes to see if there is anything I have spoken today that is not according to Your truth and Your word. Open the eyes of anyone here listening to this study today to see where they may be following man or blindly following what other people tell them or just disregarding that hunger and thirst for righteousness that You want us to have. Your word is said, if we hunger and thirst for righteousness we will be filled. And sometimes if all we are hungering for and thirsting for is to find a friend, we might find something that is not Your word. Because so few Father are on this narrow path. And Father I pray that we put You first, ahead of anybody else. For You already are first. Yours already is the kingdom and the power and the glory. And if there is anyone within the sound of my voice does not know You, draw them to You Father, help them to understand. Your ways are very simple and all You require of them is to turn away from what they know is wrong and turn toward what they know is right, and put their trust in the Messiah Yahushua to receive forgiveness for the sins they have committed. And as they put their trust in You, as they commit their ways to following your ways, reach down into their hearts and let them know they are loved and that You will be their rock and their Elohim, their Mighty One in the days ahead.  Give them power to be overcomers through our Saviour and Redeemer Yahushua the Messiah. And it is in His name that we pray all of these things. Truly Yours is the kingdom, power and glory forever, in Yahushua’s great name, Halleluyah and amein.