God's sacred calendar or Jewish calendar -which
GOD'S SACRED CALENDAR
OR
JEWISH CALENDAR WHICH
DO THE JEWS REALLY POSTPONE GOD'S ANNUAL SABBATHS?
There is nothing of paramount importance in the life of a true Christian other than to establish his belief on the written words of the Eternal. And thanks be to God for using the experience of Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong in the advertising world that all those long lost Holy Day truths were brought back to life with the plainness of language that even an ordinary mind like ours were able to understand. And one of those foundational understanding we had come to know convicted us one way or the other is God's Sabbath command. We know that this day is holy to Him. We know that we are commanded to observe it on the seventh day and not on any other day of our own choosing. Man, has no authority whatsoever to observe it on the first day of the week like the deceived world are doing today. The same holds true with the annual feasts of God. We know that we cannot observe it any day, let alone postpone it to suit our own convenience. Obedience to it is life and to do otherwise is a sin. Just as simple as that.
Amidst all these appalling conditions that had fallen to the people of God in the seventh and final era there is but one central doctrine which all of the splinter groups from the dominant to the smallest one are in agreement with one another. Except for the Church of God In Truth, all the rest believe that the Hebrew Calendar is the Sacred Calendar of God.
A couple of scriptural references used by the Hebrew Calendar advocates are Romans 3:2 and Acts 7:3839. They claimed that the Jews were used of God to faithfully preserve the Old Testament Scriptures including the calendar. They also claimed that though the Hebrew Calendar was given to them apart from the Bible yet it is still a vital component of the oracles entrusted to them. That claim is partly correct. Read it again carefully. It is a fact the Old Testament Scriptures are the oracles of God¼.including the calendar.
But which calendar ? This is the crucial point at issue. The answer is it is God's true Sacred Calendar that has been preserved by the Jews in the Old Testament Scriptures. Moses recorded God's true Sacred Calendar in the books of the law, but as Christ said, they did not believe Moses. “For had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me. But if ye believe not his writings, how shall ye believe my words?( John 5:4647). In the Good News Magazine dated May 1964 HWA released the following statement that settles this issue once and for all. He said: “It was God who actually preserved the exact same words, in the true Hebrew and Greek copies, that He had inspired in the original writings. He (God) merely used the Jews as His instrument in accurately copying and recopying (as copies became used, worn, and old with age) the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. All these was true and accurate. God actually committed the oracles¼¼ that is, the actual written words of the scriptures¼to the Jews. Romans 3:2.”
There you are ! 20th century apostle HWA accurately and dogmatically stated that the oracles of God are the ACTUAL WRITTEN WORDS OF THE SCRIPTURES which God himself inspired ! Read it again and consider God's endtime messenger's pronouncement. It agrees 100% with the Bible and absolutely exclude ALL WRITINGS OF MEN TO THE CONTRARY. Clearly, anything outside of the written words of God are not part of the oracles committed to the Jews. Anything !! And anything includes the Hebrew Calendar of the Jews.
God's people in the mainstream today also contend that HWA was effectively used by God to restore His truths in His church. Any attempt therefore to change, alter, or add to the teachings he left behind is wrong especially so when it involves the calculation of God's annual Holy days. They maintain that the Hebrew Calendar is a valid calendar for Christian to use in setting the dates for the observance of God's Holy Days.
If it is true that the Hebrew Calendar is God's Sacred Calendar and need not be altered or change then let them explain why they don't follow it all the way ? Why don't they observe Passover on the 15th like what the Jews do even to this day ? Why, if the Hebrew Calendar is God's calendar and a sacred one at that, then why don't they observe Pentecost on sivan 6 or on a Monday ? Can we be choosy ? Disregard the observance of Passover on the 14th and Pentecost on Sivan 6 as mandated in their Hebrew Calendar yet insist that it is the sacred calendar of God ? For all we know this is nothing more but a simple exercise of plain absurdity and madness of an irrational mind at play. They may not have realized it but it is not the spring holy days alone that they have innocently manipulated but all the other feasts of God down to the Last Great Day.
Imagine, for more than forty years the Worldwide Church of God was made to observe the Monday Pentecost of the Jews as prescribe in the Hebrew Calendar. After that 40 year period of time when Mr. Armstrong realized the magnitude of the error the church had made, and notwithstanding of the strong resistance from within he did not give a second thought, but instituted an immediate correction by changing it to Sunday in accordance with the clear instruction from the Book of Life. Yes, he then made the correction, proving what he had often said, “If shown to be wrong he would change.” He also added, “That willingness to change, when shown to be wrong was an important difference between God's true church and the denomination of this world.” Again, here is his statement in a Ministers' Refresher Program given on February 27, l985, less than a year before he died. Notice that in that short remaining months of his life he was still expecting God's people to make changes as they grow in grace and knowledge.
“If there is any place we are wrong, or that I am wrong, that's the first thing I want to change. That's the most important thing in my life, to get that change and make it right. Now the hardest thing in the world for the average person to do is admit he's been wrong. That's not the most difficult thing for me to do.”
“You know, if I admit that I am wrong and I change it, someone says, well, you can't depend on Armstrong. He's always changing all the time. I'll change as often as I am wrong and I expect to continue doing that.”
“ I'll change as often as I am wrong and I expect to continue doing that.” A legacy spiritual Israelites today seem to have completely forgotten.
And mind you, why did Christ through the epistle of His most beloved apostle John significantly put it on record that the Jews observance of these feasts have been attributed in their own name instead of God's?
“¼.and the Jews Passover was at hand.” John 2:13
“ After this, there was a feast of the Jews.” John 5:1
“ And the Passover, a feast of the Jews was nigh.” John 6:4
“ Now the Jews' feast of Tabernacles was at hand.” John 7 : 2
Strange ? But not strange enough if you know what I mean. After all, God calls things the way they are. If it is His feast He calls it “ My feasts¼.” ( Lev. 23: 2 )
God saw to it that the Jews preserved what was entrusted to them but carnal minded and unconverted as they are, they preserved it alright but they did not obey and believed it. The Pharisees and the Sadducees, two prominent figures contesting for power on religious matters in the holy land did not even believed that God is a family. Shame to the Jews. They believed in one God. They are not even of one accord with regards to the resurrection.. Imagine the oracles of God committed to them yet the Sadducees did not even believed on the very essence of our only hope ? Both did not also believed that Christ was the Messiah. Throughout His ministry, Christ called them “vipers, liars and hypocrites, blind guides” (Matt. 23:13-33). And to their faces Christ bluntly told them, “ Ye are of your father the devil, and the lust of your father ye will do” (John 8:44). The New Testament is filled with lots of harsh namecallings and straight forward condemnations that Christ directed to the Jews every time He confronted them. Later, fearful that they will lose their most coveted position in the temple they willfully conspired and eventually succeeded in putting him to the most horrible and painful of death ever devised by man. It is true that when the curtain of human civilization was raised up after the garden of Eden, the Israelites and their descendants, the Jews in particular, have always been at the forefront of the human drama but their rejection of Christ is its own clear indication that they understood very little of that which they were held custodians of.
For sometime, it has been carelessly assumed that man can't produce a calendar from the Bible. A satanic lie that has been accepted as truth notwithstanding. Knowing the heart of man to be deceitful above all things, can an everknowing God entrust to man apart from His Holy words a matter so delicate as His true sacred calendar ? Even to entertain such an idea would certainly be an insult to a sound exercise of one's mental faculties. The Hebrew Calendar is just but one of the many pagan calendars that came into existence as a result of man's innovative ingenuity. A counterfeit skillfully woven by the rebellious nature of people whom God have patiently welded in His loving arms. A clever lookalike, riddled with errors and deceit clothed with some semblance of truth that even the very elect if not careful enough can be deceived.
The many splintered groups of God's churches have been operating under what is commonly called the Jewish Calendar. And that's what it is. It is their calendar as the Julian Calendar was that of Julius Caesar and the Gregorian Calendar was that of a Pope named Gregory. In all respect, it is entirely different from God's calendar of the Bible.
On page 15 of his book The Comprehensive Hebrew Calendar, Arthur Spier openly admitted that “ 60% of all years Rosh Hashanah (Trumpets) does not occur on the day of the molad, but is postponed according to one of the dehioth (rules). In other words, though the new moon had been erroneously reckoned at the molad, yet, the Holy Day for the Feast of Trumpets among the Jews is 60% postponed ever since they could remember. If the true new moon conjunction, however, will have to be rightly considered, the Jews is 100% in error. There is postponements alright, but it was the Jewish molad that was postponed through the use of many of their four applicable postponement rules. Since it is the postponed molad of the 7th month that serves as the Hebrew calendar starting point in determining all the so called holidays of the Jews we can therefore safely assume that none of God's ordained Holy Days have been in any way postponed.
Postponement means to defer, to delay, to put off or to momentarily set aside the celebration of an event from a fixed date of reference to a latter date. Since the new moon of the Jews is officially reckoned at the molad or middle conjunction it is therefore their own feast that has been postponed to the appearance of the faint crescent moon. There would not be postponements of God's Holy Days if the Jews recognize that the true new moon conjunction is the correct reference point for the observance of God's feasts days. I am afraid, they don't. According to the Encyclopedia Judaica, the Jews know there is a difference between the true new moon conjunction and the molad or middle conjunction. It is true that the molad is still within the darkened phase of the new moon but it is important for us to recognize according to the Church of God, In Truth, that “ there is a difference between man's astronomical mean, or middle conjunction and God's true conjunction. There is always a true conjunction before a mean or middle conjunction.” “¼. a time variation of 14 more hours between the Hebrew molad and the actual beginning of the new dark moon phase. That is plenty of time to put you into the next day from the true conjunction of the dark moon.” The Roper Mountain Science Center and Observatory affirms “That observation when it said that the very beginning of the new dark moon phase can be pushed back as much as nearly a full day from the middle conjunction.”
In the Philippines there are about 10 annual holidays officially declared by law. The celebrations are held on a fixed date of the year. Most often the occasions are associated with the most significant events in the history of our country. One of these is the Declaration of our Independence every twelfth day of June. It is commemorated every year to remind us that once, for almost 400 years we were under the sovereign rule of the colonial power of Spain. Once in a while, these are postponed to accommodate the whims and pleasures of the powers that be. But June 12, regardless of what they do, will forever remain the day of our deliverance.
I am also inclined to believe that the Sabbath has not been postponed to Sunday by the so called deceived Christianity at large. In the first place, they believed that the Sabbath of the Bible is no longer binding to man. To their honest belief it was a commandment for Israel in the Old Testament and that when Christ came there was a change of the law. If ever they assemble on the first day of the week it is for a different reason. They sincerely believed that Easter Sunday commemorates the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Postponing the Sabbath to the first day of the week is far from their mind.
In God's earthly domain, God's Sabbaths, weekly and annual are to be kept at times specifically designated in the Old Testament. They are prescribed by law. And this time, we are dealing with the Supreme Lawgiver of the universe. They had been designed and given to us for a very important reason. Compliance to it will allow us to understand the grand purpose of our being. It is either we obey it or we don't. No other option is acceptable but death or maybe the great tribulation to those who are setting on both sides of the fence. Postponement in whatever form and manner cannot be entertained. Even in man made laws, ignorance to the law excuses no one. More so, in God's sight. Get it right, do it right, or die. It is significantly important, however, that we get the right understanding of what and when, exactly the new moon is as contemplated in the mind of God. Genesis 1:1-5 clearly tells us, “In the beginning God created the Heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.” As we can see, in the beginning of re-creation, the beginning of darkness started the day and beginning of darkness starts a new month. Then, in loving obedience to His command can we truly worship and honor Him.
Romeo Samudio
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