Seventh Day of the week

One of the oldest epitaphs discovered in Rome refers to the dies Veneris (Day of Venus). This inscription is unique in that it lists both dates: the Julian date and the Luni solar calendar date! The inscription, dated 269 AC, reads as follows:

“In the consulate of Claudius and Paternus, in the ninth of November, on the day of Venus, and on the 24th day of the lunar month, Leuces erected [this memorial] to her dearest daughter Severa and to His Holy Spirit. She died [at the age of] 55 years and 11 months [and] 10 days.”
(S.: E. Dichl, Inscriptiones Latinæ Christianæ Veteres, vol. 2, p. 193, no. 3391. See also, J. B. de Rossi, Inscriptiones Christianæ Urbis Romæ, vol. 1, part 1, p. 18, no. 11)

The “None” of November is November 5th, which is the same day as Venus, Friday. This corresponded to the 24th day of the lunar month, or the "second day" of the biblical week. The team at Worldslastchance examined this data using astronomy software and found that the new moon day (the first day of the lunar month) was reckoned from the day after the conjunction.

https://up.picr.de/46209726po.jpg
(Graphic Worldslastchance.com)

Note: The conjunction took place in Rome at 2:05 am (October 13), before dawn. Therefore the day after the conjunction is the first day of the month.

amazing verses and points! Great post.

Gad the Seer (King Davids Prophet) 1:29 "the Lamb sits upon the moon". The Book of Gad The Seer is referred in First Chronicles 29:29 and alluded to in 1 Corinthians 12:12 and Galatians 4:26.

And the Lamb was put on the moon forever and ever. Gad 1:29

Now the acts of David the king, first and last, behold, they are written in the book of Samuel the seer, and in the book of Nathan the prophet, and in the book of Gad the seer, 1 Chr.29:29 KJV

Those words "sits upon" is actually the hebrew word that means "throne seat, seat of authority". Lamb = Yeshua, the Son. Book of Enoch: "the Son of man was HIDDEN from the beginning". = moon hidden from the beginning. = concealed new moon Proverbs - "it is the glory of G-d to CONCEAL a matter, and the honour of Kings to search a matter out".

Interesting Lyndsay Sanchez comes to the same conclusions as mentioned here. On her website pentecostcountdown she writes the following in her article 'Dark New Moon Days and Paths of Light'

"Psalm (Tehillim) 27:5 “For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion; in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me up upon a rock.”

There are many layers of interpretation here. For one, He did indeed set us on a rock – the Earth. Of course, spiritually, the rock we are set on, is Yahusha, but I believe, also this has another hidden meaning, the moon. He shows us how to build our foundation, our faith, the appointed times, on the moon, which looks like a stone in the sky. I believe that the stone the builders rejected, does not JUST refer to Messiah Yahusha, how the builders rejected Him, but also, the moon, and how they reject the moon. When people try to divorce the moon from the days, appointed times, months, and years, as is the case with the Gregorian years, months, weeks, and holidays, they are essentially rejecting the chief cornerstone, the rock in the sky that we are to build years, months, days, and appointed times on.

The term keseh or keceh, in Psalm 27:5, mentioned previously, is derived from the Hebrew root kacah, which means to “conceal, cover, or hide.”

Yom Teruah, on the New Moon of the seventh month, is sometimes called Yom HaKeseh, or the Day of the Hiding, because it was hidden from us all. “Of that day and hour no one knows, only the Father.” Matt 24:36 However, at the same time, while it will come upon unbelievers suddenly, at the same time, YHUH does nothing without first REVEALING the SECRET to His servants the prophets. Amos 3:7

Colossians 2:16-17 says that the New Moons and Sabbaths are SHADOWS of the things to come. They will teach about the Messiah and His coming. Also, see Ezekiel 32:8 and Ezekiel 34:12, Joel 2:10, Micah 3:6, about the coming dark day of YHUH."

The 'Jewish Heritage Online Magazine' writes

One of the lesser known names attributed to Rosh Hashanah is Yom Hakeseh, the Day of Concealment. This name is from Psalms 81:3-4, two verses that are recited as part of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy:

Sound the shofar at the new moon, at the [keseh] concealed time for our feast day.
For this is a statue for Yisrael, an ordinance of the Good of Yaakov.

Many translators of these verse have translated the Hebrew word keseh as "full moon," creating a bit of confusion. Unlike most major Jewish festivals which fall mid-month, on the 14th [Annotation: 15th according to the lunisolar calendar] of the Hebrew month (when the moon is full or near full), Rosh Hashanah falls on the first day of the month of Tishrei, when the new moon may not yet have appeared. This is moon is thus a "concealed one."

Job 26 "6The realm of the dead is naked before G-d; Destruction a lies uncovered. 7He spreads out the northern skies over empty space; he suspends the earth over nothing. 8He wraps up the waters in his clouds, yet the clouds do not burst under their weight. 9He covers the face of the full moon, spreading his clouds over it. 10He marks out the horizon on the face of the waters for a boundary between light and darkness". "Full moon"? Lol, nope. We know better

Yeah

but first you have to be able to come up with that verse. It’s a decidedly lucky hand at Bible study that you have, a gift not everyone has, amazing

I never stop learning, also to be able to better understand and classify biblical passages regarding the new moon day, which I haven't been able to do before.

Despite every translation otherwise, Job 26:9 has the same Hebrew word כֶּסֶא
#H3677 kese for the covered New Moon as Psalm 81:3

For some reason all translations use either full moon or throne.

„Blow the shofar in the time of the New Moon; at the covering, towards our solemn feast day. For this is a statute for Israel, a law of the G-d of Jacob.”
Ps.81:3-4

Verse 3 describes when the shofar should be blown: in the new moon, which is described as covered. It's not about covering something in some measure of light, it's about about covering something.

Light reveals; darkness covers.

G-d did not command Israel to blow the shofar at the full moon.

The commandment to blow the shofar seems to apply rather at the beginning of the new moon than at the end. It is a new moon, not a renewed moon: it is there but hidden, and signifies the beginning of a new month, not a renewed month.

Those who would make the first crescent the new moon then place the dark phase at the end of the month rather than the beginning.

In Ps. 89:36 Full moon sabbatarians compare the hebrewכִּסֵּא #H3678 kisse to a full moon

“His seed [the Messiah and His followers] shall endure for eternity and His FULL MOON you shall keep that stands out conspicuously opposite the sun.” Psalm 89:36

Verse 36 declares that “King David’s seed (the Messiah and His obedient followers) shall be forever compared to the full moon that receives the pure and perfect LIGHT from the sun, just as the Messiah.”
S.: The creatorscalendar The Full Moon is the First Lunar Phase

This does not fit as you remarked already

A seed, like the root, is unseen. And the branches grow up into visibility from it. New moon day is UNSEEN and the branches (days of the week) grow off from it.

The only indication that the full moon might be used as a point of reference by jewish groups or temple priests may be the Dead Sea Scrolls, as James Dywer notes

The theme of Scroll 4Q317 is significant in mirroring that a segment of period astronomers would have formally charted the half-Moon cycle. On this respective scroll, the phases of the Moon (waxing and waning) are clearly mapped throughout 14 parts or stages of light and 14 parts or stages of dark.

A unique half-month accounting for the revolution of the lunar month was recognized several years ago by those researchers who first worked on recovering the scrolls. A lead translator then noted that some among the ancients appear to have tracked the month cycle from the full phase of the Moon (J. T. Milik, 1959). A modern equivalence is perhaps easier to make through an analysis of the early used Roman Calendar. This calendar was originally lunar based (with the full-phase of the Moon appearing at mid-month). In this lunar calendar, the last days of the Moon (in the waning phases) were counted backward to the beginning of the next month. Thus, the middle of the month (or the point of the full-phase of the Moon) was specially reckoned and this epoch seems to have had a certain special significance throughout the ancient world.
S.: Significance of the lunar week; James D. Dwyer

What's unclear to me here: Did they count backwards from the full moon as the middle of the month, or did they take the middle of the month as the beginning of the month?

No place can be found in all of Scripture that highlights the week as having a unique time sequence all its own, entirely divorced from the sun, moon, or stars, and specifically from the lunar phases. The simple fact that because the Sabbath is identified in Genesis 1:14 as a SIGN predetermines that it was designed and ordained to be signaled by the LIGHTS He placed in the heavens, His trinity of sun, moon, and stars. To deny this is to contradict the foundational evidence specifically declared for all time-measuring by our Creator.

It is still more surprising that people can stoop so low to declare the seventh day of the week, as defined in Genesis, as designed to function with no ties to the BEGINNING OF THE MONTH, or for that matter to the BEGINNING OF THE YEAR, Rosh HaShanah. But it illustrates the depth and holds that deep-rooted traditions have over theologians. Yhvh told Moses and Aaron specifically to count to the 14th day from the New Moon (the first New Moon of the Year) for the placement of Passover on the 14th day

This month [New Moon] shall be unto you the beginning (rosh) of [lunar] months: it shall be the first month [in Order to the Lunar Months] of the [revolution of the] year (HaShanah) to you. Speak ye unto all the congregation of Israel, saying, In the tenth day of this [lunar] month they shall take to them every man a lamb, according to the house of their fathers, a lamb for an house:...And ye shall keep it up until the fourteenth day of the same [lunar] month:... Ex.12,2- .6a

Stunningly, in every place in Scripture that a date can be associated with the seventh-day Sabbath, it consistently falls upon the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of a lunar month. In other words, every seventh-day Sabbath identified in Scripture is consistently counted from the same New Moon.

Also, the very fact that Isaiah 66:22-23, Ezekiel 46:1-3, and Leviticus 23 exist is evidence that even Yhvh utilized the New Moon “IN THE BEGINNING” of time on earth. Beginning each Year and Month with the New Moon is a much more impressive and synchronized example of the start of all things than simply assuming that the day prior to the first day of creation was the seventh day of the previous week’s cycle, fully divorced from the very LIGHTS He was creating for SIGNS and SIGNALS of TIME.

By extension, and in EVERY case recorded in Scripture, the day following Passover, the 14th, is the seventh-day Sabbath and the 15th date of the lunar month. This was the case, as illustrated in the verse above, for the first Passover, as well as the entire 40 years of wilderness wandering. But of vital importance, the Sabbath was also the 15th following the crucifixion of our Messiah, who fulfilled prophecy by laying down His life on Passover the 14th and rested in the Tomb over the Sabbath. For Passover was always the 14th day counted from the New Moon and the 6th day of the lunar week, which the seventh-day Sabbath followed.

The New Moon Day is a Scriptural reality and SACRED DAY. It is also the preordained starting point that must be included in the hypothesis of counting TIME from creation to the crucifixion and onward to modern times. And by so doing, it is discovered that the New Moon Day is a third kind of day that, for the mere fact of its existence, breaks the cycle of weeks each lunar month.

Earth was never intended to operate on an independent time-measuring sub-system wholly detached from that of the entire universe or its Creator. This was the missing puzzle piece in the Genesis account of the first week.

Yhvh’s time-measuring model places New Moon Day consistently as DAY ONE of His lunar months and the first Sabbath as DAY EIGHT. The New Moon Day was pre-ordained as the BEGINNING of His YEARS, MONTHS, WEEKS, and DAYS. And from this monumental day, all sacred days were designated to be counted, such as New Moon Days, lunar Sabbaths, and all the lunar appointed Feast Days.

While the Day of the New Moon marks the harmonious commencement of each lunar month, the moon also demarcates with a unique lunar phase each day, counting from 1-29 or 30.

The concept of the need to regulate the weekly Sabbath by the lunar cycles was known very early on within Adventism. An allusion to the idea can be found as early as 1850, a full 13 years before the Seventh-day Adventist Church was formally established in 1863.

Acknowledgment of the need to keep the feasts would have brought with it a knowledge of the luni-solar calendar for calculating those feasts. The effect upon the seventh-day Sabbath would have been quickly realized.

Consistency demands that if the annual feasts are to be kept, then the calendar used to calculate them must also be used to calculate the weekly feast of the seventh-day Sabbath.

In 1938, at the urging of a young SDA pastor J. H. Wierts, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists ordered the organization of a research committee to investigate the calendar issues that were facing some of their doctrines. Grace Amadon sat on that committee as the panel expert.

Grace Edith Amadon (1872-1945) received her education at Battle Creek College where she learned Greek and Latin. She was also proficient in music. In 1893 Miss Amadon was invited by the Seventh-day Adventist Mission Board to go to Cape Town, South Africa, to teach Greek, Latin, mathematics, and music at the Claremont Union College. After returning from the mission field in about 1899, Amadon was in charge of the Battle Creek church school for two or three years. Between 1903 and 1912 she lived in Chicago where she served as a bacteriologist and taught pathology and other science subjects in a Chicago college. After spending more then twenty years caring for her elderly parents, Miss Amadon was invited by the General Conference of the Seventh-day Adventist Church to join a specially formed research committee in January 1939. Grace Amadon made a distinct contribution to astronomical science by confirming the validity of the time prophecies of the Bible. She made contacts with associate astronomers of the United States Naval Observatory and several of her articles were accepted for publication by scholarly journals.

Miss Amadon wrote extensively to other experts in the ancient sciences and received many letters in answer to the inquiries of this committee. This information (some 6,000 pages) has now been compiled into what is known as the Grace Amadon Collection.

Among other things, what this committee found was that ancient Israel observed a lunar-solar and that the crucifixion Passover did not take place on a friday. When WWII broke out, this committee was disbanded and never reconvened. Later, M. L. Andreasen determined that keeping a lunar/solar calendar would be too confusing (in spite of the evidence that Israel was successful doing so), and the matter was dropped.

SDA's, your denomination discovered the truth about the Creation Calendar decades ago and promptly buried it with no further discussion.

From the papers preserved in the Amadon Collection, it appears that the Research Committee discussed the implications of presenting the Church with the truth of the Biblical lunisolar calendar. In an undated letter to Grace Amadon, M. L. Andreasen outlined the difficulties that must be expected if they should report the truth: the Biblical week does NOT have a continuous weekly cycle and certainly does not align with the modern weekly cycle.

Because the Biblical weekly cycle restarts with every New Moon, the Biblical Sabbath appears to float through the modern Gregorian week. Sometimes being on Monday; the next month on Tuesday; the month after on Thursday, etc. This is the constant shift to which Andreasen is referring in his statements.

In the end, the difficulties of presenting a new calendar by which to calculate the seventh-day Sabbath seemed overwhelming. Andreasen urged that the resulting confusion would be only detrimental to the Church, and for that reason, it should not be pursued.

It is not speculation to state that Andreasen rejected the Biblical calendar for fear of the consequences. He stated as much himself:

The committee has done a most excellent piece of work. The endorsing, unreservedly, of the plan now before us seems to me, appears in its implications so loaded with dynamite, with TNT, that we might well beware. I would most earnestly warn the committee in this matter. I am afraid that the repercussions of such endorsement at this time will be felt in wide circles. S.: Wierts, letter to Froom, 29. Juni 1945

This is not intellectual honesty! It is intellectual cowardice. The truth remains the same, regardless of the reaction against it. Andreasen was most eloquent in his arguments in favor of staying silent about the effect the Biblical calendar has on the weekly seventh-day Sabbath. He wrote a number of letters in which he urged the Research Committee to remain silent on the subject.

These letters are not available to the general public. Apparently, the Church still considers the content too revealing, too explosive to want it released. Copies of these letters were given to the members of the Research Committee of 1995, but the committee members were not allowed to leave the room with them. We would have made copies of them, but they picked them up before they let us leave the room, recalled one committee member.

The truth may remain buried forever, but when Heaven decides the time has come for the truth to go forth, none can hide it or stop it.

My Jewish Learning is the leading independent website and digital community for all things Jewish, from Jewish history to text to ritual to prayer to food and much more. My Jewish Learning's staff includes leading Jewish scholars and journalists. Rachel Scheinerman, who holds a doctorate in Ancient Judaism from Yale University, is My Jewish Learning's Editor, and Ben Harris, a longtime, award-winning journalist covering Jewish topics, is Managing Editor. Under FAQ: Jewish Calendar: Solar and Lunar - How the Hebrew calendar works, we read

The rhythm of Jewish time is determined both by the sun and by the moon. The basic unit of time is naturally enough the day, which is a unit of time determined by the amount of sunlight reaching the earth as it rotates on its axis... The first story of creation in Genesis 1:1-2:4 also establishes the next higher unit of measuring time, namely the seven-day week. This tale serves to place the week firmly within the divine plan, in which a six-day workweek is followed by the sacred Sabbath, a divinely ordained day of rest. Since most units of measurement ultimately go back to the Babylonians, who were the first great astronomers and natural observers of the ancient world, we know that the week is meant to be coordinated with the four phases of the moon. Therefore, roughly speaking, four weeks make a month. And roughly 12 months make a year. Since, however, the 12-month lunar year and the 365-day solar calendar do not overlap exactly, the Gregorian calendar that has become the standard world calendar has months of unequal length that no longer correlate with the phases of the moon and has to insert an extra day every four years (the leap year) in order to have the calendar reflect the solar year.

In timeanddate, the world's top-ranking website for time and time zones, the question is asked:

Why Does a Week Have 7 Days?

A Week for Each Moon Phase

The reason why we organize our lives around a 7-day week is, quite literally, above our heads. Like many other calendars, today's Gregorian calendar is ultimately based on the phases of the Moon. It takes the Moon around 29.5 days to cycle through all Moon phases.

For everyday purposes, this is a fairly long and impractical time span, so it makes sense to break it down into smaller segments.

Enter the Babylonians. This ancient society, who lived in Mesopotamia in what is now Iraq, rounded the Moon cycle down to 28 days and divided this time span into 4 periods of 7 days each, using leap days to stay in sync with the Moon phases in the long run.

This 7-day structure is also believed to have ultimately informed a number of popular creation myths, such as the Book of Genesis in the Hebrew and Christian Bibles, which states that G-d created the world in seven days: six days of work followed by one day of rest.

It continues

Some historical sources claim that the connection between the days of the week and the classical planets was introduced later by the ancient Greeks.

Roman G-ds Named Days of the Week

However, historians generally agree that it was the Romans who, a few hundred years later, added many features of the modern 7-day week by adapting the Babylonian system to their world view.

From around the 1st century BCE, they introduced a system where each day was named after one of their pagan g-ds, each of whom was associated with one of the classical planets. For example, Saturday was dies Saturni, the day of Saturn.

In most Latin-based languages, the names of the weekdays still reveal this connection to the classical planets. However, in many cases, the Roman deities have been replaced by their Norse or Germanic equivalents.

Further explained

The Order of the Weekdays

Like the modern names of the weekdays, their order within a week has its roots in ancient Rome. The Romans observed the speed at which the classical planets crossed the sky and concluded that the fastest object must have the shortest distance to the Earth, while the slowest object was believed to be farthest away.

What is the actual distance to the planets?

How far is the Moon from Earth?

This resulted in the following order, from greatest to shortest assumed distance from Earth, displayed here with the associated day of the week:


The classical planets and their perceived distance from Earth, with associated days of the week


Saturn (Saturday)
Jupiter (Thursday)
Mars (Tuesday)
Sun (Sunday)
Venus (Friday)
Mercury (Wednesday)
Moon (Monday)

The following comes from Ralph Marcus’s translation of Philo on Questions and Answers ON Exodus BOOK 1, page 17 and shows the Sabbaths AND weeks were originally by the Moon. He writes,

“9. (Ex. xii. 6a) Why does He command (them) to keep the sacrifice until the fourteenth (day of the month)? (Consisting of) two Sabbaths, it has in its nature a (special) honour because in this time the moon is adorned. For when it has become full on the fourteenth (day), it becomes full of light in the perception of the people. And again through (another) fourteen (days) it recedes from its fullness of light to its conjunction, and it wanes as much in comparison with the preceding "Sabbath" as the second (waxes) in comparison with the first. For this reason the fourteenth (day) is pre-festive, as though (it were) a road leading to festive rejoicings, during which it is incumbent upon us to meditate.” There is a lot here to examine to find out how the people during the time of our Savior understood the weekly Sabbaths.

The above parentheses marks, ( ), are not mine but are in the translation.

Notice Philo specifically connects the weekly Sabbaths with the waxing and waning of the moon! He says, “and it -the moon- wanes as much in comparison with the preceding "Sabbath" - weekly Sabbath - as the second -Sabbath - (waxes) in comparison with the first - Sabbath -.”

He is obviously connecting the weeks and the weekly Sabbath with the moon, same as the Jews admit in the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia.

The traditional solar only Sabbath has absolutely nothing to do with the moon, therefore saturday sabbaths are false sabbaths. The first and second Sabbath takes place during the moon’s waxing and in comparison the other two Sabbaths takes place during the waning of the moon. Philo compares the two motions of the moon, the waxing and waning of the moon, which has 14 days of waxing and 14 days of waning to its conjunction. This which equals 28 days and we know they are approximately 29 and one half days in each month therefore we know the new moon day was not counted in counting out these waxing and waning weeks. If the new moon had been counted, it would be the 8th and 15th spoken of here, which are the two Sabbaths spoken of above, i.e. it was truly the 14th day of waxing, after conjunction, BUT IT WAS ALSO the 8th day of the month/moon.


This explains how that when Philo said " For when it has become full on the fourteenth (day),” he is referring to the 14th day of its waxing, after the new moon conjunction, which is really the 15th day of the month/moon. Philo, in so many other places says that the full moon is on the 15th. He goes on to say that “it becomes full of light in the perception of the people. And again through (another) fourteen (days) it recedes from its fullness of light to its conjunction,”

It is obvious that he is counting from after the new moon day, when the moon begins waxing, because there is only 28 days describe here and there are 29 and one half days in a month/moon, from conjunction to conjunction. This proves there was a dark new moon day that began the month which was not counted in these 28 days or when counting out the weeks.

Now to further prove he did not count the new Moon day when counting the 2 fourteen days of the moon's waxing and waning, besides it being only 28 days, I present Philo's own words where he makes the same count and will show some of the places where he plainly says the full moon is on the 15th and in turn I will prove that this 14th is actually the 15th/full moon also, i.e. the 14th day of waxing and the 15th day of the moon/month. Just like the 15th day of the moon in the first month is also the first day of the feast and the 14th day of waxing after conjunction, 3 in one!

Philo also teaches the phases of the moon perfect its own configurations on each Seventh day, i.e. on each weekly Seventh day, not every seven days

“Again, the periodical changes of the moon, take place according to the number seven, that star having the greatest sympathy with the things on earth. And the changes which the moon works in the air, it perfects chiefly in accordance with its own configurations on “each” seventh day.”
ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION, I IV. (8), page 26

Periodical changes (or phases) of the moon, which are 4, happens on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th. Philo says these periodical changes that the moon works in the air happens on each 7th day. Each 7th day is referring to each weekly 7th day. It cannot be referring to an uninterrupted 1 through 7 count because the phases will drift off every month.

At any rate Ralph Marcus translation of PHILO Questions and Answers ON Exodus BOOK 1, page 17 clearly shows the Weeks and Sabbaths were originally connected to the phases of the moon, same as the Universal Jewish Encyclopedia teaches.

Those who say we are not to occupy ourselves with, for example, the physical sabbath - when (if) we observe it, how we observe it - but with the spiritual - obtaining the spiritual rest in Messiah - are failing to grasp the interconnectedness of the physical with the spiritual. The Bible nowhere dissects and separates the physical from the spiritual - this is a Western mindset. The Bible is holistic, viewing a man or woman as a complete entity - a soul. What we do and what we are, are supposed to be echad or one. One day we will be resurrected - our physical bodies and spiritual bodies will be completely merged and inseparable so that there will be no distinguishing them. That is the end or goal of our existence through Messiah.

I think Christians in particular get confused over this because physical matter is often viewed as something negative, a doctrine inherited from the heretical gnostics. And the reason both view physical matter in this way is because it is recognised that the physical is the seat or residence of the 'flesh' or 'carnality', the fallen Adamic nature. However, these are not physical matter itself, for physical matter once existed in a pristine state before the Fall, a condition that Yhvh repeatedly pronounced as "good". The problem with matter is what is lodged in it. And because matter is fallen and possesses this poison, it has to be discarded at death to await the great Restoration when pure, pristine matter can once again be used to clothe spirit and then be fused inseparably together with it to form resurrected substance.

The Lunar Sabbath and Creation Calendar are important because they set not only a temporal cycle for our bodies but connect to a parallel spiritual cycle. When the two operate in synchronisation, there is harmony of mind, lev (heart), spirit and body. They operate as near as is possible to the resurrected state without actually being it, since we are mortal for the duration of this life. They bring all processes into alignment with the Divine Reality, tuning us into the same frequency as the heavenly realm as it awaits its own incarnation and resurrection together with us. All of creation is awaiting it with great eagerness. And whilst certain things in this fallen world must of necessity remain out of alignment until the Divine Hand straightens out some astronomical anomalies - like the period of rotation of the moon around the earth, and the period of the rotation of the earth around the sun, which have been disturbed over the millennia by various forces, some known to us and some yet unknown - there is nevertheless a divinely appointed system of harmonisation which will bring us as close to the original (and that which is to come in the resurrection) to allow greater spiritual dovetailing between submitted mankind and Elohim (G-d).

The effect of the pagan-inspired Roman Gregorian calendar used by the world today is to give the impression that all is as it always has been, a continuous cycle of seven days without interruption from time immemorial. Part of the seduction of this system is that it affords a neatness which the soul naturally yearns for, an uncomplicated succession of time, one sabbath rolling on as regular as clockwork one Saturday (or Sunday) after the other.

The problem with this false cosmic lullaby is that it creates the illusion that all is well when the emet (truth) is the world is violently disjunctive with the Heavenly Harmony and requires constant readjustment. Like sheep we wander, and we do it exceedngly well to our own spiritual detriment, and like sheep we are in constant need of redirection and upon occasion rescue. Life, even as a believer, is a constant string of rescues from the consequences of the unbridled flesh that has led us into sinful behaviour and polluted cycles of life and the management thereof. Part of the enemy's offensive is to keep us comfortable in our disjunction and dysfunctionality by persuading us to keep on as we always have done, never effecting any substantial changes toward making teshuvah (repentance). He wants us so used to his system of temporal and spiritual management (or mismanagement) that we can no longer discern that things are wrong, to thus keep us locked in ignorance and unable to see what needs to be done.

The Creation Calendar breaks that illusion - it shatters it rudely. It reminds us that every week and every month and at every festival we need spiritually and temporally resetting. Just as the moon is out of sync with the earth, and the earth out of sync with the sun, so we human beings are out of synch with the divine life because of the constant tug of carnal forces, whether it be from the fallen Adamic nature within or the crooked time-keeping system invented by the enemy. Life is a constant battle to resist the downward pull of the flesh that would take us out of divine rhythm and try to acclimatise us with the enemy's.

When I discovered the lunar sabbath I discovered something else I had not expected to find - the true meaning of the monthly Rosh Chodesh or New Moon festival. Not only I discovered that Rosh Chodesh was probably one of the most improtant observances of them all, but an understanding of its purpose suddenly opened door after door to other mysteries. Like the biological appendix (a misnomeric name if ever there was one), which was once thought to be a 'vestigal' organ but which turns out to play a vital rôle in the immune system, so Rosh Chodesh or the 'Head of the Moon' truly is a header festival. Rosh Chodesh not only sets the monthly sabbaths but it symbolises the Great Head, Yhvh Himself, to whom we must reset our lives periodically because of our tendency to wander away in sin. Knowing our rhythms all to well, El Elyon - the Most High - understood that we need a reset roughly every 29 to 30 days to enable us to maintain proper communion with the Master of the Sabbath, Yeshua (Jesus) Himself. And Rosh Chodesh is the master of the Sabbath, as the Father is the master of the Mother, as the Husband is of the Wife. And we, as the allegorical wife or bride, need constantly retuning in order to remain mastered by our heavenly Husband or Bridegroom.

The Creation Calendar is a huge challenge because living it immediately sets us apart from the way everything else is done in the world, something we need to be constantly reminded of as tov (good) and not a thing we should be ashamed of. And because the world reacts to it with either amused indifference (or more likely) with barely disguised hostility - particularly in the job place or at school - it forces us to re-evaluate our priorities and to decide whether we are really going to throw outselves into the Father's hands and become fully separated to Him (holy) or not.
Yes, living the Lunar Sabbath requires substantial sacrifices. It may require you to quit your job and become self-employed, assuming a degree of responsibility and faith in Yhvh which you have never had before but which will, actually, be totally required for you to survive in the global dictatorship that is forming. Think about it - a time is coming, as prophesied in the Bible - when we won't be allowed to trade without receiving the Mark of the Beast and losing our salvation.

So adopting the Lunar Sabbath will probably mean you have to change job, get your children out of school, move home, move state/region, and maybe even move country. Does that terrify you? It shouldn't, because that is what Yhvh required of Abraham; and those who claim to belong to Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) are also called the "seed of Abraham" through emunah (faith). We are called to be like that man of Elohim (G-d) - all of us, Christians and Messianics alike.

The Lunar Sabbath therefore equals spiritual revolution. It is no accident that its observance is being restroed in our time because Yhvh's people cannot survive without it because of the consequences of its implementation. The Lunar Sabbath is for mature believers or those who want to grow up spiritually, for those who mean to follow Yhvh all the way and make no compromise with the world because it won't let you compromise with the world.

Seen from that perspective, it is not hard to see how it could well become a salvational issue, like so many other true principles that the bulk of Christians and Messianics are in denial over. You see, you can't live the lifestyle demanded of the Lunar Sabbath without empowerment and guidance from our Heavenly Father. Isn't that what all believers want? Well, yes, most do, but the trouble is while they want the mountain top they just aren't willing to climb it. So the Lunar Sabbath is also a sifter of the true from the false, of the lazy from the vigorous, of the doubtful from the trusting.

The Lunar Sabbath has totally transformed me and brought everything into sharper focus. Now, having repented of satanic timekeepering, I am moving on to other things while the Lunar Sabbath quietly establishes my weekly and monthly rhythm in Yhvh. Yeshua (Jesus) is still the 'main thing' but now I am lass naked because of my choice to be obedient. There have been, and continue to be challenges, living this way but it opens doors of opportunity for the growth of my emunah (faith). It's something you need to research out carefully until you get an undeniable witness and conviction from the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) to implement this big change in your lifestyle, and like all important things, it shouldn't be rushed.

One of the things that initially caused me to back off from this teaching was that my early tutors were not only pushy but made fun of those who still followed the Saturday Sabbath. And sometimes they were, shamefully, outright rude and nasty. Equally, those reacting againat the Lunar Sabbath could get quite nasty and mocking too, calling its adherents 'looney sabbatarians'. The magnitude and vehemence of the opposition make me take note too, of course. So many can get turned off the emet (truth) by such unchristian behaviour as well (ironically) as being driven to it. It reminds me of the heated polygamy controversies in the Evangelical (1990's) and Messianic (2000's) movements but the fact of the matter is, people are going to get upset no matter what, they will create websites and write books to 'protect their flock' (and sometimes their salaries), and they will rant and rave, both those who support the emet (truth) and those who are against it. The seeker after emet (truth) must learn to calmly disengage from the mob spirit and see beyond the smoke and heat, quietly study and talk to Yhvh about it.

So I want to encourage those of you who are investigating the Lunar Sabbath to take your time and not get sucked into the emotional fire storms that always result when emet (truth) is presented to an unwilling and unrepentant world, whether it be the fire of frightened opponents or the fire of over-zealous and immature proponents. The emet (truth) is more than able to defend itself.