First published in December of 2020. A great study!

THE MAGI:

By Bob Barney

1 Now after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea when Herod was king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem, saying, "Where is He who is born King of the Jews? For we saw His star in the east and have come to worship Him." When Herod the king heard it, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him.

 Gathering together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he asked them where the Christ would be born. They said to him, "In Bethlehem of Judea, for thus it is written through the prophet, 'You Bethlehem, land of Judah, are in no way least among the princes of Judah: For out of you shall come forth a governor, Who shall shepherd my people, Israel'". Micah 5:2

Then Herod secretly called the wise men and learned from them exactly what time the star appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem, and said, "Go and search diligently for the young child. When you have found him, bring me word, so that I also may come and worship him."

 They, having heard the king, went on their way; and all at once they saw that the star, which they followed from the east, went before them, until it came and stood over where the young child was.

When they saw the star, they rejoiced with exceedingly great joy.  They came into the house and saw the young child with Mary, his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him. Opening their treasures, they offered to him gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Notice these wise men (and we do not know the number) came to a house to visit the baby Jesus, not to the manger. They were not present when he was born, but came upward to 2 years later! Notice that in verse 16, Herod orders all children two years and under to be killed!

The wise men (Magi) were probably scientists and came presumably from Babylon, but possibly from Assyria or Chaldea. Scientists of this day were also considered religious figures as the ancients rightly knew that science and God go together, unlike today. When Daniel was in captivity in Babylon, he eventually became the leader and the teacher of a group known as Magi... It can be assumed, since Daniel knew the future, he instructed his students to look for signs of the coming Messiah.

At about the sixth century Catholic tradition changed the Magi into Kings and their number was fixed at three because of the threefold nature of their gift's gold, frankincense and myrrh (but six Kings in the eastern tradition), yet the Bible nowhere mentions their number. It could have been two, three, four or forty!

The star was not very bright, and everyone knew this, but the star still must have held astrological significance. Also, it must have been a fairly long-lasting phenomenon. Possibly Daniel knew that this astrological phenomenon would occur!

It was only in medieval times that the star got to be depicted as very bright and with a tail, suggesting as a comet or a meteorite, but again, the Bible makes no such statement! In fact, there is a possibility that the “star” was actually an angel, as the Bible refers to angels as “stars!”

Still, we may wonder what has perpetuated the story and where the information originated on the alleged birth date of Christ.

After many years of research, I have come to the conclusion that the star was actually the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter! Something celestial by the way, is going to happen this December 21^st2020.

We know from the Bible that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod. Herod died sometime around a lunar eclipse seen from Jericho and around Passover time, so probably the eclipse of March 12, 4 BC. We also know it was during the time of the census, which Augustus proclaimed in 8 BC! Reasonably, Christ was born between these years....

The famed German astronomer Johannes Kepler observed the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in 1603-04, which caused him to calculate back in time and to suggest that the star in 7 BC was the star of Bethlehem. I believe he was right. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the great mathematical minds of human history. As Arthur Koestler wrote in The Sleepwalkers, “Kepler and Galileo were the two giants on whose shoulders Newton stood.”

In the ancient world planets were symbols. Jupiter was the planet of Kings, Saturn was the planet of the priestly class, and happening in the constellation of Pisces, being representative of the Jewish people. So, this meant to the Magi taught by Daniel, the King of the Jews was to be born and this King would be the priestly Messiah!

The Conjunction occurred 3 times over the course of a year. The year was probably 6 BC, but some argue 7 BC. Both years would fit...It occurred over a period of time---which would cover the period of Christ's conception and the Magi's journey to Bethlehem, as recounted in Matthew 2:9–10. The first was May 29^th which is Pentecost and probably the day John the Baptists was born. The next conjuncture was at the time of the Feast of Tabernacles and Atonement. THIS IS WHEN JESUS WAS BORN! Remember the Magi did NOT visit Jesus in the manger! That is paganism! The Bible clearly shows they visited Jesus in a HOUSE! Herod himself, when meeting the Magi, ordered all male children in Bethlehem to be murdered up to 2 years old, showing you that the Magi knew the child was no longer an infant in a manger! The third conjuncture happened in December (like this year) around the 21^st, when they found the baby Jesus in a home! He was either 3 months old, or possibly 15 months old, depending on possible calendar error.

It is clear the Christ was not born in December. The flocks were still in the field, and in December in Israel, flocks are in barns. Luke 2:8 provides the first indication, as flocks were still in the fields at night. The flocks were brought in for the winter season of mid-October to mid-March.

The next proof is the fact that Jesus was born six months after John the Baptist (Luke 1:24-26, 36). When was John the Baptist born? May 29^th! Because Zacharias’ (his Father) performed his priestly functions during the 7^th Month Feast of Tabernacles, which starts Sept 29^th. This was when he was told he would have a child, and nine months later would be as late as May 29^th, when the same “STAR” appeared. It makes sense it was more likely during Passover time as he was six months older than Jesus. Therefore, Christ’s birth had to be in early autumn or during the feast

Logical math is that Jesus Christ was probably born on either the Day of Atonement or during the Feast of Tabernacles (First or Last Great Day?). The Magi got to the house much later, during December, leading to the false Christmas manger scene we see today during the pagan XMAS celebration. Christ was not born December 25^th, but tradition holds that the Lucifer (Satan) was created on that day! This is an opportunity to just stop and think about that for a moment.

 Present day, the next great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will be on the day of the solstice: December 21, 2020. Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions happen every 20 years; the last one was in the year 2000 but wasn't visible during the daytime. The 2020 great conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn will be the closest since 1623 and the closest observable since 1226! On December 21, 2020, Jupiter and Saturn will be only 0.1 degree apart. Some say the pair will look like an “elongated star” on that date. Will they? We will have to look and see! They’ll surely be an appealing and mind-expanding sight. This extra-close Jupiter-Saturn conjunction won’t be matched again until the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction of March 15, 2080.

What you will probably see this solstice will be similar to what the Magi's saw over 2000 years ago on the same day! A “star” leading to the baby Jesus. Not Jesus' birthday, but their visit!

Forward by Bob Barney:  The following is an article that was published around 1900!  I think those who still think Christmas has something to do with the birth of Jesus (which it doesn't) will be surprised that even over a 100 years ago, when WE THINK people knew the so-called "true meaning of Christmas," THEY DIDN'T!

Frank Leslie’s Weekly – The Meaning of Christmas

The Meaning of Christmas

By SIGMUND SPAETH

THE FIRST man I addressed was of the brisk business type. He had the gruff air of complete absorption which most business men consider it necessary to assume.

“What does Christmas mean to you?” I asked.

He looked at me sharply and answered, “I have no time for either reporters or lunatics.”

“But this is a serious question,” I insisted. “I desire information. How can I discover the meaning of the whole thing if nobody will answer me?”

He relented a little and replied, in a more friendly tone, “To me Christmas means prosperity. It means the busiest time of the year. It means big sales and big profits. That’s all I know about it.” And he hurried off.

I next accosted a well-known lawyer. He was a big, kindly man, and he listened to my question with interest. But his face clouded as he answered, “Christmas is to me an annual reminder of all the crime and misery in the world. The peace and good-will of the rich only serve to accentuate the wretchedness of the poor. The criminal courts are filled each year with those who would be honorable men if they possessed only a very small share of the Christmas gifts which are a natural part of our own care-free lives. It is a sad thought.”

I pondered over these words, but soon hastened on to find a new victim for my questioning. It happened to be a clerk, a small, nervous man, obviously over-worked.

“What does Christmas mean to me?” he asked. “Well, for one thing it means a holiday—and that is always a relief. I get a chance to see something of my family, to spend a day with the children. But it’s embarrassing, too. It has its unpleasant side. I can’t afford to do what I would like in the way of gifts, and I’m always afraid that the fact is noticeable. My wife and I decided several years ago to omit all presents to each other and concentrate on the children. But even at that our celebration is a very modest affair. I wish the cost of living were not so high.” And he also hurried off, with a feeble imitation of the absorbed air of the business man.

My next question was addressed to a successful physician. He laughed as he answered, “It’s pretty hard for me to get away from my profession. I suppose Christmas means no more to me than so many extra cases of indigestion to be cured and so many more colds to be attended to. It merely adds one more to the many occasions on which the power of medicine can be proved.”

I turned to an actor of world-wide reputation. “Does Christmas mean anything to you?” I asked.

“It means my busy day,” he answered gruffly. “We stage people have no real Christmas. There is always an evening performance and usually a matinee as well. We are worked harder on Christmas Day than at any other time in the year.”

I was disappointed, but hastened to take up the subject with a singer, one who was chiefly noted for church work.

“Oh,” he answered enthusiastically, “Christmas means much to me! There are so many services and the Christmas music is so wonderful. I always look forward to it. There is nothing that brings out the beauties of my voice so well as the Christmas carols, and the more elaborate things give me an opportunity for a really fine display of technique.”

Again I was disappointed, but again I turned hopefully, this time to a teacher. Here at least, I thought, I shall find a deeply spiritual reply, full of a mystic meaning. So I asked my question confidently, and I listened with hopeful attention as I saw the gleam of pleasure in his eyes.

“The meaning of Christmas?” he fairly shouted. “It means joy! Joy! Joy! Two full weeks of vacation! No classes to teach! No papers to correct! No unruly boys to reprimand! Could anything be pleasanter? Sleigh rides, theaters, books, dinners! Oh, the joys of Christmas are countless!”

I left him to his ecstatic ravings and sought out a social worker of long experience. This man, at least, must have some truth to impart. “Christmas,” he said slowly, “to me means simply hard labor. It means days of unpleasant begging, sometimes on the street corners, sometimes at the homes of the rich. It means the stupendous task of feeding and clothing thousands of the poor. And it means that when our work is done we get very little gratitude, very little appreciation. It is expected of us. Some keep their cheerful faces year after year and imagine that they really enjoy their work. To me it has become mere drudgery.” Even after this rebuff I did not give up hope altogether. But I said to myself, “I must find a real interpreter of Christianity. I shall ask a minister of the Gospel.” The reply which I received proved most disappointing of all.

“Yes, I like Christmas,” said the clergyman pleasantly. “It is what I may call my easy day. The sermon requires almost no preparation. The congregation enters into the spirit of the day and helps me in every way possible. I receive many substantial evidences of the generosity of my parishioners, so that, on the whole, I am always happy, contented and possibly a little lazy on Christmas Day.”

The unexpectedness of this answer so upset my calculations that I jumped at once to the opposite extreme. I picked out a miserable tramp, the very type of neglected humanity, arguing that all my attempts so far had been directed too much toward the higher and more prosperous classes. The tramp grinned cheerfully as he answered my question.

“Christmas? That’s somethin’ like Thanksgivin’, ain’t it? Them’s my two big feed days for the year. You can work a graft so as to eat three full charity dinners in the same afternoon, if you can hold ‘em. I generally fills up fer about a week, countin’ what I stows in my clothes. But it makes the rest of the year all the worse. Rich people seem to think that us poor guys don’t have to eat no more than once or twice in twelve months. If it wasn’t for the cold weather, I’d want Christmas every day.”

I might have foreseen this. My first track was the right one, after all; yet I seemed to have exhausted all the possible sources of information. No; there was one left. “Out of the mouth of babes,” I said to myself, and hunted up a child.

“Christmas? Don’t you know what Christmas means?” the child asked, in wide-eyed wonder. “I guess you haven’t been educated very well. But I’ll tell you all about it. Christmas is the day when Santa Claus was born and all the angels sang a song for the shepherds to listen to. And they told them to go around and give presents to each other forever after, world without end, amen. That’s why I always go to two Sunday schools a whole month before Christmas. They have trees and lights and candy and oranges in pink tissue paper, and Santa Claus is there himself and gives the things out, and the superintendent tells us what good children we are, and everybody eats a lot, and we get presents at home and turkey and hang our stockings up and everything. Didn’t you know that?”

“Well, not quite in that way,” I answered, catching feebly at a straw. “Isn’t there anything else?”

“Oh, parties and ice cream and candy canes and dolls and holly berries and mince pie and— —”

“And the people are just the same as any other day?” I interrupted.

“Well, no,” the child answered reflectively. “I think everybody tries to be a little extra nice. Papa doesn’t say a cross word to mamma all day, and I let my little brother play with my toys if he wants to, and the cook doesn’t chase us out of the kitchen when we come to smell the turkey roasting. She gives us little heart-shaped ginger cakes instead. I guess everybody loves everybody else on Christmas Day.”

“At last!” I breathed, with a sigh of relief.

Frank Leslie’s Weekly – The Meaning of Christmas

Source: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 5, 1912
Top image: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 10, 1913
Middle image: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 10, 1908
Bottom image: Frank Leslies Weekly, December 13, 1906

By Bob Barney

Today is the 10th "New Month" Day of the year, and the Jewish (not Biblical) festival of Hanukkah starts on the second day of this month. The only biblical reference to a well-known winter holiday that Jesus celebrated, a holiday many will celebrate this month. Although not an ordained feast of the Lord, it was followed by Jesus. (John 10:22–3)

Bible's translate the beginning of each months, as New Moon festivals, because at one time, before the flood, new moons started the new months. This isn't true today, so the best translation would be New Month Festivals....  This month is the

 I often mention that God's calendar is NOT like any other calendar on earth today.  It is not the Roman calendar that we follow, or the equally pagan Jewish calendar that many churches believe is the calendar of God.  To read more about God's Calendar click here .  There is a mistake that those who follow a Jewish calendar has made, and that refers to the word for new moon.  That is a mistranslation, as the proper rendering should be NEW MONTH, as I did in The Plain Truth's Red Letter Bible.

The Hebrew word 'chodesh', which is Strong's Exhaustive Concordance simply means "new" or to "rebuild." Chodesh does not mean "new moon". It means 'new' with an implication that a month is about to begin again.

Originally, when the earth had a perfect 360 day rotation around the sun, and the moon's journey around the earth was exactly 30 days (today it is 29.5 days), new moons where on the new months. The calendar was in balance. However, probably after the flood, the weight of water slowed the earth rotational spin (this is NOT mentioned in the Bible) to 365.25 days a year and the moon's rotation to the present one of 29.5 days.

The ancients noticed that the months were no longer 30 days and the years were not 360 days, but now over 365. A calendar needed to be made to reflect this. Egypt made the first perfect calendar, one Moses was very familiar with, which had 12 - 30 day months and then 5 days at the end of the year that did not count. This is also seen in Enoch's calendar (see illustration on left).God's calendar was like the Egyptian one except that year no longer started on the first day of summer, but on the first day of spring. Springtime is the birth of the new year in nature, as morning is the start of the day as well. The term for new moon became "new month" as the new moons and new months no longer matched up. This is not hard to conceive as the English word for month comes from moon! Yet our months have nothing to do with new moons! The same applies to God's calendar.

 Bible Verses about Month 

Zechariah 8:19
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth months will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah; so love truth and peace.’

Esther 2:16
So Esther was taken to King Ahasuerus to his royal palace in the tenth month which is the month Tebeth, in the seventh year of his reign.

Jeremiah 39:1
Now when Jerusalem was captured in the ninth year of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and all his army came to Jerusalem and laid siege to it;

Genesis 8:5
The water decreased steadily until the tenth month; in the tenth month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains became visible.

Ezra 10:16
But the exiles did so. And Ezra the priest selected men who were heads of fathers’ households for each of their father’s households, all of them by name. So they convened on the first day of the tenth month to investigate the matter.

Ezekiel 33:21
Now in the twelfth year of our exile, on the fifth of the tenth month, the refugees from Jerusalem came to me, saying, “The city has been taken.”

2 Kings 25:1
Now in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it.

Jeremiah 52:4
Now it came about in the ninth year of his reign, on the tenth day of the tenth month, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon came, he and all his army, against Jerusalem, camped against it and built a siege wall all around it.

Ezekiel 24:1
And the word of the Lord came to me in the ninth year, in the tenth month, on the tenth of the month, saying,

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Month-10

By Bob Barney

Today is a special "New Month" Day, Bible's translate the beginning of each months, as New Moon festivals, because at one time, before the flood, new moons started the new months. This isn't true today, so the best translation would be New Month Festivals....  This month is the 9th Month of the year, known in the Bible as the month Chislev.

 I often mention that God's calendar is NOT like any other calendar on earth today.  It is not the Roman calendar that we follow, or the equally pagan Jewish calendar that many churches believe is the calendar of God.  To read more about God's Calendar click here .  There is a mistake that those who follow a Jewish calendar has made, and that refers to the word for new moon.  That is a mistranslation, as the proper rendering should be NEW MONTH, as I did in The Plain Truth's Red Letter Bible.

The Hebrew word 'chodesh', which is Strong's Exhaustive Concordance simply means "new" or to "rebuild." Chodesh does not mean "new moon". It means 'new' with an implication that a month is about to begin again.

Originally, when the earth had a perfect 360 day rotation around the sun, and the moon's journey around the earth was exactly 30 days (today it is 29.5 days), new moons where on the new months. The calendar was in balance. However, probably after the flood, the weight of water slowed the earth rotational spin (this is NOT mentioned in the Bible) to 365.25 days a year and the moon's rotation to the present one of 29.5 days.

The ancients noticed that the months were no longer 30 days and the years were not 360 days, but now over 365. A calendar needed to be made to reflect this. Egypt made the first perfect calendar, one Moses was very familiar with, which had 12 - 30 day months and then 5 days at the end of the year that did not count. This is also seen in Enoch's calendar (see illustration on left).God's calendar was like the Egyptian one except that year no longer started on the first day of summer, but on the first day of spring. Springtime is the birth of the new year in nature, as morning is the start of the day as well. The term for new moon became "new month" as the new moons and new months no longer matched up. This is not hard to conceive as the English word for month comes from moon! Yet our months have nothing to do with new moons! The same applies to God's calendar.

5 Verses about the 9th Month,

The words of Nehemiah the son of Hacaliah.Now it happened in the month Chislev, in the twentieth year, while I was in Susa the capitol,

Jeremiah 36:9
Now in the fifth year of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah, king of Judah, in the ninth month, all the people in Jerusalem and all the people who came from the cities of Judah to Jerusalem proclaimed a fast before the Lord.

Jeremiah 36:22

Now the king was sitting in the winter house in the ninth month, with a fire burning in the brazier before him.

Zechariah 7:1

In the fourth year of King Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah on the fourth day of the ninth month, which is Chislev.

Ezra 10:9

So all the men of Judah and Benjamin assembled at Jerusalem within the three days. It was the ninth month on the twentieth of the month, and all the people sat in the open square before the house of God, trembling because of this matter and the heavy rain.

also:

9th Month in Jewish history and tradition (myth?)

• 14th (circa 1445 BC) – Death of Reuben, son of Jacob.^[3]
• 14th (circa 1568 BC) – Birth of Reuben, son of Jacob.^[3]
• 15th (167 BC) – The Greeks set up the "Abomination of Desolation" in the Temple.^[4]
• 20th  (circa 457 BC) – Ezra addresses a three-day assemblage of Jews in Jerusalem, telling them to adhere to the Torah and to dissolve their interfaith marriages.
• 21st (circa 128 BC) – The Samaritan temple at Mount Gerizim was destroyed by John Hyrcanus I.^[5]
• 25 th (164 BC) – The Hanukkah miracle
• 25th (167 BC) The Greeks make pagan sacrifices in the Temple^[6]

By Bob Barney

1 Kings 12:32
Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

Today is a special "New Month" Day.  Bibles translate the beginning of each month as New Moon festivals, because at one time, before the flood, new moons started the new months. This isn't true for today, so the best translation would be New Month Festivals....  It is God's 8th Month of the year known as the month of Bul...

 I often mention that God's calendar is NOT like any other calendar on earth today.  It is not the Roman calendar that we follow, or the equally pagan Jewish calendar that many churches believe is the calendar of God.  To read more about God's Calendar click here .  There is a mistake that those who follow a Jewish calendar has made, and that refers to the word for new moon.  That is a mistranslation, as the proper rendering should be NEW MONTH, as I made sure to make this clear in The Plain Truth's Red Letter Bible.

The Hebrew word 'chodesh', which is in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance and simply means "new" or to "rebuild." Chodesh does not mean "new moon". It means 'new' with an implication that a month is about to begin again.

Originally, when the earth had a perfect 360 day rotation around the sun, and the moon's journey around the earth was exactly 30 days (today it is 29.5 days), new moons where on the new months. The calendar was in balance. However, probably after the flood, the weight of water slowed the earth rotational spin (this is NOT mentioned in the Bible) to 365.25 days a year and the moon's rotation to the present one of 29.5 days.

The ancients noticed that the months were no longer 30 days and the years were not 360 days, but now over 365. A calendar needed to be made to reflect this. Egypt made the first perfect calendar, one Moses was very familiar with, which had 12 - 30 day months and then 5 days at the end of the year that did not count. This is also seen in Enoch's calendar (see illustration on left).God's calendar was like the Egyptian one except that year no longer started on the first day of summer, but on the first day of spring. Springtime is the birth of the new year in nature, as morning is the start of the day as well. The term for new moon became "new month" as the new moons and new months no longer matched up. This is not hard to conceive as the English word for month comes from moon! Yet our months have nothing to do with new moons! The same applies to God's calendar.

The 8th Month- The Sign of of Pagan worship, and apostaty 

Many today have never learned that after King Solomon, the ancient kingdom of Israel split into two nations.  The Jews (only 1 tribe of Israel) along with the tribe of Levi and some part of Dan became known as Judah.  Jews have never had the right to be called Israel!  Your Bible says so! When Jacob (named by God, Israel) was blessing Joseph's sons, he said that his name (Israel) would belong only to the tribe of Joseph. Where Joseph is -- is Israel!  That's why the Northern tribes called themselves Israel, because Joseph's tribes where there. After several generations of having two nations, the northern tribe of Israel began to adopt pagan holidays to separate themselves from the Jews. Much like Christianity today tries to distance themselves from Jews by following Sunday rather than God's Sabbath Day for worship.

The pagan religion of Israel began with Jeroboam I, who changed the true worship of God.  He changed the Feast of Tabernacles from the seventh month to the eighth month.  He may have replaced the Sabbath with Sunday worship and also replaced the Levitical priesthood with men of his own choosing.

Lastly, he replaced God with golden calves in Bethel and Dan. A religion with such a beginning was doomed to fail, bringing the nation down with it. Much of this pagan worship followed Israel when Assyria took them into captivity and moved them to modern day Germany during the 7th century BC.

From: Charles Whitaker
Searching for Israel (Part Twelve): The Sign

I Kings 12:25-33 records the beginning of the Kingdom of Israel's apostasy. Fearing that he might eventually lose political control over the ten tribes because of their long-standing religious ties to Jerusalem, capital of the Kingdom of Judah (verse 27), Jeroboam I instituted a state religion designed to meet his peoples' needs for convenience - and his own need for power. He built two shrines, one in Bethel, at the southern extremity of his kingdom, the other in Dan, near its northern boundary (verse 29). If not de jure, at least de facto, he exiled the Levites, the priestly tribe established by God, and installed in their place a priesthood of his own devising (verse 31). Finally, he moved the fall holy day season from the seventh month to the eighth, thereby effectively setting aside the Sabbathcommandment, since the holy days are God's Sabbaths (see Leviticus 23:1-3, 23-44). All this "became a sin" for Israel (I Kings 12:30).

Jeroboam's apostasy, his movement to false religious practices, took deep root. In fact, the house of Israel never departed from the practices he established. II Kings 17:21-23 records this fact:

Jeroboam drove Israel from following the LORD, and made them commit a great sin. For the children of Israel walked in all the sins of Jeroboam which he did; they did not depart from them, until the LORD removed Israel out of His sight. . . .

Having abandoned the Sabbath, the God-given sign marking them as His people (Exodus 31:13-17), the folk of the northern tribes eventually lost their identification. That is why most Israelites do not know who they are to this day. The forefathers forsook the sign that denoted their connection to God.

Take this line of thought to its logical conclusion: The Sabbath is a memorial to creation and, by extension, to the Creator God (see Exodus 20:11). Modern-day Israelites do not know who they are today because their forefathers, generations ago, abandoned this memorial to the Creator God. Therefore, modern-day Israelites have come to abandon more than the sign: They have abandoned the God to whom the sign points. They no longer know God.

This is not an overstatement. Make no mistake: Failure to recognize who Israel is today is failure to recognize the God who made Israel! The distressing secularism running rampant in the modern nations of Israel today has its roots in Sabbath-breaking. The antidote for secularism in America is not an inane Constitutional amendment requiring the teaching of creationism in the state schools. The panacea some offer, prayer in the public schools, will not do the trick. Increased Sunday church attendance will not stanch the flood of secularism; after all, most Sunday worshippers accept the doctrines of biologic and economic determinism (i.e., evolution and socialism, respectively) just as avowed atheists do. Attempting to unite a people with its God through these measures is surely akin to building a wall with "untempered mortar" (see Ezekiel 13:9-23). In the coming storm, such a wall will fall.

However, one will never find a Sabbath-keeper who is a secularist, for the Sabbath-keeper has maintained his link with the Creator God. Sabbath-keeping and secularism mix about as well as oil and water.

Skip forward 1800 years and the peoples of Germany (made of of Israelites and Assyrians) turned the Feast of Tabernacles into OKTOBERFEST! A celebration still followed today, with just a few knowing this!

Yet another PROOF of the IDENTITY OF ISRAEL TODAY

Read our articles:

• The Number “13” and the United States! We are lost Israel!
• America in Biblical Prophecy

4 Bible Verses about Month 8....

1 Kings 6:38
In the eleventh year, in the month of Bul, which is the eighth month, the house was finished throughout all its parts and according to all its plans. So he was seven years in building it.

Zechariah 1:1
In the eighth month of the second year of Darius, the word of the Lord came to Zechariah the prophet, the son of Berechiah, the son of Iddo saying,

1 Kings 12:32
Jeroboam instituted a feast in the eighth month on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast which is in Judah, and he went up to the altar; thus he did in Bethel, sacrificing to the calves which he had made. And he stationed in Bethel the priests of the high places which he had made.

1 Kings 12:33

Then he went up to the altar which he had made in Bethel on the fifteenth day in the eighth month, even in the month which he had devised in his own heart; and he instituted a feast for the sons of Israel and went up to the altar to burn incense.

By Bob Barney- The Plain Truth

In the past, I have written much concerning the last Day of the 7-Day Feast of Tabernacles, a time of great joy and “vacation” for the members of God's Church. The Feast week symbolizes the 1,000-year reign of Christ on earth known as the Millennium. During this time, we leave home and dwell in booths (temporary dwellings) for seven days, to teach us that we are strangers and pilgrims on this earth, looking forward to a New Heavens and New Earth. Today is yet another Holy day. It is known as the 8^th Day of the Feast, but in all reality, it is a separate holiday called THE LAST GREAT DAY, and this day has a very important message. It is called in the Bible a special Sabbath Day. It is to be treated as any Sabbath. We are not to work, and we are to hold a sacred church service. Leviticus 23:36, 39, . . . “on the eighth day shall be an holy convocation unto you; and ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the LORD: it is a solemn assembly [margin: "day of restraint"]; and ye shall do no servile work therein . . . on the eighth day shall be a sabbath.”

Exodus 23:14-17 states , “Three times thou shalt keep a feast unto Me in the year . . . the feast of unleavened bread . . . the feast of harvest, the firstfruits [Pentecost] of thy labors, which thou hast sown in the field: and the feast of ingathering, which is in the end of the [agricultural, civil] year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field. Three times in the year all thy males shall appear before the Lord GOD.”

In the New Testament, we read: "In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. (But this spake He of the Spirit, which they that believe on Him should receive . . . ." Jesus chose this day because it has great significance in the plan of God and the salvation of mankind and our rebirth as members into the God Family!

Yesterday, the last day of the feast is the forerunner of Revelation 20:11-15, "And I saw a great white throne, and Him that sat on it, . . . And I saw the dead, small and great, stand before God; and the books were opened: and another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works. And the sea gave up the dead which were in it; and death and hell delivered up the dead which were in them: and they were judged every man according to their works. And death and hell were cast into the lake of fire. This is the second death. And whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the lake of fire."

During the Last Great Day of the Feast we are to visualize God THE FATHER leaving heaven, and moving His throne to earth to live here with us! We are not going to heaven- Heaven is coming to us! In Revelation 21: “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a beautiful bride prepared for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, the home of God is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God (the Father) himself will be with them. He will remove all of their sorrows, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. For the old world and its evils are gone forever." ”

Yes, there is a paradise coming. It is a paradise on earth, where we are to live with God (Jesus and the Father) for all eternity, as actual members of the God Family.

His true Identity WILL SHOCK YOU!

By Bob Barney

I am sure you have heard or perhaps watched shows devoted to so-called "Bible codes". This is where mathematical rabbis find hidden messages in the Bible using computer programs and are making some outstanding claims about these messages. The subject of "Bible codes" IS NOT what today's article is about. Instead of Biblical codes that are almost impossible for anyone in the real world to discover, we are going to set forth on a journey together and discover possibly the strangest and most important Biblical code of all time. Is it possible there could be a "hidden message" right before your very eyes?  You may find this to be one of the most eye opening writings you have ever read about God, the Bible, and Jesus.

If I wrote these words: “The lawn, has long since died” in some foreign language and it was translated into English: “The lawn has died long ago” nobody would see that as much of a problem. Even to the most observant student the missing comma would not be important at all. The reason for this is because it simply isn't needed in the english translation. Now let me throw in a variable. Let's pretend in this make believe foreign language that the “comma” was an important symbol to the writer unlike in English where the comma is only used in the formation of sentence structure. Perhaps to the writer it was a symbol for poison! Then the sentence would be translated, “The lawn was poisoned and died long ago.” The message I am trying to convey is that we may have right in front of our eyes, clues (symbols) to hidden messages that God placed in the Bible long ago. Would you be shocked to know there are actual symbols in the original writings of the Bible that have not been translated at all and therefore are not included in the translations of scripture we read every day?   We are talking about symbols that have such significant meaning that they communicate the TRUE identity of God! It is clear to me that to acknowledge these symbols would actually change everyone's perspective not only of God and the Bible, but man's role in understanding His mind and the things He deems are important for us to know about Him. 

Just as it keeps the weekly Sabbath, the Church of God also observes the annual holy days that were ordered by God, kept by the ancient Israelites and continued by the early New Testament Christians. These seven annual "appointed feasts" picture God's plan of salvation for man.

The annual holy days are named the Passover and Feast of Unleavened Bread, Pentecost, the Feast of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles and Last Great Day. These days occur on specific dates of the current Hebrew calendar, with the exception of Pentecost which is counted in a biblically prescribed manner. Like the weekly Sabbath, each is reckoned from sunset to sunset. The functions of these annual holy days are partly the same; those of the weekly Sabbath.

The primary importance of the festivals is their function as spiritual symbols, outlining God's plan of salvation for the individual and the world. These days include religious instruction and worship which provide for spiritual renewal on a regular basis. The holy days serve as spiritual, psychological and social high points of the year. They allow people to get together in an atmosphere of leisure and enjoyment.

Succot’s priestly tradition of drawing water from the Pool of Siloam drips with meaning.

    Wayne Stiles is an author who has never recovered from his travels in Israel—and loves to write about them from his desk in Texas.

While enjoying the movie Ushpizin several years ago, I laughed out loud when the family’s uninvited visitor sliced the flawless etrog and casually ate it. Clearly, he had no clue to its significance! Although the movie’s English subtitles translate the language, the movie leaves the traditions of Succot for the viewer to decode.

How puzzling the holiday must seem to those unacquainted with its modern customs—much less its biblical foundations. Succot marked the most joyful of the biblical feasts because the harvest’s labor was complete, and the people would be grateful to God and expectant for the latter rains. 

In addition to the name Succot (translated “Booths” or “Tabernacles” in Deuteronomy 16:13 and Leviticus 23:34), the Bible also refers to the holiday as “the Feast of the Harvest” (Exodus 23:16), the “Feast of Ingathering” (Exodus 34:22), “the feast” (1 Kings 8:2; 2 Chronicles 7:8-9; John 7:37), and “the feast of the Lord” (Leviticus 23:39). At Succot, every seven years on the sabbatical year, the Law was read in the hearing of all Israel (Deuteronomy 31:10-11).

The original purpose of feast centered on an essential reminder: “Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘On the fifteenth of this seventh month is the Feast of Booths for seven days to the Lord. . . . You shall live in booths for seven days; all the native-born in Israel shall live in booths, so that your generations may know that I had the sons of Israel live in booths when I brought them out from the land of Egypt. I am the Lord your God’” (Leviticus 23:34, 42-43). It was a time to remember how God had delivered them from bondage and how the Lord had provided for them in the wilderness.

In his first inspired sermon after receiving the Holy Spirit on Pentecost, the apostle Peter summed up God’s instruction for mankind: “Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshingmay come from the presence of the Lord, and that He may send Jesus Christ, who was preached to you before, whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken by the mouth of all His holy prophets since the world began” (Acts 3:19-21).

But what are these “times of refreshing” and “times of restoration” of which Peter spoke?

God’s plan for mankind involves restoration. The Feast of Tabernacles symbolizes the restoration process, which will start with the return of Jesus Christ, pictured by the Feast of Trumpets, and the banishment of Satan, depicted by the Day of Atonement. Once these events have taken place, as represented by the previous Holy Days, the foundation is in place for the restoration of the creation to peace and harmony with God.    MORE

FROM CBN 

Jesus at the Feast of Booths (Tabernacles)

God gave the biblical festivals to teach the people about His character and to help us understand His plan of salvation. But all Christians who have been "grafted in" to the olive tree (Romans 11:17) share our rich heritage and roots. So as we approach the last of the High Holy Days, we hope you will find it meaningful. The Feast of Tabernacles is an eight day festival, on the seventh month of God's calendar

The Gospels record that our Lord Jesus not only celebrated the festival, but He took traditional elements of the celebration and applied them to His own life and mission. We find this particularly in John 7 and 8 where Jesus uses two traditional symbols from the Feast of Tabernacles celebration, water and light, to help the people understand who He is and what He offers.

In order to understand Jesus' teaching here, we need a bit of background fromLeviticus 23. There, Moses instructed the people that the first day and the eighth day of the festival were to be special days of rest, set apart from the others. But the seventh day became known as Hoshana Rabba, "the Great Day." My people developed special observances and traditions to mark this special day in Israel. The most spectacular of these was the water drawing ceremony.

Imagine a whole parade of worshipers and flutists led by the priest to the pool of Siloam (where Jesus told the blind man to bathe his eyes after He put clay over them). The priest has two golden pitchers. One is for wine. He fills the other with water from the pool. As the flutes continue to play, a choir of Israelites chants Psalm 118. The whole procession heads back to the Temple through the Water Gate. A trumpet sounds as the priest enters the Temple area. He approaches the altar where two silver basins are waiting. He pours wine into one of the basins as a drink offering to the Lord and water from the pool of Siloam into the other.

The whole ceremony, with the parade and the flutes and the singing, was such a joyful occasion that one of the ancient rabbis wrote: "Anyone who has not seen this water ceremony has never seen rejoicing in his life."

The ceremony was to thank God for His bounty and to ask Him to provide rain for the crops in the coming year. Today, many people take water for granted. We simply turn the tap and voilà—water! Not so in the Middle East during the first century. Water was often scarce. The people were very much aware of their dependence on God for the rains that were so vital for the preservation of life. No wonder the prophets came to see rain as a symbol of salvation and the work of God's Holy Spirit:

I will sprinkle clean water on you, and you will be clean… (Ezekiel 36:25).

No wonder then that Jesus stood in the Temple on this great day of the feast and cried out:

If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water (John 7:37-38).

The Apostle John commented on this speech in verse 39.

But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

As the rain falls to nourish the crops, so the Ruach ha Kodesh, the Holy Spirit, falls upon those who have identified with Jesus in His death and resurrection. It is that Spirit that refreshes us, and causes us to grow in grace and in faith. It is that Spirit that allows us to experience Immanuel, God with us. That Spirit is available to us today and every day.

Y'shua's promise to give mayim chayim, living water, prompted even greater discussion and debate during the last day of the festival of Sukkot. The leaders grew angry because the Temple guards refused their order to arrest Jesus. Even when one of their own, Nicodemus, came to Jesus' defense, they still dismissed His claims saying, "A prophet does not come out of Galilee" (verse 52). Apparently, those leaders had forgotten about Isaiah chapter 9:

There will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past He humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future He will honor Galilee of the Gentiles, by the way of the sea, along the Jordan. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; of those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned (Isaiah 9:1-2).

And that brings us to the second Sukkot symbol that Jesus used to point to Himself as the fulfillment of Scripture. God had indeed promised that a great light would shine out of Galilee. Y'shua reminded His critics of that powerful and prophetic claim, by using an image that would have been very fresh in the memories of all who heard. Light.

You see, at the end of the first day of the Feast, the Temple was gloriously illuminated. According to the Mishnah (part of the oral tradition of the rabbis), gigantic candelabras stood within the court of the women. Each of the four golden candelabras is said to have been 50 cubits high. A cubit is somewhere between 18 and 22 inches, so we're talking about candelabras that were about 75 feet tall! Each candelabra had four branches, and at the top of every branch there was a large bowl. Four young men bearing 10 gallon pitchers of oil would climb ladders to fill the four golden bowls on each candelabra. And then the oil in those bowls was ignited.

Picture sixteen beautiful blazes leaping toward the sky from these golden lamps. Remember that the Temple was on a hill above the rest of the city, so the glorious glow was a sight for the entire city to see. In addition to the light, Levitical musicians played their harps, lyres, cymbals and trumpets to make joyful music to the Lord. What a glorious celebration! The light was to remind the people of how God's Shekinah glory had once filled His Temple. But in the person of Jesus, God's glory was once again present in that Temple. And He used that celebration to announce that very fact. He was teaching in the court of women just after the Feast, perhaps standing right next to those magnificent candelabras when He declared to all who were gathered there,

I am the light of the world. Whoever follows Me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).

Many refused to have their own darkness exposed by that light. But there were those who were drawn to the light, whose hearts burned with the truth of Jesus.

*The Scriptures actually speak of the Feast of Tabernacles as being seven days, but it also speaks of an eighth day on which a holy convocation is to be held, with sacrifices made and no traditional work done on that day. See Leviticus 23:34-36.

The Samaritans, members of an ancient sect closely associated to Judaism, marked the holiday of the Tabernacles, or Sukkot.

Followers of the religion held an annual pilgrimage ceremony on Mount Gerizim, the sect's holiest site, near Nablus.

Though the Samaritans numbered well over one million in late Roman times, there are now only 712 remaining members, who live mostly on Mount Gerizim and in Holon.

Carrying Branches To Make Booths (illustration from the 1897 Bible Pictures and What They Teach Us by Charles Foster) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

By Bob Barney
      Most of our readers probably have never heard of the Feast of Tabernacles, but it is in the Bible! In fact, this week meaning to God is so important that the Bible predicts that after Jesus returns to this earth, he will punish all who refuse to keep this feast! Read on for the proof. Again, like for the Day of Atonement, I am going to use the writing of Herbert Armstrong concerning this holiday. He does the subject much better than I can. The only difference that I have with his argument is the date he and most of the other feast keeping churches follow. Since they follow the Jewish calendar, and not the calendar of Moses (e-mail us for proof on the true calendar) and Jesus, they are often following the feast days on the wrong days.   Today IS the REAL DATE of the Feast. In Day three of the feast, MY ARTICLE will prove it conclusively!

FEAST OF TABERNACLES AND LAST GREAT DAY
Herbert Armstrong

NOW WE come to the festival of Tabernacles -- or Feast of Booths -- the sixth festival. Let us notice the instruction concerning this occasion:

Tomorrow Starts the Feast of Tabernacles, an 8 Day Celebration of Christ in the Millennium 

Feast of Tabernacles

In John 1:14 we read,

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt (Greek word we translated “dwelt” is “tabernacle”) among us.

It was 3,500 years ago / 1,500 before Christ / God instructed Moses to build the tabernacle.

Tabernacle was a tent. “The tent of meeting.”

The tabernacle was filled with symbolism.

Something that stands for something else by reason of relationship, association, resemblance; a visible sign of something invisible. The lion is a symbol of courage.

Tabernacle / everything in it/ a symbol / or a type / picture / an object lesson / picture story Person / work/ Jesus /salvation.

Theologically, it is of immense importance; Genesis only 5 words are given to the creation of billions of galaxies.

Gen. 1:16, “He made the stars also.”

For the tabernacle, its construction, its significance, 50 chapters.

The tabernacle also gives us a glimpse of what the throne room in heaven is like! Heb. 9:24…

For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

One of the lessons God wanted to teach was that He wanted to be in the midst of His people.

The Tabernacle was situated right in the middle of the Israelite encampment. When the Tabernacle was set up, the nation of Israel surrounded it. Three tribes set up their tents to the North, three to the South, three to the East, and three to the West.

And right in the middle of them all was God’s tent… His tabernacle.

But even when the people moved from place to place and the tabernacle had to be torn down and moved, EVEN THEN, God’s Tabernacle was the center of His people.

Read CHRIST in THE TABERNACLE

The Day of Atonement just ended, so what comes next in God's Holy day Schedule?  It's a week-long celebration of feasting and fun called Tabernacles, or tents...  It when God's people were told to live in temporary tents for 8 days.  Why? You may ask.  The reason is that this celebration is central to the message Jesus brought forth!

Feast of Tabernacles

In John 1:14 we read,

“And the Word became flesh and dwelt (Greek word we translated “dwelt” is “tabernacle”) among us.

It was 3,500 years ago / 1,500 before Christ / God instructed Moses to build the tabernacle.

Tabernacle was a tent. “The tent of meeting.”

The tabernacle was filled with symbolism.

Something that stands for something else by reason of relationship, association, resemblance; a visible sign of something invisible. The lion is a symbol of courage.

Tabernacle / everything in it/ a symbol / or a type / picture / an object lesson / picture story Person / work/ Jesus /salvation.

Theologically, it is of immense importance; Genesis only 5 words are given to the creation of billions of galaxies.

Gen. 1:16, “He made the stars also.”

For the tabernacle, its construction, its significance, 50 chapters.

The tabernacle also gives us a glimpse of what the throne room in heaven is like! Heb. 9:24…

For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us;

One of the lessons God wanted to teach was that He wanted to be in the midst of His people.

The Tabernacle was situated right in the middle of the Israelite encampment. When the Tabernacle was set up, the nation of Israel surrounded it. Three tribes set up their tents to the North, three to the South, three to the East, and three to the West.

And right in the middle of them all was God’s tent… His tabernacle.

But even when the people moved from place to place and the tabernacle had to be torn down and moved, EVEN THEN, God’s Tabernacle was the center of His people.

Read CHRIST in THE TABERNACLE

The following is from The Plain Truth's Red Letter Bible, where every word of Christ is in RED, including in the Old Testament!  

ORDER HERE

The Prophets:

Isaiah 53

THE SUFFERING CHRIST:

            The part of Isaiah not usually read by Jews today. It is about the suffering Christ.

1 Who has believed our message? To whom has the LORD(Jesus)'s power been revealed?

                        The answer to this is Christians. JOHN 12:38   Romans 10:16

2 He grew up in his presence like a tender green shoot, sprouting from a root in dry ground. There was nothing beautiful or majestic about His appearance, nothing to attract us to Him.

                        Jesus was ordinary looking! In fact, people could not pick him out in a crowd. Even though he taught everyday in the Temple, the High Priest needed Judas to point Jesus out to the soldiers! He was that ordinary          looking!

3 He was despised and rejected. A man of sorrows, familiar with suffering. He was despised like one from whom people turn their faces, and we didn't consider Him to be worth anything.

                        Jews today, claim their Messiah would come as a king. This shows that he was to come like Jesus        did! Adam his his face from Jesus, so did the Jews, so do many today!  Matthew 27:30    Hebrews 4:15                John 1:10

4 He certainly has taken upon himself our suffering and carried our sorrows, but we thought that God(Elohim/Theos) had wounded Him, beat Him, and punished Him.

                        The Jews believed him to be a sinner, beat him and killed him.  Matthew 8:17     1 Peter 2:24

                        literally, "But yet He hath taken (or borne) our sicknesses," that is, they who despised Him because of His human infirmities ought rather to have esteemed Him on account of them; for thereby "Himself took           OUR infirmities" (bodily diseases). So Matthew 8:17quotes it. In the Hebrew for "borne," or took, there is probably the double notion, He took on Himself vicariously (so Isaiah 53:5Isaiah 53:6Isaiah 53:8Isaiah       53:12 ), and so He took away; His perfect humanity whereby He was bodily afflicted for us, and in all our       afflictions ( Isaiah 63:9, Hebrews 4:15) was the ground on which He cured the sick; so that Matthew's          quotation is not a mere accommodation. See Note 42 of ARCHBISHOP MAGEE, Atonement. The Hebrew        there may mean to overwhelm with darkness; Messiah's time of darkness was temporary (Matthew 27:45),       answering to the bruising of His heel; Satan's is to be eternal, answering to the bruising of his head (compare          Isaiah 50:10). 
                        carried . . . sorrows--The notion of substitution strictly. "Carried," namely, as a burden. "Sorrows,"     that is, pains of the mind; as "griefs" refer to pains of the body ( Psalms 32:10, 38:17). Matthew 8:17might       seem to oppose this: "And bare our sicknesses." But he uses "sicknesses" figuratively for sins, the cause of             them. Christ took on Himself all man's "infirmities;" so as to remove them; the bodily by direct miracle,           grounded on His participation in human infirmities; those of the soul by His vicarious suffering, which did      away with the source of both. Sin and sickness are ethically connected as cause and effect ( Isaiah 33:24,     Psalms 103:3, Matthew 9:2, John 5:14, 5:15). (Jamieson)

5 He was pierced for our lawlessness. He was crushed for our sins. He was punished so that we could have peace.  He was whipped, and {by His wounds} we were healed!

                        He was killed because of sin. Sin is the breaking of the Law! Christ did not come to take away the       Law, but to take away the punishment for breaking the Law. The Law is still in force and always be – we are   freed from the PENALTY of sin.   Romans 4:25  1 Peter 2:24

                        -a bodily wound; not mere mental sorrow; literally, "pierced" as I used here; minutely appropriate to   Messiah, whose hands, feet, and side were pierced ( Psalms 22:16). The Margin, wrongly, from a Hebrew        root, translates, "tormented."

6 We have all strayed like sheep. Each one of us has turned to go his own way, and the LORD(Jesus) has laid all our sins on Him.

                        We are all sinners (1 John).  In fact, if we say we have no sin, we are liars and the truth is not in us!    Why is there suffering today? This is the answer. We have all gone our own way, a way opposite of God's Way           (HIS LAW). And death and sorrow is our reward! Christ came to pay off this debt-with His blood. In         2 Corinthians 5:21; He was not merely a sin offering (which would destroy the antithesis to   "righteousness"), but "sin for us"; sin itself vicariously; the representative of the aggregate sin of all    mankind; not sins in the plural, for the "sin" of the world is one ( Romans 5:16Romans 5:17); thus we are      made not merely righteous, but righteousness, even "the righteousness of God." The innocent was punished        as if guilty, that the guilty might be rewarded as if innocent. This verse could be said of no mere martyr.

7 He was abused and punished, yet He never said a word! He was led like a lamb to the slaughter. He was like a sheep that is silent when its wool is cut off.

                                    He is our Passover lamb!            John 19:9

8 He was arrested, taken away, and judged. Who would have thought that He would be removed from the world? He was killed because of my people's sins.

                        Matthew 27:11-25    removed from the world-- He is in Heaven

                        Acts 8:33; translate as the Septuagint: "In His humiliation His judgment (legal trial) was taken          away"; the virtual sense of the Hebrew as rendered by LOWTH and sanctioned by the inspired writer of Acts; He was treated as one so mean that a fair trial was denied Him ( Matthew 26:5914:55-59). HORSLEY     translates, "After condemnation and judgment He was accepted."

9 He was laid in a tomb like a criminal. He was put there with the rich when He died, although He had done nothing violent and had never spoken a lie.

                        Christ fulfilled this by dying (by crucifying Him with two thieves, Matthew 27:38)  and being buried in a rich man's unused tomb; his uncle two rich men honored Him at His death, Joseph of Arimathæa. Christ  never lied, only truth was in Him. The Devil is a liar and no truth is in him.

10Yet it pleased theLORD(Jesus) to punish Him with suffering. 

When YOU{God the father} make His life a sacrifice for our wrongdoings, He will have a multitude of children, many heirs. The will of the LORD(Jesus) will succeed through Him.

                        They were voluntarily borne by Messiah, in order that thereby He might "do Jehovah's will" ( John      6:38 , Hebrews 10:7Hebrews 10:9), as to man's redemption; so at the end of the verse, "the pleasure of the     LORD shall prosper in His hand."

                        The Margin rightly makes the prophet in the name of Yahweh Himself to speak in this verse.

11When He sees all that is accomplished by His anguish, He will be satisfied. And because of what He has experienced, my righteous servant will make it possible for many to be counted righteous, for He will bear all their sins.

                        Yahwehis still speaking according to Jamieson. my . . . servant--Messiah ( Isaiah 42:1, 52:13).

12 So I will give Him a share among the mighty, and He will divide the prize with the strong, because He poured out His life(soul-nephesh) in death and He was counted with  the sinners. He carried the sins of many. He intercedes for those who are lawless {sinners}.

                        IN DEATH-- Jesus died, just as we do. His soul DIED! The word here in Hebrew is nephesh, translated “soul” by the KJV. The same word used in Genesis chapter 1 “and man became a living soul-nephesh.  The best translation for nephesh is a living being- and when speaking of death, the best translation is dead being, or as I translated this here “his life in death.” If not for the power of the FATHER and the resurrection, Christ would still be in the grave awaiting the resuurection of the dead. We see later that ONLY Christ, thus far, has been “born again,” or resurrected from the dead. All of the rest of mankind are still in their graves sleeping! See 1 Corinthians 15.

                        Isaiah 53 plainly speaks of the suffering Messiah – and only Jesus Christ fulfilled this prophecy- HE IS OUR LORD and SAVIOR.

By Bob Barney

Tonite starts the Day of Atonement (Sept 24th) at sunset and ends the following day (25th) at sunset.

#1 The Day of Atonement proves when the Day begins

By Bob Barney

I know many Christians in the world understand that Jesus Christ, a Jew, followed the Old Testament (Mosaic) holidays.  Probably fewer comprehend that for nearly 100 years after the death and resurrection of Jesus, His followers still observed the same holy days.

One of these annual Holy Days is called in English "The Day of Atonement."  It is a very solemn 24-hour period of time over 2 calendar days, when we are to "deny ourselves."  This means to fast- or abstain from food and water for the 24-hour period.  The Day of Atonement does not occur on one day, as the Jews, and most of the observant Christians think it does!  Just a simple reading of scripture proves this. Many have read Leviticus 23:27 "The tenth day of this seventh month is the Day of Atonement. Hold a sacred assembly and deny yourselves and present a food offering to the LORD." and assume that it is. However, when one understands that God's day begins at dawn, the next few verses become very clear. "It is a day of sabbath rest for you, and you must deny yourselves. From the evening of the ninth day of the month until the following evening you are to observe your sabbath.”

Clearly, if the day began in the evening, the writer would not say that the fast starts on the evening of the 9th!  It would have been, the evening of the 10th!  NOWHERE ARE EVENING DAYS JUSTIFIED IN YOUR BIBLE!  Any honest biblical scholar knows that the Bible shows the day beginning with LIGHT. "Let there be light"- and the first day began!

Clearing up the misconception of the true calendar, why do Christians observe this Holy Day? The answer is simple. They are following the example of Jesus Christ, His apostles, and the true Church of God of the first century! The church of the Apostles continued to observe the annual holy days established by God in the Old Testament, including the Day of Atonement for over a hundred years, until a great FALSE CHURCH in Rome changed it! They claimed the right to do so! "The Pope has the power to change times, to abrogate laws, and to dispense with all things, even the precepts of Christ." "The Pope has the authority and often exercised it, to dispense with the command of Christ." -Decretal, de Tranlatic Episcop. Cap. (The Pope can modify divine law.) Ferraris' Ecclesiastical Dictionary.  

On the Day of Atonement, Christians humble themselves before God by fasting, remembering the awesome sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Messiah, Jesus Christ, whose blood atoned for our sins. The Hebrew word for Atonement literally means “to cover over.” Our death penalty has been paid for us, and our sins have been buried, or “covered over.” In ancient times, the high priest enacted a fascinating, meaning-laden ritual of purification and atonement for his sins and the sins of the people. Study Leviticus the 16th chapter to understand all the types. Two goats were to be presented by the priest before God. One was "for the Eternal," and the other an Azazel, called a "scapegoat." The Azazel goat was to have all the sins of Israel symbolically placed upon its head, and then was to be led in the hands of a "fit man" who would not allow the goat to turn back into the distant wilderness, where it would be released. Contrary to popular belief, this goat represent Satan and NOT CHRIST!  God's gracious act of love toward us, is taking our sins (forgiving them through the blood of Christ-the first goat) and placing them on our scapegoat--- SATAN!  Yes, we blame Statn for our sins, but in reality, most of our sins are OUR SINS, not Satan's!  Satan just gets the punishment fore them, hence Satan is our scapegoat!

In the New Testament we read, "Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by His own blood He entered once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us..." (Hebrews 9:7-12).

Paul wrote, "Moreover He sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.

"And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.

"It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.

"For Christ is not entered into the holy place made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:

"Nor yet that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year [on the Day of Atonement!] with blood of others...but now once in the end of the world [age] hath He appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself" (Hebrews 9:21-28).

As you can see from Paul's example, to understand Christ's mission for us, we have to understand the Holy Days that Christ Himself created!  Christ is the LORD of the Old Testament, not God the Father!  These Holidays were made to show the way to HIS EARTHLY MISSION! Without these days, we cannot understand the gift of God!

We are to follow this day, like all of the Holy Days, not in remembrance of ancient Israel, but as a tribute to the God who freed our souls from death!

This is way we do the Fast CHEERFULLY and with a solemnity as well. 

Atonement 2022 starts Saturday Night on the 9th and ends Friday night on the 10th of the 7th Month in God's Holy Calendar

Foreword By Bob Barney: The following is a great scholarly look at today, and why it is an important day to CHRISTIANS! Most of these writers in today's edition of The Plain Truth follow a different day than we believe is the true date of this holy day (holiday). Why? Most Sabbath observing churches follow the Jewish calendar, which we have shown to be not the calendar of Moses, or Jesus. The modern Jewish calendar is based on their Babylonian captivity and Jesus did not follow the same calendar that Jews were following at his time. This is why his Passover was a day ahead of the Jewish Passover! We will have more on this during the feast... 

The Book of Life and Rosh Hoshanah (the Feast of Trumpets)?

By COGwriter

In the Churches of God (COG) which had origins in the old Worldwide Church of God, we keep various biblical holy days, including the Feast of Trumpets, called Rosh Hashanah by most Jews. Does this Holy Day have any applications for Christians? Did the ancient Jewish teachers know something about this day that most who profess Christ do not seem to realize?

The Feast of Trumpets (Rosh Hoshana) begins the evening of the first of Tishri (a month that almost always begins in September on the Roman calendar).

According to current Jewish tradition,

After Rosh Hashanah services, as the congregants leave the synagogue they say to each other... "May you be inscribed in the Book of Life"" (The Jewish Holiday of Rosh Hashanah. High Holy Days on the Net. http://www.holidays.net/highholydays/rosh.htm verified 9/12/07).

 

By Bob Barney

Today is a special "New Month" Day.  The Bible translates the beginning of each month as a Festival of a New Moon because at one time, before the flood, new moons in fact marked the start of a new month so it would actually make sense to call them 'New Month Festivals'. This is not true for today but this particular month, the 7th Month of the year, is so very significant because it is the most sacred month of all of God's 12 months!  It is the month of feasts, fasts, and festivals.  The 7th month most importantly symbolizes the return of Christ, End Time troubles and the coming millennium! It harkens the truths as well as to when there will be a new Heaven and new earth that God the Father Himself will actually dwell in with all of us!  

God’s appointed times (also known as feasts) which are written about in Leviticus 23, consist of seven separate events which are “remembrances of God’s grace in time past” as well as “prophetic shadows of things to come”. Even though these feasts have been branded “Jewish feasts”, it is very clear that these were called “My feasts” and “LORD‘s feasts” by our Heavenly Father (Lev 23:2,4,37).

Contrary to popular belief, Yeshua (the Hebrew name of Jesus, simply Joshua in English and Jesus in Greek), and His Disciples and even the highly misunderstood Apostle Paul, did not teach or abolish God’s Law. Just as God’s Commandments will stand till Heaven and Earth exists, the “Feasts” or “Appointed Times” of God (which are part of God’s Law), is, and will be in effect in the time to come. Out of the seven events asked to be remembered, God has fulfilled three of these prophetic events in the time of the first coming of the Messiah.

As Christians, we all look forward to the Second coming of Christ. In today's featured topic, we will study the Prophetic significance of the “Feast of Trumpets” and the coming of our Messiah.

The Feast of Trumpets IS THE FIRST DAY of the 7th Month--- a special "New month", Holy Day, or Sabbath Day!

 I often mention that God's calendar is NOT like any other calendar on earth today.  It is not the Roman calendar that we follow, or the equally pagan Jewish calendar that many churches believe is the calendar of God.  There is a great study on the topic of God's Calendar, here.  There is a mistake made by those that follow a Jewish calendar and that has to do with the mistranslation of, "new moon" as it should be properly rendered as, "NEW MONTH" instead.  The Plain Truth's Red Letter Bible correctly translates this fact.

The Hebrew word 'chodesh', which is in Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, simply means, "new" or to "rebuild." Chodesh however, does not mean, "new moon". It means 'new' with an implication that a month is about to begin again.

Originally, when the earth had a perfect 360-day rotation around the sun and the moon's journey around the earth was exactly 30 days (today it is 29.5 days), new moons were at the start of the new months and therefore the calendar was in balance. However, probably after the flood, the weight of water slowed the earth rotational spin (this is NOT mentioned in the Bible) to 365.25 days a year and the moon's rotation presently is one of 29.5 days.

The ancients noticed that the months were a total of thirty days, and the years were not 360 days but a bit over 365 days and they saw a need to create a new calendar to reflect this more accurately. Egypt made the first perfect calendar, and it was one Moses was very familiar with. This calendar had twelve, 30-day months and then 5 days at the end of the year that did not count. This is also seen in Enoch's calendar which you can see in the illustration to the left. God's calendar was like the Egyptian one except that the new year no longer started on the first day of summer, but on the first day of spring. (Springtime is the birth of the new year in nature, as morning is the start of the day as well). The term for new moon became "new month" as the new moons and new months no longer matched up. This is not hard to conceive as the English word for month comes from moon, yet our months have nothing to do with new moons! The same applies to God's calendar.

Let us now look at each mention of 'Trumpets', and/or the mention of the 7th month in your Bible:

1 Kings 8:2
Verse Concepts
All the men of Israel assembled themselves to King Solomon at the feast, in the month Ethanim, which is the seventh month.

2 Chronicles 5:3
All the men of Israel assembled themselves to the king at the feast, that is in the seventh month.

Jeremiah 41:1
Verse Concepts
In the seventh month Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family and one of the chief officers of the king, along with ten men, came to Mizpah to Gedaliah the son of Ahikam. While they were eating bread together there in Mizpah,

2 Kings 25:25
Verse Concepts
But it came about in the seventh month, that Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, the son of Elishama, of the royal family, came with ten men and struck Gedaliah down so that he died along with the Jews and the Chaldeans who were with him at Mizpah.

Zechariah 7:5
Verse Concepts
“Say to all the people of the land and to the priests, ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months these seventy years, was it actually for Me that you fasted?

Zechariah 8:19
Verse Concepts
“Thus says the Lord of hosts, ‘The fast of the fourth, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh and the fast of the tenth months will become joy, gladness, and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah; so love truth and peace.’

2 Chronicles 31:7
Verse Concepts
In the third month they began to make the heaps, and finished them by the seventh month.

Ezra 3:1
Verse Concepts
Now when the seventh month came, and the sons of Israel were in the cities, the people gathered together as one man to Jerusalem.

Nehemiah 8:1
Verse Concepts
And all the people gathered as one man at the square which was in front of the Water Gate, and they asked Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had given to Israel.

Jeremiah 28:17
So Hananiah the prophet died in the same year in the seventh month.

Leviticus 23:24
Verse Concepts
“Speak to the sons of Israel, saying, ‘In the seventh month on the first of the month you shall have a rest, a reminder by blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation.

Numbers 29:1
Verse Concepts
‘Now in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall also have a holy convocation; you shall do no laborious work. It will be to you a day for blowing trumpets.

Psalm 81:3
Verse Concepts
Blow the trumpet at the new moon,
At the full moon, on our feast day.

Ezra 3:6
Verse Concepts
From the first day of the seventh month they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord, but the foundation of the temple of the Lord had not been laid.

Nehemiah 8:2
Verse Concepts
Then Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly of men, women and all who could listen with understanding, on the first day of the seventh month.

Nehemiah 8:13
Then on the second day the heads of fathers’ households of all the people, the priests and the Levites were gathered to Ezra the scribe that they might gain insight into the words of the law.

Leviticus 23:41
Verse Concepts
You shall thus celebrate it as a feast to the Lord for seven days in the year. It shall be a perpetual statute throughout your generations; you shall celebrate it in the seventh month.

Leviticus 23:32
Verse Concepts
It is to be a sabbath of complete rest to you, and you shall humble your souls; on the ninth of the month at evening, from evening until evening you shall keep your sabbath.”

Leviticus 16:29
Verse Concepts
“This shall be a permanent statute for you: in the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall humble your souls and not do any work, whether the native, or the alien who sojourns among you;

Leviticus 23:27
Verse Concepts
“On exactly the tenth day of this seventh month is the day of atonement; it shall be a holy convocation for you, and you shall humble your souls and present an offering by fire to the Lord.

Numbers 29:7
Verse Concepts
‘Then on the tenth day of this seventh month you shall have a holy convocation, and you shall humble yourselves; you shall not do any work.

Source: https://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/Month-7

Foreword by Bob Barney 

Many do not realize this, but God has His own set of Holy Days mentioned in the pages of the Bible. These are set apart and special days that Jesus followed Himself as well as the apostles and the early church. Holidays of scripture, intended for us by God, were not the so-called "Christian" holidays such as Easter, Christmas or Halloween! 

Here is a list of God's Holy Days:

Passover and the Feast of Unleavened Bread

The Feast of First Fruits

Pentecost or the Feast of Weeks

Feast of Trumpets (today)

Day of Atonement

Feast of Tabernacles

The Sabbath

That is seven in all and is a number of completion to God. This is why the seventh day of the week is the Sabbath Day. The Sabbath symbolizes the completion of the week.

We hope you will begin to see the significance of these Holy Days as God, our Creator, has imbedded His Truths within them and has consecrated them to be Holy to us.  These days of remembrance's, resting, fasting at times, and celebrations, all point us to Christ...they point us to who He was, is, and who He always will be! They also point to our future with Him!

Below is a special teaching on The Feast of Trumpets. You will see why today is to be an important day to CHRISTIANS! Keep in mind that most of the writers in today's featured postings on The Plain Truth follow a different day than we believe is the true date of this holy day (holiday). The reason why is because most Sabbath observing churches follow the Jewish calendar and we have shown this to not be the calendar of Moses or Jesus. The modern Jewish calendar is based on their Babylonian captivity, and you will see that this is why His Passover was a day ahead of the Jewish Passover if you would like to further your study, here.

Sound of Alarm, Sound of Victory

by RCg.org

God has sanctified—set apart as holy time—seven Holy Days for us to reflect and learn about His Plan. Each one is rich with meaning that He wants us to be reminded of annually.

One of these special days is the Feast of Trumpets. It is a memorial of miraculous events God has performed in the past, as well as momentous events soon to come in the future.

Let’s learn more about what this day pictures and all we can learn about God’s Plan.

(1) Where do we find the command to keep the Feast of Trumpets? Leviticus 23:24-25. Is this day also considered an annual Sabbath, a rest from regular work? Verses 24-25. Are we commanded to assemble together on this day before God? Verse 24.

As is the case with all of God’s Holy Days, the Feast of Trumpets is an annual Sabbath. God requires us to rest from our normal responsibilities, as it says in verse 25 that we should “do no servile work.” This day is also called a holy convocation, which means an assembly or gathering together.

It opens the fall Holy Day season, beginning on the first day of the seventh month of God’s sacred calendar. The number seven in God’s Plan depicts perfection and completion, and this seventh month contains four fall festivals that picture the completion of God’s Plan.

(2) What do the scriptures specifically call this Holy Day? Leviticus 23:24. Is this Holy Day mentioned elsewhere in the Bible? Psalm 81:1-4.

God’s Word calls this day a “memorial of blowing of trumpets.” It is from this phrase that the Feast of Trumpets draws its name. The blowing of trumpets has great meaning and has been associated with many significant events, especially for the time in which we live—the end of 6,000 years of man’s attempts to rule himself.

(3) What significance did trumpets have to the Israelites? What trumpets were blown on God’s Holy Days? Numbers 10:1-3, 10. Which trumpets were blown to sound an alarm before war? Verse 9; Jeremiah 4:19-21.

Trumpets were used often in the nation of Israel. The sound of a trumpet could call for an assembly of the congregation, direct the movement of the camps, announce the beginning of months or appointed feasts, or mobilize the army. Silver trumpets were generally used for these reasons, as they produced unique notes identifying the action to be taken.

The Jewish Talmud states that a ram’s horn (shofar) was historically used on this Feast day. In contrast with the musical sound of silver trumpets, a shofar produced piercing blasts that symbolized an alarm of impending attack.

(4) What are a few major historical events associated with the blowing of trumpets? Exodus 19:16, 19; Joshua 6:4-20; Judges 7.

At the time God gave the Ten Commandments to Israel, an exceedingly long and loud trumpet announced that He descended upon Mount Sinai so that the Israelites knew they stood before the presence of God.

During the time of Joshua and Gideon, rather than Israel thinking that they won their battles against Jericho or the Midianites with the power of their own hands, God had them perform specific actions so that it was clear He delivered them. Both times God used the trumpet blasts to bring victory to the Israelites.

(5) Whom did God commission to blow these trumpets? Numbers 10:8.

God instructed that only the sons of Aaron, the Levitical priesthood, had the authority to blow these trumpets. Today, since Jesus Christ is our High Priest (Heb. 6:20), God’s ministry is not required to literally blow trumpets.

(6) Whose responsibility is it to blow the warning trumpet? Has God commanded His “watchman” to warn people of their sins? Ezekiel 33:7-9. Is the watchman to lift up his voice like a trumpet? Isaiah 58:1. Will many receive God’s warning as a “lovely song”? Ezekiel 33:32.

Many will hear the warning, as well as the promise of God’s coming Kingdom. But to most, it will only be an interesting “thought” or “point of view.”

Even though mankind refuses to listen to God’s warning, prophesied events will continue to unfold. First, God will show signs in heaven (Rev. 6:12-13), yet the world will not repent (vs. 15-17). As a result, God will begin the Day of the Lord.

(7) How many trumpets will be used to introduce the plagues and the Day of the Lord? Revelation 8:1-2, 6.

“Even though mankind refuses to listen to God’s warning, prophesied events will continue to unfold. First, God will show signs in heaven (Rev. 6:12-13), yet the world will not repent (vs. 15-17).”

(8) What do the first four trumpets mean for the Earth? Revelation 8:7-12.

Each trumpet plague will alter part of man’s physical environment. First, plant life will be affected—the primary food source. Second will be the seas—another source of food. Third will be water—without which life cannot exist. And fourth will be light. While each plague affects one-third of humanity, God will still leave space for mankind to repent and change its ways before He pours out His full wrath.

(9) What do the next two trumpets bring on the Earth? Revelation 9.

These two trumpets are the first and second woes mentioned in Revelation 8:13. The plagues striking mankind in the first two woes cause one-third of the world’s population to be killed. Despite this mass death, Revelation 9:20-21 show many who remain alive will still not repent.

(10) What is announced at the sound of the seventh trumpet (seven being the number of completion)? Revelation 11:15. What other important event occurs at the sounding of the last trumpet? I Corinthians 15:52; I Thessalonians 4:16-17.

At the sound of the seventh trumpet, the Kingdom of God comes and will reign for the rest of eternity. The Father also arrives with all the resurrected saints and the saints are all changed into glorified spirit beings as a part of God’s Family.

The Feast of Trumpets is both a solemn day and a time of rejoicing. It memorializes historical events of God’s presence and deliverance, as well as climactic changes just ahead. These include God’s punishment on a rebellious mankind and the most important moment in the history of the universe—the establishment of God’s government on Earth by Jesus Christ.

Here at The Plain Truth, we hope that learning about The Feast of Trumpets deepens your understanding in

your true identity of the One that created you...

Have a beautiful and restful Feast!

And ye shall have a sabbath a memorial of blowing of trumpets and this shall be a holy day unto you. (Leviticus 23:24)

The Feast of Trumpets points toward that Last Great Trumpet for the Lord Himself shall descend with a shout, with the archangels' cry and with the Trump of Yah. He that is dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up in the clouds to meet Him in the air. (1 Thessalonians 4:16)

Behold I show you a mystery ~ We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye at

the Last Trump for the Trumpet shall sound,

and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall all be changed. (1Corinthians 15:51-52)

The day the King of Kings returns for His bride.

By Bob Barney

When the Earth was formed, the year had twelve 30-day months and was exactly 360 days long.  Today the Earth's year is 365 and a 1/4 days long.  The Plain Truth is that God's year is still comprised of twelve 30-day months.  Will the Earth's year mysteriously slow back down to 360 days?

The Earth is moving faster than it ever has in the last 50 years scientists have discovered and could result in a ‘negative leap second’ being added to the year.

The speed of the Earth’s rotation is affected by a number of factors; that includes the motion of its molten core, oceans, and atmosphere.

June 29 was 1.59 milliseconds shorter than the average day according to EarthSky. The shortened day is the "latest in a series of record-breaking speed records for our home planet since around 2020", the outlet noted.

The earth year used to be shorter, in fact only 360 days, and The Plain Truth believes that possibly the flood of Noah's time was the cause of the earth slowing down.  We can see potential evidence of this in all of the calendars from different cultures around the world as they had switched from 360 days to 365 days around the same time. 

Abraham used the 360-day year which was known in Ur, the city he came from. The Genesis account of the flood in the days of Noah illustrated this 360-day year by recording the 150-day interval till the waters abated from the earth. In other words, it indicates a 5-month period as being exactly 150 days in length, or five 30-day months.

The fact that the prophets understood a year as 360 days is well attested. God created the sun to mark the seasons and years and He made the moon to mark the days. There are 354.37 days in a lunar year (of 12 moons/months), and 365.24 days in a solar year; together they average 360 days.

So, are we seeing evidence that the earth will again have a 360-day year?  I personally think so - in fact it may be even before Christ's return (See Revelation 11). It appears that the last 42 months, or 3 1/2 years will comprise of only 1260 days... that is forty-two 30-day months...

Just something to ponder from The Plain Truth.

You can enjoy more from Bob Barney and God's Calendar here:

The Plain Truth: God's Calendar

The Plain Truth: When does God's Day begin?

By Bob Barney

SOURCE

Six is preparation day for the Sabbath Rest – a day of man and the double blessing of manna.   Nisan, the month of Passover, is the first month and Elul is the sixth month of “preparation” for the high holy days in the seventh month of Tishri.   This 6th month is placed between the two great sins past and the coming judgment future.  The 6th month Elul follows the Golden Calf incident (Idolatry) in 4th month of Tammuz and the 12 Spies evil report in the 5th month of Av. (Faithless Unbelief) The future Trumpets and Atonement follow in 7th month of Tishri when judgment comes.

One derivation of the word “Elul” means “search” or “inspect”, alluding to the nature of our task during this month.  Another rabbinical interpretation of “Elul”: “Elul” means “returned with,” specifically with those Jews who returned to Israel after the 70-year Exile in Babylonia/Repentance. It is this meaning that ties to the Temple rebuilding of the month of Elul, as well as Gods commands to Haggai during the month of Elul.

This month Elul, whose constellation is the Maiden, commonly called Virgo, is set aside for Repentance or spiritual return.  Rebecca is the first one called in scripture as a “Betulah” a virgin – whom no man had known.  In Genesis 24:16. The First mention in scripture of anything defines its use and meaning. This first mention of a future bride of Isaac, a type of Messiah, holds huge significance for the church today. Our theology was written in Genesis and the Gentile bride of the Messiah was no mystery.

The scripture that the sages related to the Maiden is “…Return, O Maiden of Israel, return to these cities of yours!” (Jeremiah 31:20)   The call to the virgin is Go back – the road markers will point out where she left the path and guide her back to her beloved. Jer 31 v 21 Set up for yourself road marks, Place for yourself guideposts; Direct your mind to the highway, the way by which you went. Return, O virgin of Israel, Return to these your cities.

Repentance and Selichot

This ritual for the new moon (month) of Elul incorporates the practice of blowing the shofar (ram’s horn) during Elul.  The blowing shofar is a wake-up call to sleepers, designed to rouse us from our complacency. It is a call to repentance. As the month of Elul draws to a close, the mood of repentance becomes more urgent. Prayers for forgiveness called Selichot are added to religious services.  The entire community, including men, women and older children, attend the first Selichot service, and the rabbi gives a sermon.

A fundamental part of the Selichot service is the recitation of the “Thirteen Attributes,” a list of God’s thirteen attributes of mercy that were revealed to Moses after the sin of the golden calf (Ex 34:6-7): Lord [1], The Lord [2], God [3], merciful [4], and gracious [5], long-suffering [6], abundant in goodness [7] and truth [8], keeping mercy unto the thousandth generation [9], forgiving iniquity [10] and transgression [11] and sin [12], who cleanses [13].

Occurrences of the A-L-V-L (Elul) in Scripture

The letters are Aleph – Lamed -Vav– Lamed Occur 4x as acrostics and 1x as a named month. What starts out as a lesson in Repentance in Torah ends with union and restoration with the King in Song of Songs.

Repentance/deliverance from sin nature

1)  Deut 30:6 And the LORD thy God will circumcise thy heart, and the heart of thy seed, to love the LORD thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, that thou mayest live.  Those 4 words start with E-L-U-L and the context is of a time after God drove Israel into the nations. A new nature is promised them and we are partakers through Yeshua of that promise when we are given a new heart. He did not come to make bad men good but make dead men live.

Repentance/deliverance for unintentional sin

2)  Ex 21:13 And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee.  E-L-U-L spelt again. (A reference to the cities of refuge established for the unintentional man slaughterer – forgiveness for unintentional sin. The Cities of refuge are an escape of the coming wrath and judgment, so repentance is an escape of judgment. “Father forgive them for they know not what they do” …. are the words that transform the murder of our Savior into manslaughter. So, we have the opportunity to repent and flee to Him our City of refuge, for He is our refuge.  Soon He is to return as the Avenger of blood.

Reconciliation between an errant Bride and the King of the Harvest

3) The name of the month (spelled ELUL = Alef-Lamed-Vav-Lamed) is said to be an acronym of “Ani l’dodi v’dodi li,” “I am my Beloved’s and my Beloved is mine,” a quote from Song of Songs 6:3.  In Aramaic (the vernacular of the Jewish people at the time that the month names were adopted), the word “Elul” means “search,” which is appropriate, because this is a time of year we should seek Him, while He may be found.

The whole book of the Song of Songs is about the King in the field//harvest and a sleepy bride who needs to repent and come to work with Him in a summer harvest. This is the month that the “King is in His field” and can be approached before He is on His throne and court is in session. For too soon comes the fall judgments – The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved. Jer.8v20. Notice the summer is the grain harvest and, in the fall, God will turn His attention to Israel, that vineyard and the fig tree which He planted.

This is the time when the Eternal King leaves the heavenly throne and descends to inspect this world. This is the period when we are closest to God, and God is most receptive to our prayers. We look to the words of the prophet Isaiah, who said, “Seek God when He is at hand; Call upon Him when He is near” (Is 55:6).

The King is in His field – The month is described as preparation for the divine coronation on the Feast of Trumpets: It is like a king who, before he enters the city, the people of the city go out to greet him in the field. There, everyone who so desires is permitted to meet him; he receives them all with a cheerful countenance and shows a smiling face to them all. And when he goes to the city, they follow him there. Later, however, after he enters his royal palace, none can enter into his presence except by appointment, and only special people and select individuals. So, too, by analogy, the month of Elul is when we meet God in the field.

Also, during Elul, Psalm 27 is recited after prayers in the synagogue. “A psalm of David – the Lord is my light and my salvation… for he will hide me in his tent.” ((During up the coming judgment)) By implication we need to have already found light and salvation to be hidden in His tent during judgment.

4) Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said: I will sing = E L UL in the Hebrew. (Exodus 15:1)   Purpose for Israel’s deliverance was to worship God! (Ex. 7:16; 8:1; 8:20; 9:1; 9:13)  So after the Baptism//Repentance of Israel into the sea and coming out of and the separation from Egypt (the world) they broke out in song and worship.  

 I often mention that God's calendar is NOT like any other calendar on earth today.  It is not the Roman calendar that we follow, or the equally pagan Jewish calendar that many churches believe is the calendar of God.  To read more about God's Calendar click here .  There is a mistake that those who follow a Jewish calendar has made, and that refers to the word for new moon.  That is a mistranslation, as the proper rendering should be NEW MONTH, as I did in The Plain Truth's Red Letter Bible.

The Hebrew word 'chodesh', which is Strong's Exhaustive Concordance simply means "new" or to "rebuild." Chodesh does not mean "new moon". It means 'new' with an implication that a month is about to begin again.

Originally, when the earth had a perfect 360-day rotation around the sun, and the moon's journey around the earth was exactly 30 days (today it is 29.5 days), new moons where on the new months. The calendar was in balance. However, probably after the flood, the weight of water slowed the earth rotational spin (this is NOT mentioned in the Bible) to 365.25 days a year and the moon's rotation to the present one of 29.5 days.

The ancients noticed that the months were no longer 30 days, and the years were not 360 days, but now over 365. A calendar needed to be made to reflect this. Egypt made the first perfect calendar, one Moses was very familiar with, which had 12 - 30-day months and then 5 days at the end of the year that did not count. This is also seen in Enoch's calendar (see illustration on left). God's calendar was like the Egyptian one except that year no longer started on the first day of summer, but on the first day of spring. Springtime is the birth of the new year in nature, as morning is the start of the day as well. The term for new moon became "new month" as the new moons and new months no longer matched up. This is not hard to conceive as the English word for month comes from moon! Yet our months have nothing to do with new moons! The same applies to God's calendar.