Sabbath Message by Wade Cox

New Moon 1/10/28/120

Dear Friends,

This day is the First Day of the Tenth Month called Tebeth in the post captivity Hebrew Calendar and Rabi-thani in the original Islamic Calendar. It follows the Ninth Month termed Chislev or Rabi-Awal (Rabi’ul Awwal) the month of “First Spring”. It is termed “Second Spring” in Islam. These months do not refer to the months of the season spring but rather to the planting of crops and the first spring of green growth for the barley harvest in spring or Abib, and the wheat harvest at Pentecost which harvest we are.

The sequence of the Calendar is covered in the paper God’s Calendar (No. 156). The harmony of the true Islamic and Hebrew Calendars is covered in the paper The Hebrew and Islamic Calendar Reconciled (No. 53).

We note from the paper The Hebrew and Islamic Calendar Reconciled (No. 53) the following extract:

“In the Islamic Calendar Muharram is the first month and so is Tishri the first month of the political calendar in ancient Judaism. The New Year as Rosh Hashanah entered Judaism in the Third Century of the Current Era. Thus the influence the Jewish aristocracy in the Middle East held over the Arabs before Islam, and the pagan and mystical influences over both, caused the political new-year in the seventh month to be an influence on both nations. Muharram is a holy month in Islam precisely because it was a holy month in the Bible and is the Seventh Month of the Sacred Year and of God’s Calendar. It literarily means the month of the House of God- Harram. Thus Islam was aligned with the Bible, but had been corrupted by Jewish practice, which used the political calendar. The Jewish calendar by the time of Islam ca 632 CE had cut itself adrift from the Bible system and followed the false system introduced from Babylon under Rabbi Hillel II in 358 CE. Thus this calendar, beginning in Tishri, also derived its origins from ancient Babylon and the pagan system.

Ashura was established in Islam because the Jews in Medina kept the Day of Atonement (which is the tenth of Tishri). Therefore, the tenth of Muharram was clearly aligned with the tenth of Tishri or the Seventh Month. The Hijri and Jewish Calendars in the early period of Islam are outlined below:

Muharram (House of Worship) is the Holy Month synchronized with Tishri wherein we have the Day of Trumpets, Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur), Feast of Tabernacles and the Last Great Day.

Rajab is another Holy Month synchronized with Nisan when we have the Feasts of Passover (Pesach), and Unleavened Bread (Hag-ha Ma'Atzos).

Ramadhan is synchronized with Iyar and Sivan when most of the Torah and the Koran were given as Scriptures. Muslims fast and worship in this period and the Jews have the counting of the Omer up to Shavvot (Pentecost), which they have corrupted to a Sivan 6 fixed date. The true Christian Churches of God observe these periods and Pentecost on the correct ancient day of the Temple system, which was the first day of the week now called Sunday.

The calculation of the Jewish year is complicated by the four sets of rules, which determine postponements. These rules are explained in the paper The Calendar and the Moon: Postponements or Festivals (No. 195). The postponement system was introduced well after the temple period and the rules have nothing to do with the ancient Temple Calendar.

The method for calculating the intercalary month, which occurs seven times every nineteen years, are fairly straightforward. The system has been used without difficulty for thousands of years, but for some reason the Arabs abandoned it through error or ignorance. Perhaps it was to distance themselves from the formalised Hillel system, which they knew to be a late and false system. Perhaps it was confusing to the Arabs who seem to have conveniently dropped the intercalary month several years after the establishment of Islam. In the process the two calendars went out of alignment.

Months like Rabi-awal (first spring) and Rabi-thani (second spring) indicate the definite season-“spring” referring to the growth of the cereal crops in the Middle East (in Chislev and Tevet as “First and Second Spring”), as opposed to the Spring proper in the month of Rajab in Islam and the Month of Abib or Spring, which is the first month of the Bible, and the Barley Harvest in Israel. These months cannot rotate over the years, falling behind about 10 days each year. Yet Islam has allowed them to slide around the year rotating wildly for years until they realign, and then only once every 33 years.

Thus we see from the above information and tables that the children of Israel and Ishmael observed initially, at the beginning of Islam, the holy days on the same or similar days. Also, as shown in the articles of the Christian Churches of God, the Prophet Mohammed and the first Caliphs kept the Sabbath.

Thus Islam and the Churches of God kept the true Calendar as a matter of faith. The errors came into the Church through paganism and Jewish Mysticism, forcing the month to begin on the Crescent instead of the Conjunction, which is how it was calculated in the Bible period. Thus Judaism and Islam both fell from the faith, worshipping pagan idols through their systems of worship and mysticism.” (End quote).

In the Sabbath Year the harvests are stopped and the Feast of Ingathering is from what grows of itself in that year and the normal domestic food supplies of the people. This year we kept Tabernacles and read the Law of God as we were commanded in various locations around the world. The national representatives met in Canada for the World Conference.

After the Feast of Tabernacles we returned home to prepare for the next year and the Passover season in Abib.

A person outside of the Church, who understands what we believe, asked me when we plant and can we plant items this year.

It is appropriate that we look at what is done in the Sabbath Year as to harvests so that we understand the physical and the spiritual implications of what we do.

It is clear that the Jubilee Year is from Atonement in the Sabbath Year to Atonement in the Jubilee Year. After the Feast of Tabernacles of the Jubilee Year, the lands return and the land is ploughed for the harvests at Abib and Sivan in the following year. The seeds are sown and the crops spring to green shoots from the Ninth and Tenth Months, Chislev and Tebeth.

This same process is to be found among the Churches of God. We return from the Reading of the Law in the Sabbath Year to begin preparation for the next year, which is the first year of the next cycle of the Jubilee. This year coming it will be the twenty-ninth year of the one hundred and twentieth Jubilees. The seeds we sow after the return will determine our operations for the next cycle of our spiritual growth.

If we sow division and distrust it will haunt our minds and character for the next cycle or until we can cleanse it from our thinking. So also it is for the other sins and problems of the mind. Arrogance begets madness.

The book of Daniel tells us what happened to Nebuchadnezzar. He was lifted up by pride and arrogance of mind to the point where God simply removed him from the government of men by madness and placed him with the beasts of the field, and caused him to eat grass like a beast until his nails were long like talons and his hair was unkempt like a wild beast. For a complete cycle he was taken from among the ranks of men and confined to the ranks of the wild beasts of the field.

So too those that are taken from us revert to the corruption of the unconverted mind. Some are indeed mad. They all destroy their position in the kingdom until they repent and are restored to the grace of God.

We must pray for those who behave like these wild beasts because they are not of a sound mind. God has given them over to a reprobate mind so that they do not see, and hear, and turn and be saved, and thus come under judgment.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God. As we pray, that matter is bound in heaven and on earth.

When we pray for our enemies we should be careful to ask God to deal with them so that their spirit is healed and they are restored to the faith.

Remember the apostle Paul was once Saul of Tarsus. He persecuted the Church of God without mercy. He was present at the martyrdom of Stephen, being one of the Pharisee witnesses at his execution. The brethren prayed for God to deal with this man and God struck him blind for a period so that he might understand.

Pray that those who despitefully use us are silenced and brought to repentance. Pray that they are brought to account and understanding. Those among us as brethren were once our enemies following the commandments of men and thinking us foolish or worse.

Prepare your ground well for the harvests in Abib and Sivan. Make sure that the seeds are amply sown now and green the fields of the faith for the harvests to come. God often deals with problems in a way that brings strength out of weakness. People are removed so that others may be called. Some are tested and give way to others and then are restored to the faith through repentance. Some are kept for other tasks in this way also. It is not always a negative to be eclipsed. Sometimes it is a blessing reserved for later things when God wishes us to be used.

Remember that God has retained a large number of people who have not bowed the knee to Baal. We have many people among us who have kept the Sabbath from their birth. Some of these people have only recently come into the Churches of God. So too we have those completely new to the faith. God calls people from all walks and all ways.

Plough and sow well. Prepare now for the time ahead. Be loyal to each other and love one another. Do not make railing accusations against anyone.

Above all pray that we as the Church of God are protected and our enemies silenced and brought to repentance in humility and subjection to the body of Christ.

Pray for the conversion of our people wherever we are. Pray for the conversion of Judah and Islam and the whole world.

Wade Cox

Coordinator General

© Copyright 2005 Christian Churches of God, All Rights Reserved