Sabbath 13/3/35/120

Dear Friends,

Just before Israel went into the promised land Moses was commanded by the Angel of the Presence, who was to become the Christ or the Messiah (1Cor. 10:4), to summon the elders of Israel “and Moses commanded them saying: At the end of every seven years, in the solemnity in the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles, when all Israel is come to appear before the Lord your God, in the place which He shall choose you shall read this law before all Israel in their hearing.” (Deut. 31:10-11).

It follows therefore as the day follows the night that we must be able to determine the Calendar and the years of release in the Jubilee structure of the Calendar (cf. also the paper God's Calendar (No. 156)). Also it must be able to be done without error as we, as the spiritual Israel of God, must obey the commands of God as given to us in the Bible.

There are a number of texts in the Bible that enable us to determine the Jubilee structure.  One reference is Ezekiel 1:1 which gives us a year of the Sacred Calendar and links that to a known historical event, namely the fifth year of Jehoiakin’s captivity (see also the paper The Meaning of Ezekiel's Vision (No. 108)).  There is another known event that enables the determination of a reading of the law, namely the Restoration of Ezra and the return of Nehemiah under the provisioning decree of Artaxerxes II.  This event occurred in a known year of the reign of Artaxerxes II and the dating of that year can be determined in relation to the Sacred Jubilee Calendar by reference to the text and date in Exodus. The sequence of the events has been examined in the paper The Sign of Jonah and the History of the Reconstruction of the Temple (No. 13). The relationship of the events and the dating are also examined in the paper Reading the Law with Ezra and Nehemiah (No. 250).

In understanding the Jubilees we are also able to obey the commandments of God regarding the Tithing system (see the paper Tithing (No. 161)).

Christ gave us the confirmation of where we were in the year 27 CE, the Fifteenth Year of Tiberius, when he stood up and read from the Scroll of Isaiah and declared the acceptable year of the Lord.  That was the third and New Testament reference to the Calendar and Jubilee. The Jews did their level best to destroy the Sacred Calendar and the Pharisees, who were the precursors to the rabbinical system, tried to destroy the commandments with their oral traditions and the later texts they wrote involving those tradition, such as the Mishnah (ca 200 CE) and the Jerusalem and Babylonian Tractate Talmuds following them. The damage done to the Calendar can be seen from the texts of Josephus, where he tried to use the pharisaic system of the 49-year Jubilee but had to use the Roman declarations using the correct sequence because the Romans would have refuted his work had he not cited them correctly. This matter has been discussed in the paper Distortion of God's Calendar in Judah (No. 195B) and the effects of their postponements are seen in the paper The Calendar and the Moon: Postponements or Festivals? (No. 195).

It is critical that Satan, and using rabbinical Judaism, destroys the Calendar and the Jubilees. By doing that he prevents the world from correctly worshipping God. He managed to intrude the Hillel Calendar into the Churches of God in the 20th century and effectively move their worship into non-sanctified days. The worst offenders in this regard were the Radio Church of God/Worldwide Church of God and their offshoots under the Armstrong ministry. The result has been that they rarely keep any holy day on the correct day.

The Jubilees are vital to a correct understanding of the Timetable of the Age and the sequence of the Jubilees.  Peter tells us that one day is as a thousand years unto the Lord and a thousand years is as a day (2Peter 3:8). From this text and that of Revelation chapter 20 and the creation week and the Sabbath, the church knew that the week represented the creation and the Sabbath represented the Millennial or Sabbath rest of the Messiah in the Government of God. The previous six days of the creation represented the rule of the Earth under Satan as its Morning Star.  These six thousand years encompass the Biblical Timetable of the 120 fifty-year Jubilees and the Bible timetable covers the age from the closure of Eden to the end of the 120 Jubilees. These six thousand years can be easily seen from the timetable of the Bible texts. The period is mapped out in the paper Outline Timetable of the Age (No. 272). The 120 Jubilees are seen at the jubilee years in 24/74 BCE and in 27/77 CE.  The six thousand years from the creation of Adam ended in 1996/7 CE and the last thirty years before the Millennium began in 1997 and the time of the Gentiles of the Nations was over. The last thirty years was dedicated to the reduction of the earth and the end of Satan’s rule (see the paper The Last Thirty Years: the Final Struggle (No. 219)).  By 2027, which is the end of the Jubilee year at Atonement, the earth is restored and the Millennium begins from 1 Abib 2028.

The errors made in the early church were made because the Septuagint (LXX), when it was translated, was deliberately altered in Genesis to include an extra time period so as to not clash with the Egyptian elongation of their king lists by Manetho and the Babylonian lists by Berossus the Chaldean. Thus the early Christians who read Greek and used the LXX expected Christ over 1500 years earlier than the Masoretic Text (MT) allowed. That was why Paul told them not to be concerned with endless genealogies because one text contradicted the other. The differences are explained in the Appendix to the paper Outline Timetable of the Age (No. 272).  It was for this reason that the LXX was disallowed and the later scribal alterations of the Sopherim were not understood or even fully detected by many.

If the Jubilees and the Calendar had been restored, the gross errors and false prophecies of the last two hundred years would not have been made (see the paper False Prophecy (No. 269)).

It is important that we all understand the Timetable and the proper dates and times. For example there are two understandings of the duration of the sojourning: one is dated from the promise to Abraham and the death of Salah father of Eber and the Hebrews in 1878 BCE (cf. Ex. 12:40; Gal. 3:14,17) and is 430 years; and the other starts from the recognition of his seed Isaac at the death of Shem priest of Melchisedech (Gen. 21:12), which is 400 years (see Gen. 15:13 and Acts 7:6). The dwelling in Egypt was only 215 years which is half of the period of 430 years.  Bullinger claims that the self same day of Exodus 12:41 was the 15th Day of the Seventh Month the same day that Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees. The correct divisions of the 430 years into 215 years are identified in sections in the Outline Timetable of the Age (No. 272).

It is important that we all understand what is happening in relation to the Calendar and the place of these timings in the texts as each of the different timings is done to identify the exact timelines and the divisions so that mistakes are not made in the texts.

It is a matter of fact that the creation of Adam has been taken to be in 4004 BCE by religious scholars and the Churches of God for Millennia, based on the MT.  The week has been taken as the Timeline of the Age and has usually been understood, except for the confusion that emanated from the conflict in the MT and the LXX.  Also the failure of the scholastic ability of the Churches of God in the 19th and 20th centuries caused further error. Because they did not restore the Jubilees they did not understand the commencement and the specific duration of the 6000 years and they thus could not foretell the correct prophetic time frame, and they found more convenient dates nearer their time and fell into false prophecy. They all wanted to be the prophet or witnesses of the last days which was the basis of the error. They all wanted to be the Elijah who was to come and the principal figure of the Last Days. God said that He would send us Elijah before the great and terrible Day of the Lord and He meant just that (Mal.  4:5-6). It is Elijah that will restore all things with the other witness (see the paper The Witnesses (including the Two Witnesses) (No. 135)). 

Another odd sequence is the duration of the Pagan calendar and its system from Pope Gregory XIII, who established the Gregorian calendar from 1582, and the Sun system of the Mayans and other Amerindians which ends the Solar calendar and changes into a system under the new morning star in 21 December 2012, which is also 430 years of duration.  215 years into that system (in 1797) the last invasion of the British Isles occurred and the British also defeated the Dutch Navy, and the US Navy launched its first battleships, the United States and the frigate the “Constitution” known as “Old Ironsides”. Sir Ralph Abercromby attacked San Juan, Puerto Rico on April 17th. That was the largest US acquisition in the Central Americas from Spain. The Holy Roman Empire ceded a third of its territory and Napoleon formed the Ligurian Republic and a number of other significant events took place. The Holy Roman Empire was diminished from this time and the promises to Abraham and his seed were provided.  The second 215 years have seen the world live the rough prophecies of the Last Days. The 430 years of the end sequence ends in 2012.

We thus can expect events to escalate from 2012 into the struggle to establish the millennial system from the Jubilee of 2027 and the final restoration of Israel with the complete destruction of the Sun and Mystery cults.  By the seven years from 2012 to 2019 we would expect to see the struggles to take Israel and the extended lands of David as we saw prophesied in The Fall of Jericho (No. 142).  From 2019 to 2027 we can expect to see the total subjugation of the planet and the second exodus of Israel occur as foretold in Isaiah, and the religious system set up as foretold by Zechariah and Ezekiel.

It is important that we understand and can explain this sequence and the hope that lies within us. All of us are to study this sequence and especially the Outline Timetable of the Age (No. 272) and give and account of the hope that lies within us.

Wade Cox