Sabbath and New Moon of the Sixth Month Elul 1/6/41/120
Dear Friends,
This New Moon of the Sixth Month was the final period of the Sixth Ascents of Moses at Sinai as we detailed in the paper Ascents of Moses (No. 070).
“On the year of the Exodus, the Day of Pentecost fell on Sunday 6 Sivan. The period between 1 and 6 Sivan was spent in preparing Israel to receive the Law of God. Moses ascended the Mountain of God six times.
The ascents and descents were from the Book of Exodus:
Ascent Number Descent
19:3-6 First 19:7-8
19:8-13 Second 19:14-19
19:20-24 Third 19:25
24:9-32:14 Fourth 32:15-30
32:31-33 Fifth 32:34-34:3
34:4-28 Sixth 34:29-35
Ascents one, two and three were in the first six days of Sivan, prior to the fourth ascent.
The fourth ascent was after Pentecost towards the end of Sivan, and went for forty days until the end of Tammuz.”
It was the final preparation of Israel to prepare for the Holy Days and Feasts of the Seventh Month. We have just concluded the tests and warnings of the Fifth Month of Ab. It was also in this month that Israel, under the prophet Ezra and the Governor Nehemiah, constructed the wall at Jerusalem for the Temple.
The months of Ab and Elul were of great significance and they reflect the actions of the last days.
“The significance of the month of Ab was that it followed the worship of the false god Tammuz or Dumuzi in the golden calf whose false worship is commemorated in the name for the month. The transition to Ab (root word for father) is actually the transition to the worship of the Father alone. That is why the New Moon of Ab is the time for repentance and change. From the New Moon to the Ninth day is the period of completion. The Tenth of Ab brings the cycle of change to a close. Many of those who do not change are removed by this date. Thus the Babylonians destroyed the Temple of King Solomon because Judah did not repent. They were removed and the old Temple was completely destroyed. It lay in ruins for well over a century and until the reign of Darius II when it was rebuilt from 419 BCE (see the paper The Sign of Jonah and the History of the Reconstruction of the Temple (No. 13)). Many Christian religious groups erroneously place the reconstruction in the reign of Darius I, contrary to the biblical sequence in Ezra.
All these events were given to us as examples. God will send us the prophet Elijah in the Last Days before the Day of the Lord, and he will turn the hearts of the fathers to the sons and the sons to the fathers, or God will strike the Earth with a curse (Mal. 4:5-6).
It was in this month that Ezra and Nehemiah finished construction of the wall at Jerusalem. They began work on the wall in the Fifth month on the second or third day of the month and work was completed in fifty-two days on the Twenty-fifth day of the Sixth month, Elul. In other words, it was constructed from the days after the New Moon of Ab to the end of the month of Elul, and for the New Moon of the Day of Trumpets. The timing is examined in the paper Reading the Law with Ezra and Nehemiah (No. 250). “
The ascents also reflect the last days and what Israel is to face before the Messiah follows the Witnesses.
The fifth ascent is covered in Exodus 32:31-33 and the descent in Exodus 32:34-34:3.
The sixth ascent is covered in Exodus 34:4-28, and the descent from 34:29-35.
As we discussed in the text of the Ascents of Moses: “Over the Fifth and Sixth months, Moses was again on the mountain at Sinai with the Angel of the Presence. Moses received the details of the Law which was to guide Israel and the entire world through the years ahead, and which would ultimately control and guide the world under the millennial reign of Christ and the elect until they reached the end of the physical existence of mankind. Man was to be made a spiritual being and granted eternal life and thus immortality. We are to become gods as Christ was granted that glory and eternal life by God before us (cf. Zech. 12:8; see also the paper The Elect as Elohim (No. 1).
Remember, Moses had come down at the end of the Fourth month to find Israel in sin and the tablets of the Law were broken. He slew the unfaithful leaders – some three thousand in number – and returned up the mountain to speak again with Christ and receive a new set of tablets and the full explanation of the Law of God in its entirety from the mouth of Jesus Christ himself.
It was the exposure to the glorification that God had given Christ in power as His representative to humans that illuminated Moses and made him glow with a radiance that was visible to all when he returned from speaking with Christ. This was the reason that the Angel of the Lord was spoken to by Gideon who said: “Alas O Lord God (Adonai Yahovah) forasmuch as I have seen an angel of the Lord face to face.” And the Lord said unto him, “Peace be unto thee; fear not thou shalt not die.” Gideon knew that in full glorification a man would die, and many had died when confronted with such a Being in power. Gideon built an altar there and called it Yahovah shalom meaning the Lord gives peace. The Being seen by both Moses and Gideon was the Prince of Peace who spoke for Yahovah Shalom, who was Yahovah of Hosts and the One True God.
Purging Israel of Sin and the Restoration
The Fifth month or Ab is traditionally a month of disaster in Israel.
The problems that arose through the failure of the Levites under Aaron at Sinai and with the Elders of Israel were allowed so that we might understand that the heresy of the Church is with us, even at the highest levels, during the absence of Christ, and is to be purged from us. The major churches that purport to be Christian have in fact adopted the very same system from the Sun-cults worshipping on Sundays and keeping Christmas and Easter to a Triune God (see the paper The Origins of Christmas and Easter (No. 235)).
Moses purged the leadership and returned to Christ during Ab and Elul for forty days. So too does the Spirit purge the Church constantly.
The month of Ab has seen God deal with Israel often, and the destruction of the Temple occurred in this month under the Babylonians. The Temple was destroyed and Israel was sent into captivity because they had not kept the Laws of God properly, and the land had to be given its Sabbaths under the Law.
Remember that during the month of Ab and into the Sixth month, Moses was on the mountain again with Christ receiving detailed instruction on how to keep the Law and how the Law subtended from the Ten Commandments, and how it was divided into the two Great Commandments. On these two Great Commandments hang all the Law and the prophets. Scripture cannot be broken. God will not allow any diminishing of the Law in His Church under Jesus Christ.
The Jewish traditions make much of the 9th of Ab and say that many events took place on this day which did not in fact take place. Some claim the spies came back and they rejected the Promised Land on this day, but Bullinger probably more correctly places this event in Elul and, in fact, he claims it is in the end of Elul (cf. The Companion Bible fn. to Num. 13:25). Thus we would have inherited the millennial system of Messiah, as seen from the Seventh month, had we all accepted Messiah when he died forty Jubilees earlier. Solomon’s Temple fell to the Babylonians on this day in Ab and some erroneously assume that the second Temple also fell on this day. It actually fell at Atonement in 70 CE, and the Temple at Heliopolis, or ancient Goshen, in Egypt was closed in early 71 CE by order of Emperor Vespasian. The Temple in Egypt was the last continual place of sacrifice anywhere in the world for Judah.”
Wars of the Last Days
This period in the build up to the Messiah can be seen in the papers dealing with The Weeks of the Omer Count Applied to the Last Jubilee (P173A) and also in the texts of the Koran at the Commentary on the Koran: Surah 81(Q81) regarding the Wars of Amalek in the Last Days (see also Summary of the Commentary on the Qur’an or Koran (QS)).
The Wars began with the Muslim Spring over 2012-2013 to 2019. The week of the Wars of Amalek ends with the Sabbath Year of 2019. The wars will simply escalate over the period as we have already seen until it develops into the thermo nuclear of WWIII in 2018-2019.
We must prepare to carry the message to “Islam” and to “Christianity” and the rest of the world. Who knows that by our faith and witness, who we may be able to save.
Once we have completed our work and the War of the Sixth Trumpet occurs then the Witnesses will commence to preach at Jerusalem for 1260 days (see The Witnesses (Including the two Witnesses (No. 135)). Four Days later the Messiah will arrive and complete the First Resurrection of the Dead (No. 143A) then He will commence the Wars of the Last Days and the Vials of the Wrath of God (No. 141B). The earth will be purged of false religion and corruption and all will follow the Laws of God and keep the Sabbaths, New Moons and Feasts and Holy Days of God or they will die.
Please pray for our readiness and strength and resources.
Wade Cox
Coordinator General