May I share my testimony about how we discovered the laws of Moses and the lunar Sabbath? It's not short, but it's my story of how I found a very valuable pearl. It's my hope that my story will help you find your pearl. (Praise YHUH, Mystic, that you see it's beauty and value). (ZecAustin, it's been a hidden treasure for hundreds of years, it is the glory of YHUH to conceal a matter, and the honor of kings to search it out, that's why you've been unaware of this whole thing, we're all waking up to the coffee, new revelation in these last days.) (Jacobhaivri - I was exactly where you are 5 years ago, I was skeptical at first, I dismissed it as lunacy, I also sat in the seat of mockers, so I don't blame you one bit. Nothing's wrong with dry humor, Elijah used it, but where I, personally, went wrong with it when I first heard of the lunar Sabbath, was I misdirected it so that I was ignorantly mocking YHUH's ways, instead of using that humor to mock the ways of those who worshipped Baal. Thank YHUH for His grace, He could have struck me with lightning right then and I would have deserved it. You are right that YHUH gave the scepter (law/Torah/staff/authority/leadership) to Judah, but they misused it, and it was returned to its rightful, original owner - Yahusha Messiah - when they rejected Him. See Genesis 49:10 - especially the end of the verse, which most Messianics miss or ignore, which says Judah would have the scepter UNTIL Shiloh/Yahusha Messiah came, who all believing nations/gentiles/goyim submit to now. He came and took his scepter back from them, and He's sitting with it at the right hand of the Father in Heaven. We in Messiah are under His authority, not man's.)
We were in the Pentecostal church in the beginnings of our marriage 12 years ago. We were really non-denominational, but for some reason we always wound up in pro-Israel "spirit-filled" churches, not that a lot of the stuff that goes on there would be of the right Spirit, the holy, set-apart, kadosh, Spirit. That's how we were introduced to keeping His commandments, though, as odd as that may sound. We noticed some hypocrisy, as we were being instructed by the pastor not to vote for a president (in 2008) that did not keep the 10 commandments, and we couldn't help but notice the neglect of the 4th commandment by ourselves, this pastor, and the church in general. Our response to this hypocrisy was not to just shrug our shoulders and let it slide, but to remove the log from our own eyes, so we could see to better help our brother with the splinter in his. We felt the best way to be a light, be an example, an encouragement to others to keep those 10 commandments, was to keep them ourselves, including the Sabbath, lest we be hypocrites and blind shepherds to our children, new believers, others observing our walk and hearing our testimony. It's impossible to correct our children or anyone else when we are in need of correction ourselves. It's best to take the necessary and beneficial correction and THEN go about the business of correcting others.
We were soon taught by some Messianic Rabbis introduced to us by this pastor and a family member that the Sabbath was always Saturday from creation, that man, nor the Jews, never really forgot which day was the Sabbath day. We were told the believers in Messiah were either killed for their faithfulness to the Sabbath or rejected and forgot it to save their own lives and switched to Sunday (thanks to the Roman politicians, the Pope, the modern Gregorian Catholic calendar, and persecution against believers like the Spanish Inquisition), but the Jewish people who descended from those of Judea who rejected Him never lost sight of the truth about the Sabbath. We went on to learn much about Judaism's interpretations of the Torah (law), and we kept Saturday with Judah for 4-5 years, to an extent. (My husband was a firefighter/paramedic who sometimes worked for pay on that day when scheduled to-though he has since come under conviction about this and hasn't worked on the lunar Sabbath since we switched from Saturday in 2013.)
We were told the church had Messiah, but not the truth of the law, and that Judaism had the truth of the law, but were missing Messiah. We were taught that if we would only learn to accept Judaism's traditions and learned Torah from their rabbis, our brother Judah would accept Messiah. We've found this theory not to be true or biblical. After several years of holding this belief, we started to become concerned about the fruits of this doctrine. We found that what was happening more often than not was that our friends were rejecting Messiah due to the anti-Yahusha teachings of the rabbis, and those that still professed belief in Him, including ourselves, were beginning to go down a road of forsaking His commandments for traditions of men, just as Messiah had warned the ancestors of Judaism about. We started to remember certain statements Messiah made, such as "beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Herod". I think that was a prophetic warning to us in the last days as much as it was a warning for the disciples back then that false teachers and doctrines would come in the soon coming dispersion/exile not too long after Messiah's return to heaven, and not just from Jewish religious authorities, but the Roman government as well.
So one day I'm in prayer when reading Exodus 31:15:
Six days may work be done; but in the seventh is the sabbath of rest, holy to YHUH: whosoever doeth any work in the sabbath day, he shall surely be put to death.
That hit me with new light, and new weight. I now saw this not just as physical death, but spiritual death, as well, for me, anyway, it was a new conviction, a new revelation, for ME. I was for the first time seeing this as to say that ANYONE, even doctors, paramedics, and fire fighters, who would do ANY work on that day, would die. My first thought was my husband, who I did not want to die. I shared the verse with him, and my new concern, and he confessed to me that he was never convinced by the Jewish rabbis that it was okay for him to go to work that day, especially since he was being paid that day and not doing any healing, nor had he saved any lives on that day while working. He felt that he was still sinning by working on that day, but he didn't know what to do about it see as how we had a mortgage to pay and he needed to keep his job to pay it. It dawned on me at that moment that our enemy, his temptation, his idol, was the job, the money, the mortgage, the house, our farm. We needed to get out from under the burden of the job and the boss (pharaoh) and the debt. Proverbs is right when it says the borrower is slave to the lender. Messiah set us free from bondage of sin, He paid our debts, so I don't think it was His intention for us to nod at Him for that and turn around and go back into debt, oppression, sin, etc...So I felt strongly I needed to pray about our family getting out of that situation.
The next day a Messianic friend called. She asked for prayer, and I asked her to pray for us and my husband about the Sabbath and I explained why. We prayed for each other and hung up the phone. As soon as I laid down the receiver, I heard that familiar, small, still voice behind me saying, "Why are you worried about your brother when YOU are not keeping MY Sabbath?" He then brought the scripture to my mind about getting the log out of my own eye so I can help my brother with the splinter in his. I asked YHUH, "How could I not be keeping your Sabbath? I don't work, I stay home and homeschool the kids, I always rest on Saturdays."
Then He showed me the log in my eye that I could not see. He brought to my remembrance a teaching I heard previously. A Messianic teacher was ranting about division and traditions of men and false doctrines, all very serious concerns, but then he put a name to those who he was accusing, those he called, "loony" lunar Sabbath keepers. (I'm not bitter about being called that now, I rejoice about being mocked for Yahusha's sake.) At first my ears perked up, instantly I remembered questions some of us had in the beginning, about why the weekly Sabbath wouldn't be counted by the moon like the other appointed times in Leviticus 23. Well, then the teacher pointed out that the New moon days would cause one lunar week in the month to have 8-9 days instead of 7. (I've since learned Ezekiel 46:1 explains there are 3 types of days in the month - New Moon days, Sabbath days, and working days. New moon days are outside the weeks, they divide them and the months, they do not fall inside the lunar weeks, they are in a separate category of days, they are appointed times of their own that are neither Sabbath days nor working days in the week.) He said this obviously meant lunar sabbath keepers cannot count to seven. I laughed and agreed at the time, but now YHUH was pushing me to seek out from lunar Sabbath keepers whether they actually had any scriptural witnesses for their stance. I found they did. Then I had to go about the business of seeing if there were any scriptures that made the lunar Sabbath out to be false. I found none. It took a couple weeks to sort it all out, how the lunar Sabbath should work, as I discovered there were other doctrines I had accepted from Judaism, such as the beginning of a day/date being in the evening, that was proving to be false, as well. This all added to the confusion and division in the body. It's not the lunar Sabbath that caused all the division, we can't blame His laws. It's our traditions and conforming to man's laws and the world that caused the division, the exile, etc...
Proverbs warns us it's foolish to give an answer before fully hearing a matter out. It says we need to judge after first hearing all the witnesses, and then we are to judge using equal scales and measures. Jacobhaivri, we can't dismiss the lunar Sabbath as "lunar-see", because that would suggest that, using equal measures, the Saturday Sabbath counted using the sun only would be "solar-see". The lunar Sabbath is actually luni-solar, it uses the sun and the moon both - two witnesses to count to the Sabbath. As Scripture dictates, every matter must be established using at least 2-3 witnesses, including the Sabbath matter.
Key verses supporting a luni-solar Sabbath include, but are not limited to:
And Aluhym said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years...Genesis 1:14
He appointed the moon for appointed times: the sun knows his going down. Psalm 104:19
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, Concerning the appointed times of YHUH, which ye shall proclaim to be holy convocations, even these are my appointed times. Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the sabbath of rest, an holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the sabbath of YHUH in all your dwellings. These are the appointed times of YHUH, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their appointed times. Leviticus 23:2-4
It shall be established for ever as the moon, faithful witness in heaven. Selah. Psalm 89:37
So how it works is the time of conjunction of the sun and moon (called the New Moon) occurs on the last day of the lunar month, whether that month has 29 or 30 days, so the dark, hidden moon, is the phase of the moon when the moon is renewed. It marks the end of one lunation/month and it begins the next, working as a divider of months, or lunations. When the New Moon falls on the 30th day of the month, that 30th day is a New Moon day, because that's the day conjunction, or the New Moon, occurs, and also because the 30th day of the month does not fit into a day in the week. It's not a week day, it's not a Sabbath day, therefore it's a New Moon day, according to Ezekiel 46:1, and the gate would be open for worship that day. The next morning (dawn/nautical twilight) after conjunction would be the first day of the next month, also a New Moon day, but this day is called ROSH Chodesh, ROSH, meaning head, as in head of the month, chodesh meaning renewal. The 30th is not the head of the month, it is the tail, so it's just a chodesh, a regular New Moon day, not ROSH Chodesh. Only the first of the month is called Rosh Chodesh. The first day of the week, in the evening, is usually when we see the first visible crescent of the moon, that's the second day of the month. So the seventh day Sabbath occurs on the 8th, 15th, 22nd, and 29th of each month, with 4 weeks each month, with the moon being a marker or sign for the Sabbaths and New Moon days. There will be the sign of the first quarter moon for the first Sabbath on the 8th, the full moon mid-month for the marker for the Sabbath on the 15th of the lunar month, the third quarter moon for the third Sabbath on the 22nd, the last crescent for the Sabbath on the 29th. So there are 28 days (4 weeks) of light on the moon, and 1-2 days of darkness on the moon for the New Moon days.
My husband, like me, was not quick to accept the lunar Sabbath. I think it's a very normal human reaction to reject right away things that are new. When I first heard of keeping Saturday instead of Sunday, red flags went up right away, because I had been indoctrinated that I would lose my salvation if I tried to keep the law. It was a few months after I switched from Saturday that he decided to give it a try. It was a few more months of keeping it before he became convinced that the Sabbath is counted using the moon. As soon as he started keeping it though, he started taking off work, not only on Sabbaths, but New Moon days as well. He found it even easier to observe the Sabbaths at the fire dept on the lunar Sabbath than the Saturday Sabbath. He could never find guys to work for him that day because they wanted Saturdays off to party. He never worked those days again. Six to nine months later we sold our house and he quit his job. We got out of debt and he started his own business doing what he always wanted to do, and makes more than he ever made in his cushy city job. Now we are the head and not the tail, the lender and not the borrower, my husband makes his own schedule, he's his own boss, and he can wear a beard! We now own a modest bought with cash! YHUH is a great motivator and He gives us the desires of our heart. Obeying is a blessing! Be encouraged, ya'll! Keep seeking and doing!
