Voice In The Wilderness Church of God
Website:
http://vwcog.com/
January 30, 2007
Greetings Brethren,
I hope this letter finds my brethren continuing to be striving to fear God and keep His commandments, like we are told to do in the book of the Law, and admonished to do by Solomon in the book of Ecclesiastes. Life here in the U.S.A. goes on from day to day with many, if not most people having their minds and hearts consumed with their material wealth. Very few here seem to have God in their lives or even remotely in their thinking. Many are occupied with the cares of this world. And sad to say, this seems to include some of the members of the church of God.
When our Lord and Savior was tempted by the serpent in the wilderness with physical food, Jesus told the adversary that “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God” Mat 4:4.
The Words of God brethren (the True food that produces everlasting life), has been written down in a book called “The Holy Bible”. It is this Book that we need to live by. It is through the Words of Truth that are found in this Book that can sanctify us and sets us apart from other men. John 17:17. We are also told by the Apostle Paul in 2 nd Thes. 2:15, “Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold the traditions which ye have been taught, whether by word, or our epistle.” The Apostle Paul tells us to “Hold on to Traditions”, but we need to ask, which traditions is he talking about here?
There has been a tradition in the church of God in these latter days of following the calculated Hebrew calendar to determine when the Feast Days of God, His Appointed Times, are to be kept. But is this one of the traditions that the Apostle Paul was instructing us to hold to? And, can using the calculated Hebrew calendar to determining when to keep the Holy days of God, be supported with the Word of God?
I bring this subject up today because many have been requesting information, asking when the Holy days fall this year. Now the Holy Days of God that He commands us to keep are much too important to take lightly. And knowing for sure when His appointed times are to be kept is something that no one should take for granted. So before we pull out that handy little Holy Day calendar that we all like to keep in our wallet, and rely on it to give us those important dates of God’s feast days, let us discuss a few things that pertain to this important subject.
We are told in 2 nd Tm 3:16 That “All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness.” So if we have been doing it correctly all along, and keeping the feast days at the correct times, then looking into this will just be a mere case of reproof, and we just read that “reproof” is one of the things that the Scriptures are for. So lets take a look here to see if we can support following the calculated Hebrew calendar with the scriptures.
First, let’s address the issue of “traditions” When Paul tells us to “Stand fast, and Hold the traditions which ye have been taught”, was he talking of the traditions in the church that have been taught to us by men? No, Paul qualifies his statement. Please note the end of this verse, Paul says, “Hold the traditions which ye have been taught, Whether by Word, or Our epistle”. The traditions that we are to hold on to brethren are the traditions taught by the Word of God or the epistles of the Bible, NOT man’s traditions. If we take a look at the Greek here, that word “WORD” used in this verse by Paul is “LOGOS”. Now this word “Logos” is quite familiar to all of us, It’s another one of the many names that our Lord and Savior has. Jesus is called the Word of God or the “Logos”. You can read in John 1:1, that: “In the beginning was the Word, “Logos”, and the Word, “Logos” was with God, and the Word, “Logos” was God”. Then if you drop down to verse 14 we read “The Word, “Logos” was made flesh, and dwelt among us”.
When Paul tells us to “stand fast, and hold the traditions that ye have been taught by Word”, he’s telling us to hold the traditions that have been taught to us by the Word of God, Jesus Himself in the Holy Scriptures. The word “traditions” used here means transmission, I. E. a precept, ordinance. It’s talking about scriptures here. Paul even goes on to say: “or our epistle”. Now that word “epistle” means “letter’ or “written message”. But please note here that he says “our” epistle. He is telling us to heed the letters or written messages that are found in the Holy Bible. It is the Scriptures, the Holy Bible, the Word of God that we have to hold to brethren, NOT the traditions of men. If the calculated Hebrew calendar is truthfully what we should be using to determine when the feast days of God are to be kept, then the calculated Hebrew calendar will have to be found somewhere in the Scriptures.
It is also very important for all of us to realize and understand that all Truth can be proven with the Bible, IF It’s TRUTH. We all need to have a Biblical understand of what our Creator tells us in His Word concerning when His feast days are. So let us take a look at some of the basic Scriptures that are found in the Word of God concern this. Now I do not plan to go into an indepth study here in this letter. There already is an excellent indept study available, and we have posted it on our Website, an article that covers this subject indepth by our brother in Christ Arthur Ryan.
Arthur goes into detail and brings out the many scriptures that God gives us concerning His appointed times and how to know exactly when they are to be kept. God makes the “when” to keep His Holy days quite clear in His Holy Bible, so if we look into the Bible for our teaching on this subject we won’t find ourselves keeping the wrong days like many oftentimes do by following the calculated Hebrew calendar which was made by man. One may want to note here that the Bible nowhere mentions anything about a calculated Hebrew calendar, or the postponing of any days that God has set apart for us to keep. One may also want to note that the days that our God has set apart for us to keep, are Holy days Sanctified days, and only God can make something Holy or sanctified, not man.
In this letter today, I just want to bring our attention to some very basic scriptures, and some very basic but important points concerning how God makes His appointed times known to us. First, let us not forget the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus, 2 nd Cor. 11:3, as we approach this subject. God does not make His ways difficult for us to understand; although He does expect us to search the Scriptures for His Truth, actually He commands us to do just that, 2Tim. 2:15, 1Thes. 5:21. Let us also not forget what Jesus said to His Father concerning who would understand Him. “I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes Luke 10:21.” We are told in Ps. 111:10, “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: a good understanding have all they that do his commandments”.
We can have all the truth sitting right in front of us (and we do if we have a Bible) but without obedience to God, without walking in His ways, we will NOT have a good understanding. Now in Gen 1:14 God tells us that He created and gave us the “Sun, Moon and Stars” to show us when His appointed times are. Then we find in Leviticus 23, a list of all the feasts of the Lord. God says in verse 2 of Leviticus 23 “These are my feasts”. Now the first feast that God lists here is His weekly Sabbath. He tells us in Lev 23:3, “Six days shall work be done: but the seventh day is the Sabbath of rest, a holy convocation; ye shall do no work therein: it is the Sabbath of the Lord in all your dwellings.” Now this is quite elementary but in order to come to the correct day to keep the Sabbath, one has to count thru the first six days of the week to arrive at day seven, the day that God has sanctified and appointed to be a holy convocation. Now we know that the going down of the sun tells us when one day ends and another day begins.
When it comes to knowing when the annual Holy days are, we need to know when one Month ends and another Month begins. If you know when each Month begins, then it’s also just a matter of simply counting to know when the annual feasts are because God instructs us to keep each Holy day on a particular day of a particular Month (with the exception of Pentecost). We are told to keep the Passover on the 14th day of the 1 st Month. And on the fifteenth day of the same month is the feast of unleavened bread unto the LORD. Now our Creator has made it just as easy to know when each Month ends and a new Month begins as He has for the ending of one day and the beginning of another. But one does need to recognize and realize that He gave us the Moon to know Months just like we recognize and realize that He gave us the sun to know days.
The Hebrew word for Month is the same exact Hebrew word for New Moon, “CHODESH”. So we can read scriptures like Lev. 23:24, as such: “Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month or “New Moon” in the first day of the month or “New Moon”, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.”
Now God is NOT the author of confusion, I’m sure we all know that. But when you take something as simple and clear in the Hebrew as “New Moon” “New Month” “same word”, and then look at the calculated Hebrew calendar and see that one year they follow that to a T and tells us that the feast of Trumpets is on the New Moon, but then the next year tell us that the feast of trumpets is three days AFTER the New Moon, Something Just Doesn’t Jive if you know what I mean. And then when you see the reason that they POSTPONED it that year is because the New Moon happened to fall on a Friday, which would make backtoback Sabbaths, which would be quite a difficult thing for them to have, considering all the other man made rules and traditions that they invented.
So they just change the date of the Holy Day to eliminate their problem. You know I have a friend who is Jewish and one day I happened to mention something to him concerning the 10 commandments, he stopped me short to correct me when I mentioned “10” commandments, and said to me: “You mean 613 commandments.” Well, I guess they like to get pretty deep into detail. It reminded me of the time that I requested information concerning the postponements from one of the church of God organizations who’s leader preaches that it is obligatory for us to follow that calculated Hebrew calendar.
After making the request for the information he sent me something like a 600 and something page article that he had paid some other man to produce concerning the calendar issue. I tried my best, but never could understand all the rules that it contained on how to postpone, when to postpone and why to postpone. So I decided to just take a look in my dictionary and see just what Webster’s had to say about some of this and here’s what I found: Postpone = To putt off to a future time.
Now that right there told me that there was something very seriously wrong with that Calculated Hebrew calendar, and then to put the icing on the cake I noticed the synonym for the word POSTPONE – “PROCRASTINATE.” Brethren that’s a word that we in God church don’t even want to touch with a ten foot pole, because that’s one of the biggest flaws with us today, procrastination, always putting off till tomorrow what we need to be doing today, WHILE IT IS STILL LIGHT.
Brethren, The day is coming when we will be standing before our Lord; and He’s the same Lord who tells us things like: “Whatsoever soul it be that shall not afflict his soul on the tenth day of the seventh Month shall be cut off from among his people, Lev. 23:2729.”
Knowing when His Appointed times are is very important. It’s not something to take lightly or for granted. We are told in Rv:20:12: “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.” These books referred to here are most likely the books of the Bible. So no matter what stand we take concerning whether or not to follow the calculated Hebrew calendar, or any other calendar, we better be doing it with sincerity, and we better know some scriptures from the Bible that will back up our beliefs, because if we’re keeping the wrong days, we’ll have a pretty hard time justifying ourselves by telling Him that we were following some man, or some other book. I don’t think He will want to hear someone say to Him: O, Your Holy day calendar is listed in that other book, didn’t they send you a copy?
We have what we believe are the correct Feast Days of God posted on our Website, and we are not the only church of God group who list these same exact days, there are a few other. And you may want to note here that the few different groups that came up with these same exact dates that we use, did not consult with one another to pick them. They came up with these same exact dates by Searching The Scriptures and applying what the LOGOS, the Word of God, had to say in His Holy Book, The Bible.
My hope and prayer is that all of you do the same, Search the Scriptures and prove all things and strive to live by every word that proceedeth out of His mouth.
Your brother in Christ bill Goff