Lunar Sabbath 'IN' The 4th Commandment!

THE MASTER’S CLOCK!

Discerning The True 7th Day Sabbath of Yeshua!

PART 16

Revealing The Lunar Sabbath

‘IN’

The 4th Commandment!

There is an interesting verse in Luke 23 that could potentially raise the eyebrow of a critical thinking student of Scripture. It is verse 56, which reads...

And having returned, they prepared spices and perfumes. And they rested on the Sabbath according to the command. (Luke 23:56 The Scriptures 2009)

“And they rested on the Sabbath according to the command.” Should we, as students of Scripture, take pause here? Maybe a little bit of a ‘Selah’ moment is justified... What does it mean when it says, “they rested on the Sabbath according to the command”? Doesn't it simply mean they rested on the 7th Day? Or is there more in the commandment than we’ve been led to believe? And if so, what is in the command that they rested according to? If there is more to the 4th Commandment how could we not know about it? The commandment is straightforward in its simplicity... Right? Remarkably, there is a greater specificity to the 4th Commandment than we’ve known and for over 1600 years men have been blinded to that reality... until this day! If we’re willing to open our minds to a larger truth we will see there is more to keeping the 7th Day Sabbath ‘according to the command’ than just resting every 7th day!

The Lunar Sabbath Is Hiding In Plain Sight

In The 4th Commandment!

“Oh yeah, so where’s it at?”

“It’s right there... can’t you see it?”

“I don’t see anything!”

“Remember the Sabbath day, to set it apart.

“Six days you labour, and shall do all your work,

but the seventh day is a Sabbath of YHWH your Elohim. You do not do any work - you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates.

“for in six days YHWH made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart.” (Exodus 20:8-11 The Scriptures 2009)

And so it is, millions of people, actually billions of people, blinded by their lifelong allegiance to the Gregorian calendar of the Roman Catholic Church, can’t see an obvious truth recorded right there in The 4th Commandment. It’s right there in black and white and we can’t see it! I’ll bet you didn’t see it either... did you? Blinded by a lie over 1600 years old we don’t even think to question our 7th Day Sabbath observance ‘according to the command’, after all, the Jews have always kept the 7th Day Sabbath just as they do to this very day... Right? Coupled with another foundational truth buried in plain sight in Genesis 1, of which the multitudes are also ignorant of, which just compounds the darkness we dwell in, the Lunar Sabbath is effectively removed from the radar of most students of Scripture. What’s that foundational truth you say? Well, to see it you’ve got to know Genesis 1thoroughly and to know Genesis 1 thoroughly you have to examine Genesis 1 critically. In Genesis 1 Mosheh is describing the events that happened on each specific day during the 1st Week of Creation beginning with verse 3... “And Elohim said... And there came to be evening and there came to be morning, the first day...” It continues with the same theme for Day 2 through Day 6, and of course He then rested on the 7th Day. But was that really ‘the beginning’? Is that all that we can discern from the Genesis 1 narrative? No! No it's most certainly not! And here is the foundational truth that will provide the key to unlocking people’s ability to see the Lunar Sabbath recorded in The 4th Commandment in Exodus 20! The first seven days of creation were ‘preceded’ by a ‘period of time’ in Genesis 1:1&2!

In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth,

And the earth came to be formless and empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of Elohim was moving on the face of the waters. (Genesis 1:1-2 The Scriptures 2009)

It’s plain to see! There is absolutely no reason to doubt it, there is a ‘period of time’ recorded ‘In the beginning...’ which preceded the 1st Day of the seven-day Creation Week which begins in verse 3. The only question anyone should be asking is, ‘How long was that period of time?’ It is in Genesis 1:1 that the heavens, including the sun, moon and stars, and the earth were created, this is clearly a period of time that preceded the Creation Week! The earth was created formless and empty or formless and void, the Hebrew words being tôhû and bôhû. In other words the matter of the universe was created in Genesis 1:1 but the earth was uninhabitable and therefore void of purpose. It is on the 2nd Day since the Beginning of Time, which is the 1st Day of the Creation Week, that YHWH begins to take the earth which He had created tôhû and bôhû on the 1st Day of Time and begins to fashion it to fulfill its purpose during the Creation Week that followed!

It has long been held by many, if not by most believers, that between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3 there were millions and billions of years of ‘evolution’. It’s called the ‘Gap Theory’. It is a false, godless evolutionary theory that theologians have been duped into believing by circus events like the Scopes Monkey Trial to explain so called prehistoric animals such as the dinosaurs and all others which no longer exist in the modern world that are dug up from their flood water stratified graves which supposedly took millions, even billions of years to lay down. Piggy backing those millions and billions of years of evolution are millions and billions of years of death before the original sin of mankind, which Scripture says led to death. That unacceptable fact turns the Scriptural historical account recorded in the first chapters of Genesis into a fairy tale of epic proportions, the work of a man and not an omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent Creator and Redeemer... at least in the minds of weak minded men! Those same hapless theologians who didn’t have the wherewithal to stand their ground according to a straightforward reading of Scripture, having had the wool pulled over their eyes, then led their ‘sheeple’ into believing the ‘Gap Theory’ of long ages between Genesis 1:2 and Genesis 1:3 as well. They said it’s okay, you don’t have to believe Genesis literally, and the ‘sheeple’ believed the lie! It has been a truly effective ploy by HaSatan, which has watered down the ‘sheeple’s’ belief in the truth and veracity of Scripture and it's Author! After all, if you can’t believe Genesis 1 literally, what can you believe?

Indeed, there was a ‘period of time’ that preceded the seven-day week of creation but how long was that ‘period of time’? Since Genesis 1 talks about nothing other than what should be presumed ordinary 24-hour days, is there any reason to believe that this ‘period of time’ recorded in Genesis 1:1&2 is anything other than a normal 24-hour day? No! No there is not! There is nothing that demands this ‘period of time’ to be anything other than just an ordinary 24-hour day! So what does any of that have to do with the Lunar Sabbath being hidden in plain sight in The 4th Commandment? It’s so simple! If there was a day that preceded the seven days of the Creation Week then the 7th Day of the 1st Week of Creation fell on the 8th Day after the 'beginning of time', i.e. the 8th Day of the 1st Month, and that is the 'date' YHWH is linking His 7th Day Sabbath to via the 4th Commandment as it is recorded in Exodus 20:11!

Let’s look at it from a slightly different perspective for just a moment. Throughout Scripture we have recorded for us increments of time according to YHWH’s economy of time. There are hours, days, weeks, months and years. It should be reasonable to conclude that ‘In the beginning...’ time began with the 1st Hour of the 1st Day of the 1st Month of the 1st Year. That makes total sense but you surely noticed I left out the 1st Week. The reason for that is that it is abundantly clear that the 1st week didn’t begin until the 2nd Day of the 1st Month of the 1st Year! And therefore the 7th Day of the 1st Week fell on the 8th Day of the 1st Month of the 1st Year! That is one of the keys to unlocking the Lunar Sabbath witness recorded within The 4th Commandment of The 10 Words Covenant. Why do I say that? Let’s read Exodus 20:11 again...

Clearly, the ‘Therefore’, i.e. the 'reason' YHWH blessed the Sabbath day and set it apart is that He had completed His work of creation on the 6th Day and rested on the 7th Day of the Creation Week. But with our new understanding of a very old truth recorded in the very first words of Scripture in Genesis 1:1&2, we realize that the 7th Day of the Creation Week fell on the 8th Day of the 1st Month of the 1st Year of Creation. Therefore, by including the creation narrative in The 4th Commandment YHWH has linked His 7th Day Sabbath with the 8th Day of the 1st Month of the 1st Year of Creation!

There are those who will scream, “Saturday goes all the way back to the beginning of creation!” No, I’m sorry, it most certainly does not. The Roman Empire, the Roman Empire's calendar, the Roman Catholic Church, none of it goes back to the beginning of Creation. As a matter of fact Saturday as a day of the Roman Empire's calendar doesn’t even go back to the crucifixion of Messiah Yeshua 2,000 years ago. And when Saturday was introduced as one of the days of the new pagan god 7-day week of the Julian Calendar it was actually the 1st Day of the Week, it was not the 7th Day! The Julian calendar originally had 8-day weeks lettered A-H, it was sometime after the crucifixion but before the end of the 1st century that the Julian calendar was modified with the new 7-day pagan god week. It was not until the 4th century A.D. that Constantine venerated the ‘Day of the Sun’ by moving it from the 2nd Day of the Week to the 1st Day of the Week, which bumped Saturday from the 1st Day of the Week to the 7th Day of the Week!

In a most remarkable confirmation of what YHWH has written into The 4th Commandment in Exodus 20 affirming the Lunar Sabbath connection with The 4th Commandment YHWH then reaffirms in Deuteronomy 5 when He repeats The 10 Words Covenant with a slightly different rendering. Let’s read the Deuteronomy rendition of The 4th Commandment to see how...

Guard the Sabbath day, to set it apart, as YHWH your Elohim commanded you.

Six days you labour, and shall do all your work,

But the seventh day is a Sabbath of YHWH your Elohim. You do not do any work - you, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your ox nor your donkey, nor any of your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates, so that your male servant and your female servant rest as you do,

And you shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Mitsrayim, and that YHWH your Elohim brought you out from there by a strong hand and by an outstretched arm. Therefore YHWH your Elohim commanded you to perform the Sabbath day. (Deuteronomy 5:12-15 The Scriptures 2009)

One might ask, what happened to the connection between keeping the 7th Day Sabbath and the 7th Day of the Creation Week when He set the Sabbath apart? Why wasn’t that repeated? There is certainly no mention of it here in the repetition of The 10 Words Covenant in Deuteronomy 5, where The 4th Commandment uses a different reason for keeping the 7th Day Sabbath. And one might ask, what in the world does the Exodus from Egypt have to do with the 7th Day Sabbath? We’ll find our answer in Numbers 33:3...

So they departed from Ra’meses in the first new moon, on the fifteenth day of the first new moon, on the morrow of the Pĕsah the children of Yisra’ĕl went out with boldness before the eyes of all the Mitsrites, (Numbers 33:3 The Scriptures 2009)

Do you see it? I’ve underlined it for you. The Israelites left Egypt on the 15th Day of the 1st New Moon; it was the High Sabbath of the Feast of Unleavened Bread. A High Sabbath is a weekly Sabbath that has one of the Annual Moedim fall on it, as is the case when the 1st Day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread falls on the weekly 7th Day Sabbath of the 15th Day of the 1st Month. In Lunar Sabbath observance, just as the 8th Day of every New Moon is a 7th Day Sabbath, so also is the 15th Day of every New Moon a 7th Day Sabbath. Here in The 10 Words Covenant via The 4th Commandment recorded in Deuteronomy 5 YHWH has linked His 7th Day Sabbath to the 15th Day of the 1st New Moon just as He had linked His 7th Day Sabbath to the 8th Day of the 1st New Moon in Genesis 1 via The 4th Commandment in Exodus 20!

Now there are those who will scream, “If the 15th Day is a Sabbath how could they have left Egypt on a long hard journey?” Well... Deuteronomy 16:1 has their answer...

Guard the new moon of Abib, and perform the Pĕsah to YHWH your Elohim, for in the new moon of Abib YHWH your Elohim brought you out of Mitsrayim by night. (Deuteronomy 16:1 The Scriptures 2009)

As I’ve just mentioned, this was not only a weekly Sabbath; this was also the High Sabbath beginning the Feast of Unleavened Bread! YHWH would never have commanded Mosheh to begin the Exodus during the ‘Set-Apart Hours’ of the Sabbath and therefore break His own commandment to rest. Rather YHWH brought Israel out of Egypt at night, once the sun had set and the ‘Set-Apart Hours’ of the day were over. They left on the Sabbath but only after the ‘Set-Apart Hours’ of the Sabbath had expired.

Another thing YHWH would never have done is to associate His weekly Sabbath with specific 'dates' of the 1st New Moon as He has done in both of the two different renditions of The 4th Commandment if the weekly cycle, as almost everyone believes, is an unbroken chain of recurring weeks. The only way on Yah’s green earth to link the 7th Day Sabbath with the 8th and 15th Days of the 1st New Moon as YHWH has certainly done, is for there to be a resetting of the weekly cycle according to every lunar cycle and that is exactly what Rosh Chodesh does! (see Ezekiel 46:1) If the 8th and 15th Days of the 1st New Moon are associated with the 7th Day Sabbath via The 4th Commandment then the 22nd and 29th Days are 7th Day Sabbaths as well. If the 7th Day Sabbaths of the 1st New Moon are clearly linked to the New Moon itself according to The 4th Commandment then all other 7th Day Sabbaths throughout the year and from year to year are linked to the New Moon cycles they fall within as well. The 7th Day Sabbath of The 4th Commandment is a Lunar reckoned Sabbath via its association with both the 8th and 15th Days of the 1st New Moon according to The 4th Commandment itself! According to The 4th Commandment, affirmed in Exodus 20 and reaffirmed in Deuteronomy 5, the 7th Day Sabbath is unequivocally and inseparably connected at the hip with the New Moon and its 8th, 15th, 22nd and 29th Days! It’s been hiding in plain sight the whole time; we were just too blind to see it!

When sharing Lunar Sabbath Observance with friends and loved ones it is not uncommon to hear them say, “Give me one verse, just one verse, that unequivocally proclaims Lunar Sabbath Observance in Scripture.” It has been a stumbling block to them when the Lunar Sabbath Observer can’t point to a single, unambiguous verse proclaiming Lunar Sabbath Observance. It's not that such verses don't exist, they most certainly do, it's that to see them as 'unambiguous' the one being witnessed to must have a foundation for interpreting those verses. We typically point to the need for discernment, which is of course needed, and the need to take the Scriptural narrative as a whole, which is also true, but it doesn't meet their demand. Unfortunately, we’ll never convince the skeptic without first having laid a foundation for them to understand the many verses that do proclaim Lunar Sabbath Observance in an 'unambiguous' fashion. If however, you can tell someone you're sharing your Lunar Sabbath beliefs with that if they will give you the opportunity you will prove Lunar Sabbath Observance directly from The 4th Commandment, you then have a talking point that should peak their interest. If this person you are witnessing to is a true Berean, a sincere truth seeker, you will have opened a door of opportunity to bless them. Once they see and understand that such a verse does exist, and in the very commandment to keep the 7th Day Sabbath, The 4th Commandment itself, and not just one verse but two verses using two different events on two different Sabbath dates of the 1st New Moon, the 8th and 15th Days, you then have the tools to reach out and touch the lives of those who are hungry to know YHWH and His ways! You then have the means to enlighten those who are truly hungry to receive and keep ‘the sign’ between YHWH and His people!

This has been Part 16 of the 17 Part series titled THE MASTER'S CLOCK! It is my sincere hope and prayer that in reading this series you'll be blessed with the revelation of Time According to the Author of Time! May your eyes be opened to The Creator's Cosmological Calendar!

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