But why is this even important, especially with the Besorah (Gospel) emphasising spiritual things first? That's the question I want to answer today. Messianics, who are very engaged in the lifestyle of the Besorah (Gospel) tend to be more keen than Evangelicals in researching such matters. Truthfully, I found the whole calendar business crushingly boring at first and I turned off as soon as I started reading material about it. What interested me - and still interests me the most - is the quality of the inner life that comes out of spiritual emet (truth), that which vitalises the soul and sets it on fire in the sphere of living and witnessing. And I think most Evangelicals would find it easy to identity with me in that respect. So the idea of biblical mathematics completely turned me off.

I am glad I persisted, overcame this aversion, and got stuck in. You see, what we do temporally - in the physical and time dimension - very much impacts our spiritual outlook too. You can't avoid it. Those Evangelicals who say we are not to occupy ourselves with, for example, the physical sabbath - when (if) we observe it, how we observe it - but with the spiritual - obtaining the spiritual rest in Messiah - are failing to grasp the interconnectedness of the physical with the spiritual. The Bible nowhere dissects and separates the physical from the spiritual - this is a Western mindset. The Bible is holistic, viewing a man or woman as a complete entity - a soul. What we do and what we are, are supposed to be echad or one. One day we will be resurrected - our physical bodies and spiritual bodies will be completely merged and inseparable so that there will be no distinguishing them. That is the end or goal of our existence through Messiah. As we are now, the spirit fits inside the physical a bit like a hand in a glove, and when we die we take the 'glove' off which disintegrates in the earth (unless we are cremated - see On Funerals, Death, and the Resurrection) and the 'hand' goes to heaven or the world of spirits to await the resurrection. The disembodied state is temporary, one might almost say, 'unnatural', for we are not complete at all without our physical bodies. That is one of those important truths that separates Christianity from all other religions which stress spirit and view physicality as temporary or somehow 'bad'.

I think Christians in particular get confused over this because physical matter is often viewed as something negative, a doctrine inherited from the heretical gnostics. And the reason both view physical matter in this way is because it is recognised that the physical is the seat or residence of the 'flesh' or 'carnality', the fallen Adamic nature. However, these are not physical matter itself, for physical matter once existed in a pristine state before the Fall, a condition that Yahweh repeatedly pronounced as "good". The problem with matter is what is lodged in it. And because matter is fallen and possesses this poison, it has to be discarded at death to await the great Restoration when pure, pristine matter can once again be used to clothe spirit and then be fused inseparably together with it to form resurrected substance.

The Lunar Sabbath and Creation Calendar are important because they set not only a temporal cycle for our bodies but connect to a parallel spiritual cycle. When the two operate in synchronisation, there is harmony of mind, lev (heart), spirit and body. They operate as near as is possible to the resurrected state without actually being it, since we are mortal for the duration of this life. They bring all processes into alignment with the Divine Reality, tuning us into the same frequency as the heavenly realm as it awaits its own incarnation and resurrection together with us. All of creation is awaiting it with great eagerness. And whilst certain things in this fallen world must of necessity remain out of alignment until the Divine Hand straightens out some astronomical anomalies - like the period of rotation of the moon around the earth, and the period of the rotation of the earth around the sun, which have been disturbed over the millennia by various forces, some known to us and some yet unknown - there is nevertheless a divinely appointed system of harmonisation which will bring us as close to the original (and that which is to come in the resurrection) to allow greater spiritual dovetailing between submitted mankind and Elohim (God).

The effect of the pagan-inspired Roman Gregorian calendar used by the world today is to give the impression that all is as it always has been, a continuous cycle of seven days without interruption from time immemorial. Part of the seduction of this system is that it affords a neatness which the soul naturally yearns for, an uncomplicated succession of time, one sabbath rolling on as regular as clockwork one Saturday (or Sunday) after the other.

The problem with this false cosmic lullaby is that it creates the illusion that all is well when the emet (truth) is the world is violently disjunctive with the Heavenly Harmony and requires constant readjustment. Like sheep we wander, and we do it exceedngly well to our own spiritual detriment, and like sheep we are in constant need of redirection and upon occasion rescue. Life, even as a believer, is a constant string of rescues from the consequences of the unbridled flesh that has led us into sinful behaviour and polluted cycles of life and the management thereof. Part of the enemy's offensive is to keep us comfortable in our disjunction and dysfunctionality by persuading us to keep on as we always have done, never effecting any substantial changes toward making teshuvah (repentance). He wants us so used to his system of temporal and spiritual management (or mismanagement) that we can no longer discern that things are wrong, to thus keep us locked in ignorance and unable to see what needs to be done.

The Creation Calendar breaks that illusion - it shatters it rudely. It reminds us that every week and every month and at every festival we need spiritually and temporally resetting. Just as the moon is out of sync with the earth, and the earth out of sync with the sun, so we human beings are out of synch with the divine life because of the constant tug of carnal forces, whether it be from the fallen Adamic nature within or the crooked time-keeping system invented by the enemy. Life is a constant battle to resist the downward pull of the flesh that would take us out of divine rhythm and try to acclimatise us with the enemy's.

When I discovered the lunar sabbath I discovered something else I had not expected to find - the true meaning of the monthly Rosh Chodesh or New Moon festival. Prior to that I could find no real purpose for it. It was like an appenedix with no know meaning or purpose and in consequence became neglected by me. Its existence made no sense. And then, suddenly, not only did I discover that Rosh Chodesh was probably one of the most improtant observances of them all, but an understanding of its purpose suddenly opened door after door to other mysteries. Like the biological appendix (a misnomeric name if ever there was one - in Norwegian we call it the 'blind gut'), which was once thought to be a 'vestigal' organ (according to false evolutionary thinking) but which turns out to play a vital rôle in the immune system, so Rosh Chodesh or the 'Head of the Moon' truly is a header festival (unless the false Jewish one at Rosh Hashanah). Rosh Chodesh not only sets the monthly sabbaths but it symbolises the Great Head, Yahweh Himself, to whom we must reset our lives periodically because of our tendency to wander away in sin. Knowing our rhythms all to well, El Elyon - the Most High - understood that we need a reset roughly every 29 to 30 days to enable us to maintain proper communion with the Master of the Sabbath, Yah'shua (Jesus) Himself. And Rosh Chodesh is the master of the Sabbath, as the Father is the master of the Mother, as the Husband is of the Wife. And we, as the allegorical wife or bride, need constantly retuning in order to remain mastered by our heavenly Husband or Bridegroom.

I cannot begin to summarise the way the Lunar Sabbath has revolutionised my life. Quite apart from all the spiritual awakenings that have taken place, with an ever deeper discovery of divine tavnith (pattern) which now shapes everything I believe and do, the Lunar Sabbath is a stark reminder of just how different we are supposed to be from the world, to the point that we no longer stick out like sore thumbs but more - like day relative to night! The Creation Calendar is a huge challenge because living it immediately sets us apart from the way everything else is done in the world, something we need to be constantly reminded of as tov (good) and not a thing we should be ashamed of. And because the world reacts to it with either amused indifference (or more likely) with barely disguised hostility - particularly in the job place or at school - it forces us to re-evaluate our priorities and to decide whether we are really going to throw outselves into the Father's hands and become fully separated to Him (holy) or not.

Yes, living the Lunar Sabbath requires substantial sacrifices. It may require you to quit your job and become self-employed, assuming a degree of responsibility and faith in Yahweh which you have never had before but which will, actually, be totally required for you to survive in the global dictatorship that is forming.

Think about it - a time is coming, as prophesied in the Bible - when we won't be allowed to trade without receiving the Mark of the Beast and losing our salvation, so what better way to prepare your family for that time and spare them and yourself all that agony. The Creation Calendar forces men to be real men and women to be real women, obliging them to cast off all the false rôle models invented by atheism to enslave and destroy the genders. It also forces us to take responsibility for the education of our children by taking them out of satanioc state indoctrination and traumatisation centres ('schools') so that we can homeschool them, fulfilling the scriptural commission to raise our children in the admonition and tavnith (pattern) of Yahweh which the school system sabotages at every turn. According to one statistic I have seen, upwards of 80% of all Christian and Messianic children lose their faith in these state indoctrination centres. Far from being lights in darkness (for which they are too young and inexperienced to be anyway), they are simply swallowed up by the darkness. So the Creation Calendar also forces you to take proper responsibility for your children too. And that means more work, better organisation, and much, much more emunah (faith)!

In short, the Lunar Sabbath forces you to wake up and grow up. The world is full of juvenile adults, dumbed down by the state indoctrination and traumatisation centres, and fed into the giant factory which is the state economic system which keeps the people impoverished, ill and too weak to resist. So adopting the Lunar Sabbath will probably mean you have to change job, get your children out of school, move home, move state/region, and maybe even move country. Does that terrify you? It shouldn't, because that is what Yahweh required of Abraham; and those who claim to belong to Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) are also called the "seed of Abraham" through emunah (faith). We are called to be like that man of Elohim (God) - all of us, Christians and Messianics alike.

The Lunar Sabbath therefore equals spiritual revolution. It is no accident that its observance is being restroed in our time because Yahweh's people cannot survive without it because of the consequences of its implementation. The Lunar Sabbath is separating out the men from the boys and the women from the girls - it is for mature believers or those who want to grow up spiritually, for those who mean to follow Yahweh all the way and make no compromise with the world because it won't let you compromise with the world.

Seen from that perspective, it is not hard to see how it could well become a salvational issue, like so many other true principles that the bulk of Christians and Messianics are in denial over. You see, you can't live the lifestyle demanded of the Lunar Sabbath without empowerment and guidance from our Heavenly Father. Isn't that what all believers want? Well, yes, most do, but the trouble is while they want the mountain top they just aren't willing to climb it. So the Lunar Sabbath is also a sifter of the true from the false, of the lazy from the vigorous, of the doubtful from the trusting.

Having said that, I wouldn't want you to think that the Lunar Sabbath is the sifter. By no means. It is one of many sifters and purifiers of the end-time remnant, so I wouldn't wamt anyone making an idol out of it as, for example, the Adventists do of their false 'Saturday Sabbath', the Baptists of (true) water immersion, the Mormons of 'continuing revelation' (which happens to be false), the Jehovah's Witnesses of a central organisation (which also happens to be false), or any of the other gospel hobby-horses - true and false - that carnal believers make by elevating one doctrine above all the others and making that their prideful badge of distinction. All the principles of the Besorah (Gospel) are important because together they form a divine whole. Restoring the Lunar Sabbath is all a part of that restoration of wholeness.

I am a newbee to the Lunar Sabbath - why, I haven't even lived it for a whole year yet, but it has totally transformed me and brought everything into sharper focus. Now, having repented of satanic timekeepering, I am moving on to other things while the Lunar Sabbath quietly establishes my weekly and monthly rhythm in Yahweh. Yah'shua (Jesus) is still the 'main thing' but now I am lass naked because of my choice to be obedient. There have been, and continue to be challenges, living this way but it opens doors of opportunity for the growth of my emunah (faith). It's something you need to research out carefully until you get an undeniable witness and conviction from the Ruach haQodesh (Holy Spirit) to implement this big change in your lifestyle, and like all important things, it shouldn't be rushed.

One of the things that initially caused me to back off from this teaching was that my early tutors were not only pushy but made fun of those who still followed the Saturday Sabbath. And sometimes they were, shamefully, outright rude and nasty. Equally, those reacting againat the Lunar Sabbath could get quite nasty and mocking too, calling its adherents 'looney sabbatarians'. The magnitude and vehemence of the opposition make me take note too, of course. So many can get turned off the emet (truth) by such unchristian behaviour as well (ironically) as being driven to it. It reminds me of the heated polygamy controversies in the Evangelical (1990's) and Messianic (2000's) movements but the fact of the matter is, people are going to get upset no matter what, they will create websites and write books to 'protect their flock' (and sometimes their salaries), and they will rant and rave, both those who support the emet (truth) and those who are against it. The seeker after emet (truth) must learn to calmly disengage from the mob spirit and see beyond the smoke and heat, quietly study and talk to Yahweh about it.

Unfortunately, the truth is sometimes to be found in the most unlikely (and sometimes undesirable) places and has to be rescued as one would a dog on death row from an animal pound. We have to be wise enough not to be turned away by the unredeemed who may have stumbled on a truth that we need. Similarly, I hope that you, the reader, are not turned off by the truths I try to share because of my character defects. Please see past the teacher to what is being taught for many and diverse are our teachers in life.

So I want to encourage those of you who are investigating the Lunar Sabbath to take your time and not get sucked into the emotional fire storms that always result when emet (truth) is presented to an unwilling and unrepentant world, whether it be the fire of frightened opponents or the fire of over-zealous and immature proponents. The emet (truth) is more than able to defend itself.

In conclusion, may I offer the wise words of Greg Bahnsen who said that "we should not assume that our ways are normal and that God’s ways are an abnormality which need vindication". The Ruach (Spirit) will do all the work of convincing that is necessary.

Shalom!