Thank you so much, Lev. Where's last weeks sermon?
Shalom Achi

Last week's sermon has been up quite a while - it's at http://nccg.org/mlt/sermons/3_204.html

I don't know what you folks are experiencing but we have witnessed all sorts of spiritual doors opening since Rosh Chodesh began. It's very exciting. Ask Yahweh for the anointing of the day and wait with anticipation for a prophetic word, as is promised on this day for those who earnestly seek it.

May YHWH likewise Bless you for following what you believe, I have to confess that He has Blessed me for following what I knew about the Sabbatical year so far. I thought that it may begin this past Abiv as you seem to be following. However I was not fully convinced that it was correct come planting time this past spring. So I really could not keep it in full assurance of faith. Whatsoever that is not of faith is sin. So to not plant this year was for me, sin. I have much that I need to testify concerning this experience I have lived this year and concerning my conviction and assurance on this issue. It seems to have gotten side tracked by the rash of dissention over the weekly Sabbath. Seems to be secondary to the issue of the weekly Sabbath but in Truth it is every bit as important and relevant.
I have recieved many blessings for just committing to and planning to keep Sabbath Year. It is a Commandment with Promise.
Praise YHWH

To whoever cares to listen,
One major problem that I have with the doctrine of keeping a Sabbath Year starting and ending in Abiv is that it does not at all fit the Scriptural pattern. Neither does it fit the age old traditions kept by the sages of Yahudah.
Please don't think that I am promoting the blind following of Rabbinic traditions as I am not. I simply believe that all viewpoints and traditions are worthy of examination. Eat the meat and spit out the bones, if you will.
When I first read about the “Jewish” tradition of more than one “new year” I was skeptical. But upon studying it I believe that the concept is absolutely correct.
There are many “new years” in my life. Each of these “new years”, or more easily understood, “annual cycles” has a different beginning and ending day of the yearly calendar than the others.
For example:
There is the beginning of the civil year of the pagan inspired calendar that the general society and age that I am currently greatly affected by, that is called January 1.
Then there is the beginning of the Biblical Feasts that starts with the New Moon of Abiv Barley. The first New Moon that is visible in the season and time of newly green roast-able heads of barley. These feasts begin in Abiv and end in the 7th consecutive moon cycle with the Last Great Day at the end of the Feast of Tabernacles. “Deu 31:10 And Moses commanded them, saying: 'At the end of every seven years, in the set time of the year of release, in the feast of tabernacles,……..”
Then there is the beginning of the year for agricultural production in my locale that is set and mandated by the government as March 10th.
Then there is the beginning of the tax year for heavy truck use tax that begins July 1 and ends the following June 30 also known as the “fiscal year”.
Then there is the beginning of the Public School Year that begins in August.
Then there is the beginning of the fiscal year that the Federal Gov uses that starts Oct 1 and ends Sept 30.
I could go on but I think the point is made that there are many “New Years Days”, or “Annual Cycles.
So it is with the Biblical Calendar.
The Biblical Agricultural season ends in the ingathering of the 7th Moon. The Sabbath Year must end then also.
"Exo 23:16 and the feast of harvest, the first-fruits of thy labours, which thou sowest in the field; and the feast of ingathering, at the end of the year, when thou gatherest in thy labours out of the field. "

The Feasts are absolutely linked to Agricultural Production with Barley being the Primary and Principle crop upon which the Feasts are dependant and also historically that the people of that time and region were dependant. Hence the term “Green Ears of Barley”.
If there is a Commandment concerning Reaping and Sowing it must certainly be applicable to the Primary host crop.
It is written:
Lev 25:3 “Six years thou shalt sow thy field, and six years thou shalt prune thy vineyard, and gather in the produce thereof.”
If you start your Agricultural New Year with Abiv instead of after ingathering in the fall you cannot fulfill this Commandment in Lev 25:3.
When starting the Sabbath Year in Abiv you cannot gather in the Barley that was sown the previous Fall. You also cannot sow Barley that so called Sabbath Year and consequently will not have any sown Barley to gather in the following year. So you end up sowing 6 six years but gathering only 5 years. This is a MAJOR ERROR as Barley is the Principal Crop.
If there is a “Curse of disobedience” upon us for not keeping the Sabbath Year then it remains upon many who have this doctrinal timing wrong. Thanks be that YAHUSHUA has redeemed us from the Curse of the Law, as it seems impossible for us to redeem ourselves by our “obedience”!

Respectfully submitted,
Yohs

Shalom Lev and all,
I made a couple of simple year charts showing the difference between keeping Abib as the Head of the Year versus Keeping it as the Head Month of the Sacred/Harvest Months. If you look at the charts you can clearly see why starting the Sabbath Year midway through the agricultural growing season is not correct.
As a farmer I can not see anyway to keep the Sabbath Year beginning from Abib 1. 0+5+0=5
The commandment is to keep six harvests and then a Sabbath. Not 5.


Yohs

Shalom YOHS. Thanks for all the effort you have put into sharing your position on this. There is a lot to digest and pray over.

Praise YHWH and thanks be to HIM,
The understanding I hold seems to have me at odds with many brothers and sisters. Some even accusing me of twisting the Scriptures to fit my own wishes. It's more like I have had to twist my understanding to fit what I see in the Scriptures. I have arrived at this position through much prayer and perplexity. I was fully ready to give up the whole growing season last spring and a years income due to the teaching of some others about the Sabbath Year. I did not know how we would survive it financially as we had not recieved a double blessing the year before and from a purely physical consequence would normaly be facing complete financial ruin but was willing to act on faith. However I realized that though I was ready to act on faith I could not keep that time by faith as I never was fully convinced in my own mind it was the correct time/cycle. If it was not correct then keeping it would be like keeping Sunday as a Sabbath, perhaps a blessing would come of it anyway if we kept it, but we are blessed apart from works anyway. It's the promise of the Witness that we seek. The Witness of something undeniably Supernatural that will draw others to the Truth of Messiah and HIS Torah. Going into foreclosure as you abandon your farm in the eyes of your neighbors on the wrong cycle will bring ridicule and doubt not acknowledgement of Provision and Conversion to the Faith. I do believe we are singly and corporately suffering many curses of the book for rebellion to Torah including the Sabbath days and Years. It's been a long diaspora. I haven't shared my thoughts about when I believe the correct cycle is. I think I know what it is but sharing any of that right now will only cloud the issue of when it is not. I have begun planning a crop rotation to fit the cycle so as to be seen as a good steward of the land when it comes. It is a very complex issue from an agricutural point of view and I do not know of any keeping it successfully with a double 6th year blessing anywhere today, including in the Land--where we are not to be at this time. I have heard the some brethren farmers from TX tried to keep it with all the feasts some years ago and met with ruin and loss of their farms. That is not a good witness. So to all the armchair quarterbacks of farming out there that are quick to judge me and accuse me of not keeping their interpretations and of being affraid to loose income I have to say keep your condemnation to yourself. At least we are still awbad's of the land. Most have sought the easy life found in the cities of sin and would not so much as step foot on a farm to feed themselves of the land.

I am encouraged that at least one person has layed aside their own understanding long enough to consider and pray over this.
May the Spirit of TRUTH guides us all into all Truth
May we remember the Bread of our Life
as we keep this Feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth

Yohs
Lev/Christopher said:

Shalom YOHS. Thanks for all the effort you have put into sharing your position on this. There is a lot to digest and pray over.

Praise YHWH and thanks be to HIM,
The understanding I hold seems to have me at odds with many brothers and sisters. Some even accusing me of twisting the Scriptures to fit my own wishes. It's more like I have had to twist my understanding to fit what I see in the Scriptures. I have arrived at this position through much prayer and perplexity. I was fully ready to give up the whole growing season last spring and a years income due to the teaching of some others about the Sabbath Year. I did not know how we would survive it financially as we had not recieved a double blessing the year before and from a purely physical consequence would normaly be facing complete financial ruin but was willing to act on faith. However I realized that though I was ready to act on faith I could not keep that time by faith as I never was fully convinced in my own mind it was the correct time/cycle. If it was not correct then keeping it would be like keeping Sunday as a Sabbath, perhaps a blessing would come of it anyway if we kept it, but we are blessed apart from works anyway. It's the promise of the Witness that we seek. The Witness of something undeniably Supernatural that will draw others to the Truth of Messiah and HIS Torah. Going into foreclosure as you abandon your farm in the eyes of your neighbors on the wrong cycle will bring ridicule and doubt not acknowledgement of Provision and Conversion to the Faith. I do believe we are singly and corporately suffering many curses of the book for rebellion to Torah including the Sabbath days and Years. It's been a long diaspora. I haven't shared my thoughts about when I believe the correct cycle is. I think I know what it is but sharing any of that right now will only cloud the issue of when it is not. I have begun planning a crop rotation to fit the cycle so as to be seen as a good steward of the land when it comes. It is a very complex issue from an agricutural point of view and I do not know of any keeping it successfully with a double 6th year blessing anywhere today, including in the Land--where we are not to be at this time. I have heard the some brethren farmers from TX tried to keep it with all the feasts some years ago and met with ruin and loss of their farms. That is not a good witness. So to all the armchair quarterbacks of farming out there that are quick to judge me and accuse me of not keeping their interpretations and of being affraid to loose income I have to say keep your condemnation to yourself. At least we are still awbad's of the land. Most have sought the easy life found in the cities of sin and would not so much as step foot on a farm to feed themselves of the land.

I am encouraged that at least one person has layed aside their own understanding long enough to consider and pray over this.
May the Spirit of TRUTH guides us all into all Truth
May we remember the Bread of our Life
as we keep this Feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth

Yohs
Lev/Christopher said:

Shalom YOHS. Thanks for all the effort you have put into sharing your position on this. There is a lot to digest and pray over.