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                           God's Sacred Calendar







                       The Hebrew lunar-solar calendar is the true calendar for all mankind. God Himself  estab-
               lished it, and gave it to the children of Israel when they came out of Egypt (Exodus  12:1).

                       However, its principles go back to creation, when the sun and moon were  appointed by
               God "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years" (Gen. 1:14). The  word for seasons here
               is moadim and literally means "an appointment, a fixed time or  season; a FESTIVAL, by implica-
               tion, an assembly" (see Strong's Exhaustive Concordance, #4150). Thus God appointed the
               heavenly bodies to determine the "appointed times" of His weekly sabbaths, annual Holy Days
               and Festivals from the  moment of Creation!

                       All authorities agree that the basis in law for God's calendar is indeed found in Genesis 1:


                       And God 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.


                       And God made TWO great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to
                       rule the night; he made the stars also. -- Genesis 1:14, 16.

                       We can, at the very lest, realize that whatever these "lights" are, they are natural phenom-
               ena which clearly dictate the rules of order for calculating time. And, notice this, it is not a singu-
               lar source of light (i.e. the sun) but ALL collectively, "Let them be for..."


                       It would be much simpler if the Bible contained a clearly layed-out formula for a Sabbath
               calendar. The Bible (in Genesis 1:14) only tells us what source we are to use for calculations. But
               there seems to be no explicit instructions on their practical implementation. Notes Jonathan
               Brown: "Notching off seven "solar-day" periods which never correspond at the beginning or end
               with heavenly lights does not satisfy Genesis 1:14."

                       Those four word in genesis 1:14 -- signs, seasons, days and years -- can be defined in the
               following way:


               1)  Signs fairly defines the underlying Hebrew word implying  astronomical events  such as
               eclipses, and other we observe with our eyes in the sun, moon and stars -- reminding us of oaths
               God has made to us (Jeremiah 32:35-36).


               2) The sun generally marks days.

               3) After 12 moon cycles have passed, the earth would have gone through nearly four seasons of
               weather changes constituting a year, marked with the sun by four distinct earth tilts called equi-
               noxes and  solstices. These are determined by the angle of the sun throughout which the sunlight
               hours grow longer to a threshold at which they then begin growing shorter again.


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