God's Calendar - The Month (New Moon) of Sivan 2021 (5781)

Hello, friends. I'm Chadwick Harvey, and this is Faithful Performance — a ministry for the testimony of the biblical prophets and how they perfectly correlate with the current events of today. Thank you for joining us. In this episode, we are going to discover the month of Sivan on the biblical calendar.

If you are not familiar with God's calendar, it all begins in Genesis 1. Genesis 1:14–16 gives us the prerequisites of what God uses for his calendar — the Hebrew Jewish calendar. Let's read that passage, and then we will get into the month of Sivan: the tribe associated with it, the Hebrew letter, and the constellation that gives us insight into how we can pray into this month on God's seasons and his calendar to receive great revelation about where we are in his timeline.

Genesis 1:14–18 says: "Then God said, 'Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night, and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years. And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth.' And it was so. Then God made two great lights — the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars as well. God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. So the evening and the morning were the fourth day."

God gives us the prerequisites for his calendar — the signs and seasons he uses — which are the sun and the moon. It is the sun-and-moon calendar, the Hebrew Jewish calendar, that he goes by. This is so important for us to understand, not only so that we can pray into these things, but also for the end-of-the-age prophecies, so we can understand that God is going to fulfill his purposes on his calendar, on his divine appointments.

We see that the heavenly bodies are for signs, and also for seasons. That word in Hebrew is *moed*, which means a divine appointment, as discussed in other videos. The divine appointments are also found in Leviticus 23 — the feast days, as most people call them — and it is the same word, *moed*. God is correlating his calendar to his divine appointments in Leviticus 23, and he also wants us to understand the seasons he goes by, the months, the tribes, and the letters associated with each month, to give us great revelation. He sets these prerequisites for his calendar in Genesis 1:14–16.

There are two calendars that God goes by. One is called the civil calendar, and one is called the biblical calendar. The civil calendar begins in Genesis 1. That is when Adam opened his eyes and crowned God as king — on the Feast of Trumpets, on Tishri 1, which we can think of as approximately September 1st on the Gregorian calendar. This is the creation calendar, when time started for the coming of the Messiah — both for his first coming and his second coming. The civil calendar is very important because it calculates time from the beginning to when the Messiah will return, and it feeds directly into the end-of-the-age prophecies.

The biblical calendar — which we can also call the exodus calendar — begins in Exodus 12, where God told Moses, "This is your first month," speaking of Nisan 1, which we can think of as approximately April 1st. This is the spring calendar. God told Moses to count the months from this starting point for the feast days, the divine appointments of the Lord in Leviticus 23, the Sabbaths, and all the related observances. The two calendars work together — one does not eliminate the other. They coincide beautifully. The civil calendar counts time from creation, from Adam, to the end of the age. The biblical calendar is the spiritual calendar, marking when the new body — the one new man — came out of Egypt: Jew and Gentile, the mixed multitude. When God said, "This is your first month," he established a spiritual calendar by which we count the feast days, the Sabbaths, and all those beautiful things in Scripture.

If you have been with us for the last two months, through Nisan and Iyyar, we are on a great journey together. The first three months of the biblical calendar are enormously important — historically, prophetically, and personally — as we can pray into them and walk this beautiful purification journey with the Lord during this season.

Ecclesiastes 3:1 says, "To everything there is a season, a time for every purpose under heaven." God has order in his seasons and on his calendar, and he wants us to understand these things, to pray into them, and to speak of them among fellow believers. His seasons are his seasons. That is why so much of the biblical record is cyclical. When we look at the prophets, we see repeating patterns — for instance, Jerusalem was destroyed on the same calendar day both times, the ninth of Av. That is one example of how God works. He loves his seasons and his times. Of course, the Holy Spirit can do anything at any time, but God does have seasons he wants us to understand, and those patterns repeat.

A wonderful illustration of his orderliness across all of time involves the tree of life. In Genesis 2 we see a tree of life, and when we turn to Revelation 22 — the very end of the Bible, describing eternity — we see another tree of life. It bears fruit, and the tree yields its fruit every month. Even in eternity we will have a calendar. We will not have man's calendar; we will have God's biblical calendar, with God's months, and a fruit will be yielded every month. That tells us there will be order in eternity — not a timeless blur where we lose track of time, but an orderly procession of months on God's months. This shows us that God is the same from the beginning to the end and through eternity; his seasons never change.

We all have to operate on the Gregorian calendar for work and daily life, but we must also understand God's calendar and his seasons. He wants us to be on his time clock as well.

As we enter the month of Sivan, it begins this Wednesday, May 13th, on the new moon. This is of the greatest importance. Most of the Gentile church has no awareness of this because it is rarely spoken of in churches today, but the Lord places great weight on it throughout Scripture. Psalms 81:3–4 says, "Blow the trumpet at the time of the new moon, at the full moon, on a solemn feast day. This is a statute for Israel, a law of the God of Jacob." This is a commandment. We are to blow the shofar at the time of the new moon, because the new moon begins each month on God's calendar.

Here is how the sun and moon operate together on God's calendar: The moon governs the lunar months. The new moon begins each new month — Nisan 1, Iyyar 1, Sivan 1, which falls this Wednesday, May 13th. The full moon marks the middle of the month. Think of Passover at the full moon on Nisan 14, or the Feast of Tabernacles at Nisan 15 and the full moon. God tells us to blow the shofar and to understand his seasons at both the new moon and the full moon. The sun, by contrast, sets the days — it governs the Sabbaths and the daily cycle. The moon begins the months, and the sun establishes the days and the Sabbaths. Together they set God's full calendar.

Psalms 81:3–4 tells us this is "a statute for Israel, a law of the God of Jacob." This is a commandment and a statute for all of us, and even Gentile believers need to understand that we are in the commonwealth of Israel. When God speaks about Israel, that includes grafted-in believers. Romans 11 speaks to this, and so does Ephesians 2:11–13: "You were once strangers to the covenant of the promises, but now through the blood of the Lamb, Messiah Jesus, you are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel." He is taking us back to Exodus 12, which speaks of the congregation of Israel — Jew and Gentile, the mixed multitude who left Egypt together. If you are a Gentile believer, you are no longer a stranger when you accept Jesus as your Savior; you are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel. This is something we must all pray into, acknowledge, celebrate, and proclaim. This is a law, a commandment, of the God of Jacob, who we know is Yeshua — Jesus the Messiah.

Psalms 104:19–21 says, "He appointed the moon for seasons; the sun knows its going down." Again, going back to Genesis 1:14–16, God has ordained the sun and the moon for us to understand his seasons and his timeframes. The moon sets the months — Sivan 1, the new moon, falls on Wednesday, May 13th. The middle of the month brings the full moon on Sivan 14 and 15, and then the cycle renews for the next month, Tammuz 1. The sun governs the Sabbaths and the days.

Psalms 89 is one of the most magnificent passages on this subject. It concerns the Davidic covenant — the promise God made to David in 2 Samuel 7 that David would have an heir, Yeshua Jesus, to sit on his everlasting throne. That promise is everlasting, unconditional, irrevocable, and unilateral — it depends only on God's sovereign righteousness to fulfill it. He will fulfill it at the second coming and throughout the millennial kingdom, the thousand-year reign. In Psalms 89, God correlates this everlasting promise to the moon. When we look at the moon, we can remember the everlasting promise God made to David and to the children of Israel.

Psalms 89:4, 23, 35–37 says: "I have made a covenant with my chosen, I have sworn to my servant David: 'Your seed I will establish forever, and build up your throne to all generations.' Then you spoke in a vision to your holy one, and said: 'I have given help to one who is mighty; I have exalted one chosen from the people. I found my servant David; with my holy oil I have anointed him. With him my hand shall be established, also my arm shall strengthen him. The enemy shall not outwit him, nor the son of wickedness afflict him. I will beat down his foes before his face and plague those who hate him. My covenant I will not break, nor alter the word that has gone out of my lips. Once I have sworn by my holiness; I will not lie to David. His seed shall endure forever, and his throne as the sun before me. It shall be established forever like the moon, even like the faithful witness in the sky.'"