Lev. 25 - The Shemitah Cycle - Why the Rapture will Not occur on Sept 23-24/ Matt. 25

Welcome to Faithful Performance, and thank you for joining us for this Rosh Chodesh celebration — this new moon festival we are entering tonight. To those who were expecting us to begin at 7:00 or 7:30, please accept my apologies. An unforeseen prior engagement required me to move the start time to 6:00, and I am grateful to everyone who adjusted and joined us.

This is a significant month — good in some respects, and difficult in others — though as always, how we experience it depends on our relationship with the Lord. No matter what the month brings, if we are living according to the Word and doing our part in His kingdom, blessings follow. That does not mean we will be free of warfare. Last month, the month of Tammuz — which ended at sundown today — was personally a month of both good things and spiritual warfare. Tammuz is the month associated with the eyes, and the Lord was working on areas of my own faith and maturity during that season.

We are now transitioning out of Tammuz, historically a month of judgment, into Av, which is also historically a month of judgment and contains the most grievous day in Jewish history: the Ninth of Av. We touched on this in last month's video. We are still within the three weeks of sorrow — the period known as the "dire straits" — which began on the seventeenth of Tammuz, when Israel worshipped the golden calf, and runs through the Ninth of Av, which is roughly ten days away. During these three weeks, we remember the reasons the Temples were destroyed — not merely as historical events, but as personal and prophetic warnings. We ourselves are temples of God, and we must ensure our own temples are not destroyed through the same causes: disobedience to Torah and rejection of the Messiah.

Every month carries historical, personal, and prophetic layers of meaning, and I hope that for those who have been with us throughout this year's journey from Nisan, you can testify to that. After Av, we will move into the month of Elul, which serves as a transitional season leading into the appointed times of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Tabernacles. It is an extraordinary time to be alive — prophetically, in what God is doing globally, and specifically in the growing number of Jewish people coming to salvation in Yeshua, and in Gentile believers receiving the revelation of Torah. The one new body, one new man, is slowly taking shape, just as the Scriptures prophesied. Its fullness will be realized under Yeshua the Messiah during the millennial reign, but our commission right now is to repair the breach between Jews and Gentiles.

Here at Faithful Performance, part of our calling is to bring Jews and Gentiles together in unified worship under one Torah, as commanded through Yeshua the Messiah. We are Torah observant, Sabbath observant, feast-day observant, and new moon observant — honoring His divine appointments as He ordained them, not as mankind has altered them. This begins with being set apart. We must be set apart from the world, and at times, we must even be set apart from certain church doctrines that have drifted from Scripture. We must be Bereans — searching the Scriptures, guarding against error theology and replacement theology, which we have addressed many times.

The Lord wants to meet with us once a week on the Sabbath, once a month on the new moon, and at His ordained appointed times: Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Shavuot, Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and the Feast of Tabernacles. These are His divine appointments for intimacy with His people, and the best way I understand to draw near to Him is to worship according to the way He has ordained in the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation.

I am currently writing a book called *The Cross to the Crown*, subtitled *A Spiritual Purification Journey on God's Divine Appointments*. It will be a year-long devotional going through the Hebrew letters, the tribes associated with each month, and the revelations tied to the feast days, the Sabbath, and the new moon. It will be a free e-book, accompanied by a video series. The book will launch on the Feast of Trumpets — September 25th — but there will be prerequisite chapters to read beforehand. I hope to have it finished and released around mid-September. I have walked this journey personally with my family and friends for three or four years now, and it has been life-changing — not because of any particular method I use, but simply because of being on His timetable, set apart according to His calendar. It has broken off bondage that remained even after I was born again, and brought a freedom and liberty I want to share with others.

Tonight we celebrate the new moon with the Lord. His celestial bodies in the sky — the faithful witness above — are worthy of celebration, and obedience to His calendar and His ways is the primary way we become set apart.

This calling to be set apart goes all the way back to Mount Sinai, where both Jews and Gentiles — the mixed multitude described in Exodus — stood together to receive the Torah. That was the moment the Lord established His nation, the commonwealth of Israel, as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. In Exodus 19:6 He says, *"You shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."* In Deuteronomy 14:2 — in the concluding book of the Torah — He says, *"For you are a holy people to the Lord your God. The Lord has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples who are on the face of the earth."*

Many read this and assume it applies only to the Jewish people, but it encompasses the grafted-in Gentile believers as well. The Book of Revelation confirms that God desires all of us — Jews and Gentiles — to be kings and priests. There are not two separate nations in the millennial kingdom or in eternity. There is one nation, one kingdom, one commonwealth, with Yeshua as the headstone and one way of worship. This is why I urge both Jews and Gentiles to examine where the breach lies and to work toward repairing it — worshipping in spirit and in truth, through Yeshua and the Holy Spirit, according to the Holy Bible.

Both sides have ground to yield. Gentile believers need to come to Torah observance, and Jewish people as a nation need to receive Yeshua as their Messiah. And both sides need to lay down the oral traditions of men, because that is precisely what Messiah came against when He confronted the Pharisees and Sadducees in the Gospels — not against Torah itself, but against the traditions of men that had been elevated above it.