The Biblical Month of Repentance and the Sixth Year Blessing

Hello, friends. I'm Chadwick Harvey, and this is Faithful Performance — a testimony to 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 biblical month of repentance, which is the month of Elul, and also the six-year blessing that we are about to step into on the Feast of Trumpets.

If you are not familiar with the month of Elul, it traces back to God's calendar. In Genesis 1:14, God stated that His calendar would be based upon the sun and the moon, and today that calendar is the Hebrew-Jewish calendar. There are actually two calendars that God operates by in the Holy Bible. The first begins in Genesis with Adam, when he opened his eyes and crowned God as King. That is the civil calendar, and it began on the Feast of Trumpets. The second calendar was established in Exodus 12, when God told Moses, "This shall be the first month" — that was Nisan 1, occurring in the springtime around the March-April area. So there are two calendars, and in this episode we are speaking of the civil calendar, which governs the Feast of Trumpets and the fall feast days.

The month of Elul is the twelfth month — the last month before the fall feast days and before the new year on the civil calendar. The civil calendar begins on Tishri 1, which falls in the autumn, around September, and runs for twelve months. The biblical calendar, established through Moses in Exodus 12, set the Sabbath, the feast days, the new moons, and so on. It is important to understand these two calendars. They do coincide, but for this discussion we are focused on the civil calendar, which counts time from Adam — the framework God uses to measure history leading up to the seventh thousandth year, or the seventh day, when the Messiah will return.

There are two major biblical events that took place during the month of Elul — both beginning on Elul 1 and concluding on Tishri 10, which is Yom Kippur. These events reveal the paramount importance of this month as a season of repentance and testing.

The first event involves Yeshua — Jesus the Messiah. He was tempted by Satan in the desert for forty days, as recorded in the Gospels. That period of testing began on Elul 1 and concluded forty days later on Yom Kippur, Tishri 10. We find this account in Luke 4. When He came down from the desert after being tempted, He went into Galilee, entered the synagogue, opened the scroll of Isaiah 61, and read: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He has anointed me..." — and then declared, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." The people were so offended that they wanted to throw Him off a cliff. This is directly connected to Yom Kippur as described in Leviticus 16, where the high priest would take two goats — one being the scapegoat — and cast it over a cliff. The crowd wanted to do to Messiah what was done to the scapegoat, but it was not yet His appointed time. His time would come at Passover, when He was crucified. Nevertheless, their intent tells us that this was a Yom Kippur event, occurring immediately after His forty days of testing. Obviously, He is without sin — He is unleavened, He is perfect — but it is critical to understand that this occurred during the very season of repentance we are now in.

The second event involves Moses. After Israel left Egypt, Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and the rest of the Lord's instructions. He came back down after forty days, only to find that the people had made the golden calf. The next day, he burned the golden calf and made the people drink it. He then ascended a second time for forty more days, returning with no certain assurance that the Lord had forgiven the nation. He then ascended a third and final time — forty days, from Elul 1 to Tishri 10 — the same span as the Messiah's temptation. When Moses came back down that final time, he brought the two tablets and declared that God had forgiven the nation of Israel. This is a profoundly important moment on God's calendar.

This is the season of repentance — the season of teshuvah — a time of testing when we should all be in a posture of repentance: getting on our faces, repenting for ourselves, for our neighbors, our families, and our nation. As we witness the civil unrest and the hardships in the world around us, this is an urgent and sacred season. The month of Elul leads into the high holy days — the Feast of Yom Kippur and the Feast of Tabernacles — which we will explore in future videos. But it all begins here, in what I consider the gateway month: Elul. This is the month to prepare your heart before you enter the high holy days in repentance.

As we will see in those future videos, the books are opened before God on the Feast of Trumpets — for nations, for individuals, for every person on earth — and they remain open for ten days before being sealed on Yom Kippur. So this is a critical time to be ready. The Feast of Trumpets is the next feast day the Lord will fulfill at the second coming of Yeshua. After Trumpets comes Yom Kippur, and then the Feast of Tabernacles.

Just as He fulfilled the spring feast days to the exact day, hour, and detail, He will fulfill the three fall feast days at His second coming. He fulfilled the Feast of Passover when He was crucified, the Feast of Unleavened Bread when He was buried, and the Feast of First Fruits at the resurrection. Forty days later He ascended into heaven, and ten days after that — fifty days from First Fruits — He poured out His Holy Spirit on Pentecost, or Shavuot. He fulfilled those four spring feasts precisely, and we know He is the same yesterday, today, and forever — there is no shadow of turning with the Lord God Almighty. So just as He fulfilled the first four spring feasts, He will fulfill the three fall feasts at His return.

The month of Elul carries rich meaning in its very name. In Hebrew, Elul means "harvest." This is when the grape harvest begins. We have just come out of the wheat harvest at Shavuot, and now we are transitioning into the fall grape harvest. The great harvest is spoken of in the book of Revelation — the winepress of the Lord, poured out at the second coming, during the events of Trumpets and Yom Kippur, when God releases His day of vengeance and His day of wrath. All of this connects to the harvest that will be complete when the Lord returns.

In Aramaic, Elul means "to search" — as in soul-searching. Again, it is the month of repentance, the month of teshuvah. We should be searching our souls, getting right with the Lord, repenting, cleansing, refining, and purging everything that does not belong, so that we are prepared for the high holy days and the feast days of the Lord.

In Akkadian, Elul means "repentance and intercession." As we have seen, we need to be repenting, and we also need to be interceding — just as Moses did. He is a great example for what we should be doing right now: interceding not only for ourselves, our families, and our friends, but also for our nations. When you look at America, at Israel, at whatever nation you live in, we need to be interceding for our national leaders, especially given everything happening in the world. We have all been affected — by the pandemic, by civil unrest, by the protests — and we need to be interceding earnestly for our country, for our president, our legislators, whether we agree with them or not. We have the opportunity to intercede in the courts of heaven so that God's will can be manifested on earth. This is a deeply important month, because this is where it all begins. Repentance leads to revival. True repentance leads to true revival — turning away from sin is true repentance, and that leads to true conviction and genuine revival.

There is a traditional saying: "The King is in the field." This refers to the ancient practice of the kings of Israel going out into the field and setting up their tents among their people. The king was accessible in the field. And in the same way, Messiah — when He returns for His second coming — during this final month of Elul, whenever that appointed time arrives, He will be in the field, ready to move when the trumpet sounds.

The month of Elul is spelled with four Hebrew letters, and in Song of Solomon 6:3 it forms an acrostic: Ani ledodi vedodi li — "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." The first letter of each word in that phrase spells out the month of Elul. That is how significant this month is. The King is in the field. "I am my beloved's and my beloved is mine." He is calling us to connect with Him this month — to repent, to be cleansed and refined, and also to intercede and join Him in the cause of the Gospel and of righteousness in a world growing increasingly dark.

As we enter the high holy days, as we enter the Feast of Trumpets, this is the time of spiritual preparation. Let the month of Elul be your gateway — the month in which you seek the Lord, search your soul, and stand in the gap for those around you.