The New Month of Tishri and New Moon

Now we'll go through the new month of Tishri and the new moon. If you have a copy of the book, I'll be going through it in order. This month runs from September 26th to October 25th. As we've discussed before, the calendars don't align perfectly, so we understand the Hebrew date — God's date — and then we can place it on the Gregorian calendar. This month begins tonight and goes to October 25th.

It's called the month of Tishri. Some people get confused about why we still use the Babylonian names. Well, the Babylonian names appear in the Bible as well. You can go to Zechariah 1 and find the month of Shevat. You can go to the Book of Esther and other books and find these Babylonian month names. Why did God allow that? He wanted them to remember their exile, their captivity — just as he wanted them to remember the Exodus. He wouldn't have them pass over that; he wants them to remember their liberation, their freedom from slavery. In the same way, regarding the Babylonian captivity of seventy years, he wanted them to remember it — and thus he allowed the use of Babylonian names in his holy scriptures, inspired by the Holy Spirit.

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." It says to blow the trumpet, blow the shofar, at the time of the new moon — which is tonight — at the full moon, which is the middle of a biblical month (that is Passover, that is the Feast of Tabernacles, coming up in fourteen days) — and on a solemn feast day, which some refer to Yom Kippur. Then it says: "This is a statute for Israel, a law of the God of Jacob."

Most Christians or Gentile Christians will look at this and say this is for the Jewish people only and not for them. I disagree, because in Ephesians 2, Paul says in the New Testament that we were once strangers — Gentiles, strangers of the covenant, aliens from the Commonwealth of Israel — but through the blood of the Lamb we are grafted into the Commonwealth of Israel, into the Kingdom of Israel, and we are part of the covenants, as we discussed over the last two nights. If we are part of Israel, then we need to understand how Israel celebrates. I'm not talking about what the high priest does with the sacrifices and offerings — we have to separate that. I'm talking about being good human beings: keeping the Ten Commandments, celebrating the feast days, honoring God's holy days rather than mankind's holy days or mankind's traditions, which modern-day Christianity largely observes. Those are simply the facts.

We should all be celebrating God's creation. He doesn't just want the Jewish people to celebrate the new moon — he wants all people who love him to celebrate what he has ordained in these certain times and seasons. The new moon sets the standard, sets the calendar, for all the other events of the month. Without the new moon, you would not know when Rosh Hashanah was, when the Feast of Trumpets was, when Yom Kippur was, when the Feast of Tabernacles was. The new moon was actually the first commandment given in Exodus — in Exodus 12:2, before they had even reached Mount Sinai. The Lord already told them: this is your first commandment, which is to sanctify the new moon, to honor the new moon, just as we're doing tonight.

Psalms 89 calls the moon his faithful witness in the sky. We do not worship the moon — we worship the Creator. We are simply following his ordained statutes, which are beautiful and not burdensome, so that we can be intimate with him through these beautiful things he has created.