The Ten Days of Awe & The Courts of Heaven

We appreciate everyone joining us tonight for the New Moon Festival. The new moon begins this new month of Tammuz as we enter God's fourth month on His biblical calendar. It has been an extraordinary journey thus far on His calendar, which began in the spring on Nisan One. We have been journeying through these first three months, and it has been incredible. If you have been observing His calendar and praying into these beautiful things He has ordained — the anointings of the month — then you know what I am talking about. It has been a journey full of revelation and personal closeness with the Lord as we draw near to Him on His set-apart times, communing not only with Him but also with each other.

The new moon actually started last night at sundown, but we are still within Tammuz One before sundown, so we are well within the time. We are transitioning into this fourth month on God's biblical calendar, and it is such an important paradigm shift — moving from the spring months into the summer months. These summer months are important as we journey forward toward the fall feast days: Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and Tabernacles. It all hinges together, from the spring feast days to the fall feast days.

Tonight we want to begin where we always do — with the subject of being set apart. We have a set-apart God, with a set-apart Spirit, and a set-apart Holy Bible, for His set-apart believers. When we truly understand that He wants us to separate ourselves according to His Word and according to the appointed times He has ordained on His calendar, it becomes an intimate and beautiful thing as we draw near to Him.

I have been on this experience for roughly four to five years, and I can only give you my personal account. It has impacted me so much that I am writing a book about it called *The Cross to the Crown: A Spiritual Purification Journey on God's Divine Appointments.* That is how much it has impacted me, my family, and friends who have been on this journey as well. There is so much revelation — it is a paradigm shift. Being close to Him, being intimate with Him in the times He has ordained, brings transformation. When we take the focus off of ourselves and put it on Him, deliverance comes. I started writing the book on Shavuot and hope, God willing, to finish it by the end of August. We will begin a year-long journey on God's calendar from Tishrei One — the civil calendar — and I will be doing some overview videos of the book along the way.

The New Moon celebration is certainly one of those important times — twelve times a year — but from the beginning, He has always wanted us to be set apart. When we look at Genesis, He set apart Adam and Eve in the garden to be different from the rest of the world. Go through all the biblical characters and you will find the same thing: He wants us to be set apart from the world, yet together as a corporate body — one new man.

We first see this language in Exodus 19:6, on the day of Shavuot — Pentecost as we know it today — when the Torah was given at Mount Sinai and when the Holy Spirit was poured out on that same day. It is a phenomenal convergence. Remember, in Exodus 12, it was a mixed multitude that left Egypt — not only the Jewish people, but Gentiles as well. At the base of Mount Sinai, God told them He wanted them to be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to Him. It was both Jew and Gentile He was addressing, and that is so important to understand.

This same language appears again and again throughout the Tanakh and into the New Testament — the Brit Hadashah. It was not just for the Jewish people alone; it was for all of God's people to be set apart as a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. That kingdom is the kingdom of Israel. In Acts 1, when the disciples asked the Messiah whether He would restore the kingdom to Israel, He did not rebuke them. He said it was not for them to understand the times and seasons. The kingdom of Israel will be established when He returns at the second coming. We are all part of that commonwealth of Israel, as Paul calls it — pointing us back to Exodus 12 — and this is crucial to understanding biblical eschatology and the relationship between Jew and Gentile.

Deuteronomy 14:2 reinforces this: "For you are a holy people to the Lord your God, and 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." Then in the New Testament, the Apostle Peter writes in 1 Peter 2:7-10: "Therefore, to you who believe, He is precious; but to those who are disobedient, 'The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone,' and 'A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.' They stumble, being disobedient to the word, to which they were also appointed." Obedience is essential. Much of the Christian church today believes we have a license to sin because we are saved by grace through faith — and certainly we are — but because we are saved, He wants us to follow His commandments. As He said in John 14: "If you love Me, keep My commandments." That is a simple statement. We cannot twist it any other way. Obedience to His commandments is the criterion by which He knows we love Him.

The difference between the old covenant and the new covenant, as described in Jeremiah 31, is simply this: He puts the Torah on our minds and in our hearts. Once we are saved by the blood of the Lamb — Messiah Yeshua — He places it there so that we want to obey. We want to be good children. We will not want to steal, kill, commit adultery, or have idols — because all of these are expressions of love. The Messiah said it is all about loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving your neighbor. When you do that, you will not have idols, you will not kill, you will not commit adultery — because you are living in love. That is what the Torah is: love.

The Apostle John follows this up in the last book of the Bible, Revelation 1:6: "To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen." All through the Holy Bible, God is telling us He wants us to be set apart — both believing Jews and Gentiles — separated and unique, so that people will look at us and say, "What do they have that I want?" And the answer is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit through Yeshua. He wants us to be an example to the world of how He desires us to live: in love. That is what the Torah provides — loving the Lord and loving our neighbor.

So who sets us apart? Do we set ourselves apart, or does God? Psalm 4:3 says, "But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for Himself." Leviticus 20:7-8 says, "Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God. Keep My statutes and do them. I am the Lord who sanctifies you." And Leviticus 20:26 says, "You shall be holy to Me, for I the Lord am holy, and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be Mine." God is the one who separates us from the world. He sets us apart and sanctifies us through His Word. He is the one who defines what is holy and what is unholy, what is righteous and what is not. We must understand these things through the Holy Bible, because He has ordained all of it through His Word.

It is so important for us to be set apart. In the body of Christ today, on both the church side and the Jewish side, there are traditions of men that have been inherited and need to be thrown off. We must worship in spirit and in truth. Truth is the Holy Bible; the Spirit is the Holy Spirit who breathed upon the Word of God. These are our two great witnesses. Yet from the beginning of time, mankind has always wanted to worship themselves or other men, and we must guard against that.