The Thief in the Night / The Solar Eclipse/ UN General Assembly/Middle East Updates

Hello, everybody. my name is Chadwick Harvey, and you've reached Faithful Performance. Thank you so much for joining us today. Shabbat shalom to everyone as we go through a video really discovering what today — Tammuz 17th — is all about, within the context of the Three Weeks of Sorrow. Some people call it the Dire Straits, or the Three Weeks of Mourning. It runs from Tammuz 17th today, three weeks forward to the Ninth of Av. We are going to bring out a prophecy that many people overlook when studying Tammuz 17th and the Ninth of Av, found in Zechariah 8. So if you have your Holy Bible, we will be looking at Zechariah 8:18–20, as well as the events that have occurred on these cursed days — or fast days — that the Lord God wants us to understand.

We'll begin by looking at Zechariah 8, which contains an amazing prophecy about the millennial kingdom. When you read the entire chapter, it becomes clear that it is speaking about when Yeshua — Jesus — returns for his thousand-year reign on David's everlasting throne. We're going to see what the prophet Zechariah tells us will happen to Tammuz 17th, the Ninth of Av, and the other fast days during that millennial kingdom. First and foremost, when we look at these prophecies referencing the fourth month, the fifth month, the third month, and so on, we must understand that these are on God's calendar — the biblical calendar — not on mankind's calendar of January, February, or March. This is one of the reasons we keep emphasizing on these videos that we have to understand God's calendar to understand his prophecies, because when all of these things are fulfilled, they will be fulfilled on his calendar, not ours.

Zechariah 8:18–20 reads: *"Then the word of the Lord of hosts came to me, saying, 'Thus says the Lord of hosts: The fast of the fourth month, the fast of the fifth, the fast of the seventh, and the fast of the tenth shall be joyful gladness and cheerful feasts for the house of Judah. Therefore love truth and peace.'"* This is such an amazing prophecy, and it truly does something to my heart. What we see is that these fast days — these cursed days — will transition into joyful feast days. The fast of the fourth month refers to Tammuz 17th, which is today. The fast of the fifth refers to the Ninth of Av, which falls in the fifth month on the biblical calendar. Then there is the fast of the seventh month, and the fast of the tenth month. And what a gift the prophet declares: they will be joyful, they will be gladness, they will be cheerful feasts. Some of the sages have said these days will be even more joyful than Passover itself, because they have been cursed for so long that their elevation into feasting will be extraordinary. Whether that is precisely true or not, it powerfully amplifies the fact that these days of weeping, mourning, and fasting will be turned into joyful celebrations. The Lord wants us to be a part of that.

I was born a Gentile, so I often get the question: why do you fast on these days? For me, it is not really about the loss of the temples in and of themselves — it is about the reason the temples were destroyed. The reason God chastised and judged so severely was because the people turned away from the Torah, and in the case of the second temple, because of the rejection of Yeshua and his atoning work at his first coming. So for me, these days are about understanding what God wants all of us — Jew and Gentile alike — to understand. As Ephesians 2 tells us, we were once strangers from the covenants, and now we are grafted into the commonwealth of Israel. That kingdom will be fully realized during the millennial kingdom when, as the disciples asked in Acts 1, he restores the kingdom to Israel. Jew and Gentile are both part of that. So my question to any believer is this: if he wants us to remember these days and fast these days, we should be willing to celebrate these days as well. It would not seem right to want only the joyful feast without understanding how we arrived there — without grasping why the temples were destroyed, why the people were exiled, and why these days became fast days in the first place. Most of mankind wants the good without walking through the understanding that leads to it.

Tammuz 17th is today, July 16th. The Three Weeks of Sorrow begin here and end on the Ninth of Av, which falls on August 6th. As we discussed in the new moon celebration video, this is a time of judgment — though for believers walking in God's will, it is a good judgment, not a bad one. Still, it is vital to recognize this season. If we are going to be in the millennial kingdom and celebrate these days turned into feasts, and we have no understanding of why they are being celebrated, we will be, so to speak, without foundation. We want to dive deep into these things, to pray into them, to remember why the temples were destroyed, and to understand what led to God's chastisement of his people. As we will see, the root cause is idolatry — turning away from the Lord, turning away from the Torah, and in the case of the second temple's destruction in 70 A.D., turning away from Yeshua.

As for Tammuz 17th specifically, this day's significance goes all the way back to the book of Exodus. It became a fast day, a cursed day, because of the golden calf. If you are not familiar with the story, here is the background: after the children of Israel were delivered from bondage in Egypt by the Lord through Moses, they traveled fifty days to Mount Sinai, where they received the Torah. They committed themselves to the Lord — it was a covenantal arrangement, a marriage between God and his people through the Torah. Then Moses went back up the mountain for forty days. During that time, the children of Israel grew impatient. They did not know what had happened to him, and they petitioned Aaron to make them a golden calf from the gold they had received from the Egyptians. They were not yet mature enough in their faith to overcome such temptations, and Aaron was not strong enough to resist their pressure. He had them give up their golden earrings, threw the gold into the fire, and the calf came out. The Lord, from the top of Mount Sinai, told Moses to go down and see what the people were doing, and that is when Moses descended and broke the tablets of the Ten Commandments. That took place on Tammuz 17th — approximately 3,300 years ago. Today is the anniversary of the golden calf, the day Israel sinned grievously against the Lord.

What is remarkable, when you look at Exodus 32:5, is what Aaron declared. It says: *"So when Aaron saw it, he built an altar before it; and Aaron made a proclamation and said, 'Tomorrow is a feast to the Lord.'"* He was proclaiming a feast day — and he named Tammuz 17th as the day. God cursed that would-be feast day and turned it into a fast day. But he promised through Zechariah that in the millennial kingdom he would turn it back into his feast day — the festival he wants to celebrate with us when he is on the earth. It is so remarkable how the Bible runs in perfect order according to how God works. It is vital to understand what Exodus 32:5 reveals: Aaron proclaimed a festival to the Lord on Tammuz 17th, God said no — it will be a fast day, a cursed day — and in the millennial kingdom, I will make it my festival.

We know the rest of the story: after Tammuz 17th, Moses crushed the golden calf, ground it to powder, put it in the water, and made the people drink it. Then the Levites, at Moses' command, slaughtered three thousand of those who had led the rebellion against the Lord. Moses then went back up the mountain and interceded for the people — petitioning God for essentially eighty days in two periods of forty — and came back down on Yom Kippur with the assurance that everything was forgiven. The promise then was to go and inherit the promised land, though as we will see, the people failed again on the Ninth of Av.

This is why it is so important to recognize where we are on God's calendar, to be intimate with him in these seasons. These fast days are vitally important for all believers — to fast, to remember the reason the temples were destroyed, to understand why this day became a cursed day and a fast day. Just as Moses interceded for the people, reminding God of his promises to Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and David, this is also a great season for intercession — for ourselves, our families, and those around us. We will be doing a video throughout the summer on the foreshadow of how Moses interceded and what that means for us today.