Yah's Times & Seasons: The New Biblical Month (Moon) of Av (2025)

The opening worship declares: "As for me and my house, we will serve you, Lord, lifting holy hands in worship. We will not bow down to the gods of man. We will worship the God of Israel. You are holy, for you are holy, holy. There is no one else like you. You are holy. As for me and my house, we will serve you alone, lifting holy worship. We will not bow down to the gods of men. Holy is the Lord. There is none like you." The congregation is called to choose: "Choose this day whom you will serve. As for me and my house, we will serve you, Lord. We will serve you, Lord. We will not bow to the gods of men."

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Shalom, friends. My name is Chadwick Harvey, and you have reached Faithful Performance. Thank you so much for joining us tonight as we explore both the Shabbat and the new moon celebration of the fifth month — the month of Av — on the biblical calendar. If you have been with us, you have seen the trajectory that the Lord has been leading us on this year, from Nissan, the first month, all the way through to the fifth month we have entered into today. We hope everybody has had a great week and that you have a wonderful weekend ahead. We really appreciate you joining us tonight on this Shabbat and new moon celebration. It is a double anointing, and you rarely get these together, but when you do, they are very special — an extra layer of the Holy Spirit. We have a great deal of information for you tonight regarding the new moon of Av, including the three anointings that accompany it: the Hebrew letter, the constellation, and the Hebrew tribe — the tribes of Israel. We will go through all of that, as well as the prayers of the Shabbat and the new moon celebration as we enter into this new month. So thank you again for joining us, and let us jump right in.

If you have been with us, you know what the biblical calendar is and the trajectory we have been on together. We are in the fifth month tonight. You can see where the fifth month falls — the month of Av — as we have come around the circle of the year. We have two more months before Tishri and the Feast of Trumpets. This is therefore a very important time for spiritual purification. The first seven months of the biblical calendar are especially significant for spiritual purification, so that we remain on the trajectory the Lord has for us through the biblical scriptures. We need to understand what is happening in these months — not only prophetically, but personally as well. Not only for the nation of Israel, but for each of us personally. We must carefully identify with these anointings on both levels: personally, and also in relation to the state of Israel and how the Lord is dealing with Israel according to the anointings of the calendar and the scriptures that accompany them.

If one does not understand the biblical calendar, the anointings embedded in the scriptures pass by unnoticed. When we look at the month of Av, we need to understand what has historically occurred in this month, because those events dictate the anointing of Av. This gives us insight into the purification the Lord desires for Israel and for us personally — so that we understand the trajectory they were on in the past and do not repeat the same failures. Israel was destroyed twice because of their behavior, and the Lord wants both them and us to understand this so that we do not bring destruction upon our own inner temple as well. There is a great deal of personal application in this, and it is also deeply prophetic. We will go through both dimensions and also provide the historical account.

If you have been watching the trajectory the Lord has been on with the state of Israel and with you individually, go back and look at your own life from Nissan 1 until right now. Look at the purification the Lord has been bringing you through during that time — through the counting of the Omer, through the spring feast days to Shavuot, then after Shavuot to the seventeenth of Tammuz, then through that forty-day section we examined, and now into this current section: the Three Weeks of Sorrow. The Three Weeks began on the seventeenth of Tammuz and will end on the ninth of Av. These seasons and sections of the calendar are very important for us to identify with and participate in so that we can have those intimate encounters with the Holy Spirit, with the Father, and with Yeshua as well. It is about being on the Lord's trajectory, being in alignment with him, understanding where he is on the calendar, what month he is in, and what the anointing of that month is. When we look at the Middle East and North Africa, we can understand these things more clearly as well.

The calendar, my friends, as I have said before, is the accountability partner — for everything. It keeps us in alignment with the Shabbats, the new moons, the feast days, and all the rest, so that we are in alignment with the Lord both personally and prophetically. This is especially vital now as we watch events unfold in the Middle East. It is important to be with him prophetically — to understand where he is — but also to be aligned personally, because the two work together as a refining process for all of us as we go through the end of the age. We are all seeking to purify our personal lives while also learning to observe and understand what he is doing in the purification of the state of Israel, drawing them toward refinement and ultimately toward salvation through Yeshua the Messiah.

The calendar is where it all begins — biblical prophecy, eschatology, theology — all of it. It is established at the very beginning of the Bible. When we understand the Lord's timetable, when we understand how he orchestrates these months and this calendar, then we are going to be in alignment: alignment on the Shabbats, alignment on the new moons, alignment on the feast days. Then all of the biblical scriptures we read, including the prophets, will add depth to that alignment. You will not be caught like a thief in the night at the end of the age because you are tracking with him. That is why it is so important to grasp this foundational principle of reading the Holy Bible: it begins with God's calendar. We cannot read the Holy Bible the way it should be read without the calendar — then the feast days, then the covenants, as we have discussed many times before. If we understand how to read the scriptures through those three lenses, it will read simply, consistently, and coherently from Genesis to Revelation. There will be no gaps of misunderstanding, no replacement theology, no false eschatological identities. You will understand what the war is about, who the war will involve, when on the calendar the war is appointed, and through the feast days, when Yeshua is returning for the second coming events. We must understand the calendar and the feast days to comprehend those things.

But my friends, it always begins with being set apart. I think it is important to keep speaking about being set apart, because that term is not being used nearly enough. We have to be set apart in the Lord to be part of the kingdom — that is simply the bottom line. He expects us to be set apart. He is a set-apart God, with a set-apart Spirit, set-apart instructions, for a set-apart people. We cannot be caught up in the world, because then we are not set apart. We must be set apart in what he calls set apart — not what I call it, not what the church calls it, not what the synagogue calls it. We must be set apart in what he calls holy, what he calls set apart. That is the whole point.

So many times we see the church, the synagogues, or individuals trying to cleanse themselves on their own terms rather than on the Lord's terms. We first encounter this command in Exodus 19:6, at Mount Sinai. It is very important to note where he said this, because there is a direct correlation between the location — Mount Sinai, where the Torah was given — and what he declared there. Exodus 19:6 says: "And you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." You cannot be set apart, I cannot be set apart, unless we follow the Torah. That is the bottom line, yes — with Yeshua, of course, and with the set-apart Spirit — but we must also follow the Father's instructions. The position is straightforward: receive Yeshua's salvation through him, receive the Holy Spirit, and follow the Father's instructions. It is that simple. If we look at it that plainly, instead of getting entangled in replacement theology and the claim that the Torah has been done away with — which is essentially blaspheming the Father's voice — we must understand that no one had the authority to remove his voice from the world. Unfortunately, too much of Christianity today wants to eliminate the Father's instructions, when those very instructions are what the entire world will be attuned to in the millennial kingdom. The Torah is what Yeshua will send out from Jerusalem. It is therefore supremely important to recognize what was declared at Mount Sinai.

He confirms this again in Deuteronomy 14:2, where he reminds the people to be a holy people, a holy nation, and a kingdom of priests. And then in the New Testament, 1 Peter 2:7–10, Peter confirms this same truth when speaking to believers. He says: "Therefore, to you who believe, he is precious. But to those who are disobedient — those who do not believe in Yeshua, or those Christians who are disobedient to the Torah — 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. But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people."