Abia: A vital clue as to when Jesus was born
We update studies as the Lord Jesus leads us. You can find the latest update of this study at ChurchAges.net
We can estimate the birth time of Jesus to within about a month, but it is certainly not 25 December.
- Different ways of measuring a year
- The Little horn is the succession of Popes
- The prophetic or Bible year of 360 days
- 7 and 12 were special numbers
- There were 24 groups or courses of priests
- Jews never had a celebration on a fixed day of the year
- Only two feasts lasted for 7 days
- Adjusting the Jewish calendar to fit the real year
- The 8th course of Abia in Greek or Abijah in Hebrew
- CONFIRM a covenant does not mean MAKE a covenant
Different ways of measuring a year
We can probably estimate the birth time of Jesus to within about a month. But it is certainly not 25 December.
COLOSSIANS 2:16 Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of an holyday,
or of the new moon, or of the sabbath days:
The Jewish year was always eight-and-a-quarter days shorter than the actual year that had only been invented by Julius Caesar in 45 BC and fine-tuned by Pope Gregory 13 in 1582. So, no two successive Jewish years had the same dates on the Roman calendar.
Paul thus told Christians not to fix a date on a certain month each year.
GALATIANS 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
GALATIANS 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
The 25th day of the 12th month as Christmas time every year would not have impressed Paul.
GALATIANS 4:11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
There is no fixed day of the year that is a holy day.
"Good Friday" is unscriptural. It is wrong to remember the crucifixion on a Friday every year.
The day of the week will change from year to year.
For Jesus to rise on the third day, which was a Sunday, meant He had to die on a Thursday. He was three nights in the tomb, like Jonah. Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night and then He rose early Sunday morning.
Jonah is Hebrew and Jonas is Greek.
MATTHEW 12:40 For as Jonas was three days and three nights in the whale's belly; so shall the Son of man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
Time is a tricky concept to work with. What is time? We do not know.
It is an invisible “something” that seems to move from past to future but also seems to speed up if we are excited or else slows down and drags if we are bored.
We cannot even measure time. We measure the movement of a pointer across a watch face but we cannot measure time itself.
Time started when Lucifer sinned and got cast out of the higher 6th Dimension of Heaven into the lower 4th Dimension of time and the spirit realm. That will continue to be his prison until he is finally burned up in the Lake of Fire. When the Fire finally ends, so will time end. Only Eternity will continue. If Hell-Fire is eternal then Lucifer would have eternal life to be in there. But eternal life is what God offers us in salvation so that we can be saved from Hell-Fire.
Time, like Lucifer, will always be a nuisance as it never fits exactly into our calculations.
The month does not exactly fit into the year of 365.24 days nor does the week fit exactly into the month of 29, 30, or 31 days.
Each year you have to buy a new calendar that has new dates. The year 1909 only repeated the same dates when it got to 2021. So, the year is a strange design.
Months are approximately based on the revolution of the moon around the Earth. The revolution of the moon around the earth takes on average 29.53 days as we assume that the earth moves on in its orbit during the month.
Four Jewish weeks gave them a month of 28 days. So they had to do some juggling to keep in step with nature.
The Jews measured their year in weeks as they always kept the Sabbath, every 7th day.
There were 24 courses of one week each for the priests to serve in the Temple.
When they had served twice, 48 weeks of the year had gone by.
Then God added on an extra 3 weeks for special festivals ( Feast of unleavened bread at Passover, Feast of weeks at Pentecost, Feast of Tabernacles).
48 +3 = 51 weeks. (our year is 52 weeks and 1 day approximately)
Thus the Jews were 1 week and 1 day short in their year, they were about 8 days short each year.
So they added in an extra month seven times in a 19-year cycle. It took a lot of juggling to keep in step with the seasons.
The Little horn is the succession of Popes
The Vatican is the world's smallest country.
It was built up over a long time period as the Popes slowly gained wealth and power.
Today the Vatican is the most formidable financial institution that the world has ever seen.
Yet only about 150 people who live in the Vatican have Vatican passports.
Yet they control the beliefs of a worldwide Roman Catholic church.
Thus the Vatican has tremendous religious and political influence around the world.
DANIEL 7:24 And the ten horns out of this kingdom are ten kings that shall arise: and another [the little horn] shall rise after them; and he shall be diverse from the first, and he shall subdue three kings.
The evil spirit of the pagan Roman Empire was destroyed by the barbarians in AD 476 but then resurrected upon the ruins of the Roman Empire as the Roman Catholic church. That is the little horn. Today is known as Vatican City, the world's smallest country but the world's wealthiest organization with 1.4 billion members worldwide.
The Roman Catholic church is thus baptized paganism.
The "little horn" also represents the succession of the Popes which is the longest line of rulers in the Western world.
Ten barbarian tribes who played a part in the destruction of the western Roman Empire also played a role in establishing the power of the Pope. The Heruli or Scirii, the Vandals, and the Ostrogoths were three barbarian tribes that were destroyed to establish the Pope as the most important man in Italy. The Pope accepted Christianity and became its leader by perverting Bible Christianity into a man-made denominational church organization that embraced pagan ideas like Trinity, Good Friday, and Christmas. The Pope then claimed the power to crown the barbarian leaders as kings. That made him different from the 10 tribal kings.
DANIEL 7:25 And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws:
The Catholic church had to believe in a Trinity. You cannot find one name for three People. So God lost His name. Tens of millions of non-Catholics were killed in the Dark Ages which went on for centuries.
"Change times".
The pagan Roman dictator Julius Caesar changed the calendar in AD 45.
The Roman Pope Gregory 13 made the final changes to the calendar in 1582.
Around AD 350 Roman Pope Julius I changed the birthday of Jesus to 25 December. We were never asked, in the Bible, to celebrate the birth of Jesus.
The Roman Popes changed the crucifixion from Thursday to Friday as Friday is named after a goddess, Freya. This motive is based on woman worship which is linked to their worship of mother Mary. Then they introduced the equally unscriptural Easter Monday, named after the Moon goddess. Only Monday and Friday are named after women goddesses. So the Popes changed the crucifixion date to involve the two days named after women.
The crucifixion was on the Passover, the day of the full moon. Today, thanks to the Popes' decrees and laws, the crucifixion is almost never remembered on the day of the full moon.
The communion service or the Lord's Supper was done at night by Jesus but the Popes changed this to a morning service and all the churches followed their unscriptural example. They have turned it into the Lord's Breakfast.
The Popes then changed the Sabbath day from Saturday to Sunday.
The Jews had been using a 7-day week in the days of Moses.
In the first century BC, the Romans started using a 7 day week, with the days of the week being named after the pagan gods of Rome, the Sun, and the Moon.
Finally, when Rome claimed to embrace Christianity under the Roman Emperor Constantine in AD 312, the seven-day week was adopted by the Romans and started to be widely used.
The real mystery of time is the seven-day week.
There is no natural cycle of 7 days to copy the week from.
Seven days do not fit into a month nor into a year.
But this week of working for 6 days and having a day of rest is the only week that works well in practice. It survives because it works.
The French Revolution introduced a decimal week of 10 days in 1793. But it only lasted just over 12 years until 1805.
Why did God introduce a 7-day week in Genesis? Because it is the only week-length that will keep working well. And it has a much deeper significance. God deals with the Gentiles for 7 church ages.
The 7 church ages are a great mystery that most people are not really aware of. Most Christians speak of the 2000 years of church history as the church age, as if it is only one age. Seven church ages do not fit into their theology. They have no idea of the 7 church-age messengers, one to each age. They cannot see William Branham as the 7th messenger to our 7th church age of the Laodiceans. (The Laodiceans make up their own beliefs in the last age).
7 is thus a key number in the Bible.
The Old Testament Jews did not know about
our modern Roman or Gregorian year of 365.24 days (which is 52.18 weeks).
Nor did they know about the lunar year of 354.37 days (which is 50.62 weeks) based on the time of 29.53 days as the moon makes one orbit around the earth for each month. 11 days short.
The Jews worked in 7 day weeks. So, after 4 weeks they had a 28 day month. But because the earth has moved in its orbit, it takes the moon 29.53 days to get back to its original position. So the Jews timed a month from the new moon (when there is no moon) and counted about 14 days before starting their festival. That way their 28 day month and the proper 29.53 day month were still reasonably coinciding for the first half of the month.
But as the weeks went by, the 28 day month cycle only added up to 336 days for 12 months. So God made the priests add in 3 extra weeks which is 21 days. that brought the year up to 336 + 21 = 257 days. 8 days short.
Seven times in a 19-year cycle they would add an extra month of 28 days. A messy system, but it stopped the Jews picking any day of the actual year as special. If you look at the new moon calendar, it is always on different days. The Jews thus never had a fixed day like 25 December that was the same every year. Thus they could not celebrate the pagan sun god's birthday.
So God made it impossible for the Jews to pick the same day of the year, every year. Especially when extra months were added in.
God does not want an annual celebration on the same day every year.
The prophetic or Bible year of 360 days
There was also a prophetic year of twelve months of 30 days each that made 360 days. This was recorded in Noah’s day when five months was equated to 150 days. Each month had to be 30 days.
GENESIS 7:11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life,
in the second month, the seventeenth day of the month,
the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of heaven were opened.
GENESIS 8:4 And the ark rested in
the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month,
upon the mountains of Ararat.
The ark floated from 17/02 to 17/07 which is 5 months.
But this is a time period of 150 days.
GENESIS 7:24 And the waters prevailed upon the earth
an hundred and fifty days.
If you want to tackle Daniel's 70 weeks or his 1290 days or the 2300 days until the sanctuary is cleansed, you will have to use the prophetic year or Bible year of 360 days to make each prophecy fit into our modern Gregorian calendar.
The Flood changed our year and made it slightly longer as God moved the earth away from the sun and the northern and southern portions of the earth froze instantly in the terrible cold of deep space. That explains the woolly mammoth found with flowers in its mouth and stomach that had not decayed because it froze so quickly. This was the last ice age that left freshwater ice on the north pole and south pole. The year became just over 365 days long, each day being a testimony to a year of Enoch’s remarkable life and faith. He was the first man to escape death by being caught up to Paradise just before Noah was born.
Enoch was very godly as he walked with God. He did not listen to man-made ideas.
GENESIS 5:23 And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years:
:24 And Enoch walked with God: and he was not; for God took him.
During great Tribulation, God will move the earth closer to the sun which will scorch the earth and melt the ice caps. This scorching will aggravate the drought conditions of the three-and-a-half years of great Tribulation. The sea level will rise by about 70 metres, flooding all the coastal cities and causing a mass disorganized movement of people inland to add to the confusion.
REVELATION 16:8 And the fourth angel poured out his vial upon the sun; and power was given unto him to scorch men with fire.
The two Jewish prophets Moses and Elijah have a ministry of three-and-a-half years to the Jews in great Tribulation.
REVELATION 11:6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy:
7 and 12 were special numbers
But 12 months was a significant reminder that God’s chosen people were the 12 tribes of Israel.
7 days in the week remind us of the 7 church ages.
7 and 12 are the two key numbers in the Tabernacle.
The seven-branched candlestick and the 12 loaves of shewbread stood in the Holy Place.
Your head is connected to your body by your backbone. The top 7 vertebrae from the neck. The next 12 vertebrae attach the ribs to your backbone.
God connects to humanity through the Jews and the church.
When Jesus fed the multitudes, He put the emphasis on the number of baskets of rejected scraps of bread that were collected by the disciples. This symbolized that the Jews would reject the Gospel of the Bread of Life. The disciples would collect this rejected information as the New Testament. They would then give it to the church in the 7 church ages and then to the 12 tribes of Israel in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation.
The number of collected baskets of rejected scraps was 12 and 7.
MATTHEW 16:9 Do ye not yet understand, neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand,
and how many baskets ye took up?
MATTHEW 16:10 Neither the seven loaves of the four thousand, and
how many baskets ye took up?
God’s key numbers are 12 and 7 that refer to Israel and the church.
The Old Testament 12 Tribes of Israel and the New Testament 7 church ages, that unite in Christ.
God dealt with the Jews with a very simple calendar just based on 7-day weeks.
There were 24 groups or courses of priests
Each priest had to work for 1 week out of 24 weeks.
Each priest belonged to a course or group of priests. Each course ministered for a week.
LUKE 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
David had ordered 24 courses of priests for the Temple duty that were originally chosen by lot.
1 CHRONICLES 24:4 Among the sons of Eleazar there were sixteen chief men of the house of their fathers, and eight among the sons of Ithamar according to the house of their fathers.
:5 Thus were they divided by lot, one sort with another;
16 + 8 = 24
There were 24 courses for the priests to perform in the Temple.
This symbolized the 24 elders who will sit around the throne of God and the four living creatures.
REVELATION 4:7 And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
REVELATION 4:4 And round about the throne were
four and twenty seats:
and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
The Lion represented Jesus as the Lion of the tribe of Judah, King of the Jews. The Calf grew into an Ox, the mighty Servant Who would carry the sins of mankind down to hell to dump them on the devil. The Man represented Jesus as Messiah, the perfect Man.
The Eagle represented Jesus as God, the great Holy Spirit.
(The Jews missed this and could not see that a Man could be Almighty God. They could not believe that Almighty God could become a Man)
The throne in Heaven is represented in the human body as the heart with four chambers and surrounded by 24 ribs.
Thus, God’s throne on earth is the human heart that has repented and accepted Jesus as personal Saviour.
The priestly service was broken into 24 lots or courses. Symbolized by the 24 ribs.
1 CHRONICLES 24:7 Now the first lot came forth to Jehoiarib, …
Is it a coincidence that this first name ends in “a rib”?
Adam’s bride was made from a rib.
GENESIS 2:22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Continuing with the lots or courses of the priests:
1 CHRONICLES 24:10 The seventh to Hakkoz,
the eighth to Abijah,
Abijah in Hebrew is spelled Abia in Greek.
:18 The three and twentieth to Delaiah, the four and twentieth to Maaziah.
:19 These were the orderings of them in their service to come into the house of the LORD,
according to their manner, under Aaron their father, as the LORD God of Israel had commanded him.
The priests in these 24 courses had to follow each other in a set order of time. Each priest staying in the Temple for a week.
David got all the visions about the Temple from God and gave the information to Solomon.
1 CHRONICLES 28:10 Take heed now; for the LORD hath chosen thee to build an house for the sanctuary: be strong, and do it.
:11 Then David gave to Solomon his son
the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof …
:13 Also for the courses of the priests
and the Levites,
and for all the work of the service of the house of the LORD,
and for all the vessels of service in the house of the LORD.
How did the courses work?
Every 7 days there would be a changeover so that each priest worked for one week out of 24.
There was accommodation for the priests to lodge close to the Temple while they did their week of duty.
I CHRONICLES 9:25 And their brethren, which were in their villages, were to come after seven days from time to time with them.
:26 For these Levites, the four chief porters, were in their set office, and were over the chambers and treasuries of the house of God.
:27 And they lodged round about the house of God, because the charge was upon them, and the opening thereof every morning pertained to them.
2 CHRONICLES 23:6 But let none come into the house of the LORD, save the priests, and they that minister of the Levites; they shall go in, for they are holy: but all the people shall keep the watch of the LORD.
:8 So the Levites and all Judah did according to all things that Jehoiada the priest had commanded, and took every man his men that were
to come in on the sabbath, with them that were to go out on the sabbath:
for Jehoiada the priest dismissed not the courses.
Two groups operated on the Sabbath day. Those who were starting their week and those who were ending their week.
The first and the last day of each weekly duty was a Sabbath.
This symbolized Jesus Who is the first and the last.
REVELATION 1:11 Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last:
This symbolized that the first church age and the last church age must be the same.
24 courses lasted 24 weeks. Then they were repeated for the second half of the year.
24 x 2 = 48 weeks
The repetition in the second half of the year symbolized that God had a plan for the Jews that took them through 7 stages that typed the seven church ages. From Abraham to John the Baptist.
Then God repeated these seven stages as the church moved through seven church ages that reflected the Jewish history.
The first church age of Ephesus.
REVELATION 2:1 Unto the angel of the church of Ephesus write;
:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.
The church lost its first love of Scripture and followed human leaders into man-made traditions. Those who forsake Scripture and follow man tend to hate those who remain Scriptural.
For the Jews, Abraham left his first love Sarah and went with Hagar which produced Ishmael and the Muslim hatred for the Jews.
The second church age of Smyrna.
REVELATION 2:8 And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write;
:10 Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried;
The persecution of the second church age by the Roman emperors. Today, people who insist on being Scriptural are shunned, rejected, and isolated by church-goers who hang onto their wrong traditions.
Joseph was thrown into prison, based on a false accusation.
The third church age of Pergamos.
REVELATION 2:12 And to the angel of the church in Pergamos write;
:14 But I have a few things against thee, because thou hast there them that hold the doctrine of Balaam,
Moses had to contend with Balaam.
The fourth church age of Thyatira.
REVELATION 2:18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write;
:20 Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach
Elijah had to contend with Jezebel.
The fifth church age of Sardis.
Ezra took the treasure back into the Temple. Martin Luther restored salvation by faith alone which is the real treasure of the Gospel.
The sixth church age of Philadelphia.
Nehemiah rebuilt the strong wall around Jerusalem. This typed the strength of Christianity which was demonstrated by John Wesley’s holiness campaign and the brotherly love that led to the golden missionary age.
The seventh church age "of the Laodiceans" who make up their own church beliefs. They have 45000 different types of churches and denominations and over 100 different versions of the English Bible.
John the Baptist foreran the First Coming of Jesus as a Man amongst men.
The revelation of the mysteries of the King James Version of the Bible will forerun the Second Coming of Jesus, as the Bride see Jesus revealed in the pages of the Word.
The Bride must first understand the revealed Bible mysteries until the Bible becomes an open Book to them. Then only will Jesus return in a physical nail-marked Body to catch them up to the Wedding Feast.
The history of the church was reflected in the history of Israel.
In all the ups and downs of human life and amidst all the swirling tides of human history, only one Person has come forth Who is fit to be the Ruler of mankind.
That Person is Jesus.
MICAH 5:2 But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting.
The Assyrian was a brutal enemy of the Jews, symbolizing Satan.
Jesus, our final ruler, is the only Man who can bring peace and combat the Devil.
MICAH 5:5 And this man shall be the peace, when the Assyrian shall come into our land: and when he shall tread in our palaces,
then shall we raise against him seven shepherds, and eight principal men.
Jesus guides the church by means of the
New Testament which is written by eight men.
Matthew. Mark. Luke. John. Paul. James. Peter. Jude.
They are the principal men because we have to believe everything that they wrote. We are neither allowed to argue against the written Scripture nor can we try to change or ignore or dismiss what is written in any way. The New Testament was written by these eight men on paper or papyrus, but it was not their thoughts. The inspiration came from God. They wrote what God directed them to write. The New Testament is God’s Word.
God alone could inspire the apostle John near the end of his life to select the 27 correct Books of the New Testament.
Thus, the perfect Seed of God’s Word was established by the apostles during the first church age.
Then human leaders would guide the church away from Scripture into the Dark Ages.
Finally, God would inspire a slow return back to the original Bible truth. God alone could inspire the translators of the King James Bible to give us the Absolute and infallible truth during the time of the third beast, the Man, when God blessed human scholarship.
We cannot translate the Bible properly today as God now blesses the Eagle beast, which gives us an accurate insight into the mysteries of the translated King James Version of the Bible.
Each church age would be guided to the truth of Scripture, as best that age could manage under their different circumstances, by a messenger who acted as a shepherd.
The true Shepherd is God, Who we know as the Word of God. When the messenger guides the church back to Scripture, then the people are obeying God, the true Shepherd.
PSALM 23:1 The LORD is my shepherd;
Seven messengers would help the church to be Scriptural which is the only way that we can oppose the enemy.
Jews never had a celebration on a fixed day of the year
A year has 52 seven-day weeks, plus 1 day.
This extra day means that each year is different to the year that comes before it or after it. Time will always be a nuisance that needs calculating.
But God deliberately left one week out.
(That made the Jewish year 8 days short of a real year).
The priests worked for 48 weeks plus 3 extra weeks for feasts. That is 51 weeks.
The Jewish faith was incomplete as there was something that they could not see.
They would reject God when He came in the flesh as Messiah.
That missing week meant that neither they nor us could work out dates too accurately.
The Jews would have to artificially add in time to make the calendar match the real year. A clumsy process. Time is like Satan, a nuisance that we will be glad to be rid of someday when the mighty Angel of Revelation 10 raises the dead and announces that
REVELATION 10:6 ...there should be time no longer:
Time ends for the Bride when the seven Thunders reveal how they can be changed into their immortal bodies and become part of Eternity.
The Jewish month depended on the sighting of the full moon and this is never fixed to a specific date in our Roman or Gregorian calendar.
Only pagans had a fixed day of the month that they celebrated each year as if that day was important.
The 25th December was a winter festival for the pagans that became the birthday of the sun god in Rome.
GALATIANS 4:9 But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to
the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage?
GALATIANS 4:10 Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years.
25th day of the 12th month of December which is called Christmas time, each year.
If you celebrate this day then Paul regards you as a “waste of time” Christian.
GALATIANS 4:11 I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.
The pagans also celebrated the start of the new year by making loud noises to drive away the demons.
We still have a noisy new year, as if this date has any significance.
Christmas time in 2020 and the new year of 2021 saw a staggering increase in infections and deaths of COVID-19 coronavirus victims.
What is God trying to tell us? He is not interested in these two celebrations.
Meanwhile, brain-washed people mutter the unscriptural mantras of “Merry Christmas” and “Happy new year” that were totally inappropriate as the ravages of disease soared.
No fixed day of the year is special to a Christian.
In the New Testament, Christians never even celebrated their own birthdays.
Only two feasts lasted for 7 days
There were only two 7-day feasts.
Two of the extra feasts lasted for a week.
The feast of Unleavened Bread and the feast of Tabernacles.
These are the only two feasts that represent events when God is in full control.
The feast of Pentecost was only for one day.
The feast of weeks, which is the Day of Pentecost, launched the church ages and the church was flawed. So that feast was only worth 1 day.
EXODUS 12:15 Seven days shall ye eat unleavened bread;
EXODUS 23:15 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread: (thou shalt eat unleavened bread seven days, as I commanded thee, in the time appointed of the month Abib;
"Abib" means "ear of grain". This is an alternative name to Nisan.
LEVITICUS 23:34 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, The fifteenth day of this seventh month shall be the feast of tabernacles for seven days unto the LORD.
The Jews actually had seven feasts, but only two of them lasted for a week.
The feast of Unleavened Bread and the feast of Tabernacles.
Passover or the Day of Preparation on the 14th day was a separate event when the lamb was killed and roasted (our Thursday). The previous evening was the Last Supper (our Wednesday night).
The 15th day was the Feast of the Passover (a special Sabbath) when the roasted lamb was eaten. This day was also the Feast of Unleavened Bread. It was the first day of the seven days of unleavened bread. Symbolizing the perfection of Christ in the 7 church ages.
The 16th day was the Saturday Sabbath. The 17th day was the Sunday resurrection, the Firstfruits as Jesus became the first Man to rise from the dead in a new immortal Body. The 21st day was the 7th day of Unleavened Bread,
Passover happened first. The terrible killing of Christ to pay for our sins.
Then the week of Unleavened Bread and the Firstfruits happened in the same week that was known as the Feast of Unleavened Bread. This celebrated the redemption of the church through 7 church ages, thanks to His terrible sufferings.
The Firstfruits, the resurrection of Christ, as he waved goodbye to death, hell, and the grave and then His perfect Life as He guided the church through the 7 church ages.
These last two ideas combine to form the first week-long feast.
The feast of Unleavened Bread.
Christ has been the perfect sacrifice for sin by carrying our sins down to hell to dump them on the devil. The church only survived because of His incredible guidance and support throughout the 7 church ages. So this deserves a 7-day celebration to rejoice over the perfection of Jesus and how He delivers His people.
The next feast happened 7 weeks or Sabbaths later (49 days) starting on the next day, the 50th day which was a Sunday, and was called the Feast of Weeks because they had to wait 7 weeks. This started on the day of Pentecost.
That symbolized the church having to learn to wait on God and not do anything by themselves.
It represented both the good and the bad in the church as they had two loaves baked with leaven. This emphasized that only Jesus is perfect and infallible, not any man. The two loaves represent the first and last church ages which alone had the full truth. The feast of weeks, as they waited 7 weeks for Pentecost.
This feast lasted one day, not seven days. That means, in the 7th age, very few would use the quotes of William Branham to get an understanding of the written Word. His message would be corrupted by his followers.
But priests could only change over on a Sabbath day. So all the priests who were present for the Sunday feast of weeks or Pentecost, had to fulfill the whole week of Temple duties before being able to leave.
This symbolizes that only one age, the first church age had the truth that they spread around the world.
The truth got lost in the second age as Bishops became the leaders of the church. The truth died with Trinity at the Nicaean Council in AD 325 and was buried in the dirt of the Dark Ages. Luther's Reformation began to restore the truth but in the 7th church age, brother Branham's revelation of the 7 Seals was corrupted by his followers who uplifted him to being the infallible Voice of God (which is never mentioned in the New Testament). Sadly, this copies the Catholic mother who claim that their Pope is infallible. Instead of using his quotes to reveal the Word of God, they replaced the revealed Word of God with their interpretations of his quotes. Thus very few would be restored back to the first church age.
LUKE 18:8 Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?
As a result, much to our shame, only the first church age of the apostles was a great success. As such, only one day or church age was worth celebrating.
God only celebrated the first age, or first day, when the apostles had the truth.
DEUTERONOMY 16:16 Three times in a year shall all thy males appear before the LORD thy God in the place which he shall choose;
in the feast of unleavened bread,
and in the feast of weeks,
and in the feast of tabernacles:
Three feasts only are mentioned. Why?
The single-day events of the Trumpets and Atonement symbolize the Jews in great Tribulation.
This horrible time is left out as it is the Night of Darkness when sin runs rampant on earth.
This is the missing week that God never added to the Jewish year as God does not want to remember the horrific great Tribulation time.
The Jews used human wisdom to understand the Plan of God. A complete disaster that has left them outside the Plan of God for the entire seven church ages. They will only get back into the Plan of God during great Tribulation and that time of Death and horror cannot be celebrated.
So the Trumpets are certain disasters in the 3.5 years of great Tribulation that force the Jews back to Israel. Disasters are not celebrated.
The Day of Atonement is when they finally realize that they crucified Messiah. A time of weeping and mourning. Not celebrating.
So the Trumpets and Atonement are great Tribulation events that nobody wants to recall, much less celebrate.
The second week-long feast is the Tabernacles or Booths
which celebrate the Jews building their homes in the Millennium or 1000 years of peace.
There were three crucial times that God wanted to remember, so He required 3 special festivals.
7-day feast 1. The death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and His perfect, infallible ministry during the 7 church ages.
1-day feast 2. The Day of Pentecost when the original apostolic church was launched which would be the only proper example for the seven church ages. Despite sin being in the church to remind us that no man is perfect.
7-day feast 3. God does not want to remember the night of great Tribulation. It is too horrible. A vicious bloodbath. So He skips the Trumpets and Atonement to celebrate the Jews in the Millennium, building their booths or Tabernacles. That is when Jesus rules the earth.
When God first mentioned a day, He left out the night.
GENESIS 1:5 And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Evening. No night. Morning.
What is God trying to tell us?
The evening light will enable the return of some believers, in the last church age, back to the beliefs of the first church thanks to the inspired revelations of William Branham.
Laodicea is neither hot nor cold. Neither light nor dark. Neither day nor night. Just some gloomy in-between that is partly Scriptural and partly unscriptural. They know about salvation and good works but reject and ignore the deeper mysteries of Scripture as they indulge in clever speculations based on quotes that cannot be proven from Scripture.
ZECHARIAH 14:7 But it shall be one day which shall be known to the LORD,
not day, nor night:
but it shall come to pass, that
at evening time it shall be light.
Then comes the frightening night of the Tribulation which is when the Holy Spirit has left the earth, taking the Bride to Heaven. God makes no mention of the night. He does not want to remember it. It is simply a time that is too ghastly to contemplate.
Then the morning represents the start of the 7th day, the Millennium, the 1000 years of peace when Christ and His Bride rule on earth.
That is when the Jews build their new homes in the Promised Land and they will be the dominant nation on earth that is occupied by the heathen survivors of Armageddon who never heard the Gospel.
This is symbolized by the feast of Tabernacles.
Glad to have the Jews back in His Kingdom, God remembers this 7th day of 1000 years that fulfills the 7th day of Genesis Chapter 2 when Adam and his bride were to rule the earth for 1000 years but messed up.
The “feast of weeks” lasted for one day, the Day of Pentecost.
Leavened bread symbolized the sin and imperfection in the church during the seven church ages.
This is a blunt reminder that Christians are not perfect and that people should not claim that brother Branham is perfect, or infallible, or the Absolute truth.
LEVITICUS 23:17 Ye shall bring out of your habitations two wave loaves of two tenth deals: they shall be of fine flour; they shall be baken with leaven;
they are the firstfruits unto the LORD.
Two wave loaves. The first and the last church ages would be the only ones that had the full truth.
Despite the imperfections of human beings.
But so few end-time people would be restored to the original faith of the New Testament. Thus, God just allocated one day to the festival. It is as if our seventh age is so full of errors that it is not worth mentioning.
So, the first week-long feast applied to Christ, and the second day-long feast referred to the first of the seven Gentile church ages.
The Jews only had one seven-day Feast of Tabernacles.
God simply left out two events, the blowing of Trumpets and the Day of Atonement. Why? Because they happen in the Tribulation. Nothing from the Tribulation will be remembered. It is just left out as it represents the darkness of night. And God is Light.
Neither of these two events, the Trumpets, and the Atonement is linked to the seven church ages. The Bride from 7 church ages does not go through the Tribulation.
In the 7th month was the blowing of the trumpets. This only applies at the end of the 7th church age, not for the duration of the 7 churches. The two messengers Moses and Elijah will sound the supernatural trumpets that are a series of disasters that will drive the Jews back to assemble in Israel during the Tribulation. No special week can remember these awful sufferings as a feast. God does not want to remember the Tribulation.
NUMBERS 10:2 Make thee two trumpets of silver;
of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.
Two trumpets. Moses and Elijah.
Then the day of atonement represents the 144000 Jews accepting Jesus as Saviour. A time of deep mourning. No special week can remember this day of deep anguish and painful regret as a feast.
This mournful day comes from deep in the Tribulation. Not a time to remember.
There is one 7-day feast for the Jews. The week of the Feast of Booths or Tabernacles represents the buildings that the Jews build for themselves in the Millennium or 1000 years of peace.
The 7-days of the feast are a reminder that the Millennium is the 7th day of God’s original plan when He spent six 1000-year-days making the earth a fit place for humans to live. This finally completes the plan of God that Satan interrupted in Eden.
Jerusalem is the only place where God accepted sacrifice.
I KINGS 11:36 And unto his son will I give one tribe, that David my servant may have a light alway before me
in Jerusalem, the city which I have chosen me to put my name there.
President Trump did a great thing when he had the courage to face down the rest of the world and recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel in 2018.
That sets the scene so that Jesus can return to the Jews now, whenever it pleases Him.
Adjusting the Jewish calendar to fit the real year
In a year, 24 courses of priests each worked for 2 weeks. That is 48 weeks.
Then God added in 3 extra weeks for feasts: Passover, Pentecost, Tabernacles.
48 + 3 = 51 weeks
The Jews had one week missing to remind them that they rebelled against God.
They had to keep fiddling with the calendar by adding in an extra month to make a year of 13 months.
This happened 7 times in 19 years remind them that as humans they kept rebelling against God.
In 19 years they had 7 years of 13 months and 12 years of 12 months. (7 and 12 again).
The church had a similar problem.
The right half of the lampstand symbolizes Revelation Chapter 2 where the first 4 church ages end in the Dark Ages of rebellion against truth.
Then Revelation Chapter 3 has 3 church ages of restoration to get back to the first church age.
Thirteen is the number of rebellion.
GENESIS 14:4 Twelve years they served Chedorlaomer, and in the thirteenth year they rebelled.
With this juggling around, we can never be too accurate with dates because we do not always know when the Jews added in the extra month.
Revelation Chapter 13 shows the rise of the Roman Catholic beast and also the rise of the powerful American beast. These two powers represent the final rebellion against God.
In 2021 the Catholic duo of Biden and Pelosi took over the leadership of America. The stage is being set for the Catholic church to rule America and take her to ruin. At her inauguration, Vice President Kamala Harris wore purple, the colour of Catholic Bishops and Archbishops. She wore pearls. Each gate to Heaven is a pearl. Symbolizing her role in opening the gates of America to Catholic domination. A woman symbolizes a church.
60 11 13 CONDEMNATION BY REPRESENTATION
Then when these women help elect the wrong person, then I seen a great woman rise up in the United States, well-dressed and beautiful, but cruel in heart. She will either guide or lead this nation to ruination. (I've got in parenthesis "perhaps Catholic church.")
America was the wilderness where Protestants fled to for safety from Catholic persecution. Now they are handing over the country to the Catholics.
Biden, in his first month of office, has already allocated multi-millions for abortions. The killing of children is always a symbol of an exodus. The first exodus was the Jews out of Egypt. Pharaoh killed the Jewish children. The second exodus was the church out of Judaism. Herod killed the children. The third exodus is the Bride out of the church and a Catholic man, Biden, boosts abortions. Plus, he is boosting transgender and gay persons with high office. As it was in the days of Lot who lived in the awful city of Sodom. The stage is being set.
LUKE 17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
When the world goes back to the gay rights of Sodom, then there will come down the fire of nuclear missiles.
LUKE 17:30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
At that time Jesus will be revealed as He walks through the pages of the Bible when the end time mysteries are made known.
The 8th course of Abia in Greek or Abijah in Hebrew
When the mysteries are made known, we should be able to puzzle out roughly when Jesus was born.
LUKE 1:5 There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth.
Abia (in Greek) was the 8th course of the Hebrew Abijah.
I Chronicles 24:10 The seventh to Hakkoz, the eighth to Abijah,
Zacharias had to serve in week 8 as this was the course of Abijah or Abia.
The Jewish year started in March or April, depending on the full moon.
We will assume that it started in March. It could have started in April and thus we will always be about one month uncertain.
What I am calling March on our calendar, the Jews called Nisan. April they called Iyar. May was Sivan.
The third week was the Feast of Unleavened Bread when all the priests attended. Thus the fourth week between day 21 and 28 would be the lot of the third group of priests.
The seven weeks before Pentecost began from the day of the Firstfruits (the resurrection) that was within the feast of Unleavened Bread. In AD 33, when Jesus died, the Firstfruits was on Sunday 17th.
After week 3, each lot of the priests would be one week behind the actual week.
By week 8, the end of the month of April, six weeks had been completed for the timing of Pentecost that needed 7 weeks and one day.
Remember, we are dealing with 7-day weeks which is the only measurement that the Old Testament Jews had. Four of these weeks would make a month.
As you can see, the Abia priests were on duty on week 9. This was also the 7th week or last week between the feast of Unleavened Bread and Pentecost.
So, Zacharias and the other priests in the course of Abia all had to stay for the extra week of the Feast of Weeks, which began when the 7 weeks was finished
LUKE 1:23 And it came to pass, that, as soon as the days of his ministration were accomplished, he departed to his own house.
This is an unusual verse. Every priest had to complete his week before going home.
Why is Zacharias mentioned as having to accomplish his ministry? Because he has to do two successive weeks.
The feast of Unleavened Bread in week 3, attended by all the priests, had pushed the 8th course of Abia into the 9th week. Now the Feast of Weeks required him to stay for a special extra week, which was week 10. Thus, he had to complete a double week. This is the only time in the year that he had to do two successive weeks.
LUKE 1:24 And after those days his wife Elisabeth conceived, and hid herself five months, saying,
:25 Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.
So, John the Baptist was conceived around the 11th week.
Pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.
40 + 11 = 51 weeks
So, John would be born almost a year (which is 52 weeks) after the start of the year on 1 March.
(If the year began on 1 April, then John would be born very close to the start of the next year on 1 April).
Thus, from the start of the year, whenever that was in March/April to the birth of John was very close to one year.
Elizabeth was in her sixth month when Mary conceived. John was six months older than Jesus.
LUKE 1:26 And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent …
:27 To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
:31 And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.
:36 And, behold, thy cousin Elisabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age:
and this is the sixth month with her,
who was called barren.
If John was born around the beginning of March or April then Jesus would be born 6 months later.
That would place His birth around September or October.
He was cut off in the middle of the 70th week of 7 years.
DANIEL 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,
He was supposed to have a ministry of 7 years but was cut off at the half-way mark.
That means he had a ministry of 3½ years.
Please note: The covenant was CONFIRMED and not MADE. So the covenant was made before the 7-year time period.
We will discuss that at the end of the study.
He was about 30 when He was baptized by John the Baptist.
LUKE 3:21 Now when all the people were baptized, it came to pass, that Jesus also being baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened,
LUKE 3:23 And Jesus himself began to be about thirty years of age,
So, His baptism would also be around September and October.
Three years later would be around September and October.
3½ years later would mean adding on another 6 months which would take the time to March or April of the next year, which is the time of the Passover when He died.
CONFIRM a covenant does not mean MAKE a covenant
DANIEL 9:27 And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,
God made a covenant with Abram in Genesis Chapter 15.
He cut 3 sacrifices in half and laid each of the two halves facing each other (Symbolizing the Old and the New Testaments that face each other across the 4 Gospels).
Abram fell asleep (he could do nothing to save himself. Sleep symbolized death) with a horror of great darkness (the horror of dying and having to pay for our sins). There was smoke from a furnace (symbolizing the furnace of hell). The only salvation lay in a burning lamp (a light) that moved between the halves of the sacrifices.
This covenant was confirmed at Calvary. The four Gospels described the ministry of Christ. He alone could fulfill the prophecies and conditions of the Old Testament. He alone could guide the New Testament church through the seven church ages that grew out of the Old Testament. For instance, the seven-branched candlestick that was in the holy place of the Tabernacle, representing the seven church ages. Jesus alone knew what was happening during His ministry. Even John the Baptist grew puzzled and doubted that He was Messiah.
For the church, the New Testament starts in the Book of Acts. Only then did they begin to understand what was going on. So, Jesus died for our sins on Calvary between the Old Testament and the New Testament Book of Acts. When He died, His great Holy Spirit left His Body and like a shining Light carried our sins down to hell to dump them on the Devil.
Calvary confirmed the covenant that God made with Abram.
Calvary ended all the animal sacrifices that the Jews made in the Temple.
“Confirm the covenant for one week”. Jesus was to have a ministry of seven years. Then He would set up His kingdom of peace for 1000 years, with the Jews ruling the world.
A day can represent a year in prophecy.
Look what Laban said to Jacob.
GENESIS 29:27 Fulfil her week, and we will give thee this also for the service which thou shalt serve with me yet seven other years.
DANIEL 9:27 … and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease,
Christ died in the midst of the week, after 3½ years.
Let us work backward from the first week of April, AD 33 as many scholars claim Passover was on 3 April that year.
Go back 6 months from April 3, AD 33 (the beginning of April) and you end up at the beginning of October, AD 32.
October, November, December, January, February, March.
Then, October was when Jesus was baptized.
He was born somewhere around that time as He was about 30.
So, working backward we find Jesus was born around October.
Working forwards, we ended up around September or October.
The dates coincide very well with an uncertainty of about a month, making it impossible to accurately determine His exact birthday. This slight error margin simply means that God never wanted us to celebrate His birthday, nor asked us to remember His birthday.
But, if He was born much later than the beginning of October, you could never fit 3½ years between AD 29 (His baptism) and April 3, AD 33 (His death).
If He was born on 25 December then He would be 3 months short of the 3½ years for His ministry, as He died on 3 April, AD 33.
Augustus was a very famous Roman Emperor. Dates were measured from the time a Roman Emperor ruled. So their dates were well known.
Augustus died in AD 14 and then the Senate asked his adopted son Tiberius to be emperor.
Augustus claimed that he was not a king. Thus his adopted son Tiberias could not just follow him as king. Pretending that an Emperor was not a king meant that only after Augustus was dead could the Senate offer the position of Emperor to Tiberias.
An Emperor could declare his son to be co-Emperor while he was alive. But the son only became Emperor when the Senate offered him the position after the death of the previous emperor.
Tiberius accepted the offer of the Senate to make him Emperor in the year AD 14.
John the Baptist began preaching in the 15th year of Tiberius. 14 + 15 = 29.
So, John’s ministry began in March or April, after winter, in AD 29. It would be too cold to baptize during winter.
LUKE 3:1 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar,
If John baptized Jesus around September AD 29, then John the Baptist's ministry was about 6 months long.