God's Word shows harmony in His creation! In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth for mankind to learn from. His way are always good. "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handywork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Their line is gone out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them hath He set a tabernacle for the sun, Which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a strong man to run a race. His going forth is from the end of the heaven, and his circuit unto the ends of it: and there is nothing hid from the heat thereof. The law of the LORD is perfect, converting the soul: the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple. The statutes of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart: the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring for ever: the judgments of the LORD are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold: sweeter also than honey and the honeycomb. Moreover by them is thy servant warned: and in keeping of them there is great reward. Who can understand his errors? Cleanse thou me from secret faults" (Psa. 19:1-12). As scriptures expose us to ourselves and convict us of sins we were previously unaware of, we are prompted to pray for forgiveness from secret faults--faults hidden to ourselves and to others but not to God.

When looking for and examining God's word for "treasures of darkness" what do we find? We find the dark moon that's within God's creation harmonizes with the rest of God's architectural creation. To find evidence of this let's look into God's Word, starting in Genesis 1. "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters" (Gen 1:1-2).

It was out from darkness God reformed the earth. Keep in mind, major events take place after a period of darkness. Our food chain, which God created follows this harmony of darkness. "And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so" (Gen. 1:11). Here we find God has created seeds within itself, it is in darkness within its own skin and put into darkness when planted. When watered and cared for it will reach out of it imprisonment [the ground's darkness] for light. The two trees, of Genesis 2, grew out of darkness into light. "And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil" (Gen. 2:9). We can see from witnessing a fetus, that it is formed and given life in the mothers womb, it is in darkness and when developed comes into light.

Out from darkness we have seen major events take place. Let's read what Israel experienced during the time of the exodus from Egypt, three days prior to the killing of Egypt's first born [that took place at midnight]. "And the LORD said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness which may be felt. And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: They saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had light in their dwellings" (Exo. 10:21- 23).

Something in darkness does not mean its dead, it is waiting to be changed and brought to life and into light. "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light" (Gen 1:3). What is light? Light is a visible form of energy. Without light there could be no life. Physical light is essential for physical life. Light also is a symbol of God's Divine presence. Divine light brings spiritual life.

Who are we to thank for this marvelous truth? "Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son" (Col. 1:12-13). Can we see the harmony of God's architectural design in all things created? We are reminded daily and monthly by God's silent gospel, the sun and moon in the heavens to come out of darkness!! "Thus saith the LORD to His anointed,...............I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the LORD, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel" (Isa. 45:1,3). Can you think of anything that God has not created out from darkness first? "The heavens declare His righteousness, and all the people see His glory. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart" (Psa. 97:6,11). "The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth His handy work. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge [knowledge]" (Psa. 19:1-2). "To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven" (Ecc. 3:1).

The Apostle John knew this! "This then is the message which we have heard of Him, and declare unto you, that God is light, and in Him is no darkness at all" (1 John 1:5). We find in Genesis where, "God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day" (Gen 1:4-5). Here is where we find names given to light. "Day" that starts at sunset, and "Darkness" was called night. Each 24 hour day begins with darkness as stated in verses 8,13,19,23, 31. A lunar month follows the same pattern as a day---it sets the precedent for a waning crescent. When the waning crescent moon is no longer visible a new moon [month] begins! God knows that nations could not make an image [idol] out of a dark moon!! "Take ye therefore good heed unto yourselves; for ye saw no manner of similitude on the day that the LORD spake unto you in Horeb out of the midst of the fire: And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven" (Deu. 4:15-19).

When searching scripture there are three places in God's Word that the word 'crescent' is expressed in the Hebrew language. Using Strong's Concordance and the New Brown Driver Briggs Genesis Hebrew-English Lexicon, # 7720 identifies "ornament" in the King James Version as crescent moon. We find these idols being worn by women in Isaiah 3:18 and camels and women wore them in Judges 8:21, 26. Let's read these verses out of the Old King James Bible. "In that day the Lord will take away the bravery of their tinkling ornaments about their feet, and their cauls, and their crescents like the moon" (Isa. 3:18). Judges 8:21 last part. " .....and took away the ornaments [crescents] that were on their camels necks." "And the weight of the golden earrings that he requested was a thousand and seven hundred shekels of gold; besides ornaments, [crescents like the moons] and collars, and purple raiment that was on the kings of Midian, and beside the chains that were about their camels' necks" (Jud. 8:26). These are crescent moon images that were worn to scare away their superstitious evil spirits!

Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah." Isaiah's messages was addressed primarily to Judah and Jerusalem, and it was probably spoken to them in a form of a sermon. Verse 2, "Hear, O heavens, and give ear, O earth: for the Lord has spoken, I have nourished and brought up children, and they have rebelled against Me."

Remember, we are going back into Judah's history from God's Word, not secular history as Arthur Spires did. Isaiah is calling upon the inhabitants of heaven and earth, to witness what he is going to say to Judah, who have hardened their hearts against God's laws. Verse 4, "Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupter's: they have forsaken the Lord, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward." God continues to tell them in verses 13-14. "Bring no more vain ablations; incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and Sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot bear with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hates; they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to bear them."

We can see, God instead of being delighted with their feasts and their new moons; we find that He is highly, highly displeased in what He was seeing. That is why He said He was not pleased with their feasts, nor was He pleased with their new crescent moons. Their formalities of religion, means nothing, when God's Spirit is missing. If we don't have God's Spirit working within us, we are not going to understand the true meaning of what we read in Scriptures like this. God was really upset with Judah. There are many, many other verses that could be read in context to these Scriptures. God has made clear that where obedience is lacking, even prayer is an abomination to Him. "He that turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination." (Pro 28:9). Breaking God's law is an abomination to God, He will not hear your prayers. He will not hear what you would like Him to hear. Those practicing Judaism, were defying God, by refusing to walk in His ways; His laws, and His commandments. They did not believe what God had told Moses. "For had you believed Moses, you would have believed Me: for he wrote of Me. But if you believed not his writings, how shall you believe My Words" (John 5:46-47).

We still find this going on today; syncretism being practiced!! God's church is being polluted by canceling out a Sabbath for a preparation day. Canceling out a Sabbath because of a back to back Sabbaths, counting back 177 days to find Abib 1 and relying on Hillel II postponements rules of adding leap years where they should not be, these were laid out in 358-359 A.D. All these practices are going on in many Churches of God today.

We cannot start the first day of a month on a wrong day and be in harmony with God's Word. That needs to be clearly understood. If we are going to be in harmony with God, and if we are going to actually utilize the tools in the heavens that He has given us; we need to pay attention to what those tools are silently telling us. All times on earth have been calculated from the heavens. Evidenced by Stone Henge in England and the Great Pyramid in Egypt.

God's months begin when the moon first goes dark. A statement that we have made very clear in the June 1998 issue of the "Prove All Things" article "True Conjunction Verses Molad" -- "The true conjunction occurs the instant the sun and the moon, not the earth, come into conjunction, and when the sun's light strikes the face of the moon at an angle which makes it not visible to us on earth. The true conjunction of the moon is the instant when the sun and the moon come into conjunction. This instant happens every where on earth at the same time." The Church of God, In Truth calculates that instant of conjunction to Jerusalem time zone, to see what date this occurs, using sunset to sunset, 24 hour time as the time for the new moon [Month] day.

A true conjunction is not what astronomers call an astronomical conjunction! An astronomical conjunction is what is known as a mean or middle conjunction. We do in our own words, say, that we do go by the true astronomical conjunction. A true conjunction of a dark moon goes dark hours before an astronomical conjunction. An astronomical conjunction does not occur at the same time as a true conjunction. A true conjunction of the new moon can be hours before an astronomical conjunction of the moon.

The Royal Observatory in Edinburgh, England said, "The dark moon happens before the astronomical new moon! The only reason they (the astronomers) use the astronomical new moon (mean or middle conjunction) is to keep time uniformly regulated around the world. The new moon is defined as the time at which the sun and moon have the same celestial longitude. The celestial sphere on which this measurement is based is a theoretical sphere, centered on the earth which we look through when we observe astronomical objects. The time of all lunar phases quoted by the astronomical community are therefore what an imaginary observer at the center of the earth would see."

Five years ago, a question came to God's Church about the calendar year, 2000. We were asked,"Why do we use April 4th in the year 2000 for Abib 1? When March 6th is the same distance to the equinox [turn]? The main reason is that if we kept Passover in March we would have two Passover's in one tropical year. A tropical year is from one spring turn [equinox] to the next spring turn [equinox] or the turn of the sun from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. The tropical year begins on March 20th at 07 hr. 35 min. This is when the sun turns from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. At this point: from sunrise to sunset is exactly 12 hours. Let me stop here and give you two definitions from the U. S. Naval Observatory. (1.) "Each March at a particular instant, around the 20th, the sun is directly above the equator. This is the spring equinox. In September, around the 22nd, the sun is again above the equator at the fall equinox. These times are often called the "official" start of spring and fall." (2.) Day and night are not exactly equal length at the time of the March and September equinoxes. The dates on which day and night are each 12 hours occur a few days before and after the equinoxes. The specific dates of this occurrence are different for different latitudes. On the day of the equinox, the geometric center of the Sun's disk crosses the equator, and this point is above the horizon for 12 hours everywhere on the Earth." "On the equinox, the sun's center rises and sets 12 hours apart. Sunrise and sunset occur when the top of the sun, not its center, is on the horizon." On this day a new solar year has begun, but the New Year in God's calendar begins with the lunar year [new moon] on April 4th..

The Church of God, In Truth feels very strongly that God has created everything in harmony. When we read Genesis 1: 14, "And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons [appointed times], and for days, and years." All these working together, form the tools to put a calendar together. The seasons [appointed time] are at the very heart of the Holy Day calendar especially the spring season which starts at the Spring turn [equinox].

This annual return of the sun from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere sets the foundation upon which an effective and orderly system must be built. Seasons [appointed time] are the foundation of time. "And the LORD spake unto Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, This month shall be unto you the beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you" (Exo. 12:1-2).

The new moons and full moons are not on the same days of the month, month after month. But from one turn [Spring equinox] to the next turn [Spring equinox], God set in order the most accurate count for a year, lunar and solar, keeping them both in harmony. Both within the limits of a 30 day month. God's calendar, not only maintains the months in their season, at the turns, but also makes use of every sign which God has ordained in the heaven.

I would like to bring to your attention the cycle of 19 solar years. This 19 year time cycle results from the fact that the sun, moon and earth are almost exactly in the same position every 19 years. This 19 year cycle varies from being exactly 19 years long by only 1 hour and 26 minutes. There are 235 lunations [new moons] in a 19 year cycle. When dividing 235 by 19, we see that the results are 12 new moon [months] with a remainder of 7. These extra 7 months, God has equally distributed through-out the 19 solar years to give us 7 leap year with 13 months and 12 years with 12 months. Both 7 and 12 are numbers of completion. When counting the new moons from different sources, you will find there are by actual count 7 leap years in a 19 year cycle. There are not three years in a row that have 12 months in them, nor two years in a row that have 13 months in them.

The Church of God, In Truth establishes the time of the new moon closest to the Spring turn [equinox] to establish the first day of the new year, then we count as instructed from God's Word. "In the fourteenth day of the first month at even is the LORD'S Passover" (Lev. 23:5). If Passover is on or after the Spring turn [equinox] we continue to count out the rest of God's Holy Days for that year. The Spring turn is defined as the turn of the sun from the Southern Hemisphere to the Northern Hemisphere. This keeps us at the turn of the year for both the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles! Counting this way we are never more than 28 days away from the turn of the year, some times called the years end, meaning end of the harvest season. "And thou shalt observe the Feast of Weeks, of the firstfruits of wheat harvest, and the Feast of Ingathering at the year's end [turn]" (Exo. 34:22). "And the Feast of Harvest, the firstfruits of thy labours, which thou hast sown in the field: and the Feast of Ingathering, which is in the end [turn] of the year, when thou hast gathered in thy labours out of the field" (Exo. 23:16).

In our booklet "Postponements, Another Mystery of the Ages"we write, the spring turn is the first day of spring. "Find the date of the spring turn [equinox] at Jerusalem time [this is used as a standard because it will be God's Headquarters]. Establish the time of the new moon [true conjunction] closest to the spring turn. Count 14 days starting with the first day to find Passover. If Passover is after the spring turn [equinox] or on the same day as the spring turn [equinox] you can continue to calculate the rest of God's Holy Days."

We are using all the tools that God has provided in the universe, to keep us in harmony, the new moon, the turns of the sun [equinox], the 19 years time cycles, 7 leap years, and 12 non leap years, with Abib green ears headed enough for the wave sheaf, all these working together for God's commanded Holy Days, when the sun turns from the Northern hemisphere to the Southern hemisphere.

If we go back and count new moons in a 19 year cycle you will find as we have, harmony!! 12 years having 12 months each and 7 years having 13 months each. By moving the Passover back a month in the year 2000 we will find ourselves keeping Passover twice in one tropical year. Is this what Hosea meant when he said, "a month shall devour them?" "They have dealt treacherously against the LORD: for they have begotten strange children: now shall a month devour them with their portions [inheritance]" (Hosea 5:7).