We begin with a story. It is late in the afternoon, and business has been brisk all day at “Satan’s Little Shop of Deceptions.” But there is a lull now. It is late in the day, and Satan stands in the door of his popular establishment—leaning up against the doorpost. His is the most successful business in town, and he never seems to grow tired of selling his wares. The inventory is unique. It consists exclusively of tailor-made deceptions—which are extremely useful to the customers. You see, these deceptions allow the customers to do whatever they want… while still believing they are doing the right thing. There is a big market for that!
Today, he has had the usual mix of customers. Politicians, mainstream clergymen, professors and even other businessmen regularly stop by. All are in the market for a deception that will let them do something they wanted to do, but just could not justify—that is, until they bought one of Satan’s products. Satan’s power is mainly the power to deceive and tempt—along with such other powers that God may allow from time to time. And when it comes to marketing deception and temptation, the old “Adversary” is Chairman of the Board of a booming business.
Satan especially enjoys it when the mainstream clergy comes in—they are high volume customers. And he likes it when a politician shows up—they are so easy to sell. But, as he looks down the street and the busy sidewalk, one person in particular catches his eye. Here comes his favorite type of customer. Satan would rather sell this customer a deception more than all the day’s other buyers put together. This customer is a member of God’s Church!
Satan sizes him up as he approaches. It is a middle-aged man, and he seems distressed and frustrated. Satan instinctively knows that the man is “in the market.”
As the man passes by, Satan hails him: “Hello, friend! You seem disturbed—what’s the matter?”
Initially, the man feels reluctant to talk, but something about the neat little shop intrigues him. After pausing to consider this strange encounter, he goes ahead and answers. “Well, I’m very unappreciated in my church” he says.
Satan tries flattery first—it is always a good start. “But why? You impress me as a very righteous man.”
Warming to his subject, the man continues, “You see, I have always been a very spiritual person, and that gives me special insight into Scripture. But the leadership of the Church isn’t very interested in my ideas. I think they’re envious of my favor with God.”
Satan sees a customer here, and he immediately validates both the man’s issue and his pride. “I can see that you are way ahead of those higher-ups. I think that if you were in charge, things would be different! Then the Church would be able to grow spiritually using this special knowledge you have.”
The man looks thoughtful for a moment, then replies, “You know… I have suspected for quite some time that I could do the Work better than they do.”
Satan perks up. “Ooh boy, are you in the market! Come on in! Here in my shop I have a great little deception for you. It will allow you to run your own church group, and not feel guilty about pulling people out of God’s true Church. Here’s how it works, and you’re going to love it—it’s called… a new ‘Sacred Calendar’—well, almost sacred.”
The man is perplexed, “A new calendar? How does that work?”
Satan continues his sales pitch with enthusiasm. “The deception is that there is a hidden calendar in the Bible, and guess what… you’ve discovered it! Naturally, it’s different from the one God’s Church has used for the last two millennia. And the beauty of this little deception is that once you’ve convinced people that this deception is the correct calendar, and the ancient one is wrong, they must be in your new splinter group in order to use it. But wait! There’s more! As a special add-on feature to this deception, you even get to plant barley!”
The man replies, “Wow, Satan—that works for me! I’ll take it!” Satan hands him the deception, and coos, “Here, take two… give one to a friend!”
The First Month Identified
We can learn several lessons from the story above. The first month of the year, Nisan (sometimes called Abib), was identified to Moses and Aaron by God. “Now the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron in the land of Egypt, saying, ‘This month shall be your beginning of months; it shall be the first month of the year to you’” (Exodus 12:1–2).
The job of setting the calendar was given to the Levites—nobody else. “These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover” (Leviticus 23:4–5).
Moses and Aaron were Levites. It was their job, as such, to proclaim the Feasts. And when the new moon of Nisan 1 is recognized, the rest of the months—and the Holy Days assigned to them—follow naturally. Passover is always on Nisan 14, and the Last Day of Unleavened Bread is always on Nisan 21. In a given year, the Levites were not allowed to change Passover to, say, Nisan 17, or to change the Holy Days to some date other than was specified in Leviticus 23. Only Pentecost (“count 50”) varied its date, but even that date was “fixed” by the setting of Nisan 1 and where this placed the other Holy Days.
In early times, the new moons (and the months they began) may have been confirmed by observation, but even when there was an extended period of inopportune cloudy days around the beginning of the seventh month, Tishri, the fall Holy Days occurring in that month could still be declared from the calendar.
So, how is the calendar set today? In 358ad, the last authoritative Jewish Sanhedrin set up an extremely accurate lunar calendar called the “Hillel II Calendar” and then disbanded the Sanhedrin. There has been no authoritative Sanhedrin since. This calendar was released by the last valid Levitical authority, and is the one that God’s Church has used. By keeping the biblical Holy Days in this calendar, we are not trying to be “Jewish.” Rather, we are doing it for the same reason that the Church of God has done so through the centuries—to obey God.
The information in this calendar remained available to the Jewish community—as well as the scattered members of God’s Church—throughout the centuries of the Dark Ages, the Middle Ages and down to the present day. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for God’s scattered people to obey Him in regard to Passover and the Holy Days.
The accuracy of the Hillel II Calendar was not exceeded until modern times, when satellite technology slightly refined the computed average length of a lunar cycle. The Hillel II Calendar was like a magnificent clock, which was “wound up” in 358ad and has been running faithfully ever since. Some have speculated that it will run into problems within a few dozen years—but this may tell us less about the accuracy of the calendar than about the likely season of Christ’s return!
Does it matter that modern science might in theory be able to refine a more accurate calendar? One should never take upon himself the duties that God assigned to His priesthood. It was the job of the Levites to set the calendar. They have done so. For anyone else to do what God gave them to do is the sin of presumption—a sin with which God sometimes dealt swiftly in ancient Israel (Numbers 16). If someone is looking around for a sin to commit, the sin of presumption is a very bad choice.
The New Testament sometimes refers to the first five books of the Bible—the Pentateuch—as “the oracles.” Scripture tells us: “This is he who was in the congregation in the wilderness with the Angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai, and with our fathers, the one who received the living oracles to give to us” (Acts 7:38). These “living oracles”—contain Leviticus 23:4, where we are advised that “These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times.”
The Apostle Paul wrote, “What advantage then has the Jew, or what is the profit of circumcision? Much in every way! Chiefly because to them were committed the oracles of God” (Romans 3:1–2). Where the Sabbath and the proclaiming of the Feasts are concerned, that statement is a remarkable prophecy that was clearly fulfilled historically and continues to be fulfilled today.
Here is the point: there is no hidden calendar in the Bible! God’s Church has the right one. Beware of people who present complicated calendar formulations, claiming to have found some new truth or claiming to have found some objection to the sacred calendar that God’s people have used for so long.
Those who tell you that they have found a secret, hidden sacred calendar did not get it from the Bible. They got it from… where? Satan’s Little Shop of Deceptions, of course!
Satan does not want people to keep God’s Holy Days, because he does not want people to obey God. So, what could be better than to deceive people into using a calendar that starts at a different time? For instance, in the year 2012, Passover—which always falls on Nisan 14—began in the evening of April 5. If you took the symbols on a different day, mistakenly believing it to be Nisan 14, you did not take the Passover as God commands! Bread and wine taken on some day other than the true Passover is just a snack!
You can see why Satan loves to deceive people about the calendar. It is extremely efficient, because one deception quickly leads to many others. If people are deceived about the sacred calendar, then they fail to keep Passover, and they profane the Holy Days—but they think they are keeping them. Why would you repent of doing something you think is right? That is why deceptions are so hard to repent of.
In the Market?
Another lesson we can take away from our look into Satan’s Little Shop of Deceptions is how to avoid the place: stay out of the market! This is what true Christians do by putting out the leaven of pride, envy and resentment—during the pre-Passover season and through the rest of the year. Any time we have this leaven—or other leaven—in our hearts, Satan knows that we are in the market for a deception. And he will gladly sell us one that lets us express our pride or resentment—whatever we really wanted to do in the first place— and still feel good about it. And he will even sell it to you on credit—buy now… pay later!
So, we should be thankful that we can keep God’s Holy Days, just as His Church has done since the first century. Remember, there is no hidden calendar in the Bible. Calendars other than God’s true sacred calendar can only be obtained at… you-know-where. So, stay out of the market! As we are diligent in getting rid of the hidden leaven in our lives, we can all avoid the bad products at “Satan’s Little Shop of Deceptions.”