Are We Really Keeping God’s Holy Days on the Right Dates?
You took time off work for it.
You explained it to confused family members.
You may have lost friends over it.
You keep God’s Holy Days — and you’re right to.
But what if you’ve been keeping them on the wrong dates?
Not the wrong days. The right days — Passover, Atonement, Tabernacles. The wrong dates. Off by a day. Sometimes two. Sometimes an entire month.
Ten years ago, that question haunted us for months before we were willing to face it honestly.
A Simple Test You Can Do Right Now
Here is something you can verify with your own eyes — no expert knowledge required.
God’s two greatest festival gatherings — the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the first day of the Feast of Tabernacles — both fall on the 15th day of their respective months (Leviticus 23:6, 34). Psalm 81:3 connects those Feasts with the full moon. And basic astronomy confirms: in a properly aligned lunar month, the full moon should fall right around the 15th.
So here is the test. Look up the next full moon on any astronomy website (e.g., timeanddate.com). Then compare it to the 15th of the month on your Hebrew calendar.
Do they match?
If they don’t — and in many years they won’t — then the calendar you’re using is not tracking what God placed in the heavens.
But even if they do, you’re not done. A calendar can place its 15th day on a full moon and still be an entire month off. The lunar cycle repeats every 29.53 days. If the year begins on the wrong new moon, every date shifts by a full month — and every Holy Day with it. The days look right. The dates are wrong.
That’s exactly what’s happening in 2026.
We tested three calendar methods — the conjunction-based Astronomical Biblical Calendar, the crescent observation method, and the Hillel II calendar — across twelve consecutive years. The conjunction method aligned the full moon with Day 15 in 100% of years, with an average gap of just 5 hours. The Hillel II calendar aligned in only 58% of years. The crescent method: 0%.
That result stopped us in our tracks. It should stop you too.
The Question Behind the Question
The calendar debate among the Churches of God is not really about astronomy. It’s about something deeper: How does God reckon time?
Scripture answers this directly. On the fourth day of creation, before there were human beings to observe anything, God said:
“Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years.” — Genesis 1:14
The word translated “seasons” is moed — the very same word used in Leviticus 23 for God’s appointed times — His Holy Days. God embedded His appointment calendar into the sky before He ever gave it to Moses. The sun marks the year. The moon marks the months. Together, they mark the moedim (the plural of moed) — the appointed times.
Psalm 104:19 confirms it: “He appointed the moon for seasons” — for moedim.
The authority over God’s calendar does not belong to any human institution. It belongs to the heavens — because that is where God placed it.
What We Discovered
After years of study, we believe Scripture and the heavens point to a method we call the Astronomical Biblical Calendar (ABC). It rests on three simple rules — as simple as ABC:
A. Anchor the year to the first new moon (conjunction) on or after the vernal equinox.
B. Begin each month at the first sunset after the conjunction.
C. Count only what the heavens declare. No postponement rules.
That’s it. Two astronomical events — the equinox and the conjunction — both placed in the heavens by God at creation, both calculable with pinpoint accuracy today. No dependence on weather reports, barley harvests, crescent sightings, or rabbinical formulas. Just the lights in the heavens, doing what God created them to do.
A Successor, Not a Rejection
We are not saying Mr. Herbert W. Armstrong was wrong to use the Hillel II calendar. He used the best tool available to him then, and God honored that faithfulness. But Mr. Armstrong himself taught a principle that must govern our approach to truth: new understanding does not invalidate old obedience — it calls for new obedience.
He changed from a Monday Pentecost to a Sunday Pentecost in 1974 — after keeping it for 37 years — when the evidence required it. Not because the old understanding was faithless, but because new light demanded new obedience.
Today, we have what Mr. Armstrong did not: NASA’s astronomical tables, global communication, and a deeper understanding of Second Temple calendar practice. The Hillel II calendar was the scaffolding. The ABC is the structure it was holding in place.
Go Deeper — Download our Free Booklet
Everything in this article is just the beginning.
The full case is laid out in our free 48-page booklet — including the biblical evidence for the conjunction over the crescent, the three problems with the Hillel II calendar most members have never been told, why the commonly cited Romans 3:2 and Matthew 23 defenses don’t hold up under the very Scriptures they appeal to, why this calendar is uniquely built for the scattered end-time church, and a step-by-step guide to calculating God’s appointed times for any year.
God’s True Calendar:
Rediscovering the Biblical Reckoning of Time
Fully referenced. Verifiable. Written not to prove who is right, but to ask a simpler, humbler question: How does God reckon time?
You can also easily look up God’s Appointed Times for any year using our interactive calendar:
“He appointed the moon for moedim; the sun knows its going down.” — Psalm 104:19
The calendar has been there all along. We simply needed the tools to read it clearly. Now we have them. May we have the faith to follow where the light leads.
