Lloyd writes:

In other words, Herbert Armstrong taught many people in WWCG that it was okay to make up their own calendars by his own example. We all in the Church of God today suffer in some way due to the bad example that Herbert Armstrong set by his own example in matters regarding the calendar. Herbert Armstrong created confusion within the Church in regard to the calendar. Confusion which is with us today and which continues to split the church daily into smaller and smaller groups because people want to continue to make up their own calendars or insist on following calendars that have been made up by someone else such as Herbert Armstrong.

Reject the Hebrew Calendar all you want. What you believe is between you and God, however I strongly suggest that before you reject the Hebrew Calendar that you study the subject much deeper than you have.

I have many reasons, but at the moment, to keep this communiqué simple, I will make just one point. If I am successful, this article will have well served its purpose. My point is this. It was the Visual Calendar that the Jews were using during the Messiah's ministry. From the Bible alone there is no possible way to know which of the two systems they were using, but from history we have a unanimous abundance of evidence that they were using the Visual Calendar and not the Modern Jewish Calendar.

It can be proven from the Bible which calendar was being used at the time of Christ and where that calendar is today.

So if you insist on relying so heavily on Matt 23:2-3, then it was the Visual Calendar that the Messiah was endorsing. And if you still reject the Visual Calendar and say that it was a particular line of authority that the Messiah endorsed, then I must inform you: It was long after the Messiah's ministry that Judaism split into two factions, Rabbinic Judaism, and Karaite Judaism. Rabbinic Judaism began for the first time in all history to use the Modern Jewish Calendar, but Karaite Judaism continues to this very day to use the Visual Calendar. Which line of authority do you think the Messiah was endorsing, and how would you prove it?

According to the Bible the mark of authority is with the tribe of Judah until Christ returns to start his rule as King.

Once it is established that the tribe of Judah has the mark of authority, then we have to figure out which branch of the tribe of Judah has that mark of authority, because there are sects of the Jews.

The two main sects of the Jews at the time of Christ were the sect of the Sadducees and the sect of the Pharisees. Here is what Christ had to say about both sects:

In reference to the Sadducees: Matthew 22:29 Jesus answered and said unto them, Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.

In reference to the Pharisees: Mark 7:9 And he (Jesus) said unto them, Full well ye reject the commandment of God, that ye may keep your own tradition.

It is very important to look at the above two verses because they tell us who understood the law of God and who did not. Christ himself is stating that the Sadducees did not understand the scriptures nor the power of God, where as the Pharisees understood the scriptures and rejected them in order to keep their own traditions. Technically the Pharisees thought they were making the law of God better, but all they ended up doing by their tradition is to bind heavy burdens on the people.

There is no command anywhere in the Bible for us to follow the Sadducees in anything, in fact the Bible is pretty clear in stating that the Sadducees opposed God's people and God's Gospel.

On the other hand, the Pharisees knew the law of God and preached it:

Paul was a Pharisee and here is what Paul stated in regard to the Pharisee's:

Paul was a Pharisee, a Benjamite of the tribe of Judah and he is saying that of the sects of the Jews the Pharisee sect is the straitest sect. Straitest sect is Strong's #196 and means: #1-exact, careful, #2-of the strictest sect: the most precise and rigorous in interpreting the Mosaic law, and in observing even the more minute precepts of the law and tradition.

Christ himself gave the command as follows:

If one wants to reject that command given by Christ himself, then I would have to ask you, how many of the other points of the law are you rejecting?

Now you say, but the Pharisees and the Sadducees no longer exist. Is that true? If they do exist today, where does the Bible say they are? Where does history say they are?

We can know from the Bible exactly who the Pharisees are, because the Bible clearly shows them as having the "tradition of the elders".

The "tradition of the elders" is nothing more than the "oral law of the Jews" the things they added to the law of God and later recorded in the Talmud, Kabala, etc.

Christ clearly rejected the Pharisees "oral law" or "tradition of the elders" and we shouldn't follow the "tradition of the elders" either.

Many people today know the Rabbinic Jews are the ones with "the oral law of the Jews" or the "tradition of the elders", so our Pharisees are today known as the Rabbinic Jews.

The Bible as we have already gone through earlier shows that the Sadducees were in opposition to the Pharisees in what they taught. There is nothing new in that regard today. Many people within the Churches of God follow the Sadducees of today for various reasons, but the main one is because of "the oral law of the Jews" or the "tradition of the elders". The modern day Sadducees make themselves out to be the Jews in authority because they like Christ have rejected "the oral law of the Jews" or the "tradition of the elders". Because the Sadducees of today reject this oral law and tradition many fall into the trap of Satan in believing they are looking to the right sect of the Jews for their authority in the calendar.

All is not always as it looks on the surface. We are to reject the oral law of the Jews or the tradition of the Elders, because Christ told us to, so we should do it. Christ also gave us a clear command to follow the Pharisees as they taught the law of God which God gave to Moses and people refer to as the Mosaic Law.

With all of this in mind, what are the modern day Sadducees teaching? They are teaching against the Hebrew Calendar as laid out in Arthur Spier's book and they are teaching visual sightings of the moon and many as well as yourself within the Churches of God are promoting or following this idea with much confusion.

The modern day Sadducees are teaching that Passover is the First Day of Unleavened Bread which is not an Idea prevalent within the Churches of God as Herbert Armstrong taught a 14th of Abib Passover and not a 15th of Abib Passover. So here is more confusion.

The modern day Sadducees are teaching that you are to count from the day after the Weekly Sabbath rather than the day after the High Sabbath of Passover to get to Pentecost. Sometimes Herbert Armstrong's count to Pentecost would be the same as the modern day Sadducees and sometimes it wouldn't be depending on which weekly Sabbath one counts from.

To top all of this off, because the modern day Sadducees use a visual calendar only, they are sometimes a day or two off from most calendars or as it happened this year almost a month off, creating even more confusion.

So there you have it, the modern day Pharisees are clearly the Rabbinic Jews of today and the Sadducees are clearly the Karaites of today. Christ gave us the command to follow the Pharisees as they teach the law of God and warned us at the same time not to follow their "oral law" or "traditions of the elders".

At the time of Christ both visual sightings and calculations were used for the calendar.

You cannot evade this issue by saying that visual observation was used merely to verify the calculations, or vise versa, to say that calculations were used merely to verify the visual observations. It is a knowable fact that the two systems are different and that they produce different results.

I suggest that you study the Hebrew Calendar to see all of the factors which needed to be taken into account for it to have the Holy Days of Passover and the First Day of Tabernacles fall on the brightest illumination of the moon. Look at your moon on Nisan 15 and Tishri 15. All I can say is you don't understand what God required in his calendar and you don't understand where God put his mark of authority. The sightings and the calculations worked together to produce the most accurate calendar that man has ever known, the Hebrew Calendar. Please do not evade the issue. Study the subject and write us back. Please send proof for what you say, as I noticed that you sent none in this letter. We shall be awaiting your follow up on this matter.