What If the Calendar Still Matters?
Let’s ask a question most people never ask: What if Yehovah never stopped using His calendar? Not a cultural calendar. Not a Roman calendar. Not a convenient calendar. His calendar.
Because Scripture is precise:
“These are the feasts of Yehovah, even holy convocations, which ye shall proclaim in their seasons.”
Not Jewish feasts. Not optional traditions. Yehovah’s appointed times. The Hebrew word is moedim — appointments. Divine meeting times. Times He set. Times He shows up to. So here is the real question: if they are appointments, does God still keep them?
The Restoration Hook
Let’s bring this directly into Restoration history. Moroni delivered the golden plates to Joseph Smith on:
Most people just see a date. But on the biblical calendar, that day aligns with Yom Teruah — the Feast of Trumpets. And Yom Teruah is not random. It is defined by the sounding of the shofar, a call to awaken, a gathering, a warning, and the beginning of days of judgment and reflection.
Now ask: what was the Restoration doing?
- A call to awaken
- A warning announcement
- A gathering of God’s people
- The beginning of judgment
- A divine trumpet blast
- Calling people to repentance
- Restoring covenant truth
- Gathering scattered Israel
- Announcing the last days
- Sounding a message to the nations
That is not coincidence. That is alignment — the kind of alignment that the rest of the spring feasts already established as God’s signature on major redemptive events.
What Is Yom Teruah? (From Torah, Not Tradition)
The command is simple and deliberately spare:
“In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.”
“And in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have an holy convocation; ye shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.”
No elaborate ritual is prescribed in the written text. Just one central act: sound the trumpet. The sparseness is deliberate. The Torah is pointing to meaning, not mechanics. Throughout all of Scripture, the trumpet blast carries a consistent message — something is being announced, something is being set in motion.
Trumpets in Scripture = Awakening and Gathering
The pattern runs from Sinai to the last days. Every trumpet blast in Scripture marks a threshold moment.
“The voice of the trumpet exceeding loud…” God uses a trumpet when He reveals covenant truth. The sound of the shofar accompanied the giving of Torah itself.
“Blow ye the trumpet in Zion… sound an alarm.” Trumpet blasts are urgent signals — not background noise, but calls that demand a response.
“He shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect.” Trumpets are the signal of gathering.
“At the last trump… the dead shall be raised.” Trumpets mark the great transitions of God’s redemptive calendar.
Every instance is the same: a trumpet sounds when God is moving something forward. When He is waking people up. When He is calling the scattered. When a threshold in His plan is being crossed.
Now Bring That Into the Restoration
What happened in 1827? The plates were delivered. The record came forth. The message began moving across the earth. And what was that message? Repentance, covenant restoration, the gathering of Israel, preparation for the Second Coming.
Listen to how Joseph Smith described what was happening:
“The Standard of Truth has been erected; no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing… the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent, till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear.”
— History of the Church, Vol. 4, p. 540
That is trumpet language. A declaration. A signal going forth. “Sounded in every ear” — not an accident of phrasing. The Restoration itself was functioning as a shofar blast.
“The gathering of Israel is one of the great events of the latter days…”
— Journal of Discourses, Vol. 16, p. 328
And what signals gathering? In every scriptural pattern, the answer is the same: a trumpet.
The Pattern: God Works on His Appointed Times
This is not a novel claim. The spring feasts were fulfilled on their exact appointed days:
Three spring feasts fulfilled exactly on schedule, each marking a major threshold in God’s redemptive plan. The question is not why Yom Teruah would suddenly become irrelevant — the question is why we would expect Him to stop the pattern.
If Passover pointed forward to the crucifixion and was fulfilled on Passover, and Shavuot pointed forward to Pentecost and was fulfilled on Shavuot, then the fall feasts are not finished business. They are scheduled appointments.
The Restoration as a Prophetic Trumpet
The Restoration didn’t just happen — it announced something. It announced that the dispensation of the fullness of times had begun. That the gathering of Israel was underway. That the covenants were being restored. That the people of the last days were being called out from Babylon.
That is every function of the shofar blast in Scripture, compressed into a single event.
“The Gospel is sounding among the nations…”
— Journal of Discourses, Vol. 6, p. 24
“Sounding.” That is trumpet language — not accidental, not metaphorical decoration. The early Restoration leaders consistently described their mission in terms that map directly onto the scriptural function of the shofar.
What This Means — And Why People Miss It
Most people have been taught that the feasts were fulfilled and therefore no longer meaningful. But that isn’t what Scripture says. Scripture never says they stop being prophetic. It shows them functioning as God’s recurring calendar for major events — which is the opposite of irrelevance.
A feast that has been partially fulfilled is not an empty shell. It is a feast in the middle of its fulfillment — some layers complete, others still pointing forward. Yom Teruah has Restoration-era alignment. It also has last-days trumpet language that hasn’t been fully realized. Both can be true simultaneously.
“God… set the ordinances to be the same forever and ever.”
— Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 168
The Real Question
If Yehovah used Passover, Firstfruits, and Pentecost to mark the three hinge-points of the Messiah’s first coming — on schedule, to the day — then we have to ask a serious question about the fall feasts and about any major redemptive event that aligns with them.
Are the Moedim still functioning as God’s prophetic calendar? The alignment of September 22, 1827 with Yom Teruah is not definitive proof of anything. But combined with the spring feast pattern, combined with what the Restoration was announcing, and combined with the scriptural meaning of the trumpet blast — it is exactly the kind of alignment that should make anyone who takes both Torah and the Restoration seriously stop and pay very close attention.
The Moedim were never just Israel’s history. They are Yehovah’s calendar — set by Him, owned by Him, and apparently still in use by Him. Leviticus 23 does not say “these were the feasts.” It says “these are the feasts of Yehovah.” Present tense. His appointments.