A Memorial of Teruah by Chris Shude,  10-09-2022

Good morning. I feel like I was just here, just like a home away from home. Hello to everybody online as well.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. That verse, of course, is 1 Thessalonians 4:16.

And it is one of the most dramatic verses in the entire Bible. And it speaks of the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets holy day, that is just a couple of weeks away. And it is a holy day that God Almighty created for us to come together. And the question though, is how can we be sure that? How can we be sure? And I think you'll understand the question a little bit better as we get further into the message today, but because we are talking about a holy day, let's go ahead and turn over to Leviticus 23.

And, yes, you guys are getting a sneak peek of what combined services for Flint,  Detroit. and Ann Arbor are going to be having here in just a couple of weeks.

Leviticus 23:1-2 “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the Children of Israel saying to them, the feasts of the LORD, which You shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My Feasts”

So, this message is about the feasts of the LORD, it was to be communicated to the children of Israel, and at the time of the Old Testament, that would have been the physical descendants of Israel.

We understand that Israel today is the church, the collection of the called-out ones, the ecclesia, as they're called in the New Testament, and that's formed of those whom God has called into this age. Those who have been who have repented, they've been baptized, they've received God's Holy Spirit. And we will see that that is important when we consider the overall meaning of the day. But we also see in this verse and these verses that we're going to read are about the Feasts of the LORD These are not feast days that man created to try to honor the Lord. And we see at the end of that verse that God says, "These are My Feasts". And we need to keep in mind that God Himself created these days for the purpose of worshiping Him. And another thing that we pick up in these verses is that these are Holy Convocations that are to be proclaimed.

Now the church itself does much of the work of proclaiming that God has Holy Days, including the Feast of Trumpets, and that he has called those those people to worship Him to observe, and to come together on these days for a holy convocation, a gathering together.

Now let's drop down to Lev 23:23. When we see the Feast of Trumpets being talked about here. "Then the Lord spoke to Moses saying, Speak to the Children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation, you shall do no customary work on it, and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord."

 Not a whole lot to go on there is there about the meaning of the day.  We've got the date, we see that is the first day of the seventh month, we also see that it is a Sabbath, no surprise there. All of the Holy Days are Sabbaths. We see that just like other holy days, it's a holy convocation, coming together to worship God. We see that there's a sacrifice given on that day. And you can see details about the sacrifice that was to be given on that day, over in Numbers 29:1-6. That's a companion scripture for this passage. And again, no surprise that you would have a sacrifice on a holy day. But what is unique is the Memorial of Blowing of Trumpets. And this is where we get the mystery that we're going to unpack today. Why? Because nowhere in the passages passage that we just read here or over in Numbers 29, nowhere in those passages, do we find the Hebrew word for trumpets.

When we go to the Hebrew in Leviticus 23, and in Numbers 29, we see that the blowing of trumpets is Strong's H 8643. It's the word Teruah I want to spell it out. It's t-e-r-u-a-h. And you may want to write that down if you're taking notes because a lot of this message is built around this Hebrew word. So, what we have in the Hebrew here, to describe this day, to set it apart from others is that it is a memorial, a memorial of teruah -Yom Teruah.

So, if you'd like a title for today's message, it is a Memorial of Teruah. And again, that's t e r u a h. And if we are to have a memorial of terroir, we'd better understand what that is. Now, at the beginning, I quoted 1 Thessalonians 4:16, you know, "For the Lord Himself, will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God". And I did ask that question, how can we be sure that this is speaking of the fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets? And now, hopefully, you can see why I asked that question. How do we know that? What are the Scriptures are talking about for this holy day, if we don't even have the Hebrew word for trumpets in it?

Well, let's start unpacking the mystery. And let's see what we find out. And again, the Hebrew word is Teruah, and this word is found 36 times in the Old Testament. How many times is it translated as blowing of trumpets? Two, the only two times that it is translated as blowing of trumpets are in Leviticus 23, where we just read in the companion scripture in Numbers 29. That's it.

Now what about the Hebrew words that are translated as trumpets? Well, they're not in there. There's actually nothing in the name of this feast that we call it today, the Feast of Trumpets. There's nothing in it that actually says trumpets. Now there's two words that we usually see translated as trumpet. One of them is shofar, and that's referring to the ram's horn. And then the other one is H3104 yobel, and that's typically in reference to the Jubilee. So why did the translators put in blowing of trumpets in both Leviticus 23 in Numbers 29 is the only two times where they did this for that Hebrew word, terawatt. And were they right to do so? Well, answering that question is what we're going to do today. And as we solve this little mystery, I hope that we'll gain an even greater appreciation at what we can learn from God's word when we dig into it.

So, our first step here is we're going to look at how this word teruah is commonly used. Let's go to Joshua 6. Now in Joshua 6, this is where we read about the fall of Jericho. We're going to start in the Josh 6:1. "Now Jericho was securely shut up, because of the children of Israel. None went out and none came in."  So, they were laying a siege to it. Josh 6:2 "The Lord said to Joshua, see, I have given Jericho into your hand. It's King and the mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all you men of war, you should go all around the city once. This you shall do six days. And seven priests shall bear seven trumpets of rams horns before the ark." Now, in Josh 6:4 we see that the priests have seven trumpets, these are ram's horns, these are shofar H7742. But these are not Teruah. That word that we have in the instructions for this holy day in Leviticus 23 and Numbers 29. Continuing on, "But the seventh day, you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets".

Okay. "Blow the trumpets." What do we have here? Is this teruah? That word again? That's in Leviticus 23 in numbers 29. No, this is takeoff shofar. So, it's two Hebrew words that refer to the blowing of ram's horns.

Let's continue the next verse (Josh 6:5). "It shall come to pass, when they make a long blast with the ram's horn, and when you hear the stound of the trumpet, that all the people shall shout with a great shout: then the wall of the city will fall down flat. And the people shall go up every man straight before him."

So, where was teruah? Again, it wasn't used for the trumpets at all. Although we do read about trumpets, ram's horns being carried and used by the priests, the words that are used for trumpets are yobel and shofar. So, what is the teruah? It's the shout of the people, the Hebrew in the passages ruah teruah, to shout with a great shout. So, of the 36 times that we see this word teruah. In the Old Testament, 19 of them are translated as shout or shouting. Now that makes us ask a question, why is this called the Feast of Trumpets? Why not the Feast of Shouting? After all, more than half of the times that we see the word in Scripture, it's describing shouting, and the only two times where it's translated as blowing of trumpets is in those passages. So, let's ask another question. What kind of shouting is teruah? While we're still in Joshua 6, let's first identify the kind that we have here in this example. Let's go back to verse three again, (Josh 6:3) says "You shall march around the city, all you men of war, you shall go all around the city once in this you shall do six days."  So, we have men of war who are the ones who will walk around the city with the priests. Joshua 6:20. Again, this is where we see this use of teruah again, verse 20. So, the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets. And it happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, ruah teruah that the wall fell down flat. Then the people went up into the city, every man straight before him and they took the city so shout with a great shout. That's your ruah teruah. Now, in this passage, we see that this shout is one of war. It's a battle cry.

 Now, you can imagine what that might have sounded like, after silently marching around the city for six days. You know, holding in all of the emotions, all of the excitement, you know, the fear, the trepidation, trepidation, all of it all mixed together. And then for those within Jericho, you see all these men marching around the city without making any sound other than the marching of their feet, maybe their armor jingling together. And their weapons may be clanking together a little bit. And then you have this mighty shout that comes up. That must have been pretty terrifying. Almost everybody has heard of the “Rebel Yell” right there, you know, the Confederate soldiers in the Civil War, they would let out this high pitch squawk, you know, kind of sounded like a “Yee ha”. But it served as a war cry for the troops. And when I was doing research for this, was actually able to find an old YouTube clip from back I think it was like in the 1930s where they actually had some of these Confederate soldiers that  were like 90 by that time and they kind of tottered up there and they started doing their you know, they're you know, they're Rebel Yell. And it was pretty crazy sounding. You know, it wasn't really a Yee ha, to me, but that's how it was. That's how it was described. But a war cry, like the Rebel Yell serves a dual purpose first it bucks up the courage of those who are shouting, and it strikes fear and uncertainty into your opponent, those being shouted at. So, who knows what the war cry of the Israelites would have been. But when you combine it with the walls of Jericho toppling at their sound, with a little extra nudge from the Almighty, you can imagine that it must have been something to hear.

Now before we look at some other uses of teruah, in regard to different kinds of shouting, you're going to stay for a moment with this understanding that this word is implying a great noise. So, we've got the shouting of the Israelites at Jericho. It's a great war cry. But we have other ways in which great noises were used to call the Israelites to war. And let's, let's see that that's the case. Let's go over to Number10:1. Numbers 10, verse one, we're going to read about some trumpets. Obviously trumpets are very loud. And we'll keep that in mind when we read about the purpose here. “The Lord spoke to Moses saying, make two silver trumpets for yourself, you shall make them of hammered work, you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camps.” Now the word that we have here in verse 2 for Trumpets is H 2689 is khats-o-tser-aw', - not going to say that, again. The trumpets that are being described here, are of hammered work. They're metal. And that's why we don't see the word shofar. Because these are not ram's horn. These are made out of hammered work. They're made of silver, and they were long, slender tubes with flared ends. So, I think most of us have seen TV shows or movies that are set in the Middle Ages are like King Arthur and his royal carton. Do you know that that's the kind of horns that these were. And so let's continue in verse 3. “When they blow both of them, all the congregation shall gather before you at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. But if they blow only one than the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel shall gather to”…, you know, this part, I think, is interesting. I couldn't find anything to confirm this. So, I'm just going to speculate just a little bit here. Because I think it makes sense to me, maybe it'll make sense to you as well. You've got two trumpets, and the way that the instructions are given, you would expect that these trumpets would sound different from each other. Otherwise, how would you be able to tell that it's two trumpets blowing, you have to have the ability to have a distinction between the two. Otherwise, it would always sound like one trumpet. So that's what makes sense to me. Again, I couldn't find anything to confirm this. But if they heard one tone, it would gather the elders, but if they heard, both, all of Israel would gather, I imagine that the tones would have been spaced out in fifths. If you're familiar with music theory, that's just to get the idea. Think about the opening of the Star Wars Theme, daa daa, da da ta da da okay, that's a fifth. And if you play those together, that's a real nice, clean, sound, very recognizable sound. I think that might have been what it sounded like. And again, that's speculation on my part. Moving on verse 5. “When you sound the advance, the camps that lie on the east side, shall then begin their journey. And when you sound the advance the second time, then the camps that lie on the South Side shall begin their journey. And they shall sound the call for them to begin their journeys. And when the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow but not sound the advance.”  So, we see then now that the purpose of these trumpets is more than just simply calling people together to the tabernacle, we also see it's to sound the advance. Alright, everybody pack up, we're gonna move, right? We see also that the use of these trumpets is to have a mass communication system for ancient Israel. And that would make sense, you've got to have these horns. That would be like a tornado siren that we have today that can be heard, you know, for miles around.

We also get the understanding that different patterns from the different horns contained different instructions. So, if they were blown one way, elders were called to the tabernacle of meaning, if they were blown another way, everybody would be called, if they were blown another way after that, it would be a signal to start packing up and advancing. So, it was a signaling system. Verse 8, “the sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets. And these shall be to you as an ordinance forever throughout your generation”. So, we see that these are special trumpets. These are not trumpets has to be blown by just anyone. There only to be blown by the priests in verse 9. We see some additional uses for the blowing of these trumpets. Verse 9 when you go to war, this is tying back in to that war cry. When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God and you will be saved from your enemies”. So, this is where we've got that parallel. You've got the war cry the ruah terauh, to shout with a great shout, right? Now, if we go back to Joshua 6:20,  I'm just going to go ahead and read that again for us, for the sake of time  “so the people shouted when the priests blew the trumpets”, and again, those are not these silver trumpets. They were blowing ram's horns. It happened when the people heard the sound of the trumpet, and the people shouted with a great shout, that the wall fell down. Well, we don't actually read about the silver trumpets in numbers 10 here. But Scripture doesn't tell us directly. But it's very possible and most likely that those silver horns were used in the Israelite camp, to pull the men of war together to then march to Jericho. And once they were gathered, and they set out to Jericho, those silver trumpets wouldn't be used once they were on the march. And as we read, The priests would have used ram's horns, to use as trumpets to signal to shout with a great shout. So, we're starting to see how some of this is starting to tie together. But think about what it would have been like for those who were being driven out of the Promised Land. Word would get around, that the Lord had determined that Israel would be taking over the area. And they had already taken Jericho. You don't think that they wouldn't heard about that right? And just as Israel sent spies to check out the promised land before going in, it's very likely that all of the other peoples of the lands, they had spies as well. They would be spying on the Israelite camp. And when they heard those silver trumpets, calling Israel to war, you know, they were probably worried that their time of judgment had come upon them. And if not on them, then how long would it be before they would hear those silver trumpets and then the ram's horns, and the great shouting of the Israelites at their door? At the beginning of the sermon, I quoted again, from 1 Thessalonians 4:16. Now notice something about this verse, what it says there it says, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with a voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God”. Now, we probably have a hard time really imagining what it would have sounded like to have the trumpets blowing and the Israelites shouting at Jericho. Well, what is this going to sound like? You have the Lord Himself, shouting. Now, if we remember, remember, back in Exodus at Sinai, God's speaking voice was so terrifying to the Israelites, that they begged him, to stop talking to them, and speak to Moses instead. That wasn't even a shout, just as regular voice with thunder. This is a shout, this is going to be a shout that is heard around the world. And I also imagined that the trumpet of God will be sounded first, just as we read from these passages, the trumpet sounds, and we have a great shout, one that has never been heard before. A shout, in a trumpet that we look forward to on this Day of Trumpets coming up in just a few short, short days. And that is going to be something for us to hear.

And let's not forget that when Christ returns, it is to battle. The eternal will have had enough of man's ways. Man will have brought all of life to the brink of annihilation. And it's time for the Lord to step in and stop it. And make no mistake, it is a time of judgment.

Let's go to Revelation 19. We'll start in verse 11. Get a little bit more detail on what will be going on.

When that trumpet of God sounds and we hear that great shout. Around that same time, Revelation 19:11-21. “Now I saw heaven opened, and behold a white horse, and he who sat on him was called Faithful and True and in righteousness he judges and makes war before his eyes were like a flame of fire, and on his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood. And his name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it, he should strike the nation's. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron, he himself tried to the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And he has on his robe and on His thigh a name written, KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS. Then I saw an angel standing in the sun. And he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses, and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great. And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against him who sat on the horse, and against his army, than the beast was captured. And with him, the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshipped is image, these two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. And the rest were killed with the sword, which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse, and all the birds were filled with their flesh”.

So, we see then, that it is entirely appropriate for us to call this the Feast of Trumpets, because the ultimate fulfillment of what this day pictures it is going to be loud. It is not going to be some secret rapture, like so many people believe that it will be now everyone is going to know that something is going on. And when most of the people on the earth hear these things, they are going to be scared, they will be terrified, and a very, very deep level. When that trumpet blows, and that battle, shout goes up, Christ will have returned. And his return will be accompanied by the sound of trumpets and shouting, and it is a time for war and for judgment. So, is this then just a day for us to think about the coming destruction of the world of this age, as we know, it, is it for us to root on that judgment comes for our fellow man, to pray for God's kingdom to come to give those sinners what's coming to him? Well, we better not have that attitude. Our attitude needs to be one of submission to God and His judgment for ourselves and on all people. But we do need to recognize that the Feast of Trumpets, at least in part, it is about God's judgment. But that's not all it's about.

When we read verses in Revelation, we read 1 Thessalonians. And in other places. We need to remember that for those of us in the church, those who have been called and who are alive at that time, the sound of that trumpet of God will be glorious. The King has returned. And I feel pretty confident that the Lord is not the only one who's going to be shouting. Because not only does this day picture a coming battle that will overthrow man's system of government. It does picture the ushering in of God's Kingdom on this earth. And that is the promise and it will be a time of great rejoicing for that reason, that also ties back in to the memorial of teruah. Let's go back over to Numbers 10 And we're going to pick up where we left off Numbers 10:10.

Speaking again, of these silver trumpets, and their uses, Numbers 10:10, “also in the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets, over your offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, and they shall be a memorial for you Before your God, I am the Lord your God”.

In our day of gladness! Have you ever had a day of gladness that you imagine is going to be like the one that we have on the day of the Lord's return that day where he will establish His kingdom. Let's look again at another tie to teruah. We're looking at a couple of passages where we see teruah and a tie to gladness. Let's go to 1 Samuel for Now, keep in mind here in 1 Samuel, for God did not always make it easy for the Israelites to make their way into the promised land. And here we see another example of the Israelites and the Philistines tangling with each other. And this is one of those times they're at it again here in this chapter. It says now, when Israel went out to battle against the Philistines, this is again 1 Samuel 4:1. “And the word of Samuel came to all Israel. Now Israel went out to battle against the Philistines, and encamped beside Ebenezer; and the Philistines encamped in Aphek.. Then the Philistines put themselves in battle array against Israel. And when they joined battle, Israel was defeated by the Philistines, who killed about four thousand men of the army in the field”

There's nothing for us to consider here in our lives. When we fight a battle in our life, what are we to do? So, whether we win the battle, or whether we lose it, fight it to a draw, we are to go to God for His guidance, His wisdom and instruction, we certainly have a part to play in it as well. But especially at this time in Israel's history, when He was still so actively involved in directing the nation. What do you think the elders should have done after being defeated in battle? Let's read about what they actually did. Verse 3, “And when the people had come into the camp, the elders of Israel said, "Why has the LORD defeated us today before the Philistines? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the LORD from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us it may save us from the hand of our enemies." 

So, they blamed their defeat on God? Let us bring the ark of the covenant of the Lord from Shiloh to us, that when it comes among us, it may save us from the hand of our enemies.

So, we see that instead of consulting God about what they should do, they decide to come up with their own solution. Hey, let's bring the ark up here. The Ark will save us. So, we've got a couple of problems here. Not only do they not consult with God about what they should do, now they've made an idol of the ark.

In their minds, it wouldn't be God who would save them, it would be the ark. That would save them. Verse 4 “So the people sent to Shiloh, that they might bring from there the ark of the covenant of the LORD of hosts, who dwells between the cherubim. And the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phinehas, were there with the ark of the covenant of God. 

1Sa 4:5  And when the ark of the covenant the LORD came into the camp, all Israel shouted so loudly that the earth shook. 

 And that is where again, we see ruah teruah, that same phrase that's used in Joshua 6 The sense here, though, this was not a battle cry. They were not heading directly into battle. Instead, this is a great shout, of relief, of confidence, and even of joy. It would be like this big  “Hooray!. The ark is here. There's no way we can lose now”.

Let's read on about how we see how things work out. Verse five, you've got again, this great shout coming from Israel. And now we see how it sounded from the Philistines perspective. Verse 6-9. “Now when the Philistines heard the noise of the shout, they said, "What does the sound of this great shout in the camp of the Hebrews mean?" Then they understood that the ark of the LORD had come into the camp. So the Philistines were afraid, for they said, "God has come into the camp!" And they said, "Woe to us! For such a thing has never happened before. Woe to us! Who will deliver us from the hand of these mighty gods? These are the gods who struck the Egyptians with all the plagues in the wilderness.  Be strong and conduct yourselves like men, you Philistines, that you do not become servants of the Hebrews, as they have been to you. Conduct yourselves like men, and fight!" ”

So, it must have been a pretty impressive shout. The Philistines, they were afraid, verse nine, you get that sense that they are not going to go down without a fight, and they would rather die than to be defeated and enslaved. And they also knew what had happened to Egypt. When God had stepped in. What chance did they have against that? Well, a pretty good one after all. Firsthand the Philistines fought and Israel was defeated. And every man fled to his tent, there was a very great slaughter and there fell of Israel 30,000 foot soldiers. Also the ark of God was captured, and the two sons of Eli, Hophni and Phineas died. Did you notice WHAT we didn't read in here? We did not read that the priests blew the silver trumpets. We see that the Israelites shouted and they made this big noise of joy. But it was not according to God's will. So, it's a very interesting example for us. But the point that we can take from it, and we can see other examples of this teruah, where it speaks of joyful shouting, that's what we want to take from it. But we also see the examples in Psalm 33, Ezra 33:13, Psalm 47:6, Psalm 27:6, and there are others. Go through and do a full word study on teruah and you will see that joyful shouting or making a joyful noise is something that we see commonly. Going back to numbers 10,:10, once more. And again, I'll just go ahead and read this. Again. It says “also in the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets, over your offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, and they shall be a memorial before you, for you before your God”.

So we see that the trumpets these silver trumpets were to be blown on all of God's feast days, on the new moon, and other times as well. So we see that the blowing of the trumpets was to be a memorial, but not just on the Feast of Trumpets. It was for all of the feasts. So what sets the Feast of Trumpets apart if the trumpets were blown on all of the feast days, well, it ties back to the Hebrew words, Yom Teruah, a memorial of blowing of trumpets. The point of that day, the Day of Trumpets is to meditate on the purpose of the trumpets, and the different ways in which they were blown. And we should see what we are to be considering on that day. We saw that the blowing of trumpets was a communication system. Ancient Israel, it was a way for God's will to be communicated to the people. And while Israel spent the 40 years in the wilderness, those trumpets were used to call the elders to the tabernacle, to call all of the people again to sound the advance of when we would be picking up camp and moving along. We saw that the trumpets were used in times of war as well. So, what are the parallels for us today? Let's go over to Hebrews 11. In Hebrews 11 It's commonly referred to as the faith chapter. First part of the chapter the writer lists some of the examples of faith for us to emulate, talking about Abel and Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, also see mentioned is Moses and some others later in the chapter. But there's a point made, starting in verse 13, that directly correlates to us today. Heb 11:13-16  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off were assured of them, embraced them and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth. . For those who say such things declare plainly that they seek a homeland. Heb And truly if they had called to mind that country from which they had come out, they would have had opportunity to return. But now they desire a better, that is, a heavenly country. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them. 

And brethren, we also seek that homeland today. We have God's Holy Spirit to help us to understand His plan, his purpose. His is his plan for bringing all of mankind to repentance, conversion to offer the gift of eternal life, but right now, we also are wanderers, we are Wanderers in the wilderness of this world, just as ancient Israel was. Let's see that by turning over to John 15.

John 15, Christ tells His disciples, these words, in verse 18, John 15:18 during his last evening with His disciples, He told them, tells us by extension, “If the world hates you, you know that it hated me, before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own, yet, because you are not of the world. But I chose you out of the world, therefore, the world hates you”

So God has called us in a sense to be Wanderers in this world, we are not to make our home in this world, to be of this world. Now, the next chapter, records Jesus's prayer to the Father in the Garden of Gethsemane. And again, in that prayer, he makes it clear that we are not part of this world, John 16:9, I pray for them. I do not pray for the world, but for those whom You have given Me, for they are yours, and all mine are yours and yours are mine, and I am glorified in them. Now I am no longer in the world. But these are in the world. And I come to You, Holy Father, keep through Your name, those whom You have given Me that they may be one as we are, while I was with them in the world, I kept them in your name, those whom you gave me I have kept and none of them is lost, except the Son of Perdition, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. But now I come to you. And these things I speak in the world, that they may have my joy fulfilled in themselves, I have given them your word. And the world has hated them, because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. I do not pray that you should take them out of the world, but that you should keep them from the evil one. They're not of the world, just as I am not of the world.”

So, this during this time, as we await the return of Christ, we are in the world but we're not of the world. We are pilgrims at this time. A couple of weeks. It's going to be here before we know it. We're going to be recognizing that more directly during the feasts of tavern Tabernacles. We live these temporary physical lives. We are living in tents in this life. You know Paul talks about putting off the tent his physical body. But just like the ancient Israelites, we are to seek God's will and to listen for his instruction, because God is always in charge. And he does make His Will known to us through His Word and His Spirit and it's up to us to listen was he was we close our message today?

Let's turn over to Psalm 47. We'll read this together. It's just a short song. And it speaks prophetically of the day that is pictured at the return of Christ.

Psalm 47 “Oh, clap your hands. All you people. Shout to God with the voice of triumph. For the Lord Most High is awesome. He is a great king over all the earth. He will subdue the people under us and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us the excellence of Jacob, whom he loves. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet, sing praises to God, sing praises, sing praises to our King, sing praises, for God is the king of all the earth. Sing praises with understanding. God reigns over the nations. God sits on His holy throne. The princes of the people have gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham, for the shields of the earth belong to God, he is greatly exalted”.

The trumpet of God will sound at the return of Christ. And it will be a clear signal of a time of judgment and of war and it will also herald the resurrection and the change to immortality of those who are Christ's to call us to meet him. We will be called to come to Christ, in much the same way that the elders were called to meet with God at the tabernacle and at that time, we shall surely make a roux ah, terawatt a shout with a great shout of joy, his return