The Feast of Trumpets

As we heard in the first message, the blowing of the shofar had a lot of reasons in the Old Testament with ancient Israel. They also had silver trumpets that they would blow, but the shofar was the main trumpet, because a lot of people could have them, a lot of people could blow them, and they could be heard throughout the congregation. Two of the main reasons that it was blown was to call to worship and to call to battle. Now, last year, I had practiced. Now, you heard the cantor who played the shofar that was recorded, and that was what I was trying to sound like last year. And I didn't quite get it, but at least I could make some of the sounds. Well, last night I thought, well, I'll do the same thing I did last year. And I picked it up. You can't go a year without practicing the shofar and make any sound hardly at all. But I do want to announce that we are here to worship God. So this isn't exactly what you'll hear in the synagogue today, but it's what you'll hear in the Christian church today.

Now, we'll try to do the other things. Maybe next year I'll practice. So we're called here to worship. But another reason, and that's when they heard that sound that would be absolutely frightening, is when they were called to war. They were called to battle. And when they would hear that particular sound, of course, they would send a shockwave to everybody, that they were being called to the danger of war.

Well, the Feast of Trumpets, the blowing of the trumpets on the Feast of Trumpets, isn't just a call to worship. It is a call to war. This is about the great climactic battle that's going to happen in the future, where the trumpet sounds and armies gather. It is sometimes called the Battle of Armageddon.

We're going to see in a little bit that that's really a misnomer, the Battle of Armageddon. The word Armageddon, harmighetto, only appears one time in the scripture, and it's in the New Testament. Megiddo, as a town, appears many times in the Old Testament. Or as the plains surrounding this town. Armageddon literally means the Mount of Megiddo. Although, the town of Megiddo isn't really on a mountain. It's on a hill. One reason it's on a hill is because every time they would tear down a house, they would just build a house on top of the foundation of the next one. And the town kit over the years got higher and higher. But it sits out in the middle of an open plain.

Now, the plains around Megiddo are two ancient crossroads trade routes.

And there have been many, many, many battles fought on the plains of Megiddo.

In fact, it has been one of the most fought-over places in history.

If you studied the history of the plains around Megiddo, you'd find Egyptians fought there, then Arabs and Greeks, and Israelites, and Muslims and Christian crusaders, and Mongols and French and British and Germans, and there have been armies clashing there for a long, long time.

One of the earliest battles we have recorded being fought there outside of the Bible is between Thutmose III and an army he faced. He brought an army out of Egypt. And we have this little bit of information about this climactic battle in which he killed almost the entire other army, and those that were left he took into slavery.

The generals, the people who have fought in Armageddon, became famous because of the battles that were fought there. You think of Thutmose III, which if you study Egyptian history is a famous, of course, pharaoh of the tongue, but also King Saul and Jonathan fought there.

Deborah and Barak fought there. Gideon fought there. Some of the great battles in Scripture were in the case of Deborah and Barak, in the case of Gideon, God intervened to give them victory. You also see that Saladin fought there, the great Muslim general. The crusaders crossed that area. Napoleon fought a battle there.

Of course, one of the great battles in the more modern time is General Allenby, the British, in World War I, fought a Turkish army on the plains of Megiddo.

It has been one of the most thought-over areas in the history of humanity.

The trumpet sounds, the shofar sounds, one of the trumpets that this day pictures.

It will be a call for armies to gather on the plains of Megiddo to fight an enormous battle, involving millions and millions of men, called together to fight.

Let's look at where Armageddon is mentioned in the Scripture. Let's go to Revelation 16.

Verse 12.

This gets a little complicated in terms of, there are seven seals in the Bible, and then there are seven trumpets, and there are seven bowls. Sometimes the bowls are called, depending on the translation, the Bible you use, they are called seven vials, seven bowls, seven plagues.

So let's look here, we're in these events that are happening, that culminate in the return of Jesus Christ. The sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared. What he's describing here, and if you put it in the context of Revelation, the beast of false prophet and their armies are gathering into the Middle East.

And there's a huge army coming out of the east that's coming into this area. There's Arab armies that are forming, and they're all coming together. And literally, the Euphrates River is dried up, so that these armies don't have to build boats or boats or try to cross on bridges, they just come across, swarms of them.

And I saw three unclean spirits, and this is important too in understanding what's happening. It's all three unclean spirits like frogs coming out of the mouth of the dragon, that's Satan, out of the mouth of the false prophet, or out of the beast, out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are spirits of demons, performing signs which you go out to the kings of the earth, and of the whole world, to gather them to do battle of the great day of God Almighty.

This isn't just a gathering of armies. This isn't cut most to the third with some Egyptians against, I think it was Hittites he was fighting, I'm not even sure. History hardly even remembers the people who died there. This isn't Gideon against the Midianite, or Alabey against the church. What this is, is armies being gathered together by Satan through demonic powers. The whole world. The whole world is going to be mobilizing for a war. And armies coming together, any way they can get there, to gather together for this battle.

Verse 15, Behold, I am coming, this is Christ, behold I am coming as a thief. Bless as he who watches and keeps his garments, lest he walk naked and see his shame. So here, there's a warning not to the people who are being gathered together through these demonic forces. This is a warning to the church. This is a warning to the people of God. Christ says, watch this. Some people say, well why do we every once in a while have a sermon on prophecy?

We talk about doctrine, we talk about marriage, we talk about Christian living. Why do we have these prophetic sermons? Because we're commanded to do so. And on the Feast of Trumpets, at least part of what we talk about has to be about these prophecies. Because that's what this day is about. It's about this time. And we're told, remember this, so that we are prepared. Now this doesn't mean physically prepared. There's no way to physically prepare for a world war that Jesus said, if he doesn't come back exactly what he does, no one will survive it.

You can't physically prepare for utter destruction of the earth. You can't. So this is talking about being spiritually prepared. And then verse 16, And they gathered them together to the place called in Hebrew Armageddon. Millions of people flooding in from all over, coming into the Middle East, and there on those massive plains these armies spread out from all over the world to fight a common enemy.

When we look at the seven seals, we look at the trumpets and so forth, these events that happened in the book of Revelation, we can put them together to realize when we look at Daniel, the prophecies of Daniel, when we look at the Olivet prophecy of Jesus, that we have the time of the tribulation, when the earth just goes into chaos, and this beast power with a false religion motivating it begins to bring some kind of order out of this chaos.

It doesn't last very long. And then towards the end of the tribulation, there is a time called the Day of the Lord. And the reason the Day of the Lord is different is the tribulation is humanity and Satan doing this to ourselves. And I want to stress Satan, because all through the book of Revelation specifically, it talks about Satan's involvement in this. So humanity being driven by even demonic spirits, and there will be according to Revelation, demons released into the world and aren't even here yet, that will be released into the world as the world goes insane. And now they're gathering together. But the last part of the tribulation is the Day of the Lord.

And it's when God begins to say, enough. It's when God says, I am going to stop this, and Christ is going to return. What's interesting is Christ just doesn't return. And there's a reason for that, as we'll see in a little bit. He does things to get humanity's attention. And instead of responding to God, the world gathers its armies together to fight Christ.

Or as probably as they will see it, an invasion from outer space. No one's going to be saying, let's get together and fight Jesus. That's not what's going to happen. The deception is going to be so great, they're going to see this as a threat to humanity. The Prince of Peace is a threat to humanity as they begin to gather together. This is called the Day of the Lord.

And it involves this battle in which these armies gather together as they mobilize around this little town of Megiddo, which is just some ruins today. There's a town there, Megiddo, but the ancient city of Megiddo is just some ruins on top of a hill. And those massive planes as these armies start to come in, and they gather and they mobilize. They prepare their arms, their machines, their guns, their artillery. They prepare to fight against this invasion. We have one description of this battle in Zechariah 14.

So let's go to Zechariah 14. We are called today to worship, and we are called today to remember this future battle. Because we have to understand how evil humanity is going to become, how evil it is becoming now. This reminds us that this is not God's world. He's allowed Satan to have it for a while, and then he's going to take it back. There's a lot of good in the world, and we can't look around and see nothing but evil, because that's not true either.

But we have to realize that the way of humanity is self-destruction, and humanity is being led by the, as Paul said, the God of this world, liturgy. We can't downplay Satan's influence. If we do, we will come under his influence. Now we can't walk around being just, oh look, Satan's here, Satan's there. That's, you know, pretty soon we become superstitious. What we have to do is view this as God's season.

This is Satan's world. Humanity, because of that, there's still some good in humanity, I don't mean for salvation, but I mean, people do good things. The image of God isn't totally erased in humanity. And yet, humanity can't save itself. In fact, Satan will have influenced humanity so much that when Jesus Christ returns, they will try to kill him again. But he's not coming this time as a human being.

So we're reminded of this, because this motivates us to live a certain way. It motivates us, for one thing, not to get too involved in the world. I mean, we have to live in it. We're not told to withdraw from it. But not to get too involved in this. That this can actually lead us away from God. And so we see that, here, let's go to Zechariah 14. I won't read all of the chapter, because this chapter is all about the return of Christ. Now, it says Yahweh here, so it's the return of God. But we realize that Jesus Christ is God. He was with the Father. He's not the Father. And He is God also.

Verse 1, Behold, the day of the Lord is coming. The day of the Lord, the time at the end of the tribulation. When God starts to intervene, and it culminates in these events. And your spoil will be divided in your midst. And I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem. And so I say it's really not the battle of Armageddon. It's the battle against Jerusalem for the entire earth.

This is a battle for control of humanity. Where Satan believes somehow, between his demons and this human army. It sounds like some kind of science fiction, doesn't it? That he can stop Christ.

So they come to battle against Jerusalem. And his city shall be taken, and the house is rifled, the women are ravaged. Half of the city shall go into captivity. But the remnant of the people shall not be cut off from the city. In other words, as these armies now march into Jerusalem, they actually conquer half of Jerusalem. And it's just destroyed. People are killed. There's violence and rape. Then the Lord will go forth. And fight against those nations, as he fights in the day of battle. And in that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives. We know from the New Testament that Christ prophesied he would come and stand on the Mount of Olives. On that day his feet shall stand on the Mount of Olives, which faces Jerusalem in the East. And the Mount of Olives shall split in two, from East to West, making a very large valley. Half of the mountain shall move towards the North, and half towards the South. Let's get down to verse 12.

Because these armies continue to attack Jesus Christ. Verse 12, and this is what he will do to them. Now understand, we have to realize, we look at Jesus Christ and we look at God's mercy. We see God's grace. We see God's forbearance. But we also have to realize, this is God also. God will only live with evil so long. He will only live with evil for so long, and then he will stop it. Sometimes I don't think we understand how much God hates evil. And I use that word hates because he uses it. He hates it. He hates what human beings do to each other. He hates what Satan does. He hates all the anguish and the pain and the horror and the violence, what we do to each other. He hates it. And so he returns, and here's what he does to that army. And this shall be the plague with which the Lord will strike all the people who fought against Jerusalem. Their flesh shall dissolve while they stand on their feet. Their eyes shall dissolve in their sockets. And their tongues shall dissolve in their mouths. If you've ever seen Raiders of the Lost Ark, this is how they created that scene when they opened the Ark of the Covenant. This is what happens to those people. This is where they got this idea from. They shall come to pass in that day that a great panic from the Lord will be among them. And everyone will seize the hand of his neighbor and raise his hand against his neighbor's hand. And Judah also... so there's going to be... this is one of the reasons there has to be Jews in Jerusalem at this time. Because their army is going to be fighting in the midst of this too. Judah also will fight in Jerusalem, and the wealth of all the surrounding nations shall be gathered, gold, silver, and apparel in great abundance. Such also shall be the plague on the horse, and the mule, and the camel, and the donkey, and all the cattle that will be in those camps. So shall be this plague. He says, I'm not only going to kill them, these people that have come to fight against me. Christ says, I'm going to kill any animals that are with them too. I'm going to destroy this evil that Satan has created. And he literally is trying to fight God now with human beings. He tried to do it in the past with just angels who followed him and became demons. Now he's going to do it with demons and human beings. One of the things that we're going to observe in 10 days when we keep the Day of Atonement is that Satan is removed. And humanity is brought into relationship with God. What's so sad about this is before that can happen, this has to happen. He can't come and say, let me gather you in my children because they will not listen. They will not listen. And therefore, this is what Jesus Christ is going to do. So let's look at, then, some of the future events of the Day of the Lord. Let's go to Revelation 8. We have the seven seals, and the seventh seal are the seven trumpets. So it's those seven trumpets that are the Day of the Lord. Announcing the return of Christ. It's very interesting because even in Zechariah there's a passage in which the Messiah will be announced to a trumpet. So one of the reasons for the blowing of these trumpets is to announce the Messiah. But it's also to announce that God is bringing warfare on humanity.

So when we talk about these seven trumpets now, we're talking about the end of the tribulation and this time known as the Day of the Lord. Chapter 8, verse 1. When He opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about half an hour. That's a remarkable statement. The throne of God is described to us. It's in this dimension. I mean, it's beyond our comprehension. And it talks about when John goes there and he's given a vision of it. The sea of glass and these choir singing and thunderings and lightings. He's trying to describe what he sees. And one of the things that he does describe is what he hears.

Angels are coming back and forth. Probably just like streaks of light coming before God. Jesus Christ is sitting there in His right hand. And He sees this. And if somehow we can visualize that, there's just this shining light that is God and it is Christ. And all of a sudden, all the sounds stop. It just stops. There's no sound. There's nothing but anticipation. It's time. Everything that God's been working on since Adam and Eve were kicked out of Eden is now going to start. His first coming was preparation for this so that humanity can be saved. And I just find that amazing. Silence. Absolute silence at the throne of God.

And I saw the seven angels who stand before God and then were given seven trumpets. Then another angel, having a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense, which He should offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.

Now this is interesting because when you look at the tabernacle in ancient Israel, this incense was offered to God during the ceremonies. And here we see this incense represents the prayers of the saints. Those who are on this earth at this time, when humanity is at its worst, when Satan has control of everything, when it appears that no one is going to survive, and there are the saints praying, and there is this silence, and then there are these seven angels with seven trumpets about to start blowing.

Now what is God interested in? The prayers of His people that are on earth. That should be encouraging. But in this time of absolute horror and chaos, what is God's interest in? The prayers of His people. He knows who they are. He knows where they are scattered. He knows where they are protected. And where some of them aren't because they've been through the tribulation.

He knows those who have died in the tribulation. As there are prophecies in Satan, there will be saints who die in the tribulation. He says, and the angel took the sensor, verse 5, filled it with fire from the altar and threw it into the earth, and there was noises and thunderings and lightnings and an earthquake. So the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound.

I should have made this a little bigger up here. I know some of you in the back probably can't see this. But these are the trumpets. The first trumpet... Let me turn this on. The first trumpet is hail and fire and a third of all the trees and green grass destroyed. Now you have to understand something. The tribulation has been going on for years. Massive war and destruction and everything that Satan and human beings can do to each other. The earth is the garden of Eden.

It's not cleaned up of all its pollution. It's a whole lot worse than it is right now. And now God says, let me get your attention. How do you get the attention of people living in the massive world war and the things that are going on during the tribulation?

Well, first you start with hail and fire. This isn't man made. This comes from God. And a third of all the trees and green grass dies. Now this doesn't mean a third of all the grass and Jerusalem. There's not a lot of grass in Jerusalem, by the way. This is a third of all the grass and trees in the world on the face of the earth. Then it says there's a second trumpet. And one third of the sea becomes blood. And a third of sea creatures die.

And one third of ships destroyed. Now that's interesting because not only do the sea creatures die, the ships are destroyed. This has to be something massive. Not just like everybody walks down to the sea one day and says, oh look, all the whales are dying. You'll just kill the whales and the fish and the squid. The ships are destroyed. I've wondered about this. What would cause this? There is one possibility. In 1908, a meteorite about 200 feet across, they figured, hit Siberia. Okay, a meteorite 200 feet apart hit Siberia. It basically destroyed a thousand square miles.

Twenty miles away, the trees are all laying straight down. It just blew the trees down for a 20-mile radius. The shock waves were not only felt all across Russia and Ukraine, the shock wave was felt all across Europe. How many feet's across here? Somebody here a builder? How big is this room, you think? A hundred feet? Somebody guess. 300 feet. That's a guess. Okay.

As bad as I am. I said guess, and guessed. Let's just say, maybe as big as this room, maybe twice as big as this room. And that rock hit this earth to look what it did. There's pictures. They actually have some photographs of the trees and the destruction of what happened.

Imagine something bigger than that or that big hitting the ocean. Or a couple of them hitting you. Whatever it is, it's not man-made. This is God doing this. Then it says, the third trumpet, a third part of fresh water, turns bitter. It probably would have been a short of fresh water anyways from what humanity has been doing to itself. Then the fourth trumpet, atmosphere deteriorates so that one third of the light is filtered out. Now this could be happening because of nuclear weapons too. Could be happening because Yellowstone blows up. The thing is, God's doing something here.

God's getting the attention of human beings if they will listen. Now we ask sometimes, why does he keep doing this? Because he doesn't stop here. We have the fifth trumpet. The trumpets now get so bad, he says, these trumpets have to be called woes.

In other words, listen up. Woe to you. This is a bad thing that's going to happen. As if the first ones weren't bad enough. The fifth trumpet, beast power brings about world war. God has been holding back the war that humanity and Satan is trying to create. Finally God says, good. Go at it, guys. I'm not holding you back anymore. Now, probably the use of nuclear weapons and biological weapons, it's just out of control.

You have the sixth trumpet. Asia becomes involved in the war. So now it's not just centered in the West. The entire world is involved. And then you have the third one, which is the seven vials or seven bowls. Why is God doing this? Why does he just say, hey folks, look, my son's coming to fix it? We know from Revelation 9. Revelation chapter 9. And verse 15. Because this is important to understand.

I'm sorry, verse 20. This is important to understand. Is God doing this simply because he's angry and I want to beat people up? He does each one of these things and it's not hidden. The whole world can see it. The whole world can see, wow, our environment is turning against us. Our environment is so polluted, we can't even grow crops anymore in much of the earth. The water is going. Things are hitting the earth and destroying the seas.

And this isn't just human beings. This is God doing it. Why? Verse 20. But the rest of mankind, who were not killed by these plagues, this is the end of the, this is said at the end of the sixth trumpet, did not repent of the works of their hands that they should not worship demons and ices of gold and silver and brass and stone and wood, which can neither see nor hear nor walk. They did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their sexual immorality or their thefts. God said, what more do I have to do? And this is important. Every one of these trumpets is a call to repentance.

This isn't, let me blow this trumpet so I can show you how I can beat you up again.

One of the reasons for the call of the shofar was to come to worship before God to repent.

God keeps blowing the trumpet. The war is coming between you and me. Repent. Repent. And after the sixth trumpet, he says, and they won't repent.

The absolute level of rebellion of human beings against God and the worship of demons, so we can see that there's this demonic influence going on throughout humanity, is so intense that no matter what God does, whoever survives the next trumpet will not repent. And that's why he continues to do it.

So then we have the seventh trumpet.

So let's go to Revelation 11.

The seventh trumpet.

And verse 15.

And then the seventh angel sounded. So we have the six trumpets, we've gone through just showing basically what happens, what God does, why he's doing it.

Then the seventh angel sounded, and there were loud voices in heaven, saying, And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces of worship, God sang. So here's what the angels, these twenty-four elders, these created beings of God who were there at His throne, here's what they say to God when that seventh trumpet is sounded.

And they were able to create power and reign. The nations were angry.

The nations, the people are angry against you. The people hate God. The people are evil.

Satan is evil. And God says, it's enough.

And your wrath has come.

And the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that you should reward your service, the prophets and the saints, those who fear your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth.

When that seventh angel sounds that trumpet, these twenty-four elders say, it's the time of the resurrection when your saints are going to come up. Now, we just talked about, you know, I've been going through these series of sermons on Hebrews 1 and 2, and we just talked about the resurrections and the eternal judgments.

The first resurrection is the reward of the saints. And as soon as that trumpet blows, they say, God's getting involved, Christ is coming back, and the saints are going to be resurrected.

But even that doesn't happen immediately.

Because what we have is that the trumpet, as Christ returns, that sound of that trumpet, there are seven last things that happen. That God does as the armies gather. Because the seventh trumpet involves announcing Christ's return, the gathering of the armies, and a series of events that just happen right after each other.

The seven plagues, or bowls, sores are poured out on humanity.

Mass death of the sea creatures. Fresh water turns to blood. The sun scorches the earth. There's darkness. Now, it's interesting. All this is part of what God has done in the day of the Lord. All this would also be the result of the massive war that's going on that humanity's doing.

The Euphrates River dries up so that the Ajaic armies and remaining beast armies converge on Megiddo. God says, okay, you're coming. Let me make it easier for you.

He actually drives up the Euphrates, so these armies, massive armies coming from the east, come right through the Middle East. And there they are. Everybody's converging at the same place. The Gedders about 55 miles north of Jerusalem.

And these armies will stretch on for hundreds of months. Massive amounts of men and equipment gathered to fight the Messiah. Probably airplanes and nuclear weapons and helicopters and tanks. And everybody's gathered. We're going to stop this invasion from outer space. There's a great earthquake and hail, and the Babylonian system collapses and is destroyed.

And then, of course, is the last part of this seventh throne. Christ returns.

And when He returns, He fights this battle. And that's what it's talked about in Revelation 19.

Revelation 19.

Let's start at verse 11 here. We're going to read a sort of a long passage here. But this describes what we've already talked about, what we read in Zechariah. Because all these things now come together. All these prophecies come together. The Tribulation. But the Day of the Lord is what this day is about. Not the Tribulation, but the end of the Tribulation.

Where there's seven trumpets, the Feast of Trumpets, that are blown to announce a call to worship God.

A call to repentance that very few people are responding to. We know some do. It says the Great multitude comes out of the Tribulation. Some respond.

But the mass of humanity does not, because Satan's deception. Because Satan hasn't been removed yet.

Verse 11. I saw heaven open, behold a white horse. So John actually gets a vision of this. And he who said on him was called faithful and true. And in righteousness he judges and makes war.

For all the gentleness of Jesus Christ. Come to me. You know, he said, you who need rest, I will give you rest. Take off my yoke. It's gentle. But confronted with evil, Jesus Christ is not gentle.

We have to understand that.

Confronted with evil, he's not gentle. He comes to make war. So this is part of the Gospel also. We want to talk about forgiveness and turning to God and receiving God's love. That's the message we're all drawn to.

To have this relationship with God through Christ. But we can't forget this part either. That says, where God says, I will not abide with evil.

And Jesus Christ is coming back, yes! To establish peace, but this is what He has to do first. He comes to make war. His eyes were like 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, which we know from John 1.1 in Jesus Christ. And the armies in heaven clothed in white fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. So the armies in heaven, He comes with angels. But you know what else He comes with? Because of the resurrection. He says He comes with His saints.

His saints will be part of the army that's following Him. Now that doesn't mean we do the fighting. Christ takes care of Himself. Thank you.

But we're part of the army that comes. Resurrected, we meet Him in the air. And we come down with Him. And what does He do when He comes down? We just read in Zechariah. He begins to fight the armies that all the nations that are gathered against Him. And He stands with the Mount of Olives and splits in two. And He sends out this plague upon them. He destroys them.

And we're there with Him.

He says, now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword. And with it did He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has put on His robe, put on His thigh a name written, King of Kings, the Lord of Lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying, To all the birds that can 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 captives, 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. This is a massive slaughter that Jesus Christ does. Not angels, not the saints who are with Him. He doesn't. And I saw the beasts and kings of the earth and their armies gathered together To make war against Him, who sat on the horse and against His army. Oh, don't worry. We will be left out of this. Those who are with Christ will be hated, just like He is. Then 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 who worshiped His image. And these two were cast into the lake of fire. Verse 21, 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. Just further description, as much as we can understand, As much as John can understand what he was seeing, As much as Zachariach can understand what he was seeing. That's a horrible story. They come together on a holy day, and we're told to remember this. Because, and remembering it, we understand that we live In a world that's deceived, and it is so deceived, This is the point where humanity will get to. We don't want to be part of that. We're called to understand this, so we don't become part of it. And of course, when Christ does now fight this army, He now begins to reconstruct the world. We will celebrate that at the feast of terror. Imagine the work it's going to take For the remnant of the earth scattered all over the place. People on some island someplace that knew the world was being destroyed And then all their cell phones went out. And they have no idea what happened. The people walking around in shock, The people whose cities have been destroyed. The people who have watched their children die of starvation and disease Because of what humanity and Satan was doing. All over the world, the remnants of humanity. And God wants to heal them. God wants them to come accept Christ, who's to be ruling on the earth at the time. And that's why these events happen as all part of that seventh trumpet.

And here's the good news of the seventh trumpet. The return of Jesus Christ includes the resurrection of the saints. The return of Jesus Christ, of course, the destruction of the beast power. And it involves the binding of Satan. That's what Revelation 20 teaches us. The being that causes this, who's so filled with evil and hatred That he wants to drive humanity to this kind of behavior. The one who drives human beings, motivates them to set up concentration camps. To murder and plunder and steal and rape. That being is removed. It's not his world anymore. It's not his world anymore. He can't have it. And Christ begins to heal everything. It takes a thousand years to get the world prepared for the great white throne judgment.

A thousand years to heal what everybody's been through. To heal the earth and the generations of people that will follow afterwards.

The Feast of Trumpets is about good news, but it is also to remind us where we live now And where we're supposed to live. We're supposed to live in the kingdom of God.

Or we will become overwhelmed by the evil we live in. Overwhelmed either by participating in it or overwhelmed by it, then it just depresses us Because the world's so evil. And God says, no, I've given you light and I've called you out of it.

And what he promises us is the Millennium, but follows the seventh truth.

That's what he promises us.

These blasts of the shofar are just about war. They're about a call to worship. They're about repentance.

We are here today because we are to be repentant. We are here today to remember 1 Thessalonians 5. Let's conclude with 1 Thessalonians 5.

Verse 5.

Let's turn to verse 4. But you, brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day... He's talking about the Day of the Lord. He's talking about the seven trumpets. He's talking about just what we've been talking about today. He says the Day of the Lord should overtake you as a thief. He says you shouldn't be surprised. You will be prepared.

You are all sons of light and sons of the day. We are not of the night nor of the darkness. We're not of the evil. We've been called to come out of the world. We've been called to come out of the evil. We have been called to abide in God and for God to abide in us through His Spirit. And we have been called to be different, to be resurrected.

We are called not to be surprised by the Day of the Lord.

But to be prepared for what it really means with the return of Jesus Christ. But verse 6, therefore, in conclusion of the understanding of the Day of the Lord, therefore, let us not sleep as others do. He's not talking about death here. Sometimes death is referred to as sleep. He's talking about spiritual sleep.

He's like, let us not die makes no sense. That's what he's talking about. He says, don't let us sleep! Don't be spiritually asleep! Spiritually numb! Spiritually just going through every day. You come to Sabbath services once a week. And you sort of obey God. You sort of do what you're supposed to do. But in reality, your thoughts, your marriage, how you live your life isn't any different than anybody else.

He says, we can't be that way. This day reminds us of that. Because everything that is in this world is going to be destroyed.

Because it's going to become so evil, God will not live with it.

He said, let us not sleep as others do, but let us watch and be sober. For those who sleep, sleep at night. And those who get drunk or drunk at night. In other words, you use drunkenness here as a way of just evil, any kind of evil deeds and actions. He says, what do you do these things? At night, under darkness? And he's using darkness here as a reference to evil. He said, but you don't live in that. Hide in the darkness. Our actions, who we are is up and out in the light, the light of God that shines through us.

But let us, who are of the day be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love, and as a helmet, the hope of salvation. We know that salvation is coming with Jesus Christ. We know it's coming.

No matter how terrible the tribulation is, no matter how terrible the day of the Lord is, we know what the salvation is.

For God did not appoint us to wrath. Remember that. God hasn't called you for His wrath. God hasn't called you so that these things come upon you. He hasn't called you for that.

For God did not appoint us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us. That whether we wake or sleep, no here He does mean death. Whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Whether we're alive when He comes back, or we're dead. We are all part of that resurrection.

And that hope of that salvation in an evil world is positive.

If we just get up here and talk about the day of the Lord, it can be very, very negative, right? And yet we're commanded to cover these things. We're commanded to remind ourselves of these things.

We're commanded to preach about these things.

But then it always comes back to this. We weren't appointed for this.

Christ died for us. We accepted that. We have received forgiveness and baptism. We received His Spirit.

And we're now to be becoming Christ-like. So we're not appointed to this wrath.

Therefore, verse 11, comfort each other and edify one another just as you also are doing. He says, now everybody remember this. And when you see each other in trials, when you see each other slipping, when you see each other struggling, remind each other, you're not appointed to wrath. You're appointed to salvation. Hold on to it.

Faith, love is what He said. Faith in God and obedience to Him and love towards Him and love towards each other. He says, we hold on to that and remember that's what you're called to. If you don't remember that, the world becomes overwhelmed.

I blew the shofar at the beginning of the sermon to talk about war.

I want to blow it one last time at the end of the sermon, not as a call to war, but as a call to assemble to worship and a call to repentance. And, as it says in Zechariah, a call for the Messiah to come.