The Great and Dreadful Day of the Lord

We're here on the first day of the seventh month of the year, the Feast of Trumpets. I'm sure you talked about that this morning. And I'm sure you turned to Leviticus 23 verse 24, where God commands an assembly on this Feast of Trumpets. This Feast of Trumpets has tremendous, tremendous meaning in the plan of God. You know, as you look back, and it's always good to rehearse where we are in the plan of God as we go through these Holy Days every year, but we look back to the spring Holy Days with the Passover and the Days of Unleavened Bread that picture the time that we're putting sin out of our lives and putting the unleavened bread in. And then Pentecost, when the firstfruits are selected by God, have His Holy Spirit. And there's this four, four and a half month window in between Pentecost and Trumpets, and a lot is going on during that time. There's no Holy Days, but there's a lot going on in the lives of the firstfruits. We are being prepared by God. We are overcoming. We are becoming more the people that God expects us to be day by day. And the world marches on as well. Jesus Christ talks about the various things that will lead up until the time that He returns, and He talks about wars and rumors of wars, and from the time of Christ on until now and until the time He returns, there will be wars and rumors of wars. He talks about famines and pestilences, earthquakes and great things happening on the earth, and those things continue down through time, and they intensify as time goes on until we come to the time that we're picturing today. The Feast of Trumpets, when the end of this age, the age of man, is about to draw to a close, and Jesus Christ is going to return to earth. And so we're here on the Feast of Trumpets. As you looked at Leviticus 23-24 this morning, you saw that God just gave a brief description. He said, just gather together on that day as a memorial, a blowing of trumpets. And the world, as mentioned in the opening prayer, doesn't know what the Feast of Trumpets is. God doesn't really go into any detail in those scriptures, but if we're going to let the Bible interpret its Bible, the Bible, we look at what does trumpets mean in the Bible? What does it talk about? And when we see trumpets and the symbols of it used throughout, we begin to see what God had in mind for this day. I know that you read in verse 10 this morning where God commanded Israel to fashion those trumpets, and they were used for gathering the people together. They were there for sounding an alarm.

They were there to usher in the days of gladness. And you know, as we celebrate the Feast of Trumpets today, all those things have their part in it. This day has an awfully lot going on, and if this day has an awfully lot that it signifies all ending in the return of Jesus Christ. Let's go through the Bible a little bit here and look at some of the symbolism of the trumpets here, because when God names something, we can learn from when He uses it. If we, you know, if we were in Numbers 10, we would go up over to Joshua. We'd see that when Israel was entering the Promised Land. How did He deliver into their hands the most fortified city of that day? It was through trumpets. They marched around the city seven times. They blew the trumpet. They shouted, and the walls fell. If we go into the minor prophets, you know, and the minor prophets, and the major prophets, trumpets are there. Certainly when we get into the New Testament, trumpets are there. Whenever we see trumpets, we see this is something God has said. It's a memorial of the blowing of trumpets. See what the trumpets signify. Hear what they have to say. So let's look at a couple of the major prophets here, where prophets, where trumpets are mentioned. Let's turn first to Isaiah. Isaiah 58. Isaiah 58, right there at the beginning in verse 1.

Isaiah, through God's inspiration, writes, Cry aloud, spare not, lift up your voice like a trumpet, tell my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. You tell them like a trumpet. What they should be doing, tell them where they're falling short, tell them where they're not on the path toward the kingdom of God. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. And if they're listening, if they're really serious about the kingdom of God, they'll listen to what you say, but I will send that warning and that admonition to them. Let's go over to the next one, Jeremiah. Jeremiah, trumpet shows up a number of times in Jeremiah. Let's just pick one out here in Jeremiah 6. Jeremiah 6, and we'll pick it up in verse 10. Jeremiah 6 verse 10 says, To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear?

Indeed, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Their ear is no longer in tune to the trumpets. Their ear is no longer in tune to the word of God. It no longer has the effect on them that it used to have. Their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot give heed. Behold, the word of the Eternal is a reproach to them. They have no delight in it. This become common. This become something every day. They're not rejoicing in it. They're living it. They're still doing the things, but they're really not. It's not the thing that truly motivates them. That's getting them up every morning, and their lives are in focus in it. Let's drop down to verse, well, let's continue in verse 11. Therefore, I'm full of the fury of the Eternal. I'm weary of holding it in. I will pour it out on the children outside and on the assembly of young men together, for even the husband shall be taken with the wife, the aged with him who is full of days. Jeremiah says, tired of it. I keep talking. No one's listening. They're not paying attention to the Word of God. Verse 13, because from the least of them, even to the greatest of them, everyone is given to covetousness. They're all interested in what they can get. What is it that they have out there? All those things in the world, that's the things that interest them. They're all of them from the least of them to the greatest of them. Somehow, somehow, they've taken their attention away from the Word of God that motivates them to the things, the things of earth that motivate them. Everyone is given to covetousness, and from the prophet even to the priest, everyone deals falsely. There's not the pure truth that should mark the people of God. There's these things that just aren't the complete truth. Verse 14, they've also healed the herd of my people slightly, saying peace, peace, when there is no peace. You know, they say, oh, it's okay. God's okay, even though the people are hurting. They don't know that they're hurting until someone tells them, until the trumpet sounds. Well, we maybe get lulled to sleep and say, it's okay. That's okay. Don't worry about it. Peace, peace, when God says there really is no peace. Peace comes when we're doing the will of God, and we're following Him implicitly. Verse 15, were they ashamed when they committed abomination? No. They weren't at all ashamed. They didn't know how to blush. Therefore, they shall fall among those who fall. At the time I punish them, they shall be cast down, says the Lord. Thus God says, stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths where the good way is. Now, that's an interesting phrase as He talks to His people then, as He talks to you and me today. Ask for the old ways, the old paths, where the good way is. We'll see this concept a little later on in the sermon as well, when God talks to His people. Ask for the old ways. You know, John in the third epistle of John, he talks and he tells the lady there, he goes, remember what you were taught in the beginning. Do that. Hold on to what you were told from the beginning. Christ, when He speaks to the church at Ephesus in Revelation 2, He says, you've lost your first love. Remember from where you fall, and repent and do the first deeds. Jeremiah says, ask for the old paths, where the good way is, the way it is in the Word of the Bible. Not 30, 40, 50 years down the road where we've put our own little touches on it, we've made our own little allowances for ourselves and done those little things that kind of alter what God's way is, kind of keeping it in the letter, but not keeping it in the Spirit. Perhaps.

He says, stand in the ways and see. Ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it. Then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, we're not going to do that. Kind of like the way we're walking right now. We'll walk in the way we are right now. We're not going to walk in that way. We've grown past that. We no longer need to do that. Also, in verse 17, also I sent watchmen over you saying, listen to the sound of the trumpet. Listen. The trumpet's there. It's warning. It's telling. Listen to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, we're not going to listen. We're not going to listen. We don't want to hear it.

Well, Ezekiel has something to say about trumpets, too. Let's go over to Ezekiel 33.

Ezekiel 33.

We'll pick it up in verse 2.

Ezekiel 33, verse 2. Son of man, God says, speak to the children of your people and say to them, when I bring the sword upon a land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory, and make him their watchman, when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, then whoever hears the sound of the trumpet, it doesn't take warning. If the sword comes and takes him away, his blood will be on his own head. He heard the sound of the trumpet, but he didn't take warning. His blood will be upon himself. But he who listens to that trumpet, he who takes warning, will save his life. Similar he says in verse 6, but if the watchman sees the sword coming, and if he doesn't blow the trumpet, if he sees the danger out there, if he sees what's on the horizon, he just kind of keeps his mouth shut. He doesn't take that in his hand and cry aloud and spare him out. If he doesn't tell the people what's going on, if the watchman sees the sword coming and doesn't blow the trumpet, then the people aren't warned. And the sword comes and takes any person from among them. He is taken away in his iniquity, but his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

Oh, those trumpet warnings! Those trumpet warnings are important. They're important for us to sound. They're important for us to listen to. They're important for us to heed. And this day of trumpets, memorial the blowing of trumpets, there's trumpets. You know, if you're listening closely, there's trumpets blaring all across the world. When we watch the news, when we see what's going on in our life, when we read the Bible, when we listen, listen to sermons on the net or wherever we listen to, there's trumpets that are blaring. And we could go on into the New Testament.

I'm not going to take the time because I'm sure you spent time in Matthew 24 this morning in Revelation. And you know about Jesus Christ talking about He'll come with the sound of a trumpet. In Revelation, there's trumpets all over that book that show the coming of the Son of the coming time of Jesus Christ's return. You can't know the Bible and read the Bible and not put together what is the meaning of the memorial of the day blowing of trumpets that we're on today. It means so much. It has so much that's involved with it. Well, this morning I want to look at a minor prophet that has a lot to say about this day of trumpets as well when we read through him.

Let's turn over to the book of Joel. The book of Joel, and we'll go through it and see what Joel has to say because really it's a feast of trumpets message, if you will. The feast of trumpets isn't just about one event. It's not just about the return of Jesus Christ. It is, ultimately. It's not just about the resurrection of the dead. It's about everything that's going on between the time that we're at now until the return of Jesus Christ. All the things that are going on. Let's pick it up here in Joel 1 and verse 1.

The word of the Lord that came to Joel, the son of Petuel. Verse 2, he says, Hear this, you elders, and give here all you inhabitants of the land. Has anything like this happened in your days or even in the days of your fathers? Tell your children about it. Let your children tell their children and their children another generation. What I'm about to tell you, it's never happened in the history of the world. There's never been a time like this that I'm going to tell you about at the culmination of the age.

Jesus Christ said the same thing when He said, There's going to be great tribulation like the world has never seen and will never see again. Revelation talks about things that Daniel 12 verse 1 says, There's been a coming of time that's never been like it in the world before. Joel says, I'm going to tell you something and it's never been said before. It's never happened. Listen, he would say to what I'm saying, tell your children about it so they know. Let them tell their children about it. Make it part of who you are when you keep the Feast of Trumpets and that becomes part of your life.

You know what God's plan is because this is a very important part in God's plan. Verse 4, What the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. What the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten. Now what the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. Now what is that about in that verse? It's interesting when I look in the margin of my Bible, it's got a little asterisk by locust and it says, the exact identity of these locusts is unknown. Basically we don't know. We don't know what this verse means and what it's referring to.

Well we all know what a locust is, right? I don't know. I haven't seen many locusts while living in Florida, but if you've lived elsewhere and if you were a farmer, you would know what locusts are. They're an enemy of the field. They will swarm in and they can eat and devour a lot. They eat leaves, they eat grass, they're kind of an enemy of agriculture. And if you have a lot of locusts in your yard and they're individual, they do eat a lot.

And all of a sudden your resources are kind of zapped a little bit. God says, He's going to take away a few of your resources, listen to what's going on, He says. But then the swarming locust comes in. And the swarming locust is different than the individual locusts who come in. When a swarm of locusts come in, they simply strip the land bare. We know something about swarms of locusts.

God sent a plague of locusts on Egypt, remember? When those locusts came in, it simply devoured everything in their sight. And if you read about locusts in Britannica or science books or whatever, you say that when a swarm of locusts occurs, it's like the locusts get close together. And when they touch each other, something happens. Something changes in their personality and they become this voracious swarm that goes out and just simply decimates fields all at one time. So farmers would hate these locusts. They would pray to God, keep the locusts from coming.

What God is saying, the locust has eaten some of your crop. The locust has eaten some of your resources, but you know what? What they left behind? The swarms are going to come in and they're going to devour it more intensely as the time of Christ comes in. And what they've left behind, if they left anything behind, this crawling locust is going to come in and consume it until there's nothing left.

Until there's nothing left. Now we can kind of look at that today and we would say, you know, well locusts, okay? But God uses symbols. And I often say, you know, what we see in nature, He uses as a spiritual premise for us as well. You know, we can look at the world we live in. And we live in a land that God has so richly blessed. It, you know, one in their, if they're thinking correctly, can think anything other than God has richly blessed this nation with so many resources of so many types who are the wealthiest nation that has ever lived.

Jesus Christ said, and if you read the seals of Revelation, you see where He talked about wars and rumors of wars. He talked about famines and pestilences and earthquakes and great weather. Now think about what is consuming our resources. We live in a nation now that has debt that's what, I don't even know how many trillions of dollars I lose, I lose track of it.

How many wars and how many of our, how much of our resources has been sent on wars and wars and rumors of wars? Trillions of dollars. We go into more and more debt each day. Look at the weather that we've had. Look at the weather, the weather occurrences that have heard. How much of that is sapping our resources? And how long will it go on until it's just nothing left?

How long will it multiply until a nation of people wake up and think things aren't going well? We can't sustain this. Something's happening. With the chewing locust left, the swarming locust has eaten. With the swarming locust left, the crawling locust has eaten. And with the crawling locust left, the consuming locust has eaten. Sooner or later, it disappears and there's nothing left. Little commentaries, you know, we'll ask, you know, what are these locusts?

But, you know, the Bible interprets itself. Let's go over to chapter 2. Chapter 2 and verse 25, God says what He's talking about with a locust. I mean, certainly there can be locusts that come into the land and devour everything in it. But in verse 25 of Joel 2, God talks about the time that these locusts are going to consume everything. But in verse 25, He says, so, and this is after the time, after the time of the punishment of the lands, the times of the trumpets that we'll talk about, so I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust.

There's a comma after that. I'll restore to you that the years these years of the locust, my great army, which I sent among you.

So what He's talking about is not just that little insect locust. He's talking about something far different that will come in and take the resources and rape the land, if I can use that term. So God is talking about a time of trouble that's coming, a time of trouble that His people haven't seen, a time of trouble where the land will be stripped bare.

Not all at once, little by little, in a continuing fashion until the time that Jesus Christ returns. Let's go back to chapter one and continue reading some of what Joel says. These things happen. Joel, in a way, he asks in verse 5, are you listening? Are you seeing what's going on? Because he says, awake! Awake, you drunkards! And weep! Wail, you drinkers of wine!

Now, Spas, Sabbath, we talked about that, right? We talked about, you know, the Bible talks about drunkards, and that day, a few, you know, people would take the wine and they would abuse it.

They would become drunkards, and it was a waste of time. It was a waste of time. They were not redeeming the time. They were wasting their time being drunk. Today, we still have that problem among some that will take the wine, too much wine, but we can replace that with anything that saps our time, that we become drunk on. Now, we can become drunk on the internet. We can become drunk on TV. We can become drunk on Facebook. We can become drunk on our little phones that we carry with us, and every five minutes we're looking at them, we never have our faces out.

And we can become drunk on all those things. They're all time-wasters. They're all taking time away from what we should be focusing on. So we could put anything in there that we look at ourselves honestly and not excuse ourselves, saying, well, we're not drunkards. Well, we are. Maybe not on wine, but on something else, because we have our minds on that instead. Awake you, drunkards, and weep, and wail all you drinkers of wine because of the new wine. First, it's been cut off from your mouth.

One day, it's simply not going to be there. What are you going to do then? What are you going to do then? For a nation has come up against my land, strong and without number. His teeth are the teeth of a lion, and he has the fangs of a fierce lion. He's laid waste my vine.

He's ruined my fig tray. He has stripped it bare and thrown it away. Its branches are made white. And the reaction of the people when they see all this happening lament, verse 8, like a virgin girded with sackcloth for the husband of her youth. The grain offering and the drink offering have been cut off from the house of the eternal. The priests mourn, who minister to God.

The field is wasted. The land mourns, for the grain is ruined. The new wine is dried up. The oil fails. Verse 11, be ashamed, you farmers. Wail, you vine dressers, for the wheat and the barley, because the harvest of the field has perished. The vine has dried up. The fig tree has withered. The pomegranate tree, the palm tree also, and the apple tree. All the trees of the field are withered. Surely joy has withered away from the sons of man. All these things that have just disappeared.

We took them all for granted. We're so used to seeing the grass. We're so used to seeing the tree. We're so used to having being able to go to the market and have all these things. One day they won't be there, and then people will mourn. Oh, if we had just taken care of the earth. Oh, if we had just done the things that we would have plenty, because now we have nothing.

It's all been stripped away, and they'll come to realize it's because of what we've done. What we've done, that this has come upon us. Verse 13, gird yourselves in omen, you priests. Wail, you who minister before the altar. Come lie all night in sackcloth, you who minister to my God for the grain offering and the drink offering. Verse 14, what do you do at that time? It dawns on them there's nowhere to turn.

Washington, DC can do nothing. The president can do nothing. The congress, no matter who controls it, they can't solve this problem. There's no way to look, nowhere to look. It's come upon us and the land is bare. It's been decimated.

14, consecrate a fast. Call a sacred assembly. Gather the elders and all the inhabitants of the land into the house of the Lord your God and cry out to him. That will be where people will have to turn. They will have to turn to God because that will be the only point of salvation. That's the only place they can look. As these things happen to them and as these things occur, you probably read this morning that they're in denial. They still don't want to believe it's God. They still don't want to repent. They still don't want to turn to him. They want their own ways. Even those these things multiply and multiply and multiply against them.

Call a sacred assembly and cry out to God. Verse 15, Alaska for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand. Now the day of the Lord, we know what the day of the Lord is, right? The day of the Lord talks about that in Isaiah 34 verse 8. It's the year of recompense for God, the year of his vengeance. The year of the Lord is not a pleasant thing that comes upon the earth, as some people might think it is. And the Bible talks about the day of the Lord quite a bit in the Old Testament, in the prophets, as well as in the New Testament. Keep your finger there and Joel, and let's look at Amos for a minute. One book forward in Amos 5.

Amos 5 verse 18. He says, Woe to you! Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! Who are praying, I guess, let the day of the Lord come! We want it to be here! Well, we should pray. We do pray, thy kingdom come, and that day has to come before Jesus Christ returns. Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord! For what good is the day of the Lord to you? It will be darkness and not light. It'll be as though a man fled from a lion and a bear met him, or as though he went into the house, leaned his hand on the wall, and a serpent bit him. Isn't the day of the Lord darkness and not light? Isn't it very dark with no brightness in it? And then I'll leave it to you to read down through the ensuing verses there, when God says, look at the way you keep my holy days. You're there. You haven't embraced them. You're there. You're just punching the clock. You're not doing the things the way I said to do them, the way I wanted your heart to do them. You're just going through the motions. So he said, don't pray for the very day of the Lord, but get your act together.

Let's go. Let's let me do, at the risk that you read this this morning, let's go to Revelation here, Revelation 6. I'm going to pick it up in verse 12. Speaking of the sixth seal, that, of course, leads up until to the sounding of the trumpets and then the sixth trumpets and then the seventh trumpet. Chapter 6 of Revelation, verse 12. I looked when he opened the sixth seal, behold, there was a great earthquake. The sun became black as saw a cloth of hair and the moon became like blood and the stars of heaven fell to the earth as a fig tree drops its late sphigs when it's shaken by a mighty wind. The sky receded as a scroll when it's rolled up and every mountain and island was moved out of its place and the kings of the earth, the great men, the rich men, the commanders, the mighty men, every slave and every free man hid themselves in the caves into the rocks of the mountains and said to the mountains and rocks, fall on us, hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the lamb. They know where it's coming from. They're not repenting. For the great day of his wrath has come and who is able to stand? In the face of God, who is able to stand? Let's go back to Joel. Joel. Let's look at chapter 2 before we go back to chapter 1. Joel 2 verse 30.

This that God gave to Joel that he said, has this ever happened before? Remember it. Tell of it. Joel 2 verse 30. I will show wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood and fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord. All that happens before the day of the Lord, leading to Christ's return, which is the culmination of the day of Feast of Trumpets when Christ returns. All these things happen leading up to it. All these things we look at as we look at the Feast of Trumpets today and what it means as we prepare for the return of Jesus Christ in the establishment of his kingdom. Let's go back. Let's go back to chapter 1 and complete what we were reading there. Let's pick it up where we left off in verse 15. Alas for the day, for the day of the Lord is at hand, it shall come as destruction from the Almighty. Isn't the food cut off from before our eyes? Joy and gladness from the house of our God. It's all disappeared. The seed shrivels under the clods. Storehouses are in shambles. Barns are broken down, for the grain has withered. How the animals groan. The herds of cattle are restless because they have no pasture. Even the flocks of sheep suffer punishment. And you remember those trumpets as they sound. Grass is burned up. Trees are burned up. Waters turn bitter. All these things happen on the earth. Man suffers. Animal suffers too. What's going on with our earth as God, as the day of the return of Jesus Christ returns and as things intensify and as the warning sounds go out of the trumpets blare and the things that are going on around us. God says, are you listening? Are you ready for his return? Are you preparing for this? Verse 19, O Lord, to you I cry out, for fire has devoured the open pastures and a flame has burned all the trees of the field. The beasts of the field also cry out to you, for the water brooks are dried up and fire has devoured the open pastures. It's all gone. We're out of answers. We don't know where to go. We don't know what to do. We really only have one place to look. One place to look. Chapter 2, verse 1, blow the trumpet in Zion. Sound that time of alarm. Let them know what's happening. Blow the trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in my holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is at hand. It's a day of darkness and gloominess, a day of clouds and thick darkness like the morning clouds spread over the mountains. A people come. A people come, great and strong, the like of whom has never been, nor will there ever be any such after them even for many successive generations. Oh, here's a story I'm going to tell you. It's never happened before. Here's an army, a great army, never been like this before, never been this way before, there hasn't been an army like this and there won't be another one.

As you read through Revelation, you read the trumpets. There's an army of 200 million people. When has there been an army that has been that big? When has there ever been an army that large? And when will there ever be again? Perhaps at the end of the millennium when Satan is released for a little while? These things have been happened. The day of the Lord hasn't happened, but he says this is what's going to happen. There's this people that are coming that are great, this people that are coming that are strong. They're a large army. When you read verse 3, and he's very descriptive of what it's like when this army approaches this huge army. A fire devours before them, and behind them a flame burns. The land is like the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness. Surely nothing shall escape them. Now, I remember when ISIS was just forming, and they were beginning to march across Iraq and in that area over there. I would read the articles and would talk about this people, this army, this ISIS. It was so cruel. It was so brutal that the world in our generation, we have never seen anything like it. And I think we all, when we hear what they would do, we just marveled at how cruel and brutal they were, and how merciless they were, and how whatever they would do. They didn't care that the people of Iraq, when they knew that ISIS was coming, they ran. They ran. They were scared. We don't want anything to do with these people. They just simply decimate everything in their way. They take us. They don't have any mercy on anyone. They just simply lay us out. Remember those days. We maybe have become a little used to beheadings and whatever.

We don't hear so much about it anymore. But that was what that army was like. And those words, God says, when they come in, look, it's a beautiful land. Everything looks great ahead of them. It's a wonderful place to live. It's like the Garden of Eden. They march in. They march through. And when they leave, it's like there's nothing left. It's a desert. There's nothing there. They decimate everything, just like those swarms of locusts. They just destroy everything in their path.

Surely nothing shall escape them. Verse 4, their appearance is like the appearance of horses. And like swift steeds, so they run. With the noise like chariots over mountaintops they leap. Like the noise of a flaming fire that devours the stubble. Like a strong people set in battle array.

A very disciplined army, as we see. A very disciplined march across the land.

In time, that's even hard to imagine. But we know that if God says it, it will occur. Verse 6, kind of what I was describing before them, the people writhe in pain. All faces are drained of color. They run like mighty men. Disarmy. They climb the wall like men of war. Everyone marches in formation, and they don't break ranks. They don't push one another. Everyone marches in his own column. Though they lunge between the weapons, they are not cut down. They run to and fro in the city. They run on the wall. They climb into the houses.

They enter at the windows like a thief. You know, we don't see much anymore in America. Our army, the United States Army, marching in formation. But when you see a well-disciplined army marching in formation, when every step is perfectly in sync, it's a thing of awe to watch it and to think how those people march in perfect unison. And they have their guns, you know, that they put up in perfect unison.

Every step is in line, and you see the cameras, and you see it's just like someone choreographed it perfectly. It must take hours and hours and hours in the discipline that those armies have. I haven't seen that in America for a while, but I remember at the time when North Korea was going through all their tests of nuclear weapons over there, and they would release pictures of the North Korean Army, and they were in perfect step. They were in perfect step. Everything they did was perfectly aligned, a well-disciplined army.

I remember looking at that and being in awe, thinking, how do they get those people to do that so perfectly? But you know, it also inspired a little terror. So I thought, that army, that army is so disciplined, if they were our enemy and they were marching in, how could we stand against them? They are so disciplined, they are so focused, they are so determined to do what they want to do, or what they're told to do.

When you see an army that is so disciplined, like this army is, that everything, everything, they are in complete control of the one who runs them. Everything is in perfect order. And somewhere between now and then, we'll see. We'll see an army like that. Verse 10, there's a large army. Remember, it's the largest army that has been. The earthquakes before them, it's so large, as they march in perfect unison across the landscape with the Garden of Eden in front of them and in front of them and leaving behind them waste.

The earthquakes before them, the heavens tremble, the sun and moon grow dark, and the stars diminish their brightness. The Lord gives voice before His army, for His cramp is very great. His army? What does that mean, His army? This army of destruction, this army that destroys the Garden of Eden as it marches through? That's God's army? Doesn't sound like God, does it? But we know from the Bible that God uses other nations and He uses other things from other countries when He's ready and when He needs to punish a nation and a people that have departed from Him.

And this is not anything that's against His will. This is His will. This is what is going to happen. This is what He says is going to be. And this army, He will know exactly what it's doing. Let's go back to Isaiah 10. Isaiah 10 and see an example of this where God says, I commissioned this. I'm the one. They're doing what I asked them to do or what I have them to do.

Isaiah 10 in verse 5. It says, woe to Assyria. Now remember Assyria, right? Assyria was the kingdom that destroyed or that conquered Israel, the ancient nation of Israel. And again, when you read the encyclopedias, when you read the history, there was not any kingdom like Assyria that was as cruel, as brutal.

What they did absolutely would boggle the imagination. And if we were faced with something like that, I mean even movies aren't made with as jastardly of things as what the encyclopedias report that they did to their enemies as they marched through. And we know where they were. They were in the Middle East. They were in the area of Iran and Iraq and those areas. Woe to Assyria, the rod of my anger and the staff in whose hand is my indignation. I will send him against an ungodly nation and against the people of my wrath.

I will give him charge to seize the spoil, to take this prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets. They're my army. They're doing my will. They're doing what I have them do. The last part of verse 7, it's in his heart to destroy and cut off not a few nations. It's all of God. It's all a part of this day of trumpets, this feast of trumpets that we observe.

Kind of harrowing, kind of alarming as the trumpets go off and we see these things happening. But thanks to God it isn't the end of the day of trumpets or the feast of trumpets. It's what will happen, but it isn't the thing that this isn't the way the day of trumpets, the feast of trumpets will end. So it's his army. Let's go back to Joel. This time let's go over to chapter 3. Chapter 3 and verse 9. Joel writes, Proclaim this among the nations.

Prepare for war. Wake up the mighty men. Let all the men of war draw near. Let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords. The opposite of Isaiah do. Beat your plowshares into swords and your pruning hooks into spears. Let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble and come all you nations. Gather together all around. Cause your mighty ones to go down there, O Lord. Let the nations be wakened and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat.

For there God says he will sit to judge all the surrounding nations. Put in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe. Come, go down, for the winepress is full. The vats overflow for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near in the Valley of decision. It's coming quickly. Now keep your finger in Joel. Let's go to Revelation 14. Just so that you have that what Joel is saying is the same thing that in the prophecy in Revelation is recorded. Revelation 14. And let's begin in verse 15. Revelation 14-15. Another angel came out of the temple, crying with loud voice to him who sat on the cloud, thrust in your sickle and reap.

For the time has come for you to reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe. So he who sat on the cloud thrust in his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. Another angel came out of the temple, which is in heaven. He also having a sharp sickle. And another angel came out from the altar who had power over fire, and he cried with a loud cry to him who had the sharp sickle, saying, thrust in that sharp sickle and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth, for her grapes are fully ripe.

So the angel thrust his sickle into the earth and gathered the vine of the earth and threw it into the great winepress of the wrath of God. And look what it resulted in. And the winepress was trampled outside the city, and blood came out of the winepress up to the horses' bridles for 1,600 furlongs. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision. Multitudes, multitudes who lost their lives in the valley of decision.

So much so that even movies wouldn't be able to depict what's written there in verse 16. As Jesus Christ at the culmination of this age comes to save the earth from itself. It comes to save the earth from what we've done, as we've departed from God, as we haven't listened to Him. All a part of this day, all a part of this day that we celebrate.

I won't turn to Zechariah 14, but you can mark down in your notes if you're taking them. Zechariah 14 verses 1 to 4, and then verse 12 talks about the same thing. Another minor prophet talking about these same things that Joel does and that Revelation does, that Daniel does, that Matthew does.

If we go back to Joel again. Joel 2. Where did we leave it off in Joel 2? We were around verse 11. The Lord gives voice before His army, this great army, for His camp is very great. For strong is the one who executes His word, for the day of the Lord is great. And it's very terrible. Who can endure it? Who can endure it? Revelation said, Who can stand in that day? Mankind can't stand. Mankind can't of Himself endure that time. Jesus Christ said, if He didn't return, there would be no flesh saved alive.

Before the elect's sake, for the elect's sake, He those days would be cut short. Who can endure it? No one. It requires the return of Jesus Christ. Let's go to Malachi, another minor prophet here, the last book of the Old Testament. See what what he has to say about this time.

Malachi 3 and verse 1. He says, Behold, I send my messenger, and he will prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. Malachi 4, verse 5, says he'll send Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord.

He says he'll send his messenger, and it'll come quickly. People won't be expecting it. Life will look good. People aren't ready for it. He says you should be ready for it, but people won't be ready for it. He'll come suddenly to his temple. This temple would be the temple he's building today, not a physical temple, but the spiritual temple that he's building in you and me and his body around the world. Even the messenger of the confident, in whom you delight. Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming? There's that question again. Who can endure it? It's terrible. It's awful. Who can endure the day of his coming? And who can stand when he appears? For he's like a refiner's fire and like launderer's soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver.

Now we remember, we've read it a number of times. You read it more times than you've heard in the church in verse John 3 when it says, anyone who has this hope in him, right? Anyone who has this hope in him, the return of Jesus Christ, purifies himself. He makes the decision. He allows the Holy Spirit to work in him. He allows God to purify him. Here in Malachi it says he's going to purify the people. He will have a pure people that's working with him, those who will yield and those who will submit to him. He'll sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver. He will purify the sons of Levi and he will purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness. Ah, so that they're qualified so when they come before him to offer, when they come before him in prayer, they're living the life that he called them to live, then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasant to the eternal. And notice, as in the days of old, as in former years, when you're living the way you were called and instructed to live.

By every word of the Bible, not watering it down, not making allowances, doing it exactly the way God said, not adding to, not taking away, not making excuses, and thinking that God listens to those excuses. We just talked about that this past Sabbath.

Verse 5, and I will come near you, he says, for judgment I will be a swift witness against sorcerers, against adulterers, against perjurers, against those who exploit wage earners and widows and orphans, and against those who turn away an alien because they don't fear me. They think I'm an easy God. They think that I'm out begging them. God wants us, and he is merciful. He wants us to be in his kingdom, but it will be his way, not our way. It'll be his will, not our will. It'll be the way he said to live that we adopt, not the way we choose to live and manufacture some way of life that's close, but not the way, not exactly the way that he said to do it. Verse 6, for I am the Lord, I don't change. I do not change. What I said in this word of the Lord is the same thing that stands today. That's what the standard is. That's where you, that's what your goal and your focus should be as you live your life. Okay, let's go back to Joel again. Joel 2.

So God says all these things are going to come upon the earth. It's going to be a tragic time in the history of humanity. It's going to be a time unlike any other. It could be nothing but doom and gloom. And if we look at it that way that it's just doom and gloom, it could be so, it can be so demoralizing. But through it all, God has a purpose, that his people, that the people will turn to him. And so as we see this and as we read through all these things, in verse 12, he gives us what the answer is and what he wants out of this is what he's always wanted for mankind to do. What he's always wanted you and me to do, the people that he calls. In verse 12, therefore, says the Lord, turn to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning. Turn to me. All I ever wanted you to do was just yield to me.

Turn to me. You want out of this misery? Turn to me.

Rend your heart and not your garments. That's great that in the Old Testament they ripped their clothes apart and they sat in sackcloth. What God is looking for is this heart becomes repentant. This heart turns to him. This heart is no longer the callous, rebellious heart that it was. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and merciful. Slow to anger. And we all know how slow to anger he is because you know what? We're all sitting here today. And if God wasn't slow to anger, I dare say every single one of us would have perished long ago. Me, foremost among all of them. Slow to anger and of great kindness and he rents, relents from doing harm. Why? Because he wants to give man eternal life. But we have to repent first. And so we go through these things because we don't learn by just hearing the trumpet.

We don't learn by reading the Bible. We don't learn by other people's mistake. We have to go through the pain ourselves sometimes. And physical Israel has to do it as well. We talked about back a few months ago and we talked about America's future. We talked about how physical Israel, they will repent. They will loathe themselves in Ezekiel 6 and 7. They'll loathe themselves for what they've done. When they come to realize we brought it all on ourselves. God gave us everything and we turned against him more and more and further and further.

Rend your heart to nach your garments. Return to the Lord your God for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and of great kindness and he relents from doing harm. Who knows if he'll turn and relent like in the days of Jonah and Nineveh? Who knows if he will return, turn and relent and leaving a blessing behind? And then we come to another trumpet in Joel. Throw the trumpet of alarm.

That's going to lead up to this turning back to God if we have our minds straight and if we know what we're doing. This time, verse 15, blow the trumpet in Zion. Blow the trumpet in Zion. This time not to sound an alarm. Gather the people together. Gather them together. Consecrate a fast.

Call a sacred assembly. Gather the people. Sanctify the congregation. Assemble the elders.

Gather the children and nursing babes. Let the bridegroom go out from the chamber and the bride from her dressing room. Get my people together. Assemble them. Tell them to get together. No excuses. I don't care if they just got married. I don't care if they have nursing babies. My people are to assemble before me. Call a fast. Turn to me. Be where I tell you to be. That's what God says.

And He will do it. And they will do it this time when they've gone through all this misery and all this all this trial and travail that they've gone through. Call a fast. Get them together. He knows the reason He puts it in Hebrews 10, people are forsaking the assembling of themselves together. They're not going to forsake the assembling of themselves together. They're going to assemble together and be where I tell them to be. God says, no more excuses like in Luke 14, be there.

Let the priests who minister to the Lord weep between the porch and the altar. Let them say, spare your people, O Lord, and don't give your heritage to reproach, that the nations should rule over them. Why should they say? Why should they say among the people, where's their God?

When they return to me, when they do what I say, no excuses, write down the way that God said to do it. You know what? Verse 18, the Lord will be zealous for His land. He will pity His people. The Lord will answer and say to His people, Behold, I will send you grain in new wine and oil, and you will be satisfied by them. I will no longer make you a reproach among the nations.

Oh, the days of gladness come. The trumpet sounds. The people begin to do what God says. Now Jesus Christ returns. Now the days of gladness can be ushered in. Now the kingdom, where there will be plenty for everyone, where peace will rule the land, when people learn and live the way of God, the way that you and I will be teaching in that time, along and under Jesus Christ. The question that we always have to ask ourselves, can we teach what we're not doing today?

Can we teach the people in the kingdom to do things exactly the way God said, if we're not doing them exactly the way God said today? If we're making allowances for ourselves today, how are we going to teach people in the millennium? You have to do it exactly the way God says. You have to put Him first. You have to do His will first. If we're not doing it today, how would God say you're qualified to be a teacher of that? Well, just something to think about. Let's drop down to verse 21.

Fear not, O land. Be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done marvelous things.

Don't be afraid, you beasts of the field, for the open pastures are springing up. The tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and the vine yield their strength. Be glad, children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God, for He has given you the former rain faithfully, and He will cause the rain to come down for you, the former rain and the latter rain in the first month. The threshing floors shall be full of wheat. The vats shall overflow with new wine and oil. Verse 26, You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you. And my people will never be put to shame. You will know that I am in the midst of Israel. I am the Lord your God, and there is no other. When He returns, and He sets the world to right, then He saves mankind from extinction. And the trumpet sounds as He returns. Just look briefly at verse 28 and 29 here. It says, Then it shall come to pass afterward that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Well, that's the millennial time when Satan is put away and God pours His spirit out on everyone. That's for you and me. That's today. He hasn't poured out His spirit on all flesh today, but He has poured out His spirit on those who, the first fruits today, who follow Him and who have yielded to Him and who have repented and been baptized. I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Well, prophesy doesn't mean they're going to foretell. They're not going to be little fortune tellers. They're going to know the Bible. They're going to be able to interpret the Bible. They're going to be able to explain the Bible. They're going to be able to live the Bible and teach the Bible. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your old men shall dream dreams. Your young men shall see visions.

And also on my men servants and my maid servants, I will pour out my spirit in those days. A wonderful time coming when the law of God will rain on the earth and people will want to learn that law. They will flock, as you'll hear at the Feast of Tabernacles, to the mountain of the Lord. They will come up to Jerusalem to be taught that way, the same way we should flock to the words of God today and build that into our lives, doing everything the way that He commands us to do.

The days of alarm. The days of warning. The days of gladness. They're all here in the Feast of Trumpets. On this day, this picture is the culmination of this age of man and the ushering in of the time of the millennial reign of Jesus Christ. It ends in a terrible, terrible way for the people of the world what they brought upon themselves. But Jesus Christ returns in glory and majesty to claim the kingdoms of this world for Himself. In Matthew 24, in verse 30, after all the things that Jesus Christ talked about would be coming upon the world between well between now and the time of His return, it says in verse 30, the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven and all the tribes of the earth will mourn and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory and He will send His angels with the great sound of a trumpet and they will gather together His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other. That trumpet, those trumpets that sound throughout today. 1 Thessalonians 4. 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 16.

For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Look at all the things that happen on this day that pictures those aspects of God's plan. And with the trumpet of God and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and thus we shall always be with the Lord. Therefore comfort one another with these words. We might add, therefore encourage one another with these words. We might say, therefore exhort one another with these words. Keep your focus on those words as the times come about of alarm and terror and all these things that between now and then keep your focus on the return of Jesus Christ and the days of gladness that will surely come.

It all is pictured on this day of trumpet, this day of feast of trumpets, that really is the gateway day to eternity.