Memorial of Trumpets

You know what you and I do here on the Feast of Trumpets would seem a little strange to an Orthodox Jew. Now, they keep the Feast of Trumpets, but they would come in and not quite understand what we do. I remember having a conversation with a man who had been an Orthodox Jew who had realized that Jesus is the Christ and he had come to the church. This was back probably 40 years ago. And attended many years with us. And he said the first time he came to the Sabbath services, they were so different than what he was used to as a Jew, that he became physically ill. It was like, this is not right. This can't be right. So the services there would be quite different. Although they would cover some of the same scriptures. Of course, if it was a Messianic Jewish group, they might cover the New Testament. If it's an Orthodox or a Reformed Jewish group, the normal Jewish religion, they would not cover anything in the New Testament because they don't believe in the New Testament. So they would find it very strange that we would go to the New Testament to talk about this day. One of the things they would do, though, is they would actually have a trained man who blows a shofar. Now, if you've ever heard what they do with a shofar, it's absolutely amazing. Now, a shofar is a ram's horn. This is from a very large ram.

You will find these many times in the synagogues, although they do have smaller ones. The sound they get out of here is absolutely amazing because they make different sounds with it. Now, some of you may be horn players. There's no mouthpiece on this. There's none whatsoever. It's a wee little hole. And it takes an expert to play one of these. And during the Feast of Trumpets, the man who blows this, and it's just, once again, I've heard them and what they do with it, and it's amazing. I can't do it. Although there have been times when I practice and practice and practice, and I can do a little bit of it, but I can never reproduce what they do on the Feast of Trumpets. Of course, they train them. They start very young and train them to do this. But there's three different sounds they make specifically as part of the service. One is a blast. They start the series of things they do. It starts with a sort of a low sound. It goes up. Sort of, and in that sound, that is a call to the righteous to rejoice because God is coming. It's a call to the righteous to rejoice because God is coming. He's setting His Messiah. They do connect this, in some ways, with the Messiah. Then there's the third sound, is a different sound, and it's a very long, sort of harsh blast, and it's a call to the wicked that you're about to be judged. So there's a call to the righteous to rejoice, and there's a call to the wicked that you're about to be judged. In between those, there's a staccato sort of sound they make that takes a real talent to do that. This staccato sort of sound that they make, that is a call to the average person that says, repent, because God is coming. And it's a call to repentance. In fact, in the Jewish community, the 10 days between trumpets and atonement is 10 days of repentance. They don't just say, okay, here's trumpets, here's atonement. We don't sometimes connect the two. They should be, in some ways. There's a connection very clear in their minds, because this is the call of repentance to the average person, who is neither righteous nor wicked, but needs to turn to God. So it's a call to repentance. I'll try to get a little sound out of this. Actually, I hadn't played this since the Feast of Tabernacles. And just practicing a little bit yesterday, my lips swelled. I don't think I can get a sound out of it at all today. I'll try. You know, it's like Kim said, boy, that sounds horrible. And I said, I know my lips are swelling, because I hadn't played it for so long. Jesus, it's just a horrible sound. I don't know if I can get anything out of it or not. Let me see.

And they're good at that. I can't quite get that. But you get an idea for the sound.

You'll never see jazz played on a...

There's certain things you can't do with that. This is a day of blowing of the shofar. And in the Jewish community, that will be blown, either last night or today, whenever they have their services. The vinegarette is 23. We are here because we are told, ancient Israel was told, and we keep this day for some of the same reasons they did, but for things that they did not understand. The vinegarette is 23. Verse 23.

Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, speaks of the children of Israel, saying, in the seventh month, the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath rest, a memorial, a blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it. You shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord. So this is a memorial of the blowing of trumpets. This is why we call it the Feast of Trumpets. But why do we blow trumpets? I mean, we don't usually blow trumpets. It's a ritual that was part of this. It would be wrong to blow trumpets. It's not commanded that we blow trumpets under the new covenant, but we are here to have a memorial of trumpets. So why do we blow trumpets? Why did they blow trumpets? Now, the trumpet, the shofar and the trumpets, there was more than just the shofar in their trumpet ceremonies, had an awful lot to do with the daily life and the worship services of ancient Israel. Now, we don't use them. I think we had a trumpet services here this morning, but we usually don't have trumpets playing, right? Your life isn't governed by the sound of a trumpet. In ancient Israel, there was very much. Let's go to Numbers 10.

In addition to the shofar, there were silver trumpets. There were part of the daily life and the Sabbath life and the holy day life of the ancient Israelites. Look at Numbers 10, verse 1. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Make two silver trumpets for yourself. You shall make them of hammered work. You shall use them for calling the congregation, for directing the movement of the camps. These silver trumpets, they can make a whole lot of different calls with it, as a trained person with a shofar can do.

Probably these silver trumpets, you can even get more tones, more notes out of it. And they were used for a lot of different things. Verse 3, And when they blow both of them, so when both of them blew together, all the congregation shall gather before you at the door of the tabernacle of meaning. If you lived in ancient Israel, when they were out in the wilderness, this day would have started with both of those trumpets blowing, calling everybody to gather. But if they blow only one, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel shall gather to you.

So if you only heard one trumpet, that meant all the leaders, all the tribal elders were supposed to come to the tabernacle. When you sound the advance, so there was a certain sound they made with an advance. You ever see someone in the military with a bugle? And they get all these different calls. During the American Civil War, battlefields were just mass confusion at times. You know why? Every unit had their own bugle call, and they'd all start blowing at the same time to give everybody directions.

So you could have units hearing a retreat and retreating, and another unit hearing an advance, and they're advancing, but neither of those calls weren't for them. So Civil War battlefields could break down into chaos because of all the bugles playing, above all the noise, as everybody's trying to direct what goes on. Because they can make all these different sounds with these bugles.

When you hear the sound of the advance, the camps that lie on the east side shall then begin their journey. When you hear the sound of the advance the second time, then the camps that sound on the south side shall begin their journey, and they shall sound a call for them to begin their journeys. And when the assembly is to be gathered together, you shall blow, but not the sound of advance. They say, make sure people know that the trumpet is clearer in the message it gives. So the sound of advance, you'd hear that. Some of the people would start packing and moving. The other people would be packing, realizing their time's coming.

Assembly, though, makes sure that that sound, they understand that that sounds different. So there had to be an entire education of these hundreds of thousands of people, of the sounds of these trumpets. Verse 8, the sons of Aaron, the priest shall blow the trumpets, and these shall be to you as an ordinance forever throughout your generations. He said, keep these trumpet sounds clear and only let the priest blow them, because if anybody can go out and blow a trumpet, you can have all kinds of different orders being given to the people.

And when you go to war in your land, against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies. You didn't blow the trumpets at war to scare your enemy. You blew the trumpets to say, God, we're calling on you for help.

So it was very much something that they would use in war. Verse 10, all these apply a little bit to what we do and what we commemorate on this day, but most verse 10, and in the day of your gladness and your appointed feast at the beginning of your months, the new moons, you shall blow the trumpets over your bird offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings, and they shall be a memorial for you before your God, I of the Lord your God.

They blew the trumpets as a memorial on this day of God. God's deliverance. God led them. God took care of them, and God led them and protected them in time of war. Many times when we talk about this day, war is part of the message of this day. One of the reasons for blowing trumpets was because of war. Now, the trumpets were used for other things, too. You have all these activities that they used these trumpets for. Another reason for the trumpets was to announce the Jubilee year. Let's go to Leviticus 25. Leviticus chapter 25. I know there are some trumpet players here that are going to come up and ask, can I play the shofar? I told my wife I need to get some, because I know she would be all upset. Here's what happens. All the little kids want to come up and blow the shofar. I let them blow it. Then my wife and all the women get upset because they're swapping spit. So, I usually bring some alcohol and little swabs, but I forgot them. Whoever wants to blow it, I'm going to blow as a warning that I'm not responsible for what disease that you pick up from each other.

All the men are like, I don't care. All the boys especially. Let me try that. All the women are horrified.

Leviticus 25. Verse 8, And you shall count seven Sabbaths of years, seven Sabbaths of years, seven times seven. Every fiftieth year something very special happened in Israel. It was called the jubilee. You count seven Sabbaths of years for yourselves, seven times seven years. And the time of the seventh Sabbath of years shall be your forty-ninth year. And you shall cause the trumpet of the jubilee to sound on the tenth day of the seventh month, the day of atonement. And you shall make the trumpet to sound throughout your land. And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout all the land to all its inhabitants. And it shall be a jubilee to you. And each of you shall return to his possession, and each of you shall return to his family. It goes on and explains how the jubilee... The jubilee was a wonderful time. And the trumpets were blown on the day of atonement specifically every fifty years to do this. When the people came into Israel, all the families were given land, farmland. Now this isn't necessarily applied to land in the villages, but farmland belonged to families. Now what happens if someone mismanages their land and sells it or loses it because of debt? What happens to that family? They're in poverty. They're in poverty. They move into the village and try to survive. You know, if they have a skill, they might become a blacksmith or something. But if those skill, there's poverty. The poverty... The cycle of poverty was broken every fifty years. Every fifty years, the Levites came out and said, no, this land originally belonged to this family, and that family got to move back onto the land.

Now, all the improvements and everything that the family did who owned that land, they left it there. And those people got the land. And what it did is it just broke the cycle of poverty. Nothing strange to us. But you have to understand, the system... And I'll get a circle in this sometime. The system of... The economic system God gave to ancient Israel isn't the economic system we have in the United States. We can't confuse the two. They're quite different. Quite different. So, this Jubilee year, all debts were wiped out. Try and get it a load in Israel the 49th year. Because the 50th year, all debts... If someone owed you something and they didn't pay it by the 50th year, it was wiped out. It was gone. So, there weren't a lot of loans being given on the 49th year. Of course, they weren't allowed to charge each other interest, anyways. You couldn't charge an Israelite interest. God... There's one point in the scripture. She's just furious with Israel because people are charging 1% interest to each other. How bad is God in our banking system?

So, we have to understand, what God gave them has very little to do with the system we have, the economic system we have. Now, the trumpets were also part of their worship service. Let's go to Psalm 150. When you read the Psalms, which of course were written to be sung, these are song lyrics. So, when we go to Psalm 150, and you'll see throughout the Psalms, the trumpets are mentioned.

So, you have the Jubilee year. These trumpets blast. So, if it was the Jubilee year on the day of Atonement, they would stand up at the Tabernacle or the Temple under Solomon, and they would blow those trumpets and announce freedom. Everybody goes back to their land. Everybody's debts are wiped out. The whole cycle starts all over again. So, that generations don't pay for the bad decisions of the people before them. But also, it was part of the worship service. Look at Psalm 150. Praise the Lord. So, this is a singing of praise of worship to God. Praise God in His sanctuary. Praise Him in His mighty firmament. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. Blow the trumpet, praising God. And although the shofar would be used to warn of war, there would also be a sound they would make to worship God. So, the shofar and the two silver trumpets had multiple uses.

Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise Him with the lute and harp. Praise Him with timbrel and dance. Praise Him with stringed instruments and flutes. Praise Him with loud cymbals. Praise Him with clashing cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord. Praise the Lord. I think our worship would be a little muted compared to theirs at times. Now, Jewish ceremonies could be also very, very solemn, but they could be very lively at times, too. But see, the trumpets were part of the praising of God. There's another reason we won't turn here that they would use the trumpets, but you see it in the book of kings. They would blow the trumpets when a king was the coronation of a king, as part of the ceremony of the coronation of a king. Solomon, when he was... Well, let's go there, because it's very interesting. 1 Kings chapter 1. I think this is what it is. 1 Kings 1. Okay, yeah, verse 39. Then Zadok the priest took a horn of oil from the tabernacle and anointed Solomon, and they blew the horn. So they blow the trumpet. And all the people said, long live King Solomon. And all the people went after him, and the people played the flutes and rejoiced with great joy, so that the earth seemed to split with their sound. The sound was so joyous and so loud it felt like the earth was quaking as they coronated, or at the coronation of Solomon as the king. So we see all the uses of the trumpet, whether it's a shofar or the silver trumpets, throughout the history of Israel. But there's another use of the trumpets, too.

There was supposed to be a trumpet sound when God was about to make an announcement. If you go back and you look at the story in Exodus about the Ten Commandments, when God was on the top of that mountain and it was covered with clouds, and there was thunder, and there was lightning, and a place was shaking, they could hear the long trumpet blast. Like, listen up, I am getting your attention. Now, that was a supernatural trumpet. But part of our experience on this day is to commemorate a time of supernatural trumpets, not trumpets blown by human beings, but a time in the future when there will be supernatural trumpets.

Now, there are other times when human beings were told, go make an announcement. And in ancient Israel, if they were going to make an announcement for God, sometimes there was a blowing of a trumpet. And it was a reason. There was a symbol for that. We could see that in God's message to Ezekiel. This story he gives them to explain to him what he wants him to do. Ezekiel 33. You go through the Old Testament and you see that the shofar and the silver trumpets have all these meanings and these reasons. And actually all of them can be studied as part of what we learn in a greater spiritual context in the keeping of this day. The keeping of this day.

Ezekiel 33.

Because the memorial of trumpets we're looking at, that we're commemorating, isn't just the past. Oh, we look back and we see what God did with ancient Israel. But so much of what we commemorate today is in the future.

And a supernatural sound of trumpets.

But it will be a calling of an assembly of the people of God. It will be a warning to the world of war. It'll be a time of movement of God's people. All the reasons you see trumpets blown will all be happening at a time when we see the seven trumpets of Revelation. Now let's look at what God tells Ezekiel here. Ezekiel 33 verse 1.

Again, the word of the Lord came to me, came to Ezekiel, saying, Son of man, speak to the children of your people and say to them, when I bring the sword upon the land, and the people of the land take a man from their territory and make him their watchman. You know, if you lived in those walled cities, you had to have somebody up there who wants the use of having walls, and people could just come up in the middle of the night and scale the walls. There had to be towers along the walls. There had to be even walking along the walls, the top of the walls, always looking out, always seeing if the enemy is coming. Verse 3. And when he sees the sword coming upon the land, if he blows the trumpet and warns the people, you know, the reason they were there were to run away and hide. It was because they would grab, probably a shorter shofar, which is a whole lot easier to carry around with this thing, they would blow a shofar and they would blow it. And all the other watchmen would do the same thing. And that sound coming out over the city would be terrifying. I mean, the shofar can be a horrible sound, too. So the sound would be horrible as people in the middle of the night woke up to the sound of numerous, if they were Jerusalem, probably hundreds and hundreds of shofars blowing. The enemy is here. The enemy is here. He says, verse 4, that whoever hears the sound of the trumpet and does not take warning, if the sword comes and takes him away, his blood shall be on his own head. Now, he's using this analogy. He's not teaching Ezekiel how to train men to be watchmen. He's using this analogy to talk about the message that Ezekiel was bringing to those people then. When you look at all the prophets who bring along all the messages, whether it's to Nineveh, whether it's to Judah, whether it's to Israel, whether it's to Egypt, there are prophets, there's messages of the minor prophets that are sent to Egypt. When you look at all the messages in the New Testament, the message is what? To the world. The New Testament is to the world. Revelation isn't for just Israel or Nineveh. It's to the world. And they all involve these trumpets.

And so the message to us today is the same as the message here is when you are the people of God, we are to tell people what God is doing. Now, that trumpet may be a call to assembly on the Sabbath. Every Sabbath they would call to assembly using the trumpet.

But it's also a warning message always.

Verse 5 says, He heard the sound of the trumpet, but did not take warning. His blood shall be upon Himself. But he who takes warning will save his life. In other words, if someone really listens to the message, if someone really hears that trumpet, they will respond to the trumpet. But if the watchman sees the sword coming, it does not blow the trumpet. He just runs away. And the people are not warned. And the sword comes and takes any person from among them. He has taken away in his iniquity. But his blood I will require at the watchman's hand.

Now, he uses this analogy to tell Ezekiel, this is your job, verse 7. So you, Son of man, I have made you a watchman for the house of Israel. Therefore you shall hear a word from my mouth and warn them for me. When I say to the wicked, O wicked man, you shall surely die, and you do not speak to warn the wicked man from his way, that wicked man shall die in his iniquity. But his blood I will require at your hand. Nevertheless, if you warn the wicked to turn away from his way, and he does not turn away from his way, he shall die in his iniquity. But you shall have delivered your soul. Now, this is one of the big problems with the true gospel. It's good news, but you know what the good news starts with? There's something wrong with you. It starts with bad news. It'd be so nice just to get up and say, here's all the good news. God loves you, and it doesn't matter. God loves you, and it doesn't matter. But that's not the good news. The good news is God loves you, and it does matter. Therefore, repent.

So, the gospel has a warning message in it also.

But the gospel is to everybody. It's just so huge. It's to everybody in what God is doing. So, here he uses the trumpet as an analogy that when God gives a message to somebody, they're supposed to deliver it. God has given us a message. You can't just say, oh, that's to somebody else. It's us he's given the message to. And we are required to live that message. There's an interesting Psalm in the book of Psalms that's also a prophecy. Let's look at Psalm 98. Psalm 98. So, I just want to give this big overview here of trumpets, and then I want to tie something into today from what we've gone through here.

Now, some of these words we actually use in one of the Psalms that we sing at services. Psalm 98. O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gained him the victory. So, this is a song about God's victory. But as we go through here, we're going to see that this victory is more than just some victory he gave to David, or some victory he gave to ancient Israel. This is a huge concept, prophetic concept, to this Psalm. The Lord has made known his salvation, his righteousness. He has revealed the sight of the nations, the sight of the nations. The Psalm is about God's victory to the world.

So, it has a greater context than what maybe they would have got out of it when they sang this back at the time of David. He has remembered his mercy and his faithfulness in the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God. Shout joyfully to the Lord all the earth. Break forth a song. Rejoice and sing praises all the earth. Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp, the sound of a psalm, with trumpets and the sound of a horn.

I told some of this the other day. I think it was Mr. Kellers. When I was a little child, I must have been 10 years old, I remember hearing Beethoven's Ninth, the last part of it.

And I remember listening to that and being so overwhelmed by it, I told God, someday would you let me direct that. Now, I know nothing about music. I know nothing about music today. And decades later, I met the Feast of Tabernacles with 105-piece orchestra, 350 people behind me acquire, and 6,000 people singing, and I'm leading a donde on me. Guess what I'm leading?

I don't know nothing about music, except I can count once in a while. One, two, three, four. One, two, okay, I can do that. Wow! There were trumpets in there, you know, just the sound of this. And I'm standing in the middle of it, because when you're on a stage like that, the orchestra is in front of you, the choir is behind you. And then you get 6,000 people singing out. You're in the middle, the sound surrounds you. It's an amazing experience. Just like, wow, thanks for listening to a little boy. "...with the trumpets and the sound of a horn, shalt joyfully before the Lord the King." Verse 7 says, "...let the sea roar," and oh, it's full of this, "...the world of those who dwell in it. Let the rivers clap their hands. Let the hills be joyful together before the Lord." Verse 9 is real important here, because this ties this into this day. "...for He is coming to judge the earth. With righteousness He will judge the world and the peoples with equity." Not the people of Israel, the peoples with equity. This psalm expanded out. God is coming to the world, to everyone. So here we have a psalm about the trumpets that ties in directly a prophecy about what this day is all about. The sound of a trumpet.

This future time when He comes is referred to in the Bible, and many times on the Feast of Trumpets we'll just give a whole sermon on what is the Day of the Lord. It is called the Day of the Lord. Now when Jesus came and He told about that He would come back, He specifically let them know, you will know it because you will hear a trumpet. Now that's not a trumpet that any person is going to blow. It's a supernatural trumpet. So let's look at Matthew 24, because what He says here in Matthew 24 is carried out through the rest of the New Testament and talked about in numerous places. Matthew 24, verse 29, this is part of the Olivet Prophecy, Matthew 24-25.

Matthew 24-29 tells us when this is going to happen. Jesus can't return tomorrow. You say, how do you know that? Because verse 29 says it's immediately after the tribulation. And as bad as the times are today, if this is the tribulation, this is the whole of better than I thought it would be. So immediately after the tribulation of those days, the sun will be darkened, the moon will not give us light, the stars will fall from the heaven, and the powers of the heavens will be shaken. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they shall see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds from one end of heaven to the other.

Now, you start to go through then the New Testament, and you get to 1 Corinthians. And Paul talks about 1 Corinthians 15, the return of Jesus Christ, the resurrection of the saints, when they will be changed to give His spirit bodies. He goes through great detail, and he says it will happen at the sound of a trumpet. He talks about it in 1 Thessalonians. But when we get to Revelation, we get the final information. We get information that you do not find through the rest of the Bible. It's like what I talked about here in Nashville last Sabbath and the week before Murfreesboro, or two weeks before Murfreesboro, when we went through prophecy. You and I live with an understanding and knowledge of prophecy that nobody had. They didn't have all the pieces of it. When John wrote Revelation, all the apostles met Him and died. They didn't have that information. We know there are seven trumpets in the day of the Lord, each one of them announcing something God is doing to warn humanity, to bring them to their knees, to prepare them for His Son to come and set up His Kingdom on His earth. And so Jesus said it's going to be with a trumpet. Paul talks about it's going to be with a trumpet. And John tells us through the revelation that God gave to Him that it's going to be seven trumpets. And if He returns at the sound of the seventh trumpet, so at the sound of the seventh trumpet, Christ comes. People see that.

What will be the reaction of people when they see Christ coming back?

What will be the reaction? I heard someone say, joy. Someone else looked like, I don't know, fear. So you have to understand it's just like the three sounds given in the synagogue today. Remember the three sounds? The first one is supposed to symbolize the joy of the righteous.

When Christ returns, they're just filled with overwhelming excitement and joy. I've waited for this. I've been prepared for this. Thank you, God, for the mercy that I can be here.

Let's go to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5.

The first Thessalonians 4, Paul talks about the trumpet, the return of Christ, the dead being resurrected. He continues on.

Because remember, Paul didn't write this with chapters and verses. This is a letter. Do you write letters with chapters and verses? No, you write a letter. The chapters and verses were added in later that help us. I'm glad somebody did it, but that's not the way he wrote it. So when he goes through chapter 4 about the coming of the Messiah, about the resurrection of the dead, he now leads on into further discussion of that. So let's look at what his discussion of the sound of the trumpet, the resurrection of the dead, leads him into further discussion. Verse 1 of 1 Thessalonians 5.

There are people who will not be surprised by Christ's coming, by the whole events of the seven trumpets, the day of the Lord. That sudden destruction comes upon them as labor pangs upon a pregnant woman, and they shall not escape. But you, you brethren, are not in darkness, so that this day should not overtake you as a thief. There are people who will not be surprised by this day, who will be anticipating this day, who will be prepared for this day. And it's like that sound in the in the synagogue. It starts sort of low and then moves up, and it ends very abruptly. It's not a very long sound. It's a sound that says, the righteous are rejoicing. That's what it symbolizes.

Verse 5. You are all sons of light and sons of the day. You're not of the night or of the darkness. We talked about light and darkness here about a month ago as a sermon. Therefore, 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, and let us who are of the day, children of light, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love as a helmet, the hope of salvation. He says, so if we are really now, we understand this. This is our reward, that we need to have faith. We need to have love. We need to have the hope of salvation. That verse 9 is very encouraging. For God did not appoint us to wrath. God called you, and you're here observing this day because God said, I will save you from this wrath. You can rejoice at the return of Jesus Christ. You can be one of those who, when that trumpet sounds, you're excited. You're filled with happiness. For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us, that whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him. Therefore, comfort each other and edify each other just as you are now doing. He says, comfort each other, motivate each other, help each other keep looking towards it that time. So we're not ones that face that with fear.

Now remember, the third of the sounds of the shofar in the synagogue is to the wicked, your time is up. There's people at this point that there's no more room for repentance. They are coming to be judged by Jesus Christ. Let's go to Revelation 19.

Revelation 19.

So here's the wicked at the sound of the seventh trumpet. That sound of them will bring about anger and fear. Weeping and ashing of teeth. Anger and fear.

Verse 11. And this, if we go back and read this in context, this is at the sound of the seventh trumpet.

Now I heard heaven open and behold a white horse. And he who sat on him was called faithful and true, and in righteousness he judges and makes war. This is Jesus Christ. He's not coming back the second time as a baby. He's not coming back as a human being. He's coming back as who he is.

One of the greatest ironies of all history is the Prince of Peace. The one who cried over Jerusalem and said, I just want to bring you peace. That's the fight of war to bring peace.

It's just one of the great ironies of history. Verse 12. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and his head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and his name is called the Word of God, the Logos of God.

And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed him on white horses. Now out of his mouth goes a sharp sword, and with it he should strike the nations, and he himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He himself trends the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. Jesus Christ told people, come to me because I'm gentle, but you don't want to fight a war with Him. You don't want to pick a fight. And here humanity, with Satan leading them, is going to try to fight the Prince of Peace.

And the result for the wicked is disastrous. He doesn't fight war like anyone else.

And he has on his robe and on his thigh a name, King of Kings and Lord of Lords. And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, come and gather together for the supper of the great God, that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slaves, and the small and great. What we see here as you read the rest of this, is that these armies gather, and He destroys them. And then He finally comes, stands on the Mount of Olives, and begins to bring peace to the world.

So we have the two sounds. The one that goes out to the righteous, the sound of joy. The other sound that goes out to the wicked that says, Your time is up. But remember, in between them was a third sound. And that sound is for everybody else. They weren't righteous, they weren't evil, they were a mixture of righteous and evil. They were the average people. What about them? You know, as we keep this day, we also, as we go into the day of Atona, we understand, okay, at the resurrection, we enter into the state of unity with God. This incredible state of unity with God.

And it says, Christ will be on the earth, He will begin to bring that to humanity. And then we will celebrate, what, a thousand years, in the Feast of Tabernacles of Human Reading on the earth. And then the last great day, where we will celebrate the Great White Throne Judgment, where He brings this opportunity to everybody. So what is it like for the average person that hasn't been changed and hasn't died? They haven't been changed, but they do live in a devastated world. The world will be in such a state that Jesus says in the Olivet Prophecy, if He doesn't come exactly what He does, nobody will live. All humanity will die.

And He comes right at that moment. And says, I'm here to save you, and then has to kill, what, hundreds of thousands? We don't know. But I'm here to save you, because you're about to kill each other off. There'll be nothing left on this planet.

And He comes, and then you have billions, billions, hundreds of billions of people. Without food, without, you know, in a contaminated environment, ravaged by war, destroyed societies, nothing left. It's all in chaos. The beast powers destroy, the eastern armies have been destroyed. It's all chaos. There's no government. There's nothing left.

And what does He do? What's it like for those people? Well, He begins to heal the world. As for the average man, this is what He does. And you'll hear more about this in the Feast of Tabernacles. But let's just get a glimpse of it by looking at Micah. The minor prophet Micah.

So this is what it's like for the physical people that are left in shock, devastation. They were sick, injured, starving, whatever state they're in. Then it shall come to pass, Micah 4, verse 1. Micah 4, verse 1.

It shall come to pass in the latter days, that the mountains of the Lord shall be established on the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and people shall flow into it. Now, mountain, in Hebrew poetry here, a mountain is a symbol of a government, because it sits above everything around it. So the government of God, Jesus Christ, ruling from Jerusalem, will be established. And all people, you know, it's a democracy that we live in. It seems horrible. I mean, what? One religion? No, that's not what Jesus will do. Yeah. One economic system? No, that's not what He'll do. One educational system? No. He wouldn't do that. Yeah, that's what He does.

He brings about where He brings everybody into the family. Oh, there'll be different cultures. There'll be different peoples, different talents, but we'll all be family, unified by His, what He's doing. And so this is for the common man. This is for those who are neither righteous or wicked, who now are living with Christ, healing the world. Verse 2, Any nation shall come and say, Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob. He will teach us His ways. I think humanity is going to be prepared to say, teach us something better than this. This doesn't work. Everybody!

It doesn't matter where you come from. It's going to be like, let's go there, and He'll tell us how this works. It teaches His ways, and we shall walk in His paths.

For out of Zion, the law shall go forth, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem, and He shall judge between many peoples. He's going to sit down. We think of judging only in terms of, oh, you're good, you're bad, sort of passing sentence. But judging is more than that. Judging is teaching. Yeah, I've, I get to watch my phrases because I know I've said it before. I've been in court before, standing beside someone as their counselor. As the judge says, look, you've got to go through six months of counseling and appear before me in six months, and if you're sober six months from now, I'll give you a license back.

I only get a lot of work to do here, you know.

So it's not always passing sentence from the way we think. Even in our judicial system, sometimes there's education. There's education this month. So he's going to judge people. He's going to educate. If this works, this doesn't work. You do this bad things are going to happen. You do this good things are going to happen. Sweet judges, many nations. And rebuke strong nations afar off. Other times, he says to certain people, sorry, we're going to destroy all your weapons. Yeah, but I live in India. You know those Pakistanis? We've been at war with ever 100 years off and on, which they have been. And he's saying, oh, Pakistanis aren't going to attack you anymore. Well, how do you know? Because I've just destroyed all their weapons.

You want to go through rocks and each other? I guess you can. But he's going to rebuke strong nations afar off. Think about that. Everybody gets a piece of land and every piece of land produces. So that you can produce and you can sell. You can trade. Think how different that is to the world we live in.

You know, I like to say I own a house. I don't own a house. The bank owns my house. Think of taking any time they want, really.

Think of land. And if the Jubilee is put back in place, then what happens if someone loses their land? Well, 50 years later, the grandkids get it back. That's not just for Israel. A whole world. Everybody gets a piece of land. This is for all the nations. The gospel message is so huge.

And they shall beat their spears and their pruning hooks. Nations shall know on the side, but everyone shall sit under his vine and fig tree, and no one shall make them afraid.

There are parts of Nashville you don't want to walk down to the middle of the night. There are parts of Murfreesburg and Perot you don't want to walk down the middle of the night.

You don't want to be out in the country broke down in the middle of the night.

But everyone shall sit under his own vine, no one will be afraid. And here's why at the end of verse 4, from the mouth of the Lord of Hosts has spoken. He says, I'm going to do this because you can't, but he can.

That's what he's going to do. So we have a message to the righteous to look on the sound of this trumpet as joy. A message to the wicked, it's too late. And a message to the common person, I'm setting my son. The Lord says, God Almighty says, I'm setting my son and he will fix this.

That's the message. That's the message that we receive from this day.

So this begins the Holy Day, the fall Holy Day season. And all these messages begin to come together into the vision that God gives us. So let me end to see if I get one more sound out of here.

Afterwards, you come up, talk to me, and I go,