Author: Leaman Ralph

God has always had and will always have a remnant faithful to Him. They may not understand perfectly. They may not know everything because there are, there are people, it says here there are people that when they heard, they cried. Some people didn’t understand, but they still gathered. You know, I’d even say to some of my listeners, so people say, “I don’t understand everything you’re saying.” Then you were part of the people who were gathered on Ezra and Nehemiah’s day who gathered, and they didn’t understand. You part of the people who gather all the time until God gives what I call the Holy Spirit understanding. The lights are turned on and suddenly all the pieces that you couldn’t put together all come together and make sense. So don’t give up. ♪ ♪ Today we’re going to be looking at the theme of trumpets, which occupied a conspicuous part of the ceremonies prescribed by God. The first real description that you get of the trumpets is in Numbers 10. So, if you want to turn there, and you will hear me say this again later, we must understand the difference between silver trumpets made of one piece, which I’ll read in a second, made of one piece of metal versus the shofar, a ram’s horn. And there’s a third term in the Hebrew language for horn. They all do different things. They’re not the same. You wouldn’t use the trumpet the same way you would use the shofar and vice versa. So, in Numbers 10, “Lord Spake unto Moses, saying, make these two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them,” so one, one piece, “thou mayest use them for calling the assembly,” that’s number one, “and for the journeying of the camps.” So, I’ll, I will go through this again because there are several itemized purposes for the trumpets. But here are two of them: calling the assembly, and when it was time to march and to move, you’d hear the trumpets sound. “And when they shall blow with them, all the assembly shall assemble themselves to thee at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And if they blow but with one trumpet, then the princes which are heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee. When you blow an alarm, then the camps that lie on the east parts shall go forward. When you blow an alarm the second time, the camps that lie on the south side shall take their journey: they shall blow an alarm for their journeys. But when the congregation is to be gathered, ye shall blow, but ye shall not sound an alarm.” So, there were differences, whether it was a whole long sound or could have been short sounds broken up they had the distinction. So, you knew if you heard a particular sound, you knew what it meant. “The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets; and they shall be to you for an ordinance forever throughout your generations.” Now remember I said to you, “An ordinance forever,” right when that’s said there, you’ve got to pay attention because anything that God says “forever,” “for your generations” tells us there is a future fulfillment to this. You always must look for that. So here “It is an ordinance forever throughout your generations. And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppressed you, then you shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered; ye shall be remembered before the LORD your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies. Also, in the day of your gladness, and your solemn days, and the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God: for I am the LORD your God.” So, it’s interesting here. The trumpets were made at God’s expressed and direct orders or command in the way they were to be made, in one piece. The purpose for which they were to be used, we have here several; the calling of an assembly, the journeying of the camp, the sounding of an alarm for warning, new moons, and festival occasions when they were to be sounded along with other offerings and sacrifices. So, the first day of the seventh month is called the “Feast of Trumpets,” the third in the solemn festival celebrated annually. Now in the nineteenth chapter of the book of Exodus, if you want to turn there, we can turn there and check out what I’m talking about. In the nineteenth chapter, we have the first mention of the trumpet to summon the children of Israel. And what is important is to realize that when God says, “Thus and so,” all right, there’s always a purpose. There’s nothing here that’s just in there randomly. “It came to pass in the third day in the morning, there were thunders and lightning, a thick cloud upon the mountain, the voice of the trumpet exceedingly loud, so that all the people in the camp trembled.” Now we have the summoning of the people. They’re all going to be gathered around to hear and to listen to what’s happening. So God appoints it as a sign that the people should approach the mount. I believe verse 13, right, says here, “When the trumpet sounded long, they shall come unto the mount.” And again in 9━19:19. “the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by a voice.” So, it’s interesting. We have what I would call a very, very novel thing, the first time we’re encountering it here. And of course, at His voice, the sounding of the trumpet, and then His voice they either marched or halted. At His voice, they attacked their enemies. At His voice, they assembled themselves. But it was the sounding of the trumpet that began, “Here are the orders,” right? Or “Here’s what we’re doing,” by the sound of the trumpet, what sound it was. When the trumpet summoned them to a holy convocation in the wilderness, it was at one point the commemoration of them being gathered out of Egypt. And if you remember the last couple of set times, I’ve been talking about commemorating that. God says, “Don’t forget. I want you to remember.” It seems like this is always being brought up somewhere in what God is saying, “Don’t forget. Remember what I did.” So, it’s interesting, “Blow the trumpet in the new moon, and the appointed time, and our solemn feast days.” If the trumpet was likened to Him that spoke, God from heaven, in His voice, His call summons us today to trust Him. Why? Because the trumpets have in our time a symbol. The trumpet usually, if you see the trumpet, it’s a symbol of the gospel, the clarion call to all who will hear. And here’s the interesting thing, you know, if a trumpet blows and you don’t have a reaction, you either have no hearing or you have no hearing. No, I mean that. I’m not joking. You either have no hearing as the apparatus is not working or you’re spiritually dead; pick one, okay? Silver trumpets are always seen, as I said, as a gospel connection, trumpets, and the gospel of Jesus Christ. The command to make them came from God, so this is not some manmade thing. These are the other things we’re looking for. When we’re studying, we’re looking for where things come from. And if we can trace the origins back into this book, great, but if we can’t, and somebody says, “Well, that’s, that’s part of my faith.” Well, that’s good for you, but it doesn’t belong because it’s, it’s not coming from here. And if you say, “Well, that’s kind of a being a purist.” Yeah, I’m tired of people having put so much garbage into the church that they’re confused about why we’re here. We’re here to learn about God. We’re here to get to know God better in an intimate way that when we talk about trumpets, you don’t just envision that there’s a trumpet and Wah, Wah, or whatever’s going on, but you, you get the idea that God from the beginning was saying in the Old Testament, if you want to superimpose these words on top of what we’ve been studying, “This is My beloved Son in whom I’m well pleased and you don’t know Him yet, you haven’t seen Him yet, but He’s coming.” That’s all that is being said right here in the Old Testament because otherwise, it’s like, okay, I get the trumpet part because you’ve got to summon the people, but all these other things, why celebrate them in perpetuity? So, I think there’s a lot more here. The trumpets proclaim the finished work of Christ. He is our sacrifice. He is our offering. He did it all. And think of it this way, currently, we’re not yet in the book of Revelation with the seven trumpets, we’re not there yet, but even there, that’s, you see, that’s why I say to people, “Aw, it’s just a collection of stories.” Well, that’s interesting, I think, then John must have been very well, well, well, well, well versed on shadows and types because he’s talking about these seven trumpets that must be blown, each one of them, in connection to an event that will happen in the end times, which this is why it’s paramount you put all this together. God didn’t just produce what Paul didn’t produce, the sound or last trump. What do you think that means? Do you think that means that all these trumpets are sounded in the book of Revelation and then there’ll be a final one? Or in the order, because numbers are important, seven becomes the complete number. You’ll find that numbers are embedded in the Old Testament as well as in the New because that number has the symbol of something complete. That’s why people say, “Oh, we can’t know what’s going to happen.” Oh yes, we do. Now if you don’t want to believe it, that’s your problem and that’s okay. We’ll see who’s right when all the stuff starts hitting the fan. We’ll see, you know, when people say, “Well, how could so much of the earth, for example, be wiped out?” Well, you know, God can accomplish His purposes through a diversity of things. Remember sometimes to teach a lesson to the children of Israel, He used God’s enemies. He used the children of Israel’s enemies, brought in the Chaldeans, brought in the Assyrians, and brought in the Babylonians to teach them or to carry out His words. So, you don’t think for a minute that God can’t use current things happening now to bring on the annihilation of a third of the earth? You don’t think that He can do it that way? Because He can when we talk about vials being poured out. So, it’s important to put all this together, not read this as a fragmented book. It’s a whole story being unfolded for us and when you see the whole picture, I don’t know how you can just say, “Well, I only want to read that.” It doesn’t make sense to me, but that’s your prerogative. So, on the Feast of Trumpets, no servile work was to be done, but they were to offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. This was to be a reminder of both the deliverance from Egypt’s bondage as well as their being separated apart to God for service. Remember what I told you and most of you old timers know this, “holiness: something that is set apart” That doesn’t mean, “Oh, I’m ho-o-o-wo-wo-wo” That’s not what that means. “Holiness” means you have been, from both the Hebrew and the Greek, you have been set apart. God said, “I want you and I’m going to take you and I’m going to use you. And you may not be a pastor, a priest, or minister; I’m going to use you for whatever I determine I’m going to use you for.” That’s holiness unto the Lord. That’s being set apart for Him. So, when I say that it’s important to understand that this feast is a reminder of that as well. So, from the captivity for us of the world, the flesh and the devil, the gospel delivers us. I’ve been mentioning this for weeks when people say, “Well, how do I relate to the children of Israel being delivered out of Egypt’s bondage?” Well, you were delivered out of the bondage of the world to be able to see things that the world cannot see, hear things the world cannot hear, bear things the world cannot bear. Do you realize that most Christians, most Christians, not all Christians, because some have not been taught, they’re Christian in name only, but we’re able, especially these days, to look at something, and I’m sorry to say it like this when you see devilish-looking men wearing makeup, dancing half-naked in front of children if you can’t tell me that that’s not demonic. Now, I don’t think you need to be a Christian to be able to identify that as demonic. That’s demonic. But there are, there are factions of people that stand and applaud and think it’s entertainment. So, tell me something, would you bring that same child into a strip club? That’s demonic, okay? So, we must put things in perspective, and as Christians, we’re able to do that based on what we stand on. I said that in my opening comments. So, Christ is the deliverer, not just for those who have been delivered, but He’s the deliverer to those who don’t yet know Him. It is interesting if you listen to some of these testimonies, I’m not a testimonial person, I’m not, but in the last week somebody sent me a whole bunch of links and one of them was Alice Cooper being interviewed. And he was, Greg Laurie was interviewing him, okay? But what was interesting is that Alice Cooper says, “Well, you know, I’m not Alice Cooper anymore.” But then he goes on to say, he was Alice Cooper for a reason, so he could understand now what he now knows, because he’s a Christian now, and he can see as plain as day. And in this interview, he says basically that God put him where he is, where he was so that he can talk to people that are not where he is since he’s, converted. And there were at least six other incredibly famous musicians, rockers, or others that were in this string of interviews. So, the key thing is a lot of times we forget, as God delivered us, as God delivered the children of Israel, God can deliver our country, can deliver all the lunacy and the insanity. He can. It’s going to take a whole bunch of praying and a whole bunch of people standing by the book and by the word of God to say, “He can, He does; nothing’s impossible.” And that was the mindset, by the way, at least initially the children of Israel. Now, of course, you know, subsequently they complained and they, they become a thorn in God’s side. Eventually, God just says, like, “I have had enough.” But the Deliverer, back to where I was, can deliver no matter who you are and where you’re at. That’s the key point here. Now, back to the trumpets, they were to be blown on the first day of every month, and this was the seventh month, the seventh time the trumpet would be sounded. So, as I said, number seven implies consummation, something complete or final, bringing us to the dispensation of the fullness of times, the times of restitution of all things spoken by the prophets since the beginning of time. In the book of Revelation, which I’ve been mentioning, we find this culmination of the ages, and it’s comprised of a book with seven seals. The events that will unfold around these seven seals are revealed by the sound of seven trumpets. Again, do you think that the sounding, the revelation of those seven, we’ll call them things to be made known, do you believe that they are part of the gospel, even though they are not positive in their carrying out? Because they are they are the final judgment and punishment upon the earth for all of those who would not look unto Him. So, that’s still part of the gospel. You could say, well, how could that be good news? Well, the good news is that God gets the victory. That’s the good news. But under these events, we have the restoration of Israel and the destruction of the apostate nations and peoples under all of this. You know, I mentioned this a couple of weeks ago, the image that is painted for us in the book of Revelation where we read about the, it’s the apostate church, the woman all decked out in purple. Now you tell me again, it’s rhetorical, you tell me that the church of Jesus Christ is still the church of Jesus Christ when you let every type of debauchery come in the door and be uttered. You tell me it’s still the church of Jesus Christ. That’s an apostate church with no reason for being. Why? Because the church is the people that belong to the Lord; they are His and they are, we are gathered to learn about Him not to learn about the stuff of the world. So, we have in all of this in these events, as I said, the restoration of Israel, the destruction of the apostate nations, and peoples, and the ultimate glorification of those that trusted in His holy name. And the Scriptures will be truly fulfilled where it says we read that the dead are going to rise. And I spoke about that in the First Fruits. We need to get a hold of this. These days all represent something they represented what God wanted them to be in their day, but they represent something of a coming time. So, getting to know and understand and parsing them, I would recommend on each of these set times, spending a little time each week. You start studying the feasts because in them when you start reading between the lines, I said this is about the tabernacle, you’re going to start seeing more things that link you to Christ than they do to the law. Even though the law is there, you’re going to see more things that are pointing and linking you to Christ with Scriptures that will be popping into your head, saying, “Wow, I never made that connection before.” Once you start reading it like that, it becomes abundantly clear. Now we have the high holiday of Rosh Hashanah, which has its roots in the Bible, never being referred to as the Rosh Hashanah, but rather Zikhron Teruah, which is the memorial of the blowing of the trumpets or Yom Teruah, Numbers 29, the day of the blowing of the trumpets. So just so that everyone can say, “Yup, I saw it with my own eyes.” “The seventh month, on the first day of the month, ye shall have a holy convocation, you shall do no servile work: it is a day of blowing the trumpets unto you.” Okay, so there you have the Scripture that starts. Versions 1-6 make up the complete set until you move on to the next set time. But when we talk about Rosh Hashanah, that simply means “the head,” Rosh, or Resh, “the head,” and Hashanah “of the new year,” Hashanah; that simply means “the head of the beginning of the year,” but it’s, it’s, this designation was not used as we use it, was not used until the second century, or more than 1,500-plus years after its implementation. Not that that’s a sad thing, just a little fact here. When the temple was destroyed in 70 A.D., its observance was radically altered like many of the other Jewish set times, or what God set out here as the children of Israel’s responsibility. With the absence of the temple, I’ve said offering ceased, and many of the worship practices ceased. But as a result, many synagogues that still fled the city popped up in other places, and we know because we have good archeological evidence of these synagogues peppered throughout, especially Asia Minor. But we begin to see expanded liturgy, new traditions, and practices put in place instead of what would go on in the temple. Now that’s an important thing, and I’m going to tell you why. You could say, “Well, sometimes we have to do what we have to do; it’s a necessity.” But let me ask this question. Now if you or I were steeped in the prescribed methods that God gave and they were perpetuated properly, and we were all dispersed, do you not think, just maybe more of a rhetorical question, but do you not think if God said, “You’re going to offer a ram and a lam” or whatever it is that you’ve to offer or you’re to do, that even if you didn’t have the temple, if you were still trying to please God, much will say like a la Abraham way before any of this, no tabernacle, no temple, but God said basically to kill these animals. Why wouldn’t that have continued? No one stopped anybody from doing any of that. It was only because the set place that God established had been silenced. But the question remains, and this is, this is a question for the ages. Why didn’t those people who were practicing, why did they stop? And you can’t say, “Oh because there was no more temple.” Because who are we? If we don’t have a building, we’re still the people that belong to God. And this has always been my disconnect as I start reading this. I ask myself the question, was it just easier for them to say, “Aw, you know, we’ll make up other things you can do. We’re not doing that anymore. We’ll make up other things.” Well, is that; are these other things of God? Okay, so everybody answered the same thing, silence. That’s to say that that’s where you have a big problem. It’s the same problem that you have with the Catholic Church, okay? So if you go back and you start studying the history of the Catholic Church, and I, I’m a big fan of this, I love studying history, but you can begin to see where layers of things begin to be added on because either “We don’t know what to do, so we’ll just make it up and no one will know because we’re the experts and nobody else has a book or any scroll or anything else to argue with us,” or “You know, that sounds good. That’ll put more money in our coffers. We’ll just charge them a little extra tax and we’ll call it some, something,” okay? So, this is my problem when you get into modern practices. Now, forgive me, but I’m going to repeat this a third time because it is overwhelming. How can you say you’re celebrating or you’re practicing a religion when the bulk of what your religion and practice is about, have stopped? “Well, it’s, it’s in my heart.” Okay. It’s in my heart too. You get my point, right? (Yes, ma’am) Okay. So having said that this is why it’s important for, if I have a ton of Jewish listeners, all I’m asking you to do is think. I’m not trying to tell you bad or, or good. I’m just saying think about this. If God wanted these festivities to keep going in the exact prescribed method, He would have made a way for them to do so, but rather He knew that this all pointed to something else. They refused to see that. That’s why there’s no more. There’s no more for you until the last temple is finally built and the worship that will take place in Ezekiel’s temple is very important because when you go back and you start reading what Ezekiel spells out, there are, I’ve told you this before, items are missing and we know why the items are missing because the items represent Christ. While all these people are saying, “Well, we’ve got to find the Ark of the Covenant, which is important to us.” Why didn’t Ezekiel mention it then if it’s going to be found? Just saying, just an idea, right? Okay. But you’d have to read this book to figure that one out. So having said that, in the Old Testament, this festival we’re talking about coincided with the civil New Year. So, the old Hebrew calendar, Rosh Hashanah occurred on the first day of Tishri, the seventh month. That’s equivalent to our September/mid-October. And then Israel’s two other autumn feasts or set days took place only days later, Yom Kippur, the great Day of Atonement, which I will talk about in another setting. On Tishri, the tenth, and the fifteenth of the same month, the Feast of Tabernacles all clustered together. And this is what I find also remarkable. Most of these events, except for Passover, of course, most of these events happen in the September/October period on our, our present calendar, which is why if people start talking about set times or if they talk about December twenty-fifth, they go I’m like, “Nah, nah, nah, nah.” Okay. Because I’m only interested in what’s going to happen in September or October, okay? Because these times still need to be fulfilled. And I have said this more than once before. Christ’s return must happen on one of these set times. And this time, if you think about it, this set time falls on the seventh month or the seventh, you’ve got the seventh time the trumpet will be blown in the calendar year if you will. And it lines up with everything else. So, if somebody says to me, “Well, what’s so special about September/October?” I make September/October more special than I do December. Why? Because that’s the one I’m looking for. You know, who knows? No one knows the day or the time, but that’s about the time that we’re dealing with. And when I say that it’s just like Christ had to die at a set time to fulfill the Passover, not just in type, but in time that the day, the precision of the date, these things must be fulfilled as well. So that’s why you just can’t study this. And I don’t know, it’s, it’s as I said, it’s baffling to me. But the biblical record, the Feast of Trumpets was a one-day celebration, but for the dispersed community, which we know we had the diaspora, some holidays had ambiguous days tacked on to them. That’s because the people had gotten confused regarding the calendar, much like we do, right, between the two calendars. And that’s why you’ll hear people arguing about which year Christ was born and which year Christ was crucified because we not only had a change in calendars, but if you think about it, the reckoning of time was done, when you read about it, we’re talking about how a Sabbath was calculated from sundown to sunup. So, we’re talking about lunar and solar methodology and not chronology by someone’s calculations otherwise. So, this is why we have a disconnect in our calendar. This is why you have, for example, two or three separate times of Christians celebrating Easter around the world. We’re all on different calendars. Hello. So that does make a difference. But what shouldn’t make a difference is September/October, I don’t care what language or where you live, September/October is September/October anywhere in the world. Those are important windows. Okay, so just remember that for the future because at some point we’re going to take these feasts and we’re going to import them into the New Testament and we’re going to see how they all stack up. But right now, we’re focused on the New and dabbling a little bit; focused on the Old, dabbling a little bit in the New. So, the start of each Hebrew month was dependent on the sighting of the new moon. This could be a problem like if the weather, say it, was cloudy or if there wasn’t an abundantly qualified witness. So, you’ve got a lot of issues to attest to, certain things that we would just know in our day of technology look up in the sky and it’s nothing ambiguous about it, right? Once we moved to temple time, so we’re, we’ve moved away from the tabernacle, we’re in temple times, a burnt offering would be offered on Rosh Hashanah, a young bull, a ram, and seven lambs. A kid goat was also sacrificed as an offering for sin. These were in addition to what was already prescribed for daily sacrifices along with the offerings for a new moon. Let me pause right there because somebody will talk about this and say, “Well, what about the new moon?” Do you remember when Paul said, “Don’t let anybody judge you in this, don’t let anybody tell you anything”? That’s because, I want you to think about this, the new moon became something irrelevant in Paul’s understanding, which I understand what he was trying to say. We’re not focused anymore on the new moon. We’re not focused anymore on ━we’re focused on one singular person and that’s Christ. We’re not looking for new moons, so don’t let anybody judge you with respect if you want to look at the new moon or not, or what food you eat or not. But here’s the greater focus. This is the most important thing. Christ is the center and the circumference of all in terms of us being Christians. So, this is another little interesting sidebar. So, the actual observance of the Feast of Trumpets is only recorded one time, if you can believe that, in the Old Testament, just once. I think that’s staggering. That occurs in Nehemiah, and if you remember, we studied this. We went through the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. But in Nehemiah 8, we have, if you remember, the people that did return from captivity, and it was a small slice of the community, those that returned and came back to rebuild everything that had been destroyed. And if you’re reading Nehemiah 8, it’s interesting. We have Ezra the scribe and he has the book of Moses, which the Lord had commanded to Israel, “Ezra the priest brought the law before the congregation both of men and women and all that could hear with understanding upon the first day of the seventh month.” What did I just say the first day of the seventh month was? Feast of Trumpets, okay, “And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday, before the men and women, and those that could understand; and in the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.” And it, we have a description here, but this is, this happens. And if you read through in your own time, because I’m running out of time, but if you read through this passage coupled with a few verses written in Ezra, you can see this is the first real, we’ll call it where they rekindled or reignited everything because they will also celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and so on for the first time after being, having been in bondage and captivity and come back into the land. So, I think it’s interesting though that’s the only time that you’re going to read about it in, in its unfolding and why I’m just, I’m pointing this out to you as I said in your own time, because I’m short of time to do this. But it’s interesting to me because this time, unlike for example when we get to the Feast of Tabernacles, and we know that that is a feast that will be celebrated in the future. We know that, okay. I keep repeating this week after week, Zechariah says, the people that come to the mount, when they look upon Christ after His return, they look upon Christ and they realize, “Oh wow, He was Messiah.” They are going to be forced, not, this is not sign up voluntarily; they’re going to be forced to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles. Now whether a person believes that or not, what was Tabernacles? It was they moved outside of their dwelling into, we’ll call them, temporary dwelling places that were movable, made of branches, as a reminder. But I don’t want to get too far ahead of myself. The point is they will celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in the future. That’s what the final chapters of the book of Zechariah say. So, it’s interesting and noteworthy that when the people came back and they were rebuilding and now they find the book of the law, they’re going to start celebrating. And they start with, what happens? It’s the Feast of Trumpets first. And this is especially important because this whole picture of if you want to call it destruction or the aftermath of destruction and the people coming back tells me God has always had and will always have a remnant faithful to Him. They may not understand perfectly. They may not know everything because there are, there are people, it says here there are people that when they heard, they cried. Some people didn’t understand, but they still gathered. You know, I’d even say to some of my listeners, so people say, “I don’t understand everything you’re saying.” Then you were part of the people who were gathered on Ezra and Nehemiah’s day who gathered, and they didn’t understand. You part of the people who gather all the time until God gives what I call the Holy Spirit understanding. The lights are turned on and suddenly all the pieces that you couldn’t put together all come together and make sense. So don’t give up. But here we have, as I said, an unfolding which is, it’s important because as there was a remnant in, in Ezra and Nehemiah’s day, there shall be a remnant in the future. Imagine after all the destruction that takes place on the earth, the wrath of God being poured out, what we’re talking about, a terrible, terrible time, and there’ll still be a remnant here. So, the Feast of Trumpets is important even though they don’t make a big deal out of it here. It paints a picture for you that you could apply to a future time. There will be people who do not understand. There’ll be people who will not know, but they’ll hear, and they’ll know this is of God and they will be broken inside why they didn’t have this epiphany earlier or sooner, so just a little sidebar for that. Now in ancient times, the new moon would be announced by short quick blasts of the trumpet, but the new moon of the seventh month was to be ushered in with long blasts. By Solomon’s day, the extravagance of worship had ballooned, the trumpets, an ensemble of 120 trumpeters. That’s extravagant. I mean Solomon didn’t do anything on a small level. Let’s just say that. According to the writings of Josephus, the priest would also sound the trumpet from the southwest corner of the temple to mark the beginning and the end of the Sabbath. So, it’s interesting. The trumpet was more instrumental than we thought. And there’s a good amount of confusion as I said between shofar, this is the ram’s horn, a Keren, which is the horn of an animal, and these silver trumpets. So, the ram’s horn is associated with the jubilee year; that’s a fiftieth year and was to be blown on Yom Kippur. That you’ll find in Leviticus 25:9. Every fiftieth year the shofar announced the arrival of the jubilee year, a time to free slaves and the fields were to lay fallow for time. That would be the shofar being blown. There were several different uses though for the trumpet and I cataloged a few but let’s see if we can get this straight, so gathered an assembly before the Lord. In other places it was the sound of a battle; the battle’s on, and the horn is being blown. It would also be blown for the coronation of a new king such as the case with Solomon, Jehu, and Joash as well as the unfortunate person named Absalom. These all had the trumpet blown for them. Within Judaism, there is a ten-day period from the start of trumpets until what I have, what I’m describing here, Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, in modern times called the “Days of Awe.” Now this is interesting and again I’m bringing this up to point out a few things. The tradition and custom say that during this time divine judgment is rendered as to the individual’s life or death in the coming year. I think that’s kind of, it’s a tragedy if anybody would adhere to that because that means that there is, there’s not much time if you have during the coming year what your fate shall be so to speak. I don’t know if I like that approach but during this period, interesting, God is reviewing, in their eyes, the person’s behavior and metes out final judgment on the tenth of Tishri or Yom Kippur. It’s said that these ten days are a person’s last chance to repent. According to the tradition, three books are open, the book of life for good and godly, the book of life for the wicked, and a book for those in between. That’s interesting don’t you think? Because I don’t believe that for a minute. That is a tradition of man. That’s never been in God’s book and that will never be in God’s book. Yes, there is a book that the New Testament talks about, which is called the “Book of Life,” those that are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life. Yes, that’s the real thing. And I’m sure there is a book that is kept for the wicked, but there is no book for those in between. With God, I’ve said this, there are only two types of people: “Why this waste?” or “Let me give this and keep giving it,” right? There are only two types. There’s nothing in the middle. So don’t be silly to think, “Oh, well, I’ll just stand in the middle and it’s okay.” That’s called lukewarm in the Bible and God spits out the lukewarm. He says, “Either hot or cold, please pick a side,” right? Eech, yes, God only knows. All right, so as I said, these 10 days people are given a chance to repent and you might be asking, “Is there some Scripture that maybe they took this from to turn it into tradition?” And the answer is yes. The rabbis talked amongst themselves and discussed and discussed and discussed, and that could have another meaning. And from Psalm 69 verse 28, “Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous.” There may be that that was the influence. As well as a quote from Exodus 32:32-33, which may have added to this, but that’s not God’s way. And that’s why I said to you it’s important. I don’t care because I have a lot of Jewish folks that listen to me, we have a lot of Christians, a lot of Catholics, we have a lot of Muslims that listen, you know, people who just want to learn and they want to know versus people who want to know God. And all I can tell you is something noticeably clear to me. I don’t care what you’re practicing or what you identify as, but if you’re identifying as a child of God, you better be listening to the Father, our heavenly Father. That’s it. His words are in here and anything that is added to that I’m not a purist, I’m not a crazy person, but you start now, it’s like diluting God’s word, okay? It’s, it’s “God plus this because we like this, we’ll just graft this on God plus that.” I don’t think it works that way. But anyway, so the week before Rosh Hashanah in modern Jewry is called salacot, “forgiveness.” These prayers of penitence are repeated in preparation for the Holy Day. Now, this is another thing that caught my mind. When you know about these things, you start saying, “Yeah, okay, not so quick here.” So, something called the Tashlik in Hebrew, “the shedding or the casting off of one’s sins.” This is a celebration, if you want to call it, that was born in the Middle Ages. So again, this concept is not biblical and it essentially; look, in many cultures, you’re going to find this in many diverse cultures. All you’ve got to do, for example, is look at the Hindu people in the Ganges River. They go once a year and they cast something into the Ganges. That’s to say, “My sins are they’re whatever tangible item I took, and it’s gone.” Right? Now, you know, listen, that may mentally work for you, but on the spiritual completeness of what God can do, God is the only one that can do. We cannot rid ourselves. I could try and pick out all my impurities and my flaws until I die. It’s not going to happen. I can work on being a better me, and there’s no problem with that. But in terms of being conformed to the image and likeness of Christ, that is His work and His work alone, which includes the Holy Spirit being the guide to teach and to show me when I’m in the wrong when I have done something wrong. What is the feeling that I get when I recognize, “Oh wow.” It’s not, it is not anything more than the Spirit bringing conviction,” which is what Christ said in John’s book to help us so that we’re able to see, communicate, hear, feel, and receive from God. So, it’s important to look at this properly. If you think about it, there are a whole bunch of penitent psalms: Psalm 118, Psalm 33, 130. Micah 7:18-20 is one of the most well-known that your sins be cast into the depths of the sea, never to be seen again. That’s fine. But here’s my problem with that. We’re not able to cast off. Have you ever, have you ever tried to okay, we’re aging, right? Your skin gets wrinkled. You try and put cream on it, right? But you can’t fix that. That’s what that is. That’s a product of time that’s saying time is passing, elements, the environment, things you consume, but you can’t fix that. Oh, I’m sure you could get it cut, tucked, and nipped, but still going to come back and be the same thing. It’ll still be wrinkled eventually, okay? Sin is the same way. Unless God does the work, you are still in your sins, and unless you’re looking to Christ, you’re still in your sins. And unless Christ came out of the grave, you’re still in your sins, and nothing you could do to Tashlik. You can repent, you can feel bad, you can have a guilty mind, guilty conscience, you can express whatever you want, but only God can remove, cleanse. “What can wash away my sins, nothing but the blood of Jesus,” we sing that song for a reason. I cannot do it. You cannot do it. Now, after reciting, oh, if you’re interested, Tashlik comes from “to cast,” which is one of the words in Micah 7:18-20, “our sins be cast,” Tashlik. So, after reciting these prayers that I just mentioned out of the various psalms, we’d often see people shaking out their clothes or their pockets. You may have seen this. I’ve seen this, it freaked me out the first time I saw it. They’re doing this, and usually, they do it close to a body of water, it could be a pool, it could be a puddle. Do you know what that is? “Ah, I’m empty now God. I, I took it all out in front of You,” and that’s supposed to be your sins. I thought it was pocket cleaning from a bad lint job or something. I don’t know. Anyway, leave me alone. I don’t know these things, all right? But it’d be like breadcrumbs being cast into the water. Now listen, I’m not, if that’s what you celebrate, that’s your cup of tea, knock yourself out. But I wouldn’t want to have a faith that’s contingent upon my actions as determinative versus what only God can do. And when He does it, He does it perfectly, okay? So Jewish tradition also teaches that on Rosh Hashanah, Satan accuses the believers as the books of life and judgment are open. But he can only appear on Rosh Hashanah. Sorry, there are certain things there that just don’t make sense to me because if he’s who he is, he’s the accuser of the brethren. He’s, he’s accusing all year long. He doesn’t wait for one special day to do it, right? Four holy days that take place during the spring, which I’ve mentioned a few, Passover, Unleavened Bread, the First Fruits, and Feast of Weeks were fulfilled by Christ’s first coming. Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur, and Tabernacles, the three autumn holidays or holy days will be fulfilled in their entirety as they are meant to be with His return. So, we still have three left to go. And that’s why I said these three times are especially important. And when we get to these, you’ll find out why. When we understand properly Yom Kippur, there the celebration of Christ’s return will have even more meaning. So, let’s just leave that one. There is a passage out of the Old Testament written in several unusual places by different writers at various times that are saying the same thing. Here, for example, “The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon into blood, before the coming of the great and awesome day of the LORD.” You’ve read that before, “The great and awesome day of the LORD.” That’s pointing to that day, His return. Anytime you read in the Old Testament, “the day of the LORD,” “the great and awesome day of the LORD,” that’s pointing to His Second Coming, that return time, Joel 2:31, Isaiah 13:9-10, Acts 2:20, etc., etc. So, the day of the Lord or the final day of the Lord, the period at the end of this age, the Lord will pour out His judgment upon the earth. And as I said, connect this back to the trumpets. This is what’s important because you go, and you start reading Revelation. Do not read Revelation as though it’s in perfect order. There are parts of the book that are almost overlaid. You’ve got to read them together, woven together, not like, I remember, some person came with the idea, “If you read it backward, it’ll make sense.” Uh, okay, anyway, I don’t know what to say about that. That’s, that’s frightening. How do we get so many bozos in the body of Christ? I don’t know. Okay, I’m sorry. I just said it, okay. Yes, read the book. It was written that way. Read it that way. Good Lord, help us. It will be a time of darkness. The prophet Amos wrote about this, Amos 5:18-20, “Woe unto you who desire the day of the LORD! For what good is the day of the LORD unto you? It will be darkness, not light. It will be as though a man fled from a lion, only to run into and encounter a bear,” so no escape. And this is why if somebody said to me, “Well, what do I do then?” I’d say, “Get to know Christ.” Don’t get to know Christ because it’s like, “Oh, there’s nothing else but.” You get to know Christ because He’s the one in control. He is the Lord of Lords. You get to know Him. And I, you know, I may be made a caricature of this, but even Moses said, “Pick a side.” Whose side are you on? You’ve got to pick a side. You can’t go through life in the middle of everything and say at the last minute, “I choose God. I choose Christ.” Now maybe God lets that fly, but for preparation for eternity, I don’t know. I can’t, I can’t speak about that. Thank God I’m not God because I’d say, “Hell no.” All right. Zephaniah wrote on this as well, “The great day of the LORD is near; that day is a day of wrath, a day of trouble, a day of devastation, a day of desolation, destruction, and darkness.” Then you have a passage out of Revelation 6 where it says, “And I looked and he opened the sixth seal, and behold, there was a great earthquake; the sun became black, the moon became like blood; the stars of heaven fell to the earth . . .. For the wonderful day of his wrath has come; and who can stand?” So, there is a day coming. As I said, make no mistake about it. This is why I say, if people take the book, read it, and recognize, and listen, some things are difficult for people. You know, some people say, “Well, how could the sun have stood still? And the sun has never stood still since?” Or how could mention this last week, “How could somebody be swallowed by a great fish?” Although there are a couple of videos circulating of people being swallowed and spit out by some great fish, they didn’t last exceptionally long. They weren’t in there for three days and three nights. I think the two ladies that were swallowed on a kayak were spit up quickly. I could make a joke there, but we’re going to leave that alone; I try to keep your mind on the Lord here. In many places, the Bible speaks of the sounding of the trumpet or the horn, but twice it is recorded that God will use this method to summon the people. And that is the same concept that will happen in the culmination of time. We know, we know about the first one. We just looked at it. So, the last one is mentioned there as well in the book. “The LORD will once more descend from heaven,” the prophet Zechariah foretold. And this is what he says, “Then the LORD will be seen over them, and his arrow will go forth as lightning, and the LORD will go; will blow the trumpet and go with the whirlwinds from the south. And as the day of the LORD begins, God’s last trump will be sounded.” The Messiah will be seen, revealing a great outpouring to prepare the nation to be brought into an understanding, and a realm a complete realm of the new covenant or elimination. So, it’s interesting because even Paul wrote, you know, “Behold, I’ll tell you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, we shall be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump.” And if you look that up in Greek, you’re going to see what that means, and it doesn’t mean anything else but what I’ve just been talking about. There’s going to be a lot of activity happening, but there requires a summoning, and that will be that summons if you will. And like in antiquity, the sounding of God’s last trump will be several, if you will, not, we say it, “the last trump,” but it will be several soundings with purpose. It will gather the assembly to the Lord, which we know in many different books, Old and New, talk about the gathering of the people coming to the mount, future time. And whether that be the sound of a physical trumpet or the sound, it is the voice of Christ or it is the voice of the gospel. I don’t know, I can’t tell you if it’s literal or if it’s just a picture, but that is, that’s coming. The righteous will be delivered from the wrath to come. The righteous dead will be resurrected, and the living shall be gathered out of the four winds. The last trump will also serve another purpose, the battle sound against Satan and his minions as the wonderful day of wrath begins. And if you know about this super-battle that occurs, read all about it, it’s going to take a summoning of the people. Now look, I’ll show you how interesting this is. I’ve been talking to you for two weeks about world events that many of you, I know, didn’t hear of, and didn’t know. So, imagine something that could be happening over on the other corner of the earth, and you don’t know about it unless God is summoning the people, unless God is telling the people, somehow, He must communicate, “Hey, worldwide, this is happening. Get, get your attention; it’s on.” Do you see what I’m saying? So, it’s impossible for it to just be something small. It’s certainly not going to be something you’re going to hear in the mainstream media. They’ll be saying some crazy thing that’ll be like, “Huh? What are they talking about? Oh, there, aliens just landed in Israel and there, they’re sucking people up into their ship.” Never mind, if you didn’t get that one, it’s okay. It’s all a distraction, if you will, okay? This is why I, say to people, God gives opportunities and chances every day. When we, as Christians, mess up, He allows us to get up, look to Him, and point in the right direction. To the people who were not wanting to even acknowledge, “Don’t talk to me about God. I don’t want to hear it,” He allows opening their heart. And as I just mentioned, a person like Alice Cooper, and there are millions of people around the world just like that, where He gives an opportunity. A whole life is lived against God and then God opens the eyes, the heart, and the mind. Everything’s open. So, it’s important for people, even people that might listen and just pass by because they heard me say things that they just can’t fathom. Something that I said that you heard me say in this message will be stuck like a record that’s stuck in a groove. And even though you don’t care about God right now, you just heard me say one thing and keep replaying. You repeat it in anger. “I can’t believe that she, she would say that!” That happens a lot. And that sometimes is God working on that person’s mind or their heart to open. And how many messages have I gotten over the years of people saying, “Ah, well, it wasn’t going to be me? Not me. Oh no, not me.” Oh no, not me, right? So, when I say to you, all these feasts are important. All these set times are important. They all point us to Christ, but I still am a big believer in this. If a person, even if they say, “I don’t want to know about God,” you, you are in that state, you just don’t want to know, the best thing I could tell you is at least do what other people have chosen not to do. Do not stay ignorant. In other words, if somebody says, “Why don’t you read the Qur’an?” You know, about, I’m going to say 12 years ago, somebody said to me, “You, you know nothing about the Qur’an.” They were right. I took it upon myself because I don’t want to be ignorant to read the Qur’an. It’s exceedingly difficult for me to read it, okay? I’m not going to lie to you. It’s exceedingly difficult for me, but I read it. Why? Because I don’t want to be ignorant, I want to know, so when I’m in a discussion talking about something, I know what you’re going to be telling me as a rebuttal, as a refusal, whatever it is. I know I’m, I’m, I’m at least educated. It doesn’t mean because I read the Qur’an that I’ve converted to Islam. Just because somebody reads the Bible doesn’t mean they convert to Christianity or Judaism, but you read to educate yourself. In the process, you find something out. You find out how much you don’t know about you and how much you don’t know about God. And that, my friends, is the beginning of wisdom. Not when you come in as the smartest person in the room and you know everything, and God can’t even tell you anything. But you come in and you say, “You know what? I’m not into this, but I’m going to read it anyway and figure what, figure this out for myself. And then after I’ve processed this, I can figure out whether I want to reject it or accept it,” although that’s another story. But all I want to tell you today is these set times, and specifically, the three that I mentioned that are yet to be fulfilled, are extremely important for us to study. Because as I said to you, if, if the trumpet being sounded is for the assembly, which we will assemble, the dead shall rise in Christ first, but we all shall assemble. Dead, risen, those that are alive at the time, we shall all assemble. So, the clarion called to assemble, that’s number one. The clarion called to battle, that’s number two. You say, “Well, who? Who are we battling?” Well, read the book of Revelation, and you’ll, and you’ll figure it out. When Christ returns with His army; that ought to tell you, those words right there ought to tell you it’s not going to be a peacetime, even though He brings eventually in the re-creative period, new heavens, new earth, He brings peace, but He does not come peacefully. And finally, the sounding of that trump for us as Christians is to look at and say, “Yes, God had a point right there.” But when He said in perpetuity, He’s also telling us, don’t forget about this because it points to something that is yet to happen in the future. And look out, because God’s not a man to lie, He’s made good on so many of these things that He said beforehand, which we’ve seen come to fruition. So, things yet to come, I think we can stand on that as take it to the bank of the heaven and stand there. And for those people to say, “Well, I might not be around.” What are you talking about? What are you talking about? Now listen to me, you may not be alive at the coming of Christ. You may be dead, but you’re going to be alive. You’re going to be risen out. It says very clearly, people are going to come out of their graves. People will come back to life, those that are alive on the earth, those that are dead. So, when we take that whole picture, don’t tell me, “I’m not going to be there, it doesn’t matter.” It’s going to matter. And when I tell you, those who have lived not perfectly, but by faith, they’ll be there. So, God’s not looking for you to be perfect. He’s looking for you to trust Him. And it starts with these small steps and looking into these most important set times. We will continue and take up the subject again next week. That’s my message. You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday at 11 am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you’d like more teaching and you would like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com. As found on YouTube Watch The Video Below To Find Out How YOU Have Been Programmed To Study The Wrong Way All Your Life And Because Of This, YOU Have Achieved Far Less Than What You’re Capable Of!