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FEAST OF TRUMPETS

 The Feast of Trumpets is just a little bit curious among the Holy Days. As you read thru the descriptions of the Holy Days, the Passover is a holy day firmly rooted in history. There's a historical event a­bout which the Passover is formed. Actually, two historical events for Christians. First was the death of the first born in the exodus out of Egypt, and the other, was the last supper when Jesus spent the time with the disciples, which commemorates the death of our Saviour till He comes. 

The Days of Unleavened Bread are also firmly rooted in history, it had to do with the exodus and during that time Israel was to eat un­leavened bread and throughout all their generations' and all their hab­itations for seven days in memorial of that and as Christians we have come to understand that there is a deeper significances even for us. 

Pentecost is a harvest festival. It comes at the end of seven weeks of harvest when you have worked six days and rested the seventh and worked six days and rested the seventh and then finally you come to the fiftieth day which is Pentecost. It was a special day when it was again a harvest festival. 

The day of Atonement is a service of great significant and very much rooted in salvation history as the people were to fast on that day. All these Holy Days has something you have to do in connection with them. The high priests made offerings and atonements for the people. The Feast of Tabernacles commemorated the exodus and the fact that Israel lived in booths for forty years on their way from Egypt to the promised land. Everyone was to make the pilgrimage and they camped out and lived in booths for seven days and they were present at the place where God had placed His name. 

The Feast of Trumpets, though, is a little different. Turn to Lev. 23:23 "The Lord spoke to Moses saying, 24: Speak unto the Chil­dren of Israel saying, In the seventh month in the first day of the month, shall ye have a Sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation. 25: Ye shall do no servile work therein^: but ye shall offer an offering made by fire unto the Lord. 26: And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, 27: Also on the tenth day of this seventh month -­now we are out of trumpets. 

Notice there is nothing for you to do other than to just simply have a Sabbath on that day, abstain from work. There is no fasting, there is no traveling, there is an assembling, there are offerings but there are offerings on all the holy days, in other words, you do the same things on this holy day that all the rest of them are done. The only thing that is different is the blowing of trumpets and even the blowing of trumpets was limited to the sons of Aaron in the ceremonial sense of this holy day. 

But it has no meaning attached to it. There is nothing specified. You are going to have a memorial of blowing of trumpets because we blew trumpets at such and such a time and such and such a situation. There is nothing. It is just a Sabbath, its a holy day, its commanded, its

a memorial. A memorial of what? Memorials are when we commemorate some­thing. Its when there is an event, a place in history upon which these things are focused. And yet, you will study through the Old Testament and you will find four places where this first day of the seventh month is mentioned and that's all. 

It does not seem to be a significant point in history. In Numbers 29:1 it is in the middle of a discussion and it goes all the way thru two chapters of what the offerings are to be made on each of the holy days. It offers so many lambs, so many rams, and all the sin offerings, burnt offerings, and all it says in Numbers 29:1 is that on the first day of the seventh month you are to offer a particular set of offerings which is just like you offer on nearly every other holy day throughout the year.

The next place is Ezra 3:6. It mentions the first day of the seven­th month but all it tells you is this is the date when they began to make offerings again in Jerusalem at the temple after a long hiatus. There is no particular historical connection to it other than, and this is very late in their history, it is just a date and something happened on that date and they began.

The fourth place is Nehemiah 8:2. What they did on that day is a day of new beginnings. All it tells you is that they all gathered to­gether and they stood up and they read out of the law, they commemorat­ed it as a holy day and then moved quickly on to the observance of the great Feast of Tabernacles.

It is a memorial of blowing of trumpets. But a memorial of what?

To the Jews it is a day of great celebration because for them it is Rosh Hashanah. Rosh Hashanah simply_ means New Year. It is the Jewish New Year observed all over. The commentaries will tell you that it is some how connected to the old civil year. There is the discussions, you have the civil calendar and the sacred calendar, you have the religious. This is not at all uncommon, these things do exist, you have a fiscal year, as opposed to the calendar year even now today. The problem is there is not one word anywhere in scripture that identifies today as the begin­ning of a year. In the future, there are indications that it is the be­ginning of a new age. You do have the idea of the release of captives, the idea of land returning to its owners, but even that is not on this day. All of that has to do with the Jubilee, and the returning of land to its owners. All this stuff is connected to the Day of Atonement, which is ten days from now, not to this day.­

This day is a memorial, but a memorial of what? We've talked be­fore about holy days. What is important about them are the associations. We associate the Passover with the exodus out of Egypt. We associate the Days of Unleavened Bread with the idea of sin and of leavening. We associate the Feast of Tabernacles with the exodus and the entering in­to the promise land at a later time. Now, if you had been a Hebrew, if you had been among those people who came out of Egypt, if you were among those wandering the wilderness, or perhaps, lets go later in time and say we live in the time of David, what sort of associations would we have when someone spoke of a feast of trumpets? What would we think of? What would come to mind. Well, we would have nowhere to go except to scripture. 

Turn to Exodus 19 and see what associations might be presented to us. In Exodus chapter 19 we are told in verse one "In the third month when the children of Israel were gone forth out of the land of Egypt, the same day came they into the wilderness of Sinai. 2^: For they were departed from Rephidim, and were come to the desert of Sinai and had pitched in the wilderness; and there Israel camped before the mount. 

In verse 10, "And the Lord said unto Moses, go unto the people, and sanctify them to day and to morrow, and let them wash their clothes, 11: And be ready against the third day; for the third day the Lord will come down in the sight of all the people upon mount Sinai. 

12: And thou shalt set bounds unto the people round about, saying take heed to yourselves, that ye go not up unto the mount, or touch the border of it. Whosoever toucheth the mount shall be surely put to death. 14: And Moses went down from the mount unto the people ---- Verse 16: And it came to pass on the third day in the morning, that there were thunders and lightings, and a thick cloud upon the mount, and the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled." 

Now the sound and sight of all these things of a cloud descending upon the mount, and lightning rippling back and forth and peels of thun­der, great cracks and sounds coming out of it and then a blast. What they heard was probably very likely the blast of a ram's horn, the big curved horn and a big loud blast made on it. Consequently, the first encounter that these people had with Almighty God is announced by the sound of a horn or a trumpet. So one would think Feast of Trumpets, an appearance of God, presences of God, God coming down on the mountain and God making himself known to us. So the earliest associations would have had to do with God's presences, God's revelations, God's coming down up­on the earth. That part is very easy to see. Although they seemed to have made no special connection with it in the Bible at these early times. 

In verse 20 it tells us "And the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount: and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the Mount; and Moses went up." 

Here is the first instance of it. 

Now turn to Numbers 10. We find some more in the way of associa­tions because trumpets did play a role in the lives of these people. 

Numbers 10:1 "And the Lord spoke unto Moses, saying, 2: Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the jour­neying of the camps. 3: And when they shall blow with them, all the assembly shall assemble themselves to thee at the door of the taber­nacle of the congregation. 4: And if they blow but with one trumpet, then the princes, which are heads of the thousands of Israel, shall gather themselves unto thee." 

Verse 5: When ye blow an alarm, then the camps that lie on the east parts shall go forward. 6: When ye blow an alarm the second time, then the camps that lie, on the south side shall take their journey: they shall blow an alarm for their journeys. 8: And the sons of Aaron, the priest, shall blow with the trumpets and they shall be to you for an ordinance for ever throughout your generations. 9: And if ye go to war in your land against the enemy that oppresseth you, then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets; and ye shall be remembered before the Lord your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies. 10: Also in the day of your gladness, and in your solemn days, and in the beginnings of your months, ye shall blow with the trumpets over your burnt offerings, and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; that they may be to you for a memorial before your God: I am the Lord your God." 

We know in our time the use of the trumpet or bugle in the services. There is revile to get you up, one for chow call, and taps when you go to bed. Then there is one they use on ships called "general quarters" They not only blow bugles but a clanging alarm bell with it. It means to get to your stations as quickly as possible. 

And so it is these trumpets are used to convey messages, to send

an alarm. Israel of old understood the use of the trumpet and had asso­ciations with it, plus there was the fact that all of their ceremonial occasions were announced in this way. 

The going to war was announced this way. Which one of us has not read the story of where the Israelites came across the Jordan and they came upon the city of Jericho, a fortified city, and the instructions were "You're to get your armies in order, and you are to line all your people out, you are to march around the city seven times, you are to have all the trumpeters out in front of you and they are to blow on the trumpet as they go. And so the people here inside the wall saw this solemn procession walking around their city, every day, one time around for seven days and the seventh day they went around seven times and when they finally blew the trumpets, the walls of Jericho fell down flat and there they went and scoured the city. It is connected that way with war. So the trumpet had many ways that it was used apart from war, alarms, marches, calls of the people, assemblies. It had all its ceremonial uses. 

Now remember originally, in this thing at Mount Sinai, the voice of the Lord seems to have been presented as though it was like a trum­pet. The connection of the voice of God, the presences of God, God com­ing down, connected with the Feast of Trumpets. 

All these things would have been very much in the mind of any Isr­aelite, when someone read Leviticus 23:24 and said "In the first day of the seventh month, you will have a memorial of blowing of trumpets", and yet, all you are left with are vague associations. Most people, in this world today have vague associations. For example, connected with Christ­mas, they know about the birth of the Christ Child, as somehow they think they are connected with it, but all the rest of the associations of Christ­mas have absolutely nothing to do with it. 

Wreaths on the door, Christmas trees, yule logs, red and green color, combinations, all these things make very strong and powerful asso­ciations in the minds of most of us. 

Now win you come to the Feast of Trumpets, the associations, which were very much in the peoples' mind were of the blast of the shofar and apparently they blew these things all day long on the Feast of Trumpets in Jerusalem. You can imagine what that must have been like. It must have been unbelievable. 

But as time went on, prophets came on the scene. God began to speak to Israel thru men that the sent and these men began to add a new dimension to the understanding of this. 

Turn to Isaiah 26:20. "Come, my people, enter thou into they cham­bers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a lit­tle moment, until the indignation be overpast. 21: For, behold, the Lord cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain." 

All the time covering up, all the time of hiding out from God, all the time this world beginning to get by with the things its has done is over. It says God is coming out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth. Now you can have a lot of ideas about this, but one that you can't get away from is the Great Day of the Lord. The time of God's coming and remember the initial coming of God to the earth on Mount Sinai when he came down to give the law was with the sound of the trumpet. 

We come to another prophet, and another time talking about a future sound of a trumpet. Its going to come to us in a moment but at this time with blood in his eye. 

“In that day” and this phase doesn't always mean this but so common­ly in prophetic terms, once they have established this time sequence, they keep using the expression "In that Day". Isaiah 27:7 "Hath he smitten him, as he smote those that smote him? or is he slain accord­ing to the slaughter of them that are slain by him? 8: In measure, when it shooteth forth, thou wilt debate with it; he stayeth his rough wind in the day of the east wind. 9: By this therefore shall the in­iquity of Jacob be purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin; when he maketh all the stones of the altar as chalkstones that are beaten in sunder, the groves and images shall not stand up. (the groves and images are where the idols were set up) 10: Yet the defenced city shall be desolate, and the habitation forsaken, and left like a wilder­ness; there shall the calf feed, and there shall he lie down, and con­sume the branches thereof. 11: When the boughs thereof are withered, they shall be broken off: the women come, and set them on fire: for it is a people of no understanding: therefore he that made them will not have mercy on them, and he that formed them will shew them no favor.  Next verse 12: And it shall come to pass in that day, the Lord shall beat off from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt, and ye shall be gathered one by one, 0 ye children of Israel." 

What is meant by beating off in this sense is the heads of grain, you have long stalks with grain heads on top of them. The custom was to put them down and beat off the grain from the stalk. It is the thresh­ing process. He says ' I am going to thresh from the channel of the river unto the stream of Egypt', you can visualize, again remembering the poetry is for imagery, for conjuring up images - and its like God taking a great stick in his hand and here is all this wheat laid out and He begins to beat on it and to thrash and to break loose the wheat from the chafe. He is going to thrash it from the river to the stream of Egypt "and you will be gathered one by one. 0 ye children of Israel." They are going to be broken loose and picked up almost like one piece of grain after another to be returned. 

Verse 13: "And it shall come to pass in that day, the great trum­pet shall be blown, and they shall come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy mount at Jerusalem. 

Not just any trumpet, not just one of the great trumpets but the Great Trumpet shall be blown. 

When I think about this I cast my mind back to Israel of old to the people who are reading this and hearing this from the prophet have long since come out of Egypt . They never were in Egypt, in fact, their forefathers were, but this was all apart of their history. They have heard it around camp fires. They have sung songs about it, they kept holy days that comemerated it and they know all about this. Now comes a prophet and you would need to read Isaiah all the way up to this point to really grasp altogether what he is saying, now comes a prophet who says “your whole nation is sick from the top of your head to the sole of your foot, there is nothing but wounds and bruises and purifying sores. The sins of your people, the rotten corruption of your government, your religion is so corrupt that it is pitiful.” And he comes thru all the discussions about punishments that are going to come upon them and fin­ally upon their captivity and they are told they will go back into Egypt again.

Then comes this prophesy that says "I am going to come thru here and I am going to thrash all the people who hold you captive and I am going to take you back one grain of wheat at a time, I am going to rescue you.

We are not talking about bringing it back by the truck load. We

are talking about saving these people, one person at a time. Then he says, “I am going to blow the “great trumpet”, and it is a time then that a people who had once before them been rescued out of Egypt realized that somehow there is a connection between this great trumpet and a future exodus of which the first exodus was only a type, and, in fact, another prophet will come along later and tell them there's going to be an exodus in the future that is so great the former exodus out of Egypt, the one everyone talks about, the one the movie “The Ten Commandments” is all about, says there's going to come a time when an exodus is going to be so great the former exodus will not even come to mind.

Not there yet., are we? The earth is not there yet. Whatever that prophet is talking about is still out ahead of us, still out there. Not only is that exodus still out there, the captivity is still out there from which that exodus takes place. 

So now, the prophets begin to introduce somewhat of a new element. 

Turn to Jeremiah 4, beginning in verse 19^: “my Bowels, my bowels!

I am pained at my very heart.” (What he is saying is I am doubled over in pain, clutching at my stomach in pain.) “my heart makes a noise in me I can not hold my peace, because you have heard, 0 my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war.”

What he is saying then is, I have known this is coming, I have had the warning and now I have heard the trumpet and it is pierced me like pain. Fear can be so great that it can be like a pain in the gut and that is exactly what he is describing. He realizes now what is coming.

Verse 20: "Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole

land is spoiled; suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a mom­ent. 21: How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet? 22: For my people is foolish, they have not known me, they are sottish children, and they have none understanding^: they are wise to do evil. (they are cleaver, they know all the ends and outs, they know all the ways of intimidation, they know all the ways of avoiding law enforcement. "They are wise to do evil, but to do good they have no knowledge."

23: I behold the earth, and, lo, it was without form, and void; and the heavens, and they had no light. 24: I behold the mountains, and lo, they trembled, and all the hills moved lightly. (There was no life to be seen.)

26: I behold, and lo, the fruitful place was a wilderness, and all the cities thereof were broken down at the presence of the Lord, and by his fierce anger. 27: For thus hath the Lord said, the whole land shall be desolate; yet will I not make a full end. 28: For this shall the earth mourn, and the heavens about be black: because I have spoken it, I have purposed it, and will not repent, neither will I turn back from it.

This is ushered in with a blast of the trumpet.

Now we realize that the time is coming when God almighty, when Jesus Christ, who is God, will come back to this earth and His feet will stand upon the mount of olives and the voice of the Lord will break the cedars of Lebanon.

Turn to Joel the second chapter, verse 1: "Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand:" It is a day of which like has never been, one before it, it is a day that has never been after it. Now there being a day like it has

ever been before it, and there will never be a day that approaches it after it.

We are dealing with one day, unique, in all history. Not several occasions, not something that happened in old testament times thats go­ing to happen at the end of the world. We are talking about one time, one day, never a day like it before, never will be a day like it again. It is called "The Day of the Lord" and it is ushered in by these words: 

"Blow the trumpet in Zion, sound an alarm in my holy mountain; let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord comes, for it is nigh of hand."

Verse 2: "A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great peo­ple and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations. 3: A fire devoureth before them; and behind them a flame burneth: the land is as the garden of Eden before thee, and behind them a desolate wilderness; yea, and nothing shall escape them.

Frightening, isn't it? The images this draws up. Nostrodamus was a piker when it came down to describing nasty things that was going to happen to man. These prophets did this a long, long time ago.

The Day of the Lord, the trumpet, an alarm of war. When you think back to these times, how many people understood, how many people grasps, how many had it thoroughly locked into this day? But, you would have to have these associations with trumpets. And then here come the pro­phets with these warnings once again. The Day of the Lord, the presences of God, the coming of God, God's intervention in the affairs of men, all this is as plain as it can be in the old testament.

Then comes Jesus, then comes the establishment of what we come to call the New Testament Church. We have a church in Jerusalem after Christ's accension for some little time, who without any dispute, who kept right on keeping the holy days. When they came to the Feast of Trumpets, what did they think?

For you see by this time they had the Olivet prophesy. When

Jesus' disciples came to him and said "Lord, what's going to be the sign of your coming at the end of the age." And Jesus went at great length that it was not for them to know those things that they were to get on with the work. They had many of Jesus' words, they also had prophets in the church who were telling them certain things, and, they had the old testament scriptures and somewhat a little different idea now of what was going to happen in the very end time.

Some other things began to develope. Turn to the 15th chapter of 1st Corinthians. You have this holy day about which almost nothing is said and yet over time, there are associations, there are connections, inescapable connections, of what is going to be done in connection with this day. Remember it is a memorial, a memorial actually comemerates something that took place at, a point in time in history. What is this day a memorial of?

I Cor. 15:12 "Now if Christ be preached that he rose from the dead, how say some among you that there is no resurrection of the dead? 13: But if there be no resurrection of the dead, then is Christ not risen^: (then he continues down along thru here with his argument about the re­surrection. What it was going to be like, how these things would take place.

Later on in verse 35 he decides to begin to answer some more of the arguments of the people who persist in asking: verse 35: "But some man will say, how are the dead raised up? and with what body do they come? 36: Thou fool, that which thou sowest is not quickened, except it die: 37: And that which thou sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall be but bare grain, it may chance of wheat, or of some other grain: In verse 50: "Now I say this brethren, that flesh and blood cannot in­herit the kingdom of God" We cannot, as flesh and blood, inherit the kingdom of God, neither does corruption inherit incorruption. 

Verse 51: "Behold, I shew you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, 52: In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.

Now the church, coming to see the connection between the resurrec­tion, which Jesus had preached and taught and the trumpet being blown, not just any trumpet but the last trumpet, the "Great Trumpet" as a mat­ter of fact, being blown, have now seen categorically, the connection between the Feast of Trumpets and the resurrection from the dead. He does not mention the Feast of Trumpets in this place, thats not what he is talking about, the scripture is about the resurrection, but how could you possibly, if you were keeping the Feast of Trumpets, not make the connection. 

But now, in that he said “The last Trumpet” there must be a first trumpet, mustn’t  there? For the very existence of the last of something means that there was something before it. 

Turn to Revelations. There are many references to trumpets. Rev. 8:1 "And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in hea­ven about the space of half an hour. 2: And I saw the angels which stood before God; and to them were given seven trumpets. 3: And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. 4: And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, as­cended up before God out of the angel's hand. 5: And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it into the earth: 6: And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound. 7: The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up." 

Now here we are, this by the way, is not the feast of trumpets. We are talking about an event which takes place at the last trumpet. We are told that there is a great trumpet. Now could we fail to associate this day with these events? The early church did. 

Verse 7: The first angel sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth: and the third part of trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up. 8: And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; 9: And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died; and the third part of the ships were destroyed. 10: And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burn­ing as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; 11: And the name of the star is call­ed Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter. 12: And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; so as the third part of them was darkened, and the day shone not for a third part of it, and the night likewise. 13: And I behold, and heard an angel flying through the midst of heaven, saying with a loud voice, Woe, woe, woe, to the inhibiters of the earth by reason of the other voices of the trum­pet of the three angels, which are yet to sound! 

The world has just come to a stop and he says there are three more, and I'm telling you Woe! about these three more. The worse is yet to come.

Then follows the description of the 5th and 6th trumpet. 

Turn to chapter 11:13. This is the last trumpet, the seventh. “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. 16: And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God. 17: Saying, we give thee thanks, 0 Lord God Almighty, which are, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee my great power, and hast reigned. 18: And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroyed the earth. 

Have you tied the resurrection sufficently to the seventh trumpet? 

I. Thessalonians 4 says the 1st resurrection takes place at a trum­pet. I Corinthians 15 says it takes place at the last trumpet. The seventh trumpet says its time to give reward to the saints and the tem­ple of God was open in heaven and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament; and there were lightings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail. 

It's a sobering thing to reflect on when you see it . But this day is a memorial of the blowing of trumpets. 

A memorial of what? Its a memorial of this day. The time when Jesus Christ comes back to this earth, when the pronouncement is made, as of this moment the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ and He shall reign for ever and ever. 

This is one holy day that seems to have almost no significance in its origins. It was not very meaningful then. It was left to Jesus Christ to give it meaning. It was left to the prophets who foretold Jesus Christ, to give it meaning, and it was finally left to an angel, to a vision of a man names John to pull it altogether and let us know what this day is a memorial of.