Trumpets

So when I'm studying for a message I usually do so in absolute dead silence. Occasionally, I will play a little bit of instrumental music of whatever you know, I decide to listen to, occasionally, when I'm preparing. Some of you, you know, I watch my kids, they have their stuff in and they can be rocking out whatever while they're doing homework and I'm like, I can't do that. Some of you can, that's awesome. You're weird. I can't do that. But occasionally I will put on something that's instrumental.

And so I have this song on my phone that I was actually listening to while I was working on this message. Again, it's instrumental, but it's by a guy named Miles Davis, the title of the song is So What. And it's from an album from 1959 called "Kind of Blue" and it's not all that listen tom but I was listening to that. And it you know who Miles Davis is, Miles Davis is revered as one of the great trumpet jazz players of all time. And the thing about Miles Davis' music is it's very complex. He's very complex. Those that know music know that. I'm not one of those people, but I know how complex his music can be, kind of from a jazz prospective.

But what I remember people saying about Miles Davis was that every note he plays has intention. Every note he plays matters. They're not throw-aways, he knows what he's doing. And even if it's confusing at times to the listener, he knows what he's doing. And so kind of the advice to the listener is just trust him. Sit back and listen to him play and just trust him, right?

Well, in some way I feel a little bit like that in this message series where even if we don't fully understand every note that God is playing through these Feasts that are trying to help us see Jesus more clearly, we can just sit back and trust the Lord that He knows exactly what He's doing and when He's doing it. And I really feel that way as well about the message that I want to talk to you about today, because what we're studying today is one of the Feasts of the Lord that God has designed, He has ordained for this to be a Feast of the Lord. Yet there's just not much said about it that you kind of go, okay, you read it and you go, okay, but there's not much said about it. So we have to dig a little bit and start to understand what the notes actually mean, what they sound like.

So, I'm going to point you to Leviticus chapter 23, because that's where we've been looking at how God chronicles these various feasts that we're talking about. And today I want to mention something about the feast that we call the Feast of Trumpets. And here's what it says in Leviticus chapter 23. It says: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites: 'On the First day of the seventh month you are to have a day of Sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord.'" Okay, so that's what we have in Leviticus chapter 23.

In Numbers 29, we also read about this Feast and here's what it says: "On the first day of the seventh month hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. It is a day for you to sound the trumpets." There you have it. Let's pray, you're dismissed. Go in peace.

So, you've got these two passages of Scripture. And there some ancillary facts around particular types of offerings that are supposed to be given as well that are common to the sacrificial offering system. But generally speaking you've got this day to kind of set aside that we call the Feast of Trumpets. Now it has some other names that you may or you may not be familiar with. There's a name in the Hebrew, it's called Yom Teruah, which simply means the Day of Blowing or the Day of Shouting. That's what the idea is, right, because it's the Feast of Trumpets. We call it the Feast of Trumpets. But the Jewish people began to adopt a different name for this much later on, much, much later on after the time of the initiation of this Feast.

And now today the term they use around this Feast-time is Rosh Hashanna, so maybe you've heard of that. But Rosh Hashanna actually means, in the Hebrew language it means the head of the year. Here's why. Because this day, the first day of the seventh month actually is the beginning of the Jewish Civil Calendar. It's not the beginning, and this gets confusing, it's not the beginning of the Jewish Holy Calendar because that begins in the first month. But it is the beginning of the Jewish Civil Year during that time, which is why it's called Rosh Hashanna. It's also the time where the Jewish people, as a whole celebrate what they believe to have been the creation of the world on that particular day. That they believe that the first day of the seventh month, what we call you know, modern people kind of call Rosh Hashanna is a celebration of the day that creation was born. When everything was made. Now the Scripture doesn't say that explicitly, this kind of came through Rabbis in terms of their interpretation and what they believed that they were celebrating during that time, but that's what it's come to be known as. So you've got the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Teruah, the Day of Blowing or the Day of Shouting, or Rosh Hashanna is some of the ways that this particular feast is known.

Now what's obvious about this feast is obvious to all of us. It involves trumpet playing, right? That's kind of what's so obvious about it, we call it the Feast of Trumpets and it's like hey, set aside this day, and on this day do no work and blow trumpets. That summarizes it, right? So that's the most obvious thing that we see about the idea of kind of having the blowing of the trumpets.

Now in modern Judaism, those that kind of like if you went into Israel and found some of the orthodox people who were embracing this particular day on the Feast of Trumpets, most of them would blow one hundred sounds on this particular day in the trumpet. A hundred sounds. Every one of those sounds actually has meaning. And in kind of the blowing of the trumpet, there are like four different, I'm not going to chronicle those for all of us, but there are at least four different types of sounds. Like you can have kind of a long pause, then long pause, then long pause, that's one type of blowing. Then there's the kind of short burst blowing. Then there's the staccato blowing. Then there's the long held out sound at the very end, right? So you've got kind of what is the first trumpet in all of that, and then you've got kind of the last trumpet call at the end, and that's the long sustained blowing at the very end.

So you've got all of that in terms of what happens with the trumpet, but all of those sounds actually mean something. And the trumpet is chronicled in Scripture in a number of different ways with a number of different meanings. I'm not going to go into all of those because that would take up all of our time trying to figure that out. I just want to point out some things that are what I would say are pertinent to the Trumpet Feast that we're talking about here in terms of what trumpets mean and what trumpets do. I'm going to just chronicle about four of those for us. And maybe we'll begin to see some resonance as to why these things kind of have relevance for what we're talking about.

Here's the first thing relative to trumpets. What they do is they help us to remember the provision for Isaac. Now some of you are going, okay, that feels random. You just threw that out of the middle of nowhere. Like what are you talking about, trumpets make us remember the provision of Isaac. Well, I've got something that I want to show you here, you were wondering what this was sitting up here anyway. It is not the kind of trumpet that you might be thinking that it is, but it is the kind of trumpet that the Feast of Trumpets utilizes. This is called a shofar. Some of you know what it means. Have you ever heard what it sounds like? Cool. I'm not playing it. There's no way that I'm playing this. You have to actually know what you're doing, because if I do it it sounds like a dead elk, right? I mean it's like, not good. So you have to know kind of how to do your lips and like play a trumpet and do all this stuff and make different sounds, I don't know how to do it. But this is what was used. The shofar was what was used.

Now there are places in the Scripture where fashioned out of silver, there were trumpets fashioned out of silver in the Temple, you know usage and those kinds of things, but what we're talking about here is the use of the shofar, which many times in Scripture, maybe even most times in Scripture is actually, you know, that's what's kind of utilized in the Scriptures, the blowing of the shofar.

Why does something like this help us to remember the provision for Isaac? Well, if you remember, Abraham took Isaac and was going to sacrifice his son, Isaac, right? But what did God do? God provided a ram in the thicket so that the ram would be sacrificed instead of Isaac and this is where the line the people of promise of Abraham came through Isaac and this is where kind of the birth of the people of God happened through this Promise. And the shofar is actually a ram's horn, that's kind of the idea behind the shofar, that as a ram's horn it's a reminder of the provision that God make for His people by giving a substitutionary sacrifice on their behalf. The shofar, alright? So that's one thing that you get in the trumpet blowing or the shofar blowing.

But there's a second thing that I want you to remember as well. Not only remembers the provision for Isaac, but it calls together an assembly. This is kind of a real simple one. In other words, the blowing of the shofar called the people of God together because there was going to be some kind of an announcement or something like that. It called together an assembly. You see that over and over in the Scripture.

Third thing, it was a call that was about warning and judgment. So when the shofar blew, particularly when we're talking about the Feast of Trumpets, it was a warning that judgment was near. Let me explain. So, the Feast of Trumpets happens on the first day of the seventh month but ten days later is another feast day called the Day of Atonement. And see that ten-day period that we're talking about right there, the Jewish people called the Days of Awe, the Days of Awe for this ten-day period announced in the Feast of Trumpets that the Day of Atonement is coming. In other words, there is a Holy God who dwells among a people who are not holy who need to have an atonement for themselves so that His holiness doesn't consume them. This is the idea of the Days of Awe. In other words, the trumpets are kind of announcing this is a time of reflection and repentance and preparation of heart because the Day of Atonement is the most sacred and holy day and most sober day on the Jewish holy calendar, alright? So that's why this is kind of, there's an idea of warning and judgment associated with the trumpet blast that happened on the Feast of Trumpets.

But the last thing is this. Is that it is also about the announcing of a King. This has to do with kind of in Israel's context with the Feast of Trumpets, it would have to do with the idea that the King is dealing in judgment and is going to deal with sin but because He's holy, so you need to be prepared. This is a warning about judgment to come because the King is around.

Now in fact, when you read in the Psalms you see this much later on, you see this kind of blowing of the shofar in terms of the celebrating and announcing of the King. Listen to what it says in Psalm 98: "Make music to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of singing, with trumpets and the blast of the ram's horn shout for joy before the Lord, the King." So that kind of idea appears in Scripture in a number of different places. So this kind of gives you at least a little bit of an idea of the most obvious thing that we see about the Feast of Trumpets, the trumpet blowing and what it means.

But, there's a not so obvious thing that is also going on in these passages of Scripture that has to do with something maybe that we pass over when we're reading it and don't think about it like we should, but when we do we begin to discover a whole lot more. Because you didn't think I was just going to read those passages and then I was going to tell you about a couple things about trumpets and then I was going to quit, right? There is more to learn and we have to dig a little bit deeper to figure out the notes that we can pull out of this and understand what then mean.

Let me take you back to Leviticus chapter 23. Notice what it says: "The Lord said to Moses, 'Say to the Israelites: On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a sabbath rest, and a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts.'" On the first day of the seventh month. Now the reason that I'm highlighting that, you might be thinking to yourself, oh, okay why are you highlighting that? Well, the first thing it does is it tells us that this is a fall feast not a spring feast. The feast that we've already been talking about, right? Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, the Feast of Weeks or what we call Pentecost, those were all spring feasts, right? That's what they were.

Now we're talking about different feasts. We're talking about feasts that happen in the fall. The ones in the spring were all fulfilled in the work and life of Jesus. We saw that, right? That Jesus is the Passover Lamb, that Jesus is the pure, unleavened bread, that when He was buried in the grave, He did not decay, there was no leaven in Him. We see Jesus as the First Fruits in terms of Resurrection, right? And we see Jesus in the Feast of Weeks like we talked about last week, this idea of Pentecost in the sending of the Spirit of God, this Promise that Jesus had made.

But now we move, fast forward a number of months from that time and now we're in the seventh month and what happens now in the seventh month is the Feast of Trumpets kicks this off. And it happens on the first day of the seventh month. You say, that's easy enough to figure out, right? You just, right, on that day you do your deal. It's not so easy. It's not as easy as you think it is, right? Because when we think about calendars we just think about right, we look on our iPhone and you know, today's the--what is today, the twenty--I don't even know what today is. It's Sunday. Today is you know, Sunday whatever day, right? Or we look at our calendar, we go Tuesday the 2nd, Wednesday the 3rd, Thursday the 4th.

That's not how the Jewish people did what they did in terms of their calendaring system. Their calendaring system was built on the moon. It was lunar. Jerry, okay. Why then was it based on the moon? Because they could count on it. It was dependable.

In fact, in the Scripture much later on, in the Psalm listen to this. It says: "It will be established forever like the moon, the faithful witness in the sky." In other words, the Jewish people looked at the moon as a faithful witness in the sky, and they built their days based upon the lunar cycle.

So the first day of the month was the new moon. That was what determined the first day of the month. You say, okay, easy enough, Jerry. Not so easy. Let me say why it's not so easy. Do you know what the new moon looks like? Let me show you. That. Does anybody see that? There actually is something there. Now I had one that had a little sliver you know, but I decided well, I mean, and it was then people got technical on it. Well, that's not really real, I was just trying to show them there's something there, right? That's the new moon. The new moon is completely dark. It's where basically we're on the shade side of the sun, kind of that idea, right? That's what you've got with the new moon. It makes it very difficult to know when it actually is occurring so that you know what day this actually begins. That's why the Jewish people for many, many, many years have called this the "hidden day" or the "day that no one knows". You need to hang onto that. The hidden day or the day that no one knows. It is the only feast that is celebrated when the moon is completely dark. Every other feast that is celebrated the moon is at some point of brightness, but in this feast the moon is completely dark because that's what the day is, it's a new moon feast.

Now they struggle to figure out when this was going to be, that's why people didn't quite know how to prepare. They knew around the time it was going to be, but they didn't know exactly which day this was going to be. And so what the Sanhedrin did in the time of Jesus, for instance is that they sent out witnesses. And they would send out usually two, sometimes three. But they would send out these witnesses to different places that were kind of agents of the Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was like the ruling religious body in the time of Jesus, made up mostly of Sadducees. And so they would send them out and their job was in different places, you know, this person over here and this person way over here, and they would just be sky watchers. And all they would do is they would look for the new moon. That's what they would do. And when they felt like they had seen evidence of the new moon, they would bring back individually back to the Sanhedrin, they wouldn't bring them in there at the same time, they would bring them in individually and they would quiz them so that they knew that what they were saying was true and yes, you're right. And then they would corroborate that with the other witness who was separate from them, okay, yes you're right. And then what the Sanhedrin would do is they would proclaim that this day is sanctified, this is the new moon, this is the first day of the month.

And then do you know what would happen on the Feast of Trumpets? The trumpets would blow. Because the trumpets would announce to everyone that this is the day, that now we begin the celebration. Because they would not have fully known otherwise. They knew generally speaking, it was on its way, but they didn't know the exact day or hour, because they called it "the hidden day" based on the darkness of the moon.

Now the reason that I give you this background is because it's important when we listen to Jesus talk prophetically about things that are going to occur. Specifically, when Jesus is talking in Matthew chapter 24 on the Mount of Olives. We call it the Olivet Discourse when He is up there talking about things that are about to happen. Now Jesus obviously is doing this, having this conversation in roughly about 30 AD, in that neighborhood. But He's talking about things that are going to - listen to this. In Matthew 24 He's talking about things that are going to be fulfilled in 70 AD, but He's also talking about things that are going to be fulfilled kind of at the consummation of history. In other words, kind of what we call this is what we call it the double-optic of prophesy. In other words, it has a immediate fulfillment that is coming, and then it has a final fulfillment that is coming, alright?

And so in Matthew 24 Jesus is actually prophesying about the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD, where the Temple is going to be destroyed, not one stone left on another, all of those kinds of things, He's prophesying about that. But He's also giving us a picture of what's to come. So, when you're reading, particularly when you're reading like the first sixteen verses of Matthew 24, that's basically all that's fulfilled in the fall of Jerusalem. But the whole thing kind of gives us two looks, one at that, and one kind of at the final consummation of history. Which is why when we see and hear Jesus' language, we should pay closer attention knowing what we know about the Feast of Trumpets.

Listen to what Jesus says in Matthew 24: "Immediately after the distress of those days the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light; the stars will fall from the sky, and the heavenly bodies will be shaken. Then will appear the sign of the Son of Man in heaven. And then all the peoples of the earth will mourn when they see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven, with power and great glory. And He will send His angels with a loud trumpet call, and they will gather His elect from the four winds, from one end of the heavens to the other. But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father."

I'm not going to go into unpacking all of this, because that's not the point of what I'm trying to say, and I'm not even going to try and help us unpack the mixed metaphor of Jesus that He gives us both the Feast of Trumpets metaphor and a marriage metaphor when He talks about this idea there. I'm not even going to do that at this point. Just know that I know that it's there, alright? But here's what I do want to remind us of. Jesus is actually pointing to events that are going to occur in 70 AD, but He's also pointing to events that are going to happen at the consummation of history. And He uses some interesting terms when He talks about the moon will not give it's light. He talks about there will be a trumpet blast. And He says the day or hour no one knows. These are all Feast of Trumpet terms.

Now, if you look at history, what you'll find is you'll find Josephus recording the fall of Jerusalem. Now what you see in 70 AD is that the Temple was basically burned to the ground and destroyed in August of 70 AD. And then in September, in fact they recorded this way, around September 24th of 70 AD is when Jerusalem finally stops resisting and Jerusalem falls for all intents and purposes. And do you know when the Feast of Trumpets was in 70 AD? September 24th. That's when it happened.

Jesus, right again, right? For the thousandth time. For the millionth time. For every time. Jesus is demonstrating what's going to happen, and then he's talking about something that's yet to happen.

Now, before you get too sideways and you start saying to yourself okay, so here's what I know. Jesus is going to come back, his second coming is going to happen at the Feast of Trumpets. Now I'm not saying that. I'm also not not saying that. Because God has a prophetic time calendar. And as we saw with Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Weeks or Pentecost, God was right on the mark every single time in terms of what he was talking about doing.

Now here's the problem though. The Jewish lunar calendar is a little different today than it was back then. And the Gregorian calendar that we operate in - another mess all together. So I'm not convinced that any of us actually have the right timeframe and right calendar for right now in terms of how we could predict what God is going to do, which is a reminder that we're not going to know anyway. So if you think that maybe you're going to live your life saying you know what somewhere around September, October, I'm going to get my stuff together, because Jesus might be coming. I wouldn't recommend that. I'd recommend living like that. as opposed to just looking for a particular day. So don't hear me saying that I'm trying to set a date. I'm not at all trying to set a date. But will it surprise me if Jesus chooses to return on what God knows to be the Feast of Trumpets even if we don't know it? It won't surprise me in the least. Not in the least. Because everything about this particular feast is pointing in that exact direction.

And in fact, when you begin to see Paul pick up on this theme of the Feast of Trumpets you hear Paul speaking about the second coming of Jesus using some of the same language. Notice what Paul says in 1st Corinthians 15. "Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed - in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed." He talks about the last trumpet, the one with the extended note that is going out, kind of the reminder that it's all happening now.

Paul says this in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. "For the Lord Himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. And after that, we who are still alive and the left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever." That's encouraging.

Now, don't misunderstand what's being said here by the way. When we are caught up to be with the Lord, it doesn't say caught up to be with the Lord and go to heaven. It says caught up to be with the Lord in the air. And then it says comfort one another, encourage one another with these words. Here's the thing. He's headed here. We're just going out to greet him and coming back with him. That's what's happening in this passage of Scripture. We are basically the procession that leaves the city, just like they did in the ancient days, to greet the King as the King comes back.

Because you do know that right he's coming back, and there's going to be a new heaven and a new earth. You understand that right? This isn't just some ethereal thing that's happening, where we go when we float in clouds and play harps, and you know and we're little naked babies with wings. That's not what's happening. That is not what's happening. This is about the recreation of everything. The one who's coming to make all things new.

Now when we put all of that together in our heads, and we begin to understand the Feast of Trumpets pointing to the second coming of Jesus, do you realize what we see here? That in the second coming of Jesus, everyone will be reminded and remember the one who was a substitution and sacrifice for us, who died and rose from the dead on our behalf. Everyone will do that. You do realize that the second coming of Jesus, that the trumpet blast will sound, and there will be a great assembly called of everyone who has known Jesus. both dead and alive. we will gathered together as a great assembly. You do know that at the second coming of Jesus, it will be a warning that judgment is on the way. That Jesus is going to deal with those who have said no and resisted the things of God and understood the forces of evil and embrace them. And you do know that this is going to be the great announcement at the King who came, is coming again, and he is making all things new. Do you see what's happening here in the Feast of Trumpets? This is the picture that we're able to grab hold of.

So here's the question that we have to ask ourselves. What do we do with this? Like how do I respond to this? It creates awe inside of us, that's for sure. It creates a sense of majesty in terms of God's sovereignty, and how he puts all of this together for sure. It gives us a sense of comfort because we look back and see God has had this plan from the beginning to the end, before we were even ever thought of in our own minds, right? That God's got all of this under control. That's encouraging. But what do we do? How do we respond? What do we take action on?

Well, here's how I would summarize it. This is what I want you to do. I think we take this message and we listen to the trumpet, we listen for the trumpet, and then we become a trumpet. Listen to the trumpet, listen for the trumpet, and then be a trumpet. It's a simple application really. But let me let me take those piece by piece in our kind of remaining minutes here. Can I do that? Are you with me? Okay. I know this isn't like these aren't messages that are real like happy-clappy kind of messages. I get it. These are messages that kind of land on you like a cement block. We just go right? I got it. I got it. So I'm not looking for you to be all jacked up and jazzy. I understand completely. I just want God to be able to penetrate our hearts and get the application of this into us.

So what does it look like for us to listen to the trumpet? Well here's what I want to remind us of. We should always have the echo in our hearts and in our ears that Israel had on the Feast of Trumpets. When they heard those trumpets go off, here's what they knew. This launches ten days of the Days of Awe looking toward the atonement. In other words, they were confronted with their own sinfulness. They were confronted with the holiness of God. And they lived in a posture of repentance in this time.

Man, the Church of Jesus would be a better place if we all learned in increasing measure what it was like to live in a spirit of repentance and humility before God, as opposed to pride and self-sufficiency. That we lived in a spirit of repentance and of humility before God. You see, that's ultimately what we have to be reminded of.

There's only one way for us to be able to do that, ladies and gentlemen. That's when we let, listen to us, that's when we let the mirror of God's Word take hold of us and show us where we need to be more conformed into the image of Jesus. Where the Spirit of God will take his sword, the sword of the Spirit the Word of God, and we'll begin to read our lives and show us our need of Jesus. That maybe there have been areas in our lives that lead to death, not life. That they're really inconsistent with the way of God instead of consistent with the life of God in us. And the Word of God helps us to see that.

You know, there's a great illustration, a biblical illustration of this. Because you remember when the people of Israel were in Babylonian captivity for 70 years? We've talked about that some before. You remember that? Just nod your head and pretend like you're listening. Babylonian captivity, right? And they finally get out. And they come back to Jerusalem. You remember Nehemiah and Ezra. They were bringing them back out of captivity. They'd been gone for 70 years. No temple. The temple had been destroyed. They were really without kind of the law of Moses. They didn't have that.

And so what happens? Watch the when and the what that's described in Nehemiah chapter number eight. All the people came together as one in the square before the Water Gate. And they told Ezra the teacher of the law to bring out the book of the law of Moses which the Lord had commanded for Israel. So on the when? First day of the.. when? Same time. First day of the seventh month Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, which was made up of men and women and all who were able to understand. And he read it aloud from daybreak till noon as he faced the square before the Water Gate in the presence of men women and others who could understand. And all the people listened attentively to the Book of the Law.

Here's what happened. They were without the kind of the mirror of Scripture in their lives for so many years. And now he begins to read it, and they're listening intently, listen, from daybreak to noon. This is not a short period of time. This is about a six hour time frame. The Bible says that they were standing the whole time - by the way. You get to sit in cushy chairs. Six hours they're listening to the Word of God. And you know what their response was? They fell on their face! They fell on their face before God, and they were weeping. And Ezra and all of them started walking around, picking them up and they were saying to them, don't weep. This is actually a day of rejoicing. Because God has given us back His word, and now we can begin to see our lives come more into conformity with God's heart and with God's will. This is actually a good thing, not a bad thing. So don't cry; rejoice. And do you know the phrase - the joy of the Lord is your strength - came out of Nehemiah chapter 8. That's where this phrase came out of.

So ladies and gentlemen, the beautiful thing and the encouraging thing is that we have the mirror of God's Word to hold up to our lives. And when we allow ourselves to kind of let it wash over us, it shows us where in our lives we need to be more conformed into the image of Christ. And we can surrender that in kind of a humble repentance before God, and say, God shaped me more into your image. Shape me more into the image of your Son.

You see, the problem that happens sometimes with us is that we don't have much of a repentant spirit. We don't have a spirit of humility. And as a result, what we do is we coddle sin that's born out of pride. We always have to be right. We always have to be the one who knows everything about everything, and tell everybody and make sure. It's all pride. And it's born out of pride. But instead, we should be humble and submissive to the Lord, and allow there to be a repentant spirit in our hearts. So that we don't love sin, but in fact, what we do is we hate sin, because God hates sin. Jesus hates sin. Jesus died to kill sin. Why then do we want to try and resurrect what Jesus died to kill?

We need to have a repentant spirit, because this is what it means for us to listen to the trumpet. Have that in our hearts and have that in our minds, that God is holy. And that God loves us. Even in the midst of our sin, Jesus still died for us. But he doesn't want to leave us like we are. He wants to shape us more into His image. And that when we bathe ourselves in his presence in his word, his Spirit begins to conform us to his likeness.

So listen to the trumpet. But listen for the trumpet. Here's what I mean by that. We should be a people that are eagerly expecting the return of Jesus. Living our lives in light of the return of Jesus. As surely as he came in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago, he is coming again. And we are asleep at the wheel. We live our lives as if he's not showing back up. But there is reward and joy in living as people who are expecting his return.

In fact, listen to what Paul wrote to Titus. For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, while we wait for the blessed hope - the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.

Listen to what Paul wrote to Timothy in 2nd Timothy chapter 4. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day - and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing. That the crown of righteousness is going to be given to Paul and to others who have longed for his appearing.

And do you know what living with longing for the appearing of Jesus makes us? Here,  listen carefully. Holy people. Holy people. In fact, Peter said as much. Listen to what Peter said 2nd Peter chapter 3. Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives as you look forward to the day of God and speed it's coming. So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.

You see, ladies and gentlemen, when we live kind of in a posture that says we're listening to the trumpet. It is calling us to live lives that have humble repentant spirits that are willing to listen to God's correction and shaping in our lives. And we look forward, we look for and we listen for the trumpet, because we know that that's going to announce to us when Jesus is coming. We're listening for that, because we know that we long for that day when he comes to make broken things better and wrong things right. We look forward to that day.

But we also need to be a trumpet. We need to be a trumpet. That's the third thing I want you to not miss. So let me remind you of what Paul said in second Corinthians chapter number five. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us.

You see, we are instruments of God. You see, when that when the Hebrews called this day Yom Teruah, it meant a day of blowing, a day of shouting. The focus, ladies and gentleman, was not on the instrument. It was on what the instrument was pointing to.

You see, what we want to be is we want to be a shofar in the hands of God, where through our lives, here's what he can do. Through our lives people can remember that Jesus died and rose and was a substitute for sinful people. Through our lives, our lives empowered by the breath of God blowing through us might call and assembly around our lives to announce to people that the King has come and is coming again. And mercifully through our lives we can offer to people that although judgment will come on those who reject Christ, there is hope and forgiveness and life found in him, and the offer is extended to you.

You see, your life, sir, ma'am... your life makes a sound. And every note matters. Even if the world around you is a little confused, every note matters. Your life makes a sound. Let it be the trumpet of God that points people to Jesus. Let's bow our heads together.

If you're here, and you've never received Jesus, I hope that the first thing you do when I dismiss you is that you walk right across the atrium into our Fireside Room. We've got some pastors and some other prayer friends over there. And you walk in and just simply say, I need Jesus. I need Jesus. Because sir, ma'am, you will never be able to save yourself. You can't rely on yourself for your own salvation. You're not going to be a good god. You just need to hang it up. There's only one, only one mediator between God and man and that is the man Christ Jesus according to the Scripture. I would waste no time if you're unsettled in your heart whether or not you have been forgiven and changed and born from above, when we dismiss from this place, walk right into that Fireside Room and let somebody take a few moments to talk to you about what it means to be new, to be forgiven, to be a new creation.

And Father, for those of us who claim to know you, you've said much to us today. Much to us out of what the Feast of Trumpets points to. And I pray that for all of us we would be careful to listen to the echo of the trumpet in our ears and in our hearts. And as a result, we would posture ourselves before a holy God as a people who live with a humble and a contrite and a repentant spirit, who are willing to allow you to take your Word and to shine on our hearts by your Spirit and conform us more into your image. And that we would listen for the trumpet because we look with longing to your coming.

And although we don't know when that will be, we don't live in darkness. As Peter said, those who live in darkness this day comes upon them like a thief. But we live in the light. We actually expect you to return. Though we don't know the day or the hour. But may we live as pure and holy and spotless and blameless people because of your life in us, not because we can somehow earn that favor, as we long for your appearing.

And may we be used as a trumpet, God, in the lives of people around us in a world that we live in that needs to hear the good news of the Gospel. May the breath of your Spirit empower our lives to be instruments of grace in the world that we live in. We trust you to do this among us in Jesus' name. Amen.

God bless you. You're dismissed.