The Feast of Trumpets (10/08/2000)

How many of you exhibited self -control during that song? That's one thing the

Pentecostals have right that maybe we don't, is they provide a time in their service where you can get up and jump around and shout, and I visualized myself doing that,

Ms. Deborah, during that song. In fact, here's exactly what I visualized myself doing, and if Richard hadn't been here

I might have done it. The Lord came down to this

Baptist church, and the Lord came down to that place, and there was this Bible college kid who bled his heart.

He didn't exhibit self -control. He came from the far back of the church and ran up the aisle.

I won't do it here because our preacher's too nice, but he got on this, it was smaller than this, almost like a banister, and he tight -roped all the way up this thing, got right in that preacher's face, preached, preached, like that.

He just kept right preaching. I don't know how he did that. I would have gone, have a seat, you know, or something.

But I visualized myself running up here and going, sing, sister, sing. Man, that is one of the most powerful songs of consecration in the hymn book right there.

Turn with me, if you would, to Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 24, and I want to take some time now to speak to you about the feast that the

Lord gives for the time of the fall because we're coming up to one of the most high feast times of the pagans of the year, and that's

Halloween, and it's coming up at the end of this month. And so I want you to be prepared for that when it arrives, and we will be speaking a little bit to that pagan holiday in a later sermon between now and that time.

Today, we will not do that. Today, what we'll do is talk about the right thing.

Brother Otis says you don't have to study counterfeits to know one if you just look at the real money long enough that you'll know what's right and you won't do what's wrong.

And so today, we're going to look at the real money. We're going to look at the real bills, and we're going to look at what

God gave his people to do in the fall and study it together.

It'll take more than just this morning with a couple of sermons for that, and then we will take some time, though, before Halloween to examine a couple of counterfeits just for a few moments because I want you to be knowledgeable, not to the point where you're an expert on everything they do because the

Lord said, remain simple on things that are evil, but you at least need to be aware of what's out there because some of us who grew up in the 50s and 60s, we lived in a day when witchcraft and paganism and all that was something that was off in the far corners of Africa.

Do you remember those days? They were not in America. If anything, they were joked about in this country.

They weren't even real, which maybe that was bad because we didn't realize they were real. But now they're here, and they're here in full force.

And last week, finally, the Wiccan minister came and prayed at the

Dallas City Council meeting. They had invited him, and then they panicked at the last minute and realized it was a witch, and so they called him and said, no, you can't come.

And so then he went to all the media, and the media got in behind him and supported him. And he has a female cohort, and he claims to be a

Wiccan. She claims to be, it embarrassed him, I think, when she said on the radio, she said, well, I'm a witch.

And so they had them come back then after the controversy was stirred up in the media. Then they apologized and had them come and lead the prayer for the

Dallas City Council meeting that day sometime last week. Now, folks, that's where we've come just in my lifetime, and that's been a short, very short amount of time because I'm very young.

But there are things happening. If you're like I am and you're kind of protected from those things because you mind your own business, you think about what's going on in church and our school and our homes, and we don't know about those things, but you need to be a little bit aware of them.

And you certainly need to be very careful, I think, the more that rises up in this country to be separated from it and to take a stand against it.

And so we'll be talking about that in days to come. For now, let's look at Leviticus chapter 23 and verse 24, start with verse 23.

And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, speaking to the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh, a memorial of blowing of trumpets and holy convocation.

The seventh day happens to be October, roughly October, and the very beginning of this time of year.

And the Lord challenged them and told them, What I want you to do is at this time of the year, when the seventh of the month comes, on the first day of that month,

I want you to have a Sabbath and a memorial of blowing of trumpets. So this marks another of the feasts that God gave his people.

And I want us to look at this feast and the one that that occurred, by the way, last weekend.

And then this weekend begins what is known as the day of atonement. And I want to discuss those two with with you.

Let me review just a little bit the feasts that God lays out here in the book of Leviticus. First of all, we have, he just speaks of the

Sabbath, just the regular Sabbaths. And then he speaks of the spring feasts, which were the

Lord's Passover, which we've discussed in great detail, if you remember not too long ago, and also the feast of unleavened bread, which happens the week after the

Passover. It's all really one long thing. And then the sheaf of the first fruits, which happens to be the first day of the week,

Sunday, right after the Passover, which pictures the resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And then the summer feast is Pentecost, which was 50 days after the Passover, or seven

Sabbaths after the first fruits, I should say. It happens on a Sunday. And it's interesting because Pentecost is known as the birth of Judaism and also as the birth of Christianity.

And then we come to the fall feasts, which we're going to study a little bit about today. There are three of them that we'll speak of.

First is the blowing of the trumpets, which we just read the verse in Leviticus that speaks of that, the feast of the blowing of the trumpets.

The Jews now call this Rosh Hashanah. And it's kind of interesting because they now consider this to be the

Jewish new year. We know really that that's not the time

God gave them to be for the new year. That was supposed to be at Passover, but they changed it.

And we'll talk a little bit about why that is in the message today. So you have the blowing of the trumpets, and then you have the day of atonement, our

Yom Kippur, and then you have the feast of the tabernacles.

Now, what's amazing is to think about the day in which these feasts were given by the

Lord, whom they were given to, and more importantly, what they picture.

And what's amazing is we find that the Jewish people of that day, the

Lord had given them in types everything about the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

And then now with the fall feast, he begins to share with them the prophecy of the rapture and the second coming and the ushering in of the millennial period, which is pictured by the feast of the tabernacles.

So we have the blowing of the trumpets, which I believe pictures the rapture. We have the day of atonement, which

I believe pictures the second coming. And we have the feast of tabernacles, which ushers in the millennial period.

And so let's take a look at, by the way, let me point this out. This is kind of interesting.

If you took these feasts that God gave and what they picture, do you know that the odds of those, all those things that they picture being fulfilled in the life of one person, which we know is

Jesus Christ, the odds of that happening without God having anything to do with it would be 1 in 10 to the 17th.

That's a one with 17 zeros after it. And that's a number that's so huge, it's statistically impossible, really, for anything like that to have happened by chance.

And we know that it didn't happen by chance. And besides that, not only are these prophecies fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but some 300 other specific prophecies about his life.

Some cynics have said in the past, well, Jesus knew the scriptures better than anyone. And so he just conformed his life to become the

Messiah. And the problem with that, it's a little bit difficult to arrange being born of a virgin and to be born in Bethlehem and many other things are difficult to arrange.

And so the scoffers just go on and on. But you know what? That's that's their problem, isn't it?

Because God has opened our eyes. And when your eyes have been open, every page of the scripture, you see

Jesus Christ. And in every in the book of nature, everywhere you look in the creation of God, you see him.

Well, let's talk for a minute now about this feast of the trumpets. What I'd like to do first is give you a little bit of the rabbinical view of it, which is kind of what the

Jews do today. And the reason I want to do that is because what I want you to do is I want you to get a glimpse of the dryness of that.

I want you to take a look at what can happen if you take the truth and you take a living, vibrant relationship with God and you let it become tradition.

You let it become choreographed in a wrong way.

We talked about choreographing our life. That's the right thing. But it becomes where some priest or a group of cardinals, as in the

Roman Catholic Church or some group of men somewhere, a hierarchy of men determine and lay down exactly what you're going to do with your religion.

It becomes dry and dead and meaningless. And really, God has nothing to do with it at that point.

Well, this is what the rabbinical Jews have done. It's also what the Roman Catholics have done with the

Christian religion. But it's also what I believe many of the mainline denominations in the church as a whole today in this world pretty much have gone the direction of having a set way that everything is done.

And here's we just lay it out and we just come do this by rote. And it's just what's memorized.

We know what we're going to do every time and there's nothing real to it. It was never this way with God, as we'll see in a few moments.

But look at how it's come. And they still have the Feast of the Trumpets today. In fact, they consider it to be their new year.

Let me read a little bit about this as given by an authority on the subject.

I've gotten this out of a book written by a Jewish believer. This is after Babylon, when they went into captivity.

And the the Temple of Solomon was destroyed.

And absolutely, it was a beautiful, magnificent thing. And yet the people of God got so far from God that God rebuked them and God brought his wrath upon them.

And they were totally destroyed and taken captive and the ones that were left alive were taken into Babylon as slaves.

And the temple was destroyed at that time. And then after Babylon, under Ezra, they found the word of God.

It had been lost all that time. All they had was just their memories. They had a few songs they could sing together.

They had a few scriptures memorized. Some of them did that they could quote. But they did not have the word of God.

And under Ezra, they went back in and they found the word of God. And they began to observe this as the new year because of this event.

If you remember, they wept. It says the old men wept and the young men were joyful because the old men remembered what the original temple looked like.

And the new man thought the new one was great. The old man knew, well, it's better than nothing, but it's not what it was.

And yet Ezra told them this was to be a day of rejoicing and thanksgiving unto the Lord. And they had the trumpet that looks exactly like this one.

In fact, if Brother Harvey was here, we'd get him to play it. Or if Russ were here, he'd get

Tim to play it. I hope that's not on. Don't let Russ get that take. But this is very similar, if not exactly, what they use as the blowing of the trumpets this time of year.

It was a ram's horn. And it pictures many things to the Jewish mind.

It pictures the ram that God substituted for Isaac. And the Jews make much of this in their prayers even to this day.

Now, a lot of times their prayers today are just kind of by rote. And they're just almost like a Catholic prayer where they count their beads and say the right things at the right time.

But they talk about this trumpet a lot. And to them it pictures at least three things.

First of all, repentance. It is a call to the dead to rise and live again.

But it's speaking to the dead spiritually. And so it's a call for them to wake up from sin and to be regenerated through repentance in the

Jewish mind. And secondly, the trumpet is to remind the Lord that he was in covenant relationship with his people of Israel and to deal gently with them.

So that's another thing that the Jewish mind today believes about the trumpet. And the third thing they believe is that it is to confound and to confuse

Satan. Who they thought had a special desire to accuse Israel on New Year's Day.

And so this is kind of what goes into the things that they do even today. And they think these thoughts.

Now this is what's really sad. And we're going to go into the scriptures in a few moments. And we're going to see the time of Ezra.

And we're going to see when this really happened for the first time. And see what it was really like. But I want you to remember what's going on today.

And compare the traditional thing that's done today with the reality of what really happened at the first time.

But today the Jews believe that there are three books. Now I want you to think about this. It's not all that different than what the

Catholics believe. The rabbinical Jews teach there are three books. The first book is the book of the righteous.

And if you are living a perfect life, your name is in that book. Now this is not the truth, young people.

Some of the children listening, this is not real. But this is what the rabbinical, the rabbis of the

Jewish people teach. It is false, but this is what they teach. And so this is what the people believe. The second book is the book for those who are neither wholly righteous nor utterly wicked.

And the third book is the book of the wicked. Now depending on which book your name is, they believe that's where you go.

Now which book out of those three do you think that they believe most people would be found in?

The first one where it's perfectly, absolutely perfect people. The third one where it's absolutely wicked people.

Or the middle one where it's some of both. The middle one, that's exactly what they believe.

And so what has come to place is they now call this time between the first beginning of the blowing of the trumpets to the day of atonement.

Now the day of atonement, by the way, pictures the judgment of God. And that's why

I believe it's a picture of the second coming when he'll judge the nations. But it pictures the judgment of God.

Now they have ten days in here in between. And they call this the ten days of repentance.

Or most of the time they call it the ten awesome days. And there are fearful days for these people.

They think about the fact that the judgment of God is coming. They believe they're in this book where they're neither wholly righteous nor utterly wicked.

And they're trying to make it over into the book where they're righteous. And it's all a system of good works.

And that's what this has come to. And the Roman Catholic Church and many denominations that call themselves

Christians today, it's the same thing. It is a system of works. Many preachers that are in all kinds of churches from Baptist churches to whatever, many times preach messages where it emphasizes a system of works in order to please

God. And this is where tradition will always take the religious. And this is what happened unfortunately.

Now let's go back into the earliest of times here. Let's go to Ezra chapter seven.

I should have given you that a while ago so you could be looking for it. But I'll give you a hint.

It's before the book of Psalms. And if you're like me, you'll always try to look under the minor prophets and look all around in there.

Where is Ezra? It's before the book of Psalms. Why you're looking that up.

I want to read to you. What? Victor Bukes Bosen, who is the

Jewish believer that I got, who read this, who wrote this book that I'm quoting from. I want to read you what he says about this time in the

Jewish life that completes itself with the day of atonement. Yom Kippur is what they call it.

And. The high priests, they make a big deal out of this nowadays, but it's mostly traditionalized.

Look what he says. This man says, in spite of Yom Kippur, the day dedicated to atonement, there is no assurance of sins forgiven in Judaism.

So they still not sure which book they're in. There is a longing.

There is hope for forgiveness, but of assurance there is none.

Judaism could be best summed up as man's attempt to justify himself by his own effort.

Many of the quote Christian denominations believe exactly the same thing. Judaism has tried hard to find a substitute for Christ.

Unscriptural so -called Christianity is trying hard to do the same. Now, this is a

Jewish man saying this about Christianity. He says, we point the finger at Judaism and see how they miss the boat.

We don't understand that unscriptural modern Christianity is trying to do the same thing today to find anything we can substitute for the man,

Jesus Christ. The result is only a man -made substitute religion, which increases the abyss between God and man.

Now, with that in mind, I want us to go into Ezra and let's look at chapter 7 and verse 1.

Now, after these things in the reign of Artaxerxes, king of Persia, Ezra, the son of Sariah, the son of Azariah, the son of Elkiah, and it goes on and talks about his lineage.

And I want you to drop down to verse 6. This Ezra went up from Babylon and he was a ready scribe.

Think about that little phrase. He was a ready scribe. Wouldn't you like for God to describe you that way?

Maybe not a scribe, but a ready student of the Bible. Wouldn't that be a wonderful accommodation from our

Lord? He was a ready scribe. You know what else? It was this readiness in the word of God that made him prepared and equipped to fulfill

God's purpose in this man's life, as we'll see in just a moment. But he was a ready scribe in the law of Moses, which the

Lord God of Israel had given. And the king, Artaxerxes, which is a famous Gentile king that you can read about in profane writing.

But he granted him all of his requests according to the hand of the Lord, his

God, upon him. Now, that's an amazing thing. It's easy to read over. But imagine you going up to President Clinton of all people.

And you ask a man like Clinton who this Artaxerxes, I hate to say he's like Clinton.

He's probably was far superior in many, many ways. But he was a pagan. And you go up to the pagan power that is.

And you approach him and you speak with him. And because of God's hand on your life, this man says, well,

I want you to go and fix the religion. Go make it right. It's not right. Go make it right. Now, imagine what a picture yourself going before Clinton and trying to get permission to do that.

Say now, President Clinton, I want you to give me permission personally. To put prayer back in the schools.

To make this nation a Christian nation. And not to give any account to the Muslims and the

Hindus and the Wiccans. And not to allow them to get up and have their equal time.

That's not right because God says it's not right. So, President Clinton, give me the power to go put that back where it's right.

And he says, well, sure, go ahead. You need to do that. Now, imagine that. It's a miracle. I mean, this is miraculous what is happening here.

Because Artaxerxes, why should he care less about God's house? And only because he's a pawn in God's hand does he care at all.

And only because Ezra was a ready scribe was he prepared.

And did God give him the words to say that played a part in causing this wicked king to allow what's about to take place.

But it did happen. And look at verse 10.

For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord. He was prepared.

This was not something that just happened. It wasn't just a whim in his mind. He was prepared.

His heart had been prepared for many days and many, many days. And to do it and to teach in Israel statutes and judgments.

And then you go into chapter nine of Ezra. Chapter nine, verse one.

Now, when these things were done, the princes came to me saying, now, Ezra has made it known to God's people what

Artaxerxes has allowed. They're going to go back and restore the temple. And yet look at the state that God's people were in.

They were not prepared like Ezra was. They were not ready in the scriptures. They weren't ready to do anything.

In fact, look what was happening. Now, when these things were done, the princes came to me saying, the people of Israel and the priests and the

Levites have not separated themselves from the people of the lands.

Now, ladies and gentlemen, let me get you to grasp onto that phrase today. Because this message has to do with the feasts in some way.

But it also has to do with paganism and all that surrounds it. And the fact that you're living in a pagan nation.

And the very fads, the very forms, the very fashions that are around, especially for our young people.

And I want you children and teenagers to listen to me. The very things that you see the children of this world doing are coming straight from paganism.

They're putting earrings and everything that'll hold one. And in other places as well.

Where do you think that comes from? It comes from the Wiccan religion. Check it out.

Now, let me tell you something. Ezra, when God was ready to move and bring revival, the people were not ready.

The people, and they come and they say, well, Ezra, you know, we hate to give you this report, but not even the priests, the preachers aren't even ready.

The Levites, those who are about the religious service to the Lord, they're not ready. None of them have separated themselves from the people of the lands.

Now look at this. Doing according to their abominations. They're living the same life. They're living the same way as the people of the land.

Even of the Canaanites, the Hittites and the Perizzites, which by the way is where the Wiccan religion came from.

And the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Jebusites, the Ammonites, the Moabites, the

Egyptians and the Amorites. He listed every pagan thing there was and said the people of God are living the same way they are.

There's no separation. The doctrine of separation is the whole teaching in the Bible that we're supposed to be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers, but to come out from among them and be separate, saith the

Lord. And touch not the unclean thing. Young people, that is so important. You'll you'll forget this in your life and then the

Lord will remind you again and then you'll forget it. And then the Lord will remind you again. And we all are the same way.

We as adults, we will slip into living like the people of the land so easily. You wouldn't ever believe how quickly we'll get into their fads.

We'll get into their fashions. We'll get into talking like they talk. We'll begin to love what they love so quickly.

But separation is important for they have. Now look at verse two. This is so important for our young people and for the parents to for guidance and what to do when you're coming up to a time when your children are thinking about getting married or thinking about dating and all these different things that are in our society.

It says for they have taken of their daughters for themselves. Whose daughters? The pagans daughters.

They have taken of the pagan daughters for themselves and for their sons. So not only were the adults doing it now, they're commending their children for choosing pagan wives or husbands.

So that the Holy Seed have mingled themselves with the people of those lands. Yea, the hand of the princes and rulers have been chief in this trespass.

All the leaders were doing it. The Clintons of the day were all doing it.

So the people followed right in line. And when I heard this,

Ezra says, this man who has prepared his heart, who has been in the word of God, his whole life is surrounded with walking with God and look how it affects him.

He rent his garments and my mantle and plucked off the hair of my head and of my beard.

Didn't say he got a haircut. It said he pulled his hair out. Imagine that.

Brother Greg, what it would be like just to grab a handful and just pull it out of your face. This is what this man of God did when he heard this news.

Then were assembled unto me everyone that trembled at the words of the God of Israel because of the transgression of those that had been carried away.

Carried away by the things of the world and by the people of the world. And I sat astonished until the evening sacrifice.

Ezra just sat down, astonished at where the land had come. Isn't that amazing how that parallels our day?

Now drop down to verse six and said,

Oh my God, I am ashamed and I blush to lift up my face to thee. My God, for our iniquities are increased over our head and our trespasses grown up unto the heavens.

In verse nine, for we were bondmen under the Babylonian captivity. Yet our

God hath not forsaken us in our bondage. You see, that picture is the bondage that we can have to Satan, to the world and to the flesh.

And if we choose so, we can become slaves again, even though we've been bought with a price and set free.

Sometimes we choose to become slaves to these things, but God does not forsake us when that happens.

But he hath extended mercy unto us in the sight of the kings of Persia to give us a reviving.

It's one of the early places in the Bible that speaks about revival and to set up the house of our

God and to repair the desolations thereof. And to give us a wall in Judah and in Jerusalem.

What does that wall picture? It pictures separation from the world. And now, oh, our

God, what shall we say after this? For we have forsaken thy commandments, which thou has commanded by thy servants, the prophets, saying the land into which you go to possess it is an unclean land with the filthiness of the people of the lands with their abominations, which have filled it from one end to another with their uncleanness.

Now, therefore, give not your daughters to their sons. Neither take their daughters unto your sons, nor speak their peace or their wealth forever, nor seek their peace or their wealth forever, that ye may be strong and eat the good of the land and leave it for an inheritance to your children forever.

And yet they've come so far from this place. And now look at chapter 10, verse one.

And now when Ezra had prayed and when he had confessed weeping and casting himself down before the house of God, they're assembled unto him out of Israel, a very great congregation of men and women and children.

For the people wept very sore. God brought the people to this man. He became a leader.

God brought the people because God had planned for this man to lead them into revival.

Now, all of this is the background of this feast of the trumpets.

And this is why the Jews today call this their new year. It didn't used to be the time of the

Passover in that time period was supposed to be the time of the new year, according to what

God had told them. But this was such a marked event in their life that this now is celebrated as their new year.

Now, I want you to turn with me to Nehemiah one book over and go into chapter eight.

Look how it really was. Let's start with verse one.

This is how it really was. This was the first feast of the trumpets and or the time of that.

And all the people gathered themselves together as one man into the street that was before the water gate.

And they spake unto Ezra, the scribe, and they told him, bring the book.

Isn't that something? Bring us the word. Don't bring us other stuff.

Just bring the book. All of these other religious leaders have gotten out into paganism. They brought us all the religious things we're supposed to do.

We don't want that. We just want the book. Bring the book of the law of Moses, which the

Lord had commanded to Israel. And Ezra, the priest, brought the law before the congregation, both of men and women, and all that could hear with understanding.

So you had the children all the way down to those who barely had learned to understand things. All of the people were here.

And upon the first day of the seventh month, which happens to be October, so this is the time of year when this took place.

And he read therein before the street that was before the water gate from the morning until midday.

Now, that was a long sermon, but they didn't have television, so their attention span was a little bit longer.

And before the men and the women and those that could understand, and the ears of all the people were attentive unto the book of the law.

Now, look at verse four. This is the first time that a pulpit is mentioned in the Bible.

And Ezra, the scribe, stood upon a pulpit of wood, which they had made for the purpose.

In verse five, Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people. For he was above all the people, just means he was standing on this pulpit.

He was up higher where they could see him and hear him. Predominant reason was so they could hear his words.

And when he opened it, all the people stood. No one told them to stand.

In fact, most of what you see in this passage occurred because of their awareness of the presence of God.

When the book was opened, they stood. No one got up in front of them and said, all stand, please.

All rise for the reading of the word. Didn't have to say that. They just stood up out of their reverence for the word of God.

And then in verse six, Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered.

And this is the beginnings of the Baptist religion. You thought it started with John the Baptist, but it starts right here.

The people answered, amen, amen. At least this was what the Baptist religion used to be like.

And all the people answered, amen, amen, with lifting up of their hands.

And I always like to say this. There was no such thing as a Pentecostal before the year 1900.

They were all shouting Baptists. That is historical, by the way. Go check it out if you don't believe me.

They came out of the Baptist churches and formed a new thing. But back in the Old Testament, the

Baptists were shouting amen and amen and lifting up their hands. They did the whole thing because they weren't afraid to because it was real.

And it hadn't been faked for so many years that it made them feel funny. So you can deal with that.

I mean, I don't know how we deal with that. But back then, they didn't need to deal with it. It was not a problem.

It's just that as the word was opened, the people stood. And as the man of God began to praise

God, the people raised their hands and said, amen. We agree with that. If it weren't confusing, we'd all say the same thing.

But we'll be quiet. We'll just let him say it for us. But, boy, our hearts are about to jump out. And we want to jump and shout for glory because we agree with what's happening.

And they shouted amen. Now, notice that they did show some self -restraint. They didn't run up here and stick their hand in the preacher's face and say, preach.

They showed some self -restraint. But they weren't so constrained that people didn't know what was going on.

I mean, people were aware that God was present because they began to shout amen and raise their hands and glorify the

Lord. And so they worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground is where they ended up as the presence of God was so awesome.

So they read in the book of the law of God distinctly.

Now, you'll find in this passage that there were some other teachers that aided Ezra. It wasn't just one man doing this, but there were several.

And what these people did was they read distinctly from the word of the law and they gave the sense and caused the people to understand the reading.

They didn't just read it. They didn't just memorize it. They gave the sense of it.

They gave what it meant. They explained verse by verse, word by word, what God was saying to the people.

And yet they got it straight from the word of God. And Nehemiah, which is the

Turshatha, and Ezra, the priest of the scribe, and the

Levites that taught the people said unto all the people, This day is holy unto the

Lord your God. Mourn not nor weep for all the people wept when they heard the words of the law.

Now, no one told them, OK, now is the time to stand. And now you may begin to weep. This is just what happened when

God's word was open. They began to weep. Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink the sweet and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared.

For this day is holy unto the Lord. Neither be ye sorry, for the joy of the

Lord is your strength. Don't weep. This is a time of rejoicing. Luke 24, 52 said,

And they worshiped Jesus and returned to Jerusalem with great joy. So there's great joy surrounding this time period.

Now, this describes what occurred in the days of Ezra.

You can go in and you can go into some other portions of scripture.

And it's very interesting to me to see how many times that these great revivals in the days of old happened in the fall time.

There were revivals under Josiah. It happened to have occurred at the time of the

Passover. But many of these great revivals occurred at this fall season.

Now, it's interesting to look at the details of the worship. Turn to 2 Chronicles 5.

Now, this also took place in this time of the year. It was in October.

We see that in verse 3. Wherefore, all the men of Israel assembled themselves into the king in the feast, which was in the seventh month.

So this feast was taking place. In this particular time period, they brought up the

Ark of the Covenant. And you can read down through this passage. And what you find out is that it begins.

And it says, all the work is finished at the beginning of chapter 1. The Temple of Solomon was completed.

This happens to be the temple that was almost destroyed and that Ezra was rebuilding. But this was before that time now.

And when it was completed, they said, it is finished. And that remarkable utterance certainly echoes what

Jesus said on the cross. When he said, all of the work, he said, it is finished. All of the work is finished for your salvation.

And then it occurred during the feast time. We see that in verses 2 and 3. In 2

Chronicles chapter 5. They had the trumpets. The shofar blast, which represents the giving of the law.

The Day of Atonement pictures judgment. And then redemption. And then the Feast of the Tabernacles rejoicing liberty.

And I believe it discusses or pictures the millennial age. And then we see in verses 4 through 6 that the

Ark was brought forward. Now, the Ark of God pictures the law.

It had at this time in their history only one thing in it. And that was the

Word of God. The Ten Commandments, which pictures the Word of God. And it certainly pictures

God's law. And this is the only thing that was in it. Now, what's beautiful about it, when the blood was sprinkled on this, it then signifies mercy, a place of mercy.

But before that, it signifies just a place of judgment. Now, look at verse 6.

Also King Solomon and all the congregation of Israel that were assembled unto him before the

Ark sacrificed sheep and oxen, which could not be told nor numbered because of the multitude.

Now, the number of sacrifices could not even be counted. And this certainly pictures that the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was of eternal value.

And then they bring the Ark in, pictures the ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven.

And then if you look in verse 12, it pictures the beautiful music that will be in heaven.

Verses 11 and 12. And then in verse 13, you have praise and thanksgiving.

Verse 14, the presence of God. And then you go into chapter 6.

There was a sermon preached. The Word of God was preached. And in chapter 6, 12 through 15, praise.

And then in verse 18, the sermon continues. More sermon, more Word of God. And then verse 19, prayer.

And then I want you to look at verse 27.

Then hear thou from heaven and forgive the sin of thy servants and of thy people

Israel, when thou hast taught them the good way. Who is the teacher?

That's right. Solomon is praying to God. And he says, when you have taught them the good way.

So we see who the great teacher is. John 6, 45 says it is written in the prophets.

And it is a reference to this very verse. I believe in second Chronicles. It is written in the prophets and they shall be all taught of God.

Every man, therefore, that hath heard and hath learned of the father cometh into me. That's a great way to check out your own salvation.

Ask yourself, has God ever taught me anything from his Word? Is God my teacher?

If so, you're God's child. And then verses 41 through 42, all the way into chapter 7 and verse 1.

We see the incredible presence of God. Let's look at that at the end of chapter 6, verse 41.

Now, therefore, arise, O Lord God, into thy resting place. Thou and the ark of thy strength, let thy priests,

O Lord God, be clothed with salvation. Wouldn't it be wonderful if all the pastors in this land were clothed in the salvation of God when they got up to preach?

And let thy saints rejoice in goodness. Wouldn't it be great if all the churches were filled with people who could rejoice?

Because of the glory in their hearts that God places there during the service.

O Lord God, turn not away the face of thine anointed. Remember the mercies of David, thy servant.

Now, look at the next verse, chapter 7, verse 1. Now, when Solomon had made an end of praying, the fire came down from heaven and consumed the burnt offering and sacrifices.

And the glory of the Lord filled the house. And the priests could not enter into the house of the

Lord because the glory of the Lord had filled the Lord's house. And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down and the glory of the

Lord upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground. That's what true worship is.

True worship is a response to God. It's not something to try to get God to show up. It's a response to the presence of God and our awareness of it.

And they put their faces on the ground upon the pavement and worshiped and praised the Lord, saying, for he is good and his mercy endureth forever.

So we see all of this. Now, imagine how the Jews have turned this time of feast, what they've turned it into today, and how different it is.

All stand, please. You know, we have the reading from the word of God. Very similar to what we're doing in our churches.

Very similar. And I want to close this morning by having you turn to the book of Revelation. And this message this morning is just kind of a broad introduction to these fall feasts.

We're not going to go into a real detailed specific study of them at this point.

But I want you to have a taste for what God has given for the fall season for his people to be thinking about.

And in a nutshell, this is what he wants you to be thinking about. He wants you to be thinking about the trumpets.

And he wants you to be thinking about the judgment at the second coming. Now, let's look at Revelation chapter 4 and verse 1.

Now, I want you to find 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 14 and put your hand there so that we can flip right over there and read it immediately.

So 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, verse 14. And I want to read

Revelation 4, 1, and then we're going to read the other immediately. After this, I looked and behold, a door was open in heaven.

And the voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet. You see, this is the time of the feast of the trumpet.

Trumpets. Suddenly you don't hear about it anymore at that point. Some people believe, therefore, that this picture is the rapture.

Now, he finds himself all of a sudden in a spiritual existence.

And he finds himself in the heavenlies. And now in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4 and verse 16.

Now, notice this is not his second coming because he's not putting his foot on the earth.

We're meeting him in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore, comfort one another with these words.

But of the times and seasons, brethren, you have no need that I write of you. For yourselves know perfectly that the day of the

Lord so cometh as a thief in the night. Now, we go back into the book of Revelations.

And I want you to go all the way to chapter 17. And look at verse 1.

And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials and talked with me saying unto me,

Come hither, I will show unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon the many waters.

With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication. This is the great one world church.

Now, go to verse 12. All this is happening on the earth at this time. And look, look, look where we are.

Go to verse 12. And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings.

So those that may be the commonwealth, the European commonwealth of nations. Anyway, they represent the

Gentile powers during the tribulation period. Which have received no kingdom as yet, but receive power as kings one hour with the beast, the antichrist.

And will bring them power. These have one mind and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

But now look at verse 14. Let's see where we are. These shall make war with the lamb.

And the lamb shall overcome them. For he is Lord of lords and king of kings.

And they that are with him are called and chosen and faithful.

Now, were we on the earth or we already with him? When they wage war with him.

So when he comes back on a white horse to destroy these powers, guess who's with him?

Not just the called, but the called and the faithful. And I don't know if that word brother Rocky used to make a lot out of that word faithful.

He used to say, you're not necessarily all going to have a horse coming back on that day. Those who are faithful, who are saved and faithful will come back with him in that great battle.

But my point is, seems to me that the vantage point is that we are with him already. And I picture at the rapture, which you hear the trumpets, which this whole season, the

Jews have had this for thousands of years. Picturing the trumpet blast that calls us up.

And we know what it means. And we go up and we read about that in 1

Thessalonians chapter 4. And then we see ourselves coming back in Revelation 17 verse 14 with him.

And that's one reason I believe in the rapture. I believe in the pre -tribulation rapture.

How could we come back if we weren't already with him? Now, as you go back into Revelation chapter 4, just for a moment, look at verse 2.

Immediately, I was in the spirit. That's the way you'll be at the rapture. You know the change in the air it talks about?

That's it. Immediately, you'll be in the spirit. And behold, a throne was set in heaven, and one sat on the throne.

And he that sat on it was to look upon like Jasper. This is the

Lord Jesus Christ. He looked like Jasper and a sardine stone. And there was a rainbow round about the throne in sight like unto an emerald.

Here, he's trying to explain things when he doesn't have the vocabulary to do it. In verse 8, and the four beasts.

Now, this word beast, by the way, literally is translated living ones. The four living ones had each of them six wings about him.

And they were full of eyes within. And they rest not day and night saying holy, holy, holy,

Lord God almighty which was and is and is to come. And when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to him that sat on the throne who liveth forever and ever.

The four and twenty elders fall down before him that sat on the throne and worship him that liveth forever and ever.

And cast their crowns before the throne saying thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power.

For thou has created all things and for thy pleasure they are and were created.

Chapter 5 verse 1 goes in and talks about this book of judgment.

And it says and I saw in the right hand of him that sat on the throne a book written within and on the backside sealed with seven seals.

And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice who is worthy to open the book and to loose the seals thereof.

Don't ever try to open God's word without the presence of the Lord. And no man in heaven nor in earth neither under the earth was able to open the book neither to look thereon.

And I wept much because no man was found worthy to open and to read the book neither to look thereon.

And one of the elders saith unto me weep not behold the lion of the tribe of Judah. The root of David hath prevailed to open the book and to loose the seven seals thereof.

And I beheld and low in the midst of the throne of the four beasts and in the midst of the elders stood a lamb.

As it had been slain having seven horns and seven eyes which were the seven spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

And he came and he took the book out of the right hand of him that sat upon the throne.

And he begins to go through and we see that this ushers in the great tribulation starting in chapter 6 and verse 1.

And we see the coming of the antichrist at that point and go all the way to chapter 8 and verse 1.

And when he had opened the seventh seal there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

Can you imagine that? Silence in heaven? It's like an awe that fell upon the place because of what was about to happen.

And then you have the trumpets and all of the woes and the terrible things that happened in the tribulation period.

And it takes you all the way back to chapter 17 where you see the Lord coming and you see his saints, the faithful ones who were called with him.

Now that ushers in the second coming which I believe the day of atonement pictures. And we'll talk about the day of atonement next time.

But the feast of trumpets pictures everything we just saw. It pictures a moment, young people, teenagers, children, all of us.

There will be a moment when your ear will have the capacity to hear a trumpet that will sound like a voice.

And that voice will be saying, come up hither and you're out of here. And all of us will go up.

I picture us meeting in some quadrant up there together and meeting with the Lord in the air.

And we will find ourselves in the spirit. You'll no longer have any flesh pulling against you. You won't have one thing in your existence that pulls to do anything other than the absolute perfect will of God in your life.

You can experience that for moments here on this earth by simply being spirit filled. And it's your choice when you decide to do that.

That's one thing God commanded us to be, he fills. So that's something he left to us to do. We are indwelt, but he commands us to be filled.

And the amazing thing is to the extent that we do that, we can experience this spirituality right now.

But there's going to come a day when we don't even have to think about it. It'll be just like breathing. It's not that way.

Now you have to think about it. And that's what these trumpets pictures in the

Jews all over the world. Last weekend, we're blowing those trumpets and they don't even know what it pictures.

Aren't you glad God's opened your eyes? You can see the beauty of it, but he's given those feasts for thousands of years and they've kept them every year.

There was time periods when they stopped, when God's chastening hand was on them. But they would always come back and have revival and start these feasts again and picture these very things.

And if there's anything we need to picture in this day when the pagans are taking over our country, is we need to picture this moment.

Because if we picture this moment, we will not want to be like the pagans when this moment occurs.

We won't want to be like all the people in Ezra's day. We won't want to be like Ezra. We won't want to be like the people that say, well, you know, we've married the pagan wives and we're wearing the pagan clothes and we're listening to the pagan music and we're doing all the things the pagans are doing.

We're not ready. The trumpet blows anyway. So that of all things, if you read books of preachers in the past, when they wanted to bring revival to the people, some of the greatest preachers, they'd always preach about the rapture and the second coming and get the people's minds on that.

That's what this great feast is all about. Let's stand and have prayer together. Don't you agree that's better than dressing up like demons and worshiping that time of year?

Isn't it better to be thinking about what God gave us in the fall to be thinking about? Let's pray. Father, we ask that you guard us against the paganism that surrounds us.

It's becoming so strong in our country, so strong. And yet we know that he that is within us is stronger than he that's in the world and help us keep that in our hearts and minds and be encouraged and realize everything is right on your timetable.

The great apostasy, the great falling away is taking place before our eyes. It must take place before you come back for us.

And we thank you that we can see it, but we ask you to protect us from the mindset that's out there because of the falling away.

Keep us safe from it and separated from it. Help us to be like Ezra. Help us to be ready scribes in the word of the

Lord. That's the only thing that will protect us from the error that surrounds us. And we do pray for our poor nation.

We pray, Father, that we know that your will will be done in this election. And yet we don't know any other way to pray,

Father, than that one would be elected who does not support abortions and the murder of little children.

That one would be elected who supports freedom. And Father, we pray for that.

And we ask that you would allow that one to be elected. And the reason we ask that, Father, as you see our hearts, it's primarily because of our children and our children's children.

And we see what they're growing up in. And yet, Father, nevertheless, thy will be done.

Because we know that your scriptures say there must be a great falling away. And we would not want to pray against that.

So, Father, we rejoice in the fact that we are under the shadow of your wings.

And you're in complete absolute control of the events that will take place in our day. And help us to take great comfort in that.

And simply to be ready servants before you. We pray that you prepare our children and the young people to be strong in their day.

And help us to be strong examples for them. Father, we ask that you would bless our meal together and our fellowship time.