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“Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.'” (John 18:38 NASB)
The Day of Blowing Trumpets (Yom Teruah, aka Rosh haShanah) is an appointed time that comes every year, but it’s also a prophecy of a future appointed event. Are you ready? These 10 Days of Awe between Yom Teruah and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) were given to us as a reminder to prepare our hearts to welcome God’s voice and the coming of God’s Anointed, Yeshua the Messiah (Jesus the Christ), rather than run from them in fear of judgment.
Instructions for the timing of the Day of Blowing (Trumpets), or Yom Teruah in Hebrew, are recorded in Leviticus 23:23–25 and Numbers 29:1–6. If you want to know what kind of trumpets are used and then they are used, you can read about those instructions in Numbers 10.
God’s words create
What does God’s voice sound like? A trumpet. How do we know (Exodus 19:16–19; 20:18)?
God’s voice is not always “still, small” and quiet. He can be quite loud if He sees fit. Was Moses afraid of God’s voice? No. Who fears God’s voice? Those who are scared due to their sins, transgressions and iniquities.
The people were afraid of God’s voice but Moses was not. If God is our Father, we should not fear His voice.
God’s words destroy
Let’s read about some examples of the power of God’s voice. The first one is in Joshua 6 at the conquest of Jericho.
“Now Jericho was tightly shut because of the sons of Israel; no one went out and no one came in. The LORD said to Joshua, “See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and the valiant warriors. “You shall march around the city, all the men of war circling the city once. You shall do so for six days. “Also seven priests shall carry seven trumpets of rams’ horns before the ark; then on the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow the trumpets. “It shall be that when they make a long blast with the ram’s horn, and when you hear the sound of the trumpet, all the people shall shout with a great shout; and the wall of the city will fall down flat, and the people will go up every man straight ahead.”” (Joshua 6:1–5 NASB)
Who took down the walls of Jericho? God did. They were to symbolically declare God’s will and that the walls came down. There was something very special about Jericho.
“They burned the city with fire, and all that was in it. Only the silver and gold, and articles of bronze and iron, they put into the treasury of the house of the LORD.” (Joshua 6:24 NASB)
In every other town that the children of Israel conquered, the soldiers were allowed to take spoils but in Jericho, God received it all because God was the one who conquered Jericho, not the children of Israel.
“Then Joshua made them take an oath at that time, saying, “Cursed before the LORD is the man who rises up and builds this city Jericho; with the loss of his firstborn he shall lay its foundation, and with the loss of his youngest son he shall set up its gates.”” (Joshua 6:26 NASB)
In Jericho, God’s voice was a voice of destruction, not a voice of reconciliation. Those who don’t honor God should be afraid of God’s voice but if you honor God, you don’t need to fear God’s voice.
We only blow the shofar on appointed occasions, we don’t blow them on our birthdays or other celebratory occasions. The time in which the children of Israel had to move from place to place or go to war by the sound of the shofar have past away, but the appointed times will never pass away.
God’s voice calls
“In that day the LORD will start His threshing from the flowing stream of the Euphrates to the brook of Egypt, and you will be gathered up one by one, O sons of Israel. It will come about also in that day that a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were perishing in the land of Assyria and who were scattered in the land of Egypt will come and worship the LORD in the holy mountain at Jerusalem.” (Isaiah 27:12–13 NASB)
This is an appointment time, but not an annual appointed time. It is a prophetic reference to a future event. This voice did not strike fear in the ears of the children of Israel but they were meant to strike abject fear in the hearts of the people of Egypt and Assyria to let the children of Israelites go.
Who hears God’s voice?
“Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate said to Him, “What is truth?”” (John 18:37–38 NASB)
God’s voice doesn’t discriminate on ethnic lines
Being a biological descendant of Israel doesn’t automatically protect one from an abject fear of God. Joel 2:1-11 shows us a future prophesy that will occur in God’s holy land. Everyone will hear God’s voice.
“The LORD utters His voice before His army; Surely His camp is very great, For strong is he who carries out His word. The day of the LORD is indeed great and very awesome, And who can endure it?” (Joel 2:11 NASB)
That same voice will comfort some and scare others. Some will hear liberation and others will destruction from the same voice of God. One’s nationality or ancestry doesn’t determine whether God’s voice is a voice of liberation or destruction. Hearing God’s voice is both a communal and an individual event.
“I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim And the horse from Jerusalem; And the bow of war will be cut off. And He will speak peace to the nations; And His dominion will be from sea to sea, And from the River to the ends of the earth.
As for you also, because of the blood of My covenant with you, I have set your prisoners free from the waterless pit.
Return to the stronghold, O prisoners who have the hope; This very day I am declaring that I will restore double to you.
For I will bend Judah as My bow, I will fill the bow with Ephraim. And I will stir up your sons, O Zion, against your sons, O Greece; And I will make you like a warrior’s sword.” (Zechariah 9:10–13 NASB)
This is a prophecy that is set to take place at an appointed day in the Messianic Age. The Greeks will fear God’s voice because they are oppressing God’s people, but God’s voice does not fear Judah, Ephraim and the prisoners He liberates.
The seven trumpets of Revelation
Revelation 8:6–7: First trumpet
What is the grass? We know that all the imagery of Revelation is symbolic not literal. How do we know this? Read the prophets and the words of Yeshua.
For example, the Apostle James tells us that the grass represents humans who have no roots:
“and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like flowering grass he will pass away. For the sun rises with a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.” (James 1:10–11 NASB)
Revelation 8:8–11: Second trumpet
Solomon told us that the ships are symbols of prosperity and the living creatures that live in the sea symbolize an abundance of life. The water itself is symbolic of humanity.
These are all decimated by the judgement of the second trumpet. This is a war of utter destruction.
What is this wormwood that contaminates the waters and make them bitter? What does that mean?
As we discussed in last week’s Torah portion, wormwood is the delusion and the parasitical viewpoint that you can do whatever you want. The idea of Wormwood is the lie that God doesn’t concern Himself with our conduct or our actions.
It’s the delusion that tells us that as long as we have God in our heart, our actions don’t matter. They believe their actions aren’t important, that only their “relationship with God” is all that matters.
That’s a Wormwood philosophy, that’s a a bitter, a false viewpoint designed to kill you. God is warning us that this delusion will spread quickly through the earth and many will be deceived by it.
Revelation 8:12: Fourth trumpet
God told Abraham and his descendants will be as numerous as the stars and later, Abraham’s great-grandson Joseph also had a dream about the sun, moon and stars. Jacob’s interpretation of Joseph’s dream give us an idea of what this means with the symbols of sun, moon and stars.
Revelation 9:1: Fifth trumpet
The bottomless pit clearly is referring to death. So because bottomless pit is death, that is the only pit that can ever be filled up, right? And can you ever fill up a grave, it is impossible. Death is one pit that will never be full, it is never satiated.
Revelation 9:13–15: Sixth trumpet
This trumpet is not a sound of comfort, it’s a sound of destruction. None of these trumpets are warm and fuzzy. Those who are marked by God will not fear the sound of these trumpets but those who are unrepentant and are not marked by will hear these trumpets and cower in abject fear.
It’s not our own words that will cause us to fear God’s words but our actions. If our actions are righteous, God’s words do not bring fear. If our actions are unrighteous, then God’s words bring fear to our hearts.
God’s voice can be physically harmful even though there’s nothing to fear.
Yeshua listened to God’s voice, and was not afraid of God’s voice, even though obeying God’s words would bring about great physical harm to His body.
“And He came out and proceeded as was His custom to the Mount of Olives; and the disciples also followed Him. When He arrived at the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” And He withdrew from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and began to pray, saying, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me; yet not My will, but Yours be done.” Now an angel from heaven appeared to Him, strengthening Him. And being in agony He was praying very fervently; and His sweat became like drops of blood, falling down upon the ground. When He rose from prayer, He came to the disciples and found them sleeping from sorrow, and said to them, “Why are you sleeping? Get up and pray that you may not enter into temptation.”” (Luke 22:39–46 NASB)
Revelation 11:3–14: Two witnesses
Giving glory to God doesn’t mean that they will repent and follow God. It simply means that they recognize that God is the one who is doing these things.
Revelation 11:15–19: Seventh trumpet
Trumpets are a negative thing for those who don’t fear God and a positive thing for those who do fear God. We can choose to receive God’s instruction as a comfort or as a prelude to our destruction. Those who are of truth hear God’s voice.
Does God’s word intrigue you, like it did to Moses or does it scare you like it did to the children of Israel? God never lies.
Summary: Tammy