Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Good morning. You can be seated.
[00:00:07] My name is Eric Bowling, and I'm part of the preaching team here at village church of Bartlett. And I want to wish you a happy summer. Right. The 20th, I believe, was the first day of summer. How many of you fall into a trap like I do, where you complain about how cold you are, and now you're complaining about how hot you are? Right? Every year I tell myself I'm not gonna do it, and then I do. But here we are, trying to think what else has happened since I've seen you last up here. Oh, the cicada apocalypse. How we doing, everybody? All right?
[00:00:45] I was ready for, like, biblical plagues the way that the media was pumping it up, right? We have zero at our house, right? Yeah, west Chicago. Maybe God's hand is right over. I don't know, but I've been waiting. But we have nothing.
[00:01:04] Today we're gonna talk about a celebration from the Bible called the feast of trumpets. And it's one that's a little bit obscure, probably not one that we may have thought about or heard about before, but it's pretty significant for the nation of Israel. And so this got me thinking about, like, things we celebrate and what goes into them.
[00:01:27] Most celebrations that are of any merit really have a strong sense of, like, anticipation. Like, we look forward to them, think about Christmas. I know there's a lot of views about Christmas, but most of the time we look forward to Christmas. I grew up in a, what I'll call a Christmas family.
[00:01:52] My parents listened to Christmas music all year round.
[00:01:59] It was not uncommon to come home in the middle of July and hear Johnny Mathis.
[00:02:06] Some of you are like, who?
[00:02:09] Johnny Mathis on an lp, a record blasting, and my mother singing, you know, come on, ring those bells.
[00:02:18] I was like, wow, Christmas was a big deal. Now I don't listen to Christmas music until after Thanksgiving.
[00:02:27] Don't tell my parents that, but they may be watching. So anyway, but this is a big deal. And I remember as a kid, like, being really excited about what was coming and, like, looking ahead. And I remember getting the Sears catalog or the JC Penney wish list encircling. This is what I want. This is what I'm looking for. And then that Christmas morning, my sister and I would wake up really early. I'm talking like 04:00 a.m. and, like, it's already, you know, it's Christmas, right? One glorious morning. I won't go too far with this, but one year I got a bike and I was so excited because it was a BMx bike, and I could race it. And I ran downstairs, and there it was. And we were living in Miami, Florida, at the time, which meant I could ride the bike right away. I didn't have to wait until, like, may to ride it here in the midwest. And I was so excited. I was like, this is great. It doesn't get any better than this. That anticipation, that buildup, that excitement. Or think about another one. Your birthday, right? You look forward to your birthday. There are people now. They're like, well, it's my birthday month. I'm like, really?
[00:03:39] Okay. Or like, I'm not working this week. Why? It's my birth. Really? Okay. But those are big deals. Those are milestones we anticipate. I remember as a kid thinking, I can't wait till I'm 16 years old. Cause growing up where I grew up in northern Indiana, 16 meant license, which meant freedom. And gas at gallon meant I could just drive all over our small town, back and forth, seeing everybody else that was out and about, right? Freedom. I remember turning 18, and I was like, now I'm an adult.
[00:04:14] And then realizing I was not an adult, but being 18, I remember turning 21 and thinking, okay, now I'm really an adult. Still couldn't rent a car, but I was 21. And then I've crossed some other ones that I didn't look forward to as much. 40.
[00:04:32] Okay, 50. That was a little tougher. I've been told that 60 kind of resets everything, and you get excited about life again. I don't know if that's true, but we'll see. But we look forward to them, and we anticipate them, and we prepare for them. We put a lot of thought and effort into them in getting ready for them.
[00:04:54] And that's really the pattern of what we see in these biblical feasts that we've been looking at through the book of Leviticus. The other thing that we need to understand is some of our celebrations can be a little bit strange if we don't understand the context behind them. Think about 4 July for a second. Can you imagine if somebody experienced 4 July for the first time and you had to explain to them why it is we were doing what we're doing? Right. We all get together, and we usually grill some type of meat.
[00:05:27] Why? Because it's 4 July. We're all wearing. I won't say too much. We're all wearing a lot of red, white, and blue, head to toe. And then we blow things up.
[00:05:41] Like, really? Yes. We're really excited about that. We light fireworks or we go watch big things blow up. And it's what we do. And people are like, well, why do you do that?
[00:05:52] I don't know. I'm sure somebody may know the real reason, but it's like, it's what we do. But if we don't understand the context behind it, what are we celebrating? We're celebrating our independence. We're celebrating our country. We're celebrating the men and women who died to give us those freedoms. There's a lot going on underneath that you may miss if you don't know the context. And that's the purpose of talking about these feasts. There's a lot that we may miss in the New Testament if we don't understand what's happening in these celebrations and feasts in the Old Testament.
[00:06:23] So I want to just go back and look at the four that we've covered so far in this series and then just set us up for the feast of trumpets. Here's what we've covered so far. The first one we talked about was Passover, in which the blood of the lamb was sprinkled on the doorpost of the houses of Israel as the angel of the Lord passed over. As they left Egypt during the last plague, we talked about the feast of unleavened bread, which happened immediately after Passover, during which time the Israelites ate no bread with yeast for a week, and it was a reminder of how quickly they had to leave to escape Egypt. We've talked about the feast of first fruits, which took place at the beginning of the harvest and really focused on gratitude to God for the harvest. Israel was to acknowledge that it was the Lord alone who had delivered them from Egypt and had taken them to the promised land. And then the feast of weeks, which is sometimes called Pentecost, 50 days after first fruits again celebrated gratitude for the second harvest, which was grain.
[00:07:30] Today we're going to be talking about the feast of trumpets. And really, it's a feast that is only mentioned in two places in scripture. It's only a couple verses. And at first glance we may be tempted to say, well, it's a small thing. We could just kind of. It's a minor holiday, if we could use that term. But what we're going to see today is it really had some significance, not only for Israel, but also for us today. So if you want to turn in your bibles to Leviticus, chapter 23, we're going to look at verses 23 and 25 today, and we're going to talk about the feast of trumpets, here's what it says. It says. And the Lord spoke to Moses saying, speak to the people of Israel saying, in the 7th month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of solemn rest, a memorial proclaimed with a blast of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall not do any ordinary work, and you shall present a food offering to the Lord.
[00:08:38] Notice the first thing that happens in this feast. God says to Moses, this feast is God's idea. This feast is God's plan. He says, this is what we are going to do. And if God says that, there has to be a significance behind that.
[00:08:56] The only other place that this feast is mentioned is it's mentioned in numbers 29, verses one to six. And I'm going to just go through this really quick, because what numbers does is it says all the sacrifices that were to be made on this day of rest and sacrifice. Here it is. It says, you shall offer a burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to the Lord. One bull from the herd, one ram, seven male lambs a year old without blemish. Also their grain offering, a fine flour mixed with oil. Three tenths of an epaph for the bull, two tenths for the ram, one 10th each for the seven lambs with one male goat for a sin offering to make atonement for you. Besides the burnt offering of the new moon and its grain offering, and the regular burnt offering and its grain offering and their drink offering, according to the rule for them, for it is a pleasing aroma of food offering to the Lord.
[00:09:48] These sacrifices were a big deal. This would have taken a long time.
[00:09:52] And that's the point of the feast, is God is saying, look, and we're going to talk about this more later. Slow down sacrifice and remember. So this was a day that was set aside for rest and sacrifice.
[00:10:07] But why was this feast significant? I just want to point out four things that really would have been significant for Israel as they thought about the feast of trumpets number one, the 7th month. The timing of this feast was a big deal.
[00:10:24] So this feast began on the first day at the full moon of the 7th month, at the end of the grape harvest. Right? So Israel would have harvested the grapes and so they would have already known what they had, provision wise, for the upcoming year. This feast marked the end of that harvest and the beginning of a new harvest, which was grain. So this is the start of their agricultural year as they get ready for this. Now, that's a little bit lost on us today. We don't really live in an agrarian society, so to speak, but for the people, this would have been really a big deal because it's tied to what they had and what they were going to hopefully receive in the upcoming harvest.
[00:11:08] In addition, this month was important to the nation of Israel because it could be considered the holiest month in their calendar. Here is why. There were three feasts that happened in really short succession to one another in this month. The first one, which we're talking about, the feast of trumpets, that started it. And then there was the day of atonement, in which the high priest would enter the holy of holies and offer sacrifices for the people. And then there was the feast of the tabernacles. So what the feast of trumpets did was it asked the people to prepare for what we could call a holy season before the Lord.
[00:11:47] And so this feast of trumpets really started what would have been a month long celebration. So the 7th month is significant.
[00:11:56] What is also significant is the trumpets themselves.
[00:12:00] Jewish tradition indicates there were two types of trumpets. One was the shofar, or the ram's horn, and the priestly silver horns. Now, I was unable to find a shofar on my own, right? They're not easy to come by here in the western suburbs, but someone brought one with them. And I am not going to play it for you because there's a lot of videos of people trying to play these online, and I don't want to be one of them because they're not easy to play. But here's what you got to trust me on. These are really, really loud.
[00:12:35] And you can imagine if there's hundreds of these blowing. It's overwhelming, right? It's overwhelming. This is a big deal. So these trumpets were an important part of the day. The hebrew word in Leviticus translates to shout or blowing. So when we read blast of trumpets, it's really just like an overwhelming, loud sound that is played.
[00:13:03] And the way that trumpets were used in the old testament, particularly, is they would be used as calls to action, right? So think about this. If we're in a scenario where we are going to war, we're in battle. A trumpet would sound that. It might mean to march, or it might sound, and it might mean to retreat or attack.
[00:13:27] And the trumpet is uniquely positioned as an instrument to get your attention.
[00:13:33] You know, no offense to, like the sousaphone, but it doesn't really have that same kind of effect on us or the clarinet or the piccolo. It's the trumpet, because the trumpet would have been able to gather people's attention. The other way that trumpets were really used during this time was they would also be calls to worship.
[00:13:53] And they would be played. And they could almost be thought of as entering into, like, a musical type prayer where they would play the trumpet, and you knew it was time to worship. However they were used, the trumpets demanded attention.
[00:14:07] You had to pay attention. You couldn't ignore it. And so as this feast begins, there's this massive, loud blowing of trumpets. And people knew, now this feast has begun. Now we are entering into this season of this 7th month. That's going to be important to their faith.
[00:14:27] The third thing to talk about here is memorial. It says it's to be a memorial.
[00:14:34] The question that comes up is, okay, what are they commemorating like? What's the connection? What's interesting? In order to understand this, we need to look back at Exodus chapter 19, verses ten to 20. And this story is about when Israel has left Egypt and they're going to meet with God at Mount Sinai. Let me just read this for you. Exodus, 1910 20. The Lord said to Moses, go to the people and consecrate them today and tomorrow. Let them wash their garments and be ready for the third day. For on the third day, the Lord will come down on Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people. Pause there. Can you imagine the anticipation of, in three days you are going to be in the presence of God?
[00:15:25] What would you spend your time doing?
[00:15:28] What would you spend your time thinking about? Where would your focus be? Do you think that would dominate your thinking and what you did? Absolutely. And so these people are getting ready to meet God. They've got three days, and they're leading up to it. They're consecrating themselves, washing their garments. They're preparing. Here's what happens on the actual day.
[00:15:52] It says, on the morning of the third day, there were thunders and lightning and a thick cloud on the mountain. Let's pause there.
[00:16:01] So they come to this mountain to meet God. And the mountain is covered, and the scripture says cloud. And I tend to think of, like, puffy white. It actually is more like smoke from, like, a bonfire.
[00:16:15] So imagine this mountain looks like it's on fire. There's thunders, there are lightning.
[00:16:21] And this is a big deal.
[00:16:24] This is probably pretty terrifying. And they come, and they're watching this as God's presence comes to his people.
[00:16:32] And here's the connection to the feast of trumpets and a very loud trumpet blast, so that all the people in the camp trembled. So they come. The mountain looks like it's on fire. There's thunder. There's lightning, and then there's a very loud blast. Question who played it?
[00:16:52] I mean, this is supernatural in origin that this trumpet sounds. And apparently it is so overwhelming that it says, the people in the camp trembled.
[00:17:04] This would have been a big day for the nation of Israel as they meet with God face to face.
[00:17:13] And again, just think about the anticipation of this. They're waiting to meet God. They finally meet him. Thunder, lightning, smoke. God has come to his people.
[00:17:25] In ancient times, people would often thought to climb up to God. In this case, God has come down to them and he has met them. What the feast of trumpets called people to do was to remember that day, was to remember the anticipation, the preparation, the smoke, the thunder, the lightning, the trumpet, it was all done to memorialize. Here was an important day for us. This is the day we officially began this relationship with God. He is our God, the holy connection, and he is committed to our good. And so when you and I read about the feast of weeks in these, just a few short verses, we're tempted to skip over it because we're like, well, okay, that sounds like a day of, like, rest and sacrifice. But to the nation of Israel, this would have been a big deal, commemorating a very, very, very important event.
[00:18:23] The fourth thing to take from the feast of weeks is this idea of preparation.
[00:18:30] If we go back to the text, we see that the people were told to rest.
[00:18:35] They were told to abstain from normal work. They were told to take a sabbath.
[00:18:42] They were also told to sacrifice.
[00:18:45] This slowing down, this rest, really allowed people to focus on their reliance on God.
[00:18:54] Remember, this was the ending of one harvest and the start of the new agricultural year. So people would have been grateful for what they had. They would have been focused on the provision of what's to come. And so slowing down, resting, not working, sacrificing, would have allowed them time to focus on their gratitude for what God had done and also what he was going to provide.
[00:19:22] But really, the main theme of the feast of trumpets is repentance.
[00:19:30] That's really what the people were called to do. Yes, rest was important, but they had to do all of those sacrifices because they were getting ready for a ten day period that they called the ten days of remembrance or the days of awe. So the feast of trumpets started ten days in which would end with the day of atonement, like we talked about before, with the high priest entering the holy of holies.
[00:19:59] And so what the people were going to do during this time of repentance is they were to examine their lives.
[00:20:07] They were to make amends with any of those that they may have wronged in the previous year, they were to ask forgiveness for any vows they may have broken. And so when the feast of trumpets began, it was designed to say they knew. This is a time of preparation, because in ten days, we're going to celebrate the day of atonement.
[00:20:33] Now, you might be sitting here this morning and think, okay, that's interesting.
[00:20:38] That's kind of, kind of cool to hear, but let's be honest. Like, what does that really have to do with us? Right? Our world has quote unquote, real problems we should be talking about. Our country has real problems we should be talking about, I have real problems we should be talking about, I got bills to pay. I got mouths to feed. How in the world does this old Testament jewish feast connect with me? And aren't we really, like, we're no longer under Old Testament law? So why do we need to spend time talking about this? Well, a couple of things. Number one, those are legitimate questions.
[00:21:18] Sometimes christians can have a tendency to avoid the Old Testament because they feel like, well, this doesn't really apply. And they misinterpret the role of the Old Testament to the new.
[00:21:31] We are a church, though, that believes in the whole council of scripture, Genesis to revelation. So that means if it's in our bibles, it's important for us and it has something to teach us.
[00:21:44] It's true, we're no longer required to follow the intricacies of these Old Testament feasts, but understanding them gives us a complete picture, Jesus and gives us a complete picture of what all this means in the New Testament. Because, see, there's a lot of things that Jesus says and does that connect back specifically to these Old Testament feasts and laws and rules? And if we know what those are, we get a better picture of why Jesus says and does the things that he does. Let's look at these four feasts and connect them to Jesus. We're going to look at Passover, unleavened bread, first fruits weeks, and then we'll talk about trumpets. Let's go back to Passover.
[00:22:34] We talked about this before. Passover marked the time the angel of the Lord passed over the Israelites in the last plague of Egypt. Jesus, the night he is betrayed in the upper room, says that he is the lamb who was slain, meaning he is the Passover lamb.
[00:22:57] Now think about that for a second. That's a big, bold statement for Jesus to make, because he is saying, I am the fulfillment and embodiment of what God did back then.
[00:23:12] He's the slam lane whose blood is applied to forgive our sins. The core value we learn is without the shedding of blood, there's no forgiveness for sins.
[00:23:21] And Jesus is the final sacrifice that provides this. Let's look at the unleavened bread. Jesus, as the Passover lamb, cleanses from sin and evil. We're free to leave our old lives behind, just as the Israelites did. He is qualified and he alone, because his body is holy and without sin.
[00:23:43] So the core value we learn is we leave a life of sin to follow Jesus.
[00:23:48] Without that, we can't do it. Have you ever tried to be really, really, really good and just kind of grit and muscle your way through being good? It doesn't last very long because you get to a point to say, okay, how good is good enough?
[00:24:05] Like, how much more good can I do if I did 5 hours of good is 10 hours better, and you get caught kind of weighing the scales.
[00:24:14] And so what Jesus connects us to with this feast is that he is the one that provides us for that we can leave that life and follow him. First fruits. Paul in Romans 823 says that the indwelling of the Holy Spirit is the firstfruits of redemption. It's interesting he uses that term because to the original audience, they would have connected that back to the feast. This is a reminder of Jesus redemption of creation and a foreshadowing of his final return. He is God's first and best.
[00:24:47] The core value for us is God gets our first and best that we are required to bring to him first and our best to him.
[00:25:02] Weeks John 1416. Jesus promises to send another, which we know as the Holy Spirit, to indwell and empower believers for ministry. 50 days after Jesus resurrection, the Holy Spirit comes at Pentecost. As proof of this guarantee, and the gospel spreads throughout the world, Jesus is offering us a chance to be gathered into his family by the receiving of the Holy Spirit.
[00:25:30] What that means for you and me is that we sow gospel seeds and we watch God provide the harvest.
[00:25:37] This idea that we have a part in spreading the gospel. And now we come to the feast of trumpets.
[00:25:44] The feast of trumpets asks us to step aside from the frantic world we live in and to focus on repentance, our relationship with the Lord, and turn our thoughts to him. See, we live in a world that is really hard sometimes to live in. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
[00:26:07] We can know everything, and yet we can also know nothing. At the same time, it's fascinating. And so we live in this world, and it's frantic. And we're doing, and it's almost like we wear this badge of honor. Like, look how busy I am, look how overwhelmed I am. Look at how much I'm doing. Look at what I have done, look at what I have accomplished. Look at me, look at. And if we're not careful, we get caught up in that.
[00:26:34] And what I think the feast of trumpets is asking us to do is to pause and rest and realize that it's really not about us.
[00:26:45] Maybe a core value is that we repent of our sins and trust God, who's committed to our good.
[00:26:53] And so when we look at these Old Testament feasts again, it's tempting, without knowing context, to say, well, what does that have to do with us?
[00:27:02] And really, the connection point that ties it all together is Jesus and what he has done to provide for us. So now, sitting here, the 21st century western suburbs of Chicago, Bartlett, Illinois, we can have this relationship with him and this understanding of a complete picture of scripture because of God and his benevolence and love for us that allows that to happen.
[00:27:32] Three so whats to tie this together?
[00:27:35] The first. So what is this? We should be joyful.
[00:27:39] We should be thankful that we no longer have to practice all of these old Testament laws and feasts, not because they're bad, but because God can and does provide for us full access to himself through Jesus.
[00:27:58] It's not about what we do, other than accepting what Christ has already done.
[00:28:05] We have to repent and believe. Our sin has already been judged.
[00:28:10] It's already taken care of past, present, future. We should be joyful.
[00:28:17] The second thing is that we need to understand that God is the Lord over all the earth. I know we're no longer really connected to, like an agricultural calendar, but everything we have has been given to us via God's providence and his grace and his mercy. Like we talked about before, sometimes we can think we're pretty good and we've earned what we have.
[00:28:46] One of the ways that I've been trying to be more mindful of what God has provided for me comes through praying for meals and I made a little change. And this is not a prescription for you to go and do the same. It's just something that I've been trying that has helped me. It's this. I used to pray like a lot of people, Lord, bless this food to our bodies. Right? Let's be honest, there was a few things that I had on my plate that God would have to work a miracle to bless to my body. Okay. I mean, nachos, are good and burritos are good.
[00:29:27] So I thought, okay, this feels a little strange, right? And again, this is just my own thoughts on this. So I started praying, God, thank you for the provision for this food.
[00:29:40] Right. Because I don't have to worry about where my next meal is coming from. Thank you, Lord.
[00:29:47] I don't have to worry about how I'm going to find a way to fill my refrigerator. Thank you, Lord. Thank you for providing this for me. It's been interesting how that has shifted my focus to one more of gratitude to say, Lord, thank you for this.
[00:30:06] I found that spilling over into my prayer life, where I just spend time saying, God, thank you for fill in the blank.
[00:30:16] Little things, big things, personal things, family things, cultural things. I think one of the things that we learned from this feast is that God is Lord over everything.
[00:30:31] And it's easy for us to miss that and to forget that, because we live in such a world of self reliance and what we can do, I think the last. So what for us is that we need to be ready for the Lord's return.
[00:30:50] Now, we could spend a lot of time talking about when Jesus is coming back or if we got really deep, has he already come back? All right, we could do that, right? And in researching this week, I was doing some deep dives into stuff, and I was like, oh, man, I'm in the weeds here, right?
[00:31:10] Here's my best guess on when Jesus is coming back. You ready? Some of you may want to write this down.
[00:31:17] People don't really know, okay? But there's a lot where people speculate. And again, I think that's fine. It's good to talk about. It's interesting. One of the things that we all can agree on, though, is Jesus is coming back.
[00:31:31] There will be a day when he returns.
[00:31:35] First Corinthians 1551 to 52 says, there's going to be a final trumpet that calls us into an eternal destiny with God. Says this, behold, I tell you, a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed in a moment. And the twinkling of an eye. Catch this at the last trumpet.
[00:31:56] So someday there's going to be a final trumpet, and that's it.
[00:32:02] We don't need to prepare. We don't need to anticipate, because that day has come.
[00:32:10] It says, for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. If you are a believer this morning, that should be encouraging to you, this idea at some point.
[00:32:26] We're back. We're back. In the full presence of God, what do we do with the time we have left? And really, honestly, none of us know how much time we have left.
[00:32:37] We like to think we do.
[00:32:39] We're not guaranteed our next breath.
[00:32:42] But while we are still here on earth, we live in anticipation and preparation, and we try to take as many people to heaven with us as we can so we share the gospel.
[00:32:57] If you're sitting here today and you haven't yet made the decision to follow Jesus, then today can be the day of salvation.
[00:33:07] If you believe and you confess, you will be saved.
[00:33:12] I would encourage you to invite Jesus in your life, because forgiveness is right here, right now, and you can have that.
[00:33:21] And so, as we wait for the Lord's return, I think the words of the old hymn on Christ, the solid rock I stand, puts it best.
[00:33:33] It says, when he shall come with trumpet sound, o may I then in him be found, dressed in his righteousness alone, faultless to stand before the throne.
[00:33:47] May that be true of us today.
[00:33:49] Let me pray for us, Jesus, even as we talk this morning, I just found myself overwhelmed with gratitude for what you have done for us and your love and your sacrifice and your grace and your mercy. What that really, truly means, Lord, barely can understand any of it. But we can understand enough of it to know that you love us and you care for us and you desire a relationship and connection with us. Lord, thank you for the reminder from this feast about how you will accept us when we repent and how you provide for us salvation.
[00:34:42] Lord, thank you again for an opportunity to hear from your word, to worship together. Thank you for those privileges that we get. Lord, we pray this in your name. Amen.
