Resurrection!
Yesterday I gave you I Thessalonians 4:16-17 and Psalm 47:5 to think about. Let’s look at those verses and a few others in more detail.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a SHOUT, the VOICE of the archangel and with the TRUMPET of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.” I Thessalonians 4:16-17 (NASB95)
“God has ascended with a shout, The Lord with the sound of a trumpet.” Psalm 47:5 (NASB95)
Let’s look at these more closely. In I Thessalonians the Lord will DESCEND and in Psalm 47 it says that God ASCENDED with a shout. In I Thessalonians, Christ returns (decends) with a shout. In Thessalonians the Lord returns with the trumpet of God while in the Psalm the Lord ascended with the sound of the trumpet.
It appears that the order of resurrection is being manifested in reverse order. Is that important? I think that it is. In Psalm 47 the Lord ascends with the sound of a trumpet. In I Thessalonians Christ returns WITH the trumpet of God. Why is that important?
In many instances, it appears that the order in which something occurs in the Old Testament, or Tanach, is reversed in the New Testament or modern time. Sometimes the order is the same. Sometimes the order is reversed. Could this, or should this, have any bearing on our understanding of the age that we currently live in? I believe so.
As I have mentioned earlier in these 40 Days of Awakening, time is not marching forward. Time is counting down backwards, like a time clock in a sporting event. Time was birthed out of ending that had no beginning and will cease with a beginning that has no end, in a precise and opposite order in which it was created! As I mentioned earlier, when we identify these “endings” and “beginnings” we are able to see not only God’s time and seasons but how God’s works in His time and in His seasons. We can then align ourselves with His time and seasons and how He works during that time or season instead of pleading with Him to align with our wants and desires.
Some have pointed out to me that God said He will give us the desires of our hearts.
HE DID NO SUCH THING! God said, “Delight yourself in the LORD, and He will give you the desires of your heart.” There is an action taken that provides a result, like an “if/then” statement. How do we delight ourselves in the LORD? By aligning ourselves with His ways in His will, not our own. That SHOULD BE a source of joy.
And before anyone climbs up on their high horse let me be clear. I am not, in any way, advocating salvation by works! In case you’ve missed it, I’ve not mentioned salvation at any time.
But the shofar is connected, attached, interwoven into the “end” of things. Therefore, it is also connected, attached, and interwoven into the “beginning” of “new” things. Consider the ordinance of the shofar sounding at the end of each month and, in an equal sense, bringing in the new month. Consider the ordinance of sounding the shofar at the Feast Days. What does this do?
The shofar declares an end to one season and the beginning of the next season! Consider when the seven trumpets sounded by seven angels in Revelation chapters 8-11 will bring about a close to this current age and begin a new day. Consider that when Christ returns the sounding of the trumpet will raise the dead, call the faithful, and coronate Christ as KING! The kingdom of this earth will cease, and the Kingdom of God will begin in all its glory!
In orthodox Judaism, the Feast of Trumpets was fulfilled at Mt. Sanai when God called Moses and the people of Israel to the mountain with the voice of a Ram’s Horn Shofar. The ultimate fulfillment of the Feast of Trumpets will manifest when the seven trumpets sound in Revelation 8-11 and the eighth trumpet (Eight is the number of new beginnings) when Christ returns.
Whether you like it or not, whether you believe it or not, it’s all going down with the sound of a trumpet!
I am The Old Watchman, Ezekiel.
