The Feast of Trumpets is known for pointing to the return of our Messiah. As it is written, for the Lord himself will descend from heaven with the sound of the trumpet of God. We blow the shofar as a shout of celebration and joy for that coming day. And this is the kind of joy that makes you both dance and cry. A joy greater than what anyone has ever experienced. That will be the joy we have when Yeshua Jesus comes on the clouds. Now, it's not just that the Messiah will come again that we're celebrating, but this time to rule and reign upon the earth and to physically overthrow darkness and to and death once and for all. I mean, can you imagine what it would be like to have a ruler and king that is perfect and that is able to actually bring a change in this world? Every election we hear of the promises of change from our governments. But King Yeshua will bring change. And that's what we look forward to when we celebrate the Feast of Trumpets. As it's written in Isaiah 25:8, he will swallow up death forever. And the Lord God will wipe away tears from all faces. And the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth. For the Lord has spoken. It will be said on that day, behold, this is our God. We have waited for him that he might save us. This is the Lord. We have waited for him. Let us be glad and rejoice in his salvation. This celebration is going to be so world changing that God even told us to start memorializing that day today, to inscribe it upon our calendars each year in Leviticus 23:24, we read speak to the people of Israel, saying, in the seventh 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. So God is coming to us and saying, I want you to hit pause on your life for this one day of the Feast of Trumpets. I want you to not work. I want you to blow trumpets, rejoice and pay attention to my plans for you. Behold my coming salvation. And let me tell you, I think that that is worth pausing our work for to glorify the Lord and for our own sakes. See, as people, we need hope in this dying world. We need reminding that this all here is temporary. We need to remember that our trials are coming to an end, that this is. Whatever you're suffering right now is not permanent. And our God is not pretending that this is okay. But this world, this world doesn't stop on this feast day they don't stop to look up in this time. For to the world, the Feast of Trumpets it comes, it goes without a blink, as if no plan of salvation awaits the world. But you, being in him, having been made aware of his glorious plans, keep the day set apart as he asked. But now, apart from this glorious joy that the Feast of Trumpets points to, there's also something deeper going on with the blowing of trumpets in the scriptures that I want you to see. Trumpets, as we mentioned, is indeed associated with this incredible joy, but also great fear. The kind of fear that makes you want to hide and never appear again. Now, immediately you could wonder, pd, why are we talking about fear? How can we say that that same trumpet that blows can mean two completely opposite things? I want you to read something with me. In Revelation 11:15, it says, Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices and in heaven saying, the kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. Hallelujah. Then it says, the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying, we give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, who is who was for you have taken your great power and begun to reign. This is what we've been talking about so far. This is how the kingdom of God responds to his arrival on the Feast of Trumpets. However, when we read from the next verse, we see how this world will respond to his arrival. It says, in Revelation 11:18, the nations raged, but your wrath came, and the time for the dead to be judged, and for rewarding your servants, the prophets and saints, and those who fear your name, both small and great, and for destroying the destroyers of the earth. We are seeing these two very different things happening at the same time. Let's read further. It says when he appears in Revelation 6:15, that even the kings of this world and the most powerful of the earth will be hiding from his face. It says, then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful and everyone slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, calling to the mountains and the rocks saying, fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand? And so we have now witnessed this great paradox that proclaims the glory of our Lord, that he is a savior, protector, who's laid down his life to become approachable by us. He's full of this graciousness to open the door of salvation. But on the other hand, he is a judge who says that vengeance is mine. He is perfectly lawful. And that's why Proverbs tells us in 1121, be assured, an evil person will not go unpunished, but the offspring of the righteous will be delivered. And so when we blow the shofar, the trumpet on the feast of Trumpets, and this right here is the full revelation of what we are hearing, that depending on who you are, the trumpet sound will sound different. It will either sound like a song of deliverance or a song of judgment. The question is, who are you and what will you hear when the trumpet blows? I mean, today, look, we can blow trumpets as a fun activity. We can sing and dance and have joy and celebration, and we should. But this all is but a rehearsal of his actual return. So when he actually returns and the trumpets of heaven and actually blow, what will that real event mean for you? I mean, that's a serious question for a serious moment like this to consider. For some of us have become good at playing church and all sorts of religious games, at times putting on a religious mask to even fool ourselves. When we look at ourselves in the mirror, see, we can grow up in a religious home. We can grow up learning about the Bible while at the same time having little to no actual relationship with the King, no real prayer life, no true worship, and then no transformation, no good fruit. James 2:19 says, you believe that God is one. You do well, even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you foolish person? That faith apart from works is useless. James is telling us to know about God and even to believe that he exists in of itself is not enough, for even the demons do. But think about it. The rebellion of Satan and demons is rooted in their own selfishness and pride. Satan wanted to exalt himself to be a God, while the one true God, he lowered himself to human flesh, suffered a horrific death at the hands of men to save us. So the question is, in whose image are you living? Are you as selfish as a demon or selfless as our God? Are you a sacrifice unto the Lord? Or do you expect everyone else to become a sacrifice for you? And the test in this all is simple. Look at your thoughts towards your enemies. Look at your actions towards your enemies. For Christ commanded love towards enemy and asked us, what is special about loving a friend when the world can do the same? What will set us apart as his people is that we love even Those who are difficult to love. And this is our test this day. Last week, the hearts of this nation was tested. Did you pass the test with good fruit when your enemies did evil and your heart was hurt by them? Did you go out of your way to orientate your heart towards loving them? That's what your Messiah did on that cross towards his enemies. That is our example. Let's not be under this illusion that merely knowing about God or reading about God in the Bible is what is going to save us. As James wrote, the demons know about God and they tremble. So let me speak clearly to you now because of my love for you. The times of claiming Christ well, living as selfish as a demon to your family, your friends and this world is over. Because on that day of Trumpets, when Jesus comes, every mass comes off. And I say this to remind you of what happened at his first appearance, where all of the religious people who did have masks on and who were pretty on the outside while being dead inside, especially those certain Pharisaic leaders, they were exposed and cast off. And all of the humble people of contrite and repentant hearts, they were forgiven and drawn near. See, it's a free gift that you can have too, no matter what you've done, how long it's been, or how far from God you feel. It's not about being perfect on that day that he comes again, for we all have committed transgression. It's about believing in Jesus as your Savior, beating your chest and saying, God, forgive me, a sinner. Neither us nor our own works can save us. And that all the more should draw us to recognize how evil our works often have been and how much we need to humble ourselves before our God in repentance. That is where our healing springs forth. And so you may ask pd, where do I begin with this? Prayer is exactly where we begin and what is lacking in a world where our time is swallowed up by distraction. We have made many excuses for not setting time aside to pray. But the good news is, like I mentioned, the Feast of Trumpets is a high Sabbath where you are to do no work and is the perfect day day to refresh and restart your prayer life. And this too is not of works. It's not for you to be saved or accepted by how much you pray, but it is for our sake to incline our spirit to his voice and to be transformed by his voice. Jesus didn't prescribe a minimum requirement of time to pray per day. He laid no such burden upon his children in that way. But he told us to pray and set an example for us in his own life on how he set time in his own life apart to pray to God and then to pray like this. Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we have also forgiven our debtors. Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. And many people stop short and forget that part of Christ's admonition towards prayer was forgiveness. He said that if you don't forgive others their trespasses, neither will your heavenly Father forgive yours. So this is a season. If we want to restore prayer, let's restore forgiveness. Let's make sure that our hearts are clean towards men, that we do not hold grudges against them, so that we may be forgiven by our Father in heaven, as he has forgiven us and held no grudge against us. And so, brothers and sisters, I conclude with this. The Feast of Trumpets is a season of spiritual war in this world. And maybe some of you have felt it in your bodies, in your lives, in your families. You've been feeling warfare in your life. But the scripture is clear on how we fight this battle. Do you remember how we spoke in the beginning of the shout of joy of the righteous with trumpets? Psalm 98 says, Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre. With the lyre. And the sound of melody with trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord. These shouts of joy of the believer is our weapon. It is what sends our enemies camp into confusion. And I'm not saying that just spiritually, I'm even speaking literally. In the story of Gideon, in Judges 7:22, we read that when they blew the 300 trumpets, the Lord set every man's sword against his comrade and against all the ark and the army fled as far as Beth Sheda. In the story of Gideon, when they blew the trumpets, the enemy's camp was thrown into a confusion. So much so that they turned against one another and at the end of the day fled in our spiritual war against the enemy, our enemy who is real. Let you have your joyful noises, your praises and your melody and your worship, for that is how you make war. Learn to cherish the worship that you can have to towards the Lord, and understand that that is how you fight your battle. And you may ask pd, what's the big deal? I don't understand why is worship going to mean something in my battle and in my Trial. It seems unrelated, but you have to understand that the source of your worship, the reason that you can worship, the reason that you sing to the Lord in joy, is because of the glory of the Lord. That is the theme of this feast, the proclaim the glory of the Lord. And what is the glory of the Lord? Why is it that we can worship Him? It is because of what he did on the cross that he raised from the dead and have come to raise the dead and to overwhelm the kingdom of Satan. So when we are worshipping, we are reminding Satan and the demons of their defeat and we are reclaiming spiritual territory back to God's kingdom, preparing the way for the return of Yeshua, whether that spiritual territory needs to be reclaimed in your family, in your friends, in your job, in your finances, in your health. Worship is how you remind the spiritual world of whose boss that your God has overcome all things and that by his stripes we are healed. So now, hopefully you know what the sound of the trumpet means for you. But let's now take a hold of the gift that this feast is. To rest on his Sabbath day, to take joy in our salvation, to refresh our prayer life, to worship as being our warfare, and to let him be the one to transform our fruit. Father, I thank you, Lord, for giving us the Feast of Trumpets as a memorial to this day of your great return that is coming soon. Thank you, Lord, that you have given us hope in a new life and a new heaven and a new earth that is coming soon. Father, I ask that you would forgive us of our sins where we have held unforgiveness towards others. Forgive us, Father. Give us the strength and the will and the ability to come into prayer and worship like never before. Lord, I ask that you would help us to set aside all distractions that have taken us away from you. And Lord, we ask that you would help us see the grace of God. Help us to see how much you love us. Lord, I ask that you would show everyone listening to this conference and this feast that there are so many mercies and that you come not to judge and condemn the world, but that you have come to save the world. Yeshua. Jesus, I thank you that there is another coming where you are coming to save those who are in you, all of us who are calling on your name this night. I ask for those, Lord, who when they hear the trumpet blow, they will be struck with fear. I ask, Lord, that you would give them time. I ask, Lord, that you would open their eyes so that they can have a change of heart so that they can come to you. So that they may also hear the trumpet as a song of deliverance. I thank you for the cross. I thank you for dying for us. I thank you that by our faith we can be saved. Help us to be selfless. All in the name of Yeshua, the Messiah. Sam.