Main Street Church Sermon (17.09 - )

Well, we are still, still looking at the feasts of Israel. And today is no exception. We're going to do that again. To set it up. Take a look at this picture.

What if you went to, I don't know, a neighbor's house or a relative's house just to say hi or something like that, and you walked in the front door after they let you in, and you walked in and you saw this. You saw all these. Balloons and stuff all over the ceiling and stuff like that. And it kind of surprised you. Your first question would be.

Right, whose birthday is it? What's going on? What's the celebration? And what if the person that you went there who owns a house says, well, no, it's not a birthday. And so then you'd say, well Anniversary?

Uh no, it's not an anniversary. Uh or yeah, is it is it a wedding thing? No, no one's getting married.

Okay, so I'm out of questions.

So, what is this all about? What are you celebrating? And they'd say, I I'm not really sure. And And you'd say, Well, what do you mean you're not really sure? I mean, so why did you do this if you're not sure why you're doing it?

And they would say something totally unbelievable, like, Well, we've always done this year after year. Uh but we don't know why.

Okay, so you're laughing because that's just crazy.

However, however. The feast we come to today has this part of it. What?

So there's a lot of mystery today and you're going to have to help me again untangle this mystery. We're going to try and untangle it as we look at the word together. But it's literally like walking into a house of balloons and not knowing why the balloons are there. What?

Okay, so here's our review if you haven't been with us. Here's the Feast of Israel. On this very complicated picture, this is just a circular picture of the calendar year. There's the 12 lunar months going around the edges of the Jewish calendar, the 12 lunar months. A lunar month goes from new moon to new moon, and by the way, Last night, if you looked out right after sunset, you saw a tiny sliver of the moon out toward the sun, where the sun went down.

That tiny, tiny, infinitesimal sliver, that's how when you'd see that, that's when you knew that you were at new moon. That's how you know.

So that's the months of the year, the Jewish calendar. Unfortunately, 12 lunar rotations does not add up to a year. It's 11 days short, which is why there's a gap at the top.

So the lunar calendar tends to slip versus our solar calendar. They just add a month every three years or so, and it's back to where it's supposed to start. We add a day every four years because our months actually add up to 365 days, but the year is a quarter of a day longer than that, so we add a day every four years. They do a whole month.

So here's the calendar, and here's our present 2025 seasonal calendar in the middle.

So you can figure out where this year, this year, where the Jewish calendar lines up with our calendar based on our seasons right there. And we've gone in opposite order. We went to the last month, the 12th month of Dar, and we looked at the celebration of Purim, which is all about the story of Esther, about the saving of God's people from a genocide, a worldwide genocide. As they said, from Ethiopia to India, all the Jews would have been dead.

So that's celebrated in the last month of the year, the 12th. We looked at that. We looked at Hanukkah, which comes around Christmas for us. It's Hanukkah in Hebrew, since you're so conversant in different languages. Means dedication.

That's what it means. The dedication of the temple after it was defiled back about 160 years before Jesus was around. It was defiled by the bad guys that came in. They sacrificed a pagan there. It was just really a bad thing.

So that's the dedication of the temple after it's been. Done to like that. And then we started into, we embarked into this purple range right here, which is the seven appointed feasts.

Now they're different from the two I just mentioned. They're different because as Israel was coming out of the captivity of Egypt, God said, Here's my laws. Remember the Ten Commandments? And he also said, and here's seven feasts you have to do. And here's the months they have to be in.

So that's why I have a calendar because those months are fixed with what celebrations are in those months.

So this is God saying: as you're leaving Egypt, as you're transiting through the desert, as you're aiming into the promised land, I want you to do these feasts. And they happen to take place in the first month, in the third month, and in the seventh month. Only seven.

So, in a sense, the ones we looked at over here that have the story of Esther and also Hanukkah, those are kind of outliers. They're okay celebrations, they're about important events, but these seven are special because. God is using these seven celebrations to tell you something. He's trying to tell you something. It's a deliberately constructed message system, the feasts are.

So we're looking at them in the reverse order.

So we're in the seventh month. We looked at the last one of the seven appointed feasts, the beasts. Beast of Fooths. The Feast of Booths. The beast of fooths.

I like that. Or I call it the feast of shacks. The booth really just means shacks. I mean, they're temporary structures. And we looked there at the whole idea of Remembering them coming out of Egypt and living in temporary structures before they got to their permanent structures in the promised land.

So that's. The Feast of Boots. I'm going to mess that up every time. And then we got to just before that, the Day of Atonement. We looked at that last week.

Yom Kippur, and Yom Kippur, if you have Jewish friends, they know the words Yom Kippur. Yom is the word for day. Yom is day, and Kippur means actually ransom or exchange. It's the day of ransom or exchange. And it looks at, we looked at last week, the fact that our sins, the totality of our sins, have been paid for, they've been exchanged, they've been ransomed by something.

And we looked at the symbolism they do at that time. Today, what we're going to look at, just be prior to that, and it's about the same time, this is in a two- to three-week section of time in this seventh month. They do three festivals together. And the one we're going to look at today, which is actually right on the first of the month, is the Feast of Trumpets.

Now I have my recording of the trumpets. But last time I played it you guys all winced, so I'm not gonna blame this time. But they sound like this. Woo! Woo!

Sort of like that. The Feast of Trumpets, the Feast of Trumpets, okay?

So as we are. want to do. Oh, by the way, called Yom Turuh. Yom means. Dey.

Tarua means Actually it means blasting shouts. It means extremely loud sounds. Uh half the time in the Old Testament is translated as trumpets. Half the time it is translated as shouts.

So it's just a very loud sound. My my closest equivalence is well, like when Scott brought his air horn to church one Sunday. Because we were doing the book of Esther. It was really great. It was really, because I said bring noise makers.

Yeah. An air horn. That's about as lot as you get. A horn? You can use a horn.

You can use anything. But anyway, that was at Esther.

So when you think of Feast of Trumpets, trumpets is. Like an air horn. Literally, that's the closest modern equivalent we have to that sound. Very loud, very disrupting.

So we're going to look at the feast of trumpets.

So here's what we do. We go back to the key verse in the Old Testament. It's in Leviticus 23. Leviticus 23 is where God says, here's the seven feasts that I want you to do, okay, that he gives to them as they're leaving Egypt and going to the promised land. Here's the seven feet.

So we go to Leviticus 23, and we're going to see if we can find out what the feast of trumpets is all about.

So here we go. Here's the Leviticus 23. This is all the verses in Leviticus 23 about the Feast of Trumpets. It's the whole thing.

So here we go. Let's find out what we're celebrating. The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, Speak to the people of Israel, saying, In the seventh month on the first day, okay, that's where we are, seventh month, 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.

The end. It didn't didn't tell us why we're celebrating. It just says We're celebrating. And feast feast, yeah? Offering of food?

Yeah. I mean, like, r remember when I showed you the feast the feast before on the calendar? Celebrating Esther, the avoidance of a Holocaust, you know, celebrating the rededication of the Temple. I mean, there are events that you're celebrating that turned out quite good. And even when you start into the appointed feasts, great stuff.

We moved out of temporary structures into permanent structures. According to God's promise, there's been a payment made on our behalf for our sins. I mean, those all make sense. But here it just says blow trumpets. And you do some other stuff with it, but it's not telling it story.

Okay, so we'll go to the secondary passage in the Old Testament. Always, when you go to Numbers, it'll give you more information about the feasts. But this right here, that's all that Leviticus 23 says. You need to blow trumpets. What?

Okay, we'll go to the secondary passage, Numbers 29. See if we can figure this out.

So on the first day of the seventh month, okay, that's where we are. You shall have a holy convocation. By the way, I'll remind you again while we're looking at that: the names of the Jewish months. did not come from Jewish culture. It came from Babylonian culture.

So when they were in the Babylonian captivity, remember that? They were hauled away, they were in captivity for 70 years until they came back and rebuilt the temple. We just studied this in Ezra and Nehemiah.

So the names of the months somehow got adopted while they were in captivity, and they're using using Babylonian names. That'll be important in a second.

So here we are. It's the month of Tishri. But here in Numbers 29 and in the entire Old Testament, the months are only referred to as numbers. There's one except tiny exception when Solomon is dedicating the temple when it's first built. But they don't use Babylonian names, of course.

Anyway, so let's find out.

So you shall have a holy convocation, get together. You shall not do any ordinary work, okay, like a Sabbath. We saw that in Leviticus. It's a day for you to blow the trumpets. Hmm.

Okay? Uh there's more. There's more in numbers 29. And you shall offer a burnt offering for a pleasing aroma to the Lord.

Well, Leviticus mentioned about an offering. But what is it?

Well, here he's going to spell out what the offering is: one bull from the herd, one ram, seven male lambs a year old without blemish. Also, their grain offering of fine flour mixed with oil, three-tenths of an ephah for the bull, two-tenths for the ram, and one-tenth for each of 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 a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord. The end. So Wh what are we celebrating? You see the problem?

What like what What are we celebrating?

So when you get to the Feast of Trumpets, As you study all the feasts, everything seems clear until you get here, and there is, on God's part, a deliberate ambiguity.

Now isn't that interesting? That means that he's kind of He's inviting us. To do a little detective work.

So we're gonna do detective work today, and you're with me on that, right? We're gonna do some detective work, we're gonna try and figure this out. It's just like having balloons hanging in a room and not knowing why you hung the balloons.

So you need to blow trumpets. Why? Because you're supposed to.

So there's got to be more than that. And what I'm going to try and do is separate two things, okay? I want to separate biblical clues for what the Feast of Trumpets is about from traditional overburden. things that have been done in the Jewish community since then.

Okay, for three to four millennia. And so these things happen with the feast.

Some very good things are added, good, good wrestling. But the rabbis and the Jews, since this was put together, since this was proclaimed, Leviticus 23, they've been wrestling with this as well.

So they have like a. Three to four millennia ahead start on us. But some of the things that they got to in many of the feasts as they work through them over the millennia are a little goofy, let's say, well-intentioned. But what I want to do is separate that traditional. Observances that what I call the overburden of traditions from the millennia.

And just look at the Bible.

So we can see as we do our detective work, what does the Bible say and how does it tend to give us an understanding about what the Feast of Trumpets is? Why are we making such a big deal out of the first day of Tishri and we don't know what we're making a big deal of? That seems to be a good thing to do.

So Thinking caps on. Oh no. Thinking about lunch.

Okay, let's see if we can figure this out. Um the Feast of Trumpets. Let's do New Year instead. Uh what?

Well, this is this is where the Jewish community has come to over many of this millennia. They celebrate New Year here. Instead of the Feast of Trumpets.

Now, I gotta qualify that. They do recognize the Feast of Trumpets, but when you get down to the First of Tishrei, when you talk about the first month, the first day of Tishrei and the celebration there, if you ask a Jew, what do you do on the first day of Tishrei? they'll say, Rosh Hashanah. They'll say New Year. They'll say New Year.

And now you're sitting there thinking, uh What? And you're probably thinking on this calendar, wait. Isn't Isn't the first month like up there? I mean, isn't that supposed to be New Year? Wouldn't that be New Year, the first day of the first month?

So there's like two New Years? No. There's actually four New Years. in the traditional Jewish calendar as it's come to us today. What?

I know.

So, this is part of that overburden. But there's some good connections about why the first of Tishrei is also a new year. And this is just my speculation. But I think because of the ambiguity of the Feast of Trumpets, like what's that all about? And the Torah, the first five books, don't really say much about that.

Because of that ambiguity, What's popularly done is Rosh Hashanah, which is Dewyear. Rosh Hashanah, Rosh means. Head Shana means year, head of the year, new year, since Rashi Shana is new year. Oh okay. But how did that get to be?

Why is that kind of connected with the first of Tishrei? Why is that connected with the Feast of Trumpets? What's so new here about starting the seventh month? I mean, for us, it'd be the same as New Year's, for us is on January. First.

And July 4th is on Fourth of July. Fourth of July. But what if you decided to make the Fourth of July the new year?

Well, July is the seventh month. Like this is the seventh point. That would be be like that. You'd say, well, why would we do that? Why would we do that?

There's a really good reason. There's actually nice traditional reasons for why it's done. And I'll do a slight diversion here to take a look at this, because this I think is fascinating. One of the clues we get is the fact that remember I said Babylonian names of months, Tishrei? Tishrei in Akkadian means beginning.

Akkadian is the language of the Babylonians. It means beginning.

So the various months in the Jewish calendar have borrowed Babylonian words and for the seventh month they use the word beginning.

Well Why would they do that? Ah, well, Babylonian captivity, we just studied this in Ezra-Nehemiah. Remember, Ezra was all about rebuilding the temple that had been destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar six or seven decades before that? Rebuilding the temple. That was the whole cause for being for Ezra.

Nehemiah, not too long after that, was about rebuilding the wall that protected the inner city as well as the temple. And he built the wall there. Ezra and Nehemiah, those are actually stories that come out of just after the Babylonian captivity.

So we can actually understand some great things about the Babylonian captivity from those two books and also principally from Esther, which is right smack dab in the middle of the captivity.

So what did they do in Ezra and Nehemiah that gives us a tip off about why they would take the seventh month on the schedule and call it the New Year?

Well, I'm glad you asked.

Well look at this. This is cool. Tishri is the beginning because in Ezra III, when they are rebuilding the temple, they got the altar built first, right? The altar reduced sacrifices. They got that built first.

And once they got that built, although they hadn't even laid the foundation in the temple, they started sacrifices. Ezra 3:6. from the first day of the seventh month. Ah Ah, they began to offer burnt offerings to the Lord.

Well, that's kind of like a beginning. Tishray? It kind of is. Maybe we should reset the calendar of that. But we're not done.

Nehemiah. Nehemiah. Remember Nehemiah is about building a wall? And they had built the wall, and as part of the celebration in building the wall, was they decided to read the book of the law out loud, the books of Moses, and they read them out loud. Remember that big public, huge convocation.

Everyone came. They made a special platform in front. They put people of importance. They had a big stand up there. They put the word up there, Ezra was up there, and he read it.

Okay, remember that scene? And people's response was to cry. Remember?

Okay.

Well, do you know when that happened? No, yes. Nehemiah 8.2.

So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women and all who could understand what they heard. on the first day of the seventh month. And he read it. And by the way, if you're not familiar with Nehemiah 8, it's a great read to see what the response was, both a conviction for sin and the renewal of people's excitement about God's word. Really neat chapter.

But they read this publicly on the first day of Tishrei.

So I could see why in their experience they might look at the first day of Tishrei, which is the seventh month, and say, you know, in a sense, we had a new beginnings right then. We had a new beginnings when we started sacrifices. We had a new beginnings when we read the word Maybe this is kind of like a renewal in a sense. Maybe this is like a second new year. And so that's largely what most people who study this whole thing about the second new year surmise is what happened.

So when you get to the first of Tishrei on the modern Jewish calendar, it's Rosh Hashanah, it's the New Year, and it's always celebrated by a particular food. Most of the feasts have like a signature food that they do. The one for Rosh Hashanah, for the head of the year, is honey on apples. Not bad. Although I th I think I I think I prefer Hanukkah because that was anything fried.

Yes, fried food. Yeah, okay. But because the idea for Rosh Hashanah for the new year is the fact that you want to wish somebody a sweet next year.

So the sweet next year is the honey, and the apples were actually quite quite naturally harvested right at the time. right at the time of the first of Tishri, apples would be good.

So anyway, so that's what's celebrated today. That was my diversion about Rosh Hashanah. Let's go back and answer the question about the Feast of Trumpets. Uh Right? Feast of trumpets.

By the way, that's the trumpet right there. He's blowing a ram's horn that's hollowed out. The the skinny end is cut off and you blow in it just like you would a trumpet. If you were trumpet player trumpet players? Huh?

Okay.

Buzz your lips. I was a clarinet player, so I can't really relate. But yeah, so this is a trumpet. That's the trumpet. And you blow the trumpet.

Actually, just to be clear, there were two kinds of trumpets in the Old Testament. There were silver trumpets that were used for official occasions, and you see those in a minor use. But in nine times out of ten, when you see trumpets in the Old Testament, we're talking about a ram's horn. That's born into.

Okay, so let's just talk about trumpets for a second. Let's just ask ourselves, without looking at the Bible, what does a trumpet accomplish? What does it do for you? Why would you blow a trumpet in one circumstance and not another? Attention.

Attention. Look at that. You read my mind. Yeah, that's what it does. No matter what you're doing.

You hear the ram whorm and you go, Oh, well, now there you go. Right? When I was a kid, we had nuclear fallout alarms that would go off when I was in school. When you heard this alarm siren go off, then you knew you were supposed to crawl under your desk and hope that you survive the next 10 minutes. But these alarms, these sirens, were really loud.

They were meant to get your attention so that no matter what you're doing. It'll get your attention.

So that's one thing that's true about trumpets, and that when you look at the places they're used in the Old Testament, That that's just true. That's just a that Being captain obvious here, they're meant to get your attention. And so, what does that happen after that?

Well, you know that something big is going to happen. It's not something small. You know, it's not like someone's going to have a birthday party. There's something really, really big happening.

So put these in your hip pocket. It calls you to attention, and it calls you to attention about something really, really big.

Okay, that's how you use trumpets. And also it causes you to stop what you're doing. I mean, it changes everyone's course of work and their attention. Everything shifts when the trumpets come out. This is true every time the trumpets are used in the Old Testament.

I mean, our only closest equivalent is if you watched movies about. Um What do you want to talk? Did anyone watch F Troop? Yeah, it's a really old show. Yeah, it's an old it's an old, old show.

But it's a it's about the cavalry out in the west and stuff like that.

Well, when they would go on a charge in battle They would blow a trumpet. Ah, so it gets everyone's attention to do one thing together. To do one thing together. Or today, even still today, if you're in the military, to wake you up in the morning to make sure that every lacquer gets up, what do you do? You blow a trumpet, Revelli comes out, right?

So it gets everyone's attention. And you stop what you're doing, which in that case would be sleeping, and you start to do something else. I mean, we know this. We are trumpet experts. We know this.

Also, It's a call to everyone and not just a few.

So it's a broadcast to everyone.

So we know these things. We know these things from F-Troop. We know these things from reading the Old Testament. We just know these things. This is how trumpets are used.

They're large communication devices that call your attention to something that you weren't looking at. It's about something really, really big. And you stop what you're doing. You realign to what this is calling you to do. And this is a call for everyone.

Okay, you got it? You knew that stuff actually.

Okay, hold that thought. It's a big deal. A trumpet blast is a big deal.

So, this is why, in the Feast of Trumpets, on the first day of Tishrei, on the seventh month. We say, Why are we blowing trumpets for something that's a really big deal when God, you're not telling us what the big deal is? Isn't that odd? This is how God just sort of... invites you into the discovery.

It's just very odd to have something that has such huge import. I mean, come on, the walls of Jericho. Fell. after the trumpets. This is a big deal.

Why wouldn't God tell us what the big deal is? I just think this is great stuff. This is Bible study 101. You go, okay, I got to figure this out.

So we know the general characteristics of what a trumpet is for.

Now we've got to figure out. Why it's in the first day of Tishrei? Hmm.

Okay.

So I went looking around for some trumpet stuff. Isaiah 27. In that day, from the river Euphrates. Which is in Mesopotamia, from the river Euphrates to the brook of Egypt. That brook, by the way, is the Nile.

That's not a brook, buddy. That's a big river. To the brook of Egypt, the Lord will thresh out the grain, and you will be gleaned one by one, O people of Israel. And in that day, a great trumpet will be blown, and those who were lost in the land of Assyria, and those who were driven out to the land of Egypt, will come. and worship the Lord on the holy mountain of Jerusalem.

Well, that's interesting. What event is he talking about?

Well, it's clearly an event in the future. It's clearly an event in the future.

So what is this all about? And the big trumpet basically announces to a very large geography, a very large geography from Mesopotamia to Egypt, that a gathering is going to take place. Do you see that? God's gathering, like a harvest. Did you see that?

It's like a harvest. I will thresh out the grain, like they are little heads of grain, and you'll be gleaned. That's a harvest term, you know, will be collected up, right? one by one, and then it'll be brought into the harvest and you'll be back in Israel.

So this is really a large harvest kind of picture where God's people are dispersed and they're scattered. And at the big trumpet, woo! they'll be brought back together back in Jerusalem. Whoa, that's cool. It adds extra weight.

to when Jesus himself says, about the harvest. The harvest is great, we need more harvesters. Ah, so the whole idea about gathering together people for God's purposes is always likened to a harvest. And here it is with Israel. And there's a trumpet.

There's a trumpet that's with that. That's kind of interesting.

Okay, let's find another one.

Well, there it is, Matthew 24:30. Then will appear in heaven the sign of the Son of Man, and then the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and he will send out his angels with a loud trumpet call. and they will gather his elect from the four winds and from one end of heaven to the other. almost exactly what we just read in Isaiah. What And there's a trumpet in both passages.

And the trumpet is is heralding an attention and a big deal and everyone's involved. It's just a gigantic event. And here what he's talking about is actually is going to happen at the end of the age. Wow. Trumpet call.

Wow. How about some more? 1 Corinthians 15. Behold, I tell you a mystery. This is a mystery.

Well, we're working on a mystery, so this might help. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed. That's that old baby joke? Oh, never mind. Babies don't sleep, but they will be changed.

Okay.

You don't know that joke? Oh, no. Oh, okay. I've completely undermined what this verse is saying.

So let's, behold, I tell you, a mystery: we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed in a moment. In a twinkling of an eye. At the Last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we shall be changed. That sounds like the gathering idea, the harvest gathering idea from the previous two passages we just read.

And there's trumpets in all of them. Maybe Since we know trumpets have to do with a big deal. Maybe that's the big deal.

Okay, that's our working hypothesis. Oh no, 1 Thessalonians 4. Yeah. This gathering idea is reinforced. 1 Thessalonians 4.16, For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel.

just like that other passage, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first, and then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will be with the Lord. Trumpets, trumpets, trumpets, trumpets. Gathering, gathering, gathering, gathering. Big deal.

Big deal, big deal, big deal. Right? I did this search in about five minutes. I went, oh no, wait a second. Wait a second.

Okay, let's just keep researching before we make too many big conclusions. Isaiah 58.

Now this is really quite something and it kind of hints towards judgment. Cry aloud, do not hold back. Lift up your voice like a trumpet. Declare to my people their transgression, to the house of Jacob their sins. And so this is really a pro the trumpet is heralding the proclamation of sin.

That's Interesting. Like maybe judgment in a sense. Um some other ones. Oh yes. You knew we were going to get to Revelation, did you?

Yeah, yeah, baby.

Okay.

Revelation 11, 15. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet. Seventh angel seventh month. Yeah, I don't know. And there were loud voices 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.

Now Jesus was always king.

However, this is him kind of like a coronation thing, like he's. put in place over the earth so that his rule is Absolute and uncontested and not withdrawn. I mean, there's a sense in which Jesus, not a sense, is a reality of the fact that Jesus is the king of kings and lord of lords. But he has allowed the earth for a while to be subjected to sin and to evil, and a day is coming where that will come to an end. It will just come to an end.

And he'll be enthroned, as it says in Revelation here, and then things get sorted out, right? That's what we see.

So could it very well be that this trumpet thing has something to do with the coronation of a king? Could could be. That's a big deal. We're looking for a big deal that brings the attention of everybody, say like all the citizens in the kingdom of the king. Yeah, oh, okay.

Let's just add that to our hip pocket because that's an interesting addition as well to what we're trying to figure out here. Zachariah 9. Then the Lord will appear over them, and his arrow will go forth like lightning, and the Lord God will sound the trumpet, and will march forth in the whirlwinds of the south, and on that day, on that day, Day, on that day, the Lord their God will save them as the flock of his people. For like the jewels of a crown, they shall shine on his land. Isn't that great?

So he's actually using the words of a conquering king. right here about getting his people back and coming. This arrow is the metaphor for might and power. His arrow will go forth like lightning. Who can stop that?

And God will march and on that day he will save them.

So that's a big deal. That's a big deal that's heralded by this trumpet right here. That somehow, somehow this God will come into power and he'll save them from whatever's their problem. Right. By the way, I put down here, read Zachariah 9.9, because you know Zachariah.

It's like just a handful of verses before Zachariah 9.14. I'm not going to tell you what it says, but it'll blow your mind when you read it. What?

Zachariah 9.9. is just before this. They're actually the same passage. to the same passage. And we only quote Zachariah 9, 9 and we forget about this.

What?

Oh, you'll love it.

So write that down someplace. Um Ezekiel 36.

So this is the idea of this kind of this judgment thing, this gathering thing, and it's what I term over here that the The mind. the mind God's That says your mind. And just listen to some of these because these are tied in with those passages. Ezekiel 36, 25, I will sprinkle clean water on you and you shall be clean from all your word? Yeah.

And from all your idols, I'll cleanse you. I will cleanse you, and I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I'll put within you, and I'll remove the heart of stone from your flesh, and give you a heart of flesh. That's that's just like a great That's a great thing. But here it is, is God Himself. He talked about saving us from a power perspective in the previous one.

Here He's saving us from our own sins, He's going to cleanse us. It's going to cleanse us. He's going to cleanse us. We're not going to cleanse ourselves. He's going to cleanse us.

And as a result, he's going to do a little surgery, and your heart of stone will turn into a heart of flesh.

Now, what does that mean? Because in the New Testament, we take the word flesh and go, that means bad, evil things. In this case, it means something that's easily, that lives and is easily. influenced by God Himself. Rather than heart of stone.

The old idea anciently was the fact, like, for instance, I was talking with someone about mummies this morning. Thanks, Isaac. And as we were talking about mummies. You know you know when they would mummify a body? They would take out the internal organs, right?

You know that sometimes they put them in jars and put them right there.

Okay, you've seen that. You know what they put in place of the heart? They take the heart out and they would put in the place of it a stone. You know why they put a stone there? A stone?

It's because they didn't want you to be easily influenced by the evil spirits in the afterlife.

So if you have a heart of stone, that means You can't remove it.

So Ezekiel uses that same metaphor right now, saying, You have a heart of stone. That means you're not responsive to God. You're not responsive to anything. You're just a stone. And in this cleansing process, I'll change you and I'll pull out that unfeeling, unthinking.

uninfluenceable heart of stone and I'll give you a heart of flesh. they can actually react to who God is. That's cool. That's cool. He's the one that does that.

And also connected to that, Daniel. There shall be a time of trouble. such as never has been since since was a nation till that time. And at that time, but at that time your people shall be delivered. Every one whose name shall be found written in the book.

Remember that. That's an important clue. Everyone whose name is written in the book, and many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth, shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame. and everlasting contempt. These are all sounding like the same event, the same day, the same things going on, where not only is there a gathering of everyone, remember, trumpets blow so everyone responds.

But then that gathering is followed up by some sense of judgment. And what could that be about?

Well, about sin, about who we are. And then the king will be coronated. And then he will proclaim many as being mine. But according to Daniel right here, many will not be mine. From God's perspective, there'll be a separation.

from those who were who belong to God and those who don't. Does this ring in any bells yet? And then Malachi 3, the last book of the of the Old Testament. Then those who feared the Lord spoke with one another, and the Lord paid attention and heard them, and a book of remembrance was written before him of those who feared the Lord and esteemed his name. Interesting.

You you know, when you write something in a book, at least in ancient thinking, it's permanent. Right, it's permanent. Uh we do that today. Uh d can you give that to me in writing? Oh, okay.

That's what we do with contracts. I'm just going to give you my word and we're going to shake hands. No, can we just have that in writing? Because that's permanent, right? It's traceable.

That's what this idea right here is. And he's saying that those who love the Lord The book of remembrance was written before him for those who feared the Lord.

Now, remember in the previous passage, it talked about you're naming this book of life thing. And Jesus Himself said. In Luke, oh darn, I think it's 10. You can check me on this, but when the 70 come back from their little mission trip that they have, and they come back, and they're all jazzed. They're all jazzed because they just came back with great success from this little mini trip.

And when they came back, they're excited because they said, Jesus, guess what? We went into these villages and people that had demons inside of them, we would say something to demons, demons in it, cast out demons. We were casting out demons. Oh. They're really excited.

I would be excited if I saw that happen right in front of me. And then Jesus' response is what's really telling about this. He says, No, no, no, you shouldn't you shouldn't be jazzed about that. you should rejoice about the fact that your names are written in the book of life. Whoa, there is a sense in which.

our salvation and what God has done for us. has been written in ink.

somewhere. Already. It's done. And when you follow up that metaphor in other places, especially in Revelation, again, which Revelation seeks to give you a broad cosmic view of the history of mankind. In the book of Revelation, when you look up that reference to our names being written somewhere, he adds a couple of distinguishing adjectives which really blow your mind.

He says that our names, see if I can quote this exactly, our names are written... In the Lamb's book of life, And they were written before the foundation of the world. If you want to talk about permanent, that's permanent.

So somehow here in these things we're looking at, there's something There's something being regaled about the fact that our relationship with God. He is our king. All the relationships through judgment, all this kind of stuff. is is all pivoting on the fact that your name is written permanently in a book. Thank you.

Here's the rest of Malachi 3. They shall be mine. says the Lord of hosts. In the day In the day when I make up my treasured possession, And I will spare them as a man spares his son who serves him. And then once more you shall see the distinction between the righteous and the wicked.

between the one who serves God and the one who does not serve him. Boy, I'll tell you, that sounds just like Jesus. at the end of Matthew when he's talking about sheep and goats being separated. And he also says that this happens on a day. Is a day?

And there's trumpets, and this theme keeps coming out over and over. Day, trumpets, gathering. Everyone Judgment. King Mine. Trumpets.

So the Feast of Trumpets. Could it be actually the day of the Lord? And that's what I was kind of coming to. All those things I read to you are about this thing called the day of the Lord, not the month of the Lord or the year of the Lord, the day of the Lord, a singular event in the whole timeline of mankind's experience. That's how it's talked about in the Old Testament and in the New, the day of the Lord.

And what happens on the day of the Lord? All those things that you see on the left. Those things all happen on the day of the Lord. And a trumpet blows to signify these things.

Now, the authors of the New Testament, when they talk about this event of the day of the Lord, they deliberately insert what they know about the trumpet call in that, because they've read that in the Old Testament.

So we can actually, on secondhand, we can use the New Testament authors who understood their Old Testament, that every time they used trumpets, they were trying to connect what's going to happen at the end of the age. With what's mentioned in the Old Testament when we have trumpets. That's our key, that's our tie that makes this thing work together. Is that it looks very much, to my estimation, if you gather together all the scriptures that we're doing in our detective work to find out why this ambiguous ceremony of trumpets has no cause, but trumpets have huge representation in the Old and New Testament, and almost all of them focus on a big deal event. happening on one day.

It has to do with the coronation of the king and simultaneously judgment and the gathering together of the ones he loves. Trumpets, big deals.

So this is just my speculation.

So you are Bible students. You can make up your own mind. You can do your own study. You can look around. But I got to tell you, every time you look up trumpets to find out what the trumpets are he's mentioning on the first of Tishrei, There's trumpets that all have kind of a singular purpose when you look up in the Old Testament.

A singular purpose. And then the writers of the New Testament, they echo that same purpose. Because I read to you the 1 Thessalonians passage, the Corinthians passage. I mean, they're there. They're just there.

Could it be Could it be that God is asking the nation of Israel on the first of Tishrei to anticipate The coming of the day of the Lord. I think so. I I have no other explanation. I have no other explanation. It's a big deal.

Yeah. It's a big deal. There's another clue we can use as well.

Some of these passages, by the way, I just wanted to show you these. These are the Day of the Lord passages, Joel 3:14. Multitudes. Multitudes. Remember I said everyone respond to the trumpet?

Multitudes in the valley of decision. For the day of the Lord is near, in the valley of decision. That's a clear mention. of judgment. Everyone is coming to a place on that day.

And it's a day of decision. A decision for us? No, God's decision, a la Matthew. sheep and goat separations. his decisions.

Also, another passage that's really good about this, Zephaniah 1.7, Be silent before the Lord God, for the day of the Lord is nearer. The Lord has prepared a sacrifice and consecrated his guests Now those last two lines are fascinating. They're fascinating. Normally, the day of the Lord, if you think about it, not what we're talking about in terms of judgment, but if you think about it as like a big party, like a big celebration. The host of a big celebration, and we see this in some of the New Testament stories, the host of a big celebration would send out invitations, he'd invite people in, he'd set tables, he'd sacrifice animals to eat for the feast, right?

So that's partially what's talked about here. A sacrifice has been prepared to eat at these big celebrations, and as well, the guests have been consecrated. They've been asked to come, and they're getting all ready, and they're putting on the right clothes, and they're coming. They're consecrated. Consecrated just means, you know, tuned for the purpose of the feast.

But if you understand that this is also about judgment. of mankind. And that out of that judgment, many will be saved and many will not. And the ones that will be saved will be saved because of a sacrifice. on a sacrifice that makes fit God's people, for that celebration.

Then when you read this, These last two lines, you read it in a whole different light. There's a day of the Lord that's coming. God has prepared a sacrifice. What sacrifice? Jesus himself.

God has prepared a sacrifice. and he's consecrated his guest. He has made us who put our trust in him to be consecrated based on that sacrifice. There's a lot in that verse. But The day of the Lord Is near.

How many times have you seen that phrase all through the entire Bible? The day of the Lord is near. And they wrote this millennia ago. How near can a millennia be? It hasn't happened yet, at least as far as I know.

hasn't happened yet. But But it actually it's the theme of most of the Bible, almost the entire Bible. I mean, come on. John the Baptist and Jesus, what are the first words that we have recorded that they've told people? First words, John the Baptist?

Repent because the kingdom of God is near. What's the documented first words of Jesus? Repent, because the kingdom of God is near. He says that in Mark.

Well, okay. The kingdom of God means The king, who has always been king, has now returned and is coronated in power in sovereignty. This king is going to bring justice, unremitting justice that cannot be avoided by anyone of all mankind. You need a shutter. Because we're all sinners and we all violate in rebellion the king's sovereignty.

That that's what we're talking about.

So, John the Baptist and Jesus both say, look, you need to repent.

So, this issue about the coming of the king, coming in power, coming and bringing. unremitting justice. should bring anyone who knows that's coming on their knees and say God I've sinned and I've sinned against you.

So as part of this process on the day of the Lord, there should be a great humility on the part of those who understand their position with God is violated because of their own sins. But the good news, and we read this in several passages, is that we who put our trust in the blood of Jesus have been cleansed. Been cleansed.

So we've been made right for this celebration. It's a fascinating thing. That in the current celebration of Rosh Hashanah, the new year, That the day between the first of Tishri, the first day of the seventh month, and the day of Yom Kippur, which is the tenth day, that in between the first day and the tenth day, Observant Jews will humble themselves and come to God in great consecration. and praying over their sins. In fact, it's it's such a big deal, though, that ten-day span from First of two tree.

Piece of trumpets. and Yom Kippur the feast of the sacrifice exchange. that they should spend their time thinking about. why it is that they need an exchange. Because of their sin.

It's fascinating that that is part and parcel. As a result of that, these three holidays that we looked at in Tishree so far. These three holidays constitute uh a a a special a special portion of the calendar. for Jews. to this very day.

And it's centered around. Our sin. Isn't that fascinating?

So there's something in the traditions that have come forward in these millennia. With the ambiguity of trumpets and the coming of Yom Kippur, the great exchange, there's something in the interim time that at least in the traditions they understand has something to do with a big deal about our sins. And so as we come up to Yom Kippur, We need to be humble about. our state. That's good actually.

That's really really good.

Okay.

This is my last clue, and I've never heard this before. I just learned this this week. If you talk to observant Jews, I'm thinking Orthodox, and Orthodox Jews have a spectrum of belief, but Orthodox Jews, ones that want to be true actually to the Torah, to what's the five books of the Bible, Moses, and the rest of the Tanakh, but I mean they want to be observant to what's written. And you ask them, what's another name for Rosh Hashanah? Do you call it something else?

Rosh Hashanah means head of the year. That's the new year. But at Rosh Hashanah, do you have other names for it? This is what this writer told me. He says he actually asks friends who've come out of the Jewish community, and there's four things that they many times refer to it as.

And here's the four things.

Now, we saw that first one, Yom Tur'a, and Yom Tur'ah just means the day of the big loud noise. It's a big loud noise day. It's what it is. The shout of the trumpets, I mean, it's just jarring. In fact, In fact, one of his friends, Jewish friends, said, you know what, among us, in order to accentuate the fact that this sound is really loud and jarring, is that we tell people it's so loud it might even wake the dead.

Are you kidding me? Didn't we just read that in the New Testament passages? A a a shout that is so loud it wakes the dead I'm getting goosebumps. Are you getting goosebumps yet? Yom Torah means the day of the awakening blast.

Literally, that's what they would call it. The day of the awakening blast. And those things that are asleep will wake up because there's no way you can sleep through this. It's like a cosmic alarm clock for all eternity. The Day of Trumpets.

The day of trumpets. No one can sleep through that. Yam haddin You're not going to believe this.

Now these have just come through traditional candy-down over the centuries and millennia. But I think God's been leading them. Yom Hadin is the day of judgment. How do you get that from Leviticus 23? I I don't.

But You put two and two together about where trumpets show up in the Old Testament. You go, you know, if we're talking trumpets, I can tell you what I know about trumpets.

So there is a sense in which there's a day of judgment.

Now this follows actually naturally from that interim time between the first and the tenth, right? Uh that that time of of humble contemplation of your own sin, right? Uh high holy days, high holy days they would call them. Because what we're coming up to on Yom Kippur is the reality is the reality of the wrath of God on sin. But the good news that there's an exchange that ransoms you from that wrath.

That's what we celebrate on Yom Kippur. There's an exchange.

Well, you have to have a real sense of the fact that you have a need. And so for those eight, nine days, What they do is they They contemplate their need. for a solution to their sin. Day of judgment, because the day of judgment is coming. Why?

Because the king is coming. How about Yom Zikaron? Yom, by the way, is day, right?

Okay.

Yom Zikaron? It's a day of remembrance.

Well, that comes from a couple of passages we've read already. But there's two things that are remembered in all this. One is the remembrance of our own sin, and that goes on for that week plus just before Yom Kippur, the remembrance of our sin. the humility that comes from that. But the other one is the remembrance of the fact that for some people their names are written in the book.

And interestingly enough, I didn't put it on the slide, I should have. Interestingly enough, the greeting on Yom, not Yom Kippur, the greeting on Rosh Hashanah, the new year. When you come to the greeting, the greeting is roughly something, maybe some of you can help me on this, I forget how it goes, but it's roughly in the new year, I hope your name is written. Do you remember how that goes? I can't remember how it goes, but it goes like that.

And written where? Written in the book is the implication. It's the remembrance. The remembrance of whether or not you are God's people and God has written you in His book, or the remembrance of your sins that keep you out of that book.

So it's a day of remembrance. And then finally, finally, Yom Himalech, Yom Himalech, Yom Himalech. The day of the coronation of the king. How did they get that from Leviticus 23? But these are common synonym titles.

For Rosh Hashanah New Year. Actually For the Feast of Trumpets. These are commonly used parallel phrases for the Feast of Trumps. And they incorporate all the aspects of what we saw in all these old passages from the Old Testament.

So maybe that's why they have come to become synonym names for Rosh Hashanah.

So the First of Tishrei may be celebrated as New Year's, but it's actually biblically. The Feast of Trumpets. And the Feast of Trumpets has everything to do with these things because that's where we'll find trumpets in the Old Testament.

Well done. Great detective work. Ask the Feast of Trumpets. The ambiguous, the ambiguous deliberately constructed Celebration that God gave to Israel as they left Egypt, and he says, On the first of Tishri, blow trumpets, but I'm not going to tell you why just yet. And I believe that in all of history, what it does is it celebrates on a yearly schedule.

that the day of the Lord is near, and it could be today. It could be today. Yam Terua the day of the awakening blast.

Okay.

Let's do some wrap-up and then we'll be we'll be done. You know, we're doing detective work here. And last time I introduced the idea that it's like the little orphan anni decoder pin, you know. You spin it around, you decode the messages that come from the radio show. It's just a fun way to say that in all of this, even as we look at this picture that we have of the months of the year and of the celebrations that go on.

This is the bottom of our calendar and stuff like that. There is an interesting grouping right here. And so, this is where you need to make sure your thinking caps are on because. On the right side of that picture are the months that come up to the end of summer and the beginning of fall.

Okay, so the first of Tishrei this year it's going to be when? It's going to be September 23rd.

So it's just just after the end of summer. technically speaking.

So on the right side of that picture on the months just preceding just preceding the f the Feast of Trumpets. You have finished your harvest. It's the end of the harvest. Fascinatingly enough, though, There's very little actual agrarian harvest talk in these three festivals. But it is important that God placed it on the calendar to be deliberately at the end of the harvest.

And remember Jesus says, The harvest. We need workers for the harvest. And remember that other passage talked about the harvest being the gathering of people? That's interesting. That if we take that equivalence and talk about the fact that just prior, just prior to the first of Tissue, just prior to the Feast of Trumpets, We have finally found.

Finished. The harvest. And in the cosmic view of the day of the Lord. That's also true. The harvest of mankind is complete and it's full.

Yeah. It's the end. It's the end of the harvest. And then you have trumpets. Trumpets doing what?

Announcing to the entire universe. that the harvest is now complete and we can wrap things up. And so the trumpets announce the fact that the king is coming, the gathering is happening, judgment is happening, and many who love the Lord will be called mine by him. That's what Trumpet says. And then for the ensuing few days in the calendar, you contemplate.

You contemplate how is this possible in the light of my own sin How is this possible? How am I going to survive when the king of kings comes and he judges mankind with a justice that I will not survive? How am I going to survive? And you think about that humbly through those eight or nine days coming up. Coming up to Yom Kippur and then at Yom Kippur.

This marvelous message comes forth. Thank God has solved the problem. that you cannot participate. as being mine from the Lord. He solved the problem.

And how? Through a divine exchange. That's Yom Kippur. Kippur means that exchange, means that ransom. That's what Kippur means: the day of that exchange.

So after eight or nine days of contemplating the hopelessness of your sinfulness. Then you get to Yom Kippur and God says, I have provided an answer. And remember, he symbolically had the two goats, one sacrificed and the other one, the sins of everyone is put on the head of that goat and it's let out into the wilderness, and it takes your sins away. And then after Yom Kippur. After the great exchange happens, You suddenly shift from this.

depressed state about the fact of your sin in those eight or nine days before Kippur. Depressed. Oh, woe is me. How will I survive? My sins indict me.

There's no way out of this. There's no way I can reverse what I've already done. I cannot be good enough to reverse all the bad I've done. How is this possible? Kippur, exchange.

And then suddenly your emotions change from being depressed and downtrodden to just jubilant exultation of joy. Joy. And so what is the Feast of Booth characterized by? Joy. What did the rabbis call it?

The season of our joy. The season of our joy. Well, what does that have to do with What? Shaqs! Because it celebrates the fact that our temporary existence in these shacks has come to an end and our permanent dwelling place with God is at hand.

That's what tabernacles, that's what shacks, that's what booths are supposed to celebrate. It doesn't celebrate the shack. It celebrates the promised permanent dwelling with God After the Shaqs, when they were in the desert and they left Egypt and they're going to the promised land, God says, I promise for you this great land. I'm going to give you land that you didn't cultivate. I'm going to give you vineyards that you didn't plant.

I'm going to give you all, I'm going to give you houses you didn't build. It's going to be permanent. It's going to be wonderful for you. And one day is coming, a day is coming where you can get out of these stupid tents. And move into my Promise.

of a land. And that's why. The Feast of Shacks is at the end. Because we're on the doorstep. to living permanently with God.

and not living in these temporary structures anymore.

Now that Makes narrative sense. Could this be that God has implanted in these cycles? a truth of the greater timeline for all of mankind? And I believe he has. I believe he has on the Feast of Trumpets Something big is going down, and it's going down on one day.

The Feast of Trumpets is a day. It's just a day. And all those mentions of the day of the Lord in the Old Testament just a day. It's a day. Jesus says, no one knows the time except the Father himself, but there is a day.

Don't kid yourself. In God's cosmic calendar, that's as real as any calendar you got hanging in your kitchen, in God's cosmic calendar, there's a day. that already has a big circle on it. And it's The Day of the Lord. And that day will come, regardless of what you can do.

That day is coming. And the trumpet blast is going to sound loud and far for all mankind, both the living and the dead. and they will all be gathered to judgment. in front of the king who's been coronated the king of earth as well as the king of heaven. And fortunately for some of us, Because of the exchange.

of Jesus. He will look at you. And he'll say mine. You're mine. And oh, by the way, I knew about this before I created the universe.

I knew you'd be mine. I know it. You're mine. Yeah. Sure.

Sure. Uh I wonder, I don't know, but I wonder if the reason that the Jews do not accept Jesus Christ as the Messiah is because in in their minds there was no trumpet sounding in the first place. Yes, that's a good comment, Wayne. That's a good comment. He says maybe they didn't accept Jesus because they didn't hear the trumpets.

Maybe it wasn't a big deal. That's why I want you to go back and read Zechariah 9. Because it'll address that. Yeah yeah. Yeah, do that.

So that's just how we look at this. I believe fully like it's an encoded message, like the Lorfid Anley. I believe that this is a gigantic encoded message by God in the feasts to tell you something. And these are clumped at the end of the harvest because when the day of the Lord comes, it'll be the end of the harvest of mankind, just very clearly. And at that time, he will exercise his prerogative as a king of kings and lord of lords.

He will come in justice and power and sovereignty and judge the living and the dead. And none of us. can avoid the shout of that trumpet.

So at the same time that it's sobering, It's also very encouraging. Because that's why I will include those other passages because he'll look at you and he'll say mine. your mind. That's that's just an incredible thing.

Okay, now one quick question for you to think about. We're going to sing this. uh after I tell you this. Because it really is only about Jesus, about who you consider Jesus to be. It makes the it makes all the difference when it comes to Day of the Lord.

Um If you remember the calendar of the months, These three are the last three of the seven in the calendar system. They're all in the seventh month. And if you remember in the picture, way up here on the top right, in the first month, the month of Nisan is what it's called, in the first month, there were also three. And then there was an outlier that was stuck in the middle.

Okay.

Those three. Happen in the spring. And the first one is Passover.

So if these three are talking about the end of the age, the day of the Lord, and we're right about that, then what is God trying to tell us about the first three? Just work on that while you're drinking your coffee someday. What's he trying to tell us about those first two? What do they signify? Especially since you know the first one is about Passover.

The sacrifice lamb. And then if you for extra credit What is this one outlier right in the middle? You got the three in the first month. He got to three in the last month. And you got this one hanging out in the middle.

Well, we're going to look at that one next time, so you don't have to agonize over that for too long. But we're going to look at that one in the middle, because it'll say something if we go with this theory we've got, that'll blow your mind. What?

Yeah. Yeah. This is why it's fun to read the Bible. You have to be a detective. And when God is deliberately ambiguous, and with the Feast of Trumpets, He was deliberately ambiguous.

Not because He couldn't tell us, but because He wanted us to do what we just did this morning. He wants you to search the scriptures. and answer for yourself, what is such a big deal that's going down on the first of tissue on one day? that warrants Shouting of trumpets. across all mankind.

It's the day of the Lord. Let's sing about Jesus. Father, we thank you for bringing us here this morning, and we thank you for your word that speaks so loudly to us. And Lord, we are both sobered and excited about this day of the Lord. We know that that's a day of reunion for us with you.

We know that's a day when you look at your books and you realize that our name has been written there since the beginning of the universe, and at that moment you will declare loudly in front of everyone that we're yours. That that's just a day that Uh I I j I just can't seem to wait for it. What a wonderful thing. But Lord, we also understand on the other side. The two-edged sword.

that there's judgment that happens to those who who deliberately stiff arm you and rebel against you and have decided not to not to to buy into the ransom that's been paid on our behalf. And Father, we pray for those around us who have yet to understand. How much is at stake here in terms of their relationship with Jesus and recognizing what Jesus has done on our behalf, what we actually celebrated in communion this morning? Father, we pray that you'd make us capable. communicators Um of that truth to those who were unaware, Because this day is coming.

This day is coming, and it's been near ever since it's been mentioned. It's near. And so, Lord, give us compassion and hearts. that reach out to those who don't know. don't know that a train wreck has been scheduled on the calendar.

But that a solution, a solution exists in Jesus.

So, Lord, sometimes we feel just so inadequate communicating that. But through your Spirit that's resident in us, you give us words.

So give us words. that we might bring light into a very dark place. And that light might be the representation of U.

So thank you for this now in Jesus' name. Amen. Mm-hmm.