Shalom, friends in Messiah!
Whatever you are doing tonight, I exhort you to stop and go out to watch as the sun sets in the western sky, and look for the rising of the New Moon. The Jewish people celebrated Yom Teruah and Rosh Hashanah (the Feast of Trumpets and the Jewish New Year) on Monday evening. Why? Because that's what it said on both the Hebrew and the Roman calendars. But the moon was not sighted on Monday evening. And it was not sighted on Tuesday evening. I believe you will see it tonight. Does this matter? I believe one day it will matter a great deal.
Yom Teruah, the Feast of the Blowing of Trumpets and Shouting, is to be commemorated as a holy meeting with the LORD, by blowing shofars and giving a great shout! So far the reason for this great feast has not been fulfilled - but one year it WILL be fulfilled when our Messiah, Yeshua, appears in glory and returns to establish His Kingdom, ruling and reigning from His Holy City, Jerusalem, for 1000 years! Will you be watching? Are you willing to get on God's schedule, or do you expect Him to get on yours? Are you aware that all the signs around us - of wars, famine, disease, economic collapse - are signs of His soon coming?! Then rejoice! Look up! Our redemption draws near! Are you ready?
If you desire to show God that you are a watchman, looking for HIS seasons and signs, then go outside tonight, watch for the first sliver of the New Moon, recite Psalm 81, and blow your shofar! If you don't have one, then give a great shout! Will your neighbors think you're foolish? Mine certainly do! And I am honored to be a fool for my King. Remember, He did not say, "You will not know the year, you will not know the month, you will not know the season." He said, "No one knows the DAY or the HOUR." That's because no one will know exactly what day/hour the Father decides to place that first sign in the heavens - the New Moon that heralds in Tishrei 1, the first day of the 7th month of HIS calendar! So He is training us now - keep watch!
As Paul reminds us in 2 Thessalonian 5:4, "You brothers [believers in Messiah] are not in darkness so that this day should surprise you like a thief. You are all sons of the light and sons of the day! We do not belong to the night or to the darkness. So then, let us not be like others who are asleep, but let us be alert..."
As the first sliver of the New Moon appears , we begin the season of true repentance before Yahweh, a season of getting things right with Him, so that when the last (seventh) trumpet is blown on Yom Teruah--the Feast of Trumpets yet to come, we will be ready to receive Messiah as He returns. It is the time of our return to purity and set-apartness, getting ourselves totally in right standing with Him, and with others.
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump. For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed”. (I Corinthians 15:51-52)
“And the seventh angel sounded [the last of seven trumpets] and there came to be loud voices in the heaven saying, `The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Master and of His Messiah, and He shall reign forever and ever’. And the nations were enraged, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead to be judged, and to give the reward to Your servants the prophets and to the set-apart ones, and to those who fear Your Name, small and great, and to destroy those who destroy the earth.” (Revelation 11:14-18)
