sermon: Jesus in the Feasts (Part Three): Divine King

The Feast of Trumpets
Richard T. Ritenbaugh
Given 23-Sep-25; Sermon #1838-PM; 76 minutes

Description: (show)

Outside of music, trumpets do not play a very large role in our modern lives. We hear horns and sirens from cars and other vehicles like police cars and fire engines. Every once in a blue moon, we will hear the wail of a siren when the authorities test an emergency siren for inclement weather or some sort of disaster to warn us. I know out here in the western parts of Fort Mill and Rock Hill, we hear the testing of the sirens for the nuclear plant every once in a while, just in case we go into a nuclear meltdown out there. But we do not hear trumpets a lot. Perhaps we will hear "Taps" played at a funeral, but that may be about it. We just do not use trumpets like we used to.

Please turn with me to Numbers the 10th chapter. Because the people who came out of Egypt, the children of Israel, they used trumpets quite a bit. They used them for just about everything. And if you think about it, they had good reason to. Let us go ahead and read the first 10 verses here in Numbers 10.

Numbers 10:1-4 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying: "Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the assembly and for directing the movement of the camps. When they blow both of them, all the assembly shall gather before you at the door of the tabernacle of meeting. But if they blow only one, then the leaders, the heads of the divisions of Israel, shall gather to you.

I have always wondered about that. Was one pitched differently than the other so that you knew which the one was and which the two were? I do not know. Maybe it was just weaker.

Numbers 10:5-8 When you sound the advance, the camps that lie on the east side shall then begin their journey. When you sound the advance the second time, then the camps that lie on the south side shall begin their journey. They shall sound the call for them to begin their journeys. And when the congregation is to be gathered together, you shall blow but not sound the advance. The sons of Aaron, the priests, shall blow the trumpets; and they shall be to you as an ordinance forever throughout your generations.

That is interesting. The blowing of trumpets was an ordinance forever. That is like the Sabbath and the other things that God uses this phrase for, that you will do this forever as an ordinance of God.

Numbers 10:9-10 When you go to war in your land against the enemy who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the Lord your God, and you will be saved from your enemies. Also in the day of your gladness, in your appointed feasts, and at the beginning of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings; and they shall be a memorial for you before your God: I am the Lord your God."

Just in passing there, just remember the blowing of the trumpets themselves. It was "a memorial for you." So we can see that the use of trumpets was quite complex among the children of Israel at this time, and they took this ordinance into the land, and they used them there as well.

And these were the two silver trumpets; they were not necessarily the shofar and had a different sound, so you could tell them apart. But they used them for many different things. They are for calling assemblies, for directing the movement of the camps, for going to war, in their days of gladness, on feast days, on new moons, over their sacrifices and offerings.

That is seven right there that are specifically mentioned here in the first 10 verses. And then we find out with further study that trumpets were used in worship. You will find that in II Chronicles 5:12 and also in II Chronicles 29:26. They were used at coronations of the kings of Israel, as you could see in I Kings 1:34. And trumpets were also used to announce the Jubilee, which you would find in Leviticus 25:9.

So they had to learn all these trumpet blasts and know what they were for, and they were important because they informed the people about the various activities of the widely scattered, widely encamped, you might say, yet mobile nation.

I mean, think about how big the children of Israel's camp was and the need for communication among all the tribes. We say there were about two million people, conservatively. If you do the math there with the 600,000 men times two for the women and then however many children and such there were, it easily gets up to two and a quarter million and more. I think it is still in the ballpark for the metropolitan area of Charlotte, like two and a half million people.

How big an area does two and a half million people cover? And they did not have even a telegraph to get the messages out! They had to use something like trumpets to let everybody know in the hinterlands what was going on. They probably had some sort of relay where, you know, they trumpeted out this, and then people who were on the fringe of hearing it would trumpet again to those that were around them. But it was quite a system that God set up for them to be able to communicate, at least in the major things like, hey, we are leaving, get ready to go, you know, pack up your tent, we are going on our way.

So that is what they used trumpets for in the wilderness. And since it was an ordinance forever, these were used in the land as well.

Now many of these also have application to the Feast of Trumpets. And it is surprising how many of them actually apply to the Feast of Trumpets. We are called to assemble, so the trumpets were used to call assemblies. The Festival of Trumpets announces Christ's war of wrath, so the trumpets were used for calling to war.

It is a day of gladness. It should be. I hope you are joyful in God's holy day.

It is a feast day. And this feast day occurs on the new moons. And in all of those cases, the day of gladness, a feast day, and a new moon, they are all part of Trumpets.

Also, in the extended ones that we found elsewhere, it is a day of worship, so we worship on this day. We also make an offering on this day. So trumpets were used to announce offerings.

And of course, Christ, we believe, will be the King of kings on this day. When He comes, He will be announced to the whole world as the King of kings. It is a kind of coronation.

The Jubilee, however, happens on the Day of Atonement, so that one does not fit, not quite. But obviously, trumpets is a big deal on Trumpets. So let us go to Leviticus the 23rd chapter, just with that background in mind.

Leviticus 23, and we will read 23, 24, 25. It is an easy one to remember.

Leviticus 23:23-25 "Speak to the children of Israel, saying: 'In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a Sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord."

We have gone over this phrase, "a memorial of blowing of trumpets" many times. I know I have given, I do not know, a dozen sermons on the Day of Trumpets where we go over that in some form or another. And we know that it literally means a remembrance of shouting. If we were to take the Hebrew and just literally translate the words there, that is what we would get. It is not necessarily a memorial of blowing of trumpets, but a remembrance of shouting. And the shouting is thought to refer to the shout or blast of a shofar.

Now we can understand it to mean the sound, and this sound is very important here, of either literal shouting of people or to the sound or the blare of a trumpet or a horn. Sound is very important here because we are talking about loudness, a blast of sound, a howl, a roar, a prolonged sound of people shouting, either that or the blast of a horn.

The shouting of people or the blast of a horn could fit the definition here of the remembrance of shouting. So just tuck that in the back of your mind.

In Hebrew, this feast is called Yom Teruah. Clyde [Finklea] talked to us about that on the Sabbath. And literally that means a day of shouting. Yom and Teruah, literally, day shouting, day of shouting.

The Jews openly admit that they really do not know what this day's purpose is. They make their guesses, as Clyde talked about on Sabbath. They use it as the beginning of the days of awe where they know that they are going to be either judged or made into, exalted, I guess you could say, and redeemed, forgiven. But they still do not know exactly what it is because they do not understand what you call the Christian or the New Testament understanding of this because they do not believe that Christ is the Messiah.

So they miss something altogether in the way that they look on this day. And over the centuries this day took on the name Rosh Hashanah, which means the head of the year, literally again, head of the year. They look on it as New Year's Day.

However, God said the month of Abib shall be the beginning of your months. He said that in Exodus 12:2. So where did they get this idea that Rosh Hashanah, Tishri 1, should be the beginning of their year? Well, they kind of fudged a little bit and said that it was beginning their civil year; the sacred year began in Abib 1. But there is no command of God to say just that, that Rosh Hashanah should be the beginning of their year. Actually, they picked that up from the nations around them, not from the Word of God.

The question becomes then, what is all this shouting or trumpet blasting about? I mean, we can very easily see that shouting or the blare of trumpets is part of this holy day, but why? What is the purpose of shouting?

Now we know God is a God whose mind is far greater than ours, and He does not ask us to do something for no reason. "Ha, ha, ha! I'm going to make them shout on this one." Just like He chuckles, "I'm going to make them fast. I'm going to make them eat unleavened bread."

All of these things have symbolic spiritual meanings that give us insight into Him and His way of life. And so shouting is the same or the blare of trumpets. All this noise that is made has a purpose.

What does He want us to shout about?

This is Part Three of my sermon series that I have been doing on the holy days this year, which I call "Jesus in the Feasts." And I posited in the first part of this, the one that I gave on the first day of Unleavened Bread, that yes, these holy days do have prophetic implications in terms of showing the major steps of the plan of God. I do not disagree with that. What I disagree with is that that is the primary purpose of the feasts. I think it comes rather far down the list.

But I believe the primary purpose of these holy days is to point us to Christ. We see Him in these holy days in His various offices and roles. And we then, every year, go through a litany of these offices and roles to remind us what Christ is to us, what He means, what He does, what He will do.

And so we see the Christ is our Passover. That is pretty clear. It is also very clear that in Unleavened Bread, He is the bread of life. In Pentecost, the Day of Firstfruits, Feast of Firstfruits, He is the Firstfruit, the One that we all follow.

Now Trumpets is no exception. He is our trumpet, right? No, not quite. This one was not named after His role. It was named after the thing that is blaring or shouting. But what He is in the Day of Trumpets is that He is our very present God and King. Or you could say He is our Sovereign, our divine Sovereign who is there.

Remember, this feast is a memorial of blowing of trumpets. A memorial looks back on something, something that you remember. And a memorial is designed to help people, therefore, recall or remember an event, bring it to mind, go over it again, take the lessons out of it.

The only trumpet-dominated event prior to when the command to keep Trumpets was given—it was given actually just within a few months of the event—is the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai. It was a singular, astounding, unprecedented event for one particular reason. God Himself came down upon Mount Sinai in great power. And His purpose was to make a covenant with His people, face to face, you could say.

Let us go to that. It is back another book, in Exodus 19. We will read the first nine verses here and then we are going to continue through the chapter, at least through a good part of it. But this opening paragraph, we could say, for the first nine verses, sets up the situation so we get the background.

Exodus 19:1-6 In the third month after the children of Israel had gone out of the land of Egypt [this was the first year, and then the third month, we speculated it was around the time of Pentecost], on the same day they came to the wilderness of Sinai. For they had departed from Rephidim, had come to the desert of Sinai, and camped in the wilderness. So Israel camped there before the mountain. And Moses went up to God, and the Lord called to him from the mountain, saying, "Thus you shall say to the house of Jacob, and tell the children of Israel: 'You have seen what I did to the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles' wings and brought you to Myself. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to Me above all people; for all the earth is Mine. And you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words which you shall speak to the children of Israel."

Now notice, this is kind of, we could say, a preamble to the covenant, and He is telling them, "Okay look, you guys have seen what I did. You have seen My intentions. You know that I come to your aid and give you the things that you need. You've seen enough to know what I'm like. And so I'll make a deal with you." And here He gives an if/then type of sentence: "If you will obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you'll be to Me a special people," and He will make them into a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.

So He is setting things up. Look, you have got enough evidence for making a decision here. You have seen how powerful I am and how much I am on your side. All I ask of you is to obey My voice and keep My covenant. That is our deal in broad terms. And then I will give you these blessings, making you a kingdom of priests and a holy people.

This is the grounds, you might say, the foundation for why He comes down on the mount and gives them the Ten Commandments and the ensuing covenant that is in the next few chapters. But He is laying it out in very large parameters here.

Exodus 19:7-9 So Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before them all these words which the Lord commanded him. Then all the people answered together [notice the unity: all the people answered together] and said, "All that the Lord has spoken we will do." So Moses brought back the words of the people to the Lord. And the Lord said to Moses, "Behold, I come to you in the thick cloud, that the people may hear when I speak with you, and believe you forever." So Moses told the words of the people to the Lord.

We talked about God setting up the situation and that He wanted to formalize the relationship with the children of Israel, which, you know, in terms of the covenant, required their obedience and then His reciprocal blessing of them.

But I want you to understand too that from the very get-go here, from those broad parameters that He gave about this covenant, He said, "I will make you a kingdom of priests and a holy nation." He is telling them right up front, "This is spiritual. This is a spiritual covenant, and I will make you spiritual people to do My work."

Now they were still physical people, but their work was spiritual in nature as priests and holy people. He did not say in this particular place that He was going to make them a great nation with great armies and be able to conquer everybody. He says right away, My purpose is spiritual. They were a physical people, and it went in one ear and right out the other, but they agreed to it. And so He went forward with this.

Now for our purposes today, the vital part of this exchange that we have between or among the people, Moses, and God is in verse 9, the last one that we read here. God says, "I come to you in the thick cloud." God would come to them for the people to hear His voice themselves. And what was the reaction after they heard? They would believe.

"Faith comes by hearing." Does Paul not say that in Romans? And so God was going to put an exclamation point on His instructions by giving them Himself—directly to the people. Now we know by the end of the chapter they are saying, "No, no, no! Don't let Him speak to us! You go up, Moses."

But that was His intention, to meet them face to face, give them His instructions personally. And so He would come down on the mount in power. So let us see that here.

Before we do that, I just want to give you a theological term. I love throwing these out because they are so useful. But by saying that He would come to them, He is foretelling what is called a theophany. It is a Greek term, and it means literally "to show God." It is a visible manifestation of deity.

He is telling them this because He wants them to be aware that He would not be way up in heaven speaking to them over the light years between His throne and the earth. No, He would actually come down personally, Himself, on the mountain and reveal Himself, to show Himself to His new people.

And He would prove, if you will, His great power and sovereignty and Godhood by making a stupendous show of who He was. He would make them realize that their sovereign Lawgiver, their King, was mega-powerful and awesome. And they would be impressed, hopefully, and they would be scared out of their wits and have a measure, in a physical way, of the fear of the Lord, that they would understand that they are not messing with some tin-pot god.

They are messing with the Great God of the universe, and when He says to do something, they should do it. Not that He is a bully in any way, but this gives good motivation for why we should obey God. He is powerful. And when we interact with Him, whether we obey Him or whether we disobey Him, the consequences are monumental for us. Because He can either bless us monumentally or He could come upon us in wrath monumentally.

He does not like to do the latter. He would rather that you obey and He could bless you, but that is part of the agreement, is it not? That is the covenant. He made a covenant with them, and they said, yeah, this sounds great.

Let us read verse 11 here.

Exodus 19:11 [God says] Let them be ready for the third day. For on the third day the Lord will come down upon Mount Sinai in the sight of all the people.

I just wanted to read that to emphasize, reemphasize, that the Lord would come down upon the mount. Let us drop to verse 16.

Exodus 19:16-20 Then it came to pass on the third day, in the morning, that there were thunderings and lightnings and a thick cloud on the mountain; and the sound of the trumpet was very loud, so that all the people who were in the camp trembled. [Just the sound of these trumpets blasting made them quake in fear. It must have been awesome, something you do not forget.] And Moses brought the people out of the camp to meet with God [and there it is again, they met with God Himself.], and they stood at the foot of the mountain. Now Mount Sinai was completely in smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. [Again, another emphasis of the Lord being there; He descended on the mountain.] Its smoke ascended like the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. And when the blast of the trumpet sounded long and became louder and louder, Moses spoke, and God answered him by voice. Then the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai, on the top of the mountain, and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mountain, and Moses went up.

We do not need to go any further. Now Moses here in chapter 19 describes the appearance of God or the manifestation of God as well as he can, as best he could. But think about this.

It was not necessarily what they saw, because beyond the lightning strikes that were happening all around the mountain, they actually saw very little. They saw a cloud, and they saw smoke. They did not see God Himself. And there is a reason for that. God says you cannot see Him and live.

And so when God came down, His presence scorched the whole mountain and anything that was burnable, flammable, went up in flame, and there was great smoke along with the cloud that He descended in. That is one reason, a practical reason, why He did not want anybody to come up on the mountain. The foremost reason was He did not want anybody to try to look at Him in the full force of His power that He came down the mountain on.

But a practical reason was He did not want them to die. And so He told them, shoot the people who try to come up here because I do not want these people to die from just His power. It was an awesome display.

Now they did feel a great shaking. They were trembling from the sound of the trumpet, but there was also earthquakes that made them tremble. They felt the shaking of the mountain.

That is great power coming down from heaven onto the mountain and shaking the earth. That is why the psalmists talk about this, that the mountains melt when God comes down upon them, that the land shakes when God comes down, that there is fire and cloud and smoke and brimstone and all that stuff from God's presence because the material world is just nothing compared to His awesome power.

Now what they actually sensed more than anything was sound. They heard thunder, and they heard this trumpet or many trumpets. It just says the trumpet was very loud, and the trumpet sounded long. So it may have been just one trumpet, but it was probably a trumpet of an angel who is coming down with Him and announcing Him.

By the way, the trumpet is a shofar. It is not the silver trumpets that we saw in Numbers 10. The word trumpet in every occasion in this verse is shofar. So they heard the thunder, and they heard this blaring of the shofar. And this was, like it says, it was very loud. It was a scream of a trumpet.

And then what it says is that this trumpet blast just went on and on and on. You know, if you are a human, when you put a trumpet to your lips, you have to take a breath every once in a while. Well, this trumpet did not need one. It just kept blaring and blaring. It says there in verse 19, it sounded long and became louder and louder. If you are a human and you are going on your trumpet and you try to take it as long as possible and it suddenly goes because you have no breath to push through that trumpet. But with an angel sounding it, he does not need to take a breath, and actually it gets louder and louder and louder as he blasts on the thing. (I should ask Hunter [Swanson] to get up and blow his shofar and watch and listen to him go [funny sound].)

But what I am trying to say in all of this is that the witness to them, what they probably remember the most, was the sound. It was a shout, as it says in Leviticus 23:24-25, a shout to remember.

It was a memorial of shouting. The holy day is because those people who were there to hear the instructions about the holy day could go back just a few months and remember how fearful they were, how their eardrums were nearly blown out by this trumpet that just went on and on, and louder and louder, to announce the coming of their sovereign God.

So we cannot let ourselves forget that this display of sight and feeling, but mostly sound—the sound of the shofar—announced the arrival of God as their King, as the One who made the covenant with them. And not only that, but that He was there in person, in their midst, you might say.

He had become, through this covenant (and by other ways too), their sovereign, their very present God among them. He had claimed them, and they had agreed.

Let us look at how some of the psalmists treated this idea of shouting. We will start in Psalm 47. We were here earlier. I am going to read the whole thing here. This is a psalm of the sons of Korah, and the sons of Korah were part of the choir; they were part of the musical accompaniment, and they just soak, if I can use that term, saturate this song with sound.

Psalm 47:1-9 Oh, clap your hands, all you peoples! Shout to God with the voice of triumph! For the Lord Most High is awesome; He is a great King over all the earth. He will subdue the peoples under us, and the nations under our feet. He will choose our inheritance for us, the excellence of Jacob whom He loves. Selah. God has gone up with a shout, the Lord with the sound of a trumpet. Sing praises to God, sing praises! Sing praises to our King, sing praises! For God is the King of all the earth; sing praises with understanding. God reigns over the nations; He sits on His holy throne. The princes of the people have gathered together, the people of the God of Abraham. For the shields of the earth belong to God; He is greatly exalted.

Let us go on to chapter 66 and we will read the first four verses.

Psalm 66:1-4 Make a joyful shout to God, all the earth! Sing out the honor of His name; make His praise glorious. Say to God, "How awesome are Your works! Through the greatness of Your power Your enemies shall submit themselves to You. All the earth shall worship You and sing praises to You; they shall sing praises to Your name." Selah.

Now to chapter 81. We sang this in one of our hymns earlier. We will read the first four verses again.

Psalm 81:1-4 Sing aloud to God our strength; make a joyful shout to the God of Jacob. Raise a song and strike the timbrel, the pleasant harp with the lute. Blow the trumpet at the time of the New Moon [like today], at the full moon, on our solemn feast day. For this is a statute for Israel, a law of the God of Jacob.

Remember, it was an ordinance forever to blow the trumpet. Well, they are saying the same thing here.

Chapter 95, we will read the first three verses.

Psalm 95:1-3 Oh come, let us sing to the Lord! Let us shout joyfully to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving; let us shout joyfully to Him with psalms. For the Lord is the great God, and the great King above all gods.

One more. Psalm 100, probably one flip of the page over. We will just read the first three verses here.

Psalm 100:1-3 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

Now I went to those because they all have a connection with the Day of Trumpets, at least in one sense, and that is that the word shout in each of these examples is the verb form of Teruah. The verb form of Teruah is rua or ru-wa. It is Strong's number 7321 if you want to look it up. Often this verb is translated in its various ways as make a joyful noise; cry out; cry aloud; shout for joy; and even triumph, like you would shout in triumph over your enemies.

The psalmists urge us then to lift our voices in glad triumphant praise to God as our King, as our Creator, as our Redeemer, as the great Shepherd over the sheep. We can actually do this for any of His titles and roles because they are all for our good, and they are things that we should be very happy and thankful that He fills those roles and does those things for us.

Now I would like to point you at this time to David Grabbe's article, "The Shout of the King," because he goes into several of these and gives actually a few more examples and explains it quite well.

I would like to go back to Psalm 98, which is just back a page for me. I want to read verses 4 through 6 because this shows that we could do the same thing through instruments.

Psalm 98:4-6 Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth; break forth in song, rejoice, and sing praises. Sing to the Lord with the harp, with the harp and the sound of a psalm, with trumpets and the sound of a horn; shout joyfully before the Lord, the King.

And there are many, many more similar verses and passages throughout the Psalms. So here the word horn, the shout of the horn, the sound of the horn, it says here is shofar, the shout of the shofar. And the idea is the same as the others.

I hope I am getting this across. The idea here that is coming out is that when God appears, the people make a terrific, loud, joyful shout in acclamation of God as King and for all that He has done for us. God is worthy of all praise and loud shouting and trumpet blasts represent that. And when God comes, you cannot help but shout, cheer, raise your voice in acclamation that He is a great, awesome, wonderful God. And He is terrifying, because that is part of it too. He is far above any of us or any in the world.

Let us turn this a little bit, not much, but we are going to go into the New Testament, into the book of Revelation. And we will see this shouting, praises, loud acclamations continue in this book.

Revelation 4. We were here not too long ago. We will read verses 2 through 5 and then 8 through 13.

Revelation 4:2-5 [John says] Immediately I was in the Spirit; and behold, a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne. And He who sat there was like a jasper and a sardius stone in appearance; and there was a rainbow around the throne, in appearance like an emerald. Around the throne were twenty-four thrones, and on the thrones I saw twenty-four elders sitting, clothed in white robes; and they had crowns of gold on their heads. And from the throne proceeded lightnings, thunderings, and voices. Seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

Revelation 4:8-13 The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying: "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" Whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to Him who sits on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne and worship Him who lives forever and ever, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying: "You are worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and by Your will they exist and were created."

Here we have this great noise going on in the throne room in heaven, all of these angels singing constantly, not resting day or night to give God praise. Let us start in verse 9 in chapter 5.

Revelation 5:9-13 And they sang a new song, saying: "You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals; for You were slain, and have redeemed us to God by Your blood out of every tribe and tongue and people and nation, and have made us kings and priests to our God; and we shall reign on the earth." Then I looked, and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures, and the elders; and the number of them was ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice [they were shouting]: "Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing!" [now comes the chorus] And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them, I heard saying: "Blessing and honor and glory and power be to Him who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!"

So John is transported by vision into the throne room of God, and he sees all these wonderful things, but there is a constant din of praise, loud voices, everybody joining in, singing this song and this song and that song, to the Father first and then to the Lamb. And there is just constant loud praise going on before the throne of God.

Let us go to chapter 11, starting in verse 15, we will go to the end of the chapter.

Revelation 11:15-19 Then the seventh angel sounded: And there were loud voices in heaven, saying, "The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ, and He shall reign forever and ever!" And the twenty-four elders who sat before God on their thrones fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: "We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned. The nations were angry, and Your wrath has come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged and that You should reward Your servants the prophets and the saints, and those who fear Your name, small and great, and should destroy those who destroy the earth." Then the temple of God was opened in heaven, and the ark of His covenant was seen in His temple. And there were lightnings, noises, thunderings, an earthquake, and great hail.

Sounds kind of similar to Exodus 19 if you ask me. But there is more. Chapter 14, the first three verses, the revealing of the 144,000.

Revelation 14:1-3 Then I looked, and behold, a Lamb standing on Mount Zion, and with Him one hundred and forty-four thousand, having His Father's name written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, like the voice of many waters, and like the voice of loud thunder. And I heard the sound of harpists playing their harps. They sang as it were a new song before the throne, before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song except the one hundred and forty-four thousand who were redeemed from the earth.

More sound, more noise, more cheering, more shouts, more acclamations, more thunder. And it was all loud. John probably by this point had put cotton and wax in his ears. He was coming to understand that there is a lot of noise around God's throne.

Let us go to chapter 15, the first four verses.

Revelation 15:1-4 Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous: seven angels having the seven last plagues, for in them the wrath of God is complete. And I saw something like a sea of glass mingled with fire, and those who have the victory over the beast, over his image and over his mark and over the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, having harps of God. And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying: "Great and marvelous are Your works, Lord God Almighty! Just and true are Your ways, O King of the saints! Who shall not fear You, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy. For all nations shall come and worship before You, for Your judgments have been manifested."

Here we have the bowl judgments beginning, and we are on the sea of glass to watch these take place, and there is great singing again and loud voices with a huge choir.

Let us move on. This is the last one for about a minute. Chapter 19, the first six verses. I hope you are impressed by all the loud noises and the praise that happens around God.

Revelation 19:6-11 After these things I heard a loud voice [there it is again, a loud voice] of a great multitude in heaven saying, "Alleluia! Salvation and glory and honor and power to the Lord our God! For true and righteous are His judgments, because He has judged the great harlot who corrupted the earth with her fornication; and He has avenged on her the blood of His servants shed by her." And again they said, "Alleluia! Her smoke rises up forever and ever!" And the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures fell down and worshiped God who sat on the throne, saying, "Amen! Alleluia!" Then a voice came from the throne saying, "Praise our God, all you His servants and those who fear Him, both small and great!" And I heard, as it were, the voice of a great multitude, as the sound of many waters and as the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia! For the Lord God Omnipotent reigns!"

So all of these passages describe a similar loud, joyous acclamation and exaltation of Christ as God and as King. Sometimes it is with words and song, sometimes not. There are thunders and trumpet blasts going on all the time.

And you know, it may seem over the top to us. I know a lot of people would rather have quiet and relaxation, but at the presence of God, all those things get thrown out the window, and you cannot but praise Him at the top of your voice. One cannot help but make a joyful noise—because God is there. Your King is there.

Now in almost all of these examples, the noise, the shouting, the singing, the praise is associated with welcoming or paying homage or lauding Christ as King. Even in chapter 5, praising the Lamb in His role as our worthy Redeemer, there are hints that His worthiness extends to ruling all nations, sitting with God on His throne forever and ever.

So we get this association between Christ's appearance and loud noises; loud noises of praise and of awe.

Let us go through another series of scriptures. This is what I meant by about a minute later we will do this again. Let us go back to Matthew the 21st chapter. What we are going to go through is the four examples of the triumphal entry of Jesus Christ into Jerusalem and notice a few things.

Now we are not going to go through the full explanation every time, but we will just pick a few verses out of Mark, Luke, and John. We will use Matthew as our template.

Matthew 21:1-11 Now when they drew near to Jerusalem and came to Bethphage, at the Mount of Olives, then Jesus sent two disciples, saying to them, "Go into the village opposite you, and immediately you will find a donkey tied, and a colt with her. Loose them and bring them to Me. And if anyone says anything to you, you shall say, 'The Lord has need of them,' and immediately he will send them." All this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, "Tell the daughter of Zion, 'Behold, your King is coming to you, lowly, and sitting on a donkey, a colt, the foal of a donkey.'"

So the disciples went and did as Jesus commanded them. They brought the donkey and the colt, laid their clothes on them, and set Him on them. And a very great multitude spread their garments on the road; others cut down branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the multitudes who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: "Hosanna to the Son of David! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!' Hosanna in the highest!" And when He had come into Jerusalem, all the city was moved, saying, "Who is this?" So the multitude said, "This is Jesus, the prophet from Nazareth of Galilee."

Let us go on to Mark chapter 11. We will read only verses 7 through 10 here.

Mark 11:7-10 Then they brought the colt to Jesus and threw their garments on it, and He sat on it. And many spread their garments on the road, and others cut down leafy branches from the trees and spread them on the road. Then those who went before and those who followed cried out, saying: "Hosanna! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!' Blessed is the kingdom of our father David that comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!"

That is all we need from Mark. Let us move on to Luke chapter 19. We will start in verse 36, and we will read to verse 40.

Luke 19:36-40 And as He went, they spread their clothes on the road. Then, as He was now drawing near the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works they had seen, saying: "'Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!' Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" And some of the Pharisees called to Him from the crowd, saying, "Teacher, rebuke Your disciples." But He answered and said to them, "I tell you that if these should keep quiet, the stones would immediately cry out."

It was a situation that demanded loud noise, loud voices. Finally, John 12. And we will start in verse 12 and go to 16.

John 12:12-16 The next day a great multitude that had come to the feast, when they heard that Jesus was coming to Jerusalem, took branches of palm trees and went out to meet Him, and cried out [there is crying out again]: "Hosanna! 'Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!' The King of Israel!" Then Jesus, when He had found a young donkey, sat on it; as it is written: "Fear not, daughter of Zion; behold, your King is coming, sitting on a donkey's colt." His disciples did not understand these things at first; but when Jesus was glorified, then they remembered that these things were written about Him and that they had done these things to Him [or possibly for Him].

This event, the triumphal entry, is a sterling example of why God gave us four accounts of Christ's ministry. Each gospel writer gives us something extra so we can form a complete picture of what happened here.

They all say that the people cried out, that they were shouting loudly or in a loud voice, singing these praises to Him. Matthew and John make sure we connect Jesus' triumphal entry with Isaiah 62:11 and Zechariah 9:9 as a fulfillment of prophecy, that this was prophesied that the King would come in this manner. "Your King is coming to you, riding on a donkey."

And then Matthew tells us, in this context he calls Jesus the Son of David. David, obviously the king, and the Son of David would then be the heir to the throne, right? Right.

Mark adds a clarifying note that it is the kingdom of our father David that comes. It is not just the King; it is the same kingdom that is being shown in the person of Jesus. Luke says that this King comes in the name of the Lord, adding that He has the authority of God to do this.

He especially points out the noise, Luke that is. The multitude began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice. Luke also provides the detail that He was riding down from the Mount of Olives, and we know from Zechariah that He is to come down onto the Mount of Olives at His second coming as well.

He also says that the Pharisees told Jesus to make His disciples stop, stop shouting, stop making this ruckus. "Don't they know what they are doing? You know, they are disturbing the peace. They shouldn't be doing this." But He makes that reply that if these should keep silent, the stones would immediately cry out. They would cry out in praise of the God of creation because the King is coming. God is here. We need some noise.

John adds that He who comes in the name of the Lord is the King of Israel, a different title. He also notes that His disciples did not understand what had happened until after Jesus was glorified. What they failed to understand at this point in time was the spiritual significance of all Jerusalem proclaiming Jesus as Messiah.

They did not make the connection. They were still thinking physically of Jesus coming as a physical king. But He was being shown here by this wonderful ovation from the people, these loud noises, that He was Messiah, that He was King, and that He was God.

Their acclamation pointed to something far greater and grander than the coming of a physical king. This they did not get until later. What John is pointing us to is that they had to learn to think of Christ's royal authority and sovereignty in the sense shown later in the New Testament and in the prophecies of Revelation, that this One who was proclaimed King is King over all.

And He is King to us. And He is the royal sovereign that will reign forever and ever.

Let us go back to Revelation 7, and we will see an end-time iteration of this with the innumerable multitude. We just saw this this morning, and I thought I would throw it in here. Starting in verse 9, we will just read through verse 12.

Revelation 7:9-12 After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude which no one could number, of all nations, tribes, peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, with palm branches in their hands, crying out with a loud voice, saying, "Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!" And all the angels stood around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever. Amen."

I can imagine that happening at His return.

Let us go to John 1. We are going to just go to a few verses here because the divine kingship of Christ is a theme of John's gospel, and it is really a theme of all of them, more or less. But John sometimes makes particular points about it almost as much as Matthew does. For the sake of time, let us go down to verse 47.

John 1:47-51 Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward Him, and said of him, "Behold, an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" Nathanael said to Him, "How do You know me?" Jesus answered and said to him, "Before Philip called you, when you were under the fig tree, I saw you." Nathanael answered and said to him, "Rabbi, You are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!" Jesus answered and said to him, "Because I said to you, 'I saw you under the fig tree,' do you believe? You will see greater things than these." And He said to him, "Most assuredly, I say to you, hereafter you shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man."

He said, "Wow, you figured that out, but you don't know what's coming. You're going to see a lot of things that are going to open your eyes to who I really am." Because this could have been taken as kind of a nationalistic thing, and He is saying there is a lot more that you do not know. Stick around.

Chapter 18, we will just pick up verses 36 and 37.

John 18:36-37 Jesus answered, "My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, My servants would fight, so that I should not be delivered to the Jews; but now My kingdom is not from here." Pilate therefore said to Him, "Are You a king then?" Jesus answered, "You say rightly that I am a king. For this cause I was born, and for this cause I have come into the world, that I should bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice."

Let us go to chapter 19, starting in verse 14.

John 19:14-15 Now it was the Preparation Day of the Passover, about the sixth hour. And he said to the Jews, "Behold your King!" But they cried out, "Away with Him, away with Him, crucify Him!" Pilate said to them, "Shall I crucify your King?" The chief priests answered, "We have no king but Caesar!" And so he delivered Him to them to be crucified.

And of course Pilate got his way in the end.

John 19:19 Now Pilate wrote a title and put it on the cross. And the writing was, JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

And the Jews disputed that, and he said, "What I have written, I have written."

So the divine kingship of Christ is prominent here. John makes a convincing case of it from beginning to end in his gospel. It is interesting in chapter 19 that this is kind of a counter to the triumphal entry because the uproar, the great uproar from the people, is antagonistic, and they say we have no king but Caesar, and Pilate insists, this is your King.

I just thought that was really interesting that Pilate, with all of his character traits that are kind of scummy, to use the word lightly, that he insists on calling Him the King of the Jews. And so on His cross, as it were, on the stake, He was identified as the King.

Let us go back to Revelation 19 as we conclude here. Verse 11.

Revelation 19:11-16 Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse. And He who sat on him was called Faithful and True, and in righteousness He judges and makes war. His eyes were like a flame of fire, and on His head were many crowns. He had a name written that no one knew except Himself. He was clothed with a robe dipped in blood, and His name is called The Word of God. And the armies in heaven, clothed in fine linen, white and clean, followed Him on white horses. Now out of His mouth goes a sharp sword, that with it He should strike the nations. And He Himself will rule them with a rod of iron. He Himself treads the winepress of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God. And He has on His robe and on His thigh a name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

I think it is obvious how we are to see our Lord and Savior in the Feast of Trumpets. He is our King of kings and Lord of lords. But more than that, the day emphasizes His appearing, manifesting Himself to His people to intervene in their lives and in history.

The shofar and the shouting announce: the King is here! Praise Him! And we are to rejoice and praise Him within the assembly, just as the children of Israel did before Mount Sinai.

Now to Colossians 1, verses 24 through 27.

Colossians 1:24-27 [Paul is saying] I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ, for the sake of His body, which is the church, of which I became a minister according to the stewardship from God which was given to me for you, to fulfill the word of God, the mystery which has been hidden from ages and from generations, but now has been revealed to His saints. To them God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.

The elect saints, His church—you and me—must not relegate His appearing just to His first and second comings. They are wonderful to appreciate in history and to anticipate in the near future. But we must remember, as a memorial this day, that our King has manifested Himself to us in the Spirit already. He lives in us by His Spirit. Remember His words in John 14:20, "You in Me and I in you," and in John 17:23, "I in them and You in Me."

The King lives in us. And we are right now under His sovereign rule, now and every minute of our lives. And we have to be reminded of that every year at the Feast of Trumpets. Once each year, God makes us remember who we owe our allegiance to, the One who must reign, as Paul says in I Corinthians 15:25, till He has put all enemies under His feet.

So never forget that we serve the true King—and act accordingly.