Sound the Great Shofar! (audio)

An Israelite sounding a shofar (ram's horn)

Listen to a shofar in this Messianic song

Listen, I'm telling you a mystery: we won't all sleep forever in death; we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the great shofar sound; for the shofar will blast, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.

Paul, in his letter to Corinth

Then the angel I had seen standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand to heaven. And he swore by him who lives for ever and ever, who created the heavens and all that is in them, the earth and all that is in it, and the sea and all that is in it, and said, "There will be no more delay! But in the days when the seventh angel is about to sound his shofar, the mystery of God will be accomplished, just as he announced to his servants the prophets."

-John, in the Revelation of Messiah




And in that day a great shofar will sound. Those who were perishing and suffering will come and worship the Master on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.

Isaiah, prophesying to Israel




Sound the shofar in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.
Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the Master is coming.
It is getting closer!

-Joel, prophesying to the nation




Then the Master will appear over them;
his arrow will flash like lightning.
The Sovereign Master will sound the shofar;
he will march in the storms of the south

-Zechariah, prophesying to the people

Lots of shofar blasting going on in the last days when Messiah returns!

As one of the Lord's Feasts -- Yom Teruah, the Day of Shofar Blasts -- draws near, I wanted to post a little about this. I'll be having a detailed article in a week or two about Yom Teruah. Until then, I wanted to post this excellent Messianic song from Meha Shamayim - Sound the Great Shofar.mp3



The song references these Scriptures as well as Ezekiel 37:

The hand of YHVH was upon me, and he brought me out by the Spirit of YHVH and set me in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me back and forth among them, and I saw a great many bones on the floor of the valley, bones that were very dry. He asked me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"
I said, "O Sovereign YHVH, you alone know."

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones and say to them, 'Dry bones, hear the word of YHVH ! This is what the Sovereign YHVH says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am YHVH.' "

So I prophesied as I was commanded. And as I was prophesying, there was a noise, a rattling sound, and the bones came together, bone to bone. I looked, and tendons and flesh appeared on them and skin covered them, but there was no breath in them.

Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, 'This is what Sovereign YHVH says: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe into these slain, that they may live.' " So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet—a vast army.

Then he said to me: "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.' Therefore prophesy and say to them: 'This is what Sovereign YHVH says: O my people, I am going to open your graves and bring you up from them; I will bring you back to the land of Israel. Then you, my people, will know that I am YHVH, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I YHVH have spoken, and I have done it, declares YHVH.' "

"When your countrymen ask you, 'Won't you tell us what you mean by this?' say to them, 'This is what Sovereign YHVH says: I am going to take the stick of Joseph—which is in Ephraim's hand—and of the Israelite tribes associated with him, and join it to Judah's stick, making them a single stick of wood, and they will become one in my hand.' Hold before their eyes the sticks you have written on and say to them, 'This is what Sovereign YHVH says: I will take the Israelites out of the nations where they have gone. I will gather them from all around and bring them back into their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel. There will be one king over all of them and they will never again be two nations or be divided into two kingdoms. They will no longer defile themselves with their idols and vile images or with any of their offenses, for I will save them from all their sinful backsliding, and I will cleanse them. They will be my people, and I will be their God.

" 'My servant David will be king over them, and they will all have one shepherd. They will follow my laws and be careful to keep my decrees. They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, the land where your fathers lived. They and their children and their children's children will live there forever, and David my servant will be their prince forever. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be an everlasting covenant. I will establish them and increase their numbers, and I will put my sanctuary among them forever. My dwelling place will be with them; I will be their God, and they will be my people. Then the nations will know that I YHVH make Israel holy, when my sanctuary is among them forever.' "

Is is crucially important that gentile Christians realize they are Ephraim: both spiritually and physically. Ephraim was a son of Joseph (the coat-of-many-colors guy) born in a gentile nation.

Ephraim and most of the other tribes of Israel were later carried off into captivity a few hundred years after King Solomon. They were mixed with the gentile nations to the point they are lost to this day; Ephraimites are indistinguishable from gentiles.

The only Israelites remaining were the southern nation of Judah, containing Judahites, Benjaminites, and some Levites. Today, we know this group collectively as "Jews". The northern nation of Israel, containing Ephraim and 10 of the 12 tribes of Israel, is lost to this day.

The prophecy in Ezekiel is about how God will bring all of Israel -- Judah (Jews), Joseph (Ephraim/the gentiles), and the mixed multitude of followers of Messiah back together in the last days together as one Israel. Awesome stuff.

Paul reveals this mystery to us in Romans,

The next question is, "Are the Jews out of God's plans for good?" And the answer is a clear-cut no. Ironically, when they walked out, they left the door open and you outsider gentiles walked in. But the next thing you know, Jews were starting to wonder if perhaps they had walked out on a good thing, this Messiah. Now, if Israel rejecting Messiah triggered this worldwide coming of gentile outsiders to God's kingdom, making gentiles serve the God of Israel, just imagine the effect of their coming back! What a homecoming that will be!

But I don't want to go on about Jews, after all, I'm writing this letter to you gentiles in Rome. It's you, the gentiles, that I'm concerned with right now. Because my personal assignment is focused on non-Jews, I make as much of this as I can when I'm among my Jewish kin, hoping they'll realize what they're missing and want to get in on what God is doing. If their falling out initiated this worldwide coming together, their recovery is going to set off something even better: mass homecoming! If this thing Jews did by rejecting Messiah, even though it was wrong for them, turned out for your good, just think what's going to happen when they get it right and see Messiah!

In essence, what happened was that many Jews, being the natural branches as descendants of Jacob, were broken off the tree so that you gentiles could be grafted-in as a wild olive shoot to this Israel-Promises Tree, a sheer gift of God to you. Now that you've seen it in this context, be sure you don't boast over Jews because you have Messiah and they don't. Don't think you're special just because God grafted you in: remember, this grace given by grafting you into the Israel Tree was not done by human hands -- not by your own doing! -- but was and is God-enacted.

Mass homecoming indeed! The homecoming will be when both Jew and gentile will gather together, no longer as 2 peoples with 2 religions, but as 1 Israel under 1 Messiah when he comes back and reigns in Jerusalem. This will happen at the blast of the great shofar.

Shabbat shalom, fine blog readers, and keep an ear out for the shout of the wedding party and the great shofar blast announcing the Bridegroom is coming for his bride, those He calls His own, Jews and gentiles alike.