Prayer: Father, I have not heard a battle cry of war, but I assume it would send shivers up my spine. Teach me today the significance of a battle-cry and how it relates to me. Amen.
Reading: Jeremiah 4 key: vs. 19-21 “My stomach, my stomach! I writhe in anguish! The pain of my heart! My heart is pounding within me! I cannot keep silent because I have heard, O my soul, the sound of the shofar, the battle-cry of war. Disaster on disaster is reported. So the whole land is ruined. My tents are suddenly ravaged, my curtains in an instant. How long must I see the battle standard and hear the sound of the shofar? TLV
Attention: I recall being awakened by a call from a friend on the east coast on the early morning of September 11, 2001. Their first words were “We are under attack.” Confused, I responded, “Under attack?” They just said, “Turn on your TV” and hung up. I wandered to my television, turned it on and watched in horror the images of the Trade Tower on fire. Later, I watched the second tower suffer the same fate. Confusion was the word of the day. The images were so unsettling.
A couple of years after 9/11 event, I was visiting Little Rock, Arkansas. I was in the parking lot of a shopping center when sirens were blaring all over the city. I was not sure what to do. The locals seem unconcerned. No one was running for shelter. I called a friend, and they laughingly told me it was the weekly emergency testing of the system. It was not funny to me. It was unsettling.
The Shophar (Shofar) was Israel’s early warning system. When the Shophar blared, the purpose was to call the Hebrew people together for the Day of Atonement or Year of Jubilee, or the Shophar was also a trumpet of war, much like how our early military cavalry used a trumpet.
The sound of the shophar was so unsettling that Jeremiah records the words of Adonai about the stomach of the nation, “My stomach, my stomach! I writhe in anguish! The pain of my heart! My heart is pounding within me!”
The Apostle Paul wrote this in 1 Thessalonians 4:17, “For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the blast of God’s shofar, and the dead in Messiah shall rise first.” It will be the Shophar (Shofar) which will summon Messiah’s return.
What will be your response to the blaring of the shofar? Will you be unsettled, or will you welcome the joyful sound? You can settle the issue today by calling on His Name (Romans 10:13).
Action: I choose today to call on the name of Messiah so that I welcome the sound of the Shofar.
Yield: I choose to submit to the Lordship of Messiah.
Engage: I choose to engage with the Holy Spirit in the welcoming of Messiah’s return.
Relationship: I choose to live in holy obedience unto Messiah.
Prayer: Father, I welcome the sound of the shofar on the day of Messiah’s return. Amen.
Memory Verse: 1 Thessalonians 4:17 “For the Lord Himself shall come down from heaven with a commanding shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the blast of God’s shofar, and the dead in Messiah shall rise first.” TLV
Music Video: The Hymn Club—When the Trumpet of the Lord https://youtu.be/Q-jMSs6FqaI?si=eYDp3aW8Daw69YJ-
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”