This week, the Jewish people in Israel and around the world celebrate Rosh Hashanah and the start of the New Year on the Jewish calendar. Rosh Hashanah means “Head of the Year”, or the Jewish New Year. Rosh Hashanah is also known as Yom Teruah or the “Day of Trumpets”. The Feast of Trumpets marked a 10-day period of consecration and repentance to God. The Feast of Trumpets was one of the “appointed feasts of the Lord” and like all the other “Feasts of the Lord”, it’s full of significance having meaning for us today while providing prophetic insights for what’s to come.
Trumpets in the Scripture are symbolic of the voice of the prophet (prophetic voice). It’s a prophetic season where God speaks to His people in a powerful way. Many prophetic ministers and believers receive great heavenly visitations coupled with favour and blessings during this time. Our responsibility is to set aside time to meet with the Lord and the people of God.
Numbers 10:1-9 recorded, “And 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 congregation and for directing the movement of the camps…’”
From these verses, the trumpets were blown in Israel for three main reasons:
1. To call together an assembly when God had fresh instructions for His people (Num 10:2).
2. When the Lord wanted them to journey onto a new place (Num 10:5).
3. When they were in danger of war (Num 10:9).
We feel the stirring of the Lord to gather the local churches, intercessors, prayer groups for a season of consecration, repentance and intercession in 2018. We’ve heard of numerous reports that God’s moving in the hearts of the youth, the fathers, in schools, marketplace and the different prayer houses. God’s ready and waiting to give us a great outpouring of the Holy Spirit. At the same time, we understand that God’s plans for a person or group of people doesn’t just happen. There’s preparation involved in order to receive what God wants to give. We’re entering into a new season and a new place for the Body of Christ in Singapore.
This week, we saw about 80 pastors from different churches gathered together for a time of prayer. There was just a sense of the Lord’s presence and pleasure as we gathered in unity and purpose. God has an “exceedingly great army” that He’s preparing. Through them, He intends to pull down the strongholds in both cities and nations. We must be connected as a Body of Christ before the Spirit will anoint us for effective spiritual warfare. We must perceive the army God’s raising up in this hour and embrace anointed intercession born of such vision.
The Lord’s trumpet is sounding in the spiritual realm at this very time; the alarm is clearly being heard, in preparation for the conflict to come. “For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle?” (1 Cor 14:8) We can have national days of prayer, weeks of supplication. We can even call tens of thousands to pray for specific areas to change, but if the Church is bound and divided by strife, the enemy will not be plundered. Whenever we pray against the spiritual forces of wickedness over our city, our first line of offense is praying for the churches to be united. And we’re the members of the Body of Christ. There’s a clarion call to gather and unite as a family, to arise and advance as one army.
God has great promises and destiny for Singapore. The trumpet is sounding forth to the overcomer to arise and contend in battle. The promises of God will not be handed to the church on a silver platter. It takes a citywide church to win a citywide war. Joshua 6:16, “When the priests blew the trumpets, that Joshua said to the people: ‘Shout, for the Lord has given you the city!’”
Finally, if we do a word study of “trumpets” or “blowing of trumpets” in the Bible, we come to a clear and straightforward conclusion. The trumpets sounded forth at pivotal moments in the history of God’s people. We’re now in a pivotal moment of God’s history and the trumpets are again being heard. There’s a call for the gathering together of the saints. Now’s the time for vigilance with an attuned ear to the trumpet sound of God. The Feast of Trumpets speaks a message for the Church today. Do we hear its sound?
