The Jewish calendar is understood by many theologians to be prophetic of this age. Colossians 2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. There are 7 key festivals, Passover of course refers to the beginning of the age when Jesus was crucified, Pentecost was 50 days later when the spirit fell on the disciples. The feast of tabernacles is at the end of the age. But what I want to focus on is the Festival of Trumpets.
The Festival of Trumpets
Leviticus 23:23 The Lord said to Moses, 24 “Say to the Israelites: ‘On the first day of the seventh month you are to have a day of sabbath rest, a sacred assembly commemorated with trumpet blasts. 25 Do no regular work, but present a food offering to the Lord.’”
Numbers 29:1 “‘On the first day of the seventh month hold a sacred assembly and do no regular work. It is a day for you to sound the trumpets.
So when I look at the use of the trumpets it is for battle, to signal to the children of Israel to go out and come in during their travel through the wilderness, as an alarm and to announce the coming of the king.
God has ascended amid shouts of joy, the Lord amid the sounding of trumpets. 6 Sing praises to God, sing praises; sing praises to our King, sing praises. 7 For God is the King of all the earth; sing to him a psalm of praise.
The festival of trumpets begins 10 days before the day of atonement 26 The Lord said to Moses, 27 “The tenth day of this seventh month and present a food offering to the Lord. So it is at the end of the year, at the end of the age, but it kicks off a period of time where you were to prepare yourself for the day of atonement. The trumpets were to "wake you up". In that sense it reminds me of the Lord's parable: Matthew 25:6 “At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’ It also reminds me of the parable of the servants who were given talents to invest Matthew 25:19 “After a long time the master of those servants returned and settled accounts with them. Because the day of atonement is the settling of accounts with the Lord. During these ten days before hand we are supposed to reflect on what we have done. The trumpets are supposed to wake us up, alert us to the coming of the king, and remind us to prepare to meet our God.
My question is this -- Is this current situation we are in where there is a worldwide declaration to do no regular work, is this the beginning of the Festival of Trumpets signaling the end of the age, and are we now supposed to be sounding the trumpets? We have been told to leave the church assemblies, is this the Lord telling us to "go out to meet Him"? Is the collapse of the world's economy a food offering to God?
I like this topic, and also believe that the appointed times, appointed by God, have a prophetic meaning, and I believe the proof of this is the fact that the Lord was crucified on Passover - not around the time or somewhere near the time, but on the day, and He rose from the dead on the day of First-fruits, and ascended into heaven on Shavu'ot or the day of Pentecost.
I believe that as logically therefore as 3+4=7, the Day of Trumpets/"Rosh Hashanah" is associated with our Lord's return, as well as the Biblical time of harvest etc, because of all the prophecy both in the Old and New Testaments associated with them - and since the Day of Atonement falls in-between Trumpets and Tabernacles, it must have something to do with the repentance of Abraham's genetic seed.
I don't like the way many people use the term "Israel", as God regards only the seed of Abraham who are Christ's (both Jew and Gentile) as Abraham's seed, and therefore, as "Israel".
We need to understand the significance of the fact that Ephraim represents the house of Israel and Judah & Benjamin the house of Judah, and that Jacob (Israel) told Joseph that Ephraim's seed would become melo goyim - the fullness of the Gentiles (Genesis 48:19) and we need to understand the repentance of Judah at whose instigation Joseph was sold into slavery in Egypt, bearing in mind that Joseph is in many respects the type of Christ, and what happened immediately after Judah showed by his words to Joseph that he had acknowledged his sins to himself, and to God, and repented:
Straight afterwards Joseph forgives all Israel and he sends chariots to fetch/gather all the house of Israel (the elect) to come and live with him in the idyllic land of Goshen, where they lived and experienced a prolonged period of peace, safety and prosperity until another Pharaoh arose who had not known Joseph, and had no regard for him or his people (the millennium and the close of the millennium).
Personally, I don't try to fit world events to prophecy though. To me it of necessity involves using world events as pieces of a puzzle that
look like they fit into for example Joel's prophecies, but may prove not to fit
at all, as has been the case so many times in the case of past world events (so in short, I'm saying it involves too much guess-work). I'm too practical in my approach to how I view world events - even though I do not claim that it's entirely non-beneficial to question "If this could be" such as your post is doing. Jesus said we should look up when scary things are happening all around us - but it's not the first time things looked totally out of control. It was happening exactly 100-110 years ago. The Spanish flu killed millions world-wide and started even before the end of world war I. We could not blame the Christians of 100 years ago if they were looking up and expecting the Lord to return any moment. WWI and the resultant economic fall-out was no tea-party and neither was the spanish flu that came on its heels.
