Shouting, the Sabbath, and the Sanctuary

 As we explore the tabernacle, we begin to see that God uses patterns, symbols, and pictures to teach us about His plan. By now, it should be clear that God’s goal is to draw mankind out of the east (sin) and into the Holy of Holies (His presence; His family).

This requires a step-by-step process of sanctification, for no sinful creature can dwell with the Almighty (Psa. 5:4). Jesus Christ’s blood atones for our sins. We repent, get baptized, receive the Holy Spirit, and begin to “walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:4). That takes us through the altar, the laver, and into the Holy Place, as well as through the corresponding first three holy days: Passover, the Last Day of Unleavened Bread, and Pentecost.

The fourth holy day, the Day of Trumpets, as we saw last time, corresponds to the Holy of Holies. That’s when the first resurrection happens and Yeshua/Jesus takes the firstfruits before His Father’s throne.

“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:16-17).

What a glorious day that will be! A day of shouting and blowing the trumpet. The Day of Trumpets.

Now we’ve also seen that God used His pattern not only for the tabernacle and the holy days, but also for the days of Creation and the ten commandments. Following God’s pattern, then, the Day of Trumpets and the Holy of Holies correspond to the fourth commandment and the fourth day of Creation.

The Fourth Commandment

Let’s start with the fourth commandment: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God. In it you shall do no work: you, nor your son, nor your daughter, nor your male servant, nor your female servant, nor your cattle, nor your stranger who is within your gates. For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, and rested the seventh day. Therefore the LORD blessed the Sabbath day and hallowed it” (Ex. 20:8-11).

As Hebrews 4 shows us, and as we’ve also seen in a previous blog post, the Sabbath represents God’s Kingdom. That’s the ultimate Sabbath rest we fight and claw through this life to enter. Heb. 4:11 says, “Let us therefore be diligent to enter that rest, lest anyone fall according to the same example of disobedience.”

Furthermore, the number 4, as we saw in a previous post, represents a dwelling. How fitting, then, that the Sabbath is the fourth commandment and the Day of Trumpets the fourth holy day! They both represent God’s dwelling, the Holy of Holies!

And what did our Savior do when He ascended back to the Father, when He “entered the Most Holy Place” (Heb. 9:12)? Here’s what He said: “In My Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also” (John 14:2-3).

When do the firstfruits enter that house, that Sabbath rest, that Most Holy Place? When will it be that “we shall always be with the Lord”? The Day of Trumpets.

But the parallels between Trumpets and the Sabbath don’t stop there. Let’s look at another pattern.

The Sabbath, of course, is the seventh day. “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God” (Ex. 20:9).

God also set up a system of sabbatical years when Israel entered Canaan: “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove” (Ex. 23:10-11).

The sabbatical year applied not only to the land, but to slaves, too: “If your brother, a Hebrew man, or a Hebrew woman, is sold to you and serves you six years, then in the seventh year you shall let him go free from you” (Deut. 15:12).

By putting Josh. 14:6-15 together with Deut. 2:14, we can do the math and determine that when Joshua and the Israelites conquered Canaan, they warred with the Canaanites for six years. The seventh year, “the land had rest from war” (Josh. 14:15).

The first six months of the Biblical calendar pertain to our walk through this life, and they contain the first three holy days. The four holy days of the seventh month all pertain to God’s house and His Kingdom, the Sabbath rest. And what’s the first day of the seventh month? The Day of Trumpets (Lev. 23:24), of course!

The Fourth Day of Creation

What about the fourth day of Creation, then? Gen. 1:14-18 tells us,

14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;

15 “and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth”; and it was so.

16 Then God made two great lights: the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night. He made the stars also.

17 God set them in the firmament of the heavens to give light on the earth,

18 and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good.

Beyond the literal creation of the sun, moon, and stars, what does this passage tell us? Is there any deeper meaning to the sun, moon, and stars?

Stars often picture angels. For example, Rev. 1:20 says, “The mystery of the seven stars which you saw in My right hand, and the seven golden lampstands: The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches, and the seven lampstands which you saw are the seven churches.”

Stars also picture people. God promised to multiply Abraham’s descendants “as the stars of heaven” (Gen. 26:4). Abraham’s grandson Joseph had a dream in which he saw his brothers as stars:

“Then he dreamed still another dream and told it to his brothers, and said, ‘Look, I have dreamed another dream. And this time, the sun, the moon, and the eleven stars bowed down to me.’ So he told it to his father and his brothers; and his father rebuked him and said to him, ‘What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall your mother and I and your brothers indeed come to bow down to the earth before you?’” (Gen. 37:9-10).

This passage also reveals a meaning of the sun and moon: the sun pictured Joseph’s father, and the moon his mother.

Just as the husband and father in a family is a type of Jesus Christ, as Eph. 5:22-32 reveals, so also is the sun. Here’s Mal. 4:2: “But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves.”

So if the sun represents Jesus Christ, then the moon must represent His bride, His people. And just as the moon has no light of its own, but reflects the sun’s light, so we, too, have no light of our own, but reflect our Messiah’s light!

On the fourth day of Creation, God didn’t merely create the sun, moon, and stars; He also created a physical model of His family! When does this vision begin to be realized? At the First Resurrection on the Day of Trumpets! From that day on, the firstfruits “shall always be with the Lord” (1 Thes. 4:17).

This is only possible, though, because of Jesus’ Passover sacrifice for us. When did His sacrifice happen? On the fourth day of the week. Three days and three nights later, the Father resurrected Him toward the end of the Sabbath, and the following morning He first appeared to His disciples. Because of Yeshua/Jesus’ resurrection, we, too, have hope of the resurrection (John 11:25; 1 Pet. 1:3).

The numbers 4 and 7 just keep popping up! Fourth commandment, seventh day. Fourth holy day, seventh month. Yeshua/Jesus died on the fourth day of the week, and rose on the seventh. Because of His resurrection, we have hope of the First Resurrection on the Day of Trumpets: the fourth holy day and the beginning of the seventh month.

God is the Master Designer and Architect! His hand is in everything, every tiny detail. The amount of planning that He did is staggering! And yet, we see only the tiniest fraction of it. As the Apostle Paul put it, “we see through a glass darkly” (1 Cor. 13:12, KJV).

The fourth day of Creation has yet another link to the Day of Trumpets, too. Remember one of the reasons God created the sun, moon, and stars? “Let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years” (Gen. 1:14).

The word translated “seasons” is the Hebrew moedim (Strong’s # H4150), which means, according to Brown-Driver-Briggs, “appointed time, place, meeting.” Lev. 23 lists the moedim, the appointed times or feasts, of the Almighty: “The feasts [moedim] of the LORD, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts [moedim]” (Lev. 23:2).

One of the purposes of the sun, moon, and stars is to calculate God’s appointed times, His holy days. Thus, God’s calendar is not a strictly solar calendar like the Gregorian calendar we use today, but rather a lunar-solar calendar: the Hebrew calendar.

God’s inspired Hebrew calendar reckons the date of every holy day and the length of each year from just one day of the year. Everything else is calculated in relation to this one day. What is that day, you ask? The first day of the seventh month, the Day of Trumpets!

Why is the calendar calculated from the first day of the seventh month and not the first day of the first month? A couple reasons. Firstly, of all the first days of the month throughout the year, only the Day of Trumpets is a holy day. Secondly, the Day of Trumpets, as we have already seen, corresponds to the Holy of Holies, God’s house.

Who sets the calendar and determines the holy days? Almighty God! And His whole plan for mankind is to reconcile us to Him and bring us into His presence — the Holy of Holies. Thus it only makes sense for His calendar to be calculated from a holy day that represents the Holy of Holies.

There’s more we could discuss, and much more to learn, about the Day of Trumpets, but this should suffice for now. Again, what an incredible day it is and will be!

Now that our journey through the tabernacle has taken us into the Holy of Holies, what happens next? We’ve seen that the firstfruits enter God’s presence, the Holy of Holies, and stand before His throne on this day, but then what?

The Day of Atonement is next, and so is Jesus’ Second Coming. What does the tabernacle/temple reveal about that?

To be continued…

Part 1: Why Is THAT in the Bible?!

Part 2: Creation, the Commandments, and the Tabernacle

Part 3 : Dwelling in the Temple of the Almighty

Part 4: The Last Trumpet and the Ark of the Covenant

Part 5 (current post): Shouting, the Sabbath, and the Sanctuary

Part 6: The Heavenly High Priest Returns!

Part 7: The Tabernacle and Fishers of Men