Dive into an enlightening exploration of the shofar, as we uncover its biblical roots and its powerful symbolism in signaling God’s voice. Discover why ancient teachings suggest that Satan trembles at its sound, unable to distinguish it from God’s own voice. Through passages from Ezekiel and Isaiah, gain deeper insights into how the shofar holds the key to understanding the rapture and the final call to bring believers to divine presence.
Greetings, friends and new listeners. Welcome to the sound of faith. I’m Sharon Knox. Thank you for joining us today because we know that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. I’m so excited about today’s message. The last blast. I have to tell you, it was a blast to preach. Understanding the significance of blowing the shofar, which is translated Trump or trumpet in English Bibles, is more than interesting. It’s revelatory. Ancient rabbis taught that Satan hates the sound of the shofar because he can’t tell the difference between the blowing of the shofar and God’s voice. And John confirmed in Revelation that God’s voice sounds like the blowing of the shofar. And one day soon, he’s going to sound the last blast. Do you know that when God created Lucifer, he created him with musical instruments in himself? In himself. Very, very phenomenal creature that God made in Lucifer. That’s why Satan is so very successful in getting people through music. It’s no wonder that music is the drug of the masses. Amen? He gets people through music. And you don’t have to turn there, but I will read to you a couple of verses to show you what I’m talking about. First of all, in Ezekiel, the 28th chapter, it says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man, which would be Ezekiel, Take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God, thou sealest up the psalm full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Here’s how we know who it is. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was thy covering. The sardius, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. Here’s what I want you to see. The workmanship of thy tabrets. and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day thou wast created. He’s got tablets and pipes. Pipes are wind instruments, your reeds. Amen? Okay, and there’s another one. Isaiah also is about him. And I’ll read just one verse there. Isaiah 14 and verse 11. And here he’s named Lucifer in this chapter. But I’ll just read 14, 11. Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy veils, V-I-O-L-S, the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? So I want you to see who he’s talking about. So here we have tabrets. We have… We have viols. So we have percussion instruments and we have string instruments. Amen. But we do not have a trumpet. We don’t have a horn. We don’t have a trumpet here. Amen? That is the one thing that God did not put in Lucifer because God reserved that sound for himself. Amen? That is His sound. Let me tell you, that is what God’s voice sounds like. I’ll read this to you quickly. In Revelation 1.10, John said, I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard me a great voice as a shofar, as a trumpet. Revelation 4.1, after I looked and beheld, a door was opened in heaven, and the first voice I heard was as it were a trumpet or a shofar talking with me, which said, come up here. So God’s voice sounds like a shofar. Amen? And Satan will flee at the sound of God’s voice. He’s going to flee. Amen? The shofar is what God is going to use to wake up the dead in Christ at the rapture. Amen. And just as John said in four one, the voice said, come up here, come on up here. And you know, that is what I believe that God is going to say at the rapture. And let me just throw this out here. After revelation that from that point on in chapter four point on, there is absolutely no mention of the church. The first three chapters is all about the church, the seven churches, describing the various phases, if you will. There were several literal churches. Don’t misunderstand me. But they also describe, as we see, surely we’re in the time of Laodicea. Amen? But here’s the point. From that on, once God said, come on up, John, everything he saw after that had nothing to do with the church. And we know that the shofar is going to wake up the dead in Christ. Let’s turn to 1 Thessalonians 4. You know this verse well, but we’re going to look at it. I want you to see it for yourself. 1 Thessalonians 4 and verse 16. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the… The shofar, here it says the trump of God, the shofar of God and the dead in Christ shall rise first. Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so shall we ever be with the Lord. So comfort yourself one another with these words. You cannot give someone who’s grieving over a loved one who has died in Christ Jesus more comfort than this. No matter what else you say to them, this is the most important thing. Well, one day we’re going to see them in the air. We’re going to have an in-air reunion. Amen? 1 Corinthians 15, verse 51 says, Behold, I show you a mystery, but it’s not going to be a mystery from now on. It doesn’t mean it’s unsolvable. It means it’s been undercover. Now I’m pulling back the cover. I show you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, and that is a euphemism for death. We shall not all die, but we shall all be changed in a moment in the twinkling of an eye at the… At the last trump, at the last blast of the shofar, at the last blast of the shofar, for the shofar shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible and we shall be changed. Now I want to ask you a question. What is the last trump that Paul was talking about here in his letter to the Corinthians and his letter to the Thessalonians? By the way, 1 Thessalonians is the first letter that Paul wrote. His very first epistle out of his 14, this was his first one. So we saw that it’s called the last trump. Amen? So what was he talking about? The last trump of God. Why didn’t he explain what he meant? Why didn’t he tell us more about this trump? Why didn’t he tell more, give more detail about it? The reason he did not give more detail about it is because the Jews knew exactly what he meant. If you know if you’re talking to someone and you mention a fact of which you know they’re already very well familiar, you do not have to go and talk all that. You just refer to it and you’re both on the same page. you know they know what you’re talking about. It’s not necessary to go through it all over again. So that’s basically what we have here. And I just heard this last night. I was listening to Perry Stone, and that also influenced me to go ahead and preach this message this morning. But this part, I just, you know, learned from him. So why didn’t he? Because they already knew exactly what he meant, what he was talking about. Amen? We saw that on Rosh Hashanah, we saw that there are a hundred blasts of the shofar. But do you know they are not all the same sound? They’re different sounds. Now, if we hear someone using a trumpet play taps, what do we know? What do we play that for? Okay, it started off, it’s military, it started off, they played it every day at the end of the day. The day is done. They also play it now, sometimes at funerals. Amen? And so if we hear taps right away, we’re familiar with that. And so the reason I refer to that is because there was not just one trumpet sound, there were four sounds. distinct trumpet sounds. In fact, in one of his letters, I believe it’s Corinthians, Paul was talking about the trumpet and he says, if the trumpet blows an unfamiliar sound, how will you know what it means? Are we supposed to be going to war? Are we supposed to be coming to breakfast? One means come to breakfast, but another one means get your guns, we’re going to war. He says, so it’s important that they blow the right sound at the right time. Amen? This is what he basically was saying. And so that’s because there were four different sounds. Let me go through them for you. The first one was called tekeyah. And it was a three-second sound. They blew it, and they sustained the sound for three seconds. The second one was called Shevrayim. And it was only one second. But they blew three short one-second sounds, and each one went up in tone. Now, I can’t probably do it for you, but like, for instance, you know, da, da, da. So that’s what that one is. Amen? And then the third one was called Teruah. And it was a series of short, quick blasts over three seconds. So it would have been da-da-da-da-da-da over three seconds. Amen? And the last one was called Tekiah HaDegolah. It was the final sound. It’s the one I had you read about in Exodus 19. Amen. When he did it louder and louder and long. In other words, they would hold it as long as possible. This is what the Jews knew as the last trump. Go back to Exodus. I told you we were going to come back there. Go back. We’ll read a couple verses. We read one, but I’m going to read a little more. Exodus 19. Let’s go back up to verse 16. And it came to pass on the third day in the morning that there were thunders and lightnings and a thick cloud upon the mount and the voice of the shofar exceeding loud so that all the people that was in the camp trembled. And Moses brought forth the people out of the camp to meet with God, and they stood at the nether part of the mount. In other words, they stood as far away as they could at the bottom of that mount. And Mount Sinai was altogether on a smoke because the Lord descended upon it in fire. And the smoke thereof ascended as the smoke of a furnace, and the whole mountain quaked greatly. So God came down in fire that causes huge billows of smoke, and the mountain had an earthquake. Verse 19 we read, And when the voice of the shofar sounded long and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice. This is the teruah hagedolah. Verse 20, and the Lord came down upon Mount Sinai on the top of the mount, and the Lord called Moses up to the top of the mount, and Moses went up. Somebody ought to be shouting about now. I said, there we go. Why? This is the last trump. This is the last blast. God came down. Moses went up. It’s the rapture. It typifies the rapture of the saints of God. One day it’s going to be the last trump. It’s going to be the last blast. And when that happens, Jesus is coming down and we’re going up. Hallelujah. And as I said in the beginning, we’re in that season where it is even more likely. I’m not a date setter, people, but it’s more likely that this could occur. So when they heard the voice of the shofar loud and long, then God spoke. And when he did, he came down and Moses went up. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Now I’m going to throw this out there. It’s just a little nugget. It’s not the whole picture. I don’t have time to preach on the rapture, but I want to show you why just this alone refutes those who claim that the church is going to go through the first half of the tribulation and will not be raptured till the middle. We can see how this is refuted by all this we just looked at. Here’s the theory of the mid-trib people. The church is here for the first three and a half years of the tribulation. But they’re raptured in the middle after three and a half years before the great tribulation. Because how many know the last three and a half years are going to be much worse than even the first three and a half years? So they say that the church is going to go through the first half. And they claim that they’re going to be raptured in the middle. And the reason for their claim is this. In Revelation, which I’m going to have you turn to in a moment, there are seven angels who blow seven shofars. And every time an angel blows a shofar, bad things happen on the earth. Plagues are poured out on the earth. But then they claim that when the seventh angel blows his trumpet, they say that’s the last trump. And so they say that using that, that’s when the church is going up. Turn in Revelation 8. Revelation 8, 1 and 2. And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of a half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stood before God, and to them were given seven trumpets. All I’m going to tell you is, if you back up, remember in the beginning, there was a book with seven seals. And John cried because nobody could open it. But the Lamb of God stood up and said, I will open the book. And he broke the seals and began to open the book. And things happened. The seventh seal… is the seven angels blowing seven trumpets. Amen? So that’s where we are in the timeline. And as they blow these trumpets, such things as the five horsemen appear and different plagues appear. Amen? Let’s look at verse 6. And the seven angels, which had the seven trumpets, prepared themselves to sound. From here, verse 7, all the way over. Now we’ve got to turn to Revelation 11. to verse 15, all the way from where we stopped, all the way here, is those first six trumpets, which you can read on your own if you so desire, because we don’t really need to specify that. We’re looking at the point of the rapture. Looking at chapter 11, verse 15, “…and the seventh angel sounded.” And there were great voices in heaven saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever. And the four and twenty elders which sat before God on their seats fell down on their faces, and they worshipped God, saying, We give thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art and wast and art to come, because thou hast taken to thee thy great power and hast reigned. Verse 18, and the nations were angry and thy wrath has come in the time of the dead and that they should be judged and that thou shouldest give them reward unto thy servants and the prophets and to the saints and to them that fear thy name, small and great, and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. Now, as I said, they claim, the mid-trib people, that when the seventh angel blasts the trumpet, that’s when the church is going up. Because 1 Thessalonians 4, 17 says the last trump. 1 Corinthians 15, 52 says the last trump. And so they say, okay, this is the last trump. It’s the last one. So it must mean that they’re going to be raptured then. They don’t look at the… You have to always look at the background. A lot of people that say, I don’t know why Sister Sharon’s always bringing out this Hebrew stuff. Well, I’m telling you why, okay? Because the Jews understood what the last trump was. I just went through all that to show you. To them, the last trump was the last blast. The one that was loud and long. So that Paul, when he said the last trump or the last blast, as I like to call it of the shofar, they knew what he meant. And people that don’t know these things, they say, oh, it’s the last trumpet. That’s when the rapture’s coming. Because Paul said the last trump. And we can look here and see, well, that’s not, doesn’t even make any sense. Oh, they say, but he said the kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord. Did it happen right then? What did we read in verse 18? The nations were angry, and now greater judgment and wrath is going to be poured out on them, and they’re angry because more judgment’s coming. This is a prophecy, folks. He’s saying the kingdoms of this world are going to become the kingdoms of our God, but first God’s got to judge the nations. Amen? You cannot make it that it was then because all these other things are going to occur with the nations and the kingdoms of the world. They’re going to go into worse judgment the next three and a half years. So they obviously did not become the kingdoms of our God at the middle point of the tribulation. When this is said. It’s a prophecy. And we know that revelation is filled with eloquence. Always saying unto our God who was and is and is to come. And thou art the great God. Etc. And that’s what’s being said here. The kingdoms of this world. You’re seeing what’s going on on earth. You’re seeing how bad it is. In fact it’s going to get worse. But I’m telling you they will become the kingdoms of our God. And of his Messiah. Amen? Amen. And so that is just one little thing. And that’s all I’m going to talk about the rapture because it’s not my message per se today. But that’s one answer for the people with mid-trib. And, you know, beyond that, there are several verses that specifically say, in Thessalonians, both of them, first and second, that specifically say we are not appointed to wrath. Amen. But unto salvation at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. If we’re not appointed to wrath, then we can’t go through any wrath. We’re not going through three and a half years. We’re not going through seven years. We’re not going through none of it. Because we will be in heaven. And we will be on our honeymoon. Because in heaven, we will be part of those in that city who make up the bride of Christ, the new Jerusalem. Amen. The bride of Christ. And if you’re there, you’re going to be part of it. Amen. And so we will be in heaven. Amen. And we’re not going to be here for any part of it. So if you want to go through half of it, well, be my guest. But I’m not a dummy. I’m going to escape the wrath to come. Amen? I’ve already escaped the wrath to come, eternal damnation. And I’m going to escape the wrath on this earth. Amen? So let me finish up with this. Getting back to the blast of the shofar. That Satan cannot differentiate between the voice of God and the voice of the shofar. And I’m telling you… That when the Holy Ghost comes upon us and we’ve already received the breath of God. You know, I preached that not too long ago. How many remember God breathed? I preached about that. Amen. And you know, I always bring this out. If I can ever get a chance, I will say it. So I’ll just may as well say it today. It fits. When God created Adam and Eve, Genesis 2, 7 tells us that he formed him out of the dirt, the dust of the ground, the clay. He was beautiful. He was a beautiful sculpture, but he was lifeless and dead. But God breathed into him the breath of life, it says in your Bible. But the Hebrew says kayim, which is plural. And it says God breathed into him the breath of lives. And man became a living soul. We not only have the breath in our lungs that allows us to operate in this physical world, but we receive the breath of God. Amen. Job 33, verse 4 says, The breath of the Almighty has given me life. The Hebrew word is ruach. Ruach. And sometimes, many times, it is rendered spirit. The Spirit of God, the breath of God. Amen? They’re almost interchangeable in most cases. Amen? So the Spirit of God has given us new life. We’re born again of the Spirit of God. Amen? So when God breathes in us, we are able then to do what Jesus said to the woman at the well in John 4. He said, the Father is seeking such as will worship him in spirit and in truth. Amen? In spirit and in truth. You have to have both components. Amen? And some people, they confuse music and beautiful song arrangements and choral arrangements and instruments and great voices on the microphones, and to them that’s worship. Well, it may be, but it may not be in spirit. Amen? Amen? And it may not be in truth. Because I don’t care if you’re not addressing the right God in the right way. There’s only one God. Jehovah. First of all, you’ve got to make sure you’re connected to the right God. Amen. And that God has a son, by the way. He has a son, Jesus Christ. Amen. And his spirit dwells in us. And when we worship in truth, we’re worshiping someone who’s worshiping according to this word. That means you can’t worship God in truth if you’re living in sin. So if you’re shacking up with somebody and you’re singing on the choir, you’re not worshiping in truth. And you’re certainly not worshiping in the spirit. Amen? So you’ve got to be a clean vessel. And then you worship in spirit. Amen? God breathes on us. And when he breathes on us, we can worship. And you know yourself when you kick into that place. How many know the difference? You can be standing there singing the songs and singing all along, but something, when you kick in, you know it, something on the inside takes over. We can sing and worship by rope. Amen. We’ve done it. We know it. Honestly, I’ll confess, I have to watch it sometimes in my prayer time. I do a lot of singing and worshiping, but when I do a lot of singing, I have to watch it because I know my song so good. I can sing my songs while I’m figuring out what I’m going to have for dinner, what I’m going to do in a little while. I can do two tracks, folks. Some people say you’ve got a one-track mind. I have at least two tracks. I think I have more than two because I can do all kinds of things at one time. But that’s not worshiping in the Spirit. When I’m worshiping in the Spirit, all of that’s erased. All of it’s erased. And then my thoughts start being thoughts of Scripture. Thoughts of, oh, yeah, I could preach that. Oh, yeah, man, I’ve got to write that down so I can preach that. Or something I heard, well, God will give me the understanding of it. Amen? Or if I do have a problem that’s a natural problem that needs to be addressed, God will give me the answer right then and there. I’ll think, oh, that’s what we need to do. worshiping God so just because there are platforms across America today and some of them have quite fancy impressive music does not mean that they’re worshiping in spirit and in truth and you know what the devil’s not trembling he’s not running he’s not fleeing Amen? It’s not bothering him. But when we begin to worship God in spirit and in truth, we begin to sound like the blast of the shofar. We begin to sound like the voice of God. And the devil cannot stand that sound. He cannot stand. He will tremble. He will back off. He will flee. Amen? The prophet Isaiah said, lift your voice like a shofar. That’s Isaiah 58.1. And you know, folks, I know this from experience. That’s why I believe it’s probably true for you as well. When you’re in a very severe trial and you have a heavy spirit on you, a spirit of heaviness and oppression, you have a tendency to clam up. At least I used to do that. Shut up. And you just go in the room and lay down in a fetal position on the bed and, you know, but it’s just like you can’t speak. It’s like spiritual lockjaw because there’s so much resistance, so much heaviness, so much oppression on you. But I found out that it’s not going to lift until I do something. I have to do something. I can lay there and think about it, but I’ve got to open up my mouth. I have to open it up in the spirit. And I have got to start somewhere. It may be weak. It may sound anemic. But I’ve got to start somewhere worshiping God. And then as I do that, then that oppression leaves. Because he said he’ll give you a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He will give you the oil of gladness for the spirit of mourning. But you’ve got to start somewhere. You’re waiting for God to move on you. And he’s waiting for you to yield your mouth. He’s waiting for you to yield your mouth. And once you yield your mouth, the Holy Spirit then can begin to flood you. And as you begin to worship, the next thing you know, the devil is going to be taking a hike. Amen. Next thing you know, you’re going to be looking for the devil because you are not finished telling them off. You started telling him off and he left and you said, wait a minute, I’m not done yet. I want you to hear this too, devil. Amen. I’m going to finish with Psalm 47. Oh, clap your hands, all you people. Shout unto God with the voice of triumph. glory for the Lord. Most high is terrible. And what that means is he’s so awesome that it strikes terror in your heart, the heart of his enemies, the heart of Satan. Amen. He is a great king over all the earth. He shall subdue the people under us. and the nations under our feet. And I would like to stop here for a moment and say, this is what God’s going to do to the enemies of Israel. This is what God’s going to do to the nations that are deserting Israel and the ones that are coming after her. God’s going to subdue them under her feet. He shall choose our inheritance for us. In other words, God said you’re going to inherit this land and nobody’s going to take it from him. The excellency of Jacob whom he loved. God loved Jacob. Amen. Verse 5. God is going up with a shout. The Lord with the sound of a shofar. Sing praises to God. Sing praises. Sing praises unto our King. Sing praises. Hallelujah. Amen. What an exciting but clarifying message. The last blast. Paul called it the last trump in 1 Thessalonians and 1 Corinthians that is going to wake up the dead in Christ who will rise and the living shall be caught up, raptured together in the air. Paul was referring to a shofar or ram’s horn, not a brass trumpet. The shofar had four different sounds that were blown to signify different things. But the final blast was long and loud. And it is what the people heard when God spoke on Mount Sinai. It caused the mountain to quake and the people to tremble. John said in Revelation, God’s voice is like the sound of the shofar. And the rabbis claim that Satan hates the sound of the shofar because he can’t tell the difference between it and God’s voice. And when he hears it, he trembles. The last blast explains the fall feast of the Lord and their correlation to the rapture and the tribulation and refutes the claim that some make the church will be raptured in the middle of the tribulation. You want to get this one for your spiritual library. The Last Blast can be ordered on CD for a love gift of $10 or more for the radio ministry. Request SK183. Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or go online to thesoundoffaith.org. Or you can also order on MP3. But to order The Last Blast on CD… Request SK-183, send a minimum love gift of $10, and mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Until next time, this is Sharon Ott singing, Maranatha.
