Chag Sameach Yom Teruah, Chag Sameach Rosh Chodesh and Shabbat Shalom kol beit Yisra'el and welcome each and everyone. It's the annual 'Day of Trumpets', also known as the 'Day of Shouting' and 'Yom haZikkaron' - the 'Day of Remembrance' - a memorial to the Name of the Most High, Yahweh-Elohim our Heavenly Father.

Welcome therefore to the first of the autumnal or fall festivals and to the fifth Annual Feast of Messianic Israel. We are here by divine mitzvah (commandment), even as it is written in the Torah:

"Yahweh spoke to Moses, saying: Speak to the people of Israel: In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall observe a day of complete rest, a miqrah qodesh - a holy, set-apart convocation - commemorated with shofar (trumpet) blasts" (Lev.23:23-24, NRSV).

Why are we gathered here today? It is to remind us that Yahweh always remembers us - we are never forgotten even if sometimes Heaven seems to be silent - and that we are under obligation to remember Him too. And far from being an archaic religious gathering belonging to the distant past with no relevance for Christians, Yom Teruah is a yearly reminder of an event yet to come - indeed, all the autumn (fall) festivals are yet to be fulfilled and are therefore highly revelant for that reason alone.

What event, then, are we awaiting?

"For the Master (Yah'shua/Jesus) Himself, with a cry of command, with the chief Messenger's (archangel's, chief malak's) call and with the sound of Elohim's (God') shofar (trumpet) [1], will descend from heaven and the dead in Messiah (Christ) will rise first [2]. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Master in the air; and so we will be with the Master forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words" (1 Thess.4:16-18, NRSV, AENT, HRV)

If this is what we are waiting for, then this divine moed or appointment is also therefore for our encouragement lest we forget what the grand finale is of this current earth life. Everything is headed for this momentous event and believers have been waiting for it for the last 2,000 years. It's surely of interest to know why Paul wrote about this topic to the Thessalonians and that's what we're going to begin our study with this morning.

You see, there is always a reason why the writers of epistles or letters addressed certain subjects because they were usually pressing matters to the congregations or individuals they were writing. It's like a minister preaching to a local congregation because every congregation has its particular needs and concerns (today as anciently), individual believers have questions and issues that they approach their ministers for help with (today as anciently), and indeed every particular age has issues that need addressing urgently.

And that is why my sermons, had I lived a century ago, would have been very different in content to the ones I am preaching today. A century ago the First World War was drawing to a close; today, we may be on the verge of a Third World War. A century ago, the West was Christian; today, it is heathen. That's why I stress to you again and again that you find out what the situations are in which any book of the Bible was written.

Ancient Thessalonica was a large city by those days' standards, a bustling seaport and important communication centre. It had about 200,000 inhabitants, so it was no small town. Indeed, it was the largest city in Macedonia and capital of the Roman province of the same name. Today it is in Greece. When Paul first came there, he went first to the Jewish synagogue where his message would likely be more readily received because of their background in the Tanakh (Old Testament). He would have made some converts there who would, in many cases, have become the first leaders of the local assembly to whom gentile converts would have gone for instruction. Remember, that at that time the Tanakh (Old Testament) was the only Scripture that they had in the Messianic Community (Church).

So what was going on, or had been going on, in Thessalonica that led Paul to write his two letters there? This is important to know if we are to understand the passage I have just read to you. Well, Paul and Silas had not had an easy time there and indeed had been forced to flee the place to Berea (Ac.17:10) because of persecution. He had to flee from Berea to Athens because of persecution there too. Timothy joined Paul in Athens and was sent back to Thessalonica (1 Thes.3:1-5). After that he moved on to Corinth (Ac.18:11) with Silas and Timothy joining him there (1 Thes.3:6; Ac.18:5) and it was from Corinth that Paul wrote this letter. About 6 months later he wrote 2 Thessalonians in response to further information he received. So there's a lot going on. The letter was probably written around AD 51, about 18 years after Yah'shua's (Jesus) crucifixion, resurrection and ascension. Remember that as we look into this text.

So what is this first letter primarily about, and why? It has an eschatological, last-things, or end-times perspective which dominates it from beginning to end. Every chapter ends with a reference to the Second Coming [3], with chapter 4 going into this subject in great depth, making it a very important source of revelation. We've seen that persecution was common at that time. So we can get a pretty good idea of what those early Thessalonians were going through when we see how Paul throughout emphasises steadfastness of tiqveh or hope.

Why does he do so emphatically? Well, the letter makes it clear that there was something lacking in the hope of those Thessalonian qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) (1 Thes.3:10). Timothy had been sent there to minister to them and find out what was going on - how they were progressing. He had returned to that assembly with the good news about their emunah (faith) and about ahavah (love) but had forgotten to bring a message of tiqveh (hope) to them (1 Thess.3:6), and that is why Paul wrote this letter. He had failed to instruct them on what Yom Teruah means, and Yom Teruah is all about the hope we have for the Second Coming.

So what had happened in Thessalonica? The congregation was in deep mourning because some of their brethren had died, almost certainly because of persecution, and this had adversely affected the rest of their community. Their emunah (faith) was being stretched. Like believers in so many of the generations that have since passed away, the Thessalonians had hoped, along with Paul and the other apostles, and with all ministers since, that Yah'shua (Jesus) might soon return (preferably during their lifespan) and lift them out of all this suffering and heartbreak.

The delay in His Second Coming, as they perceived it - now that their friends and family were being mistreated and even killed - was affecting them badly. They needed a particular kind of ministry urgently. And what they had lacked because of Timothy's omission, Paul now made up for with this incredible pair of letters to the Thessalonians. Whatever this local congregation has been lacking in their understanding of the Besorah (Gospel), Paul now puts right. And every generation since, in reading these letters, has been ministered to as well, especially when they have longed for the Second Coming and desired to know what it would be like.

In order to alleviate these suffering Thessalonians of their grief, Paul cites what has become a Christian/Messianic creed, 'Yah'shua (Jesus) died and rose again' - which is what we were discussing a couple of sabbaths ago on the first believers and the resurrection. This is where our hope and comfort begin - the fact that Yah'shua (Jesus) arose from the dead and is physically alive! Then Paul went on to affirm what Yahweh had done for Yah'shua (Jesus) and reminds us what He will also do for His faithful talmidim (disciples): those who die in right relationship with Messiah will also live with Him. Here Paul is making sure that the Thessalonians (and unbeknown to him, the millions who would in later generations read his letters) that we know what our priorities are. The Resurrection is the key moment of truth for Christians and Messianics! Reject it and hope is gone.

And in order to make this message more understandable to his Thessalonian readership, Paul does what every preacher does - he gives illustrations from common life which his audience would have understood. Now here's the critical thing: what may have made sense to that readership 2,000 years ago does not necessarily make sense to us because there is such a cultural gap. Imagine if someone, who was a scholar and knew how to read, speak and write the koine Greek of Paul's day (I knew one such person who went to a Pentecostal meeting and exposed tongues), had taken a copy of my sermons, translated them into Greek, hopped onboard an imaginary Time Machine, and gone back to Thessalonica and read my sermons out aloud. They would have understood some of what I was saying but the moment they came to my 21st century illustrations they wouldn't have a clue what I was talking about. We need to remember that in seeking to understand Paul's illustrative imagery too.

So let me re-read that earlier passage to you and then permit me, as it were, to take you with me in a Time Machine back 2,000 years ago, and explain what Paul meant:

"For the Master (Yah'shua/Jesus) Himself, with a cry of command, with the chief Messenger's (archangel's, chief malak's) call and with the sound of Elohim's (God') shofar (trumpet), will descend from heaven and the dead in Messiah (Christ) will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Master in the air; and so we will be with the Master forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words" (1 Thess.4:16-18, NRSV, AENT, HRV)

So what's going on here? What is the cultural context of those ancient Greek Thessalonians? Well, what Paul is doing here is citing the imagery of the entry of a victorious king into a city 2,000 years ago. He and his readers knew well how the inhabitants of a city would go out to meet their returning king and then go back with him into the city to celebrate further. To have refused to go out would have been disrespectful. This was a familiar pattern. They didn't stay in the city, they went out to meet the victorious monarch.

We see exactly the same tavnith (pattern) in Yah'shua's (Jesus') triumphal entry into Jerusalem, when He rode a donkey and palm leaves were strewn on the road before Him (Mt.21:1-9). What scared the religious leaders of the day so much was that the people were declaring the Messiah to be their King and therefore challenging their authority...and that of Rome. They knew very well what the symbolism meant. Then Yah'shua (Jesus) entered the Temple, cleared the money-lenders out again and healed the blind and lame.

General Allenby, when he took Jerusalem off the Turks in 1917, understood this well but in order to show humility, dismounted from his horse and entered the city on foot while the native Arabs strew the victor's path with palm leaves. He then made a proclamation declaring that all relgious monuments and places would be respected.

Are you with me? Paul uses this picture in his first epistle as an illustration of the return of King Yah'shua (Jesus) from Heaven to His Royal City, Jerusalem, on earth. Now obviously, there is no physical road connecting Heaven to earth, and what separated them is the sky - the shammayim or heavens. With Yah'shua (Jesus) come the faithful qodeshim (saints, set-apart ones) from ages past, now resurrected beings following the shofar blasts and shouting. They are descending with the "clouds" which represent all the hosts of Heaven. This is a huge victory train! It's cosmic, far bigger than any comparable earthly sovereign returning after winning a battle on his way to his capital.

Those believers who are alive when Yah'shua (Jesus) returns are instantly resurrected, never tasting death, and they go up, supernaturally, into the air - they're levitated. They ascend to meet this great train of righteous souls above the surface of the planet, a great army of overcomers, with their conquering King, and then they all return - immediately - with the King to the Holy City.

This is Yom Teruah in a nutshell. This is what we are celebrating in anticipation. No one is going to 'vanish' or 'disappear', at least not for long - maybe a few hours or so, and certainly less than a day, no longer than the inhabitants of an earthly city would go out on the main highway a few hundred yards to meet the King and his army on their way home. They would then follow him back into the city and there they would celebrate their King and his victory!

We see the same tavnith (pattern), save in reverse, in the story of the father of the Prodigal Son going out day after day looking out for his rebellious son. This is a picture of fatherly love and humility. We 'go out' as anxious parents.

But also we are going to 'go out' to meet the Victor of Calvary when He comes back, we, as resurrected beings, are going to be lifted up supernaturally - and only the Bride of Messiah will thus be lifted. The rebellious believers won't be and the wicked certainly won't be. This is only for the true talmidim (disciples). We'll go up a short distance, greet the King, and then come straight back with Him.

Now, as I think should by now be very plain to you - at least I hope it is - this picture, which is only possible to understand clearly by having an adequate knowledge of the customs of Paul's day - has nothing to do with all the 'rapture fantasy' nonsense which you may have heard about in Evangelical Christian circles. The 'Rapture' doctrine was invented by the Catholic Jesuits in the 16th century. Why did they do that? Because Protestants were rightly pointing to the Vatican as the harlot beast system of the Book of Revelation. Several Futurist movements sprung up in Europe, started by the Jesuits, suggesting that the Book of Revelation was entirely in the future and that the Roman Catholic Church could not therefore be the harlot, thereby taking the pressure off Rome. However, the apostle Paul clearly teaches, as we have just seen, and also in other passages which we don't have time to go into today, that the first resurrection and the 'catching up' will occur when Yah'shua (Jesus) returns at the end of the Great Tribulation, not at its beginning ('Pre-Tribulation Rapture') nor mid-way ('Mid-Tribulation Rapture').

Brethren and sisters, please tell your Evangelical Christian friends who are caught up in the 'Pre-Tribulation Rapture' lie the emet (truth) about this passage and how it relates to Yom Teruah and the autumn (fall) festivals. Millions of lazy, deluded Christians are waiting around, making no preparations for tribulations, expecting to be whisked away out of trouble for several years, as though they were Heaven's pets worthy of escaping such things unlike those Thessalonians and all believers who have been persecuted, tortured and martyred over the centuries, whom they must view as being spiritually inferior, though I doubt they have thought through the implications of their doctrine and how arrogant and prideful it really is. We are none of us better than any other believer - past, present or future. We are not going to be whisked away into heaven for 3½ to 7 years like spoiled, pampered, vulnerable snowflakes, to be hidden away during the reign of the AntiMessiah (Antichrist), to then return, with Yah'shua (Jesus) a third time. Yah'shua only comes to earth twice! Three comings is wholly unscriptural.

Paul is talking to the Thessalonians, reassuring them that their suffering through persecution and martyrdom is not in vain, and that they, as victorious overcomers, will join those end-time overcomers who have passed through the Great Tribulation, and together with the Overcomer, Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ), in the air, He who overcame death and hell 2,000 years before. This great throng of the Resurrected Bride will be a marvelous sight indeed, and a time for blowing trumpets and shouting! Then all, on the same day, will descend to the earth where Yah'shua (Jesus) will be installed as King and rule over a Theocratic world government that will last a thousand years - the Millennium. The whole world will witness this, whether through electronic media, or supernaturally, or with their naked eyes, or with all of these, I don't know. But no one on earth will be in any doubt what is happening.

In the meantime, friends, we have to be prepared spiritually and practically for tribulation, and we're about to get a dress rehearsal in the days to come, a penultimate tribulation, as it were, very real and very dangerous. No one will be magically carted off into the sky, you will have to make your own preparations, or suffer and perish. Many deluded by the Rapture lie will die.Yom Teruah is a day of simcha for the repentant and pure, but a day of terror for the wicked. I look forward to seeing you next sabbath again and the day after for Yom haKippurim. May the grace of our Master Yah'shua the Messiah (Jesus Christ) go with you and bring you all that you need. Amen.

Endnotes