Insights, Meaning, Purpose, Thoughts, Reflections and Questions

Elohim created an idyllic, paradise garden and put the first humans into it. Sadly, man sinned and got kicked out of the garden. We now have the world as it is; it’s anything but a garden of peace! The world is a mess and what decent and loving person doesn’t know this? There is meanness, ugliness, combativeness, strife, contention, division, hatred, suffering, persecution, greed, lust, murder, hatred for what is good and righteous, unholiness, evil and darkness all around us, and it seem to be overtaking us like a tsunami. What can be done about this?

Most of us feel powerless to do anything about the state of conditions the world is currently in. A wise man once said that when the world is falling apart all around you, all you can do is to tend your own garden. In that  way, you’re making your little corner of the world a better place. If enough good people do this, who knows what might happen? It might be the mythical lever that’s big enough to move the entire world. 

The Word of Elohim is that lever. It shows us how to help transform the earth back into the Garden of Eden one life at a time starting with our life. So there is something we can do after all to combat spiritual evil and darkness and to help to make the world a more beautiful place. HalleluYah!

It all starts with having a spiritual relationship with Yeshua the Messiah and loving him by keeping his commandments including his sabbaths and feasts, which are the skeletal framework of his glorious plan of redemption and salvation for all humans. 

Today is the Yom Teruah or the Day of Trumpets or Shofar Blowing. What does that have to do with turning evil on its head and making the world a better and more beautiful place? Let’s find out…

Yom Teruah (the Day of Trumpets or Shofar Blowing) is all about awakening from spiritual sleep, repenting of sin and spiritual lethargy and returning to YHVH and to his Torah covenants all in preparation for the second coming of Yeshua the Messiah, our heavenly bridegroom. Are you ready to meet Yeshua the Messiah, the King of kings who is coming back?

Revelation 3:14–21 is Yeshua’s wake up call end time saints who think that they’re all right with Elohim, but, in reality, they spiritually asleep and lukewarm. Behold, Yeshua stands at the door of our lives and is knocking. He wants to come into our lives, but our spiritual lukewarmness, smugness and pride prevents him from doing this. We all have areas of lukewarmness in our lives. Each person who is wise will examine themselves under the magnifying glass of the Word of Elohim.

YHVH has allowed us to remain free moral agents, so we have to choose what we will do or not do. What are the real priorities in our lives where we are spending the bulk of our time and energy? What choices are we making in our lives and where are these choices leading us spiritually? Toward Elohim and Yeshua or away from him?

YHVH desires that we choose to incline our hearts to him, and when we do this he will respond by inclining his heart toward us. This is because he made us in his image and desires to spend eternity with us, his spirit-born children, but he will not give out the gift of immortality willy-nilly to anyone and everyone, but only those who come to him through the way that he has set out. There is no other way to enter the kingdom heaven. Are we walking the straight and narrow way that leads to eternal life, or the broad way that leads to destruction? Many people have one foot on each path. That is an unstable place to be, and eventually, each will have to choose one path or the other. Yeshua is clear on this issue; it is an unsustainable spiritual position for one to choose both Elohim and mammon (money and the riches of this world). Are you serving both? In reality, most of us, to one degree or another are doing so.

YHVH has given us his seven feasts as literal spiritual stepping stones to guide us to him. They’re the spiritual check points on a road map to guide us through the desolate, confusing and obscure wilderness of this life. The feasts keep us grounded, spiritually centered and on course and pointed toward the kingdom of Elohim. In school, you go through twelve steps called grades and then you graduate. Similarly, in YHVH’s plan of salvation, there are seven steps and then you reach your ultimate goal. Yom Teruah is the fourth step in that plan. How seriously do you take walking out these steps in YHVH’s plan of salvation?

At the center of Yom Teruah is the blast of the shofar. That’s what the very name Yom Teruah means—the day of shouting or the blast of the ram’s horn shofar. Why would YHVH use such a simplistic even primeval object as the center of this, the fourth step, in his plan of salvation for humans? What’s so significant about the shofar that he would require his people to stop their daily work routine, rest on that day, call it a Shabbat, and dedicate a whole moed or divine appointment around this instrument and where he wants to meet with his people? What deep spiritual mystery or truth is the Almighty Creator trying to convey to his people—things that seem foolish to the natural mind of man? 

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, And My thoughts than your thoughts. (Isa 55:9; see also 1 Cor 2:6–14)

At that time Jesus answered and said, “I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them to babes. (Matt 11:25)

In ancient Israel, the shofar was sounded at important times—

• To call Israel together
• To warn of impending danger
• To announce the coronation of a king
• To call the people to repentance
• To signal the arrival of the new moon and the feast days
• To announce the arrival of a bridegroom coming for his bride
• The beginning of the jubilee year when the captives were set free and debts were forgiven

And most importantly, the shofar announces when…

• Yeshuas second coming
• The saints being rewarded with immortality

How many of the times when the shofar was sounded relate to events that are preparatory to the coming of Yeshua? How do these things relate to us, and what should we be doing in our lives in response to this?

YHVH is a very interactive Elohim. His plan of salvation is interactive and involves his people learning about deep spiritual mysteries by acting out certain things. Any good teacher knows that people learn best by doing something that they’re learning about. You can read a book about rebuilding a car engine, building a house or painting a picture, but until you actually do it, you really don’t understand it. YHVH’s feasts, including Yom Teruah, are action-based steps and about doing something to help us to understand the deep spiritual mysteries of heaven and to help us to relate to them and orientate our lives around them. The feasts, including the weekly Shabbat, are the skeletal structure of YHVH’s Torah-instruction in righteousness. They are for our blessing and guidance. They help to keep us on the path that leads to Elohim. The Torah helps us to keep our spiritual garden clean and beautiful and to make world a better place, so that people will be drawn to us for the spiritual lights that we are.