‘Surely I Am Coming Quickly’
The God of Israel is a God known for His love of joy, delight and celebration. He is, after all, the God who created a people in His image with a desire for joyful celebration, weaving us together in our mothers’ wombs with a basic requirement to break away from the everyday, to take a breather from the ordinary, to set time aside to celebrate, to let down our hair and rejoice. He instilled in us our deep desire to walk through our weeks and our months and our years marking special and even specialish occasions—from birthdays to achievements to the end of the workweek—encoding it in our DNA as inherently spiritual. Which means, when all is said and done, the God of joy, delight and celebration actually wants us, planned for us to engage in joyful, delighted celebrations.
In fact, the Lord God Himself invented festivities—and then invited His children to break away from the everyday, take a breather from the ordinary and set these special times aside for Him. Which is exactly what we are doing here tonight.
We find the Lord’s feasts in Leviticus 23, a list of seven festivals starting with Passover to Unleavened Bread to Firstfruits to Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks, to Rosh HaShanah or Yom Teruah to Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement and then ending with Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles. So seven times a year He invites us to celebrate with Him, with each of God’s appointed biblical feasts having a special significance. In fact, the God we love finds these feasts so significant, so close to His heart that He claims the festivals as His very own. He even labels them, “the feasts of the Lord.” More than that, in Hebrew He calls them His moadim, His special appointments, His set apart times.
Fulfilled and Yet to Fulfill
Then there is, of course, another aspect of the feasts that really excites me. Each one of the seven festivals has one central message: Jesus. Right there, woven into the events, traditions and history of the seven festivals given thousands of years ago, we see a shadow, a picture of the Messiah, a prophecy of God’s plan for the salvation of humankind through Jesus. Paul says in Colossians 2:16–17 that the biblical feasts are a shadow, a picture of the things that Jesus has already done and will one day do for us. Which means that the feasts almost stand like an invitation from the Father saying, “Come! Come! Come see what My Son has done and what He will still do for you.”
Remember that these are a cycle of interrelated feasts, not seven random events haphazardly scattered throughout the year. Each builds on the preceding one and each next one provides the next integral piece of the puzzle and unveils another inch of the beautiful tapestry. Which means that each of these seven festivals gives us one aspect of what Jesus would and will do and would and will be.
So if the festivals serve as a mirror image of the real thing, a piece of the puzzle slotting into the whole picture of salvation, it makes the feasts like a blueprint, a roadmap on God’s prophetic calendar for what He has already done and what is still to come. So let’s take a look at the parts of the picture we can see so far, at the events on the prophetic calendar that have already been fulfilled.
The seven Biblical festivals—Passover or Pesach, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks, Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets, Yom Kippur or the Day of Atonement and then finally Sukkot or the Feast of Tabernacles—fall into two main categories: the spring festivals and the fall festivals. And the reason is obvious. The first four—Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and ˆ—take place during the spring and the second three—Feast of Trumpets, Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles—during the fall.
It is also the first four, the spring festivals—Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits and Shavuot—that Jesus has already fulfilled. And it happened like this.
The first Passover—the mirror image—marks Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt and tells how the redemption of a people was obtained through the blood of the Passover lamb. Thousands of years later, Jesus was crucified when Israel celebrated the festival of Passover. At exactly the time that the Passover Lamb would have been offered at the Temple, Jesus gave up His Spirit on the cross to become our perfect, spotless Passover Lamb (1 Cor. 5:7). And once again, the redemption of a people was obtained through blood. But this time it was the redemption of all the people of the earth, the deliverance was from slavery to sin and death and destruction, and the blood was Jesus’. His blood secured our redemption so that the Angel of Death would forever pass us over.
Thousands of years before Jesus, our Passover Lamb, died on the cross, God already told of what would happen by giving a mirror image of the events to come—all of it wrapped up neatly in the festival of Passover. It was like God saying, “Look! This is exactly what my Son will do for you one day. The Passover lamb in Egypt is the mirror image. My Son dying on the cross is the real thing!”
So that’s Passover. But let’s take a look at the remaining three spring feasts.
The mirror image, the festival of Unleavened Bread, lasts for seven days. For three of these, Jesus was in the grave. During the seven days of the feast of Unleavened Bread, eating any leaven is forbidden. Why? Because leaven represents sin, death and decay. On the opposite side of the spectrum we have Jesus, Who is holy, pure and sinless. His life, and ultimately also His sacrifice for us, was untouched by the curse of sin. Ever since Adam and Eve’s choice in the Garden, all of us fell under the curse of death and decay. But Jesus was different. Death and decay couldn’t touch Him. But not only that. In His death, He actually abolished death (2 Tim. 1:10), conquering it on our behalf (1 Cor. 15:57) by becoming our righteousness and securing life everlasting for us. So Jesus not only died the death we were supposed to die and carried the punishment we were supposed to carry, He lived the perfect life we were supposed to live—on our behalf and in our stead. A life untouched by sin, untouched by death and decay, untouched by the leaven that corrupts and destroys. So in His burial, Jesus fulfilled Unleavened Bread.
The festival of Firstfruits celebrates bringing the first batch of the harvest to the Temple as an investment, a sign, a promise of the full, abundant harvest to come. And on the feast of Firstfruits, Jesus was raised from the dead as that first batch of the harvest, as the firstborn in God’s family, the first of the sons and daughters purchased for their Father God through the blood of the Lamb. And He is the sign, the promise, that more sons and daughters of the Father are to come, sons and daughters who will never die and have eternal life because of the resurrection. So He is the first fruit of the harvest and we are the full, abundant harvest coming in. We find that precious promise in 1 Cor. 15:20–23: “But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s…”
Then, fifty days after Passover, there is Shavuot. The first Shavuot, the mirror image, commemorates a watershed moment in Jewish history: God giving His instructions—the Torah (Gen.–Deut.)—to Israel at Mount Sinai some 3,300 years ago, a day that Israel still celebrates as the birthday of Judaism, the day on which God entered into a marriage with Israel and Israel became His bride.
And then, thousands of years later, and exactly 50 days after Jesus died on the cross on Passover, there was another significant Shavuot. This Shavuot was a watershed moment in Church history, the day when the disciples of Jesus were all gathered in the upper room and Jesus’s promise of sending us a Helper, a Comforter and a Best Friend was fulfilled when the Holy Spirit was poured out to write His law on our hearts, a day we still celebrate as the birthday of the Church, the day on which Jesus entered into a marriage with the Church and we became His bride.
So that covers the first four feasts. The four spring festivals fulfilled through Jesus’ death on Passover, burial during Unleavened Bread and resurrection on Firstfruits, followed by the outpouring of His Spirit on Shavuot. Four major consecutive events on God’s prophetic calendar in His plan for the salvation of mankind, each taking place on one of the feasts of the Lord in consecutive order. These are the puzzle pieces that have fallen into place so far, which gives us more than half of the picture.
But it also leaves us with the remaining three fall festivals, which is where things get interesting. Because the last three festivals haven’t been fulfilled. Yet. Prophecy tells us that a number of things are still to come in God’s plan for the salvation of mankind, including Jesus returning for His Bride, His coming announced by the sound of a piercing ram’s horn, judgement and Jesus dwelling or “tabernacling” with us forever.
Now, if the first four major episodes or the first four major events of God’s plan for salvation—that is Jesus’ death, burial, resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit—took place on and in fulfilment of the first four feasts of the Lord, I’d say the odds are pretty high that the next major episodes of major events of God’s plan for salvation—which is Jesus’ return, His coming announced by the sound of a piercing ram’s horn, judgement and Jesus dwelling or “tabernacling” with us forever—will take place on and in fulfilment of the final three feasts of the Lord, starting, of course, with Yom Teruah, then Yom Kippur and then finally, Sukkot.
Before we continue, it is important to note that we aren’t trying to interpret prophecy. In fact, when looking ahead at prophecy, there are rarely exact answers or exact timelines or exact interpretations. The best we can do is to speculate. And to be honest, I don’t really think that is how God wants us to spend our time and energy. And to be even more honest, I’m simply not smart enough to gauge the mind of God. His plans, purposes and the ways He bring them about are much higher than ours. In fact, I think He gave us prophecy not so much to look ahead in speculation but rather for hindsight, as a means to establish and underscore His might and faithfulness, so that when things prophesied in the Bible do play out in world events, we can look at them and say, “Aha! So that’s what God meant. Wow, look how He is proving Himself faithful. What an amazing God!” Not so that we can spend our days trying to figure out whether this one is the anti-Christ or that is the mark of the beast or trying to force the puzzle pieces into the prophecy.
That being said, He did give us certain clues, certain signs along the road, broad strokes of the plan that we can look forward to and anticipate, even if we don’t know the exact how, when and who. So let’s take a look at what we do know as far as Yom Teruah is concerned.
The Day of Trumpets
The one-day festival of Yom Teruah is actually celebrated for 48 hours. It falls on the first day of the seventh biblical month of Tishri, also known as the month of completion. This year, it starts at dusk on Wednesday, October 7 and ends when the sun sets again on Friday, October 9.
But what does the name Yom Teruah mean? Yom in Hebrew means day. Teruah refers to the blast of the shofar ushering forth a piercing cry to awaken or rally an army to battle. Examples of the sound of teruah in the Bible include the Israelites marching around Jericho and bringing down the seemingly impossibly high and thick walls down simply by blowing the shofar. Another example is the tiny army led by Gideon besting the Amalakite horde by shouting and blowing the shofar. Both these unlikely victories played out to the soundtrack of the sound of teruah.
Yom Teruah is quite a unique festival—for a number of reasons. First, like we said before, Yom Teruah is the first of the second cycle of Biblical feasts, known as fall festivals. Second, it’s the first of the three festivals that Jesus hasn’t fulfilled yet, the first festival we can look forward to Him fulfilling in the future. Third, it’s the only biblical festival where God doesn’t give a specific reason for celebrating. There are instructions to observe it as a Shabbat, to rest, to sacrifice to the Lord and then, specifically, to blow the shofar or ram’s horn. That means we’re given the what, but not really the why. Fourth, it is the only biblical feast for which ancient Israel could not determine the exact day on which to celebrate in advance—an important issue that we’ll touch on later.
The final three feasts, Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot, are known as the High Holy Days and all fall within the month of Tishri, with Yom Kippur, the sixth of the seven feasts, coming seven days after Yom Teruah, and Sukkot, the seventh and final feast, following Yom Teruah by 12 days.
As you can guess, like the first four feast, the final three festivals are hardly three individual and unrelated occasions that merely happen to occur within close proximity. Like we said earlier, since each feast builds on the preceding one and each one provides the next integral piece of the puzzle, a golden thread also ties Yom Teruah, Yom Kippur and Sukkot together.
The Piercing Call of the Trumpet
We read about the Feast of Trumpets the first time in Leviticus 23:23–25 with a repeat of the same invitation and instructions in Numbers 29:1–6: “Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, saying: “In the seventh month, on the first day of the month, you shall have a sabbath-rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. You shall do no customary work on it; and you shall offer an offering made by fire to the Lord.”’”
In Hebrew, Leviticus 23 calls this festival Zikron Teruah, a Memorial of Blowing. Numbers 29 describes it as Yom Teruah, a Day of Blowing. Which is why, during this festival, you will hear countless blasts of the ram’s horn resounding throughout Israel. Which should lead us to ask the question: what is the significance of the shofar? What does it’s piercing call signify? And what does it have to do with one of the feasts of the Lord?
The shofar plays a prominent role in the Old Testament. Israel was gathered around Mount Sinai to receive the Torah on Shavuot and trembled in awe at the sound of a shofar coming from the thick cloud of God’s presence covering the mountain (Exod. 19:16). We also read about the shofar announcing the start of a Jubilee year or the beginning of a new month. Biblical watchmen used it as a form of communication. David used it as an instrument of worship, and the armies of Israel marched to war with its sound echoing around them. It’s cry called people to gather in the presence of God (Num. 10:2–3, Joel 2:15–16) and resounded as an alarm to alert Israel of impending war or judgement (Jer. 4:18–20 and Joel 2:1–2). And in Jewish thought, the sound of the ram’s horn represents a cry to God to remember His covenant with the Jewish people based on His faithfulness to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I think there is an element of each of these in the reason why the shofar sounds on Yom Teruah, but I want to focus on the following two reasons.
First: Coronating the King
In biblical days, the sound of the shofar signaled the coronation of a king. Which means that Yom Teruah is celebrated as a time of coronation, of affirming, acknowledging and declaring God as the King of the universe—not me or my own will, desire, plans, ambitions or dreams—but Him and Him alone. And yes, of course this is true every day of the year. But it is so easy for us to forget, to become entangled in the illusion of our own importance and wisdom and plans. So on Yom Teruah we take that step of return and repentance, of turning from our pride and arrogance in humble humility to the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
In Israel on Yom Teruah, you will hear the piercing call of millions of shofars echo through the Promised Land. And with each blast, Israel declares unashamedly and humbly to God: “You are God Almighty, King of the Universe. We surrender and submit to Your kingship, Your lordship. We consecrate ourselves to You.”
That is how we as the Strausses blow the shofar on Yom Teruh, with that knowledge, with that purpose of joining our hearts with Israel to declare over our ourselves, our home, our children, our family, our nations, over the challenges we face and into the spirit: “You are God Almighty, King of the Universe. We surrender and submit to Your kingship, Your lordship. We consecrate ourselves to You.”
Two: Into the New Testament
Stepping into the New Testament, the shofar plays an even more prominent role. More specifically, the Bible is clear that Jesus of Nazareth who was slain as our Passover Lamb on Pesach, who laid buried during Unleavened Bread, who was raised on Firstfruits and whose Spirit was poured out on Shavuot, will return. In fact, the Bible mentions this return over 300 times. Moreover, this return, we are told, will be heralded by the sound of a great trumpet. 1 Thessalonians 4:16 calls it “the trumpet of God,” Matthew 24:31 refers to it as the “great sound of a trumpet.” 1 Corinthians 15:52 mentions “the last trumpet” sounding, while Revelation tells of seven trumpets sounded by seven angelic beings at the end of the age, a drama that builds with every piercing blast until the final, seventh crescendo in Revelation 11.
Let’s slot this piece of the puzzle into the larger picture. We have the first four major events on God’s prophetic calendar in His plan for the salvation of mankind—Jesus’ death, His burial, His resurrection and the outpouring of His Spirit—taking place on one of the feasts of the Lord in consecutive order—Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits and Shavuot. We also have prophecy telling us that a number of things are still to come in God’s plan for the salvation of mankind: the return of the Bridegroom, His coming announced by the sound of a piercing ram’s horn, judgement and Jesus dwelling or “tabernacling” with us forever. So, if the first four major episodes or the first four major events on God’s prophetic calendar in His plan for salvation took place on and in fulfilment of the first four feasts of the Lord, I agree with theologians and Bible scholars who say that the odds are rather high that we can expect the next major episode or major event in the unfolding epic of God’s salvation—which is the Bridegroom’s return with the sound of a loud trumpet—on and in fulfilment of Yom Teruah, the Day of Trumpets.
Two Clues
There are a number of clues that back up this theory. I want to give you two.
One: Blossoming for the King
We find the first in nature, in the blossoming of pomegranates in the City of the Great King. The pomegranates ripen during the late summer here in Jerusalem. If you step outside now, you can see them literally everywhere. On the sidewalks, in front yards and parks, streets and market squares. Regardless of where you look, you’ll find the plump red fruit.
But as you can imagine, the ripe fruit doesn’t simply appear overnight in their plump, red abundance. They mature through a very precise process taking place like clockwork over a specific period of time.
The first sign of the abundant pomegranate harvest to come appears in April, after Jerusalem awakes from its winter hibernation. It is first visible as a splash of color peaking from behind spring’s new leaves. And then, one morning, almost as if it had happened overnight, Jerusalem is filled with bright pomegranate blossoms, the city adorned with a bright red robe.
These bright red bells mean summer is right around the corner, but they also appear as a grand announcement for the feast of Shavuot or Pentecost. Which means that every year the City of the Great King blooms in scarlet glory as we commemorate the day Jesus sent His Spirit to ignite the hearts of a group of cowering followers so that they could ignite the world with the message of the death, burial and resurrection of our Redeemer. But why does Jerusalem deck herself in the most beautiful garment of bright red pomegranate blossoms when we remember the coming of the Holy Spirit?
Well, from April through May and June, July and August, these blossoms ripen and the bright red bells turn into small, green fruits, before these also ripen through the summer months until September during Yom Teruah or the Feast of Trumpets when Jerusalem finally overflows with plump clusters of pomegranates.
Do you see it? The pomegranate is the fruit of the bride, each adorned with a perfect crown, a symbol—or rather a promise—of a bride who is ready, ripe and adorned for her Heavenly Bridegroom to return and fetch her. And the Feast of Trumpets is the feast on which we wait, expect and long for His return to fetch His bride. Which means the pomegranates—the fruit of the bride—are ripe every year in time for Yom Teruah in anticipation of the Bridegroom’s return for His bride. Which means that it is even encoded in nature.
But there’s more. If the pomegranate is the fruit of the bride, if the ripe fruit adorned with a perfect crown is the symbol and promise of the bride, then every scarlet bell of a pomegranate blossom that begins to bloom over Pentecost or Shavuot in April is a symbol of a bride who makes herself beautiful and ripe so that she can be ready for the day when He comes to fetch her for Himself. And who did Jesus send to help the bride prepare herself? The Holy Spirit—poured out on Pentecost when the blossoms first appear. Don’t you just love our God of intimate detail?
Two: Nobody Knows the Day or the Hour
The second clue comes from something Jesus said, something we tend to miss because we generally read the Scriptures from a Western mindset, instead of the Hebrew mindset in which it was written.
In Leviticus 23, God commands that each of the feast should be kept as a Shabbat. That means that every feast, just like every Shabbat, requires some intense preparation. Even in modern times, the day before Shabbat is given to preparation. You have to prepare your meals for the day of rest in advance, switch on the lights you need for the night and the day, boil water, the list goes on. But in biblical days, the preparation was even more intense. On the day before Shabbat, Israel had to gather two portions of manna, fetch water for two days, prepare meals for two days, light fire for two days, the list goes on. Bottom line, a Shabbat requires preparation. You can’t have a Shabbat without preparation.
That holds even more true for the feasts. In fact, for the feasts, the list of preparations increase, as you have to arrange the sacrifice, cook the required food and get everything ready for the actions required by God. Bottom line, a feast requires preparation. You can’t have a feast without preparation. Which means that it is crucial to know in advance on exactly which day the feast will fall in order to spend the preceding day making the necessary preperations.
For six of the seven feasts, that is no problem. But Yom Teruah is the exception. Remember, the biblical calendar is a lunar one, which means that the first of the month is determined by the appearance of the new moon. As soon as the new moon rises in the night sky, the one month is over and the new month begins. In biblical times, they didn’t have the technology to determine in advance exactly when the new moon would appear. Which means they didn’t have the technology to determine in advance exactly when the new month would begin. Of course they could estimate—very well in fact. They could narrow down the start of the new month to one of two days. But they couldn’t say in advance which of the two days would be the last or the first day of the month. The only way they would know for sure was to send two witnesses into the field outside the camp or the city at night on both of the possible nights for the sole purpose of trying to spot the new moon. If one of the witnesses saw the sliver of the new moon, the second had to witness the sighting. If the two witnesses were in agreement, they would sound the shofar and the new month would officially begin. The bottom line? Ancient Israel wouldn’t know exactly which day would mark the start of each new month until the two witnesses sounded the shofar.
But what does that have to do with Yom Teruah? Well, Passover, Unleavened Bread, Firstfruits, Shavuot, Yom Kippur and Sukkot fall somewhere in the middle of the month, which means that ancient Israel would have no problem to determine the exact day of the feast well in advance and thus prepare for it.
But Yom Teruah is different. Yom Teruah falls on the first day of the month of Tishri, which means that ancient Israel would have no way of determining the exact day of the feast in advance. They would only know once the two witnesses spotted the crescent sliver of the new moon and sounded the shofar signaling the end of the month of Elul and the first of Tishri—and thus Yom Teruah. And so, Yom Teruah became known as the festival for which nobody knows the day or the hour of its beginning.
Does that sound familiar? When Jesus spoke of His return during the Olivet Discourse, He stated specifically in Matthew 24:36: “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only.” Jesus’ Jewish audience would have known immediately that He was referring to Yom Teruah.
The bottom line? For Yom Teruah, no man in ancient Israel could know in advance the day or the hour when the feast would start. They had to wait for the two witnesses to spot the crescent sliver of the new moon. And today, for the fulfillment of the feast, the return of the Bridegroom, we don’t know the day or the hour either.
That sounds a bit like a contradiction, doesn’t it? Saying that the Bridegroom’s return coincides with Yom Teruah and then saying that nobody knows the day or the hour of His return? To our human minds, perhaps. But remember that 1 Corinthians 13:12 teaches that “for now we see in a mirror, dimly…” Just because we don’t understand the things of God doesn’t make them any less true or possible. The most probable explanation of this seeming contradiction is that we are to know the general time of the Bridegroom’s return, but not the exact day or hour of His appearance until He actually arrives. Which is why He warns us so often during the Gospels to be alert, ready and watchful.
That brings me to an important point I want to stress. Do I believe we are living in the end times? Yes, absolutely. But what does that mean? Well, to be honest, I have no idea. We are most certainly experiencing the birth pains that Jesus spoke about in the Olivet Discourse. We can see some of the things He spoke about fall into place. But again, what does that mean? I mean, how strong are these birth pangs? Are we in the beginning, middle or end stages of labor? Are we close? Are we talking a year, five, thirty, a hundred? Yes, I think we are close, but in the big picture of history, what does close really mean? And the simple answer is nobody knows the day or the hour. 2 Peter 3:8 tells us that “with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
But more importantly, I don’t think God wants us to focus specifically and spend our time and energy on trying to figure out prophecy before it comes into fulfilment. I have yet to find a Scripture where He tells us to debate, argue, guess and speculate about the exact interpretation of prophecy. Especially when our human minds are so incapable of seeing clearly when we look into the mirror, dimly. However, we find Scripture upon Scripture where He tells us to spend our time and energy being ready and prepared at all time, to keep our lamps filled with oil, to keep our eyes on Him. We find Scripture upon Scripture about how we should live as we wait for the fulfilment, practical things like being a faithful servant, putting the “talents” He gave us to good use, feeding the hungry, clothing the poor, comforting the sick, being a light, living out the hope we have.
My job is not to speculate. My job is to be ready for when He returns and to be busy with the things He wants me to be busy with as I wait. And my job is to rejoice, to look forward to, to relish His coming with my entire heart. So that is the second thing I want us to celebrate as we blow the trumpet tonight.
The Bridegroom is returning. Jesus of Nazareth who was slain as our Passover Lamb on Pesach, who laid buried during Unleavened Bread, who was raised on Firstfruits and whose Spirit was poured out on Shavuot is coming soon—whatever that soon entails. And what a return that will be! He will wipe away every tear. He will heal every disease. He will comfort every hurt and pain. He will make all things new. All the loved ones we lost returned to us. But more than that! Can you imagine seeing Jesus face-to-face, spending eternity spellbound by His glory and might, in blissful adoration of all He is? In His presense. Fullness of joy! Can you imagine infinite joy, epic gladness? All that is coming. The Bridegroom is coming. And that is the delight, the comfort of my life.
The apostle Paul promises in 2 Timothy 4:8 that a crown of righteousness await all those who love His appearing. I don’t know about you, but I really want that crown. And therefore I set my heart on loving His appearance, rejoicing in His coming, thrilling at His return.
And so, as we blow the trumpet to make the sound of teruah, let’s join our hearts with Israel to declare over our ourselves, our homes, our children, our families, our nations, over the challenges we face and into the spirit: “You are God Almighty, King of the Universe. We surrender and submit to Your kingship, Your lordship. We consecrate ourselves to You.”
Secondly, let that sound of teruah to be a sound of jubilation, a piercing echo of us shouting, “Yes, yes, Jesus we love Your appearing. We look forward to it more than watchmen waiting for the morning. Our hearts rejoice at the prospect of Your return. We are preparing ourselves as Your bride as best we can. We look to Your Holy Spirit, our Helper, Comforter and Best Friend, to help us with the preparations. And we join our voices with the voice of the great multitude, the sound of many waters and the sound of mighty thunderings, saying, “Alleluia! For the Lord God Almighty reigns! Let us be glad and rejoice and give Him glory, for the marriage of the Lamb has come, and His bride has made herself ready.” And to her it was granted to be arrayed in fine linen, clean and bright, for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints.”
“He who testifies to these things says, ‘Surely I am coming quickly.’ Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Rev. 22:20).