Monday October 22, 2012

Ring up one other person today and ask them how you can be praying for them. Spend time praying for them.

 

Read Leviticus 23:24;   Numbers 29:1

 

Music and holidays seem to go together. On New Year’s Eve Aussies love to count down to midnight and trumpets are blown by wild revellers.  Dancing has been a long favourite at these celebrations. At Christmas time and Easter people who rarely frequent the churches, look forward to singing about the birth of the Christ and His death and resurrection.  But the holidays are rarely built around music as they were in the Feast of Trumpets.

 

Interestingly, the Feast is never called the Feast of Trumpets in Scripture. It is called the Memorial of Blowing (Trumpets) in Leviticus and the Day of Blowing (Trumpets) in Numbers 29:1. In the 2nd Century AD the feast was called Rosh Hashanah (Literally the Head of the Year). After the Temple was destroyed in 70AD the observance had to be radically changed - new traditions had to be enlisted to help the festival survive. The timing connected with the start of the civil new year so the two became inseparably connected—hence the name.

 

In the Bible it is a simple service where the day is commemorated with the blowing of trumpets and is kept as a Sabbath to the Lord.  A special burnt offering was given to the Lord. It consisted of a young bull, a ram and 7 lambs. A kid goat was also sacrificed as a sin offering. All of these were in addition to the required daily sacrifices and those needed for the new moon.

 

The festival stands in importance because it is the only holiday on the first day of the month at the new moon.  Within the Torah (the Law of Moses) the 7th Day and the 7th Month and the 7th Year were all holy.  This feast marks the start of the Sabbath month in which all three autumn holidays occur. New moons were usually announced with a short trumpet blast but this day was celebrated with long blasts to commemorate its uniqueness and solemnity.

 

Prayer:

Use today’s reading and notes to write down ideas for your prayers.

 

Adoration:

 

Confession:

 

Thanks:

 

Supplication:

¥ Pray that God would allow each one of us to bear much fruit in our personal lives. Pray that the fruit of the Spirit would grow in your life and the lives of your brothers and sisters. Pray that we would also be growing the fruit of discipleship as we make converts and raise them in the Lord.

¥ Pray that God would be preparing the Burma mission team to teach 2 Corinthians in Burma at the end of November. Pray for the required funds to be made available and for all the resources to be ready.