Life's Inanities and Ironies

  Beloved in Christ, open your eyes to the headlines. Streets in Paris, Lyon, Marseille, Tirana, Milan, and other cities have burned. Peaceful marches over the cost of living and failing schools were overtaken by firebombs, arson of city halls and tourist offices, looting of shops, and clashes that left hundreds of police injured and thousands arrested. Similar unrest has flared in Italy, Albania, Portugal, and beyond. This is not merely politics or economics. It is a symptom of a deeper spiritual reality. Jesus prepared His people for exactly this kind of world. In the Olivet Discourse He said these things “must take place,” yet He commanded, “See that you are not alarmed.” Wars, rumors of wars, and the rising of nation against nation are the beginning of birth pains—not the delivery itself. The same pattern appears in the increasing lawlessness Jesus warned would cause the love of many to grow cold (Matthew 24:12). Economic hardship, frustration with governments, and the readines...

  I was raised in a little country church where the only trumpet we 99% of us ever heard was the pastor's kid on his slightly-off-key cornet every Easter. Rams’ horns? Those were Old Testament curiosities, something for Messianic congregations or the occasional prophecy conference. Then I actually started tracing the shofar through Scripture. What I found shook me so hard I went out and bought a 36-inch Yemenite kudu horn the next week. My wife thought I’d lost my mind. My neighbors definitely did when I started practicing at 5 a.m. But once you see what the Bible actually says about this blood-stained, battle-scarred trumpet, you can’t unsee it. Here is the scarlet thread of the shofar from Genesis to Revelation — told the way I now preach it to my own fundamentalist, dispensational, KJV-carrying, pre-trib, blood-bought congregation. 1. The First Shofar: A Ram Caught in the Thicket (Genesis 22) The knife glints above Isaac. Abraham’s hand does not waver — until the Angel stops him...