Jesus is the King! When we move past Pentecost to the blowing of Trumpets we are approaching the coming of the Kingdom of God to the earth.

The Jewish calendar has two overlapping years. Passover marks the beginning of one year. Rosh Hashanah, which takes place on the first day of the seventh month of the year that begins with Passover, is the first day of another year. Passover is New Year's Day of one year. Rosh Hashanah is New Year's Day of an overlapping year.

The year that commences with Passover typifies the year of spiritual redemption. The year that commences with Rosh Hashanah typifies the year of the Kingdom of God.

Rosh Hashanah, the time of the blowing of Trumpets, portrays the beginning of the Kingdom of God in the earth.

The feast of Passover marks the beginning of the religious year of feasts and ceremonies. The year that commences with Rosh Hashanah is the year of kings and contracts. It is the year of doing business.

Rosh Hashanah is the beginning of the agricultural year. The rains for the fall planting are at hand.

The King is coming today, not in the clouds of glory as He will in the near future, but in the spirit realm. The nation of Israel, the members of the Christian churches, the nations of the earth—all will feel the power of His coming. He is coming to judge the world. These judgments, as we stated previously, are portrayed by the seven trumpets of the Book of Revelation.

The effects of the Divine judgment will be felt by all; but the redemptive aspect of the judgment is directed at present toward a firstfruits of the Lord's people, as in the type of Gideon's remnant. God will bring a remnant through the fire, and then use that remnant as the Divine standard and source of deliverance in the earth for all of God's Israel and for the nations of the saved.

And I will bring the third part through the fire, and will refine them as silver is refined, and will try them as gold is tried: they shall call on my name, and I will hear them: I will say, It is my people: and they shall say, The Lord is my God. (Zechariah 13:9)

Isaiah spoke of the day in which we are living:

The sinners in Zion are afraid; fearfulness hath surprised the hypocrites. Who among us shall dwell with the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell with everlasting burnings? (Isaiah 33:14)

Again, in Joel:

Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand; (Joel 2:1)

Again, in Isaiah:

Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins. (Isaiah 58:1)

The time has come for the purifying of the Lord's royal priesthood.

Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts. (Malachi 3:1)

The "messenger" was John the Baptist. The Lord, the "messenger of the covenant," is the Servant of the Lord—Christ.

To be continued.