The Trumpet Call: A Communication Challenge
1 Corinthians 14
KJV
8+ For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
Before the invention of radio, phones, telegraph etc the standard item used in communicating was the trumpet. To this day some institutions like the military do use it.
Messages are encoded and every sound of the trumpet is distinct, none is alike it takes a trained ear to decode each sound and act accordingly! A long, medium or short blow or blast means something.
Judges 3
KJV
27+ And it came to pass, when he was come, that he blew a trumpet in the mountain of Ephraim, and the children of Israel went down with him from the mount, and he before them.
1 Samuel 13
KJV
3+ And Jonathan smote the garrison of the Philistines that was in Geba, and the Philistines heard of it. And Saul blew the trumpet throughout all the land, saying, Let the Hebrews hear.
Sounds mean a lot to the ancient, it is only today that we do not value them. Growing up in the village, even a mere breath of whistle made with the lips meant something to the trained ear!
Growing up in Accra, the same breath of sound made with the lips was used to invite girls to meet their boyfriends without the knowledge of their parents since the latter do not understand the meaning of the sound!
We must start learning the meaning of sounds as we are told the second coming of Jesus will be preceded by the sound of a trumpet! Can we decode the sound we should hear? This is a great/difficult question.
Before He descends physically, the trumpet sound shall be heard and those who will understand it shall gather/assemble.
The two events, trumpet sound and physical descent shall not occur simultaneously, though the verses seem to suggest this, but from my point of observation, one will precede the other. There will be a duration, an interval between the two events!
Read the sequence
( first the gathering )
Matthew 24
KJV
31+ And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.
(OT example)
Isaiah 27:12-13 NIV
[12] In that day the Lord will thresh from the flowing Euphrates to the Wadi of Egypt, and you, Israel, will be gathered up one by one.
[13] And in that day a great trumpet will sound. Those who were perishing in Assyria and those who were exiled in Egypt will come and worship the Lord on the holy mountain in Jerusalem.
(The physical descent)
1 Thessalonians 4
KJV
16 For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
17+ Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord.
Revelation 1
KJV
7+ Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen.
May we train our ears to decode and understand the sound if it should be blasted at any time. It will be done for a certain duration to enable the “ elect” to be gathered, before the physical descent which will be a surprise to those unprepared but not the assembled!
Incidentally, the “gospel trumpet” is being sounded, and the ingathering has begun! To these people, the final sound is to announce that the time is near!
My thoughts