Saturday, April 21, 2012
Numbers 10:2
Saturday, April 21, 2012 |
Make thee two trumpets of silver; of a whole piece shalt thou make them: that thou mayest use them for the calling of the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps.
For further reading - Numbers 10:1-10
The Lord gave instruction through Moses to the Jewish people on how to worship and how to provide a covering for their sins. These instructions are found in the Torah, the Law, contained in the first five books in the Old Testament.
As we now come to the fourth book of the “Torah”, the five books of Moses, we see that the Lord has given the children of Israel a manual, a “handbook” for the wandering in the wilderness by the Jewish people.
The book of Numbers takes up the story of the Exodus and the Jews moving towards the “promised land”. The first nine chapters of Numbers has the Jews camped near Mount Sinai and Moses is told by God that He wants the children of Israel to be organized in their travels.
God does want all of His work done in order, no confusion. In fact, these first nine chapters reveal God’s plan for the order of the “camp” as they would be at each of their stops along the way. This is the set up for the tenth chapter of this “manual”, the handbook for the journey to the land that God has given them.
Here in Numbers 10, the Lord instructs Moses to make two "trumpets" of pure silver that were to be used for calling the Israelites to a “solemn assembly” and for direction for their journey to the Promised Land.
There were additional times the trumpets were to be blown. They were to be blown for “days of gladness”. They were blown to call attention to “special solemn assemblies”. They were to be sounded on the “first day of each month”. Also the trumpets were to be sounded during “certain sacrifices”.
God told Moses also to have the trumpets sounded as an “alarm” when an enemy was approaching, and when the Children of Israel would go to “war” against the enemy, verse 9.
The prophet Joel, many years after Moses, wrote of using the trumpet to warn of the coming enemy that will appear in the Last Days. Joel told the Jews to “blow the trumpet in Zion”, Jerusalem, and “sound the alarm” in the Lord's holy mountain, the Temple Mount, Joel 2:1.
The trumpet sound of Joel's prophecy was to warn Jews of the “judgment coming at the end of time”. A close look at Joel's prophecy and the other Jewish prophets will reveal that the time for Joel's trumpet to be sounded in Jerusalem is quickly approaching.
I must remind you that before Joel's trumpet is sounded, another trumpet will be heard and it will call all Christians into the heavenlies at the Rapture of the Church, I Thessalonians 4:16 and I Corinthians 15:52.
After the Rapture trumpet sounds, according to the book of Revelation 4 to 19, the "seven year" Tribulation Period follows. Revelation reveals a description of the “terrible time of judgment”. In Revelation 8,9 and 11:15-19, John writes of seven judgments that intensify in severity as the seven angels blow the "seven trumpets" of judgment.
There is yet another trumpet that will be sounded. That trumpet will be blown by order of Jesus Christ when He returns to the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem, Matthew 24:31. The Lord will tell the angel to “sound the trumpet to gather the Jews from all of Creation to Jerusalem”.
The blast of the trumpet on the day that Jesus comes back to Earth is actually on the Jewish feast day, the “Feast of Trumpets”. The Feast of Trumpets is fulfilled at the Second Coming of Jesus Christ - not the Rapture of the Church.
The sound of the trumpet at the Rapture takes place at least seven years earlier. The truth is, that trumpet sound may be heard today. Keep looking up as you listen for that next trumpet sound.
PRAYER THOT: Help me be prepared, pure, and productive until I hear the sound of the trumpet for the Rapture.