The Watchman Speaks
The Watchman Speaks is a reflective podcast rooted in storytelling and Scripture, offering stories of faith that endure, words of warning and biblical wisdom. Hosted by “The Old Watchman”, Lonnie Richardson – each episode draws from farm life, a thirty year nursing career, loss, suffering, and hope to speak honestly about faith that stands firm when life becomes difficult. These are not sermons or debates, but reflections of Scripture and wisdom for those who are still believing, yet weary, and who long for a deeper, steadier walk with God.
The Watchman Speaks
007 When You Hear The Trumpet Sound
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The Watchman gives an overview of the biblical trumpets of the Bible. He briefly discusses Old Testament as well as New Testament applications of this ancient instrument in God's plan.
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007 When You Hear The Trumpet Sound
Welcome to The Watchman Speaks. I’m your host, Lonnie Richardson.
Today, once again, I’m going to discuss something out of the mainstream of Christianity that you don’t hear much about. I have certainly not heard much about this topic, and I’ve only heard the topic briefly mentioned a handful of times from the pulpit in my sixty years. In those instances, the understanding was, well, deficient. Today I want to briefly discuss the trumpets of the Bible.
Now, the trumpets of the Bible and the sounding of trumpets are a broad and wide ranging topic and there is far too much information to be covered with due diligence during the course of a single podcast episode. However, I’m hopeful that I can give you a brief overview with enough information to at least pique your interests.
I have only heard the trumpets of the Bible mentioned within two settings from the pulpit. The first being the seven angels sounding seven trumpets in the Book of Revelation beginning in Chapter 8 and concluding in Chapter 11, and that mentioning was very brief. The other mentioning is one that most are more familiar with and that is 1st Thessalonians 4:16.
“For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.”
As well, that is a mentioning that I have heard only briefly as part of a sermon rather than a whole.
Here’s a question for you. IF the seven angels began sounding the seven trumpets in Revelation chapters 8 through 11, would you know what you were hearing? Some would say that the church has been raptured by that time and would not be present when those angels sound the seven trumpets. Okay, I’ll not argue that point with you although I, personally disagree. However, WHEN the LORD HIMSELF returns with the trumpet of GOD would you recognize what you are hearing? I’m not trying to be malicious or condescending. It’s a genuine question. Would you know? Or would you be as Paul wrote to the Corinthians in 1st Corinthians 14:8?
“For if the trumpet produces an indistinct sound, who will prepare himself for battle?” There is a distinct sound made on the trumpet to prepare for battle. There will be a distinct sound when Jesus returns with the trumpet of God. Will you recognize the sound of the trumpet
Okay, enough with the questions for the time being. Let’s move along.
In the Book of Revelation 1:10 John writes: “I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and I heard behind me a loud voice like the sound of a trumpet,”
In 4:1 John writes, “After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet speaking with me, said, ‘ Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things.’”
It is obvious that the Lord was speaking to John and He was speaking to John with a voice like the sound of a trumpet. That leads me to conclude that the sound of the shofar is that which is like the voice of God. But how did John recognize the voice like the sound of a trumpet as God speaking to him.
John knew Scripture. In Exodus 19 God called Moses and the sons of Israel to Mt. Sanai with the sound of a Ram’s Horn. John knew that in Genesis 22 God provided Abraham with a ram, a male sheep, as a substitutionary sacrifice for Abraham’s son, Isaac. John knew that throughout Hebrew history, and the culture of Israel and the Jews that the Ram’s Horn Shofar was a symbol of God’s provision. Abraham had named the place “Yhwh Yi’reh”, the Lord provides.
So, if the sound of the trumpet, or shofar, is that which is like the voice of God, then what is the voice of God like?
In Genesis 1 verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 20, and 24 God spoke. What ever God spoke came into being. God’s voice is powerful and creative. In Genesis 2:7 God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils and man became a living being. God’s voice is powerful and creative. God’s breath is intimate and life giving.
In Nehemiah 4:20 it reads:
“At whatever place you hear the sound of the trumpet, rally to us there, Our God will fight for us.”
You see, Nehemiah knew the Scriptures as well. He remembered Exodus 14:13-14:
13. But Moses said to the people, “Do not fear! Stand by and see the salvation of the Lord which He will accomplish for you today; for the Egyptians whom you have seen today, you will never see them again forever.”
14. “The Lord will fight for you while you keep silent.”
Nehemiah also remembered seven trumpets sounding and a great shout at Jericho when impenetrable walls came crashing down. Nehemiah remembered Gideon’s three hundred sounding trumpets and shouting, “A sword for the Lord and for Gideon.” The Midian army slaughtered themselves. The sounding trumpet for Nehemiah was the call to battle but Nehemiah knew that the fight was God’s fight.
Chances are that Nehemiah remembered Numbers 10:9:
“When you go to war in your land against the adversary who attacks you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the Lord your God and be saved from your enemies.”
The trumpets in Numbers were not shofar. They were the silver trumpets of the tent of meeting or the tabernacle. They were hasosera. Even by Nehemiah’s time, those silver trumpets had been lost to the ages of history. Nehemiah knew the trumpets had summonsed the captain and the hosts of the Lord before for Joshua at Jericho and for Gideon. He trusted that they would do so again. But for Nehemiah and those rebuilding the walls and gates of Jerusalem, the attack never came.
The sounding of the trumpet is a declaration of God’s sovereignty over the earth and throughout the universe. Ecclesiastes 3:11 reads, “He has made everything appropriate in its time. He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” The sound of the shofar is a call for awakening. That’s what I experienced when I first heard a ram’s horn shofar. The eternity in my heart was awakened at the appropriate time and I have chased hard after God to know His works which are endless. I’ll never know it all in this lifetime and that alone makes me chase after Him all the more relentlessly.
Throughout Hebrew history, and the history of Israel and the Jews, it is believed that the sound of the shofar carries every syllable of God’s word into the atmosphere. Why is that important? The sound of the shofar, that which is like the voice of God, confuses the enemy as it did in the camps of Midian during Gideon’s battle. How can we know this? It’s in Ephesians 2:1-2.
“And you were dead in your trespasses and sins, in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.” Who is the prince of the power of the air? Who is the spirit working in the sons of disobedience? That would be Satan. His camp, his influence is in the atmosphere. When the sound of the shofar, that which is like the voice of God, goes forth, it causes confusion in the enemy strongholds.
Now the devil is not omniscient. He doesn’t know all things as God does. He doesn’t know if it’s a priest blowing the trumpet. He doesn’t know if it’s Lonnie sounding off. For all he knows it may be the angels or Jesus Himself sounding the trumpet. Spiritual warfare is fought in such a manner. Make no mistake about it.
Now you may be saying to yourself, “Lonnie that’s all well and good but I don’t see what the importance is, for me, in some old, dusty, forgotten, Jewish Horn.”
Well, first, it’s not just an old dusty Jewish horn. Forgotten? Perhaps. But why was it forgotten? Here’s why. Because of the persecutions of Jews and Christians during the first two centuries of the church anyone participating in what was considered to be a Jewish Practice was rendered a death sentence. It’s plain and simple. No if’s, and’s, but’s, or maybe’s. By the third century, the church had been taken over by the gentiles and Messianic Jews survived as best they could albeit that they were pretty much swept under the carpet and forgotten like dust under the rug.
Throughout the Old Testament, the sounding of the shofar was used for many things.
Like what?
The trumpets were used in spiritual warfare that spilled over into the physical realm. The trumpets are interwoven into prophecy, prayer, worship, praises, and thanksgiving.
Solomon, the first king in David’s line, was coronated King with a trumpet. The Trumpet of God will sound and the dead in Christ will rise and the remainder who are alive will meet Him in the air. There is a funny thing about that Greek word “meet”. That word, in Greek, is “apantesis” and it was only used three times in the Bible. The first was Matthew 25:6 where 5 wise virgins took extra oil for their lamps to go a meet the bridegroom. The second use of apantesis is in Acts 28:15 where the believers of Rome came to meet Paul as he traveled to Rome from Malta. The third usage of “apantesis” was in 1st Thessalonians 4:17. In each instance it is used, it is used as if someone “went” out to meet someone and usher them back to a certain place. That is what will happen. We will meet the Lord in the air and usher Him back where He will establish His kingdom. Having said that, not only does the Trumpet of God raise the dead and call to those who are living, but it coronates Jesus as King, the last King in David’s line. Solomon was the first. Jesus will be the last.
The trumpets were a call to assemble and disperse. The trumpets mark and record time at the ending and beginning of months, at the full moon, and on feast days.
And you know what? They were used for the same reasons in the New Testament too. The trumpets however are not mentioned nearly as much in the New Testament as they are in the Old Testament. Why? I suspect that their use had pretty much been standardized and there was no need to reiterate.
I remind you that Jesus was a Jew and so were His disciples. Those one hundred and twenty in the upper room? Jews. Those three thousand when the Holy Spirit was poured out on Pentecost? Jews. The church, initially, was Jewish! Did Jesus and all these Jews know the sound of the trumpet? You bet your last pair of strap on sandals they did!
Let’s just, for the sake of argument, lay aside the Old Testament for a few minutes and take a look at the New Testament trumpets. With only two exceptions 1. Being 1st Corinthians 14:8 that we have already mentioned and that being an indistinct sounding of the trumpet. 2. Being Matthew 6:2 in that you do not sound a trumpet to bring attention to yourself when giving to the poor. Every other mentioning of the trumpet has to do with judgments upon the earth and the end of the age bringing about the return of Christ! I’d say that’s pretty important!
Matthew 24:29-31
29. “But immediately AFTER the tribulation of those days THE SUN WILL BE DARKENED, AND THE MOON WILL NOT GIVE ITS LIGHT, AND THE STARS WILL FALL from the sky, and the powers of the heavens will shaken.
30. And then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in the sky, and then all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the SON OF MAN COMING ON THE CLOUDS OF THE SKY with power and great glory.
31. And He will send forth His angels with a GREAT TRUMPET and THEY WILL GATHER TOGETHER His elect from the four winds, from one end of the sky to the other.
1st Corinthians 15:51-52
51. Behold, I tell you a mystery; we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed,
52. in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet sound; for the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.
1st Thessalonians 4:15-18
15. For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep.
16. For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first.
17. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.
18. Therefore comfort one another with these words.
Hebrews 12:18-19
18. For you have not come to a mountain that can be touched and to a blazing fire, and to darkness and gloom and whirlwind,
19. and to the blast of a trumpet and the sound of words which sound was such that those who heard begged that no further word be spoken to them.
Already I have addressed Revelation 1:10 and 4:1 where John give the accounts that a voice, like the sound of a trumpet spoke to him. But let’s continue in Revelation.
In Revelation 8:1-2
1. When the Lamb broke the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour.
2. And I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them.
Verse 6 And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound them.
In verses 7-12 four angels sounded four trumpets that brought great judgments upon the earth.
In Revelation 9:1-12 The Fifth angel sounded the fifth trumpet unleashing hellish locusts upon the earth to torment men for five months. This is the first woe upon the earth.
In Revelation 9:13-21 the sixth angel sounded the sixth trumpet and four angels were released upon the earth as an army of two hundred million.
It is not until Chapter 11 that the seven trumpets are completed. Revelation 11:15-17
15. Then the seventh angel sounded; and there were loud voices in heaven saying, “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ; and He will reign forever and ever.”
16. And the twenty-four elders who sit on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God,
17. saying, “We give You thanks O Lord God, the Almighty, who are and who were, because You have taken Your great power and have begun to reign.”
Now, when you take all that in consider this. It doesn’t matter whether or not you believe what I have told you about the trumpets in the Bible, particularly, in the Old Testament. It doesn’t matter whether agree with me in regard to the trumpet in the New Testament. Whether you agree or believe or not. Whether you like it or not, when this time and age that we live in is getting ready to come to a close, it’s going to be going down with the sound of trumpets.!!!
So, what do you know about the trumpets of the Bible? Do you know the trumpet sound? Will you recognize the trumpet when it sounds?
I am The Old Watchman, Ezekiel. You have been warned!
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