“He shall send His angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect.”
(Matt. 24:31)
“We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.”
(1 Cor. 15:51-52)
“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: 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.”
(1 Thess. 4:16-17)
We have already noticed that the first four feasts come close together at the beginning of the year. Then come almost four months of reaping until the last sheaf was cut, though there was still good grain left standing in the corners of the fields. We will now seek with God's help, to look at the last three feasts. These all come very close together in the seventh month.
In creation God made the world in six days and rested on the seventh. In the dispensation of law, men worked six days and rested on the seventh. In the feasts of Jehovah, six months of the year passed by, but when the seventh month comes, on the first day of the seventh month, God says, "Ye shall have a rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation. No manner of servile work shall ye do; and ye shall present an offering by fire to Jehovah." (Lev. 23:24-25 New Translation).
We have seen that the four feasts that are passed all have been most exactly fulfilled. We have seen that at the present day we are still in that long space of time left for the harvest, between the Feast of Pentecost and the Feast of Trumpets. The Feast of Trumpets and the two feasts that quickly follow it, the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles, have not yet been fulfilled. These three feasts point to future events. As the four past feasts have been so exactly fulfilled, we can confidently expect that the three future feasts will be just as exactly fulfilled in a coming day.
In the feasts that have passed, we have seen events on earth only, though indeed these events have included the resurrection and ascension into Heaven of our Lord Jesus, the descent from Heaven of the Holy Spirit. But during this time the heavens and the earth have been divided by sin, but in a coming day the Lord Jesus will judge this world in righteousness, and then take it for Himself. He will not only be King of the Jews, but "He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth." (Psa. 72:8). "And the Lord shall be King over all the earth." (Zech. 14:9).
The same Lord Who is now glorified in Heaven as the Head of the Church, will also reign on earth as King of Israel and Lord of all creation. He will be honored in the heavens above and in the earth below, and men of every nation, people, and tongue, will unite to own Jesus of Nazareth, "Lord of all." For these reasons, we suggest that the remaining feasts have perhaps a double meaning. Their primary meaning is, no doubt, a telling forth of the events coming on this earth, especially in connection with Israel, but as the former feasts also include the events which are of the deepest interest to the church, so it would seem that the remaining feasts also have a secondary application that might foretell events connected with the church in Heaven. For we must never forget that Israel's portion is the earth, but the church's portion is always in the Heavens.
The Feast of Trumpets begins the second series of "Jehovah's set feasts.” In Num. 10:2, God commanded Moses to make two silver trumpets. These trumpets were used for calling together the assembly, and for the journeying of the camps. They were to be used when Israel went to war, and God promised that when these trumpets were blown, He would remember His people and save them from their enemies. (Num. 10:9). They were also used in their set feasts and in their new moons. God said, "That they may be to you for a memorial before your God." The silver tells us of redemption, and those notes on the silver trumpets would not only bring to remembrance God's covenant with His earthly people, and His promise to His heavenly people, but they also brought to remembrance the price that was paid on the cross to purchase the redemption of both the heavenly and the earthly people.
This feast was a special time of blowing these trumpets. It was called, "A memorial of blowing of trumpets." (Lev. 23:24). It was truly a feast of remembrance. Does this not tell us of that great trumpet that is to be blown in a coming day? Then "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." (Matt. 24:31).
In Isa. 18:3-7 (N.T.), "All ye inhabitants of the world, and dwellers on the earth, when a banner is lifted up on the mountains, see ye, and when a trumpet is blown, hear ye!.... In that time shall a present be brought unto Jehovah of hosts of a people scattered and ravaged.... to the place of the name of Jehovah of hosts, the Mount Zion." (New Translation). And again in Isa. 27:13 (N.T.), "And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come that were perishing in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem." Also compare Zech. 10:8, "I will hiss for them, and gather them; for I have redeemed them; and they shall multiply as they used to multiply. And I will sow them among the peoples, and they shall remember Me in far countries.”
There are very many more passages that tell of the gathering of Israel and Judah back to their own land, but these make quite clear that at a certain time, a special call will go forth from God to bring His own people back to their own land. Both the Old Testament and the New Testament speak of this call as a Trumpet, so we believe that the Feast of Trumpets foretells that trumpet blast that will call Israel back to their own land.
But the Feast of Trumpets was also to call to remembrance, and in Num. 10, when God told Moses to make silver trumpets, He told Israel that when they went to war against the enemy that oppressed them, "Then ye shall blow an alarm with the trumpets, and ye shall be remembered before Jehovah, your God, and ye shall be saved from your enemies." (verse 9). And although Israel now seems to be cast off and rejected, the Word of God tells us that this shall not be always so. In Ezek. 16:60 we read, "I will remember my covenant with thee in the days of thy youth, and I will establish unto thee an everlasting covenant." And listen to these glorious words spoken to Israel, in reply to Israel's complaint "Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me." It looks like that just now, but is it really so? Listen "Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Even these forget, but I will not forget thee. Lo, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me." (Isa. 49:16 N.T.).
We might turn to many other passages telling us that God again will remember His people. But in the Feast of Trumpets, is it not God Who blows the trumpet Himself? If God in His grace speaks of remembering again His people, is it not truly God that blows the trumpet to call His people to remember Him? We have already spoken of the verse in Zech. 10:9, where God says, "They shall remember me in far countries." The verses in Ezek. 16 which we have already quoted, continue in this way "I will establish My covenant with thee, and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah; that thou mayest remember, and be ashamed." (verses 62-63 N.T.).
Israel forgot their God and forsook Him, and now it appears as though God had forgotten and forsaken and cast away His people. But it is appearance only. Paul asks, "Has God cast away His people?" And the reply is clear and decisive, "Far be the thought God has not cast away His people whom He foreknew." (Rom. 11:1-2). But we believe the day is near when the Trumpet will be blown that shows God again remembers Israel, and His covenant with them, and that Trumpet will call Israel to remember their God, and turn to Him again. What a happy day that will be for Israel! God describes the Feast of Trumpets, saying, "Ye shall have a rest, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, a holy convocation." (Lev. 23:24 N.T.). And the Spirit of God in the Psalms says of it, "Sing ye joyously unto God our strength, shout aloud unto the God of Jacob; raise a song, and sound the tambor, the pleasant harp with the lute. Blow the trumpet at the new moon, at the set time, on our feast day." (Psa. 81:13 N.T.). Poor Israel, how little do they know of rest and joy now, driven from one country to another rest, they have none! But even though we know Israel must first pass through the most terrible judgments, yet their rest and joy is soon to come, indeed may it not be possible that the first notes of that silver trumpet, or their echo from above, are beginning to fall on the ears of Israel? On every hand we see them hearing a call to remember and return to the land of their fathers, and tens of thousands are heeding the call and returning. Is it not apparent to all that Israel is again beginning to come in remembrance before God? It reminds one of the description of another trumpet in a little later day. (Rev. 10:7 N.T.) "In the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when He is about to sound the trumpet." May this not be a description of the way in which the Trumpet "is about to sound" at the present day with regard to Israel? (Though of course the trumpet of Rev. 10:7 has no reference to the trumpet foretold in Lev. 23.) We sadly fear that Israel has not yet heard that trumpet in a way that makes them remember their God, and turn to Him again. In Isa. 27:13 we saw that Israel was to return to "worship Jehovah in the holy mountain." They can only do this when they accept the Lord Jesus as their Messiah, their Christ. But, alas, they are not now prepared to do this, so we may know that at present those sweet notes of the silver trumpet are not sounding out as they soon will. Perhaps it will be like the trumpet at Mount Sinai that "sounded long, and waxed louder and louder.”
But if even the echo of the notes from afar are beginning to sound, telling us that the silver trumpet is "about to sound," let us rejoice and lift up our heads, and listen the more longingly for the note of another trumpet, that would seem to be one short, sharp peal "In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump." (1 Cor. 15:52).
No, it is not the trumpet that calls Israel back to their land that we, the church, are looking for, but for the Lord Jesus Himself, 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: 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." (1 Thess. 4:16-17). And again, "Behold, I show you a mystery; we shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." (1 Cor. 15:51-52).
What a day of joy and gladness and rest will this be for the church! Then we will be forever with the Lord. We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Then, no longer through a glass darkly, but face to face! And the loved ones who have gone before, will be raised first, and we shall be together again to go no more out!
But it was not only a day of joy and gladness and rest, but the Lord specially warns against any "servile work" on that day. How different to the teaching of some that it is only by our own efforts in watching and overcoming that we can even hope to see that day, or hear that trump! Such teachers little know that grace of God, or the value of the redemption told out in those notes of the silver trumpet, nor do they know the worthlessness or hatefulness of their own servile work in making themselves fit for that day. No it is not the fear of being left behind at that day that God sets before us a motive to keep clean down here, but the blessed hope of seeing Him, and being like Him "every man that hath this hope in him purifieth himself, even as He is pure." (1 John 3:3).
The Feast of Trumpets follows the harvest described in verse 22. There is a very interesting passage in Isa. 27:12. "Ye shall be gathered (or, gleaned, see note to New Translation) one by one, ye children of Israel. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the great trumpet shall be blown; and they shall come that were perishing in the land of Assyria, and the outcasts in the land of Egypt, and they shall worship Jehovah in the holy mountain at Jerusalem." The "gleaning" reminds us of Lev. 23:22, and is immediately followed by "the great trumpet," which tells us of the Feast of Trumpets. We believe it is the harvest that typifies the coming of the Lord for His church, but the silver trumpets of this feast cannot but call to our mind the trumpet that calls the Church to be forever with the Lord, and they are evidently intimately connected with it. The Feast of Trumpets came on the first day of the month, that is the time the moon is blackest and smallest. In China we call it "the Black Moon." Perhaps this reminds us that "evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." (2 Tim. 3:13). Like the churches in Rev. 2 and 3, they gradually grow worse, until at last Laodicea is spewed out of Christ's mouth. The morning star appears just before dawn, when the night is the darkest. So, brethren, as we see the professing church getting worse, as we see it growing darker and colder, and more and more like the world, let us look up and watch more earnestly for the Morning Star, and listen more intently for the sound of the trumpet.
The Lord always makes it clear that His coming is imminent. "Yet a very little while and He that comes will come, and will not delay." (Heb. 10:37 N.T.). Let us beware that nothing whatever shall come into our hearts that will ever allow us to say even in the inmost recesses of our thoughts "My Lord delayeth His coming." The Lord's own parting words to His church tell us when He will come back again "Surely I come quickly." In this way may we ever, daily and hourly, be expecting Him, and our hearts ever crying, "Amen, even so, come Lord Jesus.”
“Till He come!" then look above,
All who His appearing love.
Hear His last sweet words of cheer
To His saints now left down here
"Surely I will quickly come!”
Come, Lord Jesus, come, Amen.
“Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus... let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.”
Heb. 10:19, 22