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Window 4 - The Trumpet and the RaptureThe trumpet was used to call the Israelites to assembly, so it will be used to call the saints to that great meeting in the air. God spoke to Israel at Sinai with “the voice of a trumpet exceeding loud” (Exodus 19:16). The word trumpet is associated with jubilee, from Jubal, father of ancient musicians (Genesis 4:21). The trumpet proclaimed the fiftieth year of jubilee to all Israel. It sounded each sabbatical year and the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 25:8~11). Trumpets were used to signal marches, to prepare for battle, to proclaim victories, to sound warnings, to call to worship, to inaugurate feasts, and to announce judgments. Little wonder that the climactic act of redemption, calling the living, serving church upward, out of this world into heaven above will be heralded by a trumpet blast. “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 Thessalonians 4:16~17). Let us keep our spiritual ears finely tuned for the end-time sound of the trumpet! |