VOICE AS OF A TRUMPET

As the aged apostle John, imprisoned on the isle of Patmos, mused in spirit on things concerning the blessed Man he had last seen some fifty years before, he suddenly heard that well- remembered voice again. It was behind him, a great voice as clear and compelling as the sound of a trumpet. John recounts this tremendous experience to verify the authority and weight of the things he had to record and send to the seven churches in Asia. The things he wrote were not the outcome of some quiet reverie, neither did they originate with a ‘still small voice’, such as God had used to speak with Elijah, 1 Kgs. 19. 12. The divine instructions to John were delivered with ‘a great voice, as of a trumpet’.

We first read of trumpets in the Bible in connection with the giving of the law at Sinai. There are three mentions of the trum­pet in Exodus 19, the first to do with approach to God, ‘when the trumpet soundeth long, they shall come up to the mount’, Exod. 19. 13. The second reference links the trumpet with the awe of the people, ‘the voice of the trumpet exceeding loud; so that all the people that was in the camp trembled’, v. 16. The third men­tion connects the trumpet with a divine announcement, ‘and when the voice of the trumpet sounded long, and waxed louder and louder, Moses spake, and God answered him by a voice’, v. 19. The trumpet blasts at Sinai ordered that immensely solemn occasion and brought God’s people to their knees in fear and reverential awe. Small wonder, then, that John the apostle, hav­ing heard the ‘great voice, as of a trumpet’, turned to behold the One who spoke with him and, upon beholding Him, ‘fell at his feet as dead’, Rev. 1. 17.

In chapters 2 and 3 of Revelation, John writes to the seven churches and, in chapter 4, the same voice speaks to him again. After this … the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter’, Rev. 4. 1. Praise God, there will be no less authority in the great trumpet blast that will soon command the dead and living saints together to be caught up to meet the Lord in the air! 1 Thess. 4. 16, 17.