“And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying: ‘Make two silver trumpets for yourself; you shall make them of hammered work; you shall use them for calling the congregation and for directing the movement of the camps.’”

Numbers 10:1–2 (NKJV)

I grew up in a musical household. My earliest memories are of my mother playing piano for our church and singing trios with two of her friends. I started taking piano lessons when I was five years old, but I didn’t stick with it. It wasn’t until I was in fifth grade that I told my parents I wanted to play trumpet. They gave me private lessons, and after a few months they bought me a used silver trumpet. It was a Getzen Doc Severinson model. I excelled in trumpet playing, and when I was in 8^th grade I won a scholarship to the Stan Kenton Jazz Workshop.

After college, job responsibilities occupied my time, so I stopped practicing. But I have continued to pick it up every now and again. Years ago, when we began taking our youth to summer camps, I brought my trumpet to play reveille in the morning and taps at night.

Trumpets are useful because they can be heard for great distances. God told the children of Israel to make two silver trumpets to sound a call for various purposes.

• For gathering the congregation and leaders.
• For sounding the advance to march.
• To go to war.
• In the day of gladness and appointed feasts.

We no longer have such trumpet calls to gather us for an assembly or to send us out to march to work. If you are in the military, perhaps you have a trumpet call to rouse you in the morning, but other methods are employed to send servicepersons out to war. But the last trumpet call is important to the church today.

“But let me reveal to you a wonderful secret. We will not all die, but we will all be transformed! It will happen in a moment, in the blink of an eye, when the last trumpet is blown. For when the trumpet sounds, those who have died will be raised to live forever. And we who are living will also be transformed. For our dying bodies must be transformed into bodies that will never die; our mortal bodies must be transformed into immortal bodies.”

1 Corinthians 15:51–53 (NLT)

It is amazing to consider that one day we will wake up like any other day. We will head out the door to go to work or to the store as usual. But then we will hear a trumpet blast. I’m sure that those who love Christ’s appearing will recognize it immediately. And before we realize what is happening, we will be caught up in the presence of the Lord with fellow believers who have died in Christ. What a wonderful day this will be! Let us never lose sight of this, for each day brings us one step closer to that final trumpet blast!

Photo by Aarón Blanco Tejedor on Unsplash