Let us turn to the book of Amos. I just want to start off here, even though we are not really going to be looking too much at this verse. It says in Amos 3:3-8:
Can two walk together, except they be agreed? Will a lion roar in the forest, when he hath no prey? will a young lion cry out of his den, if he have taken nothing? Can a bird fall in a snare upon the earth, where no gin is for him? shall one take up a snare from the earth, and have taken nothing at all? Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and JEHOVAH hath not done it? Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets. The lion hath roared, who will not fear? the Lord JEHOVAH hath spoken, who can but prophesy?
I wanted to go here because I have been thinking about trumpets a lot lately. There is a new Family Radio billboard image. Actually, they have different ones; but one of them says, “The Trumpet is Sounding!” It has an illustration of trumpets with the nations’ flags attached to each trumpet. When a billboard is put up like, for example, in Mexico, then they put the Mexican flag right at the forefront. But, basically, the billboards are saying that the trumpet is sounding.
So we do find in Amos 3 that there is language of a trumpet. We read again in Amos 3:6:
Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid?…
This is in relation to Amos 3:7, where God says:
Surely the Lord JEHOVAH will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.
So there is a connection between the blowing of the trumpet and the revealing of information from the Bible, and we know that this verse is telling us of God’s plan. It is not stating it directly, but it is telling us of God’s plan at the end to open the Scriptures and to reveal the things that were sealed up “till the time of the end”; and the trumpet plays a role in this.
When we think about a trumpet in the Bible, it could mean different things depending on the context. In the book of Numbers, for instance, they would blow the trumpet in order to gather the people. The people would muster at the sound of the trumpet. On the other hand, they would blow the trumpet if they were preparing for war, for a battle.
We also know that the trumpet has much to do or much connection with the ending of the world. If we go to Matthew 24:31, it says:
And 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.
This verse does not stand alone. Look at 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17. It says:
For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel [or chief messenger], 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.
Here, again, this speaks of the coming of Christ. This is clearly talking about the end of the world because May 21st is the end of the world. It is. Even though there will be five months of time following, basically, that will be it. That will be it because there will be no more salvation, only five months of torment. You are done. If you are left behind, it is over.
Do not worry about the week leading up to May 21st. In the week before May 21st of next year, how many people do you think all over the world are going to be hitting the supermarkets trying to get gallons of water, trying to stock up as if they are expecting an earthquake? Well, there will be an earthquake! However, what would be the sense of doing this?
Believe me; people will be doing this, because the whole world is going to hear about this. But what would be the sense in trying to stock up on supplies so that you have provision for those five months? You would believe it enough, you would believe it just enough to prepare for this in this way on the physical level, but you would not believe it enough to go to God and to cry out to Him and beseech Him for mercy. This does not make any sense.
As soon as the weatherman says that it is going to snow, everybody is running to Home Depot; and yet, here, by this time next year, God will have been forecasting this for several years. I am really expecting this. I am really expecting people to stock up on flashlights and emergency supplies, which tells us that they have been thinking about it. However, what in the world are they thinking? What are they thinking?
So they make it for the whole five months? Will this be anything great? No, because their lives will be over on May 21st. Whoever is left here after God takes His people, their lives are over.
I have been thinking about this because of what someone asked me. He is a believer and he knows that Judgment Day is May 21st, but he has people in his family who are not. Because of this, he was wondering if he should go and buy supplies in order to physically prepare them for this period of time.
As fathers and mothers today, we take care of our families and provide for them. We want them to have food and supplies. However, we are under no obligation to prepare those who are going to be judged for the judgment. We have no obligation to stock up on food or water or anything else. All of this will be in God’s hands once May 21st comes.
For the fathers and mothers who believe these things, we have all kinds of obligations towards our families right now on the spiritual level as well as on the physical level. However, we have none after May 21st; because then, it is in God’s hands.
So in 1 Thessalonians 4, we see that Christ is coming with the sound of a trumpet. In 1 Corinthians 15:51-52, it says:
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.
He is speaking of a trumpet blast. God is saying that on that day, there will be a great sound of a trumpet, which will be the last trumpet. This is the last trumpet that the Bible speaks of, and yet we know now that the trumpet is sounding. The trumpet is sounding today, and yet it is not the end of the world. It is not here yet, but the trumpet is sounding.
For instance, go to Ezekiel 33. It says in Ezekiel 33:2-3:
Son of man, speak to the children of thy people, and say unto them, When I bring the sword upon a land, if the people of the land take a man of their coasts, and set him for their watchman: If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people;
Then it goes on to discuss this a little more.
So the watchman sees the sword coming. He has a trumpet with him and he blows the trumpet. This warns the people, and this is how it has been throughout history. According to the tune that was played, the trumpet could be sounding a warning or it could be to gather the people together, and so forth. There were different types of trumpet blasts, different sounds that it could give.
There was also one that warned the people of an approaching enemy. In the Old Testament days, they would have a watchman in the tower who would keep a lookout for the city. When he saw an enemy army advancing, he would blow on the trumpet and the people of the city would be warned.
Well, here, it is telling us what the watchman does. So, first of all, who is a watchman?
Look at Habakkuk 2. Habakkuk 2:1 says:
I will stand upon my watch, and set me upon the tower, and will watch to see what he will say unto me, and what I shall answer when I am reproved.
So this watchman is set in a tower, but he is waiting to see what God will say to him. It is not like he is looking for anything visible to his eye. He is waiting for a sound. He is waiting for information to come from God.
What did Jesus say again and again and again? He said to “watch”; “watch therefore.” In doing this, He was setting the watchman up. He was telling people, His followers, “You are a watchman, and you are a watchman, and you are a watchman. You are to watch for the sword to come. When you see it coming, you are to blow on the trumpet to warn the people.”
However, we know that this cannot be literal. We are not to go up on the top of our roof and keep a lookout. There would be no point in doing this. It is not an earthly army that we are looking for. We are not looking in the sky for any kind of visible evidence of Christ’s return.
The only place to keep watch is in the Bible; and here in Habakkuk after speaking of the watchman on the watchtower who is waiting to hear what God will say to him, it says in Habakkuk 2:2-3:
And JEHOVAH answered me, and said, Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end [he] shall speak…
The word “it” here is a personal pronoun that can be translated “he,” “she,” or “it.” In this case, it should be “he” because this is referring to the Holy Spirit. It continues:
…at the end [he] shall speak, and not lie: though [he] tarry, wait for [him]; because [he] will surely come, [he] will not tarry.
Do you see how God connects the watchman to a vision who will speak at the end?
This is very similar to Amos 3 where there is a watchman and then He speaks about revealing “his secret unto his servants the prophets.” Is it not interesting that Jesus said to “watch therefore”?
What is the church telling people to do? What are they telling people to do when they say, “No man knows the day or hour”? Are they not saying, “Relax! Relax! Get down from that rooftop! Get down from that tower! Here, sit down in your recliner and kick your feet up and relax!”
But what has happened to the watch? Where is the watching? If someone believes that there is no possibility for someone to know when Christ is coming, what would be the point of setting a watch? What would the watch see to warn the people? What would he tell them?
They tell them, “No man knows.” But what kind of a trumpet blast is this? When the church says that they live day-by-day expecting Christ to come because He could come at any day, “He could come today or He could come tomorrow,” do you really think that they are living to the glory of God? Do you really think that they are living in a way that enables them to learn, like we are learning, that Judgment Day is set and coming quickly?
Is the church really living in this kind of a way, or are they living more in a way that indicates that they believe that He is not coming at all? “He is not coming today and He is not coming tomorrow, even though I, of course, would profess that I would want Him to come and that I would love for Him to come. However, I really do not want Him to come.” Therefore, the church of our day lives just like the world lives, and the world has no understanding of these things. But Christ set the watch; and when the watchman sees the sword, he is to blow the trumpet.
Do you have a trumpet? Does anyone have a trumpet on them? If someone pulls one out, I am going to be shocked. Do you have a trumpet? I do not have a trumpet. I do not have one, not even in my car or at home. You would not want to hear me try to sound the trumpet either. I would guess that most of you also do not have a trumpet. Okay; then how are you going to sound the trumpet? How am I going to sound it? How are we going to blow the trumpet to warn the people? What is the trumpet?
Let us go to Revelation 1:10-11. This is God moving the Apostle John to write:
I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, Saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last: and, What thou seest, write in a book…
This is referring to Jesus. He is definitely the “Alpha and Omega, the first and the last,” and His voice is like a trumpet. It is not a literal trumpet; it is “as of a trumpet.” It has great authority and great power; and so God likens His voice, in this case, to a trumpet.
Look at Revelation 4:1:
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will show thee things which must be hereafter.
The trumpet has to do with speech. It has to do with talking. This is not just referring to anyone; this is referring to God’s speech, the Word of God. Christ is that voice of the trumpet and He is “the Word.” He is “the Word…made flesh.” Therefore, when we sound the trumpet, we are actually sharing what the Bible is saying. This is what this means.
Go to Isaiah 58. It says in Isaiah 58:1:
Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and show my people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.
God is here giving command to His people to lift up their voices like a trumpet and to share the Gospel. The trumpet sounds when we personally speak to someone else about the Gospel, either one-on-one or in a group of people. We are sharing information from the Bible and this is a way of sounding the trumpet. When we hand people tracts, like “May 21, 2011 Judgment Day!” or “HOLY GOD will bring Judgment Day on MAY 21, 2011,” we are sounding the trumpet. When we wear a T-shirt that says something about Judgment Day being May 21, 2011, we are sounding the trumpet. When we put a bumper sticker on our car or when we put a magnetic sign on our car or when we wrap the vehicle with this information, we are sounding the trumpet.
Some sound this trumpet a little louder than others, but we are sounding the trumpet. We are declaring what God has said. We have heard from Him and now we are sharing this with others. This is what God is telling us, “Yes, do this. Lift up your voice like a trumpet and let it go. Blast away and warn the people. This is not the time to hold back.”
Like the watchman in the watchtower at midnight when the people are sleeping who says that he does not want to blow the trumpet because it would wake the people up, he must blow the trumpet. If they continue to sleep, they are going to die. The enemy army is almost there. He sees them. He knows that they are right at the gates. He, therefore, must blow the trumpet and warn the people so that they can take warning.
This is the big reason as to why God has opened up this information at this time. It is because He does want to warn everyone. He wants everyone to know what He is about to do.
Let us also go to Jeremiah 6. We read in Jeremiah 6:10:
To whom shall I speak, and give warning, that they may hear? behold, their ear is uncircumcised, and they cannot hearken: behold, the word of JEHOVAH is unto them a reproach; they have no delight in it.
Here God is saying that He is going to speak and give warning, but the problem is that the listeners cannot hear it. They cannot hear it because they have no ears to hear.
Look at verse 17, Jeremiah 6:17:
Also I set watchmen over you, saying, Hearken to the sound of the trumpet. But they said, We will not hearken.
Again, this is not a literal trumpet. God is saying that He is giving words to warn the people, and yet they cannot hear it.
This is actually telling us that in their stubbornness and in their arrogance and in their pride, man is saying that not only are they not going to do what God says but they are going to tell God directly that they will not do it, “We will not hearken!” In other words, they are hearing the trumpet on one level, or else they would say, “I do not hear anything. I do not hear a trumpet. I do not hear this sound.”
However, they are not saying this. They are saying, “I hear it, but guess what? I am not going to obey. I am not going to listen! I am not going to hearken to the sound of the trumpet. No way. I have no intention of doing this. I am going to live my life as I please”; and God is fully aware that this is how many people are treating this information at this time of the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Let us go to Ezekiel 7:2-7. It says:
Also, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH unto the land of Israel; An end, the end is come upon the four corners of the land. Now is the end come upon thee, and I will send mine anger upon thee, and will judge thee according to thy ways, and will recompense upon thee all thine abominations. And mine eye shall not spare thee, neither will I have pity: but I will recompense thy ways upon thee, and thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee: and ye shall know that I am JEHOVAH. Thus saith the Lord JEHOVAH; An evil, an only evil, behold, is come. An end is come, the end is come: it watcheth for thee; behold, it is come. The morning is come unto thee, O thou that dwellest in the land: the time is come, the day of trouble is near, and not the sounding again of the mountains.
Then it says in verse 10, Ezekiel 7:10:
Behold the day, behold, it is come: the morning is gone forth; the rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.
Verse 12, Ezekiel 7:12:
The time is come, the day draweth near: let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn: for wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.
Verse 14, Ezekiel 7:14:
They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready…
They have blown the trumpet to make you ready, me ready, everyone ready, for the end.
It is interesting that God wrote this about 2,500 years ago and He is talking about the end of the world, which is pretty obvious when you read these verses. “The end is come!”
So they have blown the trumpet to make the people ready. This is because it is God’s intention to warn. The trumpet is in the watchman’s hand. He sounds the alarm. He blows the trumpet to warn the people as he sees the sword coming upon the land.
I did not finish reading Ezekiel 7:14. It says:
They have blown the trumpet, even to make all ready; but none goeth to the battle: for my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.
“None goeth to the battle.” Is this not interesting? Why would they not go to the battle? They are hearing the trumpet, but they are not going to the battle.
First of all, what is this telling us about what is coming? The watchman is seeing that the sword is coming, and a sword is what the enemy has in his hand when he is coming to kill, when he is coming to do war and to make battle.
Is this not what is coming on May 21, 2011? It is the battle, the battle of Armageddon. It is Judgment Day, the Day when God is coming with a sword. The enemy that we see approaching who holds this sword is not man. If it were man, people would fear. However, it is God. Since He is invisible and a Spirit, people just tend to ignore this. We do not listen. We do not hearken to the sound of the trumpet because we cannot see Him.
However, God wants us to know that He is warning us; but not only this. He also wants us to know that He is sounding the warning alarm to tell the people to get ready to do battle with Him.
Are you ready to fight God? The Bible says, “Woe unto him that striveth with his Maker!” Then it says, “Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth”; but woe unto anyone who thinks that they can do battle with God, who thinks that they can actually fight God—because this is what is coming.
All of the unsaved are going to go into battle on May 21st completely unprepared, totally unprepared, because they ignored the sound of the trumpet. They did not listen and they did not hearken. They did not even attempt to repent. They did not pray to God, beseeching Him for mercy. They just continued on with their lives; but then, suddenly, God will be there.
Look at Jeremiah 4:19-21:
My bowels, my bowels! I am pained at my very heart; my heart maketh a noise in me; I cannot hold my peace, because thou hast heard, O my soul, the sound of the trumpet, the alarm of war. Destruction upon destruction is cried; for the whole land is spoiled: suddenly are my tents spoiled, and my curtains in a moment. How long shall I see the standard, and hear the sound of the trumpet?
We can see that God is linking the hearing of the sound of the trumpet to the alarm of war.
Maybe some of you were in the Navy and on a ship. Every now and then, they do tests. They have a sound that comes over the whole speaker system to send an alarm to the whole ship, and it is an alarm to take battle stations. You have to get to your post as fast as you can because an alarm is sounding.
There is much in the world that relates to what God is saying about a watchman and his trumpet. There are sounds that are given that indicate when there is danger present. There is a sound that comes over the radio, the Emergency Alert System, which is a national warning system that interrupts the regularly-scheduled programming. It gives a special buzzing sound, and this is so we will listen closely because it could be warning of some sort of danger. There could be a tornado coming or it could be a hurricane. There are warnings given and they are often given through sound. There is also the alarm of war.
So the Lord God is coming with a stretched-out sword to do battle. We are hearing this because God is telling us to get ready.
Go also to Joel 2:1-2. It says:
Blow ye the trumpet in Zion, and sound an alarm in my holy mountain: let all the inhabitants of the land tremble: for the day of JEHOVAH cometh, for it is nigh at hand; A day of darkness and of gloominess, a day of clouds and of thick darkness, as the morning spread upon the mountains: a great people and a strong; there hath not been ever the like, neither shall be any more after it, even to the years of many generations.
Sound the alarm! Blow the trumpet, because God is coming!
Look at Luke 14:31-32. It says:
Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is yet a great way off, he sendeth an ambassage, and desireth conditions of peace.
So there is God, and then there is you and me; there is man. He is an angry God and we are at war with Him because of our sins and our rebellion. We are rebels. He is the Great King who went away for a time but He is coming back to hold man accountable. If we have been rebellious against Him and we have been warned that He is coming so that we can hear the sound of the trumpet and so that we even know the exact Day that He will be here, would it not be a wise thing to sue for “conditions of peace”? I guess not, if you think that you have the strength within yourself to do battle with God.
Surely no one is this foolish! This is the God who spoke and brought the whole creation into existence, and you are going to lift up your little fist, your little insect-like fist, which is even much less powerful than even that, you are going to lift this up against God? If you do, you will be destroyed quickly, quickly.
So a king who has wisdom sees an army twice his size approaching and he thinks, “You know what? I think that we are going to lose the battle. We are going to lose the war. Let me send someone to this approaching king and try to find peace.”
So, too, we have time. Right now, we have time. Tomorrow there is time and following, but not for much longer. We have the time now when we can go to God and we can beseech Him for “conditions of peace.” However, do we go to God and say, “Lord, if you save me, I will stop doing this sin or I will stop doing that sin”?
No! No! We go to Him and we say, “O Lord, I am a sinner and I need a new heart. I know that there is nothing in me that could ever please You, that could ever bring about peace because I am friends with the world and, therefore, I am an enemy of Yours. I need You to work out salvation in me. I need Christ who is peace.”
This is the only Peace that God accepts. You can read about this in Ephesians 2, which says, “For he is our peace.” He is the One whom we have to beseech God for, that what He has done for His elect people might be applicable to us, to me as an individual. Therefore, the cause of the rebellion will be taken away and He then makes peace between us and God.
After this happens, May 21st transforms from a Day of dread to a Day of joy, to a Day of glory. It transforms into a Day to look forward to and to have a great expectation of, if we have peace. If there is no peace, God, of course, has made known what He intends to do.
I think that there is something here that relates to 1 Thessalonians 5. What does the church as well as many people in the world say today? What do they say? They say, “Peace and safety.” They say this because they do not see the enemy, who is God, approaching to destroy them; and so they tell their congregation, “You cannot know. Do not worry about it. Family Radio is a crackpot outfit. They are nothing but trouble.”
Of course Family Radio is nothing but trouble. This is because they warn the people that the church age is over. If the pastors accepted this, they would not have a job. They, therefore, put down and put down and put down Family Radio, even though they are only bringing forth information from the Bible. It is coming from God.
Do you remember Gideon? The Bible tells us that Gideon “divided the three hundred men into three companies, and he put a trumpet in every man’s hand,” which we read about in Judges 7; and God has put the trumpet in the hands of His people. He is the One who has opened the Scriptures and confirmed beyond doubt that May 21st is Judgment Day. He has handed us the trumpet, but the world is saying, “Stop! Stop! No more!” We are annoying people. We are annoying.
It is like there is a deaf person walking along the railroad tracks when we see a train coming and getting ever closer. It is approaching at an incredible speed. What is going to happen to this person when the train hits? We would not want to see the result of this.
However, we see the train coming, but this individual who is just walking along his way does not see the train. So we are yelling at him, “Train! Get off the tracks!” However, he is just happily walking along as if he does not have a care in the world. He is not worried about the coming danger because he is deaf. He is deaf. He cannot hearken.
This is our position as those who are to sound the trumpet. We have to realize that some people cannot hear. This is why the Bible says that they will not hearken. It is because they cannot. They cannot. There is no way for them to hearken. The only hope we have is that we do not know if God might open up their ears, that He might give them “ears to hear.” This is what we can pray for our families and for our children, “O Lord, open up their ears; open up their eyes.”
You know what? If God opens up their ears and their eyes, instead of thinking that they are on some kind of luxurious cruise ship, in a way, as they are living out their lives, and instead of them thinking that they live in some kind of Disneyland and that everything is wonderful and that they are having all of the fun that they can have, they are going to realize that they are on the very edge of the Grand Canyon and that there is an abyss right before them. They will see this if God opens up their eyes to see where they are in history and that this is it.
“An end is come, the end is come.” There are no other dates. There will be no more delay. God is coming and He is letting us know precisely when this will be.
If we go to Ezekiel 33 again, it says in Ezekiel 33:3-4:
If when he seeth the sword come upon the land, he blow the trumpet, and warn the people; Then whosoever heareth the sound of the trumpet, and taketh not warning…
They are hearing. They can hear, but they are not taking warning. This means that this is speaking about an unsaved person, even though they hear the trumpet. They hear it.
I have a microphone at home and I am on Paltalk throughout the week. We open up the room and there are occasional Internet problems in the beginning with the room, and so it has almost become a habit when I open up the room to ask, “Can you hear me? Can you hear me okay?” Some of those listening will type back a “1.” This is what they do on Paltalk instead of saying “yes.” We are lazy, right? We just type in “1” to indicate that we can hear someone.
This is exactly how I feel sometimes and I am sure that this is how you feel sometimes, too, as you are sharing this information with people and you are warning them. You just feel like you want to ask them, “Did you hear it? Did you really hear the trumpet sound? Can you hear it?”
I know that they are hearing with their physical ears; however, if they are not changing and if they are living their lives exactly as they have lived them previously, if they still have no interest in reading the Bible, if they still have no interest in going to God and praying to Him and talking to Him and asking Him for mercy, then you have to wonder if they are really hearing in the sense that the Ninevites heard. The Ninevites stopped living their normal lives. Their lives were interrupted; and I am sorry that this is the case, but God has, indeed, interrupted all of our lives! He has come and He has shared this with us.
It is like someone in Florida who is just going about their business in Florida. Suddenly, there is a hurricane on top of them. They had not heard the previous two-day warning. They turn on the radio, and there is the warning. Now they have a choice. They can continue going on as normal. They can go back into the kitchen and continue making their lunch. They can continue living as though the hurricane is not coming, or they can take the warning and flee. They can run and they can get out of that place and do all that they can do to escape.
God allows this. He permits this with us. He permits us to go to Him and beseech Him for mercy.
Turn now to 1 Corinthians 14. 1 Corinthians 14:7 says:
And even things without life giving sound, whether pipe or harp, except they give a distinction in the sounds, how shall it be known what is piped or harped?
This chapter has to do with speaking in tongues, and yet there is something here that is important for us all. We read in the next verse, 1 Corinthians 14:8:
For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?
This is referring to Armageddon, the battle of Armageddon. We see God coming and He has a sword in His hand.
So the trumpet cannot sound haltingly; there cannot be a hesitation. This cannot be a sound that is similar to other trumpet calls. This sound has to be distinct. It has to be clear. It has to warn the people, which is one thing that even the worst critics of Family Radio would have to admit. This warning is very clear.
There is no doubt about the date, is there? Does anybody here still not know that May 21st of 2011 is Judgment Day? Is there anybody here who has not heard this? You have heard this very clearly. You have heard this very clearly with your physical ears.
So the idea that Christ could come today or maybe tomorrow or maybe next year or maybe one hundred years from now is extremely unclear. For something that would be this unclear, no one would prepare themselves for the battle.
It would be like hearing that a hurricane could come today. It is then that you would run around. If you are told that a hurricane might not come until next week, then you would relax. And if you are told that a hurricane might come next month or ten years from now or who knows when it could come, then you are not going to board up your house and you are not going to gather your most precious belongings and you certainly are not going to get in a traffic jam to flee the area.
You would not do any of these things because it is an unclear warning, but this is very clear and definite; and only God could have done this. God is the only One who has put the trumpets in the hands of His people to warn others that this is it.
I feel bad for the children; I do. It is kind of like imagining that we are back in history, maybe in the days of the kings of Israel when all of the enemies that Israel had were there. We can just imagine that an enemy is coming against the city. The watchman is in the tower and he sees the enemy coming, and so he blows the trumpet because this is his city and he cares about the people.
This is actually an act of love. They can call it crazy. They can call it whatever they want that people are wearing shirts and hats and putting bumper stickers on their cars and wrapping their vehicles with this warning. They can speak badly of this if they want to. They can even be ashamed of this if maybe someone from their own family is doing this and their friends are taking notice. However, they should know that this is a big act of love. This is why this is going on. This is why people cannot be silenced. This is why we have to do whatever we can do, whatever possible thing we can do to warn the people, and this is going to offend some.
But just imagine this village after the watchman sounds the trumpet. A mother who is so concerned for her child runs after her child who is in a group of other children playing and having fun. She scoops the child up and starts running because she heard the sound of the trumpet; and so the little boy says, “Mommy, I was having fun. I was playing. I want to go back.” But the mom says, “No, you do not understand. The watchman has sounded the trumpet. It is the alarm of war”; and so he just insists and cries and kicks his feet.
So was this a cruel thing that this mother did? Or did this mother deeply love her child and realize that the child does not understand. Maybe the child just did not understand that particular sound and what it means? It means the end, the end, and it is time to warn the people and to do whatever we can do.
For anyone who is getting tired of this, on one hand, I can understand. You might be getting tired of hearing this. Well, here is what God says in Revelation 18:21-22, as He speaks of Babylon:
And a mighty angel took up a stone like a great millstone, and cast it into the sea, saying, Thus with violence shall that great city Babylon be thrown down, and shall be found no more at all. And the voice of harpers, and musicians, and of pipers, and trumpeters, shall be heard no more at all in thee…
So you will not have to put up with this much longer. The trumpet will cease soon. It is going to be quieted because God will remove the Gospel from this world, as well as all of His people, and then there will be no more warning because it will be upon us. It will be here and there will be no mercy at that time for those who thought that there was “peace and safety.”
Let us stop here.