Sound of the trumpet

TODAY'S SPECIAL: 1 Corinthians 15-16; Psalm 148

TO CHEW ON: "Behold I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed—in a moment, in a twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed." 1 Corinthians 15:51,52

Trumpets played a big role in Hebrew life. They were made or improvised of various materials and served a variety of uses.

One kind of trumpet was what we call a shofar and fashioned out of a ram's horn. Another type was made of beaten silver on God's instruction. Others were improvised from bones, shells or made from other metals: bronze, copper, and gold as well as silver.

These trumpets were not musical instruments in the sense that they couldn't play different pitched notes. But they could play their one note in legato, staccato and trills, and thus convey complicated signals. In this way they were used as communication.

Only Aaron and his Levite descendants were to sound the two silver trumpets God commissioned (Numbers 10:1-10).

• When both trumpets sounded together all the congregation was to assemble at the tabernacle. If only one trumpet sounded only the leaders and heads of divisions were to meet.

• Another trumpet sound was that of alarm, as the Israelites went into war: "When you go to war … then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, and you will be remembered before the LORD your God, and you will be saved from your enemies" - Numbers 10:9. What an aural reminder of where their trust and hope for help lay!

• A more common use of trumpets was to get the people moving during their forty years in the wilderness. For this the trumpet sounded an advance to signal which parts of the camp were to set out on their journey (Numbers 10:5,6).

Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 explains how Jesus' resurrection makes possible our resurrection too. It will be heralded by a trumpet sound. What will that sound be to us?

Will it be the summons to assemble?

Will it be the call to advance to a new body, in a new place?

Or will it be the call of alarm, and judgment (Revelation  8 & 9) as we find ourselves on the wrong side? It doesn't have to be that. It can be the sound or victory if we trust in Jesus: "But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" - 1 Corinthians 15:57.

PRAYER: Dear God, may all of us be ready and anticipating Your victory-over-death trumpet sound! Amen.

PSALM TO PRAY: Psalm 148

MORE: 1 Corinthians in Handel's Messiah (The Trumpet Shall Sound)

Handel dipped often into 1 Corinthians 15:42-58 when he wrote the Messiah. He put to music:

• 1 Corinthians 15:51,52 in "Behold I tell you a mystery" (Chorus 47).

• 1 Corinthians 52b, 53 in "The trumpet shall sound" (Chorus 48).

• 1 Corinthians 15:54b, also Isaiah 25:8 in "Then shall be brought to pass" and 1 Corinthians 15:55-56, also Hosea 13:14 in "O death, where is thy sting?" (Choruses 49 & 50).

• 1 Corinthians 15:57 in "But thanks be to God" (Chorus 51).

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The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. - Used with permission.

What comes after death?

TODAY'S SPECIAL: Luke 20:19-40

TO CHEW ON: "'He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him.'" Luke 20:38


Through the Sadducees' attempts to entrap Jesus with a trick question we have, reported from Jesus' own lips, a fascinating exposé of life after death. In answer to the hypothetical situation they invented, which included a question about whose wife someone would be in heaven, Jesus tells them:
- There will be no marriage in heaven.
- There will be no death.
- Those who attain that state will be "equal to the angels" and are "sons of God."
- They will have experienced the resurrection (Luke 20:34-36).

In a passage where he explains this state, Paul tells the Corinthians that because Christ was raised we too live in the hope of being resurrected (1 Corinthians 15:20-22). Our post-resurrection bodies will be as different from our natural bodies as a seed of grain is different from the plant that grows from it (1 Corinthians 15:37-38).

But to achieve these bodies we must experience the mortal, natural body state. This is true in history (Adam before Christ) as it is for each one of us (natural body before spiritual body) (1 Corinthians 15:45-49).

And if that event, that resurrection "trump of God" sounds before we die, not to worry, says Paul: "We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye" - 1 Corinthians 15:51,52.

Though you and I probably don't spend a lot of time thinking about death and what comes after, it is sneaking up on us, coming closer every day. Thus it's a good thing to look it full in the face from time to time and to realize that because we have this hope, this expectation of life after death we have every reason to go on living now with purpose. As Paul sums it up in 1 Corinthians 15:58:

"Therefore my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord."

And as Jesus concludes His speech on life after death to the Sadducees:

"'He is not the God of the dead but of the living, for all live to Him'" (present tense forever!).

PRAYER: Dear God, thank You for this reminder that there is more to life than this life. Help me to live now with that in mind. Amen.

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New King James Version (NKJV) Used with permission. The Holy Bible, New King James Version Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc.