Rapture: The Trumpet Mysteries, part 2

Behold, I tell 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 trumpet.

For the trumpet will sound,

and the dead will be raised incorruptible,

and we shall be changed.

1 Corinthians 15:51-52, NKJV

If I said to you that I was coming to your house on Christmas or New Year's, you'd know the date--December 25th or January 1st--but perhaps not the day.  If I said I was coming over on Thanksgiving, you'd probably know the day--the fourth Thursday in November--even if you didn't know the date.  If I said Independence Day, you'd think of July 4th.  Mother's Day--second Sunday in May.  Father's Day--third Sunday in June.

The same would have been true 2000 years ago with Paul's Jewish-Christian audience when they read this verse and the phrase "at the last trump."  It was a reference to a very important day on the Hebrew Calendar.  It is one of three "trump" days celebrated by the Jews, and this one marks the end of the old and the beginning of the new...in more ways than you might realize.

The First Trump is associated with Pentecost, the Festival of Weeks that marked the beginning of the harvest in early summer in Israel.  It also commemorates the trumpets that waxed louder and louder at Sinai when Moses went up and the Lord came down upon the mountain to give Israel the Law.

The Great Trump is associated with Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, when the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies in the Temple to sprinkle blood on the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant to atone for the sins of the nation.  Jesus specifically associated the Great Trump with His return to earth to rule and reign at the end of the Tribulation.

The Last Trump is associated with the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, the First of Tishri which generally falls in the month of September on our modern calendar.  The Bible calls it the Feast of Trumpets in Leviticus 23:23-25.  The Last Trump refers to the final day of Teshuvah, a Jewish season of repentance before the days of awe and judgment that begin with Rosh Hashanah and end with the Day of Atonement.

During the Hebrew month of Elul, trumpets are blown every morning for 29 mornings, reminding people to repent and return to God before the judgment.  It is a signal to all people, demonstrating God's mercy in that He never sends judgment without warning.  These trumpet blasts signify a process of preparation through personal examination and repentance for the High Holy Days, or the Days of Awe, the ten days from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur.  On the last day of Elul, the trumpet is not sounded, symbolizing the shroud of mystery surrounding the day of the Last Trump.  Some traditions have arisen surrounding that day, one being that the trumpets fall silent to confound Satan into thinking he has survived the day of judgment.  Then on Tishri 1, the loud long blast of the trumpet announces that the days of repentance have ended, to be followed by the days of judgment.

Though Paul reemphasizes in his writings those statements by Jesus that "no man knows the day nor the hour", he does seem here to associate the return of Jesus Christ with the Last Trump of Rosh Hashanah.  The concept of Teshuvah comes more from Jewish tradition and practice than from the Bible, but God has given the world a daily trumpet blast reminding them of the coming judgment and the need to repent.  The church age, the age of grace in which we now live, is the age of repentance before the days of judgment.  And the church itself is the last days trumpet blasts of Teshuvah.  We are the trumpet sound of God to the world and the backslidden church, calling them to repentance.  We are the voice in the wilderness crying, "Prepare the way of the Lord!"

The message of Teshuvah and the sounding of the trumpets is this:  turn from your sin and turn to God before the Day of the Last Trump...or you will find yourself in the days of judgment and awe.  And there will be no escape.  When the Last Trump is blown, the days of repentance will be over.  And the time of judgment will be at hand.