It’s officially spring in Texas. That means it’s time for shorts and t-shirts, morning walks, bluebonnets, and lots of allergy medicine. It also means something else – spring storms. As more people move to Dallas, it’s amazing how much our new neighbors underestimate the intensity of the storms. March-May is the time of high winds, rain, hail, and the occasional tornado.
Once you’ve lived here long enough, you get used to the sound of the sirens going off. The long, eery drone feels somewhat routine as the temperatures warm up. After a while, you learn the drill. You go inside, find an interior closet, and hang tight until the warning stops. (Or go outside and try to find the tornado…)
In the Old Testament, the Israelites had a different way of alerting the community when danger was imminent. They used trumpets. In Numbers 10, right before Moses leads them from Mount Sinai into the wilderness for their Promised Land, God gives them one final instruction – make two silver trumpets.
The trumpets had several purposes. If both trumpets blew, it was time to gather around the tabernacle. If one trumpet blew, the leaders were to assemble. Depending on the pattern of the alert, various tribes would know to set out from camp.
A Battle Cry
But if the trumpets blasted an alarm, it was the kind of sound that would make the hair on their necks stand up. It meant they were under attack. The armies would assemble and run to the site of the invasion. But the generals weren’t the ones to blast the trumpets. It was a job reserved for the priests. In fact, God tells them in verse 8,
The trumpets shall be to you for a perpetual statute throughout your generations. And when you go to war in your land against the adversary who oppresses you, then you shall sound an alarm with the trumpets, that you may be remembered before the Lord your God, and you shall be saved from your enemies.
In other words, the trumpets were not just a warning. They were a cry for help. They weren’t just a call for Israel’s soldiers to act, they were like a communal prayer, asking God to remember them and defeat their enemies. The point is pretty clear. In the most dire moments – the ones that send chills down your spine – your hope is in the one who cannot be defeated. Danger might be imminent, but so is salvation. The enemy might be near, but so is the Lord. It might be time to act, but it’s God who will stand victorious.
A Call to Remember
To further drive home the point, God gives them another occasion for sounding the trumpets in verse 10.
On the day of your gladness also, and at your appointed feasts and at the beginnings of your months, you shall blow the trumpets over your burnt offerings and over the sacrifices of your peace offerings. They shall be a reminder of you before your God: I am the Lord your God.
Not only would the priests sound the trumpets to alert the people of imminent danger, but they were also instructed to blast them on the days of gladness. On the days of their feasts, designed for remembering God’s faithfulness, they’d sound the same instruments used in battle to remind themselves of all the times the Lord came through. It would be like sounding the tornado siren for the Fourth of July when the sun is shining and the sky is blue. The trumpets were a constant reminder of where the people were meant to turn for their comfort, strength, celebration, direction, and peace. They consistently brought the focus of the people back to the Lord.
The people needed the reminder as much as we need it today. We’re quick to panic when the alarm bells go off – when we get the pink slip, when the doctor calls with concerning news, when our friendships are threatened, when our marriages are on the rocks, when the kids are struggling. The anxiety sets in fast and the desperate prayers start flowing. We’re suddenly so aware of our helplessness and our need for God’s powerful presence.
But then he comes through. The darkness fades and the blue skies return. We’re no longer confronted with an overwhelming sense of frailty or helplessness. We become less spiritually disciplined. Our prayers become rote and shallow. Our worship becomes empty. We forget of the battles he has fought and won on our behalf.
The bottom line is that we need more trumpets in our lives – those reminders of God’s faithfulness that blast consistently in the good times and the bad. We are as quick to panic as we are to forget. And yet, his steadfast love never ends. He never stops delivering. His patience continues. He remains faithful even when we are not.
