Among the various types of our Lord’s coming, one that is veiled in great mystery is His coming in the sounding of the seven trumpets. Some theologians have assumed the seven trumpets to be historic accounts. Others interpret them as literal end-time events of God’s judgment during the tribulation involving earthquakes, asteroids falling on earth, volcano eruptions, global war etc. But these have altogether missed what the Spirit is now saying to His people. As we saw in the last message, the sounding of the seven trumpets is a current and ongoing spiritual experience signifying the progressive revelation and declaration of the living word of God.
Dear reader of these lines, are you hearing the sounding of the seven-fold trumpet message today? Is God awakening you to His divine plan for the ages? Is He revealing Himself and causing the increase of Christ’s nature within you? What is occupying your ear? What are you listening to? Are you listening to a word that is drawing you higher? Is it a word that is causing you to leave behind the elementary principles of Christ and to go on to perfection? Is it producing a deep yearning and love for the Truth in you? Is it bringing judgment in your life, purging the old and establishing the new? Is it exposing your carnal and self-centered motives or is it fanning them aflame? Is it making bitter all that is in the world; politics, economics, religion, entertainment etc? Is it darkening those luminaries (moon, stars, sun) – those people, movements, concepts, and programs that you so esteemed, which were elevated over your life and which occupied the place which only belongs to God? Is it exposing the bottomless pit; the deep inward parts of your heart from which come all the issues of your life, evil thoughts, and self-indulgence?
All God will do in His elect, as they come to the spiritual stature of Christ, will be sounded in the trumpets. These events are what usher the progressive dominion of the kingdom of God. Each trumpet marshals a different dimension of Christ until His perfect and complete dominion is inaugurated in the last trumpet. Thus, it is the Lord Himself who is in the trumpet message and who descends from heaven to our earth to establish His rule over all things.
However, many fail to see Christ in the seven trumpets, obscured by the events that follow their sounding. John witnessed that the utterance of the Lord’s voice in each trumpet brought with it various dealings as it is sounded into the realms of the sea, the earth, and the heavens. As you read the accounts of the seven trumpets in Revelation chapters 8-11, you will notice judgments, destructions, deaths, burnings, darkening of luminaries, and bitterness. Numerous are the dealings of the Lord as He draws us into a higher dimensions and expression of His life. Each trumpet sound bears a powerful word that expose the deep inward parts of man’s heart and the systems of the world and religion with which man is entangled.
The writer of the Hebrews declares: “Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, ‘Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven’” (Heb. 12:25-26). Our Lord Jesus Christ confirms this truth saying: “heaven and earth shall pass away” (Matt. 24:35). Judgment must come not only over the corruptions of the earth, but also over the heaven that has been elevated above man. The passing of heaven and earth does not mean the physical destruction of the earth and its inhabitants or the removal of some literal heaven in the sky. Rather, this work of God deals with the root of the issue; the heart condition of carnal man in which reside corruption and out of which come the systems of the world and religion that are elevated over man. Thus, Lord Himself comes in the sounding of the seven trumpets to carry out His effectual working of corrective judgment in man, to purge and purify all that is contrary to Him.
The Fall of Jericho
The story of Israel’s triumph over Jericho under the leadership of Joshua has wonderful spiritual truths that demonstrate the inworking of the seven trumpets. Jericho is the first city conquered by Israel upon entering the promised land of Canaan. In order to take the city, God gave Joshua specific instruction. Israel was to walk around the city once each day for six days with seven priests each blowing a trumpet before the ark. On the seventh day, they were to go around the city seven times, again with the seven priests blowing the seven trumpets. When the seventh day came and all the people heard the long blast of the seven trumpets, they let out a great shout and the walls of Jericho fell.
The parallels between the book of Joshua and the book of Revelations are beneficial for our understanding. For the children of Israel to enter and possess their Promised Land, they had to overcome various adversaries who had occupied the land. This enemy which today prevents us from possessing Christ, our Promised Land, is called: carnality, sin, and death. These enemies not only operate in individual men but also manifest as the systems of the world and religion. The sound of the seven trumpets is one that shakes these entities. It is a war cry, a call to battle and the prelude to the victory over the enemy.
In the accounts of the victory over Jericho, the first obstacle that had to be overcome was the wall of the city. Walls have been mentioned numerous times in scripture and serve an important function. The wall is often the first line of defense for a city. They keep out intruders and protect those inside them. A city defends its walls at all cost because once breached the city and all its inhabitants become vulnerable. Beyond its protective function, it is serves a strategic vantage point from which to deter the enemy and is also a symbol of a city’s greatness, discouraging the enemy from attack.
Jericho was fortified with such a wall protecting the city from external forces. However, Jericho was an enemy of God’s elect. It had to be conquered. Spiritually, there are many truths to be garnered from the fall of Jericho. You see, there is a Jericho in each of us. Jericho is a type of the Adamic nature – the one who is enmity against God. For the people of God to overcome Jericho, the wall surrounding the city had to first be destroyed. Spiritually, the wall signifies man-made religion and its doctrines. Paul speaking to the high priest Ananias declares: “God will strike you, you whitewashed wall” (Acts 23:3). Ananias was a leader of the religious order of the day – he was part of the Sadducees who opposed the preaching of the gospel of the Kingdom. He was a barrier to the entrance of truth. It’s no different today, there are many gatekeepers in the Church system who, like Ananias, keep many saints from hearing the truth.
As the walls surrounded Jericho and protected its inhabitants, so does religion. It guards and preserves the carnal mind. Religion does not develop Christ in a people, it keeps the natural mind from being usurped by the mind of Christ. Religion fails to impart divine life but rather endorses self, works, and the law. Religion encourages one to imitate the life of Christ but refuses to surrender one’s life to the dominion of Christ. Religion protects the ambitions, dreams and yearnings of men under the guise of freedom and blessing. Religion elevates the vision of man over the will of God. It rejects the fellowship of the suffering of Christ. It promotes the cross in Golgotha but it refuses the cross in the heart. It sets men over the saints. Through all its teachings, man-made doctrines, and soul-driven programs religion erects a formidable barrier preserving the carnal man.
Thus, any message which does not appease the itching ears of the masses and which usurps the popular and preconceived doctrines of religion is rejected as heresy. Like Jericho’s wall, the man-made walls of the religious church system which have today adulterated the plan of God must fall. And yes these walls have been erected in many of us who have spent much of our life in that Babylonish institution.
You can imagine that the sounding of the seven trumpets was a peculiar and undesirable sound to the inhabitants of Jericho. It should also come as no surprise that to those who have fortified themselves within the walls of religion, the message of the full gospel of the Kingdom will be a bitter taste in their mouth. Indeed, many can’t swallow it and have spat it out rejecting its truths. But God is raising up a people in this hour who are being endowed by the seven spirits of God and who are marching around the wall sounding the trumpet and the walls are cracking for they are man-made walls without foundation. God is bringing down this wall in order to establish a greater city, one with greater walls – the New Jerusalem (Rev. 21:10, 12).
The events that precede the destruction of the walls of Jericho are of immense spiritual significance. They include three sevens; seven trumpets, seven days, and seven priests. In the numerology of God, the number three signifies divine perfection while the number seven indicates completeness or a finished work. Thus, the seven-fold trumpet is a prevailing message that establishes the perfect and complete dominion of Christ within a people. It is the sounding of this trumpet in its totality that leads to the destruction of the walls of religious Babylon and the establishment of His dominion in HIs people. Together, the seven trumpets (the full gospel message of the kingdom), the seventh day (the dispensation of fullness), and the seven priests (the seven spirits of God) all lead to the gathering together of all things which are in heaven and which are on earth in Christ (Eph. 1:10; Rev. 11:15).
There is therefore another wall that God is building in those apprehended to perfection in Christ. It is the wall of the New Jerusalem. We read in Rev. 21:10 that the city had a wall that is “great and high.” The wall is described in great detail in the same chapter outlining its foundations and the precious stones with which it is built. This wall represents the establishment of the nature of truth; the very nature of Christ Jesus who is “the truth”. Christ is now bringing into being His nature of truth within us, that we being in union with Him may become the truth (1 Joh. 4:17).
Being established in the truth keeps one from missing the mark and from allowing lies from entering in. This nature is the great and high wall that cannot be penetrated by any enemy for it is not built by man but it is established by the Spirit of Truth. This is the wall of the New Jerusalem which we are being conformed to. It is a great and high wall that nothing or no one can penetrate. The bible says concerning this wall: “but there shall by no means enter it [New Jerusalem] anything that defiles, or causes abomination or a lie” (Rev. 21:27). In the one who is established in the nature of truth, no falsehood is found, nor can any enter. When you put on the truth, you are hedged in with divine protection for “His truth shall be thy shield and buckler” (Psalm 91:4).
Glory to God! The kingdom is now being established in the hearts of men by the sounding of the seven trumpets declaring in spirit and truth the dominion of Christ. It’s a glorious sound, a message of reconciliation, a message of righteousness, peace and joy, a message of perfection and fullness in Christ. It is a message that is unpolluted and unmixed with the soulish philosophies of man. It is a message of great power and authority declaring the supremacy of Christ.
May God open our ears to hear this sound!
Kingdom Truths 
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