I believe the son of perdition is the religious Babylonian system of man; there has been a great falling away when men reject the Christ (anointing) for they have lost their first love and are following another.
"For the Lord Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with THE TRUMP OF GOD..." (I Thes. 4:16).
"Because the Lord Himself, IN a shout, IN the voice of a chief-messenger, and IN the trump of God, shall come down from heaven." The Lord does not come "with" the trump of God, but "in" the trump of God. If, therefore, we can know what the trump of God is, and are able to recognize its sound, we will have assurance that the Lord Himself has descended from heaven and is present, for He comes to us IN the trump of God.
It is strange what odd notions some people get concerning the meaning of scriptures they read in the Bible. For instance, I was brought up under ministries who taught that every word in the Bible was to be taken literally, and that the word "trumpet," as used in our subject, and also in the book of Revelation and elsewhere, referred to the Lord blowing a literal trumpet when He crashes down through the clouds at the end of this age, a trumpet blast so piercing and electrifying that it would actually awaken the dead bodies in the cemeteries. Nothing, of course, could be farther from the truth than such a strange notion. When Jesus said that He was the vine and His disciples were the branches, He certainly did not mean that He was a literal vine and they were literal branches. When He told His followers they were the salt of the earth, He certainly did not mean that they were literally sodium chloride. The Bible is full of symbols and figures of speech, of which these are but a few. The greatest danger, when we come to the Word of God, is not in "spiritualizing" it away, but in "carnalizing" it away! "The words that I speak unto you, they ARE SPIRIT, and they ARE LIFE," Jesus said.
On one occasion Jesus said, "Behold, I come as a thief" (Rev. 16:15). Paul explained that the Lord would come in a "shout," also in the "voice of the archangel," and in the "trump of God." Certainly thieves do not blow trumpets and shout, nor did Jesus blow a trumpet or shout when He departed from the mount of Olives; although the scripture assures us that He comes "in like manner" even as He went into heaven. But these are not contradictions. They are but word pictures to help our minds comprehend more clearly some of the great factors in the coming of Christ and what the various facets of His coming mean to us spiritually. We know something about the manner of a thief's coming. We know a little concerning the purpose of blowing trumpets. We are familiar with shouts of command. We know something of the characteristics of clouds and what they specify. When we put all these together and add to them the many other illustrations of the scriptures pertaining to Christ's coming, we begin to understand that what we are to look for is not a human being coming down through the rain-clouds tooting a horn, but a series of MIGHTY MANIFESTATIONS OF THE CHRIST IN GREAT SPIRITUAL POWER AND GLORY, shaking everything that is earthly, quickening all that is dead, and transforming men and nations until the prayer is fully answered, "Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth as it is in heaven." In each case the language is metaphorical; of necessity heavenly things are described to us under earthly imagery, otherwise we who have been subjected to this gross material realm, and who speak the language of this world, could not understand them.
The word "trumpet" appears approximately one hundred times in the Bible. In the Old Testament the word is found about eighty-five times while in the New Testament it occurs only about fifteen times. The first use of the term is recorded in Exodus, the last in the book of Revelation. To get the spiritual meaning of trumpets we need to establish something of their typological significance. The meaning of the trumpet is made crystal clear in a number of scriptures. Isaiah said, "Cry aloud, spare not, lift up T-H-Y V-O-I-C-E LIKE A TRUMPET, and show My people their transgressions, and the house of Jacob their sins" (Isa. 58:1). Here the voice bearing God's message to His people is likened unto the sounding of a trumpet.
One day as the beloved apostle John trod the burning sands of the desolation of Patmos, he was suddenly caught away in the spirit and immediately, "I heard behind me a great V-O-I-C-E, AS OF A TRUMPET, saying, I am Alpha and Omega, the first and the last" (Rev. 1:10-11). Here, Christ's voice, as John heard it, is compared to a trumpet. "After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in heaven: and the first V-O-I-C-E which I heard was as it were a TRUMPET talking with me; which said, COME UP HITHER, and I will show you things which must be hereafter" (Rev. 4:1). Notice this trumpet-voice told him to come up higher, so he could see the things God wanted to show him. God's trumpet-message is always to come up higher. It is sent because that is the great need of the saints and of all mankind, to come up into the higher realms of the spirit, for we cannot see the glorious spiritual truths nor behold the wondrous heavenly things from the lowlands of our carnal mind and nature. Normally we "hear" a voice, but John said of the trumpet-voice that penetrated his spiritual consciousness, "And I turned to SEE THE VOICE that spake with me. And being turned, I SAW seven golden candlesticks; and in the midst of the seven candlesticks ONE like unto the Son of man..." (Rev. 1:12-13). The One who spoke with a "voice" as of a "trumpet" was IN the trumpet voice, and it was IN THE MESSAGE OF THE VOICE that this glorious One was revealed. I do not hesitate to tell you that this was the revelation of Jesus Christ as He appeared to John IN THE TRUMP OF GOD!
Isaiah foretells many things pertaining to the day of the Lord, this day in which we live. The trumpet that shall be blown is none other than the voice of God sounding forth. It is His word, His message going out to the people. "And He shall send His angels with the great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other" (Mat. 24:31). Now if HE sends HIS messengers with a great sound of a trumpet, it must be HIS TRUMPET they are sounding; His word they are giving out. His mighty message gathers together in the spirit His elect. It brings them from the low places of spiritual experience, to high ones. Oh! think of the power the sound of His trumpet carries to lift men from corruption into His pure divine nature!
"God is gone up with a shout, the Lord with the SOUND OF A TRUMPET" (Ps. 47:5). When a rising time is due for God's people, it may be said that God is "gone UP," as taken from the lesson that He moved in a pillar of cloud and fire to lead His ancient people, Israel. "With the sound of a trumpet" signifies that His voice is being heard. God's VOICE and His TRUMPET are ore and the same. It is the sounding forth of His Word. Many messengers (His many-membered body) add volume to the sound of that trumpet. Rev. 1:15 says, "...His voice as the sound of MANY WATERS." John also tells us in Rev. 17:15 that waters means multitudes of peoples. So God's trumpet voice is sounding through many people, "many waters." "And a voice came out of the throne, saying, Praise our God, all ye servants, and ye that fear Him, both small and great. And I heard as it were the voice of a multitude, and as the VOICE OF MANY WATERS, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth" (Rev. 19:5-6). John heard coming from the throne (divine authority) a message which he said was a voice of a "multitude," of "many waters," and of "mighty thunderings," saying, "Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth." It was one trumpet message with many voices adding volume to it. It was ONE MESSAGE, but being trumpeted by many voices, so that it became as the voice of a "great thunder." This shows the beautiful unity in Christ and His many-membered body.
There need be no question in the mind of anyone but that God's "trumpet" is a MESSAGE given to a person or persons and sounded out to the people. The word of the Lord came to the prophet Ezekiel saying, "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 see 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; if the sword come, and take him away, his blood shall be upon his own head. He heard the SOUND OF THE TRUMPET, and took not warning; his blood shall be upon him. But he that taketh warning shall deliver his soul. SO THOU, O son of man, I have set THEE A WATCHMAN unto the house of Israel; therefore thou shalt hear the word at My mouth, and warn them from Me...therefore ... SPEAK unto the house of Israel, saying..." (Eze. 33:2-10).
How clear that the Holy Spirit here equates the VOICE of God's prophet, bearing the Lord's MESSAGE to the house of Israel, with the SOUNDING OF THE TRUMPET of the watchman. The trumpet bespeaks a clear word of God from the Spirit appointed and Spirit anointed messengers, His ministers. Trumpets are words, clear words, living words. The trumpet of God is His voice, His voice from heaven, His voice in the saints; even the voice of the Holy Spirit through the consecrated priests of the Most High. The voice of the Lord is the trumpet-sound and the trumpet-voice, the divine message of His truth and life. The trumpet is the revelation of the Lord speaking through His true ministries in an oracle of the Spirit. The sound of the trumpet is simply the PROCLAMATION OF A MESSAGE!
With a simple knowledge like this we should have no trouble at all in understanding that our blessed Lord Jesus Christ, the Logos of God, is Himself the trumpet, the message, the revelation! In type, Jesus is the trumpet of God, delivering a clear sound, a living word, and introducing us to the reality of the perfection and incorruptible life of which He is the beginning. Praise God, it is the LORD HIMSELF who comes in the trumpet (message), and at the sound of His voice we are CAUGHT UP with Him to share the glory of His sphere of life. The Lord Himself descends out from the highest realms of our heavens (spirit) into the lower realm of our earth. We are the creatures God is creating to express His nature, power and glory unto creation. His purpose for coming out of the realm of spirit into your earth is to catch your whole being up into the realm of spirit, to swallow up all death into HIS LIFE. And He accomplishes this by coming to us IN A TRUMPET MESSAGE. He comes in a shout, in a voice of command, and in the trump of God because though we are hungry for God and desire more of Him, because of our flesh and the control of the carnal mind we are not easily alerted or moved.
Too numerous to mention have been the things God has taught us as we have walked in the light of His ever-increasing truth. Our minds have often been staggered by the wonderful things we have seen and heard and our ambitions have been raised as we have gazed into the promised land of the Spirit and have seen the innumerable and wonderful glories that lie before us in the fullness of our sonship. We are undoubtedly standing at the threshold of a new dimension in God, a higher realm in the Spirit, and a new level of experience. When we come to a time like this, many will refuse to go on. There is some strange thing inherent in all men that makes them reluctant to leave the security of their fixed abode to press forward into the challenge of the new. They feel that they have journeyed far enough and that the effort to press into the new and more wonderful realm is too great a risk. We tend to become rigid, settled, self confident and and crystallized, - fixed in our gaze and in our pose. In order for us not to miss the next phase of the unfolding revelation of Jesus Christ, God has to sound a shrill trumpet into our hearts that we might be alerted. God is wanting to say and do a NEW THING. It is time to go forward. It is the hour to arise to the battle and possess our land, our full inheritance in God. It is time to leave the first principles of the doctrine of Christ and GO ON TO PERFECTION. It is time to put on the mind of Christ and be transformed by the renewing of our mind. It is time to live and not die. So the Lord descends from heaven in a battle alarm, in the electrifying sound of a trumpet-message, to stimulate, to arouse, to alert and challenge you to get ready for the battle of the ages and the victory of victories that follows!
Today God is trumpeting a message into our hearing. He is projecting into our thinking a realm beyond the feasts of Passover and Pentecost, yea, beyond anything we have heretofore seen, heard, or experienced. He is projecting the fullness of salvation, the high calling of God in Christ Jesus, the King-Priesthood after the order of Melchizedek, maturity in the nature and power of sonship and the dynamic realities of the Most Holy Place into us. No matter what our spiritual understanding has been, we are finally being made aware that we are now living in the most momentous hour imaginable. There is an awakening among the elect of the Lord that transcends human knowledge. He is putting into the hearts of His chosen people the desire to ready themselves for the sonship prepared for them from the foundation of the world.
The trumpet-message is alerting our minds to the fact that the sons of God who are being prepared to restore creation are not just ordinary Christians with ordinary experiences. We have tasted of the earnest of our inheritance, and it is now time to arise and enter an entirely new realm of experience in God. I am speaking of the realm which is in truth the realm of the fullness of God, the realm far above all heavens, the realm of incorruptible life and glory, and the realm of the Kingdom in authority and power. Furthermore I am convinced that those who have ears to hear the sound of the trumpet in this hour will attain to the glory of that new realm while the rest of the church world go on as usual in the old realm and on the old planes. Jesus is the revelation of this realm of which I speak because He came forth as the Pattern Son and He spoke a clear sounding word. He is the pattern of this heavenly sonship and He is the Alpha and the Omega of it. He is the beginning of the new creation of God, but you and I are following the forerunner, and just as He trumpeted a clear sounding word, you and I are going to trumpet a clear sounding word to the elect in this generation.
We need to take heed to how we hear, and how we speak and what we speak. The order of man is passing. How? BY THE SOUNDING OF THE TRUMPET! By the very word of your mouth, because of Him who speaks out of you. We might compromise the message and bear a message of appeasement to the old order of the religious systems, but what would that accomplish? I hear the voice of the Lord calling and commanding us today, "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 the Lord cometh, for it is nigh at hand" (Joel 2:1). It has been prophesied that a trumpet would be sounding at this time. If a trumpeter blows an uncertain sound, how will you know to prepare? If the trumpeter has no message, how is he going to speak? God has commanded us to blow a trumpet in Zion and sound an alarm in His holy mountain. Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord cometh, it is nigh at hand. Our job is to sound an alarm in Zion and awaken His people, arouse His elect and let them know THE DAY OF THE LORD IS HERE!
JEby
