The first use to which these trumpets were put was “for the calling of the assembly.” The tabernacle was the God-appointed center for His redeemed people in those ancient days, and from that center His words went forth, and to it He summoned them when He would. That was the shadow, the picture; Christ is the substance, the reality; and if we are obedient to the word of God, Christ will be our one and only center. Hear, then, the call of the silver trumpet of the Word in this respect: “Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them” (Mt. 18:20).

The people were pilgrims in that great wilderness and they had not to settle down and make their home in it. They were traveling to Canaan, and they needed to be reminded of the fact. So when the time came for them to pass on, an alarm was blown; the trumpets kept them on the move, and we need this second trumpet also. How soon we can stagnate and sleep, and forget our heavenly home and calling! Yet God is gracious, and His Word awakes us to renewed spiritual energy. It blows an alarm and says to us, “Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light” (Eph. 5:14). “Set your affection on things above, not on things on the earth” (Col. 3:2).

In such words as these do we hear the silver trumpets sounding an alarm, lest we should mind earthly things and forget our high destiny and our Father’s house. For these two purposes, the trumpets were blown on God’s behalf in those times of old, and for us in these last days the word comes to us saying, “He that hath an ear, let him hear,” and “be ye doers of the Word, and not hearers only.”