We find the use of the trumpets detailed in Numbers 10:1–10. They were the voice of God to communicate His mind to the people on four important occasions: they gave the signal for gathering the people together, for the journeying of the camps, for battle, and also for the solemn feasts and worship. That which the sound of the trumpets formerly represented for Israel we find in the present day, in another and very precious way, in the Word of God. By it God speaks to us; it is that which regulates and directs the gathering together, the walk, the warfare, and the worship of the children of God.

How much these things are forgotten in our day! It seems to the majority of God’s children that Christianity consists only in taking the gospel to the unconverted. It was otherwise that Gideon understood the testimony of faith. He began where God begins in Numbers 10: “He blew the trumpet, and the Abiezrites gathered behind him” (Judg. 6:34). He was the bearer of the divine voice for the regathering of Israel, who had been scattered by their own failure.

Brethren, have we at heart in this day the gathering together of the children of God? Let us then take the Word of God, let us make its voice heard in the ears of the saints who have been unaccustomed to hearing it. Let us show Christians that their being gathered together is the purpose of God, the purpose of the cross of Christ, as well as of the energy of the Spirit in the world. Let us show them that it is the enemy who has scattered us, and that the great opposition to his power is the gathering together of the children of God apart from the world, and we will have the joy of having labored for that which the Word calls “good and pleasant!”