The sermon is entitled The Gospel
Trumpet. It was preached by Mr Matronola
in this chapel on the Lord's Day morning, 28th of April, 1991.
The text is Isaiah 27, verse 13. And it shall come to pass
in that day that the great trumpet shall be blown and they shall
come which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria and the
outcasts in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in
the holy mount at Jerusalem. Isaiah 27 verse 13. Trumpets would have been a common
sight in the days of the Old Testament. Two trumpets in particular
are frequently spoken of in the scriptures of the Old Testament.
The military trumpet, or the shofar, was the long trumpet
made from a ram's horn turned up at one end, which was used
on national occasions. It was used, for example, when
Jericho was surrounded by God's people. And the seven priests
bearing the seven trumpets of ram's horns went round about
the walls once each day before the Ark of the Lord. And then
on the seventh day, having gone round the city seven times, there
was the blowing of a long blast of the trumpet. The people shouted
and the walls fell down. Jericho was taken. There were also the two silver
trumpets, the Chatsotsera, which were the trumpets of assembly
and which were used in the going forth and the returning again
of the host of the Lord. The silver trumpet sounded when
the camp was struck and when the people went forth. Rise up,
Lord, and let thine enemies be scattered. They were used to
call assemblies at various stages in the life of God's ancient
people. The silver trumpets gave different sounds to assemble
the people, sounds of alarm and sounds for holy conclave. They were also used at certain
of the sacrifices. These trumpets, the military
trumpets or the silver trumpets, belong to the religion of the
Old Testament. They belong to the theocracy,
the rule of God over the children of Israel, which made them different
from all other nations of the earth. When the psalmist commemorates
the fact that Israel was different from the nations round about,
he uses these words. Blessed is the people that know
the joyful sound, or literally, that know the sound of the trumpet. The people were a blessed people
that knew the sound of the trumpet, which declared that God was with
them, as he was with no other nation upon the face of the earth.
Blessed is the people that know the joyful sound. They shall
walk, O Lord, in the light of thy countenance. In our text,
Isaiah foresees Judah scattered by the captivity, many in exile
in the land of Assyria, which by this time was Babylon, and
others in the land of Egypt. Yet there would come the day
of Cyrus, king of Persia, when the captivity shall be over and
a way will be made for them to return. It is as if there is
a great sounding forth of the trumpet of assembly, that there
might be the gathering again of many to Jerusalem, that the
worship of God's name might again be undertaken there. It was a
remarkable provision of God that Cyrus should have had such a
disposition of benevolence towards the Jews, and that his heart
should have been so inclined by God towards them. especially
when so many rulers were so utterly opposed to them. We read the words of Cyrus, Who
is there among you of all his people? His God be with him,
and let him go up to Jerusalem. Any person holding to the religion
of the true God was free to go back. And not only to go back,
but they had liberty to rebuild the temple. they were also to
be supplied with gifts and provisions of gold and silver and material
things for the building again of the temple and the resumption
of temple worship. In that day the great trumpet
shall be blown and they shall come and shall worship the Lord
in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem. We are, however, not looking
at the history of those days. nearly six centuries before Christ,
but we desire rather to see the significance of the trumpets
for the people of God. What is its significance to the
new Israel of God, to those who are the people of the covenant
of grace? Calvin comments on this verse in his commentary
on Isaiah, and says that this day and the blowing of the great
trumpet was a kind of dark foreshadowing of the deliverance which they
obtained through Christ, at whose coming the sound of the spiritual
trumpet, that is of the gospel, was heard, and not only in Assyria
or Egypt, but in the most distant parts of the world. Then were
the people of God gathered to flow together to Mount Zion,
that is, to the church. The trumpet stands for the word
of God. Patrick Fairbairn, in his great
work on the interpretation of the types, the typology of scripture,
says, the trumpet stands for the voice of God, the trumpet
stands for the word of God. And so we find it in the New
Testament scriptures. I heard behind me a great voice
as of a trumpet saying I am Alpha and Omega and a door was opened
in heaven and the first voice which I heard was as it were
of a trumpet talking with me which said come up hither and
I will show thee things which must be hereafter. It is the
voice of God signified by the trumpet. It is the Word of God. In the great events of the second
coming of Christ, they shall see the Son of Man coming in
the clouds of heaven with power and great glory, and he shall
send his angels with the great sound of a trumpet, and they
shall gather together his elect from the four winds. The apostle
Paul says, at the last trump For the trumpet shall sound,
and the dead shall be raised incorruptible. For the Lord himself
shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
archangel, and with the trump of God. The trumpet therefore
speaks to us in the gospel dispensation of the word of God, the word
of the truth of the gospel. which is sounded abroad with
the glorious result of the gathering in of elect vessels of mercy
unto Christ. Let us look firstly at the greatness
of the gospel which is set before us in the language of our text.
The great trumpet shall be blown. The great trumpet shall be blown.
The gospel is the great message. There is no other message like
it, and there never will be. The great trumpet of the gospel
has sounded, and there will never be another such trumpet message.
All earlier messages were preparatory, but last of all He sent unto
them His Son, and there is to be the heeding of Him. For How
shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation? There will
never be another sound to equal the words of life which are in
Jesus Christ. Oh, that we might not neglect
to hear it today, if you will hear his voice, harden not your
hearts. This is the greatest of all messages. greater than the news bulletins
that we are wont to listen to, even if they are of momentous
happenings in world history. Here is an intimation of the
greatest event in the history of the world, that when the fullness
of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman,
made under the law, to redeem them that were under the law. Here is the disclosure of that
which is otherwise a mystery. God is a mystery in his love
and mercy to the people of his choice. Canst thou by searching
find out God? Canst thou find out the Almighty
to perfection? We can discover nothing of God
save that which renders us inexcusable before him. The testimony of
the whole the testimony of the visible
things, the whole of creation, to his eternal power and Godhead,
so that they are without excuse. We can understand Nothing of
the saving mystery of the Triune God, the Father who has loved
us and given us to the Son, and the Holy Spirit who consents
to sanctify and apply the blessings of electing love and the Son's
work to us. We cannot understand the mystery
of the Covenant, except as the Spirit opens our ears to hear
the sound of the great trumpet. the words of the greatest message
that men can ever hear. Have you heard the word of the
truth of the Gospel? Have you been brought to repentance
and faith by the Spirit of God? Do you know the Gospel to be,
as Paul declares, the power of God unto salvation to everyone
that believe it? Isaac Watts comments, it is as
though Paul is saying concerning this power of the gospel, I'm
not ashamed to believe it as a man, I'm not ashamed to profess
it as a Christian, I'm not ashamed to preach it as a minister, I'm
not ashamed to publish it as an apostle, I'm not ashamed to
die for it as a martyr, it is a great gospel. My dear friends, it is the only
gospel The great sound of the trumpet sounds in the day of
the gospel. It is sounding still. It will
never cease to sound until it has achieved all God's purposes
of love and mercy towards his own. Angels study this gospel. Angels, as it were, listen to
the sound of this trumpet as it's blown among the nations.
Angels look into the mystery of godliness and wonder at these
things. Cherubim wonder how guilty men ever escaped their sword,
when man had sinned in the garden and was driven thence. Elect
angels view their fallen companions, which kept not their first estate,
and who are delivered into chains of darkness to be reserved unto
the judgment of the great day. And yet they see no provision
made for them, but provision made rather for the sinful sons
of men, the chosen of Adam's race. They look into these things
and they admire the one who took not upon him the nature of angels,
but who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering
of death. The one who made them. for the
angelic principalities and powers were all made by the Son of God,
and yet who condescends to be made lower than them for the
suffering of death. The elect angels rejoice that
there are those who are brought by the sound of the great trumpet
to assemble where life and immortality are found through the gospel.
with the great end that together they and the redeemed Church
of God will sing forth God's praise and exhibit His greatness
throughout all the ages of eternity. These are the glorious things
which attend the gospel and which confirm the wonder and greatness
of the gospel. The great trumpet shall be blown. Do you believe this gospel? Angels
believe it. Even fallen angels believe it,
although not with a saving belief. They believe God and they trample. They said to the incarnate Son
of God, let us alone. What have we to do with thee?
I know thee who thou art, the Holy One of God. They have no
part and portion in these things, although in a fashion they believe
it. Do we believe it? Not nearly. with the belief of devils, but
with the faith which is God-given. Do we believe it because God
has given us to see our need of it, and has brought us to
cry to the Redeemer, to be our Redeemer, and that we might know
an interest in Him? Is our cry, that of the psalmist,
say unto my soul, I am thy salvation, that we might know the power
of this gospel in our own hearts' experience? What of the proclamation of this
gospel? What of the proclamation of this
gospel? It shall come to pass in that day that the great trumpet
shall be blown. What else do you do with a trumpet
but blow it? There would have been times when
the silver trumpets were reverently handled and carefully placed
amongst the furniture of the tabernacle, and those who looked
upon them must have admired their craftsmanship. As all the craftsmanship
of the tabernacle was worthy of admiration, Bezalel and Aholiab
were given by God great skill and wisdom in the making of those
things. It was regarded as a privilege
by those who had the responsibility to bear the furniture and the
vessels of the tabernacle. Even the least service in that
day was regarded as a privilege, so that King David could say
that I had rather be a doorkeeper, a porter, in the house of my
God than to dwell in the tents of wickedness. Even the most
menial of tasks, such as the cleaning of the place of worship,
is to be done unto the Lord, which is what gives all service
a dimension that the world knows nothing of. The trumpets, however, were not
just to be admired for their craftsmanship, they were to be
blown. Similarly, the gospel is not merely to be admired,
It is not to be cherished merely by a row of books upon our shelves,
or by the sermons of the great preachers of the past, which
thrill us to learn what was preached in a former day. We are not just
to admire the preaching of past generations, and we are not just
to admire the doctrines of the Gospel, but we are to proclaim
this Gospel. The great trumpet shall be blown
in that day. The Gospel is to be preached. for it is by preaching that God
is pleased to save men and women. There is the unconscious preaching
by the way in which we live, as when Barnabas had seen the
grace of God in the Christians at Antioch. He saw grace in the
manifestation of grace in their lives. There is the preaching
of the gospel by our lives as Paul directed the Corinthians,
changing the figure somewhat. Ye are our epistle written in
our hearts, known and read of all men. What do men see and hear of the
writing of the gospel in your life? Is that which they hear sometimes
different from that which they see written upon the book of
your life? That which they read before their eyes? We are to
bear a testimony. We are to use words. Can we not
speak of this gospel to others? We are often so reluctant to
speak, we feel unqualified to speak. Thank God that the woman
at the well of Sycar did not feel unqualified to go and declare
the things which the God-man had told her concerning her sin
and need. Come, see a man which told me
all things that ever I did. Is not this the Christ? Can we
not say similarly? Come with us and hear the glorious
gospel preached. One of Ralph Erskine's sermons
has the unusual and arresting title, The Female Preacher, or
The Woman of Samaria Sermon to the Men of the City. But she
was that. There were some other godly female
preachers sitting on the steps of a house in Bedford when John
Bunyan the Tinker passed by and heard such godly converse that
it was the means under God of converting him and giving him
the peace which he had long sought. We are preachers, all of us. We have got this message to bear
a testimony to, by our lives and by the words in season which
we may be able to speak. It is, however, to those who
are preachers of the Gospel that we turn to see this truth. The
great trumpet shall be blown in its direct and primary sense. It will be blown by those whom
God raises up for the purpose. It pleased God by the foolishness
of preaching to save them that believe. And how shall they preach
except they be sent? As it is written, how beautiful
are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace and bring
glad tidings of good things. It is my desire that God will
raise up preachers in this church One said of old, would God that
all the Lord's people were prophets. We would say, would that all
God's servants were preachers. We need a great army of preachers
to be thrust out from gospel churches to speak the unsearchable
riches of Christ. When God comes in the power of
the word, preaching is magnified. All the accounts of times of
revival proclaim that. When the power of God comes,
there is an emphasis on preaching and preachers are thrust out
which declare the message God has given them to speak. Do we
have a high view of preaching? Cry aloud, spare not, lift up
thy voice like a trumpet, the great trumpet shall sound. Christ himself preached. He is
prophet as well as priest and king. Never man spake like this
man. We believe in the words of the
shorter catechism that he is a preacher, a prophet, both in
his state of humiliation and exaltation. Christ, raised to
the right hand of the Majesty on high, is still a prophet. He sends forth preachers, in
his name. That is how the prophetic ministry
is continued. He sends forth men. He gave some
apostles, and some prophets, and some evangelists, and some
pastors and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for
the work of the ministry. There should be an earnest supplication
to the ascended Christ that he will give such in these days. The apostles preached It was
by the preaching of the Apostles that great things were done.
The signs and the wonders of the Apostles confirmed that they
were sent in a special and extraordinary fashion. But there is very little
made of the signs and wonders in the Acts of the Apostles,
and there is much more emphasis on their preaching. The Apostles
preached not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration
of the Spirit and of power. The early centuries had some
great preachers before preaching gradually became depreciated.
The darkness of superstition and the rise of potpourri gradually
silenced the voice of preaching and brought in the Dark Ages
for nearly a thousand years until the Reformation. The time of
revival, for it was Reformation born by revival, brought again
preaching in Europe. the preaching of men like Luther,
Calvin, Melanchthon, Busser and Zwingli. Preaching of the Word
of God also reappeared in our land with great preachers such
as Latimer and Ridley. The great trumpet was again blown
in this land. When you look at the great periods
of the history of the Gospel in our favoured land, for it
has been favoured in times past, which is why we are so concerned
about the times of dearth in which we now find ourselves.
We see that these great seasons of visitation were seasons of
preaching. Were there ever days, like the
days of the Puritans, when there was such a choice of preachers
in a city such as London, that if you were to hear a different
man on every Sunday of the year, you would hear some of the finest
preachers and finest preaching that has ever been heard? What of the days of the evangelical
awakening in Wales and the preachers which God raised up there, men
such as Daniel Rowland and Harold Harris? men who preached against
sin in such a way that hardened sinners abandoned their sin forthwith. It was a day of the demonstration
of the Spirit of God and power upon the word preached. And last
century, when preachers of the calibre of Spurgeon and Gadsby
preached to over a thousand hearers, and when they were due to preach
in a certain town they would find such a company assembled
that it could scarcely be accommodated in the largest meeting house
that could be found because preaching was esteemed in that day and
God blessed it we desire that we may have a
high view of preaching and even if in our day there are but few
people to hear the preaching we must still look that God will
bless and own it that it might be that which will do wonders
for us and that the great trumpet might be sounded by those whom
God raises up to sound it and that in the hearing of that blessed
sound we shall be satisfied it is men who are to blow the
trumpets not angels And it is to be blown with a certain sound. For if the trumpet give an uncertain
sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle? If the trumpet
gives a wrong note, there will be false assembly. If it gives
the wrong sound, there will be those who are not alerted to
the fact that the enemy is approaching. The trumpet is to give the right
sound and sadly such preaching as remains to us in this land
too often gives a sound which is not the sound of the gospel
at all. Oh for those who feel constrained
to preach no other message but the message of the gospel. Baxter
said, I preached as never sure to preach again and as a dying
man to dying men. J. C. Ryle at Stradbrook in his
final pastures in the 1870s had the text, woe is unto me if I
preach not the gospel, carved upon the pulpit, that he might
always be reminded of the preacher's great responsibility that men
should see Jesus. The gospel trumpet is sounded. to summon those who are ready
to perish in the land of Assyria and outcasts in the land of Egypt.
Without the Gospel, men are perishing. They are in the bondage of Satan,
walking according to the course of this world, according to the
prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now worketh in
the children of disobedience. among whom also we all had our
conversation in times past, in the lusts of our flesh, and were
by nature the children of wrath, even as others. Without the gospel, men are perishing, not just in
Assyria, but wherever they are found. Men are in a place of
extreme peril. In the midst of temporal life,
they are in spiritual death, and when this life ends for them,
there will be the second death, and they shall perish everlastingly. The gospel trumpet must be blown
to draw the outcasts from the land of Egypt, those who are
alienated from God, cast out because of their sin. This is
descriptive of the unregenerate who are as enemies, separated
from God by reason of their sin. Those who, enamoured by the world
and its ways, listen to its so-called trumpet voice which drowns out
all other sounds, they need to hear the great sound of the gospel
trumpet which will drown out forever the subordinate sounds
of this world. However, the same gospel trumpet,
as it is sounded forth, also blesses those who have heard
and who have been attracted and gathered under the blessed sound
of the gospel. That the gospel should bless
those who have already been blessed is a great mystery. Why is it
that you come and hear a minister preaching things which some of
you have heard a thousand times before? you have heard this gospel,
you have heard the name of Jesus and what he has done for sinners
you have heard of the everlasting covenant and in my preaching
of late you have heard much of it but you will hear it time
and time again as God gives me the trumpet to put to my lips
because it is the gospel of the grace of God but the covenant truths which
we have heard before still do us good We are still blessed
by them. We love to hear the gospel. Indeed,
we cannot hear enough of it. We continually feel to be perishing
in Assyria. The Assyrian was wicked. He is
depicted in the well-known poem by Lord Byron as a wolf. The Assyrian came down like the
wolf on the fold. And wolves come against us. And Satan himself comes as a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We need the gospel,
which gives us strength against him and which encourages us to
hope and shows us that greater is he that is in you than he
that is in the world. We fail to be as outcasts. We are ridiculed and we're wrong. and we are often, because of
the offence of the Gospel, the laughing stock of our friends
and family. Lord, pity outcasts, vile and base, the poor dependents
on thy grace whom men disturb as call. We need therefore the
great trumpet of the Gospel to be sounded because it does such
good to those who are ready to perish in Assyria and those who
feel as poor outcasts in Egypt. We need the word preached. We
don't need a campaign or some attractive new presentation.
We need the word of God, the great gospel preached from the
pulpit. For this is the means which God
has been pleased to appoint. I believe that if it is his will,
he can fill this place with hearers of the gospel, which is why our
prayer is to be that God will bless the word in our day. turn our captivity and bring
those outcasts who are ready to perish to the sound of the
great trumpet and they shall come and they
shall come hallelujah they shall be willing for thy people shall
be willing in the day of thy power we believe that We believe
that concerning this gospel because we believe in the covenant, ordered
in all things and sure. We believe that although men
are naturally deaf to the gospel and to every warning given, when
God's time comes and their ears are opened, they shall come which
were ready to perish. Although they are incapable of
raising themselves and incapable of doing one thing to save themselves. They are in the horrible pit
and in the miry clay. They shall come and they shall
live. Those outcasts who are alienated
and separated from the life of God, who are unable even to think
one God-honoring thought, will be brought nigh by precious blood
and be made to know it. They are reconciled by the precious
blood of Christ and made to be new creatures in Christ Jesus. How will they come? They will
come weeping and broken-hearted. In those days and in that time,
saith the Lord, the children of Israel shall come, they and
the children of Judah together, going and weeping. They shall
go and seek the Lord their God. weeping tears of repentance,
but also tears of joy as they weep to the praise of the mercy
they've found. To whom do they come? They come
to him to whom the gathering of the people shall be. Sinners
brought to Christ. One of the great sermons of Thomas
Hooker was the poor doubting Christian drawn to Christ. Are you a poor, doubting sinner
who has been drawn to Christ? In conclusion, the effect of
the gospel trumpet being blown is that they shall worship the
Lord in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem. The great evidence that the gospel
trumpet has sounded and that men have been made to hear it
and have been blessed by it is that they shall worship They
shall worship not just in private, but in public worship. They shall
in that day worship the Lord in the Holy Mount at Jerusalem,
which stands for the church, the assemblies of the saints,
and the companies of the New Jerusalem, where Christ meets
with those who are assembled together in His name. It is a
mark of grace. It is a mark that we have heard
the word of the truth of the gospel. that we assemble together. And those who have been truly
wrought upon by the grace of God feel that they cannot do
without it. There may be a time when, perhaps
even for years, they cannot come to the house of God, but they
will never remain satisfied with that, for they must come to where
the gospel is preached, and they will worship the Lord in the
holy mount at Jerusalem. We know this to be true, even
in our own experience. Those who have a high view of
the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the
pillar and ground of the truth, want to be found there because
it is where worship is rendered to the God of heaven. Those who
have heard the gospel sound, those who were ready to perish,
those outcasts in Egypt, those who have been made to come to
Christ, in that day shall worship in the holy mount at Jerusalem.
This is what we long to see in these days. Preaching, God raising
up more preachers, and a proper emphasis put upon the local church.
We want to see the churches reformed, for when revival comes they will
be reformed. and we will see then those who
will come to worship and it will be worship free from the inventions
of men. a worship which is regulated
by the word of God, the pattern of sound words. It will be worship
that is prefigured in the words of another prophet, from the
rising of the sun even unto the going down of the same, my name
shall be great among the Gentiles, and in every place incense shall
be offered unto my name, and a pure offering, and a pure offering,
For my name shall be great among the heathens, saith the Lord
of hosts. Malachi 1 verse 11, a pure offering,
Protestant worship, no priest but Christ, no sacrifice but
Calvary, no confessional but the throne of grace, no authority
but the word of God. May the great trumpet continue
to sound, May there be those who come, as doubtless they shall
be. And may there be those Assyrians who are ready to perish, and
those who are outcasts in the land of Egypt, that may be brought
from their heathen darkness to worship at Jerusalem. Those who
will be drawn and changed, and brought to love the things of
God, and the house of God, and the day of God, and the people
of God, and the word of God, and the truth of God. May these
things be so. Hark how the gospel trumpet sounds,
Christ and free grace therein abounds, free grace to such as
sinners be, and if free grace, why not for me? God bless and
sanctify his word and the preaching of it this day, and cause such
things to come to pass, for his name's sake. It shall come to pass in that
day that the great trumpet shall be blown, and they shall come
which were ready to perish in the land of Assyria and the outcasts
in the land of Egypt, and shall worship the Lord in the holy
mount at Jerusalem. Amen.