"Make Two Trumpets of Silver"

What's the meaning of that? Why two? Why two? Well again, many of you Bible students can answer the question as well as I can, but for our purpose tonight let us note this, that in the Bible a legal position was that  the evidence of one person was never accepted...

It was never accepted. It necessitated, required, demanded the corroboration of a second reliable witness before anything was accepted or established.

The Law said, "In the mouth of two witnesses everything shall be established".

And for our purpose this evening, that means this: our testimony, our witness, what we have to give.

And what we give is something confirmed and established and corroborated.

There is something which has adequate evidence for it, adequate evidence for it, because two is the number always of adequate witness or adequate testimony.

It is the irreducible minimum of GOD. As many more as you like, but no less than two.

GOD requires this: that the thing is substantiated. The thing is borne out. The thing stands upon this double basis.

Now, you'll call to mind you Bible students, other things: the silver sockets of the tabernacle boards for instance - two of them for every board.

So it is. GOD will have everything Established, Confirmed, Ratified, Sure! No weakness; No question about it whatsoever.

If you and I are going to convey in testimony, in ministry anything of GOD, it's got to be something that is Absolutely Sure, Absolutely True, No Theory, No Guess Work, no "I think", or "My idea is so-and-so," but: I KNOW. 

I KNOW. This thing is something which is altogether beyond a question with me.

You see, that is taken up by the Apostle Paul in the passage we read about the trumpet not giving an uncertain sound. "If the trumpet gives an uncertain sound who will prepare for battle?" 

If the instrument is indefinite, well who knows what it's all about?

And I'm rather afraid that a good deal is like that, people really don't know what it's all about.

People are not quite sure about these Christians where they are, they're not quite sure that the Christians themselves know where they are.

Far too much indefiniteness, uncertainty, about many Christians.

And the point that I want to make is this dear friends: as the LORD'S people, and as the LORD'S witnesses, we have got to be very positive and very sure, we have got to be of that kind that no one is left in any doubt about this matter at all.

It is confirmed, it is established. And that they know that we know what we are talking about.

How necessary that is, is it not, in the Christian life, that there should be nothing weak and uncertain, indefinite about us.

It should all be a confirmed and established matter. And so it is two; it is attested, it is confirmed.

Now the purpose of these trumpets: for the calling of the assembly we read.

This is something that brings the LORD'S people together, that establishes the Relatedness, the Oneness, the Fellowship, the Solidity of the LORD'S people.

This is a unifying thing. The influence and effect of our lives must not be to scatter, disintegrate, divide.

It must be unifying in Christ...it is a great ministry to bring the LORD'S people together.

I can hear in the Psalms the trumpets sounding, oh, the trumpets sounding: "Gather My people together unto Me those that have made a covenant with Me by sacrifice.

Gather them together. Let us be careful that the influence of our life and our ministry, is not the opposite of consolidation, of strengthening relationships, of bringing together; change the metaphor: of healing of breaches.

Gather the people together. Again, the ordering of the life and the movement of the LORD'S people.

There's a very great need, a very great need indeed of that kind of ministry that helps people know which way to go, what they ought to do, gives them real direction for their lives, makes known to them what the purpose of GOD is and what the end of GOD is.

Now, it's very interesting to notice that these two silver trumpets come next to the cloud, the shekinah cloud that came to rest upon the tabernacle.

See, these things go together: the cloud, the pillar of cloud and the pillar of fire over the tabernacle was given for the guidance and the guidance that was given was always (when the people were rightly adjusted to GOD) always onward and always nearer and nearer to GOD'S great end in the type of the land, the Land Of Promise, with all its Spiritual Fullness, and Wealth, and Beauty... that was GOD'S object.

We as Christians know so well that the eternal purpose of GOD is right on to the fullness of Christ.

And the trumpets therefore proclaim first of all: purpose. 

~T. Austin Sparks~