An Uncertain Sound

I decided to go for a walk in the woods behind my house. After a short walk, I ended up climbing up in the old tree house that is overlooking the creek. It was a beautiful fall afternoon with a gentle south breeze blowing. I started thinking about the varied sounds that I was hearing in the woods. The wind was rustling the leaves on the ground. Acorns were dropping onto the ground every few seconds. Occasionally I would hear the creaking sound of two tree limbs running against each other.


The woods produce a great variety of sounds. These sounds are strange and sometimes disturbing to the untrained ear. Many times, while deer hunting, I would hear what I thought was a deer walking through the woods, only to find out that it was an armadillo rooting around in the leaves. During an ice storm I keep hearing what sounded like gun shots in the woods behind my house. On later investigation I discovered that the noise was coming from trees that were breaking under the weight of their ice laden limbs.

The night time brings even more uncertain and sometimes frightening sounds. The eastern screech owl has a call that sounds just like a woman screaming! When a group of coyotes gather in the woods behind my house and start yelping, it makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck! I even had some new neighbors who called 911 when they first heard the coyotes!

My first night in the Amazon jungle was one that I will never forget. I was staying in a thatched roofed bamboo hut that was about 10 foot above the ground on stilts. The hut was directly under some type of fruit tree. All night long I heard the continual sounds of the tree's berries dropping on the hut's thatched roof, rolling down to the edge of the roof, and then after a second or so, the sound of them splattering on the ground. None of the jungle's night creature sounds were familiar to me. I wasn't sure if the sounds were coming from crickets, frogs, birds, or whatever! It seemed like hours had passed by before I finally drifted off to sleep.

In Bible time the sound of the trumpet was used to direct soldiers during a battle. The soldier's ears had to be trained to hear and interpret the sounds of the trumpet. I Corinthians 14:8 says "if the trumpet gives an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?" The watchmen on the walls of the Bible time cities also used a trumpet to warn the people of impending danger.

There is another trumpet sound, talked about in the Bible, that nobody wants to miss! I Thessalonians 4:16 tells us that a trumpet sound will signal the second coming of Christ and that we will all rise to meet Jesus in the air! So don't be too disturbed by the various "uncertain sounds" of the woods but be on guard for that great and last trumpet call of Jesus!