Blow the trumpet!

“Announce in Judah and proclaim in Jerusalem and say: ‘Sound the trumpet throughout the land!’ Cry aloud and say: ‘gather together! Let us flee to the fortified cities! Raise the signal to go to Zion! Flee for safety without delay!’

For I am bringing disaster from the North, even terrible destruction. A lion has come out from his lair; a destroyer of nations has set out. He has left his place to lay waste your land. Your towns will lie in ruins without inhabitant. So put on sackcloth, lament and wail, for the fierce anger of the Lord has not turned away from us.” (Jeremiah 4:5-9)

This is Jeremiah at his strongest and most confident; delivering a broadside in the early days of his ministry when news had reached Jerusalem that the Babylonian army was on the march. The whole pronouncement is in poetry, which would no doubt have made it more striking for those who heard it in Jerusalem, at a time of complacency and comparative prosperity.

It is difficult to date this passage but the indications are that it came soon after the untimely death of Josiah and early in the reign of his son Jehoiakim, which puts it in the period 607-600 BC. The Babylonians were busy acquiring sections of the old Assyrian Empire and steadily moving towards Judah (the Northern Kingdom of Israel having already been scattered by the Assyrians).

This proclamation from Jeremiah is a perfect example of the prophetic ministry in action, performing his role as the ‘watchman’ of the nation and messenger of God. It is a series of announcements, each in the imperative to add drama to the news being conveyed: “A lion has come out of his lair; a destroyer of nations has set out” (v7). But this was no ordinary piece of news. The Babylonians may have been the army that was threatening Judah and the holy city of Jerusalem, but the agent was God!

Claiming Immunity

Ever since the Temple, envisioned by King David but built by Solomon, was dedicated, it had been more than just a place of worship for the God of Israel. It was a living monument to the covenant between God and the house of David – the dynasty that David founded, that was endorsed and blessed by the Lord.

Hear God’s solemn promise at the dedication: “If My People who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land” (2 Chron 7:14).

This proclamation from Jeremiah is a perfect example of the prophetic ministry in action

That promise had become the focal point of a ‘royal-temple ideology’¹ that screened out covenantal reality and permitted self-deception. The aristocratic families surrounding the King who were in charge of the national government, and the priestly aristocratic families who were in charge of the Temple, were all under the deception that Jerusalem (represented by the Temple) was inviolable and that Judah as the Promised Land could never be invaded by a foreign army because it was under the protection of Almighty God. It was this delusion that Jeremiah’s harsh poetic pronouncement aimed to dispel.

Jeremiah alone seemed to perceive that they had failed to recognise that their covenantal relationship with God was conditional! It was conditional upon the people of Israel being totally faithful to the Torah, with the Decalogue at its centre – especially having no other God than Yahweh, the God of Israel.

Judgment Inevitable

The royal-temple ideology assumed that the covenantal conditions were fulfilled through morning and evening prayers in the Temple, conducted by the priests on behalf of the nation. But this was a mere religious ordinance.

This was the message that Jeremiah was called by God to proclaim (hence the imperative in his poetry): “Sound the trumpet throughout the land!” The purpose of sounding the trumpet was not simply to warn of the dangers on the international horizon, but to bring a message of warning from God: “I am bringing disaster from the north, even terrible destruction”.

There is no call for repentance in this pronouncement – only a call to put on sackcloth and lament. Jeremiah perceived the inevitability of judgment upon the nation and he knew the hardness of the hearts of the people. He had already called for them to break up their un-ploughed ground - the hardness of their hearts - but there had been no visible response.

Without repentance and turning, the covenantal relationship between God and Israel was dead. In fact, it was worse than that: it was a dangerous delusion that would bring disaster upon all the people, the priests and the prophets as well as the King and his family. No-one would be spared.

But the stark message of this pronouncement was that it was not the Babylonians who should be feared, but the God of Israel who had been deserted through the idolatrous practices of the people. There were even hints of this within the Temple itself, which showed the utter spiritual corruption that had become embedded into the nation.

Jeremiah perceived the inevitability of judgment upon the nation and he knew the hardness of the hearts of the people.

Depths of Conviction

The poetic pronouncement concluded with a declaration from God himself, beginning with the apocalyptic phase “In that day”. It stated the stark reality of the judgment that was about to descend upon Judah: “The King and the officials will lose heart, the priests will be horrified, and the prophets will be appalled.”

The fact that there is no ‘unless’ - no call for repentance or softening of the message - shows the depths of conviction that Jeremiah had received in his time of standing in the council of the Lord. In those moments in the presence of the God of Israel, time had been suspended, the future had become the present, shadow had become reality. The full horror that was about to descend upon the nation had been revealed to the Prophet. Like the Apostle Paul some 500 years later, he could not keep silent: “Woe unto me if I do not declare the truth of the word of God!” (1 Cor 9:16).

Of course, Jeremiah knew that if there were repentance in the nation, the Babylonian army could not penetrate the walls of Jerusalem or bring devastation to the cities of Judah, because there was no power on earth that could defeat the God of Israel. But he also knew the hardness of the hearts of the king and the priests and the leaders of the nation, who were blinded by a powerful spirit of corruption from the world that prevented them from perceiving the truth.

We Need Prophets!

The New Testament has many warnings of a similar blindness coming in the days leading up to the Second Coming of Jesus. 2 Timothy 3 speaks of this and the letters of Peter have strong warnings of the delusion that will drive the nations into a time of darkness and infect the Church with different forms of corruption.

Those who have prophetic gifts today need to spend more time in the council of the Lord, as Jeremiah did, and then to declare boldly what they are hearing and seeing revealed. In these days when the leaders of the Western nations have turned away from truth, and when many church leaders are also blinded by various forms of spiritual delusion so that they are unable to declare the word of the Lord, the greatest need is for the Lord to raise up prophets in our midst.

May those who have learned to stand in the council of the Lord, to recognise his voice, to understand how he is working out his purposes today – be given boldness by the Holy Spirit to declare the word of the Living God in this godless generation that is hungry for truth, but does not know where to find it.

References

1 E.g. Brueggemann, 1999. A commentary on Jeremiah: Exile and homecoming. Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.

This article is part of a series. Click here to read previous instalments.