NORTHERN STYLE NEWSWATCH No.23
CREDO ` Blow the trumpet in Tekoa '
Those who can remember the war years that began in 1939 will recall the reality of what was called `the phony war' in that year. The warning had been given; the people had prepared themselves for the onslaught; the news media of that time had banged the drum; the airways were almost tangibly alive - but nothing happened! At such a time as that, but in a much earlier setting in Israel, Jeremiah spoke: (Jeremiah 6:1)

" Flee for safety, people of Benjamin!
Flee from Jerusalem!
Blow the trumpet in Tekoa!
Raise the signal of fire over Beth Hakkerem!
For disaster looms out of the north,
even terrible destruction.
I will destroy the Daughter of Zion,
so beautiful and delicate.
Shepherds with their flocks will come against her;
they will pitch their tents round her,
each tending his own portion. "
The Bible students who read this Newswatch will understand the play on words that Jeremiah was using. Tekoa (a village to the south of Bethlehem) has a meaning within its name of `blowing . . a loud trumpet sound . . an uproar announcing something'. To emphasize the urgency of that blowing it was joined to `raising a signal, a sign of fire over Beth Hakkerem', which itself has a meaning of `the House of the Vineyard' - a town in Judea, raised up high, forming a part of a range of high places upon which fire signals were sent out to announce impending invasions. The people, hearing the words of Jeremiah, would know to whom he was speaking; Benjamin, the people of Jerusalem `the House of the Vineyard' of God. They, too, would have quickly understood the urgency of Jeremiah's words. The news media of those times would have indeed sounded the trumpet very loudly, and yet we know that it too became a `phony war' when in 497 BC Nebuchadnezzar's armies began their first seige of Jerusalem, which resulted in King Jehoiachin's captivity in Babylon along with others such as Daniel. And so the people settled down once more into their daily routine!

But the Spirit of Prophecy was speaking beyond that first sign, and we know that eventually the armies of Nebuchadnezzar returned, this time resulting in the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of its inhabitants. We need to remember that the ministry of Jeremiah was set within a 40 year Probation Period during which the Southern Kingdom of Judah's character was being tested - resulting in its failure and eventual captivity into Babylon. We also know that the Book of Jeremiah is not recorded in Scripture in any chronological order, for it is said by Jewish scribes to have been `cut up by God' as a perpetual reminder of King Jehoiachin's contempt for `the Word of the LORD' in cutting up and burning Jeremiah's prophecies as they were read out to him by Jehudi - as recorded in Jeremiah 36. So, with the `wars and rumours of wars' of those times in mind, we need to retrace our steps back to the warnings, and to the entreaties that would have been made by `the House of the Vineyard' before the final terrible events overtook the Southern Kingdom of Judah. For that we turn to the 2nd chapter of Jeremiah.

Keeping in mind the fact that, although the Book of Jeremiah follows no chronological order, there is a canonical, a spiritual order, to it - as would be expected if it is truly `God breathed'. In chapter 2 we therefore find the fourth prophecy which Jeremiah spoke, and as it is the fourth `Word' we understand it to be a testing of character within the words that follow: (Jeremiah 2:1-2)

" The word of the LORD came to me:
Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem:
I remember the devotion of your youth,
how as a bride you loved Me
and followed Me through the desert,
through a land not sown. "
This Word of the LORD opens with a reproach: `Proclaim' or (as recorded in some modern versions) `Remember'! Such is the feeling of God for His people that His grace always comes before judgement, and in this opening word `remember' there are both good and bad rememberances. Although the words are spoken in an `Exodus setting', they could not have referred to those who were physically brought out of Egypt, for they all died, apart from two, in their rebellion against God in the Wilderness. In this opening verse the LORD is speaking to those whose forefathers entered into the Land of Promise - the forefathers who were born in the time of the Wilderness journey and who together with Joshua and Caleb crossed over the Jordan into the Promised Land - and once in the Land:

" Joshua built on Mount Ebal an altar to the LORD, the God of Israel,
as Moses the servant of God had commanded the Israelites. " Joshua 8:30
As we read this account in the Book of Joshua we find the Israelites renewing the Covenant before Mount Ebal and Mount Gerizim - the blessings and the curses that were read out by Joshua before the assembled Israelites. This was the Covenant, a form of a Marriage Covenant made between God and the Israelites in the land of their inheritance, and in the opening verse of Jeremiah 2 the LORD is reminding them in reproachful remembrance of those heady days. In verses 4 through 6 the LORD then reminds them of those who were brought out of slavery but who died in the wilderness walk in rebellion and unbelief.

In view of this, the LORD says: (verse 9)

"Therefore, I bring charges against you . . . .
And I will bring charges against your children. "
which brings us into the time in which the LORD now remembers `the devotion of your youth, how as a bride you loved Me'. He is speaking here to a generation who knew the blessings but had chosen to forget them and settle (assimilate) into the cultures of the land:

"`Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But My people have exchanged their Glory
for worthless idols.
Be appalled at this, O heavens,
and shudder with great horror,'
declares the LORD. " (verses 11-12)
The righteous accusatons that follow are two-fold: (verse 13)

"They have forsaken Me (commited adultery)
and have dug their own cisterns. "
Concerned with themselves alone they had relied on their own strength, their own achievements - spoken of as natural cisterns that cannot hold the life-giving spiritual water from God - and in verse 19 we read of God's love and concern for the House of the Vineyard:

"`Your wickedness will punish you,
your backsliding will rebuke you.
Consider then and realise
how evil and bitter it is for you
when you forsake the LORD your God
and have no awe of Me'
declares the Lord, the LORD of Hosts. "
This, then, is the setting in chapter 6 of a 40 year Probation Period, in which we find the urgent call to sound one last trumpet and raise a signal of fire over Beth Hakkerem before the armies of Nebuchadnezzar lay siege to Jerusalem. And with that trumpet call we hear the loving cry of the LORD to His people: (Jeremiah 6:16-17)

"Stand at the crossroads and look,
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls.
But you said, `We will not walk in it'.
I appointed watchmen over you and said,
`Listen to the sound of the trumpet'.
But you said, `We will not listen'. "
This Probation Period ended with the destruction of Jerusalem and the captivity of the people of Judea in Babylon! But it was a foreshadowing of a later Probation Period of 40 years recorded in the Book of the Acts of the Apostles. From the time when Peter stood up to address `Fellow Jews and all of you who are in Jerusalem, let this be known to you' until the time when the work of the apostle Paul was rejected was a period of 40 years, culminating in the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70! This leads us into understanding of where we stand today, with our understanding that another 40 year Probation Period began in 1967 with the retaking of East Jerusalem! Is the LORD once again speaking to the House of the Vineyard?

"Blow the trumpet in Tekoa,
and raise the signal of fire over Beth Hakkerem. "
It has been said that when God moves, when He ploughs He ploughs not just the one furrow and turns up not just a single stone. And so when the Holy Spirit moved in 1967 and renewed the `Temple of God' in this Dispensation of Grace, He led the people of God, both `ancient and modern' into a Probation Period. The `Church' - so overjoyed at the renewing work of God, so preoccupied with playing with new-found spiritual gifts, and using ill-defined doctrine to cause splits and divisions within the Body of Christ - failed to see the other furrows that He had ploughed and failed to see the other stones He had upturned! With our blinkered eyes we failed to see the world-wide religious and national upheavals that occurred at the same time in other cultures which brought into the open the `chastening hands' that God would eventually use to warn His people as they later slid into apostacy - that which we now so casually refer to as `September 11th', of which we gave an overview in our Newswatch No. 20.

Following on from the momentous year of 1967, when Jerusalem was once more established as the eternal and undivided capital of Israel and the Holy Spirit was released in great power in His Church, we then watched with horror as the Oslo Peace Accord unfolded and Israel invited into her land a `Palestinian Authority' - her sworn enemy who had as its own aim the utter destruction of Israel! `The Church', joined as it is in a parallel journey with Israel, at the same time invited into its land an `alien spirit' (in Christian circles known as the Toronto Blessing or Experience), which is intent upon the destruction of the spiritual life of the Church. Later this alien spirit masked itself, covering over its intentions through such work as the Alpha Course et. al. - all in the cause of unity and peace! There was no clear rejection of this amongst the `leaders' of the Church; all was accepted in the name of unity and peace, and the odd few people who warned concerning this false spirit were brushed aside as `trouble makers'. Today little is heard of `Catch the Fire', but the work of this alien spirit has left behind confusion and deadness with little Scriptural understanding of the times in which we find ourselves, and even after the `wake up call' of September 11th soothing words are all that is heard as once again the Word of God is cut up and thrown into the fire in order to soothe the people into a false peace.

It is said that chapter 2 of the Book of Jeremiah, with which we began this Newswatch, was the first to be rewritten after Jeremiah's writings had been cut up and thrown into the fire by King Jehoiakin. But, as always, God's grace is given before judgement comes, and as we approach the last years of this Probation Period we would suggest that the Word of the LORD remains the same, and it is the reproach spoken by God through Jeremiah:

"I remember the devotion of your youth,
how as a bride you loved Me. "
We would say that this reproach has been given once more! If so, what now lies immediately ahead of Israel and the Church after the urgent Sound of the Trumpet can be seen in chapter 6 of the Book of Jeremiah. A careful reading of the whole chapter and an understanding of the final outworking of past Probation Periods we have spoken of will indeed lead to many being called to:

"Stand at the crossroads and look,
ask for the ancient paths,
ask where the good way is, and walk in it,
and you will find rest for your souls. "
How the remainder of the verse works out in the Church and Israel today is known only to God! All we are certain of is this: If these warnings are from Him, and there is a response, then His enabling will take all of us through the testing time that is to come, and the reproach will be turned from His people to His eternal Glory.

Amen.

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