The Declining Day

Jeremiah 6:1-5 ESV

1 Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms out of the north, and great destruction. 2 The lovely and delicately bred I will destroy, the daughter of Zion. 3 Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her; they shall pitch their tents around her; they shall pasture, each in his place. 4 “Prepare war against her; arise, and let us attack at noon! Woe to us, for the day declines, for the shadows of evening lengthen! 5 Arise, and let us attack by night and destroy her palaces!”

If there is one thing that all people by nature don’t like to do, it’s to be the bearer of bad news. Some people deal with relaying bad news better than others, but it seems as though all people have a certain level of discomfort about doing it.

And the reasons why are because first and foremost, we don’t want to see someone in distress, and when we relay bad news to someone, we almost feel as though we are the cause of their distress.

Another reason why we don’t like to relay bad news to someone is because the news itself troubles us, and therefore relaying something that is already troubling to us is going to be even more troubling to us as we relay it to someone else.

And lastly, we don’t like to relay bad news because the one who we relay the bad news to might get angry at hearing what we have to tell them. You’ve heard the saying, “Don’t shoot the messenger!” it means to not get angry at the person who relays bad news.

And quite often that’s exactly what happens, and because people often get very angry when they have bad news relayed to them, the one who bears the bad news would almost prefer to keep it to himself.

It is never a comfortable situation, but there are indeed times when it has to be done, regardless of the fact that it involves a great level of discomfort.

The series of messages that I will be delivering to you in the month of September will be from Jeremiah, chapter 6, verses 1-21.

This passage is one of those passages that 99% of preachers try to pretend isn’t there. It is one of those passages that many wish was not in the Bible. It is a passage that is not what you would call “politically correct”. It is a passage that can certainly be classified as “bad news”.

But it is a passage that contains information that this entire nation needs to hear and be aware of right now, because this passage is about a civilization that has refused to repent at the call of God and now it must face God’s judgment as a result.

And relaying this message to the people who dwelt in Jerusalem, the city of David, the chosen city of God was the task of Jeremiah the prophet.

You see, what I think made the ministry of Jeremiah and several of the other prophets so hard is that he basically only had bad news to deliver to the ones he prophesied to. It may have been the job of other prophets to call people to repentance, warning them that God’s judgment would follow if they do not repent, but by the time Jeremiah came around, the opportunity to repent had basically come and gone.

Therefore, because the appointed time to repent had come and gone due to the peoples refusing to repent, the only message that Jeremiah had for the people of Jerusalem was that the verdict is out, God’s judgment abides upon them, and disaster is certain and soon to occur.

This was the message that Jeremiah the prophet brought to the people of Jerusalem… needless to say, it was a message that was not well-received. In fact, it was a message that incited anger and hatred from the inhabitants of Jerusalem towards Jeremiah.

The people could not bear to hear that because the chosen city of God had rejected Him, He had rejected the chosen city. They did not want to hear it because they did not want to believe it. But though it was an unpopular message, it was a message that needed to be proclaimed and heard.

Because the people refuse to repent and are adamant in their rebellion against God, God is now ready to send disaster upon Jerusalem.

Seeing that there is no turning back now, the 6th chapter of Jeremiah begins with the following words:

Jeremiah 6:1 ESV

1 Flee for safety, O people of Benjamin, from the midst of Jerusalem! Blow the trumpet in Tekoa, and raise a signal on Beth-haccherem, for disaster looms out of the north, and great destruction.

Because those of Jerusalem have refused to repent of their evil, they must be dealt with, therefore, it is told to those who were from the tribe of Benjamin who dwelt in Jerusalem to rise up and leave the city while they still could.

God also calls Tekoa to blow the trumpet and for Beth-haccherem to raise a signal. These were both towns south of Jerusalem, and out of the north, out of Jerusalem, disaster and great destruction loomed. Thus, God called the faithful ones who lived in these towns to send out the signal of distress so that they will be prepared.

This reminds me of the man named “Christian” in the book, The Pilgrim’s Progress who, knowing that the city that he was dwelling in would be destroyed by God, fled his home, and began his pilgrimage to the celestial city.

And just as Jerusalem, I truly believe that this nation has been completed given over by God for judgment. We in this nation have known what is right, what is good, what is holy, but we have looked upon that which is holy and have abhorred it. Rather than loving that which is holy, we have knowingly loved what we know is a lie.

I don’t believe the question is if our nation will face God’s judgment, but rather, when will it face God’s judgment. Therefore, like the Benjaminites dwelling in Jerusalem, we too must flee!

But when I tell you to flee, I’m not telling you to flee from the country like God was telling those from the tribe of Benjamin in Jerusalem. When I say that we must flee what I mean is that we cannot hope in our nation, in our society, in our leaders, in our culture.

I honestly believe that our nation has gone too far from God and there’s no coming back, we have rejected Him, now He rejects us. Therefore, we must come out of this people; we must stand contrary to this people and stand for the truth.

But for a godless people, all there is to look forward to is judgment. Once again, we see that this is the case for Jerusalem in our reading, where it says:

Jeremiah 6:2-3 ESV

2 The lovely and delicately bred I will destroy, the daughter of Zion. 3 Shepherds with their flocks shall come against her; they shall pitch their tents around her; they shall pasture, each in his place.

Here we see Jerusalem being described by the name that God had affectionately given to her: “Daughter Zion”. But what that word “Zion” means is: dry, waterless, even desert. What this reveals is that the people of Jerusalem are naturally powerless. But God didn’t choose them because of any kind of power that they possessed; rather, He chose them simply because it was His will to do so.

But even after choosing them, God did not make the people of Jerusalem hardened and skilled at warfare, rather, our reading says that Daughter Zion is “lovely and delicately bred”. This reveals that as Jerusalem was fully dependent upon God when He chose her, so is she still fully dependent upon Him.

But though she is fully dependent upon Him, she has despised her God and attempted to break free of His rightful rule over her. Therefore, though she depends upon God and needs Him to help her every step of the way, she despises God.

Does that sound familiar? Is our nation not doing the same thing this very day? It has been God’s will and good pleasure to bless our nation for many years, for nearly two and a half centuries, and whether those in our nation want to admit it or not, we have been forced to depend on God every step of the way… we have no choice but to depend on God!

But now our nation despises the thought of God, despises His rightful rule over us, and desires to break free of God’s sovereign rule over us.

Well, after the people of Jerusalem sought to break away enough, God gave them over to their desires. But because their desires consisted of not being in league with God, they had to go with the alternative, which was being at odds with God.

Therefore, God says that He personally will destroy Jerusalem. And He will do this by using those who oppose Jerusalem, foreign armies as His instruments of wrath.

This does not mean that God will cause these foreign armies to attack, you know, make them come. No, they already want to come and destroy Jerusalem. All God is going to do is let them do what they already want to do. But in letting them come and do what they want to, God is by extension punishing Jerusalem.

And we see in our reading that the attack is a complete attack, a total takeover in the first part of verse 4 and then in all of verse 5, where we read the invaders saying:

Jeremiah 6:4a, 5 ESV

4a “Prepare war against her; arise, and let us attack at noon!

And then down in verse 5 they say:

5 Arise, and let us attack by night and destroy her palaces!”

They cry out, “Let us attack at noon!” “Let us attack by night!” This shows that day and night there shall be destruction, nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. The time to repent has come and gone; now Daughter Zion must reap what she has sown.

The reaction that Jeremiah the prophet has to this revelation given to him is found in the second half of verse 4, which reads:

Jeremiah 6:4b ESV

4b Woe to us, for the day declines, for the shadows of evening lengthen!

This is not good news. The people will soon suffer, will soon be scattered, will soon face the awful, yet righteous wrath of God. And there is nothing joyful about that.

Jeremiah declares that the day, the favor of God is slipping away from the people of Jerusalem and becoming less and less, while the shadows of evening, the displeasure and wrath of God is lengthening, becoming greater and greater, approaching nearer and nearer.

That is not something to get excited about at all, so Jeremiah cries out “Woe to us!”.

But even in Jerusalem, there was still a remnant of God’s people, true believers who follow Him alone. But just because they are believers doesn’t mean that they won’t have to suffer the consequences of their sin-ridden society. It’s not like the foreign armies that attack Jerusalem are going to plunder everyone except those that trust in God, no, they too will suffer.

But we do read of hope in situations like this over in the book of Amos, chapter 9, verse 9, which reads:

Amos 9:9 ESV

9 “For behold, I will command, and shake the house of Israel among all the nations as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth.

In other words, God says that the whole house of Israel, those who are righteous and those who are not righteous will be shaken, will experience the judgment of God. And while the unrighteous will have their condemnation justifiably sealed, those who are righteous, God shall cause to persevere.

God says that He will shake Israel as one shakes with a sieve, but no pebble shall fall to the earth. In other words, this shaking will make manifest the enemies of God; they will be as those who fall to the earth after being shaken like a sieve.

But those whom God has graciously saved will persevere through this. They will also have been shaken, they will also be subjected to the judgment of God, but they will not only remain by God, but they will also come out of this closer to God, more sanctified by God than they were before.

Beloved, I have a feeling that God will soon be shaking this nation of ours like a sieve. I believe that God will shortly make His judgment and His wrath known to us. How He will do it is not known, but it indeed is coming.

May we trust in God alone, recognizing our dependence upon Him and owning Him in a crooked, perverse generation that we may withstand the shaking!

Amen?