Set thy trumpet to thy mouth.
The Gospel trumpet
1. By sounding the Gospel trumpet the mind of God can alone be communicated to man. The voice of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost must be heard from the Scriptures. To the whole Christian priesthood the command is given, “Preach the Word.”
2. It is the purpose that all shall hear and obey the Gospel trumpet. The silver trumpet of the wilderness was for the entire encampment. “Preach the Gospel to every creature.”
3. In setting the trumpet to the mouth, we must give no uncertain sound. In the ordinance of the silver trumpet the greatest care was taken to instruct the sons of Aaron in its proper use. What is the Gospel? Is it not this?
(1) Man is a sinner, and responsible for his own salvation.
(2) Jesus Christ is the only Saviour.
(3) Man’s part in his salvation is faith in the Lord Jesus. The faith must trust wholly in God, and produce a pure life.
(4) In the Gospel trumpet is Divine power; hence hope of victory over every spiritual foe. Intemperance, infidelity, Sabbath desecration, indifferentism, sin in the heart--these are the Jerichos of our day. Where is the hope of taking these strongholds of Satan? The preaching of the Cross as the power of God. Then set this Gospel trumpet to thy mouth! (A. H. Moment.)
As an eagle against the house of the Lord, because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against My law.
The conventional Church
These words are singularly abrupt, and indicate the suddenness of the threatened invader. By “the house of the Lord” we are to understand Israel as a section of the professed people of God.
I. As endangered. How comes the eagle? Ravenously, suddenly, and swiftly. A conventional Church is in greater danger than any secular community, because--
1. Its guilt is greater.
2. Its influence is more pernicious.
Whose influence on society is the most baneful--the man who denies God, the man who ignores Him, or the man who misrepresents Him? The conventional Church gives society a mal-representation of God and His religion.
II. As warned. Blow a blast that shall thrill every heart in the vast congregation of Israel. Why sound the warning?
1. Because the danger is tremendous.
2. Because the danger is at hand.
3. Because the danger may be avoided.
What is wanted now is a ministry of warning to conventional Churches.
III. As repentant. “Israel shall cry unto Me, My God, we know Thee.” Oh hasten the day when all conventional Churches shall be brought to a deep and experimental knowledge of God and His Son! when this transpires the dense cloud that has concealed the sun of Christianity shall be swept away, and the quickening beam shall fall on every heart. (Homilist.)
God coming in judgment
whatever be the local and particular references as to the eagle, the great principle remains from age to age that God comes to judgment in various forms, always definitely, and always, as we shall see, intelligibly, not only inflicting vengeance as a Sovereign whose covenants have been outraged, but condescending to explain the reasons upon which His most destructive judgments are based. Thus we read, “Because they have transgressed My covenant, and trespassed against My law”: the covenant had been broken by idolatry, and the law had been violated by social sins. It is needful to mark this distinction with great particularity, because it shows the breadth of the Divine commandment. God is not speaking about a merely metaphysical law,--a law which can only be interpreted by the greatest minds, and put into operation on the sublimest occasions of life; He is speaking about a law which had indeed its lofty religious aspects, but which had also its social, practical, tender phases, in whose preservation every man, woman, and child in the kingdom ought to be interested. God has made it clear that sin is always a crime. Whoever sins against God sins against his own soul. Once let God’s beneficent laws be violated, and the man does not only suffer metaphysically, or go down in some practical quantity or quality, but he actually suffers in body and estate, sometimes apparently, always really. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)