Filthy, Lying Prophets

It was about 600 years before the birth of Jesus and gloom and despair hung thickly in the air of Jerusalem. The mighty Babylonian army was moving toward Jerusalem with unstoppable force to conquer it and remove its people into exile. It was only a matter of time, or was it? The priests and the prophets and the preachers were telling a different story. They were saying that the looming disaster was only a mirage and that God would rescue his people and his temple once again like in the days of old. They claimed to have visions about this and spoke flattering words to the fearful people. Maybe they were saying something akin to what one of our modern TV preachers say; “you are the apple of God’s eye and his favor is taking you where you could never have gone on your own. No matter how dark and gloomy it looks in your life now, if you’ll release the weight of those burdens, you will see the sun break forth. Get this down in your spirit: today—this season of your life—is going to be filled with favor, increase, promotion and blessing. Nothing is impossible with God.” Sounds good doesn’t it?

Along comes the prophet Jeremiah who throws down some judgment - yes, judgment, the most politically incorrect sin of the modern age - and Jeremiah calls the prophets woefully inadequate shepherds who were destroying God’s people. He said that they had sold out to the political forces of the day, that they were committing adultery, that they helped no one and that when they preached no one ever repented of their sin. Those are some pretty harsh words. How dare he judge those preachers! Who gave him the right to question the other prophets? He even declares that they have not stood in the council of the Lord; that they had never actually heard from God that they just made this stuff up in their own heads. You can read the whole thing in Jeremiah 23.

Then Jeremiah makes the following statement: “Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat? declares the Lord. Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another” (Jeremiah 23:28 – 30). Jeremiah thunders that the difference between the word of God and the word of men is like the difference between straw and wheat. His words are not stolen from others and repeated vainly but rather his word comes like fire and comes like a sledgehammer, his word comes with force and with power. In other words there is a gigantic difference between the impact of a word that comes from God and the word that is generated from a filthy, lying prophet.

So here we are 2700 years later and things really haven’t changed that much. While more and more people abandon the semblance of a Christian faith the popular religious gurus of the age continue to preach health, wealth, prosperity, self-help principles, feel good ideologies and pop psychology instead of the cross. Their words are recorded and written down and then borrowed or stolen from others who are hoping to taste success. While our land is being assaulted from without and within many of our celebrity prophets have no word from God, only borrowed words from others. Jeremiah 23:18 states, “For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?” While we have been busy trying to be relevant and popular we have failed to stand in the council of the Lord and hear his fresh words.

Was Jeremiah judgmental? You bet he was. Am I being judgmental? You bet I am. Isn’t it time that we abandon our fascination with the celebrity Christian living in the multi-million-dollar home in the gated community surrounded by security forces while they churn out sermons and books and speeches full of pablum that sells for $25 in a Christian bookstore that is full of Jesus junk and trinkets of the faith? Don’t you long to hear from someone who has stood in the council of God and has emerged from that meeting with a word that contains fire and hits like a hammer? How long can you stay in that denomination that is systematically explaining away the Bible and celebrating sinful behavior as normal as if what God has declared doesn’t count anymore? How long can you stay in the church of that preacher who simply buys somebody else’s sermons and preaches them because there is no word from God? How long will you give your money to that TV preacher who is promising you easy street because you, secretly, are as greedy as he is?

It was sickening to Jeremiah to see the filthy, lying prophets exploiting the people’s vulnerability. It should be as equally sickening to us. Pray for your preachers. Pray for your prophets. Pray that they might hear a fresh word from God. And pray that they might it may come out of them like fire and like a hammer as well.