Now we return to the deluge of judgement, this time aimed at the false prophets. False prophets have a section or two of their own in most of the major prophets. Jeremiah is appalled at the state of the nation.
A prophet was meant to deliver the word of God, to tell the nation how they were doing compared to the Law. Instead they acted unjustly and plotted evil. "Prophet and priest are godless". Sadly the same could be said about sizeable chunks of the church today. Evil even happened within the temple. In the same way evil happens within the leadership of the church, but disaster will come, they will not get away with it for ever.
In Samaria (the northern kingdom) they even prophesied by Baal. In Jerusalem prophets committed adultery. Evil ran throughout Israel, north and south.
So the Lord instructs the people not to listen to the prophets. For they spoke out of their own minds, not out of the mind of God. They prophesied peace when there was no peace. In charismatic churches we do need to be careful about prophecy. It can easily be used just to tell people what they want to hear. At the same time, note that the answer is not to abandon prophecy, but to prophecy properly.
A true prophet stands in the council of God and proclaims God's word. This does not just mean new revelations, or "personal words", but includes applying the written word of God, assessing current events in the light of God's written word. A prophet needs to be most careful that he does not prophecy falsely.
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