Jeremiah 23:21-24 - Who can hide in secret places

23:21,22

The false prophets had not been sent by God. False prophets and teachers will often claim to be speaking godly wisdom, but they are just so much hot air. A sign of a true prophet is that they have stood in the council of the Lord, listening to the word of God. And the fruit of their preaching is to turn people from their evil ways. Oh how foolish we are when we affirm people in their sins thinking we are acting in love!

23:23,24

At the time people tended to associate gods and idols with particular geographical areas, or particular spheres of influence. The thinking of the world can easily impact the thinking of God’s people, and we need to be aware of this. So God here reminds His people that He is not like other gods. He is truly God, and not limited to particular areas. So while the people would be far away in Babylon, this was no obstacle to God, and He was all powerful over Babylon.

Matthew 11:4-6 - Good new is proclaimed to the poor

11:4,5

Jesus does not give John’s disciples a simple yes-no answer. In fact, Jesus only rarely give yes-no answers. Instead He told them to report back to John what they heard and saw. Secularists often describe faith as believing something when there is no evidence, or despite the evidence. That is not a definition that the Bible recognises. God is always supplying evidence! So Jesus tells them to report what He is preaching and what He is doing. And in relation to the doing, the blind receive sight, the lame can walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor. Jesus is doing all that Isaiah said the Lord’s Servant would do.

11:6

There is both a warning and an encouragement in this verse. Following Jesus will bring challenges, sometimes it will go against our natural mind, our flesh. In those times we must choose Jesus, we must choose to believe in Him. If we do that then we will be blessed, it is worth going against our flesh.

Jeremiah 23:16-20 - Do not listen to false prophets

23:16,17

The false prophets said everything would be OK, that God would not let Babylon conquer the land, but all they were doing was to give the people false hope. And this false hope stopped them repenting. Their so-called visions were produced by their own minds, they were not from the Lord Himself. So the people should not listen to them. So we see that both the false prophets and the hearers have a responsibility. The false prophets should have stopped speaking lies, but the hearers should not listen to them. We have a responsibility to be careful about what we listen to. “To those who follow the stubbornness of their hearts they say “No harm will come to you”. This is not kindness. To tell people that sin is not sin is to deceive them, to encourage them down a road of destruction.

23:18-20

These false prophets claimed to be wise, but they had not “stood in the council of the Lord”. They had not listened to His word. Likewise, today if anyone claims to be wise but they are not instructed by the word of God then they are not wise at all. So what will happen? The storm of the Lord’s wrath will break out. And there will be no turning back of this wrath. It is absolutely imperative that we listen to the word of God. To do anything else is utter foolishness and can have dire consequences. The Lord will accomplish His purposes, and a time will come when we will understand that.

Matthew 11:1-3 - Are you the one who is to come?

Jeremiah 23:13-15 - I will make them eat bitter food

23:13,14

We now get some concrete examples of this godlessness. In Samaria (the northern kingdom of Israel) they prophesied by Baal. This was not just wrong, it led the people astray.  In Jerusalem the prophets committed adultery and lived a lie. So we have both “theological” error, if you like, and immoral behaviour. They strengthened the hands of evildoers. This happens in various ways in the church. There are times and places when people commit financial crimes of various sorts, and the church has colluded with this. In the Catholic church in recent years there have been terrible crimes and cover-ups with regard to child abuse. However, these sort of things are not limited to the Catholic church. Then there are many churches that encourage sexually immoral behaviour. These things are an appalling offence to God. The church should be encouraging sinners to repentance, not to continue in their sin!

23:15

False teaching and false prophecy is not just a matter of giving an alternative point of view, it is a matter of feeding poison to people. The false prophets had given bitter food and poisoned water to the people, so God would make them eat bitter food and drink poisoned water. The fruit of their work had been for ungodliness to spread throughout the land.

Matthew 10:40-42 - That person will certainly be rewarded

10:40-42

The passage closes on a more positive note, and we need to take both the severe warnings and the positives together. It is not one or the other, but both. We are Christ’s representatives, if someone welcomes us, and that is us acting as Christ’s ambassadors, then they welcome Christ. If someone welcomes a prophet because they are a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward. And if someone welcomes a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. Note that Jesus does talk quite a lot about rewards. This also implies that it does not matter what role we have in life. We might think that it is the “top people” who get the top rewards. So Pastors, evangelists, prophets, etc will get the greatest rewards. This is not so. We are to be faithful in whatever God has called us to. So even if all we seem to be doing is a small thing, such as giving a cup of water to one of Christ’s servants, then we will receive a reward. We are to do whatever God calls us to do, whether that seems to be prominent or hidden, whether it seems to be big or small. Obeying Christ is the key.

Jeremiah 23:9-12 - They will be banished to darkness

23:9,10

After the great promises we return to the desperate reality of the day, and Jeremiah feels it. There are these great promises, Jeremiah sees something of how wonderful things could be, but instead the land is full of adulterers, of people who were unfaithful to the Lord. Jeremiah felt this so deeply within himself that he was like a drunken man. Instead of the land being under a blessing it was under a curse. The prophets did not speak the word of the Lord, but used their power unjustly. When we look at our society it is not just the mess that we are in that should sadden us, but how wonderful things could be if only we would trust the Lord.

23:11,12

“Both prophet and priest are godless”. This is the terrible state that the nation was in, people who were meant to be leaders in helping the people to follow God were godless. Sadly, this is the state in many churches today. We are meant to be godly people. This is just about how we live our lives morally (though it does include that!), it means we look to God for all things. Notice also that prophets were seen as an essential and key element of the religious leadership in the nation. We should also note that the New Testament assumes that prophets are a part of the leadership in the church. Now while there are some who claim to be prophets who are clearly not, and sometimes utter rubbish is spoken in the name of prophecy, this is not grounds for saying there should not be prophets. False prophets abounded in Jeremiah’s time! I can see no Biblical case whatsoever for denying a role for prophecy in the church today.

False prophets and ungodly leaders should beware, for God will bring severe judgement upon them.