Two weeks ago, we began to look at Jeremiah's impassioned condemnation of the prophets,
Jeremiah chapter 23. From verses 9 to 24, we reflected on the power and the fragility
of God's Word. We were exhorted to resist the temptation to fortify the truth
with falsehoods that people want to hear, but to remember that the power of God's Word is exercised
through weakness, clothed in flesh. Today, we're going to be looking at the rest of the passage,
verses 25 to 40. The first half tackles prophetic dreams. The second half condemns prophetic messages.
Now, if you just look this up, I'm going to be reading it from the NLT. So,
you might want to switch versions. We're reading the NLT in chapel this term, so I decided today,
let's use the NLT as a preaching text. Of the four translations we read in chapel each year,
the ESV is the most Hebrew-y and the NLT is the most English-y, but that doesn't make it the least
accurate. There are some big translation challenges in this section and in my judgment, ESV and NLT
get almost identical accuracy scores, so I thought let's try to model preaching from a Bible that's
already done the work of explaining what the Hebrew means. I'll give it a go. Let me pray,
then I'll read the passage. Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your Word, Your Word of life,
and we pray that You would implant it in our hearts and transform us by it so that we may be
like Christ, a light to the world. Amen. Jeremiah chapter 23, verse 25.
I have heard these prophets say, listen to the dream I had from God last night,
and then they proceed to tell lies in my name. How long will this go on? If they are prophets,
they're prophets of deceit, inventing everything they say. By telling these false dreams, they're
trying to get my people to forget me, just as their ancestors did by worshiping the idols of Baal.
Let these false prophets tell their dreams, but let my true messengers faithfully proclaim
my every word. There is a difference between straw and grain. Does not my word burn like fire,
says the Lord? Is it not the mighty hammer that smashes a rock to pieces? Therefore, says the
Lord, I am against these prophets who steal messages from each other and claim they're from me.
Yes, says the Lord, I am against these smooth-tongued prophets who say this prophecy is for the Lord.
I am against these false prophets, says the Lord. Their imaginary dreams are flagrant lies
that lead my people into sin. I did not send or appoint them, and they have no message at all
for my people. I, the Lord, have spoken. Suppose one of the people or one of the prophets or priests
asks you, what prophecy has the Lord burdened you with now? You must reply, you are the burden.
The Lord says he will abandon you. If any prophet, priest, or anyone else says, I have a prophecy
from the Lord, I will punish that person along with his entire family. You should keep asking each
other, what is the Lord's answer? Or what is the Lord's saying? But stop using this phrase,
prophecy from the Lord, for people are using it to give authority to their own ideas,
turning upside down the words of our God, the living God, the Lord of heaven's armies.
This is what you should say to the prophets, what is the Lord's answer? Or what is the Lord's saying?
But suppose I respond, this is a prophecy from the Lord, then you should say, this is what the
Lord says. Because you've used this phrase, prophecy from the Lord, even though I warned you not to
use it, I will forget you completely. I will expel you from my presence along with this city that I
gave to you and your ancestors, and I will make you an object of ridicule, and your name will be
infamous throughout the ages. Prophetic dreams, prophetic messages. I've heard these prophets say,
listen to the dream I had from God last night. Think first of all, we need to clarify what the
issue with dreams was. Over in chapter 31 of Jeremiah, after a vision of a gloriously renewed
Israel, the prophet says, at this I awoke and looked around, my sleep had been pleasant to me.
It sounds like God spoke to Jeremiah in a dream, just like he would do to Joseph when
Mary fell pregnant with Jesus. The problem with the prophets in this passage is that they think
it must be from God because it's a dream. But dreams are dangerous, aren't they? It's like
that old saying, did God speak to you in a dream, or did you dream that God spoke to you?
When the prophets say in verse 25, listen to the dream I had from God last night,
I think we're meant to understand that they're being genuine. Yes, their dreams are lies,
but the prophets of deceit deceive themselves before they deceive anyone else.
Like many modern prophets, these ancient prophets believed that genuine prophecy is
accompanied by a particular kind of experience. And that when you get that experience, it's
got to be prophecy. The second thing about false prophets is that they tend to come in groups.
The 450 prophets of Baal who opposed Elijah, the 400 prophets who opposed Micaiah,
the numerous although unnumbered prophets who opposed Jeremiah,
down to verse 30, God accuses these prophets of stealing messages from one another.
Now, when a prophet wakes up with a dream, the first audience of his or her dream is the other
prophets. And what do you know? They all say, yeah, that was what my dream meant too. It's like
a social media bubble. These prophets are reinforcing one another and their combined
voice overpowers the people's judgment. And finally, these prophets may be self-deceived,
they may be encouraged by their bubble of all the other prophets who think exactly the same
as them, but they are also fully responsible for what they say because they are deliberately
using these dreams to deceive other people, to make God's people forget him. You know,
even a self-deceived person could stop short of that. And it's the shameless evil of their plans
that makes Jeremiah cry out, how long? In verse 26. You know, these prophets aren't actually telling
anyone to worship Baal. They're more subtle than that. What they're doing is they're pointing
their followers to a God who rewards evil behavior with peace and prosperity. And they call this
God Yahweh, but that's not who he is. So how does God respond to these evil people? Well,
verse 28 is a counter prophecy that contrasts the uninspired word tell with the authoritative word
proclaim. Right? Let these false prophets tell their dreams, but let my true messengers faithfully
proclaim my every word. So what is it that makes the Word of God true and powerful? Well, it's not
the means by which the prophet received that word. It's the word itself, the words themselves. They're
like the life-giving grain compared to the useless straw. You know, I think there's actually a bit
of irony going on behind the words there because the prophets actually like being straw. You know,
as the wind blows them up into the air, they say, look at me, I'm flying. Silly old grain sitting
solidly there in the winnowing pan. But of course, in reality, God's word is not just solid, it is
terrifyingly powerful. And it may not seem that way at first glance. It's much more exciting to be
the grain that they are straw than it is to be the grain. But Jeremiah switches metaphors in the next
verse, the word of God is like fire. Let's think about fire. Now, I can hold a lit mat between my
fingers. A little breath could snuff it out. You'd never guess the power of that flame, would you,
until you've seen it devour mountain sides with a roar of a freight train, until you've seen it rip
through towns buckling concrete and melting steel. So this is what Jeremiah does. He picks up God's
word, new image like a sledgehammer. And he swings it down on the prophets again and again. Verse 30
says the Lord, I'm against, bang. Verse 31 says the Lord, I'm against, bang. Verse 32, I'm against,
says the Lord, bang. And the result you've got to admit is a bit of an anti-clinics.
None of the prophets felt a thing. It was just words. They turned their backs. They carried on with
business as usual. But if Jeremiah is right, they're actually already dead. They just don't realize it
quite yet. We're going to think more about that in a moment. But first, I want to look over the second
part of this chapter, which shifts the focus to prophetic messages. These are a little bit cryptic.
We don't know what form these messages took, but whatever it was, it seemed that the prophets were
treating this as another mode of revelation that guaranteed authenticity. And they labeled these
experiences with a name for a prophetic oracle that just happens to sound like the word for burden.
And so Jeremiah turns it into this play on words. I suppose one of the people, one of the prophets
or priests asked you, what prophecy is the Lord burdened you with now? You must reply, you are the
burden. It's like they've become a load that God is no longer willing to bear, so he just tosses them
onto the side of the road. And this time, it's not because of the damage they're doing to the people.
It's God's own reputation. First 36. Every time they claim to have one of these messages,
they're making it look like God is denying who he is. Do they really have any conception of
who their prophecies disrespect and blaspheme? It's so dangerous, so reckless.
To preach another whole sermon on the recklessness of false prophecy. In verse 35,
Jeremiah tells the prophets that they are allowed to say, what is the Lord's answer?
What does the Lord say? Now these expressions specifically describe the words that God spoke
to Moses and to his actual prophets. In other words, what Jeremiah is doing is
he's directing these prophets, these false message speakers to the law and the prophets,
to the words that are preserved today as scripture. It almost feels like God is
announcing the end of prophecy, but of course, that's not true, right? There's plenty of prophecy
to come. The problem lies not with prophecy, but with the people Jeremiah is confronting.
But they have lost the ability to recognize any prophecy that does not give them that self-affirmation,
that cheap grace that they crave. The last verses of this chapter anticipate the prophets
ignoring and rejecting God's warning. This rejection brings us back to the problem that
I just flagged a moment ago, the problem that's really run all the way through this whole
chapter. Right back in verse 22, God said that if the prophets had stood before him and spoken his
words, they would have turned the people from their evil ways. So what about Jeremiah?
And if Jeremiah really did speak God's words, why did the people not listen?
In verse 30, Jeremiah brings a hammer of God's words,
smashing down on the prophets, but seemingly to no avail. What's wrong? Why can't they feel the blows?
I want to reflect on one fact and two implications about prophecy. So here's the fact,
the discernment of prophecy, true or false, is not a matter of reason, but of desire.
The discernment of prophecy is not a matter of reason, but of desire. It's not a simple matter of
can my reason align this prophecy with Scripture. Prophecy is discerned through a kind of a cycle
of recognition. With false prophecy, the cycle begins with a visionary whose charmed
life gives authority to their words. As it says back in verse 16, they fill you with futile hopes
and false prophecies are compelling because deep down we long for them to be true.
Whatever you want, have it, do it. It'll be okay. Look at me, I'm blessed. You'll be blessed too.
And so the prophets' lives authenticate their words because they resonate with the hearers.
They resonate with our desires and our desires are shaped by what we worship, which is ourselves.
And so when we hear sweet nothings for a self-worshipping prophet, we feel this tug of
recognition and we get sucked in. Of course, it's the same for true prophecy.
You will only be able to recognize the scriptural shape of true prophecy when the prophets'
life and message create this kind of resonance, a glad recognition. And before that can happen,
you've got to be shaped by your love of the truth. You see the circularity?
The problem, Jeremiah, faced came to a head when the word incarnate entered the world.
Remember what Jesus says in John 5. The Father's word does not dwell in you because you do not
believe the one He sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you
have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to
me to have life. You see the circularity? If you read Moses, it points you to Jesus,
but you can't understand Moses until you've come to Jesus to have life.
So there's the fact discernment of prophecy, true or false, is about desire, not reason.
And this leads to two implications that I want to reflect on. The first concerns the purpose
of prophecy. I mean, why does God put up with false prophecy? Why does He order things this way?
Why does He let our desires shape us into receptacles for only one sort of word?
I think the answer very clearly from this passage is that God uses false prophecy to separate the
righteous from the wicked. False prophecy is never neutral. It's only ever spoken out of moral
corruption and believed out of moral corruption. It's fundamentally the work of Satan. From the
beginning when the serpent says, did God really say to the devil's promise to Jesus that you won't
strike your foot against a stone, the father of lies has always aimed to lead the whole world astray.
But that doesn't let people who believe those lies off the hook. Failure to discern the truth is always
a moral failure. Listen to Jesus again from John 8. Jesus said to them, if God were your
father, you would love me. For I've come here from God. I've not come on my own. God sent me.
Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your
father, the devil. You want to carry out your father's desires. When he lies, he speaks with his
native language for he's a liar and the father of lies yet because I tell the truth. You do not
believe me. And nothing's changed today, hasn't it? You know, as long as the devil roams free
false prophets will rise up to speak for him and God will use them to separate the righteous
from the wicked. Remember, 2 Timothy 4, people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit
their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their
itching ears want to hear. So that's implication number one. It's pretty depressing. You cannot
demonstrate the truth of prophecy by reason if the listener hates the truth. All you can do is
preach the truth in the knowledge that it will push people to choose a lie and fall under judgment.
There is, I think, a second implication of Jeremiah 23. And this concerns the power of true
prophecy, the power of true prophecy. Because I think true prophecy demolishes in order to renovate.
It demolishes in order to renovate. It took decades. But in God's timing, the fire of Jeremiah's words
did take hold and burn the whole nation down. And the final words of chapter 23 came true.
But when the smoke cleared, there was a remnant standing in the ashes with Jeremiah himself
at their center. And this was the remnant for whom Jeremiah's prophecies were written down
in this book. The remnant that started out as hostile listeners but ended up as repentant
readers. Because the person who is destroyed by their embrace of the lie can be recreated
when the word of truth kindles a spark in the wreckage of their life. God's word is like a fire.
You strike a match, you let it fall to the ground. Its pale flame contracts on the way down until
its light is lost in the undergrowth. But if you're not careful, that match can flare up and kindle
the dry grass. And a true prophecy has the power to penetrate a person and transform them from the
inside. And the person in whom we see this power at work in this chapter is actually Jeremiah himself
back in verse 9 where God's holy words of judgment overcome him. And he models for us what it means
to be a speaker of true prophecy. Somebody whose first task is to be overwhelmed by the truth you
speak so that even as your words bring listeners to judgment, your life will stand as a prophetic
testimony to life beyond judgment. As always, Jesus is the final reality to whom our lives point
other people. As he says in John 12, now is the time for judgment on this world. Now the prince
of this world will be driven out and I when I'm lifted up from the earth will draw all people to
myself. And he said this to show the kind of death he was going to die. Heavenly Father, we
thank you that death was not the final word for your son, the Lord Jesus. We thank you so much
that in being lifted up he has drawn people to himself from every corner of the world.
Please make us people who can speak your words of truth in the midst of death
as those who have been lifted up with Christ. May death listeners see Christ in us and turn to him
even as his word brings them to judgment. Have mercy on our broken world through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.