The Prophets Prophesy Lies ... and My People Love It That Way

^{Jeremiah 5}

³⁰ ‘A horrible and shocking thing
    has happened in the land:
³¹ the prophets prophesy lies,
    the priests rule by their own authority,
and my people love it this way.
    But what will you do in the end?

The ministry of God in Israel was a threefold ministry of prophet, priest and king. The prophet spoke to the people on behalf of God; the priest spoke to God on behalf of the people; and the king was God’s representative who was meant to ensure that God’s justice and mercy prevailed in the land. The kings as a whole, were a disaster, often leading the nation deeper into disobedience. The exceptions

like David, Judah’s second king, and Josiah, who was king during the early part of Jeremiah’s ministry, were few and far between. The priests were then free to do their own thing, unless a brave prophet was prepared to obey God and confront them, and eventually even the prophets (who were the modern day preacher) prophesied lies … in other words didn’t preach what God laid on their hearts, but rather what they knew the people wanted to hear … and God says and my people love it this way.

If we just use the chapter before us as a guide we can get an idea of what it was that the people did not like to hear … and in order to remain popular, the prophets stopped preaching on these things … and God’s people loved it this way.

In vs 1:     no one deals honestly and seeks the truth … speaks for itself, but the point I’m making is that the preachers stopped preaching on honesty and truth seeking … one of the ways this would play out today is: when you hear a bit of gossip, do you do your best to find out the truth?

Vs 2: Although they say, “As surely as the Lord lives,” … today this is similar to the belief that you must mechanistically add “in Jesus name” to every prayer you pray. In their day it was “As surely as the Lord lives” … but it did not come from the heart, it was just a habit. And again, because this became prevalent, we can assume that the prophets had stopped correcting the people.

Vs 3: they refused to repent … they didn’t like to hear that actually just because they made the right sacrifices, they still had to repent before God. Today we would say Just because Jesus has dealt with your sin, doesn’t mean you mustn’t confess and repent daily, as the Lord teaches in His prayer.

Vs 4: they do not know the way of the Lord,  do you want to hear the way of the Lord
    the requirements of their God   do you know the requirements of your God

Vs 6: for their rebellion is great   do you want to hear that your (my) sin is rebellion against God

Are you getting the point? Their preachers knew they didn’t want to hear these things … so they stopped preaching these things … and the people loved it that way.

Vs 8: they committed adultery
    and thronged to the houses of prostitutes.
⁸ They are well-fed, lusty stallions,
    each neighing for another man’s wife.   Preacher … please don’t preach on or mention sex, that beautiful thing God created and talks a great deal about in scripture …. Not in our church please. So the prophets stopped … and … sexual immorality increased

Vs 11:     You have been utterly unfaithful to me … friends let’s be clear on this. When you and I sin, we are utterly unfaithful to God.  Aaawww come on … we don’t want to hear that … we’re just a little bit unfaithful.

Vs 12: They have lied about the Lord;
    they said, ‘He will do nothing … this is a big one even today … that God will do nothing if I sin … Jesus took all my punishment … there’s no consequence today.

¹³ The prophets are but wind
    and the word is not in them;    the preacher doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he’s just full of air … why doesn’t he talk about something more useful to me

²² Should you not fear me?’ declares the Lord   and  ²⁴ They do not say to themselves,
    “Let us fear the Lord our God, … you’d be amazed how many Christians don’t want to hear this … One of the major problems in society today is a lack of the fear of God. Unfortunately, there is a shortage of the fear of God in the church too … even though there are at least 144 references to fearing God in the Bible, with 19 of those appearing in the New Testament. In Jeremiah’s day, the people didn’t want to hear that, so the “prophets/preachers” stopped preaching it.

28 Their evil deeds have no limit;
    they do not seek justice.
They do not promote the case of the fatherless;
    they do not defend the just cause of the poor.   Hear we have a definition of evil … different to the definition some people prefer.

This is the foundation for God’s people to go wayward ... wrong teaching, false teaching … teaching that doesn’t focus on the issues God and Scripture focus on. The calling of God’s people in the Old Testament was to be a holy people:

For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you out of all the peoples on the face of the earth to be his people, his treasured possession (Deut 7:6)

and the duty of the prophets was to preach and teach what that holiness entails, and to correct the people when they were disobedient. This, of course, didn’t always make the prophets popular, and most were very unpopular … Jeremiah in particular.

Are we still called to be holy? Of course we are, why else has God given us His Holy Spirit? Peter puts it like this:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light (1 Pet 2:9)

Are we called to be holy?

Of course we are! The writer to the Hebrews puts it like this:

¹⁴ Make every effort to live in peace with everyone and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord (Heb 12:14)

But the people in Jeremiah’s day (and before) didn’t want to hear that sort of thing, so the prophets prophesied lies, telling people that God wouldn’t really judge them and preaching instead what the people loved to hear.

Jesus had the same problem. One of the saddest verses in the Gospels is John 6:66

From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

We looked at this a few months ago in the I AM series … after feeding the 5000 Jesus goes into a long and difficult teaching about being the Bread of Life … did Jesus know it was long? Did Jesus know it was difficult to understand? I think He did, but you may disagree and say He just waffled on for too long and lost people. Did He know the people wouldn’t like it and would struggle to accept it? Yes … it’s a very difficult teaching. It’s what Paul will later call the “solid food” of the gospel as opposed to the milk of the gospel. I can’t believe that Jesus underestimated the ability of His congregation to understand … He obviously knew they were capable of grasping this difficult teaching … but it’s always our choice whether we are going to wrestle with the Word, or whether we want to be spoon fed.  I think Jesus expects us to move from milk to solid food much quicker than we would like to, but we resist. So I don’t think He was surprised when:

⁶⁰ On hearing it, many of his disciples said, ‘This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?’

Now, we haven’t the time to look at what Jesus says to them, but essentially he tells them to go and take a hike, leading to From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him.

On another occasion in Jesus ministry we find these words:

Then the disciples came to him and asked, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?’ (Matthew 15:12)

Now, once again we haven’t the time to look at what Jesus says to them, but essentially he tells them to go and take a hike as well.

Like Jeremiah, there is no way that Jesus will let His preaching be guided by what the people want to hear. Paul will pick up on this old and current problem in the church when he says to the preacher Timothy:

For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather round them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear (2 Timothy 4:3)

When preaching on Jeremiah 2 at the start of this series, John Hughes suggested that there was not much difference between the Judea that God brought judgement on in 587 BC and the UK today and he drew some striking and frightening similarities. As God’s judgement in Jer 5 moves to the prophets and priests (the “church” in 587 BC), I wonder if there are some striking and frightening similarities. I haven’t been here long enough to make that call … but you have.

Now, let’s be clear, in Paul’s words: we preach Christ crucified (1 Cor 1:23); a different message to Jeremiah’s, but the same God, who has not changed; in fact,

He is the same yesterday and today and forever (Heb 13:8). 

And just as Jerusalem was hurtling towards a terrible judgement which came; so too is the world hurtling towards a terrible judgement, which will come. And the only way, the only way, to survive that Day, is through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. Have you come to faith in the Lord Jesus Christ?

That is the milk, the starting place of the life of faith, but there is more. Paul’s words again:

He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ. To this end I strenuously contend with all the energy Christ so powerfully works in me. Colossians 1:28-29

I say those words with Paul: it is my task to present you … fully mature … in Christ. As we’ve seen as we’ve studied discipleship, salvation by faith alone is the beginning, the milk; but you and I are called to move on to solid food … we can’t stay infants forever. That really was the problem with God’s people in Jerusalem … 400 years after salvation from Egypt, 400 years after God entered into covenant with them at Sinai … they were still behaving like infants … wanting only the milk of God’s grace and not the solid food of God’s grace. That’s what many were like in Jesus day, they didn’t want to chew on the solid stuff of His teaching … and they fell away… From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. That’s the danger in being happy with milk … it’s much easier to lose the little faith you need to be saved by faith. That’s the danger with only wanting to hear milk, or, like the folk who fell away from Jesus, only wanting to hear what you can understand … once again, I’ll let Scripture do the talking:

We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. ¹² In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! ¹³ Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. ¹⁴ But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Heb 5:11-14)

Notice the sign of maturity:  the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. In Jeremiah’s day, they didn’t want the hard and difficult truth, so for the most part, the prophets obliged, told them lies, and God’s people loved it that way with disastrous consequences.

Pursue solid food. What you get from the pulpit is more or less out of your hands … we might feed you milk which goes down nice and easy, we might feed you solid stuff you almost choke on; but in your personal devotional life … stretch yourself. Use devotional material that really makes you think … that puts a frown on your face occasionally; read your Bibles, especially those parts you’ve previously avoided; don’t believe the lie (from the prince of lies) that the Christian walk is easy, comfortable, painless and without cost. Learn to distinguish good from evil because there is much good in you that you don’t notice… and there is much evil in us that we don’t confront. In all these areas, the people of Jeremiah’s time failed miserably … let’s not make the same mistakes.