Back to Jeremiah…
A few weeks ago in What Would Jesus Do?, I was wrestling with my inability to “love and affirm” everyone, regardless of their behavior. For sure, I can love everyone, but I cannot affirm what some folks are doing. The “prophets” in Jeremiah 14 (from the “What Would Jesus Do?” blog) weren’t always telling people the truth.
The theme continues in Jeremiah 23, a bit more specifically:
Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their evil, declares the LORD…In the prophets of Samaria I saw an unsavory thing: they prophesied by Baal and led my people Israel astray. But in the prophets of Jerusalem I have seen a horrible thing: they commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil; all of them have become like Sodom to me, and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.(Jeremiah 23.11, 13, 14, ESV)
The problem. Prophets are supposed to turn people from evil, not “…strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil.” The prophets are affirming and assuring them:
Thus says the LORD of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD. They say continually to those who despise the word of the LORD, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’ ” (Jeremiah 23.16, 17, ESV)
Saying to those “who despise the word of the LORD, ‘it shall be well with you…'” Wow. Does that speak of those who affirm deviant sexual lifestyles?
There are a lot of prophets today. Not all are in churches:
I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, ‘I have dreamed, I have dreamed!’ How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies, and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal? (Jeremiah 23.25 – 27, ESV)
Who was a greater dreamer of lies than John Lennon in his VERY popular song “Imagine”?
Lovely. 😞It’s religion, countries, and possessions that have ruined us. Let’s just decide to live in peace. A false and lying prophet.
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. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the LORD, who use their tongues and declare, ‘declares the LORD.’ Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the LORD, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the LORD. (Jeremiah 23.28 – 32, ESV)