"Prophet Margins " Part 3 November 11, 2018 AM

Jeremiah’s Warning Against False Prophets

Holy God, we come before you in this moment. We confess that you are our creator. It is you who have made us and not we ourselves. You have made us in your image for your own glory and for our own good.

That we would love you supremely. We would love each other rightly. That we would steward this created order responsibly. You are our maker. You have given us life. You have shown us what it means to live in giving us your son Jesus Christ.

Father, we're not here because we've figured it out. We're here because you made us and you called us to yourself. You have arranged all of this. You have not failed to shepherd us to this moment, to this place, to hear this word.

And we are in dependence upon you. It is not because of our strength, because of our wisdom, and because of our intelligence. It is not because of our fortitude of will. It's not because of our personal character that we would hear a word from you today.

It's because of who you are. It's God who has made us and revealed yourself unfailingly in your word by your Holy Spirit. That we would know who you are. That we would know you through your son Jesus Christ.

It is in him that you are well pleased. No other. He alone is our mediator. As we come to the text this morning, Father, we come eagerly looking for your son Christ. It is not that we have eternal life because we hold the Bible in our hands.

It is only that we have eternal life because you hold us in your hands. And you have revealed your son, our Savior, in this word. I pray that you would guide us in our time together. That we would humbly, like children, listen to what you have to say to us as a Heavenly Father.

And we pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. We are in a passage in Jeremiah 23. It began in verse 9 and extends through verse 40. It's an opportunity in the book of Jeremiah. We've come this far.

It's an opportunity to think about all the warnings that Jeremiah has given to the people of Judah. It becomes a shock to you, but not everybody who says, I am this or that, really are. Not everybody who says, I'm telling you the truth, is really telling you the truth.

I know that's a shock. It happened a lot in Jeremiah's time. It happens a lot in our time. We have a very powerful and relevant passage for us this morning about how we know the truth. We begin our look at this passage by asking whether or not we're concerned.

Are we really even concerned about profit margins? Are we even concerned about those who say, I speak for God, or this is the way God is, or this is the truth. Are we concerned that they themselves are within the margins, or is everything up for grabs?

Are we concerned? We should be concerned for ourselves, for our neighbors, and even for those who would claim to speak for God. Last time we looked at verses 16 through 24, and we thought about con men, and noticed that con men have a very long history, and false prophets are just that.

Rather than listening to con men, we are to listen to Christ. This morning, we're going to look at verses 25 through 32 at a very stark contrast between what is said by false prophets, and what God says in His Word.

It's not even fair to say conflict. It's stronger than that, or contrast. It really is a conflict. It is an absolute opposition between God and those who pretend to speak for Him. I would ask you to stand with me, and let us do reverence to Jesus Christ, who is revealed here in Jeremiah 23 verses 25 through 32.

This is the Word of the Lord. I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy falsely in my name, saying, I had a dream. I had a dream. How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood?

Even those prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal.

The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has my word speak my word in truth, which a straw have in common with grain, declares the Lord. Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer which shatters a rock?

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from each other. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, the Lord declares.

Behold, I am against those who have prophesied false dreams, declares the Lord, and related them and led my people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting. Yet I did not send them or commend them, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit, declares the Lord.

And that is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. It is amazing how many people claim to speak for God, and this is nothing new. It is not a phenomenon only related to our own day, but it has been happening throughout the whole history of the world, that people claim to speak for God when they don't.

They have an idea about God they think will be convincing, but they don't really speak for God. And it's amazing what kind of impact those lies can have on people, their children, their grandchildren, all of their descendants, have an impact on nations, cultures for centuries.

On December 9th, 1531, Juan Diego, the story goes, an Aztec peasant who supposedly recently converted to the Roman Catholicism that was forced upon the area, encountered a very Aztec looking Virgin Mary.

An apparition, a vision, a dream of some kind. And she had a small request of Juan Diego. She requested that upon this hill, where all of Juan Diego's ancestors had worshipped an Aztec goddess, she requested that there upon this hill, a little chapel be built for her.

So Juan Diego goes to the newly installed Catholic bishop and relates to him the story. And the bishop is skeptical and says he needs some kind of proof. So Juan Diego goes back to the place where he saw the very Aztec looking Virgin Mary and she chides him for his unbelief.

And says from now on refer to me as Guadalupe. She then instructs him to go over to this rose bush and take several roses and put them into his cloak and carry them back to this bishop as proof. Juan does not know how this is going to work out, but he carries all the roses in his cloak back to the bishop and as he pours out the roses before the bishop as a gift, lo and behold, the dust from the flowers and the color from the flowers has left the visage of Guadalupe on the cloak.

And the bishop immediately falls down and worships. To this day you can go to Mexico and you can visit that humble little chapel, the Basilica to the Virgin Guadalupe, 12 million visitors a year. I confirm this with our resident expert Danny Roten, who is missionary to Mexico for 30 years.

He was there when John Paul came. John Paul II, when he came to the Basilica and saw what happened. But for hundreds of years, for centuries, people have been worshiping the Virgin of Guadalupe. Sometimes even calling her by the original name of the Aztec goddess.

They pray to this living mediator, they offer her praises, they seek salvation through her. 1531, in all the centuries that have come, from someone who claimed to speak for God but did not really speak for God.

Now we'd like to say we never fall for that. Oh, we would never fall for something so ludicrous. I think in the last five years, Sarah Young's book, Jesus Calling, has sold 25 million copies. She claims that Jesus speaks to her directly.

She writes it down for us to all enjoy. Luckily, Jesus has been speaking to her lately about themes on Advent. She was able to compile those and put them in a book form just in time for Christmas. Best-selling book on Christian bookdistributors .com.

God’s Word Versus False Dreams

Romans 3, 4 says, let God be true, though every man be found a liar. There are a lot of people who say they speak for God. And because all these things contradict eventually, we get the idea, people begin to get the idea that nobody really knows what God says.

Nobody really knows who God is. Nobody has a corner on the market. It's all up for grabs. Just do the best you can. And yet this is not the case. The controlling thought, I think, of this passage is this.

Let God's word be found true, though every man's dream be proved a lie. Let God's word be found true, though every man's dream be proved a lie. I want us to look at the so-called liberating falsehoods of the dreamers in verses 25 to 27.

Those who come preaching in the name of the Lord, those in Jeremiah's day, those who are living in the last days of Jerusalem before their destruction in 587 BC. Those who are claiming to speak for the Lord are saying things that they find is liberating from the old ways of thinking about God, that they are in innovative ways of understanding the scriptures.

And we're not really required to look at things in these certain ways. They are so-called liberators. But I want us to consider their characteristics and their deeds. Verses 25 to 27. God says, I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in my name, saying, I had a dream.

I had a dream. How long is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even those prophets of the deception of their own heart, who intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams, which they relate to one another, just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal?

I want us to look at their characteristic. Are these really liberators or not? You notice, first of all, that they are very spiritual kinds of people. You know that because they have dreams and they speak from their heart.

They're very spiritual people. They have dreams and they share what is on their heart. They're also vocal. It's not that they're privately spiritual people, only thinking about their own spiritual experiences in the confines and kind of a monastic mind.

They don't tell anybody else. They just have it as their own. No, these spiritual folks are very vocal. Just four times in verse 25, it's all about the sounds that they make. God says, he heard what they said.

They prophesy. They say. They make a lot of noise. Verses 31 through the last first part of verse 32, five different times we hear how much they talk. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare.

The Lord declares, behold, I'm against those who have prophesied false dreams, declares the Lord, and related them and led my people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting. It's all about talk.

So they are very spiritual and they're very vocal and they are autonomous. Autonomous is a word which means self-named, meaning that they work on their own authority. They are preaching from their own hearts.

They're getting the material that they speak from their own hearts, it says in verse 26, and the source of their, that's the source of their words. And they're just speaking about on the power of their own tongues.

They're not speaking from the Lord based upon his power. It's what's from their heart based on their own tongues. They are, they are like a ship at sea. They have an empty hold and a reckless rudder. They are spiritual, they are vocal, they are autonomous, and they are flexible.

They're flexible. Notice they, verse 30, they steal God's words from one another. Oh, that sounds really nice. I really like this half a verse or verse from this part of Isaiah. What? That sounds comforting, that sounds really nice.

I bet a lot of people would love to hear that. I'll just use that for a while. No, no concern about what God really meant when it was originally said. No reading it in context, no consideration what other passages may say about it.

I'm just going to use this. And then somebody else, one of the other false prophets, hears them saying, oh, that's good. I think I'll use that too. They misappropriate the words of God and use them for their own purposes.

Very flexible in their use of it. It says that they are full of reckless boasting. God says they are, they are reckless boasters. They boast, they claim, I speak for God, but they are reckless in this.

What does reckless mean? Reckless means there's no consideration for the accounting that they are going to have. They truly are accountable for every word they speak, but they care not that they are accountable to God.

So they are reckless. They give no thought to the reckoning. They are like Antonio Brown, who got pulled over for driving in excess of a hundred miles an hour in his Porsche. And he was cited for reckless driving.

Reckless. Why? He had no concern for the speed limit, for the laws of the land, no concern for his fellow neighbors, no concern for his fellow motorists. He was reckless. And these false prophets are reckless.

No concern for the truth of God, no concern for the spiritual good of their neighbors. They are reckless. They are spiritual, they are vocal, they are autonomous, and they are flexible. Flexible. Does that remind you of anyone?

I mean, it really reminds me of somebody, someone who was a spiritual person, very vocal, outspoken, kind of did things his own way, and was really flexible. Reminds you of Satan in the Garden of Eden.

Very spiritual, asking spiritual matters. Is it true that God said this, and God said that? And he spoke. It's a snake. It's not supposed to talk, but here it is talking. He's spiritual, and he's vocal, and he's autonomous.

Oh, you don't have to listen to God. I mean, after all, consider me. I'm a snake, and I can talk. Surely I know more than God. Autonomous, and very flexible, like a snake. Oh, Jesus. I don't know. Was it a Christmas hymn describing him as meek and mild?

Mild-mannered Jesus. This is what he said to the Pharisees. You are of your father the devil, and you want to do to the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him.

Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies. So Jesus spoke to those Pharisees who claimed to speak for God, but they were contorting the word of God.

They were stealing the word of God, and they were oppressing the people, and making them live in ways that they themselves did not constrain themselves to. And God speaks to these liars, and he says, you know what?

You lie because you're of your father the devil, and he is the father of lies. If you can isolate a lie, which is hard to do, a single lie, if you can isolate a single lie and trace its origins, you always end up finding it in the devil.

He's the father of lies, the origin of all lies. So they are not liberators. Satan presented himself as a liberator to Adam and Eve. God's keeping you down. He knows that the day that you eat of this forbidden fruit, you will become like him, and he doesn't want that.

He wants to keep you down. He's an oppressor. I'm here to liberate you. I've got another way to live. He presents himself as a liberator, but in fact he's a liar. That's what's going on in the days of Jeremiah.

They are actually liars. We are to evaluate their deeds. Now Jesus, in Matthew 7 verse 15, we talked about this last week, that he talked about the false prophets as ravenous wolves, hungry wolves in sheep's clothing.

So they put on they put on the outer carcass of a sheep. They appear to be a sheep, but they come not to be a part of the flock, but to consume the flock. Just after that, and you may be wondering, well how do we know then who's the false and who's the true if they look like they should belong?

Jesus says, here's how you find out. Verse 16 in Matthew 7, you will know them by their fruits. You will know them by their fruits. You know a kind of tree, what kind of tree you have, by what kind of fruit it produces.

Do I have an apple tree? Do I have a pear tree? Do I have a healthy apple tree? Do I have a sick and putrid apple tree? You find out by the kind of fruit that it bears. So we are to consider their deeds from this text.

What do they do? Well they bear false witness. We'll just take the ninth commandment. They bear false witness. Verse 25 says they prophesy falsely. God says you're telling lies. Verse 26, they preach the falsehood and the deceit of their own hearts.

God says you're telling lies. They proclaim their false dreams. Verse 32, God says you're telling lies. If you evaluate their deeds, the fact is that they're telling lies. They bear false witness. They're breaking the ninth commandment.

They're also breaking the eighth commandment. They're stealing. God says in verse 30, they steal my words. They steal my words. They're not heralds entrusted with a message declaring, thus says the Lord.

They're innovators. They find out something about what God has said and they use it for their own purposes. They're stealing from God. They are using God's words as their own and thus they're using them wrongly.

So they have borne false witness. They have stolen God's words and end up speaking them in a deceitful way. They also take God's name in vain. That's the third commandment. Verse 25, I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in my name.

So they're saying I am speaking for the Lord God. They speak things in the name of the Lord but he didn't actually say it and they're saying things that don't agree with the character of God bound up in his name.

So they bear his name in vain and for this reason also they are liars. And they also break the second commandment in that they craft an idol. As they lie and say the things that are just in their heart, the things that they imagine, as they just innovate with the things that they hear other people saying, as they steal from God's word instead of using it appropriately, as they bear God's name in vain, they end up crafting an idea about God that is not so.

That is not true. They want to tell people that God is like such and such but because they're not depending upon the word of God, because they're not listening clearly to what God has said, they are saying something that is false about God.

And yes, they don't have their tools out, they don't have their chisel and hammer, they don't have a block of stone that they're working with and creating an idol in that way, but they're making one with their words.

They're crafting an idol in their minds that they want you to believe in. God is like this. And that too is deceptive. So they bear false witness, they steal God's word, they take God's name in vain, they craft an idol.

Verse 27, God is asking this, do they intend to make my people forget my name by their dreams which they relate to one another just as their fathers forgot my name because of Baal? Baal, the fertility god of Canaan?

Baal, the false god that the earlier Israelites were always going after and following? God says there's no difference in the results. Earlier, traitorous prophets preached in the name of Baal and led people to worship Baal.

Now they preach in my name, but they're not preaching me, they're preaching somebody else, and they're doing the very same thing. It's tantamount to Baal worship. It's just another god. So they are liars.

They pretend to be liberators, but they are actually liars. Liars. And no lies have ever liberated anyone who was enslaved. James says that the wrath of God does not achieve, or the wrath of man does not achieve, the righteousness of God.

The wrath of man does not achieve the righteousness of God. And if that's so, how can we think the lies of men adorn the truth of God? Do we really need people who say they speak for God but don't? Do we really need their words to adorn our understanding of the scriptures?

Are those really going to help us? You have to give it some thought. These prophets, they're speaking in the name of the Lord. They're even referring to the Bible. They're actually quoting some scriptures.

They call themselves prophets of the Lord. They use the name of God a lot. Surely there's something worthwhile in what they offer. What does God say? Verse 32. Behold, I am against those who have prophesied false dreams, declares the Lord, and related them, and led my people astray by their falsehoods and reckless boasting.

Yet I did not send them or command them, nor do they furnish, listen, nor do they furnish this people the slightest benefit, declares the Lord. There's not even the smallest benefit in what they do. Dreamers of dreams.

Testing Prophets by Scripture and Fruit

This is not the only place in the Bible that talks about dreamers of dreams. Back in Deuteronomy 13, after Moses has been leading the people of Israel through the wilderness for 40 years, the first generation out of Egypt who rebelled against God, they've all been dying out.

The new generation is about to be brought across the Jordan to take possession of the promised land, and Moses has some things to say to them. Moses, who's been bearing God's word faithfully and writing it down, and he has something to say to them about what comes next.

Chapter 13, verse 1, Deuteronomy. If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign of the wonder comes true concerning about which he spoke to you saying, let us go after the other gods whom you have not known, let us serve them.

You shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your God is testing you to find out if you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You see, he tested them in the wilderness.

He let them be hungry, so they would turn to him and find bread from heaven. He tested them in the wilderness and let them be thirsty, so they would turn to him and find water from a rock. And he's going to test them, he says, by allowing there to be false prophets who say false things and even ratify themselves by powerful signs.

But God is testing them to see whether or not they will say, no matter what the experience is, no matter what I observe with my eyes, I know what is true and I stand by the truth. That experience does not trump truth.

My feelings do not trump truth. Your story or your hypothetical situation does not trump truth. There were, of course, dreamers of dreams in the Old Testament. You could think of Abraham, you could think of Jacob and Joseph.

Did they not dream dreams? Did not God reveal himself to them? Of course he did. But how are we to know? Deuteronomy 18, verses 20 through 22, but the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously, that's what the prophets in Jeremiah are doing, but the prophet who speaks a word presumptuously in my name, which I have not commanded him to speak or which he speaks in the name of other gods, that prophet shall die.

It's a death penalty. You may say in your heart, well, how will we know the word which the Lord has not spoken? That's a good question. And all around the context, there's all sorts of things that we're supposed to use to test whether or not it is so.

Did this person say, such and such will come to pass, but it doesn't? Then disregard everything that they say. If they say, worship a different God, or that's not, although the Bible says that that's not really true, disregard.

Disregard. So we are called to an awareness in our passage, a concern that we are to not accept the words of these false prophets who come as liberators, but in fact that they are liars. And I think there's two basic things, two basic responses to this.

First is just our body language, just our posture. We've all been cautioned about being gullible. We joke about, well, it must be true, it's on the internet. And we know we're supposed to be circumspect.

We're supposed to be cautious with what we're being told. What is our body language? What is our default posture towards the things that we're being told? We could be like this, right? I don't believe anything anyone ever says to me.

That makes us individually the only arbiter of truth. Be a very foolish thing to do. We could be like this, tell me more. As long as you say the name Jesus at some point, I'll believe anything you say.

That would not be appropriate either. So I think the proper body language is something like this, I'm going to think about what you said. That we would be of more noble minds like those who lived in Berea.

In Acts chapter 17 in verse 11 it says, now these were more noble minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness examining the scriptures daily to see whether these things were so.

And so for them their body language was, Paul what you say is impressive, but we're going to check out whether or not it's so, looking at the scriptures. We are in many ways not ready for anyone to invoke the name of the God we believe in and Christ whom we love and then tell us something not true.

In some ways we're just never really ready for that, but we are to be on the alert, Paul says in Acts 20. Be on the alert. And our body language needs to be backed up by something, and I think we need to be nerds.

What are you most well informed about? Like what subject matter comes up and you find yourself doing the following? Well actually that's a common misconception, because you know the material so well that you're about to help someone think more clearly on the matter.

That's the way we're to be about the word of God. We're gonna be Bible nerds. There are few and far between. We've got to be Bible nerds. We understand what the Bible says on a range of topics. We're ready to respond to any subject based upon what the scripture says.

You ever heard of a litmus test? It's an older expression. You ever done a litmus test? Anybody in the room? Okay. What do you do with a litmus paper? This paper died with a particular kind of lichen, and it turns red if the material that you're rolling around in your paper, it turns red if it's acidic, and it turns blue if it's alkaline or basic.

The litmus paper tells you what you've got. It tells you what you've got. And when it comes to these concerns that we've been speaking about, about those who dream dreams and have these ideas, when it comes to these topics that we're talking about, we've got all the litmus paper we need right here.

Every page of the Bible is litmus paper. It'll tell you what you've got. I have this sensation, but this will tell me what I've got. This person says they have a dream, but this will tell me what they've got.

And we have to return again and again to the gift that God has given to us, standard for truth. Let's close in a word of prayer. Father, I thank you for the time you've given us. Father, I thank you that you've given us your son, Jesus Christ, who was revealed faithfully here in the scriptures.

And though many would come and claim to speak in the name of Christ and to speak in the name of God and tell us something different, we thank you that you've given us a clear word in the scriptures that tells us that Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And so we ought not give heed to strange teachings. Father, I think that you've given your son, Jesus Christ, who died upon the cross for our sins, that any who would trust in him, repenting of their sins, would find forgiveness for those sins and acceptance with you forever.

And I pray that you would help us to be a people about your word, that we would be ready and willing to apply this biblical litmus test to whatever is being spoken about us, that we would do so for your glory and for our good and the good of those around us.

We pray these things for the sake of Christ. Amen.