Eighth Sunday After Trinity Service

False Prophets, the Second Commandment, and Testing the Spirits

Busy as always. Again there's no science.

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I did. Yeah. Do you need me? No I'm fine. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah sit down. We have plenty of room. Yeah. You got the head up everybody? Be careful A little bit. 589. What? 586 586. Are they showing that they were Moving in the correct direction?

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You've got a lot of people. You've got a lot of people. You've got a lot of people. Yeah, those are mommy and daddy and Adolph's fur babies. All right. What happened on this one? OK. You've got to grab it without telling me.

OK. I'll check. OK. You've got it wrong. I'm going to tell people that you helped me. I would like to welcome you all to Kongsvinger Lutheran.

Church. Today is the eighth Sunday after Trinity. We'll be following the order of divine service setting three. And the intro at the psalm tone we're going to be using today is A as in Albertville. A as in Albertville.

A little bit of a note here. I like to call this Sunday in the one-year lectionary False Prophet Sunday. I think it's fascinating that we have an entire Sunday dedicated to the topic of false prophets.

All the more reason why the church might want to consider going back to the one year. Just saying. All right. If you are physically present here at Kongsvinger, please rise if you are able for the opening hymn 586.

Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Amen. Beloved in the Lord, let us draw near with a true heart and confess our sins unto God our Father, beseeching him in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to grant us forgiveness. Our help is in the name of the Lord.

Who made heaven and earth.

I said I will confess my transgressions unto the Lord. And you forgave me. O almighty God, merciful Father, I, a poor, miserable sinner, confess unto you all my sins and iniquities with which I have ever offended you and justly deserve your temporal and eternal punishment.

But I am heartily sorry for them and sincerely repent of them. And I pray you of your boundless mercy and for the sake of the holy, innocent, bitter sufferings and death of your beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be gracious and merciful to me, a poor, sinful being.

Upon this, your confession, I, by virtue of my office, as a called and ordained servant of the Word, I announce the grace of God unto all of you and in the stead and by the command of my Lord, Jesus Christ, I forgive you all of your sins.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Psalm tone A, and we're going to be doing this again by alternating whole verses like we've been doing for the past few weeks. So I will do verse one, you will join me in verse two.

I will do verse three. You kind of get the idea. We have thought on your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple. As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness.

Great is the Lord and greatly to be praised. In the city of our God is his holy mountain. Within her citadels, God has made himself known as a fortress. Let Mount Zion be glad. Let the daughters of Judah rejoice because of your judgments.

This is the God, our God forever and ever. He will guide us forever. To the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now and will be forever. On your steadfast love, O God, in the midst of your temple.

As your name, O God, so your praise reaches to the ends of the earth. Your right hand is filled with righteousness. To us, Lord, the Spirit, to think and do always such things as are right, that we, who cannot do anything that is good without you, may be enabled by you to live according to your will through Jesus Christ, your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.

May be seated. The Old Testament reading for the 8th Sunday after Trinity is taken from the Prophet Jeremiah chapter 23. 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.

For who among them has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and to hear his word? Or who has paid attention to his word and listened? Behold, the storm of the Lord. Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest.

It will burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it clearly.

I did not send the prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people. And they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far off? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that he cannot see him? I, declares the Lord, do I not fill heaven and earth, declares the Lord.

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 to one another.

Even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal, 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? This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. We'll speak the gradual together. Be a rock of refuge for me.

A strong fortress to save me.

In you, O Lord, do I take refuge. Let me never be put to shame. Our second reading is taken from Acts chapter 20. Paul said, For I did not shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God. Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.

I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock. And from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them.

Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to admonish everyone with tears. And now I commend you to God and to the word of his grace, which is able to build you up and to give you an inheritance among those who are sanctified.

I coveted no one's silver or gold or apparel. You yourselves know that these hands ministered to my necessities and to those who were with me. In all things, I have shown you that by working hard in this way, we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, it is more blessed to give than to receive.

And when he had said these things, he knelt down and prayed with them all, and there was much weeping on the part of all, and they embraced Paul and they kissed him, being sorrowful most of all because of the word he had spoken that they would not see his face again, and they accompanied him to the ship.

This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The Holy Gospel according to St. Matthew, the seventh chapter. Jesus said, Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? So every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit.

Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and is thrown into the fire. Thus, you will recognize them by their fruits. Not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.

On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do mighty works in your name? And then I will declare to them, I never knew you. Depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.

This is the gospel of the Lord. We confess our faith together in the words of the Nicene Creed. I believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten of His Father before all worlds, God of God, light of light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made, who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and was crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate.

He suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again, according to the Scriptures, and ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of the Father, and He will come again with glory to judge both the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end.

And I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord and giver of life, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spoke by the prophets. And I believe in one holy, Christian and apostolic church.

I acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Amen. You may be seated. Hear again the words of Jesus Christ. Beware of false prophets who come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

You will recognize them by their fruits. I would note that within the charismatic movement in a lot of churches and evangelicalism today, false prophets are just not a concern. They don't particularly care about people who are giving false prophecies.

In fact, they encourage people to stretch out in faith, to take a risk and see if they can hear God's voice and then communicate it and tell others what God is telling them. This is to train people in blasphemy.

Remember the second commandment. The Calvinists are wrong, by the way. The second commandment has nothing to do with making graven images. The second commandment has to do with taking God's name in vain and misusing it.

Luther asks the question, what does this mean? We should fear and love God so that we do not, what? We do not use God's name. We do not use satanic arts, lie or deceive by God's name, but call upon it in every trouble, pray, praise and give thanks.

That being the case, everybody who speaks falsely, who says that they have words from God that God has not given them, they are guilty of breaking this commandment. You're gonna note here, you're gonna sit there and go, listen, we're at Kongs of Inger Luther, Lutheran church, Pastor Roseborough has been teaching us to not listen to false prophets via prophecy bingo and what a fun game that is.

I would remind you of the words of the Apostle Paul in our epistle text, our second reading. The Apostle Paul, as he was getting ready to depart, noted that he had spent three years in Ephesus preaching to them night and day, even doing so with tears.

And he told them that after he left, that fierce wolves would rise up amongst them and teach twisted things. So note then that God is warning us because just because you have a faithful pastor at the moment, doesn't mean you're gonna have a faithful pastor in the future.

And you'll note that we human beings are prone to follow after fads. And when the major part of the visible church follows after a fad and does the latest and greatest thing, you think of like the purpose-driven life or something like that.

Everybody had to do purpose-driven life Bible studies, right? You'll note that God requires you to test that against the scriptures before you start heading down that road. And so the idea here is that if you think that you are standing, beware lest you fall.

We, in our own strength, are not capable of fully protecting ourselves against deceit. We must rely on God, his word, and the Holy Spirit. So do not approach this with some kind of pride saying, listen, we've got this one in the bag.

You know how tempting it was for me to sit there and go, oh, it's false prophet Sunday. I think I could just coast this sermon in, right? No, can't do that. So let's take a look at a few things here. In our gospel text, Christ says you're gonna recognize them by their fruits.

And he asks the question, are grapes gathered from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? Listen, I do not have an agricultural degree, okay? None of the farmers here are asking me for advice when it comes to planting their crops or things like this.

But I'm pretty sure that grapes are not gathered from thorn bushes and figs are not gathered from thistles. I'm pretty sure of that. So much so I'd be willing to bet money on it. But this is the point, and you'll note that there are a lot of people running around today who are saying, listen, we're in the era of the new covenant, and Old Testament prophets, they were required to be 100 accurate.

But now in the New Testament, we don't need perfectly accurate prophets. And they say that's not the standard of scripture for the New Testament. I would note that Jesus didn't say these words. Listen, sometimes healthy trees lay bad eggs.

From time to time, a healthy tree is just gonna put out a piece of fruit. He doesn't say that. By the way, it's not in the scripture. I'm just summarizing, okay? Jesus says every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit.

A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. Does that sound like Jesus is making room for false prophecies in the new covenant, which then we can sit there and go, well, I know that they told us that God told them that Trump was going to win in 2020, and he didn't, but that doesn't make them a false prophet.

Isn't that bad fruit? I think that's bad fruit. And not only is it bad fruit, it shows that we're dealing with a bad tree. And by the way, oh, all the new Trump prophets, they are out in force since last weekend.

Oh, the internet is full of them. In fact, there's one particular one that is making the rounds, because this guy gave a prophecy that appears on the surface to be a true one. Let me tell you about this guy.

I think he goes by the last name of Biggs. And this fellow, back in March of this year, on his prophetic YouTube channel, what's a prophetic YouTube channel? Well, he's hearing from God all the time, man, and he's making videos about it all the time.

And if you look at some of the weird videos he's put up, it's just nonsense, right? Well, it just so happens in March of this year, he prophesied that there would be an assassination attempt against former President Trump.

And I would note, do you have to be a prophet to think that there would have been? I remember Tucker Carlson saying a few things a few weeks back about there being a potential assassination attempt against Trump because of the rhetoric that was being spoken by the left on this matter.

And last time I checked, Tucker Carlson does not have a prophetic YouTube channel, nor does, does he even claim to be a Christian? I don't know, I'm not even sure, right? So you'll note that's not very miraculous.

And plus, political assassinations during election cycles seems to be a part of our tradition now here in the United States. Think of Robert Kennedy and others, right? So this isn't exactly a stretch.

But here's the part that really got everyone's attention. He said that during the assassination attempt, the bullet would miss, it would whiz by his ear, and you sit there and go, wow! God must have told him that.

Oh wait, there's more, okay? He said that the bullet would break Trump's eardrum because of the sonic boom, and that when he fell to the ground, he would ask Jesus into his heart and come up praising God, having been filled with the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues.

So let me see if I got this right. What he got correct was assassination attempt and the word ear, okay? And everything else falls apart after that. Did he really prophesy? And considering the fact that we can look at his prophetic record by looking at his YouTube channel, it's just filled with nonsense.

In fact, I plan on featuring him in the next Prophecy Bingo, because there are some buzzwords coming out of his face that just would make for some good bingo, right? This guy is not a true prophet. He might have got a little bit right, but the rest he got wrong.

Is that good fruit or is it bad fruit? It's bad fruit. So note here, using Jesus' own standard, we can rule this guy out. But think then about our Old Testament text. Note what God says in verse 26 of Jeremiah 23.

Thus says the Lord of hosts. Now the word host, it's a good thing to review this from time to time. What is a host? When we think of hosts, we think of people who serve drinks and things like this. That's not what the Lord of hosts is.

So whenever you see this in your Bible, hosts in the Old Testament, the Hebrew word behind that is sabbah, and it means army. The Lord of armies. Thus says Yahweh of armies. And listen to this. Tell me if this is a command or not.

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 Yahweh. They say continually to those who despise the word of Yahweh, it shall be well with you.

And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, no disaster shall come upon you. Does God want us to listen to people who do these things? No, that's the point. This command, although it was given in the Old Testament, still applies today.

This is why in 1 John 4, we are admonished and commanded by God the Holy Spirit to test the prophets, to test the spirits. So you'll note that back in Jeremiah's day, they had a YouTube profit problem too.

The only thing is that YouTube hadn't been invented yet. And so what were the prophets of Jeremiah in his time doing? Oh, they were telling everything was gonna be well with them. And you'll note, when somebody claims to be hearing from God today, I would note, they say, oh listen, we're gonna give a prophecy and this is for everybody.

That God has told me to tell you that there is an upcoming season, a breakthrough, that you're the head and not the tail and you're the bees knees in God's eyes and he's gonna be sending you prosperity and health and all the things you're gonna be looking for.

Those of you who listen to these prophets, they might even tell you he's gonna give you well-behaved children. And I know some of you are saying, that would be nice, but the children are listening going, yeah, right.

Challenge accepted. What are they doing? They're promising God's blessings without repentance. They are promising God's blessings to those who despise his words and refuse to obey God's command to not listen to yahoos like this.

Do you think that just because somebody put a YouTube video up that God's gonna be releasing suddenlies and breakthroughs and prosperity and well-behaved children all over the world to people who just watch that video regardless of whether or not they are a penitent believer in Jesus Christ?

Not on your life. And by the way, if you want well-behaved children, spare the rod, spoil the child, the scripture says. Discipline is cold when it comes to things like that. Not magic ideas about prophecies and God releasing stuff like that.

So you'll know, in Jeremiah's days, the false prophets, they were speaking all kinds of nonsense and they were speaking it to people who were steeped in idolatry, they were steeped in sexual sin, they were steeped in injustice and they were steeped in extorting money from the poor and oppressing them.

You think God was about to bless them? No. In fact, God sent the prophet Jeremiah and Jeremiah was as popular in his day as a pile of manure is today. People there did not want to listen to him. They did not like him.

Because what was Jeremiah prophesying? He was prophesying, repent of your idolatry, otherwise God's gonna send for the armies of Nebuchadnezzar, he's going to come and he's going to defeat you and there's only gonna be a remnant of you left.

Oh, and by the way, if you want to survive the armed attacks of Nebuchadnezzar's army, you're gonna have to do one thing. You're gonna have to surrender to him. And everybody who surrenders to Nebuchadnezzar will live and they'll have their life as a prize of war and everybody who resists and disobeys God and his command to submit to Nebuchadnezzar, where would they end up?

Dead. That's what God said. And who made good on his word? God did make good on his word. So you're gonna note here, Jeremiah was a true prophet and when we look at the biblical standards for true prophets, true prophets' words will always be fulfilled.

Always. Because they're not speaking their own words, they're speaking words from God and God is not a blathering idiot who doesn't know what the future's going to bring. Nor is God senile and incompetent mentally so that when he says he's going to do a thing, he forgets to follow through.

Instead, God knows full well that when he raises up a prophet and he says something's gonna happen, it's gonna happen. Deuteronomy makes this very clear in chapter 18. If a prophet says something's gonna occur and it doesn't take place, well, what do you do with him?

You stone him. And so this is the case and so there's a wonderful story. Is it really wonderful though? It is an interesting story. In Jeremiah chapter 28, there's five chapters after our Old Testament text today, and in Jeremiah 28, Jeremiah has a run-in with a false prophet, fellow by the name of Hananiah, the son of Azer.

And Hananiah was one of these guys who set up his own YouTube channel and he prophesied the nonsense of his own heart and he was telling people what they wanted to hear. By Jeremiah 28, God had already sent Nebuchadnezzar the first time.

He's gonna send him two more times. He's already sent him once and he's already taken all of the utensils out of the temple of God. Solomon's temple is now utensilless. Those have been removed from the temple.

And the first wave of exiles has now gone into exile in Babylon. And what did everybody want to hear? Well, they wanted to believe that what had happened to them was evil, was brought on them by Satan and that God was going to deliver them and he was going to defeat their enemy.

But who sent Nebuchadnezzar? God did. So Hananiah decided he was going to contradict Jeremiah. And at this point, a little more context, God had told Jeremiah to create kind of a prophetic prop, if you would.

The prophetic prop was a yoke. If you don't know what a yoke is, back in the day they didn't have combines and things like this. So in order to till up the ground, you'd have to put two oxen together under a yoke and then they'd be able to pull a plow and dig the holes necessary to plant crops.

So God told Jeremiah to make himself a prop, to make himself a yoke. And Jeremiah was going about the business of prophesying and telling Judah that they needed to submit themselves to the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar.

Well, this got Hananiah's hackles up and he decided that he was going to give a contradictory prophecy. Jeremiah 28 says, In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, the king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, Hananiah the son of Azer, the prophet from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of Yahweh in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, Thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon and within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of Yahweh's house, which Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, took away from this place and carried to Babylon.

I will also bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, the king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares Yahweh, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

Well, now we've got a problem. We have dueling prophecies. How are we to distinguish who's telling the truth and who's telling a lie? Who was truly sent by God and who was sent, well, not by God, maybe by Satan, maybe by his own delusional mind, right?

And so that's the question that's before us. The prophet Jeremiah spoke to Hananiah the prophet in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of Yahweh and the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen!

Way to go, Hananiah. Way to go. May Yahweh do so and may Yahweh make the words that you prophesied come true and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of Yahweh and all the exiles.

Yet hear this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times, they prophesied war, famine, pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms.

And as for the prophet who prophesies peace, you'll note that what Jeremiah is pointing out here is that Hananiah is kind of like that game that you used to listen to or watch on Sesame Street, right?

Remember the game? One of these things is not like the other. One of these things is not the same, right? Find out what doesn't belong is the idea here. And so Jeremiah points out, listen, the prophets of the past, they prophesied war and pestilence, calling countries and great kingdoms to repentance.

But as for the prophet who prophesies peace, that doesn't sound anything like Isaiah. That doesn't sound anything like Micah. That doesn't sound anything like the prophets of old. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, note the words, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that Yahweh has truly sent the prophet.

So then Hananiah took the yoke bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, and he broke them. Was it Peter Townsend who used to break his telecasters on stage? You know, just get up there at the end of the day and just smash those things.

He pulled a Peter Townsend here, right? What a good waste of yoke bars, and also a good waste of telecasters, but that's a whole other story. So he broke the bars from Jeremiah, and Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people saying, well, thus says Yahweh.

Even so, I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, from the neck of all the nations within two years. But Jeremiah the prophet went his way. Now, what should happen at this point to Hananiah?

He's a false prophet, and do you think this is his first false prophecy? Does a good tree bear bad fruit? Does a bad tree bear good fruit? Who's telling the truth here? Clearly, Jeremiah is. And so what should have happened to men like Hananiah, which Judah wasn't doing, which they were called upon God by Deuteronomy 18 to do, is they should have been executing these fellows.

Under the Mosaic Covenant, under the theocracy of Israel, God made it very clear that those who blaspheme God's name by giving prophecies that he hasn't given them to give, that the punishment for this crime is death, death penalty for false prophets.

So he's supposed to die. Do you think Judah, in their state of apostasy, is about to kill and put to death and execute Hananiah as an example so that other people will not prophesy falsely? Not on your life.

Oh, don't worry. God can step in in situations like that. If they're not going to do what God's word commands them to do, never fear. God will step in. He'll take care of it himself. So sometime after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke bars from off the neck of Jeremiah the prophet, the word of Yahweh came to Jeremiah.

You go tell Hananiah, thus says Yahweh, you've broken wooden bars, but you have made in their place bars of iron. For thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, I have put upon the neck of all these nations an iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, and they shall serve him.

For I have given to him even the beasts of the field. And Jeremiah the prophet said to the prophet Hananiah, listen, Hananiah, Yahweh has not sent you, and you have made this people trust a lie. Therefore, thus says Yahweh, behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth.

And this year you shall die because you have uttered rebellion against Yahweh. Now, a little bit of a note here. We heard Hananiah's prophecy. Where in his prophecy did Hananiah say, we need to grab our pitchforks and go storm the gates of heaven and depose God?

Isn't that what rebellion does? It deposes the one who's in authority, kills him and puts somebody else in his place. You'll note that he didn't overtly do that, but it doesn't matter if it was overt or not.

By giving words that God had not given him and saying that Yahweh was behind it, he was giving commands for Yahweh that Yahweh had not commanded. In fact, they contradicted God's clear commands. And as a result of it, he was uttering complete rebellion against Yahweh, the true God.

And God doesn't take that lightly. Every false prophet is an apostate rebel against Yahweh. And anybody claiming to have direct revelation from God and has not passed the test, you need to think of them as churchly insurrectionists who are leading a revolt against Jesus himself, who seek to depose Christ and his word and replace him with Satan and his words.

That's what rebellion is. So in that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah, he died, just like Jeremiah said. Remember Jeremiah's words. Jeremiah's words were, when the word of the prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet who was speaking truth here and who was speaking lies.

Jeremiah was speaking the truth. And you're going to note then that now, upon this judgment of God with Hananiah dying, who represents one of the false prophets of Jeremiah's day, God then pushes the issue further.

In Jeremiah chapter 29, God pushes it further by sending an epistle, a letter to the exiles in Babylon because it just so happens that some of the Hananiah type of yahoo wingnuts made their way to Babylon and they were saying the same nonsensical rebellious words.

So Jeremiah 29 then says, these are the words of the letter that Jeremiah the prophet sent from Jerusalem to the surviving elders of the exiles. And to the priests and the prophets and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

This was after Jeconiah and the queen mother, the eunuchs and the officials of Judah and Jerusalem, the craftsmen and the metal workers, they had departed from Jerusalem. And this letter was sent by the hand of Elisa, the son of Shaphan and Gamariah, the son of Hilkiah, whom Zedekiah, the king of Judah, sent to Babylon to Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon.

And here's what the letter said. Thus says Yahweh of armies, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses, live in them, plant gardens and eat their produce, take wives and have sons and daughters, take wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage so that they may bear sons and daughters and multiply there and do not decrease.

Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile and pray to Yahweh on its behalf. For it is welfare, you will find your welfare. For thus says the Lord of armies, the God of Israel, do not let your prophets and your diviners who are among you deceive you and do not listen to the dreams that they dream for it is a lie that they are prophesying to you.

In my name, I did not send them, declares Yahweh. For thus says Yahweh, when 70 years are completed for Babylon, then I will visit you and will fulfill to you my promise and bring you back to this place.

False prophets were saying in two years, in two years, in two years. And Jeremiah says no, 70. And God was behind it. And who was right? How long did it take for the exiles to return? 70 years. So brothers and sisters note, the standard is simple.

Anybody claiming to be speaking for God who is incapable of rightly telling you what the future will be despite the fact they are giving future prophecies, they are false prophets and God does not will for you to listen to them.

Take note of the end of Hananiah. Also, true prophets teach what are consistent with the scriptures. They don't twist God's word. And in this regard, we have to take something into consideration. And that is this.

And that all pastors, there's, I'm gonna say a phrase that's gonna sound stupid, but hang on a second here. For every pastor, there is a prophetic dimension to their preaching. And when I use the word prophetic dimension, I sound like I should go on Sid Roth's It's Supernatural like next week.