WWUTT 2474 Hananiah's False Prophecy (Jeremiah 28:1-17)

There was this prophet, a false prophet by the name of Hananiah. Rhymes with Jeremiah, but Hananiah was not speaking words that truly came from God, and it cost him his life when we understand the text.

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Jeremiah 28 and the False Prophecy of Hananiah

Thank you, Becky. In our study of the book of Jeremiah, we are up to Chapter 28. And I believe I said last week that I was going to read 28 and 29 together. I'm not going to do that. There's so much going on in Chapter 29, it needs its own lesson.

So we're just looking at Chapter 28 today, where a false prophet named Hananiah is going to make a prophecy that's contrary to what Jeremiah has said, but Jeremiah accepts the prophecy, hoping that it would indeed come true.

Yet the Lord speaks to Jeremiah and says, I did not put my words in the mouth of Hananiah the prophet. So all of this will happen prior to the things we're going to read about in Chapter 29. That's next week.

The very famous Jeremiah 2911 is coming up. So here we are in Chapter 28 today. I'll go ahead and read through Verse 9. Hear the word of the Lord. In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, 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 the Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

Within two years, I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord's house, which Nebuchadnezzar, 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, king of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, declares the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.

Then 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 the Lord. And the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen. May the Lord do so.

May the Lord make the words that you have prophesied come true and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord and all the exiles. Yet, hear now 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 prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes to pass, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent that prophet.

So what's Hananiah prophesying? He's prophesying peace. And in fact, he's saying this is not going to be a long exile at all. Within a short period of time, all the stuff that had been taken away by Nebuchadnezzar when he went into the temple and he carried away all of the vessels of the Lord's house, when he took Jeconiah, who was the king at that time, and some of the others that went with him into exile, all of that is going to return.

The vessels will come back. The exiles will come back. They're all coming back to this place. Within two years is what Hananiah says. Now, if you'll remember back to what we read in chapter 27 last week, God had told Jeremiah to fashion for himself a yoke and bars.

Like a yoke you would put on an oxen or even a yoke that you might put on a slave or a prisoner who can't go very far because they've got their arms kind of fastened up in this yoke. The yoke, of course, was that bar that would go between two oxen and then it would attach to a plow.

So the oxen would pull the plow. So Jeremiah is wearing this oxen or wearing the oxen. He's wearing the yoke and it's supposed to be a symbol of the slavery that they're under, the captivity that they're in, with all of those exiles being taken away into Babylon.

Now, what's going to happen here when we continue on with this text, Hananiah is going to break that yoke. He's going to step forward to Jeremiah. He's going to break the yoke off of him because the word of the Lord has come to Hananiah and within two years, this whole exile thing is going to be over.

Hananiah is prophesying peace. Now, Jeremiah is realistic. He wants Hananiah's prophecy to be true because we've heard as we've been going through Jeremiah, the complaints that he's raised before God, like this people who persecutes me.

Why did you deceive me in sending me to a people who were going to persecute me? Or why won't you release these people from the punishment that is coming upon them? There were various occasions in which Jeremiah would contend with the Lord, and he did so out of love for this people.

He did not want to see them destroyed. So here comes Hananiah, who's making this prophecy, and Jeremiah wants to accept it's true. Great. So this isn't going to last very long. We'll still get to come back to this land.

But as I said, he's realistic about it because he says, There were prophets before us. Prophets before me, prophets before Hananiah. From ancient times, what did they prophesy? War, famine, and pestilence against many great countries and great kingdoms.

Now, among those prophets, Isaiah. Because Isaiah prophesied of these things 100 years before they were taking place. So they already had Isaiah's prophecies. They already knew about the judgment that would eventually come.

To Israel and to Judah because of their rebellion against the Lord. So Jeremiah is now saying, we've read of these prophecies. We know they're there. That God would bring war, famine, and pestilence against many great countries and great kingdoms.

But for the prophet who prophesies peace, if that's what happens. If peace comes to pass, then we know that the Lord spoke through that prophet. So Jeremiah is looking forward to this. In two years time, all of this stuff is going to be undone.

Even the king himself will come back. The vessels will be back into Jerusalem and placed into the house of God. Now the people are willing to receive Hananiah's word. Remember, whenever Jeremiah would prophesy something, they wanted to put him to death.

They would even throw him in prison. But here's Hananiah prophesying this thing. Nobody's saying anything angry to Hananiah because Hananiah is prophesying peace. He's got good prophecies. These are the encouraging words.

This is exactly what we want to hear. A lot of the false modern prophets today, they will say that we shouldn't be prophesying things that are bad news. I remember listening to a sermon that was from Bethel Church.

So Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bill Johnson, Chris Vallotton, or Vallotton, however you pronounce his last name. Anyway, a heretical church. Some of the earliest polemical stuff that I was doing in what videos was against Bethel Church.

And their hypercharismaticism, new apostolic reformation stuff, name it and claim it, prosperity, theology. It's all there at Bethel Church. Just deep, dark stuff. And I remember listening to a sermon of theirs when I was still kind of doing research into Bethel Church.

And hearing them talk about, or they're like encouraging members of their congregation to be prophets. To ask God for a word from the Lord. And then go out and prophesy. And what was said to them was, prophesy good things.

Because we don't live in a time in which God is revealing all of this bad news and stuff like this. So you don't want to go up to prophesy to somebody, hey, within six months God's going to strike you dead.

Okay, that's not what you're looking for. It's kind of funny that they're putting a limit on prophecy in that way. Don't be looking for the bad news. You just need to prophesy things that are encouraging.

And that's what they were telling their people to do. So no bad news. Only encouraging things. You're not going to get any harsh reactions by being a positive prophet in that way. By being a prophet that prophesies peace.

Everybody loves a prophet who prophesies peace. Matt Chandler did this same thing. I did a what video on this. But he was talking about how you can pray and ask God for different things to pop into your head.

And maybe that's something prophetic and you can pass that on to somebody else. But it's always good things. It's never this kind of prophecy. This gift of prophecy that's even guaranteed to us in places like 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

It's always good. It's always positive. It's never anything negative. I just don't see where that's at in scripture. Where does it say? That we're going to have prophecies that will only ever be positive.

So of course Hananiah is well received by everybody. Because he's speaking positive things. Jeremiah was always kind of a Debbie Downer. He's bringing us all this bad news. He's talking about how we're going to go into exile.

And the Babylonians are going to conquer us. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Kill this guy. Somebody shoot this guy. It's kind of like the way the officials were responding to Jeremiah. But even Jeremiah is happy with Hananiah's prophecy here.

And so Hananiah verse 10. Let me pick up now in verse 10. The prophet Hananiah took the yoke bars from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke them. And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people saying, Thus says the Lord.

Even so, I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all the nations within two years. But Jeremiah the prophet went away. Probably happy that he didn't have to wear this burdensome yoke anymore.

Hananiah had just broken it off of his shoulders. Now this yoke was made of wood. That's significant. Remember that because of what's coming up here in just a moment. So Hananiah is prophesying peace.

And you have to wonder, did Hananiah think that he really had received a word from God? Or was he just making this up? And then what was going to happen in two years? Probably what a lot of the modern prophets do.

Whenever a prophecy of theirs doesn't come to pass, well then they just change the rules. Okay, yeah, I said that it was going to happen this year. Well, something happened this year on a spiritual level.

So now God's going to be doing this thing and this will happen in the year such and such. They'll always kind of change the prophecy whenever it doesn't happen the way that they said it would. That might have been what Hananiah was expecting to have to do if he was being a charlatan here.

If he was lying and knew he was lying. Is it possible that he could have received some kind of prophecy that he believed was truly from God? It's possible. It could have been a messenger of Satan that deceived Hananiah.

That's a possibility. It could also be that Hananiah heard a voice in his head. That's the way that a lot of the false prophets today do that. I heard a voice in my head, so this had to truly be something from God.

When I was doing all that research on Bethel Church, the church that was closest to me that was like Bethel at the time was the International House of Prayer in Kansas City. And so I started looking into them because I saw some of their preachers were exchanging with each other, Bethel Church and IHOP.

So I started listening to the International House of Prayer, some of their sermons. And I was hearing the same kind of a thing. The kinds of prophecy that you're asking God for is always going to be positive.

You're always looking for a positive word. You're not going to say anything negative. God's not giving you bad news to prophesy to somebody else. Well, one of the other things that IHOP, of course, was known for was prayer because it's the International House of Prayer.

And they used to have this brochure. In later years, I was never able to acquire a copy of it. I wish I had kept the copy that I first received. But they had this brochure in which they were telling people how to pray.

And one of the things in there about prayer, they encouraged contemplative prayer. So you're contemplating on things. But one form of prayer that they had in that brochure was emptying your mind. So you're going to try to put away all thoughts, not think about anything at all.

And then whatever pops into your head, that would be a word from the Lord. And that's not the way that the Bible encourages us to pray. It never says anything about empty your mind. And then whatever thoughts pop in there, well, that has to truly be something that comes from God.

How would you know that? How would you know the difference between the voice in your head that's your own thoughts and God's thoughts? How would you know the difference between the two? But this was the way that the International House of Prayer was encouraging people to pray.

This actually goes back to a Roman Catholic priest named Meister Eckhart. And at one point, Eckhart was being investigated for heresy because he was telling people this very thing. If you just empty your mind of everything, then whatever thoughts pop into your head, that's God speaking to you.

You don't even need to know the Bible. You don't even need to have a biblical understanding, a scriptural understanding of who Jesus truly is because God will reveal that to you. And so then the church was investigating that because it's like, well, this guy's preaching heresy.

That people can just think thoughts and then God will just stick that stuff in there and whatever it is is God's thoughts. But when they grilled Meister Eckhart about this, all of Eckhart's answers were orthodox.

Yeah, I believe the Trinity. I believe Jesus is the incarnate Son of God. Yes, you have to believe in Jesus in order to be saved. You have to have heard the gospel. So when they would grill him on it, he would give orthodox answers.

But in the sermons that he preached, he's telling people, empty your minds. And let God fill your brain with his thoughts. Again, that's not anything that we see in Scripture. What we see, like in Colossians chapter 2, is that in Christ Jesus are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

We're actually supposed to be filled with God. Ephesians chapter 5, be filled with the Holy Spirit. So you don't empty yourself of everything and then look for God's thoughts. God's thoughts are written down for us in the Bible.

That's how we know what it is that God has said. When God would speak to Jeremiah, he was audibly speaking to Jeremiah. Jeremiah actually heard the voice of God. He actually received real visions that weren't just dreams or him sitting out on his back porch daydreaming.

He had actual, tangible visions that God had given to him that were going to be symbolic of other things. It was just a few chapters back that we had that good fig and bad fig vision that Jeremiah had.

So what was Hananiah receiving when he got these prophecies? Who knows? The Scripture doesn't tell us. It might be like the modern prophets today. But God doesn't just put thoughts in our head. When God speaks to somebody, you know, you know, it was actually God who spoke to you.

And Jeremiah is saying the way that the rest of us will know that God actually spoke to Hananiah is when these things come to pass. But we know that's not what happened. Let's continue on. Verse 12. Sometime after the prophet Hananiah had broken the yoke bars from off the neck of Jeremiah, the prophet, the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah.

Go tell Hananiah. Thus says the Lord, you have broken wooden bars, but you have made in their place bars of iron. For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel. I have put upon the neck of all these nations an iron yoke to serve Nebuchadnezzar, 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, the Lord has not sent you. Behold, I will remove you from the face of the earth.

This year you shall die because you have uttered rebellion against the Lord. And this is the way chapter 28 ends. In that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died. Now, this started, if you go back to kind of like the bookends that we have on chapter 28, it began by saying in that same year at the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year.

Well, now we get to in this year you will die. And in that same year, in the seventh month, the prophet Hananiah died. So just a few months later, Hananiah was dead. What God said to Jeremiah about Hananiah, the prophet, actually came to pass, unlike Hananiah's prophecy.

Now, in light of all of this, Hananiah's false prophecy, and he paid the penalty for it, death. In light of all of this, there's now going to be a letter written to the exiles. And that's what we're going to have in chapter 29.

And in that letter, God is going to say this exile will be 70 years. So Hananiah was prophesying two years. It's actually going to be 70 years. But God gives a promise to these people that he won't annihilate them in exile.

He means to deliver them, giving them a hope and a future. Sound familiar, right?

Yeah.

Jeremiah 29, 11. It's coming up. We'll get to that next week. But as we finish up chapter 28 here, just as was said in the book of Deuteronomy about false prophets, if what that prophet prophesized doesn't come to pass, that prophet shall die.

So Deuteronomy 13, if a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass. And if he says, let us go after other gods, which you have not known, and 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 know whether you love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul.

But the prophet, the one who prophesied falsely, he shall be put to death. So that's regarding a prophet who would encourage you to go after other gods. Listen now to Deuteronomy chapter 18. So a few chapters later, the prophet who presumes to speak a word in my name that I have not commanded him to speak or who speaks in the name of other gods, that same prophet shall die.

So it's either or. Somebody claims to have a vision from God, but it isn't actually from God. Or someone speaks in the name of other gods. Either way, this prophet shall be put to death. Verses 21 and 22.

And if you say in your heart, how may we know the word that the Lord has not spoken? When a prophet speaks in the name of the Lord, if the word does not come to pass or come true, that is a word that the Lord has not spoken.

The prophet has spoken it presumptuously. You need not be afraid of him. Any prophet today that claims to be a prophet, if they prophesy something that doesn't come to pass, folks, according to the biblical standard, they are false prophets.

And that is virtually everyone who prophesies today claiming to have foreknowledge of certain events, but those events don't come to pass. Doesn't matter whether they have a track record of getting nine of them right and one of them wrong.

They're false prophets. None of these prophets have that kind of track record, by the way. It's more like they get 29 of them wrong and then one of them kind of, sort of sounds like that could have been right.

That's more the track record for prophets today. It's not that they're getting most of them right, but a few of them end up getting them wrong. They're hardly ever right. Don't listen to prophets. Unless that prophet is a pastor who's just simply proclaiming things that are written down in the Bible that have not yet come to pass.

Then if he's prophesying what's written in scripture, well, that's a good kind of prophet. But we're not looking for prophets today. As Hebrews 1 .1 says, long ago, in many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets.

But in these last days, he has spoken to us by his son, whom he has made the heir of all things. Everything we could ever want to know about God and what he is doing, even in the world today, we have it written down for us already in the pages of scripture.

Let us trust God and his word and know that no matter what is happening in our present day, God is still in control. He has ordained this. He will bring it to pass for our good and for his glory. Heavenly Father, we thank you for what we have read.

And just as you have kept your promises in the past, so we know you will keep your promises for our future. And so, Lord, help us to trust in that word. We know that you hold all things in your hand, that you are bringing things to a completion that will be for our good and for your glory.

And we can read the end of the book and know that victory is in your hands. Let us continue to trust the word that we have already been given. And in these present days that we would live lives of holiness, abstaining from sin, we would be sober-minded and self-controlled, looking to Christ and desiring to walk in holiness day by day.

It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

This has been When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabriel Hughes. For all of our podcasts, episodes, videos, books, and more, visit our website at www .utt .com. If you would like to submit a question to this broadcast, or just send us a comment, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

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