Sunday Morning, May 5, 2019 AM Part 1

Let's pray together. Father, I thank you for gathering us together today.

We need a word from you. We are made in your image and we need your word. It is how you first gave us life.

It is how you first taught us to live. It is your word that we disobeyed.

It is by your word that we are saved. So we need your word today.

We need to see Christ. Help us to follow him as our king. Lord, I pray that you would, by the power of your

Holy Spirit, be at work in our hearts. The true inner self that so often rebels against you.

As often as our joints ache, we bow up against you in our hearts.

But Father, we ask for renewal. We ask for a true willingness and a true desire to hear and to obey and to rejoice in all who you are and what you've said.

And I pray that your will would be done on this earth as it is done in heaven.

We pray these things for the sake of Christ, the one with whom you are well pleased. Amen. I invite you to open your

Bibles and turn with me to Jeremiah chapter 28. Jeremiah chapter 28.

This chapter is something of a conclusion to what we began to hear about in chapter 27.

There was a note about the changing of regimes, that Zedekiah was now king rather than the previous kings,

Jehoiakim, Jehoiakim. They're off the scene. Zedekiah is now king. But he's not much of a king.

He's not really in charge. The one in charge is Nebuchadnezzar. And this is according to the will of God.

God has made this known. He's told everybody that he has given all the land to Nebuchadnezzar.

He's told the Moabites, the Edomites. He's told the cities of Tyre and Sidon.

He's told all the surrounding nations. And he's also told Judah as well, that he has given all of their cities and all the wilderness that fills up between their cities, all of their people and all the wild animals throughout all the wilderness, he's given it all to Nebuchadnezzar.

And he's warned them all, saying that if anybody tries to resist this, if you don't wear the yoke like you're supposed to and be a good vassal of Babylon, then

God himself will fight against you. He will fight against you with the swords and spears of the

Babylonian army. He will also fight against you with famine and pestilence.

And there's no way for you to win. And that's been the message from the beginning of chapter 27.

The message that Jeremiah, the prophet of God, was tasked with delivering to the nations, including his own,

Judah. And so Jeremiah preached this message and obeying

God's instructions, he put on a yoke. He put on a wooden yoke and he went about looking like a slave while he preached the message.

It's a very effective visual aid. Got everybody's attention and they remember

Jeremiah looking like a slave, preaching about how everybody at this point were slaves of Babylon, so be good slaves.

Serve Babylon well. This is God's will for the foreseeable future.

It wasn't always going to be this way, but for now, this was the way that God had determined. So he went around preaching submission.

In other words, what Jeremiah was saying was that you're going to serve Babylon no matter what. This is

God's will. Ultimately, you're serving God. You're going to be living the way that God said it's going to happen.

And now the only question that remains is how you're going to do it. Will you do it while remaining on your land and tilling your land and having to pay that heavy tribute and filling the weight of being oppressed?

Will you serve that way? Or will you serve by being an example to the other nations and being slowly and systematically destroyed?

Will you serve in that way? That's the only question that remains for the nations and for Jeremiah's people.

How will you serve? And so this has been the message thus far.

And now we're going to hear from another prophet. Another prophet by the name of Hananiah.

And Hananiah comes and preaches a different message. And that message is recorded for us, and the results are recorded for us in chapter 28.

I'm going to read that for us this morning. So if you would please stand with me as I read the word of the

Lord. Jeremiah 28.

Now in the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month,

Hananiah the son of Asur, the prophet, who was 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 am going to 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 am also going to bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, and all the exiles of 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 the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests, and in the presence of 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 confirm your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the Lord's house and all the exiles from Babylon to this place.

Yet hear now this word which I am about to speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms of war and of calamity and of pestilence.

The prophet who prophesies of peace. When the word of the prophet comes to pass, then that prophet will be known as one whom the

Lord has truly sent. Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it.

Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people saying, Thus says the Lord, even so I will break within two full years the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all the nations.

Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah. After Hananiah the prophet had broken the yoke from the neck of the prophet

Jeremiah saying, Go and speak to Hananiah saying, Thus says the Lord, you have broken the yokes of wood, but you have made instead of them yokes of iron.

For thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations that they may serve

Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and they will serve him. And I have also given him the beast of the field.

Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet, Listen now

Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you and you have made this people trust in a lie.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth. This year you are going to die because you have counseled rebellion against the

Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died in the same year, in the seventh month.

This is the reading of the word of the Lord. You may be seated. In the early 2000s, things were looking up.

Near the end of the 2000s, things were looking down. In the early 2000s, there was a very popular financial instrument that was being sold.

It was called collateralized debt obligations. This was essentially a woman's purse full of all kinds of debt.

Somebody else's debt. You bought this purse and you didn't know exactly what was in the depths of it, but some of it looked pretty good.

You don't know what's in the depths of it, but a lot of it looked pretty good. It's somebody else's debt. You bought it because as the people pay off their debt, such as their mortgages on their house, you get a cut of that interest.

You own their debt, so you get the interest that they pay on the debt. These would come in different ratings.

This is a B +, this is an A, this is a triple A. As time went on, these financial instruments began to be filled with more and more junk.

You know, like the melted piece of candy you found from five years ago at the bottom of the purse.

It's worthless, it doesn't have anything to it. So more and more, some of these collateralized debt obligations,

CDOs, looked pretty poor, pretty sour. But no fear, if they default on their debt and the whole thing goes south, you have bought an insurance policy called a credit default swap.

Because someone said, well, your investment is risky, but it's not so risky that I don't think

I can make money off of you, so what I'll do is I have all this investment over here, and what happens is if your debt goes south and everybody defaults on the debt and you lose, then

I'll cover it, I'll be your insurance policy, and I'll charge you a certain amount. And the amount you're making on the interest off your

CDO is far more than the amount you're paying for the insurance on the CDS, and so you just keep going and going and going, until it all falls apart, until it all falls apart.

Because everyone thought that the insurance was going to last, no matter how bad your CDO was, no matter how many bad debts you had, no matter how many subprime mortgages were defaulted on, you could always pay off your debts with a

CDS that you got from someplace like AIG. Until AIG, who had been making gobs of money selling

CDSs because the CDOs are never going to fail anyway, so we're going to make a lot of money off people trying to buy all this insurance that they don't really need, all of a sudden say, oh, we don't have enough money to cover all of our

CDSs. And the dominoes just keep falling until we get to the late 2000s when you know what happened.

And you say, well, I had this insurance. And so you call the company, and then it says, due to unusual call volume, it'll be a little bit.

Your caller number, 145 ,612. Now, right in the middle of all of that, some people were saying, hang on a second, this is too good to be true.

Things are going to go bad. You should get out of this kind of investment and get into this investment, because everything's about to go south.

And so they saw a big bear on the horizon swiping everything down. And others said, no, there's no way that this could ever fail.

The housing market's just going to keep going up and up and up, and you should just keep on, keep on. Make money while the iron is hot.

And they saw a bull swifting upwards with its horns. Well, who was right? Well, we know who was right in hindsight.

I mean, we look back and we see who was right. But the critical question was, how can you tell who was right, which financial investment advice was correct in the time, in the critical moment?

How can you tell? Well, the only way you could have known was if you actually knew what was in the purse, if you actually knew what was in the product, if you had sat with the mortgage lenders, if you had actually sat in the room while they tried to, you know, sell a $450 ,000 house to someone with a part -time job.

If you had been seeing that and realized that that was what you were investing in, you would have known. This is not wise.

Well, we have two prophets here. I love this line in verse 15.

Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet. I mean, they're both prophets, so who's right?

Jeremiah is definitely calling for a bear market. You know, things are going to get bad. Hananiah is saying, oh, it's very bullish.

It looks great. Well, which one is right? You have to look at the product.

You have to look at what they actually say. And why is it so important that we take the time to look at what is actually said and compare it against the truth, compare it against what we know to be true?

Because the message you trust determines the manner you serve. The message you trust determines the manner you serve.

Hananiah's message, which the people trusted, led them to serve in a disastrous way.

The message that Jeremiah was preaching, he was trying to help them to serve in a viable way.

Sure, you don't like Babylon being in charge, but this is what God says to do, and so serve in this way. In fact, he actually sent that message on to the exiles who are already in Babylon, hearing from Ezekiel and so on about how to live in the land of Babylon and how to live well as believers in God.

So the message you trust determines the manner you serve. I mean, Nebuchadnezzar was going to be in charge no matter what.

Now the only question that remains is how are you going to live under his reign? And this is all very relevant to us because Christ is in charge.

He's King of kings and Lord of lords. He owns everything and everyone. He sustains all things by the word of his power.

He's in charge. The only question that remains is how will you serve? In what manner will you serve?

And so it matters what message you believe in because the message you trust determines the manner that you serve. Will you be serving as a rebel against Christ, ending up being an example of folly and an example of disobedience, or will you be serving as one who champions

Christ and bows the knee to Christ and exalts and worships Christ? So that's why it's important.

And as for the name high stakes trading of our sermon today, we're going to talk about words, vocabulary.

Because it's not real estate and it's not gold. It's not derivatives and futures, words.

Vocabulary is the real high stakes trading. So let's talk about that superstar profit.

Now, I didn't put Hananiah's name in. I left it blank. By the end of our time together this morning,

I expect you to fill in the blank. You don't have to put the same name in there, but we're going to talk about superstar profits.

How about that superstar profit you fill in the blank? See who comes to mind.

And don't go for the easiest answer. Everyone's like, how do you spell Osteen?

Don't go for the immediate one. Think about it a little bit. Now, there's four things about the superstar profit

Hananiah that we're going to see from the text. And the first is that he is so credentialed.

He is so credentialed, verse 1. Now, in the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month,

Hananiah, the son of Asur, the prophet who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the

Lord in the presence of the priests and all the people. Now, we run over that, but if you know the background, this is

Hananiah's resume. It matters who you are the son of. It matters where you're from. He's very credentialed.

He's not only a prophet, he's also a priest. Hananiah was a prophet, and he was the son of a prophet.

So that's a prophet with pedigree. That means that you were born into that line of prophets.

So that really means something. After all, we remember Amos, the country bumpkin farmer, in Amos 7, verse 14, saying,

I'm not a prophet. I'm not even the son of a prophet. God just said, hey, you stop watching sheep.

You come over here and tell them what for. He was not credentialed at all. I made a note of it.

Now, Hananiah is very credentialed. He's a prophet, and he's the son of a prophet. He's also a priest. You see,

Gibeon, his hometown, was a Levitical city. When you're reading through Joshua 21 at the parts where you're falling asleep because of the list of all the names and the geography that we don't really understand, there's a list of Levitical cities.

What God did, because he wanted his people to know his word and to follow him, he gave land to all these different tribes except for Levi.

Levi was the priestly tribe. Levi was in charge of all sorts of important things, like maintaining the tabernacle, maintaining the sacrificial system in the feast days, reading the scriptures aloud to the people so they would know what the word of God was.

To make their ministry effective, what God did was that he took the Levites' inheritance, instead of giving them a cut of steak on the land, he put them all in a salt shaker and just sprinkled them all over the different regions in the land of Israel.

That's what they really were. They were to preserve and season the whole land with the word of God and to promote holiness and obedience to God.

Gibeon was one of those Levitical cities. Gibeon was a very impressive

Levitical city. If you wanted an impressive place to be from, this was it. This would be the equivalent of having your degree from Oxford.

Gibeon was the place where the sun stood still.

Joshua was in battle. How's that for a sign? How's that for a supernatural place of great recognition?

I mean, Hananiah is from the place where the sun stood still. Just so you know that this was a very highly respected place in the life of Israel, before the temple was built, there was a great altar at Gibeon in this

Levitical city, a ginormous altar, on which Solomon, remember

Solomon when he had the night vision and God says, I offer to you great riches.

I offer to you long life. I offer to you wisdom.

What do you want? He said, I want wisdom. That was that night. That day, before he had that vision, he offered 1 ,000 burnt offerings on the great altar in Gibeon.

So this is a very prominent priestly city. And this is

Hananiah's credentials. He's a prophet, the son of a prophet, and he's from Gibeon.

So when it comes to his credentials versus Jeremiah's credentials, Hananiah has a leg up.

Now, Jeremiah also comes from a priestly city, Anathoth, and he's a prophet, but he's not the son of a prophet.

And Anathoth does not have all the history that Gibeon does. And so Hananiah is more credentialed than Jeremiah.

Now, what do credentials mean? Well, credentials are not wrong.

Jeremiah wasn't as credentialed as Hananiah, but Hananiah wasn't as credentialed as Isaiah. Isaiah was incredibly credentialed.

He had connections. He was actually related to the kings by marriage. I mean, he was very credentialed.

Paul, the apostle, you talk about a man incredibly credentialed. I mean, being credentialed isn't wrong, but being credentialed does not mean that you have the truth.

It's very helpful. It's a good thing to have the credentials and to have the education and to talk from that, but it doesn't mean that you have the truth.

Think about Nicodemus. Nicodemus was the teacher of Israel. He was a very credentialed man.

He was one of the most educated Pharisees in the land. He was so prominent that he was actually on the

Sanhedrin. The Sanhedrin was primarily Sadducees, and they let a few Pharisees get on there. And Nicodemus had that reputation to be able to be on there, and as he comes and visits with Jesus at nighttime, he doesn't get it.

And Jesus is explaining all of this stuff about the new birth and about the truth of salvation and the truth of the kingdom of God, and Nicodemus is just scratching his head.

He's getting more bewildered by the moment, and Jesus looks at him and says, you were the teacher of Israel, and you don't know these things?

So just because you're credentialed, just because someone has all the credentials after their name doesn't mean that they have the truth.

Credentials are not wrong. They're not a detriment. They can be a great benefit, but as soon as those credentials begin to mean, oh, well, this person knows what they're talking about.

We can trust what they say because they have the Ph .D. and the

Doctorate of Divinity after their name. By the way, if you write that out,

Ph .D. and then D .D., you will discover the origin of the name Fuddy Duddy. It's true.

Hananiah is a superstar prophet because he's credentialed, but that doesn't mean he has the truth.

Secondly, he's so contemporary. He really knows what's going on. We see that in verses 1 through 4.

See, he spoke to Jeremiah 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'm going to 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 am also going to bring back to this place Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles of Judah, who went to Babylon, declares the

Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. He's so contemporary. Hananiah picks the right topic.

He picks the topic that everybody is thinking about. He picks the topic that everybody wants to see what's going to happen.

They're very concerned about their situation. So, he tells them exactly what they're hoping for, that the vessels are going to be returned.

The vessels are going to be returned. These are the vessels that Solomon had forged from gold and placed into the temple, a big part of their temple worship.

And remember that the people in Jeremiah's day worshipped not just at the temple, they worshipped the temple.

They were known for saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord. They were always chanting about the temple, because to them, that was more important than anything.

As long as they had the temple, everything was fine. They were like the crowd in Acts that were incensed that Paul was preaching against idolatry.

And so, they and the crowd chanted for hours, Great is Diana of the Ephesians.

They were idolaters. And when the gold vessels had been robbed, raided by the

Babylonians from the temple, this was a great dishonor to their idol. And they wanted it restored.

Hannah and I have talked about that. He also talks about the release from Babylon, that Babylon's hold on them would be broken, that they did not like being subservient to another country.

I mean, who would? Who would want some other superpower being in charge of what goes on in your...

Why do Jews have to live like Babylonians? I mean, why should we ever have to send money to them?

Why should they be in charge of us? And so, they wanted release from that oppression, and that's what

Hananiah talks to them about in a way that they would really appreciate. Now, God's going to end this oppression within two years.

Two years, he says. He also tells them that Jeconiah, their true king, will be restored.

He had been taken away, captive to Babylon, and Hananiah says, look, he's going to come back.

He's going to be back on the throne. The real true king is going to come back. And he also tells them that even the

Jews who had been taken captive through the many raids of Babylon in this last great attack, that even all of them will be repatriated and brought back.

All the crucial issues of the day, all their major concerns, Hananiah knows what they are.

He knows what they want to hear, and he tells them that. He's so contemporary. He picks the right topic.

He picks the right timing. You see, why is he saying that this hold of Babylon upon the people will be gone in two years?

He's got a schedule in mind. He knows that Zedekiah, even now, as we read from chapter 51,

Zedekiah, at this point, is actually on his way to Babylon. Is he bringing tribute?

Is he going there for an official meeting of all the vassal kings? But he's on his way there. He's definitely going to be bringing back some important information about the defenses and the capabilities of Babylon.

Meanwhile, there is a coalition that's forming. Do you remember Moab and Edom and the sons of Ammon and Tyre and Sidon, all the surrounding nations?

You see, they sent messengers to Zedekiah because they're all pretty upset about this whole Babylonian thing. We've got to do something about this.

This is our backyard. There's a coalition forming. Nation states are getting together.

They're going to rise up in opposition to Babylon, and with the information that Zedekiah brings home, we'll probably have a good idea of how to do that.

So Hananiah, he's putting all these pieces together. He says, hey, man, within two years, we're not going to have to pay tribute to Babylon anymore, and they're not going to mess with us because we'll be ready for them.

So he's got the right timing for the coalition. He's also picked the right timing. Apparently, all the people have gathered at the temple.

Why would they do so? It's some sort of feast day, some sort of new moon. They're all there for something. So he waits until there's a maximum exposure for his message, and it goes, and he gives the message to the whole congregation.

He also waits for Zedekiah to be away, which is a good idea when you're saying, Jeconiah, the real king's going to be enthroned.

So he waits until Zedekiah's out of the picture so he can safely say that. He's so contemporary. He knows the times.

Hananiah is very contemporary. There's nothing necessarily wrong with that. Could be.

Not necessarily. I mean, today, Hananiah would be, he'd be so contemporary.

He'd be green. He'd be woke. He'd be the ally of all the oppressed.

His Twitter account would be verified. He's so contemporary. Now, being contemporary does not necessarily then mean that you are truthful, that you have the truth.

Now, speaking someone's language to the current issues, that's not a bad thing.

Jesus did that. He spoke in the people's language about their current issues, didn't he? There's nothing wrong with that.

But when you believe that someone's telling you the truth precisely because they're either credentialed or because they're contemporary, if it's, oh, they can speak my language, they must be telling me the truth.

When you turn off your filters and you stop wondering if they're saying the truth or not just because they know the lingo, that's not wise.

There's two prophets here. Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet. I mean, but which one is the real prophet? Which one is the,

I mean, Hananiah, he's credentialed and he's contemporary, but those don't mean that he's telling the truth. And he's so charismatic.

He's so charismatic. See this in verses 10 and 11. Hananiah the prophet comes up to Jeremiah.

Jeremiah is very cautious. He's like, hang on. Well, that sounds great, Hananiah, but we're not, this isn't, what you're saying doesn't really fit with what the prophets of old said.

Hananiah, a man from a town of big signs, comes up and does something really big and eye -catching.

Verse 10, then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from the neck of Jeremiah the prophet and broke it. And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, thus says the

Lord, even so I will break within two full years the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon, from the neck of all the nations.

So he really stole the show, and Jeremiah went on his way. I mean, what are you going to do? Hananiah is very spirited.

He's very confident. He's going around saying, thus saith the Lord, thus saith the Lord. Don't you like that in a preacher?

Don't you like that in a teacher when they're so confident and they say that? That doesn't mean that they're right. Be wise,

Bereans. Search the scriptures to see if these things are so. That's what Jeremiah was saying.

Hey, guys, listen. What Hananiah is saying sounds wonderful. I actually prefer what

Hananiah is saying, but it doesn't really fit with what the Bible says, with what the prophets have said before us.

So he's very confident, and he's very controlling. He doesn't want Jeremiah's message.

He's not willing for Jeremiah's message to hang out there next to his. See, Jeremiah is saying, okay,

Hananiah, you've said what you've said, and that sounds great, but here's the thing. We're going to let that message hang there for a little while.

We're going to see if it comes true or not. Meanwhile, let's also reflect on what the Bible has already said, what the prophets have said before us, and let's just set those two up, and we'll see which one is true.

That's Jeremiah's approach. Hananiah is unwilling for both messages to stay up. For him, he has to control everything.

He's got to control what people are listening to, what people are thinking about. So he's got to tear down, literally tear apart, the yoke on Jeremiah's neck so that nobody will see that anymore or think about that anymore.

He's very charismatic, very spirited, very swaying. He gains the trust of the people.

It says at the end of verse 15 that Hananiah made the people trust in a lie. They fell for his con game.

He's very charismatic. So that's not necessarily a bad thing.

Spirit -filled, genuine emotion is good. If someone is very spirited, very persuasive in what they say, that can be a very good thing.

That can be a good thing. But if we let that determine truth for us, and you can tell us from the opposite side of it, okay?

So if somebody is trying to convey the truth of God and they're not charismatic, okay?

They're not very spirited, and they're not very swaying. Now, they're doing their best, and they're trying to say what the word of God says.

But, you know, maybe like Amos, they're not a prophet. They're not the son of a prophet, and they never were taught the ways to do those things, and they speak in a monotone, and they mumble half the time, and they're trying to do their best, but sometimes they miss one of their outline points, have to go back and explain it, and they take too long to land their message, and they circle the airport for a long time before they finally land the thing, and obviously that person doesn't know what they're talking about.

If we trust or distrust someone based on whether they're charismatic, that is folly.

That is folly. So again, credentials aren't bad, but they don't determine the truth.

And being contemporary, that's not bad, but that doesn't determine the truth. And being charismatic, in that sense of being persuasive and very spirited, that's not bad, but it doesn't determine the truth.

Because the fourth point about this superstar prophet, although he's credentialed contemporary and charismatic, he's also condemned.

He's also condemned. Verses 15 through 17. Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah the prophet,

Listen now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and you have made this people trust in a lie.

Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, I am about to remove you from the face of the earth.

This year you are going to die because you have counseled rebellion against the Lord. So Hananiah the prophet died in the same year on the seventh month.

So he's condemned. Why is he condemned? He's not condemned because he is credentialed.

No. That doesn't condemn you. He's not condemned because he is so contemporary.

That doesn't condemn you. He's not condemned because he's so charismatic. That doesn't condemn you.

He's condemned because he's an imposter. He's an imposter. The Lord did not send

Hananiah. Hananiah goes about saying, Thus saith the Lord. But God never told him to speak.

Hananiah says, I speak for God. And God says, No you don't. I never said that.

I never sent you. The reason why Hananiah is condemned is that he pretends that he's from God saying what

God desires and saying what God says is true or false. He's speaking for God, but he's an imposter.

He's an imposter. And he's an insurgent. He's an insurgent because he counsels rebellion.

And the rebellion that he counsels in his mind primarily is about the king of Babylon, Nebuchadnezzar.

He's saying, In two years, the yoke of Babylon will be broken and we'll be free from this oppression.

But Jeremiah has clearly said, God has said clearly through his prophet that opposition to his chosen king is opposition to God himself.

And so what Hananiah does is actually counsel rebellion against God. Deuteronomy 13 in verse 5.

Well, you can back up a little bit. I'm just going to start in verse 1. This is so helpful to us.

It says, If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you. And that happens all the time.

There's always a new prophet rising, a new one speaking with moral authority, religious authority, speaking in the name of God, perhaps even in the name of Christ.

There's always a prophet arising. And dreamers of dreams are a dime a dozen. When someone says, I've had an amazing dream and all these things happened to me.

It's like, well, you and a whole bunch of other people. That ain't very unique.

That's not a big deal. When a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or the wonder comes true concerning which he spoke to you, saying,

Let us go after other gods whom you have not known. Let us serve them. You should not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams.

In other words, he's saying, I'm a prophet. I've had a dream. Here's a great sign.

It came to pass. And now here's a new thing. Here's a new thing you've never heard before.

Or here's a new way of thinking that you haven't had before. And here's what we're going to do now instead. Well, don't listen to him.

Why? Verse 3. 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.

See, God's in charge of everything. I mean, even the heart of the king is in the hand of the Lord. He turns it whichever way he wishes.

So, let's say, dreamer of dreams, prophet man or woman, has this experience.

And they say, so and so political person is going to do such and such within the next 25 years.

Lo and behold, they do. The sign and the wonder comes true. Now, why would

God let that happen? Why would God ordain for this world leader to do this thing that this false prophet said was going to happen and it came true and give authentication and credibility to this person who doesn't speak for him?

Why would he ever do such a thing? I thought he was in charge of everything. That sounds like a sloppy way to run the universe. 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.

So, somebody has a dream. Someone gives a prophecy. Lo and behold, their sign comes true.

And they say, well, you've got the gospel fairly good.

Here's something else. Here's a little extra about what it means to be righteous.

If you don't have this or that, you're not really righteous in the sight of God. It's Jesus and if you really believe in Jesus, then you'll be doing this, this, and this.

And if you don't, then you're not really right before God and you have condemnation left in your life.

Okay? Or someone says, okay, here's my sign, my wonder, it comes true and Jesus, Jesus was created like us and he's the best creature of all time and we're supposed to evolve and adapt and become as great and as glorious as he is.

And my sign and my wonder authenticate it and everything else in the Bible is true and we'll just roll with it. Well, what was

God doing with Joseph Smith? Testing his people to see whether they love the

Lord their God with all their heart, mind, soul, and strength. I don't care what that guy says.

I don't care if he has, I don't think, I don't care if he says in the next 30 minutes his name will be scrawled in rainbow across the sky and then turn around and tell me that Jesus Christ didn't rise from the dead.

I'm not going to believe a word he says. I know what is true according to the word of God. That's a helpful corrective.

And it says that that prophet shall be put to death because he has counseled rebellion against the

Lord your God. Counseled rebellion. That's the phrase that Jeremiah uses with Hananiah. He quotes, he quotes

Deuteronomy 13 5. You have counseled rebellion. So you deserve to die since these people will not put you to death.

God will. God will. So he's condemned because he's an imposter and he's an insurgent counseling rebellion against God.

So I said that we're talking about high stakes trading in vocabulary. Okay, vocabulary is not just the words but also the definition behind the words.

This is all very high stakes. Very high stakes. If someone comes along and they're a superstar prophet and they begin to use words in ways that perhaps you've not thought of before.

We're going to talk about we're going to talk about this idea in the scriptures but we're going to add all this stuff into it and change the definition of it.

You've got to have a red flag up. Someone says, well we're going to talk about salvation in a new way.

A way that's more contemporary. The red flag should come up. If you always have to ask someone to define their terms because it's not clear, red flag should come up.

We have to be careful that we're not engaging in some very high stakes trading of moving words around.

Hananiah was not so far off, was he? He was speaking in the name of the Lord. But it was really in the name of his own imagination.

He was a prophet, the son of the prophet from a priestly city. Speaking in themes and terms that the people of God understood.

He used a lot of the same vocabulary but the definitions had been changed. He even said things that ultimately did come true.

The vessels did return, but not in two years. In 70. Well, more than 70 actually at this point.

So ultimately, what he said really did come true. And really, he said the exile was going to come back.

That happened, didn't it? And the yoke of Babylon would be broken and it was in three generations of kings.

Nebuchadnezzar and his son and his son and then it was it. So what he said ultimately came true.

So why is he condemned? Why does he deserve to die? A lot of what he said seemed to fit with what was true.

Why did he have to die? Why was he condemned? Because he engaged in high stakes trading.

Using the words and the word of God and saying that he spoke for God and saying things that were not true.

Giving a message to the people. Getting them to trust a message that led them to destruction.

Listen, superstar false prophets don't walk around with ties that say,

I'm lying to you. Right? They use words that we feel comfortable with.

They talk about themes that are near and dear to our hearts. And the question is, what's in the product?

Go to what's actually being said. Get the definitions of terms. And the main question is this, does it accord with the king's word?

Does it accord with the king's word? Because Christ is king and you're saying that Christianity is about this and we ought to be all about this and doing this and here and I should give my money to your organization because of this.

But does it accord with the king's word? We've got to know what the king has said.

We've got to come back to that. We've got to come back to that. I'll give you one example and I'm going to open up a can of worms and you can take the worms home.

Here's a word that's being, it's very popular and nobody's quite sure what it means because nobody takes the time to define it.

Here's the word, flourishing. Flourishing.

Sometimes called human flourishing. That is the buzzword of our day.

And everybody uses it, doesn't matter if you're Christian or non. Politicians use it.

Religious people use it of all different types of faiths. And a lot of major evangelical

Christian leaders use it all the time. What do we mean by it? Here's a word that is used by everybody and it seems to grab everybody at once and don't we like a word that grabs everybody at once?

But what in the world are you talking about? What is flourishing? What is human flourishing?

Can you please define that? Why is it that people are calling human flourishing the great good?

Why is it they're saying that the highest good is human flourishing? Why are they saying that sin is whatever is against human flourishing?

Why are they saying that God is all about our human flourishing? Why are they saying that? What impact does that make in terms of the way that we live?

See the message you trust determines the manner you serve and personally I don't want to live for everybody's human flourishing.

That's not why God made me. He made me in his own image to love God supremely, to love others rightly.

Their flourishing is not my prime directive but I will love them rightly and to steward this creation responsibly.

Well, here's the problem with the word flourishing. It's the same problem with the word peace, by the way.

In Jeremiah's day, peace, peace, but there is no peace. Shalom, shalom, but there is no real shalom.

That's another problem word. Here's the problem with flourishing. The devil preached human flourishing.

The devil preached human flourishing and got Eve to buy in. Now if you mean human flourishing is we are made to live for God and to live according to his word and when we do that we truly glorify

God and that's where humans truly blossom and bloom because they radiate the glory of God when they're living his way according to his word.

Great. Thanks for explaining that but you're using a word that's explained about a dozen different ways by people who don't believe in God.

So let's be clear about what we're saying and what we're hearing. Let's recall and remember

Jesus said lay your life down for my sake. He didn't say well to follow me is all about your flourishing.

He said deny yourself, take up your cross and follow me. If you gain the whole world and lose your soul what are you going to give in exchange for your soul?

So that's just one example. There's the worms you can take them home and you can fill in the blank about the superstar prophet.

The main question we want to deal with is this. Does it accord with the king's word? Don't engage in high stakes trading and trade off the words of scripture and the definitions of scripture for words and definitions that you don't know exactly where they're coming from.

Be wise Bereans. Search the scriptures to see if these things are so.

Next time we're together we'll come back and we'll talk about that hellfire preacher Jeremiah or was it

Jesus? And then we'll talk about a different type of high stakes trading. And this time not about words so much as about yokes.

Let's pray. Father I thank you so much for the time you've given us in your word. I pray that you would help us to take it seriously and apply it to our lives.

I thank you that you have given us a clear and living and powerful deep cutting word and I pray that you would help us to be people who know what you're all about.

People who have been in your word and so that we can recognize your truth. And I pray these things for Christ's sake.