Chapter 108 of 422

Thursday

Prophets—False and True

Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully.

Jeremiah 23:28

Jeremiah was deeply distressed by the ministry of false prophets, who opposed him. “My heart is broken within me,” he cried, “all my bones tremble” (v. 9). The situation today is both different and the same. There are plenty of false prophets (as Jesus said there would be), but there is nobody resembling Jeremiah. Certainly some are gifted with prophetic insight into the meaning and application of the biblical text. But there is nobody with the inspiration or authority of the biblical prophets themselves like Jeremiah. Instead, we are blessed to have the written Word of God. So the contrast today is between true teachers who submit to Scripture and false teachers who reject or manipulate it.

Here are the five distinctive characteristics of false teachers, whom Jeremiah exposes.

They abuse their power. They are marked more by autocracy than by the gentleness of Christ. They “use their power unjustly” (v. 10).

They live a lie, a double life between their private and their public persona (vv. 13–14).

They strengthen the hands of evildoers instead of calling them to repentance (vv. 14, 22).

They fill people with false hopes, saying that no harm will come upon them (vv. 16–17).

“They speak visions from their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD” (v. 16).

Only the Word of God is effective. Like a hammer it breaks the rock of stubborn human hearts. Like fire it burns and purifies. Like wheat it is nutritious, unlike straw (vv. 28–29).

It should not be difficult to choose the Word of God over human dreams, to choose revelation rather than speculation. Perhaps the church’s most urgent need today is pastors who faithfully expound and apply the Word of God and who practice what they preach.

For further reading: Jeremiah 23:21–32

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