Jeremiah

Chapter Twenty-three

Introduction

Have you ever had the experience on Sunday morning of thinking that I was talking about you during the message?

Many people have come up to me over the years and told me I was talking about them! Let me assure you, it is neither by insight nor by insensitivity that it happens:

1. I don't have naturally keen insight into things; in fact, I'm really rather dull and slow to figure things out.
2. And I'm not completely insensitive; if someone is here who I do happen to know something about, I go out of my way to avoid saying things that would seem to betray pastoral confidentiality.

When you have the experience that I am talking about you, it is the supernatural work of the Holy Spirit applying God's living Word to your heart. God knows you intimately, and He wants to speak to you personally; He can and often does speak to you through His Word as you hear it read and taught.

This is an exercise of the gift of prophecy. The gift of prophecy is speaking forth the Word of God through the anointing of the Holy Spirit. It is being a channel through which the Lord may speak.

Prophecy can be either a foretelling or a forthtelling:

1. We normally think of prophecy as a foretelling of future events.
2. It can also be a forthtelling, a 'telling forth,' of God's already revealed Word. In fact, most of prophecy is forthtelling; the gift of prophecy as it was practiced in the early Church was more often used for edification and exhortation than it was for predicting future events. It is when a pastor or a Bible teacher is simply forthtelling God's Word that the Holy Spirit energizes the Word to apply it directly to you heart. When you feel as though I am talking about you, it is one aspect of the exercise of the gift of prophecy in our midst.

I am not a prophet, and I usually am unaware when I am exercising the gift of prophecy. It is a supernaturally natural process of teaching God's Word in such a way that God can speak directly to you through it.

It should delight you that God speaks directly to you through His Word, and you should expect Him to do so whenever the living Word is being taught. But while it is a delight, there is also a danger: Not every message you hear is really from the Lord!

Look at our text in Jeremiah. In verse sixteen the Lord says,

In Jeremiah's day, the prophets were not delivering a message from God. There was a great danger in listening to these prophets, as explained in verse thirty-two:

God said that there was a kind of prophecy that was dangerous and that would not profit His people.

There was also a kind of prophecy that would profit His people. Jeremiah was delivering the message of God to the people. God described Jeremiah in verse eighteen:

Listening to Jeremiah would have been profitable; he was delivering a message from God.

There is prophecy that won't profit you, and there is prophecy that will profit you. You should learn how to recognize prophecy to reject prophecy that won't profit you, and you should learn to recognize prophecy to receive prophecy that will profit you.

#1 Learn How To Recognize Prophecy To

Reject Prophecy That Won't Profit You

The exercise of the gift of prophecy is a controversy in the Church. There are those who believe and teach that every Christian ought to exercise the gift of prophecy. Then there are those who believe and teach that the gift of prophecy completely ceased with the completion of the Bible.

The gift of prophecy has not ceased in the Church, but all believers do not have the gift. The Holy Spirit gives the gift of prophecy as He sovereignly chooses. When the gift is properly exercised, believers are exhorted, edified, and comforted.

How do you know that the gift of prophecy is being properly exercised? In First Corinthians 14:29, the Apostle Paul said,

You are to "judge" the exercise of the gift of prophecy. That is, you must learn to recognize prophecy, then either reject or receive it.

What standards do you use to judge those who prophesy, and their prophecies? In Jeremiah Twenty-three the prophets were prophesying lies that would not profit God's people. As God describes the prophets and their prophecies, He tells you to look at those who prophesy and to line up their prophecies. This is summarized for you in verses nine and ten.

In verse nine, Jeremiah looks at those who prophesy:

It breaks Jeremiah's heart to see the kind of men they are. As we will see, they are men who are controlled by their own lusts, by their old sin nature. Jeremiah sees himself as a man drunk with wine; that is, he is so filled with the Spirit that it is the spiritual counterpart of being drunk! His own nature is under the control of God's Spirit, as compared with the other prophets who are walking in the flesh.

In verse ten, Jeremiah lines up their prophecies:

These are descriptions of the true condition of the Jews. The people were spiritual adulterers. The land was being "cursed" by God because the people refused to observe the sabbath year - they refused to let the land lie fallow every seventh year. Their "might" was a false confidence that God would not judge them; it was not from righteousness.

Jeremiah's prophecies lined up with the truth; the others who prophesied lied against the truth.

This then, is how you judge. Look at those who prophesy; line up their prophecies.

In verses eleven through seventeen, you look at those who prophesy:

Jeremiah 23:12 "Therefore their way shall be to them Like slippery ways; In the darkness they shall be driven on And fall in them; For I will bring disaster on them, The year of their punishment," says the LORD.

The first thing you are told is that the prophets and the priests were "profane." Profane means outside of the Temple. They were physically in God's house, but they were spiritually outside of God's household.

You should reject prophecy that comes to you from unbelievers; it cannot profit you.

Those who prophesied were mixing God's Word with the teachings of Baal - with the ideas and philosophies of this world. A few years ago I was discussing Paul Yongii Cho's book, The Fourth Dimension, with a local pastor. Cho taught that there was a fourth dimension of spiritual power that was neutral, available to demons or disciples. The techniques to enter the fourth dimension involved occult practices like visualization. As long as you were a disciple, and used the fourth dimension power for God and for good, it didn't matter to Cho how you entered it.

But it does matter! Prophecy that mixes the world with God's Word cannot profit you...

Those who prophesied were sexually immoral men, committing "adultery." You should care about the walk of those who claim to speak for God. Their supposed insight isn't profiting them, and it won't profit you...

They had no integrity, but rather "walked in lies." If someone is dishonest with you, how can they be honest when speaking for God?

These men, steeped in their own sin, refused to deal with sin in the lives of others. God's men confront sin in your life. They must do it compassionately, lovingly; but they must do it - or else they cannot profit you...

God tells you to look at those who prophesy. If they are like the men described here, then you are to reject their prophecies:

Jeremiah 23:16 Thus says the LORD of hosts: "Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; They speak a vision of their own heart, Not from the mouth of the LORD.

Jeremiah 23:17 They continually say to those who despise Me, 'The LORD has said, "You shall have peace" '; And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, 'No evil shall come upon you.'"

These men only spoke what they thought the people wanted to hear. As a result, their words were worthless.

Beloved, you have a responsibility to judge those who deliver God's Word to you. Are they believers? Are they mixing God's Word with the world's wisdom? Are they immoral? Are they men of integrity? Do they deal with sin in the lives of others in a biblical manner? If they do not meet these standards, then reject their words. Their words haven't profited them; they won't profit you!

In verses twenty-five through forty, you line up their prophecies:

Jeremiah 23:26 "How long will this be in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies? Indeed they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart,

Jeremiah 23:27 "who try to make My people forget My name by their dreams which everyone tells his neighbor, as their fathers forgot My name for Baal.

Jeremiah 23:28 "The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat?" says the LORD.

The prophets in Judah were apparently getting into dreams and the interpretation of dreams. One thing about dreams - they are completely subjective. There is no way that you can verify if the prophet really dreamed the dream or not; you have to take his word for it.

Even if you take his word for it, you can still take it to God's Word! The key is in verse twenty-eight where God says to compare the dream with His Word. The dreams of these so-called prophets were like "chaff" compared to the "wheat" of God's Word. Chaff can choke you, whereas the Word of God can sustain and feed you.

The gift of prophecy can be exercised in any number of ways, including dreams and visions. It can be a spoken utterance prompted by the Holy Spirit. Regardless the means of exercising the gift of prophecy, it must always be lined-up with God's already revealed Word, the Bible. The Holy Spirit inspired the Bible, and He will not contradict Himself. Dreams, visions, and prophetic utterances are only made more wonderful when they are judged according to the revealed Word of God.

Jeremiah 23:30 "Therefore behold, I am against the prophets," says the LORD, "who steal My words every one from his neighbor.

Jeremiah 23:31 "Behold, I am against the prophets," says the LORD, "who use their tongues and say, 'He says.'

Jeremiah 23:32 "Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams," says the LORD, "and tell them, and cause My people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them; therefore they shall not profit this people at all," says the LORD.

Here God tells you to line-up the prophecy by discovering its true source. If God is the source, the person who prophesies will experience it first. It will burn in his or her heart, and it will break his or her heart. The burning produces holiness; the breaking produces humility.

These so-called prophets in Judah could not claim God as the source of their prophecies:

1. Some of them were repeating words that they had heard others speak, claiming them as their own...
2. Some of them claimed inspiration and anointing for their own words, even though God had not inspired or anointed them...
3. Some of them made up experiences, like dreams, and claimed them to be prophetic...

God calls these things "lies and recklessness." I have had people share supposed prophecies with me. One individual who, quite frankly, hated me, once called me to tell me that God had given him a prophecy for me. He had open his Bible randomly to a passage that condemned false shepherds, and he believed God was speaking prophetically to him about me. Another lady once prophesied that Calvary Chapel of Hanford was going to get the old market that is now the Hanford Sentinel building.

God calls these things "lies and recklessness" because they endanger His dearly loved saints.

If people deal casually with the gift of prophesy, then God will withhold it from them and leave them to their own words:

Jeremiah 23:34 "And as for the prophet and the priest and the people who say, 'The oracle of the LORD!' I will even punish that man and his house.

Jeremiah 23:35 "Thus every one of you shall say to his neighbor, and every one to his brother, 'What has the LORD answered?' and, 'What has the LORD spoken?'

Jeremiah 23:36 "And the oracle of the LORD you shall mention no more. For every man's word will be his oracle, for you have perverted the words of the living God, the LORD of hosts, our God.

Jeremiah 23:37 "Thus you shall say to the prophet, 'What has the LORD answered you?' and, 'What has the LORD spoken?'

Jeremiah 23:38 "But since you say, 'The oracle of the LORD!' therefore thus says the LORD: 'Because you say this word, "The oracle of the LORD!" and I have sent to you, saying, "Do not say, 'The oracle of the LORD!'"

Jeremiah 23:39 'therefore behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you and forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and will cast you out of My presence.

Jeremiah 23:40 'And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.'"

Beloved, God desires to speak to you, and to speak through you. Take the gift of prophecy seriously! Look at your life, and the lives of those who claim to speak for God. Line-up your words, and their words, with God's Word. Reject prophecies that cannot profit you.

#2 Learn How To Recognize Prophecy To

Receive Prophecy That Will Profit You

The gift of prophecy has not ceased. As long as the dream, or the vision, or the spoken utterance, lines-up with God's already revealed Word, you can receive it. One of the most wonderful ways that the gift of prophecy is exercised today is by the Holy Spirit directing you to a particular Scripture that speaks to your heart about exactly what you are struggling with. Through that immediately revealed Word, you or the person you share it with receive edification, exhortation, or comfort.

Verses eighteen through twenty-five turn our attention to learning to receive prophecy. Again the standards involve both those who prophesy, and their prophetic utterances.

In verses eighteen and twenty-one through twenty-four, you look at those who prophesy. In verses nineteen and twenty you line-up their prophecies.

Look at those who prophesy:

Twice you are told that the person who exercises prophecy properly "stood in the counsel of the Lord." When you stand it indicates stability and balance. Look for stability and balance in your life and in the lives of those you listen to. Do they live by the "counsel of the Lord"? That is, do they apply the precepts and principles of God's Word in their daily life - in their marriage, in their parenting, in their business...

God says to "perceive and hear His Word." "Perceive" has the idea of listening obediently; in other words, this person listens and obeys. Listening with obedience leads to spiritual growth. Look for real spiritual growth in your life and in the lives of those who speak God's Word to you...

God says to "mark His Word and hear it." "Mark" means to prick up your ears. It is a word that denotes discernment. You should be able to listen with discernment to a message and receive what is from God in it.

Jeremiah 23:22 But if they had stood in My counsel, And had caused My people to hear My words, Then they would have turned them from their evil way And from the evil of their doings.

Those who prophesied in Judah saw no fruit from their labors; they did not turn the people from their evil ways and doings.

If the gift of prophecy is being properly exercised, there will be fruit from it in the lives of God's people. Or, as in Jeremiah's case, it should become obvious that the people are willfully rejecting being fruitful.

These verses are about spiritual hypocrisy. The person who shares God's Word cannot be a hypocrite - that is, he cannot be a hypocrite any more than all of us are in our daily struggle against sin. You can't have God "near at hand" while you speak for God, then go out and engage in hidden sin. God is there. He is as interested in the messenger of His Word as He is the message.

The person who delivers God's Word should be a stable, growing believer who has discernment in spiritual matters. His ministry should be marked by growth in the lives of others. His life should be consistent with his teaching - at home, at work, etc.

Line-up the prophecies:

Jeremiah 23:20 The anger of the LORD will not turn back Until He has executed and performed the thoughts of His heart. In the latter days you will understand it perfectly.

This is a summary of what God was going to do to Judah. He was bringing Babylon upon them as a discipline. This was consistent with the conditional promises He made to the Jews in the Word. They had disobeyed Him and rebelled, so He must bring judgment. Any prophetic utterance should, therefore, line-up with what the people should have already known to be true.

Know your Bible and you will be able to line-up what you hear with what God has said. Know your Lord and you will be able to recognize His voice when He is speaking to you through the Word - whether directly, as you read it, or indirectly, as you hear it read and taught. God will never contradict Himself, and He does not bring confusion into your life.

Conclusion

The Apostle Paul tells you in First Corinthians 14:39, "therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy..." In First Thessalonians 5:20 he says, "Do not despise prophecies."

The gift of prophecy, when exercised properly, brings edification, exhortation, and comfort to God's saints - and these are in short supply today!

Look at those who exercise the gift of prophesy, and line-up their words. Reject what cannot profit you; but receive everything that comes from God that can profit you.

God still speaks to you and He still speaks through you today. As Paul goes on to say regarding prophecy, in First Thessalonians 5:21, "test all things; hold fast what is good."