“25 “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, ‘I had a dream! I had a dream!’ 26 How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? 27 They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their fathers forgot my name through Baal worship. 28 Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully. For what has straw to do with grain?” declares the Lord. 29 “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”
30 “Therefore,” declares the Lord, “I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me. 31 Yes,” declares the Lord, “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, ‘The Lord declares.’ 32 Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,” declares the Lord. “They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies, yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least,” declares the Lord.’
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“Let him talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s just going to talk about the Lord.” Imagine those words being spoken to the elders of a church. They’ve got some misgivings about permitting a certain young man to preach to the congregation. A member hears about their reluctance, corners a few of them after the morning service and says, “Let the man talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s just going to talk about the Lord.”
“Let him talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s going to talk about the heart.” Imagine those words being spoken to doctors. A young mother has been diagnosed with a heart disease. She and her husband are meeting with the doctors. They are at a particularly sensitive point in the conversation because decisions must be made when there is a knock at the door. It’s another heart doctor who has been pushing experimental procedures on patients. He’s been purposefully left out of this meeting with the wife and husband. Can you imagine any of the doctors saying to the others, “let him talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s just going to talk about the heart.”
It’s common to think that words about the Lord are inherently helpful simply because they are about the Lord. “Let him talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s just going to talk about the Lord.” That’s bizarre. We don’t think that words about the heart are inherently helpful simply because they are about the heart. Certain words spoken about the human heart could lead that young mother and her husband into a real mess. Certain words spoken about the Lord have and do lead people into real messes. Words about the Lord can actually take you away from the Lord; what you need is a word from the Lord. That’s the claim of this sermon: words about the Lord can actually take you away from the Lord; what you need is a word from the Lord.
We will study this in two points. First: prophesying lies. Second: the declaration of the Lord. First, in verses 25-29, we see that people did and do prophesy lies. Second, in verses 30-32, we see that the Lord does, in fact, declare.
First: prophesying lies. The idea that words about the Lord are inherently helpful simply because they are about the Lord only makes sense if the Lord is a figment of our imagination. If, however, He exists and has revealed Himself in this word then there are statements that are true about Him and statements that are false about Him; the prophets in Jeremiah’s day were saying false statements about Him; verse 25, “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name.”
Just because someone is talking about the Lord doesn’t mean they are doing good. Just because someone is claiming to speak for the Lord doesn’t mean they are doing good. They might be spreading falsehood. People say untrue statements about the Lord more often than they say untrue statements about other public figures. More untrue statements are said about the Lord than about Donald Trump or Joe Biden in any given week. “I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name.”
The lies the Lord had in mind here in Jeremiah had to do with dreams; verse 25, ‘I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, “I had a dream! I had a dream!”’ This isn’t a rejection of revelation through dreams. We studied a revelation through a dream during Advent. This isn’t a condemnation of the language Martin Luther King Jr. used saying, “I have a dream…” This was about the preachers of Jeremiah’s day pitting their so-called dreams against the word of God given through Jeremiah. They didn’t like Jeremiah’s message even though it was completely in line with Deuteronomy, and so they used this language of dreams to paint their own picture of the spiritual state of the people and their ideas of what God would do in the future. The Lord hated this; “How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds?”
Now the lying prophets Jeremiah was talking about here didn’t think they were lying. They thought they were doing the Lord a favor. They thought they were rehabilitating the bad reputation Jeremiah was giving God. Every generation of the covenant community has leaders who want nothing more than to give God the makeover He apparently needs. They try to remove everything about Him and His word that they fear rubs people the wrong way. What God’s response to this makeover? “How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds?”
This word for “lie” occurs more often in Jeremiah than in any other book. Preferring lies about the Lord to the truth the Lord spoke was one of the main reasons the Lord’s people went into exile. Untrue words about God are that dangerous. Preferring lies about the Lord to the truth the Lord spoke led to forgetting the Lord; verse 27, “They think the dreams they tell one another will make my people forget my name, just as their fathers forgot my name through Baal worship.”
The process of forgetting is subtle. You see it even at Sinai. What did Aaron say when he called the people to worship the golden calf he made? He didn’t say, “here is your calf-god.” He said, “This is your God, Israel, who brought you up out of Egypt.” Aaron didn’t think he was doing anything all that wrong. He thought he was giving the people a way to focus their attention on the Lord. He thought he was doing the Lord a favor by helping the people focus on Him. Aaron’s so-called favor led the people to forget the Lord. That’s how it goes. The little talks about the Lord that these teachers were giving were actually causing the people to forget the Lord.
Now the tragedy of it was that those people who were forgetting the Lord thought they were getting to know Him through Aaron’s golden calf. They thought they were getting to know Him and His will through the words of the false prophets. That’s how it goes today too. People who listen to merely human ideas about God think they are getting to know Him when they are, in fact, forgetting Him.
You can tell they’ve forgotten Him because they believe all sorts of untrue statements about Him and His will. That’s where we are today. This is how you wind up with any number of people truly believing that if they obey God, they will certainly prosper financially. This is how you wind up revising almost every aspect of marriage and sexuality within the church. This is how you wind up with an “obedience-optional” Christianity. As JA Thompson put is, “once men forget the character of [the Lord] they could be persuaded to accept all kinds of doctrines.” We humans are quick to exchange the truth of God for a lie, as Romans 1 puts it. We need to be regularly reminded of who God actually is, which is why we are doing what we are doing right now and why we are reading our Bibles.
You are going to get your thoughts about God from somewhere. You are either going to get them from the mind of mortals, no matter how well intended, or from God Himself. Those who speak their own thoughts will unfortunately continue to do so. Those who speak God’s word must continue to do so; that’s verse 28, “Let the prophet who has a dream tell his dream, but let the one who has my word speak it faithfully.”
There was a genuine difference between what Jeremiah was saying and what the false prophets were saying. There is a genuine difference between human musings about God and the word of the Lord; or, as verse 28 puts it, “what has straw to do with grain? “What has chaff to do with grain?” One will nourish you. The other won’t.
Can you tell the difference between chaff and grain? If a critical mass of this congregation cannot tell the difference, we’ve got big trouble. If we are ever in a situation in which a critical mass of elders cannot tell the difference, we’ve got big trouble.
Chaff cannot do what grain can do. It’s impotent. The word isn’t. The word changes churches; verse 29, ‘“Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?”’ The word of God burns impurities. It breaks hard and hardening hearts. “The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” “The word of God impinged powerfully on men’s minds,” as JA Thompson put it. “It burned itself first of all into the minds of those who received it and proclaimed it, and subsequently made an impact on those who heard it from them, convicting the hearers of sin and demanding of them total obedience.”
Chaff won’t do that. Chaff can’t do that. Chaff, however, is in demand. It has been, is, and will be in demand. It is in demand because it can’t and won’t burn or break. Having impurities burned away hurts. Having your hard heart broken hurts. Chaff won’t hurt. It won’t demand total obedience. It is a pleasant, soothing, spiritual analgesic. It is your spiritual vitamin for the week. The word can do something. It can and will upset sinners like us because it burns and breaks. It can and will save sinners like us because it burns and breaks. You can have a spiritual vitamin, or you can be exposed to fire. You can have a spiritual vitamin, or you can be exposed to a hammer that breaks hard hearts to pieces. Which do you want?
You see all of that in the ministry of Jesus. At the end of the Sermon on the Mount we read, “When Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were amazed at his teaching, because he taught as one who had authority, and not as their teachers of the law.” Jesus’ word did something. It burned. It broke. Many were upset by it. Many were saved by it. The word does that. The musings of religious leaders cannot.
These religious leaders didn’t speak for the Lord. They spoke their own thoughts and said, “The Lord declares.” The Lord declared that He was against them declaring, “the Lord declares.” That’s our final point: the declaration of the Lord. The title for this point comes from verse 31, ‘“Yes,” declares the Lord, “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, ‘The Lord declares.’”’
This verse and others like it are the key to understanding our tradition. This verse and others like it are the reason that John Calvin was so hesitant to ever go beyond what Scripture said. This verse tells us that it’s not wise to say, “the Lord declares,” when He has not, in fact, declared. It’s not wise to imply, “the Lord declares,” when He has not in fact, declared.
That’s what this section is about. The Lord is against those who speak what He has not spoken. The word “against” is frontloaded in these verses; verse 30, “I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me”; verse 31, ‘I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, “The Lord declares”’; verse 32, “Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams.”
When a religious leader says, “the Lord declares,” or implies, “the Lord declares,” he better declare what the Lord declares or the Lord will hold him accountable for taking His name in vain; “not many of you should become teachers, my fellow believers, because you know that we who teach will be judged more strictly.”
Some of these prophets in Jeremiah’s day said, “the Lord declares,” and simply borrowed words from one another; that’s verse 30, “I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me.” We don’t know exactly what this looked like. The prophets may have been citing one another as authorities. They weren’t applying Scripture to the people’s situation like Jeremiah was as he depended on Deuteronomy. They were telling the people what this or that religious leader said about the Babylonian situation. That’s still popular. The prophets may have been misapplying Scripture; that’s another way, “words supposedly from me,” could be understood. Perhaps they were telling the people that Babylon was no threat because Psalm 2:4 says, “The One enthroned in heaven laughs; the Lord scoffs at them” or something to that effect. That interpretation has nothing to do with Psalm 2, but that message certainly would have been popular to people who didn’t want to believe Jeremiah’s message about Babylon. Our prejudices tend to determine how much truth we will accept.
Some of the prophets said, “the Lord declares,” and were led by their own words rather than being led by the word of God; that’s verse 31, ‘“Yes,” declares the Lord, “I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, ‘The Lord declares.’” It’s easy to come to assume that since you speak the Lord’s words, your words are the Lord’s words. It’s easy for those who speak God’s word to assume that they and the Lord agree on all matters. However, our ideas are not God’s ideas. Teachers must teach His word.
These men weren’t doing creative or relevant ministry. They were reckless. “They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies, yet I did not send or appoint them.” The word used here for recklessness was often used of gross immorality particularly of a sexual nature. Going into the ministry isn’t necessarily a noble vocation. “Let him talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s going to talk about the Lord,” is not the way it goes. It can wind up quite perverted and perverting. It can wind up reckless. It can wind up as a way to peddle chaff to hungry souls.
The Lord was against these perversions, but these perversions were popular, which is why the Lord had to say He was against them. This popularity was not new to Jeremiah’s day. Moses dealt with it. Elijah dealt with it. It didn’t end with Jeremiah’s day. Paul told Timothy, “The time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions.” There is nothing new under the sun and we are still under the sun.
Chaff is still popular. Perversions of what God has said are still popular. You need to recognize that motivational speeches that use just enough Scripture to make the speaker’s point are still more popular than sermons that exposit Scripture. Devotions written as if they were from Jesus sell better than explanations of what Jesus actually said. That doesn’t mean that they aren’t reckless. That doesn’t mean they aren’t chaff. They can’t burn like fire. They can’t break like a hammer. They can’t truly benefit you.
Only the word of Godcan. The words of these the prophets of Jeremiah’s day, “do not benefit these people in the least”, as verse 32 puts it. You can tell that they didn’t benefit these people in the least because Judah went into exile. The people heard word after word from these teachers and none of it was the will of God. “Let him talk. It isn’t going to do any harm. He’s going to talk about the Lord” has done and is doing great harm.
There are those who think that speaking words about the Lord is an inherently activity. There are others who know that only a genuine word from the Lord will do. The first are at risk of being taken away from the Lord by words about the Lord. The second will settle for nothing less than fire that burns and a hammer that breaks rock into pieces. The first prefers chaff but doesn’t want it called chaff. The second knows the difference between chaff and grain and will not settle for anything less than grain. The first is fine with anything that seems Jesus-y. The second will only settle for the Christ revealed in every page of the word. You need to ask yourself what type you are. We need to ask ourselves about what type of church we will be. That is the question before us just as it was the question before the covenant community in Jeremiah’s day. Let’s not make the same choice they did. Amen.