False Prophets? Today? Sure, why not. How to recognize them. (Jeremiah 8)

 

Truth and Consequences: A study in the prophecy of Jeremiah

 

Lesson Eight (of 52): Four Voice “Choir”

To watch this on video, click here:  https://youtu.be/BxxmqVGGqsk

  INTRODUCTION

I love music and that includes almost every type. Gregorian Chant to four-part harmony in Southern Gospel choirs. I enjoy folk music of Peter, Paul and Mary and the Seekers and The Who’s rock opera Tommy. I know—wide range, right? It’s true that modern music experiments with conflict in ways that classical composers might have avoided. The word cacophony itself describes much of our human drama and human dilemma in light of Covid the last two years, and its relationship to music is unavoidable to me. The idea of disruption and harshness is apparent. Things just don’t fit together. Let’s see what the reference book says.

The Merriam-Webster dictionary gives this definition of cacophony

1: harsh or jarring sound 

specifically : harshness in the sound of words or phrases

2: an incongruous or chaotic mixture : a striking combination, as in, a cacophony of color or a cacophony of smells

Bernstein hits this jarring in Chichester Psalms and awoke the psaltery and harp, and me, too, when I first heard it. I remember a Passover night in 1971 when two songs were overlapping at our seder when I was 19, the songs being “Jeremiah was a bullfrog (Joy to the World)” and “Hallelujah” (from Handel’s oratorio “Messiah”). Imagine two young people singing each of those at the same time. That’s the jarring sounds of cacophony.

In today’s reading of the 8^th chapter of Jeremiah, I hear four voices, four distinct songs being sung, sometimes overlapping and altogether jarring. The singers are whom you would expect in a biblical book, including God and the people of God, that is Judah. But the other two are the ones in conflict today. This conflict caused the cacophony and that is our focus today.

We are in a section we began last time of falseness and I reiterate for review: Chapter 7: False worship, chapter 8: today’s reading, centres on false prophets, chapter 9 next week  is about false confidence, and finally chapter 10, we will see the cause celebre and that is false gods. 

On to today’s lesson, then, chapter 8: False prophets in the land

Let’s dig into this chapter and hear, really hear, what God is saying to our people.

1. 1. Generation of the dead (.1-3)

 Who lays out bones, of all the people, outside a cemetery, in the streets, in the highways and byways, and disregards their history and their future? They tossed their relatives aside in as shocking a disregard as we saw this week in Sydney where little Charlise Mutton, the 9-year-old schoolgirl who lived with her grandmother in Queensland, was found after days and days of searching by hundreds of volunteers and tens of thousands of man hours, found in a barrel, dead, tossed aside with shocking disregard. Who does that? Who despises a person so badly that their remains are not given suitable and proper burial?

Verses 1-3 show the bones of everyone from the past. The powerful and significant, and the general members of the public, all tossed and laid aside, considered as dung on the ground. Avoided. Irrelevant. Of no consequence.

If you are not met with the sadness of the ending of chapter 7 in the opening verses of chapter 8, you need to check your callousness barometer. 

Someone had a question at the end of chapter 7, and I need to address this specifically. In verse 29 we read, “cut off your hair and cast it away, and take up a lamentation on the bare heights, for the Lord has rejected and forsaken the generation of his wrath.” 

The section concludes with our opening verses today. 

What is this Generation of the Dead? Christopher Wright makes the point and it’s very important for us to note, “This terrible text begins with a cry of lament and ends in the silence of a living death. The lament, we note, is for this generation. God will not abandon his ultimate purpose in the election of Israel, his long-term mission of redemptive blessing, his eternal covenant faithfulness. However, for these people, people who had put themselves beyond preaching to and past praying for, there is no hope, the Lord has rejected and abandoned this generation that is under his wrath.” (Wright, page 118)

That’s what is showcased at the beginning of our chapter today. Hope that helps you. It’s not all Israel or all Judah for all time, only a select group.

1. 2. Irrational behaviour (.4-7)

Both Wright and Warren Weirsbe in their commentaries title the next section “irrational.” I like that. I couldn’t find a word to describe the folly of Jewish humanity in this season. Birds and horses know better. And really it’s not that we don’t know; it’s that we disregard and fail to follow. What’s wrong with us?

If we can fall and then rise again; if we find ourselves walking in the wrong path, and then turn and go the right direction, no doubt with help from Siri, then why cannot God’s people do the same? Why do we verse 5, “refuse to return?” It’s not that we fail. It’s not that we are wrong. Everyone knows that as Shakespeare taught us, “to err is human.” We all fall short of God’s standards. Obviously. So when that happens, do we say, “oh well, I’ve already started down the wrong path, I might as well continue?” Or do we stop, shake ourselves out of it, turn to the Almighty, and cry out quickly, “God, I surrender to you my mistakes. I’m sorry. Please strengthen me to get back to you and to get it right… again” That’s the ticket. That’s the victory. 

Remember the Apostle John said, “Faith is the victory.” (1 John 5.4) That’s what faith looks. That’s how faith acts. 

Yes, you will fall.

Yes, you will sin.

Yes, you will be away from God.

Then what?

The Proverbs teaches us, “a righteous man falls 7 times, a nd rises again! But the wicked stumble in time of calamity. (24.16)

What is your ongoing choice? When you fall, when you fail, when you sin, will you turn to the Lord? 

When a man turns to the Lord, that’s where liberty is found. A self-centered person says, “Oh, it’s just me.” Even a person with low self-image (low self-esteem) is as self-centered as a very proud person and narcissist. A healthy self-imaged person says, “I belong to God” If I know I’ve sinned, if I’m a realist, I turn to HIM! Not to myself. I don’t turn to myself and say “I’ll do better next time.” It’s not about me or you! It’s about faith in, surrender to and trust in the Almighty. Will you turn to him?

A self-centered person turns to himself in applause and accommodation or to himself in sad self-mockery and shame and guilt. You WILL turn to something. You will trust in something. You will put your faith in something. I recommend you turn to the Lord.

Otherwise, your behaviour is irrational. 

Birds and horses have instinct, and we rejected our native and natural relationships with the Lord and his people. Irrational to be sure. 

Then verses 8-12

1. 3. Their refusal was caused by deception

Whose deception is this? The false prophets are responsible!  Look at verse 8.

The Word is with us. 

The Torah is ours. 

My friends, I hear this over and over. I’m Jewish. It’s a trump card tossed into the conversation. We are ok, we don’t need to comply, to obey, to listen to what God says. We have the Torah. We have an automatic relation to God. 

Some told me recently, “No, I don’t attend synagogue any longer. (various reasons given) But I’ve got an inside track with God. I have a loyalty card with God. He’s on our team. 

These are not the words of my friends. These are the words of false prophets. These people have learned from wrong teachers. 

False prophets say things like “We are ok, we don’t need to comply, to obey, to listen to what God says. We have the Torah.” (even as last week we learned they were saying, “We have the Temple.”) We have the Talmud. The sages are ours. Last week I was in a heated battle with an Orthodox Jewish man in Israel and he told me I was of no consequence because I didn’t know the Sages. Not even, ‘we have to study Torah’, but simply we HAVE the Sages. 

Now before you get a big smug here on this Zoom call, how many Bibles do you have at home? How much time yesterday did you spend in one of them? And the day before? And last week? Get it? Having the Word is not the same as KEEPING the word!

Look at what they preach, the false prophets. Verse 11. Peace, peace. 

שָׁל֣וֹם ׀ שָׁל֑וֹם וְאֵ֖ין שָׁלֽוֹם׃

It’s the worst thing to declare God’s vention and intervention, and he’s not involved. Jeremiah will teach this again and again in his prophecy. The sinners say, “she’ll be right, mate” and they are dead wrong. 

False teachers today. Listen to this passage in the Newer Testament “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves. Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned; and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” (2 Peter 2.1-3)

Those are the words in the First Century in Peter’s day. They are still right in our days! When you hear false teaching, like, “It’s ok, don’t worry about sin.” IF you hear that, walk away. Stop listening to that preacher. 

When you hear “there is coming a day of judgment” and you feel guilt and shame, what do you do?

Back to Jeremiah, “Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done? 

They certainly were not ashamed, and they did not know how to blush;” (8.12)

Shame is right when you are wrong. False teachers, false prophets lead the people wrongly. But even then we are responsible. 

1. 4. Their refusal leads to judgment (13-22)

The cacophony of the sounds, of false prophets, of God calling in judgment, of the people of Judah saying they are doing ok, and then the sound of Jeremiah making it clear we are not ok.

These are cacophonous and the only reason we are hearing, we are listening to that cacophony is that we have chosen to listen to the false prophets over the true prophet, Jeremiah, who speaks to almost no one who is listening. 

Jeremiah didn’t have a big following. If we want a big following, we can entertain people into eternal damnation. Jeremiah has a word for us in 2022, and a word for you. Will you hear him?

CONCLUSION

God is calling each of us to know him and to walk with him, today and throughout our days. Have you received Yeshua as your messiah and Lord? Have you renounced your sin, your idolatry, your forsaking God and given him First Place in your life? If not, please, do so now, just now, as we pray together. Use your own words, if you want, but yield, surrender, to the Lord of life. 

PRAYER

Then please write us (admin@jewsforjesus.org.au) to tell us what you have just done, and we will send you literature and encourage you. You are part of our family; we love and appreciate you. And we want you to enjoy the presence of the Lord who calls, who knows, who blesses and builds us up. 

We hope to see you again next week as we study chapter 9. Until then, Shabbat shalom!

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Barnes, Albert, Albert Barnes’ Commentary on the Old Testament, 

Craigie, Peter; Kelley, Page; Drinkard, Joel. Word Biblical Commentary. Book of Jeremiah.  1991. 

Henry, Matthew, Commentary.

Weirsbe, Warren. Be Decisive. David Cook Publishers, Colorado Springs 1991.

Wright, Christopher, The Message of Jeremiah, The Bible Speaks Today, Intervarsity Press, Downers Grove, Illinois, 2014.

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ACTUAL TEXT

8 “At that time,” declares the Lord, “they will bring out the bones of the kings of Judah, the bones of its leaders, the bones of the priests, the bones of the prophets, and the bones of the inhabitants of Jerusalem from their graves. ² They will spread them out to the sun, the moon, and to all the heavenly ^[a]lights, which they have loved, which they have served, which they have followed, which they have sought, and which they have worshiped. They will not be gathered nor buried; they will be like dung on the face of the ground. ³ And death will be chosen rather than life by all the remnant that remains of this evil family, that remains in all the places to which I have driven them,” declares the Lord of armies.

⁴ “You shall say to them, ‘This is what the Lord says:

“Do people fall and not get up?
Does one turn away and not ^[b]repent?
⁵ Why has this people, Jerusalem,
Turned away in continual apostasy?
They hold on to deceit,
They refuse to return.
⁶ I have listened and heard,
They have spoken what is not right;
No one repented of his wickedness,
Saying, ‘What have I done?’
Everyone turned to his own course,
Like a horse charging into the battle.
⁷ Even the stork in the sky
Knows her seasons;
And the turtledove, the swallow, and the crane
Keep to the time of their ^[c]migration;
But My people do not know
The judgment of the Lord.

⁸ “How can you say, ‘We are wise,
And the Law of the Lord is with us’?
But behold, the lying pen of the scribes
Has made it into a lie.
⁹ The wise men are put to shame,
They are dismayed and caught;
Behold, they have rejected the word of the Lord,
So what kind of wisdom do they have?
¹⁰ Therefore I will give their wives to others,
Their fields to new owners;
Because from the least even to the greatest
Everyone is greedy for gain;
From the prophet even to the priest,
Everyone practices deceit.
¹¹ They have healed the brokenness of the daughter of My people superficially,
Saying, ‘Peace, peace,’
But there is no peace.
¹² Were they ashamed because of the abomination they had done?
They were not ashamed at all,
And they did not know how to be ashamed;
Therefore they will fall among those who fall;
At the time of their punishment they will collapse,”
Says the Lord.

¹³ “I will certainly snatch them away,” declares the Lord.
“There will be no grapes on the vine
And no figs on the fig tree,
And the leaf will wither;
And what I have given them will pass away.”’”
¹⁴ Why are we sitting still?
Assemble yourselves, and let’s go into the fortified cities
And perish there,
For the Lord our God has doomed us
And given us poisoned water to drink,
Because we have sinned against the Lord.
¹⁵ We waited for peace, but no good came;
For a time of healing, but behold, terror!
¹⁶ From Dan there is heard the snorting of his horses;
At the sound of the neighing of his stallions
The whole land quakes;
For they come and devour the land and its fullness,
The city and its inhabitants.
¹⁷ “For behold, I am sending serpents among you,
Vipers for which there is no charm;
And they will bite you,” declares the Lord.

^18 [d]My sorrow is beyond healing,
My heart is faint within me!
¹⁹ Behold, listen! The cry of the daughter of my people from a distant land:
“Is the Lord not in Zion? Is her King not within her?”
“Why have they provoked Me with their carved images, with foreign ^[e]idols?”
²⁰ “Harvest is past, summer is over,
And we are not saved.”
²¹ I am broken over the brokenness of the daughter of my people.
I mourn, dismay has taken hold of me.
²² Is there no balm in Gilead?
Is there no physician there?
Why then has not the ^[f]health of the daughter of my people ^[g]been restored?