Earlier this month, I had my students look at how the Lord describes lying prophets in Jeremiah 23 and 28-29. The point was for them to see we can describe today’s false teachers the exact same way. We must recognize the lies we are being fed. Lies, such as, do whatever you want and be whoever you want. These lies put the sinful autonomous beast inside us at ease because we like the thought of governing ourselves, but these lies leave us at a dead end because we were not created for ourselves.
Feel free to go through these passages yourself writing out the descriptions of lying prophets, or read my lists below as you read the passages. (I was reading from the ESV translation.)
Jeremiah 23:9-40
- Ungodly (v.11)
- Evil (v.10, 11)
- Slippery (v.12)
- Prophesied by Baal (v.13)
- Led God’s people astray (v.13)
- Commit adultery (v.10, 14)
- Walk in lies (v.14)
- Strengthen the hands of evildoers (v.14)
- Spread ungodliness (v.15)
- Fill us with vain hopes (v.16)
- Speak visions of their own minds, not from the Lord (v.16)
- Tell those who despise the word of the Lord that all will be well with them (v.17)
- Tell those who stubbornly follow their own hearts that no disaster will come to them (v.17)
- Do not stand in the council of the Lord (v.18, 22)
- Do not pay attention to God’s Word or listen to it (v.18)
- Were not sent by God; he did not speak to them (v.21, 32)
- Prophesy lies in God’s name (v.25)
- Prophesy lies; there are lies in their hearts (v.26)
- Speak the deceit of their own hearts (v.26)
- Want to make God’s people forget his name (v.27)
- Steal God’s words from those who speak his word faithfully (v.28-30)
- Prophesy lying dreams in God’s name (v.31-32)
- Lead God’s people astray by their lies and recklessness (v.32)
- There is no profit in them (v.32)
- A burden to God because they speak their own words (v.33, 36)
- Pervert the words of the living God (v.36)
Jeremiah 28 – Hananiah
- The Lord did not send him (v.15)
- He made God’s people trust in a lie (v.15)
- He uttered rebellion against God (v.16)
- So, God removed him from the face of the earth (v.16)
Jeremiah 29:24-32 – Shemaiah
- He sent letters to the people in his name (v.25)
- He prophesied to God’s people when God did not send him (v.31)
- He made them trust in a lie (v.31)
- He spoke rebellion against the Lord (v.32)
God takes it seriously when false teachers (or in this case false prophets) lead his people astray. God is burdened by people speaking their own words and selling them as if they are his words. God’s Word is not to be perverted. But how can we know what is a perversion? We have to know the actual source of God’s words – Scripture.
Our responsibility is to catch the lies and not be led astray by them, to not trust in them. How do we do this? We must sit under the authority of God’s Word. In order to know what is counterfeit, we have to know and have studied the real thing. We must take everything we are being sold and everything we hear, watch, and read back to God’s standard. God has communicated his standard of truth in one story he has told from Genesis to Revelation. To his story, to his entire Word – we must submit. Then and only then will we know what is slippery, evil, adulterous, a vain hope, deceitful, and a lie. Just as there was no profit in lying prophets then, there is nothing to gain from false teachers now.