[SW408] 11/30/2019 message notes by
Pastor Susan J. Wynn ©2019
Prophesying What Is Right
Text: Passages from Jeremiah, Isaiah, etc.
The Lord said to me, “Say what the false prophets say, and what My people say, and what I say. Use all of My Word.” When His servants say what He says, they prophesy what is right.
Why does the Lord want me use both the Old and the New Testaments? It is just as Paul, says to the Corinthian believers, and just as he instructs Timothy —
1Corinthians 10:11 Now these things happened to them (the Jews in the wilderness) as an example, and they were written for our instruction, upon whom the ends of the ages have come.
2Timothy 3:16 All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness.
So today, I will use the whole Word of God to show you that many false prophets say the same things now as they did then, and that believers respond in the same way now as they did then. And I will show you that the Lord says the same things to all of them now as He did then!
What is it to prophesy falsely? Jeremiah describes it —
Lamentations 2:14 Your prophets have seen for you false and foolish visions; and they have not exposed your iniquity so as to restore you from captivity, but they have seen for you false and misleading oracles (literally, seductive words that cause banishment).
In the Old Testament, false prophets said —
“Turn to the false gods worshiped by the countries that surround you, but continue to outwardly worship the Lord. That way, your sin will not be judged by the Lord.”
So, God’s people responded —
“We like what the false prophets are saying! We can please our lusts with the false gods — and thus worship the god of self — but still go to our synagogues and to the temple. Because we outwardly worship the LORD, there will be no consequences for the sin we are doing.”
But the LORD said —
Jeremiah 18:11 “So now then, speak to the men of Judah and against the inhabitants of Jerusalem saying, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Behold, I am fashioning calamity (misery, harm) against you and devising a plan against you. Oh turn back, each of you from his evil way, and reform your ways and your deeds.”’
The false prophets said —
“You do not need to repent. You are God’s people! There is no need to turn back! He would never cause you to be miserable. He will not let anything bad happen to you!”
So, God’s people said to the LORD’s prophets who warned them to repent —
Isaiah 30:10 “ . . . You must not see visions; you must not prophesy to us what is right. Speak to us pleasant words, prophesy illusions. 11 Get out of the way, turn aside from the path, let us hear no more about the Holy One of Israel.”
Do you see it? They knew the prophets of the LORD were prophesying what is right, or they would not have said, “You must not see; you must not prophesy what is right.” But just as with many of today’s believers, they did not want to see and did not want to hear what they knew was right. They wanted to continue doing the sin they loved to do, with no consequences.
Therefore, the LORD said —
Isaiah 30:15 “In repentance (returning to Me) and rest (setting your eyes on Me alone) you will be saved, in quietness (settling down with Me) and trust (in Me alone) is your strength.” But you were not willing . . .”
The false prophets said —
“Peace, peace! You are at peace with your God. There is no need to be afraid that He will judge you for your sin.”
So God’s people said —
“We like the words of the false prophets! We like the message of ‘Peace, peace.’ We are at peace with God. That sounds good to us! There must be no consequences for the sin we are doing.”
But the LORD said —
Jeremiah 6:14 “They (the false prophets) have healed the brokenness of My people superficially, saying, ‘Peace, peace,’ But there is no peace.”
Isaiah 57:20 But the wicked are like the tossing sea, for it cannot be quiet, and its waters toss up refuse and mud. 21 “There is no peace,” says my God, “for the wicked.”
The LORD did not just warn His people once, but again and again —
Jeremiah 29:18 ‘I will pursue them with the sword, with famine and with pestilence; and I will make them a terror to all the kingdoms of the earth, to be a curse and a horror and a hissing, and a reproach among all the nations where I have driven them, 19 because they have not listened to My words,’ declares the LORD, ‘which I sent to them again and again by My servants the prophets; but you did not listen,’ declares the LORD.
The false prophets said —
“The LORD will continue to protect you, because you are His people. The LORD will not destroy Jerusalem as His prophets are saying. After all, this is the temple of the LORD!”
So God’s people said —
“That sounds good to our ears! And the false prophets even said it three times! We are impressed! We are protected from our enemies, because God is here, in His temple! There must be no consequences for the sin we are doing.”
But the LORD said —
Jeremiah 7:4 “Do not trust in deceptive (lying) words, saying, ‘This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD.’”
The false prophets said —
“We will continue with our false words that are from our own imagination (Jeremiah 23:16). If you flee to Egypt to escape the Babylonians who are about to overtake Jerusalem, you will be safe. The LORD will protect you there, for you are His people.”
So God’s people responded —
“We like what you are saying! The LORD will protect us when we flee to Egypt, for we are His people! There must be no consequences for the sin we are doing.”
And God’s people said to Jeremiah —
Jeremiah 43:2 . . . “You are telling a lie! The LORD our God has not sent you to say, ‘You are not to enter Egypt to reside there’; 3 but Baruch the son of Neriah is inciting you against us to give us over into the hand of the Chaldeans, so they will put us to death or exile us to Babylon.”
But the LORD said —
Jeremiah 42:10 ‘If you will indeed stay in this land, then I will build you up and not tear you down, and I will plant you and not uproot you; for I will relent concerning the calamity that I have inflicted on you.”
Jeremiah 42:13 “But if you are going to say, ‘We will not stay in this land,’ so as not to listen to the voice of the LORD your God, 14 saying, ‘No, but we will go to the land of Egypt, where we will not see war or hear the sound of a trumpet or hunger for bread, and we will stay there’ . . . 16 then the sword, which you are afraid of, will overtake you there in the land of Egypt; and the famine, about which you are anxious, will follow closely after you there in Egypt, and you will die there.
Prophesying what is right does not provide a life of luxury and comfort. For 40 years, Jeremiah prophesied what was right. During those years, the false prophets and the Jewish kings and the Jewish priests ordered him to be imprisoned, beaten, put in stocks, thrown into a cistern, and more. (See Jeremiah 20:2, Jeremiah 38:6, and many other passages.)
And after 62 years of prophesying what is right, Isaiah was brutally sawn into pieces, one piece at a time, until he was dead. They thought they had silenced him.
But the words the LORD gave him lived on.
After Babylon had exiled many of God’s people, the LORD told Jeremiah to make a wooden yoke for his neck, representing the Babylonian captivity. He instructed Jeremiah to wear it as he prophesied what is right.
But the false prophet, Hananiah, said —
Jeremiah 28:2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 ‘Within two years I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD’S house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon . . . and all the people.”
So God’s people said —
“Hananiah’s words sound good to us! Everyone who has already been carried into exile by Babylon will return home within two years! And Hananiah says, ‘Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel,’ just like the LORD’s prophets. There must be no consequences for the sin we are doing.”
But the LORD had already said through Jeremiah —
Jeremiah 25:11 “This whole land will be a desolation and a horror, and these nations will serve the king of Babylon seventy years.
Jeremiah 29:10 “For thus says the LORD, ‘When seventy years have been completed for Babylon, I will visit you and fulfill My good word to you, to bring you back to this place.’”
Today, false prophets say to sinning believers —
“God is not angry with you. You cannot help but sin. You do not need to repent and confess your sin to the Lord. All of your sin, past, present, and future, has already been forgiven.”
And they say, “When God looks you, He sees you as holy and righteous, regardless of your sin. So, you not bound by Jesus Christ’s teaching. You are not responsible for your sin. And we have even more good news for you! God wants to make you rich and successful!”
So today’s sinning believers say —
“We like what these false prophets say! Look at the vast number of followers of these false prophets! Some of them even appear to be quoting from the Bible, and use just a few words from it, to prove what they say! Their words please our lusts for more of everything. So we do not need to repent, because we are forgiven, no matter what we do! There must be no consequences for the sin we are doing.”
But Jesus Christ, God the Son, says —
Matthew 7:21 “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter. 22 “Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ 23 “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness.’”
And Jesus Christ exhorts all believers, then and now, regarding their sin and the consequences of it —
Mark 9:43 “If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life crippled, than having your two hands, to go into hell, into the unquenchable fire, 44 where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.
45 If your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame, than having your two feet, to be cast into hell, 46 where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched. 47 If your eye causes you to stumble, throw it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes, to be cast into hell, 48 where their worm does not die and the fire is not quenched.”
Remember what the LORD said to His rebellious people —
Isaiah 30:15 “In repentance (returning to Me) and rest (setting your eyes on Me alone) you will be saved, in quietness (settling down with Me) and trust (in Me alone) is your strength.” But you were not willing . . .”
Beloved, are you willing to repent for your sin and return to the Lord? Are you willing to set your eyes on Him alone? Are you willing to settle down with Him, as in a marriage? Are you willing to trust in Him alone? You will not be saved if you do not do it. You will have no strength, if you do not do it.
So repent! Confess your sin to Him. Ask your Father in heaven to fill you with His Holy Spirit (Luke 11:13) so your sin nature is crucified (Galatians 5:24), your heart is purified (Acts 15:9), and you become a partaker of God’s divine nature —
2Peter 1:4 For by these He has granted to us His precious and magnificent promises, so that by them you may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world by lust.
Beloved, who will you believe? The Lord, or today’s false prophets?
Lord Jesus, through the words You have given me, may many believers repent and turn back to You, and cry out to be filled with Your Holy Spirit. Let it be so, I pray. Amen.