Jer 23:11-21 | KingComments | STEP | With , another subject begins, which nevertheless connects to the previous one. The previous section deals primarily with unfaithful kings, but ends with the announcement of the Messiah, the faithful King. Jeremiah is the faithful prophet who announces both judgment and ultimate blessing for the people. The section that follows deals with the false prophets. Jeremiah speaks of them more than any other prophet. When he thinks about them, he feels a tremendous pain inside. It makes him sick and nauseous and he feels like a drunken man, someone who is swaying back and forth and cannot think clearly. This feeling is caused by what he perceives and sees it in the light of the LORD and “His holy words”. The difference between the words of the false prophets and the holy words of the LORD is enormous. It is not just a factual observation, but a situation that upsets him. The transgressions of the false prophets are many and great. After the wicked kings, it is mainly the prophets who are responsible for the destruction of the nation. Those who love the Lord and His Word will experience the same. Everything that goes against Him and His Word causes pain and sorrow. It then concerns those who presume to speak His words in the Name of the Lord. This is not bearable for the God-fearing soul. If you notice it, you are deeply affected and sometimes so upset that for some time you are unable to continue to do anything for the Lord. The result of what false prophets speak is quite something: “The land is full of adulterers” ( ). The first thing a lying prophet is recognized by is infidelity in marriage. Lying prophets bring a curse upon the land, withering the pastures of the wilderness and leaving no food for the sheep. These prophets do not pursue good, but evil. They do not use their power for God’s people, but for themselves. Energy that is not used properly is wasted energy. Not only do God’s people have to suffer, even the LORD does not escape their wicked behavior. The false prophet has a partner in evil in the unfaithful priest. Both prophet and priest commit sacrilege, not sparing God’s house either ( ). Nothing is sacred to these people. But the LORD sees it and confronts them. They think they are on a road of prosperity and happiness, but that road will be dark, with slippery paths ( ). It is already difficult to walk on slippery ice, let alone when it is dark. There is no turning back. They will be pushed on by their lust and will slip on those slippery paths, fall down and perish. This judgment awaits them in “the year of their punishment”. The LORD says so, so it will happen.

‏ Jeremiah 23:11-21

Calamity Will Be Upon the False Prophets

With Jer 23:9, another subject begins, which nevertheless connects to the previous one. The previous section deals primarily with unfaithful kings, but ends with the announcement of the Messiah, the faithful King. Jeremiah is the faithful prophet who announces both judgment and ultimate blessing for the people. The section that follows deals with the false prophets.

Jeremiah speaks of them more than any other prophet. When he thinks about them, he feels a tremendous pain inside. It makes him sick and nauseous and he feels like a drunken man, someone who is swaying back and forth and cannot think clearly. This feeling is caused by what he perceives and sees it in the light of the LORD and “His holy words”.

The difference between the words of the false prophets and the holy words of the LORD is enormous. It is not just a factual observation, but a situation that upsets him. The transgressions of the false prophets are many and great. After the wicked kings, it is mainly the prophets who are responsible for the destruction of the nation.

Those who love the Lord and His Word will experience the same. Everything that goes against Him and His Word causes pain and sorrow. It then concerns those who presume to speak His words in the Name of the Lord. This is not bearable for the God-fearing soul. If you notice it, you are deeply affected and sometimes so upset that for some time you are unable to continue to do anything for the Lord.

The result of what false prophets speak is quite something: “The land is full of adulterers” (Jer 23:10). The first thing a lying prophet is recognized by is infidelity in marriage. Lying prophets bring a curse upon the land, withering the pastures of the wilderness and leaving no food for the sheep. These prophets do not pursue good, but evil. They do not use their power for God’s people, but for themselves. Energy that is not used properly is wasted energy.

Not only do God’s people have to suffer, even the LORD does not escape their wicked behavior. The false prophet has a partner in evil in the unfaithful priest. Both prophet and priest commit sacrilege, not sparing God’s house either (Jer 23:11). Nothing is sacred to these people. But the LORD sees it and confronts them.

They think they are on a road of prosperity and happiness, but that road will be dark, with slippery paths (Jer 23:12). It is already difficult to walk on slippery ice, let alone when it is dark. There is no turning back. They will be pushed on by their lust and will slip on those slippery paths, fall down and perish. This judgment awaits them in “the year of their punishment”. The LORD says so, so it will happen.

False Prophecy in Samaria and Jerusalem

Among the prophets of Samaria, the capital of the ten tribes realm, the LORD has seen “an offensive thing”, a thing that is not fitting for a prophet (Jer 23:13). There are prophets there who prophesy on behalf of Baal and thus deceive God’s people. The LORD still calls Israel “My people” here. Beginning with Jeroboam, the ten tribes realm strayed further and further from the LORD and gave itself over to idols, to Jeroboam’s self-conceived religion (1Kgs 12:26-33).

What Samaria has done is bad, but what Jerusalem is doing is even worse (Jer 23:14). There the LORD did not ‘merely’ see an offensive thing as in Samaria, but He has seen there “a horrible thing”. Israel openly committed idolatry, but Judah prophesied in the Name of the LORD while committing the most reprehensible sins.

The first evil mentioned is again adultery, with in its wake falsehood. Those who commit adultery live in falsehood. It is a gross lie to justify sins in the Name of the LORD. This is what happens in our day when it is said that love is from God and that a homosexual relationship is ‘therefore’ in accordance with God’s will and can even be blessed in the church. Instead of calling for condemnation and repentance of evil, they are so utterly depraved that they encourage others to continue in doing evil. The result is hardening and not repentance from wickedness. The LORD cannot judge them any differently than He did Sodom and Gomorrah, because they act like Sodom and Gomorrah.

The anger of the LORD is on those prophets (Jer 23:15). In His omnipotence as “the LORD of hosts” He says what He will do to these prophets. He is going to feed them wormwood and make them drink poisonous water. They themselves have given the people bitter and poisoned food and drink. Therefore, they will now get to eat and drink it themselves. The taste will be horrible. They will have to take this because “from the prophets of Jerusalem pollution has gone forth into all the land”. Their corrupting influence has permeated the whole land with pollution, so that nothing is holy anymore. Sin has permeated everything.

This is the situation also today in professing Christianity. Nothing is holy anymore, everything that belongs to and is for God and His honor is trampled upon and that by using His Word. How great is the sacrilege committed under the cover of God’s Word! We can think [as to the Netherlands] of the annual Christ-degrading and blasphemous spectacle ‘The Passion’ of the tasteless Evangelical Broadcasting Company. In it the story of Christ’s suffering is played out in a contemporary way by ‘Dutch Celebrities’, many of whom have no relationship whatsoever with the Christ of the Scriptures.

The Words of the Lying Prophets

The LORD now issues a clear warning not to listen to those prophets (Jer 23:16). He says with great emphasis “do not listen” because the people are so very eager to listen to those prophets. Their talk is beautiful and pious, but they are air. They tell an optimistic story about the future. The people love to hear that, but at the same time it makes them blind to the impending doom.

Therefore, the hope they are given is “futility”. It is a hope that comes from the imagination of the false prophets, from the imaginations of their own heart and not from the mouth of the LORD. Such hope is quicksand; there is no firmness in it. Their imaginations lack any real authority. They cannot stand the test of God’s Word. It is preaching ‘according to man’ and not a preaching that urges self-examination, confession and repentance.

Everything we hear should be tested against God’s Word. We should not accept things because they sound credible, or are brought with great conviction. Many misleading prophets have gone forth (1Jn 4:1). The devil has many in his power.

The devil also knows that repetition is the best advertising. The false prophets “keep saying”, repeating it over and over again: “The LORD has said” (Jer 23:17). And what the LORD has said is, of course, pleasant to hear. They find a listening ear with those who despise the LORD. Of course, there is no exhortation to repent. No, they can really count on peace. They can just continue on the way of sin, for “calamity will not come upon you”. This is what the hardened heart loves to hear.

These prophets are far from the counsel of the LORD (Jer 23:18). They do not know His counsel, they have never been in it. They have not seen and heard His word, which is necessary to be a true prophet. A true prophet is involved in that word, he heeds and listens to it, that is, shows it in his life. But these prophets themselves live in the lie. How then can they pass on what the LORD has spoken!

Repeatedly calling for wickedness causes a “storm of the LORD” (Jer 23:19). Wrath emanates from Him like a whirling tempest that “will swirl down on the head of the wicked”. This judgment will come furiously upon them and the storm will not be blown out until the LORD has performed and carried out all that He has thought in His heart (Jer 23:20). We see these judgments in the book of Revelation. They come on His people Israel and also on professing Christianity and also on the world.

Jeremiah and God’s people cannot yet understand this in their time (cf. 1Pet 1:10). “In the last days”, that is in the end time, they will “clearly understand it”. We may well understand everything now, for we have the Spirit Whom God has given us. He makes it known to us (Jn 16:12-14).

The false prophets were not sent by the LORD, yet they went out with a message on His behalf (Jer 23:21). Full of zeal they go around with their predictions of good fortune. The LORD has not told them anything they should say, yet they have gone around prophesying in His Name. This is a great posturing that we also see frequently in professing Christianity today, where liberal preachers dare to speak in the Name of the Lord.

The proof that these false prophets are not in the counsel of the LORD is that they have not caused anyone to turn back from their evil ways and from their evil deeds (Jer 23:22). They have not made God’s people hear God’s words or urge repentance and conversion. The fruit of their ‘prophetic service’ is only hardening.

The false prophets are in great contrast to what prophets do who are sent by God and speak what He says. Such prophets stand in God’s counsel. They know His thoughts and communicate them to His people. These words turn erring people from their evil ways and cause them to stop their evil deeds. These are the characteristics of the true prophets. It is not a question of whether their preaching is successful or not, but whether they speak what the LORD wants. Jeremiah is a true prophet of the LORD, even though his preaching was humanly speaking unsuccessful.