The Folly of False Prophets

​Lamentations 2:14 ~ “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.”
 
The book of Lamentations is the cry of the prophet Jeremiah as he wept over the ruin that would come upon the people of God. The Almighty had declared that He would send them into exile, and no amount of prayer on Jeremiah’s part could stop what needed to happen. In Jeremiah 7:16 God told the prophet, “As for you, do not pray for this people, or lift up a cry or prayer for them, and do not intercede with me, for I will not hear you.” If you read all of Jeremiah chapter seven, you would discover that though they claimed to honor the LORD, they would worship the idols of the land. And, the LORD warned Jeremiah that all his efforts would fall upon deaf ears, “So you shall speak all these words to them, but they will not listen to you. You shall call to them, but they will not answer you” (Jeremiah 7:27). The one prophet that had the courage to warn the people was the one messenger the people refused.
 
That draws us into our text today. I want to begin with a simple question: to whom do you listen? The popular prophets of the days of Jeremiah were quite capable of giving messages and visions that the people welcomed with glad hearts. These were not from the LORD, however, and so they had no real truth or value. What they did have were words that agreed with the state of thinking that dominated the nation. Not unlike the warning given by the Apostle Paul in 2 Timothy 4:3-4, “For 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, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” So goes many of the popular preachers of the modern era. With great oration and warm words, the messengers today will let all who hear them know that the world around them is rich with the opportunity to satisfy their appetites for sin. They won’t say it in so many words, but will couch it in terms that sound almost right. Words like “repent” and “submit” are left out of their vocabulary, for such words do not agree those who are only looking for personal satisfaction.
 
And, as our text today indicates, “they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes.” And there will be some who read those words and only see the restoration of “fortunes” in the earthly sense. Jesus warned the church in Laodicea, “For you say, I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing, not realizing that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked. I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich, and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen, and salve to anoint your eyes, so that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline, so be zealous and repent” (Revelation 3:17-19). Dear ones, the fortune of the people of God is God Himself! He is our treasure and our very great reward (see Genesis 15:1).
 
Our true restoration is to be delivered from the captivity of sin and brought into close fellowship with God Himself. But the false prophets failed because they would not expose the iniquity of the people. The people gravitated to the visions of the false messengers, for from them they never once heard that they had sinned against God in their idolatrous practices. And, as we see in the text from Revelation, it is the love of Christ that calls us to repentance.
 
Finally, the false messengers are there to mislead. They speak words that will always take you, step by step, further and further away from the LORD. Until, as the people of Israel had done, in the very place where they were to worship God, they worshiped idols. Such callous rebellion against the LORD is the folly of false prophets. They will drive their words home with such skill and fervor that it will seem as if they are speaking the very oracles of God.
 
So, as we close this out for today, here’s a warning from me to you. If the people of God in the days of Jeremiah had gone back to the word of God, they would have seen the judgments of God and perhaps repented and returned to God. It is from God’s word that His judgments are revealed. And here’s the warning: if you are listening to the popular messengers of the day who say they speak for the LORD, return to His written word and verify all things according to Scripture. It could be that they are trying to lead you away from a sincere devotion to the LORD Jesus Christ (see 2 Corinthians 11:3).
 
In His Grace,
Pastor Michael

---