NO. 54 THE ERRORS OF THE PASTORS AND THE FALSE PROPHETS

TEXT: JEREMIAH 23: 25-40 25 I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.

26 How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart;

27 Which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal.

28 The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the Lord.

29 Is not my word like as a fire? saith the Lord; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?

30 Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbour,

31 Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith.

32 Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the Lord, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the Lord.

33 And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the Lord.

34 And as for the prophet, and the priest, and the people, that shall say, The burden of the Lord, I will even punish that man and his house.

35 Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one to his brother, What hath the Lord answered? and, What hath the Lord spoke?

36 And the burden of the Lord shall ye mention no more; for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.

37 Thus shalt thou say to the prophet, What hath the Lord answered thee? and, What hath the Lord spoken?

38 But since ye say, The burden of the Lord; therefore thus saith the Lord; Because ye say this word, The burden of the Lord, and I have sent unto you, saying, Ye shall not say, The burden of the Lord;

39 Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence:

40 And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten. (KJV)

Today we are going to learn of the false prophets through the book of Jeremiah.

At first we would like to think of the background of the book. The book tells of the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. That is actually the prophecy or the warning to Jerusalem as its capital of Israel. But it has another aspect. It is also the prophecy to the spiritual Jerusalem, that is, the Church as the Temple.

Why can I say such a thing? I can because of the following. For example, when Daniel has prophesied of the seventy weeks, he also mentions of the book of Jeremiah. The prophecy of the seventy weeks is the one to the God’s city, Jerusalem. But the period of the prophecy is not necessarily limited only to the Old Testament time but is also applied to the Church age due to its term to be long. So, we understand that the prophecy of the seventy weeks is for both Jerusalem, the capital of the Old Testament, and the spiritual Jerusalem, the Church of the New Testament. It is thus the twofold prophecy.

It indicates some thing that Daniel mentions of the book of Jeremiah when he receives the prophecy of the seventy weeks. The destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple and the captivity of God’s people to Babylon are mentioned in the book of Jeremiah, which prophesy not only the destruction of the actual city of Jerusalem of the Old Testament time but also the judgment on the spiritual one of Jerusalem of the New Testament time at the same time. Such also implies the twofold prophecy. That is the reason why the things of Jeremiah are written in the book of Daniel. So, when read the book of Jeremiah, we should have understood it beforehand.

The prophecy of the seventy weeks in the book of Daniel has not yet been completely fulfilled until the judgment of the end time. The weight of this prophecy is rather put on its fulfillment in the end time. Likewise, the prophecy concerning Jerusalem, the Temple and the shepherds, the same as pastors in the original language, and the false prophets mentioned in the book of Jeremiah is also fulfilled in the end time. Therefore, the stories in this book are never anything of our concern but rather exactly written concerning this age.

Now, we are going to see the things of the book of Jeremiah in detail. In this book the sins of the shepherds and the prophets are told. As mentioned already, this word shepherd is also used as the same as the word pastor in the New Testament of the Septuagiant. So, we now know that they are pointed to the judgment on the pastors of the New Testament, which we are going to see as below.

JEREMIAH 23: 2 Therefore thus saith the Lord God of Israel against the pastors that feed my people; Ye have scattered my flock, and driven them away, and have not visited them: behold, I will visit upon you the evil of your doings, saith the Lord.

And some stories of the false prophets are written, too, in the latter part of the chapter. They are the ones, that is, the false teachers who are coming out in the end time, because “the latter days ” is mentioned as below.

“The anger of the Lord shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly.” (KJV)

So I cannot help thinking that the pastors and teacher should not taken the warnings of this book to others but to themselves.

“Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts concerning the prophets; Behold, I will feed them with wormwood, and make them drink the water of gall: for from the prophets of Jerusalem is profaneness gone forth into all the land.” (KJV)

We may not take such a thing as acceptable, but God says that the profaneness goes out to spread to all the land from the prophets of Jerusalem, that is, the teachers of the Church. This agrees with the following verses in the New Testament.

MATTHEW 13: 33 Another parable spake he unto them; The kingdom of heaven is like unto leaven, which a woman took, and hid in three measure of meal, till the whole was leavened. (KJV)

MATTHEW 16: 6 Then Jesus said unto them, Take heed and beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees. (KJV)

The Lord has prophesied beforehand that the leaven shall spread among the New Testament churches. And the leaven means the teaching of Pharisees and Sadducees. Some may think why, but once the Bible says so it is so. If the Lord had said that the leaven is the teaching of Peter or John, we should have had the better impression about it. But as He has actually said that the leaven is the teaching of Pharisees and Sadducees and also that it shall be till the whole is leavened, their teaching will poison the churches. Or we should even think that it has poisoned them already, though we are not so convinced to our mind.

Now we are going to learn through the text.

“I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed.”

In this verse we find the prophets who prophesy lies in the name of the Lord. They could be taken as the people who just intend to lie, but they actually mean the erred or failed prophets who have not been able to grasp the true meaning of the Word.

We can take the example of false prophets from the scribes and Pharisees in Jesus days. They should be the very erred teachers. Their characteristic is that they never have thought they are wrong. And such is quite the same in the end time. Many false prophets and erred teachers have come out already at the present time. They have also never thought of their being wrong at all.

The following verses tell about the sins that the teachers fall into. We see them one by one.

1) “and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully.”

The above verse tells the sin of not speaking the word of the Lord faithfully. Regardless of whether we think so or not, as a matter of fact the word of the Lord is perverted and is not spoken faithfully in this present age. The Lord says of the parables and rebukes his disciples when they do not understand them. But nowadays the word of the Lord is neglected and erred. Although the Lord suggests that the prophecies should not be interpreted only by the text but be done with references to the other ones, this word of the Lord is modified and it is now commonly agreed that God should have prohibited any other interpretation than what they call the official one. And due to this saying many prophets of the Lord have been persecuted.

2) “How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies?”

“How long” suggests a long time. So the false prophets teach lies to the people for a long time. For sure, the people have long been taught lies under the Catholic domination. Because of the period being so long they have not even noticed that they are told lies. The condition is the same even in this present age. And moreover, the same can be said to the Protestants, too.

3) “I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbour.”

The verse says, “that steal my words.” Please understand what this word means. It points the sin that many messengers of the word tend to fall into. It mentions the sin that they do not speak of the true God’s intention but instead of their own thoughts and ideas as quoting the God’s words.

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4) “Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that use their tongues, and say, He saith.”

It is written here of the warning to the prophets who proclaim God’s words. What is the problem as to proclaim the God’s words? What is the real problem? The point of the verse is that they use their tongues to say the God’s words. Their tongues may mean their own thoughts or ways. In a least sense they are not God’s. Though they use the God’s words and speak in the name of God, God says that they essentially speak different things that He intends to. Attention should be given the word “tongues,” for the same is written as to the teachers as the parable in the book of James.

5) “and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness.”

We can also find many lies in the Christian churches. For example, I hear that they confess their sins in front of the others in the Catholic churches. It is painful to confess of their shame, though they desire to be forgiven their sins. Many suffer due to this teaching. But it is the false one.

6) “And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the Lord.”

In the Japanese Revised Version that we usually read, the original word of burden is translated as pronouncement. But many English ones such as King James Version translate it as burden. This is the better translation expressing its meaning clearly, and the Bible also means that.

“And when this people, or the prophet, or a priest, shall ask thee, saying, What is the burden of the Lord? thou shalt then say unto them, What burden? I will even forsake you, saith the Lord.”

So, the verse means this. Those workers declaring themselves serving the Lord ask, “What is the burden of the Lord?” “What burden has the Lord given them?” “What should we do?” The Lord answers to these questions saying that they are themselves His burden and He is intolerable of them in any way. They are very ironic answers.

What do those mean? They mean that there are many who say that the burdens are from the Lord but actually do their own ideas in their way. We have an example. They spend some billion yen for the big church building, saying, “This is the burden God has given,” and they would financially exhaust. As a matter of fact God has never said such a thing, but it actually may happen.

“Thus shall ye say every one to his neighbour, and every one brother, What hath the Lord answered? and, What hath the Lord spoken?”

The above verse says this. What has the Lord spoken? In short, they must proclaim only what He has spoken. They must not proclaim at their own discretion the burden produced by men to be the one of the Lord or the burden come out of ideas of men to be the one of the Lord..

7) “And the burden of the Lord shall mention no more: for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the Lord of hosts our God.”

It is written that the word of the Lord is perverted. What the word of the Lord truly intends to say is perverted by the mouth of the false prophets.

8) “Therefore, behold, I, even I, will utterly forget you, and I will forsake you, and the city that I gave you and your fathers, and cast you out of my presence: And I will bring an everlasting reproach upon you, and a perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.”

The Lord says that He will forsake this city, the God’s Church, before Him due to the erred pastors and the false teachers who err. What does this mean? It means the judgment on the Church.

But, as for us, we would like to do His will in the end time.

End.