Year 6, Day 76: Jeremiah 23

Theological Commentary: Click Here

Discipleship Focus: Prophet

• Prophet: A prophet is one of the fivefold ministry categories that is used throughout the Bible and especially lifted up in Ephesians 4:11.  The prophet is primarily concerned with whether or not the people are hearing the voice of God.  The prophet is also concerned about whether or not the people are responding to God’s voice.

Before we get to prophets, I want to talk about leadership in general.  Yesterday we spoke a good deal about leaders.  Today we continue this theme.  Leaders are not supposed to lead people astray.  Leaders are not supposed to lead people into rebellion.  But that is exactly what the leaders of Judah are doing.  They are leading the people into their own desires.  They are absolutely leading the people into rebellion.

This sets up the Lord’s words against the prophets.  God has two primary complaints against the prophets.  First, God’s complaint is that they are liars.  They prophecy not what God says but what the people want to hear.  They prophecy what will keep them in power.  They prophecy what is popular.  Yet they say that it is from God.  This makes them liars.

Second, we can hear God’s complaint about the burden.  The prophets are listening the Jeremiah, who is giving a legitimate message from God, and they are claiming that Jeremiah’s message is a burden to them.  Jeremiah’s message is hard to hear.  Jeremiah’s message is about change and repentance and giving up one’s own agenda to submit to God.  But the people are saying that it is a burden!

We can learn a hard lesson from this.  When people only want to hear that which pleases them, they will not listen to truth.  In fact, they will reject truth because it is too had to hear.  People are either looking to follow God, knowing that it will be difficult to reform our humanity, or they are looking to justify their own humanity and satisfy it.

The question to ask is: what are the prophets who are supposed to be bringing a message from God saying about this struggle within?

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