The Sermon for Sunday, August 17th, the Ninth Sunday after Trinity
The Lessons: Jeremiah 23:23-29; Psalm 82; Hebrews 12:1-14; Luke 12:49-56
The Text: Jeremiah 23:23-29
INTRODUCTION
According to Peter Kendall in the Chicago Tribune, Ruben Brown, age sixty-one, was known on the south and west sides of Chicago, as the friendly neighborhood cockroach exterminator with “the Mississippi stuff.” The Mississippi stuff was a pesticide Brown had bought gallons of in the South, and it really did the trick on roaches. Brown went from door to door with his hand sprayer, and his business grew as satisfied customers recommended the remarkably effective exterminator to others.
In the process, however, Brown is alleged to have single-handedly created an environmental catastrophe. The can-do pesticide – methyl parathion – is outlawed by the EPA for use in homes. Southern farmers use it on boll weevils in their cotton fields, and within days the pesticide breaks down into harmless elements. Not so in the home. There the pesticide persists as a toxic chemical that can harm the neurological system with effects similar to lead poisoning.
The EPA was called into Chicago for the cleanup. Drywall, carpeting, and furniture sprayed with the pesticide had to be torn out and hauled to a hazardous materials dump. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimated that the total cost of the cleanup would be some $20 million, ranking this as one of the worst environmental nightmares in Illinois history.
Brown was charged with two misdemeanors. He apparently didn’t know much about the pesticide he sprayed so liberally. Brown’s attorney said, “It’s a tragedy. It is one of those situations where he did a lot of harm, but his intention in no way matches the damage he has done. He is a family man and handled it with his own hands. Do you think he knew how toxic it was?”
What you don’t know can hurt you. That is true both of pesticides and false teaching.[1]
In our First Lesson today, the Lord condemns false prophecy and false teaching that was leading the people of Israel astray.
THE GENERAL CONTEXT OF JEREMIAH 23:23-29
The context of our First Lesson today is the Lord’s indictment of false prophets in Israel, prophets who were leading the people astray with their revelations of dreams that they had, and persuading people to worship false gods instead of the one true God. They were also influencing them to adopt the false belief that God would let them stay in the Promised Land, no matter how much sin they continued to commit. Today this passage is relevant not only because of the abundance of false prophecy, including predictions of the future, but also on account of the abundance of false teaching, which may seem to be Christian, but actually conflicts with the word of God as the Church has received it.
GOD IS OMNIPRESENT AND OMNISCIENT
The first question posed by the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah is:
Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off?
(Jeremiah 23:23, KJV)
The answer to this rhetorical question is of course that the LORD is both near and distant, that He is, in fact, everywhere, or omnipresent. The significance of this is to show the Israelites how He contrasted with a localized deity such as Baal. God’s power and presence is not limited to one place at one time. On the other hand, “afar off” does not mean that the LORD is inaccessible to human beings, or that what they think, do, or say, is unknown to Him. This verse in Psalm 139 confirms that God is everywhere:
Whither shall I go from thy spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence?
(Psalm 139:7, KJV)
The answer to those questions is of course, “Nowhere.” The LORD is everywhere.
In Jeremiah 23, verse 24, the LORD asks whether anyone can hide himself in secret places so that the LORD cannot see him. Again, the answer is negative. The next question in verse 24 stresses the same point: ‘“Do not I fill heaven and earth?” saith the LORD.’ (Jeremiah 23:24, KJV).
Why, one might ask, are these questions in verses 23 and 24 posed by the LORD in dealing with false prophets? I believe the answer lies in two truths. The first is that the LORD exists eternally and is omnipresent, the only true God with whom lesser deities are not even to be compared. Secondly, the LORD is omniscient, knowing and seeing all things. Therefore, no falsehood can be hidden from him. Nothing of anything anyone thinks, feels, says, or does, is hidden from God. The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews confirms this in these words:
For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. Neither is there any creature that is not manifest in his sight: but all things are naked and opened unto the eyes of him with whom we have to do.
(Hebrews 4:12-13, KJV)
THE ROLE AND PURPOSE OF FALSE PROPHECY
The preceding questions all lead to the LORD’s statement that He has heard what the lying prophets have said and He knows their intention of misleading God’s people by telling their dreams which purport to be divine revelation, so as to cause them to forget God’s name, as their ancestors forgot God’s name and turned to Baal (Jeremiah 23:27). There is always a hidden agenda in false prophecy and in false teaching, and this always conflicts with obedience to God’s revealed truth. Their dreams instead reveal “the deceit of their own heart” (Jeremiah 23:26c). The “deceit of their own heart” includes messages with which they intend to deceive others, or with which the spirit of deceit intends to deceive others, even when the bearers of those messages are themselves deceived but sincerely believe they are bringing the true word of God to their hearers or readers.
DOES THIS PASSAGE DISCREDIT PROPHETIC DREAMS?
Someone might ask if this passage discredits prophetic dreams as false revelation. We should not interpret this passage in a way that conflicts with other passages of the Bible that emphasize the value of dreams in prophetic revelation. For example, Joseph was given prophetic dreams of his future as the ruler of Egypt. Sharing those dreams with his brothers led to their jealousy and to their selling of Joseph into slavery. But the dreams themselves were true revelation given by God to Joseph and were no doubt a constant source of encouragement to him as he endured imprisonment in Egypt. Daniel was given the interpretations of prophetic dreams for Nebuchadnezzar and Belteshazzar. Also, in the Book of the prophet Joel, we find this prophecy:
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions:
(Joel 2:28, KJV)
Now these prophetic dreams and visions given by the Holy Spirit are true revelation, not false, affirming that the Holy Spirit not only has spoken through the prophets of the Old Testament whose writings are recorded and quoted in Scripture, but will continue to speak in generations to come. Therefore, ever since the pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost (Acts 2), we have prophets of the New Covenant, and those who have prophetic gifts. But occasionally we find warnings against dreams that spring from the human mind. Ecclesiastes 5:7 warns us of the diverse vanities that spring from a multitude of dreams and many words. In the Book of Ecclesiasticus, in the Apocrypha, we find this warning:
Divinations, and soothsayings, and dreams, are vain…If they be not sent from the most High in thy visitation, set not thy heart upon them.
(Ecclesiasticus 34:5a & 6, KJV)
Our passage in Jeremiah 23 does not discredit true prophetic dreams, but rather urges the prophet to distinguish whether he truly has God’s word in the dream or revelation that he is about to give God’s people.
THE CONTRAST BETWEEN A FALSE DREAM OR DOCTRINE AND GOD’S WORD
In the final two verses of this passage from Jeremiah 23, the LORD ironically tells the prophet who has a dream to share it, and the person who has God’s word to speak it faithfully (Jeremiah 23:28). The difference between a dream not from God and God’s true word is like the difference between chaff and wheat. The first is to be rejected by the believer, and the second must be accepted, treasured, applied, and obeyed.
The two similes in Jeremiah 23:29 really illustrate the power of God’s word. It is like fire that destroys and cleanses, and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces. God’s word cleanses and builds up, but where there is sin and evil, it breaks it and destroys it.
THE POWER OF GOD’S WORD IN OUR LIVES
In conclusion, then, we must fear the power of God and his word. By reading, studying, and obeying the moral teachings and commands of God’s word, we shall be able to discern more easily false prophecies and false doctrines when we encounter them, and our lives will be conformed to the Lord Jesus Christ through His indwelling Holy Spirit.
[1] p.262, 750 Engaging Illustrations for Preachers, Teachers and Writers from Craig Brian Larson and Leadership Journal. Grand Rapids, Michigan: BakerBooks, 2002. Second Printing, 2008.