God Speaks Against False Speakers - Jeremiah 22-26

Jeremiah 23:11-15 (ESV)

“Both prophet and priest are ungodly;

even in my house I have found their evil,

declares the LORD.

Therefore their way shall be to them

like slippery paths in the darkness,

into which they shall be driven and fall,

for I will bring disaster upon them

in the year of their punishment,

declares the LORD.

In the prophets of Samaria

I saw an unsavory thing:

they prophesied by Baal

and led my people Israel astray.

But in the prophets of Jerusalem

I have seen a horrible thing:

they commit adultery and walk in lies;

they strengthen the hands of evildoers,

so that no one turns from his evil;

all of them have become like Sodom to me,

and its inhabitants like Gomorrah.”

Therefore thus says the LORD of hosts concerning the prophets:

“Behold, I will feed them with bitter food

and give them poisoned water to drink,

for from the prophets of Jerusalem

ungodliness has gone out into all the land.”

One of Jeremiah’s message themes throughout this long book he wrote, was that the false prophets speaking to the people would be dealt with by God.   This is a major theme of this section of Jeremiah.   In chapter 26 we read of a true prophet (Uriah) who is put to death for the same message as Jeremiah.  Jeremiah, in chapter 26, is spared, however.   But the above shows how God will treat the false teachers.  God does not want to do this. Note what Jeremiah will say in just a few verses:

Jeremiah 23:21-22 (ESV)

“I did not send the prophets,

yet they ran;

I did not speak to them,

yet they prophesied.

But if they had stood in my council,

then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,

and they would have turned them from their evil way,

and from the evil of their deeds.

God wants His spokesman to speak His council, not false doctrine.   God will always, however, deal with false teachers, in any age:

2 Peter 2:1-4 (ESV)

But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to chains of gloomy darkness to be kept until the judgment;