Tag Archives: Lies

Day 156: Ask and Receive

Jeremiah 37:16-21

When Jeremiah had come into the dungeon house and into the cells, and Jeremiah had remained there many days, then Zedekiah the king sent and had him brought out. The king asked him secretly in his house, “Is there any word from Yahweh?”

Jeremiah said, “There is.” He also said, “You will be delivered into the hand of the king of Babylon.”

Moreover Jeremiah said to king Zedekiah, “How have I sinned against you, against your servants, or against this people, that you have put me in prison? Now where are your prophets who prophesied to you, saying, ‘The king of Babylon will not come against you, nor against this land?’ Now please hear, my lord the king: please let my supplication be presented before you, that you not cause me to return to the house of Jonathan the scribe, lest I die there.”

Then Zedekiah the king commanded, and they committed Jeremiah into the court of the guard. They gave him daily a loaf of bread out of the bakers’ street, until all the bread in the city was gone. Thus Jeremiah remained in the court of the guard.

God really hates lies. He even calls it out as a major reason for His punishments in the book of Revelation. Here’s what He says:

Revelation 21:8

But for the cowardly, unbelieving, sinners, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their part is in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”

You could say that Jeremiah was now in a sort of Hell on earth situation. He had spent many days in a dungeon during a time when no one had food. I doubt very much if he had eaten at all while sitting in the dark and cold. When the king took him out to talk with him about his visions for the future, Jeremiah still didn’t lie. He had to tell the king that he was going to be taken by the Babylonians. I think that most people would lie in this situation in order to get out of suffering, but an honest man doesn’t do that. There’s a worse place than any place here on earth and that is Hell and Jeremiah was obviously aware of what would happen to him should he ever fail to tell the truth about what God said. You can contrast his behavior with that of the king. The king wouldn’t even talk to Jeremiah openly but talked to “him secretly in his house.” In a sense, the king was lying by his behavior, just to protect his reputation.

Even though Jeremiah was obedient, starving to death in a dungeon was a horrible thing. Even though he had to tell the king the truth, he reasoned and pleaded with the king to be allowed to not die in the dungeon. I would like to take this opportunity to talk about suffering a bit more because I think that those who don’t suffer that much sometimes act like it’s a good thing that we should somehow enjoy. It is true that suffering for the Lord is always good, but Jeremiah demonstrates the wisdom in choosing to do what we can to stop suffering, even for the Lord. Jeremiah didn’t want to suffer if he could avoid it and he asked God’s representative of the evil government of his time if he would allow him to not go back. Remember, God had told Jeremiah that He would be with him and protect him, yet God had allowed Jeremiah to end up starving to death in a dungeon. It really wasn’t adding up. God chose to require that Jeremiah ask to be taken out of the situation and God arranged that this condemned king would choose to remove Jeremiah from the dungeon and feed Him instead.

Could it be that God wants us to ask Him to remove our suffering? I believe He does. That doesn’t mean that all of our suffering will be removed, but I do believe a great deal of it will be. Jeremiah demonstrates this but so did Paul. He asked God that his “thorn in the flesh” be removed. In that case God gave him the grace to overcome it without removing it, but Paul still asked repeatedly. Even Jesus asked to be removed from some of His suffering if it was God’s will. Jesus had to go through the whole thing for us. I think that’s why God wants us to ask. Jesus already went through the fire for us. I think that God desires to take take some of that fire from us when we ask. So I believe that when we are suffering, we should ask God to take us out of it, even if that suffering has served a good purpose in our lives.

Day 121: An Actual Contradiction

Jeremiah 28:10-17

Then Hananiah the prophet took the bar from off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, and broke it. Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, “Yahweh says: ‘Even so I will break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from off the neck of all the nations within two full years.’ ” Then the prophet Jeremiah went his way.

Then Yahweh’s word came to Jeremiah, after Hananiah the prophet had broken the bar from off the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, saying, “Go, and tell Hananiah, saying, ‘Yahweh says, “You have broken the bars of wood, but you have made in their place bars of iron.” For Yahweh of Armies, the God of Israel says, “I have put a yoke of iron on the neck of all these nations, that they may serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon; and they will serve him. I have also given him the animals of the field.” ’ ”

Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Listen, Hananiah! Yahweh has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore Yahweh says, ‘Behold, I will send you away from off the surface of the earth. This year you will die, because you have spoken rebellion against Yahweh.’ ”

So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.

When Hananiah went on to say that Babylon’s power would be completely broken in the region within two years, a contradiction was not only apparent, it was real. God has spoken through Jeremiah that the people in other nations were to prepare for the Babylonian takeover. That takeover would not be happening if what Hananiah said was true.

Notice that Jeremiah didn’t say anything after Hananiah took the bar from his neck and used it as an illustration. He probably saw the contradiction quite clearly himself now. Both Hananiah and Jeremiah could not be true prophets of God. One of them was an imposter. Evidently, Jeremiah walked away. I know this because God told Jeremiah to “Go,” and tell Hananiah a new message which means he had to go to where Hananiah was. It’s important when we see a real contradiction, that we not try to accept it. It is also true that we shouldn’t speak until God shows us to what to say, but this passage also demonstrates that God will deal with a false prophet.

If God would have left things like they were, the people would have been confused. Which message was from God? To me, this seemed like an impossible problem but God provided an amazing way out.

The people had only one way to tell if a prophet is true. They had to see if what he predicted would happen. Both prophets could not be right, but if they were to wait until two years passed, it might be too late to follow Jeremiah and surrender to Babylon. I would imagine that Satan created this dilemma but God made it look easy. He simply had Jeremiah predict the death of Hananiah in a few months! Since both prophets could not be false, all the people had to do is watch to see if Hananiah would or die not! God not only proved to the people that Jeremiah was a true prophet, He also took out the bad one. God is quite capable of making His voice clear to us. He is also very serious about those who speak His word. This is a blessing to those of us who are telling the truth and a fearful warning to those who don’t.

Day 118: The Real Enemy

Jeremiah 27:8-15

“ ‘ “ ‘It will happen that I will punish the nation and the kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon,’ says Yahweh, ‘with the sword, with famine, and with pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand. But as for you, don’t listen to your prophets, to your diviners, to your dreams, to your soothsayers, or to your sorcerers, who speak to you, saying, “You shall not serve the king of Babylon;” for they prophesy a lie to you, to remove you far from your land, so that I would drive you out, and you would perish. But the nation that brings their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon and serves him, that nation I will let remain in their own land,’ says Yahweh; ‘and they will till it and dwell in it.’ ” ’ ”

I spoke to Zedekiah king of Judah according to all these words, saying, “Bring your necks under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him and his people, and live. Why will you die, you and your people, by the sword, by the famine, and by the pestilence, as Yahweh has spoken concerning the nation that will not serve the king of Babylon? Don’t listen to the words of the prophets who speak to you, saying, ‘You shall not serve the king of Babylon;’ for they prophesy a lie to you. For I have not sent them,” says Yahweh, “but they prophesy falsely in my name; that I may drive you out, and that you may perish, you, and the prophets who prophesy to you.”

In this passage, God continues His communication with the non-Israeli nations that were to be affected by the Babylonian takeover. Once again what we have is a very simple and clear message. If the people will surrender, they will get to remain in their own land and continue to do business there. Jeremiah tells them not to listen to the false prophets.

To the king of Judah, Jeremiah said that he should obey God’s word so that he doesn’t suffer with other nations that don’t listen. When you think about it, it would be a bigger tragedy for Israel to not hear the words of their own prophet than it would be for those nations that don’t usually listen to Israel’s God. The sad thing is that Israel wasn’t going to listen. Also, notice that Jeremiah tells the king of Judah to not listen to the false prophets.

Something that caught my attention in this passage is that God was warning them all to not listen to the false prophets because they were saying false things in order to get them to sin and to force God to drive them out of their land. I believe that from the context of what we read here, that the prophets themselves were not doing it for this reason. In fact, we read that if these nations were to listen to the false prophets and not obey Jeremiah’s word, even the false prophets would end up dying and being driven out. I seriously doubt that the false prophets were doing it so that they could die, so that leads us to a question. Who was doing this so that God would destroy both Jew and Gentile and their nations? The answer is pretty obvious. Satan and his powers were behind what the false prophets were saying. Jesus told us that Satan is the father of liars. We also know from other parts of the Bible that Satan deceives people and they in turn deceive others. This demonstrates the fact that Satan isn’t a friend of any human. He doesn’t care if you are a Jew or a Gentile. He’d just as soon see you dead. What we see here is that God is trying to save all of mankind. Even when we don’t understand why God works the way He does, we can rest assured that He cares and knows what He is doing. We need to have faith and simply do what He says.