Jeremiah (1-31) 23:16 Commentary and Bible Study

The Lord addresses the people. Do not listen to the words of your preachers, your prophets, he tells them, because they have nothing useful to say and indeed their words are harmful and destructive and need to be avoided. What a state of affairs things have come to when the official teachers in the land are so bad that the only safe counsel from the Lord is not to Listen to them. They will give false comfort, and a false message to consciences, providing consolation when there ought to be reproof. Because it comes from those with authority it tends to be believed, so there has to be a warning from God himself not to listen. Where does their message come from? They have manufactured it out of their own hearts. It has truth to it. It is from their imagination, and it reflects their own ideas which are completely at odds with what God has to say. Like the Pharisees later, they block the way to heaven, and prevent those who would try to make some genuine enquiry about religion from finding him. The greatest danger comes from the place where the greatest help ought to be found.‘They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you.’ False comfort is harmless enough when it comes from a source that nobody trusts, from those who are obviously outside the pale. Then it can be rejected immediately with no qualms. But when it comes from the place of authority it is not easily rejected. The people want to trust their leaders; naturally, they do not want a hear a hard message. And those who sin wilfully take advantage of the situation, and appeal to the false message for support. In this situation the conscience begins to convict the rebellious, but its cries are easily set aside with the backup of the false teachers and prophets. It only takes a little to silence it. ‘No evil will come to you.’ Thate is what they want to hear. That is what they are already telling themselves over the top of the voice of conscience. That is what Satan told Eve in Eden, and it was only too easy for her to believe it. So Satan has control of the ministry, and it becomes his mouthpiece instead of the Lord’s. This is the terrible situation that develops when the ministry becomes corrupted. By saying all this they make it impossible for the wicked ever to repent.‘For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?’ These could be the words of the Lord challenging the false prophets about how little their message agrees with what God has said through his true prophets, or they could be the words of the false prophets expressing their scorn for the intimacy which the true prophets claim to have with God. If so, then in their attempt to undermine the true prophets they assert that no one has the right to claim that God speaks through them, that they have a message from the Lord that must be listened to. Their own message deserves to be heard just as much as the prophets that give solemn warnings and urge repentance. ‘Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked.’ Who is foolish enough to rouse the anger of the Lord? but that is what they have done. His sentence is gone out from him, and it cannot be stopped. It is compared to a whirlwind, a destructive tornado, which can pull down everything in its path. Man attempts to build something that is capable of resisting its force, but it does not survive. The anger of the Lord is the force behind the disasters that are about to fall on Judah. It is futile to think of avoiding it. When God is determined to punish, who can thwart his will?