Jeremiah (1-31) 23:21 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Jeremiah (1-31) 23:21

Comments

The false prophet has no call from God, therefore his prophesy can have no efficacy. What is prophesy without inspiration? What can it possibly achieve? The false prophet goes through the motions of being s prophet but he lacks the one thing that makes prophecy special: the Lord speaking through him. If God is not speaking through him, then that prophet is making an empty sound. He has nothing to say that human beings do not already know, but prophecy is about what only God knows and what must be revealed by him otherwise man remains in the dark.I have not sent them, says the Lord, yet they ran. What started them off? Not a clear sense of having a message from the Lord. Not the impulse of the Spirit urging them to deliver God’s word to needy people. That would indeed have done great good. But when they sent themselves, when they set off with no divine instruction to commence, it was impossible that they could accomplish anything that would help God’s people. But in their presumption they went anyway. Maybe they wanted the honour that belongs to a prophet. Maybe they wanted to clothe a message of their own with divine authority, to make it more readily accepted. Verse 23 is written from perspective of where God is. Is he a God who operates only local to himself, in heaven, or does he see and operate in places far removed from his holy habitation? Does he see what goes on in the dark corners of the earth where false prophets try to carry out their schemes? Is he God there also, the sovereign God who governs, who control, who commands and who judges? Yes, he is there also, and none are able to operate in secret or thwart his purposes. Verse 24 has the same thought, but sheds more light on what is in the thinking of the false prophets. They hope to get away with their deception where they imagine God cannot see them. Do they succeed in hiding from God? Do they exclude themselves from God’s governance? If you were in their company, you would believe that God was far away, and that they had succeeded in their evil purposes. But no, God is still there bringing about what he intends. But what are they trying to achieve? How can there be any effectiveness in what they do?

Application

But something like this is true of the minister who is preaching a message not derived from Scripture. He claims to be a minister of God, but his doctrine originates in the traditions of men. God has not sent him. His doctrine is derived from the ideas of men, and there is no power in it. How can any go when they are not sent? The difference between being sent and presumptuously sending oneself is vast. ‘But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings.’ Did they want real instrumentality? They have forfeited it. It is the Holy Spirit who blesses, and he will only bless his own word and that which is consistent with his word. No wonder the Spirit says that there will arise those ‘having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof.’ They are aware that what they teach is no more than human ideas, and so they assume all religion is powerless.

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Jeremiah (1-31) 23:21 Commentary and Bible Study