Jeremiah (1-31) 28:15 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

Navigator

Jeremiah (1-31) 28:15

Comments

Jeremiah gives this very clear denunciation of Hananiah’s calling. He has not been sent by God, and God has not put his word in Hananiah’s mouth. How great a gift is prophecy! How amazing that God should stoop to send his word through the mouth of a fallible human being! It is a privilege beyond description that God should let his word come through such a polluted channel. And what does the false prophet do? He takes his terrible lies and he does the reverse and puts them into the mouth of God. It is not necessary to wait for two years to see if Hananiah’s prophecy fails. Jeremiah knows that God does not contradict himself and that what he has said through Jeremiah is completely at odds with this. So, as surely as Jeremiah knows he is a true prophet, he knows that Hananiah is false. It is bad enough to cause other people to trust in a human lie; it is infinitely worse to cause people to trust in a lie that supposedly comes from God. He is the God who cannot lie, and no word that he utters can fail. When men and women come to the word of God they trust it as a word that cannot be broken. How terrible to take that high level of trust and abuse it! How terrible to lie on behalf of God and to put a lie into God’s mouth.Therefore Hananiah is going to die, because he has taught rebellion against the Lord. ‘So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month.’ What did that accomplish? Well, it was some encouragement to Jeremiah that his principal opponent at the time was removed. It would have shaken many people when they saw his life taken away. People were very superstitious about God's favour. They thought if you were made very rich and had long life, you must be very acceptable to God, and that if you were in your prime and you died, it was a sign of God’s disfavour. That is not necessarily true, but in their superstition, that is what those idolatrous people of Judah thought and believed. It must have shaken them when Hananiah in his prime was suddenly removed. It is a mercy from God. It is a further inducement to them to see that they have been misled, but nothing works.

Application

Hananiah is warned, ‘Thou shalt die.’ This deluded man was saying great swelling things far above his station, prophesying in the name of God, misleading the people. He would suddenly feel, ‘I am going to die. I am coming under judgment. I am going to have to face it’, and he would be terrified. How often does that happen to people today, people who have inveighed against God for so much of their lives and done so much damage? Hananiah was judged particularly for misleading the people, not just for his own unbelief. How many such people, unseen by us, go through a period of immense crisis? And yet it still doesn't melt them. So, ultimately, there is some degree of vindication for Jeremiah. A vindication is a tremendous comfort. You won't always be vindicated. You will not always have people falling at your feet, and saying, ‘You've been right all along. This is a wicked and a fallen world, and we all need salvation.’ But now and then it will happen: you and the stand that you have taken will be acknowledged. Somebody will say, even if they don't turn to the Lord, ‘That man, that woman is right; that man, that woman speaks the truth.’ You been accused of something, and you will be vindicated and your reputation will be for the time being at any rate, restored. Value those moments. These consolations are just a token from the Lord of the massive vindication that his faithful people are going to receive at the end of the journey. Final vindication is when the Lord returns. Then everybody will know God’s word is true; then there is no question about it; then the mouths of the gainsayers are stopped.

But just note this, and we say this with solemnity. Our legislators are gradually wanting to make anybody who opposes sexual diversity and all the rest of it to be regarded as a criminal, and to silence them. If we feel intimidated as Christians today by people who are furious against Christianity, who legislate against us by great cunning, if we feel discouraged by the mighty power of the state in its present condition, then remember that it is only a matter of time, and those foolish people who are under judgment will be taken away by the Lord. We pray for our rulers indeed, the evil ones also, but God is not ignorant of their devices.

Questions

Outline

Purpose

Introduction

Jeremiah (1-31) 28:15 Commentary and Bible Study