Day 451: Misusing God's name! - Jeremiah 23 vs 33 – 40

33 ‘When these people, or a prophet or a priest, ask you, “What is the message from the  Lord?” say to them, “What message? I will forsake you, declares the Lord.” 34 If a prophet or a priest or anyone else claims, “This is a message from the Lord,” I will punish them and their household. 

35-36 This is what each of you keeps saying to your friends and other Israelites: “What is the Lord’s answer?” or “What has the Lord spoken?” But you must not mention “a message from the  Lord” again, because each one’s word becomes their own message. So you distort the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God. 

37-38 This is what you keep saying to a prophet: “What is the Lord’s answer to you?” or “What has the Lord spoken?”  Although you claim “This is a message from the Lord” - this is what the Lord  says. You used the words “This is a message from the Lord,” even though I told you that you must not claim “This is a message from the Lord!” 

39-40 Therefore, I will surely forget you and cast you out of my presence along with the city I gave to you and your ancestors.  I will bring on you everlasting disgrace - everlasting shame that will not be forgotten.’ Jeremiah 23:33-40 (From the New International Version)

We come to the end of a section where God had told Jeremiah to speak out against the false prophets who were lying to the people and leading them astray. It seems these false prophets and other leaders in the community often asked Jeremiah what his message from the Lord was, perhaps hoping it had changed from the gloom and doom he had been preaching. (vs 33) But His answer was blunt and to the point. Judgment was coming! The verses that follow seem to say something similar in different ways, but what do you think the main point was?

It appears that the prophets used a catch phrase “message from the Lord” to give them credibility. Other translations use the word “oracle from the Lord” – which implied something the Lord had directly given to them. One often hears popular television and mega-Church preachers today (men and women) who also claim to have direct conversations with God and saying that 'God said this or that to them.' But what do vs 35-36 say about those sort of claims?

Each one’s word becomes their own message and such people distort the words of the living God. God had actually forbidden them to use the phrase “this is a message from the Lord”, but they kept on doing it. (vs 37-38) So what was God's announcement to them? (vs 39-40)

Those prophets were going to suffer the same fate as the people of the city who they had been deceiving. They were promising the people peace and prosperity from God when God was calling the people to repent of their sins and their spiritual bankruptcy. The false prophets would be put to shame.

There's a big lesson for us here. Apart from the scams that go out in emails of people claiming to be ‘Christians dying of cancer’ and wanting to leave money to anyone willing to give them their bank details, there are also many preachers who make bold claims of having ‘gone into heaven’ and ‘having met Jesus face to face’. They claim that God has given them a message to give to you. It's usually a message that comes with a monetary price-tag.

But it's not just the TV preachers. We must be careful too of well meaning Christian people and friends who are quick to say “God has given me a message for you”. That's a dangerous way of misusing God's name. Yes, God can lay something on our heart to encourage a fellow Christian with, but we must be careful of claiming God said it. It may have just been a thought of our own. The Bible is our reliable source of what God has truly said through His true prophets. The open Word and a humble heart are our best (and safest) communication with our Saviour and Lord.