Your Prophets

 As a primer to delving into the Book of Job, I’ve spent the last few mornings reading the Book of Lamentations. If you’re thinking to yourself that I must be a hoot at parties and social gatherings, you’re probably right. It’s not that I’m particularly drawn to the heavier books or passages of the Bible, but there are enough studies, sermons, articles, and podcasts about giving and that if you give, it will be given to you in good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over, that I don’t feel the need to add my voice to the chorus.

I was halfway through the third chapter before a verse I’d read in the second chapter hit me like a five-pound hammer. It wasn’t that I’d sped through the previous chapter by any means, but as is often the case with me, the profundity of an offhand phrase, the nuance with which something is written, or the specific wording used to relay a message doesn’t materialize until sometime later.

Lamentations 2:14, “Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; They have not uncovered your iniquity, to bring back your captives, but have envisioned for you false prophecies and delusions.”

As I said, it took a moment to register the nuanced importance of this verse, and sadly, it applies to our current time and the current crop of self-proclaimed prophetic voices coming out of the woodwork, prophesying all manner of things that are contrary to the Word of God.

Once you see it, you can’t unsee it, and the deeper implications of what God is saying are staggering. God doesn’t call them His prophets or the prophets; the distinction is made clear that it’s their prophets, the people’s prophets, those to whom they lent their ears because they prophesied good things. God never took ownership of them nor appropriated them as His own. He made it clear that those who were seeing false and deceptive visions did not belong to Him. They were never given a word, they were never sent, and they were never tasked with speaking to His people; nevertheless, here they were, giving words left and right until they ran out of breath.

It’s your prophets who have seen false and deceptive visions for you, so when the opposite occurs, don’t blame God or shake your fist at Him. It’s not God who lied; it’s the men you ran to hoping they would tell you something contrary to Scripture or give you liberties the Word does not.

Why is it that every word of prophecy nowadays has something to do with how great you are, how great you’re doing, and how great the calling on your life is? Everyone and their pet pug is either called to be an evangelist to the nations or a prophet to the nations because being a servant in your local congregation just doesn’t cut it anymore. Why serve when you can be served? Why walk humbly with your Lord, working out your salvation with fear and trembling when you can be praised by your fellow man, and every step you take is upon a red carpet, surrounded by sycophantic fanboys who hang on your every word?

No one questions why modern-day prophecy doesn’t call anyone to repentance or uncovers their iniquity because it’s best to let sleeping dogs lie. Why rock the boat or kick over a hornet’s nest when all you’ll have to show for it is angry letters about how you’re not supposed to touch God’s anointed?

But are they God’s anointed? Are they His prophets, if they have not heard from Him yet, speak flattering things in His name to lukewarm people who lap up the slop as though it were a fine feast? Are they still untouchable as they claim to be if they are not God’s? That’s always the go-to every time someone points out the foolishness, isn’t it? Touch not My anointed! But you’re not. That’s the problem.

Don’t blame God for things He didn’t do or expect Him to keep words He’s never given.

As God warned through Jeremiah, the prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule by their own power, and His people love to have it so. Why, I wonder? Because a true word from God will address the pressing issues of your life, and humble you to your core. Because a true word of God is not a pep session where He praises you while you’re sitting on His lap braiding His beard. A true word from God will expose the sin, duplicity, and rebellion in your life and call you to repentance.

Any promise of future national glory without addressing the iniquity among God’s people is, at best, wishful thinking and, at worst, a flagrant lie, knowingly disseminated because telling people it’s going to be all right is likelier to get them to open their wallets than telling them judgment is at the door is ever going to. Either way, God is not in it. He did not speak it, and the message did not originate from Him!

But it sounds so good, and hopeful, and full of promise. Even so, it’s still a lie. And, because you put your trust in men’s words and believed them to be God’s words, when they do not materialize, your faith will be shaken, and your conviction will wane.

Even if it gives you hope in the moment, it’s artificial, a bubble that will eventually burst, and what you have left is less than what you had before you took the bait and believed your prophets over what the Word of God says.

The message of the hour is still repentance, as it has always been, and anyone insisting that we can have God's favor, blessing, and protection while bypassing repentance, whether as individuals or a nation, is lying to your face while you’re elevating him to sainthood for it.

You can’t give your way out of sin; you must repent of it. Just because a word that praises you to no end bears witness with your flesh, it doesn’t make it a word from the Lord.

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea, Jr.