7 December 2025

Jeremiah: False Prophets

Jeremiah 28:1-11

In the fourth year of King Jehoiakim’s reign in Jerusalem – the same year that Jehoiakim shredded and burned Jeremiah’s scroll of prophecies – the Assyrian Empire at last came to an end. King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon smashed the last remnants of the Assyrian army at the Battle of Carchemish. Now there were only two great empires in the Ancient Near East: Babylon to the north and Egypt to the south. And Jerusalem was right in the middle. Now you may remember that Jehoiakim had been placed on the throne by the Pharaoh and was under covenant to Egypt, but Nebuchadnezzar began eyeing expansion to the south. In Jerusalem, the king and most of the people favored Egypt and sought to use their Egyptian alliance as a defense against this new enemy, but Jeremiah disagreed. He said that God was using King Nebuchadnezzar to punish the sins of the nations and that Judah needed to accept Babylonian sovereignty. If you thought he was unpopular before …. whew!

But Jeremiah proved to be right. In Jehoiakim’s tenth year, Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to Jerusalem, and Egypt did nothing. After several months of siege, King Jehoiakim died unexpectedly, and the leaders of the city surrendered. Nebuchadnezzar marched into Jerusalem and rounded up most of the nobles and priests of the city to take to Babylon as hostages. This included the new king, Jeconiah: Jehoiakim’s son. In his place, Nebuchadnezzar put Jehoiakim’s younger brother Zedekiah, now under covenant with Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar didn’t destroy the city, but he did go through the temple like a Black Friday shopper, taking every gold or silver object that wasn’t nailed down. Thus began the first stage of what we now call the Babylonian Captivity. One who was taken to Babylon with this first batch was a young priest named Ezekiel, who would shortly receive his own prophetic call – there’s another sermon series for someday – but Jeremiah was left in Jerusalem. It was an unstable time, to put it mildly. Different factions in Jerusalem agitated for rebellion, for a new alliance with Egypt, or with other nations, but Jeremiah steadfastly declared that Nebuchadnezzar was doing God’s will, and that Judah needed to submit to him. He even made himself a wooden yoke that he wore on his shoulders everywhere he went, as a symbol of that submission. We read Jeremiah 28, verses 1-11.

28 In that same year, at the beginning of the reign of King Zedekiah of Judah, in the fifth month of the fourth year, the prophet Hananiah son of Azzur, from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the Lord, in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying, 2‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3Within two years I will bring back to this place all the vessels of the Lord’s house, which King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon. 4I will also bring back to this place King Jeconiah son of Jehoiakim of Judah, and all the exiles from Judah who went to Babylon, says the Lord, for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.’

5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and all the people who were standing in the house of the Lord; 6and the prophet Jeremiah said, ‘Amen! May the Lord do so; may the Lord fulfil the words that you have prophesied, and bring back to this place from Babylon the vessels of the house of the Lord, and all the exiles. 7But listen now to this word that I speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people. 8The prophets who preceded you and me from ancient times prophesied war, famine, and pestilence against many countries and great kingdoms. 9As for the prophet who prophesies peace, when the word of that prophet comes true, then it will be known that the Lord has truly sent the prophet.’

10 Then the prophet Hananiah took the yoke from the neck of the prophet Jeremiah, and broke it. 11And Hananiah spoke in the presence of all the people, saying, ‘Thus says the Lord: This is how I will break the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon from the neck of all the nations within two years.’ At this, the prophet Jeremiah went his way. 

As we’ve worked through the life of Jeremiah over the past month, it may have occurred to you that it would be nice to still have a few prophets around. At least then you’d have someone with a direct line to God. You could know what God wanted you to do and wouldn’t have to try to figure everything out for yourself. Yeah, sorry, but it didn’t work that way. You see, yes they had prophets then. But they had a lot of prophets, and it wasn’t always easy to tell which ones actually spoke for God. Take this confrontation, between Hananiah the Prophet and Jeremiah the Prophet. Sure, with the hindsight of 2600 years, we’re pretty sure that Jeremiah is the true prophet, but to the people in Jerusalem that day, how could they be sure? Even the biblical text is ambivalent. Hananiah is not identified as a false prophet; both of them are called prophets, repeatedly. Both of them say “Thus says the Lord.” And it’s not like Hananiah’s prophecy is impossible. He says, “God is at work, and within two years, Nebuchadnezzar’s empire will collapse! Then the exiles will come home and – even better! – so will all the golden pots and pans from the temple. Just trust God!” I mean, that could be from God. Plus, it would be great. Even Jeremiah admits that. He says, “Amen! I wish that were true!” So if you were in the temple court that day, who would you gravitate toward: The optimistic prophet who declares God’s greatness and promises God’s coming victory? Or old depressing yoke man? 

Now in his reply, Jeremiah does give us one thing to think about when we consider prophecy. He reminds the people that the old prophets – the ones that they honored from earlier centuries – generally spoke oracles of judgment. So be careful when someone gives you a prophecy of peace. Take that prophecy with a grain of salt, because a person who tells you what you want to hear might be manipulating you for their own benefit. But then Hananiah wrenches Jeremiah’s yoke from his shoulder and smashes it as a dramatic illustration of what God is about to do to Nebuchadnezzar. Everyone cheers, and Jeremiah goes home, tail between his legs.

So let’s think about today. I hinted earlier that we don’t have prophets anymore, but that’s not strictly true. We at least still have people who call themselves prophets. One of the fastest growing Christian groups in America is a loosely connected family of congregations called the “New Apostolic Reformation.” They are quite Pentecostal in their worship, and their leaders are often called prophets. As a general rule, the NAR prophets speak of God’s call for their members and like-minded Christians to wrest control of America back from the godless liberals. Like the “Seven Mountain Dominionists” that I talked about a few weeks ago, they believe in taking over the government and society and imposing God’s law on the nation. Now I have no divine gift of discernment here: I can’t tell who’s a real prophet any more than anyone else. But, using Jeremiah’s criteria, we should be careful of these birds. Their prophecies are rapturously received by their followers, and if they were to come true would make these prophets very powerful indeed. That sounds like telling their followers what they want to hear, for their own benefit.

But Jeremiah’s warnings apply more broadly than just to self-proclaimed prophets. Even among other religious leaders – priests, pastors, bishops, and so on – Jeremiah’s criteria are helpful. Ask two questions of every leader: (1) Is this person telling people what they want to hear? and (2) Does this person benefit personally by doing so? Immediately, of course, I think of the prosperity gospel preachers who tell their congregations that God wants them to be rich. (Talk about telling people what they want to hear!) Furthermore, those preachers themselves become obscenely wealthy in the process. Jeremiah would not be impressed. Nor is God.

But I don’t want to just talk about how other Christian groups are doing wrong, because in a broad sense much of American Christianity – including United Methodism – fails the Jeremiah test. We too have trained ourselves to tell people what they want to hear – but not to deceive anyone, necessarily. It’s this whole uniquely-American obsession with being positive. A century ago William James, called this strain of American faith “the religion of healthy-mindedness.” Norman Vincent Peale called it “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Joyce Meyer and Joel Osteen are perhaps the best-known prophets of this faith today, but again nearly all of us fall into this trap sometimes. In essence our message is often, “By keeping our minds positive we can bring our own desired reality into being. We can create our future by sheer relentless will. No more toxic negativity! Let never be heard a discouraging word! We can live our best lives now, if we just stay positive.” Sure, not all of us are that extreme – and some of us remember to mention God – but all of us in the American church have absorbed the message that we are not to be downers. Worship is supposed to be uplifting. Sermons are supposed to be encouraging and affirming. Bishops are supposed to be cheerleaders. We have been assimilated by the American culture of relentless optimism and positive thinking. And I get it. Optimism is more attractive than gloominess. Hananiah drew a crowd with his encouraging message about Babylon collapsing within two years and the exiles coming home. But it wasn’t … true. It didn’t happen. 

So, back to us. God never intended for our walk of faith to be easy. Whatever you may have heard, the Bible is not a straightforward instruction book. It’s hard. It’s hard to understand, and once you understand it, it’s hard to do. And in the church, there will always be false teachers and false prophets eager to lead people astray with easy discipleship, and those false teachers aren’t clearly marked. We have to figure out who they are for ourselves. So here are a couple of things to consider. Be careful of those who say what you want to hear. Be especially careful of those who are going to benefit personally by their message. Not one biblical prophet did. And third, if you’re unsure if a message is really from God, compare it to the life and teaching of Jesus. That’s our standard. Anything that Christ wouldn’t have said isn’t from God.

I should finish the story from our chapter. Hananiah won that encounter, smashing Jeremiah’s symbolic yoke, and Jeremiah could only slink away. So he apparently went and made himself a new yoke, this one out of iron. And Jeremiah went back to Hananiah and said, “I have a message for you from the Lord. He did not send you. And because you made the people believe in a lie, you are subject to God’s wrath. Within a year you will die.” Seven months later, he did. 

Before I close, though, I have to say one more thing. This story, and Jeremiah’s rules for true prophecy, almost make it sound as if God only sends messages of judgment, never anything positive or encouraging. But that’s not so. It may be true that God doesn’t usually send special messages to tell us that we’re doing great, just keep it up. But when we hit the wall, when we realize that all the positive thinking in the world is worthless in the end, when our hope begins to falter, God does speak salvation. We’ll go there next week.