"And this whole land shall be a desolation and an astonishment, and these nations shall serve the king of Babylno seventy years. Then, it will come to pass, when seventy years are completed, that I will punish the king of Babylon and that nation, the land of the Chaldeans, for their iniquity," says the LORD; "and I will make it a perpetual desolation (Jeremiah 25:11-12).

Jeremiah prophesied the beginning and ending of Judah's exile to Babylon. The sevemty years began with Nebuchadnezzar's first conquest of Jerusalem in 605 BC and ended in 536 BC when the Persian king Cyrus issued a decree allowing the Jews to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple in Jerusalem. Daniel was an elder stateman in Babylon under the reign of the Median king Darius when he perceived that the fulfillment of Jeremiah's prophecy was at hand (cf. Daniel 9:1-2). Darius was likely a regional ruler of Babylon while the Persian king Cyrus was ruler over the empire. It was the joint effort of the Medes and Persians in defeating Babylon. 

Just as God used the King of Babylon to punish Judah and the surrounding nations, so God would use the King of Persia to deliver Judah and judge Babylon and the surrounding nations (cf. Jeremiah 25:12-38).

The seventy-year capitivity of Judah was both a judgment and a blessing. While many suffered and died when God brought Nebuchadnezzar against Jerusalem, many also were taken captive to Babylon, where they would live until the seventy-year period was completed. In Jeremiah 24, God said that those who remained and died were "bad figs" and deserving of judgment while those who were led captive were "good figs" that would eventually be brought back into the land. 

When Shallum was taken captive to Egypt, this was a cause for mourning because he would never return (cf. Jeremiah 22:10), but when the Jews were takn captive to Babylon, this was a cause for hope because they would return after seventy years, and God would institute a "New Covenant" with them, one where God would give them a heart to know God (Jeremiah 24:4-7; cf. Ezekiel 11:19-20; Jeremiah 31:31-33).

As Christians, we are receipients of the benefits of that New Covenant, which was first intimated by Moses in Deuteronomy 30:6 and declared by Jeremiah (cf. Jeremiah 31:31-33), for in Christ is that New Covenant fulfilled (cf. Hebrews 8:6-13; Luke 22:20). Praise the Lord!

Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless; They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord (Jeremiah 23:17).

What a predicament for the people of Judah! The very ones they rely on for religious, economic and political guidance are leading them astray. God tells the people to stop listening to them, because these prophets make up their prophesies and make the people worthless.

Today, couldn't we make a case for the media being like these worthless prophets of Israel? The media sensationalize everything and bend it to their particular viewpoint: highlight a particularly incendiary word here, extract an explosive phrase there out of its context, or twist words and events to make them larger or smaller than they truly are.

Yet, these media are what we rely on for our news and information, to guide our attitudes towards our country and our leaders, to move us to vote one way or another, and to make decisions for our future. We are like sheep before the media, for we do not have the time or the wherewithal to search for the truth or gain a true perspective for ourselves. Or do we?

Must I then be condemned because I am misinformed? 

Friends, God told the Israelites to stop listening to the lies of the prophets. Perhaps there is an application for us here. What if we choose to tune out the media? Or stop watching the news? Or cease from reading the unending stream of sensational and slanted headlines?

Would we be the worse for our ignorance of contemporary affairs? Is it not better not to know than to know lies? Isn't innocence better than folly? 

Of course, I would not really be ignorant if I shut off the media. Quite the contrary. Instead of drinking from a firehose of headlines, I would spend more time engaged with the timeless truths from Scripture. When I seek to understand the world around me, I would seek depth over breadth, quality over variety, and truth over entertainment. Rather than listen to a report or a commentary, I would seek to listen or read the original speech or writing. This would certainly take greater effort, but when has discerning truth ever been easy? To the contrary, Solomon wrote,

Indeed, if you call out for insight
and cry aloud for understanding,
and if you look for it as for silver
and search for it as for hidden treasure,
then you will understand the fear of the Lord
and find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2:3-5).

Let us, then, for the sake of truth, as representatives of the God of truth, stop listening to the media and start learning the truth for ourselves! Perhaps when enough people turn off their TV news, end their subscription to the newspapers, cease to read or comment on the internet news sites, the media will consider again objectivity, integrity and truth as viable goals for them. Until then, let us turn off the media and turn on the pursuit of truth. 

Thus says the Lord of hosts,
“Do not listen to the words of the prophets who are prophesying to you.
They are leading you into futility;
They speak a vision of their own imagination,
Not from the mouth of the Lord (Jeremiah 23:16).

I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy falsely in My name, saying, ‘I had a dream, I had a dream!’ How long? Is there anything in the hearts of the prophets who prophesy falsehood, even these prophets of the deception of their own heart (Jeremiah 23:25-26).

The majority of the prophets in Jeremiah's day were prophesying peace when just the opposite was near at hand. They were predicting God's blessing when God's judgment was imminent. They were indicating signs and dreams and visions, but God had not spoken to any of them. He had not given them any signs or dreams or visions. Jeremiah, the true prophet of God, declared that all of these prophets were false prophets, who spoke from their "own imagination" and "the deception of their own heart." 

All of these prophets would fail the test of prophets (cf. Deut. 18:20-22). Their prophecies of peace would prove to be wrong. What is more, the confirmed prophets throughout history had collectively prophesied jugment, so prophesies of peace went against the grain of their message. As such, these prophets of peace had a greater burden of proof.

From early times the prophets who preceded you and me have prophesied war, disaster and plague against many countries and great kingdoms. But the prophet who prophesies peace will be recognized as one truly sent by the Lord only if his prediction comes true (Jeremiah 28:8-9).

Friends, contemporary "prophets" usually proclaim blessing, revival, prosperity and peace. They too have the greater burden of proof. If they have not shown themselves to be perfect in their prophecies, they have demonstrated themselves to be no prophets at all or, worse yet, false prophets. Do not go to them. Do not listen to them. 

Friends, those of you that make pilgrimmages to the prophetic room at IHOP (International House of Prayer) in Kansas City, why do you put yourself at such risk? Even if they had true prophecies, why do you find that you need anything more than God's revealed and authenticated Word? (cf. 2 Timothy 3:16-17) Why give such a foothold to the devil to lure you into error by embracing some message of prosperity? Why allow your heart to be excited by some special revelation, which will only stoke the flames of pride and lead you even further from the boundaries of God's Word? Why allow yourself to fall down that slippery slope, where your feelings and experience take priority over Scripture and truth in governing your decisions and actions? Even if you are not moved from the hope of your salvation, these false prophets can still cause you to have such a distorted view of the Scriptures that you imperil your witness as well as the witness of every believer that you influence. 

The prophet who has a dream may relate his dream, but let him who has My word speak My word in truth. What does straw have in common with grain?” declares the Lord (Jeremiah 23:28).

Jeremiah is contrasting the dreams of the false prophets with God's Word. They are very different, even as straw is very different from grain. The uniqueness of God's prophetic Word stands out against all the counterfeit prophecies of the false prophets. What is so unique about God's Word?

It always comes true. It is always consistent. It never fails.

But consider the so-called prophecies coming out of a place like IHOP and Kansas City. It rarely comes true, so that even the roll of the dice provides better odds. There is no consistency or accountability in failure. 

How do their theologians try to explain away these shortcomings? 

They invent an explanation. They say that unlike before, today's prophets need time to mature, so that as the prophet matures in their faith, their prophecies become more accurate. They do not even see the absurdity of their logic, how it makes everything they call a prophecy suspect and unremarkable. 

They also remove accountability from the prophet and put it on the people hearing the prophecy, saying that people are responsible to "test the spirits." By this they do not mean that these people should deem the prophets to be false if their prophecies don't come true but rather that they should have the discernment to know which prophecies they should accept and which they should ignore. Like the snake oil salesman of old, they have cleverly removed the burden of truth from themselves and placed it on the vulnerable masses that buy their lies. Both will be judged by God!

On another matter, different but related. Today, we call almost anything and everything a miracle. Anything that cannot be readily explained we call a miracle. It is no longer the unique provenance of God. And in like manner that many people look at prophecies, miracles too can be imperfect. For example, an elder rushed into the fellowship hall of a church to declare a miracle. He shouted excitedly that half of a certain woman's cancer was gone. And today that woman has to go through another round of chemo. Is this really a miracle? Does God ever work this way? How would it be if Jesus only opened one of the eyes of the blind man? What if the lame man stood up but then walked with a limp? What if Lazarus, who was raised from the dead, suddenly fell dead after a day or so? 

My heart goes out to those suffering calamity. I feel for the parents of a baby who was born with a collapsed lung. They believed that it was a miracle that their baby survived, even though the baby still had to breathe through a tube stuck in her esophagus. Miracle? The parents may have felt like this was a miracle, but it is far from the kind of healing and miracle from the Lord.

While I am slow to criticize those who are suffering calamity, for they may not be in their right minds because of their emotional duress, but the pastors, elders, teachers, and believers that teach, preach and parade these kinds of partial or temporary experiences as miracles from God do a great disservice to the true miracles of God, and denigrate the perfect and enduring miracle of our atonement through Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Friends, let us not call every "prophecy" a prophecy of God. Let us not call every "miracle" a miracle of God. His prophecies are always and consistently true and never fail. His miracles are always perfect, complete and enduring. When we declare what are counterfeits as true, then we are, whether purposely or inadvertantly, weakening the true and powerful prophecies and miracles of God. Let us not do this ourselves and let us boldly silence those that do this.

The people of Israel had two problems. First they refused to listen to God's true prophets:

For twenty-three years—from the thirteenth year of Josiah son of Amon king of Judah until this very day—the word of the Lord has come to me and I have spoken to you again and again, but you have not listened. And though the Lord has sent all his servants the prophets to you again and again, you have not listened or paid any attention. (Jeremiah 25:3, 4 NIV)

Second, they paid attention to false prophecies:

This is what the Lord Almighty says: "Do not listen to what the prophets are prophesying to you; they fill you with false hopes. They speak visions from their own minds,not from the mouth of the Lord. I did not send these prophets, yet they have run with their message; I did not speak to them, yet they have prophesied. "I have heard what the prophets say who prophesy lies in my name. They say, 'I had a dream! I had a dream!' How long will this continue in the hearts of these lying prophets, who prophesy the delusions of their own minds? "Therefore," declares the Lord, "I am against the prophets who steal from one another words supposedly from me. Yes," declares the Lord, "I am against the prophets who wag their own tongues and yet declare, 'The Lord declares.' Indeed, I am against those who prophesy false dreams," declares the Lord. "They tell them and lead my people astray with their reckless lies, yet I did not send or appoint them. They do not benefit these people in the least," declares the Lord. (Jeremiah 23:16, 21, 25, 26, 30-32 NIV)

Unmi has a great post from last year on this topic. One of the points she brings out is that a prophet rarely prophesied anything good. If they did, they had a greater burden of proof, because most prophesies from the LORD were prescriptive and corrective, suggesting impending judgment rather than any reward for good. 

Here's what troubles me. Most so-called prophecies today are positive rather than negative. They speak of some great revival, the Lord's second coming, or some other fortuitous event. What is more, if we applied the test for prophecies, all of these so-called prophecies would fail. Yet, the prophets who mouth these false claims are not held to account. They have not repented. They just change their tact as more and more people become wise to their manipulations. They say, "Let's hold off on making predictions over people," as we are getting bad press from those that are blaming us when these predictions don't come true rather than acknowledging their own lack of faith. So Mike Bickle tells his prophets at IHOP, "Make your prophecies more general" so that you don't get into trouble when they don't come true. After all, he notes, only about ten percent come true, although this percentage should get better as our prophets mature in their faith. Is their faith maturing or is it rather their skill at manipulating people and events. Since when does prophecy ever depend on the spiritual maturity of the prophet? These are all inventions of people. Reader beware!

Friends, there is only one prophecy that you need to pay any attention to, and that is the prophecy of the Word of God. Pay no attention to what anyone else claims over you. If they will listen to you, perhaps you can convince them that they should stop mouthing their own thoughts as if they were the words of God. Don't be afraid if they are a pastor or a teacher or an evangelist or even a self-proclaimed "apostle," for you have nothing to fear from those that are caught up in such prophetic self-delusions and lies. Choose instead to stand fast and solely on the Word of God:

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:16, 17 NIV)

 ¹² So I will always remind you of these things, even though you know them and are firmly established in the truth you now have. ¹³ I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body (2 Peter 1:12-13)  How quickly we forget! It is arrogance on our part when we think having heard once or read the Scripture once that we are done. Been there, done that! Peter tells us to refresh our memory of the truth revealed in the Scripture.