This chapter follows thematically the previous two: after denouncing the final four kings of David’s line (see chapter 22), Jeremiah speaks of a coming Davidic King who will be a “righteous Branch” (5), called by the name “The Lord Our Righteousness” (6). Where the previous shepherds scattered the Lord’s flock (1), God will gather them to their homeland (3, 8) and install a righteous king to save and protect them (6).
So while chapter 22 ends with the cessation of Solomon’s line (through Jehoiachin—22:30), chapter 23 promises the continuation of David’s line through the “righteous Branch (5-6). This would seem to indicate that this future king comes from another branch of David’s family tree. Luke’s genealogy (Luke 3) seems to trace Jesus’ lineage from Mary back through Nathan—another of David’s sons. In this way, both the prophecies of Jeremiah 22 and 23 stand literally fulfilled.
While the beginning of the chapter deals with Israel’s kings (1-8), and while there is a mention of Israel’s ungodly priests (11, 33), the bulk of the chapter is a denunciation of Israel’s false prophets (9-40). The kings (shepherds) did “evil” (2) and the prophets and priests were “godless” (11). The result is that the people suffer. They are scattered as a result of the kings and ungodly as a result of following the prophets and priests (15). Leadership matters greatly. As go the leaders, so go the people. God is looking for shepherds who will tend and protect His flock (4). He is looking for prophets who speak His word faithfully (28). Unless this happens, His people flounder and fail.
Jeremiah begins the message to the false prophets by expressing his own inner agitation: his heart is broken, his bones tremble, he staggers like a drunken man as he hears the Lord’s pronouncement about the false prophets (9). The message he has to deliver is stern because the sin of the prophets is serious.
The false prophets have substituted their own words (dreams) for God’s words. Their visions come “from their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord” (16). God did not send them, but they have run to speak in his name (21). They “wag their own tongues and yet declare, ‘The Lord declares’” (30).
These visions are invariably ear-tickling words (2 Timothy 4:3)—words that promise peace (shalom) to those who “despise” the Lord, who “follow the stubbornness of their hearts” (17). Their words “distort (overturn, change) the words of the living God, the Lord Almighty, our God” (36). Instead of standing in the Lord’s council to “see or to hear his word” (18), they speak their own dreams (“I had a dream! I had a dream” – 25). Rather than echoing God’s words, these false prophets “steal from one another words supposedly from me” (30); they all start to sound alike.
Their dreams fail to correct the “adulterers” in the land (10) and do not turn them “from their evil ways” (22). “They do not benefit these people in the least” (32). They cause people to “forget” God’s name (27). On top of that, their false messages of hope and their failure to confront sin cause “ungodliness” to “spread throughout the land” (15).
So the false teaching the Lord condemns and promises to punish is a message that gives people “false hopes” (16). The message sounds good: “God is on your side and will give you peace/shalom (17) so that no harm will come to you” (17). The false prophet’s messages even contains some truth—truth about His goodness and faithfulness to His covenant promises. However, their messages fail to confront sin or call for obedience: “They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says: You will have peace’”(17).
The Lord equates the impact of false teaching with the impact of idolatry: both “make my people forget my name” (27). False teaching, like false worship, moves people further from truth and further into the darkness. The effect of the prophets of Baal (13) is the same as the prophets who preach their own visions (16): they promote “ungodliness” (15). Both kinds of prophets cause God’s people to “forget” His name (27).
The words of the false prophets are different in kind and caliber than God’s word: “what has straw to do with grain?” (28). Only God’s Word will nourish and feed his people. The chatter of false teachers is useless chaff. God’s Word also comes like a “fire” and a “hammer” (29). Unlike the innocuous messages of peace without piety, God’s Word comes to burn and refine away evil (6:29-30), it comes to “break a rock in pieces” (29). It shatters our delusions and smelts away the dross of disobedience.
Here is a clarion call for preachers to “preach the Word” (2 Timothy 4:2). We are not to give people what we dream up but what God declares. We are to stand “in the council of the Lord” until we “see and hear his word” through a careful study of Scripture. Then we are to courageously declare it in a way that feeds, purifies and breaks His people. Only this kind of proclamation will “benefit” God’s people (32). A man who fails to do this brings God’s punishment on himself “and his household” (34). False teachers put their lives, families and flocks at risk. For, as the Lord says in three successive verses to false prophets, “I am against you” (30, 31, 32).
The Lord says that those who claim to speak for Him must stand “in my council” (18, 22) in order to “see or to hear his word” (18). Only then will our message be from Him: “But if they had stood in my council, they would have proclaimed my words to my people and would have turned them from their evil ways and from their evil deeds” (22). Preachers today must spend time in the Lord’s council—looking at and listening to His Word until we see and hear it clearly. Then will we not be preaching our own dreams, visions and ideas but will be able to declare His word in a way that benefits His people—turning them from evil and establishing them in truth. Then we will be able to preach high-fiber (grain), high-intensity (fire) and hard-hitting (hammer) messages.
This morning Linda and I head off to Muskoka Bible Centre in Huntsville where she will be speaking at the 
I am currently preparing to speak at several upcoming conferences in November: the 
Here’s a summary of the five kings who reigned in the years before the fall of Jerusalem:
1 I’m currently preaching a series of messages in chapel related to God’s original intent for men and women. With all the confusion and commotion related to gender identity in our world (and in the church!), my desire is to help our students come to a biblically-based understanding of who they are as men and women. Pray for the impact of this series. By the way, we’ve uploaded the chapel sermons on our website 
Jeremiah’s shattering prophecies in chapter 19 would provides the context for his punishment and prayer in chapter 20. The chief officer (a top official under the high priest), Pashhur son of Immer, hears Jeremiah’s dire pronouncement in the temple courts and has him arrested, beaten and placed in stocks the the Upper Gate of Benjamin (1-2).
After pronouncing the Lord’s judgment on Pashhur, Jeremiah unloads an emotional prayer to God about his situation. There are soaring moments of trust and praise, and awkward moments of self-pity and accusation. It’s painfully honest and raw. He’s upset with God, his “friends” and the guy who announced his birth rather than killing him as a newborn. This is a prayer that gets Jeremiah labeled as unstable, almost bi-polar.
Jeremiah is ready to turn in his prophet’s badge and find another job. There has to be an easier, less painful way, to make a living and have a life. But when he resolves to stop speaking (literally “remembering”) of the Lord or delivering His message, “his word is in my heart like a fire, a fire shut up in my bones” (9). The fire smoldering inside him smokes him out. He is “weary of holding it in.” In fact, it’s impossible to contain the fire of God’s message inside of him: “indeed, I cannot” (10). The Hebrew word translated “I cannot” is the same Hebrew stem (יָכֹל) translated “prevail” in verse 7 “(“you overpowered me and prevailed”) and verse 10 (“Perhaps he will be deceived; then we will prevail over him”). God word prevailed over Jeremiah to start him in ministry (his calling to ministry); God’s word still prevails over him when he wants to end his ministry. God’s word is not only a fire that burns and refines those who hear it (23:29), it’s a fire that burns inside the heart of those who are called to communicate it.
I want to tell you about several reasons we are rejoicing this morning. Please join me in giving thanks to God for these good gifts from the Father of lights (James 1:17).
Following the visit to the Potter’s house, Jeremiah records a dramatic prophecy the Lord has him enact and declare—first in the Valley of Ben Hinnom to a group of elders and priests (1-13) and then in the temple to the people of Jerusalem (14-15). The prophecy is one of unmitigated doom and disaster. Jerusalem will be smashed, shattered like the clay pot Jeremiah throws to the ground. The dead will be thrown like potshards into the Valley of Ben Hinnom—which will be renamed the Valley of Slaughter (6). There is no hope given for averting the coming judgment and no hope stated about God’s restoration on the far side of judgment. It’s a jarring, shattering message from God.
The furious wrath of God is directed at the “stiff-necked” people of Judah (15). Like a person with a stiff neck, the people of Judah won’t look to the left or right; instead, they keep going straight ahead down an evil path. God’s words imply that the wickedness of the nation is increasing. Not only do they worship the false gods introduced by their fathers; they add new false gods to the mix; they “burn sacrifices . . . to gods that neither they nor their fathers nor the kings of Judah ever knew” (4). In addition, they not only follow the horrific practice of child sacrifice, they make it commonplace (“they have filled this place with the blood of the innocent”—4).
eremiah’s calling to “uproot and tear down, to destroy and overthrow, to build and to plant” (1:10) is tested in this message from God to the nation. He is given a message that contains only destruction (no mention of future rebuilding, which is a part of many of his pronouncements). The test is whether he will be faithful to the words God puts in his mind and mouth (1:9). Jeremiah passes the test, speaking words of destruction and shattering the clay pot as instructed (19:10).