An Appalling and Horrible Thing Has Happened…
2004 : Week 43  |  Website Version  

It’s amazing, when we look back at history, we can see that cultures, countries and kingdoms make the same mistakes over and over. Thousands of years of recorded history for us to study, but, generally, few of us learn from it. This problem with humanity as a whole is also something we struggle with in our own lives. How many times have you asked yourself why you went down a path again when you knew it wouldn’t be a blessing; like you had done many times before, you had made the same mistake. Today’s verse is taken from the book of Jeremiah, and it shows us once more, that the old is new again.

Jeremiah was a prophet of the Lord around 600 B.C., and he prophesized a message of judgment to the Jews. It was a difficult message for him to preach, and it was met with much resistance and opposition from the recipients of the message. Simply put, many of the people that heard the message hated Jeremiah. He set the abuse aside and continued to preach the message that the Lord had given him. Today’s verse is an example of the straightforward message the Lord had for the Jews,

	30 An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land: 31 The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so!
	Jeremiah 5:30-31 (NASB)

The Lord surveys the land and is not pleased: the people He has loved, the people He delivered from Egypt, the people who had witnessed all His miracles and He had sustained had allowed false prophets to lead them. The false prophets and the priests were undermining the God’s laws and leading His people astray. The religious leaders had set the Lord’s laws aside and put their own rules in their place; these rules were an absolute abomination to the Lord, since He did authorize them.

Further, while the leaders had led the people astray, at the end of verse 31, the Lord indicates that His people love the new and false direction, “The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests rule on their own authority; And My people love it so! (Jeremiah 5:31) The people were not innocent bystanders as the false prophets and priests came to power by subverting the truth of God; instead, they were willing and eager participants to move away from God’s leading. It seems incredible to think that this could happen, especially when we consider how the Lord had blessed them, but the reality is there for us to read in the Bible. The prophets lied, the priests ruled of their own authority and God’s people loved it. The reality is horrible and appalling, and the Lord states so.

While it seems hard to believe, take a look at our circumstances today. Once again we have many false prophets rising up to preach lies and spew filth instead of the truth of God. You’ve seen them on TV spreading their nonsense. Look at the priests today in several of the different churches around North America. Wasn’t marriage before God’s eyes supposed to be between a man and a woman? By what authority do these people deviate from the truth of God? By no authority, other then their own, so a sacred bond that the Lord set out for humanity, is now being shattered by prideful and arrogant liars that are full of themselves; they certainly aren’t full of the Holy Spirit.

The Bible has a message for these false prophets and priests; repent or you will pay the eternal consequences for your arrogance and abominable deeds. Their generation will pass, and they will die, but the Word of God will live on forever. In their end, their arrogance and lies will perish before the power of God, for He is victorious. No one will remember their lies in eternity, and they will find themselves judged by the Power that they tried to overthrow.

Again, though, as we saw in Jeremiah’s time, these people can only come to power because they have the backing of people to do so. While there has always been false teachers, today these liars have many people listening to them and following their teachings. Of course, not all of the people believe them, by the grace of God, but these false prophets and priests do have a large audience. The people being led away are complicit in their own demise. Either by a lack of knowledge of the Word of God, a lack of faith, lack of courage or simply a belief in these lies, these churches allow them to come to power.

When you see them on TV preaching their lies, are you not stunned at what you hear? Do the large crowds they draw not stun you? Are you not stunned to hear the applause for people who distort and lie about the Word of God? We’re there again brothers and sisters in Christ: ‘An appalling and horrible thing has happened in the land.’ Perhaps then, it’s appropriate for us to ask these people the same question the Lord asked the people during Jeremiah’s time:

“But what will you do at the end of it?” (Jeremiah 5:31)