Jeremiah 23:9-40 “The Word of God: Our Greatest Need”

1:18Our greatest need is the word of God. So when we gather together on Sunday mornings, or when we wake up early to read the Bible, In our homes, or when we pause throughout the day to meditate on scripture, we are acknowledging that our greatest need is the word of God. We need it more than we need to know what happened in the world overnight as we slept. We need it more than we need to look at pictures of what our friends have been doing.

2:03We need it more than we need to know and keep up with whatever the latest Netflix series is that our classmates and coworkers are watching. Our greatest need is the Word of God. In our last Jeremiah sermon before the holidays, we saw Jeremiah confront the shepherds of Judah, that is the political leaders of the nation, who had scattered God's people and failed to attend to them. Jeremiah prophesied that one day God would raise up a righteous branch from the stump of David's lineage who would come and execute justice and righteousness and ultimately save his people.

2:52In our passage today, Jeremiah's attention shifts from those political leaders, those shepherds of Israel, to the religious leaders, the prophets. And the priests. In verse 11, that we just heard Brianna read, God declares, both prophet and priest are ungodly. Even in my house, I have found their evil. The religious leaders were supposed to set an example by their words and their actions, listening to God and obeying him. But instead, what did they do? Look at verse 14 again.

3:29They strengthened the hands of evildoers so that no one turns from his evil. As a result, God declared that he would bring disaster upon the people and punish them for their wickedness, and on the leaders particularly for leading the people astray. The question before us is: how? How exactly did the prophets and the priests lead the people astray? What did they fail to do, and what did they do that led God's people astray? Well, through Jeremiah, God levels three charges against them: they failed to listen to God's word, they failed to speak God's word, and they failed to return to God's word.

4:24And friends, these failures are catastrophic because our greatest need is. The word of God. So when we fail to listen to it, to speak it, and to return to it, we are withholding from ourselves and from others that which we most need. And so through Jeremiah this morning, we're going to hear three challenges with respect to God's word. Before we speak, we must listen to God's Word. When we speak, we must speak God's word. And after we speak, we must return to God's Word.

5:08So let's pick up here together in verse 16 of chapter 23. Thus says the Lord of hosts: Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, it shall be well with you. And to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, No disaster shall come upon you.

5:42For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word? Or who has paid attention to his word and listened? Behold, the storm of the Lord. Wrath has gone forth, a whirling tempest. It will burst upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and accomplished the intents of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it clearly. I did not send the prophets, yet they ran. I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

6:31Through Jeremiah, God tells the people not to listen to the prophets who were filling their ears with vain hopes. They were proclaiming this message of peace and prosperity to every person who hated God's word and followed his or her own heart. How did this happen? Well, in verse 18, God tells us in the form of a question: look there: For who among them, that is the prophets, has stood in the counsel of the Lord to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?

7:11Unbelievable. There wasn't a single prophet among them except Jeremiah who even stood before the Lord, who paid attention to his word and listened to it. God never sent them, but they ran out. God never Spoke to them, and yet they prophesied anyway. Imagine a modern ambassador never once meeting with the president that they represent, never once standing before him or her and listening to their words, and then going out and standing before foreign dignitaries, before TV cameras, before journalists, and speaking on the president's behalf.

7:57They would be fired immediately. Now consider the situation in Judah. The prophets are supposed to be representing God Himself speaking His word to His people, and not a one of them, except Jeremiah, has ever stood in His presence, much less listened to a single word that He spoke. Look again at verse 22. But if they had stood in my counsel, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their deeds.

8:39God is saying that if the prophets had stood before him, if they had listened and paid attention, they would have proclaimed his words to his people, and his people would have repented. Now, listen, God is not saying that the people were blameless in this situation. We recall that Jesus Himself told us about. False prophets and false teachers, and said, See that no one leads you astray. James does say that not many of us should presume to become teachers because we will incur a stricter judgment. That is true, but it's also true that every one of us is responsible to know and to believe and to live in light of the truth. He holds every one of us responsible for that.

9:29So, in this situation, the people are not blameless, but the prophets have committed an even greater sin because they have led the people astray. God declares that if they had just stood in his presence, if they had just listened and paid attention, they would have proclaimed his word to his people and they would have repented. How sad. Friends, we live in an age of incessant talking. An age where people are quick to speak, and once they start, they never stop talking.

10:11You see this on social media, where scorching hot takes are published every second because everybody has to be the first one to comment on whatever just happened. You see this on sports talks. Shows like Around the Horn, where Tony Reali literally needs a mute button because he can't get the journalists to quit talking over each other. You see this in our political debates, where the term debate has ceased to have any meaning because the candidates are just yelling on top of each other, making their point more and more loudly. They're not listening to the moderators, they're not listening to each other.

11:00I remember one time during COVID, Pastor Cody and I were sitting with a couple who was attending our church who were so angry, and neither one of us could get a sentence out of our mouths before one of them was loudly interrupting us. We finally had to say, guys, we are doing our best to listen to you. Can you please give us the chance to respond to what you're saying? Friends, in a culture like that, is it any wonder that we struggle to stand in the counsel of the Lord, to listen and to pay attention to Him?

11:39Before we speak, we have to listen, especially to God. Look at what James wrote: He said, Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger. Friends, if that is how we are commanded to live among each other, how much more should that be the case before the Lord? That we should be quick to hear and slow to speak in front of him. To those of us who are pastors and teachers in the church, this should be a sobering word to us.

12:25If we have not first stood in the council of the Lord, if we have not first listened and paid attention to his word, we have no business running out and teaching and preaching to other people. Listening to God has to precede speaking for God. And listening to God requires that we slow down long enough to hear what he has to say to us. But the pace of our lives today makes this nearly impossible. The ubiquity of technology makes this nearly impossible. The demands to do more things bigger and better and faster makes this nearly impossible.

13:14That is an explanation, but it's not an excuse. Fellow pastors and teachers, we must find a way. We must make a way to ensure that we slow down long enough. Enough to listen to God, to pay attention to his word before we ever open our mouths to speak. We have to pay attention to him, or we won't have anything worth saying to anybody listening to us. And for all of us, for every Christian in the room today, every one of us is called to make disciples and teach them to obey all that Jesus has commanded, which means that we all have to know the word of God.

14:03Our disciples will look like us for better or for worse. Jesus Himself said that everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. So, church, let's make sure that we are the kind of Christians that we want to reproduce. People who listen to God and pay attention to God, people who listen to others and pay attention to others before we ever open our mouths to speak. Before we speak, we must listen to God's word.

14:41Now, let's pick up in verse 23, where we'll see that when we speak, we must speak God's word. Verse 23. Am I a God at hand, declares the Lord, and not a God far from? Away? Can a man hide himself in secret places so that I cannot see him? Declares the Lord. Do I not fill heaven and earth? Declares the Lord. I have heard what the prophets have said who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall there be lies in the heart of the prophets who prophesy lies and who prophesy the deceit of their own heart, who think to make my people forget my name by their dreams that they tell one another, even as their fathers forgot my name for Baal?

15:37Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. What has straw in common with wheat, declares the Lord? Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces? Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, declares the Lord.

16:12Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tell them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness, when I did not send them or charge them. So they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord. In this section, God declares that he is not like the little idols of the nations, statues that are stuck in one place that can't see or hear. No, he fills heaven and earth. He sees the secret places and hears what is said in the dark.

16:56And God has heard what the prophets have been saying. Look again at verse 25. I have heard what the prophets have said, who prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. Now, it's not that God never speaks through dreams. He does so many times in scripture. Joseph, Jesus' earthly father, God spoke to him more than once through a dream. But in this case, God never spoke to these prophets through dreams. Their dreams, according to verse 26, were lies, nothing more than the deceit of their own hearts. But they would share these dreams and then tack on, declares the Lord, as though their dreams had come from God.

17:51And as a result of the prophets sharing these dreams, they led the people astray by their lies and their recklessness when God never spoke to them. Or sent them. So God says in verse 28, look there. Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream. But let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. In other words, there's nothing wrong with sharing dreams. That's one of me and Kendra's favorite activities. Talking about the bizarro stuff you think about when you're asleep. The other day, I had this dream that I was playing golf with some friends and I couldn't get my T in the ground. And I thought to myself in the dream, I need a hammer. And then I thought to myself, why would anyone want to play a sport where you have to bring tools? And then I was like, maybe I could invent something that would push the T in the ground. And you'd see me on QVC. And then, you know, do you have those moments in the dream where you're like, this is so dumb. I just need to wake up.

18:56I had that moment. So God says, look, you have a dream, share your dream, but don't pass that off as my word. Don't act like I've spoken to you and told you that you need to be a QVC salesperson for a T inserter when I have not. Don't lead people astray with that stuff. Instead, let him who has my word speak my word faithfully. That is God's charge to the prophets of Jeremiah's day. And friends, that is God's charge to us as well.

19:35Because we certainly have God's word, don't we? We have God's Word in a way that nobody ever before us has had God's word. It's on our shelves. It's on our devices. It's on the blogs that we read. It's in the books that we own. We have God's Word. Our calling is to speak it faithfully. So in the passage, God asked, what does straw have in common with wheat? In other words, he's comparing the dreams of the false prophets to straw and his word with wheat. Straw is good for nothing. It's the stuff that separates when they throw the wheat up in the air and it blows away in the wind. Straw is good for nothing, but the wheat is what you're after. The grain, the heavy substance that nourishes us, that's what falls to the ground. The wheat is what you're after.

20:40And you see, the reality is every time we open our mouths to speak, we are giving people either straw or wheat. We're filling their hearts and minds with our own dreams, our own visions, or with the word of God. And it has always been that way. In 1 Kings chapter 22, the Syrians have taken possession of a city known as Ramoth Gilead. And so Ahab, the king of Israel, summons Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, and he says, Will you go and fight against Syria with me? And Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah, says, Sure, but let's ask God first. So Ahab summons 400 prophets, 400, and asks them if they should go to war.

21:38And all 400 tell them, Go up, for the Lord will give it into your hand. One of the prophets, Zedekiah, even uses arts and crafts. He makes himself a pair of iron horns, and he says, With these you will push the Syrians until they are destroyed. Now, Jehoshaphat is skeptical. I think he knows Ahab's character. He thinks the whole scene is a little sketchy. So he says, Isn't there anybody else? Isn't there another prophet that we could ask? And I just love verse 8. This makes me laugh every time. Look at this.

22:19And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, There is yet one man by whom we may inquire of the Lord, Micaiah the son of Imlah, but I hate him, for he never prophesied. Good concerning me, but evil. And Jehoshaphat said, Let not the king say so. He's like, oh, not with that attitude. So as you would expect, it does not go well for Micaia. Look at what he prophesies. And when he had come to the king, the king said to him, Miciaiah, shall we go to Ramoth Gilead to battle, or shall we refrain? And Miciah said, I saw all Israel scattered on the mountains as sheep that have no shepherd. And the Lord said, These have no master, let each return to his home in peace. And the king of Israel said to Jehoshaphat, Did I not tell you that he would not prophesy good concerning me, but evil?

23:21So Zedekiah punches Miciah in the face. And then the king says, I'm going to throw you in prison and feed you with meager food and rations until I return in peace. But of course, Ahab does not return in peace. He dies in battle, just as Micaiah said. That historical account is such a perfect illustration of what we find here in Jeremiah 23. King Ahab did not want to hear the word of God from Micaiah. He preferred to listen to the False dreams and the false visions of Zedekiah and these 400 other prophets because they told him what he wanted to hear.

24:11Brothers and sisters, we live in a day that's really no different than Micah's day or Jeremiah's day. A day when people would rather hear comfortable lies than uncomfortable truths. The challenge, both then and now, is that not one of these false prophets was wearing a badge that said, false prophet. Just like today, there is no pastor, there's no author, there is no YouTube influencer that is wearing a badge that says false prophet. So it is just like Jesus said, we can only know them by their fruits, what they teach, and how they live their lives.

25:04As God's people who have the truth and know the truth and love the truth, it is essential that we speak the truth when we open our mouths. It's essential that we give them wheat and not straw. It's essential that we speak God's word and not our own dreams and visions. Before we speak, We must listen to God's word. When we speak, we must speak God's word. Now let's pick up in verse 33, where we'll see that after we speak, we must return to God's word.

25:51When one of this people, or a prophet, or a priest, asks you, What is the burden of the Lord? you shall say to them, You are the burden, and I will cast you off, declares the Lord. And as for the prophet, priest, or one of the people who says, the burden of the Lord, I will punish that man and his household. Thus shall you say, everyone to his neighbor, and everyone to his brother, what has the Lord answered? Or what has the Lord spoken? But the burden of the Lord you shall mention no more. For the burden is every man's own word, and you pervert the words of the living God, the Lord of hosts, our God.

26:38Thus you shall say to the prophet, What has the Lord answered you, or what has the Lord spoken? But if you say the burden of the Lord, thus says the Lord, because you have said these words, the burden of the Lord, when I sent to you saying, you shall not say the burden of the Lord, therefore, behold, I will surely lift you up and cast you away from my presence. Presence, you and the city that I gave to you and your fathers, and I will bring upon you everlasting reproach and perpetual shame, which shall not be forgotten.

27:14The burden of the Lord was a way of referring to the message that the prophets were to declare on God's behalf. And the problem in Judah, as we have seen, is that there were all these prophets walking around, sharing their own dreams and visions, and then calling them the burden of the Lord. Well, remember, at this point, Jeremiah has been preaching the word of God for many years. His message has never changed. He's been saying, because of your unrepentant sin, judgment is coming. And the only hope was to repent and to throw yourselves on the mercy of God, which, counterintuitively, would look like surrendering immediately to the army of Babylon.

28:06But God says that whenever one of these people, a prophet or priest, came to him and asked, What is the burden of the Lord? Jeremiah was supposed to say, You are the burden. Why is that? It's because the people had become a burden by incessantly coming to him, wanting a different answer. It's just like when you tell a small child no, and then a million times they come up to you and they're like, but why? It's because they want a different answer. They don't like the answer that you gave them the first time. They don't like the answer that you gave them a hundred times. They hear you. They just don't like the answer that you're giving to them. So instead of asking, what is the burden of the Lord, expecting a new word from God, they should be asking each other, look at verse 35 again, what has the Lord answered? Or what has the Lord spoken?

29:12Because friends, that's the deal. God has already answered. God has already spoken. No new word from God was coming. So instead of asking, what is the burden of the Lord? they needed to ask each other what has God already said to us that was true in Jeremiah's day and it was also true in Paul's day and Paul knew that it was going to be true in the next generation and the generation after that so I want you to look at what he wrote to his disciple Timothy who was pastoring the church that he planted in Ephesus Paul tells Timothy I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus who is to judge you Judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom, preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season. Reprove, rebuke, and exhort with complete patience in teaching.

30:19Paul told Timothy, preach the word. He did not tell him to get creative. to come up with something new and innovative to say to the church, to be listening for a new word from the Lord. Not at all. Timothy's job was to preach the word that was handed down to him from the apostles, to preach nothing other than the word of God. Why does Paul give him this charge? Look at the very next verse. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.

31:17Friends, Paul could see that a day was coming when people would no longer want to listen to the truth. Instead, because they had itching ears, they would gather teachers who would tell them what they wanted to hear. Hear, who would lead them away from the truth to wander off into myths. And clearly, that very thing had happened in Jeremiah's day. People refused to listen to the word of God through Jeremiah because they preferred the dreams of the false prophets. And that's because the false prophets told them exactly what they wanted to hear. Remember verse 17?

31:59The false prophets said, It shall be well with you. They said, no disaster shall come upon you, even though these people despised God's word and stubbornly followed their own hearts. Friends, we live in the very day that Paul talked about in 2 Timothy 4, when people will not endure sound teaching. We live in a day when people do not want to hear the truth and would prefer to hear the most absurd lie you have ever heard rather than listening to the truth. And we have to keep in mind, I don't think that Paul is talking primarily about the world out there when he is saying these things. He's primarily talking about people in the church that are going to turn away from the truth, who will have itching ears, who want to gather to themselves teachers who will say what they want to hear.

32:55And friends, over 20 years of ministry, I have seen this happen many, many times. Many times, somebody will come to me and say, Pastor Alan, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? And I will tell them, No, that's not okay. It says so right here in God's Word. So then they will go to another pastor or another leader in our church and they'll say, I'm thinking about doing this. What do you think? And that other pastor or leader will say the same thing.

33:30So, what normally happens then is they leave our church and go to another church, but then they end up in no church because no Christian will tell them that what they are thinking about doing is okay. Because God's Word says that it's not. Brothers and sisters, before we speak, we have to listen to God. When we speak, we have to speak God's word. And after we speak, we have to return to God's word. I want you to think about that word for a minute: return. What are we doing when we return to something?

34:07We return. We are turning back again to the place where we were before. So, when you read the Bible, this is why it is filled with so many calls to remember. It's why you see all throughout the New Testament the apostle saying, I'm writing to remind you. Of these things. Because once and again, they are returning to the word of God. So our calling is the same. It's to return to God's Word over and over again. When somebody asks us a question that is similar to what they were asking Jeremiah, what is the burden of the Lord? Our job is to answer them: what has God already said? What has He already spoken to us in His Word?

35:00Because He's already answered. He's already spoken. So after we speak, we must be those who return again and again to the Word of God. Friends, our greatest need is God's Word. But that does not mean that God's Word is easy to hear or that it's easy to speak. Think about Jeremiah's day. The people needed to hear that unrepentant sin was leading them straight to judgment. They needed to hear that if they didn't repent, they were going to be conquered and exiled.

35:40And Jeremiah had to say those words, though it left him with a broken heart and weeping much of the time. Eventually got him beaten and arrested with threats made on his life. And in our day, God's word is still hard to hear and hard to hear. To speak, nobody wants to be told that they've sinned against a holy God. Nobody wants to be told that they can't save themselves by trying harder. Nobody wants to be told that there's nothing that we can do, that we are going to be judged by a perfectly holy and righteous God who will by no means clear the guilty.

36:23And no one likes to be the bearer of bad news. But thanks be to God, the bad news of the consequences of our sin and rebellion is not our entire message, is it? We said all morning that our greatest need is the word of God. Look at John chapter 1. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we have seen his glory. Glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

37:17Our greatest need is the word of God. And the word became flesh and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus. Friends, he did not come to abolish the law, to do away with it. Everything that God had already spoken. No, he came to fulfill every command that the Lord had ever given. He lived the perfect life of sinless obedience that every one of us is called to live, but we have failed to do so. He died in our place for our sins and rose again, defeating sin and its consequence, death.

37:54And now all who repent, all who return to God, who turn away from their sin and turn back to Him, all who receive the person and work of Jesus Christ through faith are forgiven and counted righteous and adopted into His family and given a hope that can never be taken away. Church, we desperately need the truth of the Word of God. But apart from the Word of God becoming flesh to save us, we would know the truth and have no hope.

38:30But in Christ, the same word that convicts us of sin is the Word who lived and died and rose again for you and me. Grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. May we be a people who listen and speak and return to God's word. Let's pray. Father, we certainly intend to be a people who are about your word. But we acknowledge that for a lot of us, we have the right theology about your word. We believe that it is inerrant. We believe that it is inspired and infallible.

39:38But we don't devote our lives to hearing it and to speaking it and to returning to it again and again. We ask you this morning that we would be a people of the word, not just the people who have the right theology of the word, but a people of the word who daily give ourselves to reading it and meditating on it and sharing it with others. God, we thank you that your Son, Jesus, the Word, became flesh and dwelt among us so that we would not just know what is true, but so that we would have the hope of eternal life through his resurrection from the dead.

40:28In Christ's name we pray. Amen. Thank you for listening to the sermon audio from New Life Baptist Church in College Station, Texas. For more information or to support our ministry, visit us online at newlifecs.net.