Great lament.

                                                   

How would you feel when you see thousands of people, women and children included, being led to hell simply because you misled them in your ministry? Put simply, because you gave them what their ears were itching to hear so you compromised the word of God.

This is the scene that met many prophets who gave false teachings and visions during the time of Jeremiah that led Israelites away from God but to Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon as captives to that mighty nation. I wonder what they felt like seeing myriads of God’s people being led to Babylon as slaves because they misled them. In fact, these very false prophets were among the people led to captivity. Brownlow North, in his commentary on the rich man and Lazarus, and in his bid to bring his point to bear upon ministers of the gospel, once wrote: ‘ I do not believe there exist a more miserable being even amongst the lost themselves than a lost minister shut up in hell with his congregation.’ I agree. A lost minister with lost congregation which he misled all in hell is truly a miserable sight- this is a lamentable situation. It is lamentable because he himself is responsible not only for the loss of his own soul but also of the congregation which he ministered to. The Lord puts the blame squarely on his neck!

Listen to this from Israel round about the year 586 BC when the people of God were taken captive after constant disobedience to the clear word of God, their disobedience being aided by unfaithful prophets before they were taken to captivity:

‘Your prophets have seen for you false and deceptive visions; they have not exposed your iniquity to restore your fortunes, but have seen for you oracles that are false and misleading.’ (Lamentation 2:14).

During the time of Jeremiah’s ministry, he often denounced these false prophets. In Jeremiah 5:12, Jeremiah warns the Israelites about such prophets way before captivity: ‘They have spoken false of the LORD and have said, ‘He will do nothing; no disaster will come upon us nor shall we see sword or famine.’ In Jeremiah 6: 14. ‘They have healed the wounds of my people lightly, saying, ‘peace, peace’ when there is no peace.’ See also Jeremiah 8:10-12, 14:13-15, 23:9-40 and 27:9-28:17.

Now, let us go back to Lamentation 2:14 and study the nature of the false prophets which led Israel to captivity:

One: They cooked their visions which later proved false and worthless. I can imagine them sitting under a tree in the day or on their beds at night thinking: ‘mmm aaa mmm, yes! This is what I am going to tell the people tomorrow and I guess they will love me and continue to pour their money on my way. In fact, this will make me very popular. Why bother about their sins that Jeremiah keeps on hammering on. I think Jeremiah is not wise.’

Two: Their ministry was designed purposely not to expose sins of the people. Again, see them on their bed: ‘Mmm I know that that rich man in the congregation stole his neighbour’s wife and he normally does not pay his workers. Oh that poor man did not keep Sabbath because he needed to sell his grains for survival. But what does it matter. I need not point out these sins lest I become unpopular and they leave my ministry.’

Three: Like number one above, they faked the words of the LORD. The oracles they gave were false and misleading.

So life went on in the mode of ‘live and let us live, let us not bother one another so long as everyone is happy.’ This is a very dangerous mode and it leads to death. From the rebuke given to the prophets above, one can see clearly, that had they not cooked their own messages to the people and had they not pampered people in to slumber in their sins, the blood of the captives could not have been asked upon them. Put simply, a preacher’s task, amongst other things is to speak not his own cleverly invented words but the words of the LORD (2Peter 1: 20-21). What Apostle Paul calls ‘the whole counsel of God’ (Acts 20:27). Also he must never forget that he must meet with sins of people and rebuke those sins without favouritism. He must expose the sins and their owners and rebuke them like Prophet Nathan did to the mighty king David. Otherwise the congregation remains Babylon bound (hell bound) plus the unfaithful minister.

Today?

I live in a country where I am supposed to believe the statisticians that our population is 80% Christian. I remember those days when I first joined high school and filled the admission forms. One of the questions would ask: ‘Are you a Christian?’ This was a mixed race school with mixed religion. But the funny thing was that, for blacks, it was automatic that you were either a Christian or a Muslim. For Indians they would be Hindu suspects-only Hindu! It was never imagined that there can be an Indian Christian or Muslim. So we went through high school known as Christians by the virtue of filling a form to differentiate us from Muslims and Hindus. The sad part of it is that this notion of Christianity is what the government still relies on to know who is a Christian. Added to this, it is true from the look of Sunday activities around us that many people actually walk into places of Sunday worship in the name of being Christians. But they remain the same as they were in high school-without Christ.

As this population continue to walk in to these churches every Sunday and some participate to the core of church activities, they still leave a lot to be concerned of. In the churches, they have full time pastors with some having titled themselves Bishops and Arch-Bishops etc. This concern leads an inquisitive heart to peer a bit into what might be taking place in these churches and I suspect that inside them there are ministers like the ones in Lamentation 2:14. Otherwise how can one explain the reason behind the so called 80% Christians yet of no substance? The fear of God is not there in the community just as the solid Gospel is also lacking in these buildings. How will people ever know of this great salvation when all they hear is ‘give and you will be rich, or plant a seed here and plant a seed there, come to the Lord and all your earthly problems will be sorted out etc?’ You never hear anything to do with sin. The scene does not change when it comes to the daily exhortation to live holy for the Lord. Church discipline has totally lost its meaning and any person propagating this is seen as cruel and inconsiderate to the plight of people or victims of circumstances. I have this nagging feeling that a big section of ministers today have gone the way of the false prophets above. We have come to prove the prophetic words of Apostle Paul to be true: ‘But understand this that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant …lovers of pleasure rather lovers of God, having appearance of godliness but denying its power’ (2 Timothy 3:1-6). The saddest parts of his prophesy lies in 2 Timothy 4:3. ‘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 passion’- ESV. NIV puts it thus: ‘For a time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.’ This is that very situation where the pew dictates to the pulpit what to preach but God designed it that it should be the other way round. In case you are waiting for this prophecy to be fulfilled in the future, I am afraid you might never see it come to pass because it is already with us and has been.

To conclude, Lamentation 2:14 sounds a great warning to both the preacher and the preached to:

To the preacher:

1. Preach the whole counsel of God, do not add and do not remove. Even the apostles, who were with Jesus, did not follow cleverly invented stories to win people but what the Holy Spirit gave them. The Bible is complete you will be safer to be faithful in expounding what is in there than looking to what is outside.
2. Let your preaching reveal the true Christ of the Bible. The Saviour of sinners who has come to save. Once we believe in him we need to hate sin, expose sin and love God more and more. Without holiness there is no seeing God.
3. Avoid the attitude of picking out big fish/small fish in the congregation for favours.

Remember the most miserable sight above? Do not be amongst them.

To the preached to:

1. Those itching ears could be your very down fall, and more so, if your minister is feeding them according to their want yet with stuff very strange to the Scripture.
2. Discern who your minister is. It is your duty to do this lest you feed on false prophets. You will not have an excuse before God for having believed their message which misled you to hell. Imagine the time of Jeremiah. As the captives are being led in to long distance Babylon, one old lady with her child strapped on her back pleading to be released because she was misled by the false teachers to worship some gods and disobey the LORD of Israel. She does not have a case to present. It is too late to reason; it was her duty to discern who is a prophet from God than to listen day and night to the false prophets.

You could be today following your false prophets with all genuine heart, seriousness and innocence but this will not be your defense on that day of great assize. Today is the day to avoid them and it is your duty.

‘And he said, then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house-for I have five brothers- so that he may warn them, lest they also come in to this place of torment. But Abraham said, They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them…if they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.’  (Luke 16: 27-31). Spectacular ministries devoid of Scriptural truths will never lead one to heaven.

Sam Oluoch (Pastor GBC-K)