Our culture has coined a phrase that we consider to be new. People will speak about “my truth.” I expect that you have heard this phrase used before. In fact, we are encouraged to speak “our truth.” You are told that you need to speak “your truth.” The idea is that there is something that can be true for me that is not true for you. But this is not a new idea as much as we might fancy that we have made a breakthrough about truth. The prophet Jeremiah was also dealing with people who were making claims about truth that were contrary to Jeremiah’s truth claims. What God is going to do through the prophet Jeremiah is to help them know how to seek the truth and to build a desire for the truth in the hearts of his people so that they will seek him. Now, before we can move into the text, I want to remind us of the context. The beginning of Jeremiah 23 revealed that God himself would rescue his people by sending the righteous Branch. He will do justice and righteous. He will save his people and he will be called, “The Lord is our Righteousness.” So after talking about God himself will rescue his people, he immediately starts talking about having a heart for truth. Open your copies of God’s word to Jeremiah 23 and we will begin our study in verse 9.
No Truth Because of Sin (Jeremiah 23:9-15)
Jeremiah begins by describing the problem in verses 9-15. Truth should be coming from the lips of the priests and the prophets. The priests and the prophets were to be the teachers of God’s word, telling the people the truth about God and his will. But they are the problem. Look at verse 13 where we read that Jeremiah sees the prophets doing an offensive thing. They are prophesying by Baal, a false god, and leading the people astray. Jeremiah’s heart is broken and he is trembling because of what he sees and knows what God saying and doing about this (Jeremiah 23:9). But this leads us to an important question that must be asked. Why would the prophets proclaim things that are false? Why would the prophets fail to tell the people God’s words? Why wouldn’t the prophets just say what God says and be done? This paragraph gives the important explanation.
Jeremiah says in verse 10 that the land is full of adulterers and the land mourns over the wickedness. In verse 11 Jeremiah declares that the prophets and the priests are acting ungodly, even in the temple of the Lord. In verse 14 we read that the prophets themselves are committing adultery and are strengthening the hands of the evildoers. They are committing sins and are encouraging others to commit sins in the name of the Lord. No one turns back from his evil. No one is repenting. The teachings that the people are hearing are to persist in their sins rather than to repent. I want you to hear God’s perspective of his own people at the end of verse 14. God says that his people and his teachers have all become like Sodom and Gomorrah to him. Sodom and Gomorrah’s wickedness was so great that God powerfully destroyed those cities in Genesis 19.
But here is what I want us to pay attention to which is the answer to the question I posed above. The reason the prophets are saying false things is because they themselves are compromised by sins. There is no desire for the truth because they are wicked themselves. Their ungodliness is so great that they will practice evil even in the Lord’s temple (Jeremiah 23:11). The way to justify their own wickedness is to avoid the truth and proclaim false words. You see this problem particularly identified in verses 16-24.
Speaking My Truth (Jeremiah 23:16-24)
Notice what the Lord proclaims in verse 16. He tells the people to not listen to the words of the prophets. They are leading you into futility and filling you with false hopes. They are speaking visions from their own imagination and not from the mouth of the Lord. Notice that they are speaking their truths. They are speaking their own words, what they want to be truth, rather than the truth that comes from God’s mouth.
In verse 17 we find out that they are telling everyone that it will be well with them and to stubbornly follow their own heart. Friends, this is the essence of what “my truth” is all about. What I am doing is fine. What I am doing is good and I will continue to stubbornly follow my own heart. This is my truth. Then what we do is we find other people to make us feel better about our decisions. We tell ourselves that this is right, this is godly, and this is good. Then we look for our friends and for a church to confirm that the way we are living and the decisions we are making is right. This is to live by my truth but it is certainly not the truth. Notice that “my truth” is false. There is no such thing as “my truth.” There is only the truth. This is what God is telling these people. The people in your lives who are confirming your hearts so that you continue to follow your own hearts do not have the truth. They are lying to you. They are filling you with false hope and not the truth. It is not going to be peace for you. It is not going to go well with you. They are not going to condemn you of sin. They are going to applaud you and console you for your sinful decisions.
Listen to God’s question in verse 18. Who among them have stood in the council of the Lord to see and to hear his word? Who has paid attention to his word and listened? In short, who cares what other people think! What matters is what God thinks! What matters is the truth which only comes from God himself. We must stand in the council of the Lord and hear his word, pay attention to it, and follow it. It does not matter what other people say. Friends, we do not open God’s word and determine what this means to me. The truth is not a subjective process in which we decide what it means for us. We do not approach truth this way. We do not approach the teaching that two plus two equals four, and then ask the question what that means to me. What it means is two plus two equal four. In the same way, the relevant question we ask when we come to God’s word is what does God mean, not what do we want it to mean to us. God is proclaiming that the problem is that the people and the prophets do not have a heart for the truth. They just want to hear what they want to hear. They want to walk in the stubbornness of their hearts as verse 17 says.
Look at verse 21. God says that he did not send these prophets. If he had sent them, then they would be proclaiming my words to the people (Jeremiah 23:22). Notice what would have happened if these prophets would have been proclaiming God’s words. God says in verse 22 that God’s words would have turned the people from their evil ways and from their evil deeds. Truth calls people to repent. Truth calls for people to change. The teacher who stands in the council of the Lord cannot avoid talking about sin and the necessity turn from sin. It is absolutely amazing to me how many popular preachers do not preach on the truth about sin. They do not want to tell people they are sinning. They do not want to tell people the truth that their souls are doomed because they refuse to stop sinning but continue to follow their hearts. Friends, if you listen to podcasts of preachers and teachers, please listen and observe if they are preaching against sin. Will they preach against immorality? Will they preach against sexual immorality? Will they preach again anger? Will they preach against divisions? Will they preach against drunkenness? Will they preach against greed? Will they say that anything is a sin? Please see that one of the important purposes of God’s truth is turn people from their evil ways, not to encourage them to keep doing what they are doing.
This paragraph ends with an important reminder in verses 23-24. God sees. God sees and God knows what we are doing. You cannot get far enough away from God and think that God does not see our sins. There is no secret place where God is not seeing what you are doing. Please hear the words of verse 24. “‘Do I not fill heaven and earth?’ declares the Lord.” We should want the truth. We should desire the truth. We should encourage our teachers to proclaim the truth. Friends, the truth is going to hurt. The truth is not to hurt because we are trying to be hurtful. The truth is going to hurt because it is going to convict us to change what we are doing in our lives.
Identifying the Truth (Jeremiah 23:25-32)
So the prophets are running around falsely claiming that they have a word from God. They lie and say that they are having visions and dreams. They are proclaiming the lies from their own hearts (Jeremiah 23:25-26). They are not telling the truth. Now God is going to describe how his word is different from what is false in verses 28-29. God says that his word is like grain, not straw. This is a picture of nourishment. Straw has no food value. Straw is empty. God says his word is like grain. His word will grow you. His word will sustain you and give you life. Your words and your truth do not have value. God’s words and God’s truth, which is the truth, is valuable and life-giving.
Second, God says his word is like fire (Jeremiah 23:29). The truth of God’s word is often pictured as a fire. God’s word can be pictured as fire because it judges the thoughts and the intentions of the heart (cf. Hebrews 4:12). The truth of God’s word is also transforming. I am captured by the description that the men on the road to Emmaus give regarding their discussion with Jesus. After talking to Jesus, listen to what they said:
They said to each other, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Luke 24:32 ESV)
There is something special about God’s word. It is a fire that judges and transform us. The truth of God’s word is not like reading a novel and is not like reading facts. God’s word has transforming power.
Third, God says his word is like a hammer that smashes rock to pieces. God’s truth demolishes false arguments and wicked teachings (cf. 2 Corinthians 10:4-6). God’s word is to be the hammer that smashes our stony hearts. God is trying to tell the people how radically different his word is from human words. God’s truth has power. God’s truth smashes and transforms. Now let me make an important point. God did not say here that I am to be the hammer going around smashing people. God did not say that I am to light people on fire with my anger or my self-righteousness. God said that this is what his word does. God’s word is the hammer. God’s word is the fire. God’s word is the grain. God’s word is not warm fuzzies or cute stories. We proclaim God’s word and let God’s word do the work. We are like Jeremiah, speaking God’s words as we tremble by its power (cf. Jeremiah 23:9). God’s word will feed. God’s word will burn. God’s word will smash. God says that it is his words that turn people (cf. Jeremiah 23:22). We do not save people. We do not turn people back to God. God’s word saves people. God’s word turns people back to God. It is our obligation to say God’s word to people, not our words. It is our duty to say God’s truth to people, not tell people what they want to hear or what comes from the imaginations of our own hearts. God’s word does not pander or flatter but powerfully confronts to save souls. We are not ugly to others but simply say to others the truth of God. God’s words are the help, not our ideas (cf. Jeremiah 23:32).
Perverting the Truth (Jeremiah 23:33-40)
Finally, it is easy to be fake about wanting to hear the truth. This is what the people were doing in Jeremiah’s day also. We read in verse 33 that the if the people, priests, or prophets came to Jeremiah to ask what the burden of the Lord was, he was to tell them that they are the burden. This is a great word play. You having your truth is the burden of the Lord. Look at verse 36. God says to not ask about the burden of the Lord (the word of the Lord given to Jeremiah) because you are making your own words to be God’s word. You are perverting the words of the living God and following your truth. Stop asking for God’s truth when you do not want to hear it (cf. Jeremiah 23:37-38). You have made your own word to be your truth and you will be judged for it.
God’s challenge to these people and God’s challenge to us today is have a heart for God by desiring God’s truth. We must challenge ourselves to want to hear God’s truth and not smooth words that sound good to us (cf. Isaiah 30:10). Too often we identify the truth to be what sounds good to us. Too often we want to identify the truth as what is easier for us. Too often we want to identify the truth to be what we want to hear. But we must remind ourselves that our words are not truth. God’s word is truth. Our desires are not truth. God’s desire is truth. Other people’s words are not truth. God’s word on the lips of other people is truth. We must want the truth. If we want the truth, then we must accept God’s truth is going to act like grain, like a fire, and life a hammer in our lives. God is going to rebuild his people by tearing down and burning out what is false so that he can grow what is true and righteous in us. Here is God’s honest assessment. If we do not want to speak the truth and if we do not want to hear the truth, then that tells us that wickedness is in control of us (cf. Jeremiah 23:10-14). If you do not like the truth, then that is a not a problem with the truth. That is a problem with us and we need to hear the truth and change how we think and change what we are doing. Have a heart for the truth. Desire to be convicted by God’s truth. Let his truth burn as a fire in your heart and work like a hammer on the stony areas of our hearts.