THE SELF-AUTHENTICATING WORD OF GOD – Jeremiah 23:28-29

Preached Sunday; May 1, 2011
from
Jeremiah 23:28-29

Theme: Because God’s word is self-authenticating, we’re called to proclaim it faithfully.

(Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture references are taken from The Holy Bible, New King James Version; copyright 1982, Thomas Nelson, Inc.)

This is the Sunday morning that we’ve set aside to recognize an important event: the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible—the most published book in the history of the world.

This month—and particularly this weekend—there are celebrations going on in various places around the world to commemorate this great historical event. And we should celebrate. The King James Version is, without question, the most elegant translation of the Bible that has ever been made; and its impact on the English-speaking world is beyond measure. Everyone in this room has been touched by it. The way that we speak English today has been, to some degree, influenced by it. Most of us have a copy that we read, or that we pass on as an important family heirloom, or that we cherish as the keepsake of an important event in our lives.

But it’s also important to stress that we don’t worship a book. Rather, we worship the God who gave us the Bible. We worship the God who has chosen to reveal Himself most marvelously through His work of creation, most savingly through His Son in human flesh, and most clearly through the divinely inspired text of Scripture. We should be thankful today that the Scriptures were so marvelously translated into our language—and also be thankful for the lives of men and women that were sacrificed to make it available to us today. But we render our thanks ultimately to our great self-revealing God.

In thinking about our celebration this morning of the birthday of the King James Version—and most of all, of the God who gave us His revealed and written word—I ask you to turn with me to Jeremiah 23:28-29. And I hope you don’t mind if—for this special occasion—I share from the King James translation itself.

Jeremiah 23:28-29 says;

The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:28-29).

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The situation into which God spoke these words was one very much like our own today. It was a time in which the devil had sought to weaken the impact of God’s word in people’s lives by mixing it with the fallible words and ideas of false teachers and false prophets who claimed that they, too, had a "revelation".

The prophets and priests of the people of Jeremiah’s day were the ones that should have been preaching and teaching the word of God to people, and leading them to live in accordance with God’s revealed will. But it was a dark time in which those entrusted with His word had become characterized by gross immorality and idolatry. It was a time in which God’s word had become neglected and ignored; and in which the prophets sought to draw people’s attention away from God and to themselves through the imaginations and visions of their own mind. It was a time in which a man-created, man-centered message was being proclaimed that comforted sinful people in their sins. It was a time like that which the apostle Paul warned would come in latter days—a time in which "some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils; speaking lies in hypocrisy; having their conscience seared with a hot iron . . ." (1 Timothy 4:1-2); a time in which Paul said people "will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; and they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables" (2 Timothy 4:3-4).

Now; God had something to say to His covenant people living in such times. Listen carefully to what He tells them in verses 16-27:

Thus saith the LORD of hosts, Hearken not unto the words of the prophets that prophesy unto you: they make you vain: they speak a vision of their own heart, and not out of the mouth of the LORD. They say still unto them that despise me, The LORD hath said, Ye shall have peace; and they say unto every one that walketh after the imagination of his own heart, No evil shall come upon you. For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it? Behold, a whirlwind of the LORD is gone forth in fury, even a grievous whirlwind: it shall fall grievously upon the head of the wicked. The anger of the LORD shall not return, until he have executed, and till he have performed the thoughts of his heart: in the latter days ye shall consider it perfectly. I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran: I have not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings. Am I a God at hand, saith the LORD, and not a God afar off? Can any hide himself in secret places that I shall not see him? saith the LORD. Do not I fill heaven and earth? saith the LORD. I have heard what the prophets said, that prophesy lies in my name, saying, I have dreamed, I have dreamed. How long shall this be in the heart of the prophets that prophesy lies? yea, they are prophets of the deceit of their own heart; which think to cause my people to forget my name by their dreams which they tell every man to his neighbour, as their fathers have forgotten my name for Baal (vv. 16-27).

Clearly, God made a distinction between those who faithfully spoke His word, and those who pridefully spoke their own—between those who truly were sent by Him, and those who merely pretended that they had been. And what a question it was that God asked, in the midst of all this falsehood: "For who hath stood in the counsel of the LORD, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?" The implied answer is that very few did. The people, it seemed, preferred to hear false prophets that comforted them in their sin, and that lied to them in saying that it was a word from God.

And God would not tolerate His word being mixed and mingled with lies. He went on, in verses 30-32, to say;

Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that steal my words every one from his neighbour. Behold, I am against the prophets, saith the LORD, that use their tongues, and say, He saith. Behold, I am against them that prophesy false dreams, saith the LORD, and do tell them, and cause my people to err by their lies, and by their lightness; yet I sent them not, nor commanded them: therefore they shall not profit this people at all, saith the LORD (vv. 30-32).

And it was against the backdrop of all the falsehood of Jeremiah’s day that we find—in this morning’s passage—the challenge God laid down concerning His own word: "The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces?"

The thing that stands out to me in this, dear brothers and sisters in Christ—and I believe the thing that God would have us remember on this Sunday in which we honor the gift of His written word to us—is that we must make it our resolve not to hold back from declaring what God has said in His word to our culture. We should not be afraid to declare His word in an age of unbelief and lies. God’s word is powerfully self-authenticating. It will prove itself to be everything that this morning’s passage says it is, when ever we faithfully speak it.

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Let’s look a little closer at these two verses in Jeremiah 23; and first consider . . .

1. THE CALL.

The "call", in verse 28, is to let two things happen. And the first thing that we’re to let happen is expressed in these words: "The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream . . . "

The "prophet" spoken of, in this context, is not a true prophet of God. Rather, it’s a false prophet—someone who pretends to be a spokesman of God, or who pretends to have insight into spiritual things. It’s someone who claims to have an authoritative "dream" or "vision", but who is speaking a message that’s contrary to God’s revealed word. And the truly surprising thing is that God says to go ahead and let them tell their dream or vision.

Now; I believe we need to handle this wisely. If this were a matter of someone standing up and speaking false visions and prophecies within the church family, it would not be something that we are to merely stand by and let happen. It would be the responsibility of God’s people—through the church leaders—to prevent such a person from declaring falsehoods in God’s household. But when it comes to people who are definitely outside the household of faith—someone who’s just out there in the world hawking their own dreams and prophecies—we’re to let them do it. It’s not our job to try and stop anyone from speaking whatever error they wish. In fact, we do great harm to the cause of Christ—and to our witness to the world—whenever we do try to prevent even false prophets from speaking. Our call from God, in this passage, is to let them speak.

But we’re not fully obeying God’s call in this passage if we only obey the first half of it. We must obey the second half of it as well. God said, "The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully." I suggest that one of our great failures today, dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is that we tend to obey the first half of this call from God, but negligent the second half. We let the dreamers relate their dreams and false visions to the world; but as those who have God’s word of truth, we fail to rise up and—at the same time—declare faithfully what God has said. And the two halves of this call must go together.

You see; we live in a day in which "prophets" are constantly declaring their "dreams". It may not be "dreams" in the sense of the false prophetic visions that were uttered in Jeremiah’s day. Rather, it may be nothing more than human reasonings and philosophies. The "prophets" of our day utter—on the daytime talk shows, or in the magazines and journals and blogs, or over the radio, or even in everyday conversation—ideas and philosophies and ethical systems that are utterly hostile to God’s revealed word. And we aren’t to try and silence such things by preventing people from saying what they say. Rather, we’re to silence them by faithfully speaking what God has said in His word in response.

And by the way; isn’t that exactly what our Lord did when He was tempted by the devil in the wilderness? When Satan spewed out falsehoods and lies to try to tempt our Lord from obedience to the Father, it was certainly in His power to silence the devil and prevent him from speaking. But that’s not what He did. He gave us an example to follow when He allowed the devil to speak his lies, and then immediately followed them up with His faithful response, "It is written . . ."

When the false prophets of our day speak their "dreams" unchallenged, they’re encouraged to speak them even more. But nothing stops falsehood faster than faithfully countering it with God’s faithful word.

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Now; there’s a reason why it’s far more effective to faithfully declare God’s word in the face of falsehood than it is to try to prevent falsehood from being spoken at all. And that’s because of how God Himself contrasts His word against falsehood.

Look again at our passage this morning, and consider . . .

2. THE CONTRAST.

It says, "The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD." God is not afraid of His word being held up against the dreams and visions that flow from the imaginations of men. Let the one be examined against the other. God’s word is more than able to pass the test.

"Chaff" is the dry, scaly husk that covers a kernel of grain. It’s the waste-product of a wheat harvest that gets sifted out and blown away by the wind. You can grab handfuls of it and eat it if you’d want to; but you’d never get any nourishment from it. And that’s what the mere dreams and visions of men are said by God to be—nothing more than chaff. It looks like it’s something; but it proves itself to be nothing. It’s lighter than the grain, and gets blown-away in the wind. But God Himself, in this morning’s passage, says that His word is good, solid grain! It’s food that truly nourishes and satisfies the soul.

I’ll never forget a conversation I had with someone not long ago. It was a woman that my wife and I have known for many years. For as long as we’ve known her, she had chased after every false religion and New-Age teaching you could name. And she had reached the end of her rope. We prayed with her; and she finally turned to the Lord. When we talked with her about all the philosophies and alternative religions she tried, we asked her what she gained from it. She said, "Absolutely nothing. In fact, worse than that—I wasted a whole lot of money!"

Now; I don’t blame her for searching for something. She had a hunger in her soul that needed to be satisfied. But she was eating the "chaff" of man’s vain dreams when the good grain of God’s word was available to her. In Isaiah 55:1-2; God gives us this great invitation:

Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread? and your labour for that which satisfieth not? hearken diligently unto me, and eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness (Isaiah 55:1-2).

What a contrast! Even God Himself declares it! "What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD." People are starving for good food, dear brothers and sisters; and we have it to give to them. Let’s not be afraid to give it. Let’s be faithful to speak God’s word into this world! It always proves itself in the tasting!

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Not only does this passage present us with a contrast; but let’s also note . . .

3. THE COMPARISONS.

We’ve already seen one of them. God compares His word to good grain. It nourishes. It satisfies. But as we read on, we see that He also compares it to fire. In verse 29, He says, "Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD . . ."

How is God’s word like a fire? Certainly one way is that it burns up that which is useless, wasteful and false—like chaff. When the false visions of men go up against God’s faithful word, they do no better than chaff does when it goes up against fire. As Isaiah 5:24 says;

Therefore as the fire devoureth the stubble, and the flame consumeth the chaff, so their root shall be as rottenness, and their blossom shall go up as dust: because they have cast away the law of the LORD of hosts, and despised the word of the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 5:24).

But the fire of God’s word isn’t always destructive. For example, it can also refine those who are precious to Him—burning and cleansing away the dross that is in them, and purifying them for His use. As Psalm 119:9 says, "Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word." As Jesus Himself told His disciples, "Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you" (John 15:3).

And like fire, God’s word can also illuminate the way that His people should go. I think that this is what Moses meant in Deuteronomy 33:2 when he told God’s chosen people Israel that "from his right hand went a fiery law for them". In Psalm 119:105, King David wrote, "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path."

And furthermore, just like a fire—whenever someone is rightly related to it—God’s word can provide great warmth and comfort and encouragement. Do you remember what the two formerly-despondent disciples on the road to Emmaus said? The resurrected Lord Jesus had appeared to them, and had explained to them what the Scriptures said about Himself. He vanished from their sight; "And they said to one another, Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures?" (Luke 24:32).

God’s word is compared, by God Himself, to a fire. Just like fire, God’s word needs no authentication. It authenticates itself by the effect it has on whatever it touches—and whenever it is faithfully declared in this world by those who have possession of it.

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But not only is God’s word like fire; but, as He Himself says, it is also "like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces".

One of the problems that Jeremiah had to deal with in his day was the fact that, even though the people around him pretended to be devoted to God, their hearts were as hard as rock against Him. In Jeremiah 5:2-3, he writes;

And though they say, The LORD liveth; surely they swear falsely. O LORD, are not thine eyes upon the truth? thou hast stricken them, but they have not grieved; thou hast consumed them, but they have refused to receive correction: they have made their faces harder than a rock; they have refused to return (Jeremiah 5:2-3).

But though they had hardened themselves against God’s instruction, God’s nevertheless called Jeremiah to keep on declaring His word. His word is like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Sometimes the hammer strikes, and there seems to be no affect. And the hammer strikes against the rock once again, and there still seems to be no effect. And then the hammer strikes again, and the hard rock begins to crack. And then the hammer strikes again, and the rock shatters! The hammer isn’t broken by the repeated strikes against the rock. But even the hardest of rock will eventually give way to the hammer of God’s word. As Isaiah 8:9-10 says;

Associate yourselves, O ye people, and ye shall be broken in pieces; and give ear, all ye of far countries: gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces; gird yourselves, and ye shall be broken in pieces. Take counsel together, and it shall come to nought; speak the word, and it shall not stand: for God is with us (Isaiah 8:9-10).

We can think of the hammer-like power of God’s word in a few different ways. First of all, because it comes from God, it destroys all human ideas and philosophies that are set up in opposition to it. As the apostle Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers;

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh: (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;) Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ . . . (2 Corinthians 10:3-5).

But it’s not only destructive in its power against that which is opposed to it, but it’s also like a precise surgical instrument. Hebrews 4:12 tells us;

For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart (Hebrews 4:12).

And just like a hammer, it endures when all else around it is broken to pieces and gone. Jesus—the Son of God—has said,

Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away (Matthew 24:35).

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Dear brothers and sisters in Christ; on this day in which we remember the birthday of a great Bible translation; let’s remember even more the self-authenticating power of God’s word. Let’s recommit ourselves—in our personal lives—to read it daily, to study it diligently, and to obey it faithfully. And as we go out into the world, let’s be very faithful to declare it confidently.

We don’t ever have to be afraid to do so. God’s word will always prove itself to be what He says it is. As God Himself has said;

The prophet that hath a dream, let him tell a dream; and he that hath my word, let him speak my word faithfully. What is the chaff to the wheat? saith the LORD. Is not my word like as a fire? saith the LORD; and like a hammer that breaketh the rock in pieces? (Jeremiah 23:28-29).