Jeremiah 23:1-40

We all have a job to do and are expected to do that job to the best of our abilities.  Jeremiah is called in this passage to confront shepherds and prophets who are not doing their job.  When God establishes authority, whether it be political or spiritual, He has expectations of these leaders.  He expects them to serve the people under them with integrity and justice.  He expects them to be His representatives on the earth.  God grants great responsibilities to leaders and desires that they perform those tasks in a way that reflects His character and standards.  The leaders in Israel were not doing this so they were about to experience the judgment of God on their lives.

THE POLITICAL LEADERS ARE REPLACED: When God established leaders in Israel, His intention was that they provide for the people as a shepherd provides for his sheep.  They were to lead them in the path of God’s Word.  They were to provide for their physical needs with food and protection.  They were to discipline them when they strayed from the Law of the Lord.  Instead of performing these functions, the leaders were exploiting the people, leading them into sin and idolatry and leaving them vulnerable to the judgment of the Lord.  Injustice, idolatry and immorality were the hallmarks of their reigns and God was not at all pleased with the results.  God promises to replace these corrupt leaders with the Lord Jesus who would come from the line of David but would reign with justice and provide from the people as a true, kind and wise Shepherd.  He would judge the nations and judge His people and He alone will be worshiped in that day.  We will live under the yoke of very ungodly leaders on this earth, but there are far better days on the way that God will use to restore this earth to His intended plan and He will bring all things under His will.

THE SPIRITUAL LEADERS ARE REBUKED: Israel was full of self-proclaimed prophets who were facilitating the spiritual and moral failures in the land.  These men were speaking in the name of the Lord but did not have a Word from God.  They were contradicting the message of judgment Jeremiah was giving and proclaiming God’s blessing on the people and their sinful ways.  Of course these false prophets were much more popular than Jeremiah because their message was one they wanted to hear.  However, just because a message is pleasing to us does not make that message true.  Spiritual leaders do not have the authority to invent messages; their job is to proclaim the message given by God.  These false prophets would have a dream or claim to have had a dream from God but there was no way of verifying this.  God makes it very clear that His Word is always the standard by which all other messages must be measured.  His Word is the only secure revelation and all of mankind will be judged according to that Word.  As ministers of the Lord, we are called to accurately proclaim the Word of God and nothing else.  We do not have the authority to make up messages in order to please those who hear us.  Our job is to proclaim what God has inspired in His Word.