Kay Arthur — Confronting the Lie
How I pray that you have been with me all week. What we are studying is so absolutely critical. And it’s critical because we live in a world of vast information, and much of that information is anti-God, much of that information is anti-Bible.
They just don’t think of the way God presents Himself in the Word of God. They think of God as a namby-pamby God. A God who loves everyone, a God who would never put anyone to death, certainly wouldn’t cause a sword, a war, a famine, a pestilence.
And so what we do is we sit as God and give counsel to others. And when those people listen to us they trust in a lie, and you and I have counseled rebellion. And the question is: How does God feel about that? Well, that’s what we are going to see in Jeremiah chapter 28 as we pick up on Hananiah.
Now remember Hananiah is the prophet that has shown up in the same year of Jeremiah, chapter 27. It’s the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah. Zedekiah is going to be the last king of Judah. He is going to be the king that takes them into captivity, so to speak, because he does not listen to God.
Jeremiah in chapter 27 has spoken and given God’s message to the messengers from the surrounding countries. He has spoken to the king. He has spoken to the priest and the people.
Now Hananiah shows up, and Hananiah has said, as we have already seen that, “Listen, in two years all the vessels that have been taken into captivity in 597 are coming back here, and not only that, but Jeconiah your king is coming back here. Jeconiah only served for three months and then he was taken into captivity— he’s coming back.”