Week 27 Jeremiah
The story in chapters 41-43 goes like this…
Nebuchadnezzar had sacked Jerusalem and then gone home.
He left a puppet-administrator in place – Gedaliah.
Before long Gedaliah was assassinated and a military commander named Johanan stepped into the leadership hornet’s-nest. Nebuchadnezzar would be mad, and Johanan’s plan was to escape to Egypt.
So: to run or not to run?
The people decided to ask Jeremiah.
This part of the story is pretty interesting because the people give Jeremiah an ironclad guarantee that they’d do whatever the Lord said: whether we like it or not, we will obey.
The Lord showed Jeremiah that if the Judeans wanted to stay alive they had to stay in Jerusalem. And right away the people’s reaction was: you lie! The Lord our God hasn’t forbidden us to go to Egypt!
A lot of times prophecy is a prediction about something that hasn’t happened yet. And the general idea is that whether-I-like-it-or-not I’ll accept it.
In reality it’s more like: I’ll endorse prophecies I prefer and veto the ones I don’t. When it comes to a prophesy’s acceptability the key thing is personal preference.
About three months ago I read the story of king Ahab. His view of Micaiah was: I hate him. He never prophesies anything but bad news for me.
So the secret of popularly successful prophecy is: find out what people want to hear and tell them that.
Notes: quotes from Jeremiah 42:6 & 43:6; and I Kings 22:8 (NLT version)