Latest / Teachings On This Day On FerventWord / On Sep 08, 2019: Jeremiah 23 Stand In The Counsel Of The Lord
Transcript
- You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2019. Well, as we study through Jeremiah chapter 23 this morning, I notice verse 22. It's always... A verse that has amazed me. Every time I read through this chapter, verse 22 just stands out in bold and highlight, hits me right in the face, you know, and makes me pay attention again. Where God says, but if they had stood in my counsel and caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings. And it's really an amazing verse, an As the Lord through the prophet Jeremiah is addressing here in chapter 23, the bad kings, the bad leaders, the evil leaders that the nation of Judah had, he's also addressing the false prophets here that are in the land there in Jeremiah chapter 23. So he's addressing these different groups of people. They're bad leaders. They're false prophets. They're bad leaders. And as he's addressing them, he's making this declaration that if these bad leaders, if these false prophets, if they had been faithful to the word of God... then the nation would be in a different situation than they're in right now. Then there would have been a turning away from wickedness, a turning away from evil, and there would have been a radical change, a different impact than what they had because of their wickedness and the falsity, the lies that the false prophets were bringing forth. And as we consider that idea this morning, it's a good reminder for us. of the value and importance and power of the word of God. The word of God has the power to change lives. The word of God has the power to really make a difference and even to transform entire nations by the word of the Lord. There's great power there. And so this morning, the title of the message is Stand in the Counsel of the Lord. And I want to encourage you to stand, to keep yourself in a place where you are receiving from the Lord, hearing from the Lord, and receiving His Word into your life. We are blessed as believers with amazing access to God. And we can have His counsel, His thoughts, His Word for the situations that we face. We can have his insights in helping us to make the decisions that we need to make. We have this access to God and there's a need for us to stay there in the presence of God, to stand in the counsel of the Lord and to keep ourselves in that place of continually receiving what he has for us. God's counsel to us can come in a variety of forms. We have, of course, the written word, the Bible. And here God has recorded for us his word, for us to receive from him truth, doctrine, instruction, and help with all of the things that we need to navigate in this life. But as we talk about the word of the Lord and the counsel of the Lord today, it's not actually limited to just the written word of God. I would also go on to say that the Holy Spirit dwells within us as believers. And so we have the opportunity to hear from the Father directly. Now it needs to be checked out with the Word of God, but at the same time, the Father will speak to us through the Holy Spirit in ways that perhaps are not directly addressed. You know, the The scriptures are not going to reveal to you if you should go to Jack in the Box or to Taco Bell for lunch, right? That's not going to, you're not going to find that verse. But the Holy Spirit can lead you in even those kinds of decisions and directions that the Lord can speak to us and offer some clarity and some specificity in the things that we face and the decisions that we make. And so we have the written word. We have the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. And then also we have the prophetic word, right? That is God using people around us to bring forth his word or his counsel to us. And so God can minister to us and speak to us through these various ways, through the word of God that's written, through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us, through the prophetic word and God speaking through people around us. And so we have this opportunity to have counsel from the Lord, but there's a little bit of a challenging element of this as well in that, well, And so we have the potential for God to speak internally to us through the Holy Spirit, but Again, it doesn't mean that every thought, every internal experience that I have is genuinely of the Lord and of the Holy Spirit. We have that opportunity for people around us, for God to use them to speak to us prophetically and to pass along a message from the Lord. But at the same time, not every message that others give us is from God. Even when they are convinced that it is of the Lord and they say, thus says the Lord, or God told me to tell you, That may not actually be accurate. And so there is a need for us to stand in the counsel of the Lord. And to keep ourselves in a place where we can communicate, where we can receive from the Lord, because, well, there's going to be challenges that we face, even in seeking to determine the word of the Lord and the counsel of the Lord. And so we're going to work through three points this morning to consider this idea of standing in the counsel of God to help us keep ourselves in that place of receiving from the Lord. Point number one is going to be found here in verse 16 and 17. Here it is. Do not listen to worthless words. Do not listen to worthless words. Verse 16 again says, thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you. They make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. As God addresses the nation of Judah through the prophet Jeremiah, he He says, everybody should pay attention to this. Don't listen to the words of the prophets. Now, when he says, don't listen, he's not talking about preventing sound waves from reaching your ears. When he says, don't listen, he's not saying, cover your ears and say, la, la, la, la. You know, make sure those, whatever they're saying doesn't actually physically reach your ears. What the Lord is talking about is much deeper than that. And that is the idea of filtering sound. He says that you need to have some type of filter in place so that even when words are spoken around you that are not from the Lord, that you're able to catch that and not receive those words. That you need to have something in place so that you can catch and recognize, well, those are worthless words. And so I'm not going to receive them internally. I'm not going to internalize them or believe them or apply them to my life. Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the words of the prophets. Now, I think it's a little bit interesting here. God is speaking to the people through the prophet Jeremiah. And so you have a prophet speaking declaring on behalf of the Lord, do not listen to the prophets. And I can imagine some mockers saying, well, you're a prophet, so I'm not going to listen to you, right? That would be definitely the thing that the mockers would say. But as God here is telling his people to not listen to the prophets, he's not addressing all prophets, but he's addressing the false prophets. And he's saying, look, there's a lot of prophets around and you need to be able to have some discernment that the prophet that you're listening to is actually speaking forth the word of God. You need to be able to filter what you allow yourself to receive. This is really important to understand because this is part of the reality that we face and sometimes we don't recognize it. There are some people in your life who mean well, but what they tell you is completely wrong. There are some people in your life, they love you, they want what's best for you, but what they tell you is wrong, incorrect, invalid, incorrect. hurtful and even harmful to you. Advice they give, counsel they give might be very off base even though they love you and have the best intentions and want you know to help you as best they can but their counsel is not good counsel and so we need to evaluate what we're receiving even from those who love us and want what's best for us. Now there are also people around you who well they have an agenda and They have some goals, perhaps. They have some ideas that they want to accomplish, and they're going to pursue those goals regardless of what harm that may bring to others. So there's counsel that is given. There's words that are spoken. There's ideas that are shared that they're not necessarily intentionally trying to be harmful to you, but, well, in order to accomplish their goals, they're saying what they say. They're speaking what they speak. They're sharing what they share, and for their own benefit, for their own sake, to accomplish what they want. And so some people mean well, but are completely wrong. Others are pursuing an agenda, they just want what they want for their purposes, and as a result, the things that they share are not to be trusted. But then there's also some people around you who intentionally harm, who have no value or regard for you or your well-being, and will share things that are not true, things that are not good, things that are hurtful and harmful, And so you and I need to recognize that there can be these different kinds of counsels and communications and words that we receive and filter out the things that are not of the Lord. We need to stand in the counsel of the Lord so that we can filter out the counsel that is not of the Lord. Now to try to illustrate this a little bit, I'm going to take you into my world for a And when you're programming, you have to do what's called sanitizing inputs. And I'm not going to get in-depth, so you don't have to worry about that, okay? Don't fall asleep on me yet. But sanitizing inputs is something that's very important to do for a developer. You have to validate and sanitize what is being given by the user. And so you visit a website, and there's a form to collect your information. Hey, why don't you sign in? Give us your username and password. Or why don't you fill out your address and we'll send you something free. Or you're working through, you know, some app and there's some information that you have to type in. Every field that you are inputting information into, if it's handled properly, well, that input, that field needs to be sanitized. For some very important reasons. Now, just to give a simple example, let's say you're being prompted to put in your email address. That's your user input. And so you put in your email address. Well, then there needs to be on the back end, the developer needs to establish some type of sanitization. That is, that there's a work that goes on, a function that happens to make sure that what is being put into that field is not malicious. Right? to sanitize the input. It means to protect from bad actors who are seeking to harm. Because, well, I'm sure you've heard about, you know, the multitude of different kinds of hacks and data breaches and all of those things that have happened. And many times it comes back to a case where there is some field that is not protected. It's not checking to see, was malicious code written or, yeah, written in here. So, You know, you might look at an email address field and go, I guess that's where I put my email address. And you type your email address, right? But someone who is malicious says, hmm, I wonder if I write this particular code in here, if I can wreck some havoc, if I can cause some harm, if I can gain control. And they seek to use that. And any field that is not being sanitized in this way is vulnerable to be used for their own purposes by someone who is malicious, right? And so every field, just think about that for a moment, right? It's kind of tedious for us as programmers. Every field, every time you're putting in information, you're clicking a box, you're typing in, every time there has to be these checks. There has to be this sanitization that goes on. But then after that, once it's sanitized, then, well, you have to validate the input. Sanitizing the input is protecting from bad actors who are seeking to harm, but validating the input is, well, it's to protect from honest people who are making mistakes. And so you're typing in your email address and you forget to put in the at symbol in the midst of your email address. And so, well, it should catch that and say, you know, hey, this is expecting an email address and what you put in is not a valid email address. Or you forget to add the .com, you know, after your website or your email address. And so it should catch that. It should validate the data. And so this is something I have to do on an ongoing basis. validating, sanitizing, checking every field, every input that a user enters. And then if it's all good, then it gets stored or saved to the database or used in some way. I think this provides for us a good illustration for us. Standing in the counsel of the Lord means that we take the user input, that is the things that people are Bringing to us, declaring to us the messages that we are receiving. And we are inundated with messages. Sales pitches, political speeches, friends, family, neighbors, co-workers, television, radio, podcasts. All these messages just constantly coming at us. And we need to sanitize what we're hearing. To not just receive it and save it to our internal database. To not just accept it and believe it and begin to operate on it. But to make sure. There might be some malicious code in there. There might be some malicious intent. There might be some things that actually cause harm. There might be some honest mistakes. Thus says the Lord of hosts, do not listen to the prophets who prophesy to you. He says, they make you worthless. They speak a vision of their own heart, not from the mouth of the Lord. They continually say to those who despise me, the Lord has said, you shall have peace. And to everyone who walks according to the dictates of his own heart, they say, no evil shall come upon you. God gives a couple examples of the messages of these false prophets. The message doesn't sound all that terrible. The message is, you shall have peace. Well, that's a good message, right? You like those kinds of messages, right? You come to service and it's like, oh, peace and love and safety and everything's going to be amazing and you walk out with a smile on your face and you feel so good, right? Those are good messages. We want to receive and believe those messages. And God has those kinds of messages for us sometimes. And sometimes that's not the right message for us. And here the Lord is saying, look, there's declaring peace to a people that I'm not declaring peace to. They're saying no evil shall come upon you, but actually there is going to be some judgment upon this people because of their rebellion against me. It's a message that sounds good, but actually is not helpful. These false prophets, God says, they make you worthless. They make you worthless. Because their words are not my words. Jump down a few more verses here to verse 32. God elaborates a little bit more on these false prophets. He says, "'Behold, I am against those who prophesy false dreams,' says the Lord, "'and tell them and cause my people to err by their lies and by their recklessness. Yet I did not send them or command them. Therefore, they shall not profit this people at all,' says the Lord.'" Here the Lord highlights a few different types of ways that the false prophets were bringing forth their messages. He says, do not listen to their false dreams. Do not listen to their lies. And do not listen to their recklessness. Now, as you think about this, the idea of false dreams, you could perhaps also label, relabel, kind of rename a little bit as fantasies. The false prophets were not necessarily people Some of them, not all of them, were out to like, I want to inflict as much harm as possible. I just really want to hurt people and watch them suffer. That's not the case for many of the false prophets. They have dreams. They have ideas. Things that they hope for. Things that they want to happen. Fantasies that they are living in. They've deceived themselves or they've been deceived. And so the message that they're proclaiming isn't necessarily false. I really hate you and I want to destroy your life. That's not where it's coming from. It's, I want what's best and man, I could just really see all peace and no evil is going to happen. It's this fantasy that they are living in, this delusion that they are in themselves. Maybe one little example of that to consider is there is the concept and some promote it quite heavily, the power of positive thinking. Right? And you can get through anything. You can accomplish anything. You can do anything you want. You just got to think positive, be positive, keep that positive energy. And I'm not trying to say we should all be Eeyores, right? That's, we can't go to the other extreme. But at the same time, power of positive thinking, there's a lot in that concept that is not at all true or of the Lord. But it's a fantasy. It's a nice thought. Like, all you got to do is think positive and you can, you know, get through, you can accomplish whatever you want. Right? In some ways, you know, you can think about the typical American dream, right? And there's some false dreams in that too. That's not necessarily God's plan for everybody. And so you can't just get what you want as long as you want it enough and work hard for it enough and are diligent enough. And, you know, that's not necessarily the case. You can't be whatever you want or do whatever you want, no matter how hard you work or how determined you are. But people will declare that. That message will be brought. There's some fantasy, some false dreams that are shared. But then there are also lies. And this is not like, you know, just wishful thinking or living in a fantasy, but this is just a flat out denial of God, his word, what he says, and the truth. Lies. Lies. You could think about horoscopes. You could think about a variety of things. I'm not going to try to list all the examples. But there are lies that are being told. There are lies that are being promoted. There are lies that are being declared to us every day. False dreams are being declared to us. Lies are being declared to us. And then some things are just recklessness. That people are just talking without thinking, without paying attention, without really trying to determine what is true or what is not, what is of God and what is not. But recklessness, right? And we have those people around us that they just keep talking all the time. It's just, they're always talking. It's, well, the Bible says when words are many, sin is not absent. That's something we can be assured of. There's some issues when our words are not restrained. And so we have this bombardment of false dreams and lies and reckless words coming at us continually. And that's why we need to stand in the counsel of the Lord. Because much of what we hear and much of what is told to us is not actually of the Lord or from the Lord, even when it's wrapped in the idea of thus says the Lord. And there's a responsibility that each one of us has to take what we're hearing and evaluate it based upon what the Lord says. Nobody else is responsible for that. Nobody else can do that for you. That's not something you can outsource. That you be the determination of truth for me. No, no. You need to stand in the counsel of the Lord. John the Apostle tells it this way. He says, Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God. Because many false prophets have gone out into the world. Here's an instruction for all of us. For each of us. For every one of us. Test the spirits. There's many false prophets. There's many false messages. There's many things that you are told, that you are encouraged in, that you're instructed, that you're comforted with and counseled with that are not of the Lord. And so you need to sanitize your inputs. Run those through the filter. Validate. Find out, is this really of the Lord? There's lots of things that you should not be listening to, no matter who is doing the speaking. There are pastors that you should not be listening to. If they're not bringing forth the counsel of the Lord. They're a televangelist that you should not be listening to. If they're not bringing forth the truth of God's word. And just because they're a televangelist or just because they're nationally known or just because, you know, they have so many people. Sometimes we kind of like check out. We set aside our filter. Well, it's like all these other people love this person and, you know, tell me how great this person is. And so then I can just accept what they say. No, no, no. We need to sanitize our inputs. Every field. When I'm speaking to you, you better be running through some filters. Does it check out with what the word of God says? There's pastors you shouldn't be listening to. There's politicians you shouldn't be listening to. There's radio hosts that you shouldn't be listening to. Salespeople you shouldn't be listening to. Podcasts that you shouldn't be listening to. TV shows that you shouldn't be listening to. Celebrities, athletes, teachers, doctors, friends, and family. That you should not receive their words and allow them to impact your life if they don't check out with the counsel of God. If they don't match up with what the word of God says. Do not listen to worthless words the Lord says. Pastor Warren Wiersbe says, be sure that the people who give you spiritual counsel are called by God. Walk with God and obey God's word. The false prophet's dreams eventually become nightmares. The false prophet's dreams eventually become nightmares. You can buy into the fantasy. You can accept this is the direction you should go in life. You can accept, you know, here's how you should handle that situation. You can accept this is the word of the Lord for you. This is what God wants for you. You have all this input, people telling you all kinds of things. And that's awesome when it lines up. with the counsel of the Lord. But when it doesn't, those dreams become nightmares. Those wonderful ideas, all those messages of peace, they don't turn out to be the peace that they claim to be. We need to filter, to sanitize our inputs. When I was young, back living in Riverside as a kid, we had a neighbor who worked for a bottling company. And so he would, they bottled water. And so periodically they would come over and give us, you know, a bunch of bottles of water. And we were like, oh, that's awesome. Thank you. You know, it was a long time ago. And so bottled water was kind of like rare and expensive. It's still kind of expensive, but it was just like, wow, cool. So we'd have these bottles of water and we just enjoyed it and had them for a while. Then one day my dad was just kind of shaking up his water, shaking up his bottle or something, twirling around. I forget exactly how it happened, but all of a sudden he noticed there's stuff floating in the water. He's like, whoa, and he shakes it up, and there's stuff in this. And he pulls out another bottle that's sealed, hasn't been opened yet, and he shakes it around. Oh, there's stuff in that one too. Pulls out another one and shakes it around. Oh, there's stuff in that one too. It was free water. I mean, that's great, right? Free bottle of water, case of water. That's awesome, right? But, oh man, there's all this junk and gunk in it. What is this stuff? What is this stuff? Then we began to realize, after doing some testing and validation, right, checking it out, we realized, oh, the ones, the bottles that we received that had messed up labels, those ones had pure water. They were clear. The ones that looked really great on the outside, those ones had junk inside the water. And we began to realize, oh, these are the bottles of water that failed quality control. And they're now given to us. And it's like, great. And until we realized, until we learned, and unfortunately, you know, we had swallowed a bunch of water. You know, we'd been ingesting it for a while, and I don't think it had any long-term effects. But anyways, it looked great. Looks pure, looks clear. It was only until you really examined it that you realized, oh no, there's junk in there. That's the reality with regard to the words that we hear as well. Friends and family around us, there's messages. proclaiming to be from the lord not proclaiming to be from the lord in all arenas of life we need to do some filtering even if the message looks great even if it just sounds perfect it's exactly what i want there might be some junk in there there might be some gunk in there we need to filter and not listen to worthless words well moving on to verses 18 through 20 we get point number two this morning and that is listen to the word of the lord So instead of listening to worthless words, we need to hone in on and listen to what is the Lord saying? What is his counsel? Verse 18, for who has stood in the counsel of the Lord and has perceived and heard his word? Who has marked his word and heard it? God says, who has stood in the counsel of the Lord? Who has put in the effort to to know the Lord and to hear from him. Now, again, we do have amazing access to God. By faith in Jesus Christ, our sins are washed away. We have full access to the presence of the Father, the creator of the heavens and the earth. We have access to God. We can hear from God. We can receive from God. We have the counsel of the Lord available to us. But who's actually listening? Who's really hearing from the Lord? What is the Lord's counsel to you? What is the Lord saying to you? What is he saying about your life? What does he have to say about the decision that you're about to make? What does he have to say about the things that you're engaged in and the things that you're practicing? You have opportunity to hear from the Lord, to stand in his counsel. And again, God's counsel comes to us in various forms. The primary form that we experience is the written word, the Bible. God has revealed himself. He's declared the truth. He's revealed his doctrine. He's revealed his character, his nature. He's given us incredible truths and instruction for who we are and how we are to live our lives. And so we have God's counsel there in written form. But we also have the Holy Spirit dwelling within. And the Father can lead us, can direct us, and speak to us easily and clearly through the Holy Spirit within us. And then we also have the benefit of the body of Christ. Others around us that God has connected us to and linked us with and God will speak to us through one another as well. And so we have this opportunity, this amazing opportunity to hear from the creator of the heavens and the earth who loves us and wants what's best for us. But we need to stand in his counsel. The idea and the picture of standing in the counsel of the Lord, it implies a little bit of a diligence. It's not like a quick pop in, hey, what do you have to say? Okay, I'm on my way, you know. But standing in the presence of the Lord or standing in the counsel of the Lord is that ongoing, that maintaining of a relationship, that maintaining of communication with God and to stand there and to stay there and to stay close to the Lord constantly. We have then the opportunity to hear from the Lord what he has for us. Now here's perhaps the hard part. Once we hear what the Lord has to say, we receive the counsel of the Lord. Then we need to let that counsel change our life. Computer programming speak, we need to save it to the database. We need to internalize that. We've processed it. This is from the Lord. This is what the Lord says. But at that point, sometimes we don't like what God has to say. And so we cast it aside and we don't let it impact us. We don't let it change us. And you could see in the example of God's message to Judah in verses 19 and 20, why that might be. Verse 19 says, "'Behold, a whirlwind of the Lord has gone forth in fury, a violent whirlwind. It will fall violently on the head of the wicked.'" The anger of the Lord will not turn back until he has executed and performed the thoughts of his heart. In the latter days, you will understand it perfectly. Here was God's real message to Judah, his real counsel to Judah. The false prophets were saying, oh, peace. You're going to have so much peace. You're going to, everything's going to work out okay. You're not going to experience hardship. Yeah, Babylon's coming and I know there's these big threats, but God is big and he's going to fight for you and you're not going to have to fight. You're not going to see any of that. That was the message of the false prophets, but it was a false message. Here was the real counsel of the Lord. God says the wicked are going to experience a whirlwind. The nation of Judah was in a state of real rebellion against God. And so God was going to bring forth the judgment that they had earned and that they had deserved. And he says, look, my anger is not going to turn back until that judgment is executed. And judgment and these kinds of messages are hard to understand for us. But God says it there at the end of verse 20, in the latter days, you will understand it perfectly. Sometimes it's really hard for us to understand in advance. Why would God say that? Why would God, oh, it sounds so harsh. It sounds so cruel. It sounds so, but God says, just wait, you'll understand. But this is the message. This is my counsel. This is my word. It was a message of judgment for the people of God. And when we receive the counsel of the Lord, if we're in a place of rebellion, it might very well be this kind of message, this kind of counsel. But even when we're not in this kind of rebellion, we might hear from the Lord some direction that we would prefer to not listen to. The Lord says, look, I know you've been working your life. You've kind of been planning. You have this five-year plan, and you've been working towards this goal, and that's your plan. But you know, I want to take you on a diversion. I don't think you should go that direction. God might say, you know, you're planning to move there. You're planning to, you know, work up that way in your career. You're planning to go to that school. You're planning, but here's a better plan. And the counsel of the Lord is often different than what we think, what we plan, what we purpose, what we desire. And so we can be easily tempted to not regard the counsel of the Lord, to not stand in the counsel of the Lord. When we're called to repentance, When we're called forward in the way that God wants us to, we need to take what God says and make it real and live by it and let it change our life. The false prophets' messages were much easier to listen to. And they were like, Jeremiah, we come to your church. And they're like, oh man, I walk away depressed and gloomy. It's like, oh, this is terrible. This is depressing. But oh, I go to that guy's church. And it's like, I feel so much better. I feel all warm inside. And it's just like so amazing. And look at the smile on my face. It's like, oh, I need to go to that guy's church. Yeah, it might be easier to listen to other messages. Yeah, it might be more appealing to grasp hold of those false dreams and lies and recklessness. God's counsel might be unpleasant, but it's profitable. It's helpful. It's for your benefit. And false counsel might be pleasant, but it's not profitable. It's worthless, and it ends up bringing harm. Paul told Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. All scripture, the entire word of God, he's recorded it. He's written it for our benefit. It's profitable to us to teach us the truth, to reprove us and to correct us, to teach us what is right and what is wrong so that we might be complete. It's for our benefit that God has recorded for us his word. And some of it may not be that exciting for us to read. Some of it may be unpleasant for us to receive. Some of it may be different than what we think or what we desire or what we want. But it's for our benefit. It's for our profit. Listen to the word of the Lord. Once you determine that something is from the Lord, stand in his counsel. Stay there. Don't fight it. Don't run from it. Accept it. Believe it. Be the wise builder, Jesus said, who heard his words and then acted upon them. Stand in the counsel of the Lord. Well, finally, we'll look at verses 21 and 22 for point number three. Here's point three. Speak the word of the Lord. In receiving messages externally or internally, in receiving thoughts and ideas, concepts, messages, direction, counsel, we need to have this filter. We need to stand in the counsel of God and allow him to validate, to sanitize what is real, what is good, and what is not. But flipping that around now, We are also that kind of influence in other people's lives. And we're running our mouths all day long. And we're speaking for things. And we need to stop and consider, am I speaking the word of the Lord? And I bring forth his truth for the situation at hand. Verse 21, 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 caused my people to hear my words, then they would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings. These false prophets were prophesying falsely. But God says, if they had stood in my counsel, if they would have really known me and walked with me, they would have had a major impact on this nation. And this nation would be in a different condition if they had been faithful to communicate my word, my counsel. And so God here lays a serious charge against these false prophets. God says, I didn't send them, but they went. I didn't speak to them, yet they prophesied. They spoke. And it's something for you and I to consider because, well, you represent the Lord. Whether or not you use the words, thus says the Lord, you represent the Lord. And you speak on behalf of God, whether knowingly or unknowingly. As a believer in Jesus Christ, You are an ambassador for Jesus Christ. You represent him. You speak on his behalf. And so every one of us, we need to be careful to stand in the counsel of the Lord to keep ourselves from being false prophets. There is a danger and potential for each and every one of us. None of us are immune to this. None of us are above this. We can bring forth counsel, instruction, insights, that are not of God. And just as we need to be careful not to receive those things, we need to be careful not to speak like these false prophets. We need to be careful not to speak false dreams, our fantasies, what we want, what we hope for, what we wish, what we desire. And again, it can often be done with great motivations. I love you and I want what's best for you. And so I'm gonna tell you, you know, what I hope is going to come to pass. I'm going to tell you what I hope for. I hope you will never have to experience pain. I hope, you know, it's all going to work out and nothing will, you know, nothing harmful will come from this. I can easily bring forth and try to speak, especially, oh, in times where someone is hurting and in difficulty and pain and we long to kind of ease that pain and so we can easily begin to pour forth our own fantasies where we wish there was no pain. We wish there was not that difficulty. But we need to be careful because we represent the Lord. We cannot give false dreams. We speak on behalf of the Lord. So we need to accurately represent Him. We cannot speak lies. And I wouldn't expect that any of us would intentionally speak forth lies. But if it is the case, listen. The Lord knows. Going on in the chapter here, the Lord warns the false prophets. He says, I'm a God who is right there. I know what's going on. I can see. I know what you're saying and I know where it's coming from. And you're going to be dealt with accordingly. If you're speaking forth lies, it's not the word of the Lord. You're misrepresenting the Lord and he takes that very seriously. We can also speak recklessly. We can also speak recklessly. And in doing so, Speak for things that are not the Lord's word or the Lord's counsel. If you're the kind of person that has to share their opinion on every subject that's being talked about, you should be a little bit concerned and cautious, careful. Again, where words are many, sin is not absent, the Proverbs tell us. In recklessness, in carelessness, not watching what we say, not being careful, not, well, just like we sanitize our inputs, we need to sanitize our outputs. Again, in the programming world, this is really important. If I build a website, I collect information from the user, I get that email address, I save it in the database, it all looks good. And then later on I go to show that. I can't just show the information that is there stored in the database. I can't actually trust that that information has been preserved well. There might have been some attacks that weren't through that way, through some other way that I don't know about. And if I just show that, well, it could be at that time, malicious code. It could be an attack and there could be some dangerous effects as a result. And so what we have to do is sanitize the output. We have to validate that data again. We have to sanitize that data again and make sure that it's safe, that it is what we expect it to be so that it is safe to display or to use in whatever form or fashion. In a similar way, we represent the Lord. So we need to speak the word of the Lord. And that means that just as we have a filter on the things that are coming in, we need to have a filter established that we are careful to not just speak what we want, to speak what we think, to speak what we wish, to speak what we hope for, but to speak what the Lord says. And if we're not doing that, we can easily find ourself in the place of false prophets. Again, God says, I have not sent these prophets, yet they ran. I've not spoken to them, yet they prophesied. When you give counsel, make sure that You're not just giving what you think is best. Make sure you're not just giving your ideas or your thoughts. You can be a false prophet, even if you mean well or have great intentions. When you're offering solutions, giving your suggestions, giving your advice, you're providing people with direction. Perhaps you're declaring truth. This happens a lot. You know, people say, well, the Bible says, and then they go on to say something that the Bible doesn't say. Happens all the time. When you're correcting people, when you're declaring truth, when you're providing direction, you're Anytime you are influencing others, you need to take that seriously and speak the counsel of the Lord. Stand in the counsel of the Lord and stay close to the Lord so that you can speak the counsel, the word of the Lord. Ezekiel tells us in Ezekiel chapter 13, verse six, talking about false prophets. He says that they envision futility and false divination saying, thus says the Lord, but the Lord has not sent them. Yet they hope that they will be sent. that the word may be confirmed. They hope, if I say it out loud, maybe it'll be confirmed. Maybe it will be fulfilled. But the Lord hasn't said it. The Lord hasn't sent them. Now, on the other hand, if the Lord has sent, if the Lord has spoken, in verse 22, he says, if they would have stood in my counsel, if they would have brought forth my words, there would have been a change. There would have been an impact. They would have turned them from their evil way and from the evil of their doings. We have the opportunity now Having access to God and his word and his counsel, we have the opportunity to bring forth words of life, words of truth, words that can really be meaningful and impactful for good and for the benefit of those who we're speaking with. We need to stand in the counsel of God, hear from him so that we can be beneficial in the lives of the people around us, not hurtful, not harmful because of our reckless words, our false dreams. Paul says this in Ephesians chapter 4 verse 29, let no corrupt word proceed out of your mouth, but what is good for necessary edification, that it may impart grace to the hearers. But no corrupt word. What's he saying? He's saying sanitize your outputs. Put a filter on that. Don't let any corrupt word come out of your mouth. Anything that's not good, anything that doesn't build up, anything that doesn't impart grace for the hearers, don't let that stuff come out. Put a filter, sanitize your outputs, and make sure that the things that you speak, you speak on behalf of God, from God, for the good of those who hear. Speak the word of the Lord. And so this morning, we're encouraged, we're exhorted, we're challenged to stand in the counsel of the Lord. That's important for the things that we hear, the things that we receive, and the messages that are being given to us continually from all around us. Not everything that comes to us in the name of the Lord is actually from the Lord. We need to check from the word of God. We need to check in our relationship with God. What is valid? What is good? What is safe? We need to filter those things by the word of God. We need to receive them. Let them impact our lives when they are from God. Then we also need to turn around and make sure that what we're giving out matches the counsel of the Lord. and fits what the Lord says. And we may want to say other things. We may want to have, there might be a burning word within us, you know, but if it's not from the Lord, and if it's not God's counsel, don't be a false prophet. Don't pass on your dreams, your lies, your recklessness. You be careful and share what God actually says. Let's pray. Lord, I pray for our hearts. Lord, we are inundated, Lord, flooded with messages and ideas and concepts that are not from you. And Lord, perhaps we've grasped hold of some of those and we've been believing those lies. I pray, God, that you would allow us to see the truth. Lord, reveal and bring up in our hearts and our minds by your Holy Spirit those things where we are misaligned with your counsel and your word because of something we've held on to and believed and received that wasn't actually from you. I pray that you would pull us out of that, God. Turn us away from that we would repent of those things that are not of you. Help us, Lord, to put in place those filters, to sanitize the things that are coming into us and using your word to verify what is from you and what is not. And God, I pray that you would give us the boldness, the courage, the faith, as we find that it is your word speaking to us, Lord, that we would take it, that we would believe it, and that we would live our lives according to it. Change us, Lord. Lead us forward by your counsel for our good. And God, I pray that you would use us as you've called us to be your representatives and ambassadors to the world around us. Lord, would you give us great wisdom and discernment? Lord, would you grant us self-control by your spirit? Lord, that we might not just say whatever we think, whatever we want, or whatever we hope. Lord, that we would say what is in agreement with you and your word and your counsel. Help us, God, to represent you well by speaking forth your word. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. We pray you have been blessed by this Bible teaching. The power of God to change a life is found in the daily reading of his word. Visit ferventword.com to find more teachings and Bible study resources.