August 29, 2025 -God Doesn't Lie

JEREMIAH 42:1-44:30

EZEKIEL 33:21-33

Chronological Bible Readings

Jeremiah 42:1 Then all the army officers, including Johanan son of Kareah and Jezaniah son of Hoshaiah, and all the people from the least to the greatest approached 2 Jeremiah the prophet and said to him, “Please hear our petition and pray to the Lord your God for this entire remnant. For as you now see, though we were once many, now only a few are left. 3 Pray that the Lord your God will tell us where we should go and what we should do.”

They did not just wait for things to get tough to turn to God. They waited till they had tried to do things themselves for so long their many had become few. That is what it is like when we are fighting the current that God puts in the waters of our life to get us back on track. (see the post from 2 days ago).

Jeremiah 42:5 Then they said to Jeremiah, “May the Lord be a true and faithful witness against us if we do not act in accordance with everything the Lord your God sends you to tell us. 6 Whether it is favorable or unfavorable, we will obey the Lord our God, to whom we are sending you, so that it will go well with us, for we will obey the Lord our God.”

They say they will do whatever God wants them to do. But they really mean in their hearts they want God to tell them to do what they want to do. They want Him to tell them what they want to hear.

Jeremiah 43:1 When Jeremiah had finished telling the people all the words of the Lord their God—everything the Lord had sent him to tell them— 2 Azariah son of Hoshaiah and Johanan son of Kareah and all the arrogant men said to Jeremiah, “You are lying! The Lord our God has not sent you to say, ‘You must not go to Egypt to settle there.’

And here is the proof of their hearts. They had already decided what they were going to do and had convinced themself that God was going to tell them what they wanted to hear. But when Jeremiah told them the truth they called him a liar. Jeremiah the prophet who had proven himself to be faithful to only speaking what God would tell Him to speak and only do what God told him to do. He was the one who had to be lying because what he said didn't line up with what they wanted.

Ezekiel 33:15 Then all the men who knew that their wives were burning incense to other gods, along with all the women who were present—a large assembly—and all the people living in Lower and Upper Egypt, said to Jeremiah, 16 “We will not listen to the message you have spoken to us in the name of the Lord! 17 We will certainly do everything we said we would: We will burn incense to the Queen of Heaven and will pour out drink offerings to her just as we and our ancestors, our kings and our officials did in the towns of Judah and in the streets of Jerusalem. At that time we had plenty of food and were well off and suffered no harm. 18 But ever since we stopped burning incense to the Queen of Heaven and pouring out drink offerings to her, we have had nothing and have been perishing by sword and famine.”

The same thing happened to Ezekiel when he spoke to the men in Jerusalem about the people's worship of other Gods. They misinterpreted their struggles because they were looking at the wrong gods. They were not where God wanted them to be and their eyes were on a false idol so when the difficulties came, they looked at it in light of what they were doing or not doing in worship of these false God's. Their hearts were turned so far away from their God that even when the prophet Ezekiel, also a man who had proven to be walking with God speaking only what He would have him speak and doing only what He would have him do, spoke they refused to listen. If they had been looking in the right direction toward the true God. They God they know to be faithful and just. Then they would have seen that He is the one who was they should be turning to.

How often do we say that we want to follow God and do what He wants us to do? I know that there are times that I pray about something and don't really wait to get an answer from His word just because I "feel strongly" about it. I am sure these people felt strongly too. We have the word of God itself to speak to us and there are prophets today that we can seek out. They are not like the prophets of old but they are people who do know how to seek God and who consistently demonstrate a heart willing to seek God and do and say what He would have them do or say. But we don't always have a prophet to speak to us just as the prophets did not speak daily to the Israelites. God also speaks to us through sermons and situations. I find that I know it is God speaking when I see and or hear the same message from multiple sources. Bible reading that leads to a blog post, AND a sermon I hear on the radio, AND then a discussion in bible study AND the sermon on Sunday morning. When things start to line up for me and those connections are made, I can't deny God's message. We can also use these kinds of things when someone speaks to us about what they are thinking God is saying to them. Whether it is something we want to hear or don't want to hear. We should look for confirmation. I have learned over the years it is best to go with God and ride His current to get to where He want me to be instead of call Him a liar and go with how I am feeling.