Ignorance a Delight?

If I go out into the field, behold, those pierced by the sword! And if I enter the city, behold, the diseases of famine! For both prophet and priest ply their trade through the land and have no knowledge.="Jeremiah 14:18"
No greater evil can come upon God’s people than to be served by ignorant teachers. When those charged with teaching God’s Word neglect their task and teach their own false truths, the Church will decline as God exchanges blessings in Christ for curses.
Everywhere Jeremiah looked, God had taken away His covenant blessings, so fulfilling the promise of Deutoronomy 28:16. The land of abundance and plenty, security and rest, had become a place of famine, disease, and slaughter. Fields that once flowed with olives, figs, and grain now flowed with blood. There was nowhere to flee for safety.
The cause of famine was not to be found in the governing incompetence within the Department of Agriculture. Military downfall could not be blamed on defense budget cuts or bungling generals. The source of the crisis was located with the preachers and teachers of God’s Word. Israel’s problem was ignorant teachers.
It was not that the priests and prophets were simply led astray. Rather they spitefully peddled lies, proclaiming peace, and denying that sword or famine would ever come. God had not sent them, nor had He told them what to say. Yet still they came; their teaching was their own invention, tailored to suit what their audience most desired to hear. And so God’s judgment fell, in perfect retribution, as those who denied that sword and famine would come upon the land were themselves extinguished by those twin destroyers.
The prophets’ and priests’ lack of knowledge arose because God had not spoken to them. But Jeremiah had been taught of God and spoke only that which God had commanded, these teachers neglected God’s Word. Tragically, they continued to instruct God’s people. Their worthless words must have sounded sweet and reasonable; in reality they brought the stink of death.
The opposite is true for the Lord’s prophet; his call for repentance seldom sounds sweet, but contains the very words of life. His appeal, like Jeremiah’s, will worry his enemies. As the fickle and flighty, Mary Queen of Scots once worried, I fear the prayers of John Knox more than an army of 20,000 men. Mary rightly realized her struggle was not against a man, but, the God whom he represented. A nation’s safety or ruin pivots upon its response to the ministry of the army of one the man of God, teaching and preaching the Truth Christ Jesus.
Are not the same lies and false teaching going on in our once great nation today, like in the times of Jeremiah? Have we not taken God’s sovereign rule and made it ours? Ya’ll think about it and get back to me!
In Christ
Sandy Perry,
12/05/08