“Say unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts…” (Ezekiel 13:2)

INTRODUCTION

 The exiled people of God in Babylon were plagued with the same spiritual disease that torments the people of God today.  This sickness goes by a number of different names, but they all amount to about the same thing.  It is called “subjectivism” and “relativism”; and it results in what is called “agnosticism.”  It leaves its victims believing that all ideas are equally valid and that there is no such thing as absolute truth.  What I happen to think, is right—according to this notion.  When people approach the scriptures—or questions that relate to matters revealed by God—with this mindset, chaos is the result.  When a man elevates his own (arbitrary and from limited experience) thoughts to the status of Divine truth, all willingness to hear what God has actually said disappears.  Modern pretenders who preface their own thoughts by saying, “The Lord has laid upon my heart to tell you…” have done nothing to improve upon their flawed pronouncements.  God had a series of messages that he wanted Ezekiel to deliver to those who prophesied out of their own hearts.

DISCUSSION

 “HEAR THE WORD OF THE LORD.”

 Those who “listen to their hearts” when God is trying to speak to them have their ears turned in the wrong direction.  What comes out of their mouths reflects what they have concluded without help from God.

 Their greatest problem is that of pride.

 Their greatest need is to humble themselves, LISTEN TO WHAT GOD SAYS, and be quiet about what they think.

 “And the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Son of man, prophesy against the prophets of Israel that prophesy, and say thou unto them that prophesy out of their own hearts, Hear ye the word of the LORD” (13:1,2).

 Man’s greatest need today is to cease speaking from his own heart and to simply hear the word of the Lord. 

 Several years ago, when marriage, divorce, and remarriage was being discussed more frequently than it is today, a brother wrote an article in which he asserted that the New Testament would seem to suggest that couples involved in an adulterous relationship would need to separate.  Then he went on to write about what a tragedy it would be to disrupt stable family structures.

 He wrote, “My heart cries out against it!”  He concluded that it would be best for them to remain together!

 The phrase, “My heart cries out against it,” stayed with me.

 My heart also cries out against it.  My heart would have cried out against the notion that God’s Old Testament people needed to put away their “strange wives” (Ezra 10).

 But the truth does not originate in my heart.  It does not originate in your heart or in the heart of any man.

 Our hearts need to be prepared to RECEIVE truth from God and then teach it to others.  Otherwise we have no right to speak (1 Peter 4:11).

 We can speak words from God’s heart only when we learn what the Holy Spirit found there and revealed to us in the scriptures.  “But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.  But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.  For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.  Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.  Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.  But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned.  But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man.  For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:9-16).

 THEY “HAVE SEEN NOTHING.”

Even though the ideas of men can seem deep and profound, they are nothing.

 Compared with genuine truth revealed from the mind of God, human ideas masquerading as revealed truth are zero.

 Like tasty “food” that has no food value, counterfeit “truth” is nothing.

 No benefit comes to the one who teaches or receives such teaching.  The hearer should beware because such teachers are as cunning as foxes.  They do nothing for the cause of Christ, and yet they are full of ideas for you to consider.

 “Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe unto the foolish prophets, that follow their own spirit, and have seen nothing!  O Israel, thy prophets are like the foxes in the deserts.  Ye have not gone up into the gaps, neither made up the hedge for the house of Israel to stand in the battle in the day of the LORD” (13:3-5).

 “THEY HAVE MADE OTHERS TO HOPE.”

 False ideas are not harmless.  Even “positive” ideas that fill men’s hearts with hope can have very harmful effects.

 When people believe things that are not true, they are distracted from that which is true.  They act wrongly based upon what they wrongly believe.

 Nothing is sadder than to see people who have been deceived by false teachers into a false sense of hope.  A false sense of security is dangerous because those affected by it no longer search for real security.

 Preachers who make it their primary goal to say the kinds of things that make their hearers feel “hopeful” need to take note.  This is precisely what is wrong with false teaching!   “They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The LORD saith: and the LORD hath not sent them: and they have made others to hope that they would confirm the word.  Have ye not seen a vain vision, and have ye not spoken a lying divination, whereas ye say, The LORD saith it; albeit I have not spoken?” (13:6,7).

 “Heavyweights” among men, when compared with God, are lighter than nothing.  “Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity” (Psalm 62:9).

 The following quote from a letter to ONE BODY (a periodical promoting the false doctrines of unity in diversity) illustrates how people are ready to attribute the ideas of man to God when men presume to speak for God:  “I don’t want to miss a single issue!  I used to be anti-everyone who wasn’t mainline Church of Christ.  As I prayed for wisdom over the years, God opened my eyes and I was prepared to receive.  In 1986 God ‘providentially’ allowed me to see ONE BODY.  I was ready!  I haven’t been the same since” (Spring 1993, p. 21).

 “MINE HAND SHALL BE UPON THE PROPHETS THAT SEE VANITY…”

 The sad truth is that God will punish those who presume to tell others that their own thoughts are the thoughts of God.

 They are not numbered, by God, among His people.

 They will not enter the land.  Those in exile would not return with the faithful.  Those who sojourn with us today will not enter heaven.

 “Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because ye have spoken vanity, and seen lies, therefore, behold, I am against you, saith the Lord GOD.  And mine hand shall be upon the prophets that see vanity, and that divine lies: they shall not be in the assembly of my people, neither shall they be written in the writing of the house of Israel, neither shall they enter into the land of Israel; and ye shall know that I am the Lord GOD” (13:8,9).

 It is right to remind our brethren of these principles, even if doing so does not always (or even often) turn false teachers from the way that they have chosen.

 When we attempt to show that their ideas are mistaken, we are dismissed as “rabble-rousing troublemakers.”

 When we attempt to show the negative consequences produced in their hearers, we are called “legalists” who believe that we have a monopoly on truth.

 When we warn them of the danger for their own eternal souls, we are called “judgmental” and even “hateful,” and we are falsely presented to others as men who take pleasure in the thought that others will be lost.

 But God’s warnings are clear and we must speak them to men.

 “IT SHALL FALL.”

 The purely cosmetic changes that men want to make in the Lord’s church today, without authority from God, reflect the same ideas that the false prophets of the captivity had.

 Men often have more concern for appearance than they have for substance.

 Self-appointed men seem to feel that their ideas and “visions of the future” should be implemented immediately in order to draw the world to God.

 We are told that we are to teach what they want to hear, do what they delight in doing, provide what they want to have, and be what they want us to be.

 But these are human hands, constructing a human temple, for the eyes of flawed humans.  God is removed except to the degree that mention of Him is agreeable to those whose approval is so important.

 This ancient problem of the Jews in Babylon is as current for God’s people living today.  The human enterprises that are so pleasing to the world and to those who love to build them will not stand.  Neither will those who build them.  “Because, even because they have seduced my people, saying, Peace; and there was no peace; and one built up a wall, and, lo, others daubed it with untempered morter: Say unto them which daub it with untempered morter, that it shall fall: there shall be an overflowing shower; and ye, O great hailstones, shall fall; and a stormy wind shall rend it.  Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, Where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; I will even rend it with a stormy wind in my fury; and there shall be an overflowing shower in mine anger, and great hailstones in my fury to consume it.  So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered morter, and bring it down to the ground, so that the foundation thereof shall be discovered, and it shall fall, and ye shall be consumed in the midst thereof: and ye shall know that I am the LORD.  Thus will I accomplish my wrath upon the wall, and upon them that have daubed it with untempered morter, and will say unto you, The wall is no more, neither they that daubed it; To wit, the prophets of Israel which prophesy concerning Jerusalem, and which see visions of peace for her, and there is no peace, saith the Lord GOD” (13:10-16).

 “SET THY FACE AGAINST THE DAUGHTERS OF THY PEOPLE.”

 False ideas and false teachers must be dealt with no matter who might support them.

 Obviously, God wished to make clear that the women who gave support, encouragement, and help in the wrong cause needed to be warned as well.

 Our actions must be ordered by Divine instruction and not by our sentimental feelings.

 “Likewise, thou son of man, set thy face against the daughters of thy people, which prophesy out of their own heart; and prophesy thou against them, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Woe to the women that sew pillows to all armholes, and make kerchiefs upon the head of every stature to hunt souls! Will ye hunt the souls of my people, and will ye save the souls alive that come unto you?  And will ye pollute me among my people for handfuls of barley and for pieces of bread, to slay the souls that should not die, and to save the souls alive that should not live, by your lying to my people that hear your lies?  Wherefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against your pillows, wherewith ye there hunt the souls to make them fly, and I will tear them from your arms, and will let the souls go, even the souls that ye hunt to make them fly.  Your kerchiefs also will I tear, and deliver my people out of your hand, and they shall be no more in your hand to be hunted; and ye shall know that I am the LORD.  Because with lies ye have made the heart of the righteous sad, whom I have not made sad; and strengthened the hands of the wicked, that he should not return from his wicked way, by promising him life: Therefore ye shall see no more vanity, nor divine divinations: for I will deliver my people out of your hand: and ye shall know that I am the LORD” (13:17-23).

 It almost seems that the majority of those who read, recommend, and spread the ideas of some of our false teachers are women.

 Notice that I wrote “some.”  At least, in my limited experience, more women than men have pushed Max Lucado’s books in recent years.

 We are at least safe in suggesting that our sisters who become partakers in evil deserve the same loving warning as those who are out front.

CONCLUSION

 May we all work harder to muffle the voices of our own hearts while learning, obeying, and teaching that which God has revealed.

         Tim Nichols