“The prophet who has a dream, let him tell a dream; And he who has My word, let him speak My word faithfully. ‘What is the chaff to the wheat?’ says the Lord” (Jeremiah 23:28 NKJV). Jeremiah was a true prophet of God in Israel. He faithfully spoke the message God gave Him to relate to the people, and he endured all the hardship that came with it, as it was not a popular message. Instead, the message was one that spoke of judgment at the hand of Nebuchadnezzar rather than a revival of the golden years of Israel. This was in contrast to those false prophets who spoke of how God would not allow them to be handed over to the Babylonians and that Jeremiah should be put to death for discouraging the people (Jeremiah 38:1-6).
God’s response to those who disputed what God had told Jeremiah was counted as men who had nothing but straw to offer. God’s Word, however, spoken by Jeremiah, was counted like wheat, that which had value, which had real worth in what it could offer and provide. Certainly, it was not popular, but it was life-giving and true. God went on to say, “‘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.” (Jeremiah 23:32).
We live in an age where a “thus says the Lord” is lacking in many people’s lives. Feelings and desires are the standard by which so many live, and what Scripture teaches is ignored or even discounted. There are those who say all we need is love and the teaching of Scripture has little to no value any longer. Yet, how can we know what love truly is without knowing what God has revealed about its true nature in His inspired Word? Jeremiah understood this principle even in his own age, as he reminded the people, “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, Even to give every man according to his ways, According to the fruit of his doings” (Jeremiah 17:9-10).
Everyone can have an opinion on how things should be, as did the false prophets of Jeremiah’s day, but only the Lord God speaks with divine authority. God never tells us we are authoritative in our opinions of His ways for us, but instead we must listen to His Son (Matthew 17:5; 28:18; John 12:48). Without the Word of God, how can we know the will of God? Without time spent in the Word of God, how can we know what decisions to make for our lives that will please God? We can speak our feelings, but feelings can be as subject to the desires of the flesh as anything else. Only when we speak the oracles of God (1 Peter 4:11) can we know without doubt whether we are in or out of the will of God. The question is, are we relying on straw – our wants and wishes – or wheat – the authoritative message of Scripture that nourishes our souls and leads us in the right way? The word of God is the seed of the kingdom, and rightly planted in our minds and hearts, it can bear fruit that reflects God at work in us (Matthew 13:23).
May we make it our aim and goal, our purpose in life, to take God’s Word in us and live by its precepts and principles that lead us in the right way today, the only way to eternity. It is a deception of the devil to believe what we think, no matter what it may be or where it originates, always pleases God. May we allow God’s Word to guide us and to know the truth that sets us free (John 8:32). “We exhorted each one of you and encouraged you and charged you to walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory. And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers” (1 Thessalonians 2:12-13 ESV).
