©Michael Player
Chapter 3:5-8 (ESV) - Thus says the Lord concerning the prophets
who lead my people astray,
who cry “Peace”
when they have something to eat,
but declare war against him
who puts nothing into their mouths.
Therefore it shall be night to you, without vision,
and darkness to you, without divination.
The sun shall go down on the prophets,
and the day shall be black over them;
the seers shall be disgraced,
and the diviners put to shame;
they shall all cover their lips,
for there is no answer from God.
But as for me, I am filled with power,
with the Spirit of the Lord,
and with justice and might,
to declare to Jacob his transgression
and to Israel his sin.
Question to consider: What other times in scripture did false prophets cry “peace”?
If you think about it, the very first false prophecy given to flatter a king was from a serpent in a garden who said to the ruler’s wife, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:4-5) Ever since then, a viper from this serpent’s brood has found its way into the itching ears of the wealthy and powerful and preached a message of peace when God’s judgment was coming.
You would think that the kings of Judah would have been made wise after the Assyrian siege of the northern kingdom and the Judean towns from Gath to Adullam. Instead, they fell for the same flattery a century later during the time of Jeremiah. If that wasn’t enough, you would think that after the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon and seventy years of exile, the kings of Israel after the restoration of Zerubbabel would have taken a different path. However, the only thing they learned from their predecessors was that the way to successfully oppress the poor was to bribe the prophets into distorting the word of God.
The near-term fulfillment of the word against these prophets was obviously them crying out to God during the Assyrian siege and receiving no word of comfort. For these false prophets, the sun had gone down, and the day was black over them. The one filled with power by the Spirit to declare the transgression of Israel and Judah was Micah.
This promise had a more broad fulfillment after the word given to Malachi since there was more than 400 years of silence during the inter-testamental period. I hear all kinds of arguments for apocryphal books being included in the canon of scripture, but the truth is that the final word given to Malachi resumed with the announcement of the coming of John the Baptist given by the angel Gabriel to his father, Zechariah, in the holy place next to the altar of incense, “And he will turn many of the children of Israel to the Lord their God, and he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.” (Luke 1:16-17)
The new testament prophets appeared in the first generation of the church and ended with the revelatory vision given to John. The writer of Hebrews declared it plainly, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world.” (Hebrews 1:1) There are those who proclaim to be prophets today, but they also preach a false message of peace and prosperity and will one day be put to shame.
Dear heavenly Father, thank You for giving us Your word. Help us to abide in it and not fall prey to those who proclaim lies in Your name. May we find our satisfaction in Christ alone and not in the things of this world. Amen.