If you say “The Lord said” – He’d better have
Jeremiah 27-28/Matthew 14-15
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OT
28:15-17 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The LORD has not sent you, but the people believe your lies. Therefore, the LORD says you must die. Your life will end this very year because you have rebelled against the LORD.” Two months later, Hananiah died.
NT
15:6-11 And so, by your own tradition, you nullify the direct commandment of God. You hypocrites! Isaiah was prophesying about you when he said, “These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. Their worship is a farce, for they replace God’s commands with their own man-made teachings.” Then Jesus called to the crowds and said, “Listen to what I say and try to understand. You are not defiled by what you eat; you are defiled by what you say and do.”
OT Flash Points
Judgment is sure & prescribed
Surrender to My instrument of judgment and you will live and work your own fields
We must be careful of saying, “The Lord says…”
Make sure He said it
And if He did say it, I must ask, Did He mean me to recite that to someone as if it’s for them?
To speak from God to someone without the Spirit’s direction and authority to do so,
Or without being given a platform, is disregard for the privacy of my relationship with Him
And a childish presumption that He wants to make the same point to the other person
When He speaks to me, my #1 job is to allow the Holy Spirit to work that into my own life
When Jesus speaks through my lips to another, He articulates specifically for them
NT Flash Points
Death of the forerunner
These people honor Me with their lips but their hearts are far from Me
Teaching out of their own minds & hearts
What defiles me comes out of my heart, into the world, through my actions and words
Perspective
The “GO” of God to us is not initially a going into a geographic place
It is first a going out of ourselves
Out of our affinities and “religious” presumptions
Out of our plans and reasons that God would want us to work for Him
“Come to Me” [Matt 11, Jesus’ invitation spoken from His position to those outside Him]
Is the mirror image of, “Go…” [Matt 28, His commission to us who are his disciples]
The primary Hebrew context of “Go” is “Go…out”- to the Sin Offering. “From there, We…”