Chapter xiii.

The message which follows the preceding one on the certainty of the doom of Jerusalem is directed against the false prophets and prophetesses who were at work among the people, and who antagonized the God-given utterances of the true messengers of the Lord. These men and women may well be termed the curse of Israel, because all they did was a curse to the people. Their words inspired the rebellious people with a false hope and kept them from turning to the Lord in true repentance. They advocated a national alliance of Israel with Egypt and other empires, while the true prophets exhorted Israel to put their confidence exclusively in the Lord. The false prophets paid no heed to the moral and religious conditions of the people of God. They saw nothing alarming in the drift away from God, in the increasing immoralities, but in view of all this they continued to cry peace, peace; but the true prophets sounded the alarm and without mincing words uncovered the degenerating conditions of the people.

I. The False Prophets: their Guilt and Condemnation.

And the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man prophesying 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; 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. 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? (verses 1-7).

The first charge brought against the false prophets is that they prophesy out of their own hearts. It has been also translated "who prophesy from their own mind without having seen." Here we have a divine definition of the false prophets in a very concise form. Their words came out of their own hearts, they were not founded upon the vision of the Lord, the message He gives by His Spirit, but the product of their own minds. They gave expression to the thoughts of their own darkened hearts and paid no heed whatever to the revelation of God. And here let us be reminded of what is written in the New Testament concerning the same class of men who are predicted to appear especially at the close of the present age, doing a work in Christendom which fully corresponds to the work of these false prophets in Jeremiah's and Ezekiel's day. "But there were false prophets also among the people (Israel), even as there shall be false teachers among you, who privily shall bring in damnable heresies, even denying the Lord that bought them, and bring upon themselves swift destruction. And many shall follow their pernicious ways, by reason of whom the way of truth shall be evil spoken of" (2 Peter ii:1-2). Jude in his Epistle gives a more complete picture of them. He speaks of these false teachers of Christendom as "speaking evil of those things which they know not, but what they know naturally (as natural men, unregenerated) as brute beasts, in those things they corrupt themselves" (verse 10). "Their mouth speaketh great swelling words (a divine definition of modern day 'pulpit oratory'), having men's persons in admiration because of advantage" (verse 16). They were mockers who walk after their own lusts; having not the Spirit (verse 19). The Apostle Paul speaks of them as wolves (Acts xx:29) and our Lord warned of them. "Beware of false Prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves" (Matt. vii:15).

And such false teachers, men who pose as religious leaders, are doing their dreadful and delusive work throughout the professing church. Every man who prophesies out of his own heart, who utters his own mind, whose teaching and preaching is not according to the oracles of God, who pays no heed to what the Lord has said is a false prophet. And such abound in the closing days of the church on earth. Hundreds of men who are accredited religious teachers ignore the visions of God, have no heart and no ear for what the Lord has revealed, yea, more than that, they reject the inspiration and revelation of the Word of God and in its place preach and teach the opinions of their own corrupt and darkened minds and the traditions of men. A true prophet of God and a true leader is altogether subject to the Word of God. His one business is to expound the Word of God. He speaks as the oracles of God. He does what is written in 2 Cor. x:5: "Casting down imaginations (the working of the mind apart from the Word of God) and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ." The Apostle Paul is a perfect example of such a true mouthpiece of the Lord. Naturally gifted with a keen mind, learned and cultured, yet he wrote to the Corinthians, "And I, brethren, when I come to you, came not with excellency of speech or of wisdom, declaring unto you the testimony of God. For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ and Him crucified"--"And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. ii:1-4).

And like the false prophets among Israel the false prophets and teachers in Christendom are responsible for the deplorable conditions of the professing people of God. Instead of sounding God's warning they cover up and lead the people into the dark, where they are themselves. The responsibilities of those men who deny the authority of the Bible, who prophesy out of their own hearts is far greater than any pen can describe.

And what else did the Lord say about them in Ezekiel's message? "They have seen vanity and lying divination, saying, The Lord saith, and the Lord hath not sent them." Here is the root of the matter. The Lord never sent them; He never called them into the office of a prophet or teacher. They are self-called and self-sent. Being therefore not the chosen instruments of the Lord, knowing not His Word nor obeying His Spirit, they become the instruments of "lying divination." Behind their messages of a false hope and false peace stands the father of lies. 1 Kings xxii:19-23 throws important light upon this. It was a lying spirit who possessed the false prophets in Ahab's times. Even so it is predicted of the last days that the people will give heed to seducing spirits and doctrines of demons (1 Tim. iv:1).

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. 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 mortar: Say unto them which daub it with untempered mortar, 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 hailstone in my fury, to consume it. So will I break down the wall that ye have daubed with untempered mortar, 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 mortar 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 them, and there is no peace saith the Lord God (verses 8-16).

And next the message pronounces the condemnation and punishment of these false prophets. The Lord is against them. His hand is to be upon them for punishment. Three things are mentioned in which their punishment is going to consist: they are to be excluded from the assembly of God's people; they will be outcasts like lepers and such they were; their names are not to be mentioned in the writings of Israel; their memory will be blotted out, their names forgotten; finally they were not to enter into the land of Israel. This is not too severe if one thinks of the souls these false prophets destroyed and the wicked work they did, for it is wickedness to reject the Word of God and substitute for it human inventions.

A more solemn word is pronounced in the New Testament against those who continue in Christendom the pernicious and deceiving work of these false teachers. It is written, "If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are" (1 Cor. iii:17). That is, believers constitute the temple of God, that is, the church. The church has for its foundation the Truth of God, the doctrine of Christ. A rejection of the doctrine of Christ, so common in our day, defiles this spiritual temple of God. It is the worst profanation. And the false leader with his work corrupts the best, the holiest. "Him shall God destroy!" May God's people heed the warning to have no fellowship with such who as hirelings do the work of false prophets.

And these false prophets seduced the people. The delusion consisted in saying, Peace, and there was no peace. This is a characteristic of those who follow not God's revelation but their own hearts. While God has threatened a world which lieth in the wicked one, an age which is evil and which never can be anything but evil, with judgments to come, they preach peace and safety.

He describes them as building a wall and then putting some untempered stuff, a whitewash, upon the wall. The wall is for defence. They invented all kinds of schemes and policies, political, religious and religious-political. This was done to sustain their false messages and false hopes. Then to hide the defects, they whitewashed their walls, they glazed it over with nice and high sounding phrases. Such is the case to-day. Oh! the schemes, the religious-political combinations which are used to accomplish certain ends which are nowhere authorized by the Word of God. And the whitewash, the enticing, beautiful words which are used to cover it over and make it appear as being secure! And Ezekiel was commanded to say to these whitewashes, "It shall fall!" A great storm with wind and flood would strike it and the wall, the schemes and inventions of men were to collapse (see Matt. vii:26-27). Even so the judgment came upon Jerusalem and the land of Israel and swept away the false prophets and what they had built up. Another judgment will sweep over Christendom and sweep away the "destructive critics," the false teachers and leaders of delusive movements which flourish everywhere. Then the divine mockery: "Lo, when the wall is fallen, shall it not be said unto you, where is the daubing wherewith ye have daubed it?" (verse 12). When God fulfills His predictions written in the Word, when a boasting, Christless civilization, an apostate church are engulfed in the judgment with which this present age ends, where will be the nice sounding whitewash of the false prophets?

II. The False Prophetesses.

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 veils for 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 veils 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 (verses 17-23).

And there were false women prophets among Israel likewise. This is a significant fact. Women became religious leaders and teachers in the days of Jerusalem's downfall and the worst degradation followed upon that. They also prophesied out of their own hearts and added other wicked things to it. They sewed pillows upon all elbows and made veils for the head to hunt for souls. This has been interpreted in different ways. It means that they used amulets, little idol images and other things by which they practised the so-called divination--the soothsaying. It is sorcery to which these women prophets gave themselves up. The veils which they used were to give to it a priestly air of mysticism. They practised the sinister art of magic, or as we call it nowadays, occultism. It was witchcraft, this binding on of pillows and other things. This they did for hire and to slay souls which should not be slain and to sustain the wicked in their wickedness. Here is also undoubtedly a hint about their wicked incantations, the spells they claimed to cast that the innocent souls should die and the guilty should live. But the Prophet declares now that the Lord will deal with them, expose their wicked practises, tear off their devices and deliver His people out of the snare.

All this is also done in the very midst of Christendom in the twentieth century. Women prophets, the most subtle instruments of Satan, are plentiful in these days. The fact has often been pointed out that the prominent leaders in the evil cults of the last days are women. There has been a strange modern day revival of occult practices upon Christian ground. Spiritualism, Theosophy and Christian Science belong to this class. All three started with women. Spiritualism with its mediums, fortune-tellers and necromancers is almost entirely in the hands of women, who claim to be religious leaders. The same is true of Theosophy, with its Hindu philosophy and occultism, surrounded with an air of unholy mysticism. Christian Science is closely related to these two cults. Its founder practised for a time the calling of a medium.

Significant is the description of the work of these false prophets and prophetesses in verse 22: "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." The righteous in Israel were saddened by their evil work. To the wicked they promised life, that there was no future punishment for their sins. Hence the wicked continued in his wickedness.

And is the work of the false teachers, the false women-cults, any different? The righteous are saddened. Each one of the false teachers and movements like Spiritualism, Theosophy, Russellism, Christian Science and others deny the eternal punishment of the wicked. They strengthen the hands of the wicked by promising him life.

THE MESSAGE AGAINST THE IDOLATROUS ELDERS.