"And they said unto him," verse 5, "Ask counsel, we pray thee, of God, that we may know whether
our way which we go shall be prosperous."
There are a lot of people out there who just think anybody who's any kind of a priest or
a pastor or a rabbi or whatever, just, "Oh, hey, bless me, Father."
They just kind of think, "Oh, this guy is a man of God, a man of the cloth.
He's clergy."
But let me explain some of you about ministers.
They can be great people, or they can be literally the scum of the earth.
Because I'm telling you, the worst scum are phony preachers, false teachers, false prophets.
Because what kind of an evil, horrible person would get up and preach lies about something
so important?
I mean, about something that's heaven or hell, I mean, where souls are in the balance.
To get up and preach lies about that, you have to be the worst scum of the earth to
be a fake preacher, a phony preacher.
And you know, the Bible talks about how in the Old Testament, Jeroboam made of the lowest
of the people priests unto the high places.
So what does that show you?
That shows you it's the low of the low that take that job of being a false prophet and
worshipping Baal and doing all this stuff.
But these people, they just think, oh, a preacher, oh, a pastor, oh, a priest.
They just think they're all good, when in reality, most are bad.
Broad is the way that leads to destruction, many there be which go in there at, straight
is the gate, narrow is the way which leads into life, and few there be that find it.
And so you got all kinds of phony preachers and false teachers out there.
They just kind of think, oh, you're a priest now, you're a Levite now, well, inquire of
God, ask counsel of God, we pray thee, that we may know whether our way which we go shall
be prosperous.
Now, there's no mention of him actually asking the Lord, ask counsel of God.
There's no mention of, okay, so then he goes and he prays and he, you know, searches the
scriptures and he asks counsel of God.
I don't know, he just turns around and says, go in peace before the Lord is your way wherein
you go.
So here's another sign of a false prophet.
It's just positive only.
Just bless everybody, good God, good devil, cold hell, and it's all great, and just blessing
everybody.
I mean, it's just an automatic blessing.
This kind of a coin-operated preacher doesn't actually check the scripture, doesn't actually
pray to the Lord and figure out whether these people are right with God, whether what they're
doing is right.
He just kind of just gives them a blessing, a little bit of holy water, and calls it good.
And so not only is the phony preacher in it for the wrong reasons, in it for himself and
not in it to help and bless other people and reach people, but number two, he's a positive
only kind of a guy.
Now I do want to turn to one place tonight.
Keep your finger in judges 18 and go to Jeremiah chapter 29.
This is a passage that I really like in Jeremiah.
I'm sorry, chapter 28 looks like is where it is.
Jeremiah chapter 28, and this is where Jeremiah is confronted by some preachers that are preaching
a positive only message when God has said the opposite.
I mean, God has said, look, Judah is not right with God.
They're going to be punished and they're going into captivity and it's going to be bad.
There's a group of preachers who just continue to preach positive message about how it's
going to be your best life now and you know, God's going to bless Israel no matter what
and all that.
So Jeremiah is rebuking this and I love what he says, it's one of my favorite passages
from the book of Jeremiah.
Look at chapter 28 verse 7, "Nevertheless, hear thou now this word that I speak in thine
ears and in the ears of all the people, the prophets that have been before me and before
thee of old, prophesied both against many countries and against kingdoms of war and
of evil and of pestilence."
So he's saying, you know, I think back to the preaching of the past and the preaching
of the past by real men of God, it was against countries, it was against kingdoms.
They preached about war, famine, pestilence, I mean they preached some doom and gloom,
they preached some hellfire and damnation, they preached some negative messages.
He said that's how the prophets of the past have typically preached.
And he says in verse 9, "The prophet which prophesieth of peace, when the word of the
prophet shall come to pass, then shall the prophet be known that the Lord hath truly
sent him."
And here's what I love about this, obviously God has us preach positive things.
I mean I preach positive sermons all the time.
A lot of people they think I have this reputation for only just preaching negative things, but
that's just only because they chose to only click on my negative sermons.
They click on all the most radical sermon titles, and all Pastor Anderson is so mean.
That's because they're not clicking on the ones about the love of God and peace and harmony
and all that.
Because I preach a lot of positive sermons and a lot of nice things too.
You know you can't just listen to the most radical five minutes of the most radical sermon
and think that you're getting the fair picture of you know our entire church here and my
entire ministry or something right.
So obviously God has called us to preach about love and joy and peace and all these things.
But here's what Jeremiah is saying, he's saying look when somebody shows up and they're preaching
a positive message the default is to kind of be suspicious of that because the Lord
has moved so many preachers to preach so many hard negative things that when somebody comes
and starts preaching peace I'm like I'll believe it when I see it.
That's what he's saying right?
He's saying when it comes to pass then we'll know that it was from the Lord but he basically
says frankly I'll believe that when I see it but when some guy comes in and says God's
going to judge America it's just like yeah you know it's like he just has me at hello
because of the fact that you know it's true and that's how the Bible reads I mean the
Bible has all these really negative things it has a lot of judgment and a lot of wrath
of God and so that's the kind of preaching you expect from a real man of God and of course
we read the book of Jeremiah Jeremiah is preaching a lot of rough things Isaiah is preaching
a lot of rough things Ezekiel is preaching a lot of rough things now there are some really
peaceful chapters in Isaiah Jeremiah and Ezekiel you think of Isaiah you know come for ye come
for ye my people I mean there's all kinds of positive stuff but there are a lot of rough
chapters too and so what he's saying here is be suspicious of the prophet who comes
and just tells you everything's great and it's wonderful and and God's just gonna bless
America and and we're the chosen ones and all this stuff whereas the guy who preaches
a negative message is more likely to be telling the truth I mean that's what the Bible's saying
here hard negative preaching is more likely to be the true story from God than the positive
only stuff so this verse doesn't really bode well for like a Joel Osteen type of preaching
where it's just very positive and doesn't talk about anything negative it's funny how
all the prophets of the past weren't like that it's funny how all the guys in the Bible
are preaching rough sermons something isn't right when it's all sweetness and light so
in Judges chapter 18 if you want to turn back there we see that you know some of the signs
that this guy is a bad preacher a false prophet is that number one he's just more interested
in his gig this is just a gig to him I'm getting paid look how well I'm being treated look
at my money it's a gig to him number two he's a positive only kind of guy he doesn't even
ask God because he already knows it's a yes you know he just kind of just tells everybody
what they want to hear.