15 Then Jeremiah the prophet said to Hananiah, “Listen, Hananiah! The Lord has not sent you, but the people believe your lies. 16 Therefore, this is what the Lord says: ‘You must die. Your life will end this very year because you have rebelled against the Lord.’”
There is a story about the boy who cried “WOLF.” In this story, a young boy was tending sheep and became bored. He thought to himself, “I wonder if anyone even knows I am here?” So he said to himself, “I will cry ‘WOLF,’ and the townspeople will come and see, and then they will know I am here.” He did this three times, and the townspeople came ready to fight the wolf but found no wolf. They scorned the boy and told him to stop this all three times.
In the coming weeks, a real wolf came to eat the sheep. The boy, scared and frightened, cried “WOLF.” The townspeople heard the cry and told themselves that the boy was up to no good again, crying wolf, and no one came to help. The ending is clear, you cannot cry “WOLF” when there is no danger because when danger does come, no one will listen to your cry.
The story of Hananiah is a brief one. In seventeen verses, we find a man who is considered one of the prophets in Israel. He is attending a gathering where more prophets and priests are present. Jeremiah is in this group. Hananiah stands up and prophesies that the Lord will break the yoke of Babylon within two years. He starts off with the phrase, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says.” He proceeds to announce this prophecy, and Jeremiah stands up, claps his hands, and says, “Amen!” (vs. 6). He then says that many prophets have foretold wars and hard times for many years, but the ones who speak of peace will be recognized as truly sent by the Lord only if their prediction comes true (vs. 9).
Hananiah sounded good, he started off well, and he even finished strong. After Jeremiah retorts, he restates his prediction. It was not that everyone wanted to hear that Babylon was going to exile all of Israel or that they were told by Jeremiah that if they served the king of Babylon, they would live. No, hearing that everything would be okay in two years and that even the articles of the temple would be brought back was easier on the ears. Jeremiah leaves but is sent back into the gathering to address Hananiah by the Lord. In this encounter, Jeremiah informs Hananiah of his demise, and within the same year, Hananiah dies, just as Jeremiah foretold.
It is not easy to hear the harsh reality of life sometimes. It is not easy for someone to tell you that you messed up royally either. This may come from a trusted friend, a family member, or, if you are married, your wife. We seem to step in it ourselves most of the time. And when it’s on the bottom of your shoe, it’s hard to say someone else did it. Because of this, our nature is to seek a good report.
When you show up for work in the morning and the day is already off to a bad start, you say, “I wish something good was going to happen.” If we are not careful, we can make a lifestyle out of the cover-up, not addressing the bad and inflating the good. Both are unhealthy. You can’t keep saying alcohol is healthy because it cleans your arteries, or that Twinkies aren’t so bad for you. You have to address the real problem in a real way.
Use the Bible in your search for truth, not the fake news or the real news. Be grounded in your walk with the Lord by understanding that we all need Jesus. We all want the Hananiahs to say the fun things in life and tell us the bad things are temporary. There’s nothing wrong with that. The problem comes when we would rather listen to the Hananiahs than to the Lord.
Israel’s hard drive of life was full of sin, and Babylon was God’s way of cleaning it out. Babylon was the virus software God used to wipe the sin out of Israel. We all need our hard drives cleaned out. Our hearts need to be wiped clean of hardness and sin, and only God can do that. We cannot do that by only listening to the fun things and the ones who tell us we are good and don’t need an overhaul.
Today, pray that the Holy Spirit will search you for anything that needs to be cleaned out. Pray that He cleans it out, and most importantly, pray that He fills you up and replaces the bad on your hard drive with the Lord. Israel was not crying wolf, they had become blind to their own sin. Don’t let that happen to you.
Prayer: Father, I pray that we will stop listening to what the world tells us through the news or social media. I pray that we get grounded in You first before we choose to walk out every day. I pray we are strong enough to call out the Hananiahs of our world who are blind to sin and seem to overlook the messes. I pray and thank You, Lord, for a clean heart that yearns for You in all things. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
Let It Go 
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