We Prefer to Listen to Hananiah as to Jeremiah

When times of instability & uncertainty, grip society, people look for answers.  They seek the guidance of others, usually high  ranking members of their society, to inform them of the decisions that they need to make.   Unfortunately, people often come with conflicting messages.  When this happens, the populace often chooses to listen to those who give the message that they wish to hear, even if the evidence does not support their view.  Such was the case with the Prophet Jeremiah and the false prophet Hananiah.

During the time of Jeremiah and Hananiah, the Kingdom of Judea was under the control of the nation of Babylon.  The Babylonian rule was repressive and many of the highest ranking members of the Kingdom had been forcibly deported to Babylon.  In this time of trial, the people were not sure if they should join with other nations and resist, or accept Babylonian rule and pray for better days to follow.  The Prophet Jeremiah placed a wooden yoke upon himself and told the people that due to their sin, they had to accept the Lord's demand to submit to the yoke of Babylon as penance for the wrongs done by the people and their leaders.  Obviously, this is a message that many did not like.  So when a false prophet by the name of Hananiah came forward and showed that with the strength of the sword, the people of Judea and other nations would break the Yoke of Babylon and within two years, all the nations freed, the people chose to listen to Hananiah, because he delivered the message that they wanted to hear.

Jeremiah warned the people that they had been deceived into believing a lie, and that by seeking to break the wooden yoke, they ended up fastening an iron one in its place.  Jeremiah's prediction came to fulfillment as the armies of Babylon besieged the city, destroyed the Holy Temple, and carried the people off into exile.  The story of Jeremiah and Hananiah is still relevant today.  When divisive issues divide our neighborhoods, our nations, and even the world in general, we look for answers and listen to the answers that many propose.  Unfortunately, all too often, we accept the answers we want to hear, and ultimately reject those who courageously insist on the truth, even in the face of intense persecution & rejection.  Many times, when we turn to the answers that we want, rather than what are true, the results actually turn out be disastrous.  

We can see many examples of this over history.  In W.W.II. we preferred to listen to the words of Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain, that if we granted enough concessions to Hitler, he would be appeased and we continued to ignore the words of Churchill, the Jeremiah of that era.  

Link to Testimony

We are repeating this mistake in the Israeli-Arab conflict, believing that if we keep giving concessions, the Jihadist forces will be appeased and will eventually give up their vendetta against Israel and the West in general.  History proved Chamberlain wrong then, and both history and current events are again proving the appeasers wrong now.  Another Jeremiah here warns us, will we listen?



It's tempting to believe the Hananiah's of our society, but both the Lord and history warns us that when we are deceived by the Hananiah's, the results are disastrous.  We must learn to think for ourselves, to put our personal beliefs aside and look into the facts for ourselves.  We need to consider the reality that the Jeremiah's of our society are speaking the truth, even if it's a truth we don't want to hear.