762_Have you stood in the counsel of God? (Jeremiah 23:9-24:10)
Jeremiah 23:18-22 For who among them has stood in the council of the Lord
to see and to hear his word,
or who has paid attention to his word and listened?
19 Behold, the storm of the Lord!
Wrath has gone forth,
a whirling tempest;
it will burst upon the head of the wicked.
20 The anger of the Lord will not turn back
until he has executed and accomplished
the intents of his heart.
In the latter days you will understand it clearly.
21 “I did not send the prophets,
yet they ran;
I did not speak to them,
yet they prophesied.
22 But if they had stood in my council,
then they would have proclaimed my words to my people,
and they would have turned them from their evil way,
and from the evil of their deeds.
There is a story told about a man who was asked to describe a conversation he had with a very important person. He confidently repeated many things that the person was supposed to have said. But when someone who had actually been present heard the story, he smiled and said, “That is not what he said at all.” For all his confidence, the man stood revealed: the man had never actually been there.
Jeremiah 23 describes the quality that characterizes a true prophet above all others. The prophet is the servant of God who has stood and listened to the Lord’s words, received his message, and is faithful in passing it on.
In Jeremiah’s time, many people claimed to speak on God’s behalf. Their words were impressive, their messages confident. Yet they had never listened to the Lord.
God reveals the evil of those who shepherd the people. As verse 11 puts it, “Both prophet and priest are ungodly; even in my house I have found their evil, declares the LORD.” These were not outsiders. They were religious leaders. They were people who stood in God’s house and claimed to represent Him, yet their lives contradicted the word of the God they claimed to serve.
What made the prophets of Jerusalem particularly dangerous was that their influence was actually strengthening evil. God says in verse 14, “They commit adultery and walk in lies; they strengthen the hands of evildoers, so that no one turns from his evil.” Instead of confronting sin, they made sinners comfortable. Instead of calling people to repentance, they gave them reasons to continue in their rebellion.
And then God exposes the source of their message. In verse 16 He says, “They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the LORD.” What a sobering description. They were speaking, but God had not spoken. They had messages, but not God’s message. They had something to say, but they had not first listened to the One in whose name they were speaking.
That is why God’s question in verse 18 is so searching: “For who among them has stood in the council of the LORD to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?”
Notice how God describes the true posture of His servant. He speaks of standing, seeing, hearing, paying attention and listening. Before there is proclamation, there must be communion. Before conveying God’s message to others, there must be a listening heart before God.
That is the difference between speaking our own thoughts and speaking God’s Word. The true messenger of God does not begin with, “What do I want to say?” He begins with, “Lord, what have You said?”
This is a question for every follower of Christ. We speak to our children. We counsel our friends. We encourage people who are hurting. We give advice. We share our opinions about life, suffering, relationships, success, morality and faith. Sometimes we even say, “God wants you to…” or “God is telling you…”
But how seldom we actually stand in God’s counsel before we speak!
We may have a strong opinion, but that is not the same as God’s Word. We may have an experience, but an experience is not necessarily God’s revelation. We may have heard someone else say something spiritual, but that does not make it true. And even good intentions cannot substitute for listening to God.
The danger is that we can become very quick to speak and very slow to listen. We can tell God what we think before allowing Him to tell us what He thinks. We can open our mouths before we open His Word. We may provide an answer before bringing the matter before the Lord.
Yet Scripture repeatedly calls us to a different posture. Psalm 1 describes the blessed person as one whose “delight is in the law of the LORD, and in his law he meditates day and night.” James tells us to be “quick to hear, slow to speak.” And Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
The more deeply we listen to God, the more carefully we will speak for God.
And there is another important lesson in Jeremiah 23. The true word of God does not merely make people feel better; it turns people from evil. Prophets who had stood in His counsel would have proclaimed His words and “turned them from their evil way.” God’s Word comforts the broken, but it also confronts the sinful. It gives hope, but it also calls for repentance. It strengthens us, but it also corrects us.
That helps us understand why the false prophets were so dangerous. They were telling people what they wanted to hear. In verse 17, they were saying to those who despised the word of the LORD, “It shall be well with you,” and to those stubbornly following their own hearts, “No disaster shall come upon you.” Their message offered peace without repentance and assurance without obedience.
But God’s true Word does not simply ask, “How can I make you feel better?” It asks, “How can I bring you back to Me?”
And that theme continues into chapter 24 with Jeremiah’s vision of two baskets of figs. One basket contained very good figs; the other contained very bad figs. The good figs represented the people who had been taken into exile. God said, “I will set my eyes on them for good,” and promised, “I will give them a heart to know me, that I am the LORD, and they shall be my people and I will be their God, for they shall return to me with their whole heart.”
What appeared to be disaster was, in God’s hands, becoming discipline that would lead to restoration. Meanwhile, those who remained in Jerusalem under King Zedekiah, trusting in their own ways, would experience God’s judgment.
The message is therefore bigger than merely identifying false prophets. It is about learning to see life from God’s perspective rather than our own. We may look at circumstances and conclude, “This must be good,” or “This must be bad.” But God sees what we cannot see. He knows what lies ahead. He sees the heart. Jeremiah had to learn to see the exile, the people and the future through the counsel of God.
And that brings us back to the question: Have you stood in the counsel of God?
To stand in God’s counsel does not mean receiving secret information or expecting some mystical experience every morning. It means coming humbly before God through His Word, listening carefully, allowing Scripture to correct our assumptions, bringing our questions before Him, and submitting ourselves to what He has already revealed.
Spend time with Him. Open His Word. Listen without rushing. Let His truth challenge you where you are wrong and comfort you where you are hurting. And when you finally speak, let your words come not merely from your own heart, but from a heart that has first listened to God.
The world does not need more confident voices speaking their own thoughts in God’s name. It needs men and women who have learned to stand before God, hear His Word, obey His truth, and then speak with humility.
So before your next conversation, your next piece of advice, your next decision, or your next word of encouragement, pause and ask: “Lord, have I stood in Your counsel? What have You said?”
Because those who truly stand in the counsel of God will reveal the sinfulness of sinners to them, leading to repentance and restoration. God bless.
As you reflect on this passage, consider these questions.
What does Jeremiah 23 reveal about the difference between speaking from our own minds and speaking from the Word of God?
Why do you think listening to God must come before speaking for God?
How can you cultivate a deeper habit of standing in God’s counsel through Scripture, prayer and obedience?
Let us pray.
Lord, I come before You acknowledging how easily I can speak before I listen, and how often I can rely on my own understanding instead of seeking Your counsel. Enlighten my heart through Your Word. Teach me to hear You, to pay attention to what You have said, and to submit myself to Your truth. Give me wisdom to know the difference between my own thoughts and Your Word. Give me courage to obey You even when Your truth is difficult, and give me grace to speak to others only after I have first listened to You. Strengthen my faith to believe what You have said and my heart to put it into practice. May my words, my decisions and my life increasingly reflect the truth I have received from You. In Lord Jesus’ name, Amen.
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