Peace, Peace

Peace, Peace
Jer 8:11
11 For they have healed the hurt of the daughter of my people slightly, saying, Peace, peace; when there is no peace.
KJV

In our attempts to utter words that will heal the hurts of others let us not do so by saying, “Peace, peace; when there is no peace;” For in so doing, we may often find ourselves (intentionally or unintentionally) discovered as menpleasers who deceive the people for self preservation and not speakers of truth. (And such was the case with Hananiah and the prophets that dwelled in Judah during the time when the Babylonian armies came to lay siege upon Judah and carry many back to Babylon). These men declared, “Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon,” when God through the prophet Jeremiah declared, “And now have I given all these lands unto the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. And all nations shall serve him […]”

To be sure, the God of all loving-kindness and mercy would later inform the people through Jeremiah, “That after seventy years be accomplished at Babylon I will visit you, and perform my good word toward you, in causing you to return to this place.” Yet and still, this would by no means occur until the people experienced a period of difficulty, and in this the would-be prophets of God greatly erred in their pronouncements of peace that could only “have healed the hurt of the daughter of my [God’s] people slightly.” For according to God’s design, it would not be “peace, peace” that would heal the hurt of His people, but “no peace.” And in suggesting otherwise these prophets were discovered to be something worse than false prophets, but deceivers. For no matter how plausible the intention, all words that are communicated in opposition to God’s word, His truth and His purposes is a lie:

[Even the prophet Jeremiah said, Amen: the LORD do so: the LORD perform thy words which thou hast prophesied, to bring again the vessels of the LORD’s house, and all that is carried away captive, from Babylon into this place. 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 great kingdoms, of war, and of evil, and of pestilence. 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.]
KJV Jeremiah 28:6

Bran Johnson Ph.D.