Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Hear now, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the Lord.’ ” So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month. Jeremiah 28:15-17
The Lord warns the church at Sardis they are on the edge of death because they have rejected God’s truth. This is a truth that is shared throughout scripture. Proverbs 4 says, “Let your heart hold fast my words; keep my commandments, and live.” When the word of God, His truth, is rejected, one reaches the point of spiritual death – he faces physical death and then an eternity separated from God’s presence.
There is a passage in the Old Testament that gives us an illustration
of what the Lord is saying to the almost dead church of Sardis.
Jeremiah proclaims the truth of God to Israel. He tells them that
Nebuchadnezzar will capture Jerusalem and this is from God. They will go into captivity for seventy years. They are not to fight what God is doing nor are they to fight Nebuchadnezzar. They are to submit to Nebuchadnezzar and settle in the land of Babylon. (Did that guide Daniel?)
When that happens false prophets arise who teach what the people want to hear. They tell the people this captivity will not last. One false prophet was Hananiah. He told Israel, “This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says: ‘I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon. Within two years I will bring back to this place all the articles of the Lord’s house that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon removed from here and took to Babylon. I will also bring back to this place
Jehoiachin son of Jehoiakim king of Judah and all the other exiles from Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the Lord, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon’.” In other words this false prophet said God’s word was a lie. Seventy years of captivity would not happen.
Jeremiah confronts Hananiah. He tells him he is doing what the church at Sardis is doing. “You make this people trust in a lie.” (Paul uses this phrase in 2 Thessalonians 2:11! Read the verse to find out who it is.)
Jeremiah then makes it very clear he is proclaiming what God said and Hananiah is proclaiming lies . (The same thing the Lord says to Sardis.) “This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the Lord.”
Rejecting the truth of God’s word and replacing it with the world’s wisdom (lies) is cause for death. Hananiah proclaimed lies to the nation of Israel and led them astray. That calls for spiritual capital punishment. The book of Jeremiah tells us that within two months of Jeremiah’s pronouncement, Hananiah died. In Revelation the Lord tells the church of Sardis that their spiritual death is imminent. They too will learn that God means what He says. Fortunately God, in His great love, gives everyone their lifetime to repent and turn to Him.
What are the lessons for us? Paul tells Timothy this sin will be rampant in the last days. “For the time will come when men will not tolerate sound doctrine, but with itching ears they will gather around themselves teachers to suit their own desires. So they will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.” Do not neglect God’s truth. Read the scriptures daily. As the Proverbs tell us, “write it upon your hearts”. We are told not to “forsake the assembling of ourselves together… as you see the day approaching.” We are
to honor, love, treasure the Word of God. Death comes from ignoring it, forsaking it and then denying it.