Every word of Scripture has a context and an audience that is being addressed. We cannot distance ourselves from an uncomfortable truth simply because it was revealed in the past. Within each instruction, no matter when or to whom it was spoken, is something that will reveal the nature of God and how we are to respond to Him. Those understandings can be transferred across time, and covenants and be applied to our lives in the present.

The Lord was speaking a transferrable truth to us when Jeremiah prophesied, “To whom can I give warning? Who will listen when I speak? Their ears are closed, and they cannot hear” (Jeremiah 6: 10). Our greatest task today is to keep our ears open to the word of the Lord so we can hear what the He is saying. Deafness to those instructions will open the door to a path of pain and sorrow because of the consequences they will bring due to our inability to hear what the Lord is saying to the Church.

The Lord warned of fraudulent prophets and priests in Jeremiah’s time. He is also warning us of the same thing at this moment in history. The voices of some who are telling us what to believe and how to live are “ruled by greed” (vs. 13). Jeremiah calls them frauds. As a result, “They offer superficial treatments for my people’s mortal wound. They give assurances of peace when there is no peace” (vs. 14). These superficial prophetic delusions fill our ears with words that falsely comfort us until a time of deep testing comes and that superficiality will reveal its fraudulent nature.

There is and has always been a remedy for this problem. The remedy will be revealed at a personal crossroads where life-altering choices are made. At the crossroads, we have a choice to make that will determine our future, “Stop at the crossroads and look around. Ask for the old, godly way, and walk in it. Travel its path, and you will find rest for your souls” (vs. 16). 

The rest this old and unchanging pathway provides is what has kept people aligned with the Lord throughout all of biblical history when delusions were being offered that sounded appealing but caused God’s people to succumb to spiritual deafness and depart from the truths of God’s word. We are currently standing at a significant crossroads. Choose wisely the direction you take. Our future depends on the choices we make.