Blame Your Religious Leaders

Lamentations 2:14
The visions of your prophets
were false and worthless;
they did not expose your sin
to ward off your captivity.
The prophecies they gave you
were false and misleading.

Religious leaders are supposed to be trustworthy and reliable. Yet the Bible tells us today that some of the sufferings we are going through today are because of our being misled by such religious leaders. Therefore, blame your religious leaders!

If religious leaders, unfortunately, decided to mislead their flock, many will get lost. This is because many follow and obey religious leaders without question. The word of a religious leader is not as good as God’s word, yet many perceive it as such. A religious leader is only right if their words and actions are consistent with what the Bible teaches.

Matthew 7:17-18
(17) Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. (18) A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.

Our actions and who we are are one and the same thing. If you are bad, nothing good can come out of you. If you are good, only good will come out of you. Religious leaders who lie to people, abuse people, demand from people what is due to God, and who intentionally manipulate people to make money, cannot be doing these bad things if they too are not bad. Good leaders who have consistent wrong behavior, are wolves dressed in sheepskin.

Extreme attitude towards religious leaders is a major problem. One extreme is where we treat them with contempt. We insist they are not special. We ignore and mistreat them. We challenge and demean them at each opportunity to sooth our ego and feelings of superiority. We even encourage others to disrespect them. That extreme is dangerous because it blinds us from listening to the message they have for us from God if they are genuine and God send. Watch out against that attitude, because God can kill or harm anyone who contemptuously handles His genuine servants. The second extreme attitude towards religious leaders is being totally sold out to them without reasoning or verifying from the Bible. Blind following. This is what we will focus on today.

Lamentations chapter two tells us of the great suffering that God will bring upon His people. People He protected and loved. If God’s people abuse God’s goodness to them and in turn commit sin and harm others, God will Himself turn against them and punish them. If God favors you today it doesn’t mean He can’t change His mind when you do wrong. The same God who appoints can disappoint. The same God who blesses can curse. Therefore, be faithful to Him.

Lamentations is a song sang in times when death occurs and misfortune visits people. Lamentations is written, sang, and recited in a terrible time when Israel was facing defeat and capture of citizens to slavery. Deaths were brutal. Suffering was deep and distressing. Jeremiah the writer of the lamentations narrates what is happening and cries bitterly.

Jeremiah in our text today answers questions that the dying, the suffering, and the bereaved are asking. What did we do to deserve all these? What sin did we commit to annoying God this much? How come we couldn’t see this coming and avert such a bloody disaster? Jeremiah tells them in a brief summary, blame your prophets!

Lamentations 2:14
The visions of your prophets
were false and worthless;
they did not expose your sin
to ward off your captivity.
The prophecies they gave you
were false and misleading.

Jeremiah tells the people that they are suffering and dying because the prophets they listened to were false and their messages were worthless. The prophets were bad people pretending to produce good truth. The prophets lied to the people and blinded them from the coming punishment of sin. Blame your religious leaders!

Jeremiah tells the people to blame their prophets. Their prophets did not expose the sins of the people so that they repent and avoid this captivity to Babylon. When sermons are nice and lovely but do not condemn sins, the listeners will ultimately suffer and it will be forever too late. When messages are massages and motivational talks about success in life, the listeners will suffer severely from the consequences of unrepented(sic) sins. Blame your religious leaders!

2 Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Have your religious leaders taught you from the Bible? Have your religious leaders rebuked your sins? Have your religious leaders corrected you? Have your religious leaders trained you in righteousness? If those four are not happening, you have religious leaders who Jeremiah blamed for misleading the people into a bitter end. Blame your religious leaders!

A false prophet promises that all is well and nothing will go wrong, yet even Jesus did not make such a promise. Jesus said that in this world we will have trouble, but false religious leaders promise a trouble-free life.

John 16:33
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

A world of sin is not a perfect place. The reason why God will create a new heaven and new earth is that this present life is not the best. There is a better life in the future that God has prepared for us. That life is not just for everyone but for those who are faithful to God. The Bible demands faithfulness and a Christian lifestyle. Religious leaders who are false lie that prayer and offering will fix everything. Then eventually disaster comes. Blame your religious leaders!

Jesus said, Matthew 6:33, that we seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all the other things we need will be given to us. First, is the kingdom of God. Any other formula is deceptive. If you use any other formula and you end up failing, blame your religious leaders!

Do you verify what your religious leaders say if it’s consistent with scriptures? Do you hold your religious leaders accountable to a Christian lifestyle? Israelites suffered greatly because their preferred religious leaders misled them. Jeremiah and other true prophets were present but the people preferred the false prophets. May God open our eyes, grant us wisdom and save us from being misled by false religious leaders, in Jesus’ name, Amen!

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