Jeremiah 28:16 "thou hast taught rebellion against the LORD"

What is rebellion against the LORD? I would like to start by quoting from this passage of scripture:

Jeremiah 28:15-17 "¶ Then said the prophet Jeremiah unto Hananiah the prophet, Hear now, Hananiah; The LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie. 16 Therefore thus saith the LORD; Behold, I will cast thee from off the face of the earth: this year thou shalt die, because thou hast taught rebellion against the LORD. 17 So Hananiah the prophet died the same year in the seventh month."

Notice the words “thou has taught rebellion against the LORD?” What exactly did Hananiah the prophet teach the people? The answer is given to us in verse 15 “the LORD hath not sent thee; but thou makest this people to trust in a lie.” A prophet is a messenger of God. A false prophet is one who pretends to be a messenger of God. Hananiah was a false prophet who spoke to the people in the name of the LORD, when the LORD hath not sent him. He prophesied a lie. He made the people trust in a lie. That, according to Jeremiah, is teaching rebellion against the LORD. This was what Hananiah the false prophet taught to the people:

Jeremiah 28:2-4 "Thus speaketh the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, saying, I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon. 3 Within two full years will I bring again into this place all the vessels of the LORD’S house, that Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place, and carried them to Babylon: 4 And I will bring again to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, with all the captives of Judah, that went into Babylon, saith the LORD: for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon."

The lies Hananiah taught to the people in the name of the LORD were these:

• The LORD has broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.

• Within two full years, the LORD will bring back to Jerusalem what King Nebuchadnezzar has carried away to Babylon.

• God will bring back Jeconiah, the son of Jehoiakim king of Judah, together with the captives of Judah.

Hanaiah the false prophet prophesied a lie to the people in the name of the LORD, and caused them to rebel against the words of Jeremiah, the true prophet of God, who taught the opposite. The previous chapter tells us what Jeremiah prophesied to the people in the name of the LORD:

Jeremiah 27:6-8 "And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him. 7 And all nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the very time of his land come: and then many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of him. 8 And it shall come to pass, that the nation and kingdom which will not serve the same Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, and that will not put their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, that nation will I punish, saith the LORD, with the sword, and with the famine, and with the pestilence, until I have consumed them by his hand."

According to prophet Jeremiah:

• God has given the nation of Judah, Edom, Moab, Ammon, Tyrus and Zidon into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon.

• All nations shall serve him, and his son, and his son’s son, until the time of his land come.

• If the nation and kingdom will not serve Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, that nation will God punish.

That is the truth of what would happen to the nations according to Jeremiah, the true prophet of God. Moreoever, Jeremiah also warned the nations in the name of the LORD, saying:

Jeremiah 27:9-11 "Therefore hearken not ye to your prophets, nor to your diviners, nor to your dreamers, nor to your enchanters, nor to your sorcerers, which speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: 10 For they prophesy a lie unto you, to remove you far from your land; and that I should drive you out, and ye should perish. 11 But the nations that bring their neck under the yoke of the king of Babylon, and serve him, those will I let remain still in their own land, saith the LORD; and they shall till it, and dwell therein."

Jeremiah taught the nations in the name of the LORD:

• Hearken not to any prophets, diviners, dreamers, enchanters or sorcerers, that will teach the opposite of what Jeremiah just taught to the people.

• Those would be false prophets, namely, the prophets, diviners, dreamers, enchanters or sorcerers, that would prophesy a lie to the people in the name of the LORD. Hananiah the false prophet was one such example.

• The lie they prophesied will not come to past, but only served to remove the people far from their land, that God should drive them out, and they perish.

• For the nations that obey the truth, to come under the yoke of King Nebuchadnezzar, and serve him, God will let them remain in their own land.

Jeremiah also spoke the same to Zedekiah king of Judah (Jeremiah 27:12), and warned them to be careful of those who would prophesy a lie to them in the name of the LORD, saying:

Jeremiah 27:14-15 "Therefore hearken not unto the words of the prophets that speak unto you, saying, Ye shall not serve the king of Babylon: for they prophesy a lie unto you. 15 For I have not sent them, saith the LORD, yet they prophesy a lie in my name; that I might drive you out, and that ye might perish, ye, and the prophets that prophesy unto you."

God did not send them, yet they prophesied in the name of the LORD. Those would be the prophets, diviners, dreamers, enchanters and sorcerers in Jeremiah 27:9. Jesus tells us in:

John 8:44 "Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it."

Jesus calls the Devil a liar and the father of lies in this passage of scripture. A key phrase to note in this verse is “the lust of your father ye will do.” That means that the prophets, diviners, dreamers, enchanters and sorcerers that prophesied in the name of the LORD were doing the lusts of their father, the Devil. They prophesied a lie. They taught rebellion to the people. They lied against the truth when the bible warns us in James 3:14 “lie not against the truth.” Speaking to king Saul, prophet Samuel said unto him:

1 Samuel 15:23 "For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the LORD, he hath also rejected thee from being king."

According to this verse, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. What is the sin of witchcraft? Jezebel was a witch according to 2 Kings 9:22 “her witchcrafts are so many.” Paul tells us in:

Galatians 3:1 "O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you?"

Notice “witch” is embedded in the word “bewitch?” To bewitch is to turn people’s heart from obeying the truth. Witches are people who practice witchcraft, and witchcraft is the practice or art of witches that changes people’s perception of the truth, so that they obey not the truth. Jesus is “the truth” according to John 14:6. The written word of God in the 66 books of the Holy Bible is “the truth” God has preserved for mankind. In another passage of scripture:

Acts 8:9-11 "But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one: 10 To whom they all gave heed, from the least to the greatest, saying, This man is the great power of God. 11 And to him they had regard, because that of long time he had bewitched them with sorceries."

This passage of scripture was Simon, who practiced sorcery (witchcraft), and bewitched the people of Samaria so that they perceived him to be someone great, saying “this man is the great power of God.” Simon had bewitched the people of Samaria with his sorceries, and caused them to believe in a lie. Believing in a lie will turn people’s heart away from Jesus, from the truth, the written word of God in the 66 books of the Holy Bible. Therefore, rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft. That also means that witchcraft is not just practices or arts of witches, but anything that teaches rebellion against the LORD: anything that turns people’s hearts away from the written word of God in the 66 books of the Holy Bible. Speaking to Hananiah the false prophet, Jeremiah continues…

Jeremiah 28:7-9 "Nevertheless hear thou now this word that I speak in thine ears, and in the ears of all the people; 8 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. 9 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."

A true prophet of God is identified by his prophecies, by the things he has prophesied that shall come to pass, so that we know that he was truly a messenger sent by the LORD. That also means that a false prophet who prophesy a lie is known by the lies he has prophesied, so that we know he was not sent by the LORD. The Holy Bible is a prophetic book. It is a collection of God’s messages for the body of Christ on earth. Therefore, if the 66 books of the Holy Bible is prophecy, it cannot contain a single lie. There are many bible versions out there which claim to be the written word of God. The problem is that there are thousands of differences between modern bible versions and the 1611 King James Bible. There are two lines of ascension, namely:

1. the pure manuscript (Antioch) line of ascension.

2. the corrupt manuscript (Alexandria) line of ascension.

God has made it abundantly easy for people to identify which line of ascension has the pure and incorruptible words of the LORD. That also means that bibles descended from the corrupt manuscript are teaching rebellion against the LORD. They are forms of witchcraft introduced into the church, to speak a lie to God’s people, that those who have not the love of the truth should believe in a lie, that in the process of time, they should fall away. King Saul was an example of those who will turn to witchcraft, instead of the word of God. Paul tells us:

2 Thessalonians 2:10-12 "And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved. 11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: 12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness."

God shall send them strong delusion, that those who have not the love of the truth should believe in a lie. There are Christians who claim to love Jesus, but when I showed them a comparison between what the 1611 King James Bible and modern bible versions say in Daniel 3:25, it didn’t get them mad:

Daniel 3:25 KJV "He answered and said, Lo, I see four men loose, walking in the midst of the fire, and they have no hurt; and the form of the fourth is like the Son of God."

Daniel 3:25 NIV “He said, Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”

The differences you see in this comparison did not get them to question why. Why? If Jesus is “the truth” according to John 14:6, Paul tells us that without the love of “the truth” (Jesus), one cannot be saved. I’ve got a sister-in-Christ who commented, saying because they think “there is enough truth in other versions for them to hear the gospel. What is enough truth? That’s the same as half-truth!” I think she is spot on. For these Christians, their love of Jesus is only as much as their love of the Holy Bible. They have fallen for the witchcraft. If they can’t love the written word of God, they can’t love Jesus. Well, after Jeremiah the true prophet of God gave the truth to Hananiah the false prophet, watch his reaction:

Jeremiah 28:10-11 "¶ Then Hananiah the prophet took the yoke from off the prophet Jeremiah’s neck, and brake it. 11 And Hananiah spake in the presence of all the people, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Even so will I break the yoke of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon from the neck of all nations within the space of two full years. And the prophet Jeremiah went his way."

Hananiah rejected the words of the LORD by prophet Jeremiah, in the same way King Saul rejected the words of the LORD by prophet Samuel in 1 Samuel 15:23 “thou hast rejected the word of the LORD.” Instead of repenting when given the word of God, they chose to reject the truth for a lie. This is the same as Christians who choose to continue in a lie, after they were given the truth. They claim to hunger for the truth, but seldom like the taste when it is served up. They rather stick to a lie, because the truth is like a bitter pill which no one likes to swallow. Jesus tells us:

Matthew 7:13-14 "¶ Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: 14 Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it."

The “many” on their broad way that leadeth to destruction can't be corrected, even if they notice the differences between what is the truth, and what claims to be the truth. They are indifferent, thinking they must be right and the “King James Bible Onlyists” are in a cult. They refuse to seek the Spirit of truth concerning the word of truth, presumptuously thinking that the word of truth is only found in the “original manuscripts” and that no translation has it 100% right. They refuse to entertain the idea that God is capable of inspiring the translation, so that the words translated carry the exact same Spirit of the LORD as do the words in the pure manuscripts. They refuse to look at evidences in the Holy Bible justifying a holy translation, washing off all those supernatural patterns in the 1611 King James Bible as plain “coincidences.” They much rather believe that Francis Bacon altered the translation of the 1611 King James Bible than to believe that God can preserve his words from generation to generation, and inspire the translation and the ordering of the holy books, chapters and verses in canonical order.

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