Don’t we like to listen to preachers with whom we already agree? Maybe that’s why so many teach the “Word of Faith,” saying that any Christian who truly trusts in Christ can name any blessing he or she wishes, and God will grant their request. Who wouldn’t want to believe that God intends for everyone to be healthy and wealthy and happy?

In a similar way, the people of Jeremiah’s day had lots of false prophets who were telling them what they wanted to hear. Hananiah, for example, was telling everyone that, even though the Babylonians had already captured the city of Jerusalem and carried off 10,000 people into captivity, their victory would be short-lived. Hananiah confidently predicted that within 2 years, Babylon would itself be conquered and that everyone would soon be back home in Jerusalem (Jeremiah 28:3-4, 11).

According to Jeremiah, there was only one problem with such an attractive prophecy: it wasn’t true. And so he set for the people and for us the ultimate test for any prophet: whether the things he predicts actually happen (Jeremiah 28:9). And that’s why Jeremiah made a prophecy of his own: that Hananiah himself would die within a year because he had lied in the name of God (Jeremiah 28:16).

There was no way both of these prophets could be telling the truth. One of them had to be lying. In the same way, theology isn’t just a matter of opinion. Preachers are either accurately explaining the Bible or they’re not. How we feel about what they say, or how attractive their conclusions may be to us – well, that just doesn’t matter.

The fact is that Hananiah died within the year, just as Jeremiah predicted (Jeremiah 28:17). And the fact is that the Babylonian captivity lasted 70 years, not the two years that Hananiah predicted. That’s why there’s a book of Jeremiah in the Bible and not a book of Hananiah. So, will we believe what Jeremiah and the other true prophets say? Or will we just go along with those who tell us what we want to hear?

Jeremiah 28:1-9 (NASB)

Now it came about in the same year, in the beginning of the reign of Zedekiah king of Judah, in the fourth year, in the fifth month, that Hananiah the son of Azzur, the prophet, who was from Gibeon, spoke to me in the house of the LORD in the presence of the priests and all the people, saying,
2 “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘I have broken the yoke of the king of Babylon.
3 ‘Within two years I am going to bring back to this place all the vessels of the LORD’s house, which Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon took away from this place and carried to Babylon.
4 ‘I am also going to bring back to this place Jeconiah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the exiles of Judah who went to Babylon,’ declares the LORD, ‘for I will break the yoke of the king of Babylon.'”
5 Then the prophet Jeremiah spoke to the prophet Hananiah in the presence of the priests and in the presence of all the people who were standing in the house of the LORD,
6 and the prophet Jeremiah said, “Amen! May the LORD do so; may the LORD confirm your words which you have prophesied to bring back the vessels of the LORD’s house and all the exiles, from Babylon to this place.
7 “Yet hear now this word which I am about to speak in your hearing and in the hearing of all the people!
8 “The prophets who were before me and before you from ancient times prophesied against many lands and against great kingdoms, of war and of calamity and of pestilence.
9 “The prophet who prophesies of peace, when the word of the prophet shall come to pass, then that prophet will be known as one whom the LORD has truly sent.”