I’ve mentioned this before.
When you have a variety of people telling you conflicting things, but all claiming to speak for the Lord, how do you know who to follow?
It’s a perennial problem. It’s why we have so many religious groups claiming to be Christian. They can’t all be right if they are teaching conflicting things.
Christianity is not made up of obscure laws that are open to varieties of interpretations. Most of it is cut and dried. The problems come with those few areas that don’t seem so nailed down. Sometimes, things are nailed down, but folks want to discount them as irrelevant. You are responsible for knowing the will of God, and knowing it well enough to know when someone is focusing on the wrong thing, out of balance, or just teaching something contrary to God’s word. The main thing is the plain stuff.
Where we get off track is when things are not so plain. Hananiah says God will break the domination of Babylon in two years. He was only half right. Babylon’s domination would continue for seventy years – not two. There was no reason to believe Hananiah. The lives of the people which had brought God’s punishment had not changed. The people should have seen that and thought about it. Had they done that, they would have paid no attention to Hananiah.
In the prophecy business, it doesn’t pay to be “half” right. You’ve got to be all right. Jeremiah demonstrates which of them is the true prophet by prophesying of Hananiah’s death – which comes true in the time frame Jeremiah predicts.
Jeremiah is the true messenger of the Lord.
Remember that when you come to a crossroads and someone begins to speak for the Lord. If they are not speaking according to His written word, they must be 100% accurate in their pronouncements to be worthy of your time.