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Testimonies for the Church Volume 4
The Lord then commanded Jeremiah to write letters to the captains,
elders, priests, prophets, and all the people who had been taken as
captives to Babylon, bidding them not to be deluded into believing
their deliverance nigh, but to quietly submit to their captors, pursue
their vocations, and make for themselves peaceful homes among their
conquerors. The Lord bade them not to allow their prophets or diviners
to deceive them with false expectations; but He assured them by the
words of Jeremiah that after seventy years of bondage they should be
delivered and return to Jerusalem. He would listen to their prayers
and give them His favor when they turned to Him with all their hearts.
“And I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn away your
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captivity, and I will gather you from all the nations, and from all the
places whither I have driven you, saith the Lord; and I will bring you
again into the place whence I caused you to be carried away captive.”
With what tender compassion did God inform His captive people in
regard to His plans for Israel. He knew what suffering and disaster they
would experience were they led to believe that they should speedily be
delivered from bondage and brought back to Jerusalem according to the
prediction of the false prophets. He knew that this belief would make
their position a very difficult one. Any demonstration of insurrection
upon their part would have awakened the vigilance and severity of the
king, and their liberty would have been restricted in consequence. He
desired them to quietly submit to their fate and make their servitude as
pleasant as possible.
There were two other false prophets, Ahab and Zedekiah, who
prophesied lies in the name of the Lord. These men professed to be
holy teachers; but their lives were corrupt, and they were slaves to
the pleasures of sin. The prophet of God had condemned the evil
course of these men and warned them of their danger; but, instead of
repenting and reforming, they were angry with the faithful reprover
of their sins and sought to thwart his work by stirring up the people
to disbelieve his words and act contrary to the counsel of God in the
matter of subjecting themselves to the king of Babylon. The Lord
testified through Jeremiah that these false prophets should be delivered
into the hands of the king of Babylon and slain before his eyes, and in
good time this prediction was fulfilled.
Other false prophets arose to sow confusion among the people by
turning them away from obeying the divine commands given through