The Bureaucracy of Rebellion: Text: Jeremiah 29:24-28
Introduction: The Permanent Temptation
In every generation, the people of God face a permanent temptation. It is the temptation to prefer a comfortable lie over a hard truth. We want prophets who will tell us that the exile will be short, that our sins are not so bad, and that God's primary business is to make us feel good about ourselves. We want a gospel that fits neatly into our political aspirations and our cultural sensibilities. When a true prophet comes along, one sent from God with a hard word, a word that cuts against the grain of our pride, the immediate impulse is not to repent, but to silence him. And the methods for silencing the truth are not always as straightforward as throwing the prophet in a cistern. Sometimes, the method is far more insidious. It is the method of bureaucratic procedure, of pulling rank, and of appealing to the established order.
This is what we see in our text today. Jeremiah had sent a letter to the exiles in Babylon with a deeply unwelcome message. God's word to them was to settle down. Plant gardens, build houses, marry off your children, and seek the welfare of the pagan city where you live. The exile is not a weekend trip; it is a seventy-year sentence. This was a hard, deflating word for a people clinging to the false hope of a speedy return. The false prophets in Babylon were peddling cheap grace and a quick deliverance. Jeremiah's letter was a direct assault on their entire ministry.
So one of these false prophets, a man named Shemaiah, decides to fight back. But notice how he does it. He doesn't engage with the substance of Jeremiah's prophecy. He doesn't offer a counter-argument from Scripture. No, he pulls the bureaucratic lever. He writes a letter, not to Jeremiah, but over his head, to the religious authorities back in Jerusalem. He tries to get Jeremiah cancelled. He appeals to the established process, to the men in charge, and demands that they do their job and shut down this madman. This is the timeless tactic of the religious establishment when confronted with a word from God that they cannot control. They do not debate the truth; they attack the man and appeal to the proper channels.
We live in an age that is drowning in this kind of procedural rebellion. We see it in the church, where denominational machinery is often used to crush genuine reformation. We see it in the state, where endless regulations and committees are used to choke out liberty. And we see it in our own hearts, whenever we prefer the safety of our man-made systems to the raw, untamable Word of the living God. This passage is a stark warning against the kind of religion that values order over truth, and credentials over calling.
The Text
And to Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, “Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name to all the people who are in Jerusalem and to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, “Yahweh has given you to be a priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be the overseer in the house of Yahweh over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and in the iron collar, so now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who prophesies to you? For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, ‘The exile will be long; build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their fruit.’ ” ’ ”
(Jeremiah 29:24-28 LSB)
The Unauthorized Letter (v. 24-25)
God begins His response by addressing Shemaiah directly, exposing the root of his sin.
"And to Shemaiah the Nehelamite you shall speak, saying, 'Thus says Yahweh of hosts, the God of Israel, ‘Because you have sent letters in your own name...'" (Jeremiah 29:24-25a)
The very first charge God levels against Shemaiah is that he sent these letters "in your own name." This is the central issue. Shemaiah is a freelancer. He is a self-appointed guardian of orthodoxy. He speaks for himself, from his own authority, motivated by his own anxieties and ambitions. In stark contrast, every true prophet, including Jeremiah, begins his message with "Thus says Yahweh." The true prophet is a mailman; he delivers a message that is not his own. The false prophet is an author; he writes his own script.
Shemaiah's sin is the sin of presumption. He has taken it upon himself to direct the affairs of God's house from a distance. He is in Babylon, but he is writing letters to the authorities in Jerusalem, telling them how to do their jobs. This is a man who thinks he knows better than God's appointed priest and God's appointed prophet. He has a plan, a strategy, and he is using all the institutional leverage he can muster to see it through. But his entire enterprise is built on the sand of his own authority. He speaks in his own name.
This is a perpetual danger for all of us. How often do we operate in our own name? We have our own ideas about how the church should be run, how our family should operate, how the world should be fixed. And when we are convinced of our own rightness, we send out our letters, metaphorical or otherwise. We lobby, we campaign, we maneuver. But the first question we must always ask is this: "Am I doing this in my own name, or in the name of Jesus Christ?" If we are not acting under His authority, according to His Word, then no matter how pious our intentions may seem, we are acting as Shemaiah did. We are engaged in a rebellion of the self.
The Appeal to Procedure (v. 25-26)
Shemaiah's letter reveals his worldview. He is a man who trusts in the system. He believes in the power of the office.
"...to Zephaniah the son of Maaseiah, the priest, and to all the priests, saying, 'Yahweh has given you to be a priest instead of Jehoiada the priest, to be the overseer in the house of Yahweh over every madman who prophesies, to put him in the stocks and in the iron collar...'" (Jeremiah 29:25b-26 LSB)
Notice the flattery and the appeal to official duty. Shemaiah reminds Zephaniah of his position. "Yahweh has given you to be a priest... to be the overseer." He is saying, "You are the man in charge. You have a job to do. Your predecessor, Jehoiada, knew how to handle troublemakers. Why are you letting things slide?" He is appealing to Zephaniah's sense of responsibility, his institutional pride.
Shemaiah's definition of a false prophet is telling. He calls Jeremiah a "madman who prophesies." This has always been the charge of the sane, respectable, institutional man against the true prophet of God. John the Baptist was a wild man in the desert. Jesus was accused of being out of His mind. Paul was called mad by Festus. The true prophetic word, because it comes from outside our tidy systems, always looks like insanity to those who are invested in those systems. The man of God who speaks a direct word from heaven will always appear unhinged to the committee man.
And what is the solution for such madness? Not refutation, but restraint. "Put him in the stocks and in the iron collar." Shemaiah does not want a debate; he wants Jeremiah silenced and shamed. The stocks were for public humiliation, and the iron collar was an instrument of torture. This is not the request of a man concerned for the truth. This is the demand of a tyrant who wants his rival eliminated. He is weaponizing the institutional authority of the priesthood to crush a prophetic word he does not like. This is what happens when the institution becomes an end in itself. It ceases to be a guardian of the truth and becomes a defender of its own power, and it will use its procedures to punish the very truth it was created to protect.
The Indictment (v. 27-28)
Shemaiah then gets to the heart of his complaint, the specific charge against Jeremiah.
"...so now, why have you not rebuked Jeremiah of Anathoth who prophesies to you? For he has sent to us in Babylon, saying, ‘The exile will be long; build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their fruit.’" (Jeremiah 29:27-28 LSB)
The question drips with contempt. "Why have you not rebuked Jeremiah?" It implies a dereliction of duty on Zephaniah's part. "You are the priest. This is your jurisdiction. Why are you being so weak?" This is a classic power play, attempting to shame the man in charge into doing his bidding.
And what was Jeremiah's great crime? What was the substance of his "mad" prophecy? It was simply this: "The exile will be long; build houses and live in them and plant gardens and eat their fruit." Jeremiah's offense was that he told the people the truth. He told them to face reality and to live faithfully within the circumstances God had ordained for them. He called them to a long obedience in the same direction.
This is precisely what the false prophets could not stand. Their entire platform was built on the promise of a quick fix, an easy deliverance. They were selling cheap hope, and Jeremiah was undercutting their market. The message to "build and plant" was a message of submission to God's sovereign, disciplinary providence. It was a call to be fruitful in Babylon, to seek the peace of a pagan city. This was profoundly offensive to the nationalistic pride of the exiles. They wanted a prophet who would bless their patriotic zeal for a swift return, not one who would call them to settle down under the hand of a pagan king. Jeremiah's realism felt like treason. His call to patient faithfulness felt like despair. But it was the word of the Lord.
Conclusion: Whose Name?
The story does not end here. The next verses tell us that Zephaniah, to his credit, did not do what Shemaiah demanded. Instead, he took the letter and read it to Jeremiah. And God then pronounced a curse on Shemaiah and his descendants. He who operated in his own name would have his name cut off from the people of God. He would not see the good that God was going to do.
The central issue for us is the one God identified at the very beginning. Are we operating in our own name, or in the name of Christ? Shemaiah represents the spirit of religious self-will. He was zealous, he was organized, he was a good writer of letters, and he was utterly opposed to the will of God. He loved the institution of the priesthood but hated the word of the prophet. He honored the office but wanted to put the man of God in stocks.
This spirit is alive and well. It is the spirit that prefers the denominational handbook to the Holy Bible. It is the spirit that trusts in committees and credentials more than in the power of the Holy Spirit. It is the spirit that is more concerned with maintaining a respectable reputation than with proclaiming the hard truths of the gospel. It is the spirit that says, "We can't do that, it's not in the bylaws," when the Spirit of God is clearly moving.
Jeremiah's message to the exiles is also God's message to us. We live in a kind of Babylon. We are exiles in a culture that is increasingly hostile to our King. And the temptation is to listen to the Shemaiahs who promise a quick political fix, who tell us that if we just win the next election or capture the right institution, then our exile will be over. But God's word to us is often the same word Jeremiah gave. Settle down. Be faithful where you are. Build your house, plant your garden, raise your children in the fear of the Lord. Seek the good of the city where you live, not because it is our ultimate home, but because our King has commanded it. Our hope is not in a speedy return to a former glory, but in the promise that after the appointed time of testing, our God will visit us and bring us into the true promised land.
Let us therefore beware of sending letters in our own name. Let us beware of trusting in the procedures and institutions of men. And let us have the courage to receive the hard word of God's true prophets, even when it tells us the exile will be long. For it is only by embracing that hard truth that we will ever see the good that the Lord will do for His people.