Week 2 Discussion

I was listening to chapters 1-5 of Jeremiah yesterday. It ended with these 2 verses:
30 “ An astonishing and horrible thing
Has been committed in the land:
31 The prophets prophesy falsely,
And the priests rule by their own power;
And My people love to have it so.
But what will you do in the end?
Putting these verses together with the study of the word "word" that I asked you to look at, it really made me think. Here is a people that had entered into a covenant with the One True God and had been given His very Words in the form of Law (OT Covenant) and yet the desire of their hearts was to listen to the "words" of the prophets and priests that spoke falsely. As you read through Jeremiah you get a pretty good idea of what these false words were like.

These were words that sounded good. They were words like...God loves you....He will send His blessings to the land....We will conquer our enemies....We will be a light to the world and a great people....our enemies will all perish....no harm will ever come on the chosen of God.....God will break the yoke of oppression from off our backs....etc Beautiful words, encouraging words, happy words.....no words of repentence or coming calamity or judgment. Just words to build up the people.
But in chapter 1 we see the commission to Jeremiah
9 Then the LORD put forth His hand and touched my mouth, and the LORD said to me: “ Behold, I have put My words in your mouth.
10 See, I have this day set you over the nations and over the kingdoms,
To root out and to pull down,
To destroy and to throw down,
To build and to plant.”
These words are not so positive, in fact they are two thirds about getting rid of the bad...rooting out, pulling down, destroying and throwing down before God says to build and plant. Just as when we work in an old overgrown garden, first the old has to be cleared out before the new can have a chance of surviving.

Taking a look at the idea of the "words" given by God versus the "words" given by man, How can we know the difference? When we hear a prophecy, how can we discern the truth from what we would like to be the answer?