In Ezekiel 13, God has a message for Ezekiel to deliver to false prophets. The chapter opens with God’s exposition to the son of man, that “foolish prophets…follow their own spirit”. He pretty much proclaims the prophecies these prophets are prophesying are poppycock. Specifically, verse 7 reads, “Have you not seen a false vision and uttered a lying divination whenever you have said, ‘Declares the LORD’, although I have not spoken?”
In the next verses God tells them they are bound for Hell because He is not enrolling them in the register of the saved. Then, we are told some of the biggest problems that God has with folks who report fake news: The people are not getting riled up when they should! “Precisely because they have misled my people, saying, ‘Peace,’ when there is no peace…” I am not sure how these prophets got the job, but at this point they were saying whatever made the people that happiest; tickling those itching ears. The people were supposed to hear the warning of true and present dangers, yet these promoted the wrong story.
The next way his is described is that the fake prophets are whitewashing. God promises to bring their contemptuous actions to an end; verses 15 and 16 repeat the previous warning, “…I will spend my wrath upon…the prophets of Israel who prophesied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for her, when there was no peace, declares the Lord GOD.”
I cannot help but think of how this is also apocalyptically applicable. Not prophets but preachers are prescribing the practice of prayer for pardon to parishioners. That is, they are saying “peace”, while the soul has not obeyed God. This is the same problem! God told the Israelites what to do- they weren’t listening, but the prophets ostensibly said, ‘you’re good to go- you are at peace with God’.
We find peace with God through the blood of Jesus and there is no other name under Heaven through which we can be saved. And anyone who claims they know a different way to have peace with God is contradicting the Prince of Peace Himself. This Prince is Himself called a prophet in Deuteronomy 18.18, and the promise is that “whoever will not listen to my words that He shall speak in My Name, I myself will require it of him.”