Then the prophet Jeremiah said to Hananiah the prophet, “Hear now, Hananiah, the LORD has not sent you, but you make this people trust in a lie. Therefore thus says the LORD: ‘Behold, I will cast you from the face of the earth. This year you shall die, because you have taught rebellion against the LORD.’”
Jeremiah 28:15-16

Jeremiah was surrounded by false prophets who told the people what they wanted to hear instead of what God wanted to say. Hananiah was one of those false prophets. God (through Jeremiah) condemned Hananiah for prophesying lies.

There have always been false prophets, as there are today, who tell people what they want to hear instead of what God says.

Since we do not have a Jeremiah to identify false prophets, how do we know who to listen to and who not to? We do not need a Jeremiah to sort this out for us. We have the Bible! As Isaiah said:

To the law and to the testimony! If they do not speak according to this word, it is because there is no light in them. Isaiah 8:20

Those whose message is not accurately true to God’s Word, the Bible, are not to be listened to—at all!

This requires us to be diligent to know God’s Word so we can discern what is accurate and what is not. We receive help in this from respected teachers and preachers—but even their words must be measured by the Word of God, as did the Bereans who scrutinized even Paul’s preaching by comparing it to the rest of scripture:

These were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica, in that they received the word with all readiness, and searched the Scriptures daily to find out whether these things were so. Acts 17:11

Let us be discerning to “not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” (1 John 4:1)