Articles
The Power of Lies
The year is 931 B.C. Jeroboam had become the first king of the northern kingdom and had put a whole new system of worship in place. He estab-lished calf worship in Dan and Bethel and erected an altar in Bethel for sacrifices.
1 Kings 13 begins with the statement, “A man of God came from Judah to Bethel by a revelation from the Lord while Jeroboam was standing beside the altar to burn incense.” The man of God imme-diately cried out against the altar, prophesying that a man named Josiah would rise up from the house of David and burn the bones of the priests of the high places on the altar. The sign he gave was that the altar would split apart and the ashes would pour out. Enraged, Jeroboam lifted his hand toward the man of God and commanded him to be arrested. God immediately withered his hand and the altar split apart.
This changed Jeroboam’s demeanor. Humbly, he asked the man of God to pray for him that his hand might be healed. The man of God did, and his hand was healed. Jeroboam then invited the man of God to come to his house and eat and drink. But the man of God refused stating that God had for-bidden him to eat or drink in this place or return the same way he came. So the man of God left a different way than he came.
But there was an old prophet in the city who heard what had happened and he went after the man of God. What happens next is shocking. Knowing full well the restrictions God put on the man of God, the prophet invites him to return and eat with him. Now, I don’t know why he did this. Maybe he was lonely for some “prophet company.” But when the man of God refused, the old prophet was ready with an answer. He also was a prophet and an angel spoke to him and told him to bring the man of God back to his house to eat. “But he lied” (1 Kings 13:18). The old prophet just invent-ed that story knowing that it was probably the only way he could get the man of God to return with him. The young, obedient, but possibly naive man of God, returned with the old prophet.
Where would you put the blame in this story? Well certainly, the problem is with this old prophet. He lied. Can’t blame the man of God here; it is the old prophet that is the bad guy. He said, “An angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord...” Can’t argue with an angel of the Lord, now can you?
Have you ever been enjoying a meal and right in the middle of the dinner something happens to disrupt all the pleasantries? That is exactly what hap-pened on this occasion. Suddenly the old prophet changed the smile on his face, pointed a finger at the man of God, and said, “Because you rebelled against the command of the Lord...your corpse will never reach the grave of your fathers.”
Isn’t that an interesting turn of events? Nothing is said to the old prophet. No curse, no punishment nor condemnation for the lie and stumbling he caused. I’m sure the old prophet will receive his punishment if he didn’t repent, but it is the man of God who receives the immediate and harsh condemnation.
I’ll tell you something else surprising here, the man of God went ahead and finished his meal. No loss of appetite, no remorse, no pleading with the Lord to reconsider; just finished his meal, saddled his donkey, and went his way. On the road, a lion met him and killed him and the old prophet retrieved his body and buried it in his own tomb. Then the old prophet mourned for the man of God and remarked about how this had happened because the man of God had disobeyed the Lord. But he never said a word about his role in the matter.
What Do We Learn?
Consider the deception of Satan. A king nor his money could not get the man of God to return, but a “prophet” could. How nice to find a comrade, someone who apparently had the same ideals. It was a terrible pitfall. When you are a man of God, you ought to know better. You don’t listen to a wicked king – you know that. You don’t disobey for money – you know that. But you ought to also know that you don’t listen to what anyone else tells you about what God says. You listen to God alone.
“But he lied!” you say. Yes, he did. Now take a lesson from that. People lie. They lie for dumb reasons. They lie freely and easily. Sometimes they may just be misinformed, but what they tell you is a lie nonetheless. A lie is deadly. Have you come to grips with the fact that if you believe a lie you are going to be in the same predicament as this man of God? DEAD! Your eternity hinges on whether or not you believe a lie. So what are you going to do with that truth?
You can go your merry way and continue to trust the people who are close to you. You can trust your church to tell you what is right and wrong. You can trust your family or trust your preacher. Is that what you will do? Are you just going to hope that you trust the right person?
Here is something more sobering. Let’s suppose you get lucky and trust the right person. You luck out and end up trusting the person who is actually serv-ing the Lord correctly. How lucky for you, right? Wrong! There is no luck in go-ing to heaven and going to heaven is not dependent upon “trusting the right person.” It is dependent upon trusting God. We must love the truth (2 Thes. 2:10-12). There is only one alternative. You must pick up that book and study for yourself. Sadly, a large percentage of Christians are not doing that.
But believing the lie of the old prophet is not the worst thing the man of God did. The man of God never uttered a word of repentance. We all mess up. Sometimes, we mess up horribly; embarrassingly! In 1 Cor. 5, a man in the church in Corinth was living with his father’s wife. King David stole another man’s wife and had him killed to hide his sin. Horrible things. You may not have committed that sin, but you have done some horrible things too. That is not what is most critical. What is critical is how you responded. Did you just wipe your mouth and go your way? “This is the way of an adulterous woman: She eats and wipes her mouth, And says, "I have done no wickedness" (Prov. 30:20). Remember, this story was about a “man of God.” We need to take it to heart.
