The Devil’s Got Your Number
Sunday, August 04, 2013
By Rev. James May
The Apostle Paul had helped to establish a great Christian church of the Galatians. He had preached and taught the Word of the Lord and many souls had been won to the Lord. But even though a great work had begun in that church, they were facing some hard times due to confusion and false teachings that were entering the church through a lot of Judaizers who were attempting to cause the church to come under the bondage of the Law of Moses.
The devil isn’t going to sit by and not do anything and allow you to just waltz into Heaven without any opposition. You can rest assured that he’s got your number, and that Satan is going to do everything in his power to stop you on your journey through life while you’re trying to serve the Lord.
Often, it’s a little thing that seems so innocent that draws us aside, but the end result of taking that little side trip off of the strait and narrow leads us much farther than we ever thought, and sometimes it even leads to the end of our ministry.
Many Christians have found themselves having to overcome just a moment of disobedience to try and get back to a place of victory in their walk with the Lord. Often, just one instance of stepping out of the way that the Holy Ghost is leading us, will result in a lifetime of trying to repair the damage.
Entire ministries have fallen into a self-destructive mode because of the failure of one minister who fell into the devil’s trap. The devil had his number, and knew what it would take to make him fall; and that’s what was placed in his path.
Paul knows this is a danger to every Christian and that’s why he says in Galatians 5:1 Stand fast therefore in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free, and be not entangled again with the yoke of bondage
.
We must ever be on guard lest something, or someone, should lead us astray. We must be careful to use all of the spiritual discernment, to seek to ever be sure that we are walking according to God’s will, and to try every spirit and every word that comes our way. Too much is at stake to be rash in making decisions or to listen to every little wind of doctrine. Even well-meaning people can be unwittingly used of the devil to lead you astray.
Paul asked the Galatians this question in Galatians 5:7, Ye did run well; who did hinder you that ye should not obey the truth?
Turn to 1 Kings chapter 13
There is a story here that I think is important for us to hear this morning. It’s a story of a true Prophet, a man of God, who began well, but through tricks of the devil, he lost his way, lost his ministry, and even lost his life. Sadly, we don’t even know his name.
Though he began with a great ministry that had so much promise, and had the power of God with him as much as Elijah, or Moses or any other of the Old Testament prophets, all it took was one wrong decision to bring it all to a halt. His ministry didn’t last long enough to even record his name.
Perhaps his name was never recorded for a reason; to let us know that what happened to this man of God could happen to any Christian who walks away from the will of God, even for a moment, and even for the best of reasons. It’s a sobering story of someone who had it all and lost it all with just one wrong decision.
We won’t read about it right now, but if you want to read the background of what was happening in Israel during this time, you can read the story of King Jeroboam and his idolatry in chapter 12. He was a wicked king who established the worship of two golden calves in Israel and said, “These be your gods, Israel, that brought you out of Egypt”.
It seems that even though hundreds of years had past, those golden calves had made a terrible and permanent mark upon Israel.
All of us have our own “Golden Calves”; things that can quickly be placed on a pedestal in our lives and suddenly have control over all that we do.
Our nation has its own “Golden Calf”. It’s called money. More American’s watch the “Golden Calf” of Wall Street and the stock market than watch to see what God wants to do in our country. Their hope for the future is in their cash cow, and not in the God that gives them the power to get wealth.
Each of us, if we look within, can find something that can quickly become our “Golden Calf” whether its houses, lands, children, family, recreation, entertainment or whatever. Anything that we can place in our lives that takes the place of God, even for a moment, becomes our Golden Calf, the idol that we worship. And even a moment of worshipping, giving all of our attention, making that thing the center of our lives, can lead us to a place of spiritual trouble, and even cost us much more in our walk with the Lord than we ever imagined.
The idol worship that Jeroboam brought into Israel was destroying the nation and causing the wrath of God to come against them, but his hard heart wouldn’t listen to the warnings that came. He had set his course and I Kings 13:34 tells us that his idolatry, and the manufacturing of his own system of worship in defiance of God’s law, became sin to the house of Jeroboam and caused God to cut him off and destroy the house of Jeroboam from the face of the earth.
Sin will not be tolerated, whether it’s from a hard-hearted, backslidden King, or a Christian who decides even for a moment to step out of the will of God. Sin’s price is heavy, too heavy to bear, for its price is always death. Jeroboam and his household is still paying the price of sin, and will forever bear that price in the flames of hell. Let us beware lest we fall into that same trap of idolatry.
Jeroboam had set up his own religion, appointed his own priest, and had even made himself into a high priest who would offer sacrifices to the Golden Calf at an altar that he had built. He set up a feast, offered incense and burnt sacrifices – all of it to coincide with, and take the place of the feast of Passover that God had established.
It is on the occasion of this feast and the offering of sacrifice upon the altar of the Golden Calf that we find our true Prophet, a real man of God, step into the scene.
1 Kings 13:1 And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the LORD unto Bethel: and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense.
1 Kings 13:2 And he cried against the altar in the word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus saith the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee, and men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.
In verses 3-5 we can read the true Word of the Lord that this prophet carried with him. He was anointed, called, empowered and walking in the perfect will of God. He gave a true prophetic word that would be fulfilled some 350 years later, when a godly king named Josiah would rise to power in Israel and burn the idol worshippers on their own altars and stop the worship of the Golden Calf.
This prophet not only gave true prophecy, preaching against the sin of idolatry, but he also had signs and miracles following his ministry. At the Word of the Lord, he spoke judgment upon the altar being used. The altar will be broken, and the ashes of the sacrifices would be poured out.
God’s presence was so powerful with this prophet that when King Jeroboam tried to reach out and stop him from destroying the altar, the king’s arm withered and paralyzed. God’s judgment upon the altar fell. It was broken and all the ashes ran off just as the prophet had said.
For a moment King Jeroboam had to admit that he needed God, but it wasn’t in an attitude of repentance, it was only on account of his arm. He couldn’t pray; and I’m sure he felt that if he did, that God wouldn’t hear him, so he asked the prophet to pray that God would restore his arm.
At the prophet’s prayer, God had mercy on Jeroboam and restored his arm as new.
Now comes the trick of the devil to try and stop the man of God. King Jeroboam offered him a reward. Just go back to the palace and eat with him.
The man of God knew better than to do this, so he refused the reward. He would not fall into temptation from this obvious trick of an idol worshiping king.
I wonder how many today would refuse a reward for doing the work of the Lord if the world offered it? How many today seek the approval of men and love to hear the world call their name when they are accomplishing things for the Kingdom of God? Do we not know that to have the praises of men, we must forsake the friendship of God?
We can’t have it both ways! It’s never our worship of God, or our love for Jesus, or the salvation of souls that bring the praises of men; it’s only the humanitarian efforts and the works that satisfy the needs of the flesh that will gain us praise. Even though those things are needful and good, we must never allow that to be the reason for accepting the praises and rewards of men. Our number one goal is the salvation of lost souls, not the feeding of the flesh.
The Prophet had a Word from the Lord and that word was that he was to not drink water, or eat any bread, nor go back home the same way he came. He was to immediately travel on, not staying in this place of idolatry, but go home by a different way than he had come. And so that’s what he was determined to do.
Now comes the second chance for the devil to bring this Prophet down. Satan has prepared a trap, one that would be hard to recognize until it was too late. He’s always trying and never gives up. We must ever be on guard!
The man of God began his journey home by another way than that which he had come. He was in God’s will, doing God’s work, and had a very promising future as a true Prophet of God. But as he walked along, the excitement of the moment and the power of the move of God began to fade into the past. He became very tired, hungry and thirsty, so he found a place to rest.
Now there’s nothing wrong with rest. But we must be careful not to rest too long, because in that place of rest we often let our guard down, and that’s the moment when Satan will bring his plan of attack against us into action.
1 Kings 13:11 Now there dwelt an old prophet in Bethel; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father.
Satan found an old prophet who dwelled in Bethel where Jeroboam’s idol worship was strong. This old prophet may have been a man of God at some point, but he had dwelled among the sin of idolatry too long and had settled into a life around idolatry, even tolerating it and never speaking out against it. He had found his comfort zone and decided to stay.
He meant well, or at least he had intended no harm. He still knew that idolatry was wrong. He still knew about God and probably in some ways still worshipped God, but he had lost the anointing of the prophet to a great extent. From time to time he would feel God, and those occasions when he felt the Lord were all he needed. He was satisfied being in a lukewarm spiritual condition.
I Kings 13:12-14 tell us that the old prophet sent his sons to find the True Prophet and bring him back for a visit. They found him still resting under an old oak tree.
The term they used here is that the True Prophet was “sitting” under the oak tree. This term means more than that he was just sitting on a root in the shade and resting. The Prophet had actually set up a temporary home and lived under that oak tree for a while. He should have kept going, but decided to stop and stay a while. There are other instances of people in the Bible setting up camp under a tree. Abraham did it along with others. It seemed that the climate and the weather was good and when you found a nice shady spot to rest, it often became a place to stay until it was time to move on. Nail a few stakes, set up a tent, start a fire, find a little water and you have a ready-made temporary home.
The True Prophet’s first mistake was that he failed to get out of the land of idolatry. God had told him to move on, to go home another way, but the prophet decided to rest a while and stayed a little too long.
He hadn’t forgotten the Word of the Lord. When the sons of the old prophet approached him, the True Prophet reminded them of what God had told him to do. Verses 14-17 reveal that this man of God still knew what he should do; he just wasn’t doing it.
Then the devil springs his trap, and he uses an old, lukewarm, half-hearted prophet of God to do his work for him.
1 Kings 13:18 He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him.
Here was one prophet speaking to another. What’s wrong with that? Surely, this old prophet was a man of God just as the other prophet was! And, he had a Word for the True Prophet!
Beware when someone comes to you and says, “I have a Word for you”. You better make sure that the Word given is from the Lord and not from the heart of another Christian who has their own ulterior motive for giving you a Word. Too many people have allowed “A Word’ spoken by someone else to lead them out of the will of God. And just as this old prophet, the Word given is still a lie, even though it may have been given with good intentions.
The old prophet probably was curious, wanting to know more about what God was doing. He wanted to hear about what happened at Bethel with Jeroboam and the altar. He wanted to talk to someone who was in tune with God and walking with God. Perhaps the old prophet missed being used by God and was hungry for a move of God in his own life. There’s no indication that he desired harm to the True Prophet. He just desired company for a while. But regardless of the reasons which may have been good, the method was absolutely wrong. He used lies and manipulation to draw the True Prophet off the path of God’s perfect will.
What about the True Prophet? Shouldn’t he have been able to see what was happening? Why did he follow the old prophet when he already had a Word from the Lord and knew what he should be doing? He had heard the Word from God himself, but the old prophet had heard a word from an angel! Which was better?
He may have thought to himself, “Well, this is a prophet of God too. Maybe God has changed his mind. Maybe God is leading me in a different direction for a purpose. What could be so wrong about hearing what my fellow man of God has to say?”
The Apostle Paul, many years later, would write these words to the church in Galatians 1:6-8, "I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."
When you have clear direction, and you know the path that you are to walk in, and you know you’ve heard from the Lord, why do we need to listen to a Word from an angel, from another Christian, or from anyone else? And if we do listen, we must make absolutely sure that the Word we hear only confirms what we already know. Don’t allow even well-meaning Christians lead you away from God’s chosen path for your life.
The True Prophet fell into the trap and went home with the old prophet. They had a great visit and enjoyed being together for a time.
But then God came on the scene and everything changed.
1 Kings 13:19 So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.
1 Kings 13:20 And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back:
1 Kings 13:21 And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and hast not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee,
1 Kings 13:22 But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water; thy carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of thy fathers.
How strange is that? How can God use an old, lukewarm, lying and deceiving prophet to speak a true Word to the True Prophet? All I can say is that God will use a willing vessel and that not everyone who speaks a true Word from the Lord is really a prophet.
Because someone acts like a Christian, talks like a Christian and even speaks the truth of God’s Word, it doesn’t mean that they are really a Christian. People know how to act to appear righteous and still have a black heart filled with sin.
Perhaps the old prophet had reached a point in the visit with the true man of God that he began to sense the move of God in his life once again. I’m sure he felt bad about having lied to get the prophet to come to his house and had probably repented or maybe even confessed to the prophet. However it happened, God chose to use the old prophet to bring a true Word for the man of God this time, but it wasn’t what either of them would have wanted to hear.
Because of his disobedience to follow the express will of God and not turn aside to eat or drink or get off of the path that God had directed him to walk in, the True Prophet would never reach home but would meet death along the way back.
The True Prophet tried to get back to where he should be, but he would never get home again. His ministry was over, and in fact, his walk with God in this world had come to an end. That seems pretty harsh to you and I, but remember, God isn’t playing games. Though He is long-suffering, there will come a point when He will tolerate sin and disobedience no longer.
There is a scripture that says, “To whom much is given, much is required”. And another that says, “To know to do good, and do it not, is sin.” How much does God ask of us – complete obedience and faithful following! How much sin does God wink at – NONE! All sin must be judged! When does God’s patience run out? Only God knows! It’s a chance we can’t afford to take!
1 Kings 13:23 And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the prophet whom he had brought back.
1 Kings 13:24 And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him: and his carcass was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcass.
God’s Word came to pass and the True Prophet was killed by a lion, but the lion didn’t devour his body. Instead, the lion had killed the prophet but we see God’s divine hand in action for after killing the prophet, the lion stood still and guarded the body.
If you read on through verse 30 you’ll see that when the old prophet came to get the body and bring the prophet back to bury him, the lion was still there, and the donkey stood right there, both of them never leaving the body of the dead prophet until the old prophet came to get it.
God still loved this disobedient prophet, and even though he faced judgment and death for his sin of disobedience, God still watched over his body and protected it for burial. It had to be the presence of the Lord that kept the lion from devouring what he had killed, and for the donkey to stand there with the lion, unafraid of the lion until the help arrived.
Nevertheless, the ministry of the True Prophet was over. We never knew his name. We saw his great exploits and knew that God was with him, but whatever he may have become in God was forever lost because of one act of disobedience.
God had used him mightily. He had known the awesome presence of God and he had been used in bringing signs and wonders out of Heaven. He was a True man of God and a great prophet, but he was no more! How much had he forfeited through one act of disobedience? How much more could he have seen, or done in a lifetime of ministry, if only he had obeyed the Word of God that he knew to be true?
God still loved the True Prophet, even though he had allowed the lion to kill him. I believe, after looking at how God cared for even the dead body of the prophet, that God still allowed him to be saved in the end. But oh how much was lost!
What about us this morning? Are we walking in the will of God, sticking to the call of God upon our lives and walking faithfully before Him? Have we been drawn aside by a trick of the devil? Has something gotten our attention, drawn us away from God’s perfect path and will, and made us to follow after something that seems more important? Has it affected our ministry, perhaps leaving it undone? Has it led us to the place where we don’t even realize how far we are from God’s will? Have we gone so far that we are in danger of losing the very work that we love to do for God?
The devil’s got your number, and he knows what it will take to draw you away from the path that God has directed you to walk in. He will make it seem to innocent, so necessary, so right; but the end of that path leads to losing your ministry; losing your way with God, and perhaps, as it did for this Prophet of God, the absolute end of your journey with God in this world.
Those are some sobering thoughts; something that we must ever be aware of. Let us make sure that we are walking with God this day. Make sure that we are walking in his perfect will and not being led astray by anything that takes the place of serving God and being where we need to be.
Only you and God know where you are right now? Are you walking in perfect obedience according to God’s divine plan for your life?
Let us pray!
