OPEN: As raw recruits were preparing for their first jump from a C130 aircraft at 1200 ft., the sergeant explained what to do if the main parachute didn’t open: “Snap back immediately into a tight body position,” he said. “Then pull the rip cord of your reserve chute and it will open, bringing you safely to the ground.”
A private stirred nervously and slowly raised his hand, “Sergeant, if my main parachute doesn’t open, how long do I have to pull my reserve?”
The sergeant looked directly into the young private’s eyes and replied earnestly, “The rest of your life, soldier. The rest of your life.”
APPLY: How many of you believe that soldier would remember to pull his reserve cord IMMEDIATELY upon discovering his main chute had malfunctioned? You better believe it! There is something shocking about hearing such an absolute statement: “You have the rest of your life to pull that cord. Because if you don’t pull the cord… that will be the end of your life.”
(…pause) And there’s something shocking about our story from Scripture this morning. A man of God confronts Jeroboam (the King of the Northern nation of Israel) because he had encouraged the idolatry that had been practiced at this altar at Bethel. The prophet tells Jeroboam that the false priests who offered sacrifices there would die on that altar, their bones burned upon that the altar.
King Jeroboam had the audacity to try to order God’s prophet seized… only to have his outstretched arm wither as he gestured at the prophet and watch helplessly as the altar itself split in two.
Jeroboam quickly rethought his rash behavior and repented.
He pled with the prophet to pray that God would heal his withered hand.
And Jeroboam was so humbled he tried to offer the prophet a meal and a gift.
But the prophet refused: “Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. For I was commanded by the word of the LORD: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.’” (I Kings 13:8-9)
Then the prophet returned home by another route than how he came.
(pause)
Now there was another old prophet who lived in the town of Bethel. His sons came to him and told him about everything the young prophet had said and done at the altar. Quickly he got his donkey saddled and went after him and when he found the younger prophet he asked him to come home and eat with him.
The younger prophet refused, repeating God’s command. But the older prophet lied to him and told him “I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the LORD: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” (I Kings 13:18)
So, the younger man went home with the older prophet, ate with him.
And immediately afterward God sent a lion to kill younger prophet.
And, to add insult to injury, the God sends a message condemning the younger man to the older prophet (who lied to the young prophet and got him to disobey to begin with.
Now, excuse me… but this hardly seems fair.
How many of you DON’T think that was right?
(almost everybody raised their hands).
Well, what’s going on here????
I. Well, let’s start with the man who lied. The 2nd (and older) prophet.
We’re not given his name, all we’re told is that he was a prophet who lived in the city of Bethel.
And – of course – we’re told that his lie led to the death of another man.
But why would he lie?
I mean, did God send him to lie to the younger man?
Probably not.
If he had been sent by God, the Bible would probably have said so.
And, in addition, the older prophet’s actions don’t sound to me like he was a man following God’s directions.
So, why did he lie?
My guess... jealousy.
ILLUS: I once heard about a retired preacher who became a bitter man. At one time he had been a stalwart defender of the faith and a decent preacher. But when he’d retired, the church hired a man to replace him at a much higher wage than he’d received while serving there.
And the new preacher was more successful than he’d been. That started his anger. As time went by, the old retired preacher became bitter and jealous… and sought opportunities to undermine the new preacher.
ILLUS: And I've seen preachers work behind the scenes to get youth ministers fired because they found the young man to be a threat to their egos. In my home church the senior minister fired 3 youth ministers in 5 years time.
I’m thinking that’s what happened here.
I'm thinking that the old prophet was jealous of the younger one.
After all, he LIVED in Bethel where this pagan altar was built. He was a prophet of God!!!
Why hadn’t God sent HIM to prophesy to King Jeroboam???
Now I don’t believe the older man intended to have his actions result in the younger prophet’s death. But I do believe that he intended to find a way to discredit this younger man by getting him to disobey a direct order from God.
One of the sad realities of life is that even men of God (preachers/ elders/ other leaders) can have feet of clay. And they can end up doing things that – if somebody else did them – would shock them.
And shock is exactly what overwhelms this old prophet when he finds out that the younger man has died. And his shock overwhelmed him and brought him face to face with the wickedness of his own actions. We can see that in his subsequent actions:
“ ...the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, ‘Oh, my brother!’
After burying him, he said to his sons, ‘When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones.’” (1 Kings 13:29-31)
The old man became shocked by what he’d done.
And he was a good enough man to repent of his wickedness.
II. Now, that brings us back to the “younger prophet”
Why did he die? What did He do wrong?
Well, he died because he had disobeyed a direct command from God.
But someone might say: "That’s not his fault! He was lied to by another prophet! He was deceived!"
Yes, he was deceived. But let me let you in on a secret:
Deception is no excuse for disobedience of a direct command from God.
Our legal system has a motto to that effect: “Ignorance of the law is no excuse.”
If I’m driving down a country road and suddenly I see some pretty lights flashing in my rear view mirror I know I’ve got a problem. The officer comes up to my car and says “Mr. Strite, you were exceeding the speed limit.”
So I try to tell the officer that I DIDN’T KNOW what the speed limit was "I didn’t see the sign on the road as I passed it" - what’s he going to say? He’s going to say “Sorry… ignorance is no excuse. You should have known.” And then he’ll hand me my ticket.
My ignorance will come at a price.
But - now tell me - was this young prophet ignorant of God’s instructions?
No, he wasn’t ignorant.
In fact, he repeated his instructions twice.
Once to the old prophet, and once to the King, even declaring that if the King were to offer him ½ of his possessions, he still wouldn’t eat or drink with him.
So, then, why then did he disobey a direct order from God?
Had he received a message from God that said it was OK to eat?
NO… instead he listened to a 2nd hand account.
He listened to somebody else who “said” God had spoken to them through an angel.
He listened to somebody who LIED TO HIM.
III. You know… there are people out there who will lie to you
· They’ll lie to you because they don’t like you
· They’ll lie because they don’t like your church
· They’ll lie because they don’t like your God
* Maybe they’ll even lie to you because they think it will be good for you
But it doesn’t make any difference – a lie, is a lie, is a lie.
ILLUS: George Faull (a preacher at a neighboring congregation) tells is a man you don’t want to get into an argument with because he has such an encyclopedic knowledge of Scripture. And, while he served in one community, he made it his mission to witness to as many Jehovah Witnesses as he could.
He became so good at talking with the people from that cult that he began converting many of them to Christ. His reputation was such that when he was invited by a couple who had been attending a Jehovah Witness church to talk with them, the leaders of that group decided they needed to bring in one of their better trained leaders from out of town.
The discussion was intense (and I believe George probably gave better than he got and I suspect George won the couple over. But when the session ended George volunteered to drive the cult leader to the airport. When they were on the road, George turned to the other man and said “You know full well you lied to those people about what your group believes?”
The other man smiled and replied “You know it, and I know it… but they don’t”
He lied!
One of the greatest shocks of my existence has been to discover that people will lie. Not only will they lie… but they’ll often embrace a lie as if it were the truth itself.
2 Thessalonians 2:9-12 “The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with the work of Satan displayed in all kinds of counterfeit miracles, signs and wonders, and in every sort of evil that deceives those who are perishing. THEY PERISH BECAUSE THEY REFUSED TO LOVE THE TRUTH and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness.”
ILLUS: I recently spoke with the preacher from a liberal church who told me that their group didn’t believe that the Bible was trustworthy document. They didn’t believe that the Moses wrote the first few books of the Bible or that the Disciples wrote the Gospels… and so on.
And then she went on to say that they taught all new members of their church this heresy.
This preacher and her church embraced a lie, because they preferred the lie - to God’s truth.
One man wisely observed: “Men do not reject the Bible because it contradicts itself. They reject it because it contradicts them.”
IV. But surely we couldn’t be deceived by such things could we?
Oh yeah, we could.
If it could happen to that young “man of God” who confronted King Jeroboam…
If it could happen to a man who was instrumental in a King’s hand shriveling and a pagan altar to splitting open…
If it could happen to him… it could happen to us.
So it’s worthwhile to realize why this young prophet slipped up:
1st – he listened to 2nd hand information
He WASN’T listening to God - he was listening to someone who said he was listening to God.
It was 2nd hand information.
ILLUS: Someone I once read said that he had talked with a denominational preacher who claimed he rarely quoted out of the Bible because he felt it was too dangerous. He claimed that his denomination had three “spectacles” through which they viewed the Bible...
1. Tradition (what others had said about it in the past)
2. Experience (how the scriptures related to what they saw in their own surroundings)
3. Reason (Did it make sense to them?).
Notice… all three of those “spectacles” relied upon 2nd hand information.
People who point to these sources of authority are relying on what they - or others - feel is acceptable.
But those three “spectacles” are the basis of heresy.
1. Jesus condemned TRADITION (the way we were raised)
“In vain do they worship me teaching as doctrines the commands of men” (Matthew 15:9)
2. And God’s Old Testament Law condemned EXPERIENCE as an acceptable basis for doctrine In Deuteronomy 13:1ff God warns: “If a prophet or one who foretells by dreams, appears among you and announces to you a miraculous sign or wonder, and if the sign or wonder of which he has spoken takes place, and he says, ‘Let us follow other gods’ (gods you have not known) ‘and let us worship them,’ you must not listen to the words of that prophet or dreamer. The LORD your God is testing you to find out whether you love him with all your heart and with all your soul. It is the LORD your God you must follow, and him you must revere. Keep his commands and obey him; serve him and hold fast to him.”
3. And Proverbs condemns REASON as the basis of doctrine by saying:
“Lean not upon your own understanding...” Proverbs 3:5
“There is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof is death.” Proverbs 14:12
2nd hand information IS NEVER ACCEPTABLE TO GOD as the basis of for what we believe.
Preachers are commanded to “devote yourself to the public reading of Scripture, to preaching and to teaching… Watch your life and doctrine closely. Persevere in them, because if you do, you will save both yourself and your hearers.” 1 Timothy 4:13 and 16
Elders are to be men who “hold firmly to the trustworthy message as it has been taught, so that he can encourage others by sound doctrine and refute those who oppose it. Titus 1:9
In other words: the leaders in the church must those who rely solely upon God’s Word. The leaders of the church should set such an example of reliance on Scripture that the people in the church will become like the Bereans in the book of Acts:
“Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11)
We should refuse to rely on 2nd hand information for our doctrine.
The 2nd reason that young prophet slipped up was he followed his own desire
Why do you think he gave in so quickly when the older prophet told him God? He was hungry! The old prophet told him something he wanted to hear. And so the young man disobeyed God to get what he really wanted: food.
2 Timothy 4:3 “…the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.”
ILLUS: What got me started on this sermon was a recent experience I had. I have a relative who decided she was going to leave her husband because of difficulties that had developed in their marriage. Both she and her husband had been godly people who had been a model believers. But now, she was asking me to help her in effort to leave her husband.
I began to ask her questions:
Had she tried to talk to her husband about her anger?
“No, he’d find a way to undercut her efforts to leave”
Had she asked her husband to go to counseling with her?
“No, it wouldn’t do any good” she replied.
Did she want me to talk to him and find out if there was a way to resolve their problems?
“No, absolutely not!”
Had she spoken to the preacher in their local church?
“No” she didn’t like him.
Had she counseled with somebody?
“Yes,” she’d called a the ministry of a famous TV woman evangelist and they had told her she had grounds to leave her husband.
Incredulous, I asked if this ministry’s people had asked to speak to her husband? No
Had they told her she needed to get into counseling with him? No
Had they advised her to go to somebody local to get counseling? No
But apparently they had agreed that she had reason for divorcing her husband
If what my relative was telling me was true - not only was that ministry guilty of bad counseling… they were spouting pure heresy!
If I have a problem with someone, what does the Bible say I need to do?
Jesus said I need to talk to THEM and if that doesn’t work I need to get several other people involved in the process, because God expects me try to resolve my difficulties… not walk away from them. Especially when it comes to the commitment I have in the marriage covenant I’ve made in the presence of God.
I tried e-mailing this woman’s ministry to express my frustration with what was happening… but I received no reply. And I’m not really surprised. I’m a relatively small duck in a very large pond. My opinion of her ministry doesn’t have much weight… but I am angry with her ministry. If her group espouses such heresy on matters such as this, everything else she teaches suddenly becomes suspect.
And I was going to tell you the name of that woman’s ministry this morning… but I decided against it. Because I have finally realized it wasn’t entirely her fault. If her people had counseled my relative Biblically she would have ignored them and sought someone else with religious pedigree to justify her actions.
CLOSE: The story out of I Kings 13 is cautionary tale. It tells us that there are choices that we make that can become “life and death” decisions. And that especially true when it comes to matters of eternal importance.
For example – the most important decision you can make is regarding your soul. And you don’t want to listen to 2nd hand information about how to come to Christ. You don’t want to accept unbiblical advice such as “pray the prayer of salvation” or “sinner’s prayer” (which are not found in Scripture). Instead you need to accept Jesus on His terms:
1. Faith
2. Repentance
3. Confession
4. Baptism into Christ.
5. Living for Christ.
(just a note about the televangelist in this sermon... she has sent me a letter expresses that she is sorry she her actions had offended me and reassuring me that she would have "encouraged" anyone in my relative’s position to seek local counseling. I suspect she sent her letter because someone here at SermonCentral alerted her to my frustration with her ministry - and I’m grateful they did.
I will be in further correspondance with her, "encouraging" her to now contact my relative and urge her to seek counseling with her husband. I’ll update this sermon based upon the response I get from her ministry).
OTHER SERMONS IN THIS “THAT AIN’T RIGHT” SERIES:
Damaging the Truth - Ephesians 4:17-4:32
Being Filled With the Spirit(s) - Ephesians 5:15-5:21
The Disease Of Jonah - Hebrews 12:14-12:17
It Was Just A Little Mistake - 1 Kings 13:1-13:32
Abuse of Power - Deuteronomy 18:9-18:14
