Nepaug Bible Church - http://www.nepaugchurch.org - Pastor's Evening Sermon Notes - http://www.nepaugchurch.org/ev/ev20061203.htm

THE PREINCARNATE MINISTRY OF JESUS CHRIST
Part XVII: Christ's ALLEGED Work Through The Aged Prophet: A Call To Discernment
(1 Kings 13:1-32)
  1. Introduction
    1. Over the centuries, the people of God have faced deceivers and deception, cf. 2 Timothy 3:13.
    2. Well, 1 Kings 13:1-32 illustrates in a very practical way how to avoid falling into deception (as follows):
  2. Christ's ALLEGED Work Through The Aged Prophet: A Call To Discernment, 1 Kings 13:1-32.
    1. The Preincarnate Christ Whom we have learned in this series appeared as the "Angel of the Lord" in the Old Testament does not appear in 1 Kings 13. However, a devious prophet claimed he had a message from "an angel of God," leaving another man thinking He may have appeared unto him, 1 Kings 13:18.
    2. Thus, we view the whole account for practical lessons on handling spiritual deception (as follows):
      1. God had appeared to a prophet in the Southern Kingdom of Judah to announce judgment against the false worship instituted at Bethel by king Jeroboam in the Northern Kingdom of Israel, 1 Kings 13:1-2.
      2. Three miracles by God's power accompanied this announcement, showing it was from God: (a) the false altar split, 1 Kings 13:3, 5; (b) God deformed Jeroboam's hand that pointed at him in anger, 1 Kings 13:4 and (c) God healed Jeroboam's hand when the prophet interceded for healing, 13:6.
      3. Jeroboam then tried to fellowship with the prophet, 1 Kings 13:7. However, the prophet said God had told him not to eat or drink and not to return to Judah the same way he had come, 1 Kings 13:8-9.
      4. Then, as he began his trip home, the prophet rested under a tree near Bethel, 1 Kings 13:10, 14.
      5. An old prophet then pursued this younger prophet from Judah, and upon finding him under the tree near Bethel, asked him to come home to dine in fellowship with him, 1 Kings 13:11-15.
      6. The younger prophet replied by repeating his initial claim to Jeroboam, that God had told him not to eat or drink with anyone, and not to return home to Judah the same way he had come, 13:16-17.
      7. In possibly trying to discredit the true prophet's message by making him violate his own words about his trip so as to support Jeroboam's apostacy and secure good standing with him (Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Com. on the Whole Bible, 1977, p. 260), the older man then lied to the prophet from Judah: he claimed an angel of God had told him to bring the younger man into his home to eat and to drink with him, 13:18. The youn ger man believed this lie and went to the older prophet's home to dine, 13:19.
      8. Thus, God's word forcibly came through the older man as they sat at his table, and he announced that as the younger man had not kept God's word, he would not be buried in his fathers' tomb, 13:20-22.
      9. After the younger prophet left the home, he was slain by a lion under God's power as evidenced by the facts that the lion did not attack his donkey or eat his body, and that the donkey did not flee from the lion, 1 Kings 13:23-24. The old prophet thus knew that the younger, deceased prophet's message re: Jeroboam's altar was true, 1 Kings 13:25-26. He thus buried the younger man and asked to be buried with him that his bones not be exhumed and burned on Jeroboam's altar as he had predicted, 13:27-32.
      10. Accordingly, when king Josiah 300 years later was used of God to fulfill the true prophet's original and accurate prophecy, this grave with the bodies of both prophets was preserved from defamation by Josiah, cf. 2 Kings 23:15-18; Ryrie Study Bible, KJV, ftn. to 1 Kings 13:2.
Lesson: The younger prophet errantly yielded to ruinous deception in STAGES: (1) he failed to AVOID the influence of apostate men in Israel in pausing to sit under a tree near Bethel where he prophesied (1 Kings 13:1, 10, 14); had he quickly gone back to the border with Judah only a mile away and kept on going home, he would have avoided the old prophet and his lie and resulting tragedy, Ibid., Ryrie, Map 2; (2) he ignored God's REPEAT miracules that validated God's message by him (1 Kings 13:3-6) and (3) his OWN clarifications of that message that showed he had become convinced of its truth (1 Kings 13:7-9, 16-17). Thus, the true prophet was deceived, so God protected the validity of his initial prophecy by supernaturally slaying him as noted in the unnatural behaviors of the lion and the donkey, 13:24-26.

Application: May we counter being deceived by (1) AVOIDING situations in which we can be made vulnerable to being deceived, and by (2) RELYING on God's CLEAR PAST LEADING and (3) our OWN PAST CONVICTIONS of what was the truth versus yielding to "new" views, 2 Timothy 3:13-15.