The reply of the men of Bethel to Josiah’s inquiry concerning a particular sepulcher which caught his eye carries us back to one of the most serious chapters in Holy Writ—1 Kings 13. Three men are set before us therein, and the governmental dealings of God with them. Although three thousand years have passed away since the incidents that are there recorded, the lessons of the chapter are as important as ever for all who have to do with God, and especially for any who stand forth in public testimony for Him.
Three wrecked lives! In no other way can we justly speak of Jeroboam, king of Northern Israel, the man of God out of Judah, and the old prophet of Bethel.
In Jeroboam we see the worthlessness and hopelessness of flesh, however divinely favored. Lifted out of obscurity by the God of Israel, and granted dominion over ten of the tribes, Jeroboam commenced his reign with every advantage. Jehovah promised to be with him, and build him a sure house if he would pay heed to His commandments, and walk in His ways. Solomon had grievously failed in this, and was (with his heirs) chastened by God in its righteous government. Jeroboam should have profited by Jehovah’s stern dealings with the king that He loved so well, and upon whom He heaped wisdom, riches, glory, and blessing. But when did flesh ever profit under the hand of God? It is irremediably evil, and the word of God to every man is, “Ye must be born anew” (John 3:7). When Jeroboam became established in his kingdom (for Jehovah forbade Rehoboann to attack him) in his desire to make his throne secure, he devised a new religion for his people. The will of God was nothing to him. Because he feared that if the people continued to go up to Jerusalem to worship Jehovah they would ultimately return to their allegiance to the house of David, he appointed new religious centers for them. Yet the word of Jehovah through Ahijah the prophet should have made it clear to him that he had nothing to fear if he kept the commandments of God (1 Kings 11:35-38). Hence his sin was great in setting up golden calves in Bethel and in Dan for the people to worship. Repeatedly we hear the dismal refrain concerning his corrupt successors that they “walked in the sins of Jeroboam the son of Nebat who made Israel to sin” (2 Kings 13:2-11). The malign influence of this man reached to the Captivity.
On a day that will never be forgotten a man of God out of Judah appeared in Bethel while Jeroboam was burning incense upon his idolatrous altar. Not only had he diverted the people, from Jehovah’s chosen center, he had also set aside the Aaronic priesthood and had appointed priests of his own choosing, even acting as a priest himself, (1 Kings 13:33)! Christendom has been guilty of all this. Religious centers have been set up in abundance and God’s holy priesthood, consisting of all believers in the Lord Jesus (1 Peter 2:5), has been rejected in order to make room for a host of men who know nothing of the grace of God, and who are guilty of the sin of Korah in their pretentious ministrations (Num. 16:4-7; Jude 11).
The man of God was sent to Bethel to denounce Jeroboam’s doings, His message was addressed to the altar rather than to the king himself. “O altar, altar, thus saith Jehovah, 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.” Now this is prophecy. Why make a difficulty about it? If God be God, if He be indeed the “I am,” it is easy for Him to speak about men and their doings centuries in advance if He chooses to do so. We, creatures of a day, can only speak of things which are transpiring before our eyes. Tomorrow is quite unknown. This prophecy is very precise in that the man who would destroy Jeroboam’s altar is named. In like manner Jehovah named Cyrus hundreds of years before his birth (Isa. 45:1). And pray why not? We ask again, where is the difficulty? Away with the stupid unbelief that would deprive us of the inestimable benefit of the vast range of prophetic truth that is enshrined in Holy Scripture.
The prediction that judgment would reach Bethel by a prince of David’s line must not pass unnoticed. Jehovah was very displeased with that Royal house, yet he had not abandoned His purposes in connection with it. Josiah, in his work of destruction, is typical of Christ (all Scripture points to Him). Who at His appearing will judge and clear away all evil from Israel, and from the earth generally. Cyrus also typifies Christ, but in a different character. Josiah pulled down, but Cyrus built up. It was he who published the famous decree which encouraged the Jewish people to return to the land of their fathers, and to rebuild the temple (Ezra 1:1). Thus in Josiah, Christ is suggested as the judge and destroyer of all that is evil, and in Cyrus as the restorer of the people so long strangers from the land of promise.
The man of God gave Jeroboam a sign that the word of Jehovah through him would come to pass. The altar should be rent, and its ashes scattered; and so it happened, to Jeroboam’s dismay. “Lay hold on him,” cried the angry king; but the hand which he extended withered up by the judgment of God, “Pray for me” (1 Kings 13:4), said Jeroboam in alarm. Alas, the unhappy man had never learned to pray for himself. In this he reminds us of Pharaoh in Exodus 8:8, and Simon the sorcerer in Acts 8:24. The exercise of the power of God that he had experienced should have led Jeroboam to repentance, but flesh learns nothing. He felt the consequences of his sin, but not the evil of it. “After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way” (1 Kings 13:33).
The central figure of 1 Kings 13 is “the man of God out of Judah”; and the words upon which all the instruction of the chapter turns are “the word of Jehovah,” ten times repeated. To Jeroboam the word of Jehovah meant nothing, self-will was his rule of life; to the old prophet who lived in Bethel, the word of Jehovah meant something, but it had lost its power over his soul; to the man of God the word of Jehovah meant everything until the fatal moment when he allowed himself to be seduced from it.
Let it be emphasized that the messenger who finished his course so tragically was a man of God. This title is used very rarely in Scripture, and it is only accorded to divinely selected persons. Yet the man of 1 Kings 13 is thus described fifteen times, not merely by the scribe who wrote the chapter, but also by the Holy Spirit who guided his pen! On the same principle Barnabas, after his false steps, is divinely described in Acts 11:24 as “a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” A man does not lose his whole character in the eyes of God because of one or more failures. In this our God is more merciful (and more righteous) than His people, who, in forgetfulness of their own frailty, are sometimes merciless towards those whom Satan has tripped up. Sin should never be regarded lightly, and God will certainly deal with it in those who are near to Him; but critics should remember the warning, “Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall” (1 Cor. 10:12).
God has not been pleased to tell us the name of the witness who failed so seriously at Bethel, nor has He told us the name of the man who led him astray. We shall meet them both in the glory of God ere long, and they will join with us in proclaiming the worthiness of the Lamb that was slain. None of us dare boast of anything in ourselves; “He that glorieth let him glory in the Lord” (1 Cor. 1:31).
We again draw attention to the fact that the man who failed at Bethel is described fifteen times in 1 Kings 13 as “a man of God.” He was all that the title implies, or the Spirit of God would not thus designate him. His holy soul revolted against the wickedness which covered the land of Israel; he desired to stand in complete separation from it; and he denounced it with all the fervor at his command. The word of Jehovah was precious to him, whatever it might be to others. Why then did he fail? Because, dear Christian reader, he was no more perfect than you and me. In the books of Scripture the faults of even the truest of God’s servants are not overlooked. Abraham, Moses, David, Peter, Paul, Barnabas, and others all broke down at times in the presence of the enemy. In these solemn records, God would teach us that the only perfect Servant and Witness is the Son of His love. As for ourselves, we only walk steadily when the eye of our faith is upon Him, and when the Word of God is supreme in our souls by the power of the Holy Spirit. May God in His infinite mercy keep us steady in a world that is rushing to its doom, and in a Church which has but little respect for His holy will!
Jeroboam was so relieved by the restoration of his hand that he invited the man of God to his home for refreshment and reward. But the “man of God said unto the king. If thou wilt give me half thine house I will not go in with thee, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place: for so was it charged me by the word of Jehovah, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou earnest” (1 Kings 13:8-9). All this is excellent. There was firmness in the tone of Jehovah’s messenger. He clearly understood the nature of his commission, and he was determined to be obedient in every detail. Royal patronage should not deflect him from the Word of God. Eating and drinking is expressive of fellowship; so we are taught in 1 Corinthians 10:14-22; and there could be no fellowship between the people of Bethel and the man who respected Jehovah and His truth. Let us not miss the lesson of this. The need for bold testimony against religious evil becomes increasingly urgent as the apostasy draws near; but the testimony of our lips will lose all its value if we tolerate for a single moment that which we know to be contrary to God. “Surely I may attend my own daughter’s wedding in the Cathedral?” What sort of instruction have you given to your daughter that she should wish to be married in a Cathedral? If you have taught her correctly, and she persists in setting at naught your counsel, would you not do well to spend the wedding hour quietly at home in prayer for your wayward child? Why descend to her level by giving sanction to that which Cathedrals and clergy represent? Our Lord’s brethren after the flesh marveled that He was not making preparation to attend “the Jews feast of tabernacles” in Jerusalem. But His heart was not there. It would be simply a great worldly religious gathering, so different from what “the feasts of Jehovah” were intended to be (Lev. 23). “The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that the works thereof are evil” (John 7:7). Let us range ourselves alongside the blessed Son of God, even though faithful separation from all that is contrary to God may cause us to be hated even as He was hated.
So the man of God “went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Bethel.” But the eye of Satan was upon the man. When face to face with an angry King, he stood calmly in faith; when the seductive voice of a religious, “friend” reached his ears, he failed dismally. Had he gone straight home, all might have been well, but his seducer found him “sitting under an oak.” The Christian life is a race. While our souls are in motion we are secure; but even a brief relaxation may be our undoing. In Philippians 3 we find Paul straining every nerve (spiritually speaking) to reach the goal which God had set before him—conformity to Christ in glory. “I press, toward the mark for the prize of the calling on high of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 3:14). Amongst his last words we read, “I have finished the course” (2 Tim. 4:7). We are exhorted to “lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us, and to run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the beginner and finisher of faith” (Heb. 12:1-2). Satan’s most successful weapon is deception. Note the words, “deceive” and “deceived” in Revelation 20. “We are not ignorant of his devices,” says the Apostle in 2 Corinthians 2:11. This states the Christian position ideally, but it may not be true at every moment of every individual believer. Constant watchfulness is necessary.
The seducer of the man of God out of Judah was himself a prophet of Jehovah. The Holy Spirit calls him “an old prophet” (1 Kings 13:11). The adjective arrests our attention. In 1 John 2 the family of God is divided into three grades; “babes,” “young men,” and “fathers.” “Fathers” are saints in the highest condition of spiritual development; old men (in the spiritual sense) suggest decay. It is written of Ephraim in Hosea 7:9 “Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not; yea, gray hairs are here and there upon him, and he knoweth it not.” It is deplorable when this has to be said of a believer in the Lord Jesus, but it appears to have been really true of the old prophet. Like Lot before him, he lived in bad surroundings and “evil communications corrupt good manners”(1 Cor. 15:33). Large numbers of pious people had forsaken their all in the Northern Kingdom in order to get away from Jeroboam’s idolatries. They went south into Judah and Jerusalem where there was still some regard for the law of Jehovah (2 Chron. 11:13-17). But the old prophet remained in Bethel! As Hosea 7:9 expresses it, strangers had devoured his strength, and gray hairs were upon him. He was not the type of man whom God could use to publicly denounce the devilries of Jeroboam and his followers; hence the special mission of the man of God out of Judah, whose work the backsliding old prophet cruelly marred.
When the prophet’s sons came home from the town and told their father of all that had happened his spirit was stirred, as it might well be. Having ascertained which way the man of God had gone, he went after him, desiring to bring him back into his house for a season. Let us be reasonable in our criticism of the old prophet at this point. He probably knew nothing of the strict divine command that Jehovah’s witness must neither eat nor drink in Bethel. What is probable is that he longed for some intercourse with a man who feared God. What the Holy Spirit so graciously says of unfaithful Lot would be equally true of the unfaithful old prophet, “that righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their unlawful deeds” (2 Pet. 2:8). Not for many a day had a “brother” sat at the old prophet’s table; what pleasure it would be to receive one now! It is possible also that he sought some recognition from the man who had acted so wonderfully in the presence of the King and his people. But why had he not long before turned his back on Bethel? Separation from evil is vital for the development of the spiritual life. Only in healthy surroundings can any of us increase in the knowledge of God.
When the man of God told the old prophet what his orders were (“by the word of Jehovah”) the most critical moment in the life’s history of both men was reached, little as either realized it. Oh, the importance of watching every word, and every step! First the old prophet failed, for he lied; then the man of God failed, for he was not sufficiently alert to discern the seductive voice of Satan. Do we wonder that the prophet lied? His environment is sufficient explanation. No one could live in Bethel without his whole spiritual tone becoming lowered. Thus he said: “I am a prophet also, as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the Word of Jehovah, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread, and drink water” (1 Kings 13:18). Paul the Apostle would quickly have disposed of such an utterance. Mark his vehement language in Galatians 1:8, “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.” If an angel at any moment dared to contradict, or even modify, any explicit word from God, it would be a sin of the first magnitude. We commend to our readers a few words from a wise counselor long gone to his rest, but who “being dead, yet speaketh”: “Whenever God has made His will known to us we are not to allow any after-influence whatever to call it in question, even although the latter may take the form of the Word of God. If we were morally nearer to the Lord, we should feel that the only true and right position is to follow that which He told us at first” (J. N. Darby, Synopsis of the Books of the Bible, Vol. 1:506).
Sorrowful spectacle! Two disobedient servants of the living God turning back to Satan’s chief stronghold in the land to eat and drink! Surely each had a bad conscience; with each one the word of the Lord had no power, at least for the present. The government of God, which cannot tolerate sin in those who are near to Him, moved quickly. In His divine sovereignty God put the sentence of death against the deceived one in the mouth of the deceiver himself! “He cried unto the man of God that came from Judah (note the word “cried”), saying “Thus saith Jehovah, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of Jehovah, and hast not kept the commandment which Jehovah thy God commanded thee, but camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place of the which He did say to thee, Eat no bread and drink no water; thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulcher of thy fathers” (1 Kings 13:20-22). There was no such severity towards either Jeroboam or the old prophet. It is a blessed thing to be in intimate relationship with God by grace; but it is a solemn thing if we dishonor His holy name. In the city of Corinth in Paul’s day there were probably persons far more wicked than any in the Assembly, yet certain in the Assembly were divinely laid low in sickness, and some were put to sleep. Strange as it may seem, they were fit for heaven but they were not fit for Corinth!
The parting at the door of the prophet was solemn. Each knew that they would not meet again in this world; but both men, with ourselves, will “be manifested before the judgment-seat of Christ” (2 Cor. 5:10). The man of God had not gone far when a lion met him, and slew him. The Holy Spirit notes the facts that the lion did not harm the ass, nor did he devour the carcass; moreover, he allowed passers-by to observe what he had done without molesting them. What a lesson is here! The animal obeyed the divine commission, and did not exceed it in any detail. It is humiliating to reflect that the humblest of God’s creatures can be more obedient to their Creator than man made in His image! In Isaiah 1:3 the ox and the ass are cited as rebuking the people of Jehovah, and in Jeremiah 8:7, four birds are mentioned from whom disobedient men and women might learn something. The ravens were faithful in their service when they carried bread and flesh twice daily to Elijah at Cherith (that is, they did not eat the food); the fish that swallowed Jonah obeyed his Creator in putting out the prophet when his lesson was learned; and the colt submissively carried the Lord Jesus through shouting crowds into Jerusalem. When the old prophet heard of the disaster to the man of God, he saddled his ass and rode quickly to the spot. What a sight he beheld! The lion and the ass standing guard, as it were, over the dead body! Surely a parable is here! The dead messenger of Jehovah was a strange blend of the lion and the ass; with the king so bold, but with the old prophet so foolish! Similarly, Peter was bold in the presence of armed men, but terrified when amongst servant-maids! All the circumstances proved that the roadside tragedy was the hand of God. Jeroboam was spared the consequences of his sin in answer to prayer (1 Kings 13:6), but the fault of the man of God was outside the range of prayer, it was “sin unto death” (1 John 5:16). It was left to the old prophet to carry back the body to Bethel, and bury it in his own tomb, with the lamentation, “Alas, my brother!” But he was led to confirm all that the dead man had said concerning Jeroboam’s iniquities, “The saying which he cried by the word of Jehovah against the altar in Bethel, and against all the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass” (1 Kings 13:32).
This was the tomb concerning which Josiah inquired when he visited the spot three and a half centuries later. The dead man had mentioned his name thus long before his birth as the destined executor of God’s judgments, and he had fulfilled the word of God. With the tenderness of heart that was characteristic of him, Josiah should have profited by the story; but alas! few years hence his own life (so valuable to the nation) ended in shame, because, like the man of God, he got out of the path of entire subjection to the Word of Jehovah.
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Let us not hasten away from the tomb in Bethel. A few moments of further meditation upon its solemn lessons will be wholesome for us all. It is possible for an aged brother to become a spent force; shall we not guard against this? Advanced years do not necessarily imply increased spirituality. A long course of useful service for God may easily breed in us a spirit of self-satisfaction, than which nothing is more dangerous both for ourselves and for all who come under our influence. In that case, our words of counsel may have weight and value with younger brethren which they do not deserve. Humility and self-judgment become us until our latest breath. We shalt not be free from danger until we find ourselves in the safe shelter of the Lord’s presence. The old prophet—a man whom apparently God could no longer employ—ensnared a younger man to his ruin. The younger men of our time must not overlook this danger. Respect for age and experience is good; but our only authority for action in any sphere of life is the Word of God. “A brother advised me,” or “an angel spake to me,” will not sound well at the judgment seat of Christ. Both old and young must maintain themselves in direct touch with God and His truth!
It is but a little while until the great gathering of saints to the Lord in the air. The man of God out of Judah will be in that brilliant throng; likewise the old prophet of Bethel, and King Josiah; also all the readers of these pages who believe in the Lord Jesus. We shall glory forever in the grace which has saved us; but our service we must leave the Lord to appraise when we stand before Him. All that is faulty He will graciously put out of remembrance; but all that is good (wrought in us by the Holy Spirit) He will commend and reward. Meantime, each one of us must humbly say:
“That Thou should’st have delight in me,
And be the God Thou art,
Is darkness to my intellect
But sunshine in my heart.”
F. W. Faber