God's Word is Not Amendable

There once was a man of God (not named), a prophet, who proclaimed a message to the king of the northern tribes in Ephraim-Israel. Jeroboam had received a calling from the Almighty God to rule the 10 northern tribes (while Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, ruled over Judah in the south) (1 Kings 12). Jeroboam rather quickly violated all the conditions the Lord had given him to ensure his descendants would rule for a long time. God noticed. However, while there’s a point to made there, that’s not where I’m going today.

Today we look at what God sends this certain man of God to do (1 Kings 13). Basically, God gives this man a message for Jeroboam and the false priests he’s appointed. Jeroboam’s violation of God’s conditions and laws would lead to the burning of all the people who honored the false gods (golden calves) that Jeroboam had set upon false altars. The man of God’s message delivered, the destruction of the altars occurs. The rest of the punishment would be realized several years later and is recorded in 2 Kings 23:16.

So the man of God follows God’s command to him to not eat, drink or return along the same path while in the north. He begins to leave, but an old prophet hears about all that happened, and goes after the man of God to fellowship with him. Here’s a caution: there were many people in Scripture called prophets who were not men/women of God. This old prophet was probably a prophet of the false god, Baal. By lying to the man of God, telling him God had given him instructions to bring him back to his house and feed him. The man of God, for whatever reason (there are several interpretations), goes with him and eats and drinks from the food of the people who honored the false gods.

We are told shortly that that was a violation of God’s command to the man of God and the man of God would suffer grave consequences for going against the words of the Lord. The commentator we are using for our study of 1 Kings, tells us about one of his pet peeves – which so happens to be one of mine. There are people, professed believers, who say to others something along the lines of, “I have a word from the Lord for you.” That’s what the old prophet did. And, it was a lie. When God gives a commandment to follow through the reading of Scriptures or during intense times of prayer, we are to keep that command. Often the word others say they have for you contradicts what, up to this point, you’ve felt God was saying to us or doesn’t agree with the specific commands of the Bible.

We are responsible to carry out what God has instructed us, and if He changes it, He will tell us personally – not from someone else. I’m not saying that someone shouldn’t share a passage of Scripture with us, correcting anti-Biblical behavior or thoughts, but great caution must prevail. God, through the Holy Spirit, is fully capable of giving us His Biblically verifiable commands without the help of another person. It may take some searching of the Scriptures and an incredible amount of focused prayer, but He will communicate to us through the Word, not from someone else’s thoughts or feelings.