Listen To God Above All Else

The story found in First Kings Chapter 13 is one that I’ve often thought about. I think it shows a very important insight into how God operates and where true authority comes from.

Chapter 13 starts with Jeroboam standing next to an altar to make an offering. You may recall that the Lord was pretty strict about who should be offering sacrifices to him. He set up the whole priesthood specifically, so the proper process was followed and so reverence was observed. Jeroboam was not qualified to be making offerings to the Lord. Naturally, God wasn’t thrilled about this, so he sent an unnamed man of God from Judah to stop Jeroboam from what he was doing.

When the man of God showed up, he cried out, “Altar, alter! This is what the Lord says: ‘A son named Josiah will be born to the house of David. On you he will sacrifice the priests of the high places who make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you.’” The same day, the man of God gave a sign, saying, “This is the sign the Lord has declared: The altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out.”

This pisses Jeroboam off, so he tells his stormtroopers to seize the man of God. However, the hand he used to point at the man of God while issuing the order suddenly shriveled up so he could not pull it back. At the same moment, the altar was also split apart as per the sign that God promised. This caused Jeroboam to panic, so he pleaded with the man of God for him to intercede with the Lord to restore the shriveled-up hand. The man of God did this and Jeroboam was restored.

In exchange, Jeroboam told the man of God to join him for a meal and a gift, but the man of God refused, saying, “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.’”

After that, the man of God left Jeroboam and one would think that the story is over. Yet, that’s not what happens. Instead, we get to the really interesting part. On his way home by a different road, the man of God passes by a certain old prophet living in Bethel. The old prophet asked the man of God if he was the man of God who came from Judah. The man of God confirmed that he was. Then the prophet invited the man of God to come to his house and eat with him.

The man of God rejected this, citing his orders from God to not eat bread or drink water until he was home. However, the old prophet told the man of God, “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.’” Unfortunately, the old prophet was lying. No angel said any such thing to him.

The man of God believed the old prophet and went home with him. While they were eating, suddenly the world of the Lord came to the old prophet. He told the man of God, “This is what the Lord says; ‘You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. You came back and ate bread and drank water in the place you were told not to eat or drink. Therefore your body will not be buried in the tomb of your ancestors.’”

After this, once he was done eating, the man of God continued on his way. Suddenly, a lion met him on the road and killed him. The lion left the man of God’s body lying on the road. It then stood there next to the donkey, chilling. Some people saw the body, the donkey, and the lion. They reported it and the news got back to the old prophet. So the old prophet went and buried the man of God in his own tomb.

As a child, I was fascinated by this story. I thought it was horrendously unjust. The man of God went and did what God asked of him. Then on the way back, another man claimed he was told by God to have the man of God stop for some food. At the time of writing this, I haven’t eaten any food in two days. It would really be nice to have a snack about now but that would defeat the purpose of a fast. For the man of God traveling from Judah, food would have seemed like a blessing from God. Like the Lord was recognizing him for his work and providing him with some relief from his hunger pangs. So of course he stopped for some food. He had no way of knowing that he was being lied to. After all, the old man said he was a prophet of the Lord and that he received word to do this from an angel.

So, when God then went and mauled the man of God with a lion, I was rather ticked off. I couldn’t believe that God would do something like that. If anything, it should be the old prophet who got mauled. He was the one who told the lie and misled the man of God. Where is the justice in the man of God being the one who is killed? Moreover, I can’t for the life of me understand what motive the old man had for interdicting the man of God in the first place. Why did he screw in a story he had no business tampering with?

When I put away childish things, about six years ago now, I finally understood why God did what he did in this story. The lesson finally clicked. There is no source of higher authority than God. God is at the top. Everything proceeds from him. The very matter of creation requires his constant sustenance to avoid ceasing to exist. Consequently, when the Lord God Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth tells you to do something, you do it. It doesn’t matter if someone else comes to you in the name of the Lord telling you something contradictory. The only authority that trumps the authority of God is God. Only a direct word from him can override a former word from him. This is the key to this story.

The reason the man of God got mauled by the lion was because God himself spoke to him. God himself gave the man of God a direct order to deliver the message and return without eating bread or water. By disobeying this direct order from God, the man of God committed a sin just as great as the original sin. The act of eating the bread and drinking the water wasn’t the problem. The problem was the act of disobeying the Lord God Almighty Creator of Heaven and Earth. The wages of sin are death. So, this man undoubtedly deserved to die… just as surely as I, you, and everyone else deserve to.

Therefore, the lesson in this story is that if God tells you to do something, you do that thing no matter what anyone else tells you. “But how could the man of God know that the old prophet was lying?” you may ask. Simple. God is not distant nor is he out of reach. God is closer to you than your own soul. The man of God could have simply asked God if the old command was off and if he was supposed to stop for bread and water. If God answered and said yes, then it wouldn’t have resulted in death. If God didn’t answer, then there would have been no reason to assume the order changed. The man of God would have then been best off continuing on his way back to Judah.

So, when God tells you to do something and someone else contradicts it, listen to God. Otherwise, you might find yourself facing a lion on the road.