Believe what God tells you

This week's verses are 1 Kings 13:7-32:

  The king then said to the prophet, “Come home with me and have something to eat, so that I may give you a gift.” But the prophet said to the king, “Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you. I am not allowed to eat food or drink water in this place. For this is how I was commanded in the Lord’s message, ‘Eat no food. Drink no water. And do not return by the way you came.’” So he started back on another road; he did not travel back on the same road he had taken to Bethel.

Now there was an old prophet living in Bethel. When his sons came home, they told him everything the prophet had done in Bethel that day. And they told their father all the words that he had spoken to the king. Their father asked them, “Which road did he take?” His sons showed him the road the prophet from Judah had taken. He then told his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” When they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it and took off after the prophet, whom he found sitting under an oak tree. He asked him, “Are you the prophet from Judah?” He answered, “Yes, I am.” He then said to him, “Come home with me and eat something.” But he replied, “I can’t go back with you. I am not allowed to eat food or to drink water with you in this place. For an order came to me in the Lord’s message, ‘Eat no food. Drink no water there. And do not return by the way you came.’” Then the old prophet said, “I too am a prophet like you. And an angel has told me in a message from the Lord, ‘Bring him back with you to your house so he can eat food and drink water.’” But he had lied to him. So the prophet went back with him. He ate food in his house and he drank water.

While they were sitting at the table, the Lord’s message came to the old prophet who had brought him back. So he cried out to the prophet who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord has said, ‘You have rebelled against the Lord’s instruction and have not obeyed the command the Lord your God gave you. You went back. You ate food. And you drank water in the place of which he had said to you, “Eat no food. Drink no water.” Therefore your corpse will not be buried in your ancestral tomb.’”

So this is what happened after he had eaten food and drunk water. The old prophet saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back. So the prophet from Judah travelled on. Then a lion attacked him on the road and killed him.

There was his body lying on the road, with the donkey standing next to it, and the lion just standing there by the body. Then some men came passing by and saw the body lying in the road with the lion standing next to the body. They went and reported what they had seen in the city where the old prophet lived. When the old prophet who had invited him to his house heard the news, he said, “It is the prophet who rebelled against the Lord. The Lord delivered him over to the lion and it tore him up and killed him, in keeping with the Lord’s message that he had spoken to him.” He told his sons, “Saddle my donkey.” So they saddled it. He went and found the body lying in the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside it; the lion had neither eaten the body nor attacked the donkey. The old prophet picked up the prophet’s body, put it on the donkey, and brought it back. The old prophet then entered the city to mourn him and to bury him. He put the body into his own tomb, and they mourned over him, saying, “Ah, my brother!” After he buried him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the tomb where the prophet is buried; put my bones right beside his bones, because the message that he announced as the Lord’s message against the altar in Bethel and against all the temples on the high places in the cities of the north will certainly be fulfilled.”

This is kind of a strange story. A guy hears from God about something, shares a message with people about it, the thing he predicts happens, people who try to stop him are cursed, and then he turns down a king's hospitality because he believes God has instructed him to go straight home after delivering his message. So far, so good.

But then he runs into a more experienced man of God who tells him he's wrong. Where before his belief had withstood the power of a king, it now crumbles in the face of religiosity. He doubts he has heard a message from God and instead puts his trust in the more experienced believer. Best play it safe, right? Except the experienced believer is lying to him!

God interrupts the meal to correct the old prophet and he tells the young one that he is doomed for disobeying God. And sure enough, he is killed by a lion on the way home, and in such a supernatural way as to leave no doubt that it is the result of the curse: what lion is going to turn down two meals, a man and a donkey, and stand patiently around until someone comes to collect the body?

It's a scary story. Who wants to be eaten by a lion because they trusted the wrong guy? But it's not a story about misplaced trust but a lack of trust where trust is due.

The young prophet had been given a very trustworthy message. He saw with his own eyes that it was confirmed as true. But his experience was cheapened by the old prophet's contempt for his belief. And so he discards the thing God has entrusted in him and blindly follows the older prophet.

People in some church circles talk about "the covering" of pastoral counsel, where they say you should disregard what you think God is saying if your pastor says otherwise, because he's accountable if he's wrong, not you. Those people should read these verses. It is not the old prophet who was held accountable for his mistake, but the young one who ignored his conviction in the face of human authority. If you're confident enough in what you heard that you would turn down a king's ransom to stick to it, you should trust it above all else, church folk included.

Do we cheapen the treasure God has entrusted in us by trusting others over him? How do we know that God has spoken to them the way he speaks to us? We can't see inside their mind to see if they are lying. We can't always see the boundaries of their expertise or their morality. All we can see is the outside. But God speaks to us on the inside.

Or are we instead like the old prophet, who played the "I've been a Christian a long time so I think I know this better than you" card? If someone has a strange religious conviction, do we give them the benefit of the doubt or do we lecture them on what we want to believe is correct? 

Do we love them and respect them enough to let them explore their personal relationship with God? Or do we have contempt for them and just want to make them do what we want? Having contempt for the convictions of others can cause them real suffering if you derail them from the path God has for them. That's not love.

And what about God's perspective? Have you ever given someone critical advice and then had them go listen to someone else and get talked out of it, to their peril? I've seen a lot of mistakes and suffering result from times when my experience was ignored in the face of the ill-informed opinion of someone in management, or a charismatic member of ministry staff. I wouldn't necessarily have sent a lion to tear them apart but I can understand the sentiment. It's an infuriating experience to watch someone fail needlessly!

In the end, we see that the old prophet develops the love and respect for the young prophet that he should have had in the beginning. He asks for their bones to be buried side by side. Their fate is tangled up together. He admits his mistake and mourns the consequences.

And that's the lesson we should be starting with. We should be encouraging one another in our faith and letting people explore a relationship with God directly. We should be comfortable being thought wrong by others if it means staying true to the convictions God has placed in our hearts. 

If we believe someone is wrong, our attitude should be an attitude of love. "What if they're not wrong? What would my convincing them of my viewpoint do to their life?" Do we want to be standing over their grave going "Oops, I guess they were right?" Better to say that while they're alive!

We should believe God's words to us. And we should let others believe too.