The Wisdom and Justice of God

1 Kings 13:20-25 ESV

20 And as they sat at the table, the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back. 21 And he cried to the man of God who came from Judah, “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the command that the Lord your God commanded you, 22 but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.’” 23 And after he had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back. 24 And as he went away a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body. 25 And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.

A Bible verse which is a favorite of mine, a verse which I’m sure all of us know well is Romans 8:28: “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.”

The reason why this is one of my favorite verses in the Bible is because I know that it isn’t just a nice slogan, but rather, it is indeed a way of life. It is indeed a certainty that God is sovereign, and being sovereign, God actively governs everything that He has created, which, of course, is everything. And because God governs everything, then that means that everything must serve His purposes, purposes which are always good.

But the best part of all of this for we as believers is that knowing and believing that God is sovereign, we can and most certainly should live our lives in blessed confidence in His sovereignty. And believing this to be true, we, as the Heidelberg Catechism says: recognize that our only comfort in life and in death is that we are not our own, but belong body and soul, in life and in death to our faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

It is important too to recognize that in this statement which Paul utters in Romans 8:28, that he is not saying that all things are good. Indeed, there are a great, great, innumerable amount of things that are not good. But what he does say is that God takes all things, even those things that are not good, and He makes them good, makes them work for the preservation of the believer’s salvation.

And outside of the testimonies that I know all of us can share about how God took a not-so-good situation in your life and worked it together for your benefit as you came nearer to Him, so are there also a plethora of examples of this found within the Bible. And in our reading for today, we see yet another example of this as we continue in our series on the life and times of the man of God.

Just to catch everyone up to speed, we need to be reminded of what has taken place thus far in the narrative that we are working through this month.

While Jeroboam, the newly crowned king of the newly formed northern Kingdom of Israel had instituted his new, manmade religion, he was offering sacrifice at a counterfeit festival at the altar for this manmade religion in Bethel, in the southern region of the newly formed kingdom of Israel.

As this was taking place, a mysterious man of God from the tribe of Judah came to Bethel and informed the king and the rest of the populace that God had sent him there to announce the coming destruction of this blasphemous altar in Bethel. God even afforded a sign to show that this would take place as the altar was temporarily demolished at that very moment.

Seeing this, Jeroboam asked the man of God to come home with him that he may be refreshed and offered a bribe. The man of God responded to the bribe though, by saying that he would not return to the king’s home, no matter what he offered him, for he was commanded by God to neither eat nor drink in Bethel and thus, he left that place to return home.

Then, we were introduced to yet another mysterious man, simply identified as, “The Old Prophet” who lived in Bethel. His sons had been present for the festival and sacrifice and had thus seen all of this take place and came home to tell their father all about it.

Desiring to share fellowship with this man of God, the old prophet took off after him, found him, and convinced him to return home with him through deception after claiming that he received a vision from God also, and that God told him to have the man of God return to his home to eat and drink. But as I said, this was through deception, for the old prophet never saw any vision, he was lying to the man of God.

Thus, having gone to the home of the old prophet, the man of God sat with the old prophet and his sons and ate and drank, in direct disobedience to the command that God had given him.

Now, as we begin the exposition of our reading for today, beginning in verse twenty, we read that as the man of God was eating and drinking with the old prophet and his sons, the old prophet truly received a word from the Lord.

This spells trouble for the man of God, for while he had previously believed that the old prophet had received a revelation from God, what he is about to find out is that he had been lied to because now God really has given the old prophet a revelation. And the revelation is in fact contrary to that which he had previously delivered to the man of God.

Then, as we move on to the first part of verse twenty-one, we read:

1 Kings 13:21a ESV

21a And he cried to the man of God who came from Judah,

Here we see the reaction of the old prophet after receiving this revelation from God. He reacted by “crying to the man of God”.

Crying represents great sorrow, and when one cries in relaying something, it signifies relaying something with great urgency. Thus, we couple the two together and we see that the old prophet, after receiving the revelation from God, relays the message to the man of God urgently and in the most sorrowful manner.

This cry of the old prophet probably sprung forth from the guilt that he had felt at that very moment. Guilt that came about as he truly recognized what he had caused when he lied to the man of God in order to bring him to his home. His hunger for godly fellowship was great, so great that he convinced a godly man to act in an ungodly way to achieve it.

The old prophet probably thought that either, God’s punishment would not come to pass on the man of God since he desired godly fellowship, or he may have thought that the punishment that the man of God would receive wouldn’t really be too bad and it would be worth enduring in order to be refreshed both physically and spiritually.

But it is much worse than that as the old prophet recognizes, after receiving this revelation, that because of his deception, the man of God now had the promise of death hanging over him.

We read of the words of the revelation, the message that God commanded the old prophet to deliver to the man of God in the last part of verse twenty-one and the entirety of verse twenty-two, where we read:

1 Kings 13:21b-22 ESV

21b “Thus says the Lord, ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord and have not kept the command that the Lord your God commanded you, 22 but have come back and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place of which he said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your body shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.’”

With a mournful cry, the old prophet, having truly received the revelation of God, is compelled to deliver, in the name of the Lord, what was revealed to him.

God told the man of God, through the old prophet who had deceived him, that because he had acted in direct disobedience to His command, his body would not come to, would not be buried in the tomb of his fathers in Judah, and instead would be buried in a place that is not his home, away from kindred dust.

How the man of God must have been feeling at this moment is unimaginable! And who knows how he felt toward the old prophet who deceived him and talked him into coming to his home. But I’m sure that he wasn’t exactly thrilled with him.

But the Lord’s determination in the matter being what it was, the man of God knew that he could do nothing but resign himself to God’s judgment. And we see this highlighted in verse twenty-three, which reads:

1 Kings 13:23 ESV

23 And after he had eaten bread and drunk, he saddled the donkey for the prophet whom he had brought back.

So, after they had finished their meal and after the word of the Lord had come to the old prophet, with the man of God resigning himself to the just judgment of God, he sought to do what he was in the process of doing before the old prophet found him; return home.

And so, the old prophet had his sons saddle the same donkey that he had rode to find the man of God so that not he, but that the man of God may ride it.

And if there is anything positive that we can say about the old prophet here, it’s that he was hospitable. And I say this because here he truly gives his donkey to the man of God. And I say that because neither he nor his sons accompanied the man of God, and so, it would appear as though it was the old prophet’s intention for the man of God to keep his donkey indefinitely.

And while God had made it plain that the man of God would not be buried in the tomb of his fathers, He had not made it plain whenthat judgment would come to pass. For all that they knew, it could have been God’s intention for the man of God to return home and then several years later he die and is buried some place other than the tomb of his fathers.

But as the last two verses of our reading tell us, that judgment came much sooner than they thought, where we read in verses twenty-four and twenty-five:

1 Kings 13:24-25 ESV

24 And as he went away a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his body was thrown in the road, and the donkey stood beside it; the lion also stood beside the body. 25 And behold, men passed by and saw the body thrown in the road and the lion standing by the body. And they came and told it in the city where the old prophet lived.

Probably not far from where the old prophet lived, maybe even still within the city limits of Bethel, this occurred. But the account that is given is an interesting account of an unusual occurrence which proved that this judgment was of the Lord.

First, it is written that the body was “thrown in the road”, being removed from the back of the donkey, showing first, that the donkey had not been harmed in the process. But what is more interesting is that it was “thrown in the road”, which indicates that the lion did not eat the body, which of course, would be a natural thing for the lion to do.

Also, we read that both the donkey and the lion simply stood by the body of the man of God. So, of course, in any other instance such as this if a lion were to pull someone off of the back of a donkey and somehow someway the donkey wasn’t also hurt, the donkey would naturally get out of there in a hurry, because he would know that if he didn’t, he would be next. And so, the donkey not fleeing was another unusual occurrence in the account.

But also, as the donkey just stands by the body without fleeing, the lion also just stands by the body. It simply stands by the body without eating the body or attacking the donkey, which, as we said, are both things that are natural for a lion to do. But instead, it would almost seem as though the lion stood there, divinely appointed to guard the body in order to ward off any meddlers. All of this reveals the supernatural aspect of what is happening here.

And as the men from the city and travelers on the road passed by the spot where the execution of divine judgment had taken place, they can’t help but to observe the unusual sight. And so, not only did the lion and the donkey stay where they were with the lion not disturbing the body or the donkey, but travelers also passed by, and the donkey wasn’t spooked by them, and the lion didn’t attack them either, though, as has been said, it would be most natural for those things to happen.

And those passing by the scene we read were faithful to spread the report all through Bethel. Almost everyone in Bethel, I’m sure, by the end of the day, had heard what had happened.

Indeed, the king probably even encouraged the report to be spread and circulated all over that region so that through this report, the general populace would doubt the message that the man of God had brought to them. And if they heard that judgment fell on the man of God, then they would probably also believe that they shouldn’t be concerned about his prophecy coming to pass. And if they did not believe that his prophecy would come to pass, then they would continue to sin, heaping iniquity upon iniquity.

And so, at the beginning of this sermon, when I said God that works good from this bad situation, here we find the good that He works as God works in the people of the northern kingdom a further hardening of their hearts.

And I’m sure that you’re saying right now, “How can that be good?!” Good question! And I say that it is good because the justice of God is good, and in these people disbelieving the prophecy of the man of God, God becomes all the more just in the judgment that He will one day carry out against them!

How utterly amazing it is when we realize how in this situation, God used the report from idolaters, deception from an old prophet, and a bloody death to be glorified and to accomplish His purposes!

What more can we say?! High and mighty, holy and just, pure and everlasting is the Living God, the God of heaven and earth, the God Who chose you and I to salvation!

May we, with great humility, reverence, and adoration, worship that most high God!

Amen?