CHAPTER 13

(975 B.C.)

A PROPHET FROM JUDAH WARNS JEROBOAM

¹And, behold, there came a man of God out of Judah by the Word of the LORD unto Beth-el: and Jeroboam stood by the Altar to burn incense. (Israel, the northern kingdom, is very comfortable with her new religion the two calves of gold. Jeroboam, arrayed as king and priest, stands by his altar offering incense to his god. The entire court assists, together with a vast multitude of worshippers, so-called. In fact, nothing is lacking to win the admiration of the religious world. But then, the spectacle is interrupted by a man of God out of Judah, who has a Word from the LORD.)

²And he cried against the altar in the Word of the LORD, and said, O altar, altar, thus says the LORD; Behold, a child shall be born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon you shall he offer the priests of the high places who burn incense upon you, and mens bones shall be burnt upon you. (This altar, one might say, was a bastard altar, designed by man, which referred to golden calves as god. There was only one Altar in all of Israel that God would recognize, and that was in Jerusalem. The Altar that was in Jerusalem at the Temple was designed by the Holy Spirit, and it portrayed Calvary, yet to come. This altar of Jeroboam would deliver no one. It is representative of the multitudinous altars of this world, devised by the hand of man, with many of them in Christendom.

Josiah, nearly 350 years later, exactly as the prophecy predicted, would destroy this altar; likewise, all false religion in Israel, and elsewhere in the world, will ultimately be destroyed by a child that shall be born unto the house of David with the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ [Zech. 13:2].)

³And he gave a sign the same day, saying, This is the sign which the LORD has spoken; Behold, the Altar shall be rent, and the ashes that are upon it shall be poured out (which was to happen almost immediately!).

⁴And it came to pass, when king Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against the Altar in Beth-el, that he put forth his hand from the Altar, saying, Lay hold on him. And his hand, which he put forth against him, dried up, so that he could not pull it in again to him. (Man has ever tried to stop the Word of God. He will listen to every false message that is given, by every heathen priest, with no reaction, but the moment the Word of the LORD is pronounced, he will resort even to violence to stop it.

The extended dried up hand of Jeroboam is a picture of that which will happen to the Antichrist during the Battle of Armageddon. The man of sin will put forth his hand against the Lord Jesus Christ, and he will see it dry up before his very eyes.)

⁵The altar also was rent, and the ashes poured out from the Altar, according to the sign which the man of God had given by the Word of the LORD.

⁶And the king answered and said unto the man of God, Intreat now the face of the LORD your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored me again. And the man of God besought the LORD, and the kings hand was restored him again, and became as it was before. (Despite the fact that one of the most striking displays of power is recorded, still, Jeroboam did not repent. It is amazing at mans ability to see and sense the Power of God in operation and still rebel. Miracles, as wonderful as they are, do not bring people to Jesus. It is the convicting Power of the Holy Spirit upon a weeping heart that does so.)

⁷And the king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward. (This is the greatest danger that the Church presently faces. It is very difficult to turn down the reward. The modern Church all too often seeks after the accommodations of the world, its plaudits, approval, and reward, and, to receive such, it will compromise its message, substitute its altar, and seek unity at any price.)

⁸And the man of God said unto the king, If you will give me half your house, I will not go in with you, neither will I eat bread nor drink water in this place:

⁹For so was it charged me by the Word of the LORD, saying, Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that you came. (The Prophets refusal to participate was consequently a practical and forcible disclaimer of all fellowship, a virtual excommunication, a public repudiation of the calf-worshippers.)

¹⁰So he went another way, and returned not by the way that he came to Beth-el.

THE PROPHETS DISOBEDIENCE AND DEATH

¹¹Now there dwelt an old Prophet in Beth-el; and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Beth-el: the words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told also to their father. (This old Prophet had long since turned his back on God. Why didnt God use the old Prophet to speak to Jeroboam? He, no doubt, lived within walking distance of the altar. The word old signifies that the man had once known the Lord, but now had compromised his ministry and his message.)

¹²And their father said unto them, What way went he? For his sons had seen what way the man of God went, which came from Judah.

¹³And he said unto his sons, Saddle me the ass. So they saddled him the ass: and he rode thereon,

¹⁴And went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak: and he said unto him, Are you the man of God who came from Judah? And he said, I am.

¹⁵Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.

¹⁶And he said, I may not return with you, nor go in with you: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place:

¹⁷For it was said to me by the Word of the LORD, You shall eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that you came.

¹⁸He said unto him, I am a Prophet also as you are; and an Angel spoke unto me by the Word of the LORD, saying, Bring him back with you into your house, that he may eat bread and drink water. But he lied unto him (even if an Angel did speak, which he really didnt, still, nothing must take precedence over the Word of God [Gal. 1:8]).

¹⁹So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water. (This was in direct disobedience to the Word of God. It would cost him his life. As well, it will cost the life of the Church. The two greatest dangers of the Church are the Jeroboams, who represent the world and its ways, and, second, the old Prophets, who represent the apostate Church.

The old Prophet, whose duty it was to have testified against the evil around him, bore with it, and, by his silence, sanctioned it; therefore, he was very anxious that the man of God should approve his unfaithfulness by association with it; consequently, the man of God was ensnared.)

²⁰And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the Word of the LORD came unto the Prophet who brought him back:

²¹And he cried unto the man of God who came from Judah, saying, Thus says the LORD, Forasmuch as you have disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and have not kept the Commandment which the LORD your God commanded you,

²²But came back, and have eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to you, Eat no bread, and drink no water; your carcase shall not come unto the sepulchre of your fathers. (Strangely enough, the Lord will use the old Prophet to cry out against the man of God, and to deliver a message of judgment against him. He would disobey God by originally listening to this man, and, in turn, God would have this man pronounce his doom. Many blanch at the fierceness of the Lord in bringing about the demise of the man of God. However, the sin of compromising the Word is far worse than sins of passion. Gods pronouncement of judgment upon a wayward Israel was now compromised by the man of God associating with its backslidden old Prophet. In Gods eyes, the compromise of the old Prophet was as bad as Jeroboams two golden calves. The true Prophet of God entered into that compromise when he disobeyed the Lord by going to this mans house.)

²³And it came to pass, after he had eaten bread, and after he had drunk, that he saddled for him the ass, to wit, for the Prophet whom he had brought back.

²⁴And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and killed him: and his carcase was cast in the way, and the ass stood by it, the lion also stood by the carcase (the lion was sent and instructed by God).

²⁵And, behold, men passed by, and saw the carcase cast in the way, and the lion standing by the carcase: and they came and told it in the city where the old Prophet dwelt.

²⁶And when the Prophet who brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It is the man of God, who was disobedient unto the Word of the LORD: therefore the LORD has delivered him unto the lion, which has torn him, and killed him, according to the Word of the LORD, which He spoke unto him.

²⁷And he spoke to his sons, saying, Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him.

²⁸And he went and found his carcase cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the carcase: the lion had not eaten the carcase, nor torn the ass (which was completely contrary to the nature of such an animal).

²⁹And the Prophet took up the carcase of the man of God, and laid it upon the ass, and brought it back: and the old Prophet came to the city, to mourn and to bury him.

³⁰And he laid his carcase in his own grave; and they mourned over him, saying, Alas, my brother!

³¹And it came to pass, after he had buried him, that he spoke to his sons, saying, When I am dead, then bury me in the sepulchre wherein the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones (he had no problem being with him in death, but he would not stand with him in life):

³²For the saying which he cried by the Word of the LORD against the altar in Beth-el, and against all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, shall surely come to pass.

JEROBOAM PERSISTS IN HIS EVIL

³³After this thing Jeroboam returned not from his evil way, but made again of the lowest of the people priests of the high places: whosoever would, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. (According to Josephus, the old Prophet now explained away the miracles of the Prophet of Judah, alleging that the altar had fallen because it was new, and the kings hand had become powerless from fatigue.)

³⁴And this thing became sin unto the house of Jeroboam, even to cut it off, and to destroy it from off the face of the Earth. (The just anger of God in destroying his idolatrous altar and the amazing Grace of God in restoring his withered hand are alike resisted by him. The word sin in this Verse should read the sin, because it contains the definite article. It spoke of idolatry, but more than anything of the repudiation of the True Cross, and the substituting of another. In fact, that has always been the sin. The Message is, Jesus Christ and Him Crucified [I Cor. 1:23]. Man has ever attempted to change that, and, regrettably, the Church most of all.)