10/28/2020 – Day 164 – 1 Kings 10 – 13 “God is Sovereign and His essence is unfathomable.”
Chapter 13 – “The Man of God From Judah”:
I have told a couple of brothers that I could write at length on this chapter, posting questions without easy answers. The judgments of God are unfathomable. Deuteronomy 13: 1-5 warns about listening to false prophets. And with our introduction to Ezekiel this coming Saturday, we will see how the Lord can be demanding of his prophet messengers.
Neither “the man of God” nor the “old prophet” (“lying prophet”) are named here. So the old prophet lies to him when he said an angel by way of the Lord told him to bring “the man of God’ back to his house”. And then the word of the Lord came to him and the lying prophet notifies the man of God that it is curtains for him for defying God’s command. I expect that if you are commanded by God , a countermand of that order should come only from God.
As to the two characters here, I think studylight.org hit the nail on the head:
“With some, the flesh is destroyed that the spirit may be saved, while others the flesh is pampered that the soul may ripen for hell.” Only God can judge perfectly, and God forbid we should even start to put “God in the Dock”, a title from one of C.S. Lewis’ works.
And to the side, it goes without saying that the “man of God’s prophecy by the way of the Lord came true: “Josiah would in fact dig up the bones of priests from their graves and burn them on the altar.” This prophecy was 300 years before Josiah’s birth.
Soli Deo Gloria!