passage today as we commence and conclude what I began from this passage three Sundays ago is found in 1 Kings chapter 13. Again, a fascinating story, complex story as well. If you have a Bible, I would encourage you to turn and read along as I read aloud from the Word of God. 1 Kings 13. By the word of the Lord, a man of God came from Judah to Bethel as Jeroboam was standing by the altar to make an offering. This man of God cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord. O altar, altar, 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 now make offerings here, and human bones will be burned on you. That same day the man of God gave a sign. the sign the Lord has declared, the altar will be split apart and the ashes on it will be poured out. When King Jeroboam heard what the man of God cried out against the altar at Bethel, he stretched out his hand from the altar and said, Seize him! But the hand he stretched out toward the man shriveled up so that he could not pull it back. Also the altar was split apart and its ashes poured out according to the sign given by the man of God by the word of the Lord. Then the king said to the man of God, intercede with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored." So the man of God interceded with the Lord and the king's hand was restored and became as it was before. The king said to the man of God, come home with me and have something to eat. I will give you a gift. But the man of God answered the king, 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. So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel. Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel whose sons came and told him all that the man of God had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king. The father asked him, which way did he go? His son showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken. So he said to his son, saddle the donkey for me. When they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it and rode after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, are you the man of God who came from Judah? I am, he replied. So the prophet said to him, come home with me and eat. The man of God said, I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. I have been told by the word of the Lord, you must not eat bread or drink water here, there, or return by the way you came. The old prophet answered, 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. But he was lying to me. So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house. While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back. He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah. 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 where he told you not to eat or drink. Therefore, your body will not be buried in the tomb of your fathers." When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was thrown down on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. Some people who passed by saw the body thrown down there. with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived. When the old prophet, who had brought him back from his journey, heard of it, he said, It is the man of God who defied the word of the Lord. The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him. The prophet said to his son, Saddle the donkey for me. They did so. Then he went out and found the body thrown down on the road with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, O my brother! After burying him, he said to his sons, When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his. for the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel. Against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true. Even after this, Jeroboam did not change his evil ways, but once more appointed priests for the high places from all sorts of people. Anyone who wanted to become a priest, he consecrated for the high places. This was the sin of the house of Jeroboam that led to its downfall and its destruction in the face of the earth. Let us pray. Dear Lord, we give thanks for your word. instructs us in all things. We pray that Your Holy Spirit would make clear the meaning of Your Word to us, not only now through my preaching, but as we read Your Word day by day, that we might understand it, and that Your messages to us might be clearly evident, that we might live by Your Word, lives that are pleasing to You. I pray that my words would be faithful and in keeping with your word, which alone is wholly and just and true, for taking in your character, used by your Holy Spirit, to transform human lives, from lives that are condemned to hell as a result of sin, to lives that are destined for the glories of heaven with you forever. I pray you to have your will with us, and for us to humble ourselves before you. In Jesus' name, amen. If you've ever traveled overseas, regardless of whether you have, you've doubtless heard the expression, don't drink the water. This is no puzzle. There's no trick behind the expression. It means literally what it says. In some countries, you must be very careful not to drink the water because our bodies are not used to the bacteria and water from other countries. This is doubtless true of people in many countries. Not just us going to other countries, but other countries traveling elsewhere. As we look at this passage, we find the Lord gave just that instruction to this prophet, prophesied his judgment against Jeroboam and Israel for their false worship, saying to him, don't drink the water. Now, of course, there was more to it than that. But that well summarizes the message that was to instruct this prophet's behavior in the foreign country of Israel. As we go beyond what we saw concerning the Lord's judgment on Jeroboam and Israel three Sundays ago, we see the putrefying effects of a sinful, corrupt climate even upon the righteous. For here in our passage, we have not just one prophet, but two. An old one, who appears in verse 11, And the one younger by comparison who had delivered God's message to Jeroboam and the people at the altar in Bethel. The messenger had a message from the Lord, part of which he fulfilled when he spoke to Jeroboam. The next part of it he also shared with Jeroboam and the crowd, saying in verse 8, Even if you were to give me half of the 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 that you came." And this part was equally his instruction, as was the message that he gave. In other words, the Lord didn't say to him, deliver this message to the altar in Bethel, to the king and the people and the false priests that are there, And oh, by the way, you might want to take note that you shouldn't drink the water, or eat the food, or accept any gifts, or travel back by the same way you came. But instead, I hope it was part of a whole. The message that the Lord delivered to him was clear in every respect, including concerning this part. The older prophet, learning of this day's work by the prophet from Judah, was eager to see the messenger who had delivered a message, which doubtless was a joy to his heart to hear that the Lord had not neglected or overlooked Jeroboam's wicked rebellion and the idolatry of the people in Bethel and Dan and throughout the country of Israel. So he set out by donkey and caught up with a man who was headed back by a different road to Judah. He told this prophet he had a message from the Lord to deliver to him. This message, of course, was directly contrary to that which the prophet of Judah had received from the Lord and already delivered to Jeroboam and the people. The Lord also instructed me. He also instructed the old prophet, saying, No, I cannot do thus and such. The Lord has instructed me. The old prophet lied to the messenger and so invited him to dine at his home in Bethel, saying, But know an angel told me that you were to come back to my house to eat, to have refreshment. Now you and I might guess as to God's purpose in giving specific instructions to his messenger, telling this prophet from Judah not to eat or drink water in this wicked and rebellious land, not to travel back to Judah by the same route that he had taken to get there. We might feel confident guessing that God had given this man these instructions. for His protection, both physical and spiritual. But also for a declaration to the people of that country, those who were righteous and worshipped the Lord in a way that was honorable to Him, would have nothing to do with them or their country. Their country was anathema. Think of the New Testament instructions to us that if those who were involved in cults cults being religions that profess to be Christian and yet are heretical, do not have orthodox beliefs regarding the fundamentals of the faith, for instance, the person of Christ, the personal work of Christ. We are not to have anything to do with them, nor even to invite them into our homes, being a New Testament parallel. So, there might have been various purposes behind God's Second part to these instructions Declaration of God's loathing for the wickedness of this land it was so bad He didn't even want his man to corrupt his stomach by having anything to do With the ways or protists of this land or to be tempted by familiarity perhaps even of seeing the path He had taken accustomed to it But even if these were the very reasons we do not need, truly, to see them by guessing them from the instructions of the Lord to His Messenger, instead we can look at the land itself and at the Old Prophet, at what goes on in this land, see the evidence of the corruption of this land from the actions of this Old Prophet. This Older Prophet delivered a lying message as though it were a message from the Lord by way of an angel to be delivered to the Prophet on his way back to Judah. Verse 18, but 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 in the parentheses and scripture is But he was lying to him So we see in this passage Very clearly from the evidence given to us by the older prophet The corruption of his country had affected and corrupted him as well True he is described as an old prophet Yet even as an old prophet, one who knew what true prophecy was, he didn't hesitate to do that one thing which God pronounced was the besetting sin of prophets, which he would judge without remorse. This old prophet delivered a false message from God and called it a message from the Lord. So while the godly, as we Studied as we looked at earlier parts of the downfall of Israel under Jeroboam While the godly the Levites who wish to continue to worship the Lord faithfully Had moved to Judah Leaving houses and lands behind In essence sacrificing all that they had In order to be a part of true worship because Jeroboam could not tolerate through his jealousy anybody You know going back and forth to Jerusalem to worship and then back to their home in Israel. We can see here how much he was going to tolerate it by his intentions with regard to this prophet. Well, the faithful moved to Jerusalem and Judah. This man and his sons remained behind. Doubtless proud in their unflinching judgment against Jeroboam, which the prophet from Judah confirmed. As the old prophet said in burying the younger prophet, the strain of, I think, of self-righteousness there. Somewhat of a strain of self-righteousness. Can you imagine the declarations that this man, this older prophet, has said? In verse 32, for the message, that he, speaking of the younger prophet, declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, against all the shrines on the high places, and in the towns of Samaria, will certainly come true. And yet in the midst of this, you see not one word, not one speck, not one sense, that this old prophet has regret or sorrow for the fact that he was an instrument used. for the judgment and for the death of this young prophet who was faithful and bold. For whatever reasons this old prophet and his sons remain behind, the evidence of their corruption is proven by the old prophet's breaking God's most sacrosanct command regarding those who prophesied in his name. It's found in Deuteronomy 18.19. If anyone does not listen to my words, if the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. But, and the big but with regard to following the words of a prophet, a prophet who presumes to speak in my name anything I have not commanded him to say, or a prophet who speaks in the name of other gods, must be put to death. Make no mistake, those who remain under corruption when they have the chance to flee, Even sacrificing their possessions in so doing are risking integrity and family by their choice to remain under corruption. Now there may be times when we have no choice, understandably. But as we look, for instance, at our nation, we see it as no accident that the corruption of our president has found its mirror in the rampant corruption of his administration. Those who served under him have followed his example in every respect. And regardless of their integrity going into position, they have come out tainted in so many cases. If we look, for instance, at the convictions that have come out of this current administration, so often unable to tell truth from lie, unable to be trusted in elemental responsibilities of their jobs. The same with this old prophet. He, thrilled to hear of the judgment, finally pronounced against Jeroboam, and the idolatrous wickedness into which the people had been led, a judgment prophesied by the prophet of God. And yet he was so corrupted by the stench of the compromises that he had had to make in order to stay in this land, even in the capital, one of the, not truly the capital, but as far as worship was going, one of the two capitals of Israel, of Bethel, so corrupted by this, by the compromises he had had to make, part of this filthy kingdom that he had lied, and in so doing, led to the death of the Prophet of God. If we look at ourselves and we look at the nation in which we live, the culture in which we live, it's easy for us to think, and the issues of moving Places that are not as corrupt as perhaps our community is. Maybe not an issue for us at this point. But the corruption of our community and our culture is something for which we must be constantly aware. Because it is so easy for us to think that we are immune. We've drunk the water here all of our lives. And so we're immune from any infection from it. And yet if the culture is as corrupted as this culture was in Bethel, in Israel, the Sword of Prophet had proven himself to be anything but immune to the effects, but instead they had steadily eroded his sense of what was right and righteous, to the point where he broke the most serious oath, the most serious responsibility for the individual that he was. If he's described as a prophet, then he knows one thing that a prophet does above all else is tell God's Word and God's Word alone. We may think that we are stainless and incorruptible. We may think that we can withstand the taint of our generation. The filth of our TV programs, the godlessness of our schools, the corruption of our national government, the greed of our nation, the examples of our neighbors, As Scripture gives us this grave warning in 1 Corinthians 10-12, Therefore let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. We would be well advised not to think ourselves immune from the infections that come from the water of our culture. Instead to realize how weak we are and do as Joseph did in the Old Testament. Flee the temptations that are all around us. Avoiding those corruptions like the plague that they are. Who says that we as Christians have to be immersed in the culture? Who says that we have to partake in everything that the culture does? Who says that we have to know everything that's going on in order to be relevant? Who says that we have to have televisions in our homes? Who says that we have to know these things? Perhaps it would be good for us to make a practice of setting down our convictions in writing so that we can see what we are against in our culture. So that I can see as an individual. My family can see as a family. At what points we say, this is unacceptable. To discuss these things. To discuss, for instance, how far we have shifted at which we might have been, say, five, ten years ago. Perhaps we need to recognize the dangers in our world today and get a filter on internet usage, not only for ourselves, but for our families. Make a habit of walking away from gossip. Turning off our television at the first sign of the promotion of covetousness or foul language. It would make you blush to have your mother sitting next to you. Or at flattering portrayals of unbiblical behavior or of blasphemy, in which God and his people are portrayed in a way that treats God with disgrace and contempt. We get used to these things. And we get used to the bacteria that are in our water. And we need to stop and say, what are the influences of this culture upon us? It's not a benign culture. It's not a culture in which there is nothing harmless. But instead, like the old prophet, there are so many examples in our culture, in our community, which are seeking to cause us to walk in godlessness rather than godliness. And we must be consciously aware of these things in order to see that we do not become corrupted by them. Now I skip to the end of the passage in which the Lord's judgment for disobedience was acted upon the bandit of Judah. Verse 24. As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was thrown down on the road, both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. What do we see from the comparison of God's judgment upon Jeroboam and his wicked priests and people? And the judgment upon this prophet of God from Judah who delivered the prophecy of judgment against Jeroboam. We see that the prophet of God was an old man, a courageous man, a man who was willing to take the word of the Lord into the very lion's den, to risk his very life, and to do it unflinchingly, to deliver only God's word. And yet we see from the comparison of these two men, Jeroboam and this prophet, and that the Lord requires obedience from all people. There is no immunity from punishment for disobedience, even for his own children. So we see that obedience not only requires delivering the right message, it requires obedience to all the details of the one who gives the orders. And you might say, God, this was just a lesser part of the message. The Lord would say, I delivered it all to you, I instructed you in all these matters, and you were responsible for all of it. And the prophet might say to the Lord, but Lord, He led me to do this. He was the one who got me to do this. And the Lord's clear judgment is, we don't see it on a passage, but the clear judgment of the Lord is, He will deal with the old prophet. But at this point, he is dealing with a young prophet. Because it is so immediate, I think the judgment of the Lord was so swift. Because the Lord cannot stand to have his message delivered so clearly, and then to have the messenger who comes with such an urgent message, fall by the wayside. And so, he died before he got home. As a further punctuation to the people of Israel, saying, By word of the Lord, I mean what I say. I'm not joking about this. The Lord's emphasis upon it. And the man can't say, but he got me to do this. This is so often our favorite response. Isn't he guilty? He's guilty too, yes, but you're guilty for disobedience. So many people expect that they will be exempt from God's punishment because they have done this or that good thing. Even brave things like this prophet from Judah and risking his life. And so they feel they can get away with disobedience in the matters that they consider small. But it is not so. Disobedience in one part is as grave as disobedience in the whole. Not for a moment do I suggest this godly prophet lost his salvation through this. But he did suffer the consequences for disobedience. At the very time when he should have known so well the importance of obedience in all the details. Again, a grave warning. You and I do not think we can declare God's judgments upon others for their disobedience. And because we are doing his work, feel that we he will excuse us for our disobedience. We never think I am so useful to him. I am so useful to Him that He can't do without me. Because He won't excuse our disobedience. We should be thankful for those swift punishments that bring us up short because they remind us that the Lord loves us and is punishing us to correct us, not to condemn us, if we love Him. But look at the punishment of the Old Prophet. There is none to be seen. And yet the reasons for God's instructions that His messenger from Judah flee Bethel are manifest and evident in the old prophet's life. And the old prophet, no matter how he would praise the dead prophet, no matter what gracious things he did, no matter that he took the man and buried him, no matter that he said, I want to honor that prophet, bury me beside him, was guilty of the dead prophet's blood. Understand, not that the dead prophet was not himself guilty. The declaration regarding a false message is that the one who delivers a false message, if the person follows it, is guilty of the blood of that person. And he had proven himself a false prophet. So the only question is, regarding him, when would his punishment come? One final lesson from this passage is this. We see very clearly in this passage that the Lord requires you and me follow His instructions to us as individuals, not His instructions to others about us. There are times when we must follow what the Lord has instructed others to tell us. But special and specific messages should be expected to be delivered to us as individuals, not to others about us. The Christian community often abuses this. Someone may say to another, I have a word from the Lord for you. This can be abused tremendously. If we needed any warning about listening to others' words from the Lord for us, one quick look at this dead prophet of God from Judah will warn us off quickly. Even if the one who is seeking to deliver a word from the Lord to us is offended, we say, thank you, but I believe that the Lord has instructed me otherwise. That may be, we may say, the word the Lord told me is the one I'm bound to follow. And so understand clearly from this passage not that the Lord never delivers messages to us from others, because He does, but that if the Lord has instructed us in specific matters, and we are following His word and those instructions, most importantly, that we are following His word, then it would take long and careful consideration before we would go another direction. And if that other direction was ever a direction that was against scripture, we know that we have had an old prophet come to us who was just like this prophet. Better to offend and say, thank you, but that is not what the word of God says, and I will not do it, than to accept it, and to walk down a path that leads to the lion in the other hand. Think on these things, and may the Lord bless you. Let us pray. Dear Father, we give thanks for your word. We pray that we might live lives that are obedient to you in all respects. We might consider the corruption of our community and culture. That we might intentionally avoid that corruption and walk in righteousness. That we might be students of your word, to know what is right and what you want us to do. That we might not be confused by others around us who might tell us differently. Thank you for your love and your correction, Jesus.