1 Kings, Chapter 13 - What Makes You Change? | Prophets of Israel Daily

[music] >> Shalom friends, welcome back to the Prophets of Israel daily. This is the First Kings chapter 13 brought to you by the Land of Israel Network at the landofisrael.com. Okay, so let's remember exactly >> [music] >> where we're standing. The kingdom is split. Rehoboam holds Judah and Jeroboam holds the north. And Jeroboam, Jeroboam, who was handed the throne really by prophecy, who was told plainly that Hashem would build him a lasting house if he walked in his ways, well, he makes a calculation. If my people keep going up to that temple in Jerusalem three times a year, eventually their hearts will go with them. So, he builds two golden calves, one in Dan, one in Bethel. Bethel, right? We talk What do those words even mean? The house of God and that's where he builds his idolatrous shrine. Bethel is the place, like we said, where Jacob slept on a stone, saw the ladder of heaven. Surely, Hashem is in this place and I didn't know it, he says. That is the address Jeroboam picks for his idolatrous golden calf. And today's chapter opens with a man walking north out of Judah straight into that pagan scene in northern Israel. And this man is never given a name. The text calls him only Ish Elohim, the man of God. And he comes bidvar Hashem, by the word of God. And remember that. Remember that cuz that's going to be relevant soon. He arrives while Jeroboam himself is standing at the altar mid-ceremony, incense in hand, the king, the altar, the new priesthood, the new festival he invented for the eighth month, and this nameless man opens his mouth and he doesn't even address the king at all. Verse two. O altar, altar, thus says Hashem. Behold, a son will be born to the house of David. Josiah Josiah will be his name, Yoshiau. He speaks to the stones of the altar, not to the king. He doesn't address the king at all. And I think that's uh partly at least because the king is temporary, but the system he built that is an actual problem. And the man of God gives a sign. The altar will crack open and the ashes will spill onto the ground. >> Yeah, but before we go into that, I just want to stay on that name for just a little bit. That new king, Josiah, Yoshiau, the man prophesied just for a little bit because 300 years later, if you can imagine the the people, they really believed in prophecy then. They believed that a prophet speaks, it will come to pass, and it did come to pass. You can read it yourself in 2 Kings. A king of Judah comes forth, tears down that exact altar, and burns it. And the text tells us it happened precisely because of what was said standing there that day in Bethel. And as was foretold, his name was Yoshiau. His name is Josiah. J named out aloud in this chapter 3 centuries before his mother was born. I mean, 10 generations. Kings rose and fell in between. Empires came and went. And the word just sat there patient, waiting for its moment to land because God's word never comes back empty. And this is just another example of the eternal truth that Hashem's word doesn't expire. Sometimes it just takes time until it finally manifests. >> That's right. And when this man of God prophesizes to the altar, what is Jeroboam's first response? That's right. He stretches his hand and shouts, "Seize him!" Verse 4. And his hand, which he stretched out against him, withered, and he could not draw it back to himself. The hand that reaches for the prophet locks up in midair. And then the altar splits open, and the ashes pour onto the ground exactly as promised. Now, watch what the king does next. He doesn't fall on his face, he doesn't tear down the calf. He says verse six, "Please entreat Hashem your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored." And it's restored. Just like that. >> And look at what he actually asks for, Ari. He asks for his hand back. That's it. Not for forgiveness, not direction, not like, "Ah, what have I built here? What have I done?" Just "Fix my arm so I can keep going." He wants the consequence removed so he can return to the thing that produced it. And it's like, well, you know, while it may feel easy to just cast judgment, I think of us when I do this constantly. We pray about the symptoms without looking for the message we're being told. It's Hashem, "Take away the stress. Take away the tension at home. Take away the pressure at work." We never get the question underneath. Like, "What in my life is generating this? Hashem, what do I need to do to make my life better?" And so, notice just one more thing. He says, "Entreat your God." Your God. He's standing at an altar he supposedly built in Hashem's name, and he can't bring himself to say my God. So, somewhere in there he knows exactly what he's done. >> Right. And then the king does something that may be even more dangerous than trying to arrest him. He invites him to dinner. "Come home with me. Refresh yourself. Let me give you a gift." And the man of God refuses because his mission came with a very specific instruction. "Do not eat bread there. And don't drink water there. And don't go home by the road you came on, either." One One could say that it was almost that it sounded even excessive. Right? He delivered the message, he faced down the king. You could really work up an appetite with all that king defying. Why can't the man have a meal? And I think that maybe the answer is that if the prophet sits at Jeroboam's table immediately after condemning what Jeroboam built, the line he was sent to draw begins to disappear. It was never really about the bread. It was about not allowing the very thing you came to confront quietly absorb you. And then there's the road. Not to take the same one back. And I really always wondered why that was important. And while there's a lot to say about it, I think maybe it's because there are places Hashem sends you into that you're supposed to leave differently than you entered. Don't retrace your steps. Don't linger. You deliver the message. Now, keep moving. And that's exactly what he does. He refuses the king. He turns down the palace. And he leaves Bethel by another road. And then, he sits down under a tree. He's out. He's done everything right. And he stops moving before he's home. And while he's sitting there, an old prophet living in Bethel hears the story from his sons. He saddles his donkey, finds the man of God and says, "Come home with me and eat bread." And the man of God says exactly what he said to the king, "I can't. I was commanded." And then, verse 18, "Vayomer lo, gam ani navi kamocha." And he said to him, "I too am a prophet just like you." He lied to him. "An angel spoke to me," he says. "Bring him back to your house." And the Tanakh tells us flatly it was not true. And notice what the old prophet has convinced the man of God to do. He didn't just convince him to eat, he also convinced him to turn around. And before we know it, he's walking back. Back towards the place Hashem specifically told him not to return to. He came bidvar Hashem, by the word of God, and now he turns around on the word of a man. >> Yari, and this is the part I think about a lot. You know, I just It's crazy. It's just such a cool story. It's better than Star Wars. An armed king reaches out his hands and says, "Seize him." And the man of God doesn't move an inch. And then look at how he actually falls. The prophet doesn't walk up and say, "I'm I'm your enemy." He says, "I'm a prophet, too. I'm one of you. I speak your language. I understand your mission. I'm on your side." And that is what turns him around. I mean, we're a stiff-necked people, Ari, for better or for worse. When someone pressures us, we brace, we dig in, and we hold that line for years. Nobody moves us. And then someone puts an arm around our shoulder and says, "I understand you. I'm with you. I want what you want." And before you know it, we're handing over things no enemy on earth could ever have taken. The enemy makes you brace yourself, but it's the friend who gets you to lower your guard. And so, a king with soldiers couldn't move this man at all. And one voice that said, "I'm with you." walked him back down a road Hashem told him never to return on. >> That's so true. And he goes back, he eats, he drinks, and while they're sitting at the table, the word of Hashem actually comes, but not to the man of God, to the old prophet, to the one who lied. He cries out that the man of God will not be buried in the grave of his fathers. And in response to this, the man of God gets up and leaves. And on the road home, a lion meets him and kills him. But here's the detail the Tanakh goes out of its way to tell us. The body lies on the road. The man of God's donkey stands right beside it. And the lion that had dismalled him to death stands beside it, too. The lion doesn't eat the body, and it doesn't attack the donkey. It just stands there. Travelers pass by and see this scene, and it's clear to all that this is not just nature taking its course. The Tanakh wants everyone who passes to understand that something happened here. And then the old prophet hears what happened. He goes out, brings the body home, and mourns over him. Hoy achi, alas, my brother. He buries the man of God in his own grave, and he tells his sons in verse 31, Uh in the grave where the man of God is buried, bury me. Lay my bones beside his bones. You know, and here's what I can't get over about it. The man who caused the fall is the man who preserves the testimony. He can't undo it. The man is dead, but it seems like he binds himself to the very truth that he betrayed, and he lays the man of God in the grave that he's been saving for himself. He tells his sons to put his own bones besides the bones of of this holy prophet whose death he caused. Because he now knows with total certainty that every word spoken over that altar in the north is going to happen. That's teshuvah, my friends. That's repentance happening right there, I think. Not It's not undoing the damage, it is just carrying the truth forward anyways. And it works 300 years later when Josiah burns that place to the ground, he sees the marker over that grave and gives the order to leave it untouched, both of them. The one who told the truth and the one who lied and repented. And then the chapter ends, and the ending may be the hardest part of all. Verse 33. After this thing, Jeroboam did not return from his evil ways. After After what thing? After his hand withered in front of his entire court and all of the nation? After the altar cracked open after a healing he personally begged for and received? and then he went straight back to what he was doing? I find that it's it's it's a frightening thing because I think we often tell ourselves if I just saw something undeniable, I would change. If the miracles were big enough, public enough, clear enough, I would become a totally different person. Yeravam Saat he felt his he felt it in his own arm and he did not return. Which means miracles do not necessarily transform anybody. Only teshuvah does. Only truly returning to Hashem does. Hashem can split an altar right in front of you but he will not reach inside you and force your heart to turn. That is left in your hands and that's both the dignity of being human and it's also the frightening responsibility of being human. And I'll tell you why this just sits so heavily because look at the generation we're living in. Exiles gathered home from Yemen and Ethiopia, Odessa Brooklyn, all around the world. Hebrew spoken by children who have no idea it's a miracle. Ballistic missiles coming apart in the sky over these hills while my children sleep. Vineyards growing on mountains that were bare rock. The signs aren't subtle. They're they're not hidden. They're the news. And so this chapter leaves us with two men. One man stared down a king and never flinched and then turned around because a friendly voice told him something that he may have wanted to hear. The other watched heaven reach down and freeze his arm stiff and he refused to turn around at all. One turned when he shouldn't have. The other wouldn't turn when he desperately needed to. And maybe that's the question that we're left with on this. What does it take to make you change direction? What does it take to make me change direction? Because signs are are the same as transformation. Miracles are not the same thing as chuva. You can witness the impossible and wake up tomorrow exactly the same person, or you can allow what Hashem is showing you to demand something of you. Whether it's more faith, more courage, more humility, more obedience, more willingness to change. And so maybe the most frightening words in the entire chapter aren't that the altar split, they're these. Verse 33, "And after this thing Jeroboam did not return from his evil ways." After all of it, after all of it, he did not return. And so my friends, I want to bless us that those words never be said about us. May we have the strength to keep walking when Hashem has shown us the road, the wisdom not to turn back merely because of a comfortable, familiar voice tells us to, and the humility to shift course when Hashem is showing us that we've gone the wrong way. Chazak u'amatz, my friends. And before we go, if these daily journeys through the prophets of Israel mean something to you, become a sponsor, join the fellowship, become a friend. Come to the landofisrael.com and decide what the best place for you is here, because [music] your home is here with us in the hills of Judea. B'ezrat Hashem, we'll see you tomorrow for First [music] Kings chapter 14. Shalom from the mountains of Judea. >> [music]