1 Kings 13

Don’t let anyone Talk You Out of It

 “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment which the Lord your God commanded you.’” ~ 1 Kings 13:21

Have you ever been absolutely sure you knew God direction about something, only to have someone come along and tell you something completely different? Suddenly you’re thinking, “Well, maybe I misunderstood God.” That’s a dangerous place to be because sometimes the hardest part of obeying God isn’t hearing what He says, it’s continuing to obey after somebody else gives you a different opinion.

Today’s scripture passage is one of those chapters that can leave you scratching your head. A man of God receives very specific instructions from the Lord. He obeys God boldly, speaks the message God gave him, and even refuses an invitation from the king. He seems determined to do exactly what God told him to do.

Then another “prophet” came along and said, “An angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house.’” And just like that, the man of God changes his course. The problem was, God had already spoken.

The story is sobering because the man wasn’t deceived by someone who openly claimed to hate God. He was influenced by another religious voice. That’s an important lesson for us today. Not every voice that uses God’s name is necessarily speaking God’s truth.

We live in a world overflowing with opinions, podcasts, social media posts, spiritual advice, inspirational quotes, and people who confidently say, “God told me.” We need to be people who know God’s Word well enough to recognize when something doesn’t agree with what He has already said.

Here are three important truths from this unusual chapter that can help us remain faithful to God in a world full of competing voices.

1. Don’t let someone else’s voice override what God has already put in your heart.

The man of God in 1 Kings 13 had received clear instructions from the Lord. He wasn’t confused when he first started his journey. He knew exactly what God had told him to do. His trouble came when another person gave him different instructions.

That should get our attention. God may use other people to encourage us, counsel us, teach us, and confirm what He’s doing in our lives, but no person should take the place of God’s Word. Even sincere people can be wrong. Even well meaning Christians can misunderstand something. Even people with good intentions can give bad advice. That’s why we need to know what God has actually said in His Word and in our hearts.

Maybe you’re in a season where God has asked you to wait, but everyone around you is telling you to hurry. Maybe you’re trying to establish healthier boundaries, but others are telling you that you’re being unreasonable. Maybe God has called you to step into something new, and someone else’s concerns and fears make you question whether you heard Him correctly. Before you change direction, go back to God’s Word and prayer. What I have found to be most helpful is to write down in a journal the direction God has put in your heart and ask Him for a scripture foundation to confirm the leading you believe He has given you.

Then when other voices pipe in or even when it feels hard, you can refer back to that journal for confirmation that you are still heading in the right direction.  When you feel like asking: “Lord, did You really tell me this, or am I allowing someone else’s opinion to become louder than Your voice?” You don’t have to be rude or dismissive toward people. You simply need to remember who has the final authority.

If God has clearly spoken through His Word, don’t abandon obedience simply because someone else has a different opinion.

2. Spiritual language doesn’t automatically mean spiritual truth.

This may be one of the most important pointss in the entire chapter. The old prophet told the man of God that an angel had spoken to him. It sounded spiritual. It sounded convincing. It even used the phrase “the word of the Lord.” But it wasn’t what God had told the man of God.

That means we can’t determine truth simply by how spiritual something sounds. Someone can quote Scripture and still misuse it. Someone can say, “God told me,” and still be mistaken. Someone can have a large following, an impressive platform, or a powerful personality and still give you advice that isn’t God’s direction for your life.

That’s why Scripture tells us to test what we hear. This is especially important today because we’re surrounded by spiritual content. We can scroll through social media and hear five different “prophetic” opinions before we’ve even finished our morning coffee. You can listen to a sermon, watch a video, read a post, hear a friend’s advice, and somehow end up with twelve different answers to one question.

So what do we do? We bring everything into agreement with scripture. If someone tells you that God wants you to do something that contradicts His Word, you don’t need to pray for three more weeks trying to make it work. God’s Word has already answered you.

If someone encourages you to hold onto unforgiveness, compromise your integrity, manipulate someone, pursue something God has warned you about, or justify sin because “God understands,” don’t swallow it simply because it came wrapped in Christian vocabulary. God’s voice will never contradict God’s Word.

3. Obedience isn’t just about how you start, it’s about how you finish.

The man of God started well. He obeyed God when the king tried to persuade him. He refused the king’s invitation. He spoke exactly what God told him to speak. But somewhere along the journey, he stopped listening to the instruction God had originally given him.

Starting well is wonderful, but finishing faithfully is also just as important. That applies to everyone. Maybe you started a new season with strong determination to put God first. Then life got busy. Maybe you committed to spending time with God every morning, but your alarm clock and your pillow began having theological discussions about whether you really needed to get up. The pillow usually has very persuasive arguments!

Maybe you started a new ministry, relationship, business, job, or season of personal growth with a clear sense of God’s direction. Over time, circumstances changed, people had opinions, disappointments came and you became tired. That’s when we have to remember what God originally said. Sometimes obedience gets harder after the excitement wears off.

It’s easy to obey when everything makes sense. Faith becomes more challenging when you’re tired, disappointed, misunderstood, or waiting longer than you expected. If God has showed you someone to forgive, keep forgiving. If He’s led you to serve, keep serving. If He’s pointed you toward waiting, keep waiting. If He’s called you to something that requires perseverance, don’t assume the difficulty means you missed Him. Take time regularly to pray, “Lord, help me finish what You have asked me to do.”

God isn’t only interested in getting you started. He wants to develop a life of faithful obedience in you. This chapter reminds us that following God requires more than hearing His direction one time in life. We need to stay close enough to Him to recognize His voice throughout the journey. We need God’s Word as our foundation, the Holy Spirit as our guide, and wisdom to recognize voices that may sound spiritual but don’t agree with God’s truth.

Being God’s people in today’s world means we can’t simply believe something because it’s popular, inspirational, Christian sounding, or posted in a beautiful graphic with mountains in the background. We need discernment.

And here’s the good news, God isn’t trying to make this difficult for us. He wants us to know Him. He wants us to recognize His voice. He gives us His Word so we have a trustworthy standard that everything else can be measured against. When God speaks, we don’t need to negotiate with every other voice in the room.

Today I want to encourage you, stay close to God and stay close to His Word. Don’t let another person’s opinion become louder than what God has already made clear. Don’t allow spiritual sounding advice to pull you away from biblical truth and don’t let temporary circumstances convince you that you need to abandon something God has asked you to do. You don’t have to follow every voice you hear. You don’t have to answer every opinion. You don’t have to explain every decision God has led you to make.

Sometimes faith looks like quietly saying, “I know what God told me, and I’m going to keep obeying.” There will always be voices competing for your attention, but you can choose which voice gets your obedience. Stay in God’s Word, keep praying, ask for wisdom, test what you hear and when God gives instruction, take Him seriously. Your goal isn’t simply to start the journey with God. It’s to walk with Him faithfully all the way to the end.

Today’s scripture reading: 1 Kings 13

1 And behold, a man of God went from Judah to Bethel by the word of the Lord, and Jeroboam stood by the altar to burn incense. 

2 Then he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said, “O altar, altar! Thus says the Lord: ‘Behold, a child, Josiah by name, shall be born to the house of David; and on you he shall sacrifice the priests of the high places who burn incense on you, and men’s bones shall be burned on you.’ ” 

3 And he gave a sign the same day, saying, “This is the sign which the Lord has spoken: Surely the altar shall split apart, and the ashes on it shall be poured out.”

4 So it came to pass when King Jeroboam heard the saying of the man of God, who cried out against the altar in Bethel, that he stretched out his hand from the altar, saying, “Arrest him!” Then his hand, which he stretched out toward him, withered, so that he could not pull it back to himself. 

5 The altar also was split apart, 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. 

6 Then the king answered and said to the man of God, “Please entreat the favor of the Lord your God, and pray for me, that my hand may be restored to me.”

So the man of God entreated the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored to him, and became as before. 

7 Then the king said to the man of God, “Come home with me and refresh yourself, and I will give you a reward.”

8 But the man of God said to the king, “If you were to give me half your house, I would not go in with you; nor would I eat bread nor drink water in this place. 

9  For so it was commanded me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘You shall not eat bread, nor drink water, nor return by the same way you came.’” 

10 So he went another way and did not return by the way he came to Bethel.

11 Now an old prophet dwelt in Bethel, and his sons came and told him all the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel; they also told their father the words which he had spoken to the king. 

12 And their father said to them, “Which way did he go?” For his sons had seen which way the man of God went who came from Judah. 

13 Then he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled the donkey for him; and he rode on it, 

14 and went after the man of God, and found him sitting under an oak. Then he said to him, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”

And he said, “I am.”

15 Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.”

16 And he said, “I cannot return with you nor go in with you; neither can I eat bread nor drink water with you in this place. 

17 For I have been told by the word of the Lord, ‘You shall not eat bread nor drink water there, nor return by going the way you came.’ ”

18 He said to him, “I too am a prophet as you are, and an angel spoke to me by the word of the Lord, saying, ‘Bring him back with you to your house, that he may eat bread and drink water.’ ” (He was lying to him.)

19 So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house, and drank water.

20 Now it happened, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back; 

21 and he cried out to the man of God who came from Judah, saying, “Thus says the Lord: ‘Because you have disobeyed the word of the Lord, and have not kept the commandment which the Lord your God commanded you, 

22 but you came back, ate bread, and drank water in the place of which the Lord said to you, “Eat no bread and drink no water,” your corpse shall not come to the tomb of your fathers.’ ”

23 So it was, after he had eaten bread and after he had drunk, that he saddled the donkey for him, the prophet whom he had brought back. 

24 When he was gone, a lion met him on the road and killed him. And his corpse was thrown on the road, and the donkey stood by it. The lion also stood by the corpse.

25 And there, men passed by and saw the corpse thrown on the road, and the lion standing by the corpse. Then they went and told it in the city where the old prophet dwelt.

26 Now when the prophet who had brought him back from the way heard it, he said, “It is the man of God who was disobedient to the word of the Lord. Therefore the Lord has delivered him to the lion, which has torn him and killed him, according to the word of the Lord which He spoke to him.” 

27 And he spoke to his sons, saying, “Saddle the donkey for me.” So they saddled it. 

28 Then he went and found his corpse thrown on the road, and the donkey and the lion standing by the corpse. The lion had not eaten the corpse nor torn the donkey. 

29 And the prophet took up the corpse of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back. So the old prophet came to the city to mourn, and to bury him. 

30 Then he laid the corpse in his own tomb; and they mourned over him, saying, “Alas, my brother!” 

31 So it was, after he had buried him, that he spoke to his sons, saying, “When I am dead, then bury me in the tomb where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. 

32 For the saying which he cried out by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel, and against all the shrines on the high places which are in the cities of Samaria, will surely come to pass.”

33 After this event Jeroboam did not turn from his evil way, but again he made priests from every class of people for the high places; whoever wished, he consecrated him, and he became one of the priests of the high places. 

34 And this thing was the sin of the house of Jeroboam, so as to exterminate and destroy it from the face of the earth.

Journal:

• Is there something God has already made clear to me that I’ve allowed another person’s opinion to make me question?
• What voices have the greatest influence on my decisions right now?
• How do I know whether the spiritual advice I’m receiving agrees with God’s Word?
• Is there an area where I started obeying God but have become tired, distracted, or discouraged?
• What is one specific thing God is asking me to continue doing faithfully?
• What can I do this week to spend more intentional time in God’s Word so I can recognize His voice more clearly?
• Pray this today: “Lord, help me recognize Your voice, trust Your Word, and remain faithful to You even when other voices tell me to go another way.”