Alright, brethren, let's turn
to 1 Kings chapter 13. 1 Kings chapter 13. Now in this chapter, the Lord
had sent the man of God out of Judah, His prophet, His messenger,
and He sent him to Bethel. And He sent him there to declare
that the judgment of God was coming upon that place because
of their false religion. And he was faithful in what he
did. He went and proclaimed the Word. And then he was on his
way home and he sat under an oak tree, and an old prophet
in Bethel, who was of Samaria, this old prophet came to him
and asked him to come home and eat with him. And God's messenger
did. And that was against the Word
of God. God told him not to do that. And so God chastened his
son, took his life, a lion met him in the way. And the old prophet
heard about it. And when the old prophet heard
about it, we read this in 1 Kings 13, beginning in verse 27. And he spake to his son, saying,
Saddle me the ass. And they saddled him. And he
went and found his carcass cast in the way, the carcass of the
man of God. And the ass and the lion standing
by the carcass. The lion had not eaten the carcass
nor torn the ass. And the prophet took up the carcass
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. And he laid his carcass in his
own grave. And they mourned over him, saying,
Alas, my brother! And it came to pass, after he
had buried him, that he spake to his son, saying, When I am
dead, then bury me in the sepulcher wherein the man of God is buried. Lay my bones beside his bones. For the saying which he cried
by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against
all the houses of the high places which are in the cities of Samaria
shall surely come to pass. After 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. And 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." Now a few
weeks ago I preached a message from this chapter titled, Temptation
Under an Oak. And in that message we focused
our attention mainly on God's prophet, the man of God. We saw his faithfulness in his
dealings with Jeroboam. And then we learn from his error,
the man of God sat under the oak and an old prophet came to
him and asked him to come home and eat and he did. And he broke
God's commandment, sinned against the direct command of God. And
then we learn from God's faithfulness to chasten his child. God used
a lion to take his prophet's life. that was chastening. It was only temporal chastening
is what it was. Some may have trouble with the
fact that God took his life. But do you know that our sin
deserves to be, we deserve to be cast out into eternal darkness. We deserve the fierce anger of
God's wrath. We deserve eternal judgment and
indignation from God. That's what we deserve. And the
life is not nearly, nearly, nearly as valuable as the soul. And
God took his life That thing that was worthless, it wasn't
worth anything anyway. God took it and saved his soul. God took his life and prevented
him from going back to Bethel and being corrupted with this
world. And that was great mercy from God. Great mercy from God.
We think these lives are the end all, be all. They're not.
And they're not all that important. This is temporal, carnal. So
God shows us here by taking the extreme from Him that if God
takes anything less than that, that or anything less than that
from us, it's mercy to keep us from being corrupted with this
world. You remember Moses smoked the
rock twice in anger? And God chastened him. God didn't
allow him to go into that temporal land of Canaan. He let him see
it, but then God buried him in the wilderness. But God saved
his soul. Peter saw Moses in the Mount
of Transfiguration. And speaking of Moses and Aaron
and Samuel, Psalm 99.6 says, Thou wast a God that forgave
us them, though Thou tookest vengeance of their inventions.
God will chasten His child. He will do that. For whom the
Lord loveth, He chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.
But when we're judged, we are chastened of the Lord that we
should not be condemned with the world. Great mercy. But the
more I got to looking at this chapter, the more I got to seeing
Christ all through it. And I want to preach to you today,
and I want to show you first of all, in the man of God, we
see Christ by way of contrast and comparison in the man of
God. And then secondly, we'll see
the two effects of the gospel, the two effects of the gospel
for all those who hear it. And then thirdly, we'll see the
end of those who reject the gospel and those who believe the gospel.
I've titled this, Buried with Christ. And this is what I want
you to get. In the day of God's judgment,
in the day of His fierce anger, the believer shall not suffer
the wrath of God because our old man of sin was buried with
Christ. And we've been raised with Christ,
and we've been made the righteousness of God in Christ. Alright, let's
look first of all in this man of God and let's see Christ by
way of comparison and contrast. First of all, in the person and
office of the man of God. Verse 1 tells us, Behold, there
came a man of God out of Judah by the word of the Lord unto
Bethel. Now Christ Jesus is the preeminent
man of God. He's God and He's man in one
person. He's God and He's man. You know
why that's important? because God can't die and satisfy
justice, and man can't satisfy justice eternally, but this one
who's God and man could do both. As a man, he could die under
the justice of God, and because he's God, he's satisfied justice
eternally for his people, obtained eternal redemption for his people.
And Christ came out of Judah, just like this man of God came
out of Judah, Christ came out of Judah. He's the Lion of the
tribe of Judah. All through the Scriptures, from
the beginning, God promised Christ would come through the lineage
of Judah, and He did. And He shows us by that that
God's faithful to His Word. Whatever God says, He determined
the end from the beginning. He's faithful to His Word. And
Christ came by the Word of the Lord. He is the Word made flesh,
and He came by the Word of the Lord. God the Father sent Him
to be His prophet, priest, and king, and He came by the Word
of the Lord. At the time appointed, He came.
Look at verse 1 again there at the end. It says, And Jeroboam
stood by the altar to burn incense. Ten of the twelve tribes of Jacob,
had made Jeroboam their king, and they had revolted, rebelled
against the king of Judah, and they had split off from him.
Well, when they did that, Jeroboam feared that if the people went
up to Jerusalem to worship where God commanded they worship, he
feared if they went up there to worship, then they were going
to come back under the rule of Rehoboam, the king of Judah.
And so what Jeroboam did, he was trying to save his throne.
He was trying to save his power. He was trying to save his dignity.
This is what sinners do. This is what every sinner in
this earth is doing. Trying to save his dignity. Trying
to save his authority, his power, his kingdom. his kingly authority
that he thinks he has. And so to do that, what he did
was he created two golden calves. He put one in Dan and he put
one in Bethel. And he created altars in each
place. And he told the brethren, he said, don't go back to Jerusalem
to worship. You can worship God right here.
Don't go back there where God commanded you to go. You can
worship God right here." And he changed the feast days. And
he said, now worship on these days. And to secure the favor
of the people, he started making priests of everybody that were
just common folks. Folks that weren't of the house
of Levi, which was required to be God's high priest. He just
made anybody who wanted to be a priest. And he himself became
a priest before it was all over with. And so he's doing all this
to save his throne. This is what sinners are doing.
Sinners are trying to save themselves, and they're trying to save...
they're exalted because men think they're gods by nature. And so
they're trying their best to worship God in their vain imagination. by the works of their hands,
with what they've created. And they're trying to, by that,
say, well, we'll believe God. But in reality, in the heart,
what they're doing is saying, we won't bow to God. We're going
to be the king. We're going to worship the God
we've made. This is how I think God is. You
ever heard that? This is what I believe. It don't
matter what you believe. It really don't. It's not God
said it and I believe it and that makes it true. It's God
said it and that makes it true. It don't matter if you believe
it or not. God said it and that makes it true. What does God
say? That's what matters. What does
God say? Not what you think. What does God say? Well, the
Lord Jesus came, and when He came into this earth, that's
what He found men doing, just like what Jeroboam was doing.
Standing by their altars, worshiping false gods that they had made,
the works of their own hands. And so Christ came forth to declare,
judgment's coming. He didn't come to judge His people,
He came to save them. God sent a messenger in there
to tell Jeroboam, all this stuff's going to be destroyed in the
wrath of God, in the day of judgment. And all these priests are going
to be burned on this altar. But God's telling him. Christ
is telling him. This is a picture we got. Christ
came into this earth and He said, judgment is coming. It's coming. And Christ is going to be that
judge. And so He's saying, repent and believe on Him. Now secondly,
we see Christ in the message the man of God declared. That
was His message. Verse 2, He cried against the altar in the
word of the Lord. He cried against it. And He said,
O altar, altar, thus saith the Lord. Behold, a child shall be
born into the house of David. Christ is that child. He's that
child promised all through the Scriptures. Josiah by name, and
upon thee shall he offer the priests of the high places that
burn incense upon thee. He's going to take these priests
that are offering sacrifices on this altar and he's going
to burn the priests up with the altar. That's what Christ came
to declare. He's going to burn up all men's
works with their works. That's what Christ is going to
do in the end. And he said, and men's bones shall be burned upon
thee. Christ came to declare we're sinners. That's what we
are. We're sinners. And unless we come to God in
His high priest, God has a high priest. Jeroboam was making a
high priest of whom he would, and making himself a priest.
God's going to receive His people in one high priest, and that
high priest is Christ. Christ entered into the Holy
of Holies not made with hands. Christ did. Christ is the Lamb
of God. We've got to come with blood
in another substitute. Christ is that Lamb. He didn't
offer the blood of bulls and goats. He offered His own blood.
He laid down His own life. Christ is the altar. He's the
one who makes His work effectual. Not us. He does it. He accomplished
redemption by His death. And everything that's declared
here is declaring Christ is the only way that God will receive
sinners. The only way. He's the way, the
truth, and the life. But for those who reject Christ,
there's coming a great burning in the Day of Judgment. A great
burning. And then thirdly, We see Christ
in what the man of God did for the old prophet. Now we've seen
him in his office, in his person. He's the man of God. He's the
prophet of God. We saw him in his message. He
came declaring, judgment's coming. Get in Christ. Believe on Christ. Only those who believe on Christ
will be saved. All others will perish in wrath.
And then thirdly, we see in the man of God what Christ did. Now
let's look at what he did for this old prophet. The old prophet
came out and he asked the man of God to come home to eat with
him. He said, come home and eat with me. Verse 16. And the man
of God said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee,
neither will I eat bread, nor drink water with thee in this
place. For it was said to me by the word of the Lord, thou
shalt eat no bread, nor drink water there, nor turn again to
go by the way that thou camest. The only way, now listen carefully,
the only way that the man of God could go in and have fellowship
with this old prophet of Bethel was if he became guilty before
God. That was the only way the man
of God could have fellowship with that old prophet. The only way holy God could have
fellowship with his people was for Christ, His Son, to become
guilty before God by taking our sin upon Himself and putting
away that sin by the sacrifice of Himself and making us the
righteousness of God. That's the only way God could
have fellowship with us. And Christ did it willingly.
He did it willingly. 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, He hath
made Him sin for us. who knew no sin, that we might
be made the righteousness of God in Him." Do you see why God
punishes those who won't believe His Son? Because God gave His
Son, and God made His own Son, who knew no sin, who proved Himself
perfectly righteous and faithful. Just like the prophet of God
had proven himself faithful before this, with his dealings with
Jeroboam. He'd been tempted, but he didn't
turn. But now, he turns and he goes
in and becomes guilty before God. When Christ proved Himself
innocent, He then went, and God the Father made Him sin. God
the Son made Him sin. Christ Himself made Him sin.
For us, for sinners, that we might be made the righteousness
of God in Him. God is just, and God will by
no means clear the guilty. So for God to show a sinner mercy,
justice has got to be satisfied for that sinner. Galatians 3.13
says, Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law. The
curse of the law is you can't keep it and I can't keep it.
And the curse of the law is it demands righteousness and it
demands death. And the only place that can be
found is in Christ. We have righteousness in Christ
and our sins have been put away because we died in Christ. That's
the only place we can find this is in Christ. Christ has redeemed
us. He's liberated us. He's delivered
us. He's accomplished the redemption
of His people. How? He was made a curse for
us. He went to the cross and He bore
what His people owed. He went to the cross and He bore
the wrath of God's judgment. He stood in the gap between the
holy God and His people, the righteous judge and His sinful
people. And He bore the sin of His people in His own body on
the tree. Verse 22, it says that the Lord was speaking to His
prophet and He said, In verse 22, he said, but camest
back. You came back. This was what
God told him not to do. He said, God told him, don't
go back and eat where this went. Don't go back. And he said, but
you came back. Now the man of God disobeyed.
He disobeyed God. He went back. But Christ obeyed
God. It was God's will for him to
go back to Jerusalem, back to that place, and go in there and
bear this sin and this punishment for his people. And Christ went
back at the time appointed. He said in John 12, 27, Now is
my soul troubled. He knew what he was fixing to
face. He knew what was going to happen if he went in there
and became guilty before God. And he said, Now is my soul troubled.
What shall I say? Shall I pray, Father, save me
from this hour? He said, for this cause came
I unto this hour. I came into this earth for this
cause. Why did Christ die? Why did He
come into this earth? For this cause, to die in the
room instead of His people. And He said in John 14, 31, that
the world may know that I love the Father. And as the Father
gave me commandment, even so I do. Arise, let us go in. You see the contrast? The man
of God disobeyed the command. Christ obeyed him, but he went
back. Both of them went back. They
had to go back. Verse 22, He says there, He says at the end,
Thy carcass shall not come unto the sepulcher of thy fathers.
This was chastening. This was chastening. God chastened
His child. And this was a great chastening
to Him. He wouldn't let His carcass come back to the sepulchers of
His fathers. And that meant something. That
meant something to this man. This was chastening. This wasn't
meant to be joyful. It was meant to be sorrowful.
Well, he did that because this man disobeyed his father. And
God the Father chastened him in love as a son, forgiven of
his sins, not in fierceness of offended justice, as one whose
chastisement, that chastisement had been put away. And so now
he's got peace with God and God dealt with him as a son in love. But when Christ Jesus obeyed
the Father, not disobeyed, He obeyed the Father. And He took
the sin of His people upon Himself. Christ bore the full stroke of
God's justice. He bore the full stroke of divine
justice which His people deserved. And Isaiah 53, verse 5 says,
He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquities. And listen now, the man of God
was being chastened in love, but not Christ. It says of Christ,
the chastisement of our peace was upon Him. And He bore it. He bore it and He had to bear
the... There's a death called the death of the cross. the death
of the cross. That's what Christ bore the whole
time He was on that cross alive. That's what He was bearing. He
was bearing the death of the cross. He was bearing that eternal
death for His people. That worm that never dies for
His people being separated from God. And notice here in verse
23. Notice what the man of God was
riding when He went forth to that rod. Verse 23. The old prophet
saddled for Him the ass. And so the man of God comes forth
riding on another man's ass. That's what he's riding. Christ
rode into Jerusalem to bear the chastisement of our peace on
another man's lowly ass's coat. He came in there to Jerusalem
to bear that chastisement. And verse 24 tells us, And when
he was gone, a lion met him by the way and slew him, and his
carcass was cast in the way. The reason that this was only
temporal judgment for the man of God is because Christ met
the lion in the way. Christ met Satan who roared like
a lion, and he met him in the way. Christ met his enemies. who he allowed to treat him shamefully
and to pluck out his beard and smite him with the fist and then
take nails and nail him to a cross and plant him in the ground,
to hang there and to drown in the fluid of his own lungs. That's
what they intended. They were a line, fierce line,
raging and roaring in his face. His own justice, which Christ
bore for His people, was the line that was the greatest. That
justice demanded death that we could never pay. It demands death. You sitting here right now, you
owe God something. You that are sitting here without
Christ, you owe God something. You owe Him death. Eternal death. Wrath. Wrath has to be poured
out. Justice has to be satisfied.
And it will go on for eternity because you're not eternal and
you can't accomplish it. You can't satisfy it. It'll last
forever. Forever. Christ bore that for
His people. Christ met that lion in the way,
and it slew him. He said, my tongue cleaves to
my mouth. He said, my bones are out of
joint. He said, I'm poured out like
water. He said, I'm a worm and no man. He said, my God, my God,
why hast thou forsaken me? And then he said, but thou art
holy. That's why you forsake me, because
you're holy. He had to forsake him. He had
to leave him there, because God's holy. God's holy. And like that
prophet of God, Christ's body remained upon that cross in the
way for all to see. There he was in the way, just
like that carcass was cast in the way. There he is. Do you
see him? Do you see Christ? Do you see
him? There he is, in the way. The way is in the way. There
he sits. Verse 24 says, And the ass stood
by it, and the lion also stood by the carcass. Look down at
verse 28. And he went and found his carcass
cast in the way, and the ass and the lion standing by the
carcass. The lion had not eaten the carcass nor torn the ass. This was a sign to us of God's
favor to his child. Substitution is pictured here.
Substitution. The lion couldn't kill the ass
because he took the man of God. Remember when Christ came out
of the garden and he said to those that came to arrest him,
he said, take me. Let these go free. Can't touch
them. You touch me, but you can't touch
them. And the man of God was the one
justice was pursuing. And the justice touched him,
but it didn't touch didn't touch the ass. And something else we
see here, too, is that God had exercised His chastening hand
upon His child, but when it was satisfied, then He used the same
line that He had used to chasten the man of God to protect the
man of God's body, because He would have him properly buried,
because God loved His child. Now, with Christ, we have a picture
of the same thing. Well, we see the same thing.
When Christ had satisfied divine justice, and justice was satisfied,
and Christ said, it's finished, and He gave up the ghost, the
same line that nailed Him to that cross, God used that same
line to take His body down off the cross and protect Him. They said, go and break His legs
so He'll die, and we can get Him down off the cross because
we don't want to break our precious Sabbath day. And God used the
Jews that nailed Him there. Of course, He had already given
up the ghosts when they went to Him. But He used that same
line. They put Him there to want to get Him down off that cross
and protect His body. Because God loved His Son. Because
justice was satisfied. Because God's going to raise
Him again. That's what God did for the man
of God, for him as his child. Verse 25, it says, And behold,
men passed by and saw the carcass cast in the way, and the lion
standing by the carcass. And they came and told it in
the city where the old prophet dwelt. You know what Jeroboam
was wanting to do? He was wanting to shut up the
man of God. He was wanting the prophet of
God to shut his mouth and not speak anymore about what was
going to happen. in Dan and in Bethel and in Samaria
and all the high places that He had created. Because if this
man kept talking, he's going to lose the people that he's
got serving him and making him king. He wanted them shut up. That's what they wanted of Christ.
They wanted Christ shut up. They wanted His mouth shut so
they could go on with their vain religion and get Him out of the
way. The Prince of life, God, they wanted Him silenced so they
could get on with their religion. But you know what God did? God
put Christ on that cross in the way, just like He did the man
of God here, in the most public way possible. And He did this
strange thing there upon the cross, just like God did with
the man of God when He put that lion there and that ass there.
Imagine coming up on this scene. You're walking down the highway,
you come upon this scene, and there's a man's carcass there,
and there's a lion there, and there's an ass there, and the
lion's not killing the ass, he's not tearing up the carcass, they're
just sitting there. And you know what they did? They went into town and talked
about it all over town, and said, you'll never believe what we
saw. You know what God's people are still doing to this day?
We're still talking about what happened on that cross. We're
still talking about that strange thing God did back there on that
cross, when He put His Son on that cross and satisfied justice
for His people and put our sins away. And nobody's been able
to shut it up. Nobody's been able to stop the
Word of God from going forth. Everybody's still talking about
it. And I'm here to tell you about it. I'm here to tell you
today about it. Do you realize, brethren, What
it means to know that Christ put away by Himself the sin of
His people. Do you know what that means?
That means everybody the Father gave to Him. That means that
their sins are gone. That means they're justified.
And that means God did it. God did the justifying. Romans
8.33 says, Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth. He
didn't say anything about the believer. No, the believer don't
justify himself. Your faith don't justify you.
God justifies. God justifies. God gives faith
that lays hold of God who did the justifying. God gives faith
that lays hold of Christ that did the justifying. Our faith
don't justify us. Christ justifies us. It says,
Who is he that condemneth? It's Christ that died. Yea, rather,
that's risen again, who's even at the right hand of God, who
makes intercession for us. That's what it means. Christ
made atonement. The death He accomplished. He crushed the
serpent's head when he took all the sin away from his people.
And he perfected them forever by his one offering. So that
now, though the accuser of the brethren would stand up before
God like he stood up before Joshua the high priest, who had married
some women that he weren't supposed to marry according to God's Word.
You'll find that in your bulletin. Satan stood up to accuse him,
and you know how he accused him? He resurrected the body of Moses.
Not the literal body of Moses, he took the law of Moses. He
took the Ten Commandments and took the commandments of God
and said, but you forbid this, and he's done it. And Christ
didn't bring a railing accusation against him. Michael the archangel,
the angel of the covenant, the messenger of the covenant, Christ
stood by him and he said, the Lord rebuke thee. And he said,
is this not one of God's own chosen children right here? Is
this not a brand plucked out of the fire that I've plucked
out of the fire by mine own hand and who will remain in my hand?
For no man shall pluck them from my hand. Is this not one I've
robed in my righteousness and made the very righteousness of
God? And he pleaded, he interceded, he made intercession for Joshua
before the Lord. And you know what happened? The
Lord heard him. And the old accuser of the brethren's got no more
power. That's what it means when it says judgment. We'll be convinced
of judgment. It's accomplished. The prince
of this world's cast out. He's cast out. He's judged. He's
got nothing to accuse us with because we've got no sin. God
put it away. And we're righteous. The believer's
righteous. How righteous? Perfectly righteous.
There's only one kind. Perfectly righteous. How holy?
Holy. There's only one kind. Perfect
to be accepted of God. That's what the believer is. No charge can be laid against
him. No condemnation can be charged to him. He's perfect before God. Paul said, and I'm persuaded
that none of these things are hidden from you, for this thing
was not done in a corner. This thing wasn't done in a corner.
Christ has been lifted up for all to see. Everybody on this
earth knows about it. What are you going to do now?
Have you seen it? What are you going to do now?
Well, let's see. Secondly, we see the two effects
the Gospel has on those who hear. We've got two men who heard the
truth, Jeroboam and the old prophet. We're not told if God saved the
old prophet. We don't know that. It won't
do us any good to try to figure that out and speculate about
that. Focus on what's important here.
Focus on what we see that edifies. We don't know if the old prophet
was saved or not. But in these men, we do see two opposite effects
that the gospel has upon men. Jeroboam did three things. Jeroboam
rejected the Word of the Lord. He did three things. And in these
three things, we see various ways that sinners reject Christ. The first thing he did was he
tried to kill the messenger. Look at verse 4. When King Jeroboam
heard the saying of the man of God, which had cried against
the altar in Bethel, he put forth his hand from the altar, saying,
Lay hold on him. He wasn't wanting to lay hold
on him and whisper sweet nothings to him. He was wanting to kill
him. He was wanting to kill him. The natural man, by his vain
reasoning, by his questioning, is doing one thing. He is attempting
to kill God. He's attempting to kill Christ.
He's attempting to kill and discredit God's messengers. He's attempting
to kill and discredit the message and discredit God's Word so he
can soothe his conscience while he goes to hell. That's what
he's doing. That's what he's doing. Look at Hebrews 10.26. Hebrews 10.26. You're sitting here this morning
without Christ. I want you to get something. I want you to
get this. The sin that shall never be forgiven,
the sin that shall never be forgiven is the sin of rejecting Christ
Jesus the Lord. No sin can cover that sin. No payment can cover that sin.
Look at Hebrews 10.26. If we sin willfully, After that
we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth
no more sacrifice for sin." This is not talking about the sins
you commit after you've believed. Those are often willful sins. This is talking about after you've
heard the Gospel preached and you reject Christ, willfully
reject Christ, say, I'm not going to believe Him. There remains
no more sacrifice for sin. but a certain fearful looking
for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. He that despised Moses' law died
without mercy under two or three witnesses." You're not going
to perish because you broke the law. Not in this new covenant
age. That's not why you're going to
perish. You're going to perish for this reason. "'Of how much
sore punishment, suppose ye, shall he be thought worthy who
hath trodden underfoot the Son of God?' and hath counted the
blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing
and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace." The Spirit
of grace is declaring to you now the Word of God, what Christ
has accomplished. If you willfully reject Him and
try to kill Christ, get Him out of your mind, tread underfoot
the Son of God, tread underfoot the blood of the covenant, there
remains no more sacrifice for sin. And God will, in fire, take
vengeance on the adversaries. There's no doubt about it. Well,
that's the first way a man rejects Christ. Here's the second way.
Verse 7. 1 Kings 13, 7. Secondly, Jeroboam tried to gain
favor by his doing. By his doing. Verse 7. And the
king said unto the man of God, Come home with me, and refresh
thyself, and I'll give thee a reward. You see, men are trying to bribe
God, just like this Jeroboam tried to bribe this man. We can't
bribe God. We got nothing to offer to God.
The best thing for you and I to do is come down off our throne,
because we're not really a king. Christ is king. The best thing
for us to do is to ask God to be merciful to take us into His
house. We can't invite Him into our
house. We got no house. We need to be accepted of God
into the house of God. And that's only going to be done
through mercy. God have mercy on us. We need for God to refresh
us. We can't do something for God.
We need Him to regenerate us. We need Him to wash us. We need
Him to make us righteous and robe us in His garment, put the
oil of the Spirit upon us and robe us in His garment and make
us presentable to Himself. We need Him to do that for us.
We have no reward to give from our hands to God. Deuteronomy
10.17 says, The Lord your God is God of gods. He's Lord of
lords. He's a great God and mighty and
terrible, which regardeth not persons, nor taketh reward. He's
not going to take anything from us. There's nothing about us
that we can give to God who is God of God. And then thirdly,
after hearing the truth, Jeroboam continued right on in his evil
way. Look at verse 33. After 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."
Now, Jeroboam is an example of what all men will do if they're
left to themselves. Try to kill the messenger, try
to kill Christ. They'll try to do some work to
gain acceptance, and they'll just go right on in their vain
religion. But now let's look at the old lying prophet, verse
11. Now there dwelt an old prophet
in Bethel. Now brethren, we're like this man. This man was religious. He even had an office in religion,
but he was in a land of idolatry. Just content to be there. In
a church or not, all men are religious. All men say, well,
I believe. All men believe something. I
believe. And whether they're in a church
or they're not, I believe so and so. They're religious by
nature. But apart from God's grace teaching
us by His Spirit in the heart, we don't know a thing. We're
just ignorant and blind and dead and know nothing. But then the
old prophet heard about God's messenger. Look at verse 11. His sons came and told him all
the works that the man of God had done that day in Bethel.
The words which he had spoken unto the king, them they told
also to their father. God often uses something like
this to draw his people, to begin drawing them to himself, cross
their path with the gospel. These sons went to a place at
Bethel, a place of idolatry, to engage in idolatrous worship.
But that day something new happened. God sent his pastor, and he preached
the truth. And these fellows came home,
and they came into the house, and they said, Dad, you're never
going to believe what happened down there today. Some man came
forth talking about God is going to come forth and destroy all
our religion. God's going to come forth and He's going to
judge this place. And unless we're in His Son,
we're going to perish. And the Lord stirred the old prophet. He said, I want to go hear this
man. That's what happens. That's what happens. You hear
a word, maybe second hand, maybe third hand, and God does something
to grab a hold of you and make you say, I want to go hear that
for myself. And a man who all his days stayed
at home while you came down and heard the Gospel, one day all
of a sudden, out of the blue, he'll surprise the fire out of
you. He'll say, I want to go hear
the Word of God. So go home, brethren, like his sons did.
Go home and tell those fathers and mothers and sons and daughters
and friends and neighbors. Go home and tell them what you've
heard. God used it. And the old prophet came and
he not only wanted to hear the man, he asked the man to come
home and eat with him. When God starts working in his child,
that enmity that's been there all his days against God... And
brethren, I know you've got questions. You've got, well, why does my
husband not believe the gospel? Why does my... This one I'm in
love with and I want to worship God. This is it, brethren. It's called enmity against God.
Why don't they want to pick up a Bible? Because it reminds them
they're going to face God. And they hate God. And they hate
the fact that they can't come to God any other way than how
God says it. That's the nature of man since
he's fallen. That's it. But then God starts
doing something in the heart, and He replaces enmity with something
else that reigns there. It's called love. And they begin
to hear the truth, and they have a love of the truth. And they
have a love for those brethren, and they want to be around them,
and they want them to come home with them to dinner and just
keep talking to me about this. I want to keep hearing it. We saw last time the Lord used
the old prophet to rebuke his prophet, but what the Lord did
to make him speak His Word is what makes the Gospel effectual
in the heart. Look at verse 20. And it came
to pass, as they said at the table, that the Word of the Lord
came. The Word of the Lord came unto
the prophet that brought him back. That's what made the prophet
quit lying. He quit speaking his Word and
started speaking God's Word. When are we going to stop lying
on God and casting up all our rebuttals and agree with God?
It's going to be when the Word comes in to us. When Christ comes
forth and makes it effectual in our heart. And then look down
here at verse 25. God makes us hear in our hearts
about the death of Christ. Verse 25, They came and told
it in the city where the old prophet dwelt. And when the prophet
that brought him back from the way heard thereof, he said, It
is the man of God. The Spirit of God makes us behold
Christ Jesus on the cross, crucified. We behold Him there, crucified
on that cross. And when we behold Him crucified
on that cross, God makes us to see, we put Him there. That's
what this old prophet saw. This old prophet knew, He's dead
because of me. He's dead because I brought Him
back. He's dead because of my lies. He's dead because of my
sin. And God makes us to see Christ died for me. He died for
my sin. He died because of who I am.
He died because of what I am. He died because I'm the enemy
of God. And when He does that, the Spirit of God makes us to
want to lay hold of the body of Christ. To lay hold of Him.
And He makes us want to identify with Him. And He makes us mourn
for Him. Look at verse 29. And the prophet took up the carcass
of the man of God. He took it up and he laid it
upon the ass and he brought it back and the old prophet came
to the city to mourn and to bury him and he laid his carcass in
his own grave and they mourned over him saying, Alas, my brother.
Turn over to Matthew 27. Matthew 27. Zechariah 12.10 says, I'll pour
upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem,
the spirit of grace and supplication. And they shall look upon Me whom
they've pierced, and they'll mourn for Me as one mourns for
his own son. That's what we see a picture
of here with this old prophet. That's what's got to happen in
our heart. When are you going to really believe God? When you
see Christ died for your sin. I don't know if He did. He didn't
die for everybody's sin, but if He died for yours, God will
eventually reveal it to you. And when He does, you're going
to see, He was dying for my sin. And when you see He was dying
for your sin, you'll mourn for Him. You'll mourn for Him. And
you can quit your mumbling and groaning and complaining and
arguing against God because you can't do it when you've got tears
in your eyes. and your mouth is just shut in
shame and sorrow. But what that old prophet did,
doesn't it remind you of what Joseph of Arimathea did? He came
and got the body of the old man of God and took it and buried
it in his own sepulchre. Look here, Matthew 27, 57. When
the evening was come, there came a rich man of Arimathea named
Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple. And he went
to Pilate and he begged the body of Jesus Then Pilate commanded
the body to be delivered. And when Joseph had taken the
body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth and laid it in his
own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock. And he rolled
a great stone to the door of the sepulcher and departed."
You see, the point I'm making to you is this. Both these men
could have died. The old prophet could have died
when he took that carcass into town and buried it in front of
Jeroboam and all that vain host, but he did it anyway. Joseph
of Arimathea could have died when he identified himself with
Christ, but he did it anyway. That's what faith does. That's
what faith does. And look here, back in our text,
1 Kings 13, God makes us believe Christ. We confess we're dead. We confess we were buried with
Christ and rose again. And we confess Him in believer's
baptism. Look at verse 31. It came to
pass after He had buried Him that He spake to His Son, saying,
When I'm dead, are you dead? Paul said, I died. I died. When Christ died, I died. Are
you dead? He said, When I'm dead, bury me in the sepulcher wherein
the man of God is buried. I'm dead. I died with Christ
on the cross. You know where I'm buried? My old man of sin
is buried when Christ went into that tomb. He was buried. I was
buried with Christ. Lay my bones beside his bones,
he said, for the saying which he cried by the word of the Lord
against the altar in Bethel and against all the houses of the
high places which are in the cities of Samaria shall surely
come to pass. His words true. And I believe
because Christ came out of the grave and He said, because I
live, you shall live also. I believe His words are true.
That's surely going to come to pass. And the rest of this world
is going to be destroyed. Every bit of it. Know ye not
that so many of us, as we're baptized into Christ Jesus, we're
baptized into His death. Therefore, we're buried with
Him. We're buried with Him. We're buried with Him by baptism
into death, that like as Christ was raised from the dead by the
glory of the Father, even so we also shall walk in newness
of life. For if we've been planted together in the likeness of His
death, we shall be also in the likeness of His resurrection,
knowing this, that the body of sin might be destroyed, that
the old man is crucified with Him, that the body of sin might
be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve sin. You
see, our body of sin is put away. We've been buried with Christ.
Colossians, he said, circumcised with a circumcision not made
with hand. Putting off the body of sins
by the circumcision of Christ. Buried with Him. Buried with
Him. Alright? Now, let's see the end
of those who reject Christ. Who reject Him and the end of
those who believe on Him. Jeroboam rejected the truth.
He went right on, rejected the truth. Verse 34 tells us his
end. And 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. Those who meet God outside of
Christ shall be cut off, not just out of this earth, but cut
off eternally. Imagine being in a place of darkness
with others who were weeping and wailing and gnashing with
their teeth, And always forever being able to see the bliss of
heaven and the bliss of the saints robed in Christ's righteousness.
The floor of heaven is described as being glass. So you can see. You on the outside will be able
to see the whole thing. And want so badly to be there.
Want so badly to fulfill the lusts of your flesh. And none
of the things you want, you'll be able to fulfill. None of the
things you want, you'll be able to do. You ever wanted to do
something really, really bad and couldn't do it? That's the
worst formula there is. Be cut off forever. Cut off. But what happened to the old
prophet who was buried with Christ? Turn over to 2 Kings chapter
23, 2 Kings 23. Now we don't know his eternal
state, but in what happened to him physically, in what happened
to him physically, we see a picture of what shall happen spiritually
for those who believe on Christ. We've been redeemed from all
condemnation. So when God's poured out wrath,
What's going to happen to the believer? Over 300 years passed. Remember the prophet of God,
the man of God said, Josiah is coming and he's going to judge
this world. Christ is coming. 2,000 years
have passed. Christ is coming. He's going
to judge this world in righteousness. What's going to happen while
all the world is being destroyed and everything is melting with
a fervent heat and fire of judgment is falling upon those who rejected
God? What's going to happen for the
believer? Look at verse 15. Moreover, the altar that was
at Bethel, and the high place which Jeroboam the son of Nebat,
who made Israel to sin, had made, both that altar and the high
place he broke down, and burned the high place, and stamped it
small to powder, and burned the grove." This is Josiah doing
this. Josiah came forth just like the man of God said he would,
and he's doing this. He's a picture of Christ coming
forth and judging this world. And as Josiah turned himself,
he spied the sepulchers that were there in the mount, and
sent and took the bones out of the sepulchers, and burned them
upon the altar, and polluted it according to the word of the
Lord, which the man of God proclaimed, who proclaimed these words."
You see, death's not going to save us from the wrath of God.
That's what the picture is here. He went and got their bones out
of the grave and destroyed them. God's going to get us all out
of the grave. And then he's going to destroy those who rejected
him. But what happens to those who believe? Verse 17, then he
said, What title is that I see? That would have been a good title
for this message. What title is that I see? And the men of
the city told him, It's the sepulcher of the man of God which came
from Judah. And proclaim these things that thou hast done against
the altar of Bethel. That's his sepulcher. And he
said, Let him alone. That would have been a good title.
Let him alone. Let no man move his bones. Now
watch this. So they let his bones alone with
the bones of the prophet that came out of Samaria, with that
old prophet's bones. They didn't touch his bones because
they were in the same grave with the man of God's bones. In the
day of God's judgment, while all others are being destroyed
with fire, this will be the Word of God. He'll look upon His sheep
and He'll say, what title is this I see? And they'll say,
this is the title of the man of God, Christ Jesus, their righteousness. And He'll say, leave them alone
because they were buried with Christ and their sin was put
away and they've been risen with Christ and made the righteousness
of God in Him and they've identified with Him through faith. Leave
them alone. They're righteous. They're righteous. There is therefore now no condemnation
to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh
but after the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of
life in Christ Jesus has made us free from the law of sin and
death." Are you buried with Christ? Are you buried with Christ? Do
you know what it is to live because He lives? Do you know what it
is to have this hope in yourself? Or are you rejecting Him? Are
you rejecting Him? You're going to end in death
forever if you reject it. You're not going to beat God.
You're not going to fight against God and win. You might as well
surrender. Surrender. And oh, the hope and
the joy of knowing there is now no condemnation. No condemnation. I pray the Lord will bless the
word. Amen.