It's so easy to be deceived. If for just a split second we think that we don't have to do exactly what God said, we can fall into Satan's trap. If we listen to a voice other than God's, we follow a path that leads to destruction. Ask the man of God in 1 Kings 13.
A man of God went to then King Jeroboam and prophesied. He witnessed miracles as amazing as the ones Moses witnessed before Pharoah. How humbled he must have been to be so close to what God was doing.
The man of God had specific instructions: "You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came."--1 Kings 13:10. After witnessing God move, he started out as God instructed, going down a different road.
The man of God was on a complete fast until he returned to Judah. He was hungry and thirsty. God had said no food or water. He was going back a different way, and maybe the way back was even longer. How long before he could eat?
As so often happens, in all our lives, he met temptation. Temptation came in the form, not of a serpent like in the garden, or some obvious sin to be avoided, but as an old prophet.
Satan knew where the man of God was vulnerable. He knew who he would listen to. King Jereboam had urged him to stay and eat. He refused. But an old prophet offering food? The hungry man of God couldn't resist a meal offered by one he believed to be a fellow prophet.
Satan knows how, when, and where to strike. He won't hit us in places where we are sure to avoid the trap he is setting. He hits us where we are vulnerable. He tells us what we want to believe.
The man of God didn't know as he ate that the meal would be his last. I imagine him sitting there, stuffing his face, justifying his disobedience to the almighty God, when the old prophet, used by God, told him of his fate: "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."--1 Kings 13:22.
How downcast he must have been when he left that place! And how quickly the Bible records that God dealt with his disobedience: "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"--1 Kings 13:24.
How sad! The man of God had prophesied events that would happen years later and seen God perform mighty miracles! But he didn't follow God's instructions. He started out strong, but he didn't follow through.
The price of disobedience is high!! Remember the choice God game the children of Israel in Deuteronomy 30:15: "See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction." If we are disobedient, we will suffer consequences for not following the directions that God has laid out before us. But if we obey God, He blesses us, and we will be able to say as Paul did in 2 Timothy 4:7 "I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith."
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