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Our story in 1 Kings 13 is a strange one and not one that will be readily familiar to most Christians. At least in the sense of perhaps you've never heard of it before or maybe it's never stood out to you before while reading the Bible. With a little bit of understanding and study, we actually find that the principle taught by the story is very familiar because we see it acted out every week of our lives today. The story of the prophet in 1 Kings 13 is imbedded within the history of the evil king Jeroboam and is not essential to understanding the story of Jeroboam's reign or life. God placed this story within the narrative simply because it teaches a powerful principle of the spirit. I believe that this story was recorded for the sole purpose of teaching you and I the power and danger of distractions.

When King Solomon died, his son Rehoboam assumed the throne of Israel. Solomon had been the richest king that ever ruled Israel, but his riches had largely come through extremely high taxes. When his son, Rehoboam, took the throne, a large group of the Israelites consisting mainly of the northern ten tribes, decided that they were sick and tired of paying such high taxes. They appointed one such leader, Jeroboam, to go to the new king and ask for a tax cut. It sort of sounds like modern day Congress doesn't it?

The new king Rehoboam was young and listened to his young friends rather than his trusted advisors and refused to lower the taxes and just to be a jerk raised the taxes even further! When he did, civil war broke out and the northern ten tribes split away from the southern two and elected Jeroboam as their king and the era known today as the time of the Divided Kingdom was born. The two bottom tribes were the area around Jerusalem and went by the name of "Judah." The northern ten tribes went by the name of "Israel."

Jeroboam sold out his life to making sure that the tribes did not come back together. He passed laws restricting the travel from the north to the south. He established his own capital city from which to rule. But the worst thing that Jeroboam did -- and the thing that got him on God's bad side -- was to build two huge golden calves and say that they represented the presence of the Jehovah God and the sacrifices that were being offered in the temple at Jerusalem, and that it was okay to worship these golden calves because they were an image that represented the true God of Israel. Of course, according to God, it was NOT okay to worship these calves in His place, but Jeroboam was doing everything that he could to keep the people from the north from being influenced by the south and he knew that if some of them went down to Jerusalem regularly to worship at the temple, then they might not return, and so he was trying to give people an alternative to going to the temple of God. And since we're here, let me say that this is a lesson on the dangers of distractions in it's own right. The devil doesn't care if you worship, as long as you don't worship the true God of Israel! And so like Jeroboam, the devil will provide an alternate way to worship or believe or go to church, but don't think for a minute that God is pleased with such a diversion!

Enter the prophet who is the subject of our text. We don't know his name nor much about him except for this story. At the same time Jeroboam is kicking off his new religion and building altars and sacrificing oxen and sheep to these calves that supposedly represent Jehovah God, the true Jehovah God speaks to this prophet in the south and gives him a message for Jeroboam. God told the prophet "go tell Jeroboam that I am not pleased with his idolatry and that not only will his kingdom fall but I will raise up a future king named Josiah who will kill these false prophets that Jeroboam has created and burn their bodies on his supposed altar." And God also commanded the prophet that "I will give you a sign to perform while you are there so Jeroboam will take you seriously." And then almost as an afterthought God instructed the prophet "Eat no bread, nor drink water, nor turn again by the same way that thou camest." In other words, God was telling the prophet "go straight there, give Jeroboam your message and come straight back a different way so you aren't distracted by something that you saw on your way up. Don't eat with anybody. Don't even pause to drink. I don't want you being in that idolatrous nation anymore than you absolutely have to. I've sent you with a purpose, to deliver a message for me, and don't get distracted by anything."

And so the young prophet takes off with his word from the Lord. He finds Jeroboam at the altar offering incense to his golden calves. The young prophet rushes up and interrupts the ceremony and begins to prophesy what God has told him to say. When Jeroboam heard the prophecy of doom, he stretched forth his hand to signal to his soldiers to grab and kill the young prophet, but was dumbfounded to find that his hand stopped working, so that he could not pull it back into his body. And as he stood there cursed by God, he heard the young prophet say "and this is a sign to you that what I'm saying is true, your altar shall be split in two and the ashes that are upon it will be poured out on the ground."

Trembling, Jeroboam begged the prophet to heal his hand and the prophet did so. But just as his hand went back to normal, to Jeroboam's disbelief his altar was struck by God and split down the middle and the ashes that he had just been offering fell to the ground. God was proving the word of His young servant and showing His extreme displeasure over Jeroboams' makeshift religion and false doctrine!

Since I'm here, let me throw this out there. I know of a particular large church in which the pastor was once a mighty, "one God, Apostolic" preacher but who compromised his message and stopped preaching in the essentiality of Jesus' name baptism and the Holy Ghost and that Jesus was Almighty God incarnate because of money issues and in order to draw a bigger crowd. And a few years ago, he had another such like-minded man who had been raised in truth and turned aside and got distracted by the money to be made through compromising come preach for him. During that service, God miraculously split the pulpit in two while the man was preaching. There was a large thundering sound and literally the pulpit cracked apart down the middle. The preacher and pastor took that as a sign that God miraculously approved of their message and actions and today if you visit that church, in the foyer you will find that split pulpit on display for all to see.

I bring this up only because the only time in scripture that I can find God splitting a piece of furniture in two was in this chapter where God did it to show His displeasure over a man's false doctrine! I don't think that God split that pulpit to show His approval, but rather quite the opposite! I think that He did it to show His extreme displeasure in the ministries of two men who had known truth and like Jeroboam got distracted by money and crowds so much that they changed their message! And so I say to you, here, I want to see a mighty church built in Castroville, Texas and we will see it, but I do not want us to get so caught up in numbers and money and such that we compromise our message! We want to end up with a large church, but a large church that is pleasing to God! We can't allow other churches who draw larger crowds by watering down their message to distract us from our purpose and that is to preach truth and to stand for what God has called us to do!

And in our story, we find that after these miracles, the king invites the young prophet to come eat with him and talk about all of this, but the young prophet flees saying "no way, God has told me not to eat food nor drink water and to go home a different way than I came. I have no business eating with you!" God understood that if you sit down and eat with those who have known truth and have turned away, you will be poisoned by them and distracted so much that you might be in danger of turning away yourself. That's why Jesus didn't hesitate to eat with rank sinners who had never been born again, but His Word does give us definite guidelines about people who have known truth and have turned away from it:

Let me read it to you in the New Living Translation:

That's pretty strong! Why did God command that? Because when people have known God in the power of the Holy Ghost and His blood, and then turn away from truth, that means that something like rebellion, or pride, or lust, or bitterness that has gripped their heart and God knows that if you fellowship with them, it will get on you! And such things are only distractions to keep you from being victorious and joyful and happy in the Lord! And there's a danger in such distractions, so much so obviously, that God commanded that we just avoid coming in contact with such things!

And so that's why the young prophet couldn't eat with Jeroboam. He was someone who knew the truth and had turned away from it for monetary issues and political ideologies. If Jeroboam wanted to get right with God, he knew where the temple was and he knew what was expected of him. The true danger was that his spirit would infect the young prophet's walk with God! It was a distraction that we cannot afford to take! You don't need to listen to bitter people's complaints and gripes about God and the church. You don't need to be their garbage can. Because they are planting a seed of their problem in their life. They are becoming an instrument of Satan to get you distracted from obeying what God has told you to do! Don't fall for the old trick of a distraction of bitterness!

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And so the story that we read in our text come to pass. Having delivered his message, the young prophet takes off back for home in the south. He goes a different way to avoid anybody that he met before. But we find that an old prophet of God that was living in the northern tribes hears from his sons what has happened at the altar of the golden calves. And so the old prophet gets on his donkey and goes off in pursuit of the young prophet. The scriptures say that the old man finds the young prophet sitting under a tree, no doubt wearied and no doubt needing a rest after his exhausting journey north with no nourishment and water. The old prophet comes up and kindly invites the young prophet to come home with him for dinner. And the young prophet tells him "I can't do that because God has told me not to. I can't eat bread nor drink water until I get home from this place." And the Bible says that old prophet lied. He said "I'm a prophet just like you are, and an angel spake unto me the word of the Lord saying 'go invite him into your home and feed him'." And so we find that young man is deceived and give in and goes to the old prophet's house and eats dinner with him. And after the meal was through, the true Spirit of the Lord came upon the old prophet and said "you have broken the commandment of the Lord who told you not to eat nor drink in this country therefore you shall die an untimely death." The young man was so startled by this prophecy that he accepted the help of the man's donkey and took off for home. On the way home a lion attacked him and killed him and when the sons of the old prophet had told him that they had seen a body, the old prophet went out to see for himself and found the body of the young prophet lying on the side of the road and found the lion and the donkey standing quietly beside it. The lion hadn't eaten the body, nor had it tried to attack the donkey who neither was afraid of it. God had caused them all to stand there as a sign that it was His work and that the destruction of the young prophet was His will and that the donkey and the lion would obey His command, but the human who allowed himself to get distracted until he turned aside from what God had told him, would not!

The simple and yet powerful lesson of the story is this: there is a great danger in allowing yourself to get distracted from what God has instructed you to do. There will be distractions that come from backsliders and evil sides to get you sidetracked by persecution and threats and hardships. When those things come we must be as Job was when he was going through his great trials and refuse to allow those things to get you distracted from pleasing God Almighty and obeying what He has told you to do!

But there will come a time when there will be "spiritual distractions" too. Where a well-meaning brother or sister will try to coerce you from keeping the course that God has commanded you. Where someone who seems to be living for God as you are will dissuade you or try to convince you that the sacrifice and that the commitment that you are making is not necessary or no longer needed. The distractions that come from evil kings and sinners are easier to identify than the ones that come from supposed brothers and sisters. It's easy to justify the lack of obedience when we can find someone else that is "living for God" that is doing it, too. It's easy to judge your spiritual walk from the actions of the other "spiritual" people that you are around and pat yourself on the back and say "you're doing alright. But if the Word of God has commanded you to do something, then it doesn't matter what other brothers or sisters are doing, you will be judged solely on whether or not you kept your word! Simply put, just having someone to rebel with you or tell you that it's alright doesn't necessarily make something alright. And that's true especially if it's something that you have definitely heard from God about!

Understand that the old prophet probably at one time had a true relationship with God, but his age, nor his time spent living for God didn't necessarily translate into a closer walk with God. The old prophet was willing to lie just to be in the presence of someone whom had really heard from God. And don't forget: the old prophet was choosing to live in the land of idolatry in which God didn't want His prophet's dwelling. This was an older prophet who had compromised and got distracted from his true purpose of pleasing God. And he could obviously hear from God at times, but he wasn't living right nor at the place that God desired for him to be.

And so I'm preaching to some of us tonight. The Word of God is the final authority! If God has dealt with me about it and God has spoken in my life and His Word has addressed something in my life, I must obey it and I must not get distracted! I must not get distracted from persecution that comes from the outside, but I also must not get distracted from an "older saint" of God who may have been in truth a lot longer than I have but who has chosen to ignore some of the commandments of God. Maybe you've only had the Holy Ghost for six months to a few years and God has dealt with you on some issues in your life and maybe somebody who has been living for God seemingly a lot longer has told you that it's not a big deal and that you shouldn't be worried about that and they don't seem to have made the commitment in their lives even though they are older in God and supposedly more mature. You'd better learn the lesson of the young prophet and stay the course and obey God's Word and do what God has told you to do! Just because they chose to sell out short of the perfect will of God doesn't mean that you should follow their example!

And notice that the time of weakness when the young prophet gave in to the temptation and distraction came while "he was weary from the journey." He hadn't had anything to eat and drink and he had traveled many miles and still had many to go. He got winded and tired and exhausted and sat down for a moment to rest and it was right in that moment that the old prophet came up with the proposition that caused the young man to cave in.

The devil brings distractions not when you are cloud nine and flying high on your way to deliver an important message of God or being used by God mightily, but rather when you are tired spiritually and you seem to have run out of gas from being faithful. Was it not after forty days and nights of fasting in the wilderness that the devil came to tempt Jesus and tried to get Him distracted from His true purpose of Calvary? The devil didn't mess with Jesus at His baptism where voices from heaven were thundering down and people were worshipping Him. The devil didn't mess with Jesus when He was turning the water into wine and wowing the servants at the wedding feast in Canaan. And the devil certainly didn't mess with Jesus while He was walking on the water. The devil approached Jesus and tried to distract Him when He was at His weakest moment. When He was tired from the effort of being faithful. When He was fasting. When He was pushing for spiritual growth and the perfect will of God in His life!

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Maybe you feel as if you've been faithful and you are desiring to grow closer to God. Maybe you've been fasting with the church this month. Maybe you've been sacrificing and trying your best to do what God wants you to do. And maybe you feel tired and a little exhausted from your efforts. If so, then you must be on guard. You must be sober and vigilant because you've got an adversary who as a roaring lion, wants to devour you. But the difference between those who make it from this point and those who don't will be those who will not allow themselves to get distracted from the true purpose of God's calling and Word in their life. There are voices coming at you from all sides telling you to give in and to quit pushing, but remember the first voice that spoke to you from heaven "follow me!" You can't give in to the distractions. You can't get sidetracked. You can't fall away. Nothing is more important than you being faithful to God. Nothing is more important than serving Him. You can't compromise. You can't even afford to rest for a while. Because the distractions, if heeded, will destroy you!

The Word of God is full of heroes and zeros. And the heroes, those who are celebrated throughout the ages, were those who learned the lesson of not getting sidetracked and not detoured from their purpose. And those who gave into the distractions? They are the zeros, the people that we preach about so that we hopefully learn from their mistakes and don't make the same ones, ourselves!

Judas Iscariot got distracted by the allure of money and forgot that the most important commandment in his life should have been those two words that he first heard: "follow me." Like the young prophet of 1 Kings 13, Judas lost out with God because he got distracted.

Samson, the mighty warrior of God, who should have been the most celebrated and beloved Bible character never fulfilled the perfect plan of God and lost his life because he got sidetracked by a Philistine girl and the allure of sin. Despite his might and vow, Samson lost out with God because he got distracted.

King Saul, who stood head and shoulders above the rest of Israel, both in stature and in God's eyes, died a God reject and a bitter old man because he turned his attention and priority on doing things his way rather than obedience to God and the man of God. Saul lost out with God and we find him the night before his death seeking spiritual advice from a witch, all because Saul got distracted.

Even in New Testament times, we find that the young preacher Demas who was a companion of the Apostle Paul and no doubt whose name would have been familiar to us as that of Timothy and Mark and Titus and Silas if he would have stayed faithful. And yet all we have is three vague scripture references and the last is sobering:

Demas could have/should have been great in the kingdom of God. But he got distracted! Other things became more important to him than what God had said!

But on the flip side of the coin, those who are the heroes are the ones that didn't allow themselves to get distracted and if they started to get sidetracked, then they righted their course!

I admire Peter, James, and John and those original leaders of the Apostolic church who despite their lack of formal educations and humble backgrounds saw countless thousands get the Holy Ghost and saw the sick healed and the dead raised. But remember that the scripture has this to say about them when they faced the first problem of the Early Church of ministering to the Grecian widows:

It wasn't that the disciples didn't want to humble themselves to minister to the everyday needs of the saints, but rather they identified the turmoil and trouble of the Grecian widows as what it truly was: a distraction from their true purpose of prayer and ministering of the Word of God. When you read the rest of the book of Acts with the thrilling miracles and mighty works, remember that it only came about because twelve men refused to get distracted from the true and ultimate purpose of God!

I can't help but also admire Stephen, one of the seven evangelists that were appointed in this same chapter to be over the widow's ministry. That's not a very powerful sounding "job title" and seems to be a somewhat mundane job, taking care of Grecian widows. But in the very next chapter, we find that Stephen did his job, but never forgot the higher purpose for which he was called: "to win souls" because the scripture says that he was full of the Holy Ghost and preached mightily about Christ! And his counterpart Philip who also was over the ministry to the widows, in the very next chapter eight is in Samaria preaching a mighty revival and then in the desert baptizing a hungry man from Ethiopia. We never hear of their widow ministry again. Because they did not let the mundane and their daily responsibility to distract them from their true purpose in God and that was to preach His gospel and win people to Him! They were heroes because they refused to get distracted!

And even in the Old Testament, we find Abraham not being distracted by the sinful cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. And Abraham was the father of the faithful! We find Daniel being delivered from a lion's den because he was faithful to prayer and was not distracted by his daily duties of second in command of an entire country and of the threats by some enemies. Despite all of that and the undoubtedly tremendous pressures of his normal day at the office, he still found time to pray three times a day. And under heat from his enemies, Daniel prayed no less nor no more than he had every other day of his life. And God delivered him! Why? Because he refused to be distracted from what was important and truly priority in his life. The king's business could wait. Nothing was more important to Daniel than staying in touch with God Almighty!

Eventually, the young Josiah, prophesied of by the young prophet as the one who destroy Jeroboams religion, did come to power in the south and did as God has said that he would. Josiah's father and grandfather didn't live for God or do right, but we find that the scriptures say that Josiah purged Israel from idolatry unlike any other king ever did because he decided to follow in the footsteps of King David of old. Listen to the actual scripture in the Bible that introduces young King Josiah:

Did you catch the secret of how this young man was able to live for God faithfully despite having no heritage or example besides the stories of King David long ago? He was able to do so because he "turned not aside to the right hand or to the left." He didn't allow things to distract him from being saved. He didn't allow things to distract him from his true purpose. He didn't allow things to distract him from the Word of God and simple obedience to it. The young prophet that prophesied about him got distracted and lost out with God, but the young king did not and was saved!

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And so I close by reminding you of the other text that we read at the beginning of this message. The Word of the Lord said in the book of Proverbs:

In other words, keep your focus on what is in front of you. Don't turn aside from what God is doing or has called you to do. Don't even think about the side roads and think about where your actions are taking you and make sure that you are not being swayed from God's perfect will.

The word of the Lord for this church tonight is very simple: don't allow yourself to get distracted. There's nothing more important than being saved. There's nothing more important than obeying the Word of God. There's nothing more priority than the kingdom of God. There's nothing higher than winning someone to God. There's no course greater than what God has told you to do.

Don't get side tracked by what other people are doing or not doing. Don't get distracted by weariness or fatigue. Don't get distracted by the cares of life. Don't get turned around by people who are bitter or hurt or mad or whatever. Don't get focused on this present world, but keep heaven in view. Make up in your mind that you're going to make it and remember the lesson of the young prophet's life: Don't get distracted!