“It’s better to be wise than strong; intelligence outranks muscle any day. Strategic planning is the key to warfare; to win, you need a lot of good counsel.”
Beloved,
Be careful of taking counsel from people who have nothing to lose over you. That is those who have no commitment of loyalty whatsoever on you. Let’s look at this story from 1 Kings 13. In this chapter, God orders a young prophet to deliver a message to King Jeroboam and is given specific instructions until he meets another man of God:
2 Kings 13: 15-16
“Then he said to him, “Come home with me and eat bread.” 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.’”
Here we see that the young prophet is clear about His instructions from the Lord.
But look what happens next:
2 Kings 13:18 “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.) So he went back with him, and ate bread in his house, and drank water. Now it happened, as they sat at the table, that the word of the Lord came to the prophet who had brought him back; 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, 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.’ ”
Keep reading and you will see that a lion came and killed the young prophet. Had the young prophet obeyed the Lord instead of idolizing the idea of hanging out with other prophets, he would have been home before the lion came out looking for lunch. Beloved, don’t be emotional about rejecting advice from people who have no sincere investment in you. Next time we will look at more of the kinds of things that tend to contend with sound counsel. Until then,
I commend you to God and to the word of His grace.
