How could He present Himself as the moral judge of the universe if He moves people to sin, including self murder.
I think it helps to remember that death is death - and judgment is judgment.
It speaks a lot of God's character when it comes to him not allowing His Holiness to be affronted - and there were a number of ways God could have taken out Saul actively. He already did so directly in the OT on a number of occasions - one of them being directly after people chosen to represent Him defamed his sanctuary and he placed them to death:
Leviticus 10:16
New International Version (NIV)
The Death of Nadab and Abihu
10 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and
they offered unauthorized fire before the Lord, contrary to his command. 2 So
fire came out from the presence of the Lord and consumed them, and they died before the Lord. 3 Moses then said to Aaron, “This is what the Lord spoke of when he said:
“‘Among those who approach me
I will be proved holy;
in the sight of all the people
I will be honored.’”
Aaron remained silent.
4 Moses summoned Mishael and Elzaphan, sons of Aaron’s uncle Uzziel, and said to them, “Come here; carry your cousins outside the camp, away from the front of the sanctuary.” 5 So they came and carried them, still in their tunics, outside the camp, as Moses ordered.
6 Then Moses said to Aaron and his sons Eleazar and Ithamar, “Do not let your hair become unkempt[a] and do not tear your clothes, or you will die and the Lord will be angry with the whole community. But your relatives, all the Israelites,
may mourn for those the Lord has destroyed by fire.
But there are other places this occurs besides this, in regards to King Jeroboam and the prophet sent to correct him/pronounce judgment:
I Kings 13:6-32
6 Then the king said to the man of God, “Intercede with the Lord your God and pray for me that my hand may be restored.” So the man of God interceded with the Lord, and the king’s hand was restored and became as it was before.
7 The king said to the man of God, “Come home with me for a meal, and I will give you a gift.”
8 But the man of God answered the king, “Even if you were to give me half your possessions, I would not go with you, nor would I eat bread or drink water here. 9 For I was commanded by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came.’” 10 So he took another road and did not return by the way he had come to Bethel.
11 Now there was a certain old prophet living in Bethel, whose sons came and told him all that the man of God had done there that day. They also told their father what he had said to the king. 12 Their father asked them, “Which way did he go?” And his sons showed him which road the man of God from Judah had taken. 13 So he said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me.” And when they had saddled the donkey for him, he mounted it 14 and rode after the man of God. He found him sitting under an oak tree and asked, “Are you the man of God who came from Judah?”
“I am,” he replied.
15 So the prophet said to him, “Come home with me and eat.”
16 The man of God said, “I cannot turn back and go with you, nor can I eat bread or drink water with you in this place. 17 I have been told by the word of the Lord: ‘You must not eat bread or drink water there or return by the way you came.’”
18 The old prophet answered, “I too am a prophet, as you are. And an angel said to me by the word of the Lord: ‘Bring him back with you to your house so that he may eat bread and drink water.’” (But he was lying to him.) 19 So the man of God returned with him and ate and drank in his house.
20 While they were sitting at the table, the word of the Lord came to the old prophet who had brought him back. 21 He cried out to the man of God who had come from Judah, “This is what the Lord says: ‘You have defied the word of the Lord and have not kept the command the Lord your God gave you. 22 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 ancestors.’”
23 When the man of God had finished eating and drinking, the prophet who had brought him back saddled his donkey for him. 24 As he went on his way, a lion met him on the road and killed him, and his body was left lying on the road, with both the donkey and the lion standing beside it. 25 Some people who passed by saw the body lying there, with the lion standing beside the body, and they went and reported it in the city where the old prophet lived.
26 When the prophet who had brought him back from his journey heard of it, he said, “It is the man of God who defied the word of the Lord. The Lord has given him over to the lion, which has mauled him and killed him, as the word of the Lord had warned him.”
27 The prophet said to his sons, “Saddle the donkey for me,” and they did so. 28 Then he went out and found the body lying on the road, with the donkey and the lion standing beside it. The lion had neither eaten the body nor mauled the donkey. 29 So the prophet picked up the body of the man of God, laid it on the donkey, and brought it back to his own city to mourn for him and bury him. 30 Then he laid the body in his own tomb, and they mourned over him and said, “Alas, my brother!”
31 After burying him, he said to his sons, “When I die, bury me in the grave where the man of God is buried; lay my bones beside his bones. 32 For the message he declared by the word of the Lord against the altar in Bethel and against all the shrines on the high places in the towns of Samaria will certainly come true.”
is one of the most stunning examples on the issue----as a prophet killed later by a
lion was one that the Lord directly sent to King Jeroboam for bringing judgement on the nation of Israel with the Golden Calves/Idolatry.....and the Lord worked mightly through him, even protecting the man when the king stretched out his hand against the prophet and the king's hand was shriveled as a result. However, this prophet had been given STRICT orders not to eat or drink anything while on a mission...and later on, he died because he had listened to an old prophet who lied/claimed to have a message from God rather than listening to God Himself---choosing to follow hearsay instead. The old prophet was directed by the Lord to prophesy to the man that he'd suffer judgement.
The old man seemed to be pretty wild in the way he acted. But then again, the times were also pretty wild as well - and harsh sentences made by prophets also required harsh testing. Those who become teachers will receive a stricter judgment (James 3:1) - AND shouldn't seek the position without considering the consequences.
From what I understand, the prophet who was killed already turned down the king he just proclaimed God's judgement on due to the immense idolatry that had developed at Jeroboam's command....setting the stage for Israel to never recover. The king had his hand shriveled and the altar destroyed - visible proof that the prophecy given by the prophet was true and that he was under Divine Protection....but that had a HIGH cost since there was so much idolatry happening in the land that you couldn't afford to do something like that and mess it up by defaming God. At the prophet's words when King Jeroboam asked the prophet to come and dine with him, the prophet declared he wouldn't eat food/drink water at any costs since to eat or drink at Bethel would have suggested the prophet's willingness to participate in the illegitimate cultic activities taking place there.
And when the old prophet who spoke to him seems to have been around the block a bit and seen some history. Old folks who know the Lord tend to raise eyebrows when powerful events are done by others in God's name - and they can be very sly.
Like Church elders who may test someone with a mock argument advocating for something that's wrong to see how the younger person may respond after they may have told others to avoid things - to see if they're real. When the old prophet heard a new prophet declared judgement and had mighty signs to accompany him, it was understood that prophets had to be tested if they were to be trusted throughout the land. And when the man said invited him to dinner, it seems the old man was really in the clear since he dressed up as someone different in order to see whether the new prophet would become just as corrupt.
There do seem to be some signs that the new prophet started to become corrupt already - when the older prophet found him, he was found sitting under an oak tree (I Kings 13:14). My first thought was "Why was the prophet sitting to begin with? - You should have gotten your behind out of Bethel and kept on rolling - if you were tired, that's on you to deal with since you already noted that God had you on mission"...the man of God refused the King's invitation to rest/chill and dine because God had specifically directed him prior to his arrival that he must not stay but return to Judah.
Sometimes, the quickest way into sin is lingering in the wrong places (or taking time to take a break in places you were to break away from as quickly as possible) - and for the man of God, it probably would have been better if he had considered that he needed to sit down/rest once he got HOME rather than staying in enemy territory against God's command. The old prophet technically caught the young/zealous prophet off duty - so part of the testing started to prove negative for the young man from the beginning.
The prophet had been given strict orders from God to keep moving essentially - yet when the man of God recounted that God said that he must return home and not stay in the land, the old prophet lied to him, saying that an “angel” gave him new revelation that contradicted and overruled God’s previous direction. "An angel spoke" would be implication that the old prophet did not recieve the oracle directly from God, a situation that should have warned the man of God of the possibility that the oracle was false.
The younger prophet further failed the testing due to how he should have followed God's word instead of hearsay - for the Torah/OT noted directly how the penalty for going against God's Law is death when claiming one was a prophet.
And the younger prophet - already dishing out harsh judgement on the King of Israel for not serving the Lord (even as it concerns proclaiming death) - should have asked the Lord to confirm it. Like what Paul says in Galatians 1:8, “But even if we, or an angel from heaven, should preach to you a gospel contrary to what we have preached to you, he is to be accursed!" So - The prophet disobeyed command to not eat/drink and he experienced God’s wrath because of it. But it couldn't be confirmed whether or not he deserved to be condemned for it unless he was tested.
When you see the judgement that followed, it makes sense that the older prophet who tested him was the solid one - his proclamation came true.
For I Kings 13:16-28 shows that upon leaving, the man of God was met on the road by a lion and was brutally killed. As evidence that this event was ordered by God, the man of God’s donkey was sitting right there next to his body, not intimidated by the lion whatsoever. Evidently the donkey supernaturally knew that it had nothing to fear from the lion because this was a special supernatural act of God. Furthermore, the lion didn’t devour the body, but left it in the road and just stood by it, a behavior totally uncharacteristic of a lion. ....showing how the man was under God's judgment and that the older prophet's word was true in what He proclaimed. But when the old prophet took the body of the man of God, he mourned over him, and declared that what the man of God had prophesied concerning Jeroboam would indeed come to pass. ...confirming that the younger prophet's word was true and that others needed to take God's Wrath seriously.
And in a lot of ways, the younger prophet dying confirmed what he said to King Jeroboam on God's wrath since it made the point that even prophets sent by God to correct others will suffer the same consequences as those they condemn if they disobey the Lord/go against Him - to the King, seeing the same powerful prophet who condemned him suffering/dying should have been a sign that God meant business.
This is
what another said best on the issue ( ):
_______" The Man of God is held accountable for his actions even though he is deceived. If God would rebuke the Man of God for disobedience how much more so the dissident king? The Man of God stood as a witness against Jeroboam in both life and death. The story’s true postscript comes many chapters later when the Man of God’s prophecy is fulfilled during the reign of Josiah (II Kings 23:1-30)"____________
Some have argued that the old prophet was connected with the false prophets King Jeroboam set up due to how his sons came back talking on all the signs the othe man of God did - it being the case that perhaps they knew because they were false prophets as well and were there. And in that sense, when the old prophet comes to the younger one, he didn't fully know God....and was impressed hearing what the younger prophet did - but then resorted to lying to get the man to come over to dinner. Thus, his word from the Lord was like false prophets still having God speak to them to show God's sovereignty - and I Kings 22 and Judges 9 both show where God even has control over lying spirits he commands to work for His glory when it comes to being used to test others. And the older prophet was someone who was basically corrupt but testing to see what the younger man was about - with the incident that happened in the young prophet's death in I Kings 13:31-32, it demonstrated to the old prophet the truth of the words of the man of God, and the old prophet symbolically identified himself with his colleague's message by requesting burial in the same grave
Regardless of what happened, the main point is that disobedience to any command of God, to any detail in any command, is a sin...with God punishing others via death in the OT actively. This shows God in his character as the Judge
![congrats[1].gif](https://www.christianforums.com/data/attachments/222/222714-ee7eeedc7e5c65fff9f779df23b44d10.jpg "congrats[1].gif"){kind=small}
![Word-of-Faith[1].gif](https://www.christianforums.com/data/attachments/222/222715-764ec4f5e851c1678987af79118a20c5.jpg "Word-of-Faith[1].gif"){kind=small}
