Paisleyism -- 'Art thou the man of God' [2]

Paisleyism

‘Art thou the man of God’? [The Place]


This all important question in 1Kings13:14, was asked in a unique place; this question was asked under an oak tree outside Bethel. The Hebrew word, in this particular text, for oak, is,’elah’; this word only occurs in seven Old Testament books; it occurs in Genesis 35, in Judges 6, in 2Samuel 18, here in 1Kings 13, in 1Chronicles 10, in Isaiah 1, and in Ezekiel 6. Seven in scripture speaks of completeness or fullness; so in such a case as this we are able to get a complete picture of this particular place and of the circumstances found there. If we take the first and seventh mentions of the word, we see that under the oak is a place associated with idolatry; next, if the second and sixth mentions are considered, then the place is identified with judgement and loss; once more, if we ponder the third and fifth references, then it is revealed as the place of death; that leaves us with the fourth mention, which stands boldly in the very midst and this is the place of treachery and rebellion.

It is worth pointing out, that on either side of this place depicted in the centre of the seven mentions that we have looked at, is death; 2Samuel 18 reveals the place where young Absalom was slain, in the bows of an oak; while on the other side, in 1Chronicles 10, it was under an oak that Saul and his sons were buried after being slain on Gilboa. This place depicted here in 1Kings 13, under an oak is a very dangerous place to be; it is the place of rebellion against God’s Word; it is where a man of God changed his mind, compromised his principles, forsook his calling and went back to what he once condemned as wrong and sinful..

The man of God had followed the path of obedience and duty, but when he arrived at the oak, he stopped; something evidently was the matter, he was sitting when he should have been serving, his progress had ended, he was seeking the shadows rather than the light, he was in great peril of the enemy catching up with him. Had he grown weary in the way? Had he grown discouraged? Had he stopped to reflect on his past victory and blessing? Had he grown complacent? Had he begun to lean to his own understanding? Was he having second thoughts about the king’s reward which he had formerly refused? So many questions could be asked and probably just as many possible answers suggested; we will never know for certain as to what made the man of God stop in that place, but stop he did. For any believer to stop on the path of devotion, on the path of prayer or on the path of duty; then the place they find themselves in is treacherous indeed. They will find themselves open and vulnerable to temptation and sin; they will soon lose hard won spiritual ground; their grip on God’s Word will become weaker; their state becomes compromised before the world. Such a treacherous place is where backsliding begins and quickly gathers momentum into all out rebellion.



This perhaps, is an astonishing parallel with Paisleyism; progress was evident up to the signing of the Belfast agreement and a little way beyond. The protest against the Good Friday agreement was very different to any of the past; there was an absence of the days of prayer and fasting, that had been called at the time of Sunningdale; there were no protest rallies called to denounce the scandal of releasing criminals into society. There was no evident movement of Paisleyism forward; a token voice of political rhetoric, condemning Ulster Unionists for signing up to the agreement, was turned on and off at will, but no progress.

What became patently obvious, Paisleyism had stopped advancing in step with the Word of God; the same questions could be proffered as were in the case of the man of God that had stopped and had sat down without fulfilling God’s command; what is clear is that Paisleyism had stopped in the place of treachery and rebellion. Had vain glory set in, or was there a longing for what had been refused in the past, a reward from the king.
Paisleyism stopped at the oak tables of the political establishments at Westminster and Dublin; it was there that they considered their position prior to St Andrews; little did they suspect that they had parked in the place of treachery, right in the very spot where the old prophet would find them. In the next blog we will consider [The Prophet} ‘Art thou the man of God’?

Rev Mervyn Cotton (Heb13:6)