Paisleyism -- 'Art thou the man of God' [4]

Paisleyism

‘Art thou the man of God’? [The Pact]

The old prophet’s message had influenced the man of God to the extent that he stepped out of God’s will; he left off following the LORD and began to follow a man; he compromised his fellowship with God and followed on to have fellowship with fallen man at the place of the altar of idolatry. ‘So he went back with him’; the man of God was now in step with the old prophet; the scripture saith, ‘Can two walk together except they be agreed’, the evidence is clear enough, there was agreement here; the man of God was in agreement with the prophet of Bethel. So the man of God did a complete uturn; he went back on his original statements and principles; what a picture of Paisleyism prior to the St Andrews agreement; they vowed never to share government with unrepentant terrorists; they vowed to hate the things that Christ hates and to love the things that Christ loves; they said that they would never agree to Dublin involvement; what is more, Paisleyism had stood on the principles of Biblical separation and affirmed that they would never fellowship with ungodliness of any kind.

But turn the man of God did; walking over broken promises and abandoned principles he made his way to the home ground of the old prophet. At Bethel the man of God stretched his feet under the table at Bethel; very much the same way that Paisleyism sat at the St Andrews negotiating table. ‘So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water’. The man of God ‘went back’; he went back on his word, he went back on his principles, he went back from the truth to fellowship with error. He put his own carnal appetite first, he ‘did eat bread’ at the table of deceit; he came under the roof of falsehood and he drank the water of confusion.

Paisleyism entered the negotiations at St Andrews in the same way that the man of God entered the old prophet’s house at Bethel; it was under the cover of a great conspiracy. When the man of God turned back from under the oak, it was on the strength of a lie; ‘But he lied to him’. The secular wing of Paisleyism had sold the lie, and the whole group went back to negotiations after the Good Friday agreement, with secular powers and parties around the negotiating table at St Andrews. The man of God enjoyed the hospitality and fellowship that the old prophet offered at Bethel; he very well, may have considered that his prospects looked very promising; after all he was accepted by his new host, he was in an historic spiritual setting, Bethel, the place where Abram had pitched his tent; he must have thought within himself that personal success was in sight. Paisleyism must have had similar thoughts at St Andrews; they no longer saw the Ulster Unionists as a threat, they would have imagined that electoral victory as the largest party was guaranteed; an so the secular pact was made.

What the man of God never suspected, was that reproof and rebuke would come so quickly from his own party colleague; ‘And it came to pass, as they sat at the table, that the word of the LORD came unto the prophet that brought him back: And he cried unto the man of God that came from Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Forasmuch as thou hast disobeyed the mouth of the LORD, and has not kept the commandment which the LORD thy God commanded thee, But camest back, and hast eaten bread and drunk water in the place, of the which the LORD did say to thee, Eat no bread, and drink no water;’ Here the man of God was solemnly reproved in Bethel for his rebellion against the commandment of the LORD. H e must have remembered how Saul must have felt when he was reproved by Samuel for rebelling against the commandment of God in sparing Amalek. There were those within Paisleyism that rebuked the leadership for intending to enter power sharing with unrepentant terrorists; sadly to no avail. In the next blog we will look at the [Payment] ‘Art thou the man of God’?


Rev Mervyn Cotton (Heb13:6)