We discover an interesting situation in 1 Kings 13:11-32. The central verse of 18 is the lie that a man who proposed himself to be a prophet when he tried to deceive the man of God. He said, “I am a prophet as thou art.” Thereby he presented himself equal to the man of God. His lie presents us with our first question. How do you want others to perceive you? This false prophet said that he heard from a supernatural source. It is unlikely that that happened, but he used the falsehood to propose himself equal or better than others. In other words, he was wearing a mask not unfamiliar like the children wear on trick-or-treat during Halloween. He pretended to be something other than what he really was. Then he furthered his deception by saying that God gave him a message for the man of God.
Beware of such pretense! God never calls for his own to retreat in life. Beware of people who tell you they have a message from God for you. If God has a message, he can tell you directly. We are all to step forward further and further advancing the gospel message. Each soul is capable of presenting to the world a beautiful and noble impression. On the contrary each soul is capable of representing evil, envy, hatred to the world outside of a relationship with God. This type of masking causes the pretender to stand in the crossfire of his own wishes, ambitions, desires, hopes, failure.
Let us be honest. Today’s people wear masks all the time. In fact, we’ve learned to wear masks. We mask to hide who we really are so that we can be seen as religious, kind, noble, worthwhile. We do this to avoid the truth. We really wish to be anonymous and disallow ourselves from what we really are inside. We may even see ourselves obligated to wear a mask by the clothes we wear, our expressions when talking, even our hairstyle, or gestures.
Wearing a mask does not make it so for who we are inside. Still, we may try to fool others so that we don’t need to confess our sins believing we are good enough for them. Perhaps our mask is hidden because we are in a state of rebellion to God. The person with whom we can be most estranged is ourselves. How much do we really know who we are?
In the case of the Bible story the false prophet claimed to have an unusual experience. We must be careful when we have a glorious worship service, and we return home just as we were. Human nature makes us a very deceitful creature. While hiding behind a mask, ultimately, we are someone who is concerned more for the temporal than the eternal.
Having power over other people by wearing a mask does not make it so that we are worthy of special authority. Within family life we must be careful not to make it a dress rehearsal of falsehoods for society. Marital partners make demands on each other while unsure of the quality of the relationship. The father image has been terribly tainted in our new modern society with a lack of spiritual leadership in the home.
Because society has been so deeply influenced by Satan, the potential for a believer to be a unique individual diminishes daily. We must tear off our masks! We must make what we are inside the same as how we present on the outside. A genuine concern for our own spiritual condition must become a high priority. Also, a genuine concern for those around us and their spiritual condition must be a high priority for how we influence them. Join me to see that the prophets of the world are only dead images scrolled on a mask. As we turn to Christ away from our hidden practices, we have an abundance of what God would want for us to the good, to the good that can be in our lives, to the truth of what goodness really is. Let us tear off our masks and be genuine to the world as representatives of the Lord God Almighty.
Christian Writer 