1 Kings 12-13, Luke 22:1-30 • Key Verse: 1 Kings 13:26

Guilty people have a tendency to shift the blame to others. Adam did it first: “The woman you put here with me—-she gave me some fruit from the tree” (Gen. 3:12). He blamed God for giving him Eve and then blamed her for giving him the forbidden fruit. She learned the “blame game” from Adam and said, “The serpent deceived me”
(v. 13).

But God didn’t buy it. Shifting the blame didn’t work. He already had said, “What is this you have done?” (emphasis mine). Then He spoke words of punishment to the serpent, Eve and Adam. Eve was punished for, what she did, as was Adam and the serpent.

When we disobey God, we take the blame. No excuses or blame shifting will work.
“By the word of the LORD a man of God came from Judah to Bethel” to pronounce judgment against King Jeroboam (1 Kings 13:1). The man was commanded by the word of the Lord: “You must not eat bread or drink water or return by the way you came” (v. 9). So he did as he had been instructed, until an old prophet told him that an angel had given different instructions. But the old man was lying.

The man of God went home with the prophet, disobeying the Word of God. While they were sitting at the table the prophet then spoke the truth. Judgment would come because of the disobedience, and it did. The man died on his way home. He was judged for his disobedience, even though it was because of a lie told him.

The bottom line is that we cannot shift the blame. It didn’t work in Genesis 3 or 1 Kings 13—and it doesn’t work today.

_uGod, help me take responsibility for my actions, but especially help me live in obedience to Your Word so I do not need to take responsibility for wrong actions. “_
Woodrow Kroll & Tony Beckett
www.backtothebible.in