1 Kings 13:24

And when he was gone, a lion met him by the way, and slew him.

A sharp punishment accords

But, surely, to be slain by a lion on the way home was a much too sharp punishment for taking one’s supper with a prophet and an angel; uneasy conscience and all. But then, “some sins,” says that noble piece, the Westminster Larger Catechism, “receive their aggravation from the persons offending; if they be of riper age, greater experience in grace, eminent for profession, gifts, place, office, and as such are guides to others, and whose example is likely to be followed by others.” The very case, to the letter, of the man of God out of Judah. The sublimity of his public services that morning had henceforth set up a corresponding standard for his private life. And this is one of our best compensations for preaching the grace of God and the law of Christ. Our office quickens our conscience; it makes the law cut deeper and deeper into us every day; and it compels us to a public and private life we would otherwise have escaped. Preaching recoils with terrible strokes on the preacher. It curtails his liberty in a most tyrannous way; it tracks him through all his life in a most remorseless manner. Think it out well, and count the cost before you become minister, or an elder, or a Sabbath School teacher, or a young communicant. Yes, it was surely a little sin, if ever there was a little sin, to sup that Sabbath night at an old prophet’s table, and that, too, on the invitation of an angel (A. Whyte, D. D.)