God sends lying and evil spirits? How can this be?

[trustnHim]

Can someone please explain this to me?

1kings 22:21-23 "Finally, a spirit came foreward, stood before the Lord and said, "I will entice him.'
"By what means?", the Lord asked.
"'I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouths of all his prophets," he said.
"You will succeed in enticing him", said the Lord. "Go and do it"
"So now the Lord has put a lying spirit in the mouths of all these prophets of yours. The Lord has decreed disaster for you."

Judges 9:23 - "God sent an evil spirit between Abimelech and the citizens of Shechem, who acted treacherously against Abimelech."

1Samuel 16:14 -" Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him".

I am confused as to why a Holy God would use evil or lying spirits. And why was the lying spirit who volunteered to entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead in God's presence in the first place?

Please somebody help me.

[Wileyzmuse]

trustnHim that is a great question, and I'll look forward to hearing people respond.

Reminds me of Job.

YSIC,
Patricia

[Doulos]

This just proves that God is Lord over all, including evil spirits. God used them to accomplish His purpose. Anyone that listens to false prophets is likely to suffer a similar fate, though it may or may not be initiated by God.

[Wileyzmuse]

okay, I know you're right Doulos, but my first thought is then "Why would God need to do this then? There is nothing for Him to prove to anyone but Himself, and He already knows all. So, why?"

YSIC,
Patricia

[cindyw]

<<<<<I am confused as to why a Holy God would use evil or lying spirits. And why was the lying spirit who volunteered to entice Ahab into attacking Ramoth Gilead in God's presence in the first place?>>>>>>

God allows all who do not love TRUTH and have pleasure in unrighteousness to be deceived as the verses below point out.

II Thess. 2:11
And for this reason God will send them strong delusion, that they should believe the lie,
2:12
that they all may be condemned who did not believe the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

Blessings in Jesus, Cindy:)

[Albernon]

Why was the lying spirit in heaven? Well, the Devil is our accuser (Rev 12:10) and it seems that he is in heaven accusing us until a time in the future when he is cast out of heaven (Rev 12:7-10). Also, remember in Job chapter 1 and 2 that Satan was in heaven talking to God.

Now, why was that lying spirit used? I believe your answer is in the preceding chapter (I Ki 21:17-19). Elijah had already prophesied that the dogs would lick Ahab's blood. In chapter 22, the Lord is asking how can they make Ahab go to Ramoth-Gilead so that he can be slain and Elijah's prophesy come to pass. The lying spirit offered to make Ahab's prophets lie to him.

I believe CindyW hit the nail on the head with her Scripture. If Ahab was godly, he would have been able to discern the lie of his prophets. Jehoshaphat did! He knew something wasn't right with their prophecy.

Hope this helps.
God Bless!

[Hootmon]

I agree with Albernon.

Those examples just show that God is in complete control.

[Slippery]

I think Micaiah was speaking figuratively. I had the same problem last year when I read the same passage. But if you look at it again, you would see that God was asking the counsel of many spirits, and many spirits said this and other spirits said that, then one spirit said he will go and be a lying spirit into the mouth of the prophets.

Fact is Ahab already had his false prophets that consistently lied to him to let him feel good and peachy.
But the Jehosophat wanted to make sure that he was taking the right path and asked for Micaiah (i think this is how the story went).

Ahab then quickly said that Micaiah never prophesy anything good for him (confirming the fact that he prefer to believe the soothing lies of false prophets as opposed to the rebuke of a truthful prophet)

When Micaiah rephrased the story and retold him exactly what would come to pass, he used these same elements and constructed a fictitious story around it, in which the principle of the story was very true. Kinda like the story that Nathan confronted David with.

This is why Micaiah said that God sent a lying spirit. Fact is, Ahab readily give his ears to lies of false prophets that he knew was false, whilst mistreating the truthful prophets. So the wording is quite poet and accurate and relates directly to what Paul said in Thessalonians. Because people do not love the truth, God will send them delusions that they might believe a lie

Its automatic.
God is truth.
You reject God
You reject truth
without truth, everything else is a lie
You reject God
therefore you accept lies as a substitute.

Is God then obligated to show you the truth after you reject his Holy Spirit who reveals the truth?
No, and God withdrawing his protection and Holy Spirit from you, is simply permission by default granted to demons to lie to you.


Jesus highlighted this very point when he made reference to the Pharisees as being blind and leading the blind.

As for the part where it says Spirits were giving recommendations to God. That in my opinion was simply a literary device being used to enhance the story.
The Bible makes it abundantly clear that God is omniscient and needs the counsel of no one. He created the heavens and the earth and he promptly declared this to Job whilst asking him, where was Job when he did all this.

[Doulos]

Originally posted by Wileyzmuse
okay, I know you're right Doulos, but my first thought is then "Why would God need to do this then? There is nothing for Him to prove to anyone but Himself, and He already knows all. So, why?"

YSIC,
Patricia

I don't think God needed to do this, but rather He chose to do this. It was His will to punish Ahab and He chose to use a lying spirit to deceive him through his false prophets. Interestingly, it was a true prophet of God who told the king about the deception and so he had all the opportunity in the world to change his mind.