1 Kings 22:19

MICAIAH CONTINUED HIS PROPHECY IN MORE DETAIL

"And Micaiah said, Therefore hear the word of Jehovah: I saw Jehovah sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And Jehovah said, Who shall entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead? And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit (The Hebrew has the spirit), and stood before Jehovah and said, I will entice him. And Jehovah said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he said, Thou shalt entice him, and shalt prevail also: go forth, and do so. Now therefore, behold, Jehovah hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets; and Jehovah hath spoken evil concerning thee."

Here we have a glimpse of the same divine method of dealing with willful and inveterate sinners that the apostle Paul spoke of, as follows:

"Because they received not the love of the truth that they might be saved ... for this cause, God sendeth them a working of error (strong delusion in the KJV), that they should believe a lie, that they all might be judged who believed not the truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness" (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12).

Many of the comments of scholars on this paragraph are uninformed and inaccurate. "It is hard to suppose that one of the holy angels was a lying spirit."[17] The text does not say such a thing. It says THE spirit, which is doubtless a reference to one of the seven spirits before the throne of God, proposed, and later became the lying spirit in the false prophets. A little reflection will reveal, that whenever God decides to deceive a wicked, willful and inveterate sinner, he certainly will do so; and this passage tells how it is done. It is accomplished by a lying spirit; but the spirit involved in such an assignment is doing God's will and is therefore righteous! In many ways, this is similar, and perhaps identical with judicial hardening, a condition which, in one sense, is accomplished by the direct work of God.

In both of these, there are discernible three centers of responsibility: (1) the wicked, unrepentant, enemy of God, who is the subject; (2) the instrument who is a person, or persons, in the willing service of Satan; and (3) God Himself, who wills that the deception be achieved.

In the case of the deception of Ahab, he himself was to blame because he did not love the truth, but hated it, and any prophet who told him the truth. The instrument of his deception was his four hundred false prophets. God had hardened them, and that means that they were incapable of knowing the difference between truth and falsehood. Such hardening is also called "delusion," "darkening" or "blindness," which is a condition effected in the mind of the person who has irrevocably rejected God, a punishment effected by God Himself by means of a heavenly spirit sent to accomplish it.

"The statement here that the `lying spirit was from the Lord' fails to satisfy many modern minds, but it is consistent with other Scriptures."[18] Amen! See Paul's statement above. Also see 1 Samuel 16:14 which speaks of, "the evil spirit from the Lord" that tormented Saul. "The sending of the evil spirit from the Lord should be regarded as done by the permissive will of God,'"[19] and even then only at a time when the irrevocable nature of the sinner's rebellion against God is fully revealed. "Ahab had had ample chances to know the truth, first from Elijah, and later from Micaiah."[20]

Matheney's allegation that, "Micaiah's belief that God inspired men to lie is one evidence for progressive revelation,"[21] is due to his failure to understand the doctrine of judicial hardening of sinners who are irrevocably committed to evil.