There is a want of fair dealing with Bible language manifested by all the
enemies of our religion. The unbelievers of our time will find it very
difficult for them to sustain the reputation of moral honesty and, at the
same time, retain many of the old, worn out objections which they have
urged against the Bible. They should remember that while the light of
scientific investigation is exposing the old, unscientific and
unscriptural tenets of the creeds of our forefathers, and making it hard
for candid, sensible men to defend them, it is also shedding light upon
Bible truth to such an extent that unbelievers are finding it equally
difficult to retain their silly objections to the Bible. They have
asserted from 1st Kings 32, that God kept false as well as true prophets.
This charge is not only without foundation in fact, but also false and
contemptible. The four hundred prophets mentioned in the sixth verse of
that chapter are emphatically denominated “Ahab’s prophets,”
notwithstanding they professed to be the Lord’s prophets. This wicked King
of Israel had those wicked, false prophets in his service. The address of
Micaiah to the two kings in verses 19-23 is a mere parable showing what,
in the providence of God, would shortly take place, and the divine
permission for the agents, spoken of, to act. Micaiah did not tell the mad
and impious Ahab that his prophets were all liars; but he represents the
whole by a parable, and, in language equally strong and inoffensive, he
says that which amounts to the same thing. Unbelievers of the schools of
modern spiritualism and Bostonian infidelity, both say that God inspired
prophets with false messages, and violated his own word.
The charge of inspiring prophets with false messages is founded,
pretendingly, upon 1st Kings 22: 22, 23, Jeremiah 4: 10, and Ezekiel 14:
9. To answer this, it is only necessary to know that it is an idiom of the
original languages to express, in the imperative active, that which is
simply permitted. Thus, when the devils begged permission to enter into
the herd of swine, Jesus said, “_Go_”—Mat. 8: 31.
And so we are to understand, John 13: 27, where Jesus says to Judas
Iscariot, “What thou dost, _do quickly_.” No man is thoroughly posted as a
Bible scholar who is honest in making the above charge. It is either
ignorance or dishonesty that causes men to thus oppose the record. As we
are not justifiable in saying that Jesus commanded his own betrayal, so we
are not justifiable in saying God commanded lying. Correct principles of
interpretation do not justify the unbeliever in any such blasphemy. When
an evil spirit offered himself to be a lying spirit in the mouth of a
wicked prophet—false prophet—God said, “Go forth and do so,” which only
signifies permission, not command. In Jeremiah 4: 10, where the prophet
complains that God had deceived them, saying, “They should have peace,
when the sword reached to the soul,” we are to understand that God
permitted the false prophets to deceive him, prophesying peace to the
people, as appears from the history (Ezekiel 14: 9). _I_, the _Lord_, have
deceived that prophet, that is, permitted him to be deceived, and
permitted him to deceive the people, as the legitimate result of their own
wickedness, and a just judgment upon them for their rejection of the
testimony of his true prophets. There is nothing strange about all this;
for as sure as there is a God, so sure it is that he permits wicked lying
men to be deceived in our own day. He has done this in all ages of the
world. In fact, it belongs to his ordained plan to permit, or suffer, men,
individually or collectively, to fall in their own deceptions and
wickedness. This he threatened in the above case, as you may see in the
fifth verse of Ezekiel 14, in these words, “I will take the house of
Israel in their own heart, because they are all estranged from me through
their idols; because they have chosen to themselves false Gods, I will
_suffer them to be deceived_ with _false prophets_; and I will stretch out
my hand _upon him_, and I will _destroy him_ from the midst of my people.”
_Destroy whom?_ Ans.—_The false prophet._
When the prophet of God mistook the promise of God, who told him, when he
commissioned him, that he would be with him, by which he understood that
he would be saved from all evils, he said, “Thou hast deceived me, and I
was deceived.” This prophet was now a derision, the people mocking him,
and in his passion and weakness he breaks forth in the above language. It
was simply his own mistake, or misunderstanding of God’s promise. God had
not promised him that he should not meet with scorn and opposition and
persecution, but simply that they should not prevail against him, as we
may learn from the latter part of the first chapter. The second objection,
that the Lord violated his promise, is also founded in ignorance or
dishonesty; it is based upon the statements found in Joshua 13: 1, and
Judges 2: 20, 21, compared with Genesis 15: 18 and 18: 19, 20. In Joshua
13, it is said that there remained very much land yet unconquered, which
they had not taken possession of, notwithstanding the Lord had promised to
be with them, and to give them all the land remaining yet in the
possession of their enemies.
In Judges 2: 20, it is said that the people did not perform their part of
the covenant, and this is given as the reason why the Lord had not driven
out any more of the nations before them.
The covenant with Abraham was in consideration of his past faith and
obedience; yet it was suspended upon the future obedience of his
posterity. See Deut. 7: 12, 13 and 11: 22 to 24; and Judges 2 to 20. The
Lord gives the following as the reason why he had not given them a
complete fulfillment of the covenant upon his part, “Because that this
people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and
have not harkened to my voice, I also will not henceforth drive out any of
the nations which Joshua left when he died.” There are none so blind as
those who will not see. When we find a promise from the Lord, and it is in
the positive form, that is, when its terms are not rested upon an
expressed condition, we are authorized to supply the condition which
involves the moral element in the divine government, viz: obedience upon
the part of man, or men, as the case may be. See Ezekiel 33: 13.