EVIL SPIRITS FROM ‘GOD’ (Part I): Divine Revelation

We have a social media forum where we are reading the entire Bible and people are allowed to ask from the books we are reading and/or have already covered. We are now dealing with the books of Kings, and one of our members (Sadam) asked this:

Question: A blessed morning to you all. 1Samuel 16: 14 Now the spirit of the Lord departed from Saul and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him.

Why would the Lord bring in the evil spirit to someone whom he had appointed however much we know that he disobeyed him? And please, how can this be related or compared into our lives today? thx.

Thank you very much, brother Sadam, for this question. It is a blessing to all of us who wish to understand the word of God more. Allow me, however, to complicate matters further by sharing other related passages.

And if the prophet be deceived and speak a word, I, Jehovah, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel. (Ezekiel 14:9 ASV)

Then said I, Ah, Lord Jehovah! surely thou hast greatly deceived this people and Jerusalem, saying, Ye shall have peace; whereas the sword reacheth unto the life. (Jeremiah 4:10 ASV)

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, 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. (1Kings 22:20-23 ASV)

Now the Spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him. And Saul’s servants said unto him, Behold now, an evil spirit from God troubleth thee. (1Samuel 16:14-15 ASV)

When you read the Bible, you will in one way or another run into difficult sayings and controversial passages such as the ones above. These sayings become complicated due to the reader’s preconceived ideas. In a theological field known as Biblical Hermeneutics (critical Bible Study), there is what we call Anachronism. It is when we subject the biblical text syntax to the syntax of our language and when we bend the Biblical thought and knowledge of those days towards our modern thought and knowledge.

Anachronism is reading our thoughts into theirs and judging them by our times and civility. So sometimes it is “controversial” because we assume that the people in the Bible times knew God the same way we know him and wonder why they are presenting contradictorily.

To answer this question, however, I would like to point your attention to three fundamental divine truths that every Bible reader needs to understand if they are to appreciate the canonicity of such polemic passages. These are:

1. Divine Revelation
2. Divine Permissiveness and
3. Divine Providence.

Divine Revelation

God is bigger than what our brain can cover. However, he wishes that in our capacity, at every time and in all places, we understand him bit by bit. The Old Testament concept of God was that he had an omnipotence that was not rivaled and therefore, he had no opponent. God was the only primary cause from whom both good and evil came. This year I wrote an article on Isaiah 45:7 and tried to explain this. For God to reveal himself in his fullness to our understanding (given its capacity) is almost an eternal process.

The Jews never considered a secondary cause like the devil as we do today. To them, since God was all-powerful and ruled over all things, they attributed all that happened (good and evil) to Him. In the Judaism cult, it was a mix-up just as the one in Islam where there is Allah (God) and Ibiris (Satan) but when a Muslim gets problems or when someone dies they say: Allah bwageze (God has ordained), Allah ankubye omuggo (the lord has struck me with evil).

All these are due to an immature revelation, misconception of who God is and what exactly the problem is and primitive theology. So when the author says that the Lord brought in an evil spirit to his anointed king, it is because the Jews then knew no other source of spirits (both good and evil) but God.

I will address Divine Permissiveness in the next presentation. Please make sure you have your Bible with you and make sure you read all the scriptures in the presentation to make sure you don’t miss a thing. There is only one way you Christians can hold us pastors accountable and constantly checked, and that is by using the Bible to judge what we teach you.

God bless you and: THINK & UNDERSTAND (2Tim 2:7 NLT)

Pr WHITE

The Gospel Hawker

iTiS Well of Worship Fellowship (John 4:24)