 |
| 
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 3/28/2004 1:06 PM (GMT -6) |   |
1 Kings 22:19
quote:
Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. “The LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. “Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “The LORD said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.’ “Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you.”
I am considering this passage and we know:
- Ahab was an evil king, 1 Kings 21:25, 26.
- Elijah had spoken God's judgment on Ahab in 1 Kings 21:19.
- God fulfilled this judgment in 2 Kings 22:38.
- God put a deceiveing spirit in the mouths of the false prophets to entice Ahab to his destruction.
- God is truth, John 14:6
- The devil is a liar and the father of lies, John 8:24.
The question is, "Was the spirit that God sent evil itself?"
or
"Was the spirit 'neutral' or 'good' in that it was simply carrying out the judgment of God that He had rightly proclaimed on the wicked king?"
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
 |
PotOnWheel
Registered Member
Date Joined Jul 2001
Total Posts : 9890
| Posted 4/3/2004 4:29 PM (GMT -6) | | quote:
Originally posted by spenlake
1 Kings 22:19
quote:
Micaiah said, “Therefore, hear the word of the LORD. I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing by Him on His right and on His left. “The LORD said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said this while another said that. “Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD and said, ‘I will entice him.’ “The LORD said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You are to entice him and also prevail. Go and do so.’ “Now therefore, behold, the LORD has put a deceiving spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; and the LORD has proclaimed disaster against you.”
I am considering this passage and we know:
- Ahab was an evil king, 1 Kings 21:25, 26.
- Elijah had spoken God's judgment on Ahab in 1 Kings 21:19.
- God fulfilled this judgment in 2 Kings 22:38.
- God put a deceiveing spirit in the mouths of the false prophets to entice Ahab to his destruction.
- God is truth, John 14:6
- The devil is a liar and the father of lies, John 8:24.
The question is, "Was the spirit that God sent evil itself?"
or
"Was the spirit 'neutral' or 'good' in that it was simply carrying out the judgment of God that He had rightly proclaimed on the wicked king?"
I COULD RECOMMEND A BOOK THAT IS GERMAIN! "The Spirit of Truth: The Origins of the Hohannine Pneumatology" by John Breck. St. Vladimir's Sem. Press. ISBN #0-88141-081-0 Dispite how the Trinity is throughout the OT -- now that we know to look for the Trinity -- the concept of the Word and the Spirit as being both personal developed quite late in the OT development. (Ezekiel and before) So, simply, God talked in ways that the people could understand; and further, God used those talkings and events to prepare people for later revelation. Even foreign things, like the Essenes and the Persion Zoroastrians were used as instruments of God to prepare the way for Scripture. (Both of these later examples laid necessary foundations for what is in the Gospel of John--which is unique among the Gospels!) Interesting stuff!!!! | | Back to Top | | |
|
larris
Registered Member
Date Joined Mar 2004
Total Posts : 181
| Posted 4/23/2004 5:33 AM (GMT -6) | | Quote:
So, simply, God talked in ways that the people could understand; and further, God used those talkings and events to prepare people for later revelation.
I would agree in that however I do not at all agree with the next statement which said:
"Even foreign things, like the Essenes and the Persian Zoroastrians were used as instruments of God to prepare the way for Scripture."
For God to use pagan beliefs as a means to prepare the way for his Word, would be completely against his own laws. Rather these beliefs were a corruption of the truth, developed by the devil to mislead people away from the truth of what God's Word really was.
Here I believe is a very important statement to remember, "Every time God revealed truth to men, the devil has made it a point to take that understanding away." And it only takes him about one generation to do so.
Just because some PhD writes a book and makes a statement, such as ""Even foreign things, like the Essenes and the Persian Zoroastrians were used as instruments of God to prepare the way for Scripture." it dose not mean that statement is true. In fact that statement mixed with some truth, winds up being very damaging. Why is that? Because someone will read a statement like that and assume that now it's OK to study Essenes or Zoroastrian beliefs and doctrines in light of, and with a view to helping to understand scripture. When in truth their doctrines were a corruption of the truth, doctrines of demons if you will, intended to lead away from the truth.
Ever since Adam, there have been men who have understood God, even though they did not know all the particulars of God's final plan, which was kept a secret since the world began.
1Peter 1:9 Receiving the end of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:
Now Peter tells what those prophets thought about what they prophesied. Because they searched the scripture available to them at the time, to try and understand not only what this salvation was, but WHEN it would come.
1:11 Searching what, or what manner of time the spirit of Christ which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow. Unto whom it was REVEALED, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven; which things angels desire to look into.
Angels even desired to understand prophecy given to the prophets because these things were not revealed unto angels. Angels, like men, can come up with all kinds of whacked out interpretations. But God hid the truth from them for the following reason.
1 cor 2:7
But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom, which God ordained before the world unto our glory: which none of the princes of this world knew: for had they know it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
God doesn't reveal what he wants kept secret, to blabber mouths. The men whom God choose to reveal his secrets to in the OT, knew how to keep their mouths shut, and reveal just as much as God wanted. But God let them understand their prophecies, in order to strengthen and comfort them. However they often did not understand them fully until the end of their lives.
People today zip around trying to understand Daniel, yet Daniel had perfect understanding of what he was shown because the Lord revealed it to him.
Dan. 10:1
In the third year of Cyrus king of Persia a thing was revealed unto Daniel, whose name was called Belteshazzar; and the thing was true, but the time appointed was long and he understood the thing, and had understanding of the vision.
This understanding only came AFTER Daniel had recognized and renounced the pagan beliefs and influences that had corrupted his (along with all Israel's) understanding of God's Word. Notice the incident in the previous chapter.
Dan. 9:2
In the first year of his reign I Daniel understood by books the number of the years, whereof the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.
Daniel was influenced by the Zoroastrian belief, Yet it was not until he grew out of it, and studied the Scriptures enough to get cleaned up that his greatest revelations came. He understood by "books" of Scripture then available, and specifically from studying Jeremiah, the truth about the desolations of Jerusalem. And in finding this truth he realized that he along with all Israel had been misinterpreting the scripture. This is obvious in this following actions and prayer.
9:3 And I set my face unto the Lord God, to seek by prayer and supplications, with fasting and sackcloth, and ashes: And I prayed unto the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, O Lord, the great dreadful God, keeping the covenant and mercy to them that love him, and to them that keep his commandments; We have sinned, and have committed iniquity, and have done wickedly, and have rebelled, even by departing from thy precepts and from they judgments: Neither have we hearkened unto thy servants the prophets, which spake in thy name to our kings, our princes, and our fathers, and to all the people of the land.
10 Neither have we obeyed the voice of the Lord our God to walk in his laws, which he set before us by his servants the prophets. Yea all Israel have transgressed thy law, even by departing, that they might not obey thy voice;
13 As it is written in the law of Moses, all this evil is come upon us: yet made we not our prayer before the Lord our God that we might turn from our iniquities, and UNDERSTAND THY TRUTH.
Israel was real good at taking the pagan beliefs and practices of other gods from the nations around them, and mixing it with the law and scripture given to Moses and the prophets. God had warned Moses that they were NOT to do this.
Exodus 23:13
And in all tings that I have said unto you be circumspect: and MAKE NO MENTION OF THE NAMES OF OTHER GODS, NEITHER LET IT BE HEARD IN THY MOUTH.
Now obviously he wasn't just talking about saying the "name" of another God, because several of their literal names are mentioned by the prophets in both the Old and New Testaments. What he meant was don't use those beliefs to interpret and compare HIS word to. Because when we use pagan beliefs and practices as a means of understanding Gods Word, we take something that is HOLY and make it unclean. We don't look to the pagans to tell us about the Lord, we look to his Word and to HIM, just as Daniel finally did.
Daniel thought he was a devout truth knowing Jew. God honored what Daniel did know, and honored his heart. But Daniel came out of a society that had completely corrupted God's way and truth. And he went into a society that worshipped false gods and was trained in their practices to be a wise guy. Consequently Daniel has a real heart for God, even though he was deceived in areas and God honored that. But the day came when Daniel realized that he had been deceived and he repented. And it was AFTER this, after he was cleaned out doctrinally, that his greatest revelations and understanding came from God himself.
Dan. 10:12 Then said he unto me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to understand, and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I am come for thy words. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days; but, lo Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of Persia. Now I am come to make thee understand what shall befall thy people in the latter days: for yet the vision is for many days.
Daniel was given some great understanding that was lost after he died. And why was it lost? Because as usual, those who came after him, used pagan beliefs and practices and combined them with the understanding of the scripture and corrupted it again. In Daniels case it was the Persian influences, but in all further cases after that and up to this time it would be a somewhat different influence.
Dan. 10:20
Then said he, Knowest thou wherefore I come unto thee? (he just told him it was to give him understanding.) and now will I return to fight with the price of Persia: and when I am gone forth THE PRINCE OF GRECIA SHALL COME. But I will show thee what is noted in the scripture of truth: and there is none that holdeth with me in these things but Michael your prince.
The Lord was letting Daniel know, that there was only ONE spirit that held with him in the truth. At that time the Prince of Persia and the beliefs generated by him held strong sway in the world, namely Zoroastrian. But after him and even stronger and greater prince would arise, "The Prince of Greecia", that is the ruling demonic principality over the realm of Greece.
Who conquered Persia? Alexander the Great, and who'd Alexander bring along with him? ARISTOTLE! And what did Aristotle teach? The philosophy of Socrates and Plato. And what was the major aspect of this philosophy? A little thing called THEOLOGY. And what were the Greeks experts at? Adopting every belief and god known to man and combining it into their ever growing repitwa of idolatry. After all wasn't Potolemy II grandson of Ptolemy I, Alexander's general, who wanted the Hebrew scriptures translated into Greek. That way all the pagan philosophers, could get their hands on them, and add and compare them to every other belief known to man at the time. That was the whole point of philosophy, to hear and add some "NEW THING", to its body of knowledge.
We will NEVER come to an accurate understanding of the truth, by trying to understand scripture in light of false gods, and their so called wisdom. All that happens is that we wind up getting taken again and again away from the truth. Subjugated to a state of "ever learning and never ABLE to come to a knowledge of the truth." And this is the purpose of such knowledge.
Friendship with the world and the gods of this world, and their wisdom is enmity against god. While God is both willing and able to lead us into the knowledge of the truth though his Holy Spirit which he has shed abundantly upon us, this process gets thwarted, because we have been led to listen to and read a multitude of authors, who's knowledge is tainted by the god of this world.
In other words the Holy Spirit is in constant competition, and his voice is rarely heard. Rather every time he tries to speak and lead us to a correct understanding, another PhD comes along, with another long drawn out book full of endless explanations and very little scripture and a LOT of big fancy words, that leave us destitute of the truth, but thinking we are highly educated.
It's really time we get reading books about the Word, and started reading the Word itself. It's really time that we quit listening to men and what they think about the Word, and start letting God have his voice heard. For until we do, we like Isreal, will be constantly led away from the truth, into what this guy and that guys says, and we know very little of what the Lord really says.
In the Love of Christ,
larris
"If you continue (abide and live) in my word, then you shall be my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free." Jesus Christ. (John 8:31) | | Back to Top | | |
|
spenlake
Registered Member
Date Joined Jan 2004
Total Posts : 1050
| Posted 4/23/2004 6:04 AM (GMT -6) | | Larris,
(Please let us know who you are quoting. I believe that it was POW)I agree with you that scripture is where the truth is found. While there is common revelation and reason given to men, this is radically different than spiritual revelations that cannot be observed or confirmed objectively. Thus, for anybody to state that the paganism is a path that led to the scriptures and truth, I agree with you that this is not biblical. While paganism may have some truth contained in it, this is not where we are to seek it. Divination is illegal, everytime, for the people of God. Gad does speak to pagans through divination and can even lead them to do HIs bidding through it as in Ezek 21:18 in which He guides the king of Babylon to Jerusalem to destroy it, "The word of the LORD came to me saying, “As for you, son of man, make two ways for the sword of the king of Babylon to come; both of them will go out of one land. And make a signpost; make it at the head of the way to the city. “You shall mark a way for the sword to come to Rabbah of the sons of Ammon, and to Judah into fortified Jerusalem. “For the king of Babylon stands at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he shakes the arrows, he consults the household idols, he looks at the liver. “Into his right hand came the divination, ‘Jerusalem,’ to set battering rams, to open the mouth for slaughter, to lift up the voice with a battle cry, to set battering rams against the gates, to cast up ramps, to build a siege wall."
That doesn't make it legal for Christians. If we look to divination and spiritism we are ripe for those described in 2 Thess 2:11 in which God gives them a deluding influence so that they can be judged. Zoroasterism and other pagan religions are not the basis of our truth and not where we look.
Spen Lake
| | Back to Top | | |
|
John Earp
Registered Member
Date Joined Oct 2002
Total Posts : 1715
| Posted 4/23/2004 8:29 AM (GMT -6) | | We discussed this topic a few weeks ago in the following thread:
http://gregboyd.org/gbfront/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=3050 | | Back to Top | | |
| Forum Information | Currently it is Monday, November 09, 2026 1:52 PM (GMT -6)
There are a total of 97,718 posts in 6,040 threads.
In the last 3 days there were 0 new threads and 0 reply posts. View Active Threads
|
Forum powered by dotNetBB v2.42EC SP3
dotNetBB © 2000-2026 |
|
|