All Things Workin'.

Then Micaiah said, “Therefore hear the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on His throne, and all the host of heaven standing on His right hand and His left. And the LORD said, ‘Who will persuade Ahab king of Israel to go up, that he may fall at Ramoth Gilead?’ So one spoke in this manner, and another spoke in that manner. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the LORD, and said, ‘I will persuade him.’ The LORD said to him, ‘In what way?’ So he said, ‘I will go out and be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And the LORD said, ‘You shall persuade him and also prevail; go out and do so.’ Therefore look! The LORD has put a lying spirit in the mouth of these prophets of yours, and the LORD has declared disaster against you.”

This could be a pretty disturbing passage for a lot of Christians. Here we see the Lord sending a spirit into the prophets of Ahab to make them lie, so that the Lord's purposes will be accomplished. In other words, the Lord is causing and using their sin for His good and perfect will. Yet, we can also see that He is not the author of that sin, in that the fault lies with the spirit and with the false prophets complicit in the lies.

Pretty hard to take in, but that's Scripture--cleaving all the way down to joint and marrow. Right when we think we have God pegged, along comes a passage like this.