When God Entices a False Prophet (Ezekiel 14:9)
It was missionary Paul Washer who once thunderously proclaimed the following:
False teachers are God’s judgment on people who don’t want God, but in the name of religion plan on getting everything their carnal heart desires. That’s why a Joel Osteen is raised up. Those people who sit under him are not victims of him; he is the judgment of God upon them because they want exactly what he wants—and it’s not God. And you can line them all up along with him. That’s where it is.[1]
Make no mistake about it: Washer’s words were not hyperbole. It’s precisely what Scripture teaches. And though his text was 2 Timothy 4:3, the reality is that such a principle is articulated with even greater clarity in the book of Ezekiel. When people want to be lied to, and look to use God’s name for that end, not only do they accumulate false teachers for themselves, but God is the one who provides them. When men give God false devotion, He gives them false direction. When they offer false piety, He offers false prophecy.
Ezekiel’s Polemic
In the third major section of Ezekiel (chapters 12-14), the prophet began what can only be described as a polemic against the false hopes of the exiles in Babylon. At this point in time, Ezekiel had already been given two visions of God (cf. Ezek. 1:1, 8:3), with the second of them showing that God’s glory had departed from the temple in Jerusalem, leaving the people defenseless against the encroaching Babylonian forces. Having sinned against God repeatedly, the nation of Judah forfeited fellowship with God—along with His protective hand. And since Ezekiel was given such a vivid picture of God abandoning His people, he knew for certain that there was no way that the city of Jerusalem would survive another attack from the enemy nation. Likewise, he knew for certain that the exiles who had already been captured and were with him in Babylon were going to be there much longer than they thought. There was no hope for a quick return to Jerusalem.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one preaching to the exiles in Babylon. Self-appointed prophets—false prophets—were peddling their false teaching as much as Ezekiel was providing true teaching. Just as Hananiah opposed Jeremiah back in Jerusalem, lying to the people and telling them that Babylon’s dominance would last a mere two years (cf. Jer. 28:11), bad actors in Babylon were opposing Ezekiel’s ministry, telling the people that there would soon be “peace” in Jerusalem (cf. Ezek. 13:10). And of course, many exiles in Babylon welcomed the hopeful words of these false prophets, preferring pleasant lies to unpleasant truths. Failing to recognize that their exile was a punishment from God for their sin, these Israelites had itching ears, wanting to be told that “all would be well.” And the false prophets were more than happy to accommodate (cf. 2 Tim. 4:3). Thus, Ezekiel’s ministry, like that of pastors today, not only involved teaching the truth, but exposing lies—and liars (cf. Titus 1:9).
True and False Prophets
To that end, God explained an important truth to Ezekiel concerning true prophets:
“Son of man, these men have set up their idols in their hearts and have put right before their faces the stumbling block of their iniquity. Should I be consulted by them at all? Therefore, speak to them and tell them, ‘Thus says the Lord God, ‘Any man of the house of Israel who sets up his idols in his heart, puts right before his face the stumbling block of his iniquity, and then comes to the prophet, I the Lord will be brought to give him an answer in the matter in view of the multitude of his idols, in order to lay hold of the hearts of the house of Israel who are estranged from Me through all their idols.’ Therefore say to the house of Israel, ‘Thus says the Lord God, ‘Repent and turn away from your idols and turn your faces away from all your abominations.’” (Ezekiel 14:3-6)
In other words, if an Israelite were to come to a prophet and asks for spiritual insight from the Lord concerning Jerusalem’s future, all while secretly harboring sin in his heart, a true prophet would not cooperate by providing a positive word for them. Indeed, no true prophet would ever coddle a supposed worshiper’s feigned devotion to God. Instead, a true prophet would rebuke the inquirer for his hypocrisy, and call for him to repent. Men like Ezekiel would expose the inquirer’s sin and not give them false assurance of a pleasant word from the Lord.
On the other hand, God also explained how false prophets would respond to an inquirer:
“But if the prophet is persuaded so that he speaks a word, it is I, the Lord, who have persuaded that prophet; and I will stretch out My hand against him and eliminate him from among My people Israel. And they will bear the punishment for their wrongdoing; as the wrongdoing of the inquirer is, so the wrongdoing of the prophet will be, in order that the house of Israel may no longer stray from Me and no longer defile themselves with all their offenses. So they will be My people, and I shall be their God,” declares the Lord God. (Ezekiel 14:9-11)
Here, God explained that if an Israelite approached a prophet, in feigned devotion to God, and the prophet was persuaded to give the Israelite the soothing lie that he wanted, both the false prophet and the one who inquired of him would suffer judgment.
But don’t miss this vital detail spoken by God: “If the prophet is persuaded so that he speaks a word, it is I, the Lord, who have persuaded that prophet” (Ezek. 14:9, emphasis mine).
Re-read that statement as many times as you need for it to sink in.
Alternatively, consult other English versions of the passage to make sure you don’t miss what it is unequivocally stated:
KJV: “And if the prophet be deceived when he hath spoken a thing, I the LORD have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand upon him, and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.”
ESV: “And if the prophet is deceived and speaks a word, I, the LORD, have deceived that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and will destroy him from the midst of my people Israel.”
NIV: “And if the prophet is enticed to utter a prophecy, I the LORD have enticed that prophet, and I will stretch out my hand against him and destroy him from among my people Israel.”
What the passage says is that when an Israelite was inwardly idolatrous, while outwardly seeking prophetic counsel out of supposed love for the one true God of Israel, God would persuade the prophet to provide a lie. God would give the false prophet a ministry opportunity that would bring about both the prophet’s and the hearer’s own condemnation. He would be the one enticing false prophets to give the people what they wanted. To those who wanted to fake holiness, pretending to genuinely seek God’s interests while actually seeking their own, God would give them the deception they desired. And then they would suffer the consequences for their high-handed sin. No one plays games with God and gets away with it.
Of course, this undoubtedly raises a whole host of questions from the average student of Scripture.
Does God really persuade a false prophet to lie? Doesn’t the Bible say that God cannot tempt anyone? Is this really what the passage teaches? How involved is God when it comes to deception?
The Predicament
Scripture is crystal clear that God is in control of all human affairs, including, in this instance, the giving of false prophecy. Sadly, however, rather than grappling with the statement made in Ezekiel 14:9, many treat it the way they treat other seemingly difficult passages (such as Romans 9:22, 1 Peter 2:8, or Psalm 5:5)—they doubt, distort, downplay, or outright deny what it plainly says. Quite frankly, such responses to Scripture are shameful and unbecoming of any serious Christian. This isn’t surprising though; the average evangelical’s theology doesn’t go much deeper than John 3:16, and the average Arminian pastor isn’t offering anything to help fix that.
But the genuine student of Scripture should not be satisfied with anything less than a thorough treatment of the text. So we must give God’s Word the serious consideration it deserves.
In this case, the apparent predicament is obvious: How can God be said to “persuade” a false prophet to lie to someone, when passages like James 1:13 say that God cannot tempt anyone, and passages like Numbers 23:19 say that God cannot lie? In light of God’s holiness, to what extent is His involvement with this sin of false prophecy?
Some might try to resolve this by saying that the Hebrew word for “persuade” doesn’t actually mean what we understand it to mean in English. But behind the verb “persuade” is the Hebrew word pathah, which means “to allure or deceive.” In passages like Job 31:9 and Judges 16:5, pathah is translated as “entice,” in reference to a woman seducing a man. In Deuteronomy 11:16, it’s translated as “deceive,” in reference to the Israelites being led astray to worship false gods. And in Proverbs 25:15, it’s translated as “persuade,” used to refer to convincing a national ruler to make a particular decision. Lexically, the semantic range (and use of the word in these various passages) enforces, rather than refutes, a straightforward understanding of the word. “Persuade” does indeed mean “persuade.”
Others might conclude that God merely “allows” the false prophet to lie. One commentator, for example, wrongly states, “God permitted these enticements to test the people to make sure they were loyal to Him” (emphasis mine).[2] Whether they recognize it or not, those who would take this position are portraying God as a spectator to the events that occur in His world, contrary to Ephesians 1:11. Rather than actively governing, this idea suggests that God passively consents—at least when it comes to sin. But again, the text does not allow for this. On the contrary, the text expressely establishes just the opposite: when Ezekiel 14:9 uses the phrase “I, the Lord,” it is like using a reflexive pronoun to say “I, myself,” for the purposes of making an emphatic point. God doesn’t tell Ezekiel, “It is I who have persuaded,” nor does God say, “It is the Lord who has persuaded,” but instead He says, “It is I, the Lord, who have persuaded” (emphasis mine). That double reference to Himself shows that God is actively presiding over the lie that false prophets speak. God has no problem with taking credit for this situation. Neither should we.
How then do we reconcile all of this? What we need to understand are categories of causation.
Categories of Causation
So what exactly are categories of causation? Whether you realize it or not, you likely already have a subtle understanding of various categories of causation. If I were to ask you, “When a carpenter is building something, who, or what, pounds the nails into the lumber that he uses?” what would your response be? Some might answer, “The hammer.” Others might answer, “The carpenter.” Which would be correct? The answer is obvious: both are correct—simply in different ways. The carpenter is the cause of the nail being pounded in, in the sense that he determined that it would happen, using his skill and strength to make it so. On the other hand, the hammer could also be labeled the cause of the nail being pounded in, in that the hammer’s mass in motion directly applied the force to drive the nail in. In this example, then, the former cause governs the action, while the latter cause interacts directly with it. Once you recognize this kind of distinction, you recognize categories of causation.
When it comes to Scripture, academic theologians note the following three categories of causation:
Ultimate Cause. The ultimate cause of every action that occurs in the world is God, who providentially governs all actions for His purposes (cf. Eph. 1:11, Rom. 11:36, et al.).
Proximate Cause. The proximate cause of an action is the agent, human or otherwise, who influences, directs, or enables an action.
Efficient Cause. The efficient cause of an action is the agent, human or otherwise, who directly carries out the action.[3]
Of course, this kind of thinking is nothing new. Not only do most people inherently understand it (even if they don’t realize it), but even naturalistic philosophers going all the way back to Aristotle have been describing it for centuries. And lest you are tempted to dismiss these categories as nothing more than extrabiblical, philosophical, mumbo-jumbo, it should be noted that this framework of causality is vital to understanding many passages of Scripture.
For example, 2 Samuel 24:10 says, “Now again the anger of the Lord burned against Israel, and it incited David against them to say, ‘Go, number Israel and Judah.’” In this passage we find that King David had begun to find strength and pride in his military might, rather than in God alone. Thus the text says that “it” (the anger of the Lord) incited David to take a census. He was later punished for this act (cf. 2 Sam. 24:15). However, the parallel account of this event found in 1 Chronicles 21:1 says, “Then Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel” (emphasis mine). Did you catch that? One account says that God’s anger incited David to take the census, whereas the other says that Satan moved David to do it. By understanding categories of causation, we can recognize that God was the ultimate cause who providentially governed David to take the census, Satan was the proximate cause who tempted David to take the census, and David himself was the efficient cause who committed the sin of taking the census. Without categories of causation, these two passages would appear hopelessly irreconcilable. But with categories of causation, they are found to be harmonious and enlightening.
Dr. Peter Sammons of The Master’s Seminary states just as much:
Scripture indicates that sin does not occur outside of the ordained plan of God, who is the ultimate cause and responsibility of all things. But since Scripture says that both concurrent realities are true—that God ordains sin while remaining holy and unchargeable for sin—the need for theological categories of causation is established.[4]
Giving the People What They Want
Returning to Ezekiel 14:9 with an understanding of the various categories of causation gives us the proper framework we need to rightly interpret it. In this case, when an unbelieving exile inquired of a prophet, the prophet—serving as the efficient cause—would commit the sinful act of prophesying falsely. God, serving as the ultimate cause, would take full credit for enticing the false prophet to do it. But there is a third component, the proximate cause—that is unstated in this passage, though implied, based on a similar scenario found in 1 Kings 22:19-23.
In 1 Kings 22:19-23, we see God using false prophets to lie to King Ahab in order to bring about his demise. Ahab was another example of someone who preferred a smooth lie to a rough truth, and wanted to try to leverage God for his own personal gain. When Ahab was trying to determine whether or not to go into battle against Syria (an enemy nation in the north), he decided he would seek counsel from the Lord using his own prophets. Of course, after patiently enduring years of Ahab’s evil, God wasn’t going to indulge Ahab’s desire for military insight. Instead, He was determined to bring about his downfall. Thus, the passage states that when Ahab sought prophetic counsel to determine whether or not he should go into battle, his four hundred false prophets assured him of victory. What Ahab didn’t know at the time, however, was that God had enticed these false prophets to lie to him. God decided it was time to bring Ahab to the end of his life, and He used Ahab’s false prophets to lead him straight to his death.
And how did God do it? By enlisting the help of demons:
“And the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab to go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one spirit said this, while another said that. Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, and said, ‘I will entice him.’ And the Lord said to him, ‘How?’ And he said, ‘I will go out and be a deceiving spirit in the mouths of all his prophets.’ Then He said, ‘You shall entice him, and you will also prevail. Go and do so.’
Using the same Hebrew word for “entice” as is found in Ezekiel 14:9 (pathah), what is seen in 1 Kings 22 is that when God intended to bring about Ahab’s demise, by leading him to believe a lie, God didn’t mislead Ahab directly. Instead, God commissioned an eager and willing demon to carry out the task. And so it is that demons serve as the proximate cause in the lies that false prophets tell (cf. 1 Tim. 4:1, 2 Thess. 2:10-11).
To state it succinctly: God is the ultimate cause of the lie, a demon is the proximate cause of the lie, and a false prophet is the efficient cause of the lie.
This reality should sober up anyone who would dare play games with God. Look for ways to manipulate Christianity for your own personal gain, and God may just give you what you want. He’ll raise up a demonically-influenced false teacher to give you the soul-sedating lie you secretly desire. But, buyer beware: when the spiritual anesthetic wears off, you just might find yourself in the flames of hell right alongside both the false teacher and the demon who led you there.
Paul Washer was right.
References:
[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iWMrKcFKqzk
[2] Warren Wiersbe, The Bible Exposition Commentary—Prophets (Colorado Springs, CO: Victor, 2003), 188.
[3] Peter Sammons (2019, February). Doctrine of God and the Decrees, Week Fourteen: The Doctrine of Causality, Lecture 14.1, Lecture presented at The Institute for Church Leadership at The Master's Seminary.
[4] Peter Sammons (2019, February). Doctrine of God and the Decrees, Week Fourteen: The Doctrine of Causality, Lecture 14.2, Lecture presented at The Institute for Church Leadership at The Master's Seminary.