The Arrow of God
. . .God is angry with the wicked every day.
If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he
hath bent his bow and made it ready. He
hath also prepared for him the instruments
of death; he ordaineth his arrows against
the persecutors (Psa. 7:11-13).
A FUNDAMENTAL LAW appears in Genesis: when God created green plants, he made them to reproduce after their own kind. Figs, for instance, do not bear olives, nor vines, figs. This law is universal, as equally valid in the spiritual realm as in the natural. Thus, the familiar paraphrase of Galatians 6:7, “You reap what you sow,” states a commonly accepted truth that men are rewarded according to their deeds.
Evidently God must consider this a most important truth, for it appears in various forms many times in the Holy Scriptures. For example, to name but a few, “They have sown the wind, and the shall reap the whirlwind:” (Hos. 8:7); “Sow to yourselves righteousness, reap in mercy” (Hos. 10:12); and, “He that soweth iniquity shall reap vanity: (Prov. 22.8).
The Bible also expresses the same principle more vividly, for example, “He that killeth with the sword must be killed with the sword” (Rev. 13:10), or “He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made” (Psa.7:15). Perhaps the most bizarre is found in Proverbs. It says, of those who set an ambush for innocent victims whom they intend to kill and rob, “And they lay in wait for their own blood: they lurk privily for their own lives” (Prov. 1:18).
Can you imagine someone lying in ambush for himself—and when the intended victim passes by, he shoots to kill, o only to find that he has mortally wounded himself? The writer of Proverbs goes on to say that the foolish shall “eat of the fruit of their own way, and be filled with their own devices” (Prov. 1:31).
Although I can only dimly understand how it will be done, I am convinced that the wicked are going to be destroyed by their own kind and by their own methods. A common way of stating this is that the punishment will fit the crime. It is easy to forget this and to lump evil men into one category with one punishment for all regardless of their deeds. But I am persuaded that God has provided exactly the right reward (or recompense) for each according to his works (Rev. 22:12).
I discovered an excellent illustration of this principle during a bit of research prompted by a strange experience that a good Christian friend of mine had. One evening during prayer meeting another individual knelt beside him and began praying very loudly. My friend saw what appeared to be a shield let down between them, causing that person’s words to bounce off it as if they were bullets ricocheting from an armor plate. Later, upon searching the Bible for some clue as to the meaning of the vision, he read where the Lord spoke to Abraham say, “Fear not, Abraham: I am thy shield, and the exceeding great reward” (Gen 15:1)
I was asked to comment upon this incident. My studies revealed several related texts. It quickly became obvious that the shield is to protect the righteous from the lies of the wicked. The very last words of Moses, for instance, are blessing for Israel coupled with a warning: “Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the Lord, the shield of they help, and who is the sword of thy excellency! And thing enemies shall be found liars unto thee. . .” (Deut. 33:29).
That is, Moses was warning the people that their true enemies would not be so much the Canaanites as some of their own men, such as false prophets who would lie to them in the name of the Lord. However, if they should remain faithful, as Father Abraham had been faithful, the Lord himself would be a shield to ward off those pernicious lies.
Paul used the metaphor of an armed warrior to describe the protection that a Christian must possess to withstand the enemy. He said, in part, “Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked” (Eph.6:16).
That these fiery darts of the wicked are lies is proven by several texts, the most notable of which is this: “And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies. . .Their tongue is as an arrow shot out; it speaketh deceit. . .” (Jer.9:3, 8). The shield of faith shall render the lies of the wicked ineffectual to offend us or to destroy our faith in God. (But we are not protected from the agony and grief that the slander of Satan can cause in our lives—only that we shall not be separated from Christ.)
As it turned out, I became the target for a vicious lie started by the same individual whom my friend had encountered. (And not only myself, but several others have been the victims of his innuendos and outright lies.) During this time of Anguish, I happened to read the 64th Psalm, one of the prophetic Psalms that depicts the passion of Christ.
Psalm 64 is in the form of a prayer, typical of what Jesus could have, and probably did, utter. It pleads for deliverance from the secret counsel of his enemies and from the lies and deceit with which they sought to destroy him. Verse 3 reads:
“Who whet their tongue like a sword, and bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words” (Psa. 64:3).
Here is the same metaphor Jeremiah used: lies are arrows and sharp swords that the wicked use to slay the righteous. But a few verses later we read,
“But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded” (Psa. 64:7)
Now this caused me no little perplexity: for if we are to be consistent in interpreting the symbolism of the Scriptures, we must conclude that in some way God will use lies to recompense the liars. Yet we know that it is impossible for God to lie (Heb. 6:18).
Verse 8 provides a clue: “So they shall make their own tongue to fall upon themselves. . .” Here, of course, is merely a restatement of the law of sowing and reaping —if one sows lies, he shall reap lies.
But how is God involved in the process? Simply this: man does the sowing, watering, and cultivating, but God gives the increase (1Cor. 3:6-8). So that if a man lies against his neighbor, he shall be lied against—not once by one man only, buy by many, for his lies will increase into a harvest.
After I had arrived at these conclusions, I happened to think of the life and death of King Ahab, that wicked king of Israel, who was contemporary of King Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. His evil deeds and Manner of decease provide a perfect example of Foregoing.
King Ahab had married Jezebel, a Cannanitish princess, who turned him and all Israel to her gods and idols. Israel’s priests were corrupted and there arose many false prophets during Ahab’s reign. Jezebel tried to kill all the true prophets of God but failed in her efforts to kill Elijah.
Now Ahab greatly coveted a vineyard that lay close by his palace, owned by Naboth, the Jezreelite. Ahab tried to buy it, but Naboth refused, thinking that the Lord would be displeased if he should dispose of this inheritance, Ahab was so heartsick that he couldn’t eat. Jezebel proposed a plan whereby he could obtain the vineyard: she wrote letters in Ahab’s name, sealed them with his seal and sent them to the elders and rulers of Naboth’s home town, commanding them to se apart a day to honor Naboth among the people. But the town officials were to hire two false witnesses to testify that Naboth had blasphemed both God and the king. Then they were to stone Naboth to death.
The plot was executed exactly as planned, and Naboth was slain. Ahab immediately went to the vineyard to possess it.
But the Lord sent Elijah there to meet Ahab and to prophesy against him. He said, “In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine” (1Kings 21:19).
Upon which Ahab repented for a t time, and there was peace in Israel for three years.
There came a time when King Ahab’s covetousness reasserted itself, and he decided to retake the city of Ramoth-Gilead which had fallen to the Syrians. He requested the help of Jehoshaphat, King of Judah. Although Jehoshaphat was willing to help, he desired to know the Lord’s will in the matter, so he asked, “Enquire, I pray thee, at the word of the Lord today” (1Kings 22:5).
Ahab sent for his prophets, about 400 men, who testified unanimously that the Lord would deliver the city into his hands. But Jehospaphat was not satisfied. He knew they were false prophets, for he said, “Is there not here a prophet of the Lord besides, that we might enquire of him?”
So Ahab reluctantly sent for Micaiah, a true prophet of the Lord. The messenger attempted to persuade Micaiah not to contradict what the 400 prophets had already spoken, but he refused. He prophesied of Ahab’s defeat and death on the battlefield. Part of his prophecy reads as follows:
“And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the Lord: I saw the Lord sitting on his throne and all the hose of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left. And the Lord said, Who shall persuade 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 the Lord, and said, I will persuade him. And the Lord said unto him, Wherewith? And he said, I will go forth, and I will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets. And he aid, Thou shalt persuade him, and prevail also: go fourth, and do so.
“Now therefore, behold, the Lord hath put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these thy prophets, and the Lord hath spoken evil concerning thee: (1 Kings 22:19-23).
Of course, the king believed the comfortable lies of his prophets in preference to the harsh truth of the prophet of God. After ordering Micaiah imprisoned and fed on a diet of bread and water until he returned victorious, he went into battle with his accomplices to recapture Ramoth-Gilead. True to Micaiah’s prophecy, he was fatally wounded on the battlefield. His chariot, filled with his blood, carried his body back to Samaria, and there, as the chariot was being washed, the dogs licked up his blood just as Elijah had foretold.
Ahab sowed one lie, which caused the death of Naboth. God gave the increase, and 400 prophets lied to Ahab, resulting in his death. Ahab bent his tongue like a bow and shot an arrow, even bitter words, to kill Naboth. Did not God shoot at him with an arrow, even a lying spirit?
Incidentally, Ahab was wounded by an archer who shot him in the back. And so Ahab was slain, both figuratively and literally, by an arrow.
Leo Jordan
November, 1977