“What
the devil told Saul would happen to his army and kingdom was nothing but what
he rationally concluded from the premises which lay before him.
When we consider
Satan's many years of experience in studying natural knowledge, we will not
accept his predictions as prophecies but see him as a learned naturalist with a
short and dark text of natural causes.
What the devil
told Saul would happen to his army and kingdom was nothing but what he rationally
concluded from the premises which lay before him; in that God had rejected Saul
and anointed another man to be king, together with the full measure of Saul's
sins--culminating in his going to a witch for counsel--and a great Philistine
army gathered against him. Coupled with his burning conscience, all these made
it appear that the devil, without a gift of prophecy, had accurately envisioned
Saul's doom.
God may reveal
future events to Satan as His instrument. The hangman is not a prophet. He
cannot tell a man when he will be executed until he gets a warrant from the
king appointing him to carry out his orders. Satan could have told Job
beforehand what afflictions would come to his estate, servants, children, and
his own body because God had allowed him to be the instrument to bring all
these trials upon Job. Buth neither Satan nor any other creature is able to
foretell events, which do not arise from natural, causes nor follow moral and
political probabilities.
Prophecies in
Scripture are locked up in the cabinet of the divine will to prove their
heavenly extrication. They must come from God, who can tell us what only He
knows. Who else but God, for example, could have told Abraham where his heirs
would be and what would happen to them four hundred years after his death?
Finally, how
wonderful are the prophecies of Christ the Messiah! His person, birth, life,
and death are as specifically set down many ages before His coming as if
recorded by those who were with Him and saw with their own eyes all that happened.”
Quoted material from,
”The Christian in Complete Armour Daily Readings in Spiritual Warfare” by
Gurnall and James S Bell. http://www.moodypublishers.com/pub_productDetail.aspx?id=41823&pid=53617
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