Weird Stuff in the Bible

Why Does God Allow Satan to Exist?
II Samuel 24, I Chronicles 21
Thumbnail: God uses Satan. Or “Can God Use Satan?”

Introduction
Why does God allow Satan to even exist?
That’s a pretty good question. Satan is the first rebel. He helped cause the fall. He has caused untold death, destruction and mayhem for thousands of years. He is God’s greatest enemy. Yet he is no match for God. God once backhanded Satan out of heaven. Someday God is going to kick Satan into the Lake of Fire for all eternity.
So why wait? God could snap His fingers and send the devil there right now. So why doesn’t he? Why does Satan get to keep causing problems, meddling in our lives, tempting people into sin and into hell, every single day that goes by?
I find this to be weird, and I’d like to explore why God puts up with- and makes us put up with- Satan.
Turn to II Samuel 24, and let’s get weird.
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(Continued)
Welcome to Weird Stuff in the Bible, where we explore scripture passages that are bizarre, perplexing or just plain weird. This is Luke Taylor, and today we’re going to be talking about- as I already said- why God allows Satan to exist.
Maybe you’ve thought about this before. Maybe you haven’t. But this is a very important theological issue that you should have settled. Not just for your own understanding but because this will be a springboard to understanding a couple of issues we’ll tackle over the next few weeks in the book of Jude.

Coming to Our Census
So we’ll get right into it. But I’m warning you, it’s not coming in the next 5 minutes. You’re gonna have to listen all the way until the end of this episode to get the answer. II Samuel 24 is the story of David taking a census of the people of Israel. And this was actually sinful; God had declared in the Mosaic Law that kings were not to take a census. And yet, in
II Samuel 24:1, it says
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”
So David is going to number the people; take a census. And it’s wrong. Yet, God, it said, incited it. He incited David to do this thing that was wrong. And if you read the whole chapter, you find that God sent a punishment for doing this, yet the first verse tells us God wanted it to happen all along. Strange, right? This doesn’t sound like something God would do. Except it says this is exactly something God did.
To make this issue even more confusing, there’s a parallel passage in I Chronicles 21. A parallel passage is kind of like the four gospels, where you see the same story being told again and again from slightly different perspectives, and you kind of have to try to reconcile some of the details at times. Well, I Chronicles 21 is a parallel passage to II Samuel 24.
I Chronicles 21:1 states
Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.
Woah. Wow. One of the passages says that God incited David to take the census. The other says that Satan did. That is a contradiction if you ever saw one, right?
Now, this is not going to be a podcast about resolving contradictions, but I am going to do that this time because this contradiction is particularly weird. One verse says God incited David to take a census, the other says the Satan did. How much more opposite can you get? I mean, we need to resolve this.

Some Context and the story
So let’s talk about some of the historical context of the story. Let me re-read how
II Samuel 24 opens:
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel,
Now, why would God be angry with the Israelites? Well, the past several chapters of II Samuel up to this point have mostly been about rebellions against the king. There was the rebellion of Absalom that took up a big section. And then there was a second rebellion, which most people don’t know about, which was the Rebellion of Sheba. And once again, many Israelites banded together to try to overthrow the king. And God had divinely ordained and anointed David to the Kingship. And despite that, the people kept trying to kill David and replace him. So God is not too happy with the Israelites going into this chapter. So it begins:
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”
To number them is to take a census
Verse 2
So the king said to Joab, the commander of the army, who was with him, “Go through all the tribes of Israel, from Dan to Beersheba, and number the people, that I may know the number of the people.”
From Dan to Beersheba means from north to south. It means “everybody.” In America, we’d say “from Maine to California.” From one end to the other.
And again, this went against the Mosaic Law. God didn’t want the kings taking a census because God knew that then the kings would be instructed to trust in their numbers rather than trusting in Him.
Verse 3
But Joab said to the king, “May the Lord your God add to the people a hundred times as many as they are, while the eyes of my lord the king still see it, but why does my lord the king delight in this thing?”
Joab is usually kind of a scoundrel, but right here, he’s actually being the voice of reason. He’s trying to talk David out of it. He’s like, “you don’t have to do this.”
Verse 4
But the king's word prevailed against Joab and the commanders of the army. So Joab and the commanders of the army went out from the presence of the king to number the people of Israel.
So Joab goes out and does it. I’ll skip a few verses down. As soon as the census is completed, David is conscience-stricken. He realizes he did wrong.
Verse 10
10 But David's heart struck him after he had numbered the people. And David said to the Lord, “I have sinned greatly in what I have done. But now, O Lord, please take away the iniquity of your servant, for I have done very foolishly.”
Oh man, that’s how sin is. Oftentimes you don’t really listen to the voice of reason, to good advice, to your conscience, to the Holy Spirit, you try to silence it, and then when you finally do it- when you finally commit the sin- THEN you feel bad. THEN you say, “I shouldn’t have said that, I shouldn’t have looked at that, I shouldn’t have bought that,” whatever it is.
It’s kinda like sending an email. I do my best proof-reading AFTER I’ve sent the email. I’m like, “proofread it, proofread it, proofread it.” And yet I’m trying to get stuff done, I want to get on to the next thing, I don’t feel like I probably made a mistake, I’m too busy to re-read it all,” and then I click send and suddenly I’m like, “let’s go over to the sent folder and see what I told them.” Dumb.
Or I used to work in newspaper. I’d be like, “I just wanna type my paper and GO HOME. I don’t wanna take time to copy-edit it.” And then you submit it and go home for the day and you pick up the newspaper the next day and it’s like, -sigh- why didn’t I catch that?
That’s kinda similar to how sin is sometimes. You will rationalize it until you actually do it. And then all the regret hits you. And that’s what happens for David here.
And then something kinda interesting happens. David gets to pick his punishment.
Verses 11 through 14
11 And when David arose in the morning, the word of the Lord came to the prophet Gad, David's seer, saying, 12 “Go and say to David, ‘Thus says the Lord, Three things I offer you. Choose one of them, that I may do it to you.’” 13 So Gad came to David and told him, and said to him, “Shall three years of famine come to you in your land? Or will you flee three months before your foes while they pursue you? Or shall there be three days' pestilence in your land? Now consider, and decide what answer I shall return to him who sent me.”
So David is given three options for how he will be punished. And this is a very unique story because God doesn’t usually give someone a choice.
And this is a rough choice here. Three years of famine, three months of your enemies fighting you, or three days of plague and sickness.
So it says in verse 15:
Then David said to Gad, “I am in great distress. Let us fall into the hand of the Lord, for his mercy is great; but let me not fall into the hand of man.”
And in saying that, he’s saying, “Let us have the plague.” David is thinking, “if I pick the famine, I’m at the mercy of mother nature. Natural causes. If I pick the warfare, I’m at the mercy of a bloodthirsty enemy. But if I pick the plague, that would come straight from God, and I’d rather be at the mercy of God than anything else.” Which is kind of a wise thought, I suppose. I’d probably make the argument that God is sovereign over all those spheres, which we’re going to talk about later today. But regardless, God is pleased with David’s answer.
Verse 15 and 16
15 So the Lord sent a pestilence on Israel from the morning until the appointed time. And there died of the people from Dan to Beersheba 70,000 men. 16 And when the angel stretched out his hand toward Jerusalem to destroy it, the Lord relented from the calamity and said to the angel who was working destruction among the people, “It is enough; now stay your hand.”
So David picks the plague, and 70,000 people die. And that’s not quite the end of the story, but it’s all that we’re going to cover today.
Now, you are perhaps wondering by this point why I am spending so much time on this story about David and a census when the title of this podcast is “Why does God allow Satan to exist?” You are about to find out.

God useD David
And this story always used to make me mad- or confused. For years. I thought it was so unfair. I was like, “David is the one who sinned, and 70,000 people died. That doesn’t seem right.” I would ask God about that, because I don’t think God makes mistakes. I’m pretty sure God was paying as much attention to this story as I was, and I noticed that David was the one who sinned in it, not the Israelites.
I encourage you, when you don’t understand something God is doing in the Bible, ask God to help you understand it. He almost always leads me to the right answer. In this case, it took years. But finally I came to understand what’s going on here.
So it seemed very unfair that 70,000 innocent people are just going around living their lives but that God would just wipe them out to teach David a lesson. That’s pretty extreme. I mean, I know David was an important guy, but that just seemed really unfair to those 70,000 people.
But wait a minute. There were a lot of moving parts in this story. Let’s go back to verse 1 and read that one more time.
(Verse 1)
Again the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel, and he incited David against them, saying, “Go, number Israel and Judah.”
We kind of focused on David and his actions throughout the whole story, but all the way back in verse 1, it told us who this was really about.
Who was God angry with? The Israelites. “…the anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel…” God wasn’t mad at David. He was mad at the people. Why? I already told you why. They kept rebelling against their king.
Who ends up being punished in this story? The Israelites. God was mad at the Israelites. God kills 70,000 Israelites. And sure, he taught David a lesson along the way, but this was not a story about David. This was a story about God being mad at the Israelites and the way in which God punished the Israelites.
David. Was. Just. A. Tool. That. God. Used.
David was just a cog in the machine. Once you understand that, once you go back and re-read verse 1, suddenly it gets a lot clearer. This was not a story of 70,000 innocent people getting punished because of someone else’s sin. God was actually punishing them for their own sin. And God used a kind of complicated scenario with David to bring it all about. God was using David.

God Uses Satan
But there’s one more complication, one more wrinkle to this whole thing, that we touched on at the beginning, and that’s I Chronicles 21. And that parallel passage is pretty similar to II Samuel 24’s version, except for that pesky opening line.
(Verse 1)
Then Satan stood against Israel and incited David to number Israel.
Now that throws a whole monkey wrench into my explanation now. Or does it?
It actually all fits together. God didn’t directly incite David to sin. God used Satan to do it. God used David. And God used Satan.
I don’t know how it all came about. Maybe God said to Satan, “Hey, you wanna get a bunch of Israelites killed?” And Satan is like, “Sure, I hate those guys.” So God said, “I’m gonna allow you to do this,” and Satan went and did it.
God was mad at the Israelites for a double-rebellion in a short amount of time. God wanted to punish them. That was his ultimate goal, His greater purpose. And God was willing and able to use this whole complicated story of letting Satan incite David who sinned so he had to pick a punishment, but conveniently, David’s punishment only hurt the people that God wanted to hurt from the get-go.
It’s actually pretty amazing, pretty astonishing, when you consider the sovereignty of God and how God is able to work all things to His purposes.
But I admit- it’s a hard pill to swallow. Maybe you’re not convinced yet. Maybe you’re wondering, “is this story just outlier, just an exception- or is God using Satan an idea that presents itself in other places of Scripture?”
I will show you that this is how God works throughout the Bible. And this is going to answer the question for us of why God allows Satan to exist.
Let me take a short break, and then I’ll answer those questions.
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Housekeeping/Mailbag
Next time on this podcast, we’re getting back into Jude to start covering the next few verses. Remember the story about Satan getting into a fight with an angel named Michael over the body of Moses? Neither do I, so that’s why we’re going to dive into it in the next episode.
Make sure you’re subscribed so you can get it!
What weird stuff in the Bible do you want to know more about? weirdstuffinthebible@gmail.com
I have a lot of mailbags to respond to, but I’m a bit too squeezed for time today. I may need to do a mailbag episode just to catch up soon…

God Can Use Anyone
So. Why does God keep Satan around? The answer to that question is: Satan is a tool. For one thing, God shows in II Samuel 24 that He can use the devil to accomplish His purposes. He can say, “I’ll let Satan tempt you over here because it helps Me accomplish something else I want to do over there.”
Now, that’s a hard thing to hear. That’s a hard thing to accept. I know it’s going to challenge some of your theology. But our theology needs to be based first and foremost on the Bible, and we have to let the Bible say what it says. And the Bible says God uses Satan.
For one thing, Satan provides mankind a choice. And God wants us to have a choice. God wants us to have the ability to choose whether we will follow Him or not.
Why is there sin in this world? Well, we can blame Adam. And Adam can blame Eve. And Eve can blame the serpent. And the serpent would probably blame God. If you try to find a cause for any problem in your life, you can eventually trace it back to God and what He allows. And you know what, I can’t always explain why God allows bad stuff to happen. But at the end of the day, God does, and God lets Satan loose sometimes because it serves a greater purpose.
Look at the story of Job. I don’t have to recite it all for you, but the Sons of God go to present themselves to God in chapter 1. These Sons of God, these spiritual beings, who we talked about on an earlier episode of the podcast. This is up in heaven. They’re having a council meeting. And Satan walks in. Well, screw it, I’ll just read it for you.
Job 1:6-8
6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan also came among them. 7 The Lord said to Satan, “From where have you come?” Satan answered the Lord and said, “From going to and fro on the earth, and from walking up and down on it.” 8 And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil?”
So see, God brings Job up. They weren’t talking about Job. God is just like, “Hey Satan, Job’s doing pretty good. In all your roaming around and ruining lives, have you ever thought about messing with Job?” It’s kinda shocking. And I’m sure you know what happens next, Satan goes and ruins everything in Job’s life. Takes his kids, his wealth and his health. Job is miserable.
And some people say that the book of Job is about why bad things happen to good people, why the righteous suffer. No it innit! Because if that’s what it’s supposed to be about, then it fails, because it doesn’t answer that question. Job lost it all, and Satan’s role in Job’s life was to provide Job with a choice. And Job made the right one. Satan’s role in Eve’s life was to provide her a choice, and she made the wrong one. Satan exists to provide us a choice. Who are you going to follow? That’s why God allows Satan to exist.
You say, “But man, it seems weird that God would actually ‘use’ Satan, why would God use an evil spirit? Why would God want to? Why would Satan submit to it?” It happens all the time.
In episode 3 of this podcast about the divine council, we read this story about a different meeting in heaven.
I Kings 22:19-22
I saw the Lord sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; 20 and the Lord said, ‘Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?’ And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before the Lord, saying, ‘I will entice him.’ 22 And the Lord said to him, ‘By what means?’ And he said, ‘I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.’ And he said, ‘You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.’
A lying spirit volunteered to be used by God to go and get Ahab killed, and God is like, “I want Ahab killed, go and do it.” Did you hear that, guys: a lying spirit.
I don’t know if I read these verses before on the podcast but
I Samuel 16:14
Now the Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and a harmful spirit from the Lord tormented him.
A harmful spirit from the Lord. King Jimmy version says “an evil spirit.”
Can God send harmful spirits? Can God send lying spirits? Does your theology have room for that idea?
It better, because otherwise your theology is wrong. Theology needs to come from the Bible. It’s right there in I Kings 22 and I Samuel 16. God can use them. God can use Satan.
If you don’t like that.you’re not alone… I don’t much like it either. Except I do kind of like how deep God’s sovereignty goes. I’m not a Calvinist, but God’s sovereignty goes far further than I used to think.
It’s not my job to judge God. It’s not your job. God is God. I know my place. I’m going to trust God, even when it seems hard for me to accept what He’s doing. Even when it doesn’t make sense, especially when it doesn’t make sense.
If we only trusted God when it made sense to us, we wouldn’t be trusting God. We’d just be agreeing with Him. He asks us to trust Him.
Job never saw the answer to why He suffered, but he saw God, and that was enough. That was enough to resolve His issues with fairness and life and loss and suffering. His first words after he saw God were,
(Job 42:2)
“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.”
Guys, God uses Satan. There is nothing the devil can do to your life that God didn’t allow to happen. And I don’t understand it all myself either. But someday I’ll see God, like Job did. And I’m sure I’ll have a similar reaction. All these questions will just melt away.
And I hope I answered some questions for you today. But I know I probably gave you some answers and perhaps some more questions. This is probably not the kind of stuff you were thinking was in the Bible when you walked out of Sunday School last weekend. What’s going on behind the spiritual scenes is probably a lot stranger than you realized before.
But just remember, the Bible is not weird. WE are weird, because we don’t know about how God can use even Satan to accomplish His divine purposes. But now we do. And that is hopefully a comfort, because if God can use Satan, God can probably use you as well.
Thanks for listening, God bless you for sticking around until the end, and we’ll see you next time.