LUCIFERS REBELLION 1 Samuel 15:23 For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry. Because thou hast rejected the word of the Lord, he hath also rejected thee from being king. God hates rebellion! He hates the attitude of lawlessness it produces, as well as the crop of wicked fruit that results from it. The prince of all rebellion is Satan the Devil, also known as the sum of all moral impurities. Though we do not see this demon physically, the influence of this arch-rebel permeates our society. We need not look far to see children rebelling against their parents, artists rebelling against the status quo, and fringe groups rebelling against the government. Satan personifies rebellion. It was Lucifers rebellious action that saw him tossed out of heaven and renamed Satan, Adversary: How you are fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, you who weakened the nations! For you have said in your heart: I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God [angels]; I will also sit [rule] on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north [Gods government]; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the Pit. (Isaiah 14:12-15) Lucifer, Light Bringer, rebelled against the laws of God, thus he rebelled against God Himself. Desiring independence from Gods legislation, he tried to depose God and become the sovereign ruler of the universe. Great chaos and destruction resulted among the heavenly bodies and on earth (Genesis 1:2) when God cast [him] as a profane thing out of the mountain of God (Ezekiel 28:16). Because of his rebellion, we are today experiencing its evil fruit. Notice how Isaiah describes the reaction of people who will look back upon Satans career after God finally binds him forever in the Lake of Fire: Those who see you will gaze at you, and consider you, saying, Is this the man [Hebrew ish, male, individual, person] who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of his prisoners? (Isaiah 14:16-17) These people are describing the effects of Satans rule on this earth now! Proverbs 13:10 Only by pride cometh contention: but with the well advised is wisdom. When God says, By pride comes only contention, He means that this kind of pride has not a single good fruit! Not even one! Lucifers pride brought him into contention with God, two-thirds of the angels, the demons who now submit to him and billions of deceived humans who do not resist him. Surely, the demons are a squabbling bunch held together only by Satans power and their united hatred of God and His children. This has occurred because they deceived themselves into thinking more of themselves than they ought, which perverted their judgment in other areas of life. Isaiah 14:12-15 12 How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations! 13 For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: 14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High. 15 Yet thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Lucifer means Light-Bringer or Day Star. Ezekiel calls him the anointed cherub who covers, which means he was one of the chief angels whose wings covered Gods throne in heaven. He is specifically shown to be a created being, possibly the most beautiful, wise, and perfect of Gods creations. But this mighty angel grew proud and vain in his beauty. He began to become envious of Gods authority over the universe, and over maybe millions of years, he schemed to induce other angels to support him in an attempt to overthrow God. When he finally led one third of the angels (Revelation 12:4) to war against God in heaven, God cast him and his angelic troops back to the earth (Luke 10:18). It becomes clear, once we fit this together with II Peter 2:4; Jude 1:6; Revelation 12:3-4,9; and Ezekiel 28:12-14, that God assigned the angels to the earth under their commander, Lucifer, who was the sum total of all that God could create by fiat in a created being, perfect in his ways until iniquity was found in him. We see a picture of a being of awesome beauty and power, of tremendous intelligence, and like us, a creature of free moral agency. Something happened to that great being, and he began a campaign of deceit. He began to separate from God a number of the angels, undoubtedly using the reasoning that they should have more, that God should treat them better, that God was being unfair, that they did not have the liberty or the power that was due them. At some point he began to express, I will be like the Most High. Some say that the Hebrew says in reality, I will be God, not just like God. We can see what he wanted: complete power, authority, and control. He did not want to be under another; he did not want to be submissive. He did not want another being pulling his strings or controlling him. He wanted to sit, as it says, on the mount of the congregation. So he decided, I will make war. I will ascend into heaven. So the demons left their first estate, the realm of their authority, and they mounted up in war and attacked God. They were soundly defeated and cast down. Their first domain became a place of restraint, literally a silo, a pit, where they were chained. This suggests that, as a result of their rebellion, they no longer have the liberty that they once had, but are now held in restraint. A great deal of their free moral agency was taken from them. Probably all of us have thought that we know better than those in charge. Watch out! Thinking like this is not wrong in itself, but it is something that lodged itself in Lucifers mind: I know better than the one in charge, and in this case, it was God. We can begin to see how his pride was beginning to exalt itself against God. It was moving to break the relationship between them. It was coming between Lucifer and God so that their relationship could not continue. Lucifer could not continue to serve God. Most have felt that we have been overlooked, neglected, or abused. Most of us have felt rejected a time or two. Of and by themselves, these feelings are not wrong. But, again, we must beware, because these feelings can begin to generate pride. Such a thing fed Lucifers feelings about himself. They simmered in him and made him angry, and he desired to assert his will to control the governance of all that was happening. I will ascend to heaven, he said, and he tried to. We see the pattern here; we can see the process involved from beginning to end. It ends in warfare against God, which is why a person of pride cannot have a good relationship with Him. A proud person cannot have faith in God, at least not very much. A small amount of faith can be there, but pride will definitely be a hindrance. This is why the Parable of the Pharisee and the Publican in Luke 18:9-14 follows immediately after of the Parable of the Importunate Widow (Luke 18:1-8), which Jesus ends with, When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on earth?—because humility is essential to faith. Biblically, Gods throne is in the north—way in the north of heaven. What Lucifer or Hillel had decided to do (he was already in the attitude of Satan) was to exalt himself and his throne by attacking God and supplanting Him. Isaiah 66:1-2 1 Thus saith the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? 2 For all those things hath mine hand made, and all those things have been, saith the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word. If you want to impress God, it is humility that impresses Him. Pride gets between us and God, and without realizing it, we actually shut Him out of our lives. The Bible clearly shows that our spiritual well-being is dependent upon acknowledging, with our lives, our reliance upon the revealed will of God—His Word. Pride results from arrogating to oneself something for which one is indebted and would not even have except for Gods benevolence. Who gave Lucifer his beauty? his intelligence? his position of power from which he operated? Pride perverted Lucifers thinking into rejecting his dependence, and he elevated himself above God. Now what do we have that we did not receive? Did we create ourselves? Did we create the great goal in life to be in the Kingdom of God and to be born into His Family? Did we reveal God to ourselves? Did we die on the stake for the forgiveness of our sins? Did the gift of the Holy Spirit come to us through our own agency? Did we lead ourselves to repentance? Who gave us the power to believe in the true God and in His Son Jesus Christ? It is interesting to reflect on Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Lucifer comes along and says to them, You will be as God. What entered into Adam and Eve at that moment? The pride of life. The result? They rejected the revelation of God. They rejected His Word and sinned. Pride subtly elevates a man to the same level as God, which results in him rejecting the very gifts God would give him for his salvation. So, consciously or subconsciously, the proud man—us (hopefully not as much as it used to be)—is saying that he already knows better, or has the power and ability within himself by nature, thereby subtly turning salvation into something God owes him. It becomes earned. Ezekiel 28:12-15 12 Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. 13 Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created. 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. Consider what he was. He was the pinnacle of what God can create by fiat. That is what is suggested in the wording of this passage - he was the seal of perfection, the most perfect creation, full of wisdom and beauty. He was made with precious stones as part of his body. Music - beautiful music - was intrinsic to him. He had an exalted position as the covering cherub. He walked where God ruled, amidst the fiery stones. He had it all. It should have been enough for him, but he began to think, Im still one step down from the top. I really dont have it all. I want to rise to the next level of management. I want to be the CEO of the universe. I think Ill overthrow God. Ezekiel 28:14-17 14 Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. 15 Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee. 16 By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. 17 Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Lucifer is not a snake, a serpent, or a crocodile. He is not what men like to picture him as being. He was a powerful, supremely intelligent, beautiful free-moral agent - an angelic one. But because he could not control his thoughts in making comparisons and evaluations, his intellect, authority, and his beauty led him to feel superior to others, to misuse them and circumstances solely for his benefit. Perhaps even his knowledge of Gods plan affected him. Perhaps he knew God was eventually going to create man and give him the potential to enter into the God-Family. Knowing how he was, with thoughts beginning to arise about how beautiful, intelligent, and powerful he was, and what an important position he had - and he would have to serve these clay things made in Gods image, and prepare them to become greater than he? What a put-down! It is certainly possible that he thought such things, and maybe his pride motivated him to thwart that plan. His pride began plowing the way, to move him in another direction, one against God. He felt that he had a better way, which began with knocking God from his throne. 1 Timothy 3:6 There is some disagreement over condemnation here. Some say that it ought to be translated criticism or snare. From what it says in Ezekiel 28, we can be safe in concluding that Lucifer was created far different from the Satan that he became, that pride led to Lucifers downfall by providing motivation. It plowed the way, and it completely obliterated his knowledge of God and His power, and eventually it produced rebellion. Pauls warning is that a converted person can fall into this snare, this criticism, or this condemnation, if he is not mature enough to fight and overcome its influence. If he does not recognize it, he is really in trouble. He will not put up any fight at all. If he does recognize it, and if he is mature, then he can overcome it because he will do the things necessary to ensure that it is in check. As long as there is a Devil, as long as we are human and have this human spirit, and as long as that spirit can be triggered by Satan, then we can fall prey to it if we are unaware of its working within us. Jude 1 :6 And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day. Who did not keep their proper domain can also be translated, who did not keep their positions of authority. It shows that God assigned them a stipulated responsibility, a set place, but they left it. The set place was on the earth. They mounted an attack against God in heaven. Defeated, they were cast down to earth, and the place that they were originally given as their domain instead becomes a prison, a place of restraint (Revelation 12:3-4,9; II Peter 2:4). Jude puts this in an interesting way. They were not the bad angels, or even the angels who sinned. He calls them the angels who were not content with where God had placed them. We know from Revelation 12:4 that one-third of the angels were under Lucifers, or Hillels, hand, and he convinced them to leave their proper domain—the place where they had dominion, the place of their responsibility and authority—so that they could get more for themselves. In doing this, they sinned. Their discontent caused them to attempt to take by force what had not been given, but which they thought they deserved. This is the same thing that happened in Korahs rebellion (Numbers 16:1-35).
Posted on: Sun, 23 Nov 2014 11:21:10 +0000
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