If you're like most believers concerning angels, there's one that you never think about, but you should. In fact, you ignore him at your peril. Today on Turning Point, Dr. David Jeremiah profiles the fallen angel Lucifer, from his prideful rise to his perilous fall. Scripture reveals why believers must always be on guard against Satan.
Here's David to introduce today's message, the Fallen Angel, and thank you for joining us during the month of November as we study this interesting subject. Who do you think is the opposite of Satan?
Well, if your first thought was God, think again, because Satan cannot be God's opposite because he was created by God. Satan is the opposite of the angel Michael. Isn't it interesting how Satan has deceived us into believing he is God's equal? And that is not to diminish the importance of Satan and understanding his power. He is real, not God's opposite, but he is real.
Someone asked Billy Graham one time, "Why do you believe in a real devil?" And he said, "The Bible declares it to be so, and further, I have done business with him myself." So all of Know the reality of Satan. We'll get to that study in just a moment. We produce a magazine here that's pretty neat. It's unlike anything I know of anywhere else. It has all of the outlines of the programs that are going to be heard and seen on Turning Point.
It has many wonderful articles on how to enrich your own life spiritually, and there's a devotional reading for every day of the week, Monday through Friday, and for each weekend. Along with a lot of other things I haven't mentioned, it's beautifully designed and it's yours when you ask for it. Simply say, "Please send me the magazine," and we'll get you on the list right away. Right now, let's begin our discussion of the fallen angel. Today, I am teaching on Lucifer, the fallen angel.
There's no way to teach on angels without including him, and I think we'll learn some things that will help us as we fight the good fight of faith. But before I start, I want to give you a quiz, and this is a kind of quiz you can respond to by just doing what I ask you to do. It's very simple, and I think you'll catch on very quickly. I'm going to say a word, and I'd like for you to tell me what the opposite of that word is, and just say it right out loud.
Okay? Here we go. First word: small. Large or big, all right. Good.
Everybody's with that one. Darkness, light, night, heaven.
Somebody said earth.
Somebody said hell. I'm not sure. The spiritual people and the non spiritual people are in there somewhere. All right. Here's this one.
God, Satan. Aha. And if I could say the right word after what you just said, I would say not, because Satan is not the opposite of God, and that may be the best news you will hear all day. Satan is not the opposite of God. Satan is the opposite of Michael.
Satan could not be God's opposite because you see, he was created by God. Isn't it interesting how he has duped us into believing that he is God's equal in the realm of evil? When it comes to this fallen angel that we know as Lucifer or Satan, it seems as if we who are in the Christian church have tendencies that run to the extremes. Either we do not believe in him at all, or we believe in him too much. C.S.
Lewis wrote in one of his works, "There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils: one is to disbelieve in their existence, and the other is to believe and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them." I would say that the vast majority of people today who go by the greater name of Christendom would fall into the first extreme. They have decided that the devil is on the level of myths and mythology. Two rather well-worn poems illustrate these who believe that way. This one, written by Dan Crawford, is but a few lines, and it goes like this. And so they voted the devil out, and of course the devil's gone.
But simple folk would like to know who carries his business on. Good question. And in a little bit longer bit of verse, Alfred J. Howe put these lines together. He said, "Men don't believe in the devil now, as their fathers used to do.
They force the door of the broadest creed to let his Majesty through. There isn't a print of his cloven foot or a fiery dart from his bow to be found in earth or air today, for the world has voted it so." But who is mixing the fatal draught that palsies heart and brain, and loads the earth of each passing year with ten hundred thousand slain? Who blights the bloom of the land today with the fiery darts of hell? If the devil isn't and never was, won't somebody rise and tell? While we may choose not to believe in the reality of the devil, no one can discount.
That something like what he's supposed to be doing in the world today is happening all around us, and if he isn't doing it, then pray tell, who is carrying his business on? At the beginning of his great satire and parody called the Screw Tape Letters, C.S. Lewis has in his introduction to that classic these words. He says, "The commonest question I ever am asked is whether I really believe in the devil." Now, if by the devil you mean a power opposite to God and like God, self-existent from all eternity, the answer is an emphatic no. There is no uncreated being except God.
God has no opposite. No being could attain a perfect badness opposite the perfect goodness of God. Satan, the leader or dictator of the devils, is the opposite not of God, but of Michael, and that's an interesting thought. But Satan is real, whether we believe in him or not. The famed evangelist Billy Sunday was once asked if he believed in a real devil, and he said, "Yes." They said, "Why do you believe in the real devil?" He said, "Well, the Bible declares it to be so, and furthermore, I've done business with him in the past." Most of us could probably give a testimony or two like that.
Martin Luther, the great reformer, one day was so convinced that he was face to face with the devil that he threw an inkwell at him. Did you know that? He later went on to express his encounters with Satan in one of the greatest of the hymns of the church. I dare say that most of us have never really thought carefully about the words which this great man penned in verse for the lyric of this hymn. Here are some of them: For still our ancient foe doth seek to work us woe.
His craft and power are great, and armed with cruel hate on earth is not his equal. And then later, and though the world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us, we will not fear, for God has willed His truth to triumph through us. The prince of darkness, grim, we tremble not for him. His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure. One little word shall fell him.
Martin Luther about the devil.
Now, most of us, if we have lived in this generation, aware of the satanic presence, have been treated to a picture of Satan, a man with horns, hooves, and a tail. We have pretty much discounted that because it doesn't seem likely that that's the way he is, and that is not the way he is. The late Vance Havner once said that if the devil were to come to town in a body. You wouldn't find him in a nightclub or in a gambling hall. The world and the flesh look after places like that, he said.
You would more likely find him in a pulpit with a D.D. degree, drawing a salary for denying his own existence. Vance Havner was right. That's what happens when you get into liberal churches and they say there is no devil. Usually, it comes from the pulpit.
Well, I want you to know it's foolish for us to underestimate the power of Satan in this world. We should not be fixated on it or dwell on it, but we should be aware of his devices. Blindness to the existence of an enemy makes it impossible to conquer him. I remember reading a story about General George Patton, one of the great military heroes of our country. Back in World War II, he was in a battle in North Africa, and he was reported to have shouted in the midst of that battle, "I read your book, Rommel.
I read your book," and that he had Rommel, his enemy general, had written a book called Infantry Attacks. And George Patton got the book and read it, and knew every move Rommel was going to make before he made it. He knew what the enemy was all about.
Well, we need to know what the enemy is all about, not so that we can fear him, but so that we can defeat him. And the Bible is very plain about this teaching. Which we shall discuss some today. Did you know that there are seven books in the Old Testament that speak of the devil, and every writer in the New Testament mentions him. In fact, there are twenty-nine references to Satan or the devil in the New Testament, and of the twenty-nine references, Jesus Christ is speaking in twenty-five of them.
So if you choose not to believe in Satan, you're not in very good company. Jesus Christ believed in him and spoke of him often in his presentations to his apostles. Today we will trace the fallen angel back to the beginning of his life, and we will see what happened to him that caused him to give up all that he had that was next to God. There are two Old Testament passages that tell the whole story, and we're going to look at both of them. And I want you to know we're going to do this as quickly as we can.
So you need to be prepared to follow along. And if you mark in your Bibles, I'm going to tell you some things you can mark that will help you to be able to go back and recreate this for yourself in the future. The first passage is in the Old Testament book of Ezekiel, Ezekiel chapter twenty-eight. He begins this chapter by sending out a judgment against Tyre, which was one of Israel's chief enemies. But in verses eleven through seventeen of the twenty-eighth chapter.
Ezekiel the prophet goes beyond his judgment against Tyre and he goes to judging the power that's really behind the throne. No one can read verses 11 through 17 and attribute them to a human being. They cannot be possibly written of a human being. What Ezekiel is doing is saying that the prince of Tyre is a certain way because standing behind him is the king of Tyre, who is none other than Satan. And so verses eleven through seventeen tell us a lot about the beginning of Satan.
And the first thing you need to know, and I hope you will write this down, both in verse thirteen and in verse fifteen, we are told that Satan was created. He was a creation of God. He is therefore not self-existent nor eternal. He is limited and finite. There was a time when he was not.
There was a time when he began to be.
So every angel, as we've already learned, is created at the same time in the first or second day of creation. God created Lucifer. That's how he got to be here.
Now, if you'll look with me at this passage of scripture, I want to give you an outline to show you what he was like at the beginning of his creation. It is truly amazing to me how beautifully endowed was Lucifer. The significance of his fall from heaven can only be understood when you understand a little bit about everything that he had at the beginning. Notice, first of all, his perfection. He was perfect in three ways: intellectually, physically, and actually.
In verse twelve, we are told he was full of wisdom. In verse twelve, we are told he is perfect in beauty. In fact, Ezekiel twenty-eight thirteen describes the beauty of Lucifer. Read the verse and notice all of the gems that are used to describe his beauty. Gems which reflect the glory of God.
You see, Lucifer didn't have any light of his own, but he was a great reflector, and he was built in such a way so as to reflect the glory of God. In fact, the word that is described of him in Genesis chapter three, the serpent, that word means the shining one. Satan was in his beginning. A beautiful creature designed specifically to reflect the glory of God. In fact, we read in the New Testament in Second Corinthians eleven fourteen that we should not be surprised because Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light.
He is still doing that today. He is a picture of beauty. He's not the ugly creature that we've created in our drawings and mythology.
Something that's most interesting to me because of my love for music. Is found in the thirteenth verse at the very end. I don't know if you've ever seen this before, but this is truly an amazing thing about the original Lucifer. It says at the end of the verse, "The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day you were created." Now, watch this. It was not necessary for Lucifer to learn how to play a musical instrument in order to praise God.
If you please, he had a built-in pipe organ. Lucifer, because of his beauty, did what a musical instrument would do in the hands of a skilled musician. Lucifer didn't have to look for someone to play the organ so that he could sing the doxology. He was the doxology. Terry Law, who has written on this passage of scripture, says pipes were apparently built into his very body.
Notice that pipes is plural, meaning more than one. He was a master musician. And I am inclined to believe that God created him with the harmony of sound and chord in the wind instruments, pipes, with the basic structure for melody as we know it. And then it says in this passage of scripture that he also had timbrels or tambrels, which are what we understand to be percussion instruments. They would give him the ability to give rhythm to the music that he played.
And back in verse eleven, there's a reference to vials or violins or stringed instruments. Satan had been given a very special, very distinctive commission from God to minister unto him and cover his glory with music through worship and praise. He was a walking orchestra. Whenever Satan came into the presence of God, he not only could sing the music; he played, he accompanied himself from his own body, and that was the distinctive, creative purpose that God gave to him. He was one of God's best.
Works of creation for the purpose of praising God in heaven, and then in verse fifteen we're told that His perfection was actual; He was perfect in His ways from the days He was created.
So don't anybody tell you that Satan was created by God. God created Lucifer, and Lucifer became Satan of His own will. Otherwise, you implicate God in the creation of evil, and you know that's not possible. Notice His place. Where did He live?
I can't take you to all these scriptures and go into detail, but if you'll just underline them in your Bibles, you will find out quickly where he lived. Verse thirteen, Eden, the Garden of God. Verse fourteen, the Holy Mountain of God. Verse fourteen, he walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones. Verse eighteen, he defiled your sanctuaries.
He lived in the sanctuary. Lucifer, before his fall, had access to the throne of God. He lived in the second heaven, which is interstellar space, but he was able to go into the third heaven where God dwelt, and he came often before the throne of God to worship Him and to praise Him. He lived in heaven, and then notice his power. Verse fourteen: You were the anointed cherub who covers.
Here you can see Lucifer's exalted position at the time of creation. He was one of the cherubs that could look upon the face of God and praise and give thanksgiving to Him. The cherubim were of the highest orders of angels, as we've learned in our series, and Lucifer was the chief of the cherubim. He was the head of all the cherubim in heaven. But then we note, and this passage goes into it to some degree, his pride, and there are five statements concerning his rebellion.
Once again, look down at your Bibles. Verse fifteen: Till iniquity was found in you. Verse sixteen: You became filled with violence within. Verse seventeen: Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. Verse seventeen: You corrupted your wisdom for the sake of your splendor.
Verse eighteen: You defiled your sanctuaries by the multitude of your iniquities, by the iniquity of your trading.
Something happened in the heart of Lucifer after he was created as such a beautiful creature. His pride got a hold of him, and we'll see that in a moment. And ultimately, he was banished or punished. Notice number five: his punishment. There are six statements concerning his fall in this passage.
Verse 16: Therefore, I cast you out as a profane thing out of the mountain of God. Verse 16: I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones. Verse 17: I cast you to the ground. Verse 17: I laid you before kings that they may gaze at you. Verse 18: I brought fire from your midst and it devoured you.
Verse 18: I turned you to ashes upon the earth. When Lucifer became Satan because of the sin of his own heart, he was banished from heaven, and that introduces us to Isaiah chapter 14. And turn over there real quickly, will you? Isaiah 14 begins where Ezekiel chapter 28 leaves off. Isaiah chapter 14 begins in the text that we are reading from, beginning at verse 12, and it says this.
How are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? How are you cast down to the ground? Isaiah fourteen verses twelve through fifteen tells us what really happened in Lucifer's heart when he rebelled. And I know you have questions about this, and I'm not going to answer all of them, but I'm going to get to a couple of them in a minute. But I want you to see what happened.
What his rebellion was all about. In the thirteenth and fourteenth verses, there are five times where Satan or Lucifer says, "I will." If you're underlining in your Bibles, look down there and underline those five "I wills," because those five "I wills" will tell you more about the enemy of your soul than just about anything else you will find in the Bible. Those five I wills tell you what happened in Lucifer's heart when he decided it was no longer good enough to be a perfect angel created in the beauty of God. I want you to notice these five I wills, and I'll put them together so that they make contemporary sense to us. First of all, number one, Lucifer decided that he wanted God's place.
I will ascend to heaven. That's his first. I will, according to the Bible, there are three heavens. There's the heaven that surrounds the earth, which we know as the atmosphere. The second heaven is the interstellar space where the angels mostly dwell, and the third heaven is the abode of God.
Satan, dwelling in the second heaven, decided it was no longer good enough to be a tourist into the third heaven and visit the throne of God. He wanted to move into the place that belonged to God alone and put God off of His throne and take His place. He wanted God's place. I will ascend to heaven. Secondly, he wanted God's position.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God. If you've been with us during this series, you know that the stars of God are an Old Testament expression for the angels. Job thirty-eight verse seven. Lucifer was never commander in chief of the angelic army. He was a five-star general, but he was never commander in chief.
He was in charge of the cherubim, but he never was the one who originated the orders. When he said, "I will exalt my throne above the stars of God," he was saying, "I am not happy just being in charge of the cherubim. I want sole authority over all the angels, and I don't want to submit myself to the authority of the Creator. I will become the absolute ultimate. I will originate all the orders that are given to the angels, and I will eliminate God from the whole scene." That's what his heart was.
Number three, Lucifer wanted God's power. I will sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north. In this statement, Lucifer declares his desire to control all the affairs of the entire universe. The expression "mount of the congregation" is an Old Testament expression that appears several times. It speaks of absolute control.
It expresses that which belongs only to God. Here are two passages you can look at. It will help you to understand it. Isaiah two two, shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains. It shall be exalted above the hills, and all the nations shall flow to it.
Absolute autonomy and authority, which belongs to God only. Or Psalm forty-eight two, beautiful in elevation, the joy of the whole earth is Mount Zion. On the sides of the north, the city of the great King. This one, Lucifer, who said, "I want to move in and occupy heaven." And I want to bring all the angels under my absolute authority. Reached out in his desire for power and said, "I also want to bring the entire created universe under my control and included in my sphere of authority.
I want to be in charge of everything. Not good enough to be number two. I want to be number one. I want to call all the shots. I don't want to live under the umbrella of the glory of God." Number four, Lucifer wanted God's perfection.
Watch this: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. Did you know that there are over a hundred and fifty references to clouds in the Bible?
Well, watch this. Over one hundred of the hundred and fifty references to clouds in the Bible have to do with the presence and the glory of God, not where rain comes from, but the presence and glory of God. I've put a couple of the references together so you can see what I mean. First of all, Exodus sixteen ten.
Now it came to pass as Aaron spoke to the whole congregation of the children of Israel that they looked toward the wilderness, and behold, the glory of the Lord appeared in the cloud. Exodus forty thirty four. Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. First Kings eight ten. And it came to pass when the priest came out of the holy place that the cloud filled the house of the Lord.
And Matthew twenty four thirty. Then the sign of the Son of Man will appear in heaven, and all the tribes of the earth will mourn, and they will see the Son of Man coming on the clouds of heaven with power. And what's the rest of it? Great glory. What was Satan saying when he said, "I will ascend above the heights of the clouds"?
What Lucifer was saying here was that he was going to take to himself a greater glory than the glory of God. And you know what? With all due respect to his Majesty Satan, that was a stupid thing to say. Because he didn't even have any glory of his own to start with, did he? The only glory he had was the reflected glory of God.
Now he's saying, "I'm going to take God's glory." You know what happened to Lucifer? He no longer wanted to be a reflector; he wanted to be an originator. Do we ever have problems like that in our lives? Satan has an effect on all of us, doesn't he? When we understand what's really at the seat.
Of his rebellion, we will understand a lot more about who he is and about some of the problems we have in our lives. You know, I think it's becoming pretty evident to everybody that Satan is real. Maybe ten years ago, fifteen years ago, people would question it, but based on what's happening in our world today, the reality of Satan and his influence is well—it's impossible. It's impossible not to believe it, and and we need to deal with it as believers. We need to understand how he works, what his plan is.
That he is going about the earth as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. And you're on his hit list. And I am too, and let's not be let's not be foolish and think anything else. Tomorrow we'll have part two of the Fallen Angel. I hope that you will join us then.
And by the way, all of this information that we are sharing on the Fallen Angel is in the book on Angels, which is our resource for the month of November. And it's yours for the asking. Just send a gift to Turning Point and ask for the book on Angels, and it'll be on its way. Thank you so much for joining. Today I'm David Jeremiah.
We'll see you next time right here. For more information on Dr. Jeremiah's series "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help," visit our website, where we also offer two free ways to help you stay connected: our monthly magazine Turning Points and our daily email devotional. Sign up today at davidjeremiah.org/radio. That's davidjeremiah.org/radio, or call us at eight hundred nine four seven nineteen ninety three.
Ask for your copy of David's book, "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help." What the Bible reveals—it's yours for a gift of any amount. You can also purchase the Jeremiah Study Bible in the New International and New King James versions, available in several handsome and durable cover options. Get all the details when you visit our website, DavidJeremiah. dot org slash radio. This is David Michael Jeremiah.
Join us tomorrow as we continue the series "Angels: Who They Are and How They Help" here on Turning Point.
