Today, I want to tell you about Satan, his origins,
and the origins of sin.
I mentioned this before.
I want to just state it again, that there's
sort of three positions that are related
to any topic dealing with satanic, demonic world.
One is kind of this idea that there's
a demon behind every bush, and it's
like everything that goes wrong in one's life,
people blame it on demons, or they blame it on Satan.
And it's kind of the devil made me do it kind of mentality.
The other perspective is there's not a demon behind any bush,
and it's completely neglected.
But the stand I think we should take
is one of the Bereans who would say study and stand.
I like the word study and stand.
It says of the Bereans in Acts 17.11,
these were more fair-minded than those in Thessalonica
in that they received the word with all readiness
and searched the scriptures daily
to find out whether this was the things that were so.
So the Bereans went right to the scriptures.
And so that's where I'm coming from.
I'm taking what we're doing with Satan,
the fourth dimension, the demonic.
We're looking at scripture.
And that's what we're going to do today.
We're going to look at the origins of Satan,
what we have in scripture, and the origins of sin.
But let me just say a caveat to all of this.
And this comes from Jude chapter 9.
And I rarely hear people discuss this verse.
It's kind of a cryptic verse, but it's
been very important in my development
in understanding the demonic.
And here's why.
In the 80s and 90s, when I was coming up
through graduate school and all, there
was a philosophy of what we called spiritual mapping,
the idea of having the ability to discern
what kind of demonic powers, those principalities
and powers, were over certain cities,
over certain parts of a city.
And they called it spiritual mapping.
So people would go with these prophetic words, dreams,
and visions, and things like that, and say, well,
oh, this part of the city has got a spirit of poverty.
Well, it's kind of obvious.
Everybody's poor, so it's a spirit of poverty.
But then they would say there's a spirit of witchcraft
over that area, or there's a spirit of this or that.
And to put that in perspective, here's
what we read in Jude 9.
Yet Michael, the archangel, in contending with the devil
when he disputed about the body of Moses,
dared not bring against him a reviling accusation,
but said, the Lord rebuke you.
Now, why is that important?
It's important because spiritual mapping
had a tendency to give people the authority
to speak against principalities and powers.
And right here, we see Jude telling us to be careful.
Even Michael, the archangel, did not rebuke Satan,
but he said, the Lord rebuke Satan.
And so you have to be careful in some
of the semantics of this kind of prayer warfare.
I'm not necessarily talking about that here right now.
I'm talking more about how demons work, how Satan works.
And that's really important because when
we sent our troops over to Vietnam
in the 60s and early 70s, we did not
understand nearly to the degree what guerrilla warfare was.
But the Viet Cong did.
This was their home.
They knew how to fight in the jungle.
They knew how to dig tunnels.
They knew how to battle in jungle guerrilla warfare.
And even in World War II, we had rarely
had that kind of fighting.
We didn't have any of it in Korea.
And so our troops came in and really
had to relearn from those who were used to guerrilla warfare
how to fight.
And that's actually where the Green Berets were developed
and Navy SEALs.
And some of the more specialized units that we have today
came because of the kind of guerrilla warfare
we were dealing with in Vietnam.
Well, in the same way, if you start
to understand the guerrilla warfare of the enemy,
it's helpful in engaging him.
And so as we look at this, again, I'm
being a little bit cryptic because after this message,
we're going to get way into more depth about how
to deal with the demonic.
But this is just to say that the battle that we're in
is kind of a guerrilla warfare.
It's a battle on the surface that
seems to be only related to maybe our own fleshly sins
and the values of this world.
And it's not.
That the fleshly sins, the values of this world
are because, John says it, that all of the world
is held captive by Satan.
So, Satan controls it, that's why we're looking at this.
So, let's look at Satan, a little bit of information
about Satan and who he is.
First thing is that Satan is an archenemy of God.
He's a spirit being living in the heavenlies,
living in the fourth dimension where God and angels are.
But here's the important thing, he's a spiritual being,
but he's a created being.
He was an archangel of God.
And so, Satan can only be at one place at one time.
So, if you're saying, well, Satan or devil made me do it,
is an extrapolation of looking at scripture and thinking
that Satan is more than just a created being.
I mean, demons are all over the place,
but Satan can only be at one place at one time.
Now, where does Satan hang out?
I have no idea and I really don't care.
Been a lot of theories about that.
So, he's a spirit being, he's a created being,
and he's utterly evil.
He is totally and completely evil.
Every intention of Satan is bad and malevolent.
He has no ethics, no morals, no honor,
no values, no caring, no sensitivities.
None of the qualities that we appreciate about human beings
does Satan have.
He's utterly and completely evil.
His sole purpose is to dethrone and rule over God.
Thus, he hates you.
He hates man.
He hates woman because we are created in the image of God.
His sole purpose is that every human being would be dead.
So, the driving force behind satanic power is always suicide
and death.
So, if you follow people that get heavy into drugs,
heavy into alcohol, heavy into sex,
some of these areas that enslave them,
they will become suicidal.
Unless they get saved, unless they get born again,
they're going to head towards suicide.
That's always the goal.
So, I've said that sin is chocolate covered escarment.
So, you bite into it, it tastes really good at first,
and then you get into the reality of what sin is.
That's because Satan and demons are always empowering us into
behavior that leads to death.
So, suicide, murder, and the complete destruction of
the image of God is what Satan is all about.
He hates God because God has authority over him.
He hates you if you're a believer because you have power
and authority over him.
He's exceedingly violent.
Jesus said he was a murderer from the beginning.
So, when Jesus was describing Satan,
he said he was a murderer from the beginning.
Peter said, goes about like a roaring lion seeking someone to
devour.
So, this roaring lion of Satan is always trying to devour those
men and women that are created in the image of God.
John calls him a destroyer.
Michael Green, in his commentary on Satan,
calls him a killer by instinct.
Let me quote Michael Green.
His intelligence lacks originality.
He travels along God's pathways.
He does not create a situation.
He corrupts it.
He has been called the ape of God.
But though not original, his mental powers are massive.
He is uncannily crafty, subtle, and cunning.
Think of him tempting the first Adam in the garden.
Think of him tempting the second Adam in the desert.
He is quick to gain advantage over us.
He is apt at catching us like birds in his nest.
It is like comfort.
It is little comfort that his intelligence may be strictly
second class, but the same is true of our own.
So, Christ, in confronting Satan,
deals with him head on with Scripture.
And that's one of the things we'll cover in the later talks
is how important Scripture is.
Because left to your own devices,
Satan is definitely smarter than any of us.
So, who was or is Satan?
Well, if you have your Bible, look at Ezekiel 28.
Ezekiel 28, 12 through 14 is the seminal passage in the Bible
that talks about the origins of Satan.
And here's what we read,
Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of
Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God,
You are the seal of perfection,
full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
You are in Eden, the garden of God.
So, a couple of things here.
Number one is that Satan or Lucifer was this beautiful,
we believe that,
A beautiful angel was in the garden, and we don't know how long Adam and Eve were in the
garden before the temptation occurred, but definitely Lucifer was there, the shining
one was in there, and it's said up here that he had the seal of perfection, full of wisdom,
and perfect in beauty.
So I don't know what perfect in beauty exactly means, but the image I have is something that's
really stunning, really gorgeous, and I think that when you look at the serpent coming to
Eve, and it means shining one, serpent there means shining one, that it must have been
some kind of a beautiful creature that came to Eve.
Every precious stone was your covering.
The sardis, topaz, and diamond, beryl, onks, and jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald
with gold, the workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day
you were created.
So again, he's a created being.
Timbrels and pipes gives the idea of some kind of a worshiping angel.
You are the anointed cherub who covers.
So again, that's where we get the angel idea, cherub.
I establish you, meaning God established you.
You were on the holy mountain of God, and you walked back and forth in the midst of
fiery stones.
So this is a picture of heaven.
This is a picture of the heavenly world that all of the mountain of God is there.
That's why theologians and commentators believe that Lucifer was the chief archangel over
all the angels, and that the worship of the angels toward God came to him, and then he
was kind of an intercessor of worship back up to God on the holy mountain of God.
So an elevated archangel who's a worship leader in heaven.
Karl Marx said, if you give me the poetry, art, and music of a nation, I will control
them.
So something happened.
Something then happened in Lucifer.
Well, it continues, verse 15, you are perfect in your ways from the day you were created
till iniquity was found in you.
By the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within and you sinned.
So sin was birthed in Satan.
Therefore I cast you out as a profane thing out of the mountain of God.
I destroyed you, O covering cherub, from the midst of the fiery stones.
So sin was birthed in, was some kind of a regeneration of sin was in Satan, and then
he's cast out from heaven, outside of heaven.
So then we pick it up, Isaiah 14 explains to us what happened in the heart of Satan.
Isaiah 14, 12 through 14, O how you have fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the
morning.
How you are cut down to the ground, you who weaken the nations.
For you have said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven.
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.
I will sit on the mount of the congregation on the further sides of the north.
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, and I will be like the most high.
So we call it the five I wills.
So pride welled up within Lucifer, and he wanted to be like God.
He wanted to take the position of God, and so God had to cast him out of heaven.
Well, it's what's interesting about this is exact same temptation that Lucifer brought
to Eve.
He said you can be like God and never die, and so the root of all sin is always pride.
The beginning of sin was in the heart of Lucifer, Satan, and this self-will and rebellion is
always the seedbed.
It's the root structure of all sins, and so this is where it all started, the five I wills,
this raising up of pride within the heart of Satan.
Well, then it's from that that being cast to the earth that Satan began to do the same
thing with all of us, and I've often said that the beginning of sin is saying my will
be done instead of thy will be done, and so that's where it all started.
So when we start to study here about demons and how they infiltrate our lives and how
we cast them out, we're always going to go back to pride.
We're always going to go back to rebellion against authority.
It's always the struggle of our lives is how we can stay humble.
because God's placed authority over us.
There's always, everybody's under somebody.
You know, whether it's our fathers or our mothers
or a pastor or a leader or a government,
there's something within us that always wants
to rebel against that, and that began with Satan.
And that's the beginning of all sin is independence from God.
So, let's go forth and we're going to look at how
that manifests itself in individual lives.
God bless you.
Look forward to the rest of the studies
that we're going to have together.