The reason we are here is to demonstrate that human beings can do what the more powerful angels in Heaven refused to do!
The human race exists because of a rebellion among the angels that erupted in the heavenly realm BEFORE God created the universe! Everything I’m writing is well supported by Scripture. In this article, I’m giving you a summary of the details.
The first part of His creation was to create the “angelic realm”. He also created innumerable angels. He created them so that He could love them. All He asked of them was that they would love Him.
In this eternal heavenly realm, the highest ranking angel was named “Lucifer”, which means “Shining One”.
But something went wrong!
Lucifer was so magnificent, so powerful, that pride welled up in him. We would say he “got the big head”. He was so powerful, so magnificent, that he — the creature — believed that he deserved to have his own kingdom where God would have to share His glory with Lucifer and have lesser angels worship him.
But God does not share His Glory with anyone.
I am the Lord; that is My name; My glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. (Isaiah 42:8)
All of us are caught in the crossfire of a conflict that we had nothing to do with starting, but from which we cannot escape!
This conflict erupted in the angelic realm — the heavenly realm — in eternity past, long before the natural realm (the universe) and Adam and Eve even existed.
What Lucifer REALLY wanted was something that only God had:
INDEPENDENCE!
Lucifer intended to exalt himself above God.
Lucifer presented his plan — his “marketing strategy” — to all the angels. So enticing was his plan that he persuaded a third of the angels to join him in his rebellion. They demanded the right to set up their own kingdom.
There’s a lesson in that for us:
Consider: if Lucifer was that persuasive, that crafty, that cunning in his appeal to the angels (remember: angels are perfect beings, living in a perfect place) and yet they bought Lucifer’s lies… we don’t stand a chance when we try to live apart from God!
That rebellion turned out to be an incredibly foolish strategy!
That’s what pride does to a person. Here was a creature demanding to have all the powers and attributes of the Creator.
Lucifer was given the name “Satan” (which means “accuser”) and was cast out of Heaven, along with all of his followers. They were exiled to a watery, formless, dark place called: “Earth”!
Satan and his followers were judged and sentenced ultimately to what Scripture calls “everlasting fire” and “The Lake of Fire”. They protested, arguing that their sentence was unfair.
But God was Waaaayyy ahead of them!
Instead of just snuffing these evil, rebellious angelic beings out of existence, God decided to actually use their rebellion in order to demonstrate His omnipotence — and in the process gain more glory for Himself!
God’s plan was to show that He could create a race of lesser beings (the human race) and demonstrate that humans — by freely choosing to live in obedience to God — would advance farther with God than did the more powerful angelic beings who chose to rebel.
In so doing, God would embarrass Lucifer and expose him as a fraud!
This entire angelic conflict reduces to one word: GLORY!
Lucifer insisted that God must share His glory with him. But as stated earlier, God has declared that He does not share His glory with anyone!
Then God unfolded the next part of His plan:
He created the “natural realm” — the universe and all that is in it, including time itself.
We read in the Bible how God caused light to come back to Earth, how God separated the land from the water, and how He created all kinds of plants and animals.
And Then:
God did something spectacular:
He created the first human beings: a man and a woman — Adam and Eve.
Well… you know what happened:
Satan, appearing to Eve in the form of a serpent, engaged Eve with his smooth talk. Eve chose to believe Satan’s “re-interpretation” of God’s Word. Thus Satan enticed Eve to disobey God, and she ate the forbidden fruit. The lying snake reassured Eve that there would be no consequences for what was being portrayed by the snake as a trivial, inconsequential little issue. Finally, the snake influenced Eve’s thinking, getting her to use her womanly powers of persuasion to enticed Adam to buy in — and Adam also ate of the forbidden fruit.
And so the conflict / contest began:
In order to demonstrate that He was indeed acting fairly, God set up conditions for humans similar to the conditions that the fallen angels failed to uphold.
- God put Lucifer in charge over all the angels in heaven. God gave Adam dominion over the whole Earth.
- Lucifer and all the angels of heaven were perfectly created beings — with immortality. Adam and Eve were perfectly created beings — also with immortality.
- God instructed all of the angels as to their assigned tasks. God also instructed Adam and Eve as to what to eat and what not to eat.
- Lucifer and all the angels of heaven were in a perfect place in the heavenly realm called “Eden”. Adam and Eve were in a perfect place in the natural realm called “Eden”.
- Lucifer and all the angels of heaven had a free will, the ability to choose to obey or disobey. Adam and Eve also had a free will. They were not restrained from choosing against God’s command.
- Lucifer and the angels had direct, intimate fellowship with God. Adam and Eve walked with God in the cool of the evening.
- After Satan and his followers sinned, they were cast out of Eden in the heavenly realm. When Adam and Eve sinned, they were banished from Eden in the natural realm.
One more similarity:
The Bible teaches that the eventual destination for Satan and his fallen angels will be eternal punishment in the “lake of Fire”. Sadly, the Bible also teaches that humans that choose not to accept God’s free gift of eternal joy in heaven with Him will get what they wanted on Earth: separation from God. Their destination will also be in the Lake of Fire!
Lucifer found himself in “damage control” mode:
Satan (formerly “Lucifer”) heard God say to Adam and Eve that Eve’s “seed” — one of her descendants — would “crush his head”. So, Satan set about trying to take control of Eve’s offspring.
A few of Satan’s attempts:
- Satan stirred up Cain to kill Abel, believing that he has taken care of this “seed” problem. Satan didn’t know that Adam and Eve would have a son named Seth, nor that Seth would one day become the father of Enoch — and at that time people began to call upon the name of the Lord.
- When Satan caused people to begin constructing a great tower reaching to heaven (getting to heaven by “works”), God sowed confusion into their minds by creating foreign languages among the peoples.
- Satan went global with his “seed-control” program. He sent his demonic “sons of God” to take control of human men. These demon-possessed men had relations with human women, who gave birth to hideous, wicked giants called “the Nephilim”. God’s counter-move was to destroy all of them with the great flood. All that is, except one righteous man named Noah. With Noah and his family, God re-started the whole human race.
- Satan caused King Herod to slaughter all the male children under the age of two years. But an angel warned Mary and Joseph to take their son, Jesus, and flee to Egypt.
- Satan really thought he had won when he arranged for Judas to betray Jesus, then for Jesus to be arrested and falsely accused, then to have Jesus nailed to a cross and crucified.
BUT:
Satan did not know about GRACE!
Imagine the shock on Satan’s face when he realized how he had played right into God’s hands!
What Satan didn’t know — and what many people to this day don’t seem to know — is that Jesus Christ’s death on a cross was God’s plan from the beginning as a means of dealing with the inevitable sins of all human beings. Jesus literally became one of us, so that He could live a totally perfect, sinless life and thus be qualified to be an acceptable sacrifice for all the sins of all humanity! He took upon Himself the sins of the entire human race in exchange for His righteousness before God. Jesus has paid the full price for all the sins of all the people — for ALL TIME: past sins, present sins, and future sins.
So where does all of this leave us?
So now, we are all born under the curse of Adam’s sin. Because of the sin of our first parents, humans gave dominion of the Earth back to Satan.
This angelic conflict continues to this day! The only satisfaction Satan has now is to try to keep humans souls from going to heaven. Satan wants to “stick it to Jesus” by taking as many of us into the lake of fire with him as he can.
Satan realizes that he cannot overpower God. So instead, Satan and his demons work tirelessly with the goal of controlling the thinking of every one of us — and to do so without our awareness!
Here are a few of Satan’s strategies, and a few examples:
STRATEGY: Divide And Conquer
A few examples:
- INDIVIDUALS DOUBLE-MINDED: Satan doesn’t care that we attend church on Sunday, so long as he is able to “compartmentalize” our lives into “sacred” and “secular”: “Praise The Lord” on Sunday; living the worldview of the society around us on Monday. The Bible refers to this as being “double-minded”.
- FAMILIES IN DISCORD: Satan will instigate discord in a marriage to the point that the couple feel that there is no way that the marriage can be salvaged; that dividing the family is the only recourse.
- CHURCHES IN DISUNITY: Satan will construct the thinking of a group in a church congregation such that — rather than realizing that our strength is in our unity, — an entire body of believers will choose to walk out. By the way, I have watched that happen right before my eyes twice in the same church! Why? Because the pastor refused to teach the people how to stand against Satan and his demons. To this day I find it hard to understand why he allowed that to happen!
- SOCIETY DIVIDED: We can almost see the puppet strings attached to many “leaders” in high places in government! And see the result: Satan has caused our own government to push almost anything having to do with God out of the public square! Thus we have high school boys armed with powerful weapons of war walking into schools and slaughtering students and teachers! And do we not see — almost on a daily basis — the shocking stories of sexual immorality committed by powerful men in otherwise respected companies — as well as clergy members victimizing young children? It’s astonishing that nobody talks about “the elephant in the room” — namely, that Satan and his forces are orchestrating all of these things. And why not? They have arranged for our public schools to teach our children that evolution and science — not those silly fairy-tales in the Bible — can (or soon will) explain everything in the universe. But true, unbiased science supports Creation, not evolution. And in recent times, (I’m writing this update in August of 2020) look at the anarchy happening all around the USA and around the world. Those people are not getting out of bed in the morning and spending time with God in their Bibles!
The forces of evil laugh at us!
Satan and his demons have kept most Christians from knowing a critically important truth:
God does not function in the context of disunity!
Thus the enemy strives to keep the human race in disarray. But the demons are loyal to their commander. They are not a house divided!
STRATEGY: Deception / Doubt / Half-truths / Lies / Unbelief
HALF-TRUTHS: If you were sitting in a coffee shop and someone came along and poured a deadly poison into your coffee, would you drink it? Of course not! Why? Because you cannot separate the coffee from the poison. The entire cup of coffee would be poison! Likewise, when your teen-age son or daughter wants permission to see a movie with “just a little bit of sex” in it, it’s the same as with the poisoned coffee. The things they see will go into their minds and stay there. All the devil has to do is entice the person to replay that stored “video” in the person’s mind. Then, the enemy entices a person to go off into “fantasy Land” and mentally craft their own “enhanced” version. In due time, they will begin to practice those immoral acts.
And if they don’t know how to “take every thought captive”, the enemy HAS THEM!
STRATEGY: Temptation / Compromise / Rationalize / Sin
When a couple are dating, one of them may wish to remain sexually upright, while the other — having probably already compromised and acting under demonic influence — may attempt to entices their partner to compromise by saying something like, “I’ve heard that it’s now considered acceptable, because we love each other”. Thus the one who has already compromised leads their partner into compromise!
Here’s how this plays out in everyday life:
Satan and his demons study you to discover and exploit your weaknesses. Using that information — and perhaps using other people — they maneuver you into sin.
Next, Satan runs to the Court of Heaven and demands permission to torment you, because he knows that God must punish sin. And quite often, God will use a demon in the punishment process.
This is why it’s so important to repent of your sin as soon as you realize you have committed it! Because then, your Advocate — Jesus Himself — stands before the Father in the Courtroom of Heaven and testifies that He (Jesus) has already paid the penalty for your sin. Thus the Father is able to declare, “CASE DISMISSED”. And Satan is denied permission to do what he was eager to do.
This courtroom scenario goes on continually, day and night. It’s going on in the Court of heaven right now!
As I wrote earlier, when Adam and Eve sinned, they gave dominion over the Earth back to Satan. And what are we going to do about that? As on fire Bible believing Christians, let’s declare war! Let’s draw a line and say to Satan, “no more, Satan! We know what you did, and we’re determined to take back what you stole from us!” That’s our battle plan! Right?
- Jan
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This blog post is amazing! I’m so glad to be a partner with you and be lead to visit this blog post this morning. Knowing this information like you explained so well caused me to repent. God bless this ministry! May many churches and schools around the world have it as apart of their curriculum! God bless you and your family!
Thank-you Jan, this really helps as it does not matter for how long you have been a Christian, satan trips you up and the continuous bombardment of guilt is what he uses to condemn.
Thank-you for posting these insights and helpful guilds, as they really help big time !!!
Your brother in Christ
Tony.
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