Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 7 – The premeditated rebellion of pride. Eze 28:12-17

Title: Doctrine of the Angelic Conflict, part 7 – The premeditated rebellion of pride. Eze 28:12-17

3. God’s greatest angelic creature made to be closest to Him and most beautiful and gifted and the tragedy of arrogance.

The Angelic Conflict is the result of “star of the morning, son of the dawn, anointed cherub who guards God’s person as precious” falling in arrogance, rejecting God’s reconciliation and challenging God’s +R and +J.

Ezek 28:11 Again the word of the Lord came to me saying,

Ezek 28:12 "Son of man, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord God,

"You had the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.

Ezek 28:13 "You were in Eden, the garden of God; Every precious stone was your covering: The ruby, the topaz, and the diamond; The beryl, the onyx, and the jasper; The lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and the emerald; And the gold, the workmanship of your settings and sockets, Was in you. On the day that you were created They were prepared.

The mountain, the stones and the fire represent the throne of God.

Ezek 28:14 "You were the anointed cherub who covers, And I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked in the midst of the stones of fire.

Phil 2:3 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; 2:4 do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. 2:5 Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, 2:6 who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, 2:7 but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men.

The anointed cherub who covers represents Lucifer’s office as ruler of God’s government, priest that guarded the throne of God as precious and communicator of God’s truth to the rest of the angels. Prophet, priest, and king.

Ezek 28:15 "You were blameless in your ways [one will that lined up with God’s will – Righteousness] From the day you were created, Until unrighteousness was found in you.

The unrighteousness, the first sin, was the sin of pride. The detail of this thinking, which was in him before it became an overt act of rebellion, as it always is, is revealed in Isaiah 14in the five “I wills” of satan. We will get to that.

He never ascended to anything, he was never promoted; at his creation he was given this exalted position and never knew anything less.

Ezek 28:16 "By the abundance of your trade You were internally filled with violence, And you sinned; Therefore I have cast you as profane From the mountain of God. And I have destroyed you, O covering cherub, From the midst of the stones of fire.

The rebellion is premeditated. You were internally filled with violence means that he decided in his mind to rebel against God before he committed any overt sin.

By the abundance of your “trade” – rekullah = merchandise, traffic, trade, i.e. things bought and sold or what passes through the hands.

What is trafficked by satan is connected with violence, so this isn’t legal trafficking and in the context his high position is used as he is cast profane from the mountain of God. What could satan have trafficked?

Think about those who have a high position and they use their power to traffic or trade merchandise. A judge might take a bribe, the CEO of a trading company might use insider trading, or a musician may use his great talent to make himself the moral master of his students. The merchandise is position, personality, wealth, power, etc.

What did satan have that he could market for his own profit? He had authority from God as well as wisdom and beauty that was unmatched. He marketed himself and thought to retain some worship for himself and with that originate some authority by himself. With that firmly in place in his heart, his heart was filled with the violence of rebellion.

He had been entrusted with God’s government, priesthood and spokesmanship, but he wanted to act independently of God. He who was prophet – could he not give orders under his own authority instead of being utterly dependent upon the invisible God? Was there not some worthiness in himself that should be acknowledged? This is the origin of his sin, the first sin.

There is a NT passage that sheds light on this.

1 Tim 3:1 It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.

1 Tim 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate, prudent, respectable, hospitable, able to teach,

“overseer” – evpi,skopoj[episcopos; epi = over; skopos = to watch (where we get [tele]scope from)] = to oversee, to watch over, to be a protector.

Latin speakers dropped the e and said biskopos and then Germans and Anglo-Saxons altered in a dozen ways, including biscop, biscof, and biscob, and ultimately in English it became bishop. Languages evolve and translations often change a word, but to change its meaning theologically is a tremendous error and in fact satanic. God never designed an office in which one man watches over or has authority over other communicators of doctrine other than the office of apostle. This is a pastor teacher. One pastor teacher and one congregation over which he watches by faithfully communicating Bible doctrine. The business like structure of large denominations are completely non-Biblical and satanic. I didn’t say the denominations are all satanic, I said the structure is and even the idea of denominations is against the unity that God commanded the church to have.

Therefore, these are the characteristics that God the Holy Spirit is revealing concerning the pastor teachers.

1 Tim 3:1 It is a trustworthy statement: if any man aspires to the office of overseer, it is a fine work he desires to do.

1 Tim 3:2 An overseer, then, must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, temperate [sober minded], prudent [sound minded], respectable [overt order, good behavior], hospitable [generous to guests], able to teach,

1 Tim 3:3 not addicted to wine or pugnacious [quarrelsome], but gentle, uncontentious [not a fighter], free from the love of money.

1 Tim 3:4 He must be one who manages his own household well, keeping his children under control with all dignity

1 Tim 3:5 (but if a man does not know how to manage his own household, how will he take care of the church of God?);

1 Tim 3:6 and not a new convert, lest he become conceited and fall into the condemnation incurred by the devil.

“conceited” – tufo,w[tuphoo] = (literally) to wrap in smoke or to smolder and flicker like an ember with a lot of smoke, to be puffed up, or lifted up with pride.

The etymology of this word is perfect for the concept of pride. A small ember provides no warmth or work but it produces a lot of smoke as if there was a great fire.

James 4:6

But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble."

Imagine a pastor who has a congregation that takes what he says as authoritative, who listen quietly and reverently, and to whom he feels his influence, if he is not humble enough, will he not be tempted to speak his own authority rather than the authority of God?

Now imagine the greatest of all angels doing the same thing and we get more insight into the first sin.

Bringing this back to the abundance of trade or trafficking and we understand how certain pastors could use their position to attain wealth, manipulate women in the congregation, attain political power beyond the reaches of the pulpit and we gain great insight into the first sin of pride.

Lucifer took what God had graciously given him, he didn’t earn it, and he decided to use it for his own profit.

You might feel a tinge of guilt here and if you do you’re not understanding. For some length of time Lucifer was offered reconciliation and he said no. If you are a believer and you are still alive then God is not even close to done with you yet. If you have failed in what God has given you then exploit His grace and be man or woman enough to get up and get going! Lurking thoughts of the past do nothing but destroy the fruitfulness of the present. Yes the word of God convicts us at times; do you want no instruction or challenge? The unwise balk at the challenge when the wise absorbs it with the fortitude to keep going without quitting.

Phil 3:13-14

Brethren, I do not regard myself as having laid hold of it yet; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and reaching forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

Heb 8:12

"For I will be merciful to their iniquities,

And I will remember their sins no more."

Ps 103:12

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

Heb 4:15-16

For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and may find grace to help in time of need.

If God has done this for the human race then He did it for fallen angels. Yet mankind has a time limit, which is physical death, in which to believe in Christ and accept God’s reconciliation deal. Therefore, we can confidently state that the fallen angels had a period of time in which to accept God’s offer to come back into reconciliation with Him as elected angels and they rejected the offer.

Hence, we can glean much from the warnings given to pastors since their temptation mimics the first sin of pride.

1 Peter 5:2-3

shepherd the flock of God among you, exercising oversight not under compulsion, but voluntarily, according to the will of God; and not for sordid gain, but with eagerness; nor yet as lording it over those allotted to your charge, but proving to be examples to the flock.

All of us are commissioned to do for God in whatever we do and not for ourselves. Whenever we take the things of God, the gifts of God, the plan of God, even the salvation of God and seek to apply those things to the edification of self or doing for self then we have fallen into the first and most original sin. Confess it quickly and use whatever doctrine you have to become occupied with Christ.

We find the same pattern in Israel. She was given the promises, the covenants, the Law, the wisdom of God …

Rom 9:4-5

who are Israelites, to whom belongs the adoption as sons and the glory and the covenants and the giving of the Law and the temple service and the promises, whose are the fathers, and from whom is the Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever. Amen.

The people of Israel became so accustomed to being the gracious recipients of God’s blessings and power that they had begun to think they had a patent and copyright on God. They failed to be a blessing to the nations around them by keeping the Law and evangelizing their neighbors. And so God spoke to them through Hosea:

Hos 4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.

Because you have rejected knowledge,

I also will reject you from being My priest.

Since you have forgotten the law of your God,

I also will forget your children.

Hos 4:7 The more they multiplied, the more they sinned against Me; I will change their glory into shame.

Great blessing is rejected. They worshiped graven images and false gods and still wanted God to love them through blessing.

Hos 4:8 They feed on the sin of My people,

And direct their desire toward their iniquity.

The sin resulted in blood sacrifice and the priests were gladly taking these animals and keeping the best cuts for themselves. The more sin there was the more filet mignon there was. They didn’t care about the people or their increase in sin, in fact they gave hearty approval to it.