The Origin of Satan

I wanted to move back, and we've been going through different things in Bible studies, and I wanted to go back. We were going through the basic doctrines, and I still want to do a couple of those before I launch into the history of the early church. And then, at some point, we'll go back to basic doctrines, because there's still about 20 Bible studies we haven't done on basic doctrines, maybe more, because you get into concepts like the covenants. That takes free Bible studies just to go through, to be able to go through our covenant booklet.

There's a lot of things we haven't covered. Some of them are very complicated. The one I'm going to go through today is a simple one, but if you remember, a couple months ago, the last Bible study I did on doctrine was on angels.

We talked about how God made the angels, and they were good, and then something happened. And we didn't really go into where Satan came from. We just talked about the angels and their original purpose, their creation, and what their purpose today, how they interact with God. I want to talk a little bit about, then, the origin of Satan, that gets us into the whole concept of Satan and the demons. How Satan and demons interact with us is really another subject. I just want to go through a basic, doctoral outline of here's where Satan came from.

And then there's a couple controversial issues that are involved in this that I'll just touch on, too. When we talk about the origin of Satan, in Genesis, he just shows up. We have the serpent.

We find out later in the Bible that the serpent, the devil, Satan are all terms for the same being. He just sort of shows up. He's automatically in confrontation with God. He's God's adversary, and God allows him to come into the garden and to deceive Adam and Eve.

What I went through was over a year ago now the basic doctrine of humanity. We went through and showed that Satan coming into the Garden of Eden was not an accident. He somehow didn't get under the wire. God's going, how did he get in here? God knew he was coming. God allowed him to come into that environment. Because for human beings to literally have free will, human beings have to make a choice.

And God would never tempt somebody with evil. He's never going to expose somebody, say, okay, let me tell you what evil is, or let me try to get you to do something evil. So to give humanity the real choice to actually make free will a reality, he exposed them to evil. And we've been all messed up ever since. So where does Satan come from? And it's sort of cryptic throughout the Bible in looking at where he came from.

Let's go to Isaiah chapter 14. There's two places in the Old Testament that give us an understanding of this. These passages, by the way, depending on the commentary you look at or what religious background, they have people have different explanations for these verses. I think, you know, when we look at our viewpoint, it makes sense with the rest of the Bible. It puts the whole Bible together and puts it into a framework. Verse 3 of chapter 14 of Isaiah, It shall come to pass in the day the Lord gives you rest from your sorrow, from your fear and hard bondage, which you were made to serve, that you will take up this proverb against the king of Babylon and say, So here's a prophecy about the king of Babylon.

Now, historically, where this fits is, of course, Israel is being oppressed by Babylon. So we have a real physical context to this. He goes on and he talks about how, at verse 9, he struck the people in wrath with a continual stroke, who ruled the nations in anger, in persecution, and no one hinders. And it goes on and talks about this king of Babylon and how he is going to be judged by God. And then verse 12, in verse 12 something very important happens.

And we're going to find this throughout Scripture, that God can be talking about human beings that are instruments of evil. And in that discussion, it changes to what's causing the evil. So if you read how some historians, especially look at Isaiah 14, they see all of this as a message to the physical king of Babylon. So they find no... this interpretation we're going to go through is considered quite strange to them. The interpretation we're going to go through, by the way, through much of history, history, both even in Catholicism, historical Catholicism, I'm not sure what they teach about it today, and in Protestantism they saw this the way we do.

Now it's being changed.

There are numerous teachings, even in Protestantism, that are going through dramatic changes, dramatic changes. Protestantism isn't near... you know, some of you came from a Protestant church 25 years ago. That church probably doesn't even exist anymore in terms of what it taught then. Because it's changing. But what we see here then is this switch in emphasis, because it says, how you were fallen from heaven a Lucifer, son of the morning star. Lucifer is actually just... it's a word that means day star, bright shining star. Now remember when we went through angels? We showed that in the Bible, one of the analogies used for angels is stars.

That they're called stars. So suddenly we've switched from just the king of Babylon to a star who fell from heaven. Now there are those that say, well this is an allegory, but this gets too detailed. Let's look what it says. 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, above the other stars of God, the angelic beings. I will also sit on the mount of the congregation. The assembly, in the New Testament, even the throne of God is called the assembly. I'm going to go to the assembly where everybody, all the angelic beings assemble before God. On the farther sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. I will be like the Most High, yet you shall be brought down in the sheol, or into hell, to the lower steps of the pit.

And then it goes on and talks about how He will be brought down and destroyed.

In fact, in verse 22, it goes, verse 22 through the rest of this, to verse 27, all talks about the destruction of Babylon. Then He turns into Syria, and eventually the Philistines, God's condemnation of them.

So this shift is very important, because what we have is a shift that goes away from the King of Babylon, the physical king, just like there is now condemnation against the physical king of Assyria and the Philistines. And it goes to the one who is behind the power. Now this is a common theme throughout the Old Testament. Let's look at Daniel chapter 10.

Daniel chapter 10. Verse 1.

Daniel 10 verse 1. In the third year of Cyrus, King of Persia, Amazighs was revealed to Daniel, whose name was called Beltajazzar. So this is under the Persian kingdom now. He's lived under the Babylonian kingdom. Now he lives under the Persian kingdom. It changed his name. The message was true, but the appointed time was long. And he understood the message and had understanding of the vision. In those days, I, Daniel, was warning three weeks. I ate no pleasant food, no meat or wine, came into my mouth, nor did I anoint myself at all, till three whole weeks were filled. So here he's saying, you know, he's fasting. He's seeking God's answer. He's praying. And he doesn't get an answer from God. He doesn't get an answer from God. And three weeks go by, as he struggles. Verse 4 says, on the 24th day of the first month, as I was by the side of the great river, that is the Tigris, I lifted my eyes and looked, and behold, a certain man clothed in linen, whose waist was girded with the gold of Uphaz. His body was like burrow, his face like the appearance of lightning, his eyes like torches of fire, his arms and feet like burnished bronze in color, and the sound of his words like the voice of a multitude. So he falls down in front of this being and he says, no, no, I'm an angel. I'm a messenger from God. So here we have Daniel praying and fasting for three weeks, and God sends him an angelic messenger. But what is said a little later is what's important to what we're talking about here. Let's go down to verse 12. So this angelic messenger says to him, then he said to me, Do not fear, Daniel, for from the first day that you're set your heart to understand and to humble yourself before your God, your words were heard, and I have come because of your words. So this messenger from God, this angelic being, came because he prayed to God and God sent him. But notice what happened. But the prince of the kingdom of Persia was stood me 21 days. Now, obviously, this isn't the physical prince of Persia. He didn't amass an army in going out and somehow hold up an angelic being for three weeks.

What we have here is an understanding that behind all what's going on in our world, there's a power struggle between God and Satan. Well, that's a bad term because Satan has no way of winning this, and his ability to have sway on the earth is only because God has given it to him for a time. God can take it away any time he wants. And we will see when Jesus Christ returns, Satan is immediately bound and has no influence on humanity. Understand something. The battle between God and Satan is all on Satan's side. God's in charge. God's letting him have the earth, but God's always restricting what he can do. And Satan's always trying to overthrow what God is doing. Because God told him, you have this for a while. When he kicked Adam and Eve out of Eden, he said, you will now live under the God of this world. That's why in the New Testament, Satan's called the God of this world. Until I stop it. So it's not really not a power struggle because it's really one-sided. What we're watching is how much God allows him to do and how God restrains him and how Satan tries to stop God. Now, what's interesting in this, what we'll read in the next couple of verses, God could have stopped Satan himself, but God works through, because God is a relationship being, he works through angels at times. He works through people at times. What's the Bible about? Oh, Bible about God working through people. It's because he's a relationship being. He could do everything himself, but why?

It's just, it's not his nature. It's his nature to share. It's his nature to relate. It's his nature to have other people do things and other beings do things. So he sends out angels. Satan believes he can stop this, just like Satan thought he could defeat Satan. Or Jesus. Satan thought he could defeat Jesus. He lost the moment he was born, but he didn't know it. He had lost that battle the moment he was born, but Satan thought he could win it. And it's the same thing here. Behind what's going on in our world, and this is why folks don't get so involved in politics. This isn't God's world. It doesn't get saved until Christ comes back. It's that simple. It just doesn't. In fact, it gets so bad that if God doesn't send Christ when he does, humanity would all die. And our involvement in politics won't change that one bit. It won't change that one bit. Now, that doesn't mean we're supposed to not interact with the world. We're supposed to do good with the world. We're supposed to do good with the world. We're supposed to show them a better way. So that they say, what gives you what you have? And we can say, my king, not my party.

My king gives me what I have. And God's going to send him back soon. In the meantime, we live in a world where beneath, around us, beneath all this political stuff, is a war. Look what it says here. Why was he held up for three weeks? Because the power behind the throne of Persia went out to stop him. And God let him fight. That's what I find interesting. God could have stopped it. God could say, okay, I'll stop this. But no, you go do this. And God lets him struggle. He lets his angels struggle with demonic beings. Probably Satan himself here, behind the Persia, with Satan. He lets him struggle for what to us seems like a long period of time.

It's not a long period when you live in that realm, but it's a long period in this realm.

And he says, he says, "'But the prince of the king of Persia withstood me twenty-one days, and behold, Michael, one of the chief princes, came to help me. For I have been left alone there with the kings of Persia.'" And now it will make you understand. The kings of Persia. He wasn't fighting the physical kings of Persia. He's fighting the power behind the throne. You know, some of the human powers we see are always being manipulated by Satan and his influence. Satan's demonic influence is maneuvering, and things are being maneuvered all the time by them. People are being influenced. And if one person resists Satan, he just finds somebody else to do it. He doesn't possess the whole world, right? He deceives the whole world. And everybody's at various degrees of deception. So this is what's important to understand Isaiah, because part of that prophecy is about Babylon. Part of it is about Lucifer, who's the power behind Babylon, and then it goes back to Babylon.

And then it goes on to Assyria, and then it goes on to the Philistines, which, by the way, the power behind Assyria and the power behind the Philistines was the same power behind Babylon, because it's Satan's world. So once we understand this, what Daniel shows us here, we begin to really be able to fit together and understand that throughout Scripture, whenever it talks about certain powerful things, even in the New Testament, it'll then talk about the power behind it, the evil that is behind it. Let's go to Ezekiel 28.

Ezekiel 28.

It's not always easy to tell where one ends and one begins, by the way. You know, when is it talking about the power, and when is it talking about the power behind the power?

But the principle is still there, even though, you know, sometimes there's a discussion, well, does this verse mean Lucifer, or does this verse mean the king of Babylon? Okay, those discussions are going to be normal in those passages. The point is to understand the principle. The principle is there's a break in here where suddenly the power behind the power is being mentioned. Look at verse 1 of Ezekiel 28. The word of the Lord came to me again, saying, Son of man, say to the Prince of Tyre, thus says the Lord. And then it goes on and talks about how the Prince of Tyre is just this arrogant man. He thinks he's, you know, he's all lifted up and says, in fact, he says, look at verse, well, the rest of verse 2 here. Because your heart is lifted up, you say, I am a god. I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas, yet you're a man, not a god. So here he's talking about a being, which is not, it's not a man, it's not unusual for men throughout history to claim divinity, who claims to be a god. And God says, you're a man, you're not a god. Now, it's interesting here. He's not an angel. He's not a star.

He's a man. But notice how this switches in verse 11. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for the King of Tyre. Notice there's something that's slightly different here, but it's important. The first message is to the prince. The second message is to the king.

We find with these little passages, we're stuck in here, is now we're going to see something described that goes beyond a man saying he's a god.

That says the Lord of God, or the Lord God. You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Now, there's been no human being that that has been said about. I mean, you can say about Christ, but when you read through here, we're going to see that this is a created being who was perfect when he was created. You were in Eden.

Now, it's hard to say the prince of Tyre was in Eden. So once again, we're into this as some kind of allegory, or in the literal sense, we've shifted. The topic now is the power behind the power. And this power who is behind the prince of Tyre, who thinks he's a god, was in Eden. So now we have the serpent. We have Satan. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering. The Sardis, the Topaz, diamond, barrel, ox. I'm sorry.

Say that for me. Onyx. You ever see a word and you've said it a hundred times and all of a sudden it's like, my brain just went onyx. Yeah, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, emerald, and gold. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes was prepared for you on the day that you were created. That's interesting. Your timbrels and pipes. This being is a walking musical instrument. I don't know what kind of music that Satan can produce, but it must be absolutely amazing.

Not only that, he was one of those beautiful beings God ever created. Absolutely perfect.

Now we think of Satan as the the horned guy with the you know red with the tail and the pitchfork, right? This being is absolutely beautiful.

It is absolutely amazing at music. This is a talented being. He says, you were the anointed carob who covers. Now remember we talked about the carobs or the carob beam and how there were three of them that were over the throne of God, one on each side. Now we find there was a covering carob. He's not there. You know, when they make the Ark of the Covenant, there's only two carob beams. Well, here's one that covered. You were the covering carob. This can't be the physical prince of Tyre. He says, I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God. Remember, mountain in Hebrew poetry means government. You were at the place of government, the seat of government of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones, and you'll see those kinds of descriptions of the throne of God. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created till iniquity was found in you. Here we have the origins of evil.

Angels obviously have free will.

And we have a being who was the most incredible of God's created beings, who decided God didn't know what He was doing. By the abundance of your trading, you became filled with violence within. He was good at making deals and trading. He was always getting more whatever you get in the spirit world. But inside, He became violent. And you sinned. Therefore, I cast you as a profane thing out of the mountain of God, and I destroyed you all covering carob from the midst of the fiery stones. He said, I took you out of the throne of God. And then He goes on and talks about how He's going to be punished. And once again, somewhere in this passage, it starts to shift back to the physical part of the power. But in the midst of it, He talks about the power behind the power, the power behind the throne. Because eventually this says the tire the prince has destroyed, or the leader of tires destroyed. So what we know is, what we don't know about Satan, and we don't know certain things about him, well, here's what we do know. We do know that he was one of God's greatest created beings. We know He was created before the physical universe, because the angel shouted for joy, it says, when he created the physical universe. We know that somewhere along the line, he decided God doesn't know what He's doing, that He was smarter than God. And then we know that inside He became violent, He became angry, and He became bitter. He's called the devil. He's called the accuser of the brethren. In Revelation 12, verse 4, it says, where He's called the dragon, that He drew one third of the stars. Remember, stars is an analogy for angels. One third of the angelic beings followed Him, which shows that they have free will. So one third of the angels followed Satan. They are what we call demons. There is a power to religion. There is a power to false religion. That's why the apostle Paul tells them in Corinth not to participate in the sacrifice of animals in the pagan temples. He said, because what they sacrifice, they sacrifice two demons. There is a power. Hinduism is filled with stories of miracles.

Hinduism is filled with stories of miracles, of all kinds of things that are supposed to go on in that realm, because they're always trying to tap into the spirit realm. There is a demonic power behind Hinduism, Buddhism. There's a demonic power behind most of all the pagan religions, no matter where they are. Whether it's voodooism or all kinds of religions throughout North and South America or Africa. Study the ancient religions of Europe, all filled with demonic concepts and power. So behind all of this religion and all this government, there is a spirit world where there's a spirit warfare going on. And so you see the New Testament. It talks about over and over again that we are in a spiritual warfare. We're not fighting physical things. We're fighting spiritual powers. That is a reality. You and I are involved in a war we don't even see. A war that Daniel could not see as he waited 21 days, that for whatever reason, God in His wisdom allowed this angel to be held up by Satan. And then he said, okay, Michael, go shove him out of the way. This is as Michael showed up and Satan was pushed out of the way. I don't know why God did 21 days. It must have been for Daniel's purpose. The other thing I can figure, it was Daniel's faith was being strengthened through all of it because he wouldn't do it arbitrarily. There has to be a reason. Sure wasn't for the angel's benefit. He's just trying to get where he's supposed to go and he's being held up. What does that look like? I don't know. Probably makes Star Wars look like child's play. I have no idea what's going on in that realm because it's a whole different dimension. I don't know what's going on there, but it's real. And you and I interact with that, either in a negative sense through demonic influence—I didn't say possession, but influence—to the world, or through God's Spirit. So you and I are in contact with that, whether we like it or not. I know this doesn't sound very scientific, but it sure explains all the evil in the world, which no science can explain. It explains the evil in the world that science cannot explain.

See, there are certain things science can't explain. There has to be a reason. There has to be a purpose. Why do these things happen? Well, because there's a reality that's happening beyond us. So when we go to the New Testament, let's go to—well, in 2 Corinthians, it talks about Satan being the God of this world. So he's the God of this world. Let's look at Ephesians 2, though.

Because we can't go forever unless Tim Duncan gets angry and hungry and he's a patient man. Ephesians 2. Now, we talked about this—we went through this passage when we went through a year ago why God made humanity and what is human nature, what are we as human beings. And you, verse 1, he's talking to the church, he made a life who were dead in trespasses and sins and which he once walked according to the courts of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sense of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature the children of wrath, just as the others. In that spirit realm, Satan is able to influence us enough that we become by nature violent, angry, bitter just like he is. Now, each human being—some people get sort of a bigger dosage than others, right? Not everybody walks around killing people. But inside of us, we're all distorted images of God. We're distorted images of God because Satan has actually influenced us. And he started influencing us when we were little babies. So we're all distorted images of God. We're all messed up. So when you say, I'm so messed up, I can't tell anybody, God won't love me, you know, everybody will think, no, of course you're messed up. We all are. You'll never get better until you recognize I'm not what I'm supposed to be. I'm not what I'm supposed to be. Satan somehow has influenced me to be what I'm not supposed to be. Now, getting changed going through that is a long, hard process. But that's the spiritual realm that's around us all the time. Walk in a room of angry people. See how long it takes you to start feeling angry. It is amazing. You know, I could walk in... I've gone in to do funerals with people who I didn't even know. Walked up to a family I didn't even know who were grieving. And spent 10 minutes talking to them and trying to comfort them. And then had to walk away because I was going to cry. Because you could feel what? You can feel their emotion, right? What is it like to be in a space with a being that's a thousand times more powerful than us and has nothing but negative emotions? You and I fight that battle all the time.

I think Satan does have to possess us. He just says, we just got to hang around in his world. He is, as it says in 2 Corinthians 4, the God of this world. He is the power behind communism. He is the power behind Islam. And don't be shocked. He is the power behind the United States.

The United States has lasted because there was enough biblical principles here to keep it going and because of the promises God made to Abraham. But this is God. The United States is as much a part of Satan's kingdom as every place else. It's just been better off because of God's influence. Eventually it falls, just like everything else that Satan is over.

That's sad because we love this country. Boom! Hey! At some point you realize we don't belong in this world. There's a spiritual warfare going on. We want to be good citizens. We want to serve. We want to do what's right. But in the end, this is going to fail too because Satan is the God of this world. Now, the good part is, so eventually he's going to control it and manipulate it until he ruins it. The United States is the best that human beings can do. It really is. This is humanity's best shot at all the millennia we've been here. This is it. This is the best we can do. It will fail because he'll manipulate it and destroy it. Because he's got all of us all messed up. He's got human beings so messed up that we'll destroy whatever we do that's good. And this one works up because it had some of God's principles. Not all of them, by any means. They had some of them.

But we do know that what happens is, is that Jesus Christ comes back and what does He do? Revelation 20. Satan's power is only because God lets him do it. Just read. Remember when we went through a couple of sermons ago, we were going through one of the fruits of the Spirit and I went to Job about long suffering? Satan goes before God and he wants Job and he wants to destroy Job and God says, well you can have him but you can't have all of him. You can't destroy him. You can't kill him. I'm going to limit what you can do to him because I need, I'm going to work with Job something through all this. You want to help me out? Go ahead. Of course, what Satan thinks is I get to win this battle. He lost it. He lost it. Just like he's going to lose this one. Verse 1 of chapter 20, Revelation, that I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. He laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He cast him into the bottomless pit and shut him up and put a seal on him, that he should deceive the nations no more till the thousand years were finished. What we find is the first thing Christ does when He comes back is He takes Satan and He says, okay, you've had your time. You get a little bit more time, but I'm in charge now. And Satan can't do anything to stop it. He doesn't send an angel. It's not Michael that shows up this time.

It's the Son of God that shows up this time. He says, you pushed everybody else around, and He puts him in an emptiness, in a place of bottomless pit. You know, just emptiness. Lake of fire and skull. He's there.

Everybody knows what happened to him. But he's still there. Verse, skip down now to verse 7.

Now, when the thousand years have expired, Satan will be released from his prison, will go out to deceive the nations, which are the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle, whose numbers is as the sand of the sea. And they went up on the breadth of the earth and surrounded the camp of the saints of the beloved city, and fire came down from God out of heaven and devoured them. The devil, who deceived them, was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beasts of false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever.

So here we have Satan's final removal. He's led out for a little bit, and he goes out and deceives the world again, just for a short period of time. And then we have the great white throne judgment. Satan is removed then forever from being involved.

What we know about Satan is this much. There is a question that comes up from time to time. What is Satan's fate? And there are two ways that people look at this. One is, if you go back and look at Babylon, and what we looked at in Isaiah and Ezekiel, the prophets would go on to talk about the destruction of this being. Well, you can look at that as the destruction of the physical being or the destruction of the spirit being. So then there's this question. Does Satan live forever, or does he suffer total annihilation? Well, there are things in the New Testament that would lead you to believe that it's possible he lives forever. I mean, there's a passage in Jude that could be interpreted that way. Here, what we just read, what we read in the Lake of Fire being tortured forever and ever, that clause does not apply directly to the beast of false prophet, but to Satan, who's the first part of the sentence. So there we can say, well, he's living forever and ever. So you can stack up the scriptures. The ones in Jude can be argued either way. So people ask me, I tend to believe he's going to live forever, but when the time comes and God gives judgment on Satan, come ask me and I'll tell you.

Because if he decides that he's not going to exist anymore, then God will decide he doesn't exist anymore.

And I'm not God. So I can make the argument in both ways. And traditionally, we've said that he will live forever. I haven't changed that because I'm not going to change something unless I have absolute 100% proof. But I understand the other argument. You know what I mean? You look at something and say, okay, I can honestly understand the other argument. So then you have to be honest enough to say, okay, I believe it's this way, but the scripture could be taken this way. Therefore, we'll find out when God makes his decision. If we know all that we know about the Bible, about Satan, and our only question is, does God destroy him or does God let him live forever in outer darkness? I don't know. We do know this. He is not saved. That is a heresy.

Universalism, that Satan is saved, is heretical. Satan is not saved.

Just like all human beings will be saved. So we do know that. So we stack up all that we do know. We get down to the final question, and my answer is, I just want to be there. So if we're all there, when God's making a judgment on Satan, the moment he makes it, I'll look at you and say, that's the answer. So, like I said, I know what I believe, which has been our traditional belief, but I can't stand here and say there isn't another possibility. Because there's an honesty to that. So we believe that, I mean, we traditionally teach and continue to teach that he and the demons will live forever as wondering stars, as Jude says, in the darkness. What's it say in Jude?

The literal translation, the blackness of darkness, the literal translation is the darkness of darkness. Wondering stars in the darkness of darkness. Wow. That is a frightening statement, isn't it? Wondering stars in the darkness of darkness. So whatever it is, Satan's fate is just. It is what God decides. And it will be just. And he will no longer bother his creation ever again.