Monthly Study - The Beginning Before Genesis One

[0:00] Well, the subject that we're going to undertake has to do with the cosmic conflict. And the principal reason that we are undertaking it is because we've been a little bit along that line anyway.

[0:13] But of late there have been a number of requests from different people that we engage some of this kind of material because, largely because of what's going on right now in our culture.

[0:23] And we want you to be apprised of how it all relates and connects with the Scriptures because it most certainly does. And you can be sure that you will not find any satisfactory explanations as to what is going on in our world apart from what is revealed in the Scriptures.

[0:44] It's too bad that more people don't realize that, but all who are in Christ certainly should. And we are beneficiaries of the revelation that God has been pleased to give because it need not keep us in the dark if we simply take advantage of what God has provided for us in His Word.

[1:03] And the Bible is a book that was never intended to confuse anybody. It is intended to enlighten us. It is a message that is intended to be understood and responded to.

[1:17] And that's one of the great emphases that we place upon the Scriptures here at Grace Bible Church and many other churches like ours do the same. So, what we are going to begin with this morning is trying to establish a reference point for this new series.

[1:36] And that means we need to go back a ways. Well, how far back do we go? Someone says, are you going to go all the way back to Genesis?

[1:46] No. No. We are going back to before Genesis. We are going back to before there was a heavens and an earth. And heavens and earth were created as a result of what existed before.

[2:01] So, it will be the beginning of the cosmic conflict. I also had distributed this brief sheet that was written by David Levy, who is on the staff of Friends of Israel for quite some time.

[2:17] He's been there for many years. And he is a Jewish believer. About half of the people on the staff at Friends of Israel are Jewish by nationality, by birth.

[2:31] And the other half are Gentiles. And they work very well together. And they present some tremendous publications. It is a magazine that began in, I think, 1937, something like that, by a man who came to this country as a Jewish immigrant, came to faith in Christ.

[2:54] And as a result, he started the ministry of Friends of Israel. I can't recall his name right offhand. Maybe some of you can. But at any rate, he has rendered a tremendous service to the whole Christian community, to be sure.

[3:09] So, what we are going to do is begin by just sharing with you some observations that we have made. And this is what I mean by saying going back even prior to Genesis 1.

[3:28] And if we get to the first item on this sheet, why, that will be great. It would be helpful, by the way, if you would just keep these and put it in your Bible or something and bring it to our next one, which will be the last Thursday in September.

[3:45] And we will continue on with the theme. So, I've labeled this the beginning of the cosmic conflict. There is good and there is evil.

[3:57] These are forces that are more powerful than we can imagine. They are locked in mortal combat. The end of which is predetermined and presubscribed.

[4:12] This is conflict originating between the eternal Creator, the God of Heaven, the God of Heaven and Earth, and the one described as the most powerful of all that God has created, namely, a fallen angel called Lucifer, whose name was eventually changed to Satan.

[4:35] And the very word Satan means the opposer. He is the antagonist. This cosmic universal drama is referred to as the conflict of the ages.

[4:49] The combatants, consisting of God the Creator and Satan the created, are both spirit beings, meaning they do not possess physicality as humans.

[5:04] That which is spirit is superior in every way to that of physicality. You need to understand that and get it really firmly fixed in your mind, because it is the spirit part of our being that really is dominant.

[5:23] Although we tend not to think of it that way, we place about everything upon our physical body, and we think that's the be-all, end-all. After all, when something negative, really bad happens to that, it dies.

[5:37] Well, that's true, it does. But that's the physical part of your being. And we need to understand there is a dimension of reality that transcends the physical and is really more important and is dominant.

[5:51] But we are so locked in to these bodies of ours, these physical bodies, we just cannot seem to get beyond that. And that's just part of our fallenness as well. God the Creator and Satan the created are both spirit beings.

[6:07] They do not possess physicality as humans. That which is spirit is superior in every way to that of physicality. So spirit is the dominant creative power, and physicality is subservient to it.

[6:25] We humans think in terms of something physical being necessary to do or create anything. But it is spirit that is first, foremost, and that which possesses creative energy.

[6:42] God as spirit, apart from physicality, created all things physical and spirit. And perhaps the most telling text that reveals that is John's Gospel, chapter 4 and verse 24, when Jesus was talking to the woman at the well.

[6:59] And most translations render it God is a spirit, which is not good from the Greek at all. It is simply God is spirit.

[7:10] And they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth. So, prior to Genesis 1-1, which we tend to think that's about as far back as we can go, but prior to Genesis 1-1 and the creation of the physical, all that existed was immaterial.

[7:32] This included not only God the Creator and all the beings He brought into existence we call angels, but this all preceded the creation of the physical universe.

[7:46] So, we are talking about no planets, no sun, no moon, no cosmos as we know it, with all the heavenly beautiful things. Nothing.

[7:57] There was nothing. None of that existed. This all preceded the creation of the physical universe, this God the Creator and those spirit beings He created.

[8:09] They were the original beings or intelligences created when nothing physical yet existed. Yet, while there were no stars, universe, or planets as we know them, there was this uncreated eternal spirit being who chose to bring into existence other spirit beings like Himself, but infinitely inferior as creatures.

[8:39] These, the Bible refers to as angelic beings, possessing a ranking or created pecking order. Some are called cherubim, such as we find in Genesis 3, that were placed outside the Garden of Eden to assure that Adam and Eve would not be able to return to the place.

[9:04] Some are designated as seraphim. They are referenced in Isaiah chapter 6. Many are referred to as beasts, as described in Revelation chapters 4 through 7.

[9:19] And by the way, these that are called in most translations beasts ought not to be thought of as some kind of ugly, grotesque kind of creatures, like you might normally do when you use the term beast.

[9:34] You think of something wild or whatnot. But these that are referred to as beasts in many translations are more properly rendered living creatures, living creations.

[9:47] They probably possessed an appearance and a beauty that is so stunning, it is completely unlike anything that we can imagine. So it would be terribly wrong to think of them as some kind of ugly, misshapen kind of creatures as you would ordinarily assign to the word beast.

[10:04] These were probably very intelligent, very beautiful in their appearance. All of these located in heaven, and they serve in a worshipping capacity, the one on the throne, God himself.

[10:19] Now to say that all of this is otherworldly is of course a considerable understatement. We tend to see ourselves as some epitome of beings, the ultimate or most significant.

[10:36] That too is just part of our fallenness. We humans tend to think that we are the cock of the walk, that we are the ultimate, that we are, well we're not.

[10:47] We are lower on the totem pole, in fact, when it comes to intelligence and power, etc. But we have one thing going for us that none of the angelic beings have.

[10:58] And that is, in a way that is difficult for us to understand, the Creator saw us as beings, as objects of His love, to such an extent that He became flesh and did for us by dying in a physical body, what we could never do for ourselves, to make us acceptable to Himself.

[11:25] There is no redemption, so far as we know. There is no redemption for angelic beings. It is only for us humans. So in that respect, we are highly privileged, and obviously highly prized.

[11:40] When you consider the difference between angels and us, we know angels had a beginning, so far as we know they have no ending. But they are, you can't exactly call them eternal.

[11:52] God is the only one who is eternal. We tend to think of ourselves as having eternal life, but we don't. We have everlasting life, which is different from eternal life. So all of these beings that are spirit beings that God created are not subject to any of the things that we physical beings are, such as physical death, stuff like that.

[12:12] They have an entirely different aura about them in which they function, and their immateriality and invisibility is just part of it.

[12:23] We know very, very little in reality about angelic beings. And as the study goes on, we'll be learning a lot more about them than what we know now, particularly as we get into the Revelation, because there they do play a very significant part in an obvious way that is not nearly so obvious now.

[12:43] What we will now engage is what the Bible describes as the very earliest of times, and I'm putting times in quotation marks, because time is necessary only when there is physicality to occupy space.

[13:06] Time and space go together. And because God was willing to create beings of physicality, He had to create substance on which we could dwell and live and function and have our being and so on, and planet Earth became the principal place for that, and all the rest that we see out there that we consider the universe, as far as the scriptures seem to be concerned, is just an add-on.

[13:35] Time is necessary only when there is physicality to occupy space. They go together. One does not exist without the other. Where there is no time, we call that eternity.

[13:47] Eternity is not time piled on top of time. Eternity is time less. I cannot conceive of that. If you stop and think about it, your mind will take you only so far, and then things become kind of blank, because you just cannot go there.

[14:06] So, timelessness is another concept that completely escapes us. And from all of this, we need to go, first of all, to...

[14:17] Well, before we do that, I want to share something with you from this sheet that you were given. And by the way, this came... I've subscribed to Israel, my glory. I know many of you get it too.

[14:28] It came just a couple of days ago. And it is this most recent issue, and I thought, my, oh my, how timely this is. Thank you, Lord. This really connects with what we're talking about here.

[14:40] So, if you will take your sheet, I want to go over the first part of it with you at least, and we'll go down to the four-pronged Proto-Evangelium. It has been said... This is a quote, by the way, from Herbert Lockyer, author who's written many books.

[14:56] It has been said, The key to all messianic prophecy hangs at the Bible's front door and was given by God to that old serpent, the devil.

[15:11] Strange though it may seem, Satan was the first one to learn of the Deliverer who would effectuate his demise.

[15:21] To him, that is, Satan, wrote Bible commentator Herbert Lockyer, to him was given the initial promise and prophecy of redemption from the sin he had brought into God's fair universe.

[15:38] And as a result of this, of course, the great contest, conflict between good and evil came into being.

[15:48] And apart from this, apart from God having created originally, he who was known as Lucifer, there was simply God.

[15:58] Now we cannot begin to think in terms of an eternal being existing by himself in three persons described in Scripture as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

[16:14] And we've already told you in time past, please don't think. Don't think of God the Father and God the Son in terms of humanity extrapolated so that there is some kind of connection whereby the Father had some kind of relationship with whom?

[16:38] The Holy Spirit, with whomever your imagination conceives, and as a result, the Son is born. It's totally wrong. Totally wrong. You just need to keep in mind that God and his being exist in an entirely different platform from humanity.

[16:56] And the only reason that I think the Scriptures speak of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is because there is intimate connection between the three. Yet there is but one God subsisting in those three persons.

[17:09] That does not compute to human mind. It just does not mathematically work out. You do the numbers and it doesn't come out right. And that's because we are limited in that sphere also.

[17:24] We need to keep in mind that God dwells in a being and a habitation the likes of which we cannot even imagine. And all we know of God is what he has been pleased to reveal to us.

[17:39] And keep in mind as we engage this study it will become obvious that the Bible was never given to satisfy our curiosity to answer all of our questions.

[17:53] The Bible was given to give us, provide for us the revelation that is necessary for us to understand so that we can apply the truths of it and thus become acceptable and received by the Creator God.

[18:10] That's why the Bible was given. That we might come to know Him in a personal, intimate way. So, the prophecy is Genesis 3.15 and if you would take your Bible and turn to it if you haven't already.

[18:24] It's a passage that is familiar I think to most grace people but we want to look at it again and get it on the record. Genesis chapter 3. This is immediately after the fall.

[18:37] Immediately after the disobedience of our first parents and perhaps I should preface that with a couple of other things that need to be understood and taken into consideration.

[18:51] I've talked about this a great deal and the reason I've done so is because as I've told you before I want to reinforce things that I've told you over the past 50, 51 years even though you've heard them before I want to make sure that you are firmly entrenched in these truths and it just and it just really concerns me that as I leave here as your pastor these things are going to be fixed in your mind so well that you will not be able to forget them.

[19:23] That's my goal. And in talking about that we need to spend just a moment with the concept of volition. That's the human will. This is so terribly important. God was faced if I may use the term because I don't know what else to call it God was faced with what appears to us to be a choice of some kind and if he is going to bring beings into existence whether they are immaterial angels who are spirit beings like himself or whether they are beings of physicality like humans beings he has to determine what capacity or ability he is going to instill in them to what degree is he going to give them intelligence and we can readily see from all the things that are made the distinction between humans and their intelligence and lower forms of biological life and their intelligence and then lower forms yet of plant life and its so called intelligence at least the way it proliferates etc there is some dynamic there that we don't understand either so he has to determine to what degree he is going to imbue creation with abilities and intelligence and that includes a capacity to obey him and his directives and it also includes a capacity to disobey him

[21:02] God was confronted with that choice and we've explained this before but let me say it again if he creates us so that there is no risk involved if I may use that term risk so that we automatically do the right thing he would be creating us as programmed individuals who just automatically respond to his will whatever it might be and there's no conflict and if there's no conflict there's no need for resolution of anything of any kind because nothing ever gets out of whack so he could create us without a will without a volition so we automatically obey like the robot or the automaton or he could and I use this term advisedly as I said he could take the risk and I realize as well as you do that God knows the beginning from the end so in essence there's no risk with him when you know exactly what the thing is going to be and how it's going to play out when he it appears that he takes a risk on creating angels and giving them the ability to confirm his will or to deny his will and according to the revelation that we're going to be looking at in

[22:22] Isaiah and Ezekiel they exercise that will and they chose as free moral agents angelic spirit beings they choose to disobey the creator and that's the origin of Satan who originally was Lucifer as we'll see a little later on then when you come to Genesis chapter one we find the creation of human beings and we too were given in our first parents the ability to comply with God and his directives or to disobey and go against them apparently Adam and Eve were doing quite well until the tempter came along and when the tempter came along he added another dimension to the possibility of disobedience and as a result Adam Eve submitted themselves to his authority and you've heard me say before so say I now again the issue don't ever forget this don't ever forget this the issue is authority always has been always will be it started all the way back in Genesis it started even before

[23:45] Genesis it started with the angelic rebellion in heaven led by Lucifer who chose to exercise his will and he rejected God's authority displacing it with his own authority and by the way as a result of his successfully imbuing that in ways we don't understand in Adam and Eve that caused their fall as a result of that they became self-centered individuals and they passed their temperament and their abilities and their wants and desires and everything onto the progeny that came after them and everyone born of Adam and Eve the first parents were born as self-willed individuals and that was demonstrated by the very first one becoming a murderer of his own brother he was self-centered this is the curse of humanity you understand this this is the curse of the whole human race it is self-centeredness and the only thing that can overcome self-centeredness is an infusion of a spiritual capacity that can overcome that and that's what it means to walk in the spirit as opposed to walking in the flesh so all of these things come into play and it's all part and parcel of this great conflict that is taking place and keep in mind

[25:21] God's objective God's end game God's end game is the resolution of the angelic conflict the settling of the conflict and it will not be a peace it will be a destruction of the adversary and victory for the son of God but here is where this all starts and you will not find this of course any place other than in the scriptures so we read in verse 14 and the Lord God said to the serpent and no I am at a loss to understand this as well all I can say is creation as it existed then was entirely different it was an unfallen creation that had not been contaminated by human sin and human sin that will succumb to the temptation of Satan will result in man

[26:25] Adam and Eve losing forfeiting forfeiting the dominion that God gave them he told them that they are to have dominion over the earth the animals and everything and the word dominion of course is related to the term dominate they were intended to dominate all of creation and all of creation was to be subservient to them that's the way God started he made them the head of all of his earthly creation and when they disobeyed God they forfeited that status and it was taken up by the one who conned them who tricked them and as a result we're seeing scripture in a number of places particularly John's gospel chapter 12 14 and 16 in all three of those chapters

[27:26] Jesus refers to Satan as the prince of this world and in 2nd Corinthians chapter 4 he is referred to as the God of this age and it's very very important to understand those concepts you don't think I trust you don't think that God is running this world the way he wants to do you I realize and I know you do too there is a sense in which God is sovereign over all and there is a sense in which he has given Satan a certain amount of latitude we don't understand all of that or what his parameters are but we know that he has given Satan a certain realm a certain ability to conduct his nefarious schemes but we also know that God is the final check on Satan and as I've often likened him before he is like a mad dog on a leash and God holds the other end of the leash and he can yank on his chain anytime he wants but in the meanwhile

[28:32] Satan does have a great deal of latitude and this is why he is referred to as he is in the scriptures as the God of this age so keep all of these things in mind and it will surface again and again as we move on through this God is speaking to the serpent now and I know how some people look at this and they say you made it tell me that you believe this stuff this is why some people look at the Bible and they call it a book of fantasy you got talking snakes what is that all about talking snakes that's ridiculous that sounds like sounds like something Walt Disney would come up with but that's not real well it is real but I emphasize this it was an entirely different world then and we do not know exactly what this serpent was like I doubt seriously it was like a boa constrictor who knows what it was like at any rate it was indwelt it was commandeered by the adversary himself so that he did not appear as he really was he appeared as one of the creatures as one of the creatures that God had created and keep in mind at this time there were no poisonous serpents there were no cobras that could inflict a deadly wound there may have been cobras but they were not that and there were no venomous snakes of any kind there were no meat eating animals everything was vegetarian and it wasn't until after the flood that all of that changed so here we've got a different segment that is developing we're going back about as far as we can go here in

[30:14] Genesis and he is speaking to the adversary himself in verse 14 he says to the serpent because you have done this cursed are you more than all cattle and the word cattle is a generic term that is used here for all manner of four-footed beasts and more than every beast of the field on your belly shall you go I've often wondered does that imply that snake the serpent had legs before I don't know I suspect that the serpent that is involved here probably doesn't look anything at all like the serpent that you would see at the zoo or what not but at any rate he was a nefarious creature and he's doing his worst cursed are you more than all cattle more than every beast of the field on your belly shall you go and dust shall you eat that's because that's where his habitation is on the ground all the days of your life and I

[31:19] God speaking I will put enmity that means a state of war that means an ongoing conflict that God is going to establish because up until this time in humanity there was no evil there was only good and if it is only good that exists then you do not need you do not need something to counter good because good is sufficient and good in itself and it isn't until a foreign object is introduced into the good that changes everything and the foreign object of course is the evil that stemmed from this initial disobedience that's what's going to create the state of war the state of war wasn't even necessary before this happened and this set the stage for the conflict here is the beginning of the angelic conflict and actually it's the beginning of the angelic conflict in so far as humans are concerned but it already existed before Adam and Eve were even created and we will see later on by the way where when Satan rebelled against God he succeeded he succeeded in recruiting one third of all fellow angels that God created we do not know how many there were but it appears to be an innumerable company that no one can number and these were all spirit beings created by God and were in complete subservience to God all of whom possessed a will and volition until the one who surfaced as their leader and by the way we get the impression that he was the epitome of God's creation and I think the text will bear that out in

[33:29] Ephesians and Isaiah when we get there in just a moment I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed that is your offspring and her seed his offspring will be those who Jesus referred to as well he identified some of them when he pointed out the scribes and Pharisees that were opposing him and he simply said you are of your father the devil and they are those who comprise the seed of Satan the offspring as it were the spiritual offspring of Satan and those who are between those who are in Christ in this dispensation are the others he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel some translations render this and I think it's probably a more accurate one that he shall crush you on the head it means to literally stomp or flatten the head and the idea is finality completely taken out of commission permanently so that that is his final end and that will of course not occur until the revelation and then you shall bruise him or wound him would be a better rendering you shall wound him on the heel and that is an indication of a real wound that is inflicted but does not have the degree of permanence that the crushing of the head does and that of course will be evidenced in the resurrection three days after Christ is crucified and to the woman he said to Eve

[35:15] I will greatly multiply your pain in childbirth I guess every woman here who has brought forth a baby knows that there is a price to pay in pain for that birth and we do not have any reason to believe that that would have existed in the beginning but that too is a reminder of the fall when a woman goes through the pain of childbirth she probably most women never think of it but she is propagating and promulgating the extension of a fallen humanity in that sweet innocent cute darling little baby and it is born a sinful being and more about that later to the woman who said I will multiply your pain in childbirth in pain you shall bring forth children yet your desire shall be for your husband that's a separate study and in all of itself and we'll not go there but we'll be glad to pursue it if you want to do so later on so right now let us go please if we may to

[36:24] Isaiah chapter 14 we'll be looking at the two places that give us the clearest revelation even though each of them comes with a lot of questions that we would like have answered but we've got more information given here in these two passages than any place else in scripture and we read that beginning in verse three and bear in mind that Isaiah lived and wrote his prophecies approximately 700 years before Jesus was born in Bethlehem and we'll be looking later at Ezekiel and I think he was probably about four or five hundred years earlier but Isaiah is the granddaddy of the prophets here and we began reading in verse chapter 14 and verse 3

[37:28] Isaiah is speaking and representing the Lord and it says and it will be in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil and harsh service in which you have been enslaved that you will take up this taunt against the king of Babylon and say and bear in mind that by this time Israel had long since been carried into Babylonian captivity as a result of their rebellion against the Lord and it was Jeremiah who warned the Israelites that the Babylonians were going to defeat them that they were going to come of course they dismissed him as a crazy old coot but everything that Jeremiah prophesied of course came to pass and we read in verse 3 it will be in the day when the Lord gives you rest from your pain and turmoil harsh service in which you have been enslaved to the Babylonians that you will take this taunt against the king of

[38:32] Babylon and say how the oppressor has ceased and how the fury has ceased the Lord has broken the staff of the wicked the scepter of rulers which used to strike the peoples the nations in anger with unrestrained persecution the whole earth is at rest and is quiet they break forth into shouts of joy this is of course in connection with the demise of Babylon even the cypress trees rejoice over you and the cedars of Lebanon saying since you were laid low no tree cutter comes up against us she all from beneath is excited over you to meet you when you come it arouses for you the spirits of the dead all the leaders of the earth raises all the kings of the nations from their thrones they will respond and say to you even you have been made weak as we you have become like us this is Israel speaking to Babylon your pump and the music of your harps have been brought down to shield now something is happening here and I want you to follow this closely maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you and worms are your covering how you have fallen from heaven and what is happening here and

[39:49] I think the vast majority of scholars agree with this is that the writer Isaiah is making an undeniable connection between the leaders and the people and the previous victors of Babylon making a connection between them and none other than Satan and his fall so Babylon has experienced a great fall a great comeuppance and he is likening the fall of Satan to that using a physical earthly object lesson that everybody back then could understand and making an application of it to none other than Lucifer himself and he begins in saying your pump and your music of your harps have brought you down to Sheol maggots are spread out as your bed beneath you and worms are your covering how you have fallen from heaven oh star of the morning sun of the dawn now it's very apparent he's not talking about

[40:53] Babylon here he's shifted gears and he's talking about Lucifer he's talking about that which transcends Babylon making the application star of the morning sun of the dawn that's not Babylon you have been cut down to the earth you who have weakened the nations but you said in your heart I will ascend to heaven I will raise my throne above the stars of God and the stars of God here are not the physical things we see out in the heavens that we identify as stars that shine etc stars are principal ones and we will see in revelation where they surface time and time again and they are referred to as stars but the stars that he'll be talking with are going to be in action and they're going to be speaking and they're going to be doing stars in the heavens don't do that and the reason these key individuals are referred to as stars is because they are the principal ones principal players and they are given the designation of stars to simply make them stand out and you find the very same application that we use all the time anytime you go to the movies it always tells you who the star is doesn't it who's starring or you read or see something on

[42:16] TV the star is the principal character of the thing well that's what the star is more often important ones who constitute the cadre the most important you said in your heart I will ascend to heaven I will raise my throne above the stars of God the principal ones I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the north I will these are all I will I will here is the self centeredness that is portraying itself in an undeniable way and what is it that is the epitome of our self centeredness it's one word one letter I I I sometimes we expand it and it's two letters and it's me and me me I and me and myself we are the stars aren't we we are our own stars that's the way we tend to see ourselves

[43:20] I will ascend above the heights of the clouds I will make myself like the most high this is Satan's intent and attempt to depose the almighty and to literally replace the almighty with himself now if you're thinking like I am you're thinking this guy is just whistling Dixie that's all this this is an incomparable task it is never going to come to pass and if we mortals if we mortals with our limited reasoning powers if we can see through this and recognize that there is no way period that he is going to be able to accomplish that if we can reason that isn't he supposed to be more intelligent than us how why could he ever entertain such a thought and the answer is ego ego your ego is your worst enemy and satan's ego is his worst enemy if you think highly enough of your ego you convince yourself you can do anything you are the be all the end all you are the cat's meow you are this you are that you are better than and all the rest that's ego talking it is a super inflated ego the revelation in chapter 19 and 20 reveals the end game tells us how this thing is going to turn out can't satan read the bible isn't he intelligent enough my guess is he could probably read the bible in every language that it's been translated into then doesn't he see how this thing is going to end yeah he does but you know what ego will tell him yeah that's what it says but oh boy you still got a shot you still got a shot hang in there don't give up that's his ego talking he's got an ego that is so much greater than yours and mine he thinks he can do anything he thinks he can depose the almighty we look upon that as how could he be so wonderfully intelligent and so incredibly stupid at at the same time and the answer is ego ego don't ever lose sight of that all of the

[46:17] I wills there are seven of them here seven I wills I will I will I will I will I will and verse 15 comes in with nevertheless you will be thrust down to shield that's the place of the dead to the recesses of the pit don't know how that's going to work I have no idea how he is going to be incarcerated for the one thousand years during the millennium but revelation 19 and 20 makes it quite clear he is going to be bound in the bottomless pit for a thousand years we look at that and we say well now if Satan is spirit and he doesn't have a body we can see binding a body with chains or whatever but how do you bind a spirit I have no idea that's God's problem but I can assure you this if God put him in the bottomless pit for a thousand years he's not going to get out early on good behavior he's going to be there for a thousand years and it will be under whatever constraint

[47:25] God places him under that will be more than adequate to keep him out of action during those thousand years and there's a very good reason for that and there's a very good reason for his loosing him after the thousand years too but that's much further ahead so nevertheless you will be thrust down the shield to the recesses of the pit those who see you will gaze at you they will ponder over you saying is this the who shook kingdoms who made the world like a wilderness and overthrew its cities yeah who did not allow his prisoners to go home yeah he's the guy all the kings of the nations lie in glory each in his own tomb but you have been cast out of your tomb like a rejected branch clothed with the slain who are pierced with a sword who go down to the stones of the pit like a trampled corpse you will not be united with them in burial because you have ruined your country you have slain your people may the offspring of evildoers not be mentioned forever prepare and so on and so on now for the few moments we have left we need to go to

[48:43] Ezekiel Ezekiel chapter 19 prophecy of Ezekiel lament for the princes of Tyre wait a minute is this the right chapter ah there you go that's yeah Ezekiel 28 yeah Ezekiel 28 Tyre's king overthrown this too is a similar kind of situation that

[49:43] Isaiah had with Babylon only this is with Tyre and Tyre of course is a coastal city northern Israel right on the coast and we will hurry through this the word of the Lord came again to me saying son of man say to the leader of Tyre thus says the Lord God because your heart is lifted up and you have said I am a God I sit in the seat of God in the heart of the seas yet you are a man or you are as a man and not God in other words you are a created being although you make your heart like the heart of God behold you are wiser than Daniel there is no secret that is a match for you by your wisdom and understanding you have acquired riches for yourself and have acquired gold and silver for your treasuries by your great wisdom by your trade you have increased your riches your heart is lifted up because of your riches therefore thus says the Lord God because you have made your heart like the heart of

[50:45] God behold I him defile your splendor bring down the pit you will die the death of those who were slain and so on you will say I am a God in the presence of your slayer although you are a man and not God in the hands of those who wound you you will die the death of the uncircumcised and so on and then beginning in verse 11 he transfers just like him thus says the Lord God you had the seal of perfection full of wisdom perfect in beauty you were in Eden the garden of God Dr.

[51:39] Arnold Schwarzen not Schwarzenegger Arnold Arnold Arnold Fruchzenbaum has written a book about this and it's quite interesting the gardens that he presents there every precious stone was you're covering the ruby the topaz the diamond as he goes through all of these and so on and while the workmanship of the settings and sockets was in you on the day that you were created they were prepared you were the anointed cherub who covers please don't think of the cherub as a cute little baby that doesn't have any clothes on that is the one that's the symbol of the new year that comes in and the old man with the side is going out and the little baby is the new year and is often referred to as a cherub a cherub is a mighty angelic creation of God not to be toyed with and there is nothing baby or infant like him cherub was one of the guardians that was placed with the sword outside the garden of

[52:45] Eden to make sure that they did not return so that that was a cherub and it's a in the pecking order it's up pretty high your heart is lifted up because of your riches therefore says the Lord because you made your heart like the heart of God I will bring strangers upon you most ruthless of the nations they will draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom defile your splendor bring you down to the pit and you will die the death of those who were slain in the heart of the seas will you still say I am a God in the presence of your slayer although you are a man and not God the hands of those who wound you you will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers and so on this is the demise here and it continues on down through he identifies them in verse 15 you were blameless in your ways he was placed there in a position of authority in the holy mountain you were blameless in your ways until the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you by the abundance of your trade you were internally and you sin therefore

[53:58] 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 your heart was lifted up because of your beauty I can't imagine what that beauty was like but it must have been dazzling you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor I cast you to the ground I put you before so for the time we've got left which is zero but I will entertain for five minutes or so any comments or questions you may have we've really covered a huge amount of material but this is just background so we'll get more into the text later in our next session anybody comments or questions yes go back and explain you mentioned this earlier the difference between eternal and everlasting well eternal has no beginning and no ending everlasting presupposes a beginning without an ending so in a sense it's more correct to say we have been given everlasting life which is life that will not end but we are not eternal beings nor are any of the angels

[55:17] God is the only eternal being so slight big difference but slight play on words yeah difference between no beginning is opposed to the ending yeah Carolyn when scripture says that God gave the angels charge concerning us to guard us in all our ways is that any type of an angel that is is it a wrong angel other than just saying angel we do not know and most of the time angels are referred to in the scriptures most of the time they're just called an angel sometimes they're given a personal name indicating in the pecking order they have considerable responsibility and Gabriel is very significant in that he seems to be the protective angel for well it was he made the announcement to Mary made the announcement to Joseph and so on and then there is

[56:20] Michael and Michael seems very definitely assigned to be a kind of angelic custodian particularly for the nation of Israel and that too will play out we'll see how that works out as we go further on into our study so all that we've covered now is just a host of background material and we'll get more into what we're more familiar with and can identify with as humans in this fallen world anything else yes do we have any idea how long the garden of Eden was perfect before the fall I mean a study I did a while back kind of makes you think it wasn't very long no it is the scriptures just simply do not say and we have our opinions but it's pointless because we can't give them with any kind of authority the bible does not tell us how long Adam and Eve continued in that ideal existence as God created them in a sphere of obedience until they were tempted and succumbed we just are not told we are not given a time frame some think that it was maybe years others think maybe it was 15 minutes we just don't know we're not told anything else okay well thank you for your kind patience we covered a ton of material and we'll pick it up from here next time and I want you to keep this sheet if you will if you want to read ahead and look and see what's coming that would be fine too you have a wonderful day looks to me like it's beautiful out there okay

[58:07] Chris tells Chris tells you to make a pass at what's up there and see if there's something good conscience you can take with you