“That name Lucifer is a Latin word. Lux (light/fire) and ferre (to bear/to bring). It means Light-bearer. The one who carries the light. And that was a title he had before he was fallen.
It’s an important concept to get because in God’s creation He’s interested in His light being carried . . . You remember the first thing in Genesis 1 that God did on the very first day? He said, ‘Let there be light.’ Well, He did it in the midst of darkness.
‘God is light and in Him is no darkness at all,’ I John says. Well, Lucifer starts out his career as a creature that was the light-bearer. He bore God’s light before the universe.
But now if you come to Colossians 1 his whole name and title has been changed. Col. 1:13 says, ‘Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son.’
So our inheritance is in the Light who hath delivered us from the power of darkness. In other words, what God has done through our salvation is taken us out from under the authority of something called darkness—the power of darkness—and has translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son in whom we have redemption through His blood.
That term ‘darkness’ is a description of Satan’s plan, just like light is a description of God’s plan. It’s more than just physical darkness; this is a spiritual darkness.
The Bible says, ‘Thy entrance of thy Word bringeth light.’ Light brings understanding, perception, the ability to manipulate through life and successfully accomplish things. Darkness brings the inability to do that. So there’s a thinking process and a wisdom that represents darkness and that’s associated with Satan.
Ephesians 6:12 says, ‘For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.’
Notice there are these rulers who have the authority to administer ‘the darkness of this world,’ and that darkness of this world is called ‘spiritual wickedness.’ So there’s a whole change in Satan and in his program. He goes from the light-bearer to ‘The Prince of Darkness Grim,’ as Martin Luther called him.
From his recent sermon, His Majesty the Devil,” Jordan concludes:
What you have in Satan is not just some creature that runs around thinking how he can needle you and make life miserable for you. He’s a dude with a plan. He’s a supernatural, spiritual being who has a plan whereby he believes he ought to be the rightful ruler of the universe and seeks to get you to buy into it by being just like him.
When Satan says he has a plan, we’re not just talking about him trying to damn a few people to hell. No, he has a plan to take over the universe from God himself.
People say sometimes, ‘Well, doesn’t he know he’s going to end in destruction?’ He knows God SAYS he is, but he doesn’t believe what God says. He believes he’s wiser and smarter and got a more beautiful plan than God does. His plan is more ergonomic; it’s more beautifully synchronized in his mind, and God says, ‘It’s iniquity. It’s just a twisted mess.’ ”
Jordan continues, When you look at that passage in Revelation that says the power, the authority is given to him by the dragon, what that passage does is look at where Satan came from. Who’s the real power behind the throne in the administration of the Antichrist.”
The crucial passage for understanding where this ultimate rebellion—the one Christ destroys upon His return—stems from is Ezekiel 28, where Ezekiel reveals,
Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
[12] Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.
[13] Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
[14] Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
[15] Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
[16] By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
[17] Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
[18] Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; therefore will I bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.
[19] All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.”
Jordan explains, By saying, ‘Take up a lamentation,” what God’s fixing to tell us here is a very sad story. A sad song. When he says, ‘Thou sealest up the sum,’ He’s saying (of Lucifer), ‘You’re the cat’s meow, buddy. You’re the sum total of everything. Nobody can add anything to you. You’ve got it all when it comes to mental capacities; you’re full of wisdom. You’re a genius.’
You look back at verse 3 and it says, ‘Behold thou art wiser than Daniel. There’s no secret that can be hid from thee.’ I mean, this guy, he’s a genius when it comes to mental things.
It says he’s ‘perfect in beauty.’ Physically, he’s the most beautiful, attractive, appealing creature in all of the universe that God ever made.
He’s got this physical beauty and this beauty of his wisdom; his great mentality.
God says, ‘Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God.’ Do you think Eden would be a good environment to be in? Lucifer lived in a perfect environment. He didn’t just live in a perfect world, he lived in the garden of God.
He had the privileged access—you know, when God made the garden of Eden for Adam to live in, Eden is the territory, and the garden is this very special place eastward in Eden for Adam to come and have communion with God.
When we studied about heaven, we discovered that the ‘third heaven’ where God lives, and the country where God manifests the glory of His presence—the environment of heaven is what God replicated on earth for man to live in. And the garden in Eden in Genesis 2 was patterned after the garden in the third heaven that Lucifer’s in. He’s in the original. The garden on the earth is made after the pattern of heavenly things.
And when he’s in the garden of God, he’s not just in a perfect environment, but he’s in this special position of having communion. The garden is where you would go and rest and relax and just kick back, take your shoes off and enjoy yourself. The business is done and the garden is the place where the king would just kind of, you know, it’s his patio—
his family room.
What he was saying was, ‘You weren’t just someone who served God; you had personal access to the most intimate position and fellowship and enjoyment together of God in His Creation.
It’s the kind of place where God would go back and sit and say, ‘Have you looked at that and seen how wonderful it’s working?’ and Lucifer would say back, ‘Yeah, I know!’ He had a privileged position of intimate fellowship with the godhead. That’s the point there.”
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From verse 13 we know that for Lucifer, “the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.”
Jordan explains, “Tabrets are percussion instruments and pipes are wind instruments. They were in Lucifer. It wasn’t just something he went and beat on over there. This guy had it internalized. God had fixed him so that inside of him, internalized in him, was the capacity to be filled with joy; the capacity to take and lead creation in the worship of the Creator. Music is a universal language. It’s purpose was to extol Jehovah.
This guy was created in all of the intricate details—his position, his capacities—
to be the one who would lead all of creation in worship of God.
It says, ‘Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth.’ If you go back to Genesis 3 when God put Adam and Eve out of the garden, it says He set the cherub to guard the way. And in the tabernacle—with the mercy seat over the arc—it has the cherubim on either side. Psalm 80 says that God Himself dwells between the cherubim in Israel. That’s where he met with Israel.
Cherubim in the Bible have a function of guarding the holiness of God; the integrity of God. There are four cherubim today each at the corner around the throne of God and originally there was a fifth cherubim (Lucifer). He covered over the throne of God.
He was in that exalted position so that all of creation could see him and he could lead them in the praise and worship of God Himself. He was there to protect and to promote God’s integrity.
From the very beginning, the issue of God’s integrity was made clear, and that’s really the reason that when Lucifer fell, all that he did in the lie program was aimed at the integrity of God.
The issue has never been the power of God; it’s always been his right to exercise that power. It’s never been God’s ability to control all things; it’s always been his right to do so.
And Lucifer understood all along that the issue was God’s integrity. You notice he’s called ‘the anointed cherub’? That’s interesting. What does the name Christ mean? The anointed one. God Himself commissioned Lucifer to be a Christ.
Every time God would choose a king in Israel they were anointed. The priests and the prophets, too, were anointed. Lucifer himself was anointed into each of those three positions. He was chosen by God and set up by divine appointment. That’s why you’ll find over in Luke
where they talk about ‘the Lord’s Christ.’ You see, there’s another Jesus; there’s another Christ. . .
Imago Dei is Latin for “Image of God” and people throughout time have erroneously concluded that because Genesis 1:27 states, “God created man in his own image . . . ,” we humans are all created in the image of God. The reality is Adam was the only man God ever created and it’s him who’s being referred to in the verse.
Adam was created in the image of God and you and I were born in Adam’s likeness; in his image,” explains Jordan. “Now, was Adam’s image effaced—messed up? You see, rather than us being created in the perfect image and likeness of God, Adam was created in that image and we were born in Adam’s image. Read Genesis 5. You’re born a sinner, man!”
*****
Just like Adam was specially created as a human, Satan was specially created as an angelic creature. As God says of Lucifer in Ezekiel 28:15, “Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
Jordan explains, “That’s God saying He gave him this job and he did it completely, superbly . . . and this guy became the original performance-based acceptance thinker. He did the job God gave him perfectly and thought, ‘I’m accepted before God because I’ve done my
job perfectly.’
I talk to you all the time about performance-based acceptance being the opposite of grace. Grace is being accepted on the basis of a free gift.
Law is being accepted based on your performance.
It says, ‘Till iniquity was found in thee.’ You know what the strength of sin is? It’s the law, and it was that performance-based thinking that got this guy messed up. Now that verse right there is the answer for a lot of questions: Where did sin come from? Why is there sin in the world?
*****
As the next verse (Ezekiel 28:16) goes on to explain, ‘By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.’
Jordan says, “So Lucifer sinned. Now sin and iniquity are two different things in the context. The iniquity was the plan he developed. His sin (I Timothy 3:6) was pride. Didn’t it say over and over in Ezekiel 28 that he was ‘lifted up’? God says, ‘You lifted up your heart.’ What did that? Pride.
Pride was the sin. Pride was the thing that got him, and it made him think he was as God. It was his beauty, looking at himself . . . You look at verse 17 and it says he was ‘lifted up because of thy beauty.’
If you study the passages about where he’s at, on the holy mountain of God, and that he’s ‘the anointed cherub that covereth,’ if you think about that . . . Here’s the throne of God, and here’s a cherubim over here and a cherubim over there, and there’s this sea of glass that the
throne of God rests on. Here’s Lucifer up overhead as the anointed cherub that covers and he’s up there looking down.
He looks down at these stones of fire in this sea of glass that’s like crystal. Well, what happens when you look at glass and you’re all lit up?
Window-shopping. Look at yourself when you’re inside a shopping mall. You suck it in, you stick it out, you try to make it look as good as you can, but that’s all you’re doing.
Instead of focusing here (atop God’s throne), he begins to focus on his reflection down there, and focusing on himself produces self-aggrandizement: ‘I ought to be God.’ He set his heart as the heart of God. He reasoned, ‘That ought to be me on that throne! Look at how
beautiful I am, how wise I am, how exalted I am! Look at the wisdom I’ve got!’
And what he did through being ‘lifted up by pride’ is he developed this ‘beautiful plan.’ God calls it iniquity, which means something that’s crooked, warped, twisted.
The sin, the rebellion, the independence from God’s will—that self-will and self-worship—was introduced into the universe by Lucifer. That’s how he became Satan. It’s the sin of idolatry, and the way he did it is he got stuck on himself and decided he knew how to run creation better than God, and that he ought to be God. Then he developed a plan to accomplish that.
For his clothing, Lucifer was covered in “every precious stone.” The way Ezekiel 28 describes it, “every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold . . .
Now, obviously gold is not a stone, and people will say, “See, your Bible’s got a big mistake there!,” but it isn’t a mistake, as Jordan shows by pointing to Exodus 28: 17-20:
And thou shalt set in it settings of stones, even four rows of stones: the first row shall be a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this shall be the first row.
[18] And the second row shall be an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.
[19] And the third row a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.
[20] And the fourth row a beryl, and an onyx, and a jasper: they shall be set in gold in their inclosings.
*****
Jordan explains, “Gold is the setting used for stones, just like with a woman’s wedding ring, etc. When God gave Moses the pattern for the tabernacle, He gave him the breastplate as the covering for the high priest, and on that breastplate were stones. There were twelve stones,
one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Nine of those stones are found in Ezekiel 28 (describing Lucifer).
Three of them that are on the breastplate of the high priest in Israel were not in the list in Ezekiel 28. Now, there’s a whole evening’s worth of studies about the stones and why there are 12 here and three of them are left out, but if you look at Exodus 28:19 and then Ezekiel 28, you’ll see there are three stones missing in Ezekiel 28. These three were not in the original breastplate—beryl, onyx and jasper—and they’re set in gold. That’s how they were held there. Imagine that breastplate with the settings of gold with all these jewels in them!
*****
In his covering, Lucifer was given a spectacularly dazzling attractiveness that reflected the dazzling display of God Himself.
He had the original ‘coat of many colors,’ ” confirms Jordan. “If you look down at end of verse 14 (in Ezekiel 28), it says, ‘thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.’
Fire is light, and if you take these jewels and hold them up to the sparkling of a fire, it’s going to make them glow and sparkle. Stones of fire represent justice and judgment in the Scripture, but just for the physical appearance, they would be causing the stones to glimmer, to glisten, and each one of them has a different color.
And what he’s doing . . . just like Adam was given this garment of light, but the light Adam had wasn’t just this blazing white light coming off of him—‘Hold it back, I can’t see him!’
In Ezekiel 1, when you see the appearance of the glory of God, it’s described as a rainbow. And you know what a rainbow is? The word is ‘refracted.’ Not reflected, but refracted. It’s bent light so that the colors of the light spectrum are seen.
Literally, the throne of God in the ‘third heaven,’ when you see it, the light that comes around it is like a rainbow. It’s this dazzling array of light. God Himself lives in the ‘coat of many colors,’ as it were, and He gave it to His representatives in the earth—those special people who were loved and represented Him—and Lucifer had that! In other words, Lucifer in his person was bearing God’s light! And those stones represented that.
*****
From Ezekiel 28:14, we know Lucifer ‘wast upon the holy mountain of God,’ and that that’s a reference to the ‘third heaven.’ As Jordan stresses, “That’s not the mountain on the earth. Not Mount Zion in Jerusalem. That’s in the heavenly Jerusalem.
When it says Lucifer ‘walkest up and down in the midst of the stones of fire,’ scripturally when anyone walks up and down in something, it means they have possession of it. Jordan explains, “Lucifer has the possession; the right. He’s living in and possesses the right to carry the light.”
*****
Jordan continues, “Come back to Job 38. There’s a reference to this light back there using a term that kind of explains why, when you read about the death of the man of sin, it repeatedly talks about his arm being broken.
In Job 38, when the Lord begins to answer Job about why he’s suffering, He says, ‘You need to understand some things about creation; why creation was set up, why things were done this way . . . ’
“God asks, ‘Hast thou commanded the morning since thy days; and caused the dayspring to know his place;
[13] That it might take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it?
[14] It is turned as clay to the seal; and they stand as a garment.
[15] And from the wicked their light is withholden, and the high arm shall be broken.’
Notice it’s from the wicked the light is taken away? Well, that’s what happened to Lucifer! He lost the light, and when you don’t have light, what do you have? Darkness.
When you watch the guys with the Olympic torches, where have they got the light? What’d Jesus tell Israel? He said, ‘You’re a light; you don’t put it under a bushel. Put it on a candlestick.’ Paul says, ‘We shine as lights in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation.’ Now, how are we light? We’re the source of God’s Word and the entrance of it brings light.
Lucifer’s original job was to hold up the light, folks, and he held up that high arm, and he held it up high and walked around in the midst of the stones of fire, and he said, ‘Here’s the light!’ His job was to exalt God and be the one who led creation in that exaltation.
*****
When God puts a label on Lucifer’s fall in Ezekiel 28:17, He says, “Thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness: I will cast thee to the ground, I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee.
Jordan explains, “When he uses the word ‘brightness’ there, He’s not talking about, ‘Oh, that’s a bright kid!’ He’s talking about the dazzling display of his physical appearance. He says, ‘I will cast thee to the ground.’ He talks about ‘the multitude of thy merchandise’ and ‘the iniquity of thy traffick.’
Satan’s got something to sell and those are commercial terms. If you run a business, you try to move the merchandise out from Point A to Point B. You sell the stuff. He’s got this big package of a plan. He calls it ‘beautiful wisdom.’ God called it iniquity.
Now that plan is what you read about in Isaiah 14. Those five points. His plan was he ought to be the rightful ruler of the universe. When Paul talks about Satan taking people ‘captive at his will,’ his will is the lie that he ought to be the rightful ruler of the universe. That’s the essence of it.
In Romans 1, if you want to see how he took the creative genius capacity God gave him and corrupted it, you’ll see the pattern he taught man: ‘Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and
their foolish heart was darkened.’
When they decided to let their mind run in empty, vain, worthless ways—human viewpoint—their heart was darkened. They bought into the lie program, professing themselves to be wise.
All of that thinking process Lucifer originated. And that was the iniquity. This crooked, froward way of thinking that his sin of pride led him into. And God says in verse 18 (of Ezekiel 28), ‘I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall devour thee, and I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee.’
Now, that’s at the Second Advent. That’s when Jesus Christ ‘destroys him with the brightness of His coming.’ So until then, there’s a long period in between.
*****
By the way, the fire . . . In Matthew 25:41, Jesus says to some people, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.’ The message is God created a judgment back there so deadly, so awful, so terrifying that it stopped the angelic
rebellion dead in its tracks.
So, today, you have elect angels and fallen angels. You have Satan and his angels and the elect angels, or those angels that made the choice to stay true to the Creator God and will not participate in this judgment.
It was a one-time offer. God stopped this rebellion and we now know He also instituted a plan of reconciliation and restoration and that’s why, instead of destroying Satan back there and bringing it all to the end and to the dust, that doesn’t take place till the Second Advent and the reason is God created man, put him on the earth, and said, ‘Go out and reclaim the earth, and restore the headship of Christ in the earth.’
And that man became ‘the seed of the woman,’ the seed of Abraham, the seed of David. And then He said, ‘By the way, I’ve got a new man called the Church the Body of Christ that’s going to restore my authority in the heavens, and when that’s accomplished, then I’m going to take this bird and just make him nothing. And he won’t be anymore.’
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