Lucifer’s Ancient Rebellion
:
1 : 2 : 3 :
“The premise beneath all of
these spiritualities is that sin has not intruded
upon the relation between the sacred and human nature,
that human nature itself offers access-indeed, we
assume unblemished access-to God, that human nature
itself mediates the divine. Gone are the days when
people understood that an avalanche has fallen
between God and human beings, that human nature
retains its shape as made in the image of God but has
lost its relationship to God and stands in pained
alienation from Him.”
–David F.
Wells, Above All Earthy Powers, p. 164.
The
New “Spirituality” But Ancient Rebellion
Against God
There has risen in Christendom a new
“spirituality,” which is not really new,
but is the ancient rebellion of Lucifer himself, the
ancient rebellion of paganism and gnosticism, a
“spirituality” which believes in
searching out the psyche, in following the self, instead
of crucifying it. This postmodern
“spirituality” has captured the modern
religious world, welding Romanism, the religion of
human nature, with gnosticism and paganism, with
spiritualism, with New Age, with apostate
Protestantism, with the world. All of these powers
rest on the human psyche, on the self.
Lucifer
Propounded That the Creature Be Free to Follow His
Own Will
It was Lucifer himself who propounded
in heaven that every creature should be free to
follow his own will instead of having his will in
submission to the great Creator God and His law of
perfect freedom and love. It was Lucifer who
propounded that God was a tyrant because He required
all His creatures to be in submission to His great
will revealed in His law of perfect freedom and love.
“The law of love being the
foundation of the government of God, the happiness of
all created beings depended upon their perfect accord
with its great principles of righteousness. God
desires from all His creatures of love-homage that
springs from an intelligent appreciation of His
character. He takes no pleasure in forced allegiance
and to all He grants freedom of will, that they may
render Him voluntary service.
“But there was one that chose to
pervert this freedom, Sin originated with him who,
sat next to Christ, had been most honored of God
among the inhabitants of heaven. Before his fall,
Lucifer was first of the covering cherubs, holy and
undefiled. “Thus saith the Lord God; Thou
sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in
beauty. Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God;
every precious stone was thy covering…. 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. Thou wast perfect in thy ways from
the days thou wast created, till iniquity was found
in thee. “ Ezekiel 28: 12-15….
Lucifer
Urges That angels should Obey the Dictates of Their
Own Will
“Leaving his place in the
immediate presence of God, Lucifer went forth to
diffuse the spirit of discontent among the angels.
Working with mysterious secrecy, and for a time
concealing his real purpose under the appearance of
reverence for God, he endeavored to excite
dissatisfaction concerning the laws that governed
heavenly beings, intimating that they imposed an
unnecessary restraint. Since their natures were holy,
he urged that the angels should obey the
dictates of their own free will. He
sought to create sympathy for himself by representing
that God dealt unjustly with him in bestowing supreme
horror upon Christ. He claimed that in aspiring to
greater power and honor he was not aiming at self-exaltation,
but was seeking to secure liberty for all the
inhabitants of heaven, that by this means they might
attain to a higher state of existence.” GC 493-495.
“Not as I will,
but as Thou wilt.” –Jesus praying to His
Father in Gethsemane. Matthew 26: 39.
In Luke, “Not My
will, but Thine, be done.” Luke 22:42.
“If any man will
do His will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether
it be of God, or whether I speak of Myself.”
John 7:17.
Christ Demonstrated That God is No
Tyrant, But a Servant King
“Even as the Son of
man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister,
and to give His life a ransom for many.”
Matthew 20:28.
It was Christ Who demonstrated that
God is no tyrant, but the great Servant of all, by
His life and by His death on Calvary’s cross. It
is Christ Who calls all men to personal self-surrender
to Him.
Though Satan had declared that because
God is a God of infinite justice, it is impossible
for Him to forgive, Jesus, on the cross of Calvary
showed that God was willing to die in order to
provide a Substitute for man, to give to every man
who in self-surrender claims Him by faith, His very
own righteousness. He “gave His life a ransom
for many.” Matthew 20:28.
When the unfallen universe saw Christ
on the cross, when the universe saw that Satan wanted
to kill God, sympathy for Satan was uprooted from
every heart. “The accuser of our brethren is
cast down, which accused them before our God day and
night.” Revelation 12:10.
On
This Issue of Surrender of the Will the Battle With
False “Christianity” Turns
It is upon this issue that the battle
with false “Christianity” turns-the issue
of the human will. With the human heart, be
surrendered to the sovereignty of love, to the
sovereignty of God Himself, to the sovereignty of
Christ, Who is the Lord over all? Or will there be a
“spirituality” which asserts the freedom of
the creature to follow his own will?
The discord that his own course had
caused in heaven. Satan charged upon the law and
government of God. All evil he declared to be the
result of the divine administration. He claimed
that it was his own object to improve upon the
statutes of Jehovah. Therefore, it was necessary
that he should demonstrate the nature of his claims,
and show the working out of his proposed changes in
the divine law. His own work must condemn him. Satan
had claimed from the first that he was not in
rebellion. The whole universe must see the
deceiver unmasked.” GC 498.
The papacy’s effort to
“improve upon the statutes of Jehovah” by
changing the fourth commandment of God’s law is
central to the final conflict. Also central is
Satan’s claim that man is free to follow his own
will instead of having that will in submission to
Christ.
Today’s “Seeker
Religion” is Not The Religion of Jesus Christ,
But is the Religion of Rebellion
The ‘seeker religion” which
has taken the religious world by storm, which has
subverted the churches which have amalgamated with it
in order to build mega churches, such as Willow Creek
and Saddleback, is not the religion of Jesus Christ,
but is the religion of self, the religion of
rebellion against the will of the great God of heaven.
Why
Evil Must Be Permitted to Come to Maturity
“Even when it was decided that he
could no longer remain in heaven, Infinite Wisdom did
not destroy Satan. Since the service of love can
alone be acceptable to God, the allegiance of His
creatures must rest upon the conviction of His
justice and benevolence. The inhabitants of heaven
and of the other worlds, being unprepared to
comprehend the nature and consequences of sin, could
not then have seen the justice and mercy of God in
the destruction of Satan. Had he immediately been
blotted out of existence, they would have served God
from fear rather than from love. The influence of the
deceiver would not have been fully destroyed, nor
would the spirit of rebellion have been utterly
eradicated. Evil must be permitted to come to
maturity. For the good of the entire
universe through ceaseless ages Satan must more fully
develop his principles, that his charges against the
divine government might be seen in their true light
by all created beings, that the justice and mercy of
God and the immutability of His law might forever be
placed beyond all question.
A Lesson Through All coming Ages
“Satan’s rebellion was to be
a lesson to the universe through all coming ages, a
perpetual testimony to the nature and terrible
results of sin. The working out of Satan’s rule,
its effects upon both men and angels, would show what
must be the fruit of setting aside the divine
authority. It would testify that with the existence
of God’s government and His law is bound up the
well-being of all the creatures He has made. Thus, the
history of this terrible experiment of rebellion was
to be perpetual safeguard to all holy intelligences,
to prevent them from being deceived as to the nature
of transgression, to save them from committing sin
and suffering its punishments.” GC 498, 499.
All the unseen universe is watching
this rebellion against God as it now plays itself out
in the final developments of the drama of the ages on
earth just before the Second Coming of Jesus.
“To the very close of the
controversy in heaven the great usurper continued to
justify himself. When it was announced that all of
his sympathizers he must be expelled from the abodes
of bliss, then the rebel leader boldly avowed his
contempt for the Creator’s law. He reiterated
his claim that angels needed no control, but
should be left to follow their own will, which
would ever guide them right. He denounced the
divine statutes as a restriction of their liberty and
declared that it was his purpose to secure the
abolition of law; that, freed from this restraint,
the hosts of heaven might enter upon a more exalted,
more glorious state of existence.” GC 499.
This
is the very agenda that Satan is pursuing in the
postmodern world-the idea that every man should be
free to follow his own will.
continue
