Thank you all for being here. We've had quite a break since the last time we studied this topic, so it may be good if we did a brief summary of what we have covered so far on the subject of angels.

First we looked at the names of the angels we were aware of from Sacred writings. We found Michael and Gabriel readily available. With some digging, we also uncovered a few more names, like Heylel, Azazel and Raphael.

Next we looked at the characteristics of these divine messengers as revealed in Scripture. We found that they are spiritual beings who have free will, and serve the Father and Son due to their own personal and individual decisions - just as the redeemed will do in... a few years :) Those that remained, we discovered, were faithful to the Throne, and they are not omniscient. They don't know everything, and they continue to learn. A lot of that "learning" comes from their observation of us here on earth. As we grow more and more Christlike, ever increasing in grace, the angels understand more and more clearly their own Creator.

Thirdly, we looked at the classes of angels, and what they did. We found Cherubim and Seraphim in the Old Testament, as well as Ophanim, which are translated as "Wheels" in verses like the following: "As for the wheels, it was cried unto them in my hearing, 'O wheel.' And every one had four faces: the first face was the face of a cherub, and the second face was the face of a man, and the third the face of a lion, and the fourth the face of an eagle." (Ezek 10:13,14)

And this clearly differentiates these "living creatures" from the Cherubim with which they appear. By the way, did we cover pluralization in Hebrew? The way English uses the letter "s" that's how the Hebrew uses "im." Cherubim is the plural of Cherub, for example.

In the New Testament, we found Principalities, Powers, Thrones (which seem to be the same as the Ophanim above) and Dominions, and we looked at what some of these classes did. We may get into more of that next week. We won't get into all that again tonight, but please email me at flyingcreature@hotmail.com for the transcripts if you're interested.

Last week we looked at the reason why angels are called "angels." If it wasn't for a very distinct separation between two segments of the angel population, we'd be calling them all "demons." The word "demon" from the Greek is a general term for a spirit, and it's only because some are helpful and some are harmful to human beings that there needed to be another word for the faithful servants of the Most High.

Tonight we're going to look at what caused this distinction. We're going to look at the fall of Lucifer, and what that means for us today.

Here is a good passage to begin with, since we used it for a slightly different reason last time: "And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was their place found any more in heaven. And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." (Rev 12:7-9)

One of the problems in interpreting Revelation, as we saw in last week's FAQ session, is that John's timeline is not linear. He tells us something, and then he goes back and tells us again using different symbols. And when he's done with that... he might just tell us a third time, to make sure we're clear on it. Reading through it then, we can't always tell when something actually occurred, or when it will occur.

In order to find out just when the rebellious angels fell from grace, we have to look for clues in other passages. This gets into a couple controversial areas, of course, for there are many theories as to when the angels fell, and what passages like Isaiah 14 and Genesis 6 mean... but I intend to give a reasonable timeframe based upon what the Bible does reveal.

Here's our first passage, then, as we attempt to pin down the time of the rebellion: "Moreover the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, 'Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, 'hus 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, 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. 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 day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.' (Ezek 28:11-15)

Apparently, the being that is being addressed here was in favor of the Father for a while, and then, because "iniquity" was found in him, it is written that he would be cast to the ground, and burnt up. "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." (Ezek 28:19) "'For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up,' saith the Lord of hosts, 'that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.'" (Mal 4:1)

Now, the burning hasn't happened yet. But the demons have been cast down to the earth already. As Jude said much later on: "And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, He hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day." (Jude 1:6)

The Savior Himself told us more about this: "And He said unto them, 'I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.'" (Luke 10:18) And we'll come back to this verse again at the end of our study.

Now, let's gather what we can from this Ezekiel passage. First, the rebel was the "Cherub that covereth," one of the guardian-type angels we looked at in the first part of our study. The angel was "perfect in beauty," and had a nice singing voice too, referring to his "tabrets/timbrels and pipes."

At some point, however, he became filled with pride, as the parallel verse in Isaiah makes more clear: "For thou hast said in thine heart, 'I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.'" (Isa 14:13-14) And it became needful to expel him from his previous estate, and position.

So when did it happen? Well, we have a verse from the Ezekiel passage that seems to tell us: "Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl..." (Ezek 28:13)

So Lucifer, some believe, didn't fall until after man was created. I tend to disagree with that interpretation, for what I think are a couple of very good reasons. The most important is the matter of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die." (Gen 2:17)

As I understand it, and I think it's an important matter, since it concerns our idea of who the Father is, the Lord did not just give an arbitrary "test" to Adam. As it declares in Revelation 12: "And I heard a loud voice saying in heaven, 'Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.'" (Rev 12:10)

Satan is the "accuser of the brethren," and as the New Testament clearly teaches: "Let no man say when he is tempted, 'I am tempted of God,' for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man." (James 1:13)

In Job, we find that when God "tests" man, it is in response to an accusation from the demons. In Eden, it wasn't any different. Satan's accusation was that Yahweh's law was unjust, that man could not truly obey, and so Adam and Eve were allowed to go through a time of testing. The Father didn't "desire" that man should be given a trial; it's not a part of His nature, as James points out.

So what do we do with the verse that says Lucifer was "in Eden?" Well, if we know a couple things, it will help. First, and this may come as a surprise to some... the name of the garden where Adam and Eve lived was not "Eden." Eden was not the name OF the garden. Here is the verse that talks about the garden... "And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there He put the man whom He had formed." (Gen 2:8)

The garden was planted IN Eden, which was a region of the world, which existed in some form even before the garden was created. In every other verse except the one in question, it is called the garden OF Eden, not "the garden Eden." In Ezekiel, the prophet is using the concept figuratively, as we will shortly see, and this is why he says "Eden, the garden of God."

In Hebrews the question is asked of angels: "Are they not all ministering spirits, sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation?" (Heb 1:14)

And we saw from our first study: "And of the angels He saith, 'Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.'" (Heb 1:7)

We therefore find that Ezekiel must have been speaking in symbol, for Lucifer did not have literal diamonds, emeralds, rubies and so on as his clothing. That demons can take a physical form... we'll look at that next week. But in the same way, he need not have been "perfect" in the literal Eden either. When we look at the verse in Hebrew, it becomes clearer still, for the term "Eden" is used simply for "pleasure" or "favor." For example: "Therefore Sarah laughed within herself, saying, 'After I am waxed old shall I have pleasure, my lord being old also?'" (Gen 18:12) Literally, Sarah was saying, "Shall I have eden (pleasure), my lord being old also?"

So when DID Lucifer and the other rebellious spirits fall? Well, I think Genesis tells us. All things are revealed from the Creation, as Paul says in Romans 1:20. If you want to know of some "hidden thing" in the Bible, look through the first Book, and you just might find it there :)

Let's look at a few verses: "And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness. " (Gen 1:4)
That was day 1.

"And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it was good." (Gen 1:10)
This is day 3.

"And to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and God saw that it was good." (Gen 1:18)
That was day 4.

I could go on for the other three (day 6, when He made man, was VERY good)... but you may already notice something. I skipped day2. Search your Bibles... it's not there. For some reason, on the day the "firmaments" were divided, Yahweh did not consider it a "good" day. The host who gave the studies in Crosswalk before I started to used to say that we need to not only pay attention to what the Bible says, but also to what It doesn't say.

It seems to me that if a third of the Host rebelled on the second day of the physical creation, it would fulfill all that we know from what the Scriptures reveal. Satan would have been in the "Eden," or "delight" of the Father until iniquity was found in him, then, he would have had access to the earthly Eden (which existed from day 1), before he was cast out; _before_ day 6, when the garden was planted IN Eden and the Tree of Knowledge placed there as a response to his new accusations against mankind.

I hope that makes sense to everyone :) And now this brings us to our second matter concerning the rebellion. I said a third of the angels fell away. This also is found in Revelation. "And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born." (Rev 12:3-4)

As we saw in our first study, the dragon's tail "threw" a third of the angels to the earth with him. We talked a little about how some people have misunderstood this to mean that they were forced to fall, but as we looked at the Greek wording there, we came to understand that the dragon in question had more of a lack of caring where the stars fell, than actually forcing them down.

So where does that leave us? Well, we now live in a world covered with demons. When Christ spoke of Satan, He said, "Hereafter I will not talk much with you: for the prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me." (John 14:30)

Twice more in John's Gospel does the author record the Messiah as calling the arch demon the "prince of this world." Here, and also in John 12:31 and John 16:11. The beloved disciple, who was the most interested in showing the divinity of Christ, took special care to contrast Him with the one who was truly ruling this earthly world. He is the "prince of the powers of the air," as Paul calls him in Ephesians 2.

As John also records the Son of Man saying, "Jesus answered, 'My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence.'" (John 18:36)

This is the reason why we, His followers, seek a better Kingdom, a more pure country, than the one in which we presently live. In the Old Testament, we find many examples of demons stirring up trouble: "And the Lord said, 'Who shall persuade Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramothgilead?' And one said on this manner, and another said on that manner. And there came forth a spirit, and stood before the Lord, and said, 'I will persuade him.'" (1 Kings 22:20-21)

"And he shewed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the Lord, and Satan standing at his right hand to resist him." (Zech 3:1)

"And the Lord said unto Satan, 'Whence comest thou?' Then Satan answered the Lord, and said, 'From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.'" (Job 1:7)

Well, some things never change :) In the days Christ walked on the earth, the devils had in no wise ceased their assault on mankind.

"And when He was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit." (Mark 5:2)

Here is the beginning of the story of the Messiah healing a demoniac. After describing how miserable the possession had made the man, we find this verse: "And He asked him, 'What is thy name?' And he answered, saying, 'My name is Legion: for we are many.'" (Mark 5:9)

You might remember, again, from last week's study about angels' names? I made mention that there were some more listed in Scripture, but that they weren't their actual names. Legion is one of them. A Roman legion consisted of 6,826 men during that time period, and so it is that the demons within the man gave that as their name because "we are many."

Another characteristic of the names the angels use, at least in the New Testament, is that it describes what they do. Even in the Apocrypha, the angel Raphael (Healing of El) healed a man named Tobit of blindness. So in the New Testament we find a set of demons named "Legion," (for they were many) a fallen angel named Abaddon: "And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon." (Rev 9:11)

And his name means "destroyer," because he has charge over some nasty and destructive beings. Similarly, John tells us: "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning as it were a lamp, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of waters; And the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became wormwood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter." (Rev 8:10-11)

Because this angel is given the authority to turn the waters of the earth bitter, he is called "Wormwood," which is the Greek "Apsinthos," or absinthe. From the serpent in Genesis to Wormwood and Abaddon in Revelation, the Word is trying to reveal things to us about the spiritual world. Our Father wants us to be aware that these beings do exist, and that we should: "Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving." (Col 4:2)

And speaking of Colossians, that is a very important book for a study of angels. As we were speaking of the demons being on earth before, I asked, "Where does that leave us?" What are we to do, as we seek our Heavenly home?

Well, for one thing, although our Father wants us to be aware, He surely doesn't want us to worry about them. In the story I pointed out in Mark 5, it continues thus: "Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought Him, saying, 'Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them.' And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea." (Mark 5:11-13)

So, the demons were left once again without bodies to plague... but notice the authority that the Son of the Most High had over them. They knew who He was, and they were afraid. "Saying, 'Let us alone; what have we to do with thee, thou Jesus of Nazareth? art thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy One of God.'" (Luke 4:34) "Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble." (James 2:19)

Going to Colossians, we find demons put firmly in their proper place. "And having spoiled principalities and powers, He made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it." (Col 2:15)

Paul there speaks of Christ's death on the cross, that by it He triumphed over all the spiritual forces, and over all the laws and traditions of men, over everything that would keep human beings from the freedom of Salvation, and just as the demons are subject to the Messiah, so are they subject to us when we are in Him :)

This is the warfare: "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." (Eph 6:12)

But we are not to be daunted. Look at the testimony of those to whom Christ gave His grace: "And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, 'Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.' And He said unto them, 'I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven. Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.'" (Luke 10:17-19)

What a wonderful promise :) And as we'll see in our next study, this is certainly the case. We can rest in perfect peace, knowing that no demon, and no physical being either, can truly harm us, for even the hurt they may do us our Father in Heaven will use to His own glory. For this reason, we should not even find the greater joy that we have the victory over the things of this world, our focus should ever be on being good witnesses, despite the opposition, be it human or demonic in nature: "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." (Luke 10:20)

Even as we study this topic, therefore, let us keep the joy and peace given unto us at infinite cost ever at the forefront of our minds. Next week, we'll look more about the conflict between angels and demons, and the times at which that battle has spilled over into the human world. I hope you can all make it out.

David.