Treachery in High Places - Luke 10:18

Treachery in High Places

September 4, 2011

Luke 10:18

Introduction

• Back in 1605, King James 1 oppressed catholics in England
• They had been persecuted by Elizabeth 1, his
• 13 young men banded together and decided extreme violence was the answer
• So they plotted to blow up the houses of Parliament. That way they could kill the king, the Prince of Wales, and those who had voted for persecution of catholics
• They aquired 36 barrels of gunpowder and stored them in a cellar just under the House of Lords
• On Nov 5, Guy Fawkes was in the cellar ready to ignite the gunpowder
• He was caught just in time, was tortured and executed
• This was treachery of the highest order. Today we would call it a terrorist attack
• 9/11 also, was a terrorist attack
• Today we are going to talk about another terrorist attack designed to overthrow the government
• The arch terrorist was Satan himself!
• We need to talk about him because this terrorist is still at large, and waiting to destroy us
• Satan is real!
• We need to know our enemy!

Ezekiel 28

• In this passage, Ezekiel prophesies against two persons
• One is a man, the ruler or prince of the city of Tyre, which was built on a man-made island just off-shore
• This ruler was seriously affected by pride, Tyre thought that it was invincible
• The second is the king of Tyre, who is none other than Satan himself
• He was the one who inspired the ruler of Tyre to be so prideful, even thinking he was a god
• Ezekiel 28:1-10 – summary about the ruler of Tyre
• This is a prophecy about what was yet to come to pass
• It did come to pass, later, under the hands of Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon
• Verse 11-19 – read this
• Verse 11-12 – God here is mourning about what happened with this King of Tyre
• This lamentation is written in the past tense
• God relates something that had happened long ago
• This is a story about treachery in high places
• God describes this person as being the model of perfection, full of wisdom, perfect in beauty
• Verse 13 – this person was present in Eden, the Garden of God
• Who was in Eden?
• God was there, Adam and Eve were there, and Satan was there
• You were created. So this is not God
• Verse 14 – this person was anointed as a guardian cherub
• These cherubim were the highest rank of angel. They were archangels
• All angels were created by God – Col 1:16
• Originally there were three of these archangels – Gabriel, Michael and Lucifer
• It seems that each of these three archangels had a third of the angels under their authority (Rev 12:4, Rev 1:20)
• These three chrubim were at God’s throne as guardian angels
• After the Fall, when Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden of Eden, God placed cherubim there with a flaming sword, to guard the way to the tree of life (Gen 3:24)
• Besides being guardian angels, Gabriel was the archangel God used for delivering important messages (Luke 1:19)
• Michael was the warrior angel who fights on behalf of God’s people (Dan 10:13, Dan 12:1, Rev 12:7)
• Satan allowed pride to enter his heart
• Pride about himself, his beauty, his splendor
• God will not tolerate sin in his presence

Isaiah 14

• So he was expelled from God’s presence and cast down to the earth
• Isa 14:12-15 – this is speaking of this same angel, who became Satan
• Satan’s pride blinded his eyes to reality
• We saw in Ezekiel 28 that Satan was full of wisdom
• Wisdom says you cannot fight against God and win
• Satan wanted to overthrow God’s government
• But Satan was a created being, how could he win agains the one who created him?
• So God says here that he instead of taking over God’s throne, was cast down to the grave or hell
• Jesus said in Luke 10:18 – I saw Satan like lightning fall from heaven
• So Satan now roams the earth, seeking whom he may devour (1 Pet 5:8-9)

Conclusion

• Should that make us afraid? No!
• Satan is a defeated foe
• He was defeated when he staged his coup attempt
• He was defeated when he attempted to turn Jesus away from his mission
• When Jesus died, and was raised to glory with the Father, Jesus conquered Satan again
• So we have a living Christ who has the power to stand against the enemy and win.