Right now, I am using free Wi-Fi at
the Palatine train station, which is a 10-minute walk from my new basement
abode. No internet or TV whatsoever yet at home (my converter box with rabbit
ears couldn’t pull in a thing).
My mom is loaning me her TracFone,
which means I have to carefully consider every minute I spend on it and only
use when absolutely necessary.
Then there’s the matter of not
having a car. I forgot my bicycle pump in my Mom’s garage, so there’s no filling
my ten-speed’s deflated tires. I’ve actually been walking home from Shorewood
services.
Fortunately, I return to Ohio next
week to pick up my Honda and life should be much better then. I will get Comcast
to come out with one of their package bundles upon my re-entry. As far as
getting a cell phone, I’ll probably hold off for as long as possible--I’m not
one for texting and selfies and all. Yep, I’m a landline lubber!
*****
Last night at church, Jordan talked
about how our Bible-believing forefathers used the light they had, no matter
how small it was, to go forward with the truth. He reminded us how fortunate we
are today to have the light be so bright thanks to the tremendous advances in
scriptural understanding brought about by the faithful study of our predecessors.
On the subject of light, it is always worthwhile to remember Lucifer was given a spectacularly dazzling attractiveness that reflected the light display of God Himself. He had the original “coat of many colors.”
As God describes him in Ezekiel 28:14, “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.”
“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,” explains Jordan. “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.”
“Lucifer ‘wast upon the holy
mountain of God,’ and that’s a reference to the ‘third heaven.’ 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. Lucifer has the
possession; the right. He’s living in and possesses the right to carry the
light.
*****
“In Job 38 is 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.'
“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. Satan 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 Ezekiel 28:18, ‘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.”
(new article tomorrow)
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