The Cosmic Crash; The Eternal Burn - Part B

This brings up a question. Where did sin begin? If you are in the heart of man but in the future of those who reject salvation is prepared for the devil and his angels. Our special new resource is our thanks for your gift of $50 or more to support the broadcast ministry of Connect with Skip Heitzig. So get your copy of the eternity package on CD or as a digital download today when you give a gift of $50 or more.

Give online securely at connectwithskip.com slash offer or call 800-922-1888. Let's turn now to Isaiah 14 as we join Skip today. men in Him to present the full world to you of God, the Holy, Spirit living in you and you have at your disposal this batch itd for your protection and God's purposes and will. Two-thirds of the holy angels guarding his people and the bible says you are guarded by them. So Satan has fallen from heaven his domain is the earth, but Interestingly, he still seems to have some sort of access to heaven, even to this day.

In Job chapter 1, we are told that there came a day when the sons of God, that's an Old Testament rendering for angels, the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord and Satan was among them. And God said to Satan, from where do you come? And he said, from going to and fro on the earth. So his domain is the earth, excuse me, he's kicked out of heaven, but he has some sort of access to heaven as there's this accountability of being presented before the Lord. So what does he do on the earth?

What does he do? He runs it. He's called the God of this age or the God of this world. And when I say he runs the world, I don't mean that he runs the world in the sense that God runs the world. Well, of course he is sovereign, God is sovereign over all, and the earth is the Lord's. However, he runs the world system.

The Bible talks about the world, and I'm putting quotes around it, meaning the evil system that includes all the unregenerate people. He works through them to enact his will on the earth. He has in effect the entire world in his lap.

Did you know that? First John chapter 5, it says, we are of God, little children, and the whole world lies under the sway or in the lap of the wicked one. What does he do exactly? Well, he has four principal targets, and I'm only going to mention them because of time. He has four principal targets, and you're not number one or two.

Don't flatter yourself. His principal target has always been and still is the Lord Jesus Christ. Number two, holy angels. There's always the battle in the heavenly realms. We get insights into it in books like Daniel, et cetera, Zechariah. The holy angels that do war, Revelation chapter 12, against Satan and his minions. So Jesus Christ, holy angels, number three, the nation of Israel, God's covenant land that he will enact his plan through throughout history.

And number four, believers. You and I are a part of that realm. And what does he do to us?

Well, we could do several studies on that, couldn't we? But one of the things he does besides tempt you, besides use the world in your flesh, is he accuses you before God. He's called the accuser of the brethren, Revelation chapter 12, who accuses them before God day and night. You're saying Satan accuses me before God? What does he tell him?

Just the truth. He's got the dirt on you. He knows what you think, what you do. He knows you.

He studied you. And the thing is, all the accusations he brings I think are accurate. What he fails to understand, however, is the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, which cleanses a man or woman from all sin. So all those accusations may be right, but he fails to see the judicial sentence that has been passed in your behalf. But he accuses you before God day and night.

And I dare say, you've heard some of those accusations in your own little head. You call yourself a Christian. What do you do? You shouldn't be a church. What are you doing here? Answer, I'm here with all the other sinners. We all need God. But he tries to accuse you and make you feel so bad and so guilty and so unworthy. And of course, the answer is, I am guilty. I am unworthy. Thank you, Lord, for saving me. Thank you for the blood of Jesus Christ.

Next, move on. So his dwelling is in heaven, his domain is the earth. Now I did mention this, and I'm going to have you turn, if you're daring enough, to Ezekiel chapter 28, because the corollary to what we just read in Isaiah 14 is in Ezekiel 28. And as you're turning there, let me say to you that Ezekiel does exactly the same thing Isaiah does. Ezekiel begins with an earthly ruler of his day, in this case, the prince of Tyre. Tyre is on the sea coast of Lebanon, ancient Phoenicia of that time. And he addresses this earthly ruler, and it's a straightforward polemic, a verbal attack against the prince of Tyre. And we know who that was. It was a guy named Ito Baal II, who was puffed up with pride, and judgment is pronounced against him.

But then, again, there's a shift in the text. And in Ezekiel chapter 28 verse 11, it says, Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyre. Now I want to talk about somebody even more powerful than the earthly ruler of the Phoenician Empire, the king of Tyre, and say to him, Thus says the Lord God, You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty. Now who is he addressing? Well, it doesn't sort of sound like it's the prince of Tyre.

It doesn't sound like it's Ito Baal II, with this language. Look at the next verse. You were in Eden, the garden of God.

Okay, so who's he talking to? Who was in Eden? I mean, the population was pretty limited, right? It was Adam and Eve. And a shining one, the serpent, Lucifer, Satan.

There was only three. You were in Eden, the garden of God. Every precious stone was your covering, the Sardius, Topaz, the diamond, the burl, the ionics, jasper, sapphire, turquoise, and emerald with gold, the ancient way of describing color. The workmanship of your timbrels and pipes, those are musical instruments, was prepared for you on the day you were created. You were the anointed cherub, that's an angelic being, cherubim, a cherub who covers.

I established you. You were on the holy mountain of God. You walked back and forth in the midst of the fiery stones.

You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity was found in you. He's speaking to an angelic being, a cherub. You were the anointed cherub who covers.

He was covering or standing guard, presumably on God's throne. But then something happened. Verse 15, until iniquity was found in you, iniquity was found.

That's the fall. The very next verse, verse 16, says, and you sinned. And then verse 17 tells us how.

Your heart was lifted up. Instead of covering the throne of God, now he's coveting the throne of God. This being was numero uno, minus the uno. And it was that minus the uno that bothered him greatly enough to think he could actually stage a coup against God, as we saw in Isaiah.

I will be like the most high. Here's something interesting. Did you know in the Bible there are only three angels given names?

Only three. Gabriel, he's associated with the nation of Israel and messianic prophecy. He shows up in the New and Old Testament.

Michael, he's a warrior angel, and Lucifer, those are the only three given names. But the one in charge of them all was this one, the anointed cherub who covers perfect in beauty. You're at the peak.

You're at the very top. So his dwelling was in heaven. His domain is on the earth.

Now let's follow his biography into the future, where he's going to end up. Back to Isaiah 14, in verse 15, says, yet you shall be brought down to, says what, Sheol. That's a Hebrew word translated in the New Testament, Hades, or hell. It's the abode of the dead.

It's the grave, often translated hell. You'll be brought down to hell. Here's a shocker. This shocks most people. Did you know that Satan is not in hell? Well, wait a minute, all those cartoons said he is, all those stories people told me said he is, he's not in hell. Second shocker, he has never been in hell.

That shocks most people. Now that's not to say he won't be, because he will be in hell. That's his destiny. That's his destination. He will be in hell. And when he gets there, he's not going to be like all the cartoons and all the stories portray him as the chief tormentor of hell. No, no, he's the chief target in hell. He's the chief victim, not the victimizer. He's the chief victim. Jesus said that hell was made for the devil and his angels.

So what's going to happen to him? Revelation chapter 20, I'll read it to you, not the whole chapter, a couple verses. Then I saw an angel coming down, don't know which angel, but what a great job. I saw an angel coming down from heaven, having the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand, and he laid hold of the dragon, that serpent of old, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him. That's when Satan is bound. It goes on to say, the devil who deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone where the beast and the false prophet are, and they will be tormented day and night forever and ever. Yeah, amen to that handclap.

I'm looking forward to that day. I mean, he's bound, he's incarcerated, he's there forever and ever tormented day and night forever and ever. My mind goes to that great theological work, The Wizard of Oz. And the line which says, ding dong, the witch is dead. Right? It was a happy day when that happened. We don't know which angel this was, maybe Michael, that warrior angel, but what a great job to be the dude to handcuff the devil and incarcerate him.

Love it. Now back to our passage in Isaiah 14, did you notice the 16th verse? It says, those who see you will gaze at you and consider you, saying, is this the one, translated here, the man who made the earth tremble, who shook kingdoms, who made the world as a wilderness and destroyed its cities, who did not open the house of the prisoners? The reader here gets the impression that there will be a day when we are allowed to have some kind of viewing of the devil, some access to Satan, and when we do, we'll be amazed at how limited he really is, even how beautiful he really is. Remember what it said in Ezekiel 28, you are perfect in beauty. We have a misconception that because Satan is evil, he must therefore be ugly. But if that were true, we wouldn't be tempted. If evil were ugly, we would never be tempted. We are tempted because evil looks so alluring and so beautiful, that's the draw, man, right? We're going to look at him and go, that's the dude?

That's the guy who caused all of the heartache, him? I mentioned the Wizard of Oz, you remember the scene in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy and Toto and the gang show up at the Palace of the Great Oz, and that big moving head on the wall speaks, I am the Great Oz, and a big fireball comes out, and they cower back, and just then Toto, the dog, goes over and pulls back the curtain, and there's this little old man hunched back with a microphone, and he notices them and says, pay no attention to that man behind the curtain. See, what we discover is the great and powerful Oz is just a dude from Omaha.

I think it's going to be like that if indeed there is a viewing and we see this Lucifer, this Satan, this God of this world, as he is called, is just a fallen angel who has been very, very powerful in his work. His dwelling was in heaven, his domain is on the earth, his destiny will be in hell. Now, let's consider as we close why. What was the problem?

What was the essence? Since this is a crash and burn series and we don't want to repeat anybody's mistakes if they're the wrong choices, let's look at why. Verse 13, for or because, how are you fallen from heaven, O Lucifer? You've been cast down to the earth. For or because you have said in your heart, now we're hearing the innermost thoughts of Lucifer is what made him Satan. You said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit on the mount of the congregation on the farthest sides of the north, I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most high.

And you will be brought down to Sheol, to the lowest depths of the pit. This brings up a question, where did sin begin? If you say, oh, it began in Genesis chapter 3, I would say that's a wrong answer. That's the fall of man, that's where Adam's sin began. Those are the repercussions we all feel, but that's not where sin began. Sin began in the heart of Lucifer. It began in his thought processes.

When he said these, I was going to say famous, but infamous, I wills. I will, I will, my will, my will, my will, above God's will. Sin began when a creature set itself against the creator. And the essence of that sin, the root of it all is pride, pride. No wonder the Bible says God resists the proud, but he gives grace to the humble.

Pride is the oldest sin in the universe, and it shows no signs of weakening with age. Still a problem, like that cowboy from Texas who was visiting Niagara Falls, and his host, his buddy in New York knew that, you know, everything's bigger and better in Texas, but they don't have anything like this. So he said, hey, cowboy, do you have a faucet that big in Texas? Cowboy said, no, but we got plumbers who can fix it.

Yeah, whatever. Pride has always been a problem. And because of the pride of Lucifer, he goes from the shining one, the angel of light, to the prince of darkness because of pride. His desire was to be on the throne, his destiny is to be in the pit.

His ambition is to go up to the heights, his destination will be in the depths. Now what a difference, what a contrast this is to our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who said, I'm going to go down, I'm going to humble myself. Philippians says, who being in the same likeness, the form of God, being God himself, he emptied himself, he poured himself out, he took upon himself the form of a servant and came like a man. And then it says, wherefore God has highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name, that in the name of Jesus Christ every knee should bow and every tongue should confess.

See the difference? Satan says, I'm going up, God says, no, you're going down. Jesus said, Father, I will go down.

And the Father said, therefore, I will exalt you. So the way down is up. The way up is down. Get down, lower yourself, humble yourself, the Bible says, underneath the mighty hand of God, and he will exalt you in due time. Go low. Don't do this.

Do you know who I am? Go low. Listen, if God hates pride, and if pride is a barrier to God's blessing, then what's the antidote? Be humble. Be humble. Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God. I want to close by giving you four exercises you can do every day, if you wish, that will cultivate humility in you and be the antidote to pride we all face. We all face it. So are there things I can do that will help cultivate humility?

Let me suggest four. Number one, prayer, prayer. When you pray, you're depending on God. You're voicing your dependence on God. You know why people don't pray, because they don't think they need to. I got this, God. I don't need to pray about this. This is so small.

This is so insane. I can handle this. Why is it that we have the attitude that says, there's nothing left to do except pray? Why didn't you start the day with that? Pray about everything. People don't pray because they're proud. Prayer voices your dependence on God. A second exercise, praise, worship. When we worship, our focus is not on us.

It's on God. It's a selfless exercise. Even when you sing a song, you shouldn't be thinking, I don't like this song.

This song's too loud. It's not about you. You're using the song to talk to Him. You're giving Him your praise.

You're focusing on Him. Prayer, praise, or worship. Here's a third exercise. It'll work. Encouragement. Find somebody and encourage them.

Give someone else words of encouragement and lift them up and push them along. Again, the focus now is not on you, but it's on others. So prayer, worship, encouragement, and a fourth are acts of service. Perform a task that is not assigned to you. It's not my job. It's not in my job description. It's below my pay grade.

Well, do it anyway and watch what happens. As you not focus on you, but you focus on serving somebody else. Watch what that does to you and does for you as well as for others. Prayer, worship, encouragement, acts of service.

D.L. Moody, I think, summed it up quite nicely. Be humble or you'll stumble. Doesn't that wrap it all up beautifully? It just sort of ties a bow on the whole thing. It just sort of takes this whole message and boils it down to one sentence. You say, Skip, you could have just began and ended with that.

Be humble or you'll stumble. That concludes Skip Heitzig's message from the series Crash and Burn. Find the full message as well as books, booklets, and full teaching series at connectwithskip.com. Now here's Skip to share how you can connect you and many others with the truth of God's word with a gift to keep these messages going out around the world through Connect with Skip Heitzig. If you're going to hold firmly to biblical truth, you've got to study the Bible.

That's absolutely vital. That's why we share these Bible teachings, to strengthen you in biblical truth so you can stand on that truth. When you come alongside this ministry through your support, you do the same for countless listeners around the world. Now this year, I'm praying that God will open doors for these teachings to reach even more people in some of the major U.S. cities across our country. You can help make that vision possible with a generous gift. So please consider giving today.

Here's how you can do that. Visit connectwithskip.com slash donate to give a gift. That's connectwithskip.com slash donate, or call 800-922-1888, 800-922-1888.

Thank you for your generosity. Did you know that you can find full message series and libraries of content from Skip Heitzig on YouTube? Simply visit the Connect with Skip Heitzig channel on YouTube to watch or re-watch your favorite teachings or find new ones to dive into more solid biblical teaching to help deepen your walk. And be sure to subscribe to the channel so you never miss any new content. That's Connect with Skip Heitzig on YouTube. Tune in again next week for more verse-by-verse teaching from God's Word. Connect with Skip Heitzig is a presentation of Connection Communications, connecting you to God's never-changing truth in ever-changing times.