Satan, The Fall, and the Origin of Evil: Part 1 | Angels & Demons - #2 | Pastor Brandon Lindell

I don't know if you've ever had a question like man I wonder how everything got to be like this I wonder why why things are the way they are I wonder how Satan became Satan I wondering did God create evil how did how did we get evil how did we get to where we're at and that's why I message like today's message is absolutely critical for us as believers because there are going to be times in our life were confronted with those questions and we need to have a biblical understanding of why things are the way they are and the Bible gives us insight and answers there are some things that God leaves questions about or we leave to God but there are many things about the supernatural realm about angels about demons about why things are the way they are that the Bible gives us insight on and that can help us and grow our faith and so today's really cool really important really powerful so I hope you lean in and to frame our thinking to help us kind of be like okay what are we gonna hang our thoughts on we're gonna look at Genesis we're gonna go back to the beginning we're gonna talk about where things came from we're gonna go back to the beginning next Genesis the first book in the Bible and we're gonna look at this person chapter through who put it on the screen now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God made and he said to the woman that being Eve did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden now instantly this creates questions for us okay who is the serpent I think most of us would get that right we'd probably say Satan how did Satan get in the garden why is he a serpent why is there even a tree in the garden why isn't Eve freaked out talking to a snake all right I mean I don't know about you but if a snake started talking to you in your backyard it'd be a little freaky okay and so this creates a lot of questions for us that we're going to attempt to answer today the Word of God and watch God as he opens our hearts to his word give us insight that will help us alright so and when we start and we look at this we're looking at we're in the garden okay this is the Garden of Eden maybe you've heard about that for so to give us context what what was eatin it God God when he created the earth he makes a garden we'll put this on the screen it says now the Lord God planted a garden in Eden in the east and there he put a man here the man he had formed and out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food The Tree of Life was in the midst of the garden and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil was there a river flowed out of Eden to water the garden and there divided and became four rivers so you have one river flowing down flowing out of Eden dividing into four and we have a garden now when we think of the garden we need to think the writers trying to tell us something in ancient culture gardens and mountains are where God's lived all right Gardens and mountains are where the gods lived so when the riders riding that he's not just telling it for our general information but he's telegraphing to us he's saying you know what this is a place where God lived the rider wants us to know Eden was a place where God was and the reason gods in ancient world lived in gardens and mountains where people thought that is because Gardens were nice and God's surely lived where it was nice and there was lots of things that were nice and then mountains they lived on mountains because mountains obviously connected heaven and earth in the ancient thinking so when the writer writes hey Eden you got to think of Eden four rivers flowing down it's elevated it's on a mountain alright and the garden was beautiful it was it was nice and and God lived there this was where heaven met earth in the Garden of Eden and you see things like this um this terminology in the Bible in fact there's a scripture in Ezekiel that talks about Satan and it says this it says I placed you you were in Eden the garden of God I place you you were on the holy mountain of God in the midst of the stones of fire and I'll explain that here in a second but what he's saying is Eden was a garden it was a mountain and that means God was there but not only was God their God in Eden had his divine counsel there now if you're like okay divine counsel what is that that is a great question I would really recommend that you listen to last week's sermon it will help you understand that more fully but the divine counsel a way of simple way or generic way of saying that would be to say angels God has a divine counsel made up of supernatural beings okay and these supernatural beings help God work out unruly earth okay so your might be thinking well why does God God doesn't need counsel and he doesn't need beings and you would be correct in saying that but God has created supernatural beings to work his will through them just like God doesn't need you and God doesn't mean need me but God uses us to carry out his will and we see the divine counsel in places like Psalm Psalm 82 it says this God has taken his place in the divine council in the midst of the gods he holds judgment that word for gods is the word Elohim maybe you've heard that that word before and you're like well I thought that meant God Elohim is used in the Old Testament all throughout the Old Testament to describe not just God but supernatural beings so this is saying God has taken his place in the divine council in the midst of supernatural beings he holds judgment and so God wherever God is his divine council goes so God is in the garden in the divine council the supernatural beings are there with him now instantly this helps us and we'll we'll talk about this a little bit more as we go through it but this helps us kind of understand how Satan got in the garden have you ever wondered how Satan got in the garden he didn't just like hop a wall while the angels weren't look like sneak over to evoke a that doesn't make sense he's in there because God placed them here and we'll pull that Ezekiel passage back up on the screen it says this is speaking about Satan and it says you were in Eden the garden of God I placed you and you were on the holy mountain of God in the midst of the stones of fire and scholars believe the stones of fire references the divine council so we have eaten this place that's heaven connecting to earth okay this is like the spiritual dimension meeting the earthly dimension this is Adam and Eve and spiritual beings God is there it's beautiful it's perfect on Eden and the divine council is there well now as well in addition to God being there and the divine council is there and this is the part you might know already is humanity was there you think of Adam and Eve God created man he puts them in the garden we see that in Genesis it says so God created man in His image in the image of God he created them male and female he created them and God blessed them and said to them be fruitful and multiply fill the earth and subdue it so God has the garden he has his divine counsel there and then he creates man and places them in the garden now there's a few things I want you to notice this will help you understand Eden and the earth and God's creation when God created the earth he said it was good job class some of you were very brave all right let's try it again when God created the earth he said it was yeah he said it was good he said in fact he said it was very good so he creates the earth and he makes man but Eden is different from the rest of the earth Eden's perfect but the rest of the earth needs what it needs subduing or overcoming so what God does is he creates man and he gives them this great job and he says you know what I want you to be multiply and then I want you to make the rest of the earth look like Eden I'm gonna give you a job I'm gonna work through you and I and I want you to make the rest of the look like this beautiful garden I planted and man gets this job with God it also says that God created man in His image he created them in His image and we reflect God's image where were made as reflectors of God we have authority God gave us authority God gave us a job God created us in His image okay so we have God we have this garden this beautiful place connection to heaven and earth we have the divine counsel there and God creates man in His image now this kind of gives us an indicator of why Satan does what he does because he's a supernatural being he's on the divine council and he sees God create there that says in job the sons of God sang as God created his creation then all of a sudden God says you know what I'm gonna create another kind of being I'm gonna create a free will being and in fact you you you almost get this sense that God is building a special relationship and he's saying and they're gonna rule the earth and they're gonna be able to multiply angels can't procreate but these these beings are going to be able to multiply they're going to rule and they're going to be made in my image so why does Satan come to Eve in the garden because Satan sees that and says you know what I don't like this plan I don't want another glass of beer I do not want these beings to rule and I'm going to do something about it I do not like the plan that God has made so he comes to eat in the garden to ruin God's good plan and that brings this character Satan into being now when we think of Satan you know you know you can have all kinds of thoughts of Satan like you know and we we always the classic guy with the pitchfork you know he you know Satan but we need to think of Satan a little bit differently okay now and I know we can get confused about that I I have a man I'm forgetting his age seven year old seven we have so many kids I'm just kidding there's only four but we have a seven-year-old named Everett we'll put his picture on the screen that's Everett any cute look at him he loves cats anyway Everett I was talking to Everett and I was like you know he was like so who is Satan and I was like well but um who's Satan I was like he's kind of like he's in charge he's like the chief of the demons and he looked at me like Satan's a football player and I was like if Satan was a football player he would be a chief all right so let's make that clear but no he's not a football player so just if you're a chief in just a joke all right so it's okay you know what I'm easy all right so uh but you know we can get confused about who is Satan and how does that work now most of us don't think Satan's a football player but we can add images of Satan especially when it comes to the garden and think okay it seems like this is what was happening and we can put Genesis three so God the serpent was more crafty than any other piece of the field the Lord God had made he said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat in fruit of the garden so we got this serpent serpent character and we can think this is a zoology lesson all right you know okay so Eve's talking Satan comes in it's like a copperhead in your backyard and he he possesses this snake and the snake starts talking to Eve and then the snake had legs and so God curses the snake and that's how snakes started crawling on their belly and honestly if you go that literal line of thinking this doesn't make sense a lot of it you run into a lot of textual issues with it so once again I want you to think about this differently because the writer uses a hebrew word that has multiple meanings to tell us about the serpent and the Hebrew word is Nakash we're going to put it on the screen everybody say Nakash Nakash Nakash does mean as a noun it means snake or serpent but it has other meanings and the writer wants us to think of all these meanings when we think of this character because he's not telling us Eve was just talking to a snake that would be freaky and we wonder why Eve isn't freaking out or why this is just treated as normal but Eve is actually talking to a supernatural being who is a member of God's divine council and Eve would have known this he he so he uses this word Nakash to say snake but as an another meaning it also means a deceiver or one who has divine knowledge the word is diviner like somebody who would be giving you some sort of divine knowledge which this serpent is doing he's saying this is what did God say this is how it actually is another meaning is brazen bronze brass or shiny so this is a serpent character which we'll talk about a little bit in more detail a person who has divine knowledge and a person who's shining now when we think of serpent why would he use that word and here's why serpents and ancient culture a particularly Egyptian culture were thought of as throne guardians now throne guardians they guarded the throne okay so when the when the writers using this he's saying this is a throne Guardian which is completely consistent with other things we find about Satan in the Old Testament okay so in Ezekiel 28 Satan has talked about as a cherub last week we talked about the cherubim so we were going through the different categories of supernatural beings that we see in the Bible one of them was the cherubim and cherubim our throne guardians okay you see them in Revelation chapter 4 you see them in Ezekiel and then and so you look at Ezekiel 28 it says this you were an anointed guardian cherub speaking about Satan I place you and you were on the holy mountain of God so when he uses this idea of serpent he's telling us is a throne guardian this is the role that this particular supernatural character had now go a little bit deeper in Isaiah chapter 6 you you probably heard this passage before if maybe if you've been around trips a little bit its Isaiah says in the year King Uzziah died and we'll put it on the screen I saw the Lord sitting on a throne so this is in God's throne room now listen to this high and lifted up and the Train of his robe filled the temple above him stood the Seraphim okay so Seraphim Oh to help you understand Isaiah is using this word but Seraphim and cherubim are the same thing it's just a different word to describe a throne guardian of the Lord it's not that the Lord had cherubim and Seraphim there it's just that it's another word to describe the throne guardian now the reason Isaiah would be using this you guys okay why does Isaiah use a different word Isaiah in his when he's writing this he would be more connected to what would be Egyptian culture at the time an ancient reader would understand Egyptian culture you know think the Israelites came up out of Egypt so they would have an understanding of that Seraphim means serpent so Egyptian guard throne guardians were a serpent type character seraphim means serpent or burning one shiny shiny serpent all right so when you go back to Genesis and you see the word Nakash alright you're seeing we can put in the cosh back up there so people can see that oh the kakashi snake think serpent this is thinking throne Guardian throne guardian shiny throne guardian okay so hopefully that helps you as you understand all of that to say Eve is not thinking like I'm just talking to a snake Eve is talking and the riders telling us Eavis talking to a super natural being in Ezekiel 28 we see that Satan is wise Satan is beautiful pre-fall and I will put that passage in Ezekiel you were the signet affection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty you were in Eden the garden of God every precious stone was your covering and it lists all these beautiful precious stones settings and gratings on the day that you were created they were prepared so Satan is shining all right now shiny doesn't really I do that justice it's to say you know even divine characters in Daniel chapter 10 that same phrase shiny is used at Nakash is used to describe a divine being it's brilliant shiny beautiful when we see Satan in the garden the riders using this to say hey this is who Eve is dealing with she's dealing with a divine council member who is a supernatural wise you know the word for crafty is actually the same word in Proverbs used for wisdom so you know as you as we get it you kind of want to get this picture of you're not thinking correctly if you're just thinking this is just some random snake that was possessed and that Eve was like I don't even know why I'm talking to you but I'm gonna talk to you because you're talking to me and this is weird but okay and you're telling me eat this so I guess I should it's not like that but that's how we can think of it right no we're in Eden we're in this place this place connected with heaven earth the place where divine the God God is and there's the divine council there's supernatural beings there and Eve is there and so a divine council member comes to Eve and tries to deceive her and that helps it make sense why even would even listen to that person and that's where we see the beginning of evil as we note that this is Satan coming to Eve and he's attempting to deceive her to trick her because he doesn't like what God is doing now interestingly enough on the word you know you thought you talked about God Satan being shiny and Isaiah 14 we see that again it says as how you are fallen from heaven o Daystar son of the dawn this term o day star means shining one we get the if you've ever heard the name of Lucifer maybe you've heard of the TV show Lucifer or Lucifer as the name of Satan Lucifer is not a proper name of Satan biblically okay so if you've heard that you're like where does that come from Lucifer is just the Latin word for shining one so Lucifer is not the devil's proper name biblically speaking I'm not recommending that you name your kids or your cat or your dog Lucifer but just so you know Lucifer is not the devil's name culturally and traditionally we think of it that way but Lucifer is just the Latin for shining one to tell us once again this shining divine supernatural character comes to Eve and this is the beginning of where evil comes from and so we see when he comes he references and we'll put Genesis 3 back up what's he do he goes now the serpent was more crafty this divine character comes to Eve he's more crafty more wise than any other beast of the field the Lord God had made and he said to the woman Eve did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden now what he is referencing is a command from the Lord that we see in Genesis chapter 2 it says the Lord God commanded the man saying you may surely eat up every tree in the garden but the tree of knowledge good and evil you shall not eat for in the day you eat of it you shall die so first of all it's just a little clue of how Satan works that he goes did God say you couldn't eat any tree and no actually God said you can eat every tree except for one but he's coming to Eve with this question he's coming to even asking her this question but she's listening to him because it's this divine being and he's trying to deceive her now we could say a lot about this scripture and some of these things will some of the things about questions you might have about st. and wood will address in part two next week and you really want to come back because we're gonna be talking about Satan's rebellion we're gonna be and how that worked we're gonna be happen how will you fell we're going to talk about the judgement of Satan there's a lot to unpack there but what I want you to see in the scripture is humanity has a choice humanity has a choice to obey God or to not obey God free will is what allows evil to exist and the critical critical point is this if we're made in the image of God if we're made in God's image we must have genuine free will if we're made in the image of God we must have genuine free will because God is free God's not coerced in any way he's a free person and we can only image God if we are free have free will if we can represent him in that way why because imaging God's means we mirror God God is a free being and we cannot be like God if we did not have genuine free will we could not image God or represent him if we didn't if we were not like him freewill is essential to imaging God and this brings up a whole bunch of questions like did God create evil the answer is no if God created evil that would mean this God is both good and evil and if God created evil then he must be evil and if God is evil he cannot triumph over evil because he cannot triumph over himself and salvation would be impossible if God isn't if God God is not evil he's only good and he did not make evil now scripturally here's where we get some support for this first John 1:5 says God is light and in him there is no darkness at all James 1:13 God cannot be tempted with evil and he himself tempt no one Psalms 5 for for you are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness no evil dwells in you I love Psalms it's one of my favorite scriptures honestly and it says you are good and you do only good God is good every good and perfect thing James says comes down from the Father of lights God is good and only good God is not evil and you say well then where did evil come from evil what evil was initiated when creative beings disobeyed and rebelled against God that evil is not it's not a created entity evil it doesn't balance out good you know sometimes you hear that in different religions or different things that evil is the balance to good and you think of like the yin yang the dark and the light God created everything and he saw it was very good evil is not the presence of something evil is a negative evil is the absence of perfection it's the absence of goodness it's the absence of righteousness it's the absence of God's goodness and evil only becomes a reality when creation chooses to disobey so God did not create evil he did not author evil but God allows creation to choose whether or not to obey God obedience to God means they walk in righteousness disobedience means immediately introduces the absence of righteousness known as evil and that's the source of evil scripture always responds Crips are always assigns responsibilities to created beings who reject God for all sin so the next question this brings up is why why make created people with the choice of freewill why do I give them choice at all and why not remove every option for sin and evil just remove all that option just like you know you could create a couldn't you create somebody and they just only had options to do good why put the tree there at all and the tree cuz the tree seems like the problem doesn't it you know you're like that tree wouldn't have been there we'd all be fine but you have to recognize that the tree was there for a reason and that's a few things first of all it was a recognition God was in authority now you can you can't you don't somebody's truly not you don't truly recognize somebody's an authority unless you do and you submit to that Authority if there's nothing to submit to you're not really submitting at all to worship and serve God that's another reason the tree was there to recognize that God is good that he wants the best what you know what it's Satan - he wanted Eve to think you know gods holding out on you God God's God doesn't want you to eat that fruit because he doesn't want what's best for you and so Eve the tree is there as a recognition as a worship as a service as a recognition of authority as a recognition that God wants the best that it was a choice to believe and serve and love God now listen to eliminate all choices is to eliminate free will entirely why doesn't God just jump in when Satan's talking to even stop the conversation why doesn't God just jump in and stop every bad thing that happens if God just jumped in and every time there was something bad you were gonna do something bad God jumped in and stopped you and said wait don't do that wait stop don't say that to your kids oh wait why doesn't God just jump in and do them wouldn't it be a better world in general if God just stopped all evil before it happened CS Lewis puts this really well he says we can perhaps conceive of a world in which God corrected the results of this abuse of free will by his creatures at every moment so that a woman a wooden beam became soft as grass when it was used as a weapon and the air refused to obey me if I attempted to set it up in the sound waves that carried Lies or insults but such a world would be one in which wrong actions were impossible and in which therefore freedom of the will would be void what he's saying is that you know what if you don't have the option then you don't have free will if God took away all the options we wouldn't have free will and then therefore we wouldn't be able to you know you wouldn't have evil but you wouldn't have genuine love you wouldn't have genuine relationship you wouldn't have a genuine response and worship to God all of that would be a row badhak response to God and God desires relationship but this helps us understand the context and so I'm gonna take us back to Genesis 3 and now I want you to read it with like a little bit of a different lens okay we're gonna look at it now the serpent this divine being the shining one this one who was close closer than anyone to the throne of God this cherubim the Seraphim this amazingly powerful wise being you know in Ezekiel it says you were the wisest the super wise powerful being comes to Eve and says he said to hit the woman Eve did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden so sometimes we give Eve a hard time don't we were like Eve oh my gosh if I would have been there I would have known you know or if she's talking to this snake and she thinks the snake tricking her like she's so naive hello but we give her a hard time but honestly you know we're duped by a lot less than that than a supernatural being coming to us and tempting us who's very very wise and so the idea is we have an enemy we have an enemy of our soul an enemy that wants to separate us and push us away from God Eve was not any closer to God any closer to knowing what God was like by doing what Satan said she was much farther away he wants us to join the rebellion against God he wants to deceive us and that's why a series like this is so important because if we don't understand that we have an enemy we walk naively into life when the enemy attacks and we don't put our dependence on God for what is actually a supernatural fight there is a real enemy and he's not some tricky garden snake he's a divine or a supernatural being that is has supernatural plans and a supernatural ability and unless we have God's help where we are not able to fight him and the scripture comes to us and that's why honestly even next week I want to encourage you to come back because we're gonna talk about what God has done about this and how this works even deeper and how Satan fell and it helps give you understanding spiritually and to how that works and honestly it gives you insight into the rebellion and the human heart and in so we look at this and we say man God we need your help man God we can't do this on our own if the enemy comes to each person and wants to deceive you you know Corinthians says this the god of this world that's the devil that's Satan has blinded the hearts of unbelievers so they cannot see the image of Christ they cannot see who God is and what God's like maybe spiritual things don't make sense to you maybe when it comes to God working or God's speaking you're like that doesn't even make sense bob says crosses the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing maybe it's because your does not a Christian and you need Jesus there's a spiritual fight happening in your life and it doesn't make sense and it's because you need a Savior and while the enemy there is an enemy we serve a great God don't we and so we look in the scripture God gives us insight which builds a dependence that God we need you and if we look to God as believers he will help us defeat the enemy and as unbelievers if you look to God he'll open up your but the enemy's tried to blind you and give you life through Jesus Christ we have a supernatural enemy but we have a supernatural God amen men let's pray

Channel: James River Church

Views: 11,193

Rating: 4.6972971 out of 5

Keywords: james river church, james river, pastor brandon lindell, brandon lindell, demons, satan, lucifer, sermon on satan, how evil originated, sermon on divine council, sermon on how evil originated, the fall of man, what is sin, adam and eve, garden of eden, book of genesis, angels and demons, who is satan, why does god allow evil?

Id: uOf12jpokH0

Length: 32min 47sec (1967 seconds)

Published: Tue Nov 05 2019