Sound of Faith

Sharon Hardy Knotts: Greetings, friends and new listeners, and welcome to the Sound of Faith. I'm Sharon Knotts, thanking you for joining us today because we know faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Today's message, Four Ways God Humbles Man, walks us through Lucifer's lightning fall from his lofty position in heaven, and why it was necessary for God to put safeguards in place when he created man in his own image and likeness. Discover Four Ways God Humbles Man.

This morning, I'm going to start a message that's going to be a two-parter because there's really no way that I can preach it all this morning without rushing through it. If you'll turn with me in your Bible, if you want to follow along, I do want to read a couple of verses in First Timothy, Chapter 3. And our message is going to be the four ways that God humbles man. But in order to get to those four ways, we have to lay a foundation of why that would even be necessary.

Because, you know, when you hear that title, you probably think, I don't think I want to hear that message. But you're going to find out why it is necessary, but how God does it in his great wisdom. So, just to set the tone for the message, we're looking in First Timothy 3. We look at verse one that says, "This is a true saying, if a man desires the office of a bishop, he desires a good work." Now, he goes on to give you the qualifications that he should have. We're not interested in those because that's not our message.

We want to drop down to verse six that says, "This is what he should not be. He should not be a novice or someone that's newly planted." That's what the word novice means. Someone newly planted. Why? "Lest being lifted up with pride, he fall into the condemnation of the devil." What we want to focus on is, what is the condemnation of the devil? "Being lifted up in pride." Amen.

Because pride is the sin that caused the devil, A.K.A. Satan, A.K.A. Lucifer to fall so far from such a high place to such a low place. Pride, the word is "tuphao" in the Greek, and it means to to puff up, to inflate something. And here where it says, "Lest he fall into the condemnation of the devil," it's talking about his sentence or his punishment. That's what it means, condemnation here.

Now, it means, "Lest he fall into the same judgment that Satan fell in," or it can mean, "Lest he be lured into sin," which pride opens the door to. So, the point is this: Lucifer's pitfall was pride. Amen.

Now, the question is, this was a glorious being that God created. So how in the world did pride get created? Amen. So, let's turn in the book of Ezekiel in the Old Testament, Ezekiel 28, and looking at verse 11. And we are going to find out this morning, for some of you, this is not new material, but for some of you, it may be. We're going to find out how the first sin was ever created. Because God did not create Lucifer to be a devil.

He didn't create Lucifer to be a liar and a murderer, a slanderer, and the evil person that he became. God didn't create him that way. Amen. So the question is, how did he become all of those things and the arch enemy of God, and therefore by extension, our arch enemy. Amen. Ezekiel 28:11 says, "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, Thus saith the Lord God, You seal up the sum full of wisdom and perfect in beauty.'"

We're going to find out right away that this is not a human king because verse 13 tells us, "You have been in Eden, the garden of God, and every precious stone was your covering. The sardius, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold. Thy workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created."

Do you know that this verse tells us that this glorious being was actually created with musical instruments within his body? That's what we're being told here. Amen. And he says that "your tabrets and your pipes." Now that takes care of your percussion and your reeds. And then we'll see in the book of Isaiah, it talks about his violins, which takes in the strings, your violins and that. So Lucifer had the ability within himself to play instruments.

No wonder the devil uses music to deceive people and to cause people to fall into lust and all kinds of evil. Amen. Because he was not only the worship leader in heaven, worshipping God, but he had the ability not only to sing but to play instruments. I know you're looking at me kind of funny, but you're trying to figure out how that works. I hope you're impressed.

I want you to be impressed at how glorious this creature was that God created. Amen. Verse 14, "You are the anointed cherub that covers, and I have set you so. You were upon the holy mountain of God, you walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire." Again, this proves we're not talking about an earthly king. Amen. Here we go.

"You were perfect in your ways from the day that you were created." You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created. And created is a very important word because it tells us that Lucifer is a created being. He's not God. He will make you think that he is. He has deceived people into making them think that he's God's equal. How could he be God's equal when God created him? Amen.

So he was perfect in his way from the day he was created, "till iniquity was found in thee." Now we know God didn't create him with iniquity in him, did he? Of course not. God did not create Lucifer with sin and iniquity within him. Something happened. And the word "iniquity" not only refers to sin, it refers to a twisting, a warping of truth, a warping of something to get it distorted.

And that's what the word iniquity here means. And once something is distorted and bent, you can't straighten it out. How many know what I'm talking about? You know, if you go out there and pick up a limb from off of the ground that fell off of a tree, and it's got a big bow in it, and you're going to try to straighten it up and make it a straight stick, how many know you can't do that? Once that bow and that crook is in there, you can't straighten it out.

And that's what the word iniquity means. So, "You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created until iniquity was found in you. And by the multitude of thy merchandise, they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned. Therefore, I will cast you as profane out of the mountain of God, and I will destroy thee, oh, covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire."

So we see here right now, we are not talking about an earthly king, a human being. We are talking about one of the cherubim that God created that was before his throne. A cherubim is higher than a normal messenger angel. Amen. And he was one that covered. And so this means he was right there at the throne of God, before the very throne of God he was. Amen.

But sin was found in him. Amen. And so he said, "I'm going to cast you out of the mountain of God." And we know that's true because Jesus said in Luke 10:18, "I beheld Satan fall as lightning from heaven." Amen. Here we go. Verse 17, we're starting now to hone in on what the problem was. "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, because thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffic. Therefore will I 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 of them that behold thee."

"All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee. Thou shall be a terror and never shall thou be any more." Now we know some of this is yet to be fulfilled. So, let's look at this. We see all these superlatives in the description of Lucifer, who we see now is a cherub. "You seal up the sum of beauty, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty." These are all superlatives.

A superlative means you're at the nth degree, you can't go higher. Amen. Something can be good, and then it can be better. But once it's the best, that's it. It's the best. There's no "bester." Amen. Superlative is best. So when it says that, "You seal up the sum," that means you have reached the best. "Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty." This means that he was flawless. God created him absolutely flawless.

As we said, he was not just a man, he was a cherub. He had these instruments within him. He was able to lead the worship. He was in the mount of congregation, that is, before the throne room of God. Amen. And he was covered with all of these gemstones. You know, instead of having skin like we have, or fur like an animal has, he was covered with gemstones. No wonder he's called Lucifer.

The word Lucifer means light bearer, someone who's just full of light. Imagine all the light flashing off all those gemstones as he stood before the throne of God, leading worship, playing instruments out of his own body. And then the light, the glory of God is falling upon these gemstones and emanating outwardly in radiance. We can't even really picture it, how glorious he was. Amen.

Phenomenal. I don't know what are the words to describe him. He was the anointed cherub that covered, and God had set him in this holy mountain. He said, "You walked up and down the stones of fire." This is the pathway that leads to the very throne of God. He walked up and down the stones of fire, and as the flames, whatever, leaped up and they flashed upon his gemstones on his body, it was just glorious beyond what we can imagine.

He was perfect in all of his ways, till iniquity was found in thee, and he said, "You have sinned." This is the very first mention of sin amongst all of God's creation. The first mention of sin. And how did it happen? His heart was lifted up. The sin is pride. The very first sin is pride. Amen. And because of that, pride that was in his heart, he began to act on it.

It says, "By the multitude of thy merchandise." So what was he doing? He was going forth amongst all the other angels that God had. And we know there's, we can't even, they're innumerable, they're incalculable, the number of angels that exist. But he was going amongst them, and he was slandering God. Amen. He was beginning to sow seeds of discord. And that's why there's a scripture in Proverbs that says, there are six things that God hates, and one of them is, "He that sows discord amongst the brethren."

Because this is exactly what Lucifer set out to do. Amen. And "his heart was lifted up because of his beauty, and he was corrupted, his wisdom was corrupted by reason of his beauty and his brightness." Now, here's the thing about it. Lucifer was not under a delusion of how majestically beautiful, flawless, perfect he was. It's not like he had imagined himself to be more than he was. The Bible says it was fact.

The Bible states it was factual, his beauty, his wisdom. Amen. That he was the light bearer. Scripture tells us he was excellent. No one or nothing that God had created surpassed the beauty of Lucifer. He excelled. Amen. And you know that makes sense to me. Of course, God would want the cherub that is going to be closest to his throne, the one that's going to be standing before him. Of course, God is going to create that cherub to be absolutely beautiful.

The one that's going to stand before him to offer up the worship of the angels. Amen. And the worshipping, because we're told in Job that the sons of God come together and worship. And in the Old Testament, the sons of God are not men, they're angels. Amen. And so of course God would have made Lucifer, the light bearer, the one that was going to stand in his face if you will, so beautiful.

But how? How did he become corrupted? How was his wisdom corrupted? Can I give you my understanding of this? Because it's going to set the tone for the message. As he focused on this, that he was the most beautiful of all, undisputed, it was a fact. Amen. That he was the wisest of all, again, undisputed, it was a fact. Amen. Sometimes people have an inflated image of themselves that's not true.

How many know that? Sometimes they think they are more than they are. And we think, you're you're deceiving yourself. But here we understand it was true. He was all of these things. He was beautiful, he was wise, he was perfect. But he was not the creator. He was the created. But as he began to focus on himself, self-focus created a distorted view of his place and his position.

Amen. And he began to feel a sense of entitlement. He began to feel like he should be receiving some of this glory and worship that was coming up to the God of gods, El Elyon, the God who is God all by himself. He said, "There's no one beside me." He said, "Are there any other gods beside me?" He said, "Well, I'll answer my own question, I don't know of any." Amen.

And so Lucifer began to focus on himself, and self-focus will give you a distorted picture. Think about that for a moment. It will give you a distorted picture of yourself. Amen. And that's what happened to him and he deceived his own wisdom to think that he could even excel above his creator. Self-focus will always give you a distorted view. Sometimes a person gets a distorted view of themselves, as I just said a moment ago, thinking a whole lot more of themselves than they ought.

There's a scripture that says that we should not think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. Amen. And take heed if you think you stand, take heed lest you fall because proud feet stumble is what the wise man said in Proverbs. So often we see that it causes people to get lifted up within themselves, then they feel entitled, then they want titles. And when they have titles, they really feel entitled.

"I should be treated in a certain manner because I have this title." How many know what I'm talking about? Amen. And they should be treated, you know, really above everyone else. However, self-focus can also distort a person's view, and we see this happening, especially today, when everybody is trying to look like a goddess. And the magazines put out pictures of these beautiful women, and all of these photographs have all been photoshopped.

When they put a picture of a 50-year-old woman on there and there's not one single wrinkle on her face, you know good and well that was photoshopped. Amen. They not only photoshop the face, we know that there are some of your big names out there, the rock stars and the singers and all that, they photoshop and they get rid of extra hair, get rid of extra there. Amen. Yeah, they do all of this.

Because sometimes the person doing the photoshopping is not really that talented. And when they photoshop, they actually get so that the human body doesn't look right and you think, "What is that?" Amen. They try to make it look like that they don't have big thighs, and they start slicing some of the thighs off. But when they do, they make them a weird shape, so they look like they got a square between their legs.

How many know what I'm talking about? But they put these pictures on these magazines and these young girls aspire to look like them. And it's not possible because those women don't exist like that. Amen. And so they get a distorted view of low self-esteem. And they think that they're nothing, and they think that they're ugly, and they think that they're fat, and they're skinny, but they're not skinny enough.

And so that is a serious problem too. And it can lead to eating disorders. Amen. It can lead to anorexia and things like that or cutting oneself. How many know? That's when you start harming your own body, it's because you don't have any love for yourself, no respect for yourself. You feel unworthy, you feel like you're not even worthy because you're not pretty enough and you're not smart enough and whatever it may be.

And so they begin to harm themselves. This is what happens when you self-focus, will either lead to an inflated distortion of who you are, or the opposite is the low self-esteem. Amen. And the devil works using both of those all the time. Amen. So self-focus always creates a distortion. And that in my opinion, is what happened to Lucifer because I know that God created him perfect and flawless and sinless with no iniquity in him.

So how did he get like that? Because he began to focus on himself, and he could look in that mirror and it practically blinded him. When he looked in there and saw his beauty, and saw the light that was radiating off of the gemstones, apparently he glowed with light because his name means light bearer. And then when he could just through his own body, I don't know if he breathed and it happened or what happened, but he could just play an orchestra.

He was quite taken with himself. And instead of him reflecting that glory onto his creator and saying, "I am so grateful you have made me so beautiful. You have made me so majestic. You have given me such superlative beauty and wisdom, and I worship you." He focused on himself and he got the distorted idea that he could usurp God's position. Amen.

His pride deceived his own wisdom to think that he could excel above his creator. But he actually reached that point. And we can find that out in Isaiah, the 14th chapter. He actually reached that point where he believed that he could dethrone God. He believed it. Listen, he wouldn't have gone on a campaign to go amongst all the angels and say, "You know what? Come join me. I'm going to dethrone God.

I'm going to become God." He wouldn't have done that if he didn't believe he could do it. And we're told in Revelation, the 12th chapter, that he deceived one third of the angels to join him. Now, he had to do something spectacular to convince them to follow him, to make them believe also that he could actually dethrone God. Now, I'm sure that he probably baited them and said, "You know, if you follow me, when I dethrone God and I become God, I am going to give you this position.

You deserve it. God is not giving you what you should have. You follow me and I'll look out for you. I'll give you a better job than you have right now. I'll give you a higher position." Whatever he did, he convinced them. And maybe, maybe he did some spectacular things. Got all his gemstones shining and begin to play those instruments. He wowed them.

They thought this Lucifer, he is absolutely phenomenal. He's glorious, he's majestic, he's beautiful. He's so wise. Amen. And so he got one third of the angels to follow him. And we're in Isaiah, the 14th chapter and we're looking at verse 11. God is speaking through the prophet. "Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols." See, here's where I told you about the string instruments.

"And the noise of thy viols, the worm is spread under thee and the worms cover thee." We're not talking about a man because we see right here in verse 12. "How art thou fallen from heaven, oh Lucifer, son of the morning?" Son of the morning. Wow, what a title. Son of the morning. That means that he he was shining like the sun. Lucifer, the light bearer, shining like the sun.

"How art thou cut down to the ground," which did weaken the nations. "For you have said in thine heart." Sin always begins in the heart. It doesn't begin with the outward manifestation. The act, the lustful act that's carried out. Before it ever gets that far, it starts in the heart. "For you have said in your heart." And now we have the five I wills, the five I wills of Lucifer.

"I will ascend to heaven. I will exalt my throne above the stars of God." And here the stars of God do not mean that those bright twinkly things you see up in the skies, here they mean angels. Just like they do in the book of Revelation. Okay? Here they mean angels. "The stars of God. I will also sit upon the mount of the congregation in the sides of the north." That's the throne room of God himself. And God says, "Yet thou shall be brought down to hell to the sides of the pit."

So, he says, "How, you are fallen, oh Lucifer. You have fallen from the highest point that a created being could be. You have fallen from a point and a place that was right in the throne room of God before him." When it says, "the mount of congregation in the sides of the north," we're talking about the highest heaven. How many understand there are three heavens? We know the first heaven is the atmospheric heaven.

And we had airplanes up there and we send rockets even further. But then there's a second heaven. And the second heaven is where Satan is ruling now. He's not ruling from down here in the pit. He's not there yet. He's going there. We're told in Revelation 20, he's going there. But right now he's not there, he's ruling from the second heaven. And that's another message, but I'll simply say this.

Ephesians 6:12 says, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against the spiritual wickedness in high places," or we should say in the heavenlies. So what does that mean? We're wrestling against powers and dominions and thrones that are there. And we know by going to Daniel, the 12th chapter, we get to look behind the curtain, and we saw that when Daniel's prayer was answered, and God sent Gabriel with the answer, but on the way down, up there in the second heaven, he was accosted by the Prince of Persia, which was an evil angel.

And they had a standoff. And it wasn't until God sent the angel Michael, who is a greater in power, his name meaning he that is like God. He came down and he loosed Gabriel from the Prince of Persia so he could come on down. I told you that so you could see that's the second heavens. But there's a third heaven. That's the paradise of God. That's where Paul was caught up.

But he said, "I wasn't given permission to tell you about it." Boy, I bet you that really bugged him. He said, "I saw things that are not lawful for me to tell you." Why? God was saving that for John, for John to tell us in the Revelation. So we see there are three heavens. Lucifer was up there right before the throne of God. And he fell all the way down. And Jesus said, "I beheld him. It happened so fast." Jesus said it was like lightning, and it was done. Amen.

And why did he fall so far? Because he said in his heart, because he had a self-focus of his own beauty, and it gave him a distorted perspective of himself, and he began to say, "I will." Do you know that "I will" is the strongest declaration that you can make in the English language? "I will." There's no stronger way than you can put something than to say, "I will."

And he said, "I will, I'm going to ascend into heaven. I will exalt my throne." Hey, he had a throne. Now we're learning something else about him. He had a throne. Hmm. So, that tells us that he was above, above other angels. Amen. He had a throne. He said, "I will exalt my throne, my place." Let's put it this way, whether it was an actual throne made out of gold, I don't know, but he had a position.

He had a seat of authority. Amen. He said, "I am going to exalt my position and my authority above the stars of God." And that's not even good enough for me. "I'm not even satisfied to be over all the angels that God's created." No, that's not good enough for me. "I am the most beautiful. I am the most glorious. I am worthy of more than that. I will sit upon the mount of congregation in the sides of the north. I will be like the most high God."

Wow. And he was a created being. And he still uses that same M.O. on people today. He tells people, "If you follow me, I'll give you power." Amen. There are some people that are consciously have made the decision to follow Satan. And he's promised them power, and he's given them power. They have power to do evil things until they come up against the power of the blood of the Lamb.

The weakest Christian, just a baby saved two seconds, that believes in the power of the blood of Jesus Christ, has greater power and authority over the vessels that Satan has empowered. Amen. It's just believing that and acting on it. If he can scare you or put fear on you, then that will negate your faith. And then he can carry out what he wants to do. But oh, I don't care if you're shaking in your shoes.

If you can barely open your mouth, you know, when you're trying to talk and it's like this. I don't care, get it out. Say it, "the blood of Jesus! The blood of Jesus is against you!" Amen. What a remarkable word. Four ways God humbles man. Lucifer, the light bearer, was the most exotic and wisest creature of all God's angelic beings. After his lightning fall from heaven, along with one third of the angels whom he convinced to join him in his rebellion to dethrone God, God created mankind in his own image and likeness.

This far exceeded the glory of cherubim and angels. Wasn't this risky? If Lucifer fell because of his superlative beauty, could not man, made in the image of God, also be tempted by pride? Yes, so God put in place safeguards to keep pride from destroying man like it did Lucifer. This teaching, Four Ways God Humbles Man, is available on a two CD set for a love gift to the radio ministry of $15 or more.

Request SK221. Mail to Sound of Faith, P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland, 21203. Or go to our e-store on soundoffaith.org, where MP3s are available. But to order by mail, send a minimum love gift of $15. Request SK221. Mail to P.O. Box 1744, Baltimore, Maryland 21203. Till next time, this is Sharon Knotts saying, Maranatha.