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As you know if you've been with us in our Sunday night series on origins, I've been trying to combine two things in discussing origins. One of course is the text of Scripture and that takes us to the book of Genesis. And the other is to bring in some areas of Science or some areas of logic and reason as well as other portions of the Scripture to enrich our understanding of the matter of origins. Open your Bible now if you will to Genesis, Chapter 3. The 3rd Chapter in the Bible. It's in this Chapter that we find out about the origin of sin. And its impact on the universe. We all remember that at the end of the 2nd Chapter of Genesis everything was very good. God had created everything in six days. And he saw according to Chapter 1, Verse 31, "That is was very good." And God rested from his creation. Then we come to Chapter 3. Because of what happened in Chapter 3, nobody has rested including God. Because Chapter 3 is where sin enters the world. And it gives to us a very simple and straightforward account of how that happened. Chapter 3, Verse 1, the Serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman indeed "has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden. And the woman said to the serpent from the fruit of the trees of the garden, we may eat but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat from it or touch it les you die.'"
And the serpent said to the woman, "you surely shall not die. For God knows that in the day you eat from it, your eyes will be open and you will be like God. Knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate, she gave also to her husband with her he ate. In the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings." As the chapter goes on, they encounter God who pronounces a curse on them. A curse the effects of which we all feel. This then is the fall of man. And that's really all it says. In the book of Romans, Chapter 5, it says, "in Adam, all died. Because in Adam all sinned." It also tell us that the sin of Adam was passed on through the corruption of his seed that every human being because we've all come out of the loins of Adam. This was a monumental thing. It took the perfect creation and catapulted it into corruption.
Now I need to just talk a little bit because there are so many questions that arise on the subject of evil and why God allowed it. And I want to tell you this; all I know is what the Bible says. And really I'm very content to know that and not need to know anything else. Scripture never assumes that God owes man even his children an explanation for what he does or why he does it. You need to understand that at the very beginning. As Deuteronomy 29:29 says, "A secret things belong to the Lord." God is not bound to explain to us anything about what he does or why he does it. Now we might wish we knew more than just the simple account that I read to you. We might wish there was more than the 3rd Chapter of Genesis to tell us about how evil entered the world, but really knowing more was not God's will. And God does not feel pressed to justify himself or to explain himself to his fallen creatures. Even the noblest of them who identify him as their God. What we know is what God has chosen to tell us. And what he's chosen to tell us is in the Bible. That's all we know and that's all he wants us to know with that we should be satisfied. Now we have questions. And our questions are probably no different than Adams. Adam was the first person who raised what is known as the issue of Theodicy or the origin of evil. Adam raised the question. In Chapter 3, in Verse 12, he said "the woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree and I ate." He said, "God, it's your fault." He had the question too. Where did this come from? Look at our world. It's all different, we're being cursed. We feel shame; something dramatic has changed. And it happened because Eve succumbed to the tempter, "God, why did you make Eve?" That's the question; I mean why did you do that? And he blamed God. And God never answered that. God gave him no reason for making Eve other than the original reason Adam needed a helper. But as to why he made Eve, the way she was and why he put her in a position and made her capable of doing what she did and made Adam capable of doing what he did that plummeted the whole human race into sin, God never answered the queries of Adam.
God never tells him why he allowed the fall. There isn't any explanation given to him. God doesn't explain his motives, he doesn't explain his purposes, he doesn't explain his plans. What he does do is endite Adam. And God's response to Adam's question is to curse him. Curse his wife, curse the universe and then leave. That's what God did. And then throw Adam and Eve out of the garden. Never does God feel compelled to explain anything to Adam other than that which he has chosen to reveal. It's very similar to another situation in the book of Genesis in Chapter 22. Abraham goes to God of course and God tells him, "I want you to sacrifice your son Isaac." Now a Father might say, "What? God why in the world would you ask me to do that? "Human sacrifice is not suitable to you. And killing my son would be murder. This is a very pagan thing to do." And even though you say, well but God never let it happen because God brought a ram, you remember an animal to take the place of Isaac and he was never sacrificed but as John framed the Theologian rights, why would God trifle so with a father's love? Why would he even put that thought in the mind of Abraham to bring him such profound grief because God was not only asking him to slay his son, but to kill the promise because this promise that God had made called the Abrahamic covenant depended upon Isaac. God never told him why. God never explained himself; God never gave him any justification or any motivation for why he did what he did. And it's important to understand this. Why God's unwillingness to defend himself and God's unwillingness to justify himself in human minds, he is clearly claiming to be sovereign. He is claiming to have sovereign right to do whatever he wants to do. And listen to this, and to be trusted for it and to be honored for it.
Whatever suspicions may arise in fallen minds, God does not defend himself, God does not justify himself, he simply affirms his sovereign right to be trusted and to be honored. God will never place himself under human judgment. And he has no obligation to explain anything to us at all. So back up and approach the problem this way. Aren't you glad that you know at least as much as you know? Because God was under no obligation to even tell you that. Now you remember last week turn back to the book of Job for a minute. I want to talk about this issue a little before we talk about Satan. Do you remember in the book of Job that we talked about so much last week. Everything was happening to Job, he lost everything, he lost all his animals and then he lost his family and then he lost his health. And he was reduced to nothing except his wife and himself in a state of dire physical condition. And the whole reason Job was being blasted with all of this at the hands of Satan was because God and Satan were in a contest.
And God was making a point to Satan. God was proving to Satan that Satan couldn't break someone's faith in God no matter what he did to that person. Satan believed that none of God's followers, God's children would be faithful unless God prospered them and so God makes the point that their faithfulness to me is not built on prosperity, it's built on the divine gift of faith which is eternal. And so God let Satan bombard Job to prove that saving faith can't be broken. But Job doesn't know that. He doesn't know why it's happening. Then his friends gather around him and they don't know about the contest between God and Satan. They don't know anything about that. So they with their sort of simple theology, assumed that Job's getting bombed because he's sinning.
And Job's running an inventory of his life while he's listening to these poor counselors and they're giving him all this stuff about you must be sinning, you must be sinning. And Job's checking everything around and saying, "I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it, I'm not doing it." And he keeps getting the wrong answer to everything and he continues through all of this suffering. Well finally turn over to Job Chapter 23. Job reaches a point where he just wants an answer about why this is happening. So he decides to ask God. Chapter 23, "Then Job replied. Even today my complaint is rebellion, his hand is heavy despite my groaning. Oh, that I knew where I might find him, that I might come to his seat. I would present my case before him and fill my mouth with arguments; I would learn the words which he would answer. In otherwords, I'm at the point now where I just need to hear from God where is he? I have some questions to ask. I really need some answers. And if I could just know or as Verse 5 says, "perceive what he would say to me. Would he contend with me by the greatness of his power? Surely he would pay attention to me." There the upright would reason with him and I would be delivered forever from my judge." In otherwords, I think I have a case before God. I think I have a case that I'm an innocent man. That I'm a righteous man and if I could just find God to check in and have a hearing with God, I think I could present a reasonable case.
And in fact he could. He wasn't a righteous man. And so he really wants to hear from God. Some other discourses take place. And I would draw you over to Chapter 38. Others who talk to Job and Job talks back to them. But finally in Chapter 38, God does answer. And this is remarkable really. Verse 1 of Chapter 38, "The Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said, 'oh finally, finally I'm going to hear from God.' 'Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?'" He, all God says is you've all got it wrong.
Now gird up your loins like a man. Quit whining. And I will ask you and you instruct me. God turns tables and he says, "Okay, Job, you have questions of me, I have questions of you." First question, "Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?" "What, what is that?" "Tell me if you have an understanding." Who said it's measurements since you know? Who stretched the line on it? What were its basis ___ or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars or angels sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. "Hey Job, where were you when I made the world?"
Answer, "You were nowhere. What makes you think you deserve an answer from me?" This is a righteous man folks. This is a righteous man. "Where were you when I closed the sea with doors?" In otherwords I bounded the sea by land. "Where were you when I made a cloud that's garmented in thick darkness with swaddling band." And he's talking about the evaporation, the hydrological cycle that takes the water over the land. "Where were you when I placed the boundaries and sent the bolt in the doors." And Verse 12, "if you ever in your life commanded the morning and caused the dawn to know its place?" This is amazing.
Who do you think you are Job? Are you able to command the morning? Or maybe in Verse 16, he even talks about the earth. Like turning, like Verse 14, "turning like clay in a seal." And Verse 16, "have you entered into the springs of the sea? Have you walked in the recesses of the deep? Have the gates of death been revealed to you? Have you seen the gates of deep darkness?" "Where is the way" Verse 19 "to the dwelling of light? Where does light come from? Where odes darkness come from, etc., etc., etc., etc.," Then in Verse 31, he says, "Can you bind the chains of the pleaties or loose the chords of Orion?" In otherwords, do you know how to hold the constellations in their places? Can you lead forth the constellation in its season and guide the bear with her satellites; do you know the ordinance of the heaven or fix their rule over the earth? Can you lift up your voice to the clouds and say something so that an abundance of rain may cover you? Can you call forth the rain? Can you call forth the lightning? And this just goes on and on and on. In Chapter 39, "do you know the time the mountain goats give birth? Do you observe the cabbing of the deer?" In otherwords do you know who you're talking too? He never tells Job anything about his problems. He never tells him any reason why they happen. He gives them no answer; he gives him no justification for what has happened. And again this is an affirmation that God is absolutely sovereign, that we do not need to know all the reasons why he does what he does, but we do need to trust him and honor him.
Chapter 40, Job's getting the message and the Lord said to Job, "Will the fault finder contend with the almighty?" Do you want to keep arguing Job? And Job answered the Lord and said, "Behold I am insignificant, what can I reply to thee? I lay my hand on my mouth. Once I have spoken and I will not answer even twice, I will add no more. I've said all I'm gonna say, I'm done." "Good" God says. That's what I want out of you. Just shut up and keep suffering. Verse 6, that's what he says. "He answers Job out of the storm and says, gird up your loins like a man. And don't you contend with me." You just obey me. You just honor me. Because you're in no position to get into these things. And he talks to him about his creation of the hemeth, the great beast in Chapter 40, Verse 15, "an aneliviathin, the great sea dragon." In Chapter 41 and he goes through these descriptions of these great creatures that God has created. Finally in Chapter 42, Job answers and says, "I know you can do all things, no purpose of yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge? Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand. Thanks to wonderful me for which I didn't know. Hear now and I will speak, I will ask you and do thou instruct me. I have heard of thee by the hearing ear but now my eye sees thee, therefore I retract and I repent in dust and ashes." Job says, "I'm sorry I ever asked. You just recited to me that you are the sovereign God. That you created everything. That you control everything and it's not for me to know all the reasons why and all I need to do is to keep my mouth shut. But the experience have been monumental because I now know more about you than I have ever known and I repent" is the real word there. "I repent, I turn around and I throw dust and ashes on myself as evidence of that repentance." "I never should have asked." He's like Adam in a way; Adam never should have asked either. God didn't give him an answer, Job should have never asked; God didn't give him an answer. God endited Adam, God endited Job. And simply says to Job, "Who do you think you are? Why are you even bringing this up? Do you think you could grasp these matters of a sovereign God and why sovereign God does what he does?" "You have sinned in questioning my wisdom, my goodness, my holiness and my purpose." You can ask questions I think. You can ask questions about the origin of evil up to one point and that is the point where you would begin to endite God. Then you've crossed the line. Ezekiel 18:25 says; "yet you say the way of the Lord is not right. Hear now oh house of Israel, is my way not right? Is it not your ways that are not right? Don't you ever accuse me of doing what isn't right." And even in the issue of why God allows evil? All we know is what we know, but what we know is this. Our God always does what is right. Similar treatment of this same thing in the 3rd Chapter of Romans. Verse 4, "let every man be found a liar, let God be found true." God is true, God is right, though everyone in the world is a liar. Over in Chapter 9 of Romans, in Verse 14, "What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be." ____ strongest negative in Greek language. There is no injustice with God. There is no wrong with God. Don't you know God said, "I'll have mercy on whom I have mercy? I'll have compassion on whom I'll have compassion?" God can do essentially exactly what he wants to do. It's not answerable to us. Down in Verse 20 he says, "Oh man who are you who answers back to God. The thing molded will not say to the molder why did you make me like this will it? Or does not the potter have a right over the clay to make from the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for common use?" The bottom line is you can't question God. You can't ask why God does what he does.
God has not chosen to reveal that. All we know is what we know. And in the end, God is to be trusted and God is to be honored. So Romans confirms what we learn in the case of Job and elsewhere in Scripture, even in the case of Adam. And it's this; first of all we have no right to complain against God. And when we do we expose ourselves to the sin of disobedience because we are to trust him to do right in every situation. Secondly God is under no obligation to give us a humanly intellectually satisfying answer for all of our questions including the question of why God allowed evil.
Thirdly God is sovereign. And that settles every issue. You can do absolutely what he chooses to do and it will always be right. Add to that the fact that God's word is always true and always reliable and you can know this, that whatever we can know is revealed accurately on the pages of Scripture. So summarizing that, God is sovereign, he is the standard of his own actions. He is not subject to human judgment. On the contrary, our judgment is subject to his word. One other Scripture that puts this in perspective is Hebrews 11. You get into this, I won't go there, but you get into Hebrews Chapter 11 and you have this list of people who by faith did this by faith, by faith by faith. And you go down toward the end of the Chapter and then you have these people going through one horrible list of suffering. Sawed in half and thrown to lions and burned at the stake and on and on it goes. And all these people are looking for a heavenly city. And you can understand that as they were going through this, there would always be the temptation to say, "Why God, why did this happen to me? Why does this happen to our family? What is going on here? What is the deal." And God never answers their question. But God honors them for their what? Their faith.
Their unwavering faith. And it is the point of Hebrews 11 that their faith prevailed in the midst of inexplicable and very often unrelieved suffering. In the end, you're not going to get an answer about why you suffer, about why your child dies or why you get cancer or why things are the way they are or even the big picture, why God allows evil, but you will be told to trust God and God will honor that faith and bless you for it. So all that to say this. When it comes to the problem of evil, we bow in faith to our glorious God. We accept gratefully what he has revealed because it was best for us to know that and know more. Know more. All we know is this. The source of evil in this world was a result of the sin of Adam and Eve. That's what we know. And we can draw the conclusion in general that God allowed that sin in order that he might destroy evil ultimately and that in the process of evil running its course, he could show grace to sinners, and judgment to sinners, those things never could be displayed if evil did not exist.
So God then is able to be glorified by the display of attributes that the man sinful environment. God is not the author of evil; the creator is good, all good and only good. And the original creation was very good. He is not the author of evil as I had told you or he would be evil himself. And if he were evil himself, then he couldn't triumph over evil for himself or for us. Also he is not the source of evil or he couldn't save sinners from evil. So we know from the Bible that the source of evil is outside of God. That evil came into our world by a choice made by Adam and Eve. They were cursed and corrupted and passed that corruption on to everyone whoever was born on the face of the earth for all proceeded from Adam and Eve. A source of sin in this world was evil choice made by Adam and Eve. When they disobeyed, evil became a reality. Remember what I said sin is not an entity? It is not a force; it is not a being it is the absence of moral perfection. Sin is a negative. And Genesis is concerned to protect God from any accusation of evil. And that's all you need to know. That's all Job needed to know, it's all the Romans needed to know, it's all you need to know.
Now that takes us back to Chapter 3. Okay, sin came into the world through Adam and Eve. But who brought it here. Who brought the sin here? Chapter 3, Verse 1. The serpent did. Serpent did. Who is this reptile we discussed in some length that Hebrew terms that indicate this is probably an upright reptile, beautiful creature that was cursed to crawl on its belly so prior to the curse it must have been upright. This reptile was more than just an animal, it was an animal, it's related to the beast of the field, it certainly belongs in that category according to Genesis 3. But penetrating somehow into this animal was a supernatural personality. This serpent, this dragon is identified as Satan in Revelation 12:9 and Revelation 20 Verse 2. It says that "the dragon was the devil and Satan the serpent was the devil and Satan." He is identified all through Scripture as the malevolent archenemy of God and all those who are Gods. He works to deceive people to insight disloyalty to God and God's truth and to turn God against his people.
Those are the things that he does. But he is totally under the sovereign control of God and can only do what God allows. It reminds me of the book, The Murder of Jesus which is out this week and what it shows in the horrors of the satanic work to bring Jesus to the cross. But at the same time while Satan was doing his worse, God was doing his best because everything was in the control of God's sovereign purpose. And that's how it always is. So into the garden, into the world of man comes this supernatural person. Tempts Adam and Eve successfully and the whole human race and all the surroundings in the universe are corrupted by their evil choice. The question is in the perfection of creation, where did he come from? We understand that Adam and Eve brought sin into our world, but where did he come from? Well the Bible fortunately takes us behind the scenes. It parts the curtain a little bit to let us see the origin of this adversary intempter. Two passages that I want to show you, Ezekiel 28. The prophet Ezekiel Chapter 28, and this is really very convincing and clear testimony as to where this personality came from. Ezekiel 28 the 28th Chapter of Ezekiel begins with a lament, over the King of Tire and the Lord says about the King of Tire in Verse 2, "Your heart is lifted up, you've said I'm a God. I sit in the seat of God's in the heart of the seas. Yet you are a man and not God. Although you make your heart like the heart of God. Behold this sarcasm now. You are wiser than Daniel. There is no secret that is a match for you." And here's the Lord being sarcastic as he condemns the self-exalting pride of this King. "By your wisdom and understanding, you've acquired riches for yourself, you've acquired gold and silver for your treasuries, by your great wisdom, by your trade, you've increased your riches, your heart is lifted up because of your riches, therefore," thus says the Lord God "because you've made your heart like the heart of God, therefore behold I'll bring strangers upon you the most ruthless of the nations and they'll draw their swords against the beauty of your wisdom and defile your splendor."
"They'll bring you down to the pit, you'll die the death of those who are slain in the heart of the seas. Will you still say I am a God in the presence of your slayer although you are a man and not God in the hands of those who wound you? You will die the death of the uncircumcised by the hands of strangers for I have spoken," declares the Lord God. So here is the lament and the curse on this ruler of Tire. He was a powerful and wicked ruler. In Verses 3 to 5 in particular, even showed the sarcasm of God as he mocks this man's pride and speaks of the imminent judgment. But behind the King of Tire, there again is a greater force. And starting in Verse 11, there is something more here. "Again the word of the Lord came to me" says Ezekiel, "son of man take up a lamentation over the King of Tire and say to him, thus says the Lord God." Listen to this. "You had the seal of perfection full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the Garden of God; every precious stone was your covering, the ruby, the topaz and the diamond, the barrel, the onyx, the jasper, the lapus lazuli, the turquoise and the emerald and the gold. The workmanship of your settings and sockets was in you on the day that you were created."
"They were prepared, you were the anointed cherub who covers and I placed you there. You were on the holy mountain of God walked in the midst of the stones of fire. You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created until unrighteousness was found in you." Mark that. Until unrighteousness was found in you.
That's all that is said about how sin entered into this being. "Now the abundance of your trade you were internally filled with violence and you sinned. Therefore I have cast you as profane from the mountain of God and I have destroyed you oh covering cherub from the midst of the stones of fire, your heart was lifted up because of your beauty. You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. I cast you to the ground, I put you before Kings that they may see you by the multitude of your iniquities in the unrighteousness of your trade; you profaned your sanctuaries. Therefore I have brought fire from the midst of you it has consumed you, I have turned you to the ashes on the earth and the eyes of all who see you and all who know you among the people's are appalled at you. You have become terrified and you will be no more."
Now anybody who reads that section knows it can't refer to the King of Tire. Go back to Verse 12, "you had the seal of perfection. You were the epitome of perfection; here is a perfect creature. Full of wisdom. Supernatural knowledge. Supernatural knowledge, perfection in beauty. And then the key, Verse 13, "you were in Eden, the garden of God." You were in Eden, the garden of God. Undoubtedly this of course is an angel because he's identified as the covering cherub, in Verse 14, "the anointed cherub who covers the cherub ___ the specially singled out angels involved in worship" according to Isaiah it may be that the anointed cherub of all the cherubs who were given to worship, the anointed one, the singled out one was heaven's praise leader.
You could even conclude that there was God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit in the trinity. And the highest angel in charge of all angelic praise and responsibility was this anointed cherub. "You were covered by every magnificent precious stone, ruby, topaz, diamond, barrel, onyx, jasper, lapus lazuli, turquoise, emerald, gold." And those are similar to the things used in Genesis 2, 8 to 12 to describe Eden. The garden of all that beauty, it may well have been that this heavenly worship leader had the privilege of coming down to see the wonder of God's creation in the world. But his real abode was in heaven. You were Verse 14 says, "On the holy mountain of God. You were in the midst of the stones of fire." You look at Revelation 4; you see the "fiery environment around the throne of God, the blazing splendor of God's glorious throne." In Verse 15, again, "you were blameless in your ways." There's that perfection again. Sinless from the day you were created. From the day God created this angel, along with the other angels, they were sinless. They were perfect in terms of their moral character. They were perfect in terms of their beauty; they had the very seal of perfection. They were full of wisdom.
Everything was fine. Until unrighteousness was found in you. Where did that come from? Not outside of him. It wasn't any unrighteousness outside of him. It wasn't any unrighteousness in the created order of supernatural beings. There wasn't any unrighteousness in God, there wasn't any unrighteousness or iniquities is another translation. There wasn't any iniquity in heaven. It didn't come from outside of him.
It came from in him. Unrighteousness, look at it, was found where? In you. In you. What was it? What was that? Verse 17, "your heart was lifted up because of your beauty." So what's the word for that kind of sin, crime. And you're corrupt; you corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor. Well this glorious anointed cherub maybe the worship leader of all the heavenly host became infatuated by his own splendor, by his own beauty. By his own perfection. And so Verse 16 says, "you were internally filled with violence and you sinned so I have cast you as profane." What's the violence? I'll tell you what it was. Once Satan began to sin, the sin of pride and began to be infatuated by his own splendor and his own glory and the wonder of his own person, he then sought violently to usurp the place of whom God. And Verse 16 says, "God said, 'I cast you as profane from the mountain of God and I've destroyed you oh covering cherub.'"
Boy is that ever true. Can just one act that anointed cherub went from being only good to being only evil. And since that moment, the anointed cherub cast out has never had one good thought. Not one. What a massive transformation. He wanted to be like God. God made him as unlike God as is possible. In Luke we have a reference to that very event when he was cast out. Jesus said, Luke 10:18, "I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning. I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning." You have to ask the question, how could this perfect creature be unsatisfied? And if he was satisfied, why would he rebel? We don't know those things. Our minds can't fathom them. We only know he had a choice. And again he made the wrong choice. And the choice that this angel made led to his own damnation and the damnation of all the other angels who joined him in his rebellion against God. And then the damnation of the entire human race. I'm confident of this. This anointed cherub had absolutely no idea of the consequences of his choice. He could never have imagined what would come out of that one choice. The unbelievable spread of sin through the angelic realm in response to which God had created a lake of fire to eternally punish all those angels who rebelled to be joined there by all those in the human race who reject his salvation. Catapulted all of creation into this horrible, horrible situation.
He couldn't have had any idea that this is how it would turn out. And that's sort of the nature of sin. Nobody really understands what things they set in motion when they make sinful choices. These were monumental obviously. There's another text I want to draw to your attention. And that's Isaiah 14. Isaiah 14 gets a little more specific. It was "Satan who was behind the King of Tire." It's also Satan in Isaiah 14 "who's behind the King of Babylon." In Isaiah 14 just go down to Verse 12. There is a warning here in Verse 4 it's a warning against the King of Babylon. That Isaiah is given by God. But when you come down to Verse 12, it goes behind him. Verse 12, "How have you fallen from heaven? Oh star of the morning. Sun of the dawn." Wow, he's the anointed cherub, he's the star of the morning, he's the sun of the dawn. These are very exalted terms. Very exalted terms. By the way, there are many commentators who believe that this diatribe, this judgment, this taunt as it's called against the King of Babylon, is not the historic King of Babylon, but the future King of Babylon. When Babylon rises again at the time of the tribulation and I intend to see that that as accurate in representing this Chapter. That Isaiah is looking ahead at the future ruler, the great King of Babylon that will fight against Christ in the future. He's really looking at the anti-Christ. And behind the anti-Christ will be this fallen angel, this Lucifer, this star of the morning. This sun of the dawn. This anointed cherub who has been thrown out of heaven. Verse 12 says, "You have been cut down to the earth, you who have weakened the nations." How did it all happen? Verse 13, "but you said in your heart, I will ascend to heaven, I will raise my thrown above the stars of God, the other angels, I will sit on the mount of assembly in the recesses of the North. I will ascend above the heights of the cloud; I will make myself like the most high. Nevertheless you will be thrust down to shield to the recesses of the pit."
You have here really a very good insight into the fall of Satan. The source of sin was inside him. Sin was in him unrighteousness was inside Lucifer, sun of the morning. Sun of the dawn, anointed cherub. Heavenly worship leader. And he made a choice, he made a choice to resent God rather than worship God. That's all we know. He made a choice to usurp God's place, to dethrone God and enthrone himself and it stated here in five I wills. Five I wills that define his being lifted up as Ezekiel put it. "First of all I will ascend to heaven. I will take the throne," that's what he said. "And then I'll exalt my throne over the stars of God. I'll take the throne where you are God and I will rule all the angels. I will sit" he says, "on the mount of assembly." According to Isaiah 2:2 and Psalm 48 1 and 2, this is the mountain in the center of God's kingdom. He's saying I will be the ruler. I will ascend above the heights of the clouds. Not talking about clouds around the earth, he's talking about the glory clouds. "I will ascend beyond the glory of God. I will be like the most high. I will be supreme, I will be the sovereign one, I will replace God." As fast as he sought to go up, he went down. Nevertheless Verse 15 "he'll be thrown down the shield." In Verse 12, "how you have fallen from heaven." And again I remind you of the words of Jesus in Luke 10:18, "I saw Satan as lightning fall from heaven" He fell fast. And when he fell he was immediately doomed to hell. To the lake of fire prepared for the devil and his angels. Matthew 25:41. And in Revelation 20 Verse 10, looking to the future, you see the event when Satan is finally cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. Now when Satan went down, he didn't go down alone. Turn to Revelation 12. Revelation Chapter 12, we'll just look at this last passage. Revelation 12. "We meet the Satan the great dragon" in Verse 3, Revelation 12. And then Verse 4, an interesting insight. "The great dragon is pictured as his tail sweeps away a third of the stars of heaven and threw them to the earth." Now this indicates to us that when Satan fell, a third of the angels went with him. This is a massive force of angels. Unquestionably. These angels along with Satan became the demons. Now there are millions of them. A third of them went which means there was twice as many holy angels left. "Third of them joined the rebellion and were cast down. They constitute the demonic force." If you look at Revelation 5:11, when it tells us how many angels there are around the throne, there are 10,000 times 10,000 and thousands of thousands. Now you can multiply 10,000 times 10,000 and add thousands of thousands and you'll probably still aren't there. The reason it says 10,000 times 10,000 is that's the largest number in the Greek language that has a word. And it's morion times morion and thousands of thousand. So you multiply and you're into the millions and millions.
Just one force of demons alone, just one army of demons. And the book of Revelations, coming from the east has 200 million demons. And that's not all of them. There are millions of them but there are twice as many, two third holy angles that remain. So when Satan came out of heaven, he didn't come out alone. I don't think he planned it this way. But he wound up as John Milton said preferring to be the king of hell rather than the servant of heaven. He was consigned immediately to eternal misery, subjection to the God of a kind that he never, ever could have imagined. He is now and was at that very moment incapable of repentance which is a gift to humans from God. There has never been in him since that moment one single solitary good impulse. Therefore there is nothing in him to cause him to repent or desire to repent. He is evil, he is unredeemable evil. He is malevolent and wicked and nothing else, his corruption is so complete that good would never exist in him again in any way. Thinking he could be like God. He became as utterly unlike God as is conceivable.
So Lucifer could never have imagined what transpired as a result of what he did. The passages that I've read to you in Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14 along with the passage of the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 remind us and this is what I want you to get in your mind. That God is not the author of sin. For us it was a choice made by Adam and Eve. Prior to that it was a choice made by Lucifer and a third of the angels.
What does that tell us? Listen carefully, God is eternal, but sin is not eternal. And since God is eternal, and sin is not eternal, God is not the author of sin. There was a time when there was no sin. It didn't come from outside that sinning angel and all the rest of them, but from inside. Satan a created being initiated sin in the angelic realm, Adam and Eve created beings initiated sin in the human realm. With regard to Lucifer and the angels who became demons, God chose to give these rebel angel's full opportunity to exploit every avenue of their power. Isn't that amazing? The Bible says; God threw them down to the earth. God literally gave to them, gave to Satan within the framework of his sovereign purpose opportunity to exploit every avenue of their power until the end of man's history on the earth. And Satan and all his demons will do that all the way to the very end of the millennial kingdom, the 1000 year kingdom when the whole created universe, as we know it is destroyed.
God gave this fallen angel access again to the perfections of Eden. Gave him access to Adam and Eve. Doesn't tell us why, the best we can surmise is in order that God might be glorified and he certainly is glorified in his wrath against sinners, and he certainly is glorified in his wrath against demons and he certainly is glorified in his grace toward sinners. And he certain is glorified through forgiveness. There was the glory of God that was to be displayed through this. So as we said last time as Luther said, "The devil is God's devil." He's doing what he's doing within God's purpose to bring God glory. Even tempting Adam and Eve was within the purposes of sovereign God.
Now I'll tell you one way you can always remember that. Because God planned our salvation before time began. I'm convinced that the salvation plan came before the fall of Satan and the fall of Adam and Eve. It all fit in God's plan. Though he was not the author of evil. Sin came. Plunged us all into hell. Irwin Lutheran's excellent book, Serpent of Paradise says, "In a realm beyond our grasp, a glorious creature chose to take a cosmic gamble that would backfire." He tripped a series of dominoes whose interrelationships were unknown to him. His act once accomplished would reverberate for all eternity. The entire universe would shutter reeling from the shock, even now you and I feel the painful effects.
Little did Adam and Eve know when they that in their sin the whole human race would perish. What it meant simplications, but it is also their sin that brought about the wonder of God's salvation by which he is glorified among the angels and by man. Listen to Romans 5. Verse 12. "Therefore just as through one man's sin entered into the world, and death through sin" so death spread to all men because all sinned. Listen, it was sin on everybody because of one man's transgression. But Paul then says in Verse 15 "if by the transgression of one, the many died much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of God of the one man Jesus Christ abound to many." It goes on to say as in Adam all died so in Christ shall all what? Be made alive. You cannot understand that why things are the way they are if you do not understand the fall. And we do understand sin. And the mystery of the fall for me is resolved in the wonder of salvation. Isn't it amazing that this great cosmic thing is going on? Conflict in heaven between an anointed angel and God himself and now a conflict between a force of malevolent wicked demons and holy angels and it comes down to earth and pollutes the entire created universe and in the midst of this massive explosion of wickedness with its corruption extending into every part of creation.
God steps in to save sinners by offering his own son to die on a cross in their behalf. What a wondrous plan is this? And with that we can prepare to thank God for the gift of Jesus Christ around the table, let's pray. Father, we of course are grateful that you have overruled sin in the world for those who trust Christ, for those who come to you, for those who repent, for those who seek forgiveness by your grace. We thank you for the amazing love that brings us salvation. Though we are depraved, corrupt to the very core. We thank you for the grace that is displayed to sinners, the eternal life that is pledged to us. It is a great wonder that angels who had everything gave it up and gained hell. Sinners that belonged in hell have been graciously given heaven. We will never understand all of the reasons but we do understand your grace and salvation. And we celebrate that with joy tonight as we come to your table.
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Bobby Star did an under water scene that came out pretty well, maybe he will check in
The joke of Mr_Lamppost make me think that I could share "mes ronds dans l'eau".Here is a clip file containing the displacement function and the water shader I used in my posthttp://forums.planetside.co.uk/index.php?topic=4738.0.I'll be happy to see it in a picture more realistic than mines.Bye.Pascal.
The idea about the upside down plane was to get waves seen from below. I don't know if that still works... but it did (this is an oldie).

subset: commoncrawl


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One of Oldham County's oldest services is celebrating its 100th birthday this year with a float in the annual Oldham County Day Parade.
The Oldham County Extension Office was first opened by John T. Taylor in 1914 and has grown from a rural agriculture outreach service to one available to any resident of the county, extension agent Traci Missun said.
"We're open for anybody," Missun said. "We have a diverse client base. Our mission is to serve people and be a non-biased point of information for people."
Pastor Bob Russell writes in his book Jesus, Lord of Your Personality, that having a lot doesn't tend to produce a grateful spirit.
Seeing a train in downtown La Grange isn't unusual, but having one with a fresh coat of paint was until recently.
Thanks to more than two dozen youth from La Grange Baptist Church, the train located outside of the La Grange Railroad Museum looks as good as new after a month of work.
A La Grange man is partnering with a well-known Oldham County restaurant for a fundraiser to help combat Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS), also known as Lou Gehrig's disease.
Mike Hamilton was diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig's disease, almost two years ago. And he's partnering with Gustavo's in Crestwood for a fundraiser to improve his quality of life while sick.
A pastor thought God gave him an idea and he presented it at the church board meeting. After giving his most impassioned plea and really "selling" the idea, the board voted down the pastor's proposed changes 12-1. The head elder looked at the pastor and said, "Well pastor, its 12 votes to 1. It looks like you've been outvoted and it is time to go home. Will you please close in prayer?"
One South Oldham High School grad is making the trip of a lifetime — nearly 3,000 miles.
Luke Sparks joined 11 of his Western Kentucky University Phi Gamma Delta fraternity brothers on a bike ride to raise $100,000 for Alzheimer's research.
It's the third trip for the fraternity. In 2010, a grandfather of a brother passed away from the debilitating disease causing the fraternity to ban together for the cause.
The team traveled from in two different bike rides, where they raised close to $100,000, said Sparks.
Hanging over my office desk is a picture of General George Washington in humble prayer in a pine grove, with his horse, at Valley Forge. It is an inspiring picture of an inspiring man of prayer. Skeptics want to claim that all representations of our first president as a devout man of faith are false.
Here are some of the things George Washington said about God. They are taken from the book, George Washington, The Writings of Washington, edited by John C. Fitzpatrick.
A woman took her family reunion pictures to a photo lab to have them touched up a bit. While discussing the project the clerk said, "We can do amazing things with these photos. We can remove wrinkles and make you look 30 pounds lighter."
The woman responded, "You can? Can you put them on my sister?"
Human resources is often referred to as "the business of people" and no one knows people better than Trasee Whitaker, senior vice president of human resources at Masonic Homes of Kentucky.
Whitaker, of Crestwood, was chosen as one of "20 People to Know in Human Resources" by Business First, a Louisville publication.
"It is an honor to be included along with other talented and influential HR colleagues that I admire as well," Whitaker said.
Duane Murner is no stranger to acting like a politician.
Having spent 12 years as one, after two terms as a fiscal court magistrate and one term as County Judge-Executive, Murner, a Prospect native, has the inside knowledge of what is expected of an elected official.
But having retired from politics himself in 2010, Murner now just acts as a politician, namely former Kentucky Secretary of State Caleb Powers, as part of the Chautauqua program.
Copyright © 2019
The Oldham Era is your source for local news, sports, events, and information in Oldham County and LaGrange, Kentucky, and the surrounding area.


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Brown Dwarf 2M1207A
170 light-years (52.4 parsecs)
The HST data were taken from proposals 13418: D. Apai, and G. Schneider (Steward Observatory/University of Arizona), M. Kasper (European Southern Observatory, Germany), A. Showman (University of Arizona), and M. Marley (NASA Ames Research Center).
The science team comprises :Y. Zhou, D. Apai, and G. Schneider (Steward Observatory/University of Arizona), M. Marley (NASA Ames Research Center), and A. Showman (University of Arizona).
F125W (J) and F160W (H)
This image was originally black and white and recorded only overall brightness from the F160W (H) filter. These brightness values were translated into a range of reddish hues. Such color "maps" can be useful in helping to distinguish subtly varying brightness in an image.


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Jim Robb believes national hay stocks will be the smallest on record at the end of this winter.
"We have produced a rather small crop nationally," says Robb, director of the Livestock Marketing Information Center, a cooperative effort between state university Extension specialists, USDA economists and industry cooperators.
"Hay is a rather regional commodity, but we're certainly moving it longer distances than normal. It's traveling many states farther to fill winter needs… Hay prices, on balance nationally, could remain very high this winter and, probably, record-high for this crop year."
Last year wasn't easy on ranchers' pocketbooks, either. Many lightweight calves were forced into feedlots. So, will liquidation of herds continue to pick up steam?
"We're on the cusp of figuring out how much more cow liquidation we'll have. There was a very large cow slaughter in August. And that's continuing in September. How much that tapers off in the fourth quarter will have a lot to do with Mother Nature. We think it will taper off from the summer highs."
The cattle markets are cyclical and the large cow cull this summer "certainly slowed" the pace of building the nation's beef cow herd. That bodes well on the price front because when numbers build, prices tend to drop.
Prices won't be going down, says Robb. In fact, over the last two months, "we've consistently raised our calf price forecasts for late 2007/2008."
Recent moisture around the Southeast and some parts of the Southwest has been very beneficial for cattlemen. At the beginning of September, "there were very limited prospects for wheat pasture winter grazing — especially in Texas and Oklahoma. We normally take a lot of calves and put them on those wheat pastures."
That situation now looks much brighter. "Wheat pasture is always an iffy game, though. We have a lot of wheat pasture in the South — even in western Arkansas. That picture is shaping up as we speak. We believe there's a lot more potential than there was just a few weeks ago. That's a major positive towards supporting calf and yearling prices. That's even considering, on balance, this last week calf prices declined across the United States."
The "saving grace" in the big picture has been the large Midwestern corn crop. A drought decimates the cattle industry "typically when the Midwest is part of that drought and there's a small corn crop.
"If feedlots are still able to use rather inexpensive corn and soybean meal, it helps them to bid aggressively for calves and yearlings. So, compared to some historical droughts, this one has a major difference with some attractively priced feed. That helps compensate for the drought conditions and has been a very important ingredient in explaining why calf prices didn't unravel more than they did this summer. In fact, those prices stayed strong."
In the central portion of the United States, cattlemen are aggressively pursuing alternative feeds.
"Producers have been very creative in finding feed. They've been putting a sharp pencil to alleviate the lingering impacts of the drought. And that is really showing up in the winter feed marketplace.
"They're using more products out of the ethanol industry than ever. There are herds going to corn stalks as a winter feed source. That's being done in parts of Nebraska, Kansas, the Dakotas and Iowa. Instead of being fed expensive hay they're feeding those stalks."
Robb says the Mid-South still has historically high calf prices.
"We think those will continue. This cattle cycle has been moderated by the drought. I don't think we've stopped that cattle buildup, but it isn't building as quickly as it was before this summer."
From a cow/calf perspective, in the Southern Plains, "we still have prices throughout the fourth quarter of 2008 that are well above $1 per pound. That's an attractive price even with the higher energy costs."
Over the last two years, those higher energy prices have squeezed cow/calf operation returns. Energy expenses have added to hay and fertilizer costs.
"But for those doing a good management job, the calf producing business will remain profitable for several more years. That's good news."
The Livestock Marketing Information Center has provided economic analysis and projections about issues and conditions concerning the livestock industry since 1955. For more information, visit www.lmic.info.


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Aspiring facilitators, would you like to facilitate this special game? View this short workshops for more information: How To Play? Team Games: Project Marathons
Discipline ESTEEM GAMES (Ethics Science Technology Engineering Entreprenurship Math Global Citizenship Art Music Environmental Management health Science)
Name Cake Designer
Goal Decorate the cake provided! A true test of talent, expertise, experience, passion, endurance, stamina and excellence in producing a masterpiece in the field of work. Rare opportunity. Earn recognition and network with celebrities in your field. Criteria provided before competition.
Learning Objectives Produce outstanding results under extreme time and budget pressures. Compete in teams with similar aptitudes and prove your performance superiority.
Skills Open to all.
Props Cake decorateing and cake art props. Cake.
Session Time 8 – 10 hours.
Teams 4 teams of 4 members.
• Facilitator introduces teams to press
• Teams are briefed with health and safety support at the venue.
• Teams warm up at their stations.
• Teams work to produce a masterpiece within 8 – 10 hours.
Climax Time ending marked by count down and dramatic music. Press covers emotions and stress. Teams step aside no matter what stage they are in.
Winning Criteria Judges are experts in their field. They judge masterpieces based on provided criteria.
Prize TBA (money reward to encourage business start-up)
Participation Certificates Facilitator distributes certificates for all with information to register for training workshops with Quality for Life.
Advice Letter Facilitator hands out an advice letter to improve performance to all participants


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I have been using Gmail since its early invite-only beta days in 2004. As explained by Google, they were involved in a dispute over the use of the Gmail name in the UK, so they were forced to rebrand the UK service to Google Mail in 2005. Existing UK users were allowed to keep their @gmail.com address (although the logo on the Gmail interface switched to the new Google Mail logo), while any new customers were assigned a @googlemail.com address.
Fast forward to today and it appears that Google have reached a settlement, as they have rebranded back to Gmail in the UK. Effective immediately, new UK users will again be able to sign up for @gmail.com addresses, while existing users will be able to choose whether to switch or to keep their old @googlemail.com addresses. The Google Mail logo will also be phased out and replaced with the Gmail logo.
This doesn't really mean much in the grand scheme of things, as whether the "official" email address (as displayed in the Gmail user interface and in the From field of all sent emails) is @gmail.com or @googlemail.com, the domains are actually interchangeable, but it's still a good step forward which will eliminate a lot confusion.
The only country in which the Google Mail brand now exists is Germany, where there is an ongoing dispute between Google and the owners of German company G-Mail. Maybe Google will now look to resolve this and be able to offer Gmail as a truly global brand.