“That Old Serpent”

Part 7

April 30, 2014

As we concluded the last part of this series I made a statement saying, “Lightning is representative of God’s instant power and revealing …”

After reading a few verses, I also made this statement, “Satan falling as lightning from heaven reveals to us just how SWIFT the work of the Lord is in bringing down the idols of our hearts, in the day of the Lord.”
In this study, we are going to start with the premise of this statement and examine Ezekiel 28 with this in mind.

“Pride”

1Jn 2:16  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

Most often, and due to lack of spiritual understanding, most of Christian clergy associate Ezekial 28 with satan and not with mankind. Only vaguely do they associate Ezekial 28 with the prince and king of Tyre but certainly more with satan. Let us examine scripture, and then examine ourselves, to see if this is so with us.

Tyre is the focus of several different places in scripture and is in particular a place where pride and self glory were abundant. Tyre is geographically in a place which allowed it to be in wonderful trade routes with those around it therefore creating a great wealth for the city.

As we examine Tyre, we should be seeing ourselves being referenced because the city of Tyre is in us all at one point or another.

Here are a few references to the city of Tyre which give us a good bit of context to what we are about to read in Exekial 28 about ourselves and the city of Tyre within us spiritually speaking.

Isaiah 23 1-18:

Isa 23:1  The burden of Tyre. Howl, ye ships of Tarshish; for it is laid waste, so that there is no house, no entering in: from the land of Chittim it is revealed to them.
Isa 23:2  Be still, ye inhabitants of the isle; thou whom the merchants of Zidon, that pass over the sea, have replenished.
Isa 23:3  And by great waters the seed of Sihor, the harvest of the river, is her revenue; and she is a mart of nations.

Isa 23:15  And it shall come to pass in that day, that Tyre shall be forgotten seventy years, according to the days of one king: after the end of seventy years shall Tyre sing as an harlot.
Isa 23:16  Take an harp, go about the city, thou harlot that hast been forgotten; make sweet melody, sing many songs, that thou mayest be remembered.
Isa 23:17  And it shall come to pass after the end of seventy years, that the LORD will visit Tyre, and she shall turn to her hire, and shall commit fornication with all the kingdoms of the world upon the face of the earth.
Isa 23:18  And her merchandise and her hire shall be holiness to the LORD: it shall not be treasured nor laid up; for her merchandise shall be for them that dwell before the LORD, to eat sufficiently, and for durable clothing.

Jeremiah 25:22 and 27:1-11:

Jer 25:15  For thus saith the LORD God of Israel unto me; Take the wine cup of this fury at my hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it.
Jer 25:16  And they shall drink, and be moved, and be mad, because of the sword that I will send among them.

Jer 25:22  And all the kings of Tyrus, and all the kings of Zidon, and the kings of the isles which are beyond the sea,

Jer 27:1  In the beginning of the reign of Jehoiakim the son of Josiah king of Judah came this word unto Jeremiah from the LORD, saying,
Jer 27:2  Thus saith the LORD to me; Make thee bonds and yokes, and put them upon thy neck,
Jer 27:3  And send them to the king of Edom, and to the king of Moab, and to the king of the Ammonites, and to the king of Tyrus, and to the king of Zidon, by the hand of the messengers which come to Jerusalem unto Zedekiah king of Judah;
Jer 27:4  And command them to say unto their masters, Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Thus shall ye say unto your masters;
Jer 27:5  I have made the earth, the man and the beast that are upon the ground, by my great power and by my outstretched arm, and have given it unto whom it seemed meet unto me.
Jer 27:6  And now have I given all these lands into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar the king of Babylon, my servant; and the beasts of the field have I given him also to serve him.

Ezekiel 26, 28:

Eze 26:1  And it came to pass in the eleventh year, in the first day of the month, that the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 26:2  Son of man, because that Tyrus hath said against Jerusalem, Aha, she is broken that was the gates of the people: she is turned unto me: I shall be replenished, now she is laid waste:
Eze 26:3  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Tyrus, and will cause many nations to come up against thee, as the sea causeth his waves to come up.

Eze 28:19  All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

Joel 3:4-8:

Joe 3:4  Yea, and what have ye to do with me, O Tyre, and Zidon, and all the coasts of Palestine? will ye render me a recompence? and if ye recompense me, swiftly and speedily will I return your recompence upon your own head;
Joe 3:5  Because ye have taken my silver and my gold, and have carried into your temples my goodly pleasant things:
Joe 3:6  The children also of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have ye sold unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them far from their border.

Amos 1:9-10:

Amo 1:9  Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Tyrus, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because they delivered up the whole captivity to Edom, and remembered not the brotherly covenant:
Amo 1:10  But I will send a fire on the wall of Tyrus, which shall devour the palaces thereof.

I listed all of these verses and read from them for us to get a scriptural feel for just who it is the Lord is addressing when He speaks about the prince or the king of Tyrus in Ezekiel 28.

Why you might ask?

1Co 10:5  But with many of them God was not well pleased: for they were overthrown in the wilderness.
1Co 10:6  Now these things were our examples, to the intent we should not lust after evil things, as they also lusted.

(YLT)  and those things became types of us, for our not passionately desiring evil things, as also these did desire.

It may seem like a bit of over kill to have just used so much time to read what we did, but the Lord has witnessed to us in many books of the bible just who it is He is dealing with in Ezekiel.

See, we are all “in Adam” thus we all die. Likewise, we are all “in Christ” and are given to be made alive at the appointed time of the Father.

So, what does this have to do with the orthodox Christian doctrines concerning Ezekiel 28, the old serpent and the body of Christ?

As I mentioned in the previous study, Isaiah 14:12 and Ezekiel 28 are used as a basis to show as a fallen arch-angel who was put in his place by God, but what we really are reading about is how the old man in us all will be done away with and put away from the midst of God.

Eze 28:1  The word of the LORD came again unto me, saying,
Eze 28:2  Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas; yet thou ART A MAN and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God:
Eze 28:3  Behold, thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from thee:
Eze 28:4  With thy wisdom and with thine understanding thou hast gotten thee riches, and hast gotten gold and silver into thy treasures:
Eze 28:5  By thy great wisdom and by thy traffick hast thou increased thy riches, and thine heart is lifted up because of thy riches:
Eze 28:6  Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD; Because thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God;

Ezekiel 28:2 clearly says the Lord is addressing a man. The man/prince that is being addressed is a type of us all. We read what the Lord is telling us in verse 2 as being addressed to a “prince” but then we are also being addressed as a king a few verses later.

“The Witness”

Eze 28:8  They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the seas.
Eze 28:9  Wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? but thou shalt be a man, and no God, in the hand of him that slayeth thee.
Eze 28:10  Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
Eze 28:11  Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying,
Eze 28:12  Son of man, take up a lamentation upon the king of Tyrus, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Thou sealest up the sum, full of wisdom, and perfect in beauty.

A king is simply a progression of being a prince. What we are being told here clearly tells us that man is being addressed and no some arch-angel.

What confuses the masses is that what we are about to read speaks about being in the garden of Eden and there were only three in the garden with the Lord, satan, Adam and Eve.

What we are being told, what we are being witnesses to with two being the number of witness, is that this prince and king resides in us all and that is how “thou were in the Garden of Eden, the Garden of God”.

We have been show in the natural what a witness consists of. It may seem like a strange comparison, but the Lord gave Eve to Adam as a helper but they also witnessed His work together and later go off to start physical humanity as a set of two brought together as one flesh.

Physically speaking we are given two eyes to see from, two ears to hear from, two nostrils and olfactory bulbs to project to the cerebral hemispheres, two sides of one brain, two legs to stand on, two arms to balance ourselves and to use to live with.

We have two feet, two hands and two sets of fingers and toes so we MUST be given some insight into the Lord’s mind by how He created us.

In our creation, the Lord created us with balance to show us His great balancing act because in all things we MUST BE balanced or WE FALL or FELL at what we are doing.

We are marvelously created beings, yet there is much more to the children of the Lord than what appears on the surface just as there is much more to Ezekiel 28 and Isaiah 14.

Eze 28:13  Thou hast been in Eden the garden of God; every precious stone was thy covering, the sardius, topaz, and the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, and the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle, and gold: the workmanship of thy tabrets and of thy pipes was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast created.
Eze 28:14  Thou art the anointed cherub that covereth; and I have set thee so: thou wast upon the holy mountain of God; thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire.
Eze 28:15  Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee.
Eze 28:16  By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned: therefore I will cast thee as profane out of the mountain of God: and I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire.
Eze 28:17  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.
Eze 28:18  Thou hast defiled thy sanctuaries by the multitude of thine iniquities, by the iniquity of thy traffick; 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 them that behold thee.
Eze 28:19  All they that know thee among the people shall be astonished at thee: thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more.

How then can the prince and king of Tyre be told “thou hast been in Eden”?

1Co 15:22  For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.
1Co 15:23  But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ’s at his coming.

And just what are the stones being spoken about? Mike Vinson has a great study on these stones and the surrounding verses, so please read up on it at: http://www.iswasandwillbe.com/up-and-down-among-the-stones-of-fire/

The stones are our works.

1Co 3:9  For we are labourers together with God: ye are God’s husbandry, ye are God’s building.
1Co 3:10  According to the grace of God which is given unto me, as a wise masterbuilder, I have laid the foundation, and another buildeth thereon. But let every man take heed how he buildeth thereupon.
1Co 3:11  For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ.
1Co 3:12  Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble;
1Co 3:13  Every man’s work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man’s work of what sort it is.
1Co 3:14  If any man’s work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward.
1Co 3:15  If any man’s work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire.
1Co 3:16  Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?
What is also confused in most of the churches of Babylon is that verse 28:14 mentions Cherub (H3742), other places called cherubims, and this they connect the to the idea of satan being this arch-angel that has fallen from grace. That is the furthest thing from the Truth.

cherubims, 63 , (H3742)

Gen_3:24, Exo_25:18-20 (4), Exo_25:22, Exo_26:1, Exo_26:31, Exo_36:8, Exo_36:35, Exo_37:7-9 (4), Num_7:89, 1Sa_4:4, 2Sa_6:2, 1Ki_6:23, 1Ki_6:25, 1Ki_6:27-29 (4), 1Ki_6:32 (2), 1Ki_6:35, 1Ki_7:29, 1Ki_7:36, 1Ki_8:6-7 (3), 2Ki_19:15, 1Ch_13:6, 1Ch_28:18, 2Ch_3:7, 2Ch_3:10-11 (2), 2Ch_3:13-14 (2), 2Ch_5:7-8 (3), Psa_99:1 (2), Isa_37:16, Eze_10:1-3 (3), Eze_10:6-9 (5), Eze_10:15-16 (3), Eze_10:18-20 (3), Eze_11:22, Eze_41:18, Eze_41:20, Eze_41:25

I mentioned two’s specifically earlier to bring out this very point because two always represent a witness to something. Just as the prince of Tyre progresses in type to a king, so too do the “cherub” throughout scripture.

The cherub start off in Eden “guarding the way of the tree of life.” They simply represent beasts which are around the throne of God, and they end up having three sets of two wings, six wings.

Rev 4:6  And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne, and round about the throne, were four beasts full of eyes before and behind.
Rev 4:7  And the first beast was like a lion, and the second beast like a calf, and the third beast had a face as a man, and the fourth beast was like a flying eagle.
Rev 4:8  And the four beasts had each of them six wings about him; and they were full of eyes within: and they rest not day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come.

We see them earlier in Ezekiel with only four wings:

Eze 1:4  And I looked, and, behold, a whirlwind came out of the north, a great cloud, and a fire infolding itself, and a brightness was about it, and out of the midst thereof as the colour of amber, out of the midst of the fire.
Eze 1:5  Also out of the midst thereof came the likeness of four living creatures. And this was their appearance; they had the likeness of a man.
Eze 1:6  And every one had four faces, and every one had four wings.

When we first start off with our walk in Christ, we have been found of our first love, but then we leav our first love because our deadly wound is healed.

As the Lord works with us, we progress and press on to maturity and that is witnessed to us in the growth of addition wings as we make our ways further into the heavens.

The old serpent simply writhers around on his belly eating dust, and we all are that dust. He is singular in his mind to be a waster to destroy, a liar and murderer, because that it what he was created to be and do.

However, we are being created in the image of God and we have dual roles we fulfill. First, we start off “in Adam,” the first man. Then, we progress slowly toward the new man. As the new man arises in our hearts and minds, the mind of Christ once again makes of TWAIN, ONE.

Isa 54:16  Behold, I have created the smith that bloweth the coals in the fire, and that bringeth forth an instrument for his work; and I have created the waster to destroy.
Isa 54:17  No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the LORD, and their righteousness is of me, saith the LORD.

We were NEVER created perfect in our ways. The Hebrew word for perfect here is “whole” and gives the true meaning of what we are being told. We were created “whole”, we were made as we were supposed to be made, and at the end of each cycle of “making all of creation,” the Lord said it is “good” not “perfect”.

We have in our, from the beginning, an uncircumcised heart even when we think we serve the Lord. However, we DO NOT initially serve him in Spirit and Truth so we will “die the death of the uncircumcised” first man Adam in us all.

Eze 28:10  Thou shalt die the deaths of the uncircumcised by the hand of strangers: for I have spoken it, saith the Lord GOD.
2Th 2:3  Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;

2Th 2:4  Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
2Th 2:5  Remember ye not, that, when I was yet with you, I told you these things?
The revealing of the son of perdition who sits in the temple of God is a wonderful thing for the new man coming into the hearts and minds of His body.

Eze 28:17  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.

First though, we must live out being thrown out of “Eden”. We must recognize why it is we are guilty just as Adam our father in the flesh was. Eve came from Adam and we come from the union of them both.

The job of the old serpent is to traduce the Truth with lies and cause us to doubt and fall into unbelief of the promise that Christ Jesus will finish in us what He has started.

Isaiah 14 and Ezekiel 28 have nothing to do with this supposed arch-angel going bad and everything to do with the adversary being cast form the heavens of our minds just as quick as God’s judgment is on the old man in us all. That is the true meaning of “satan being cast as lightning from heaven.”

Luk 10:17  And the seventy returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject unto us through thy name.
Luk 10:18  And he said unto them, I beheld Satan as lightning fall from heaven.
Luk 10:19  Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall by any means hurt you.
Luk 10:20  Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven.
Luk 10:21  In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.
Luk 10:22  All things are delivered to me of my Father: and no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whom the Son will reveal him.
Luk 10:23  And he turned him unto his disciples, and said privately, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see:
Luk 10:24  For I tell you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye see, and have not seen them; and to hear those things which ye hear, and have not heard them.

I hope this study has been used to shed “Light” on this false doctrine and has been used to open of the heavens of your minds to who it is that is, was and will be cast from it.

Jas 4:5  Do ye think that the scripture saith in vain, The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy?
Jas 4:6  But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.
Jas 4:7  Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
Jas 4:8  Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

We are to submit ourselves to God and draw nigh to Him. When we do this then we are able to resist the traducer, his false doctrines and his power of death over us because the one in US now is STRONGER than the one who is in the world.