You'll turn with me to Genesis 3. Don't go very far. Genesis 3. I kind of have a specific goal and some of it irritates me a little bit that I got saved at 13 years old and so I've been a Christian studying his word for 38 years and to have a wrong picture just I think it's wrong. I guess we'll go through the text here tonight and see how you interpret it. I just wish I had been taught it clear. How much further ahead will I be? How much more aware would I be? And again, it's here and a lot of it comes from is that we are reading a translation. The Bible was written in Hebrew and in Greek, you know, so we're taking a translation. And shame on me for not being smart enough to go and study Hebrew and Greek. But I'm glad that I have an English translation that I can then hit on the word and say, what's that say in Hebrew? What's that say in Greek? And we live in a good time. I was sharing at the Lord's Locker on Thursday. I was like, I graduated high school. My mom and dad got me a Strong's Exhaustive Concordance. And they call it that because it's this thick of a book. If you carry it around, you would be exhausted. But it's a big, thick book. And it's every word in the Bible listed An alphabetic order and where to find it, and you're like, why would you ever need that? But that's how I find verses. It's like, well, I know it's in here somewhere, so I'd have to think, what's the weird word in that verse? I was looking for one this afternoon. What was it? I was thinking transform. Well, transform can't be used that many times, so I go find transform, and I go down to the book, and it would give me The Strong's number, I'd be like, oh, there it is. It's in this verse. I go and look it up, and then it would give me the word to the dictionary in the back, and I'd flip to the back, and I'd click on that, or click on that, flip to that, and then find it where it is. You know, read it, and there's all this tiny print. I couldn't read it all now. I have two copies in my office that I still use from time to time when the internet's down. And all of a sudden, it's like, what am I going to do? But now I've got it my phone where I can click on it a guy pronounces it for me I don't I can't roll my R's and have all that spit I play spit, but I can't use it rightly I had to say the Hebrew and Greek words that way But man we live in a good time to be able to go and to see and have it broken down And I don't have to read Hebrew and Greek I would say there's an advantage if you could and I stand with on the shoulders of men who've gone there and looked and But boy, we live in a time when it's more open to us. I think that that's one of the things that Daniel talked about in Daniel 12, that knowledge shall increase. Not just man's knowledge. Man's knowledge, a few years ago they were saying, is doubling every two years. I have a feeling it's probably faster than that now. It just seems like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, exponentially growing. But our knowledge of the Word. just in the last two years. Texts that are being unlocked, mysteries that we haven't been able to solve before are now coming into clear vision. Again, I think it's like resolving power. It's kind of like what you would have in a telescope, that you can look ahead and we might see it as a single star, but the better the resolving power of your telescope, you might see it's a binary star. There's two there, you can see it clearer. That we're getting a clearer understanding and a clearer picture, and again, I think that shows us a time of where we are in God's prophetic timetable. But Genesis 3, a new story for you, probably never heard this before. Genesis 3 verse 1 says that the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field. which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree in the garden. And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden, but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die, for God doth know that on the day that ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and it was pleasant to the eyes, and the tree was desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof and did eat. And he gave also to her husband with her, and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were open, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons. And we know they go off to hide, and then God ends up kicking them out, and thus where we are today. One picture that has changed about this for me is where they are. We've talked about a few weeks ago what Eden was like and we saw that it was a mountain. That that's how that the ancient people saw where God's drawings would be that was how We'll look at a verse later here tonight, and we'll see it there again, but it's Eden the mountain of God. It was a mountain. It was a lush place It was a place where they could get where you couldn't get it was a place where he'd come down and there'd be full of all the fruits and vegetables to be a place of a source of rivers and then we see that that's a description of of Eden here for us too in chapter two that all these rivers that come out for it to be a place that's lush a place a good place a place we have to worry about food it's all there so it's there. We also we started this particular study and looking at the council that was with God. Psalm 82 that God was there and amongst his council and these are some supernatural beings, trying to get my wording right, of which one of the jobs is angel, which is a messenger. So that there are supernatural beings that are out there. We've always been kind of lazy in just calling them angel. We, me, mostly. We just call them angel and that's kind of all the further we are really allowed to think about it. That's all we did think about it. Oh, angels. And angels are all the same. And we know that they're all the same. And we know that Ephesians 6, that Paul talks about powers and principalities and all this ranking. And then as we look deeper into the text, we see that in here, that there are these different jobs that are there. Angel, messenger is one of them, but they were there. Some of them had different jobs. One job is to guard God's throne. There were guardians around God's throne, because he has Moses make a representation of that in the temple, and he had cherubs put there, these guardians of the throne. There were some that God would say, This guy's going to die. Saul's going to die. How does this happen? How do we get him there? And then he'd use the council and they came together. We saw that. It was a whole thing in 2 Kings 22 where they debated about what they're going to do. And one's like, I'll be a lion spirit. OK, we'll do this. And so then they implement the plan. God uses a council to decide that. Could God decide that on his own? Yes, but he chose to do that just like he could tell everybody in the world the salvation plan, but he left it up to us. It's a pretty faulty plan. We are faulty people. But it's the plan that he used. He said, this is what I want to do. This is how I choose to do it. And so it should help us step up our game. Deciding judgments. Judgment on mankind. Daniel chapter 2, we saw that. Nebuchadnezzar, you're going to be eating grass and all this. And it came from the watchers. They decreed this. And so there are many different jobs that they had. And I find that pretty interesting. Because Jesus tells us that we're to pray that it'll be on earth as it is in heaven, and that means we should be obedient. That God should decree it and we should go and do it. That's what he wanted, that's why he made us. And so, where God is, his counsel's there too. I mean, they surround him, they're around him. You can't imagine a king coming without his entourage. Matter of fact, you can look at verses of Solomon and stuff that talk about that, how he'd have these 50 valiant men run before him and do all that, and have his court with him. And so, if God is on the mountain and Eden, It makes sense to these council there that we have access to these spirit beings. So it's not like Adam and Eve couldn't see them. They could see God. They could walk with him in the cool of the day as we see later in chapter 3. And so it stands to reason they had interaction with them. We do know during the millennial reign of Christ that the mortal people on earth will have interaction with us, immortals. We also know during Revelation there will be a time when angels come down and proclaim messages. There have been times throughout the Jewish history where angels have been there and proclaimed messages. It says that we entertain them unaware now, so we still see them when they go on. We just don't know it, we're not aware of it. Maybe later it's one of them where you're like, I wonder if that was an angel. Mom tells a story like that about a guy, and she's giving me thumbs up. There's been a few other times like, who was that person? Where were they? And how'd they? We don't know. So it's not the same. I think because we're in the church age, we're in a different economy. It works different. Now the Jews, angels come and proclaim, and they do this. And when the church is gone, I believe is the rapture, then we have that economy back when we have the last seven years of the tribulation, and angels are out making themselves visual again because they're messengers to them. And so it's different economies and how they work. So God made man as his counsel on earth. That's why he puts man here. And we saw him put him in the garden. And he says, now out of the garden, you'll go out and you'll subdue the earth. And you'll bring it into control, like I have this garden. This is your prototype. Now go and bring it. And have kids and go forth and bring it under your dominion. Plant my flag, pretty much. Spread my name and bring it around and do this. And we were to go out and to do that. So it's kind of neat thinking that man was going to live in the garden, then go forth and do God's will. Side note here that I had about this, I remember reading years ago. And I study in the New Jerusalem because I want to know where I'm going to live forever. And so I was studying the New Jerusalem. And one idea was during the millennial reign of Christ, so you have the second coming of Jesus Christ. He comes back and judges the world. He separates the sheep from the goats. And so there's some that are cast into hell. And there's some who live through the tribulation who will then live and populate the kingdom, the millennial reign of Christ. Satan is bound up for 1,000 years. We come down and we have jobs that we will do then. What is that? I don't know. I think it depends on how faithful we are here and now that he'll give us responsibilities to go and do this, to be his counsel on earth, that we'll come down and be able to interact. I don't know what we'll do. I have some jobs that are specifically listed, but we'll come and we'll do that. But that's not our home. Our home's with him. And so one theory is that Jesus Christ has made the New Jerusalem for us. it'll be up in space someplace. And so we'll be able to travel back and forth and maybe it'll be seen like a star. And that's like we come down and we do our job and time to go home. I've been practicing my fly home. That's how I'm going to do it. And I'll stand like this a lot and maybe I have a cape. I don't know. But to go home that way, because we're immortal beings. We'll begin our new body. It'll all be changed. And I don't live here anymore. This is where I come and work. And we'll go and we'll do that. We're not angels. We're still men that go and do that. I don't know, but I thought that'd be like a diamond in the sky. See that right there? That's where I'm going. You need to repent and trust Christ. This is going to be yours as he brings it to the earth. I don't know if it's what it'll be or not, but I remember reading that speculation. That kind of marries up here if we're going to work from God's base at the mountain of God of Eden and then go forth and then subdue the earth and bring it under that control. That fits. We also know if you turn to Job 38, just in front of Psalms, Job 38. I left my glasses in the office so you might get a whole new interpretation of things tonight. I am reading the cloudy version. Job 38. Thank you, Beth. Job 38. And this is, we've come here before, and this is Job, the oldest book in the Bible. And it's a book that teaches about patience, and we get to the end here where God is addressing Job or addressing dressing Job down. Thank you These aren't mine But uh That's much better and so verse 1 you know the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and he's You know there's been a whole bunch of debating man. We're at chapter 38 and when we know that we saw some of the Spirit beings being called on the carpet before God. He's asking Satan what he's been doing I've been on to and fro over the face of the earth and so we see where they have to come and they have to give an account and so they have all this and God calls out Job and then we have all this Job being accused, and Job defending himself, and there's a few times he overreached. And so God says in verse 2, who is this that is darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Gird thou up your loins like a man, for I will demand thee, and answer thou me. I'm glad Job went through this so I don't hear that from God gird up your loins like a man I don't want to hear that I want to say I plead the blood of Jesus Christ You know that this is what I've got But he's asking Job to give an answer for what he said And he says where was thou when I laid the foundation of the earth declare if thou has understanding I? He says, when I created the world, when I started, you know, you start with a foundation. I had the advantage of, when I told mom and dad at lunch, I'm like, thank you for my life that I was able to experience all these illustrations for Bible stories. They had me go all these things. And one of the things we did when I was a teenager is that we built a church in Trafalgar at Airport Road in 31, or Trafalgar, Franklin. And one summer, they started the construction. Me and my brother were young enough. We lived at home and didn't have jobs, which meant my dad dropped us off there. And he said, put them to work. And so we had an older guy, Mr. Brawner, that would be there. And he would say, they're going to be laying block here tonight. And so my brother and I would carry block. And we'd go stack it. And we'd get it all ready for them each and every day. Elaine's uncle, Gene, was a master bricklayer. And to watch him get the first stone perfect so he could stretch that line on it and get the string down there. And man, he made it look so easy. A few times, he'd go, want to try, Brian? Sure. I'm like, yeah, I give up. Yeah, that is a skilled trade that I do not have to throw the mortar down on there and lay it down and keep it all straight. Gene made it look easy. But you got to get that first stone, that first foundation, then everything would go off. God says, where were you when I did that? Declare if you have understanding Job can't say anything verse 5 who laid the measures thereof that thou knowest or who distressed outline upon it See I can just picture that masonry Masonry line on that you know thinking how they're doing it verse 6 whereupon all the foundations thereof fastened and who laid the cornerstone thereof I still don't have any answers. Verse seven, when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. He says, where were you when all these sons of God, these are at this point in time, this is just the spirit beings, the immortals in heaven. When they're watching God create the earth, man's not been invented yet. Man's not been put in the garden because there is no earth yet. And so God is creating the earth ex nihilo, where he's making it out of nothing and he's making this And he says, where were you there? And when they did it, they all watched it. And they witnessed God speak these things into existence. When he starts it, and he lays the foundation stones, and he does all that, and they all sing for joy. They're all on board. There's not been a fall yet. And so all of them were there. They all witnessed that. And so they are already with him. And so this, from these few texts that we can look at, is that the spirit beings are with God when he created the world. It's not like he made the world, and then right before he made mankind, he made the angels. Again, that's hard to get away from. These spirit beings, some of which are angels, were all there, and they witnessed the creation. They know who he is. They're all singing. Lucifer is here in the throng, singing and singing the praises of God, saying what he's doing here. They are singing together. The morning stars are these bright ones. And all the sons of God, these created beings, they're shouting for joy. You are amazing, Lord. Look what you've done. And they're proclaiming his wonder and his power. So they're there. So that makes me wonder, who's Eve talking to? We'd say a serpent, right? Talking to a serpent, that's what the text says. She's talking to a serpent, Nakash. which is an interesting word. When you look at nakash, it means a hissing noise, which that's how a snake talks. I try not to get too close to them. I like to hear them say splat. Dad used to give me a dollar every time we'd kill one. And so, yeah, I killed a snake. And so, he came from Kentucky, didn't like snakes. And so, but I still don't like them. But they made a hissing noise, but it also meant nakash. It's a hissing whisper, a divination, saying charms and things. picture your freakiest movie where you have somebody conjuring up a spirit and they're speaking these whispering terms. It's a divination term too where you can see it related here with the snake. It makes no big shock to us that serpents and snakes and divination and trying to read the future and God talks about a lot of this charmers and charming that all comes from that word nakash and how it all goes down. If you haven't been to the Ark Encounter yet, which I think that was on one of our plans to do this summer, maybe a church-wide organized event where we'll pile in and we can all go over caravan and look at the ark. But some of the pre-flood world dioramas, they've got them worshipping the serpent. And we see that, you know, I'm getting ahead of myself, but that's coming later. You know, and so it's there, you know, because he's the one and he's wanting to be worshipped. And so, but a lot of people have trouble believing the Bible. Because if they have a scientific background, they know that snakes have no vocal cords, so how does it talk? It makes a hissing noise, but that's, you don't need to have a voice for that, you just need to push air out of your lungs. And so, what if it's more than a snake? I always figured it was a possessed snake, you know, that Satan came down and he possesses a snake and then he makes it talk. You know, I was also thinking, I just watched the other day, Jungle Book, the live action version, you know, with Shakira. Hey, you know, and he's very whispery and hypnotic and put him into a trance to lead him away. I'm like, man, that fits. You know, and so I thought maybe it was a possessed snake like that, you know, working his charm on him. Or we also learn this about Lucifer, about Satan. Now, he can transform. He's more than meets the eye. He's not that kind of transformer. He's more like the comic books, which I extensively have studied, to my chagrin. Martians are always known as shape shifters. It's more along that line, a transformer, one who can shift their shape. Look at 2 Corinthians 11. I've known this verse forever. known of the theory of the comic book shapeshifters. Never put two and two together until last year. But 2 Corinthians 11 tells us this. It's given us a warning. 2 Corinthians 11 verse 13 says, For such are false apostles and deceitful workers, transforming themselves into the apostles of Christ." And so here he's talking about fakes. You know, you have some people that pass themselves off as apostles, and some that are acting like they're performing miracles, and he says, these guys, they act like they are, or they transform, or they pretend that they are apostles of Christ. You know, they're liars. They're wolves in sheep clothing, out deceiving the flock, verse 14. And he says, and no marvel, for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light. He can transform himself to an angel of light. What's he look like now? I don't know. He likes to paint the image that he's this black, ugly creature, something that we would all stay away from and we'd never be allured to. But he's probably something beautiful, probably something that you would come to. An angel of light, I think of, I forget her name, there was a book a while back called Embraced by the Light, a woman who had a near-death experience who saw an angel and told her all these wonderful things and none of it was the gospel. Everybody's okay, it's all all right, you all go to heaven, shoot yourself. That's usually how it goes. It's like go ahead and die. Tell her my it's okay to die. You can do assistance That's all right. If they always have a false message and their message is changing that they keep talking to but Muslims Muslims get their book From an angel who talked to him an angel of light who meets Muhammad in the cave and gives him the Quran the Mormons cult he meets the angel Moroni who gives him and interprets these plates for him and gives him the Book of Mormon that flies contrary to everything. And so we have a deceiving angel here who can transform himself. The word transform there means to change the figure. And the example it gives is from a butterfly that comes from a caterpillar. You can't get much different than that. You know, a little worm to now something that can fly and is beautiful, you know, from an ugly worm. That's a total change. I mean, every time I see a chrysalis, I want to catch it or put it or catch it. Oh, he's running away. I want to bring it inside and watch it transform. As a kid, we'd mark where they were. I can remember going back and looking, trying to see, has it changed? Can I catch it coming out of its shell? And to know that an ugly worm goes in there and it changes. It's even kind of astonishing when it's the nasty moths that are the nasty little worms in the tree. But man, they're going to change and they're going to be something. That's quite a transformation. But it means that. And it's not like this is a foreign concept. Look at Philippians chapter 3. To the right, two more books. Philippians chapter 3. This is one of the things that we're yearning for. Philippians 3 verse 21, he says, speaking of our Savior, Verse 20 says, For our conversation is in heaven, from whence also we look for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able to subdue all things unto himself. The word change there is the same word transform. He's going to take us sinners and transform us like him where we don't sin anymore. He's going to give us a glorified body. 1 Corinthians 15 goes through and And tell us how it is. We are sown in weakness. We are raised in strength. We are sown in corruption. We are raised in incorruption. And it goes through the list. How much bigger, better, stronger, faster our glorified body is going to be. Better than the bionic man. It's going to be good. And so, we need to keep that in mind. That Satan can transform. He can make himself appear as something that he is not. Why should we test all things? And examine that. And hold fast to that which is good. You know, it's a thing that we're to hold fast to. And so if an angel says something to somebody today, I'm always like, let me hear what they say. I'm going to see if it jives with scripture. Here's my measuring rod to see if they're telling the truth or not. His word does not change. Our memory reverses that for a reason. So possessed snake, a snake. Satan transformed. Or is there another option, possibly, of what she was talking to? The immortals, these supernatural beings, are not like us. And we would say, duh. But look at Psalm 8. Hebrews 2 In two places Hebrews 2 7 and 9 quote Psalm 8 so I thought versus reading Hebrews we go back to the source that it's quoting Psalm 8 And I also thought it gave us a lot of good little nuggets here Psalm 8 says verse 1 O Lord our Lord how excellent is thy name in all the earth who has set the glory above the heavens and Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength, because of thine enemies, that thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger. When I consider the heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars which thou hast ordained, what is man that thou art mindful of him, or the son of man that thou visitest him? Man, I can agree with David. He's a shepherd out in a time when the brightest light was a fire. And so he's out watching the sheep at night, and I can't imagine the star show that he would see. Elaine, and I are going away next month to a Certified dark area up on Lake Michigan where it's a dark community a place to watch Stars and you're supposed to be able to go and so I called them made sure everything's working you know that It was just for temporary time they decided that they were going to open up and make it. It's been pretty popular There's a meteor shower coming. I'm like I'll go up there take our camera. We'll sit on the lake well watch these showers and it'll probably be raining, but But he said, well, it's open. We can't guarantee the sky will be there. OK. But it's dark. We have to go hunt a place like that. There's a few times when I talk about the Northern Lights, it's like we have to look past Indianapolis to see the Northern Lights. And the light pollution kills it out. But David didn't have that. To be able to sit there and then see how it was. Tim Heston talked about being on a Navy ship. He said, you talk about when you're out on the deck of a Navy ship and you're in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He said, talk about seeing some stars. I'm like, man, I can't imagine. What it would be like and so David sees that he's like who am I? That's what the stars are there for to say who am I who made all this? What why does man think of me verse 6 for thou has made him? a little lower than the angels and has crowned him with glory and honor. We're not like the angels. Angels are made, I would think, as fully functioning adults. Whatever they are, however they look, they're made with intelligence. I believe they do learn and grow as they go forward, but they're made with intelligence and they grow from that. We think that they forget, they haven't fallen, they're not like us, and so we are made less than them. Two passages in Hebrews talk about Jesus Christ becoming a man, made lower than the angels, and so we're going to be like that. But I want to finish this as we come back to that thought, that we are made under them, they are heavenly and we are made on the earth. Verse six, thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands. Thou hast put all things under his feet. That goes with the decree of why he put us on the earth. He wants us to bring things under dominion. Part of our job as God's counsel on the earth was to bring these things in dominion. And here, David's aware of that. Verse seven, all the sheep and the ox and yea, and the beast of the field, the fowl of the air, and the fish of the sea, and whatsoever passes through the paths of the sea. Oh Lord, oh Lord, how excellent is thy name in all the earth. And you figure we can catch them all. They're not Pokemon, but we can catch them all. And we can put them in the zoo. We have them there. You can train a whale. We can train a dolphin. We can train dogs. We can't train my dog. But we can train dogs. We have people out there that make them do all these fantastic things. Monkeys who do sign language. We can do a lot. He says, you have dominion over them. Be over them. We can catch birds and make them do tricks. We can do all this stuff. And God's like, that's what he wanted us to do. To go out and train and to bring him glory. The main thing here is that we're made lower than the angels. And then 1 Corinthians 6 tells us this, we're made lower than them, but one day there's gonna be a reversal. 1 Corinthians 6. 1 Corinthians 6 and verse three. 1 Corinthians 6 verse three says, do you not know that the saints shall judge the world? And if the world shall be judged by you who are unworthy to judge the smallest of matters, know ye not that we shall judge angels? How much more things that pertain to this life? Because one day we're going to judge angels. And so the angels were made lower than them. We're going to be putting the seat of judgment over them. Again, I think it's the fallen angels, not the angels that stay good. There'd be nothing to judge them for. But we're going to be judging those. And so there's a little bit of reversal. Those that didn't like us being brought into God's family who tried to usurp that, we're going to then, in turn, be judges over them. And we'll talk more about that in the future as we talk about our job as judging them. So with these things in mind, we're lower than the angels. The angels are in the garden, or these spirit beings. Turn to Ezekiel 28. Now it gets interesting. Ezekiel 28. Ezekiel 28 is a prophecy. And it's one of these, and you have to watch with scripture, and I try to point this out, because there's a lot of times when the Bible works this way, where there's dual fulfillment, where it means this, but it also means something on the grander scale. It might mean something little here, then it applies to a bigger picture. Antiochus Epiphanes isn't necessarily in the Bible, but he's in that gap in between where he goes and he is a type of the Antichrist. He does this. Was he a real man? Yes. Was some of that foretold? Yes. He's also a bigger picture of the one ahead. Ezekiel 28. Verse 1 says, The word of the Lord came again to me, saying, Son of man, say unto the prince of Tyrus, the prince of Tyre, Thou sayest the Lord God, because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am God. I sit in the seat of God, in the midst of the seas. Yet thou art man, and not God, though thou set thine heart as the heart of God. This is talking about an actual man, the king of Tyre. And this man thought he was deity, which many people in power think they are. I think most of the Caesars would try to demand worship and thought they were gods. Listen, here it says, I sit in the seat of God. He thought he was in the place of divine authority. He thought he was on the council of God, that he could tell God what he was going to do. He thinks he's wise he thinks he's all this and it's a real man And this is a real judgment that's coming on this man and God is not happy with him verse 7 says Behold therefore I will bring strangers upon thee and the terrible of the nations and they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom and they shall defile thy brightness and They shall bring thee down to the pit, and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the sea. And so God's like, I win, you lose. Verse 9, wilt thou yet say before him that slayeth thee, I am God? He says, they're stabbing you. You're going to boast your godhood, who you are? He says, but thou shalt be a man and know God in the hand of him that slayeth thee. He says, I'm going to humble you. I'm going to bring you down. And then he's still talking about him, but it shifts. And you can see that he's not just talking about this guy, he's talking about the power that's probably corrupted this guy. Verse 11. Moreover, the word of the Lord came to me, saying, Son of man, take up a lamentation for the king of Tyrus, or king of Tyre, and say unto him, Thus saith the Lord God. Thou sealest up the sun, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. Thou hast been in Eden, the garden of God. Well, this guy wasn't in Eden. But Lucifer was, right? The deceiving spirit, he was. And so maybe he's the guy who's the power behind, who's corrupted him. Chances are, because now God is now pronouncing a judgment on the king of Tyre and the power behind him, Satan. So this is what he's promising to Satan. Verse 17 says, Thou have been in the garden of God Every precious stone was thy covering, the sardis, the topaz, the diamond, the beryl, the onyx, the jasper, the sapphire, the emerald, and the carbuncle. The gold and the workmanship of thy tabrets and thy pipes was prepared in thee and the day that thou wast created. So this is a special created being. He was covered with these beautiful stones. These are all luminescent stones. I've taken the time, and I've looked them all up before. He has pipes in him. Some think that that's why he was maybe one of the ones that was head of music, that it seemed like as he moved, he would produce music. He has pipes and wondrous works, and he becomes very proud of himself. He's made beautiful. We have a cat, Robin, who takes care of herself, and she'll get herself all primped up and sit on the other counter and almost like, look at me. See how pretty I am? You know what I'm saying? He's like, you got a little bit of pride there, Robin. So I go by and mess her up. She didn't like me much. But I mess her up, and she's like, what? But you can kind of see this guy's like, man, look who I am. Look how good I am. Verse 14, thou art the anointed cherub that covereth. Oh, that's one of the jobs of these supernatural beings, a cherub that covers. I have set thee so. Thou wast upon the holy mountain of God. That was Eden. Thou wast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire. He says you were near God's throne, you were protecting God's throne as a cherub, as this class of angels, and you were there. You were there on the mountain of God in the garden of Eden. This is where we get some of this, how we understand about Eden as this mountain. Verse 15, thou was perfect in thy ways from the day that thou was created, till iniquity was found in thee. This is the fall of Satan. Verse 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. He's throwing him out, he's not allowed access. And I will destroy thee, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire. A covering cherub. That's one, so we've got the mountain to go. covering cherub. These are the guardians of God's throne. They are the ones that protect him. Not that God needs protecting him or anything. To protect someone else from getting close and annihilating them. But their job was to be there and to be around his throne. Cherubs guarded God's throne. Cherubs guarded the tree of life. We see that that's what he puts around the tree of life in the garden when he throws Adam and Eve out. He puts these that guard it to make sure that they can't get at it again until eternity. They were made as an image around the Ark of the Covenant, symbolizing the power that was there, reflecting God's throne. And they look different. Ezekiel 10 puts it this way, that they look like they have a form of a man, and the form of a lion, and the form of an eagle. And then Ezekiel 10.14 says, in the face of a chair, which I don't know what a chair looks like. But in Ezekiel 1.10, it says it also had the face of an ox. But it's almost like I'd always kind of try to draw them before, and I'd be like, Man, how do you have four faces on one face? You know, one side looking like an ox and a man, like a hideous creature. You know, it's like, it'd be scary. Or is it changing? Like, it's a man, or it's an eagle, or it's an ox, or it's a, well, I know Satan transforms. Is it one of these things where he could be what he needs when he needs to be? I don't know. I'd just be speculating, but is he transforming? It seems like he has that power, he has that ability, and maybe he uses what he needs to be there, and God's made him that way. I don't know. It hits our fiction literature pretty hard that way. I don't know. but it's a guardian cherub who maybe can transform. He goes on here in verse 17. He says, thine heart was lifted up because of thy beauty. He's proud of it. Thou has corrupted thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness. He had a brightness about him. We need to remember that. Matter of fact, that's why Venus is the bright and morning star. Satan gets that title. It's a brightness. It's the first star you can see before the stars come out. Venus. I'm pointing this way because that's where it shows up at evening time. And so it's the bright and morning star. It becomes an emblem for him. Lucifer, his name means brightness. matches when they first came out. They were Lucifer's. You lit them. It was bright light, you know, shining. And so he's Lucifer. He's this bright and shining one. And you figure he had all these stones around him. It must have been beautiful casting out rainbows. And he says, in your brightness, he says, I will cast thee to the ground. and thus the curse of the serpent. I will lay thee before kings, that they may behold thee. Thou hast defiled the sanctuaries of the multitude of thy iniquities by the iniquity of thy traffic. Therefore I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, and it shall devour thee. I will bring thee to ashes upon the earth in the sight of all them that behold thee. That makes sense of the text we heard this morning, right? Ashes that will tromple under our feet that we can stomp on. He's going to have a fire that springs up within him. That'd be a little hard to understand, but knowing that people do spontaneous combust, that'll give you nightmares all night. Sometimes people just get so hot that they burst into flames, and sometimes they just find a pile of ashes in a leg. I've got pictures like that in one of my books. But God says I'm gonna do that to you. You'll be the spark of hell It's like I'm gonna ignite you from within and you're gonna be the consuming fire on yourself And that's we get the word asbestos out of that fire that's burnt and but does not consume But he gives him this and so Okay, he's gonna burst into flames. He was bright and shiny. He was a cherub who guarded he was there And he also promises that he's gonna cast him down to the ground. I'm running out of time turn to Isaiah 6 Isaiah chapter 6 I'll pick it up real quick here in eight minutes. Isaiah 6. We have something that's obscured because of our translation. Isaiah 6.1 says, And the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on the throne, high and lifted up, and His train filled the temple. We know this one. Verse two, above it stood the seraphims. Each one had six wings, and with twain he covered his face, and with twain he covered his feet, and with twain he did fly. And they cry one to another, and he talks about the post all going. Verse six says, then flew one of the seraphims, and they give him this tongs. And so we have these seraphims. What are they? You know, it's a different class of angel. Seraph means a fiery serpent. Matter of fact, if you took up the term here, it means a fiery serpent, a flying dragon. Interesting. A bright and shining angel. Sounds like somebody we know. Princes and nobles of heaven on God's counsel. There's a definition that would have helped me out years ago. Where are these spirit beings? And there's a class of them that are seraphs, that look like a fiery serpent. Another definition is a winged serpent. But as I clicked on it, if you can remember, I didn't have time to make slides this week. But if I remember, I brought my little Bible dictionary and I was showing you how to click on it. And I could see the word in Hebrew. And then you can go down to like Thayer's Dictionary or another one that starts with a G. And you see their reasoning and their hypothesis on why they give us the English word in which they give. And so we have a translation where a lot of times they'll take a word, it's a Hebrew word, say Abba. And it's like Abba, we read that, means nothing to us, you know, Swedish band in the 70s. No, it means father, you know, Abba, father, daddy. And so we translate it to father, that's a translation. Sometimes it transliterates it. It just puts the word in English language and puts it back in there. It's like, hmm, I don't know what that is. And we put it in there. One of those would be giants, gigantes. It's like, it just transliterates it, puts it in there, it says giants. It doesn't tell us what it means. It means nephilim. And so we get a place there where we're a little victim of, eh, we don't really have an English word. We'll just transliterate it, giant. Seraph is another one of these. Here, this is a transliteration. They just write the word seraph in, and they don't translate it to flying serpent. And he says, this is why. Number one, we see the definition as a fiery flying serpent that is bright and shiny, a prince or a noble of heaven, and a winged creature. And so now, if you went back and you read this, God's throne has flying serpents flying around it. You're like, that's not how I pictured it in my head ever before. Matter of fact, I've taken a lot of time trying to illustrate this passage. I was trying to draw wings and cover themselves. And how they're all doing that, how it's going to be, it's hard to do. But here's their definition at the end of why they just transliterate it versus translate it. It says, if any wish to follow the Hebrew language, or especially the Egyptians, that see that this is a symbol of wisdom or healing power, It says that the idea of serpents surrounding the throne of God is in itself incongruous He says if not to be born that such a notion should be supported by any connection with the Jewish superstition supposed or real They're like I can't put in my head serpents flying around God's throne, so we're not going to tell you that we're just going to put seraphs and So we read it as seraphs versus us being able to picture flying serpents flying around God's throne, which might be helpful to us because then that might clear up what's going on in Genesis a little bit better versus me thinking of a snake wrapped around a limb. I don't know how he's holding an apple, but he's pushing an apple out there. So flying dragons, winged serpents guard God's throne. He made them that way, until one fell. And so it wasn't bad until one fell. And they're like, we just can't imagine telling you that there's flying serpents going around God's throne. I know it would keep me away from God's throne. I would like snakes. I wouldn't want to be there, let alone a flying snake. But that's what it is. And so he just says, pretty much, we don't like that picture. We're not going to tell you. And you can see that they know the definition because they change it from time to time. But again, I think part of it is to keep it separate, to let you know that this is an angelic being versus a snake. Because sometimes there's a fiery serpent, meaning it had a poisonous, vicious bite. Numbers 21, you know that one. Remember when they all bit the people and they had to make the serpent and put it on the pole? Same thing. Seraphs. Seraphs were biting them. And sometimes they would use seraphs, sometimes they'd use nakash, the snake snake. That's different. I look at Isaiah 14 while we're here in Isaiah. So here the same book Isaiah 14 Earlier you have the fall of Satan and Isaiah 14, but verse 29 says rejoice not thou Ho Palestinia, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken. For out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cock trice, and his fruit shall be a fiery flying serpent. Seraph. There they know it's a fiery flying serpent. They put it in there. They just don't like the image before. And you can understand why. I don't much like it because I've kind of had this predisposition to thinking that it's wrong. Isaiah 30. Isaiah 30 in verse 6. Isaiah 30 verse 6 says, The burdens of the beasts of the south and to the land of trouble and anguish from which come the young and old lion, the viper and the fiery flying serpent that will carry the riches on the shoulder of their young asses and the treasures upon the bunches of camel to the people that shall not profit them. So there it's seraph again, they put a flying flying serpent, they don't mind it there, they just didn't like the image of it being around God's throne, same place in Numbers 21 verses 6 and 8, Deuteronomy 8 and other places and so I get to thinking, who is it Eve is talking to? We know it was Lucifer. Turns out Lucifer is one of these guardian beings that's around God's throne that could be very well a flying serpent that is there talking to her. Maybe that's why she's not so shocked that he's talking. I've seen you before. I know where you are. You are a wise one. You're near God's throne. Oh, I believe your lie. Now I take it on this way. Oh, I can be like the sons of God? I can be like gods? I can be like one of you? Sure thing. It kind of changes the story for me some. And it makes more sense as I look around the world. I'm giving this as a back story because when we get to the Tower of Babel in the fall when God divides up the nation and he puts some of his spirit beings in charge over certain regions. It makes sense to these because all of these get corrupted. I'm tipping my hand, this is where it goes. He puts them in charge, these 70 nations. Some of them, if not all of them, get corrupted because they give them power. They're over these regions. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. They get a little power, they like being worshipped, and they begin to sin. We'll look at this. Then as you look across these different nations and we see who they're worshipping, it starts to make sense. In Mexico, the Incans and the Mayans, they worshipped a winged serpent god called Coxicoatl. He could transform himself into a man and into a snake again. They did it. China, who does China worship? Dragons. Their dragons don't look like the dragons I draw. I would draw like them. Fred Flintstone's working mobile, whatever. Brontosaurus. Yeah, that's what I think of a dragon with a fiery head. They look like a snake with little bitty arms or wings on them. But that's a fiery flying dragon. That's what they worship. That's what their culture is around, these fiery flying serpents, these dragons in this way. Makes sense who's coming down lying to them saying, worship me, I want to be a god. You figure, does it come to North America? Yeah, we have serpent mounds in Anderson, Southern Indiana, Ohio. The serpent mounds are these mounds, they make them up of these giant serpents swallowing up the earth. They're going to take over the earth and making this. We find it around the world that it's in that way. It starts to make sense. The Apkalo that we talked about a few weeks ago, that they see this and do it that way too. When you get to the Ark Encounter, you'll see that they're worshiping these, that they even represented them as these golden serpent dragon-like things that they're And then the Bible uses that same imagery when you get all the way to Revelation. The devil, the dragon, makes sense. He's telling you who he is, what he looks like, and how it goes. Some of that's been obscured because we have translation versus transliteration that helps us get a better picture of things. And so the curses that he falls, the curses that he goes to the ground, that he's going to eat dust, he's going to be the loser. It's not just something that Bo and Luke Duke said to Roscoe. He was like, I ate my dirt. No, that's what God says. You're going to eat dirt. You're going to be the loser. I want to stomp on your head. You're going to be, again, you can trace that through the Bible about eating dust, that you're the loser. The losers are behind you eating dust. And so he's reminding him time and again, you don't win. You will lose. But he's this image of a serpent. So it makes me, I would say, ponder on it for a while and say, what was Eve talking to? How did it look? Did he curse them that you're going to lose? I'm going to stomp on your head. Does it look like a serpent? Yeah. But one of the things we know will be during the millennial reign, not all of us are that thrilled about it, but it says that there'll be snakes, right? Remember, because the baby can play in the snake's den and put his hand down inside there and pull the snake out and you don't worry about it. He can play with the lion and the wolf and no big deal. So snakes will be there. So it's like you think if they were some cursed, wretched animal that we threw out, that would be one thing, but it's this. curse upon these spirit beings. I found that interesting. You can go and I challenge you to research that, the Nakash and these flying serpents, the seraphs, and see how they are and trace it through and see if it doesn't change the image that you have a little bit. We'll start in next week looking more at what's going on in Babel. Now what happened there, what may be even be happening now, as it divided into 70, that number comes around a lot. It's come around a lot more recently, and specifically when it comes to do with the land of the Jews. And we'll see why there's such a battle going on there. So hopefully that opens up some things to you, too. So there, two minutes over. Sorry, Eli. But we'll be dismissed.