第19章

Chapter 4Page 65 CHAPTER FOURTHEY ARE EVIL ANGELS AS the Bible plainly shows what the spirits which communicate are not, it just as clearly reveals also what they are; so that in no particular is one left to conjecture or guesswork. There is an order of beings brought to view in the Scriptures, above man but lower than God or Christ, called "angels." No Bible believer questions the existence of such beings. It is sometimes asserted that angels are departed human spirits;but this cannot be; for they appear upon the stage of action before a single human being had died, or a disembodied spirit could have existed. When the world was created, Job declares that "the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy." These are two of the names applied to these beings, but they are also known by a number of others. They are 167 times called angels; 61 times, angel of the Lord; 8 times, angel of God; 17 times, his angels; 41 times, cherub and cherubim. There are also such names as seraphim, chariots, God's hosts, watchers, holy ones, thrones, dominions, principalities and powers, -- all referring to the different orders of these heavenly beings.

A part of this host fell into sin, and thereby became evil, or fallen, angels. A reasonable state- Page 66 ment of how this came about can be given, but no reason for the act itself.

Sin cannot be explained. To explain it would be to give a reason for it;and to give a reason for it would be to excuse it; and then it would cease to be sin. In the beginning a condition existed which was in itself right and essential; but which nevertheless made sin possible. It is one of the inevitable conditions of the highest glory of God, that all his creatures should serve him from choice, under the law of love, and not by compulsion, as a machine, under the law of necessity. To secure this end, they must be made free moral agents. Thus to angels was given the freedom of the will, the same as to man. They were in a state of purity and happiness, with every condition favorable for a continuance in that condition; but in the free choices of their free wills, they of course had the power, if they should unaccountably see fit so to use it, to turn away from truth and right, and rebel against God. This some of them did. So we find Jude speaking of "the angels that kept not their first estate" (Jude 6), and Peter, of "the angels that sinned" (2 Peter 2: 4); and these they further declare, were cast down to Tartarus, and are reserved in everlasting chains under darkness, unto the judgment of the great day.

There must have been to this rebellion an instigator and leader; and we accordingly find the Bible speaking of such a personage; the whole company being described as "the Devil and his angels." Our Lord pointed out this leader in evil, and his Page 67 work, in John 8: 44: "Ye are of your Father the Devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar and the father of it." This reveals the great facts in his case. He abode not in the truth. Then he was once in the truth; and as he is a liar, and the father of it, he was the first one to depart from truth and introduce falsehood and evil into the universe of God.

In Isaiah (14: 12-14) this being is addressed as Lucifer, or the day-star;and the prophet exclaims, "How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!" The following verses indicate that the nature of his transgression was self-exaltation and pride of heart: "For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:

I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the Most High." Paul, in 1 Tim. 3: 6, intimates that it was this pride that caused the ruin of this once holy being. Of an elder he says that he must not be a novice, "lest being lifted up with pride he fall into the condemnation of the Devil," or that sin for which the Devil was condemned.

In Ezekiel 28, Satan is again spoken of under the pseudonym of "the prince of Tyrus." Verse 2 Page 68 shows his pride: "Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said, I am a God, I sit in the seat of God," etc. Verses 12-15 describe his beauty, wisdom, and apparel, and his exalted office as a high cherub, before his sin and fall. Verse 15 reads: "Thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day thou wast created, till iniquity was found in thee."These passages give us a sufficient idea of the origin of Satan and how such an incarnation of evil has come to exist. The Tartarus into which he and his angels were cast, according to Peter, is defined by leading lexicographers, as meaning the dark, void, interplanetary spaces, surrounding the world. Using the serpent as a medium, this apostate angel., thus cast out, plied our first parents with his temptation by preaching to them the immortality of the soul, "Thou shalt not surely die," and alas! seduced them also into rebellion. The dominion which was given to Adam (Gen. 1:

28), Adam thus alienated to Satan, by becoming his servant; for Paul says, "Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey?" Rom. 6: 116. Now, consequently, such titles as "prince of this world," "prince of the power of the air," "god of this world," etc., are applied to him, because he has by fraud usurped that place. John 14: 30; Eph. 2: 2; 2 Cor. 4: 4. He, of course, employs "his angels" to co-operate with him in his nefarious work.