In our study of Esther we saw that Haman who was the antagonist became and evil anti-Semitic because of his arrogance. Esther 3:5-6; Given the connection between arrogance and evil we will now take up a study of the doctrine of pride or arrogance.
Gal 6:3-9; Net notes 12 and 17 Matt 7:26-27; Net note 31
Pride or arrogance is the basic mental attitude sin. It is the quality of exaggerated self-esteem, conceit, subjective thinking, and arrogance. It is high view of oneself whether real or imagined.
Vanity is empty pride or self-esteem in someone who has no attainments or possessions, but still has excessive desire for attention, approval, and praise from others.
Words used for pride include conceit, egotism, haughtiness, vanity, arrogance, vain glory, superciliousness, megalomania, and pomposity.
Pride was the original sin of Satan and the motivation in his attempt to depose God that resulted in his fall, Isa 14:12-14; "I will be like the Most High God."
Satan was the greatest creature ever to come from the hand of God. He had the greatest beauty, personality, and intelligence. Ezek 28:12-18; emphasizes Satan's pride and desire for approval.
v12 "Ezekiel, take up a lamentation over the king of Tyre, the power behind the throne who is called Lucifer, and say to him, 'Thus says the Lord Jesus Christ" You had the seal of perfection,"
he was absolutely perfect as a creature from the hand of God, "full of wisdom and perfect beauty." or "You have been authenticated as the ultimate standard of the angelic creation. You have maximum wisdom and perfect physical beauty.
He was the most beautiful creature that God had ever created and he was smart enough to try to use his attractiveness and his genius for his own advantage.
If there is anything that destroys talent, beauty, brains, or anything else that can be considered worthwhile, it is arrogance. First there is the thought of arrogance and then there the decision of arrogance followed by the action of arrogance.
With Satan, first he thought it, then he decided it, and then he did it and it resulted in him leading the first rebellion against God.
Ezek 28:13; "You were in Eden, the Garden of God in the third heaven. Every precious stone was a part of your uniform's insignia: the ruby, topaz, and diamond; the beryl, onyx, and jasper; the lapis lazuli, the turquoise, and emerald; all set in gold.
The Lord's craftsmanship produced in you unsurpassed resonant cavities and infinite range of voice; on the day you were created in a moment out of nothing "ex nihilo" they were prepared for the purpose of dynamic communication of truth. He was also in perfect environment.
The original sin of angelic creatures was like the original sin of human creatures, it occurred as a decision in perfect environment.
We see from this that there are three things that are not required for happiness. We don't need to have a genius mentally, we don't need physical beauty and we don't need perfect or improved environment.
The people associate happiness with these three things that are completely unnecessary for true happiness shows the degree of Satan's deception. These three factors do not bring happiness to the one who has them because happiness is a state of mind that comes from metabolized Bible Doctrine that creates capacity in the soul. Jer 15:16; Luke 11:27;
Happiness is the absence of arrogance and vanity, bitterness, vindictiveness, and implacability. Happiness is something that all members of the human race are born without. We are not born happy, even as we are not born free because we were born helpless.
Happiness is not the beauty you acquire from birth, or the lack of it, the brains, IQ or lack of it, it isn't the environment. Those things do not make happiness. Happiness is acquired with or without these things by the amount of truth that goes into the human soul. That is the same way it was with the angels.
Satan was created mature with perfect beauty, with the greatest genius of any creature, in perfect environment. He did not have to acquire these things, he had them from the beginning of his life.
He was the sum total of perfection. But he made a decision. He wanted something more, he wanted God's power. And so a new factor comes in: arrogance promotes ambition in this case its inordinate ambition.
The lust for power has its roots in arrogance. It is much more than simply having the ability to manipulate people. The arrogance part that starts it all says, "Look at me." It is self-preoccupation, a desire for recognition and approbation.
Ezek 28:14; "You were the cherub anointed to proclaim and protect divine integrity, the one who guards. I, by means of grace, placed you in the ultimate position of responsibility and authority. You resided in the throne room, My holy mountain. You walked in the glow of its foundation that reflected the light of the Glory of God.
v 15 "You exhibited perfect integrity in the carrying out of all your duties from the day of your instantaneous out from nothing creation until I discovered mental attitude sin and wrongdoing in you."
Ezekiel 28:16; (NASV) "By 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, O covering cherub, from the midst of the stones of fire."
Ezekiel 28:16a - (KJV) By the multitude of thy merchandise they have filled the midst of thee with violence, and thou hast sinned.
Ezekiel 28:16a - (NIV) Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence and you sinned.
NASV: "abundance," and "trade"
KJV: "multitude" and "merchandise"
NIV: "widespread" and "trade"
These words are translated from the Hebrew words " rob/ robe" and "rekulla/ rek-ool-LAH "
It is necessary to get an accurate translation for these two words to understand what Lucifer who became Satan was doing. The word for "multitude," "abundance," and "widespread" is the Hebrew word "rob" and describes the various quantities of materials that are exchanged in the course of conducting a business.
The Hebrew word for "trade" and "merchandise" is "rekulla" and it refers to what is being bought and sold, traded or exchanged. It means to traffic in something.
Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary, "traffic": Import and export trade; the business of bartering or buying and selling. Exchange of wares and goods.
The idea here is that Lucifer became involved in the exchange of merchandise or in his case ideas. In other words, he became a salesman, hawking his ideas to others in order to sell them on them
The root word for "rekulla" means, "to go about from one to another." This also has an obvious application to business. A salesman goes about "from one person to another" in order to convince a maximum number of people to buy his product.
A derivative of "rekulla" is "rakil / rah-KEEL" and it has to do with slander and gossip. Such a person therefore does business in slander and his merchandise is gossip.
We have seen that when the Lord created Lucifer and endowed him perfectly with every the mental and physical asset. God knew that this chosen cherub would rebel and fall and yet the Lord created him anyway.
God was not in any way threatened by his fall. Angelic volition was free. And if volition is truly free then it has the liberty to choose for or against any given idea including God's integrity.
So on the day Lucifer was created and God endowed him with maximum wisdom, perfect beauty, and a voice with harmonics and range surpassing all others. These assets were matched with a captivating personality made Lucifer the ultimate standard within the angelic creation.
This angel was given cherub rank and he held the anointed position of honor guard over the throne room of God This means that Lucifer faced the ultimate in prosperity testing.
In his prosperity, would he utilize his many assets that he did not earn or deserve for good or for evil. Would he exhibit genuine humility and an attitude of gratitude? Or would he instead become arrogant and develop an attitude of ingratitude?
God's system requires that each individual make his own choices regarding the divine plan, its system, and its authority. So Lucifer was given every advantage, intellectually, physically, and spiritually. He was given every advantage with regard to appointment, position, responsibility, and power.
The test of his volition was would Lucifer respond in humility and gratitude or would he react with arrogance and self-centeredness?
If the greatest of all angels could standup to the test, then others should be able to do so as well. If the greatest of all angels should fail that test, then others would most likely also fail.
God was immediately aware of Lucifer's arrogance but he allowed a delay to occur before he cited him so that the volition of all of the angels could be tested by Lucifer's attempt to sell his idea for revolution against God.
In order to convince the angels that God had given Lucifer authority over he had to go about among them and recruit dissidents for his insurrection. Lucifer went about among the angels, one to another trafficking in his idea. He sought to convince them that he was as worthy as God to rule them and to do so without the encumbrances of divine supervision.
In order to sell his idea he would have developed arrogant evil rationales such as:
I have maximum wisdom therefore I ought to be the ultimate authority over the angelic government.
I have perfect physical beauty therefore I ought to be the one worshipped as God.
I have the most dynamic voice and the most effective communication skills therefore I should be the one who issues directives for angelic policy and procedure.
Lucifer had taken the wisdom God had given him in grace and perverted it into a rationale for seizing divine power.
He had become so enamored by his own beauty, that had been graciously bestowed upon him by his Creator, that he distorted it into a rationale for angelic worship of himself.
He had become so infatuated with the sound of his own voice and his ability to communicate that he utilized it as a means to foment revolution against the One whom he was anointed to serve.
Lucifer no longer recognized God as sovereign but in his arrogance sought to be worshipped as sovereign by his fellow angels.
Lucifer, the creature, longed to acquire to himself the glory worthy only of the Creator.
Lucifer was guilty of the first sin and his motivation that led to it is typical of most sins that have occurred since. When members of the human race sin they simply follow the pattern of their father the devil.
Your Adversary, the Devil page 18 by Dwight J. Pentecost, Published in 1969 by Lamplighter Books Grand Rapids MI
"Scripture records the fact that the wisest, the most beautiful of God's created beings looked away from the Creator to himself. He failed to recognize that all he was and all he had came as a gracious bestowment from the hand of the Creator to whom he was responsible.
In turning away from God, he turned to himself and became an essentially selfish being. Every man born into this world from the time of Adam's sin has had a nature just exactly like his father, the devil.
That which characterizes sinful man is selfishness, self-centeredness. Man is characterized by pride. He lives his life in independence of God and he is only perpetuating the nature of his father, the devil.
Unless you come to understand something of the basic selfishness, pride and independence that characterized Satan when he left his original state, you will neither understand yourself nor will you understand the temptations that come day by day."
Lucifer went about the angels trafficking in his false ideas in order to create a mob that he would then control as useful idiots to rebel against God.
One of the most unstable situations on the earth today is when people get together in a mass. When they get into some type of protest; everyone is reduced to the lowest common denominator, the dumbest person in the crowd of a thousand parading or marching or demonstrating for some cause.
Everyone in the mob has reduced himself to the point of the dumbest person in the group. They do it because as an individual they can't attain anything so they get into a group where they think they can attain it; and they get recognized as a group.
But masses are the most unstable thing in the world. By comparison a pack of wolves is much more stable because the alpha wolf has authority. There is nothing more disgusting than a mass of people pulled together by their arrogance and their lust, looking for something to make them important because they associate being important with happiness.
People in mobs have lose heir individuality, they are no longer making decisions from the truth that they have in their soul. They are slaves to a demagogue. Mobs or masses have no control over their lives. This is an attack on the first law of divine establishment.
There is no cause in the world that is worth joining a mob and going somewhere to be stupid. That's activism and it is far more dangerous than any advanced weapon of warfare.
This is the system that Satan used to deceive the angels and it is the same system the he uses to deceive the whole world today.