However, until the end times , Satan remains a powerful spiritual being whose sole aim is to deceive us into severing our relationship with God and with each other John ; Revelation It is by severing our relationship with God and with our brothers and sisters that Satan seeks to steal our peace and ultimately destroy our lives John One way that the devil devours our relationship with God and with one another is by tricking us into believing that what is right and wrong is relative.
Satan wants nothing more than for each of us to act as our own individual gods, casting stones at each other based on our own moral code and denying the authority and commandments of the only God of the Universe.
Arguably, all sins are rooted in pride if we consider that sin is the placing of our own desires above the will of God. Thus, the faithful can keep from becoming ensnared in pride and in all of the other sins that stem from pride by living by the Word of God. The Word instructs us to love God and one another Matthew , to make every effort to live in peace with everyone Hebrews , and to pray for our enemies Matthew By doing what we can to reflect love, peace, and humility in our actions, we can resist Satan by keeping pride at bay and submitting to the will of God, who promises to oppose the proud and lift up the humble James How and why did something change so audaciously in him?
How was his heart so hardened to the things of God, the one he had long worshipped and praised? A desire for self-recognition, perhaps a pride and arrogance, won in the battle of his mind and he decided to become his own God. He desired praise. He longed to be worshipped.
So with that, and I imagine quite swiftly, he was banished from Heaven, hurled out of the Kingdom and forever exiled from eternal blessings; leaving all wisdom, peace, joy, favor and love behind. He tumbled imagine the feeling of free-falling at lightening speed into the deep abyss and he took with him one third of the angels now demons to wreak havoc on all mankind. Scary to think what choices we may want to rethink. We never know the day in which we will be called home, Judgment day, when we will give an account for all of our decisions and for our sins.
Now, because of Lucifer's Satan's choice, we too are left with choices and pathways of good or evil. They seem to line up incessantly for our choosing.
We continually need God's wisdom to decipher His voice, His plan, His purpose for us and our destinies in Him. In it, God created hell when he threw the Devil and his demons out of Heaven with such power that they created an enormous hole in the center of the earth. And by the end of the Middle Ages , the Devil had taken on the appearance of the horned, trident-wielding figure with a tail that has endured to modern times.
Fear of the Devil is at least partially responsible for the witchcraft hysteria of Europe and New England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Protestants and Catholics accused many people of practicing witchcraft and making deals with the Devil. They believed he gave powers to witches to those faithful to him. Religious translations are often controversial. Not all religions shun the Devil, though.
Another type of Satanists, theistic Satanists, worship the Devil as a deity. They may practice Satanic rituals or even make Satanic pacts.
Devil Worship in the Middle Ages. Loyola University New Orleans. Jewish Concepts: Demons and Demonology. Jewish Virtual Library. Puritans Beliefs on Satan and Witchcraft. Gettysburg College. Access to Insight. The Independent. Theistic Satanism: The new Satanisms of the era of the Internet. Our text tells us that this king was a created being and left the creative hand of God in a perfect state Ezekiel And he remained perfect in his ways until iniquity was found in him Ezekiel b.
What was this iniquity? The sin that corrupted Lucifer was self-generated pride. Apparently, this represents the actual beginning of sin in the universe—preceding the fall of the human Adam by an indeterminate time. Sin originated in the free will of Lucifer in which—with a full understanding of the issues involved—he chose to rebel against the Creator.
Isaiah is another Old Testament passage that may refer to the fall of Lucifer. We must be frank in admitting that some Bible scholars see no reference whatsoever to Lucifer in this passage. There are other scholars who interpret this passage as referring only to the fall of Lucifer, with no reference whatsoever to a human king.
0コメント